The Mirrror Shop

by Nicholas Bundock

  Luke thanks him and carries the sack to the workshop, not giving the contents a glance. Without enthusiasm, he looks at the Empire mirror, turns his back on it and decides to encroach again on Russ’s territory and make some coffee. He spoons the last of the Ethiopian coffee into the filter and wonders where Russ purchases fresh supplies. At his desk he watches the sky clear and water vapour rise from the warming pavement. No, he and Rhona are not finished. He has been lucky and luck will bring them together again. He finds a scrap of paper and writes the last reported words about her, and which, every waking hour since Russ spoke them, have played and replayed themselves in his mind: ‘Rhona was adamant you should be put on the next plane.’ Was it heat-of-the-moment anger, or her need for time to reflect? He cannot accept it was rejection. At lunchtime he buys a pie and eats in the solitary work room, knowing that the days of tablecloth, home-made chutney and gossip are over. He survives in the shop until mid-afternoon and closes early.

  At 4.00pm, the sun at an almost Mediterranean fierceness, he parks his van in a lane half a mile from Saffold Farm, with the intention of walking there unseen. On no account does he want her to feel he is pursuing her, trying to force her hand. It is she who has taken the initiative; that is how it must remain. But he must have the assurance that she has returned. Simply to see her car might be enough. A glimpse of her would be a bonus. To have phoned her, caller’s number withheld, in the hope that she would answer and he would hear her voice, would have been unthinkable: he could not trust himself to put the phone down on her without a word. Nor, when duplicity had almost been his ruin, could he countenance further deception. But a secret walk to the house is harmless, forgivable. If a car drives up the lane, it will be necessary to hide among the tall willow herb on the uncut verge, but the risk is worth the chance of a single glimpse of her. As he sets out, thoughts of hiding stir recent memories, but, surely, he tells himself, a sly walk in a country lane does not have the same magnitude as events best forgotten.

  A hundred metres from Saffold Farm the sound of an approaching vehicle brings him to a halt. About to dive for cover, he realises that the noise is coming from the field on the other side of the lane. Peering through the opposite hedge he sees a tractor and trailer moving over the stubble to collect straw bales. Safe, he moves on until, close to the front garden of the house, he hears voices. Peering through a gap in the hedge he sees her. In a familiar yellow linen dress she is seated at a table with a man he has not seen before. Their voices are quiet, as if they know they are being watched. The man stretches his arm across the table and touches her hand, contact which triggers her to spring up and kiss him passionately. When she has returned to her seat, the two look at each other in silence, seemingly for minutes. Luke remembers how he too had once sat with her in wordless pleasure in this same garden. Now, the few metres between him and her are miles, increasing every second he watches, like a childhood kite – that was yellow too – which the wind had snatched from his hand, leaving him helpless to retrieve it. Mouth agape, he had watched it climb higher and higher, diminishing in size, before it disappeared above distant trees. At last the couple at the table move, turning their heads to the house from which Alden appears carrying a laden tray which he sets down. Alden pulls up a chair, sits, pours tea and cuts a sponge cake, placing a slice on each of the three plates. There is a curious comfort in the sight of Alden alive: to see him in the flesh is to dispel a lingering image of the white shirt motionless on the gulley floor.

  From the house Rambo appears and with slow, proprietorial steps walks across the lawn and stares in Luke’s direction with a disdainful suspicion which persuades him to retreat from the hedge back to the lane. In his haste, he catches the arm of his shirt on a bramble. Looking back one more time he can makes out the yellow of her dress but cannot see her face. Laughter rings out from the garden, as if they are mocking him. Lowering his eyes, he notices hanging from a branch a torn strand of blue cotton, like the last thread of hope ripped from his body. Emotions numbed, he walks back feeling invisible, unaware of the sound of his own footsteps, a ghost from a remote past. Near the van he sees a rat chewing on a root. Unstartled, it looks towards him. He walks closer, but the rat continues to eat as if no human being is near.

  At home, whisky in hand he sinks into an armchair, staring at the poster of Theodora in her ecstatic dance and remembering the evening Rhona entered this room and warmed to its eclectic furnishings. The first sip cuts into his tongue, tasting less of single malt than of last week’s brandy; even the smell carries with it memories of dusty streets and the police cell. Going to the kitchen to swill his mouth with water, he looks at the phone on the worktop. He cannot delay calling Eva any longer. Not to have done so already is cowardly. Seeing her again will be painful but . . . without further thought he phones the number.

  When Eva answers he falters, ‘Sorry I couldn’t phone earlier, and I was in the shop today . . .’

  ‘Come over for dinner – if you’re not busy.’

  That evening, on his walk to Brick Kiln Cottage, carrying a box of figs, wrapped in tissue paper, every step along the road, every building and tree, tempts him to believe he is falling back into a comfortable routine, but the sight of her house, the privet hedge and the day lilies, faded now, speak of a lost past and inexorable change. He finds himself knocking before furtively using his own key to enter.

  Calling ‘Hello,’ he places his box of figs on the kitchen table where they sit, awkward among the newspapers and magazines, part gift from a friend, part guilt offering from an old lover. He is glad that when she appears from inside the house she does not notice them.

  ‘Luke, welcome back,’ she says giving him a hug. ‘You’ve caught the sun. It’s not too early for some wine, is it? Go through.’

  Remembering how, on evenings as warm as this, they had usually enjoyed drinks in the kitchen or in the garden Luke goes to the sitting room. Only after he has settled himself on the sofa does he recognise the desk from Ireland; it seems as if it has stood in the room for years. He wonders how she could have brought it here so quickly. When Eva comes in she sits in the armchair opposite.

  ‘Cheers,’ she says.

  ‘Cheers.’ It is hard to be jovial.

  After a silence Eva says, ‘Was she worth it?’

  Luke feels a rush of blood.

  The therapeutic smile. ‘I could tell from your face.’

  ‘Part of me says I’ve been stupid – no – totally reckless. Another part of me . . .’ It is painful to speak of this to Eva.

  ‘If she walked in this room right now, would your face light up?’

  He glances to the door. Uncomfortable, he stares into his glass. When he lifts his eyes Eva is looking at him, neither angry nor judgmental. He has slipped back through the years to become once again her client.

  ‘But tell me about the holiday.’

  Perhaps, he thinks, she too is finding the resumption of roles difficult. He tries to be matter-of-fact. ‘Santa Marta is beautiful, almost too perfect. The play went well and Russ has found himself a partner. They’ve moved to Italy.’

  ‘That’s amazing. Good for him.’ In silence she looks at him. Slowly she lifts her glass, drinks and replaces it on the low table next to her. ‘Were you very hurt?’

  ‘I dare say I’ll . . .’ No, she will see through any glibness. Nor is it possible to give her a full account. ‘I went through hell on Corsica.’

  He half expects Eva to ask him for more details, but she does not press him.

  After some moments of silence she says, ‘And now?’

  ‘I’ll busy myself with the shop.’

  Suddenly Eva stands. ‘Let’s go to the garden. Bring your glass with you. The fruit trees are amazing this year: the Cox’s are breaking the branches and I’m picking cooking apples already.’

  Helping her pick fruit is so much easier than conversation indoors. Reaching a high bough of a tree, he asks, ‘I suppose you knew from the start?’

  ‘Almos
t, I guess.’

  ‘I’m so sorry. Hurting you is the worst of it.’ He continues picking. ‘The best fruit seems to be high up,’ he says.

  ‘Shall we find a ladder?’

  As they walk to the shed, he says, ‘I wish someone had warned me.’

  ‘Would you have listened?’

  He doesn’t answer. At the shed he pulls out an old wooden ladder. ‘Does it always go like this? It’s totally my fault and it now seems so avoidable.’

  ‘Or inevitable.’

  He stops. There was no note of accusation in her two words. He positions the ladder against the tree. ‘Do you think, sooner or later, you and me were always going to . . . ?’

  He sees her purse her lips. Her eyes are watery. ‘Get up that ladder,’ she says. ‘Here.’ She hands him a large basket.

  In a few minutes he has filled the basket. ‘Ten kilos, I bet,’ he says, ‘and we’ve barely started. Picking fruit always reminds me of scrumping as a child.’

  ‘Devious from an early age,’ she says. He cannot see the expression on her face.

  After he has filled a second basket, moved the ladder and picked as much again, they move to the tree of cooking apples.

  As they are picking the lower branches he says, ‘Is this what civilised behaviour is like?’

  ‘Yes, you two-timing shite.’

  ‘I deserve worse than that.’

  ‘Stay for dinner and tell me more about Russ.’

  In the kitchen he offers to help wash vegetables and peel apples for a crumble. ‘Go and read the paper,’ she says.

  He returns to the sitting room and looks through a newspaper, knowing he has moved from partner to guest. In the financial pages he is surprised to see several shares ringed in biro, and assumes they relate to Barbara’s will.

  Over pork chops and garden vegetables, his descriptions of Russ and Matthew and Peter Pan fill the conversation.

  ‘At least there must have been some pleasure in taking part in the play,’ she says.

  ‘Seeing Lynton’s delighted face was the most memorable part of it.’

  While clearing the table before the crumble, her back to him, she says, ‘Rhona is very beautiful. You will miss her.’

  ‘She’s already spiralling away on a new adventure.’ Attempting to be stoical, he tells her about the afternoon’s walk. ‘She was in the garden. I was looking towards her and . . .’ He chokes on his words, as the earlier shock and its accompanying analgesia give way to the devastating pain of rejection, made worse by the presence of Eva whom he himself has rejected. He cannot continue his description.

  ‘Poor Luke,’ she says, spooning crumble into bowls.

  He is uncertain whether she is being sympathetic or enjoying his discomfort. Perhaps both. But she looks across the table at him with a concern which hovers between counsellor and friend. He is safe here; with Rhona he was never safe. He shudders. That was part of her irresistibility.

  ‘It must have been fun being with such a young, energetic group,’ she says.

  He wonders if there is some resentment in her tone and remembers her stories of clients, husbands or wives of middle-aged university staff, worried about a spouse’s daily association with students so much younger.

  ‘I daresay I shan’t be seeing any of them again, except Matthew perhaps.’

  ‘You look exhausted,’ Eva says.

  ‘I came back half dead.’

  She raises an eyebrow. He wants to give her every detail of the shooting and the police, but the events are too close. ‘One day I’ll tell you,’ he says. She smiles as if she can guess everything which has happened.

  ‘I found a sweater of yours yesterday,’ she says. ‘I’ll get it for you. I see you’ve taken your shirts and books from upstairs. There was a pair of your secateurs in the shed. I’ll find them.’ She leaves the room.

  He remembers other articles – phones, his diary, fishing rods – accidentally left with her over the years, and her routine comment: ‘You know what Freud said about an object left behind.’ And the answer he had learned and each time repeated: ‘The unconscious desire to return.’ There would be no such joking exchange this evening. But perhaps that was why he had left behind the bullet case: a desire to return, a wish to relive the event but not to pull the trigger, the registering of guilt by the unconscious before he was aware of it. Eva would have some insight to share if he were open with her. But not tonight. He remembers he still has a key to her back door. He removes it from his keyring and lays it on the kitchen table.

  When he leaves she gives him a hug. ‘Keep in touch, I can’t eat all this damn produce on my own.’ The light kiss he feels on the cheek is the goodbye not of a lover but of a friend and one he feels he does not deserve.

  ‘And thank you for the figs,’ she says at the door.

  The walk home is burdened by self-loathing, replaced by deep sadness as he enters a silent house.

  26

  Luke wakes late morning, surprised at having slept through Sunday’s church bells. Yesterday evening’s pain seems to have receded. To suppress its return he throws himself into activity. Early afternoon he looks at the newly-cut lawn, the trimmed edges and four sacks of weeds, pleased that he has not dwelt on thoughts of Rhona. To remain active, he finds a lump hammer and cold chisel and begins to remove loose pointing at the base of the garden walls. The task will occupy the rest of the day and many evenings; the repointing itself will consume almost every leisure hour until the frosts. But after an hour’s work he finds himself recalling her final words with him in the kitchen at Les Puits and wondering what sort of conversation had taken place between her and Alden the night before? What had finally reconciled them?

  As he chips away at loose mortar he hears her voice again and again: ‘Alden and I worked out a lot of stuff last night.’ He tries to imagine their interchange. It must have started acrimoniously. He can imagine Alden insisting, Run off with your mirror man, but say goodbye to your business. As he works, he envisages Rhona arguing, fighting to be free of Alden. He sees her, worn down in the early hours of the morning, forced to choose between him and the business she has built up. He pictures her face as she makes the choice and rejects him, decides to continue some sort of life with Alden for the sake of her work and team. Raking out loose mortar with renewed vigour he attempts but fails to come to terms with her decision that despite his offer of a home, money, a studio – everything – she has surrendered to Alden. Tired, he refuses himself a break until, above the noise of hammer and chisel, he imagines another voice, Eva’s: She’s used you – you never had more than a walk-on part in her marriage drama – how can you still love her? Working away at the foot of the wall he has no answer.

  The physical labour, the modicum of pleasure gained as yet another course of bricks is raked out, affords a sense of progress, but does nothing to counter an underlying feeling of rejection and lack of worth. On his knees, scraping moss from the base of the wall, he remembers lying next to Rhona on her lawn where together they traced the weeds spreading from the crevices in the brickwork of her house. Suddenly the pain returns, more intense than before. His face contorts. He throws down his chisel, clutches his head in his hands and hears an animal groan which seems to well from the earth beneath him. He feels sick. He cannot move. He is aware of getting colder. After some time – he does not know how long – the more manageable pain of cramp in a leg forces him to his feet and he limps to a garden seat.

  That evening when he is indoors again, another sadness overwhelms him. It is the despondency he recognises as the emotion felt during his schooldays on Sunday evenings: loneliness with the promise only of another week of drear. The prospect of a Monday in the shop without Russ is depressing. Perhaps he should look for a new restorer. Or train someone. The thought does not appeal. That night, in bed, he wonders where the rest of the cast are now: Russ and Matthew in Italy, some of them still at the summer school, Lou on her way to Holland, Josh and Felix – they had talked vaguely of travelling bu
t seemed to have had no plans. Eva was right: he had enjoyed their company. But now they had dispersed; whatever new energy he had found with them had gone too. Friends for a week they would be missed for much longer. Perhaps it would be possible to keep in contact with one or two. Russ and Matthew might be able to help.

  In the shop on Monday, some of Sunday’s enthusiasm in the garden transfers itself to the workshop where the Empire mirror finds life with each new sheet of gold leaf. It is not important that his workmanship is slower, less assured than Russ’s; to be home and safe and active is enough, when last Monday the same mind and hands were occupied with . . . events best not recalled. Had it been possible to tell Eva about them, a burden would have been lifted, but to see her again was painful enough without added humiliation.

  Customers come and go, he allows a dealer to beat him down to an absurdly low price for a pair of large Watts frames – Russ would have been horrified – he takes in some watercolours for framing in the hope that he will not have lost his skills at wash-lining – another of Russ’s domains; it becomes an ordinary working day. He struggles through another hour’s gilding but at 4.00pm when he decides to close the shop and walk to the allotment, he cannot find his keys and spends another hour searching for them. He finally finds them thrown carelessly with an unwashed mug in the sink. At his allotment it is an embarrassment to discover that Alf has not only looked after the weeding but has also sown a row of what seems, from the handwriting on the plastic label, to be an unusual variety of spring cabbage. The sweet peas are now over, a few washed-out mauve flowers a reminder of earlier splendour. At the end of a row a single pink Mrs. Bolton is resilient with long stem. The colour reminds him of Rhona’s nails on that first Wednesday morning.

  He turns away, leaving it unpicked.