Dark Mirrors (2 page)

And with a raised eyebrow she turned on her pink fluffy heels to take her turn in the bathroom. Firmly, but careful not to bang it, she shut the door after her and locked it. Then she took hold of the basin, gripping its white porcelain edge till her knuckles blanched.

“Asshole.” The word was muttered aloud, as if she wanted him to hear. Lifting her head she looked at the mess that was her own reflection. “How,” she quizzed rhetorically, “can a round mirror hang lopsidedly?” And with a sideways cock of her head she took in all that was wrong around her: the crooked shelf, the wobbly seat, the tilting roll-holder . . . When no answers came from the face that stared back, she turned the critical inspection on herself. “And when do laughter lines become wrinkles?”

Tracing the fine lines around her blue eyes, she followed their short geography that radiated, almost symmetrically, to her cheeks and circled under her eyes. Was she imagining it or were they multiplying right there before her? Resigned to their undeniable existence, she pulled back the thick chestnut tresses that fell chaotically about her shoulders and secured them with a black velvet bobbin. As a child she had hated her hair, puzzled by the envy that the wild locks generated amongst her many girlfriends. A half smile, warmed by the ridiculous memory, helped soften the tired face that watched so analytically. Studying her cheeks, one side, then the other, she sadly conceded that she had stopped noticing or even caring about herself and wondered if it was too late to do anything about it. She rarely wore make-up any more, wore jeans instead of short skirts, and floppy T-shirts instead of tight tops – because now they were more comfortable not to mention practical.

“That’s the problem,” she chastised her mirror image. “I’ve become satisfied with being just ordinary.”

And with less than half-hearted enthusiasm she set about her every-other-day, apparently completely pointless, cleansing routine.

Although never a beauty, ugly wasn’t a word to describe Esmée Myers either. Her zest for life gave her a spark, a spirit, that seemed to make her more attractive than most. It gave her skin a warm glow and her laugh an infectious edge. But there was little sign of that spirit now in the exhausted expression that looked back at her from the lopsided mirror.

The silence on the far side of the door made her a little uneasy. She checked the handle slowly to make sure it was locked – not that Philip would come in after her, but she just wanted to be sure.

What the hell was he doing?

Sitting down on the closed toilet seat, she rested her elbows on her knees and wondered just how long she should stay there in order to achieve maximum effect. Not that he really cared one way or another, she reminded herself, as the smell of fresh coffee reliably informed her he was already downstairs.

“Asshole,” she said again, the word slipping out far too easily. She couldn’t help it, and anyway he deserved it.

Opening the door to sneak a safe peep out, she spied there on the bed the half-empty case, untouched, just as she had left it. Yep. He deserved it all right, and plenty more besides. Refusing the responsible urge to finish what she had started, she walked past the bed and out of visual range of the chore. Out of sight, she reckoned, out of guilt’s range. Instead she chose a much nicer task and went to wake the children.

Her beauties were still fast asleep with the look of encapsulated, if somewhat accidental, angels all snuggled up in their cosy beds. Her pride and joy. She could quite easily watch them sleep for hours, their faces pictures of innocence. Looking about their relatively large room, she conceded, not for the first time, that no matter how often she tidied it would always be nothing more than a tangled mess and fighting the inevitable chaos was futile. Turning off the nightlight, she dragged aside the heavily patterned curtains and pushed open the window, hoping that a bit of fresh air might chase away the musty smell of stale bread, a slice of which was definitely lurking in some dark recess of the room.

All about them were pure white walls, except for one that was festooned with a larger-than-lifesize Jungle Book mural. It was their favourite movie; Amy loved Baloo, the big lolloping bear, while Matthew preferred King Louie with his long orange orang-utan arms that swung left and right. When Matthew was four and Amy two, Esmée had focused her once-active artistic talent on this project. For weeks the children watched fascinated as with each new layer of paint their fairytale unfolded magically before their very eyes. The story seemed to tell itself as each day of her personal three-week commission passed and the images began to melt onto the oversized canvas. But for Esmée, her favourite part of this illustrated masterpiece was the dusky blue sky with candyfloss clouds painted overhead. She and the children would often lie on the floor and imagine they were on a deserted country hillside with a big old oak tree at its summit, its broad arms protecting them from the beating sun. And as they lay flat on the ‘pretend’ soft green grass, if they stared up long enough and concentrated hard enough, they could see the emulsion shapes glide gracefully across their dizzy sky.

In amongst the mess she bent to pick up poor Buzz Lightyear who had lost his wing somewhere in the melange of toys strewn randomly about the floor, accidentally pressing the big red button on his chest.

“To infinity and beyond!” he called.

Appropriate words, she thought, while optimistically seeking out his missing appendage.

Disturbed by the call, Amy stirred in the bottom bunk only actually waking to the whining whinge of Philip’s voice.

“Jesus, Esmée! What the hell do you do all day?” His face was contorted with exaggerated disgust as he scanned the room from the doorway. “This place is a disaster – do you not think you should tidy it up?” His comment was thick with intended sarcasm. Without waiting for an answer or responding to his daughter’s sleepy call for her father he turned, fresh coffee in hand, and closed himself into his study next door.

Esmée glanced at the figurine in her hand and then to the closed door and was tempted to follow him through it and place the plastic cartoon character where infinity actually had an end. Wisely deciding against it she put the toy in its basket, forcing herself to think of the children.

As always Philip spent the rest of the Saturday morning engaged in his den, doing whatever it was he always did behind that closed door. Esmée, on the other side, tended gently to their offspring and two hours later they all piled into the car. To an ignorant bystander they presented a possible picture of a perfectly happy family.

* * *

As such they drove to the airport: Esmée the dedicated homemaker and he the handsome breadwinner sitting slightly agitated in the passenger seat with the children chirping happily in the back. But as she parked, a little haphazardly much to Philip’s continued irritation, in the busy drop-off zone outside the departures terminal she knew different.

He joined her at the rear of the car where she extracted his bag from the boot, eager now to have him gone so she could get on with the next phase of her scheme.

“Here . . .” He handed her a filled-out cheque, his neat scroll presented beautifully, as always, in perfect blue ink. “Your allowance.” He pushed the offensive item towards her, frustrated by her momentary reluctance to take it.

Should she?

“And I’d like you to account for it all this time,” he said, translating his irritation into an ungracious and nasty action.

She lifted her eyes from the valuable slip of paper to her husband’s face and saw, not for the first time, a distance from which she now accepted they could never recover. Taking the cheque from him, she retreated with reluctant acceptance, knowing that to turn it down just wasn’t an option. A multitude of stinging retorts queued on the tip of her tongue, itching to be released, but she was tired. Scrapping with him there on the tarmac of the busy airport was pointless. Instead she took a controlled breath and placed the cheque into the breast pocket of her sloppy red fleece. Throughout the entire transaction she held his stare, stubborn, bitter, seething. She so wanted to slap his nasty little face. Could feel the sting in her throat, and his cheek on her hand. But she was helpless, restrained, and once again he had the upper hand. Her inner voice, the voice of command and reason, held her back and reminded her that this would be the last time he could humiliate her. Or so she thought.

“Be good for Mum,” he warned the children through the open window, his pointed finger loaded with menacing caution, “or I’ll bring you nothing back.”

They were used to his abrupt tone. He hadn’t always been like that but it seemed that as Matthew and Amy got older, old enough to be more than playthings that could be handed back to their mother, he cared for them and understood them less. This emotional detachment manifested itself as retail substitution and where tenderness and affection failed, gifts delivered. So he bought them whatever they wanted: new DVDs, kitchen sets, footballs, basketballs, rugby balls, new dollies; all they had to do was ask. It drove Esmée nuts because what he so obviously failed to realise was that five minutes of his undivided attention would probably have satisfied them more. Time to stop and play with them and all their fancy toys. But he was always too busy, even to give just a single hour of his precious time. Something always got in the way of his empty promises, something always more important or distractingly significant.

Looking at him now as he threatened their children through the window, those damned butterflies erupted in her tummy. This was a moment, a milestone moment that she would never forget: they were together for the last time as a family unit.

“Goodbye, Philip,” she whispered as she watched him go. Sliding back into the driver’s seat, she put the car in gear and drove away, glancing only briefly in her rear-view mirror to watch him disappear from view as he entered the terminal building.

Chapter 2

The bell didn’t have a chance to finish its cheerful chime before Esmée had whipped open the door to greet her tardy friend.

“Fionnuala Higginbotham,” she said in mock reprimand, using the full version of her friend’s name purposely, “where have you been? You were supposed to be here an hour ago!”

“Relax, Es,” replied her crimson-lipped friend. “I just got a little side-tracked, that’s all – but not to worry – I’m here now!” and she raised her arms overhead with regal aplomb, just for effect, before pointing to the large cardboard boxes that sat beside her feet on the doorstep. “Here, help me with these,” she directed, bending down to pick the nearest up and thrust it forward for assistance. “And there’s a heap more in the car.” She indicated over her shoulder with a quick flick of her head towards ‘Daisy’ parked half-off half-on the kerb at the end of Esmée’s short cobblelocked drive.

“Auntie Finyyyyyyy!” came the collective screech of delight as Matthew and Amy, sliding in stocking feet on the timber floor, came to an abrupt halt at the knees of their adored guest.

“Hey there, guys!” Fionnuala cried with equal enthusiasm. “And how are my two favourite buddies today then?” She collapsed to the floor beside them, preparing to wrestle regardless of her skinny jeans and strappy stilettos, and wrapped both of them in her bare arms to plant firm kisses on each of their cheeks.

As always Matthew recoiled, escaping efficiently from her grasp, shrieking wildly. At six years of age, kissing girls, no matter how old, just wasn’t cool. He pulled a disgusted face and wiped his cheek with the back of his hand, dragging the bright red lipstick all over his grimacing features – it was all part of a well-rehearsed game.

Fionnuala Higginbotham, or Fin, as she was known to her friends, was Esmée’s best and only remaining friend from her Fine Art college days and like a snowfall in summer she, the only daughter of the late Lord and Lady Higginbotham, was extraordinary and totally unexpected. An accomplished honours student, Fin if she so chose would never have had to work a day in her gifted life, but despite this she focused her enormous talent on painting abstract and wholly modern explosions of colour – because she could. This, coupled with her parents’ heritage and high profile, meant that she was the golden child of the elite social circle, with her commissions taking pride of place in the homes, offices, restaurants and galleries of the Irish rich, influential and famous. But the thing that Esmée loved most about Fin was that there were very few things she took too seriously, not even herself or her craft, and often she wondered about the sanity of her many customers who paid extortionate amounts of money for a unique signed ‘F Higginbotham’. These painted forms, she explained flamboyantly to her many admirers and begrudging critics, came easy to her. Her work, she expanded, was about “the balance of shape, colour and a little bit of madness”. But despite her laudatory claims, incredible rise to fame and superfluous earnings, Fin remained a good friend and confidante to Esmée. Her down-to-earth attitude and never-failing ability to always find an alternative outside-the-box perspective was like a magnet for Esmée. She couldn’t help but be drawn to Fin’s infectious and deliciously spontaneous nature.

Philip, on the other hand, disliked Fin intensely and although he would never openly admit it he resented this single reminder of his wife’s wild, blithe and irresponsible days as an art student. With not a good word to say either about Fin or to her, he habitually infuriated Esmée with his persistently offhand and, more often than not, just plain rude comments about her best friend. His attitude was so obvious that to try and conceal it was pointless and the more Esmée pleaded with him to at least try and be civil, the more obnoxious he became until eventually she, with Fin’s consent and understanding, simply stopped pleading. But her artistic friend gave as good as she got without ever going so far as to cause further grief for Esmée, refusing – much to Philip’s disappointment – to let his nasty jibes get to her. Once again knowledge reigned supreme as Fin quickly and wisely recognised that he feared her because she was a constant threat and a dangerous reminder of what Esmée could have been and still had potential to be.