‘That’s where I keep my cameras,’ said Ophelia, emerging beside me and gesturing at the safe. ‘I’ve got lots of expensive equipment.’
‘And a whole load of computers.’ I took the glass of wine she was offering me. ‘What do you need all those for?’
‘For my location and shoot work. I use a digital camera and print the images off on the computers. It’s also easy to colour balance, retouch and generally mess around on them. The blinds are down to keep it as dark as possible, so that I can see the images clearly. And through there is my darkroom.’ She pointed to the doorway in the corner of the studio. ‘It’s where I develop my own prints. Not everyone shoots on film these days – in fact, few people do – although it is enjoying a bit of a renaissance. I keep it for the photography that I love; close-ups of people, portraits, that sort of thing. But that’s definitely more of a hobby. I’ll show you how it’s done sometime.’ And she smiled at me.
‘I’d love that,’ I said, moving towards the doorway of the studio and catching sight of a string of photographs on the wall above the printers. ‘And what are these?’
‘That’s some of my shoot work. Have a look.’
I crossed the threshold and stood in front of them, a series of prints, ostensibly of shoes. In the first, a woman’s head and naked upper body lay taut across the right-hand side of the frame. Long blonde hair fanned outwards around her expressionless face and her bright blue eyes had an unreal, glassy quality. In the left-hand side of the frame a black stiletto with a towering heel stood apart, almost as if at a safe distance from the body. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to feel about the supine woman pictured in the shot, but I found the fact that I wasn’t sure somehow disturbing.
In another photograph pale legs, only visible between the knees and feet, were outstretched on a bright green sofa. One foot was clad in a glossy red stiletto heel, the other was bare and a viscous-looking red liquid dripped from the toes overhanging the sofa to the white floor below, where it collected in a thick pool. There was something unsettling and at the same time compelling about the image. I turned to look at Ophelia and raised my eyebrows.
‘These are comforting.’
She laughed loudly. ‘Just the look I was going for.’ She took a sip of her wine and then smiled at me. ‘Don’t worry. They’re supposed to make you feel unsure what you’re seeing. Is it life, is it death, is it sex?’
‘So they’re snapshots. Literally half-told stories . . .’
‘. . . laden with implication. Exactly.’
‘Hmm,’ I murmured. ‘Explicit and inexplicit at the same time.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’ Ophelia paused and flicked through some images on the table behind where I was standing. ‘I love the work of Guy Bourdin. Have you heard of him?’
I shook my head.
‘He was a great fashion photographer. His images are seductive, voyeuristic – as if you’re catching a glimpse of something you’re not supposed to see. And often you’re not sure exactly what you’ve seen.’ She showed me a photograph of a partially open doorway through which a woman’s torso, naked except for a sheer black bra, could be seen angled over the armrest of a chair. Her hair dropped downwards towards the floor and between her fingers, grazing the carpet, lay a bright pink flower. In the bottom right-hand corner of the frame, a man’s finger was captured pressing the doorbell of the room. ‘I mean, is it ecstasy or is it an assignation gone wrong? Who knows? But his shots often suggest something violent, something surreal. Some show women looking disturbingly like mannequins, perhaps even turning into mannequins.’ Ophelia showed me a couple more images. In one, a mannequin’s legs, seemingly amputated from below the knees, were clad in a pair of black stilettos and crossing a dark street. In another the same legs were climbing a set of stairs, wearing a pair of elegant grey high-heeled shoes. They looked bizarre. My face must have said it all.
‘Yes, they’re perverse,’ said Ophelia. ‘Glamour with a hint of danger. But fashion loves that combination. His images sold a lot of Charles Jourdan shoes in the 1970s.’
I turned to look at Ophelia’s photographs once more. I could see the influence. Seductive but not easy to view. I looked at the sticky red substance dripping from the foot.
‘The one on the end, with the red stilettos, is my own interpretation of the Red Shoes. You remember the fairy tale, don’t you?’
I looked away from the picture as I tried to remember. I had known the story once but right now it escaped me.
‘It’s about a little girl who buys a pair of bright red shoes. But it turns out they’re magical and dangerous and once she puts them on she can’t take them off. They force her to dance and dance and dance. In the end she has to cut off her feet to remove them.’
I grimaced. ‘That’s nice.’
Ophelia nodded, beginning to laugh again. ‘Cinderella has the same sort of thing. The ugly sisters cut off their toes to fit their feet into Cinders’s shoes. Nothing like a bit of mutilation and violence for the sake of love.’
I stared at the red liquid dropping thickly down the foot in Ophelia’s image and pooling at the bottom corner. I shivered involuntarily.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ I lied. ‘Just cold from the rain. Shall we go nearer to the fire?’
‘Of course, I’m sorry. Let’s sit down.’
I moved to the sofa and dropped heavily into the soft leather. It wrapped itself like a cocoon around my weary body. Ophelia sat down next to me and put her feet over my legs. I looked at the red shoes and paused for a second. A flash of bloody images crossed my brain but I blinked them away. One by one I slid the shoes off her feet slowly. They dropped to the floor soundlessly.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked again, settling herself into the sofa’s cushions.
I nodded before swallowing deeply from my wine glass. The liquid slid smoothly down my throat and I felt something shift inside of me, something relax.
‘So, tell me about today, then.’
I stroked Ophelia’s left foot with my free hand and thought about my day. Where to begin? The story seemed to start underground.
‘Tara found a room in the factory that we hadn’t known existed. A cellar, not on any of the factory plans. The way to it, bizarrely enough, is through the storage cupboard in the room where we’re working. From there, it’s through an obscured doorway and down a dark flight of stairs.’
‘Ooh. A Narnia-like entrance to another world?’
I was silent, thinking about that darkness once again.
‘A hidden space, like a priest’s hole?’ Ophelia continued.
I considered whether it might have been conceived as a secret place. It was possible but unlikely. ‘I don’t think it was specifically designed for that purpose although it’s pretty well concealed. Now, at least. I think someone found it by chance and it became somewhere for them to go.’
‘Hmm.’ She nodded. ‘So what was it like?’
I described the room and its contents briefly.
She raised her eyebrows at me. ‘What a bizarre set-up – with the shoes and the note. It makes the mirror seem almost . . . shrine-like.’ She took a sip of her wine. ‘It has a feel of romance to it, don’t you think?’
Maybe. I wasn’t sure. And I had been thinking about it all day. But I was no closer to being able to explain the feeling I’d had. Or not adequately enough. ‘There’s something else,’ I said. ‘The room had a strange vibe.’ I was quiet for a moment. ‘I know that’s not a very forensic way of putting it. But it just felt a little . . . off.’
‘Off?’
‘I really don’t know how to describe it. It was similar to when you encounter something peculiar . . . when the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. You can’t necessarily put your finger on what’s triggered the reaction but you feel it. Unequivocally. You know what I mean?’
‘I do.’
I looked down at the glass in my hand, at the deep plump redness of the win
e. ‘I couldn’t shake the feeling of . . . of there being . . . something menacing, I suppose . . . I don’t know if that makes any sense. But I felt it.’ I paused. ‘I think Tara felt the same thing, although we didn’t talk about it explicitly.’
‘So, did you feel threatened?’
‘No.’ I shook my head and then stopped. ‘I don’t think so, but it’s difficult to say.’ An image of the wooden stairs descending into darkness flashed across my mind and suddenly I could smell the room again. I blinked hard and took a large gulp of wine.
‘Are you okay?’ Ophelia was studying me.
‘I’m fine.’
‘It sounds strange and . . . unsettling.’
I nodded. ‘It was. It even shut Tara up for the afternoon. And it takes a lot to do that.’ We laughed and I shifted lower on my seat, trying to relax. But mentioning Tara made me think once more of the strong attraction that I had felt towards her in the room. Had she felt the same way towards me? I hadn’t dared to ask. I looked at Ophelia who was staring at me intently and I felt a sudden rush of guilt. What had I been thinking? But that was just it. I hadn’t been thinking anything. The feeling had appeared from nowhere. I closed my eyes and tried to clear my mind. But I couldn’t. I kept picturing myself looking at the mirror, staring at its mottled surface. I was trying to see a reflection through the patchy darkness, the black and grey. But I couldn’t see anything. I sighed and opened my eyes. The antique chandelier dangling from the ceiling was radiating watery light through its frosted glass droplets. ‘I can’t help feeling that I’m missing something,’ I said at last. ‘But I can’t put my finger on what it is.’
‘About the room, or the mirror, or what?’
‘The mirror, I think. I just get the feeling that I’m not seeing something.’ I continued to watch the patterns of light flick across the ceiling.
‘Can I take a look?’ Ophelia’s voice was quiet but purposeful.
‘What?’
‘At the mirror.’ She paused. ‘I’d like to see it.’
‘Why?’ My voice was calmer than I felt.
‘I don’t know. I’m intrigued.’ She got up off the sofa and went to stand in front of the fire. Then she turned and faced me. ‘So, what do you say?’
‘I don’t know.’ I couldn’t really think of a concrete reason to put her off. But I felt uncomfortable with the idea.
She was silent for a while, watching me. ‘What is it? Why are you reticent?’
‘I really don’t know. Maybe it’s what happened today. Perhaps I just feel a little jumpy. But I don’t like the idea of involving you in it.’
I imagined the mirror large and looming on the wall of the underground room and anxiety rippled dully across my stomach. But at the same time I felt an uncertain excitement about seeing it again. And taking Ophelia with me. So what did that mean? I smiled to myself. It didn’t mean anything. Except perhaps that I was going slowly mad.
‘Hey, what’s funny?’
‘Oh, nothing. Just me,’ I said, finishing off my wine. ‘I think my brain has gone into overdrive today. Ignore me.’ I put down my glass, pulled her to me and kissed her.
‘So,’ she said cajolingly, lying back down on the sofa, ‘can we take a look sometime?’
I groaned. ‘You’re not going to let this one go, are you?’
She shook her head as she grinned at me. ‘Come on. Humour me. You’ve sparked my curiosity. I really want to see it.’
‘But why?’
‘I don’t know. I’d just like to see it. Come on . . .’
I looked at Ophelia’s smiling face, her wide, curious eyes. And I felt I couldn’t disappoint her. ‘Okay, I’ll take you to see it. I’m not saying when. But I promise I will take you.’ Instantly, I felt the knot in my stomach, the one I hadn’t even realised was there, unravel. I leaned forward and kissed her feet. Then my lips moved upwards, past her calves and inner thighs. I heard her sigh and felt her body shift under mine.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured. ‘You won’t be sorry.’
10
AT SOME STAGE during the evening we moved from the sofa to the bedroom. Ophelia’s hands sought out my face and pulled me to her. She kissed me intensely. Her breathing was quick and shallow. I unbuttoned her blouse and her bra and threw them onto the floor. She unbuckled my belt and pulled at my trouser buttons. For a few minutes we struggled to take off our clothes, and laughed at the collision of hands and teeth and lips. As I climbed on top of her, naked, I felt the softness of her skin beneath me, the swell of her breasts. She opened her legs and encased me, her feet pressing down against my back. As I pushed inside her, I heard myself groan, felt myself melt away. All thought and memory vanished. There was nothing left but feeling.
By eight o’clock the following morning I was heading back towards the factory. Dark clouds caught by the brisk wind scudded across the sky, bringing with them a cold, driving rain. I pulled up the collar of my coat and buried my face into it as I walked. The day was miserable, people ploughing through the wet, heads bowed, hastily dodging puddles and each other as they rushed to escape the weather. And yet, in spite of it all, I was upbeat and couldn’t help smiling.
When I pushed open the inner doors of the factory, an intense smell of coffee greeted me. Tara, already at her desk, looked up and then pointed to her right, to a side table against the wall, on which rested what looked like a shiny new espresso machine.
‘A small present for our humble offices.’
For a moment I simply stared. ‘You didn’t buy that, did you?’ I managed eventually.
‘No, of course not,’ she replied dismissively, gesturing for me to sit down. ‘I twisted Richard’s arm, that’s all.’
Her face was impossible to read as she said it but from her intonation I couldn’t help thinking that there was something sexual about the comment. As I took off my coat and shook the rain from my hair, my head flooded with unwelcome images. I tried desperately to blink them away but they wouldn’t budge. By the time I sat down, I had persuaded myself beyond any doubt that the coffee machine was a boon for some form of kinky encounter between them.
‘Just an espresso, I presume?’
‘That’d be great.’
I watched her as she fiddled with the machine. Clad in high ankle boots and skinny jeans, her legs seemed like they went on for ever. A tight-fitting black sweater similarly enhanced her upper body to perfection. Yet as I scrutinised her, there was a noticeable absence of the desire I had felt the previous day when I had been with her in the underground room. I was struck again by how inexplicable that had been.
Approaching my desk, she frowned as she offered me the coffee. ‘Hang on a sec. I’ve never seen you arrive at work without an espresso in your hand. What happened?’
I reached for the cup and shrugged as nonchalantly as I could.
‘Ah. Mr Carter,’ she said in a tone of mock surprise and shock. ‘You came a different route to work today, didn’t pass your usual coffee shop.’ She paused, smirking slightly, her eyes moving over me, no doubt registering the somewhat crumpled shirt that I’d worn the day before, the same pair of jeans and trainers.
‘Okay, Tara.’ I said it as sternly as I could, trying to indicate that this subject would not be discussed.
‘I’m just saying, that’s all.’ She raised her hands in a gesture of surrender, then turned and made her way back to her own desk.
I watched her go, took in the slow deliberate walk, presumably cultivated from years of having the stares of men upon her. And in spite of myself, I found that I was smiling. She was funny, I’d give her that. I took a large mouthful of espresso, savouring its strong bitter taste, and turned back to the paperwork on my desk.
A couple of hours later I emerged from my drawings. I dropped my pencil on the desk, stretched my arms above my head and yawned. Turning towards Tara, I saw her quietly tapping away at her computer. ‘What are you up to?’
She sighed. ‘Inputting the inventory data I’ve listed so far. There�
�s so much stuff here that it could get out of hand if I don’t stay on top of it.’
‘I’ll bet.’
‘And you?’
I looked at the vague designs spread out over my desk and wondered if she would be interested in looking over what I’d done. I had a feeling that her criticism would be damning – her ability to dismiss was legendary. But somehow today I felt I had the strength to take it on. As I thought about Ophelia again, I was hit by an intense memory of her body, the vivid recollection of the taste and smell of her skin. I waited for it to pass and then forced myself to refocus. ‘Come and take a look, if you like?’
‘I’d love to,’ she said. She stood and moved over to my desk.
‘I’ve only been thinking about things fairly abstractly,’ I started, picking up the pencil resting on top of the pile of sketches, ‘but I know that the client’s big thing is light, and bringing as much of it as possible into the building. I think he envisages a great white dazzling space. Which no doubt could be beautiful.’ I pointed with the pencil to the pitched roof shown in my first drawing. ‘So that’s easy on the top floor. I thought that it’d be cool to run glass panels along each side of the roof pitch, and intersperse them with white powder-coated steel. Something like that. It’ll flood the upper floor with light and give it different textures.’
I watched her eyes flick over the drawing, her head nodding.
‘And on this one,’ I pushed another piece of paper towards her, ‘I’ve added a mezzanine to the top floor. The client said he’d love to have something like that, for a bed or some kind of quiet space. I’ve used a metal spiral staircase to connect the mezzanine to the top floor, reflecting the material of the old machines, a couple of which, the smaller ones maybe, I was thinking we could showcase on this floor; in niches or alcoves with some light funnelled down onto them.’
The Medici Mirror Page 7
