Dark Mirrors (7 page)

Sylvia’s face coloured strongly and, keeping her eyes low, she stood up with a wince and set about clearing the table. Esmée’s gaze followed her with curiosity.

“Do you remember those bunk beds?” It was a loaded question thrown over her shoulder while walking to the sink with the half-empty cups.

“Yes,” Esmée answered with a cautious nod, sensing a revelation in the offing, her interest aroused.

“Well, we bought those to make a spare room for your father. We didn’t sleep together for the best part of a year, you know.”

This was news to Esmée. Her memory of that particular family event was one of excitement and anticipation. She remembered the power of her assignment to the top bunk and Lizzie’s relegation to the bottom. She remembered the fun and games that those beds brought, transformed with draped blankets and torches into caves and treasure troves. The move into her little sister’s room was made without argument – so releasing the fourth bedroom on the half landing for her dad’s new ‘study’.

“Christ. Mum, I never realised.” She was amazed as slowly the links connected and the revelation finally dawned.

As if proving a point, her mother nodded purposefully. “I know. We made sure that none of you found out.” Gripping the dishcloth harder, she continued. “You know, I thought he was having an affair too.”

“Dad wouldn’t do that!” Esmée leapt up, almost choking on her own breath as she pushed out the objection, shocked that her mother could even think like that.

“Why not?”

“Because he just wouldn’t – because he loved you, he loved us!”

“Yes, he did, there’s no doubting that, but like you I knew things weren’t right. I never asked him and he never told me.”

Steam billowed from the tap as she spoke to the water that filled the sink to wash the few dishes.

“Even when he was . . . just before he . . .” the same magnetic charge tickled her skin as she felt his essence brush by, “before he passed away, I thought about asking him but I didn’t have the nerve. What would I have achieved if he said yes? Why would I ruin what we had? Why end our time together by looking to the worst of so many beautiful wonderful years?” She passed her hand across her chest and smiled pensively, quietly lost in the memory. “In hindsight,” she eventually continued, “I doubt it was true, but if he had done I’d understand why.”

“Mum! You’re kidding – aren’t you?” Esmée found the conversation almost too hard to take. It was certainly taking a turn that she hadn’t anticipated. She actually felt nauseous as her mother stated her case.

“We were in a bad place, he and I,” Sylvia went on, “and people do funny things when they’re depressed.”

Esmée’s head was reeling, having always thought, never doubted, that her parents had the perfect life, the perfect marriage. Depressed, who was depressed? Her father? Why?

“But we got through it,” Sylvia continued as she rinsed the soapy cups under the hot tap. “We kept at it, not only for ourselves but also for you, your brother and sisters.”

In that moment Esmée saw her mother in a very different light. She didn’t know if she felt respect or pity.

“I don’t know what to say, Mum.”

“There is nothing to say really,” her mother consoled her almost cheerfully. “In those days you didn’t go to counselling – you just got up and got on with it.”

She came back to the table, drying her hands on a tea towel before throwing it over her shoulder and sitting back down. “I knew my place, and that was to be by your father’s side, through thick and thin, to support and care for him. I was his ‘other half’! I pushed him when he needed a shove and held him back when he needed to take time out. I listened to the stories from his day when he got home in the evenings and advised him when he needed help. Those stories in the evening over dinner completed my day.” She stopped to allow memories that she had blocked out for a long time now to come flooding back. “I used to host the most wonderful dinner parties for his work people, you know.” A vacant misty look came over her as she proudly remembered – as they both remembered – those magnificent nights.

Esmée recalled how her mother would rush upstairs to get ready in the late afternoon just before her dad would arrive home, how she wore those brightly patterned maxi skirts and garish ruffled shirts with eye shadow and lipstick to match, and how she always looked and smelled divine. She remembered the way the crystal on the set table would sparkle in the candlelight, refracting through the delicate grooves on the expensive and finely crafted glass, saved for special occasions such as these. Gifts of fresh-cut flowers, boxes of chocolates tied with red ribbon and the embarrassment when she and her siblings were paraded proudly, like good children, in front of Mr and Mrs Whoever! Collectively they would smile sweetly in their best pyjamas, dressing gowns and rosy faces, before being marched up the stairs to bed like the essence of innocence, angelic children that they were! And whilst the guests enjoyed their meal there would invariably be a “mission” to the kitchen to retrieve and retreat with pickings of the sumptuous feast that would have taken the whole day to prepare: filled vol-au-vents, salads, succulent beef, crispy roasties dipped in thick gravy, chocolate gateaux, fruit salad, trifle with whipped cream and the ultimate prize – After Eights! What a coup! To creep back upstairs having successfully scored a couple of those wonderful wafer-thin minty chocolate squares was trophy indeed!

“Your father always said his career in the Force was down to those dinner parties!” her mother said, her adult memories very different to Esmée’s. “And despite it all, the ups and downs, we were a great team!” Her tone was upbeat and ceremonious.

They sat for a while, each momentarily lost in their disparate memories of their former years, Esmèe reflecting that her father hadn't in fact advanced much in his career before he was killed. Reluctantly her mother spoke again, breaking the nostalgia of the moment.

“These days promotions happen over a round of golf while in my day it was over a good home-cooked meal surrounded by your happy family. Family values – that’s what counted.” Her tone was firm and authoritative.

“Mum?” Esmée asked nervously. “Why are you telling me this?”

“I’m not sure. Up until now I’ve never really spoken about this to anyone – I haven’t needed to.” She paused, raising her eyebrows in recognition of the extraordinary place in which she now found herself. “I suppose what I’m trying to say is that maybe you need to try and understand why he’s behaving like this. Talk to him. Tell him how you feel. You can’t give up on your marriage.”

“Did you say that to Tom when he walked out on Rachel?” The question, oozing with sharp bitterness, escaped unchecked.

Her mother’s face reddened as she hastily replied. “Your brother’s situation is different.”

“How so?”

“You’ll have to ask him that.”

Esmée asserted there and then that she had made the right decision in not telling her mother of her plans in advance of their implementation. Either Esmée was totally blinkered or her mother genuinely didn’t understand and, while deep down she appreciated the enormity of her mother’s shocking confession and was rocked by the possibility of her father’s indiscretions, she genuinely doubted her dad had ever cheated on her mother. But one thing was pretty clear: Esmée knew why her mother had made the humiliating confession: she wanted her to stay with Philip, because that’s what a good wife does.

Confused, hurt and disappointed, she couldn’t wait to get out of the house but she reluctantly stayed with her mother for a little while longer, to answer her questions about where she was now living, how the children were and how she actually planned to survive financially.

“It won’t last forever, you know, and what will you do then?” Sylvia remarked. She was referring to the money Esmée’s father had left her in his will and which Esmée had put aside for a rainy day – a rainy day that had now clearly arrived.

This final point acted as a full stop to the conversation. It was all a little too much a little too soon for Esmée and, diplomatically, using the need to shop as an excuse, she got up to leave, promising to call her sisters that afternoon.

“They’ll be very upset you haven’t spoken to them about this before now, so be prepared,” her mother warned gently as they walked together to the front door and out to the car.

Esmée rolled down the window to bid her final farewell as her mother bent down to look in at her.

“Esmée, I’m sorry. I don’t think I’ve been much help to you. I know it’s very different for you, but please think very seriously about what you’re doing.”

Esmée smiled reluctantly up at her, doing her best to make the smile real.

“I will, Mum, I promise.”

“And no matter what you do, I’m with you, all the way.”

With that, she leaned in the window and planted a soft kiss on Esmée’s cheek.

“Drive safely, pet!” she called, withdrawing to safety as Esmée reversed out of the driveway.

Chapter 6

Half an hour later and Esmée was wandering vacantly around the supermarket, struggling with a dodgy-wheeled trolley that appeared to mimic her gradually faltering confidence. She felt she was floating, disconnected from reality. Like Big Brother watching his specimens’ every move through a lens, she watched herself wander from aisle to aisle, placing apparently essential groceries into the wonky trolley, item by item. Would she even need all this stuff? Would she be back in that house by this time tomorrow? Questions! Questions! Too many questions that, for the moment anyway, were impossible to answer for sure.

As she stood in the queue for the checkout her mobile rang and, digging it from the depths of her bag, she recognised her sister Penny’s number.

“That didn’t take long!” she commented smartly and without so much as a second thought pressed the reject button, its vibrations a moment later telling her that her sister had left a message, which she also ignored. The morning’s conversation with her mum had confused and drained her and she just wasn’t willing to go through that again.

It rang again as she packed the shopping into the boot of her car, only this time it was Lizzie.

Well, what did you expect? she asked herself as she again diverted the call, threw the phone onto the passenger seat and drove the short distance from the supermarket to the cottage.

Unpacking the shopping and deciding as she went along where things should go was pleasantly uplifting and magically therapeutic. The house had a delightful warmth and charm that seemed to massage her aching soul and ease all her stresses elsewhere. She glanced at the clock on the microwave and gave herself two hours before she had to collect the kids and with that in mind, sauntered into the lounge, kicked off her shoes and sank into the luxury of the couch. Balancing her freshly brewed mug of coffee on her knee, she let her head tilt onto the soft cushioned back, closed her eyes and rolled her disjointed thoughts round and round, trying to make out the rights and wrongs of it all.

Her mum’s words echoed annoyingly in her head. Family values! “Family values, my backside!” she said aloud. It was family values that had helped her put up with Philip for this long but even they had a limit. She didn’t want to put Matthew and Amy through this turmoil but, she asked herself: Doesn’t there come a point where enough is enough?

She thought about her dad and what he might or might not have done. It was so hard, impossible in fact, to get the earlier revelation out of her mind. She didn’t believe it for a single moment – her normally intellectually astute mother must have made a mistake. But what would he want her to do now? She pondered as she sipped her coffee. She was sure that he wouldn’t have wanted her to be unhappy, but in her heart of hearts she knew that he would have agreed with his wife. He might have instigated a quiet man-to-man chat with Philip, warned him probably, but his overall advice would probably have been quite pragmatic: put up and shut up. Looking at the chair opposite, she imagined him sitting there, in his woolly cardigan with the brown cross-hatch buttons, his legs crossed, while rhythmically he puffed on his pipe, pausing every now and then to let a billow of smoke escape to the ceiling and catch his breath, ready for more. Scrutinising her, calculating, through the slits of his lids, squinted to avoid the sweet-smelling haze, he would give her his opinion.

“
Now you listen here to me, Esmée Jane Gill,
” she could hear him say.

For a third time that day her phone rang, disturbing the intimacy of her fictitious moment and as her father’s image melted away she answered it without saying hello.

His deeply resonant tone sounded in her ear after a short pinched silence.

“Esmée? It’s Tom.”

“I know,” she replied curtly. “I recognised your number.”

“How are you doing?” he asked, the sympathy in his tone telling her he knew her situation.

“I take it you’ve spoken to Mum?”

“Yep.”

“Mad, isn’t it?” Esmée mocked pitifully, expecting no compassion from her estranged brother.

“Yep.”

“Is that all you have to say? ‘Yep’?” she quizzed, sitting out the silence before his monosyllabic response echoed.

“Yep.”

She couldn’t help laughing, genuinely this time, feeling the tension dissipate a little.

“I’ve booked a flight home,” he said. “I’m coming in on the six o’clock flight on Friday. We should talk.”