The compensation was enough to pay for John to go to the school for the deaf outside Exeter, to pay for his university education, to buy him equipment that would help him, to pay for private physiotherapy. It was also enough for me to buy this rambling house on the sea. I know that people whispered behind their hands that I had served myself before John, that I was a grasping, covetous woman. I know that I was described as bitter and twisted. And I agree with this last description, because I am bitter and my face is indeed twisted. I knew the first time I looked in a mirror in the hospital that the second half of my life had begun and that nothing I had learned, nothing I had ever known, would help me live it. For thirty-six years the lessons I had learned were predicated on the fact, the substantial, corporeal fact, of my gender and the beauty I owned. It dictated my relationships with my parents, my teachers, my boyfriends, my husband, my lovers. If I walked into a party, a lecture room, a conference room, a school, a shop, if I stepped on to a beach or a bus or a train, the reaction of others to my arrival was governed by the way I looked. And that’s still the case though for entirely different reasons. I know this is the same for everyone — that the way they look, the way they present themselves, is their calling card. All I’m saying is that most people only need one calling card for life.

I don’t go out often during the day. I prefer nights, dim lights and open, empty spaces. It was because of this desire for solitude and space that I bought this house, knowing I had years of my life yet to fill and that I could spend most of them sitting alone on this deck, drinking, my thoughts leaping back and forth. And that’s what I have done.

19 April 1999

It was Harry who brought me the first mirror. He came into the ward, bow-tie askew, red braces snug on his belly, and began to talk to me. There was something about Harry that made me trust him, that made me feel almost child-like, although I was older.

‘Joan’ he asked, holding my hand, ‘have you looked in a mirror yet?’

‘No.’

‘Would you like to?’

I looked away from him, staring at the blue square of sky in the window. I was feeling inside myself, trying to find out if I had hardened enough to face my face. I knew I had become hard but was I hard enough? I probed again. ‘I don’t know.’

‘There’s no good time to do this, Joan. I have to say that. There’s no good time. But you can’t go through your life avoiding windows, reflections, mirrors, stainless steel. It will catch up with you.’

‘I know.’ I had indeed been ducking away from shiny surfaces, closing my eyes, turning my head.