Margie looked up from her paperwork and studied Jo who sat in the opposite desk to her own.  Margie with her back to the large plate glass window was darkened by her own shadow but Jo was embracing the full sunlight on her face.  One might expect that warm caress would make her smile or look relaxed.  But Jo had on her ‘real face’ as Margie called it.

      Long ago she had spotted the fact that everyone had a ‘real face.’ It was the total opposite to the smiling, polite, composed expressions or even the sad, pathetic looks we usually put on when approached by others.  The ‘real’ face was when we thought no-one was looking, or when we were lost in thought.

       Jo’s ‘real face’ had a mouth that drooped from its usual sweet, incessant grin to down-curves of disappointment and misery.  Her fair hair, cut short and slightly ruffled up with gel plus this little childlike grin, gave her a youthful, impish look.  But the ‘real face’ was quite different.  The ‘real face’ was sad, Margie thought.  She wondered what lay behind it, what lost lovers, unhappy childhood situations?      Stories peeped out of faces that no longer held up masks. 

       The masks we wear always made Margie think of the ancient Venetian Carnival in February which she had once attended and where she was nearly crushed to death by the sheer mass of tourists. People went about the city wearing wigs and gaudy costumes and all you could see of them was their eyes moving behind the holes of those marvellous papier-mache masks, elaborate with gilt and silver.  Something strangely alive; something strangely dead.  It always made her shiver and she never had any desire to go back to Venice after that experience.

        ‘Jo’s always trying to look good,’ thought Margie.  ‘Always telling me about her marvellous life and all the parties she gets invited to, how she has loads of fellows she can pick and choose from.  She says she’s just bought a flat in Hampstead and how great it is to be able to walk out on the Heath. And how, in September, she’s off to the States to visit all her amazing friends there. It all sounds very nice but somehow so shallow.  I don’t envy her at all.  No, not when I see her face as it is now.  Having material things in life just isn’t everything and that really peeved expression proves it.’

       Suddenly, as if aware she was being scrutinised, Jo glanced over the top of her computer and immediately that cheesy grin came over her face.  She gave a little wave with her be-ringed right hand and said, ‘How about a coffee, Maggie?’

Maggie nodded without making a reply.

      ‘I’ll go get them.  I need to stretch my legs,’ said Jo, rising up and yawning profusely as she raised her shapely arms out and away from her body with a sigh of relief.  She rubbed her neck and wiggled her shoulders from the aches of keyboarding and went off to fetch the coffee from the vending machine in the outer corridor.

    She stood and watched the polystyrene cups filling up and as she did so one of the young men from another office came along and she flashed her cheerful smile at him.  He stopped as all men did when she smiled at them and passed a few merry, flirtatious words with her.  Before long they were arranging a date for next week.

      ‘I’m having dinner with some friends in Notting Hill Gate tonight,’ she said casually, ‘Brian, my friend’s husband, he works for the BBC, you know and Jancis does loads of modelling for Vogue.  I’m really busy this week so we’ll have to make it next Monday.  I’ll squeeze you in somewhere,’ she added with a disarming little chuckle.

      The young man looked both grateful and impressed.  She watched him walk on, her grin still intact.

     When the cups were filled she took carried them back to her office with care.

   ‘I wonder why Maggie is always such a misery?’ she thought as she approached her colleague who looked up unsmiling, gave a brief nod and a cool ‘thanks.’

    Jo sat down and sipped her scalding coffee. Maggie now remained absorbed by her computer, the coffee still steaming on her desk untouched.

     ‘She hardly speaks,’ mused Jo, ‘she always looks a bit angry and annoyed with everything and her eyes are so hard and so searching all the time.  Nothing misses her.  She really makes me feel uncomfortable as if she knew I’d left my knickers at home or diddled the bank manager or something.  Glad I’m not her husband and kids.  I bet she never lets them get away with a thing.  Look at her now with that funny little smile on her face when she thinks I’m not looking.  A sort of superior smile as if she thought she was better than everyone else.  She looks quite happy all absorbed in her own stuff but the minute I speak to her that mean cross look appears.  I call it her ‘do not disturb look’!’

       Jo considered Maggie’s life.  As far as she had ever managed to find out from the deep and secretive Maggie, she had been married eight years and had two small children who were cared for by her mother when Maggie was at work.  Whenever Maggie did mention any of her relations, she always seemed to be complaining about them. In Jo’s opinion she was boring and ordinary.  Well, if Maggie didn’t want disturbing, wanted to be alone in her misery, it was no skin off Jo’s nose. 

       ‘My life is fun, much more interesting than hers,’ thought Jo, ‘so what’s she got to be superior about?’

       Silence reigned between them.  The phone rang on Maggie’s desk and she picked it up and barked, ‘Yes?’ into the receiver. 

        Jo looked up and watched her, curious.  A look of utter exasperation came over Maggie’s face as she listened to the caller on the other end.

        ‘Oh, for goodness sake,’ she said, ‘what on earth are you ringing me for?  I can’t do anything to help, can I?  Move yourself away from the television and take them out for a walk or something.  What do you mean you aren’t watching television, you’re always watching it; it’s your obsession.’

          The voice on the other end whined away.  Jo knew it was Maggie’s mother and grimaced.  She’d get short shrift, poor old thing.  As if it wasn’t enough bringing up your own child without being lumbered with your grandchildren as well!  Jo privately assured herself she would never bother to have children.  They were far too much hard work and she had no mother to help her out as Maggie did.

          Maggie eventually pacified her neurotic parent and put the phone down, shaking her head in annoyance.

          ‘Was that your Mum?’ asked Jo.

          Maggie nodded. ‘She’s always making a drama if the kids fall over or start having a tantrum. You’d never think she brought up three children of her own the way she fusses.  And I always thought I had a happy childhood too.’

           However, Maggie paused after saying that and reflected.

          ’ But I did,’ she added with a sudden little smile, ‘I did have a happy childhood.  I suppose Mum’s just getting old.’

           Jo’s grin disappeared momentarily and Maggie looked at the younger woman with curiosity.

           ‘Did you have a happy childhood, Jo?’ she asked suddenly.

           ‘No!’ said Jo with peculiar force of feeling, ‘no, I had a terrible childhood! Both my parents were alcoholics and my Dad used to beat Mum up but she just put up with it, said she loved him.  I couldn’t wait to get away and lead my own life and be my own person. I couldn’t wait.’

            They both fell silent and returned to their computers and papers. 

     That evening Jo dressed herself with care and sallied forth to her dinner date.  She arrived at Notting Hill underground station and walked forth to be greeted by a youngish man casually dressed in jeans and t-shirt.  They spent the evening at the local Indian eating lamb korma, tandoori chicken, naan bread and rice.  Jo had been dating Bob for a couple of weeks now and was beginning to wonder why she was bothering with him.   Yes, he was good to look at but his intelligence was a little less than that of the erstwhile chicken and his conversation as bland as the korma they were eating.  

      At the end of the meal Bob said, ‘That was great stuff, wasn’t it?  Love Indian, don’t you?  Come on, let’s get a bottle of wine and go round to your place now.’

      He felt he’d done her proud, even insisted on paying for the meal.  Now it was her turn to provide the entertainment.

      In Jo’s mind was the young man at the office and she thought, ‘Well, I’ve got another date next week, why bother with Bob any more?  He’s a bore and not even good in bed.  He wears his socks on while making love, for God’s sake!  A naked man with socks still on.’  She almost laughed out loud.  No, she couldn’t bear another night of his feeble groping.

      So she made up some feeble excuse and went off home alone, leaving Bob feeling twenty pounds poorer, discomfited and miserable and wondering where he had gone wrong.   

       When Jo got home, Sushi, her cat came running up to greet her with a pitiful meow of complaint at having been left alone so long.  Jo picked her up and stroked and fondled the plump, silky creature, already feeling heavy in the stomach and slightly sick from too much rich food. She got ready for bed early and snuggled up under the thick, cosy duvet, Sushi purring on the pillow beside her, switched on the television and contemplated her evening.  It had been such a bore. Why did she keep attracting such stupid, awful men all the time?  Weren’t there any decent blokes out there?  If only there was somebody nice in her life, somebody handsome and rich and famous and tender and caring and good at sex and…….

       When Maggie got home, she found her mother peeling potatoes at the sink and the smell of a nice roast chicken in the oven.  The children were seated in front of the television as always but they came running up to greet her with cries and shouts of joy and demands for attention.

       Maggie laughed merrily and sat down with them on the floor to discuss the exciting events of school and nursery. 

      ‘Grandma took us to the Zoo in the afternoon,’ they said, ‘we went to see the lions and elephants and, Mummy, we fed the penguins with fish!’

       Maggie smiled at her mother when she came in, ‘Thanks Mum,’ she said.  Mum was a drama queen but she always came up with the goods in the end.

        Later Maggie’s husband Toby came home from work and together they played with the children until their bedtime.  After the little ones had been tucked up and Maggie had read the bedtime stories, the adults congregated in the neat little dining room for dinner.  The roast smelt delicious and Toby produced a nice bottle of red wine to accompany it which he had purchased on the way home.

         That night in bed, Toby and Maggie made love quietly, un-explosively but caringly.  They lay awake and contented for a while afterwards, Toby’s arm beneath Maggie’s head.    

        ‘Tell you what,’ said Toby after a while, ‘I’ll nip down and make us a cup of hot chocolate.  That’ll send us off to sleep.  What d’you say, Mags?’

          ‘Lovely idea,’ she said and sat up expectantly, fluffing up both their pillows as Toby trotted down to the kitchen.

          He re-appeared in no time with two steaming mugs of chocolate.

          ‘I melted in some real chocolate,’ he said with a grin, ‘bit piggy, but what the hell!’

           ‘You do spoil me,’ said Maggie, giving him a kiss on the cheek.

           ‘You deserve it,’ he said, kissing her back.

           Maggie sat in bed and sipped her chocolate slowly. 

           There was an enigmatic little smile on her face.

The End