Shadows on the Mirror

by Frances Fyfield

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Propped up against the desk was the bouquet. Two dozen roses, twelve carnations in a savage harmony of red, offset with a cloud of fern and a crimson ribbon, like a funeral tribute. One tasteful card. ‘CT.’

  ‘Joan!’

  ‘Yes?’ No longer hovering for Sarah’s arrival, Joan’s startling look of guilt was almost as disturbing as the relentless colour of the flowers themselves. She had waited for Sarah’s presence, nerving herself: today I shall say something. I shall tell her about Ted and all the rest, see what she thinks. I must tell her. About love’s not-so-young dreamer. No harm in it, of course, but I must tell her. She’s never been bad to me, I have to admit that. I should say something; she’s never done me wrong, not in years. After she’s seen the flowers; she’ll surely like the flowers. Then I’ll say something, but I’m not sure what.

  ‘Who brought these?’

  ‘Oh, a messenger, I suppose. All right for some.’

  ‘I would like to know,’ said Sarah quietly, ‘how a messenger would know that I would be here to receive them. No one sends flowers into a vacuum.’

  ‘I told him.’

  ‘Told who?’

  ‘Charles Tysall. Does it matter?’

  The hurt and bewilderment in Sarah’s flushed face, the sudden understanding of some kind of subtle betrayal, made Joan wince.

  ‘Does it matter, Sarah? Don’t be so silly. They’re only bloody flowers.’

  ‘Joan, I asked you weeks ago, don’t answer Charles Tysall, and if he rings, tell him I’m out. Why didn’t you do as I asked?’

  Joan was silent, struggling for words, mulish in her confusion. Then shrugged her shoulders, the worst and least attractive in her repertoire of self-defensive gestures, angry for feeling bad. Sarah’s sense of isolation grew. She looked at the flowers, smelt the suffocating scent of blooms in warm cellophane, felt the tears of disappointment at the back of her eyes, and straightened her spine.

  ‘All right. If you say so, Joan, of course it doesn’t matter, but I thought you might know I wouldn’t avoid anyone without good reason. Never mind. Not important. I’d better do some work.’

  She softened the dismissal with a bright smile, but in Joan’s condition it was the dismissal alone which registered. With the high colour and step of a puppet soldier she left the room of flowers and shut the door on her own sanctum with a crash. No telling secrets now which would have burst forth a few minutes ago. She might have wanted to confess, but forced herself into a kind of irritation instead, made conspicuous noises of industry, banging cabinet-drawers, typing with loud and furious inaccuracy. Let . . . it . . . bloody wait. She was there to work, shop, go home. Let . . . it . . . wait until Madam was more receptive. Joan made anger the companion to conscience.

  Home early on the train, swaying with the flowers pressed against the back of the crowd, thinking fast and slow. I feel what I am, odd, outcast and cast out. Living in a way removed from anyone else, with no feelings much. Except fear, for the first time, fear. Waiting for the ghost of the following footsteps which had seemed to trail her days. Carnations and roses. Reminiscent of the last funeral, one husband buried at his own request on a hill, with all those wreaths, dead or dying, what was the difference? I loved you. There was nothing left for me but my own kind of promiscuous sympathy after that. Anything for fun, freedom, admiration and the promise of self-sufficiency. Until now. I am alive again now because I am afraid. You were worth it, you know, whatever you did, and I know it now for the first time. I might even do the same again, love someone like that.

  She flung the bouquet into the skip at the edge of the small park near the flat, watched the weight of the monster thing drag itself from the top, turned and saw the last flash of crimson as she ran up the steps to the front door, sorry for the blooms. Then inside. Someone had been there. Almost imperceptible traces, all reflected in the large mirror at the end of the hall. Only a chair moved, a smear on the carpet and on the dust, nothing at all. Gremlins, walking around in the emptiness, nothing. Something to make her back away, promise herself to return later, when the gremlins had gone to join the flowers.

  ‘We are looking for Mr Charles Tysall, sir. Wondered if you might have his current address on your files.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Ernest stupidly, caught in the emptiness of his office at seven in the evening, more than slightly drunk, bereft of secretary, clueless. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘North Norfolk Constabulary, sir.’

  ‘But why,’ asked Ernest, looking with slow despair at the bank of slung files in the girl’s room, ‘do you want to find my client? And why don’t you know where he lives? Sorry, too many questions. But I should ask, you know. Protocol. Must protect my client’s interests.’ He hiccoughed.

  ‘Of course, sir. We do know, actually. But we found your address in his office, and no one seems to know where he is. Or won’t say. Same difference isn’t it?’ The disembodied voice managed a polite laugh, and Ernest tittered in response.

  ‘Hope the bastard’s in trouble.’

  ‘What did you say, sir?’ The voice had sharpened. Ernest dragged himself upright in his large office chair, remembered his duties to his customer. Father would be ashamed of him now, drunk during office hours for the first time in years, with a gnawing pain in his guts. No pleasure without pain – he should have known better.

  ‘Nothing at all . . . officer. But I have to know why you need to know. If you see what I mean.’

  There was a pause. ‘Well, sir, we think we’ve found his wife, and we need to contact him. As a matter of urgency.’

  ‘Oh.’ Ernest squinted at the ceiling, remembered her voice with a sudden surge of pleasure. ‘Oh. I’m glad. Is she asking for him?’

  ‘No, sir, as it happens.’ The voice could not resist its own sense of irony. ‘If we’re right, she’s been dead for some considerable time. Eighteen months, we’re told. I’d say about two years. Can you hear me, sir?’

  Ernest slumped to the floor, holding the receiver away from the strange buzzing in his ears. The voice went on, more urgent, fainter all the time. Sliding into unconsciousness, slipping to the floor, Ernest hoped that the place of this death had been the same as the blue and tranquil scene he had imagined.

  By midnight, Malcolm ceased the effort to find either parent and let himself out of the flat for the comfort of darkness. After a slow, sluggish, long run, returning fit enough for sleep but not inclined to it, troubled still, restless for the light which would excuse wakefulness. Only Dog was tired, recovering in sight of home.

  He felt a pang of conscience. Dog was not so strong that he should encourage her to run so far. Rest, girl, where are you? Snuffling in the rubbish by the side of the skip at the entrance to their small piece of grass. Wrong again, he told himself. She still has plenty of energy, more than you, in those spindly legs of hers, half her body weight recovered in these few weeks of companionship. ‘Dog? Where are you?’ Standing in the middle of the green, he shouted for her rather than whistled in front of the big silent houses which stood around them in a large, solid crescent, dim windows, scarce street lamps. Shouting never disturbed such heavy doors, and Malcolm hated to whistle for a dog. A dog was like a child; you did not whistle for a child. Back she rolled, obedient by instinct, bearing her gift.

  With all her impulses for kissing, Dog also had the tendencies of a kleptomaniac, and now she was holding in her muzzle her favourite substance, the cellophane rustling and crinkling after her, a red ribbon trailing from her teeth and several battered flowers held in her mouth with difficulty. Malcolm bent to see, curious about her treasures. She shied away, hoping for a game, mock-snarling, scampering off. Play with me, please, play with me, pretty please. Look what I’ve found. Slowly he followed her back across the kicked-up grass, noticing more of the flowers, carnations scattered in the dog’s path, and by the skip, the remnants of the large bouquet, dispersed by nose and paws as she had parted the elaborate wrappings, wanting nothing but the s
ound of the cellophane.

  ‘Give it to me, girl. Time to go home . . .’ She barked, quick protest and sudden urgency. Downwind with the flowers, she had caught the new scent, familiar and friendly. Shying away again, she scampered to the big front door, snapping, inviting him to follow. ‘Silly girl, why? You know we go in the side, like we always do . . . Come back.’ But Dog pushed at the door with a wet nose, dropped the cellophane, waited. Puzzled and amused, Malcolm went up the steps in turn, used the unfamiliar key on his key-ring to humour her, opened the door. Even as the handle turned inwards, Dog sped before him, leaving him whispering empty commands. Here, girl, here, highly conscious of being a trespasser in the unfamiliar regions of his own house, following her in sheer exasperation. He paused mid-step, arrested by muffled sounds above his head.

  London was huge and endless, full, she had once been told, of golden opportunity, and in the middle of it Sarah had walked, careless of the danger zones. Watched lights from hills and buildings, hopes reflected in the river from Blackfriars Bridge. Place of glorious chance and exciting dwellings, all of them barred to the homeless. She walked endlessly, to court danger and destroy the fear which had driven her out of her own abode; walked to find amusement in whatever she saw and calm the imagination which made her so restless, anything to restore the humorous equilibrium by which she lived. But there was a limit to walking. Her steps formed a circumference around known places and familiar sights, leading her away from strange territory, while all the time she knew she was moving because staying still would show her how much she wanted to talk, and there was no one to listen. She concluded this without self-pity; a fact of life was all it was. No family who would respond, no man whose home territory was sanctuary, her own way. Outsiders live on the outside, without any avenues inwards; she must live with that as she had always done. Slowly but surely, the combination of darkness and light soothed her, and by one o’clock, she had reached the big front door of her own building, solidly silent, with the park beyond bathed in moonlight. Walking for miles had been a meaningless gesture: she had known in the end there was nowhere else to go.

  Unlocking the door, Sarah regretted her own anonymity, her total ignorance of all who lived alongside her. The block was almost empty; two occupants on the top floor she guessed, strangers both, one either end, with a tranquillised couple dead to the world on the side ground floor, and herself on the second-floor centre, no more than a fleeting glimpse, a polite curiosity seen at the end of a busy day. All the rest of the small family, successful couples who lived in this semi-elegance, had sloped away earlier on the same day, last Friday of school holidays, leaving behind no trace of childish weeping and wailing to mix with the hum of the city silence. Slower still, she climbed the stairs. Don’t be silly, your imagination has stolen your sanity. You are not important enough for anyone to watch you. Get indoors, have a glass of wine and go, to sleep. Besides you have no choice. What else do you do, knock on the door of some stranger neighbour and say, come inside my own flat with me please? Provocative thought which made her smile. She could always wait outside for the jogger, who latterly had shown no sign of life, equally out of the question, and besides, it was only a question of opening the door. She unlocked it with quiet confidence and a sigh of relief. Cured of anxiety all by herself, proud of it.

  Half-subdued instinct warned her immediately of some other presence, and she dispelled the thought, pausing on the threshold and waiting for the sound of breath, hearing none. Then flinging down her bag, feeling foolish for a wasted evening, walking boldly up the short passage to run a bath, without closing the door behind her, whistling as she went, happy to be back. Stopped suddenly as she saw the mirror at the end, catching the reflections of the rooms on either side, silent tribute to good taste, giving an immediate view of all her possessions, but always dusty.

  There was no movement, no sound from him, only a profile of his face behind the mirror. A composed face, immobile like his stance, as if he had ceased to breathe. He was not hiding, simply waiting in one room, their eyes caught in the glass obliquely before she could turn back towards the door. The statue of him sprang into life as soon as the whistling died on her tongue. Charles’s reaction was instantaneous, peculiar facility for a man so languid and controlled. He was behind her, grabbing the thick hair in the same moment she had turned to run.

  ‘Don’t scream,’ he said. ‘There’s no point screaming and I detest women screaming.’

  Sarah stood still and did not scream. She clenched her hands by her side to stop the trembling, mastered it slowly while he waited, holding her so close she could feel the buckle of his belt pressed into the small of her back, close as any lover, but holding in his hands two fistfuls of hair.

  ‘Sarah,’ he said. ‘Porphyria. Perfectly pure and good, I thought. Now I know better.’

  She did not speak. There was the impediment of terror as well as the knowledge of futility. A stranger in possession of a key to her home, where he had waited, how long she could not guess, was not, she sensed, amenable to even tones, nor would he respond to either questions or orders. So she remained as she was, felt him lift the mane of her hair, and kiss the side of her neck with deliberate coldness. She flinched. The trembling, scarcely controlled, began again.

  ‘Ah, Miss Fortune, afraid? Of me? How could you be? I was ready to give you the world, but you have humiliated me in return. You do not, I hear, flinch in the arms of other men. You sleep in their beds, and they in yours.’

  ‘If I do, that is no concern of yours,’ she answered, her voice surprisingly calm.

  ‘Ah, but it is, Porphyria, it is. I wanted you, and all you can do is throw away my flowers, and open your legs for other men.’

  She was silenced by the crudeness, thoughts in racing panic. All those footsteps in her mind, the presence of the follower she had never seen, or told herself she had never seen. There emerged some form to the fears she had tried, successfully, to dismiss; they had substance now, but no sense except for the logic of obsession. She tried to apply her mind to that logic and attempted to speak.

  ‘Charles, this is the height of stupidity. Whatever you may need, you have no right to break into my house. Get out, please, before you’re discovered. You may be powerful, but you aren’t immune.’

  He pulled the hair, her neck stretched back in one agonising movement. With her throat pulled taut, she was forced to stare up into the face bent over hers while he laughed briefly at the expression of pain and fear.

  ‘Leave? Before discovery? One of your legal terms, is it not? Who fears discovery? Like a title for a play. You are the one who should have feared that. Besides, why should I have less licence with your house and your body than you give to anyone, everyone else, comparative stranger though I am? I hoped it would be otherwise. And if I leave go of your hair, darling Sarah, what will you do?’

  ‘Call the police,’ she hissed, her neck stretched further.

  ‘And have them arrive? Surely not. Granted the benefit of a few details of your life, I doubt they’ll see fit to assist you much. They are busier with other battles.’

  He paused, allowed the words to sink in, then slowly released her.

  They stood facing each other in the hall, the mirror at the end reflecting a picture of part of her own white face in the single light, half-hidden by the lithe, black-clad figure of Charles Tysall. Odd thoughts filtered by panic and puzzlement, such as what a handsome man he was, even now, what a graceful head, what power there was in his slenderness. Should she shudder at the repellent attraction of him, smile, submit, joke, scream, stay silent? The world was asleep in a sleepy building. A policy in these respectable houses to ignore screams. A similar policy for the police, should she be allowed to call them, to do their utmost to protect the innocent, and Sarah knew she would never be one of those. Not guilty, but not innocent either. The knowledge weakened her, made her weary, beyond questions, reproach or anything other than temporary submission. For anyone weaker or anything requiring prote
ction, for a child, for a friend, a lover, even a dumb animal, she might have fought like a savage, taken him by surprise. For herself, since it had been so long since she had cared for herself at all, even for the protection of her own body, she could not.

  ‘Do what you want, Charles. Whatever you want. Just get it over with.’

  ‘Like any other lover?’

  He held her shoulders, turned her, stood back and regarded her face with a quizzical smile.

  ‘Like any other lover,’ she said gently, ‘if that is what you need.’

  Charles sighed exaggerated sadness. ‘Ah, Porphyria. You will not even fight. But I forgot. You have no virtue left to protect, have you?’

  ‘More than you think. I do not torment or abuse. I leave when I am not welcome. I am there when I am needed. I do not trespass or take anything from anyone. There is no malice in me. I like to live, that is all. I call that a kind of virtue. More than yours.’

  ‘There are different virtues, then. I do not count those.’

  He was stroking her now, his hands cupping her breasts, soft and firm beneath the cotton blouse. In the silence of the house, nothing stirred. She was aware of the open door behind her, equally aware that he had seen it and knew he could afford to ignore whatever remote help may have lain beyond.

  ‘Take off your clothes, Miss Fortune. I have seen other whores. Let us see how you resemble one another.’

  She could not see what it was he wanted; rape, or seduction at the knife-point of his presence, or more simply humiliation. Without direction, she hesitated.