The Mirrror Shop

by Nicholas Bundock

  ‘Enjoy yourself.’

  ‘Well, it is a holiday,’ says Russ with an ambiguous grin.

  As Luke is removing his torn coat, Rhona says, ‘Go ahead with the gang. Agnes and I have some clearing up to do here. Another swim tomorrow morning?’

  ‘As early as you like.’

  ‘We’ll go to the sea.’

  ‘You can throw away your prompter’s book,’ says Felix as they stroll back to Les Puits.

  ‘That might invite bad luck,’ says Luke, surprised at his own superstitiousness.

  Later, at a candlelit table, Luke watches Rhona and Agnes arrive. They sit at the far end of the table. Rhona’s head is framed by the lower branches of the vine. Agnes sits on her right and is chattering non-stop. Rhona listens attentively, but Luke is certain she is alert to every word elsewhere at the table and that if a leaf from the vine behind her dared to fall, she would hear the sound as it touched the flagstones.

  Alden is the last to enter the courtyard. As soon as he appears Cassie begins clapping. The others join with ironic cheers.

  ‘To the director. A great dress,’ says Josh.

  ‘It wasn’t fault-free,’ admonishes Alden, taking a chair next to Luke.

  ‘Pretty damn good though,’ says Cassie.

  ‘It can still be sharpened up. And of course starting at eight-thirty tomorrow, it will be darker.’

  ‘You’re scared of success,’ says Cassie. ‘Or do you believe that a perfect dress means a hell-awful first night?’

  ‘Fortunately, the dress was not perfect.’

  Cassie turns to Louise on her right and in a stage whisper says, ‘From what I’ve been told, an Alden first night is always a disappointment.’

  After this, conversation at dinner is restrained. Luke, alienated, wishes Russ were sitting next to him babbling familiar nonsense. He looks towards the end of the table. Rhona catches his eye with a look which he interprets as, ‘I’m glad you’re next to Alden: it’s good to keep things civilised while it remains possible.’

  ‘I enjoyed meeting Mathilde and Lynton,’ Luke tells Alden.

  ‘He’s lost some of his verve. Ten years ago he’d be sitting with us now, holding forth.’

  ‘He’s not bad for almost ninety. I admire his entrenched independence.’

  ‘Too entrenched sometimes.’ Alden empties his wine glass.

  ‘But he’s only entrenched against the art establishment, surely. Not against the world. Otherwise he wouldn’t be so keen on teaching.’

  ‘I think he has more to offer a wider public. I’ve been planning a biography but he’s dug his heels in.’

  ‘It seems to me that he hates public exposure.’

  ‘He does, but he has so many paintings and drawings which have barely seen the light of day, let alone been on the market. They deserve to be published, hung and enjoyed.’

  ‘His Civil War drawings?’

  ‘Almost no-one has ever seen them. I was lucky enough to have a glimpse years ago and they are phenomenal. Not just because they were done by a ten year old, but as works of art in their own right. And he has stacks of other stuff which should be known about.’

  ‘Perhaps they are too personal for public consumption. Loads of artists destroy their own work.’

  ‘I’ve told him he can trust me to publish them sensitively, but he’s very recalcitrant. Mathilde wants him to. In fact she tried to produce a book about him herself years ago but it came to nothing. I simply want his work recorded for posterity. Who would believe it could be so hard?’

  ‘You mean you’ve ambitions to be his agent?’ says Cassie.

  ‘I’ve no ambitions, only an aspiration, but not as his agent. I’ve simply offered my services as his biographer.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong in having an ambition to get your name on a book,’ says Felix.

  ‘It will be about Lynton, not me,’ Alden says.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, we believe you, Alden,’ laughs Cassie.

  ‘It will happen one day – I hope before Lynton dies,’ says Alden.

  ‘What makes you so certain?’ asks Luke.

  ‘Instinct. I had a Cumbrian grandmother with the gift of second sight. I’ve been told I’m like her.’

  Luke wonders whether the claimed insight stretches to the relationship between him and Rhona.

  ‘More wine?’ Alden asks Luke.

  ‘No thanks, I must get some sleep. I’m still adjusting to this Mediterranean heat.’

  As Luke gets to his feet, Alden grasps his arm, ‘It’s so good to have you here,’ he says.

  Luke leaves the table to a chorus of ‘Sleep well,’ among which Rhona’s is the only voice he can hear. Once in his room, he realises that his excuse of tiredness is in fact the reality. He kicks off his sandals and lies on top of his bed. He cannot undress until he has composed his thoughts.

  19

  When Luke wakes it is dark. He is surprised to find himself dressed. He looks at his watch, still on his wrist. It is 4.30am. He is so wide awake that the few hours he has slept feel like twelve. What to do? It is too early to go to the kitchen and wait for Rhona, but the best time for practical thoughts about the future. The major decisions of life – asking Eva out to dinner that first time, moving from London, the purchase of his shop and house, acquiring the barns – have all been planned around dawn. He has always relished this time of quiet, without interruptions and with the strangely assuring thought that all the people whose lives touch his are lost in a sleep where any conscious powers of thought transference cannot influence him. His rational self tells him that this idea is absurd, but early in the morning it has always felt true. He stands by the window, looking out through the darkness towards the mountains, slowly delineated as the minutes pass.

  When and how to tell Eva? As soon as possible on his return. He is certain of that. But how? Be as straightforward as possible. Wouldn’t it be gross ignorance on his part to assume that she knows nothing about him and Rhona? Yesterday he had suspected it; now, he is in no doubt. He is certain that he has done everything to conceal the affair, but a thousand miles from home, in the still of a Mediterranean village before dawn, he is equally certain that Eva, through intuition or professional insight, is aware of it. Her knowledge does not mean that when he tells her she will not be hurt or angry, but the break-up will be so much easier than the split of partners, married or otherwise, who have been living together. There are no legal implications. Neither he nor Eva will be financially damaged. ‘We can still remain friends,’ he finds himself saying, then groans at having recited the desperate mantra of the newly-separated. No, there is little chance we shall remain friends. Keep in touch, perhaps, in a neighbourly sort of way. But not friends.

  In the increasing light he sees a flock of small yellow-streaked birds, perhaps finches, descend to an ancient oleander below the window. No, he cannot be certain of Eva’s reaction. Nor his own on telling her? There would be things missed, companionship, fishing, holidays – he half wants to add sex but thoughts of Rhona preclude it.

  Practical matters. Rhona wants to live with me, but in which house? I’ve told her she can move in to 7 Back Lane, or I’ll buy Alden’s share of Saffold Farm and live with her there. What could be easier? If we take that course, I shall retain my house, perhaps rent it out or use it for storage. My business would be unaffected. I shall continue my allotment, even if I am living at the farm which has space for a vegetable garden. What have I overlooked? Luke moves from the window and drops onto the hard-seated rustic chair, watching the first light cast dull shadows on the room’s uneven white walls. On his neck he feels a slight breeze from the window. He draws a deep breath. The air is heavy with the scent of pines and herbs. Sweet, like the future. He feels thirsty.

  In the kitchen he makes tea for himself and waits for Rhona. It is colder here, the dampness of the stone floor blending with the smell of the pots of marjoram on the window sill. He cannot see how the room could possibly look more lovely in its simplicity. Even the crac
ked blue and white tiles above the sink have a charm which no modernisation could improve. His mauve towel on the table is an intruder. He folds it over the back of his chair where he cannot see it.

  It is not long before Rhona appears, wearing a black track suit and red espadrilles. Elated, she kisses him. ‘This morning I feel free for the first time in years,’ she says. ‘Let’s go to the sea.’ She pours herself half a cup of hot water from the kettle, adds some cold, drinks it quickly, and beckons him to the door.

  In the car Rhona starts the engine and turns on the radio, changing stations at random until finding some heavy metal. As soon as they are away from the village she turns up the volume, smiles at Luke and squeezes his hand.

  At some speed she drives down the twisting road towards Solenzara where she takes the coast road heading south. After a few miles she turns off down a minor road whose surface rapidly deteriorates until, among trees, it becomes a sandy track which ends at a rough parking area among rocks. She stops the car and the music. There is no other vehicle in sight.

  ‘Freedom,’ she says. ‘Come on.’ Taking Luke’s hand, she leads him down to a crescent-shaped beach, bordered by pines. It is totally secluded, but the restless slate sea is forbidding. Rhona points to the far end of a rocky outcrop stretching into the sea like a natural breakwater. ‘That’s where we swim to,’ she says.

  When they have walked to the water’s edge Luke looks at the distance between them and the rocks and feels uncertain of his ability to swim that far. Rhona also stares out to sea, but Luke knows her thoughts are not about swimming. Suddenly she throws off her tracksuit and runs naked to the water. Up to her waist in the waves she turns round and with both arms beckons him. He pulls off his clothes and follows. She is already surging ahead with a breaststroke much stronger than yesterday’s gentle swim in the river. When at last she slows, he is able to catch up and swim at her side, but as they move towards the outcrop the sea becomes rougher. He tries to breathe slowly, to swim with a rhythm unaffected by the waves. It demands great effort. Several times, in troughs, he loses sight of her. He steels himself not to panic. For some time he cannot see the rocks to which he hopes they are swimming. Again she is ahead of him. As the outcrop comes into his view he sees her pulling herself out of the sea. Turning, she stretches a hand to him, as if she can lift him out over an expanse of twenty metres. The act gives him the confidence to negotiate the final stretch, the worst of which is near the edge of the rocks where the waves are more aggressive.

  Out of the water and breathless, he sits beside her, looking across the bay towards the cliffs on the far side. Luke takes her hand. For all her confidence in the water, surpassing his own, she seems vulnerable. He looks at fresh scratches on her nail varnish caused by the clamber up the rocks.

  She nestles her head on Luke’s shoulder. He kisses its warm saltiness.

  ‘Your bruises have almost disappeared,’ he says.

  ‘Good. Ditto my husband.’ She looks to the far side of the bay. ‘This could be one of the lagoons in the play,’ she says. ‘Thankfully, no pirate ship.’

  ‘But I do see an almost mermaid.’

  She smiles, crosses her legs, arranges her hair so it falls in front of her, combs it with her fingers, and says, ‘Unlike the mermaids in the play this one doesn’t mind being caught.’ Suddenly she stands, pulls Luke to his feet and points to their left. ‘That’s north, isn’t it?’

  ‘Almost exactly,’ Luke says, looking inland towards the mountains, their rocky promontories changing from brown to mottled pink in the ascending sun.

  ‘Somewhere over there,’ she says, ‘is the mainland and beyond that home, and a little further on I can see you and me. Alden has disappeared with Lou. I wish them every happiness. But I could almost feel sorry for her – I’m sure she won’t be the last victim of his hair-brained world.’ She turns from the horizon. ‘Luke, I’m very hungry.’ She takes his hand and walks to the edge of the outcrop.

  Luke looks to the shore where he can see her espadrilles, like two red eyes staring at them. Again he wonders if he can swim such a distance.

  Rhona drops his hand, lowers herself into the water and swims at the slowest pace until she and Luke are side by side. He finds the return swim effortless, enjoying her proximity in the rise and fall of the waves and is sad when their feet touch the pebbles.

  When they have walked to their clothes, he offers her his towel.

  ‘You dry me,’ she says.

  The request is more intimate than that first ‘make love to me.’ He dries her body from forehead to ankles, while she runs her fingers through her matted hair. When she has pulled on her tracksuit she dries his upper body, smiles and hands back his towel.

  ‘I know the perfect place to eat,’ she says as they walk back to the car. ‘It has many points in its favour. It’s an ugly building, Alden hates it and it does one hell of a breakfast.’

  ‘Will it be open? It’s not yet eight.’

  ‘The English couple who run it will have the frying pan sizzling hot already.’

  On the outskirts of Solenzara Luke sees a white building festooned with the flags of European nations.

  ‘That’s it,’ shouts Rhona. ‘The first sign of civilisation in two days.’

  She drives past a huge sign, Les Drapes, and parks near two other cars on a dusty patch of gravel with barely any demarcation before the concrete eating area where three other couples are already eating English breakfasts complete with teapots. The smell of bacon hits them before they arrive at a red plastic table in the shade of a vine by the wall of the café. They sit on white plastic chairs already heated by the sun.

  The breakfast is as good as Rhona promised. A delivery van pulls into the car park, adding the fumes of diesel to the smell of frying bacon and eggs, a combination which surprises Luke with the comfort of the familiar. He looks at the white-painted, rendered wall beside them where two rows of ants, one climbing, one descending, stretch from the ground up to the branches of the vine where he can see them moving backwards and forwards along the leafy awning’s wood and wire framework.

  ‘This is more my world than smart-arse table talk in the courtyard,’ he says.

  ‘And it’s always Alden’s court,’ she says opening a second sachet of brown sauce and squeezing it on her plate. She slices into a sausage. ‘How he insists on shopping in markets and buying local meat and produce.’

  ‘Don’t forget I grow my own veg.’

  ‘That’s different. Alden just likes the idea of it all. He’d never get his hands dirty. Even washing the lettuces ends up being done by Agnes or me. And some of the meat he buys is disgusting.’ She forks a piece of sausage into her mouth. ‘If I’m going to eat rubbish, I like it to be familiar rubbish. When I’m shot of Alden, can I live with you in your wonderful house?’

  ‘Of course. What will you do with Saffold Farm?’

  ‘I could find a tenant.’

  ‘Or make it into offices and storage for your business. Your studio seemed very cramped.’

  ‘A tempting idea.’

  Luke feels the sun on his face through a gap in the vine where the ants are still pursuing their two-way journey, undeterred by a can of insect spray on a windowsill. He lifts the foil from a marmalade sachet and spreads a thick coat on a slice of buttered toast, pleased that one of his dawn questions has been answered. He takes a large bite. ‘I’m glad you found this place,’ he says.

  ‘Before you arrived Agnes and I came here every day.’

  ‘I hope I haven’t deprived her of breakfast.’

  ‘Heavens no. Right now she’ll be wandering up to the school for muffins and hot chocolate. Unless she spent the night there with Dan.’

  Rhona orders more tea. ‘We needn’t rush back,’ she says. ‘Come up with me to the school later on this morning. I want to see if Mathilde needs any help with the post-production barbecue.’

  ‘If there’s anything I can do . . .’

  ‘Call in to see Lynton again. He must
like you to have let you stay so long in his studio yesterday. Alden was surprised when I told him.’ She leans across the table and kisses him passionately.

  On Saturday morning, after breakfast in the main dining room, Eva returns to her aunt’s flat aware that there is no more she can do before Tuesday’s funeral. A dozen white roses have been ordered for Barbara’s coffin. Instructions have been given for no other flowers, but donations may be sent to St. Anthony’s. Again she tries on Barbara’s dark blue dress and slips the amethyst ring on a finger. She is about to change back to her own clothes when the flat bell rings. Opening the door, she sees the chaplain.

  ‘My condolences,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t come to see you yesterday.’

  Eva invites him in, removes the box of books from an armchair and points the priest to it, taking Barbara’s desk chair for herself.

  ‘I gather you rushed over from Norfolk,’ he says.

  ‘I’m her nearest, almost her only, relative.’

  Eva describes to the priest her close relationship with Barbara.

  ‘She often talked about you,’ he says.

  Eva thinks he is about to say more but he remains silent. ‘Can I make you a coffee?’ she asks.

  ‘That would be kind,’ he says.

  In the small kitchen of the flat Eva is uneasy: now is not the time to express her aversion to Catholicism, its unfounded certainties and ethical rigidity, yet somehow she must make her views clear, but with a polite firmness, not least out of respect for Barbara.

  When he has sipped his coffee the priest says, ‘Your aunt had already received the last rites.’

  ‘I only learned yesterday that she had become a Catholic. It was a surprise. Our family has never followed any religion.’

  ‘So your aunt told me. She surprised me too. Some converts can be very triumphalist about their change of direction. She was the complete opposite. Low key, you might say. But she requested a funeral mass.’