IRINA

The two delivery men wore black T-shirts and weary expressions. Irina had forgotten it was arriving today, until she heard Patricia’s click of annoyance as the van stopped, half on the pavement, half on the road, prompting a cacophony of horn-honking. They carried it through the shop, pausing halfway to lower it and clear a wide enough path through to the workshop.

The piece was covered in a dust sheet and Irina wondered what she had taken on, feeling the familiar thrill she experienced before any job. Her New York client had a wonderful eye for beautiful pieces. She directed the men to a space in the corner of the room where she had laid a sheet on the floor and they placed it there slowly, a drawer sliding forward so that the handle could be seen poking at the cloth.

The men lingered, perhaps in the hope of being offered a mug of tea, and Patricia had to bundle them back out to their van. A line of cars was skirting it slowly and there were annoyed glances from drivers, knuckles strained on the steering wheels.

Irina turned towards the dust sheet, tentatively reaching out a hand to unveil it. She pulled it back, snagging it on a corner so that she had to reach around and free it. The lights in the room buzzed and flickered for a second, making her glance up.

‘What is it?’ Patricia asked as she swept through the beaded curtain, heading for the kettle and flicking it on.

‘A bureau,’ Irina said, her eyes drinking in the details as she moved around it. It was made of mahogany, from the Georgian period she would say, and it had pigeonhole drawers and smaller rectangular drawers beneath them. She carefully lowered the writing desk, jumping as Patricia walked up behind her.

‘What’s wrong with it?’

Irina frowned, feeling along the edges of the wood. The smell of old paper, damp wood and a faint whisper of another scent underneath, something familiar.

‘It doesn’t look too major. The leatherette needs replacing, it needs to be cleaned, another layer of polish, some of the pigeonhole drawers need attention.’

Her fingers explored the surface of the wood: scratches on the top, the splintered edges of the unpolished wood underneath bubbled and uneven. Her hand traced the corners, rounded and smooth, into the middle of the piece; the handle of the drawer was made of brass, grubby and unloved. She felt further along, inch by inch. A shot of pain in her hand, sharp, like a bite and she snatched it back, clutching it to her chest, her fingers curled into themselves, protective.

As she stared at the bureau a sudden unease settled over her; she was pleased then at the interruption of the kettle switching itself off, a faint cloud of steam making a pattern on the mirror above it. Irina squinted, her brain slow to catch up with what she was seeing. For a second she was certain she could make out a face through the steam, faint, impossible. Her head snapped back to look at the bureau standing sentinel, waiting for her. Back to the mirror, just a circle of steam. She stared, not wanting to take her eyes from it, seizing on Patricia’s offer of a mug of tea, accepting it in a too-loud voice.