7. I Never Forget a Face

In this text the narrator claims he never forgets a face. One day this unusual ability brought him a great deal of trouble. How did this occur?

I'll tell you a strange thing about me—I never forget a face. The only trouble is that usually I'm quite unable to tell you the name of the person. Of course, this trouble with names has put me in difficulties from time to time. I've annoyed people and lost good business more than once. But on the whole, I think I gain more than I lose by this strange memory of mine.

Quite often I've gone up to a man who didn't know me from Adam. I've said: "I think we've met before," and I've been able to give him some idea of where it was. I can always connect a face with a place, you see. Well, as I was saying, I can go up to this fellow and remind him of a big dinner or a football match or whatever it is that his face reminds me of, and probably within five minutes we're talking about business. I can usually find out his name later on. My memory for faces helps me a lot in business.

You can guess that there's not a man, woman or child here in Bardfield that I don't know by sight. I've lived in Bardfield ever since the war. I like the place; although it's only forty minutes from London, there's a lot of country here. The village is almost a mile from the station, and that's rather troublesome. But quite a pleasant crowd of men travel up and down to the City most days, and I needn't tell you that I don't know the names of half of them, though we speak to each other cheerfully enough. My wife complains that I don't know the names of our neighbours in the next house, and that's true.

Well, on this particular evening I'd been kept a bit late at the office, and it was difficult to get to the station in time to catch the train. There was quite a crowd in the train at first, but they gradually got out; and by the time we reached Ellingham—that's two stations before mine—there were only two of us left in the carriage. The other fellow wasn't one of the regular travellers, but I knew he was a Bardfield man. I knew it as soon as I saw him, of course. I'd smiled at him when I saw him get into the carriage in London, and he had smiled back. But that didn't tell me his name.

The annoying thing was that I couldn't place the fellow, if you understand what I mean. His face told me clearly that he was connected with Bardfield, but that was all it told me. I could not think where in Bardfield I had seen it. I guessed he must be one of those fellows who've come to live lately in the small houses by the bus-stop, but I couldn't be sure. Some of us who've lived in the place a long time are rather proud towards newcomers, but that's not my way—never has been. I never know where the next bit of business is going to come from, and it may come from one of them. I can't afford to neglect chances.

So when the two of us found ourselves alone in the carriage, with room to stretch our legs and be a bit comfortable, I started to talk, just as if we were old friends. But I can't say that I got much information out of him. He spoke well, with a quiet friendly manner, but he told me very little. I can generally find out what a man's work is in ten and a half minutes—that's the time it takes from Ellingham to Bardfield by train—but I failed this time. He looked a bit tired, I remember, as if he'd been working too hard lately, and I thought maybe that made him unwilling to talk much.

"Do you generally travel down on this train?" I asked him. That's usually a safe opening to a conversation, because either they do travel or they don't, and nine times out of ten they'll tell you why, and what hours they work, and what their work is. It's only human nature. But he just smiled and shook his head and said, "Not generally," which wasn't much help.

Of course, I went on to talk about the train service in general, comparing this train with that, but still he said nothing. He just agreed with all I said, but he didn't seem to have any opinions of his own. I told him I sometimes went up to the City by road, but that didn't make him talk either. I didn't think it would, because you don't expect a fellow who lives in a cheap house to own a car.

Well, to cut a long story short, I had to give up. I'd told him a lot about myself, of course, so as to make things pleasant. I'd even boasted a little about a rather nice bit of business I'd done that morning. I've always found that there's nothing as good as boasting to start a fellow talking. It makes him want to boast too. He seemed interested in a quiet sort of way, but it was no good. So, as I say, I gave it up and started to read my paper. And the next time I looked at him, he'd put his head back and gone off to sleep!

We were just running into the station then, and though the train stopped suddenly, it didn't seem to wake him. Well, I'm a kind-hearted fellow and I wasn't going to let a Bardfield man be carried on all the way to the next stop if I could help it. So I touched him sharply on the knee.

"Wake up, old fellow! We're there!" I said.

He awoke at once and smiled at me.

"Oh, so we are!" he said, and got out after me.

You know what the weather was just then. When we came out of the station together it was quite dark and raining heavily. There was a wind blowing strongly enough to knock you over, and it was bitterly cold.

Well, what would you have done? The same as I did. I turned round and said to him:

"Listen. There isn't a bus for a quarter of an hour. I've got my car in the station yard, and if you're in one of those small houses I can take you there. It's on my way.

"Thanks very much," he said, and we walked through the water to where my old car was standing and off we went.

"This is very kind of you," he said as we started, and that was the last thing he said until we were half way across the open country.

Then he suddenly turned round and said, "You can let me get out here."

"What, here?" I asked him. It seemed mad, because there wasn't a house within five hundred yards and, as I say, it was raining and blowing like the end of the world. But I slowed down, as anyone would.

The next thing that happened was that something hit me terribly hard on the back of the head. I fell forwards and then everything went black. I can half-remember being pulled out of the car, and when I came to myself again I was lying in the ditch with the rain pouring down on me, with a bad headache, no car in sight and my pockets—as I found out later—empty.

I pulled myself up at last and somehow managed to walk into Bardfield. I went straight to the police station, of course. It's the first building you reach if you come that way. And there I reported that someone had stolen my car, a new umbrella, a gold watch and a hundred and fifty-two pounds ten shillings in notes.

Of course, as soon as I got there I remember who the man was. His picture was on the wall outside. I'd seen it every day for a week. That's why his face reminded me of Bardfield. Under the picture were some words: "Wanted for Robbery with Violence and Attempted Murder. John—" Oh dear, I've forgotten the name again. I just can't keep names in my head. But that's the man. I tell you—I never forget a face.

Abridged from Faces and Places, ed., A. G. Eyre,

Longman, 1966.