The Mirrror Shop

by Nicholas Bundock

  ‘Was that mirror one of yours?’ asks Eva.

  ‘Yes. Fits in well, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Like it’s always been there.’

  ‘That’s the look we go for.’

  ‘You dealers and your looks.’ She regrets the acerbic tone.

  As he finishes his coffee Luke sees Eva yawn. It is a welcome signal. After thanks and goodbyes and a bear hug each from Alden, they are seen out by Rhona who gives them each a kiss and reminds Eva to take her present with her.

  As Luke drives out of the yard, Eva says, ‘And you’re spending a week with that lot in Corsica?’

  ‘Mad, I know, but Russ will enjoy it.’

  ‘A strange evening.’

  ‘Good food though.’

  ‘It was all part of the performance. Dinner and theatre often go together.’ She is tempted to add, ‘Alden is clearly having an affair with Lou,’ but disinclined to point out the Mills’s marital fault lines, asks, ‘Have you seen Rhona’s studio? I found it fascinating.’

  ‘Fashion’s not my thing. I expect Russ would love to see it.’

  At Brick Kiln Cottage Eva asks, ‘Will you come in for a nightcap?’

  ‘Thanks, but I’m way over the limit as it is.’

  Alone in her kitchen Eva sits down, stares at the table top and lets the evening flow over her head. There is no gain in repeating to herself each word spoken by Rhona to her, or to Luke, or searching for the truth behind appearances. But it is difficult not to rid her head of Rhona’s voice, ‘And Luke’s lovely. If you ever want to swap him . . .’ Maybe I’ve already lost him, she thinks. No, too much wine has made me maudlin. I simply do not know what is going on. If anything. Seizing the cardboard tube, she walks across the room and tossing it into the broom cupboard gains a moment of satisfaction.

  15

  By mid-morning Thursday Rhona has not phoned. Worried, Luke sits at his desk in the shop. It is well beyond the point, he thinks, which can possibly be called ‘early’. And yet the whispered ‘I’ll phone early tomorrow,’ had been definite, emphatic and entirely her suggestion, a promise which dissuades him from phoning her himself. So far their relationship has been at her bidding, in her time, and total bliss; there will be no conscious pursuit by him now to threaten it. Of course, he thinks, if there were some wise counsellor at my elbow – he imagines one of Eva’s male colleagues – I would no doubt be asked, Isn’t everything on her terms? You have known her only three weeks – is that a long enough period in which to make major decisions about your future? But I am not in a counselling room, he reassures himself. ‘Stuff your cold advice,’ he whispers to the imaginary counsellor, and banishes the image. No, after last night, perhaps first thing for Rhona could be 11.00am. God knows when she got to bed. It was different for Eva and me – we left early.

  ‘Coffee,’ says Russ’s hungover voice as a mug is placed on the desk.

  ‘How much longer did you stay last night?’

  ‘Let me put it like this: I shall leave any glass-cutting until after lunch.’

  ‘A good evening then.’

  ‘Which I’m paying for now. I should have left with you and Eva.’

  ‘What did we miss?’

  ‘Alden got his way with the charades.’

  ‘I’m sure you were very good at it.’

  ‘Nobody guessed my Waiting for Godot, but I’m not sure if that was my bad acting or the drunk audience.’

  ‘Did Rhona join in?’

  ‘No, very sensibly by this time she’d gone to bed.’

  On Thursday morning Eva revises her paper, When Therapies Conflict, to be given in Birmingham. It is so much easier to work on it now there are no clients’ appointments in her diary, no case notes to write up. But despite this, despite having slept well, the shadow of Luke and Rhona hangs over her. Every few minutes she looks at the kitchen clock or her watch.

  At last Agnes phones.

  ‘Eva, hi, are you busy?’

  ‘No. Tell me everything.’

  ‘Rhona led me out to the orchard at coffee time this morning. I was certain she had some great revelation in the offing. Well, she began in her usual roundabout way by telling me about the dinner party. She really liked meeting you by the way.’

  ‘I bet she did.’

  ‘No, she seemed genuinely pleased you liked her drawings. And I’ve never known her to give one away before. Loads of people ask and she’s always like, ‘No, I’m so sorry, I need them for reference.’ So you really made an impression.’

  ‘Why am I not flattered?’

  ‘I gather Alden was on good form.’

  ‘He certainly likes his audience. But I thought Rhona was encouraging him.’

  ‘She always does – while pretending not to of course. Did you spy anything going on between her and Luke?’

  ‘Only that it was somehow all too normal, as if rehearsed. In fact the whole evening was a performance.’

  ‘Those dos always are. Nowadays I’m happy to avoid them. Well, Rhona was building up to the nitty-gritty when Alden comes striding through the apple trees asking where the car keys are – he’s taken all his mates to Cambridge today for lunch and a punt before he shoves them onto the London train. And what with all the searching and arguing who had them last, that was the end of what was shaping up for a good heart to heart.’

  ‘Right now I’m trying hard to distract myself from thinking about her and Luke.’

  ‘And you won’t have to after tomorrow. You’ll have Luke for yourself for a week. After we arrive in Corsica I’ll phone you with any news. Now when I get back you must come over and see my new place – I’m moving in this afternoon.’

  ‘I look forward to it.’

  Eva replaces the handset, her confidence returning. Isn’t this the first day of her mini-sabbatical? Despite Luke and Rhona – if there really is a Luke and Rhona – a small celebration is called for, perhaps a visit to a few garden centres, the purchase of some plants, and an opportunity to disperse or forget the shadows over her life.

  Around noon Luke goes to the window and looks across the market place, remembering Rhona’s first visit to the shop: the unheard entry, her invisibility after leaving, her transient perfume. And how, he asks himself, has she retained that elusiveness, even after they have become lovers? He returns to his desk to check his mobile in case by some technological quirk she has left a message without its bleeping. As he frowns at the empty inbox the ringtone sounds.

  ‘Luke, darling, you’ve probably given up on me.’

  ‘Of course not. Your guests must have exhausted you.’

  ‘Oh, it’s not them so much – I leave them to Alden – it’s sorting out the business so I can be away for a fortnight. It’s been sapping all my energy this week . . . well, not quite all. But now at last everything’s in order. The team have been working overtime, and I’ve given them the afternoon off. I did so enjoy meeting Eva last night. I think we behaved very well, didn’t we?’

  ‘Impeccably.’

  ‘When we were in the studio I half suspected she had an inkling about us, but there’s nothing we can do.’

  ‘Did we give ourselves away?’

  ‘No, but I suspect she has razor instincts.’

  Luke’s stomach tightens. ‘She said nothing to me.’

  ‘Don’t worry, all will be well, and even better if you come over this afternoon. Alden and the gang have already left for Cambridge with talk of punting. Late afternoon he’ll take them to the station. Is two o’clock OK?’

  ‘Let me look at my diary,’ he teases. ‘I have three customers to see after lunch, a mirror to deliver to a supermodel at two, a dental appointment at two-thirty. But I think I can reschedule. Two o’clock it is.’

  With hours of doubt blown away by a minute’s phone-call Luke calls out, ‘Russ, I’ll be at the allotment for the next hour.’

  Leaving the market place, he tells himself, In a couple of hours and I’ll see her again. It is too long. But once inside the walls of the old garde
n he is closer to her. The vegetables and flowers, the higher temperature of the sheltered, secret world and the absence of people make him feel her unseen presence.

  Gardening boots on, he waters his tomatoes and courgettes, thins a row of carrots, weeds the celeriac and wonders where his life will be when he starts to lift them as the frosts begin. Finally, he ties up his sweet peas, removes tendrils and laterals, and cuts eighteen long-stemmed blooms for Rhona. Placing them in a jar of water in the shade, he goes into the hothouse and sits on a bench. The minutes pass unnoticed. Someone has left a copy of the local paper, open at a half-completed crossword, a biro on top. He answers a few clues until from nowhere Maurice’s head appears on his lap. He strokes the dog’s head before a whistle from outside calls the mongrel away and it bounds away in search of Alf.

  Later Luke walks down to Alf’s hut.

  ‘Could you keep an eye on my stuff from next Thursday for a week?’ Luke asks. ‘I shall be on holiday.’

  ‘Leave it me. Nothing will die.’

  ‘If you want to pick anything . . .’

  ‘I will, don’t you worry. Going anywhere interesting?’

  ‘Corsica.’

  ‘Eva going with you?’

  ‘Not this time. She’s got work commitments.’

  Before returning to the shop, Luke goes home with his sweet peas and places them on the stone floor of the hallway. At he joins Russ whose hangover, he is pleased to discover, does not interfere with the customary lunchtime gossip which absorbs almost an hour of waiting.

  At 2.00pm he turns off the engine of the van and the voice of Françoise Hardy on his new CD, and walks from his van to the back door of Saffold Farm. There is a deep silence in the yard, no breeze or birdsong and no sign of Rambo on the lookout for strangers. Has he made some mistake with the time? Will Alden appear and see the accusing flowers in his hand? As he strikes the knocker he notices that the door is ajar. He waits but hears no sound from inside. Mystified, he again lays his hand on the iron loop. Before he can strike it he hears a window being opened above him.

  ‘Come on up,’ calls Rhona.

  He looks up to see the window being closed. Intrigued, he enters the house. In the passageway he notices that the kitchen door is open. Peering inside, he sees a glass vase on a worktop. He walks over to it, fills it with water at the sink and arranges the flowers. He is tempted to leave them here as an act of defiance in Alden’s world of stainless steel and granite, but decides to carry them to the parlour and place them on the mantelpiece in front of the mirror. Rhona can find them later.

  Walking up the bare pine boards of the narrow staircase, he is so enthralled at exploring an unfamiliar part of the house that when he reaches the passageway at the top, his usually dependable sense of direction fails him. Deciding at last that the room from which she called must be entered by one of two doors either side of a large print of Albert Bridge, he hesitates between the two. He looks down at the wedges of light below the doors in the hope of seeing a moving shadow, but there is nothing.

  ‘Where are you?’ calls Rhona.

  When he enters he finds himself in what must be a spare bedroom, sparsely furnished with a double bed, a chair and a pine chest of drawers. A single watercolour of a harbour hangs on a wall. There is no sign of Rhona; she must be in the other room. But as he is about to leave he notices a slight movement under a deep-quilted eiderdown and a tell-tale wisp of dark hair on a pillow.

  ‘Found you,’ he says.

  Rhona’s head emerges. ‘I haven’t a stitch on. Climb in. I have a confession to make.’

  Luke quickly strips, slips under the bed clothes and lies beside her, almost without body contact.

  ‘So what have you been up to?’ he asks.

  ‘When the gang left I changed all the bedding. So we’re now between clean sheets, but I seem to have lost some pillow cases. This was Lou’s room and I’m afraid these are her pillows.’ She turns towards him and breathes in deeply. ‘You can probably detect a trace of her scent.’

  ‘Is that all you have to confess?’

  ‘So far, yes. Can you forgive me?’

  ‘Well, it is a serious lapse in housekeeping.’

  ‘How can I make amends?

  ‘I’ll rack my brains.’

  ‘Unless the punishment is in the crime.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘You may feel you are in bed with two girls, not one, and I have to compete for your attention.’

  ‘I’m sure you never need to compete.’

  The best of celebrations, thinks Eva, as she places two newly-bought pots of agapanthus in the porch. When she has watered them she places on the table some bread, cheese and homegrown salad leaves, along with a chilled can of lager to toast her mini-sabbatical. As an afterthought she checks her landline messages. There is only one. It comes as a body blow.

  ‘Eva, this is Sister Cyra. Your aunt is not at all well. We’ve had to transfer her from her flat to the nursing wing. She keeps mentioning your name, over and over. If there’s some way you can come to see her, I think it might be for the best.’

  Eva clutches the phone to her stomach and stabs the repeat button, this time noting that the message was left at 11.50am. And for the last three hours, she accuses herself, I’ve been idling my way round garden centres. I must go to her. Now.

  She immediately phones St. Anthony’s Retirement Home, Corofin, waiting a seemingly interminable time for an answer. Finally she is put through to the soft Filipina voice of Sister Lourdes. ‘Miss McKelvey is a little more alert this morning. We were worried about her during the night. She didn’t say much when we admitted her, apart from mentioning your name again and again. At the moment she’s still sleeping.’

  ‘Would you tell her when she wakes that I’m on my way. I’ll catch the next plane.’

  ‘We’ll have a room ready for you, if you wish to stay with us.’

  ‘I’ll be with you tonight. It may be quite late.’

  Eva launches herself into a frenzy of online flight searches, and manages to find a last minute seat on an evening flight from Stansted to Shannon. She then phones the conference organiser in Birmingham to cancel her lecture, offering to email it. When the call is over, the blade again twists inside her: hadn’t Rhona, last night, for different reasons, suggested sending the lecture? It is as if Rhona, in some inexplicable way, has now engineered this bitter reality. Eva throws some clothes into a case, knowing that, whatever there is between Rhona and Luke, she must phone him. She dials his mobile, but receives only his messaging service. Annoyed, she phones the shop.

  ‘He’s out this afternoon – seeing a customer, I think,’ Russ tells her.

  The thought that the customer might be Rhona occurs to her but is of small importance. ‘Would you tell him that my aunt is unwell and I’m on the next plane to Ireland. If he could water my plants – there are some new agapanthus in the porch – I’d be grateful.’

  ‘Can I help? Where are you flying from? I can close the shop and drive you to the airport myself.’

  ‘Thanks but I’ve ordered a taxi.’

  ‘Luke, the flowers. That was very sneaky of you.’ Rhona, in a white dressing gown, brings in two glasses of white wine, sets them on the table between the armchairs facing the fireplace in the parlour, settles herself into one and stares at the mantelpiece. ‘And being in front of your mirror we get double the number. You grew them yourself?’

  ‘On my allotment.’

  ‘You must take me there one day.’

  ‘It’s my escape from the world.’

  ‘How intriguing.’

  Rambo, appearing at the window, jumps into the room.

  ‘All we need now is a butterfly,’ says Luke.

  ‘I think they prefer a floral dress to this white bath robe.’ She touches the towelling fabric in a way which, Luke feels, could entice through the open window every insect in the garden.

  Rhona drinks deeply, stands, and strokes his head before lowering her hand to gri
p his left shoulder. ‘I’ll phone you every day from Santa Marta. You know what Alden often says? “All creatures are sad after sex.” Only he likes to quote it in Latin. I don’t think that’s true, do you?’

  ‘I’ve never been so happy.’

  ‘I’ve an envelope for you with detailed directions how to find the village. Alden insists that you approach us over a mountain pass, almost a track, not via the sensible road. I’m not sure if I agree with him. It does make a spectacular approach to the village, but it scares me and the hairpin bends as you come down make it too dangerous for the driver to look at the amazing views. Please take care, Luke.’

  ‘Russ can be my eyes.’

  Around 4.30pm Luke drives away from Saffold Farm, watching a waving Rhona through his nearside wing mirror. As he moves up the lane he is aware of taking her with him. For the first mile she is sitting next to him and he can feel her breath close to him. But on the outskirts of Cantisham, the sight of pedestrians and passing cars diminish her presence until she fades from the passenger seat. Already he misses her.

  He parks outside the shop, planning to assist at the workbench for half an hour. But Russ is at the door before he can enter.

  ‘Message from Eva. Her aunt’s very poorly. She’s on her way to Ireland.’

  ‘Has she left?’

  ‘Over two hours ago. She tried your mobile, but . . .’

  ‘Where’s she flying from?’

  ‘She didn’t say, but she’ll phone you from Shannon.’

  ‘I wish I’d been . . .’

  ‘She asks if you can water the plants, indoors and out.’

  Without entering the shop, Luke drives straight to Brick Kiln Cottage. Having let himself in with his own key, he looks at the notepad by the phone for clues about her flight plans. He finds none and phones her mobile, but it is unavailable. He waters the plants on the windowsill, goes to the garden and inspects the vegetables. At the end of the garden he notices some bindweed, fetches a spade and digs out as much as he can find. The task feels less an act of kindness than a penance for his time at Saffold Farm. The exertion in the sun tires him but fails to ease his conscience.