IN THE MIRROR
‘I
saw you today,’ said Ann to her husband. He was reading the paper after dinner,
sucking his teeth.
‘No doubt.’
‘I mean at
lunchtime. In the lane. I was amazed.’
‘You should be,
since I had lunch at the school.’ He twitched, enjoying himself.
‘Alone?’
‘Yes, alone.
Clearly you confused me with some other dried up academic.’
All this made her
tremble. At lunchtime she’d been looking in the mirror. She’d hung it in the
kitchen when they’d first moved in and were full of plans. It caught the light
from the kitchen window and made her look awful, yet she went there many times
a day.
This time she’d
been stretching the wrinkles around her eyes. She stretched them out and
watched them spring back and thought, ‘Next stop a walking stick.’ Then she’d
seen him. He was passing behind her, glimpsed over her shoulder in the mirror,
swinging his yellow cane that wasn’t a walking stick but a tool for beheading
weeds.
She had run to
the window but he’d gone. She looked right and left, confused by the angles in
the mirror. She ran down the path to the front gate and looked again. Their
house was on a tight bend and she couldn’t see far. She hurried out, but the
lane was empty.
So here was
another worry. First she’d seen that she was lonely, then that she was old, and
now George was sneaking past the house when he should be at work.
She stood up
quickly and said, ‘I don’t know why you’re lying.’ She went upstairs and
splashed her face in the bathroom sink, and saw how misery had made her eyes
swell.
She had seen him. She went to the bedroom
window. Even from here she couldn’t see much, the lane sunk between tall
hedges. She remembered him clearly, though: slim and straightbacked with his
cane, glimpsed for a moment as he passed the gate.
Damn mirror. She
still couldn’t work out the angles. Perhaps if she went down and looked again.
Hands trembling, she smoothed her dress. She crept downstairs, hearing his
chair creak, the rustle of newspaper, and stood in front of the mirror. People
used to say, ‘A handsome couple,’ but of course a woman ages faster. She
thought of her husband striding past, confident and tall.
‘I did see him.’
Over her
shoulder, reflected in the mirror, was the gate with its glimpse of lane.
Actually it didn’t matter about the angles, because George had been heading
towards that big oak. She went to the window and saw that the oak was off to
the left, on the way to the school. He must have parked short of the gate, then
passed it on foot, and she’d seen him when he was walking back to the car.
It was obvious
where he’d been: Jenny’s house.
She gripped the
window sill. ‘Betrayal. I am betrayed.’
Next
day she saw him again. Again it was lunchtime, although she hadn’t noticed. She
was back at the mirror, touching the skin on her throat. It had slackened like
a scarf. For the moment, her top button covered it, but the loose skin would
spread up her throat and reach her chin and everyone would see that she was
old.
There was a
movement over her shoulder. George! She gave a cry of shock, but knew what to
do. Without moving, staring into the mirror, she checked that again he was
walking towards the oak. She hurried to the front door and down the path in the
sunshine.
No one. She ran
to the tree. It stood on the worst part of the bend, where the hedges were high
and the lane tipped outwards so that car tyres squealed. But the lane slumbered
in the heat. She walked on until she could see properly. The lane ran straight
and clear before it vanished behind a wood and on towards the dirty main road
and then the school.
He’d been with
Jenny. Then he’d strolled past his own gate, swinging the yellow cane, and had
driven back to the school.
Liar. Adulterer.
She turned round,
bowed under her grief. The sorrow was like coming home.
Next
lunchtime she was waiting. And she waited the day after. Clearly George was
learning deceit, because she stood at the kitchen window for hours and saw only
Jenny, cycling past as usual in the afternoon. There was the tinkle of a bell,
a flash of chrome through the hedge, and a glimpse of her pink face as she
passed the gate.
Doubtless she was
off to some committee in the town. A restless woman, surely the last person to
flourish in the country but annoyingly busy.
During these days
Ann was abrupt with her husband. Her attitude said that she understood his
tricks, which were contemptible. She put the plate in front of him and the food
was perfect – shining salads with the best ham, or with smoked salmon, glossy
and rich. She ordered the food from a shop in the town, brought in a liveried
van, very expensive but it was right that George should pay. She slept in the
spare room among abandoned hobbies – her sewing machine and exercise bike and
easel.
George seemed not
to care. It was perhaps a war over who could say the least. Or perhaps he was
happy with the paper, and then with his files that kept him in the study all
evening, with only an occasional throat-clearing.
‘I might as well
be alone,’ she thought, watching TV with the sound off. ‘I’d be happier alone.’
Next morning she
broke. She stayed in bed until George had left, then dashed around the house
wringing her hands. She gripped the backs of chairs, craned from windows, stood
in the bathroom saying ‘Why?’ and then went to their bedroom and opened the
wardrobe. She parted his coats and moved a cardboard box. George’s yellow cane
stood in a corner.
She punched her
forehead because the world was mocking her. She took out the cane. The mud on
its steel tip was old and dry.
She went frantic
again, shouting and stamping, and came to herself in the kitchen, fists above
her head. ‘I’m a mad woman. I’m a woman in the country, mad with pain.’ She sat
in the kitchen and spread her fingers on the table. The tabletop was cool. She
heard the clock ticking, and a fly at the window.
She went to the
mirror. Its face was smooth, like the face of a cruel child. ‘I’m miserable. I
pretend it’s because I’m old. It’s better than thinking that nobody loves me.’
Nobody loved her!
Her eyes filled. She looked into the mirror to see how ugly she was when she
cried. Instead, over her shoulder, she saw George and Jenny, blatantly together
in the lane, George swinging his yellow cane.
She ran to the
front door and into the sunshine, her hands in little fists. They wanted to
grind her into the dust, but she would beat them.
An hour later she
found herself alone. She was standing in the middle of the lane. Birds sang,
the sun filtered down through the oak, and she was dizzy and afraid.
She
went to bed, the sun pouring through the curtains, a clamour of birds in the
garden. There was always another level to sorrow, the heart broken smaller
still. In the evening George came to her twice, but she didn’t listen and only
said, ‘Go. I don’t want you.’
It seemed that
she had an infinite capacity for sleep. She knew nothing until morning, when he
sat on the bed. ‘Don’t be miserable,’ he said. ‘It does hurt me, you know.’
‘And yet you lie
about …’ It was too humiliating to explain.
‘About being at
school? You should phone. They’ll put you through and we can talk.’
‘I won’t phone.
They hate me.’
‘What? Why would
they hate you?’
‘Poor George.’
She used a wheedling voice. ‘Poor George, with that old hag.’
‘You’re not old.
Nobody thinks that. You’re imagining it.’
‘I’m not
imagining how you lie and lie.’ She looked awful, she knew, her face twisted
into the pillow.
‘I’ll come home
then. At lunchtime.’
‘No!’
‘It’ll be fun, in
the car.’
Incredulous, she
couldn’t speak. At last she said, ‘I'm sure you have more exciting things to
do.’
George stood up.
‘Don’t think about being old. It’ll come soon enough.’ He gave a little laugh.
‘You’re spoiling your life. We have a good life.’
‘Go.’
‘I’ve laid out
breakfast. Just boil the kettle.’ There was a silence and then he kissed her
head. ‘Eat. You’ll feel better.’
She turned away
and pulled up the sheet. Her misery was just, because she shared the house with
a liar who mocked her with his tricks. With this thought she fell asleep.
At
lunchtime she came down to the kitchen, leaning heavily on the banister, and
stared at the tea bag he’d placed in a cup. She hated him, but he was right in
this: she had looked into the future and it was crushing her.
She went to the
mirror. She watched the wrinkles on her upper lip, which opened and closed as
she spoke: ‘I saw myself as an old woman, and this has aged me. I saw myself as
unloved, and now I’m unlovable. We mustn’t look too far ahead.’
There was a
movement in the mirror. George and Jenny were passing the gate, smiling, arm in
arm.
She didn’t run
because she couldn’t. She went to the front door and fumbled with the lock. She
staggered down the path, and steadied herself on the gate post, and came again
to the oak.
No one. She
swayed in the middle of the lane. A car came swiftly round the bend.
George
started walking home for lunch. There were letters to write, and he had to pack
Ann’s clothes and belongings – her easel and stuffed toys and mirrors. Most of
all he needed to get away from the school: he didn’t like chatter, and everyone
wanted to sympathise. It was a long walk, but of course the car was wrecked.
The weather
stayed good. After a week or two he remembered his yellow cane, and walked
straighter, swinging at weeds.
Then Jenny
invited him for lunch. It was pleasant, and he went again. It was odd to pass
his house, and so she walked a little way back with him. One day she took his
arm.
And when she
moved into his house … well, no one was surprised. She was so like George –
pleased with herself, out-going, always cheerful.
///////ENDS////////////