Tonight as I was driving home I took the road I used to take on the way home from work. When I got onto that road, that particular stretch from the training school to the station and the shops, I remembered those times we drove down for lunch, to the pub after work, and all the other routine journeys home. The road now seems touching as though my body was moving along the surface of the road. I could feel the friction of it like chalk grating on the blackboard. The nature of our social life at work. The classroom situation. Sitting there with Emily surrounded by a bunch of kids. The way she and I fought against our desire to get involved with them. The threat of being drawn into immature behaviour. The physical restraint. The boring lessons. All the paper fights where we studiously read the paper or left the room. We weren’t for them or against them.

I came home and looked into the bathroom mirror at my face. I imagined it older and more gaunt with my skin stretched more tightly over my cheekbones. Remembering descriptions of old people’s skin like “as thin and transparent as paper ‘. The skin tearing like tissue paper across the nose and the cheekbones. Tearing away the veil. As though character is exposed by ageing instead of forming in the face like a benign mask.