How the pandemic wiped the smile off our faces (literally)

By Ann Wroe

The carriage was empty, but the woman who had just boarded the train at Gatwick, laden with bags, plumped herself down in the seat in front of mine. We were masked, of course, but this was far too close, so I moved several seats down and then felt awful. Without the mask I could have smiled at her, as if to say, “I’m sorry to do this, but I think we would both be safer if I did.” It would have been a softened look of apology, with a subtext that read: “Yes, we’re all in this together, and isn’t this a pain?” Instead I was expressionless behind blue fabric. Let’s face it, I was rude.

That would have been a lot to pack into a smile. Yet we all do it more or less continually – or used to – in our public lives. Smiles are capable of almost infinite variation and subtlety, and of split-second shifts, passing over like weather. The Rueful, when something hasn’t gone as planned. The Uneasy, when you’re not quite sure how the land lies. The Triumphant, just making it as the carriage door shuts, and the Relieved, as you settle back at the end of a long day. The False, the Febrile, the Delighted, the Empty, the Defensive, the Innocent, the Fixed. Not the least deprivation of the covid world is that all this variety is so often covered up. Eyes may be the mirrors of the soul, but they need the mouth to show what they mean.