The Interview

 


The first thing I noticed about her was her voice. She spoke softly and although it was clear she came from the North, her accent, unlike my mother’s, was soft and gentle. It was  the accent of someone born and brought up in the lakes where gentle rainfall had washed off the rough harshness of Northern vowels.

Her voice reminded me of my grandmother and as such, made feel safe and calm and childlike.

It was hard to guess her age; I had the assumption she must have been older than me by virtue of her role. It came as a surprise to discover later she and I shared the year of our birth Such was her aura of authority, and such was my level of nervousness.

She had fair, not blonde, not mousey hair, cut sensibly to frame her face. She wore no make up; her skin pale and wrinkle free and reminded  me of a painting by Vermeer  a face belonging to a different time.

By contrast, her clothes were an explosion of style and colour. She wore a long, full skirt, a longer silk scarf and a crocheted waistcoat in a confusion of Autumnal shades of russet, green and gold.  Bottle Green tights and the largest pair of red shoes I have ever seen on a woman. Ann’s feet were big.

She was sitting on a straight-backed chair holding a clipboard and pen. Her skirt draped around her touching the floor, her feet placed firmly out in front. There was something about her feet that suggested strength, the bold colour of the shoes made it hard not to stare and I found myself admiring her ability to make what should look so wrong seem  right.

She smiled as she invited me to take a seat, “ Tell me something about yourself”, it was an instruction born out of the situation, but despite that I felt she really wanted to hear what I had to say.

I found myself blurting out, “ I like to sit by the window and day dream a lot” in response. My surprise at the honesty of my reply swiftly followed by the embarrassment of my revelation.

“ What a good thing to do” she replied smiling. Leaning forward and looking closely at me over the top of her glasses, her eyes seeming even bluer out from behind the glass of her spectacles, “ I hope that we can find a window here that will work for you as well”.

 

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