1943

A girl called Gillian used to work in the same office as me, about twenty years ago. The first thing you noticed about her was that she was a young woman with a palsied face, twisted to one side. She tried to compensate by pursing her lips together when she spoke, but that just drew the rest of her face together into a state of total collapse. Her dress sense was plain, which failed to deflect attention from her face, and her figure was almost totally flat. Her clothes were drab, her hair a mess and her desk as disorganised as her mind. She was, in our parlance of the time, a complete dog. It therefore came as a thorough surprise when she announced her forthcoming wedding. She proudly showed us photographs of her fiancé, Darren, and was happy to tell us almost everything about their relationship; such as how they met through a contact agency, where he proposed to her, what the wedding was going to be like and so on. In a sense we were happy for her, but it was all quite overpowering and unlikely. I left that office and never voluntarily thought of her again.

Three weeks ago my girlfriend and I were in a small and quiet restaurant in town when Gillian walked in with a man. They sat at a table on the other side of the room and spoke in quiet tones together. I made no attempt to attract her attention as she and I never really got on in the past and hardly mattered to one another. I did notice that she was still the same dowdy woman with a twisted face and inexpertly applied make-up. After a while I stopped staring and later managed to stop overtly hiding and chatted with my other half, when I noticed Gillian get up and walk over to our table. 

- I never saw you there! How are things with you?

I explained that I was okay. I asked if her companion was Darren.

- Oh no, she said. - Darren and I split up after about six months. Can't say I wonder about it though. I really was a complete dog in those days. No, that's Mitchell. We've been together for years now.

Of course, she is still a dog and will probably always be one too. But the fact is the she doesn't think she is any more, despite the fact that nothing has changed. Maybe the way you look is a state of mind. Maybe it isn't. Maybe the confidence she gets from her man is all she needs. Maybe she fell into good fortune some time ago and things do not appear to be so bleak any longer. Maybe they have never been bleak and that I just expect her to have felt that way.  Maybe I should have been kinder to her all those years ago, and shown her active friendship rather than offering distaste simply because I didn’t want to fuck her.

Her husband seemed normal enough, though.