The Houdini Effect (16 page)

‘
Can I see the
contract?’

‘
Ask Mum where she’s put
it. She looks after all that sort of thing. But why?’ Dad added,
‘What’s it all about?’

I’d known he’d ask me this
so I had my biography excuse at the ready. Good thing I hadn’t done
it yet otherwise I couldn’t have.

‘
Really?’ said Dad, after
I’d ‘explained’. ‘That’s unusually ambitious.’

‘
Thanks Dad! Worth a try
though,’ I said, trying to sound bright and optimistic about it.
‘If I can talk to the son I should be able to find out more about
the parents,’ I said. ‘Maybe even talk to Laurie if that’s
possible.’

The funny thing was, as I said it the excuse
suddenly seemed to blossom into a very real

possibility. Maybe
I
could
write my
biography about Laurie. Maybe I was starting to want to. Anyhow,
the main thing was that if I could talk to him then perhaps I could
find out, straight from the

horse’s mouth so to speak, what he thought
was going on with the mirrors.

Rediscovering the lost art of letter
writing

That night, after I’d spun her the same yarn
I’d told Dad, Mum agreed to hunt out the contract. She wasn’t too
thrilled about doing so. She’d had a hard day, she said, with lots
of clients and she still had to write up some case notes. ‘And I’m
in court for the next few days,’ she said.

‘
Can’t you look for it
first, please, please, please!’ I wheedled and begged (most
un-becoming, I know, but I didn’t want this thing to drag on
forever. I wanted to get back to my real life as soon as possible.
I was amazed at how long I’d already been able to hold myself
together. I didn’t know how much longer I’d manage.) ‘I might even
pull out some weeds for you later on.’

‘
Hah!’ she said. ‘Operative
words, ‘might’ and ‘later on’. I can read you like a book Athens.
Anyway, I’ll have a hunt for it after tea. You can help with that,
at least. I don’t imagine your father has thought about getting a
meal ready for his hard-working spouse.’

‘
Dad’s been working hard,
too,’ I said. ‘Under the house. He’s discovered dry rot, he said.
It’s got into the chimney.’

‘
The chimney! God, I knew
this place was a massive mistake’

‘
You mean you might change
your mind and

move again?’ I asked.

‘
Never!’ she
said.

I hadn’t wanted to move again either,
despite

all the inconveniences of the renovation
process. But now . . . what if the mirror business never got
sorted? Would I still want to live here then? Maybe moving was
going to be the only way of

escaping from the pictures in the
mirrors.

Mum eventually found the contract and gave
it to me. I unfolded it, my eyes skimming the text. A lot was small
print, very legal stuff written in what seemed to be another
language altogether, a language much more mysterious than Ancient
Greek, Granguage or Backwards. Then . . . Dad had been right.
Laurie’s son’s name was on the document as having power of
attorney. The son’s full name was Mitchell Laurison. Seeing his
name writ large made me realise that, until now, I hadn’t given any
thought to Laurie and Iris’ last name. Funny last name, too, when I
saw it in connection with Laurie himself and with his and Iris’
son. Not funny as in ha-ha, but as in curious. It sounded, and
looked, a lot like ‘Laurie’s son.’

Old Laurie was Laurie Laurison. Did that
mean that Laurie’s own father or maybe his grandfather and other
relatives way back had all had the name Laurie, or Laurence
perhaps, and that’s how it had all started? Laurie, son of Laurie,
son of Laurie, ad infinitum (= forever. Thanks Ms Kidd.
Classic!)

Perhaps the oddity of being called Athens
had something (small) going for it, after all.

The contract included Mitchell’s address so
I had no excuse not to get in touch with him if I wanted to.

‘
Do you think he’ll mind if
I write to him?’ I asked.

‘
You can but try,’ Mum
replied. ‘Why don’t

you have a chat to May next door? She might
know.’

Talk about mothers and their extra senses.
‘I already have,’ I said.

Mum’s eyebrows lifted. Any second now and
I’d be in the witness box giving evidence on May’s behalf.

‘
Things aren’t too good
there,’ I said, before Mum could cross-examine me.

Mum nodded. ‘Just like we thought, eh?’ she
said.

‘
I suggested she come and
see you,’ I said.

‘
Things must bad then,’ Mum
said.

What exactly was I going to write to
Mitchell? Something like this maybe:

Dear Mitchell
(or ‘Mitch’, or ‘Mr Laurison’? Which was the
better option, I wondered.)

I’ve seen your parents in several of the
mirrors belonging to the house that they (and you) used to live in
and which we bought (cheaply) off you.

Spooky or what, eh?

Why’s it happening? What should I do about
it?

Yours sincerely,
(or should that be faithfully?)
the going-slowly-mad
but-doing-her-best-to-hide-it,

Athena

Imagine being on the receiving end of a
letter like that! Strangely, for an aspiring writer, I was crap at
writing letters. I could hardly remember what a ‘letter’ looked
like. It was years since I’d

written my last ‘proper’ missive. This had
been to my Gran thanking her for a birthday present she’d sent me.
I was around six or seven at the time, I

think, so you can imagine what sort of
letter it would have been. Very short probably and written in
splaying, angular letters. (I got the word ‘missive’ from Gran, by
the way.)

I might have been tempted to text Mitchell
if I’d had his mobile details but I probably wouldn’t have actually
done so. For some reason a formal letter seemed the best way of
communicating with someone I didn’t know and had never met.

The writing of formal letters is a dying
art, believe me. It’s even harder than creative fiction writing so
that probably explains why hardly anyone does it anymore. Letters
make you think in a strange and unusual way about what you have to
say to another person. A letter isn’t like a text or an email
because the recipient expects it to be different from either of
those two. Not sort and snappy and definitely not written in text
language. Letters, above all, have to show considered thought.

Considered, thoughtful thinking of the
letter-writing kind is tough on the brain. It took me ages and
several drafts before I got it right or at least as right as I
could get it. I didn’t dwell too much on the fact that the letter
told only half of the truth and even that half-truth was a bit
iffy.

This is what I eventually finished up
with.

Dear Mr Laurison,
(In this case formality of title seemed the right
thing to do.)

You won’t know me, my name
is Athena
(Yes, I lied outright here. What
did you expect?)
and I

now live with my family in the house your
parents once used to own. You might think this is an odd request
(it is) but I am writing to ask about your

father, Mr Lawrence Laurison. His neighbours
May and Barry, who are our neighbours now, told us a bit about him
and his wife (your mother) Iris.

I am doing a school project for my
English

teacher, Mrs Tyrell. It’s
a biography of someone who interests me and because your parents
sounded like interesting people I was thinking of writing a
biography about them and about their life and times. I’m hoping you
can help me, either with information about your parents or,
preferably, by letting me know if it is possible to talk to your
father in person.
May told us he had moved
north to live closer to you. I hope that he is still alive and I’m
very sorry if he is not.
(At

the time I couldn’t think
of any better way of putting this. In retrospect it did sound a
little insensitive.)
I hope you won’t
think this is too strange a request and that you will be able to
help me in some way.

Yours sincerely,
(if slightly deranged. (( No, I didn’t actually
write this in the letter. Duh!)) )

Athena Riley.

Naturally when I read this over I felt like
tearing it up and tossing it away with all the other drafts that
had ended up in the shredder but because I didn’t think I would be
able to achieve anything better, I scanned and printed a copy for
myself (I have to keep copies of important documents), signed the
original and stuffed it into an envelope. I found a stamp
(self-adhesive. I’d didn’t even know they made them like that!),
stuck it onto the envelope and posted it in the box down the road.
(This was the first time all week I’d been away from the house,
apart from the visit to May. I

felt like an escaped prisoner, or a stranger
in an alien land.)

Afterwards I wished I hadn’t posted it
because I realised I had well and truly messed up. Once

again I tried imagining being the recipient
of this letter and wondering how on earth I was be supposed to know
what sort of information the writer of the letter wanted. Was it
words, or pictures, memories or what? And why would I, getting a
letter such as this, even if I understood what the writer was
asking for, be bothered spending what could likely take ages
sorting out information and sending a reply.

It wasn’t, in the end, even a very
thoughtful letter!

Truly, what an idiot I’d
been! My face burned when I dwelt on it. The best I could hope for,
I knew, was that the son would send me his father’s contact number
and that I could talk directly with Laurie on the phone about what
was happening in the mirrors. After all, that was what I really
wanted -
needed
-
to do. Assuming that Laurie was still alive. And that wasn’t
certain, not by a long shot.

Later, when I thought less agitatedly about
it, I realised that I had actually enjoyed the physical, if not the
mental, effort of writing a traditional letter, brief though it
was, and affixing a stamp and posting it. It felt archaic but in a
fashionably retro sort of way. And also strangely satisfying.

Me being a writer, you may
think it odd that I had such an aversion to letter writing but,
before, it had always seemed such a bore and a chore. I think
that’s because Mum and Dad made us write thank-

you letters and we - at least I. I can’t
remember what Harry thought about it - had rebelled at the age of
around eight.

Amazingly, I felt withdrawal symptoms
after

finishing my missive to Mitchell. I felt
like writing another one. So I did. My second letter was (believe
it or not) addressed to Troy.

Message to Troy

Dear Troy,
(no ‘Mister’ here. ‘Dear’, normally a term of
endearment, was, I told myself, perfectly acceptable and
neutral-sounding in the context of a letter, unlike ‘hi!’ or ‘hey!’
or nothing at all, as in texts or emails.)

I wanted to thank you for sharing your
enthusiasm for palindromes. I had never really thought about them
before. I like writing so I know how easy it is to get caught up in
one’s own

enthusiasms. Here’s a palindrome I found on
the internet. I’m sure you will already be familiar with it but, if
not, please enjoy.

“
A man, a plan, a canal:
Panama.”

I also know you got caught up in the
minor

machinations of my friends Emma and Rachel.
I can quite understand how you might feel about that. I am sorry if
I embarrassed you by asking if you had asked after me, the day I
wasn’t at the pool. There is of course no reason why you should
have done so.

I was a little curt with
you when you texted and then rang and I finished by hanging up on
you. I’ve been under some pressure recently, the details of which I
don’t want to go into
(Well, I did, but I
couldn’t)
and the discussion about
palindromes

was a little unexpected. It also takes time
to get used to someone who is exceptionally good at talking
backwards. Everything will be back to normal soon, I’m sure. I look
forward to seeing

you again either at the pool or at
school.

Yours sincerely,

Athens.
(No point lying here. Troy knew my real
name.)

I scanned and printing a
copy of this letter also and again made the mistake of re-reading
it soon after I had posted it. Cringe-making I know and far too
formal! Yuck, yuck, yuck!

But I suppose it was thoughtful, at
least.

I think.

Having sent the letters I tried to forget
about them both (the letters, I mean, not the addressees.) That
wasn’t too hard as, almost the next second it seemed, Harry was on
my case about our rehearsals for the forthcoming audition.

And the next mirror episode occurred.

Point and wave

I’ll start with the rehearsal. It was
stressful but less so than the mirror events.

A few days after I’d written and sent the
letters, Harry waved me furtively into his room. Secretively he
shut the door. The first thing I saw was that he’d shoved his bed
under the window. The resulting expanse of floor space in the
centre of the room was taken up by the refurbished chest, not that
I would have said the chest looked particularly different.
Certainly not much cleaner