My watch has stopped.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Time slows down for my wife when she goes to a toilet. We go to the Curzon to see an up-to-the-minute cinema release. We show our tickets and look for seats. My wife edges past a couple, leaves one seat and sits. She gets me to pass her, leaving another seat between me and the next couple. I don\u2019t know why she does this. The cinema will be totally full. Eventually, someone will have to sit in those single seats where they will be separated from their friends. They\u2019ll probably ask us to move so they can sit together. It means that we will be disturbed just before the film starts, or even after it has started.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy don\u2019t we just sit there?\u201d I point at the empty seat.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to invade their personal space,\u201d says my wife. The couple look at each other and nod. I give up and sit down.<\/p>\n
\u201cI need to go to the toilet,\u201d says my wife inevitably. \u201cGuard my seat.\u201d She gets up and pushes past the couple again.<\/p>\n
People stream in. They look around for the good seats. There are now two seats placed invitingly together in the middle of the cinema. Everyone\u2019s eyes alight on these. I take my sweater off and put it on my wife\u2019s seat. I put the magazine I am reading on top of it.<\/p>\n
By this time, my wife is in the toilet. Time has dilated. I age at the same speed as usual but inside her mysterious zone, she is able to take advantage of unlimited temporal freedom. She takes an unfeasibly large range of cosmetic items from her bag and spreads them out on a shelf underneath one of those huge mirrors surrounded by light bulbs.<\/p>\n
\u201cSorry, that seat\u2019s taken,\u201d I say to the first couple attracted by the apparently empty seat beside me.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, sure,\u201d the man says. His eyes rest on me. One person. He looks at the seats between me and the next couple. There is another single on the other side of me. Why do I need four seats? He doesn\u2019t protest but I can see that he is tempted. I breathe again as he goes away. My wife must have been at least seven minutes now.<\/p>\n
My wife stretches luxuriously in her anti-aging toilet complex. Out comes the mascara brush. She dips the little hedgehog into the dark bottle and brushes body into her long lashes. She bats them coquettishly at herself in the giant mirror.<\/p>\n
I look at the dwindling supply of seats as more and more people fill the cinema\u2019s limited capacity. Lots of seats at the very front and at the very back. The only thing that looks like two seats with a decent view is just next to me. Every face swivels my way.<\/p>\n
I toy with the idea of moving our two seats one to the right so that there really is a double seat free. But my wife has chosen this seat. If I change it while she is gone, she will know how weak I have been. She will be forced to sit in a seat that she didn\u2019t choose. This could cause havoc in our relationship.<\/p>\n
By now, my wife has taken her array of hair care product from her bag and is experimenting with different shapes to arrange on her head. What if she ties it back informally, slightly to one side? No. Let\u2019s try it slightly more casual. No. She picks up a tube labelled Foxy Curls<\/em>. She squeezes <\/em>some foam out onto her hand and begins to rub it into her hair. This shouldn\u2019t take more than a few minutes.<\/p>\n My watch has stopped.<\/p>\n
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