4 APRIL 1992, Page 38

The Price

Sometimes it catches when the fumes rise up among the throbbing lights of cars, or as you look away to dodge eye-contact with your own reflection in the carriage-glass; or in a waiting-room a face reminds you that the colour supplements have lied and some have pleasure and some pay the price. Then all the small securities you built about your house, your desk, your calendar are blown like straws; and momentarily, as if a scent of ivy or the earth had opened up a childhood door, you pause, to take the measure of what might have been against the kind of life you settled for.

Stuart Henson