Mrs Mahmood Quotes

Now, sometimes I lie awake at night waiting for another train to pass so that I can fall asleep; I find it comforting somehow. The regularity, the mild vibrations, the dim, distant thrum of carriages carrying other people elsewhere. I couldn’t live in a quiet place now.

I think they would prefer me out the back taking care of the accounts, harrying suppliers, rushing in new stock. I don’t know this for certain. I am the manager, I should have mentioned. Perhaps it puts them on edge, as if I am constantly watching, scrutinizing.

Sometimes I’ll look at the young, wonder whether they are headed for great things. This one seemed to soar like a gazelle, he did not waver on his feet… I like that in a customer, someone who really knows who he wants.

Perhaps it is odd to see an older man puffing down the street. The clumsy sweep and sway of it, the heavy body bounding along. All I know is that very few people were looking at the boy, but all eyes managed to fix on me. Paths cleared. People stood back.

There comes a time when you realise all the effort you’ve put in – all those early mornings, the rigorous diet, the training, pushing yourself to the limit – amounts to nothing…I never picked up another pair of running shoes, never stepped onto another track.

I could feel suppressed rage seeping from my chest, like a disturbed wound. I raised my hand, then slowly brought it down again and scratched the back of my neck…The boy didn’t even cringe. He showed no emotion whatsoever. I didn’t like to see that in children, coldness, valves already shut off.

Isobel made a few cooing noises. I didn’t know what she meant. She gathered up the dishes and walked into the kitchen…You could say that Isobel is stunning and you would not be exaggerating…When she returned, I was in the middle of pouring the last of the wine.

Isobel once said I was abrupt with people, I cut them off, that underneath a warm exterior I harboured a cold nature.

“When?” I demanded. “When am I like this? Examples please.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she laughed. “All the time, really. In a way.”

At the back of my mind I feared she was thinking about having children again, but she did not mention it.

At one stage he caught me looking and I turned away. I think I lost my nerve then. I don’t remember, I just felt weak. I fled into the office and sat staring at the paperwork. Half an hour may have passed. I thought I should telephone Isobel at the hospital. “Who?” she would say. “Which Olympics?”

It is a helpless feeling to know that no matter how hard you run, however much you exert yourself, you are never going to move faster than this, overtake the man in front. Perhaps I understood that then, when I was seventeen. I could, in a minor way, have grasped something early on: that there is a moment or a series of moments in life when you must wear a different pair of shoes, walk in another direction from the one you had planned, and however well you succeed in your pursuits, there will always be an element of regret.