Rhona drives slowly, looking for a side road. When she decides she has found it, she says, ‘Soon be there,’ and turns up the volume.
Luke is surprised to hear a song thrush singing its repertoire. A harsher sound, perhaps a magpie, is discernible in the background. Finally, a wren.
‘Thrush, magpie, wren. You see I’m learning,’ says Rhona.
‘I’m impressed . . . so this evening is about birdsong?’
‘Maybe.’
‘And I have to guess which one.’
‘If you think you can. Of course I may not tell you if you get it right.’
‘That’s not fair.’
‘Yes it is. I want it to be a surprise.’
The wren gives way to the impatient click-click of a starling.
‘Sturnus vulgaris,’ says Rhona triumphantly.
‘You have been doing your homework.’
‘Alden’s always using Latin phrases, so I thought, what the hell, I’ll learn a few and drop them on him from time to time.’
‘I know. You’re going to take me to hear some nightingales.’
‘I’m not telling.’
‘Yes, nightingales it is, but I have to tell you they’re more common on the heathland towards the coast.’
Rhona slows and parks on the verge under some trees. ‘We have to walk now,’ she says.
Listening for birdsong, Luke leaves the car, his sweater draped over his shoulders. He hears nothing. ‘I give up,’ he says.
‘Down this path,’ she orders, striding ahead.
Luke joins her on a baked mud track, hard under foot and dappled by shadows as the evening sun filters through overhanging branches. After a few hundred metres the track forks. One way leads to rough open ground. The other, where Rhona leads him, winds under oak trees. For some minutes, they walk in silence, picking their way among a network of deep-rutted paths where the dusty sweet smell of dry leaves stirs childhood memories. To their left Luke can make out a field. At one point the path swings towards it, allowing him to see swallows skim over the bending heads of wheat. It is the only sign of wildlife. He looks at Rhona. She smiles and shakes her head.
Now the track becomes wider and flatter. They walk side by side. Narrowing, the track becomes a path, sloping uphill and away from the field. Rhona slips her arm through Luke’s. A thrush flies in front of them and disappears into some bushes. Luke hesitates and turns to Rhona. Again she shakes her head. He enjoys the silence. In it he realises that neither at Saffold Farm, nor in the shop, nor this evening, has she asked him more than a couple of questions about his life – never the veiled inquisition from new customers, or from fellow guests at local dinner parties, out to fit him into a sociological box. And he is surprised that he himself, naturally inquisitive, has no wish to ask her similar questions: where were you brought up, are your parents alive? Of course, he has learned a little about her without asking questions and has spoken about himself without questions from her, but all has been incidental to a another dialogue which transcends such trivia.
As they continue he feels her arm tighten on his. They are so close her hair occasionally brushes his right ear. He wants to stop and hug her, but this walk and its uncertain destination are more important. At the top of the slope the woodland thins and the path turns ninety degrees to the right. Soon they are away from the trees and at the edge of a heath. Another wood, of pines and oaks, is to their left. Luke can see at the far end of the heath the slow movement of grazing cattle, but otherwise the landscape is still and silent. There is no wind and here, away from the shadow of trees, the air is warmer. It is a place, he thinks, where we might hear a nightingale. But there is no sound.
‘Isn’t this heavenly?’ Rhona says, dropping her left hand to hold his. At that moment the silence is broken by a far-off sound, perhaps a lawnmower. They stand still, but after several seconds the noise stops.
Rhona turns and takes Luke’s other hand. ‘Did you hear it?’ she asks.
‘The two-stroke engine?’
Rhona looks at him mysteriously. At that moment the sound returns. Luke realises that this is what they came to hear and immediately understands. Moving close to her, he whispers in her ear, ‘A nightjar? How did you know they were here?’
‘One of my team brought me here yesterday. Isn’t it magical?’
Failing to see the bird, they listen to its intermittent call drifting across the wide expanse of heath from an indiscernible direction.
‘I’ve only heard them once before,’ says Luke. ‘I must have been about twelve.’
‘Did you ever see one?’
‘Sadly, no.’
‘We did last night but only a fleeting glimpse – a dark shape moving from a low tree on the heath towards the woods.’
For several more minutes they look across the heath and along the line of trees at the edge, but see nothing. And the sound does not recur.
‘Let’s move on,’ says Rhona, pulling Luke by the hand. The path, now flanked by low gorse bushes, rises slightly until they arrive at an outcrop of trees, an intrusion on the heath.
‘It’s near here we saw it,’ she tells him.
Halting to survey the heath, they see no movement apart from a few small moths above the gorse, and hear no sounds above the background hum of insects. The nightjar remains silent and invisible. Rhona looks disappointed.
‘Never mind not seeing one,’ he says. ‘To hear it was the greatest treat. As I waited for you by the shop I had no idea . . .’
‘Look,’ says Rhona pointing back down the path.
A ragged silhouette in erratic flight moves from the woods to the heath, dances midair and darts back into the trees. A few moments later it reappears and repeats the sortie. Further down, another nightjar follows the same pattern. For several minutes they watch.
‘Strange, aren’t they?’ says Rhona. ‘Primeval, not really birds at all. More like Jurassic creatures evolution forgot about.’ She takes his hand again. ‘Shall we walk across the heath? It would be a pity to go back along the path and disturb them.’
They walk down a small track on tinder dry turf, occasionally turning back to watch the birds. A little further on, she steps off the path and walks to a patch of short grass surrounded by bracken. When she turns round Luke thinks she is about to speak, but in silence she lowers herself to the ground and sits, leaning back. Luke sits beside her. He wants to hold her in his arms but does no more than reach out a hand and brush some strands of hair from one side of her face, aware that his heart is pounding.
Rhona leans back a little more and closes her eyes. ‘Kiss me,’ she says.
He gently kisses her, feeling her fingers run through his hair. Her perfume in the evening air is overpowering.
Her hands drop to his shoulders and untie the arms of the sweater draped around them. Pulling him closer, she whispers, ‘Luke, make love to me.’
Stella places her right elbow on the arm of her chair and rests her chin on the back of her hand. The posture reminds Eva of Rodin’s Thinker.
‘Into the lion’s den,’ says Stella.
‘The lioness’s, and I’m apprehensive about it. I shall be more spy than guest, looking out for signs of what may be going on.’
‘That client of mine we called Esther had many such social occasions. At first she drove herself to distraction trying to see if her husband and the other woman were exchanging furtive glances. And if she decided they were not, she wondered if they were deliberately ignoring each other. In the end she learned that she felt strongest when she avoided any such mind-rending suspicion.’
Eva grimaces and finishes her wine.
‘Hard,’ I know, Stella continues, ‘but you don’t have to continue along this road. I only told you about Esther as an example of a possible course of action. If you wish to speak frankly to Luke, that may still be the best route for you.’
‘I’ll wait until after tomorrow evening.’
Stella rises from her chair. ‘Help yourself to some more wine. I
must see how our chicken is progressing.’
While Stella is out of the room, Eva fills her glass and waits, asking herself if she is strong enough to follow the Esther strategy, and if Stella was wise in first mentioning it. She looks at the familiar furnishings of the room, the Egyptian urns, the unfashionable clutter of mahogany and heavily patterned cushions, curtains and carpets, wondering whether Stella’s counselling is as defunct as her taste in interior design. But as she settles into her chair she finds the room now replaces her misgivings with a strength and security which counters self-doubt and renews her confidence in her supervisor. This is a safe place where she cannot be paralysed by thoughts about Luke or Rhona or questions of professionalism. But it also forces the question what she would do if Stella retired, moved away or died. She walks to the window. Maybe she herself should take on supervisory work. Were she to do so, the model of Stella would be a good one to follow. Perhaps that is where the future lies.
She lifts up the smallest of the Egyptian urns and runs a finger over its rough surface.
‘About 1400 BC,’ says Stella from the doorway. ‘My grandfather was an archaeologist. I keep them in his memory.’
Eva glances up at the others, one of which has a cover in the form of a jackal’s head.
‘No, don’t worry,’ smiles Stella, ‘his ashes aren’t inside. He’s buried in Alexandria. I think dinner is ready.’ Eva replaces the urn and follows Stella downstairs.
Luke looks at Rhona’s hair spread over his right arm, and reaching with his left hand to his sweater eases it under her head. She lies beside him, her legs resting across his. Their shoes and his jeans are on the grass by their feet. She is still wearing her denim dress, unbuttoned. The rhythm of her breathing suggests she is asleep. He does not know how long they have lain there; he has remained awake for an indefinite time during which thought has been suspended. Now, despite some inner resistance, it reasserts itself, informing him that this is the first time he has ever truly made love. Whatever the pleasures shared with Eva, they have never been of this order.
He feels Rhona’s breath, slow and deep, against his body. Yes, she must be asleep. He remembers that for a few seconds he had been worried, afraid of disappointing her, but she had looked at him and widened her eyes in a smile beneath which all his anxiety had evaporated. As she stirs and snuggles close to him, he is determined to spend the rest of his life with her. He remembers her look as she opened her eyes and stared down on him before she moved off him and lay at his side from where she has hardly moved. It was a look which assured him that she felt the same way.
Rhona stretches her right arm across his chest and grasps his left shoulder. ‘Don’t ever leave me Luke. Help me get away from that monster Alden.’
‘I’ll do anything in my power for you.’
She opens her eyes and looks up at him. ‘I think you’re at an impasse too, aren’t you, Luke?’
‘But I’m not married. Fortunately.’
‘I’m glad you’re not, but I think you might have entered a cul-de-sac the day you fell for your therapist.’
Luke hears a voice in his mind, Our years together have proved . . . but he says, ‘I now know you’re right.’
‘Will it be hard breaking up from her?’
‘It will be for her.’
Rhona sits up and kisses him. ‘Perhaps you should not have gone to a therapist in the first place.’
She kisses him again, and begins buttoning her dress. ‘It is the one thing I agree with Lynton and Alden about. Psychotherapy and counselling are minefields best avoided. And for creative people they can be fatal. Not in the sense that they will kill you, but worse, your creativity – your soul – will be strangled.’
‘Have I wasted half my life?’
Rhona waves a hand across his face. ‘No, stupid, nothing’s wasted now that you and I have met.’
‘I wish I’d met you ten years ago.’
‘I was eighteen and unbearable. You would have hated me.’
They laugh and hug and Luke feels her cold arms. He puts his Guernsey on her and straightens some of her hair ruffled by the neck of the sweater.
‘I’ve never worn one of these before,’ she says. ‘It makes me feel like a fisherman’s daughter in a Victorian painting.’
‘I think it suits you.’
They stand and look at the brick red sky in the west. When they turn they see the dull glow of the waning moon above the opposite side of the heath.
‘A C for Corsica,’ she says. ‘The moon wants you to be there with me.’
‘Shall we wander back while we have light?’
‘Yes, I expect by now even the nightjars have gone to bed.’
But at the edge of the heath, near the trees, they see against the darkening sky a nightjar’s ungainly shape as it flies from cover.
‘They’ve stayed up especially for us,’ says Luke.
Hand in hand, on their way back to the car, they stop near the edge of the woods to view the sunset across the wheat field.
‘We must be careful not to look too much at each other tomorrow night,’ Rhona says.
‘I shall find it hard not to.’
Rhona gently slaps his arm. ‘You must behave.’
‘Trust me, I shall.’
‘This evening may have made it harder for us to play innocent.’
‘Had we not made love, the problem tomorrow night would have been not looking at you. Now the problem is not looking at you and giggling.’
Simultaneously they burst into laughter.
‘Race you back to the car,’ she says and starts sprinting ahead.
Luke, surprised how fast she can run, fails to catch up with her before they reach the verge where the car is parked.
‘You won,’ Luke says, out of breath.
‘Shall we call it a tie?’ she says as she settles herself into the driver’s seat. ‘I did have a better start. But you do get a prize.’ She opens the glove compartment and hands Luke a red envelope. From its size and feel he guesses it is a CD.
‘You probably already have it,’ she says. ‘I ordered it online and wasn’t certain which one to choose.’
Luke opens the envelope. ‘Françoise Hardy’s first album. How thoughtful. Thank you. I have the 1962 vinyl but not the CD.’
‘Put it on.’
Rhona starts the car and they drive away from beneath the trees as Françoise Hardy sings Tous les garçons et les filles.
In Cantisham Luke directs her to Back Lane.
‘So this is your den,’ she says at the door of number seven.
‘Can you risk seeing inside?’ he asks.
Rhona raises her eyebrows.
‘No, Eva’s in Norwich or back at her cottage.’
Rhona looks up and down the street. ‘It is so lovely here, the church at one end and that intriguing bend round to the market at the other. I would like to paint it. And all this is your house? Seventeen hundred and something?’
‘Mainly Queen Anne. I think the cellar’s older.’
‘I bet you have some lovely wine.’
‘A little.’
‘Alden really regrets Saffold Farm has no cellar. He talks of digging one. Of course he never will.’
In the hallway she hugs him until, opening her eyes, she gazes in amazement at a blue lacquer and gilded corner cupboard with a mirrored door. She steps towards it. ‘This is like looking back into history,’ she says. ‘Where did you find it?’
‘It was my mother’s.’
‘Your mother’s dead?’
‘Both my parents died when I was in my twenties.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ she says, as if the loss were recent. ‘What’s through this door?’ She steps into the study.
Rhona smiles at the film posters. ‘Ah, your man cave. I love Theodora, although that emperor on the throne looks disturbingly like Alden.’ She sinks into an armchair. ‘To think,’ she says, ‘a few weeks ago I walked into your shop and said to myself, lovely mirrors but what a seriou
s old stick of a proprietor. And I thought for a moment Russ was your gay partner. Now I know different.’
‘I should hope so. Mind you, I thought this extraordinary girl in the large hat, apart from being amazingly lovely, had an unapproachable mystery about her. I still don’t know how you could enter the shop without being heard and later vanish like mist. I thought I could never hope to get close to you.’
‘You were quite close this evening.’
‘Yes, but I feel you will always retain some of that mystery. How can you appear and disappear like magic?’
Rhona hugs him. ‘We enchantresses can’t give away our secrets.’
‘Have you eaten tonight?’
‘I raided some of the cheese Alden bought for dinner tomorrow and made a sandwich. He was livid. He always prepares things well in advance and unknowingly I had robbed him of the most expensive of three French cheeses he had bought for his soufflés. ‘You’ve forced me to adapt my recipe,’ he shouted and stormed out of the house.’
‘I shall look forward to whatever he gives us,’ Luke says, with as much sincerity as he can muster.
‘Luke, darling, do stop being so nice about him. He’s a brute and I want to be with you, not him. In fact I would love to live in this house.’ She brings her hands together as if in prayer. ‘If you would have me.’
‘Move in whenever you wish.’
‘I’m afraid there would be boring money problems. I might have to sell Saffold Farm and find new premises for work.’
‘I own some barns on the outskirts of town. I converted them into commercial units. Several are at least the size of your studio.’
Eva follows him when he goes to the kitchen to find some wine. While he is extracting the cork, she goes to the French windows.
When he brings her a glass of Vouvray she says, looking out to the garden, ‘This is so secluded.’
Luke switches off the kitchen light to allow her a clearer view. She sips her wine. Slowly she turns at him, ‘This would be so safe for children.’
The Mirrror Shop Page 17