The Woman In the Mirror

by Rebecca James

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘That’s thoughtful.’

  ‘Can I put it down?’

  ‘Yes, anywhere.’ She motioned to the kitchen, which held the first acceptably clean surface. ‘I have coffee, but no tea. Would you like a cup?’

  Jack set down the crate and removed a box of teabags. ‘Americans don’t go in for tea, do they? I should have known.’

  ‘But you do, I expect.’

  ‘I’m a farmer. I don’t just drink tea: I need tea.’

  There was no kettle, but she had worked out from her morning coffee that a saucepan over the stove worked just as well, if not quite so efficiently. Jack had his hands in his pockets – big hands; they had struck her as big when he was holding the crate – and he was looking up and around. ‘I’ve never been inside before,’ he said.

  ‘It doesn’t sound as if many people have.’

  ‘Have you?’

  ‘This is my first time.’

  ‘Pete said you’re a de Grey.’

  Ah, the cab driver. Rachel could just imagine him returning to the pub after he’d dropped her and relaying his ride: the American who’d arrived at Winterbourne.

  ‘Not strictly.’ She stirred his tea. ‘Well, I mean, I am. After the fact. Sort of.’ She looked at him: he was frowning. ‘I’m not explaining myself. It’s complicated.’

  He sat. ‘None of my business anyway.’

  ‘I hope you don’t take sugar,’ she said, putting the mug before him.

  ‘Not today, it appears. So how are you finding it?’

  ‘Large.’

  For some reason, Jack found this amusing and laughed. He blew on his tea and then drank a huge gulp of it, even though it would still have been hot.

  ‘Do you know much about the house?’ Rachel asked.

  ‘Its history, you mean?’

  ‘More like how to get the immersion on.’

  He laughed again. ‘I can take a look. They said I might have to.’

  ‘They?’

  Jack ran one of his big hands across the back of his big neck. His knuckles were work-roughened, with the nails cut short and square. ‘Down at the Landogger,’ he said. ‘We all thought you’d be in for a bit of a rough ride, cut off at Winterbourne in the middle of a cold spell. It’s not the most hospitable of places, is it?’

  ‘So you collectively estimated I’d need help?’

  Rachel bristled. No, more than bristled: it was downright annoying. She resented the thought that a bunch of men had been sitting round a table with their pints discussing a damsel in distress. She was perfectly able to look after herself.

  ‘Don’t you?’

  Rachel sat straight. ‘Actually, I don’t. I’ll sort it out myself.’

  ‘No need to be like that.’

  ‘And you were elected my knight in shining armour?’

  ‘Yeah, I always get the short straw.’

  She couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. He watched her over his mug of tea and she decided that he was. But she couldn’t be sure.

  ‘Well, I appreciate your concern but it isn’t necessary.’ Rachel knew she sounded stuffy and uptight. The fact was that she was out of her comfort zone. Her zone was in New York, working with artists and organisers, ruling her world to the finest detail, juggling twenty things at once. In the course of her career she had sat opposite some of the most powerful players in the world. Sitting opposite Jack Wyatt, now, felt implausibly uncomfortable. ‘I won’t be here for long, in any case.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Not thinking of Polcreath as your next home?’

  It was her turn to laugh. ‘I haven’t been into Polcreath yet.’

  ‘I’ll have to show you around.’

  Rachel looked away. ‘I was wondering about getting out, actually. I need to get hooked up.’

  He folded his arms, smirked a little. She decided he was rude.

  ‘What the hell does that mean?’ he asked.

  ‘To the internet. I need to get online.’

  The smirk turned into a guffaw. ‘Ridiculous,’ he said.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I need to get online. Who needs to get online? You need water and a roof over your head and someone to hold at night. You don’t need the bloody internet.’

  ‘You needed tea a moment ago,’ she countered. ‘You said farmers need tea.’

  ‘Yeah, they do. Add that to the list. Tea.’

  ‘My job requires me to get online – is that more acceptable?’

  ‘A little. What is it you do?’

  ‘I own a gallery. In New York. We just launched.’

  ‘I don’t go to galleries.’

  ‘Something told me you didn’t.’

  ‘Going well, is it?’

  ‘Like I said, we just launched.’

  ‘And you’ve come out here to deepest, darkest Cornwall and there’s no internet.’ He laughed a little more. She didn’t like him. ‘Shouldn’t think there’ll be a phone signal either. You’ll have to use the box down in the village.’ He seemed to be finding this very amusing. She imagined he lived on his farm with his chickens and sheep and probably didn’t even own a television.

  ‘I guess I’m asking the wrong person then,’ she said stiffly.

  ‘Sorry, sorry, I’m being unhelpful. Have you got wheels?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Did you hire a car?’

  ‘No. I hadn’t realised how remote the house was.’

  ‘OK,’ he spread his hands on the table, ‘here’s the thing. I drive past the south gate every morning at eight. If you want a lift into town any day, just be waiting there when I come past. There’ll be places you can “hook up” there. That’s your best bet. I wouldn’t want to think of you here, dying of internet deprivation.’

  ‘That’s very funny.’

  He laughed again, as if they were sharing the joke.

  ‘Well, I’d better get off. Thanks for the tea.’

  She felt she should thank him too, for bringing the food, for offering the rides, but for some reason she couldn’t produce the words.

  ‘Do you want me to take a look at that immersion before I go?’

  ‘It’s fine.’ She stood. ‘I’ll manage myself.’

  *

  She did manage – after an hour-long hunt to find the thing. She ran the useable taps through for several minutes to clear the rust, and even achieved a shallow, lukewarm bath later that afternoon. It had been a tiring day but her progress was pleasing. Tomorrow she would hitch a lift into Polcreath with Jack (a prospect she didn’t relish) and catch up on emails. It would be good to reconnect with the world.

  Seven p.m. with nothing to do. The light outside had faded, the sea a glittering mauve. Rachel cooked scrambled eggs and ate them from a cracked plate, gazing out of the window at the distant tower light. She wondered what Aaron was doing, if he missed her. Did she miss him? She didn’t know. Maybe. Somehow she couldn’t picture him here: Cornwall was another world, removed from the buzz of the city.

  Another night’s sleep, she thought, her eyes threatening to close. She couldn’t remember sleeping as well, or for so long, as she had last night. It was as if those lost hours were catching up with her at last, demanding to be taken.

  There had been no nightmares. She had not dreamed of that day, that phone call, the morning the world crashed down… Rachel didn’t need a therapist to tell her that she avoided sleep for fear of returning to the trauma. The trauma was a constant friend at her back, nudging her in vulnerable places, whispering souvenirs in the dark.

  Before heading to her room, on a whim she climbed the two flights to the door that had slammed on her earlier. She wanted to see if the wood had relaxed, if perhaps she could persuade it with a shove this time. As she passed along the corridor it occurred to her that this was the sort of house people might pay to spend the night in, as part of those team-building haunted weekends away. The sort of house nobody without a vested interest would elect to pass the time in alone.

&nb
sp; Rachel didn’t believe in things like that. There were the facts in front of you, the things you could see and touch, or there was nothing at all.

  She was considering this as she met the surprise, and it was so perfectly timed that she almost spluttered a laugh. For there, where she expected to meet the stuck door, there was instead an open space. The door had unbolted again. She stopped.

  It was an invitation; it had been waiting for her. Don’t be absurd. But the impression was strong. As if Rachel hadn’t just stepped up to the house, but that the house had stepped up to her. Come and see, it seemed to say. I’ll show you.

  Inside, it was bitterly cold. Ah, so that was it. The window was lifted a fraction and a sharp current of air blew through: the door had likely been closing and opening itself all afternoon. There were two single beds, close together, and the one nearest the door was set up for an old woman. This was where Constance de Grey had spent her final days, she realised. There was a walking frame, a plastic cup and straw, a hardback book and a crocheted blanket. On the wall was a naïve painting of a jar of lilies. Rachel went to the bed and brushed her fingers across the blanket. She picked up the book, which was a mighty tome entitled The Wonderful Story of the Sea.

  Who had taken the other bed? It seemed strange that Constance should have preferred to stay in a small single when there were so many larger rooms available. She recalled what the taxi driver had said about Constance and her brother living here their whole lives, ‘as if they were married to each other’. Had this been their childhood room? Had they stayed in it, clinging to each other, as the decades passed?

  Rachel snapped the window shut. She left the room and closed the door tightly behind her. It would stay shut now. She went down the lonely corridor, her footsteps quiet on the steps, and descended the stairs. Outside, an owl hooted, a soft, low call.

  *

  Down in her own bedroom, she lit a small fire in the grate. Crooked shadows circled.

  Rachel had noticed the remnants of the mural this morning but hadn’t paid it attention. Now she peered closer, running her fingertips across the wall opposite her bed and wondering: Whose room was this once? Who sat where Rachel sat now, warming their bones by the fire? Originally the hand-painted mural would have covered the length and breadth of the wall, a design she guessed, from the scraps left, boasted a lavish pattern of dark, tangled foliage. She could see the ghosts of its swirls and loops creeping above the skirting and emerging in ragged, weirdly sumptuous blotches. But what she saw now, contrary to what she’d first thought, was that the picture hadn’t in fact been covered up: instead, the wall itself had been clawed at to the point of its very material coming away. It looked as if the task had been done with violence, the surface of the plaster ripped in wide, frenzied ribbons, and the lasting effect was like badly scratched skin. It looked in pain. A ghastly image dawned on Rachel, of the previous occupant, or some occupant long ago, tearing at the wall, tearing and tearing until their nails chipped and bled. She pictured a woman, but the woman frightened her so much that she switched off the thought as cleanly as a light. She had trained herself to do this. The mind could be a dangerous thing.

  Rachel set about undressing. It was a trick of her tiredness that she felt exposed in doing so, as if someone was watching. Her naked skin prickled, the fine hairs on her arms and neck standing on end. She turned away from the window, away from that little painting of the lonely cottage, and climbed into bed.

  Chapter 13

  Cornwall, 1947

  Poor Edmund is laid low with a chill. There is a veil of accusation over the house that I am the person responsible for this, so I tend to him as best I can with warm soup and bedtime stories, and must admit I enjoy the nursing role. In the evenings, Edmund nestles into the crook of one arm and Constance in the other, and we turn the pages of an adventure about an orphan at Moonacre Manor, or hear the roll of the waves in The Wonderful Story of the Sea. ‘Alice, I love it when you read to us,’ says sweet Constance, while Edmund wipes sleepy eyes and snuggles down in his soft pyjamas. Mrs Yarrow ought to see them like this, I think, where no person on earth could imagine a rotten bone in their bodies. The cook does not care for them as I do. I am special to them.

  On one such evening, we visit a story about a boy who runs away from home. ‘Did you run away, Edmund?’ I ask gently. It’s the first time we have referenced that morning in the mist. He looks up at me with solemn, rheumy eyes and I instantly regret raising it. Yet it bothers me. I cannot move past it. I need to know why.

  ‘No,’ he says, his copper hair gleaming in the candlelight. ‘You let me go.’

  I pull back. He’s sleepy; possibly he’s delirious. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You let me go,’ he says again. ‘You told me to.’

  ‘I never did.’

  ‘You said I must go back to the house. That it was dangerous out there. There was someone with us, a stranger. She was looking at us. You said I had to go.’

  I touch the boy’s forehead: he is burning up.

  ‘Go to sleep, darling,’ I force out, standing to tuck him in.

  ‘Who was she, Alice?’ Edmund looks at me sharply then, as if no longer the boy in the grip of a fever but a man, fascinated, watching for my reaction.

  ‘You’re dreaming, darling.’ I smooth his blankets with undue attention. ‘It was just the three of us. The mist plays tricks, it had us all tricked that day.’

  ‘I’m sorry if I worried you. Poor Alice. Dear Alice.’

  Constance slips into her adjacent bed and pulls the covers to her chin. ‘I don’t feel very well,’ she whimpers.

  I go to her. Her temperature is normal and her eyes are bright. I kiss her cheek.

  ‘Both of you need your sleep,’ I say softly, and pinch the candle out. ‘All will be well when the sun comes up. Goodnight, Constance. Goodnight, Edmund.’

  ‘Goodnight, Alice,’ they chime. When I close the door, I think I hear the soft titter of laughter, but when I press my ear against the wood there is nothing.

  *

  Of course, the twins do everything together, which includes being ill. The following morning Constance is ailing with coughs and shivers alongside her brother, and Mrs Yarrow and I take breakfast to their beds, refresh their hot water bottles and make sure they’re comfortable. ‘We want colouring books,’ says Edmund, ‘and a game of snakes and ladders. And marshmallows toasted on the fire.’

  ‘If you’re well enough for snakes and ladders and marshmallows, you’re well enough for school,’ says Mrs Yarrow.

  ‘Please, Alice, can we?’

  ‘Later on, perhaps.’

  Edmund flops back on his pillows. ‘We’ll have to make our own fun, Connie.’

  ‘What you need is rest,’ I put in. ‘I’ll be back to see you at lunchtime. No games now, do you hear?’

  The cook and I leave. Mrs Yarrow turns to me in the hallway.

  ‘They don’t look poorly to me,’ she says.

  ‘Edmund had a fever last night,’ I reply, unwilling to engage in any more talk against the children: my loyalties lie with them and with Captain de Grey. ‘They’re best off up here. Will you watch them this morning? I’d like to take some air.’

  ‘Certainly.’

  I decide to head down to the beach, that narrow strip of sand and rocks beneath the Landogger Bluff. I haven’t ventured to the shoreline before and to get down off the hill will feel a welcome change – to be on a level with the sea, able to meet it and touch it, instead of hearing its groans and roars at some higher altitude, hopelessly blind to its movements. I pull on my coat and hat and step out of the house. As usual there is no sign of life, just the sober, quiet parkland and the clenched fists of ancient trees that appear like watercolour paintings, implausibly still and lifeless.

  I pass through overgrown topiary and into what would once have been the formal gardens. Box hedges sprawl around a dead rose garden, a nest of vines as thick as wrists. The air is flaccid and grey. Against the wall sits a summ
erhouse, but its roof has slipped and its windows are empty, blank holes where a finger might once have tapped: Can I come in? There is a little veranda at the front and I picture Laura de Grey sitting on it in a deckchair, admiring her roses.

  Two ravens swoop out of the sky, their caws severing the quiet. One lands on the summerhouse and flaps its wings, a heavy, audible motion. Its black eye is watchful, and seems to rest on me for a moment. Its feathers are dark, liquid-looking.

  It feels ominous to turn my back on the bird, so I wait for it to fly off before continuing to the perimeter. It’s strange how the land seems to end so abruptly, a run of green then beyond it the drop. Tom told me that the way down is via a number of steps, and I find them between two firs. I glance back at Winterbourne, keen to see it from this angle, keen to see it from every new angle because it appears different and enthralling each time. From here the battlements dominate, those medieval-looking crenellations like the molars of a gnashing beast. Spitting gargoyles jut from its sides, from this distance no more than fishhooks, ready to snag at passing prey. The house is a monstrosity in many ways, outrageous and grotesque in its flamboyant architecture yet brazen enough to carry it with style, and no small degree of beauty.

  The steps to the beach are precarious, steep and muddy, and I clutch tufts of grass to steady my descent. It’s a significant plunge and the sand appears horribly far away, until at last the steps become gritty with silt and my traction improves, and finally my feet touch solid ground. The sea is black-iron beneath a brooding sky and the shore is treacherous with boulders and rocks. It isn’t a pleasure beach. The water is high and seething, and where it meets land it swirls and crashes around prehistoric stones. Caves like black slits are carved into the rock; slick, dark weed tangles and knots in shallow pools. Tom warned me that the tide rushes in here fast, so I am not to venture too far from the steps. Looking down the beach I see that it runs for miles, right out of sight. I pick up a pebble and throw it into the surf. The wind rushes back at me, filling my nostrils with a sharp blast of salty air.

  The sound of a dog barking startles me. At first I assume it to be Henry Marsh and Tipper, but then I am seeing a much older man in a sou’wester, and there are three dogs at his heels, not one. The man passes me with a look of curious distrust, his face scarcely visible. The dogs are low-backed, long-tailed creatures, sniffing the ground with whiskery snouts, their large paws molesting the sand. They are part Irish Wolfhound and part something else.