A TINY MIRROR
Iheard this story on a night flight back from Dubai. I didn’t feel much like sleeping. We flew into darkness, heading for London, the white noise of the engine below and in the next row a baby’s fitful whimpering. The woman next to me pulled her blue blanket over her knees, but she stayed awake. She was watching something loud and cheerful on the tiny TV in front of her. She had one of those small sad glasses of wine. I paid attention to her first because she seemed so anxious.
So I spoke to her, although I don’t know how I thought I could help.
We talked. I said little about my life. The drinks cart came round again. And she told me this story. I’m not sure how it came up. Maybe I pushed her about why she was anxious, what caused the shaking in her arm.
When she started, a queer look came over her face. She’d had a blush developing from the wine but it drained off her. It was like a higher level of gravity switched on just for her, drawing everything down.
“I was actually born in Cumbria—not the Beatrix Potter bit, just a touch further north. Near Carlisle anyway, if you’ve heard of it—an awful little town if I remember right, and this was back in the ‘80s.
“I turned twelve in May of ‘89 and my father died—no, there’s no need be sorry, it’s okay—it was such a very long time ago. On the day of the funeral the rain was coming down like nothing you’ve seen. Hammering on the roof of the black car all the way to the church. I had on a black velvet dress I was trying not to touch because I hated the texture. My coat was pink and even with the rain and the cold my mum made me take it off in the car.
“I held onto one of her hands and my little brother, Teddy, not even three then, stumbled along holding on to her other hand. At the church door she lifted him onto her waist because he was fussing, and she let go of me.
“I remember the wet earth in my hand after the service, how my mother helped me throw it onto his coffin. I felt there was nothing holding me any more. That there was nothing keeping me safe.
“We used to have our routines. Daddy would drop me at school on his way to work with a kiss and hand me my lunch. At dinner he would feed Teddy and make jokes, make things so easy.
“Now Teddy screamed bloody murder at every meal. He pushed the plate away from him, his little face tense and red. My mother in a panic, and me, smashing a plate on the kitchen floor and pretending it was an accident.
“So in the end my mother gave in to one of the many offers of help and my aunt, my father’s sister, moved into the little room on the ground floor next to the garage. I hated that room. I used to hold my breath when I had to walk past it. The roof was flat in there, so all the rain coming down and down made an unearthly sound.
“When my aunt moved in things changed again. I was used to eating my tea watching Blue Peter while my mother staged Battle Royale with Teddy, but no, now we were all to sit at the table and not get down until we were all done.
“She dressed Teddy in the morning. So carefully brushing his hair and of course it was a mess a second later. She was forever pulling up his socks, his trousers, spitting on a hanky to get dirt off his face. Always pulling at him, and her voice so high when she spoke to him: ‘Who’s your favourite auntie?’ and ‘Where’s my lovely little boy?’ He’d twitch away and roar but still she came down on him, smothering him with kisses. She didn’t seem to care that she was so unwanted. I would have cared. From the start she barely had a kind word for me.
“My mother shrank into herself, forever starting things and not finishing them. My aunt took over, whisked embroidery out of my mother’s hands. She’d always say, ‘You need to be resting, Audrey, don’t tire yourself.’
“Once I woke up in the dead of night and kept my eyes squeezed shut from fear. It’s such a pure fear you get when you’re a child and alone in bed at night. The shape of your dressing gown on the wall is like a skinny dark figure covered in hair. Everything is out to get you. Teddy laughed to himself in the next room. ‘Toto,’ he said, like he was greeting someone with affection, I hid under my duvet. His little giggles and that word made the fear in me worse. I started to think, maybe we weren’t alone.
“Teddy got to be more and more of a handful. He started kicking and biting and he’d never been like that before, not vicious. My aunt came off worst, with all her pawing of him. He was still a small child, but his little fists could hurt. She was always carrying bruises and little teethmarks.
“It was his words that got under my mother’s skin.
“‘I don’t like Mummy,’ he’d start—a little murmur and get louder and louder till he was screaming it. The first time it was funny, but not over days and over weeks.
“I asked him who he did like and he just said, ‘Toto’ and then, ‘I want Toto’—and that was all we heard for the rest of the day.
“I felt uncomfortable. I started keeping my light on at night but still I looked around, scared there was something there, more than just the four of us gnawing at each other.
My aunt started taking me and Teddy to church, as if she sensed something too. He’d scream and thrash but she’d keep tight hold and take both of us up to the priest to be blessed for Holy Communion. Teddy fussed, trying to get his head away. I accepted my blessing quite calmly.
“My mother didn’t come with us.
“One Sunday we returned home and she wasn’t there. Her keys were in the bowl and her coat on the hook. But no mother.
“My aunt called out, and hearing nothing ran upstairs. Teddy was strapped into his pushchair—sat forward and straining as always. But for once quiet.
“I got a sick feeling. My aunt was moving upstairs quickly, room to room.
“I walked up to the door to that room by the garage. I put my hand on the handle. Not daring to open it, I sunk to my knees and put my eye to the keyhole.
“At first, I thought there was a tiny mirror there. But my eyes adjusted to the dark and I could see the eye was red with a waxy lid—I could see it clear enough to know it wasn’t human.
“I felt like I’d been stabbed. It was a pit opening inside me. I jumped back, screaming. My aunt was there in a second.
“We found my mother in there. Her eyes tight shut. There was no sign of that thing. There was nothing wrong with her, except for three tiny cuts on the top of her arm. My aunt kept saying that she must have fallen over in the room and caught herself on something.
“The house felt darker.
“I tried not to be any trouble. But after you’ve seen something like that, you don’t want to be alone. I clung to my mother. When she was awake she’d accept my kisses and let me sit on her knee, holding me loosely. At least until my aunt pulled me on to my feet saying I was a big girl, that I wasn’t to be coddled. I felt a rush of hatred towards her then.
“I went back to school. I liked being there because I didn’t feel watched wherever I went. On the walk home with my aunt, I’d feel sick. My hand would get sweaty in hers. She’d ‘tut’ and hold it tighter. As if I had anywhere to run away to.
“My head hurt with trying not to think about the thing I saw. Anything glimpsed out of the corner of my eye made me jolt, arch my back like I’d been hit. As the sun went down I got into a panic. I’d lie alone in bed, my fists clenched and sweating.
“I hoped I’d imagined it. Your eyes can trick you when you’re scared and unhappy. It kept raining.
“That night my aunt was playing with Teddy; she tickled him and he giggled. From the other side of the room I heard what he said clearly. He said, ‘Toto cut Auntie with a knife.’
“My aunt grabbed Teddy’s tiny wrists and hauled him upstairs. She didn’t say anything. Later, when I walked past Teddy’s room, there was no crying, no screaming or struggling to get out. Instead, just laughter.
“Night fell. I lay tense in my sheets, cold and scared. I must have drifted off close to morning, because I was woken by my mother’s screaming.
“She’d found my aunt’s body, after knocking and knocking and getting no reply. They never let me see, but the policemen who came, they all walked out with green faces.
“We went to stay with a family friend and moved shortly after. My mother found herself a job in Dubai. Teddy was a different child out there.”
After that the woman on the plane had nothing further to say. We landed, and I watched her get into a taxi. I felt discomfort, like the story she’d told had crawled inside my ear.
My home was quiet and empty and I flicked on all the lights, wishing I didn’t live alone.