Dark Mirrors

by Siobhain Bunni

  Lizzie, picking up the baton, stepped up to the mark.

  “Tom was on today,” she informed the group as she stirred the coffee that Fin had poured. “He’s home this Friday.”

  They discussed his impending arrival in great detail and agreed that the opportunity for a reconciliation was too good to miss and Esmée should collect him.

  By eight the children and some of the adults were tired, cranky and ready to go to bed.

  As the children and Fin piled back into the car, Esmée lingered at the door with her mum. Reluctantly Sylvia let her go, feeling helpless and guilty for questioning her daughter’s decision to leave her husband while Esmée, reassured and comforted by her mother’s change of heart, gladly agreed to call her the next day for a nice chat. Penny left with Conor, promising to call the next day, while Lizzie invited herself to dinner the following evening. Obviously heeding their mother’s veiled warning to watch over her, they intended to stick to her like glue.

  Esmée was as tired as the kids and couldn’t wait to get home, looking forward to only herself and the telly for company. She ached all over and needed to be on her own if only to empty her head.

  Fin offered to stay but didn’t argue when the offer was thanked but declined.

  “Let’s meet for breakfast in the village then,” she suggested.

  “Breakfast sounds good but can we have it here?” Esmée asked with more than a hint of panic in her voice.

  Fin, her eyes flicking quickly to the bruising intensifying on Esmée’s face, agreed without hesitation. “See you about ten so,” she said before getting into the car. “And I’ll bring the bagels!” she shouted out the open window before driving away, leaving nothing but a plume of acrid blue smoke in her wake.

  Esmée smiled affectionately and watched her round the corner before going back into the house.

  Finally! she thought.

  With the children tucked in and fast asleep, Esmée took two more painkillers and made herself a cup of hot chocolate. Not the stuff out of a sachet, but the real thing. With full-fat milk! She deserved it! Taking it into the sitting room she snuggled into the couch to enjoy the silence and solitude and let the day drain from her body, savouring the rich, sweet liquid before finally allowing herself do what she’d been dying to do all evening.

  Picking up her mobile she again checked her messages. Nothing. Without needing to think, having decided much earlier what she would do next, she dialled Philip’s number, her heart beating madly. It rang three times before diverting to his familiar voice.

  “Philip here. Can’t take your call but I’ll get back to you as soon as.”

  She rang off without leaving a message.

  Assuming he had recognised her number and didn’t want to talk to her, she waited ten minutes, finishing but not really tasting the dregs of her chocolate, watching the empty fireplace and feeling every second tick silently by. Turning off her number-sending she tried again, but this time it didn’t even ring, diverting immediately to the same stupid message. She tried again ten minutes later and again twenty after that with the same result each time. What to do, she asked herself. What to do? Should she leave a message? Maybe keep trying? Why wasn’t he answering? She held the phone tight in her hands, squeezing it hard.

  “Shit!” she said aloud. “What is he playing at? He should be trying to call me, not the other way round!”

  She should be the one diverting his calls, not chasing him like an idiot. She stood up, pacing circuits around the small room, dodging furniture while trying hard to dissipate the anguish and anger and panic that was slowly rising. She had needed to speak to him. Had to understand why. If it weren’t for the kids she’d be in that car and driving to him right now, banging on his door, making him apologise, making him say he was sorry and forcing him to tell her, explain to her why. Why? Why? Why?

  “Shit!” she called out, only louder this time.

  She just wanted to see how he felt. Maybe he was mortified, scared even and too afraid to call her? Maybe . . .

  Maybe you should stop second-guessing him, she reprimanded herself.

  “Shit. Shit. Shit!” She retraced the circular track of her steps around the room, irritated and annoyed.

  The more she thought about him, about her, about why he wouldn’t speak to her, the angrier she got until ultimately she felt she would burst. She had more questions than answers, more problems than solutions, with absolutely no way to solve either, no way to sort out the mess, not on her own anyway. She was powerless. This was pointless and not how it was supposed to be. In a final and blinding moment of burning frustration she took the phone in her hand and, giving the screen just a single second’s consideration, grimaced and swore at it before heaving it across the room, watching it fly and spin through the air before it smashed against the unforgiving wall at the opposite side.

  “Fuck you!” she roared into the silence with the symbol of her anger in pieces at her feet.

  Clutching her head, she exhaled, forcing every bit of air from her lungs and feeling every ounce of it leave her body. She held still, not breathing for as long as she could, before inhaling again to refill the empty cavity.

  Sapped of her energy, she was tired and sore.

  She knelt to collect the scattered pieces of the phone and put it back together. It would be just her luck, she thought, if the stupid thing was damaged.

  “Fuck it,” she said, mourning the permanent fracture across the screen. Probably, unlike her, the phone was not beyond repair. Humiliated and ashamed by her childish outburst, she couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry.

  Feeling sorry for herself she locked up the house, activated the alarm, turned off the lights and trudged heavily upstairs to bed, the safest place in her whole world.

  Chapter 10

  For the rest of the week Esmée found herself to be the unwitting owner of numerous shadows in the form of her mother, sisters and friend Fin. She almost regretted that her phone was still in working order, since they rang her at all times of the day, and called round at the drop of a hat to see she was still alive and probably to make sure Philip hadn’t come round and bludgeoned her to death. Obviously that wasn’t the excuse they gave, but Esmée knew that they were petrified, more so than she. But they needn’t have worried: Philip made no contact whatsoever and since the evening she had thrown the phone at the wall Esmée hadn’t tried to call him again.

  Much as she’d hate to admit it, she was actually enjoying the frequent company of Fin and her family. It was reassuring, and in part endearing, to see them making such an effort and, although in the beginning Esmée wanted time to think, now in the aftermath of her outburst she wanted just the opposite. Now she didn’t want to think at all because, no matter how hard she tried, it just didn’t make any sense and only served to piss her off to the point of fury.

  They had stopped asking questions and conversation seemed to revert peacefully back to the mundane and the ordinary. Every now and then though something, some spontaneous observation or maverick comment, would cross their minds and slip out unguarded. At first Esmée was embarrassed by their slip-ups but as the week progressed she didn’t know what she enjoyed more: seeing them cringe or listening to their clumsy attempts at covering their words.

  By Friday Esmée was bored of the safe confines of the blind cottage walls and agreed to meet Fin in a small coffee shop in the village for brunch. The bruising on her face had matured to a jaundiced shade of yellow and she no longer wore the bandage on her forehead. And, although not an hour went by without thinking about Philip, she was actually beginning to feel a sense of normality.

  She was enjoying her new home, her feelings of security, self-control and responsibility. There was little doubt that she was hurting and found it hard to understand how he hadn’t, at the very least, called to see how the kids were. They hadn’t yet asked about him but as Friday, and the weekend, arrived she knew their questions were inevitable and wouldn’t be long coming.

 
The sun, like a failing geriatric, shone weakly on that early April morning as she walked with her skipping children to school, their faces bright and rosy from the mischievous wind that chased their tails and gently coloured their glowing cheeks. Holding their hands, with both schoolbags on her back, Esmée chatted happily with them about the plans for the weekend. Distracted by the prospect of seeing Uncle Tom again, they didn’t think about their father and answering their questions about the possibility of gifts and maybe, if they were lucky, sweets, was a doddle. She promised they could go with her to collect him that evening – with no school the following day a late night wouldn’t hurt them one little bit. And if she was honest she too was feeling a little giddy at the chance of clearing the air and making friends, once more, with her big brother.

  Having handed her offspring over to the care of their respective teachers, she retraced her steps home, stopping off en route in the local shop for a notepad and pen. Earlier that morning in bed while waiting patiently for the alarm to bleat, she told herself it was time: time to stop parking the things that needed sorting and deal with them head on. A list, she therefore decided, was the most appropriate course of action.

  It was almost ten by the time she eventually sat down at the kitchen table with her favourite CD playing on the stereo and pen at the ready. As the mellow, soothing vibes of Air filled the room she focused on the blank sheet of white, lined notepaper on the table before her. This list, she knew, would not only serve to “out” her tasks but would also placate her family who still worried about her constantly. She appreciated that they were concerned about her, nervous even that she had no idea what she was doing and so as much for them as herself she knew that this list was essential.

  The first item on her list had got to be rent.

  She wrote:

  1. Rent

  With all that had happened she hadn’t really sat down and done the real maths. She knew how much the house cost per month but hadn’t really considered it in the grand scheme of things. Her bravado had so far stretched only to the terms of the lease and now the prospect of actually having to look after the cost of putting a roof over their heads, something that up until now had been the sole responsibility of her husband, loomed before her like the Grim Reaper.

  Then there were her other finances. She really needed to see how much money she had. Again, while she had a good idea, it was a little too vague so the second item on the list was the bank.

  2. Bank

  She would check her balance after she had met with Fin and see exactly how much she had left of her father’s inheritance. He had bequeathed to her and her siblings thirty thousand euro each. And even though she certainly had dipped into it, they were small amounts – treats for the kids but not expensive ones – and now the deposit and three months’ rent in advance on the cottage – so she expected a balance of close enough to the original amount.

  When she first began plotting her scheme, she worked out a rough idea of her costs so she knew approximately how long it would last, but now she needed to be precise.

  On top of that, she thought as she studied the two words on her list, Philip’s silence probably meant that she couldn’t rely on any income from him, not even maintenance for the children, not immediately anyway.

  Knowing that her cache wouldn’t last forever, she was in no doubt that her next task on the list should be to think about getting a job.

  3. Job

  She had to laugh. The notion of getting a job after eight years of being a housewife, and a damn good one at that, was daunting and she considered this prospect with huge scepticism, immediately feeling the optimism slip ever so slightly out of her purpose. It took all she had not to dwell on it.

  Just because it’s on the list, she told herself calmly, doesn’t mean I have to sort it immediately.

  Esmée knew all too well that her training as a fine artist wouldn’t cater for the needs of her dependant family and in the absence of any great ideas as to what she might do, could do, she quite rightly paid respect to the foreboding vision of her future. The prospect of going back to college titillated her and, although not an easy or indeed financially sound notion, she decided to include it as a potentially positive possibility worth investigating, and jotted it down as the next item on her list.

  4. University Prospects

  “What’s next?”

  She was on a roll – it wasn’t as hard as she had thought. The fear that had prevented her from starting this list in the first place seemed utterly unfounded. Encouraged, she read through the numbered challenges aloud. “Rent, Bank, Job, Uni . . .”

  “What else do I need to do?”

  It seemed obvious. He had to be the next item on the list. He should have been at the top of it. She recalled the quiet conversation that she had inadvertently overheard the night before between Lizzie and her mum. She considered her sister’s whispered and covert opinion, which, with the benefit of a few hours’ sleep, she was forced to admit was, in fact, right. Dismissing the annoyance she had felt at the time as she slipped away discreetly to avoid any unnecessary confrontation, Esmée admitted that she wouldn’t be able to handle Philip on her own. She imagined the next item and the consequences of committing it to paper. Reluctantly she withdrew the pen from between her clenched teeth and, putting its nib to the sheet, carefully scribed the single word that would, without doubt, take her relationship with Philip to the next, albeit descending, level:

  5. Solicitor

  The more she looked at that single word on the page the more it seemed to dance contemptuously across it, the last but possibly most influential item on her inventory of tasks. And despite her resolve it still seemed a bit premature. Originally, when she began plotting her departure, she had thought that given time she and Philip could be adult about the situation and agree terms of their separation before involving a solicitor.

  Philip. Where the hell was he? The guilt in her own belief that this mess was of her own making had begun, over the course of the last few days, to migrate more towards anger. His actions and her focused thoughts now compounded that feeling.

  While Esmée was smart enough to know that she wasn’t entirely blameless in the generation of the current scenario she sure as hell didn’t deserve what she got, nor did she deserve the torment of his silence. And what about the children? Was she really willing to put them through such an emotional battle? Not really. If she could avoid it she would, but did she have a choice? It was her job as their mother to protect them even if it was from herself, not to mention their father. Surely between them they, she and Philip, could sort this out properly? Be adult about it. Mature, for the children. What a cliché! One she never thought she would ever need to use. Well. He could be as pig-headed as he wanted, she would not play his ridiculous games.

  Once again working herself into an emotional panicked frenzy, she cast the notepad on the table.

  “That’s it!” she declared, stomping across the room to pick up her phone.

  She dialled the number – not surprised when, like all the other times, it connected direct to his voicemail – only this time she did leave a message.

  “Philip,” she stated firmly into the handset, “it’s Esmée here. Can you please call me? Your children would like to see you and I think it’s time that you and I had a talk.” There wasn’t a tremor in her voice. Fixed and steady, she continued, “I suggest you call me on my mobile, as soon as you find time in your obviously busy schedule.” Unable to avoid the sarcasm, she was almost sorry as soon as it was said. Pausing briefly, running out of words, she finished the call. “We can arrange a time then.”

  Without saying goodbye she hung up, infuriated by the absence of a face to slap.

  “Fucking asshole!” she spat at the phone that sat silently, as if mocking her in its cradle, her voice filled with an intensity that stunned her. He had pushed her to the edge and she was feeling every ounce of nasty hatred ooze from her body, like a weeping septic wound, waiting impatiently
to find itself inflicted painfully on her husband. Her emotions were getting the better of her, a constant pressure pulsating in the back of her head, a cumbersome load bearing down unrelentingly on her small shoulders.

  The sound of the phone broke through her trance. Jumping from the floor she leapt at it, sure it was Philip finally returning her calls.

  “Where are you?” the voice on the other end said.

  “What?”

  It took a few seconds to register the female voice.

  “Es, are you there? It’s me,” came Fin’s slightly startled voice.

  Gathering herself, Esmée snapped back to reality. “Shit, Fin, I’m sorry, I must have dozed off,” she lied convincingly.

  “Not to worry!” Fin chirped. “I’ll order you a cappuccino. Now wake yourself up and get your ass down here!” Then she was gone.

  In spite of herself, Esmée smiled. She was her own worst enemy and Fin as always was there for her, sometimes by design, sometimes by accident, to help.

  Taking Fin’s instruction seriously, she washed her face and skimmed a comb through her hair, pulling it back with a grip. Grabbing her coat and bag, she paused at the door as she remembered her list.

  After all that, she thought ironically, turning back to snatch it from the table.

  * * *

  A posh name for an everyday caff, Crème was a small unassuming but cosy coffee shop on the village main street. It took a moment for Esmée’s eyes to adjust to the dim light that swallowed her as she entered, quickly seeking out Fin who, seated by the misted window nursing her frothy cappuccino, waved to her.

  “That didn’t take long,” she commented, welcoming her friend with a hug. She handed her the menu. “Brunch is on me!” she announced while poring over the delicious bill of fare.

  Esmée listened while her friend called out the tasty culinary possibilities, considering whether or not to tell her of her earlier frustrated ‘moment’ and the peevish message left on Philip’s voicemail, eventually deciding against it, classifying it as a personal clandestine moment to which she was entitled. Enjoy this, she told herself, forcing the angst and frustration out of her mind. “Hmmm . . .” she mused, finally deciding to treat herself to a greasy Full Irish, hash browns and all.