I wake in the middle of the night with the uneasy feeling that I have forgotten something. Not something trivial like forgetting to pack a toothbrush, but something much graver. A sick feeling is burning a hole in the pit of my stomach. My paranoia lies there inside me, quietly incubating in the darkness.

My arm snakes over to the other side of the bed and touches the emptiness, and I realise what it is that I have forgotten, whom I am missing. I swing my legs out and feel around for my slippers. My head is swimming with sleep and I move blindly towards the open door.

I find him in the bathroom swamped in blackness. The moon peers through the bare window with a spartan offering of light. The door is open but he doesn't see me and something holds me back from entering and disturbing him. He stands tall and stooped in front of the sink transfixed by his own reflection in the small cracked mirror.

How can I describe him? There's a piece of music I know called "Intermezzo", it's the loveliest music I've ever heard. I remember it because it was once in a commercial for toilet paper. There is something beautiful about it, so soft and velvety (rather like the toilet paper it was promoting, I suppose) but there was also something terribly sad about it, achingly melancholy. When I think about him, I think of "Intermezzo" - soft, beautiful, yet melancholy.

"It's the quiet one's you have to watch out for," my sister Maggie says. "you can never really tell what's going on in their minds. Still waters run deep you know."

He is turning the taps now and the water spills into the enamel basin. It rises up to the narrow tidemark and with a swift flick of his wrists, it squeaks to a stop. Three more drops insist on falling, then silence.

Maggie had disliked him from the start.

"It's not that I don't like him, I just don't trust him."

"You don't even know him."

"Okay, I don't know him very well, I admit that," she said trying to keep baby Dermot still on the changing mat.

"But there's something about him, he's from a different culture. I don't know, I can't put my finger on it."

"If you'd just talk to him…"

"Talk to him!" she laughed. "Sweetheart, he hardly says anything. I've tried talking to him, believe me I've tried. It's getting him to talk back that's the hard part. He just sits and stares into his tea-cup."

"That's only because he's nervous. He's anxious to make a good impression. Please Maggie, it's important to him, it's important to me."

Released from the chaffing constriction of his nappy, the baby gurgled and pushed a small fleshy foot into his toothless mouth.

"He won't make you happy, you know."

"How would you know what would make me happy?"

"You're my sister and I think I know you well enough, better than he does."

"Maybe you used to, but not now. I'm different now, I've changed and he understands that."

Two spots appeared on Maggie's cheeks as she grappled with cotton balls and caldesene powder.

"How can he? How can he understand you when he doesn't even speak English properly?"

"He's learning."

"I can't believe I'm hearing this." She stared at me incredulously, momentarily forgetting her baby. "You hardly know him, you know nothing about his background apart from the fact that he's from some Polish village, and you don't even speak the same language!"

She shook her head and returned her attentions to Dermot Junior.

"It'll all end in tears," she muttered softly.

He is splashing his face with water now. The water slaps against his cheeks and he rubs vigorously under his eyes. He catches himself in the mirror again and tugs gently at his beard.

Then the strangest thing happens. He picks up the little nail scissors and begins to snip at his beard. First cautiously, trimming here and there, then more frantically. The scissors drops, plunging into the water and he takes a canister of shaving cream, shaking it briefly, then fills his cupped hand with foam and smears it over his jaw and upper lip. He fumbles among the clutter around the sink until he sets his fingers on the razor. Slowly, methodically, he begins to scrape away the foam and the stubbly growth it conceals.

Watching him in the half-light and listening to the razor scratching at his face, I am reminded of a time when I too stood in front of a mirror in my parents bathroom, standing on top of the toilet in my pink pyjamas, half of my face hidden under foam, and my father's razor in hand. I remember holding my chin and pouting my lips, then tentatively lifting the blade to my plump cheek. I recall the clink as the razor bounced off the sink, and the scarlet drops that followed hitting the cold enamel surface.

I stand now in the narrow corridor and raise my hand to finger my cheek, but there is no scar, the scab has long since been picked away.

He is towelling his shaven jaw when I push the door open and no sooner have I entered the room than I regret it. He turns, startled, and the towel falls away revealing a new unfamiliar face to me.

"Why did you shave off your beard?" I ask, breaking the silence.

"Now you can see my face," he replies, "you can see who I am."

His jaw is white and uneven, the shadows flicker across his face lingering under his cheekbones. His skin looks raw, his mouth is naked. Under the low slanting ceiling of the bathroom, he seems clumsy and ungainly.

I don't know how long we stand there regarding each other at a distance before I turn and leave, silently closing the door behind me. I am surprised to find my hand trembling as I let go of the door handle. I return to the bedroom and slip in under the covers. I lie there waiting for sleep to come, shrouded in darkness and in doubt.

^