Mirror, Mirror

by Patricia Scanlan

  ‘For God’s sake, Ellen, don’t be so harsh on yourself.’ Doug was shocked by her words.

  ‘I’m sorry, Doug, I need to say these things to you. They’re things I think to myself. After what I went through with Chris, I find it hard to believe that anyone really does love me. And I find myself questioning my love for him, and I wonder have I wasted all those years on an illusion.’ She started to cry as the relief of saying what she’d been bottling up for so long became too much for her.

  ‘Aw, Ellen, shush.’ Doug rocked her gently. ‘Of course you loved him, there’s no question of that. Much more than he deserved,’ he added grimly. ‘But he abused your love and you were deceived by a master. There’s no shame in that for you. And I know what I’m talking about, Ellen, I went through it too with Geena, don’t forget. Women do it to men too, you know. I asked myself those questions too. You don’t have the monopoly on being gullible and self-deceiving.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ Ellen wiped her eyes. ‘Geena was an idiot, if you don’t mind my saying so. Actually I think she was crazy.’

  Doug smiled. ‘Thank you. Right now I’m glad we didn’t marry, believe me.’ He cupped her chin in his hand. ‘Isn’t it strange how we both went through the same sort of thing? But they say there’s a reason for everything. And maybe our reasons were that we’d really appreciate each other when it was time for us to be together. I believe in fate, love. I believe we were meant to go through what we went through before we came together. You’re a very, very special woman, Ellen, and it’s an honour to love you.’

  ‘Oh Doug. I don’t know what to say.’ Ellen was overwhelmed.

  ‘You don’t have to say anything. I just want you to know that. And I’m really glad that you shared all those things with me. The more we talk and share the better it will be.’ He held her tight and she felt a bond of closeness to him that was almost tangible.

  As she lay in bed that night, she mulled over what Doug had said. Never in a million years would Chris have been able to talk to her like that. He hadn’t the depth. Much as he liked to think of himself as a deep and complex man, the truth was that Chris was truly shallow. If she’d never known him, she’d never have been able to appreciate what she’d found with Doug. Maybe there was something to this fate thing, after all, she thought drowsily. Wasn’t it said that to know joy you had to know sadness? She’d certainly known plenty of sadness. Her heart lifted on butterfly wings. Maybe her time for joy had come at last.

  Miriam yawned and nearly gave herself lockjaw. She was whacked and there was still a pile of ironing to do. Ben was working a late shift. She’d only seen him for about twenty minutes today.

  Her gaze moved to the old toby jug on the mantelpiece. A wad of pound notes and ten-shilling notes, all wrapped in an elastic band, nestled in the black-capped top. Miriam felt a surge of pride. Her first pay-day, yesterday. It was worth the weariness. She knew exactly what she was going to do with it. To hell with the new Electrolux and the rest. She was going to buy Ben a lovely leather jacket for Christmas. He’d never owned one and she’d remembered him admiring a black one that Vincent wore. Ben would look dead sexy in a leather jacket, Miriam thought happily as she unplugged the iron.

  Enough was enough. She’d catch up on the ironing on Monday. She had to steep the peas for Sunday dinner and get out clean clothes for the children. Daniel had polished the shoes and they lay neatly shining in a row on the fender, reflecting the dull red glow of the dying embers. One thing Miriam was very particular about was making sure the children were turned out spotlessly for Sunday Mass. Polishing the shoes on a Saturday night was a ritual that had been followed in her mother’s house and in her grandmother’s house before that.

  Miriam liked Saturday night. She liked preparing for the Sabbath. The routine never varied. Once The Late Late was over, the peas were steeped, the potatoes parboiled, and two different-coloured jellies cooled slowly in white bowls. The table was set for breakfast, and a freshly baked brown loaf and white soda scone were placed on the wire tray to cool. The aroma of fresh bread and sweet jelly and the tang from the steeping peas was special to Saturday night. Miriam liked it.

  Then it was time for her bath and then the glorious moment when she would sink into her downy bed. How she longed for sleep, Miriam thought yearningly as she poured the boiling water onto the greengage jelly, the children’s favourite. Since she’d started working in The Deli, sleep had become a precious jewel. She wouldn’t linger in her bath tonight. Bed called to her too enticingly. And poor Ben! No nuptials tonight either, she thought ruefully. She knew she’d be asleep before her head hit the pillow. It had been the same every night of this mad, exciting, exhausting week.

  They wouldn’t have to get up too early in the morning. She’d make it up to him then, she promised herself as she stirred the jelly impatiently, waiting for it to melt.

  Thirty-five minutes later, after a dip in the bath, Miriam slid into her big comfortable double bed and pulled the patchwork quilt up around her ears, before tucking her hot-water bottle against her tummy. She was in that delicious state between drowsiness and sleep when the door opened. Rebecca came and stood by the bed.

  ‘Mammy,’ she said plaintively. ‘I’ve got an earache. Will you put some drops in it?’

  Struggling to open her eyes, Miriam sat up heavily.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mammy. It just hurts.’

  ‘It’s all right, pet. Get into my bed here until I go and get some hot water.’ She pulled the blankets up over her daughter. Wearily she rooted under the bed for her slippers and shivered as the cold air nipped at her warm skin. She pulled on her quilted dressing-gown and padded down to the kitchen.

  She was so tired she ached to her bones. But poor Rebecca needed her attention and some mothering. She couldn’t stint on that, no matter how tired she was. She’d made that promise to herself when she started working and she wasn’t going to break it. Mrs Munroe would never be able to throw that at her, Miriam thought resentfully, as she remembered her mother-in-law’s most recent dig at her, when she’d called in to visit her in Emma’s.

  Sheila was a bitter old pill to be sure. But for all her talk, she wasn’t exactly the world’s greatest mother herself. Mrs Munroe and Ellen didn’t have a close relationship despite her staying at home and giving all her time to her family.

  ‘So put that in your pipe and smoke it, Sheila Munroe,’ she muttered as she got ear-drops and warm water and went to attend her daughter.

  Denise McMahon looked at the housekeeping money her husband Jimmy had just handed her. It was five pounds short.

  ‘Why am I short?’ she asked, perplexed.

  ‘I told you when you started earning your own money you could pay your own way,’ he growled.

  Denise stared at him, and hated him.

  ‘You’re a callous bastard, Jimmy McMahon. A mean-spirited, malicious slug. Why don’t you just get the hell out of here and go and live with your mistress? I’m sick of you. And so are the kids.’

  Jimmy stabbed a finger in her face. ‘Listen, you! This is my house. If you and the kids want to move out, you go. Otherwise shut the fuck up.’

  Denise stared at him in impotent fury. She wanted to smash his glasses into his face and pull handfuls of his lank hair from his head. She wanted to scrab her nails down his face so viciously that blood would flow. Her anger was so strong she could feel it in a tight hard knot in her breastbone, like a malignant growth that was taking her over. He was the winner every time. He held all the cards. She was a slave in bondage to her husband. He owned the house. He controlled the purse-strings. He held the power. She had none.

  She’d been so delighted with her first week’s wages. It seemed at last that there was light at the end of the tunnel. Now he’d even taken that away from her. She’d have to make up the deficit. Five precious pounds she wouldn’t be able to save. Now the tunnel seemed never-ending and she didn’t have the energy to even try and keep her spirits up. She burst into tears and cried bitterly
as Jimmy, unmoved by her distress, picked up his paper and turned to the sports page.

  ‘I need a shirt ironed for Mass tomorrow.’ He eyed her coldly. Denise knew he was enjoying every moment of her torment. He was in control and that was just the way he liked it.

  What a hypocrite he was. Parading up to the front of the church every Sunday. A pillar of the community. If only they knew. She turned away and picked up her daughter’s cardigan to sew back a button that was loose, but her fingers trembled so much, and her eyes were so blurred with tears, she couldn’t thread the needle. She was in a nightmare. Trapped in a marriage that was full of cruelty and there was no way out.

  Sheila lay in bed in her daughter-in-law’s guest room and yawned prodigiously. She had spent three days recuperating in Emma and Vincent’s and she’d quite enjoyed it.

  She was the centre of attention. All the family had called to visit. She’d gone out of her way to praise Emma to high heaven in front of Ellen and Miriam. Just to let them know that it wouldn’t have killed them to be a bit more attentive. The neighbours and members of the guild had dropped in to see her and she’d had a most enjoyable time, sitting up in her sumptuous peach and cream bedroom, listening to her visitors oohing and aahing about the luxury of Emma and Vincent’s house. It was all very satisfactory and she was sleeping like a log at night, undisturbed by snores and cucks, and rackety windows.

  Mick had told her to stay as long as she liked, so she might stay until the following week, certainly until Tuesday or Wednesday, she decided, giving a little stretch in the comfortable bed. It was nice being waited on hand and foot. And she had a perfect excuse for not having to make cakes and puddings for the guild for Christmas. It was unfortunate that it had happened the year she was president. But there was nothing she could do about it now, so she’d just have to lie back and enjoy it. She’d make a pudding and cake for Mick, of course. No one else’s would do for him. He’d been eating her cakes and puddings for more than forty years and she wouldn’t fail him this time. Nonetheless, it was a rare treat to be pampered and looked after. After all, she’d been through a dreadful ordeal. She was lucky to be alive. Her eyelids drooped. She was tired after all the visitors. She hadn’t said her third Rosary yet, but maybe, seeing as she was still recuperating, the Almighty and His Holy Mother would overlook it this once if she went to sleep instead.

  Emma gritted her teeth as she listened to her mother-in-law’s earth-shattering snores from the bedroom next door. She’d never heard anything like it. Vincent lay asleep beside her, his arm around her. He’d sleep through an earthquake, she thought resentfully.

  Her nerves were in shreds. Mrs Munroe had taken over her house and its routine. It was worse than Paddington Station. Everyone from Glenree seemed to have come visiting and the absolutely infuriating thing was that Mrs Munroe expected as a matter of course that they would all be offered tea and biscuits. It was exhausting. Poor Mrs Murdock was run off her feet. And Emma had the stress of seeing all these yokels from the village trooping through her house . . . and the nightmare of it all was . . . it looked as though her mother-in-law was planning to stay indefinitely. Emma knew she’d never survive another week of this carry-on. It was enough to induce a blood pressure attack!

  Andrew started squalling. That was the last straw.

  ‘Vincent!’ She tapped his shoulder. He snored on serenely. She elbowed him in the ribs.

  ‘Wha!’ He shot up, bleary-eyed and dishevelled.

  ‘Andrew’s crying. Will you go and see to him? I’ve got a blinding headache. I just hope it isn’t my blood pressure again,’ she moaned.

  Vincent staggered out of bed.

  ‘I might go to the doctor on Monday for a check-up. These headaches are always a bad sign.’ If he thought she was stressed and that her blood pressure was up, maybe he’d ask his mother to go home. It would be a perfect excuse and she would still be seen to have done her duty.

  ‘I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about, pet,’ Vincent said reassuringly as he tied the belt of his dressing-gown. ‘After all, you’re on blood pressure tablets now. It’s probably just an ordinary old headache. I’ll bring you two aspirin when I’ve settled Andrew.’ He padded quietly from the room leaving his wife fuming.

  It was not an ‘ordinary old headache’ by any manner of means. He could rid himself of that notion. He was out of the house all day. He didn’t have to put up with Her Ladyship Munroe milking it for all it was worth. Well, tomorrow, like it or lump it, she was going to visit her parents, alone, and he could cope with Julie Ann, Andrew, and his precious mother and her never-ending visitors. See what kind of a headache he’d have after a day of it, she thought maliciously as she buried her head under the pillows in an effort to drown out the ear-splitting rumbles emanating from next door.

  ‘Madeleine, it was a lovely make-up party. Thank you so much for inviting me. It was just what I needed to get me out of the house. I was getting terribly depressed.’ Suzy gave the older woman a brave smile.

  ‘You poor lamb. I can’t tell you how horrified and upset I was to hear about . . . er . . . to hear of your troubles,’ Madeleine said tactfully.

  ‘It’s been agonising.’ Suzy’s lower lip quivered.

  ‘Oh, sweetheart, don’t cry,’ Madeleine urged in dismay. ‘Come and sit down for a minute. Now that all the others have gone you can tell me anything you want. You know I won’t breathe a word to anyone.’ Madeleine was dying to hear all the gory details of the affair between Chris and Alexandra Johnston.

  That Chris Wallace was having an affair was not in itself surprising. He’d always had a reputation as a womaniser before he married and a leopard never, but never, changed his spots. The absolutely shocking element was that he was having the affair with Alexandra Johnston, Suzy’s best friend. That was truly contemptible. And even more amazing considering all the derogatory things he used to say about Alexandra.

  ‘I could have coped with a woman I didn’t know, Madeleine,’ Suzy wept. ‘But to have an affair with Alexandra. I still can’t believe it. She was my bridesmaid, you know. It’s such a betrayal.’ Suzy was sobbing with gusto now.

  ‘I know, darling, I know,’ Madeleine soothed as she poured a stiff brandy for them both. Nothing like a brandy to loosen the tongue.

  ‘How did you find out about it, sweetheart?’

  Suzy hiccuped. ‘It was horrible, horrible.’

  ‘Here, drink up, pet,’ Madeleine encouraged, oozing sympathy. ‘Did someone tell you?’

  ‘No.’ Suzy shook her head and took another gulp of brandy. ‘I caught them.’

  ‘Darling! How devastating for you. Where did you catch them?’

  ‘In Alexandra’s apartment. She had Chris tied to her bedstead. They were making love.’

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ Madeleine exclaimed in thrilled horror. Wow! This was juicy. ‘And what happened?’

  Between hiccups and sobs, Suzy told Madeleine the sorry saga.

  ‘My poor little lamb.’ Madeleine patted Suzy’s arm in sympathy. She was dying to ring up Ciara Doolan, her best friend and comrade-in-gossip. This was above rubies. Now that Suzy had spilled the beans, she couldn’t wait to get her out of the house.

  ‘You know, Madeleine, I never really realised until now that Alexandra is man-mad. And it doesn’t matter whether they’re married or not. I mean, look at the amount of relationships she’s had. Once she conquers, she moves on. Chris might think he’s got her for life, but from her track record I can tell you she’ll dump him and move on to someone else eventually. She’s like a praying mantis.’

  ‘Hmm, it’s dreadful behaviour all right. And she’s not getting any younger either. Look, pet, you’re distraught, shall I call a taxi? You can leave your car here.’

  ‘No, no, I’ll go home in my own car. I’ll be fine. Thanks for a delightful evening. And thank you for being so sympathetic. It did me a world of good. You’re so lucky with Victor, he’s such a pet. I know he’d never cheat on you. Mind,’ Suzy gave a mirthl
ess laugh, ‘you’d want to make sure Miss-Man-Eater-Extraordinaire doesn’t get her claws into him. She does his advertising campaigns, doesn’t she? Just watch her, Madeleine. I wouldn’t trust her as far as I could throw her.’

  Madeleine’s jaw sagged.

  That took the wind out of your sails, Maddy dearest, Suzy thought spitefully. She knew full well that Madeleine would be on the phone to her crony, Ciara Doolan, as soon as Suzy was out the door.

  Suzy didn’t give a hoot. That was exactly what she wanted. She wanted everyone to know about Chris and his tart. And she wanted to put the wind up Madeleine. Victor Conway was notoriously susceptible to a pretty face. Not that he had it in him to do anything about it, Suzy thought scornfully as she looked at a framed photo of Victor on the sideboard with his white hair combed carefully over his bald patch and his silly little dicky bow, screaming against his loud check jacket. A ladies’ man in his own mind, but that was all. Men were such vain idiots when they got to his age.

  If Alexandra flashed a bit of leg at Victor, he’d probably have a coronary. It was no harm planting the seed in Madeleine’s mind though. See how long Alexandra would be working for him then.

  Flushed with triumph, and brandy, Suzy drove the short distance home.

  Tonight had seen another nail in the coffin of Miss Alexandra Johnston’s career. By the time Suzy was finished with her, her name would be mud.