The Custome Party

In what I can only describe as the most Kafkaesque fashion, I attended a costume party in London sometime in the middle of the 1990s.

The invitation had requested fancy dress, and, being a man of reasonable obedience, I dressed accordingly.

At least, I thought I had.

I arrived at the house, surrendered my coat, accepted a glass of something pale and expensive, and entered a drawing room populated by Roman emperors, courtiers, pirates, a vampire, two Marie Antoinettes and a gentleman dressed as Sherlock Holmes, although he appeared to have confused Holmes with an occupation.

I smiled politely.

Then I realised the terrible truth.

Everyone else was in costume.

I was not.

I had arrived wearing my real face.

It was, in retrospect, a dreadful error.

I looked about the room with the peculiar sensation one experiences when discovering that everyone else has understood the instructions to a game one has been playing for years.

The Romans looked perfectly Roman. The vampire looked positively vampirical. Even the Sherlock Holmes was convincing, which was perhaps the most disturbing thing of all.

A woman dressed as Cleopatra asked me what I was supposed to be.

“ Timothy Monday” I replied.

She laughed.

I did not.

I remained at the party for several hours, largely because leaving would have required admitting that I had been defeated by a piece of clothing.

Eventually, however, I returned to my hotel.

I stood before the mirror.

There was the face.

My face.

The same face with which I had entered restaurants, attended churches, travelled through railway stations, signed letters, made introductions and occasionally said things I later regretted.

It had always seemed to me the least disguised thing about myself.

That evening I began to suspect otherwise.

Perhaps the face we call our “real face” is merely the costume we have worn for so long that we have forgotten putting it on.

The Romans could remove their laurel wreaths.

Cleopatra could take off her crown.

Sherlock Holmes could put away his pipe and return to being somebody's solicitor, accountant or mildly disappointed uncle.

But I could not remove Timothy.

And that, I confess, was considerably more frightening.

The following morning I shaved, dressed, and looked again into the mirror.

I was relieved to discover that I still looked like myself. Which, after the previous evening, was not quite the reassurance it had once been.