Changing Faces

There is a company in Berkshire for whom I have worked on several contracts, on and off, over the last ten years. There is a friend who still works there, she was there when I first turned up, and for all I know will carry on there until she retires. I flit from company to company, contract to contract, a moth to the brightest candle, while she flies sedately in the meadows, an eternal butterfly with just one favourite flower.

When I turned up at this place last time, I caught sight of her as I crossed the atrium, and she saw me from the corner of her eye. We both back-tracked until we were side by side, did a ritual circling dance around each other, and said, simultaneously, “You haven’t changed a bit”. But we had, I certainly knew I was fatter, lazier, more of a slob, and I could see that she had rounded out in several places, albeit nicely. Yet we each knew just by looking that the central core to each of us, the part that each other liked and communicated with, was unchanged. How, I don’t know, it must be one of these mysteries that is shown to you in the last few seconds of existence, as your life replays the triumphs and tragedies one final time.

And now I’m throwing my old self away, sending the comfortable old knight’s steed to the knackers’ yard, letting my old dreams unravel in the winds of fate. What if she liked the old rumpled well-rounded person I was, would she mourn his going?

I get my photograph taken about once every two years, that’s about the time it takes me to complete one contract, relax for a month or two, panic for another month or two, and then walk through another door and into another security department for a new identity card. Each new photo shows a fatter face, a more dishevelled appearance, a wider grin. I have taken a perverse pleasure in the way the years have battered and beaten at my appearance, gained a quiet satisfaction from the fact that I no longer need to look smart or appealing, or do the ironing thing.

About ten weeks ago I had a new identity card. Same old show, different theatre, but I know my part so well I ad-lib just to keep the act alive. I didn’t even bother with the skewed half-knotted tie revealing an unbuttoned collar. The grin was even more lopsided. The lady taking the photograph in the induction centre checked it, and asked me if I would like her to have another go. I settled for take-one, I know things would only get worse if I start trying to look better than I really was.

Three days ago, I completed a course that allowed me to roam through the dangerous parts of the processes with the full knowledge that going astray would be both horrible to contemplate, and ultimately my fault. I signed the card, glanced once at the photo, and sat down again. It was not me. I was staring at a stranger’s face, lean and mean. Where was the sympathetic twinkle in the eyes? Why was there no wry grin? A part of me is disturbed by the change, the loss of what I felt was warmth, wits, and jollity.

Is this the last dying gasp of a part of me that wanted to be overweight, free from the burden of having to keep up an appearance, the part of the psyche that sees itself as the jolly parent? Is it still fighting a desperate rearguard action, clinging to the last remaining fat around me, begging me to reconsider before it is too late? I never thought getting fit again would be like this. If I am lucky, the mean look is just another manifestation of the poor artistic qualities of security and training staff. If I am unlucky, there's a bastard on the way out. A part of me is frightened that my friend will see me next time, and not like this stranger that she has never seen before.

So, is this a stranger emerging into the light as the fat falls away, or is my older self returning to the world once more from a fifteen-year slumber?


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