I’m not sure exactly when the terrible moment used to fall, the moment at which a woman was judged to have been left on the shelf. Every time I thought of it, I thought of an old clock, ticking away the days. Many of the girls I’d known at school were already married. I knew I had a few years still to go, but if I wasn’t careful, the other teachers would look at me in the same way they looked at Julia, a woman alone; a woman who has to work for her own living, reads too many books, and is seen out shopping on a Saturday with a trolley instead of a pram or a child in tow, wearing trousers and
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