What I see in the mirror

Deborah Moggach, writer
Deborah Moggach
A daughter's farewell ... Deborah Moggach at home. Photograph: Eamonn McCabe/Eamonn McCabe

There are two "me"s in the mirror: the one I'm prepared for and the one that catches me unawares, when I suddenly glimpse the truth. The first one is basically unchanged. Of course, there are more wrinkles, but essentially I'm the person I always was. I invest that mirror-face with all the memories of the past. It's like a long marriage, where the spouse doesn't notice that the years have flown. "You're still a young girl to me," they say, with the blindness of long affection. The second mirror-face is when the horrible truth hits me. This is the face that people see, people who come to me fresh.

Lighting gets more and more important. In some of the mirrors in my house I'm quite fond of myself. The worst mirrors are in changing rooms where the lighting is so pitiless, I'm surprised that anyone over 30 can ever bear to go into them. I never buy any clothes, so that's all right.

I did have a go with Botox but I couldn't move my eyebrows. I also, at one point, had that filler stuff injected, but I looked like a hamster with wodges of food in its cheeks, so I stopped that. The secret, of course, is good bone structure. If I looked like Virginia McKenna or Jessica Tandy, I would just become more beautiful. As it is, one has to rely on happiness. Luckily, I'm quite a cheerful person and don't go round glaring at hoodies and complaining about cyclists, so that's a few less frown lines.

• Deborah Moggach's In The Dark is published by Vintage at £7.99.

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