House of Mirrors

by Yvonne Whittal

  “Please try to understand, Liz,” he muttered, crushing his cigarette into the ashtray and shaking his head.

  “I’ll pack and leave at once,” she said, turning towards the door, but Grant’s hand on her arm checked her.

  “You don’t have to leave - not yet, anyway.”

  “Don’t touch me!” she wanted to shout, but instead she stared down at his bronzed hand with the fine scars on the back and said calmly, “I would prefer it this way, and you’ll be absolutely free to decide whether you want a divorce or not.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “Does it matter?” she shrugged, disengaging her arm from his clasp.

  “Of course it matters!” his harsh voice scraped along her raw nerves. “I can’t simply let you go off without knowing that you’ll be safe.”

  Her chin rose defiantly. “I can look after myself.”

  “Liz!” he groaned, pushing agitated fingers through his hair and making it stand on end in an endearing manner. “Where will you spend the night?”

  “I’ll move into a hotel, and in the morning I shall have decided where to go,” she relented, walking stiffly away from him, but at the door she paused and turned.

  “She doesn’t love you, you know. She never has, and she never will.”

  He looked away, the muscles jutting out savagely along the side of his jaw.

  “That’s none of your business!”

  Shut out, with the door slammed securely in her face, she felt herself dying inside as she reeled mentally beneath that searing stab of pain. She had asked for it, and she had got it exactly where it had hurt most.

  “I’d appreciate it if you would arrange for a taxi to call for me in an hour’s time.”

  Grant glanced at her sharply. “You have the Mini.”

  “No! ” she snapped, recoiling from the idea of taking something from this man who no longer wanted.

  “It was a gift.” His hands bit into her shoulders, giving pain and pleasure, and filling her with a longing so intense that she very nearly gave way to it, but she was prevented from flinging herself into his arms when he released her and said abruptly, “It would please me very much if you would keep it.”

  His words triggered off a thought. She had tried so very hard to please him, but perhaps she had tried too hard, and should have demanded more. She had given of herself unstintingly, and he had taken. The things he had given her were of material value, such as the Mini, and it was a surge of bitterness that she decided to keep it.

  “Thank you,” she murmured her acceptance, then she left him there in the living-room, and went upstairs.

  Liz packed automatically, not caring very much how she bundled her things into the suitcase. Grant had shied away from the suggestion of a divorce, but there was no doubt in her mind that he would eventually get around to it. She wished she could cry, but there were no tears, only this deadly cold feeling inside that filled her with an aching numbness. The tears would come later, she told herself. When there was no possibility of Grant walking in on her she would cry her heart out, but not yet… not yet!

  An hour later she summoned one of the servants to carry her suitcases down to the car, but her typewriter and the manuscript she had been working on she took herself. She was ready to leave, and all that remained was to say goodbye to Grant.

  She found him in the living-room where she had left him, and he was standing in front of the fireplace with a drink in his hand, staring broodingly down onto the empty grate. “I can’t take everything with me now, but I’ll let you have my address as soon as I’m settled, then the rest of my things can be railed on to me.” Was that calm, clear voice actually her? She wondered in a detached sort of way. “Goodbye, Grant.”

  His hand clasped hers, tis warmth dispersing some of the iciness in her veins and she glimpsed again that peculiar glazed look in his grey eyes. “Liz, I’m sorry.”

  “So am I.” She tried to smile, but her face remained rigid. She wanted to add something terribly clever, perhaps even spiteful, but all she could do was stared at him dumbly.

  She drew her hand from his, and walked away from him without a backward glance; she dared not look back if she did not want him to see the pain and despair in her eyes. And a few minutes later she was driving away from the house of mirrors which would soon be reflecting the image Grant longed to see.

  Liz spent the night in a hotel, but she spent most of those long hours on a chair beside the window, staring blankly at the building across the street with its flashing coloured lights. She thought of calling Joe Townsend, but decided against it. He would hear from Grant soon enough, and she could not really bear to see anyone just yet.

  She shivered in the air-conditioned warmth of the room, and drew her robe more firmly about her. Her hand brushed across her flat stomach, and then she remembered. She was going to have a baby! She was taking something with her which Grant knew nothing about; something which would fill the loneliness and emptiness of the future. Grant had, after all, given her something which would make living worthwhile. A lump rose into her throat, but it subside again almost at once.

  She felt so calm; so terribly calm that it was almost frightening, but sleep continued to evade her, and she eventually watched the wintry sun rise over the rooftops of the buildings.

  Liz took the journey to Pietersburg in easy stages. She stopped for tea, and stopped for lunch even though she hardly touched her food, and it was almost three o’clock that afternoon before she pulled into Stacy’s driveway.

  “Liz!” Stacy exclaimed when she opened the door and found Liz standing there. “Good heavens, we thought we were never going to hear from you. Let alone see you.”

  “Do you think you could put me up for a week or so?” Liz asked, allowing Stacy to draw her into the house.

  “Darling, we’d love to have you.” Stacy called one of the servants and instructed them to collect the suitcases from the Mini, then she turned back to Liz.

  “I’ll have your things taken up to the spare room.”

  “Thanks, Stacy.”

  “You look all in,” Stacy observed, staring hard at Liz as they crossed the hall and walked down the short passage into the kitchen.

  “I am rather tired,” Liz admitted, but it was much more than that. She was beginning to feel as if a bus had gone over her.

  “A cup of strong tea, that’s what you need,” Stacy announced brightly, but the frown did not leave her brow as she studied Liz’s white, drawn face with the dark smudges beneath lacklustre eyes.

  “How’s Rosalie?” Liz asked tiredly, seating herself at the table while Stacy made the tea.

  “You won’t know her, she’s grown so much.”

  “I suppose she’s asleep?”

  “Yes,” Stacy smiled, “but when you’ve had your tea you may go up and take a peep at her.”

  Liz did not argue, she was too tired at that moment to do much more than sit there and drink the tea Stacy placed before her. Later, when she went upstairs, she did not linger too long beside the cradle where the chubby little girl lay sleeping with her rosy lips pouting almost as if she were inviting a kiss.

  “Lie down and rest for a while,” Stacy insisted, but, when they stood facing each other in the room Liz had occupied before her marriage to Gran, Stacy stared at her sister intently and asked: “What’s wrong my dear?”

  Liz sat down heavily on the bed, her hands moving restlessly in her lap. “It’s over-“

  “You mean your marriage?” Stacy queried, paling slightly when she sat down beside Liz.

  “Myra came back, and Grant…” Liz drew a deep, tired breath. “I think he’s seriously considering a divorce.”

  “He wants to marry Myra, after the way she treated him?” Stacy demanded in a shocked, incredulous voice.

  “I- I think he loves her.”

  Her words echoed hollowly in the silent room, and it was as if she had become detached from herself. She was listening to someone else speak, and she was feeling n
one of that person’s pains.

  Stacy would have had every right to say “I told you so”, but it would have been totally against her nature, Liz realised when her sister simply asked quietly, “What are you going to do?”

  “I’ll find myself a flat somewhere, and write, and …” A flicker of emotion darted across her face for the first time, and she raised cold hands to her equally cold cheeks. “Oh, God, Stacy! I’m going to have his child!” she whispered hoarsely.

  “Does he know that?”

  “I only saw the doctor yesterday, and—”

  “You were going to tell him last night, but he beat you to it by asking for his freedom,” Stacy filled in for her shrewdly when she paused abruptly, and when Liz nodded, she said: “You should have told him.”

  “And what kind of marriage would I have had then, with a husband who’d decided to stay with me simply because I was going to have his child?” Liz demanded distastefully, letting her hands fall listlessly back into her lap. “No, oh, no! I couldn’t have tolerated that!”

  Stacy’s brown eyes mirrored deep concern. “You seem to be taking it all so calmly.”

  “I’ll have his child, and no one can take that away from me.”

  They stared at each other for a moment without speaking, then Stacy urged Liz to lie down and rest before dinner that evening.

  “We’ll talk again later,” she said, then she went out of the room, closing the door softly behind her.

  Liz felt tired; so terribly tired, but she could not sleep. She unpacked her suitcases, taking her time, keeping herself occupied, and above all trying not to think.

  It was over, and that was that. No tears, no sighs, no regrets, and…oh, God, why did she feel so dead inside?

  She heard Angus arrive home that evening, and when she went downstairs a few minutes later it was obvious that Stacy had told him what had happened. He simply put his arms around Liz, gave her a brotherly kiss on the cheek, and muttered in his gruff voice, “We’ll take care of you, lass.”

  Liz found that her facial muscles were beginning to work again, and she smiled up at him briefly, accepting the glass of sherry he handed to her. She sipped at it, and it warmed her insides. The blood flowed a little more strongly through her veins, and her cheeks regained a little colour.

  Angus and Stacy kept the conversation going all evening, but Liz contributed very little to it, and at the dinner table she did no more than rearrange her food on her place. When she tried to eat the food lodged uncomfortably in her throat, so she finally gave up the effort, and settled for a cup of coffee instead.

  “Shall I give you something to help you sleep?” Stacy offered when Liz eventually said goodnight, but Liz shook her head.

  “I’ll be all right, thank you.”

  Strangely enough Liz did sleep. She went into a deep, dreamless sleep from which she awoke around midnight with severe pains in the lower half of her body.

  She tried to get up to take a few aspirins. But the stab of pain that shot through her was so intense that she gasped and fell back on to the bed, clutching one of the pillows against her and curling herself up into a tight ball as the waves of pain washed over her. She might have cried out, she could not remember, the next moment Stacy was standing beside the bed.

  “Liz, what is it?”

  “The pain!” she groaned through clenched teeth. “Oh, Stacy, the pain!”

  “Lie still!” Stacy ordered sharply. “I’m going to call Angus, and we’re taking you straight to the hospital.”

  It could only have been a matter of minutes, but it felt more like hours before Stacy returned with Angus. They wrapped Liz in a blanket, and Angus carried her out of the house to the car with Stacy almost running to keep up with him.

  “Stacy?” Liz gasped when the waves of pain became more acute soon after Angus had set the car in motion.

  “Try to relax, darling,” Stacy whispered urgently, wiping away the perspiration on Liz’s forehead. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

  It was all very well to be told to relax, and that everything would be all right, but how did one cope with an agonising pain which seemed to be tearing her insides apart? Liz was beginning to suspect what was happening to her, and she clenched her teeth, praying harder than she had ever prayed before. “Please, God! Please don’t take my baby away from me! It’s all I’ll have - the only tangible thing left of what was once a lovely dream. Please, God!”

  Angus must have broken all the speed limits getting Liz to the hospital, and after that everything was fast-moving blur which Liz observed through a red mist of pain. She was aware of voices. Motion, lights, a pin–prick in her arm, and then mercifully nothing more except that feeling that she was drifting beyond herself, and beyond her pain on to a realm where nothing could touch her.

  When Liz came to her senses much later she was lying in a hospital bed with the night light switched on above her head. She felt battered and bruised, and reluctant to surface from that peaceful plain, but someone was holding on to her hand and calling her name softly. She turned her head, and found herself looking up into eyes filled with compassion, and traces of recent tears.

  “Stacy?” Liz whispered anxiously, and then there was a sinking feeling in her breast when she realised what she was doing there.

  “Liz, I’m sorry,” Stacy said softly.

  “I’ve lost the baby, haven’t I?”

  It was a senseless question. Why else would she feel so bruised inside, and for what other reason would Stacy sit there looking at her with so much sympathy and compassion in her tearful eyes?

  “They did everything they possibly could,” Stacy told her.

  “Oh, God, why? ” Liz groaned, fighting against an agonising pain of a different nature. “ Why did I have to lose it?”

  “It was shock, Liz. The doctor explained that it happens sometimes when one has received a severe shock, and your body simply rejected the baby.”

  How simple it sounded… how clinical! Shock! Rejection! Words in a dictionary which meant nothing at all until they touched you personally. Grant had practically asked her for a divorce, he no longer wanted her…shock! And the ultimate conclusion was…rejection! But why did it have to be that way? She had wanted this baby so much. So very much!

  “There’s nothing left now, is there?”

  Stacy’s fingers tighten about hers. “I think I should telephone Grant, and-“

  “No!” Liz reacted violently to the suggestion, her eyes dark pools of anguish in her pale face. “It’s over- it’s finished! I never want to hear his name mentioned again, and I never want to see him again for as long as I live!”

  “Liz…”

  “I mean it, Stacy!”

  “If that’s what you want, darling, then that’s how it shall be,” Stacy replied soothingly. “What you need now is rest, and plenty of it, so close your eyes and try to sleep.”

  “I am rather tired,” Liz confessed, but she knew she would not sleep. “Is Angus still here?”

  “He went home to be with Rosalie, but I’ll give him a ring as soon as I’m ready to leave.”

  “It was good of you to stay with me, Stacy,” Liz whispered guiltily, “and I’m sorry I’ve caused you so much trouble.”

  “Don’t be silly, my dear,” Stacy smiled warmly, but her smile faltered a moment later. “I’m sorry about what happened, though.

  “So am I,” Liz echoed from the deepest recessed of her heart. “I should have listened to you and Pamela, but instead I went ahead and married a man who-“

  “You said we wouldn’t talk about him again,” Stacy interrupted firmly.

  “What you have to concentrate on at the moment is getting better. Angus and I want you home as soon as possible.”

  “I hate you, Grant Battersby!” Liz whispered fiercely into the silent ward.

  “Your thoughtless, callous behaviour took from me the only thing I still had left. I hate you! I shall hate you for ever!”

  “She doesn’t love yo
u, you know. She never has, and she never will,” her own voice echoed back at her, then Grant’s terse reply came relentlessly, like a tape being played over and over again, “That’s none of your business!”

  “You fool! You fool! ” Liz hissed into the silence! “You love a beautiful face attached to a beautiful face attached to a beautiful figure, and that’s all Myra is! She’s caught you in her trap, but she’ll never love you as I do! Never!”

  The tears came then, like a dam overflowing after a storm! She pushed her face into the pillow to try and Stop them, but nothing helped, and great choking sobs tore at her aching throat until it felt raw! Tears were not going to help her at all, she knew that, but there was nothing she could do about it, and she wept like a child until she felt totally drained of emotion!

  Chapter 9

  No matter how much she tried, Liz could not shake off her depression. She had forbidden the use of Grant’s name, but that did not prevent her from thinking N about him until the longing became intolerable. Long, empty weeks had passed since Grant had hinted at a divorce, and still she had heard nothing from Joe Townsend. Every week, without fail, she received a cheque in the post from Grant, but every week she tore it up. She had accepted the Mini to please him, but she would not accept another cent from him.

  Slowly, very slowly, her life regained a certain normality. During the day she managed to keep herself occupied with her writing, but I was the nights she hated most. That was the time when grant haunted her most. Was he with Myra? Were they making love? Please, God, she did not want to think about it! Had she not been tortured enough?

  Liz wanted to move out of Stacy’s home into a place of her own, but Angus and Stacy would not hear of it. She could move out. They had said, when they had convinced themselves that she was well and truly on the road to recovery, but not before.

  Another month passed, during which Liz sent off two manuscripts to her publisher in the hope of boosting her funds a little. She was beginning to feel more like her usual self, she could think and feel again, and one afternoon, while she was having tea with Stacy in the living-room, she broached the subject once more of finding herself a flat somewhere in town.