The Mask

He had betrayed her, with that despicable woman.

At first, she had wept alone through the daytime. She had been sleepless many nights. But that phase had passed.

She knew that she had choices and she had considered them over and over again. But she had always returned to the same thought – how was this going to affect her children?

That afternoon, waiting for her husband to come home, she switched on the television. A politician was speaking to the camera. It was strange to see him without a face covering, the first time since the new regulations had come into force. But what was his face, anyway, but a kind of mask, a mask he used to keep his schemes hidden from other people? His facial expression was as inanimate as a piece of meat you would see in a butcher’s shop. Trickery and hypocrisy – she was absolutely fed up of them. She switched the television off. 

But perhaps it wasn’t fair to single out politicians like this. Weren’t most of the people she knew wearing an invisible mask? Masks that were hiding some secret from their past or feelings best kept to themselves … masks that were hiding heartbreak.

Wasn’t she wearing one herself?

She heard the door bang, and there he was, hanging up his coat on a hook in the lobby.

She smiled at him. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she asked.

(Thanks to my daughter, Katie, for her editorial advice.)

‘The Earth is full of masks’ Ann Griffiths (1776 – 1805), in translation from the Welsh by Rowan Williams.