by Jonathan Coe
George took one final, long, yearning look into the mirror. ‘Beautiful,’ he whispered to himself. ‘It all looks so beautiful.’ Then his eyes went blank and dark again, as if someone had drawn the curtains on the room once more. And all he said to Claire, as he handed back the mirror, was:
‘I must be drunker than I thought.’
EIGHT
The sign appeared one morning quite suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, on the side of the hill that rose up at the back of Claire’s house on the western edge of the town.
It was a massive wooden sign, supported on two great poles. It was so big that it even blocked out some of the sunlight.
It consisted of a picture, and a slogan. The picture showed the stern, resolute face of Mr Drummond, and behind him, much smaller, an image of the town itself – or at least, the town as he wanted it to become. The slogan said: ‘Thomas Drummond – The Man Who Puts Kennoway First’.
Because of its size, and its position on the hill, the sign loomed above the whole town, and cast a shadow over it. You could never forget that it was there.
And yes, the town itself was changing rapidly, in accordance with the vision expressed in the picture. Older houses were being demolished. More and bigger roads were being built, and the air was clogging up with fumes from cars like Amanda’s. New buildings were springing up everywhere, all accompanied by hoardings with the name Gifford Construction Ltd on them. A big new police station had been built, and a big new prison, because Mr Drummond was adamant that Kennoway was beset by crime, and the only solution was to lock up more and more of its citizens. Bigger still were the new town hall, council offices and Mayor’s residence that he was building in order to reflect the importance of his own position. In addition, he boasted of creating more jobs by setting up a new private security service to work side by side with the police in order to protect his staff and (in particular) himself, so that now, wherever you were in Kennoway, you never seemed to be far from some man in uniform who would stare at you accusingly until you moved on and went away.
All of these projects cost money, of course. But money always seemed to be available for them, even though Mr Drummond and his council were constantly shutting down schools, libraries, clinics, care homes and other useful institutions because they claimed they didn’t have enough money to pay for them.
As for that slogan about putting ‘Kennoway First’, this was a phrase Mr Drummond had invented in one of his speeches and which had proved so popular that he had taken to repeating it again and again. It started appearing on signs and posters on every square and every street as well. Until recently, Kennoway had been twinned with a city in the South of France but one of the first things Mr Drummond did after becoming Mayor was to cancel that arrangement, saying that it cost too much and produced no benefits. For too long, he insisted, the town had been wasting money on silly schemes like this instead of spending it on its own citizens. From now on, he said, people from Kennoway should have the first choice of jobs and be first in the queue for the hospital. There were too many foreigners here anyway. The ones who already lived here could stay if they wanted to, but it wasn’t practical to let any more in. The town was full, and for too long now, the local people had been taken advantage of and made to look like fools. It was true – he admitted – that some of the foreigners did useful jobs. Many of the men worked as builders for Gifford Construction, and their wives worked as cleaners or cooks for some of the town’s wealthier families. But the fact of the matter was, these people didn’t really belong here. From now on, it was going to be KENNOWAY FIRST.
Claire didn’t really agree with any of this but she noticed that quite a few people did, and because a powerful and respectable man like Mr Drummond had started to say these things, many other people who might have kept their opinions to themselves were now emboldened to express them openly. The atmosphere in the town became increasingly bitter and divided. There were reports of Poles, Romanians and others being attacked in the street, and one day…
One day, Claire read a report in the newspaper and as soon as she saw it she felt sick and ran down to The Dales as fast as she could.
She reached Aggie’s house and found that the story was true.
The windows had been smashed in and were now boarded up. The front door had been vandalised and horrible, cruel slogans had been daubed all over it, along with a Nazi symbol. The slogans were written in brown letters and Claire realised that the people who had done this hadn’t used paint at all, but human waste.
As she stood there, staring, her eyes filling with tears, a woman came out of the house next door and stood beside her.
‘They were such nice people,’ Claire heard herself saying, in a trembling voice. ‘They never hurt anybody.’
‘I know – shocking, isn’t it?’ the woman said. ‘They’ve gone now. Back to Warsaw. Two days ago. Didn’t want to stay here any more, and I don’t blame them.’
She squeezed Claire’s shoulder and went back inside.
Slowly, then, Claire took the broken mirror from the pocket of her hoodie. She turned round so that she had her back to the door, and held the mirror away from her, her arm outstretched, so that the whole door was reflected in it.
What she saw almost broke her heart. The reflection took her straight back to that Christmas, a few years ago, when she had stood on the steps outside Aggie’s parents’ house, bathed in the soft yellow light that spilled from their windows. The door, once again, was a rich, dark red, with its shiny door-knocker and its jolly, festive Christmas wreath, adorned with red holly berries and hanging golden ornaments. It looked so friendly, so welcoming, such a plain and potent symbol of the values of a good, kind, generous family, that Claire forgot she was actually standing outside their house on a late-summer evening, that the windows had been smashed in and the door defaced, that Aggie and her family had left the town in disgust and would never be coming back.
Slowly, like a sleepwalker, she moved away from the house with steady, trancelike steps. Her eyes never left the mirror, but she raised it up so that, instead of the old front door, it now reflected her own face. As always when she looked in this mirror, the face it showed her was a beautiful one, with delicate features, perfect skin and bright, intelligent eyes. In fact – as anyone could have told her – it was no different, these days, to Claire’s real face, the one she presented to the world all the time But she had not come to realise that yet. To her, the images reflected by the mirror still represented her longings, the things that could not possibly come true, and so she was scarcely surprised when, behind the reflection of her face, she gradually discerned the outline of a boy approaching, walking behind her, catching up with her in the street. As he came closer, she knew with a dawning, glorious certainty who it was going to be: those broad, powerful shoulders, that immaculate jet-black hair… It was David. And she knew, too, that their moment had finally come, and that he was going to speak to her at last.
‘Claire?’ said the voice behind her. ‘What are you doing here?’
She turned.
She turned and smiled.
But it wasn’t David.
It was Peter Lewis, of all people.
NINE
Claire was so startled when she saw him that she dropped the mirror onto the pavement. For a horrible moment she thought that it had broken. When Peter bent down to pick it up and handed it back to her, she was relieved to see that it was still in one piece, but hated the thought of him touching it and snatched it from him rudely.
‘That’s mine, thank you,’ she said, slipping it into her pocket as quickly as she could. She was annoyed to see that, even in those few seconds, Peter’s eyes had been drawn to the dirty, broken old thing and he had taken a good look at it. What on earth must he think of her?
‘Terrible about Aggie’s house, isn’t it?’ he said.
Claire nodded.
‘Where were you going now?’
‘Back into town.’
‘Do you mind if
I walk with you for a while?’
‘All right,’ she said.
Claire looked properly at Peter, now, for the first time. Not just for the first time that day, but for the first time in about four years. They were no longer in the same class at school, and he had long since given up following her around forlornly like a loyal puppy, so she had not had cause to take any notice of him for a good while. And while he still wasn’t as good-looking as David Knightley (nowhere near), he had certainly improved quite a lot over the years. He still wore horn-rimmed glasses, but he no longer had braces on his teeth, and his face wore a warm, good-natured, intelligent expression. His smile was especially nice. Claire’s irritation faded and she found herself starting to feel quite glad that they had chanced upon each other in this way.
They walked back to the centre of the town, heading for Claire’s usual café. Amanda and David were there too, as always, but this time Claire didn’t find their presence at all distracting. She and Peter found a table on the other side of the room and simply ignored them, although a few minutes later when they got up to leave Claire couldn’t resist saying:
‘Ah well, there they go – the beautiful people.’
Peter merely snorted and said, unexpectedly, ‘You’re worth a hundred of them,’ and Claire felt herself blushing.
They chatted for about thirty minutes. It was quite stilted and awkward at first, but Claire soon realised that Peter was so easy to talk to, and was so much more interesting than she’d expected, that she was quite disappointed when he took the last few sips of his drink and said:
‘Look, I can’t stay much longer. My mum and dad will be wondering where I am.’
‘So will mine, I suppose,’ said Claire.
‘So the big question is –’ Peter paused, and took a breath: ‘Can I see you again?’
Claire felt her heart flutter and dive. ‘Well,’ she said, playing for time, ‘you’ll see me at school on Monday.’
‘But tomorrow’s Sunday,’ said Peter. ‘What about tomorrow?’
‘OK,’ said Claire, perhaps a little too quickly. ‘Where shall we go?’
This was brilliant. She was going to go out on her very first date! But suddenly Peter asked an unexpected question:
‘When you were little,’ he said, ‘did you ever go to that big dump that’s at the back of your house?’
Claire had no idea why he was changing the subject like this.
‘Yes…’ she said, slowly, making no attempt to hide her puzzlement. All the while, what she was really thinking about was where Peter might take her tomorrow. Ice-skating perhaps? Or to the cinema? Yes, that’s what she would prefer, definitely: the cinema. She hadn’t been to the cinema for ages…
‘Well,’ said Peter, ‘let’s meet there.’
It took a moment for Claire to be sure that she had not misheard him. ‘You mean… at the dump?’
‘That’s right. At the dump. Is that OK?’
She was too shocked to do anything but nod her agreement.
Afterwards, back at home with her parents, Claire grew angry – not just with Peter, for suggesting such a ridiculous meeting place, but with herself, for agreeing to join him there. What sort of weirdo thought that the local dump was a suitable venue for a date? And what sort of idiot went on a date with someone like that in the first place? It was obviously going to be a disaster, and the occasion she had been looking forward to with such excitement was now something she had started to dread.
*
Three o’clock on Sunday afternoon found her standing on the other side of the bushes at the top of the steep slope which led down to the dump. She felt absolutely stupid standing there in her grey hoodie, on a dull and cloudy afternoon, waiting for Peter to appear. And after she had been waiting about ten minutes, a horrible thought occurred to her: supposing he wasn’t going to appear? Supposing he was playing some sort of nasty joke on her instead?
But then, as soon as she’d had this thought, she spotted him walking breathlessly along the ridge towards her.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Sorry I’m late. Lunch went on a bit today.’
‘That’s OK,’ said Claire.
They didn’t kiss or anything like that – not even on the cheek. They just stood there for a moment or two, both a bit embarrassed and not sure what to do next.
After a while Peter sat down on the patchy grass. Claire sat down beside him.
‘You’re probably thinking this was a really strange place to meet,’ he said.
‘Pretty strange, yes,’ Claire agreed.
‘Well – there is a reason,’ said Peter. Then he asked: ‘You know that mirror you had with you yesterday? I don’t suppose you’ve brought it with you?’
Claire reached instinctively for the pocket where she usually carried the mirror, but stopped before her hands closed on it. She was starting to feel suspicious again. Was Peter trying to make fun of her, in some peculiar way?
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘I don’t know… I just had this idea – this feeling’ (he was speaking slowly, finding the words with difficulty) ‘that maybe it was here – on this dump – that you found it.’
Now Claire took the mirror out of her pocket.
‘That’s right. It was,’ she said, wonderingly. ‘How did you know?’
By way of reply, Peter reached into the pocket of his own anorak, and took out the very last thing that Claire had been expecting to see: a jagged, broken, dirty fragment of mirror just like her own. It shimmered and glittered in his hand as he talked to her, reflecting a sky much bluer than the one above their heads, which was still covered with dark grey clouds.
‘I came here too, one day, when I was about… seven years old, I suppose,’ he said. ‘And this was what I found.’
After a few seconds’ astonished silence, Claire held out her hand: ‘Can I see?’ she asked.
It was uncanny, holding Peter’s mirror in her hand and looking into it to glimpse the subtly different, slightly brighter and warmer reflections it gave off as she tried it out in various directions. It felt just like looking into her own mirror.
‘Here,’ Peter said, as he took it back from her. ‘Can I borrow yours for a minute? There was something I wanted to try.’
Peter took both fragments of mirror in his hand. He looked at them carefully for a little while, then rotated Claire’s mirror slightly and finally slid them both together.
The two fragments fitted together perfectly, like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
Peter looked at Claire and smiled. She smiled back. She had never felt happier.
‘Come on then,’ he said. ‘Let’s go to the cinema or something.’
TEN
But in fact they did not go to the cinema. They started walking in that direction, but found they had so much to talk about that all they ended up doing was walking and talking.
To start with, they swapped stories about the things they had seen in their mirrors. They both agreed that the reflections had changed as they had grown older. Like Claire, Peter had begun by seeing magical, amazing but impossible images: as a young boy, he had been obsessed by dinosaurs, and at first the mirror had transformed his parents’ house into a vast, elaborate cave, in which he had often glimpsed huge prehistoric lizards roaming amongst the fantastic rock formations and grotesque, enormous sculptures made up of stalagmites and stalagtites, gleaming with the moisture of underground rivers and waterfalls. But – like Claire’s wonderful sandstone castle – these images had slowly started to fade and as the years went by had been replaced by less fantastic ones: reflections of the world around him which none the less always offered some sort of subtle, indefinable improvement upon everyday reality.
Claire told him about some of the things she had seen in her mirror recently: the old library which was now a shopping centre, and Homeless George’s vision of his family dinner table. ‘But the annoying thing is,’ she said, ‘that you only ever see these things in little pieces.’
‘Well, I’ve been thinking about that,’ said Peter. ‘Supposing…supposing we’re not the only ones who have them?’
‘What do you mean?’
Instead of answering her directly, Peter said something mysterious. He asked her if she was doing anything next weekend, and if she thought she could get away from home for the whole of Saturday night. Claire wasn’t at all sure what he had in mind. How well did she know this person, how far should she trust him? At the moment (and this in itself was rather frightening) she thought she would do almost anything that he asked her to…
‘I suppose I could get away,’ she said doubtfully. ‘I could tell Mum that I was having a sleepover or something.’
‘Could you?’ said Peter. ‘That would be brilliant.’
‘But what’s this all about?’
‘I’ll tell you next week,’ said Peter. ‘But please – promise me that you’ll come. We need you. We won’t be able to do it without you.’
*
Next Saturday evening, at about eight o’clock, Claire met Peter at the end of her street. He had a rucksack with him, and together they set off in the direction of the big hill which rose up behind her house and overlooked the whole of the town.
As they walked there and began climbing the hill itself, Claire noticed that there seemed to be quite a few other people headed in the same direction. At first they just found themselves walking alongside a few lone stragglers or small groups of pedestrians; but by the time they were halfway up the hill, the numbers had swelled until it was something like a throng. There were men and women of every age, children and pensioners, couples and family groups and people on their own. All seemed to be going the same way: towards the enormous ugly sign which the Mayor had raised up on the hill so that it looked down over the whole of Kennoway.
