The Mirrror Shop

by Nicholas Bundock

  ‘You’re joking. He’s clueless about fashion and textiles. He works as a locum solicitor. He isn’t very proud of it, because he still nurses his writing hopes.’

  ‘Surely law is more lucrative than writing?’

  ‘A year ago he got fifty pounds for a short story in some obscure magazine and he spent more than that celebrating. How did you meet Luke?’

  ‘After the break-up of his marriage he was my client. The counselling ended and we began to meet socially. It was a very difficult time.’

  Eva sees Rhona’s eyes widen at this revelation – whether genuine or feigned surprise she can’t decide.

  ‘How beautifully romantic,’ says Rhona.

  ‘That’s not what my colleagues at work thought.’

  ‘They were probably envious.’

  ‘There’s a code of conduct about relationships with clients. It blew up in such a way it was best for me to leave. So we moved up here.’

  ‘I think that’s wonderful. And Luke’s lovely. If you ever want to swap him for Alden . . .’

  Eva attempts to smile.

  Rhona jumps to her feet. ‘Enough of this nonsense. Alden will be furious if we’re late for his soufflés.’

  As Eva walks ahead to the door, she feels a tap on her shoulder.

  ‘Don’t forget your drawing.’ Rhona hands the cardboard tube to Eva. ‘I wouldn’t have blamed you for leaving it behind.’

  ‘I would have blamed myself – it’s a very kind present.’

  As they enter the house they see the others leaving the parlour.

  ‘Oh, there you are,’ calls Russ to Eva. ‘We were about to send out a search party.’

  Luke, last to emerge, finds Rhona at his side. She whispers in his ear, ‘You’ve never been into the studio. OK?’

  For a moment he is taken back by this sudden confidence. He turns his head to her but finds she is already weaving her way through the others. In the dining room Luke sees a large circular table covered in a linen cloth and laid with silver cutlery around a central bowl of garden roses.

  ‘Now sit wherever you like,’ says Rhona, ‘and none of this boy, girl, boy, girl silliness.’

  ‘Anyhow, you can’t do it with a five and a four,’ says Russ.

  Last in, Luke finds a chair between Cassie and Josh. Glad not to be next to Rhona, he also knows that around a circular table it may be hard not to catch her eye. He watches her slip in on Josh’s left, a proximity which makes the chance of eye contact as minimal as the table’s shape allows.

  Eva sits near the door, next to a chair left vacant for Alden. Felix, on her other side, fills her glass from one of the three opened bottles of white wine on the table. ‘Aren’t round tables fun?’ he says. ‘And we can always have a séance afterwards. I wonder if Alden’s got a ouija board.’

  ‘Definitely not,’ says Alden, entering and now wearing a blue and white striped apron. He carries two trays of soufflés in large ramekin dishes on plates. He places the trays on the table, one either side of the roses. ‘It’s playing with fire. Lynton’s nephew was a good artist until he dabbled with ouijahs. After that he never painted again.’ He returns to the kitchen.

  ‘That rules out tonight’s entertainment,’ says Felix.

  ‘We’d better grab these before they sink,’ says Rhona, taking a ramekin for herself. ‘That would be a crime worse than dabbling in magic.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ says Louise, ‘can we risk Peter Pan?’

  ‘Peter Pan is about white magic,’ says a voice behind a basket of home-baked rolls.’ Alden places the basket on the table. ‘Unlike Macbeth which can be plagued by accidents.’

  ‘What about Blithe Spirit which we’re doing in the autumn?’ asks Russ. ‘I mean, it’s all about a séance and an angry poltergeist.’

  ‘Comedies don’t count,’ says Alden, removing his apron, hanging it over the dining room door and sitting down.

  ‘This is delicious,’ says Eva. ‘Walnut, parmesan . . . and some other cheese?’

  Alden beams, mid-mouthful, ‘Mathilde gave me the recipe.’

  Eva is about to ask who Mathilde is when Rhona helps her out.

  ‘Mathilde is Lynton’s wife.’

  Eva looks around the table and sees Luke listening to Russ who is talking quietly to Louise about Blithe Spirit.

  ‘. . . and your dress would look wonderful on Madame Arcati. Mind you, the lady we’ve got lined up for her would have to lose a stone or three. Added to that . . .’

  As Eva notes that there has been no eye contact yet between Luke and Rhona, Alden turns to her.

  ‘Somebody said you’re a psychotherapist. Have you always practiced in Norfolk?’

  ‘No, I trained and started work in London,’ Eva says, wondering for a moment if it was Luke or Russ who mentioned her profession to him. Or Rhona?

  At great speed Alden finishes his soufflé. ‘A lot of work but gone in a minute,’ he smiles. ‘I’m afraid I’m very suspicious of psychotherapists. I always think that had the great creative minds submitted to therapy, they wouldn’t have produced anything.’

  Eva realises that all other conversations have stopped.

  ‘It’s the creases in our minds which make us create,’ continues Alden. ‘Iron them out and we can’t paint or write anything.’

  ‘I don’t see my work as ironing out,’ says Eva. ‘More of helping people feel comfortable with whatever creases they have.’

  ‘Ah, but when you’re comfortable, can you create? Would Van Gogh have left us those marvellous sunflowers and irises had he been comfortable?’

  ‘Psychotherapy might have prevented his suicide. He then might have given us many more paintings.’

  ‘Or he might have died a sad old man, never having lifted his brush for the second half of his life.’ Alden gets up from the table and goes to the kitchen. At the door he turns round. ‘And there is a theory that Van Gogh was murdered.’

  Rhona catches Eva’s eye. ‘I apologise. The troubled creative mind is one of his favourite hobby-horses.’

  ‘Good soufflé though,’ says Felix, standing to clear the nine empty dishes.

  ‘Maybe his true vocation is cooking,’ says Cassie.

  ‘That’s just as well,’ says Rhona. ‘I’m hopeless in the kitchen.’ She leans forward to Luke. ‘Do you think we could do with a mirror on that far wall?’

  Pleased that Rhona is no longer appearing to ignore him, Luke looks towards the boarded-up fireplace and its modest surround. ‘Maybe an understated mirror would stand well on the mantel shelf.’ He turns to his right. ‘What do you think, Russ?’

  Russ eyes the wall up and down. ‘Yes, as long as it’s simple and square.’

  ‘Like Alden,’ says Louise.

  ‘Naughty, naughty,’ says Russ, gently slapping her wrist. ‘If you’re not careful we won’t get our next course, let alone pudding.’

  ‘Perhaps you and Russ could look out something suitable,’ says Rhona.

  Luke again stares at the empty wall in front of him. ‘It would certainly make the room look larger.’

  If this is all an act, thinks Eva, Rhona – and Luke as well – are playing it all with great skill. Is it somehow too convincing?

  Felix appears with a pile of warmed dinner plates, followed by Alden carrying two stuffed and rolled loins of pork. As Felix returns to the kitchen, Alden looks around for a compliment.

  ‘How exquisitely sliced,’ says Eva. ‘My efforts always seem to lose shape when I take the string off the meat.’

  Alden begins to serve. ‘The secret is not to have a stuffing which is too crumbly.’

  Felix brings in dishes of potatoes dauphinoise and savoy cabbage. When he sits down Eva asks, ‘Will this be your first trip to Santa Marta?’

  ‘Yes,’ he says quietly, ‘but I’m beginning to wonder if I shouldn’t have taken up an offer to do the Edinburgh Fringe. But Corsica has guaranteed sun, and Alden’s paying me better.’

  ‘So you’re a professional actor?’

  ‘I
hope to be. Is psychotherapy the same as counselling?’

  ‘People argue over the differences, but the aim is pretty much the same.’

  ‘A friend of mine needed counselling after a week of psychodrama. When I was offered a similar course I turned it down.’

  ‘Very wise,’ says Alden, as he appears between them to fill their glasses. ‘I lost my first girlfriend because of psychodrama.’

  All eyes focus in his direction. He enjoys the moment of silence.

  ‘Well, let’s hear the details,’ insists Louise.

  ‘Not the psychodrama story, please, Alden,’ says Rhona.

  The protest, Eva decides, is as much encouragement as restraint.

  Alden gives a shrug of indecision.

  ‘Come on,’ says Felix, ‘You’re obviously dying to tell us.’

  ‘OK,’ says Alden and returns to his seat where he knocks back half a glass of wine. ‘Many years ago . . . long before I met the beautiful Rhona . . .’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ says Rhona.

  ‘Do you want me continue?’

  ‘Out with it,’ says Cassie.

  ‘In those sad and half-forgotten days, I had a girlfriend who was at drama school, and she once had a weeklong course of psychodrama, during which she . . .’

  ‘What was her name, Alden?’ asks Cassie.

  ‘. . . during Lynette’s week she would come home every night with stories of soul-searching, delving into the subconscious and even dancing naked in a half-lit room with her fellow students. The leader, enabler, or whatever she called him, was this hoary old therapist called Neville, and every night it was Neville said this and Neville told us that and Neville’s really fantastic. And so profound were the insights gained from her journey of self-discovery that she assured me it would do me good if I went on a similar course.’

  ‘Sounds as if it would have been up your street,’ says Louise.

  Alden ignores the comment. ‘And being a cooperative sort of guy, I went along with her and said, “Well, book me into a course if you think it’s so wonderful.” And the next day she comes back, having paid for me to have a weekend in Devon with the same psycho-guru who had clearly impressed her so much.’ Alden bolts a mouthful of pork.

  ‘And you actually went?’ asks Cassie.

  ‘Of course. But for some reason Neville and I didn’t exactly hit it off.’

  ‘Perhaps you didn’t look so good naked,’ says Felix.

  ‘No, even before anyone took their shoes off for the obligatory sit-in-a-circle soul-baring, I thought, this man is a total prat, and worse than that, a control freak.’

  ‘Takes one to know one,’ says Cassie.

  Alden gives his plate a sardonic smile. ‘Well, it has to be said, the course I’d been booked on wasn’t the heavy duty psychodrama stuff Lynette had enjoyed. My weekend was what Neville called in-depth group work. And the first two hours were taken up by everybody sharing the miseries of their lives, past or present. For some reason I was the only one who had nothing to contribute.’

  ‘Clearly, a happy childhood, free of repression,’ says Eva. She looks towards Luke whose auction-room face reveals nothing.

  ‘So I sat there,’ Alden continues, ‘listening, but without anything to add to the pots of agony bubbling around me. On the whole nobody seemed to notice me until the first session the following day. Here I must say that official bedtime hadn’t been until 3am. I suspect the idea was to grind down even the most resistant reserve. At any rate, the procedure was to find a corner of the rambling old house where the course was held, and get your head down as best you could.’

  ‘I’m sure there were plenty of cushions,’ says Russ.

  ‘I’ve never seen so many. Dozens to hug, weep into and, in the case of one angry Danish girl, punch the hell out of. At any rate my chosen place of repose was a corner of a conservatory which I thought I had for myself. Here I make my big mistake.’

  ‘You woke up in the night and peed on a rare orchid?’ says Josh.

  ‘Much worse. I snored. And unbeknown to me someone else was sleeping, or rather trying to sleep, in another corner, hidden by a fruiting vine.’

  ‘The angry Danish girl,’ says Josh.

  ‘No, it turned out to be an otherwise mild-mannered civil engineer. But in the morning, at the first session after the herbal tea and nut bar which passed for breakfast, he laid into me with such abuse for disturbing his sleep that you would have thought I had tried to garotte him during the night with a trailing plant.’

  ‘Why didn’t he go off to a quieter room?’ asks Russ.

  ‘Too simple. He was obviously relishing the chance to have a go at someone in public. Now, in the course of his tirade, this engineer points out that there is a custom at these weekends that anyone who snores must sleep in the adjacent barn conversion. I now twig that most of this lot have been to these madhouse parties before, and are fully conversant with the snoring regulation. To give the guru Neville his due, he does tell everyone that this is my first weekend and I had probably not read the notes at the bottom of the timetable pinned up in the kitchen.’

  ‘Always read the small print,’ says Russ.

  Eva looks towards Luke, wondering if around the table there is information she herself is failing to read.

  ‘So,’ continues Alden, ‘with suitable humility I say sorry to the red-eyed engineer. But that makes it worse. Everybody questions the sincerity of my apology. Mind you, I do have to say there may have been a trace of a smile on my face as I said it.’

  ‘What did you expect?’ says Josh.

  ‘Not what followed. Neville, who has clearly been noting my twelve hours non-contribution to the gathering, turns from being sympathetic and singles me out for special treatment. “Why do you resent us all?” asks Neville. “But I don’t,” I tell him. “I sense a lot of anger in you, Al-den,” he tells me. Well, I admit that up to that point I didn’t feel much either way, but the way he called me Al-den, emphasising the second syllable really got my goat. I told him I couldn’t see much point in the weekend, but I was happy to bash on until the end of the final session at six o’clock, even if I didn’t have much to say. In response, he silently gets up and lies down in the centre of the circle. “Al-den, come and lie down on top of me,” he says. And I see this ring of smiling eyes encouraging me to do as he says because it will do me good.’

  ‘Lie on him?’ asks Cassie. ‘I take it you still had clothes on.’

  ‘I never removed more than my shoes. Back to my edifying weekend – one girl gets to her feet and holds my hand, as if she’s a sponsor in some evangelical convention. It was like they were all going to sing Shall we gather at the river? if I stepped into the middle.’

  ‘And did you?’ asks Louise?

  ‘No, I simply asked Neville very quietly why he wanted me to lie on him. Perfectly reasonable, I thought. Wrong again, it transpires. “Please trust me, Al-den,” says a voice from the carpet. And at the same time my sponsor squeezes my right hand.’

  ‘Was she pretty?’ asks Louise.

  ‘I can’t remember, but I tell Neville that lying on top of men for no apparent reason isn’t my usual style. And at that a bearded man takes hold of my other hand. I can recall his limp fingers. But I stay firmly where I am in the seated circle.’

  ‘Party pooper,’ says Cassie.

  ‘They all certainly thought so, since I was ignored for the rest of the morning. Which suited me fine.’ Alden swallows some more food and a glassful of wine. ‘But over the frugal salad lunch Neville appears at my side and says, “We really must address that anger, Al-den.” I’m about to argue the point but since I look like losing the last whole grain roll, I politely smile at him, concentrate all my energy and think to myself, If I’ve got a load of anger, Neville, I give it all to you, matey – deal with it. Curiously, I felt a weight lifted from me. Elated, I headed for the hippy bread.’

  ‘Did he ever tell you why he did want you to lie on top of him?’ asks Russ.

  ‘
No, but later Lynette said it was to make me feel that Neville was as vulnerable as me, or some such psychobabble.’

  ‘And the naked dancing?’ asks Louise.

  ‘That was at the end of the day. One or two of them couldn’t get their kit off quick enough. Some did a half-strip. The music chosen for the occasion was A Whiter Shade of Pale, which seemed a bit passé, although Neville was probably trapped in the ’60s.’

  ‘But how did that make you lose your girlfriend?’ asks Cassie.

  ‘Apparently the girl who took my right hand was a friend of Lynette’s and at drama school with her. She gave Lynette a hug by hug account of the whole weekend and my alleged non-cooperation. Lynette was deeply appalled and wanted me to go back to Neville for one-to-one counselling. I refused of course. I think what finally broke us up was my telling her that I had deposited a heavy load of supposed anger on Neville himself.’ Alden turns to Eva. ‘You see my first experience of therapy may well have been my last.’

  ‘Not everyone would find such groups helpful,’ says Eva. ‘I certainly wouldn’t myself.’ She looks around the table, again detecting no eye contact between Luke and Rhona.

  ‘At any rate, Lynette and I split up and I heard only one more thing about Neville.’

  ‘He’d got off with Lynette?’ says Cassie.

  ‘No, he jumped off the Severn Bridge, and that was the end of him.’

  ‘He clearly couldn’t bear the burden of your anger,’ says Louise.

  Alden gets up from his seat. ‘I would like to think so.’ With a malevolent smile he leaves for the kitchen. For some moments the room is silent.

  Over peach crumble and dessert wine Eva decides she has been part of a well-rehearsed performance, the room’s only certainty the faultless food.

  Furthest from the dining room door, Luke is the last to leave for coffee in the parlour. In the passageway he feels a tap on his shoulder and hears Rhona’s lowered voice, ‘Isn’t he an ogre? He really believes he sent that Neville to his death, through some destructive power of thought. Sometimes he really scares me. I’ll phone early tomorrow?’ The reassurance tells him that the whole evening is part of an Alden-centred world soon to be exploded.

  Oiling his guests with Braulio digestif, Alden tries to persuade them to play charades but Felix puts on some jazz and turns up the volume. Luke, sitting next to Eva in almost the same position where, on his first visit, he sat next to Rhona, is uneasy, alienated in a room redolent with the memory of being alone with her.