Low life | 19 October 2017

On Saturday night, I toddled up to the village hall for the fish-and-chip supper, quiz night and raffle — bring your own booze — hosted by the vicar. The hall was already packed when I walked in, and I was shown to the only one of 14 tables that wasn’t yet full and introduced to the couple seated there. I think Joan and Bill suspected me of being an imposter because they immediately interrogated me as to where in the village I lived and where in the country my strong regional accent originated. Nor did my answers seem to satisfy them. Finally, we were joined by Margaret, whom I knew. Margaret was just back from Iran. She had found the compulsory headscarf extremely irksome, she reported, and she’d caught a bug so virulent that she’d vomited over her neighbour on the plane home. But on the whole she’d enjoyed it, she said.