"So, how is Dosser Billy?", I asked.

"He's doing grand, he has the usual suspects," said Joe.

"Like?"

"Wife, kids, nice car."

"So, he got a job?"

"Oh, he did. He's a surgeon."

At this news, I had two reactions. The first was astonishment. The Dosser would copy, sorry, sometimes be inspired by, my homework before the teacher would come into class at the Crescent in Limerick. The phrase involving two planks and their combined thickness came to mind, but fair dues, I said, he must have worked hard after he left school. He could never grasp Pythagoras and his theorem. The sum of the square, etc.

The second was that I hoped I'd never need his surgical skills on me. The thought of Dosser, the student who needed help on pi and the whole radius thing, slicing me open and stitching me up again made me feel vertiginous.

I was thinking of Dosser the other day. I was in contact with an old school buddy, Joe. Note the old. It's been a few American presidents since I ran for the school bus or across rugby fields with ball in hand. Joe's an architect but that is not surprising as he had cracked Pythagoras when he was, like, 6. This age of instant communication means it is easier for us with gray streaking across our hair like a blaze of comets, or a balding head resembling the lunar landscape, to catch up on who is doing what and where from our past.

Joe was filling me in.

"Martin?"

"Buying and selling."

Martin knew little about history but he could short sell, and knew all about the price-earnings ratio, from the time he was in a pram.

"Hugh?"

"Down Under, having the life in Australia."

"Wait till I tell you, Joe, I have a new definition of getting old."

"What?"

"A former flame, from back in the ball-carrying fields of glory days, is a granny."

"No way! Sure, she dropped you because you had no prospects. What are you now, Tom?"

"A journalist."

"She got the prospects thing right."

"Wait till I tell you, she may be a granny but she doesn't cook apple pie. Makes her sick. Can't stand the sight of it apparently."

"That's unconstitutional," Joe replied.

"It should be, it is certainly against the Granny Code of Conduct, sub-section 4, paragraph 2."

And then it flashed before me. The last time we had met I had taken her out for dinner. She was a bit subdued, I suppose, looking back on it. Anyway, I had a great meal, steak and chips. I think she had a leaf of lettuce and a tomato. The place where we were eating had a fantastic dessert trolley. As she gave me, the "ah, sure, we'll always be friends" speech I noticed the trolley nearby. I should have been paying more attention to what she was saying but the ways things worked out I had a terrible desire for the desserts.

I was telling Joe this and he asked, what dessert did you have?

"Apple pie."

Contact the writer at tomclifford@chinadaily.com.cn