Magnus Mills - Three to See the King

‘You’ve got smears on it now,’ she said. ‘Look.’

‘Couldn’t be helped,’ I answered.

‘You didn’t have to bring it up here at all. I’d have much preferred it down by the door. The light’s more natural there.’

‘Well why didn’t you say?’

‘I did!’ she snapped. ‘Thanks very much! Now you’ve got smears on it!’

When I offered to take the mirror back down she told me not to bother, so I didn’t, and another three or four days went by before she mentioned it again. On this second occasion she pointed out exactly where she wanted it, rather than suggesting what was ‘probably better’ or what was ‘preferable’. I obliged by moving the mirror with good grace, taking care not to get any more smears on it. In this way we managed between us to smooth relations over, and most of the time we seemed to get on quite well together.

Even so, I couldn’t work out what exactly she’d come for. I mean, there was nothing to keep her in my house of tin. She was very welcome to stay as long as she liked, of course, but I’d have thought she’d be better off living somewhere where there were more people, instead of here amongst a few scattered individuals on a wild and blustery plain.

Each night I heard her moving restlessly around on the upper floor, disturbed by those very elements that for years had been lulling me to sleep. The trouble was, now I couldn’t sleep either. Every time the building creaked and groaned in the autumn gales I felt a wave of guilt, as though it was me personally who was keeping her awake. Still, I tried to make the best of it. Each morning I rose early, took the shovel and cleared away the drifts of red sand that were beginning to gather on the windward side of the house. At least this would save her from being blocked in if she decided to leave. As the weather continued to deteriorate, however, this seemed increasingly unlikely. Having established herself on the upper floor she now started to make incursions into the area around the stove. Anyone with a house of tin will tell you that, given a good coal supply, the stove is always regarded as the engine room. The heat needed for cooking, washing and generally keeping warm makes it the natural centre of operations, and this woman grasped the fact very quickly. Within a week the seat by the stove had become hers, whether she occupied it or not. Needless to say I was allowed to use it in between times, but only in the sense that I was borrowing it from her. This was fine by me because mostly I was engaged with tasks that kept me on my feet. I’d decided to check the outside of the house to make sure none of the creaks and groans were due to structural weakness. I’m pleased to say they weren’t, and that the sounds we heard in the night were mostly those of expansion and contraction.

The mirror, in the meantime, had gone through a trial period in the place she’d suggested near the doorway. This had proved satisfactory, so one afternoon I gave it a permanent fixing, which seemed to please her. On the rare days that the weather was mild and still, she would stand with the door open examining her reflection full-length in the natural light. I have to admit to being fairly impressed by the trouble she went to over her appearance, considering there was no one else present apart from myself. Once or twice she would catch me watching as she made adjustments to her waist or hemline, at which point she’d give me a very pleasant smile.

The trunk on the upper floor seemed to contain an endless hoard of clothing, which she never tired of trying on in various combinations. This was in direct contrast to my own wardrobe. I had two sets of clothes which I alternated when they got dirty, and that was that. Fortunately, she didn’t ever go on about my choice of attire. In many respects she was content for me to continue my life just as it had been before she arrived, without any interference. Which was fair enough when you think about it. She was only a guest, after all, and there was a limit to what she could or could not influence. Indeed, I’d even started to notice that the bouts of criticism were becoming rarer. We passed the time fully aware of one another’s presence, and went to every effort to avoid friction when possible.

Then one day she said, out of the blue, ‘So what became of your great plan?’

‘What great plan?’ I replied.

‘You told me you were going to live in a canyon.’ ‘Oh that,’ I said. ‘Well, it never quite came to fruition.’ ‘But how can it have never come to fruition?’ she asked, ‘when you had such hopes and aspirations? You told me all about them. One day, you said, you were going to make a voyage, the culmination of which would be your discovery of a canyon, deep and wide, and cut through the reddest of earth. Then, when you’d surveyed it from end to end and found the perfect site, you were going to build a house entirely from tin.’

It turned out she was referring to some conversation we’d had when we last met. I remembered none of it, but apparently she could recall in detail almost every word I’d said. As a matter of fact, she seemed to know quite a lot about me, about my tastes, about my interests, and even about my future plans. I soon began to wonder exactly how much information she’d managed to glean from that one exchange. For my part, all I knew about her was her name.

As she reminded me of my scheme in all its detail, I pondered on how I could have come to abandon it so easily. What had distracted and led me on such a different path? The answer, I soon realized, lay in the moment I’d stumbled upon my present abode. With one look I had allowed myself to be seduced by its grace and solidity, by its warm stove, and by its shutters that could be closed against the weather. Oh yes, it was a house of tin alright, but instead of being in a canyon, it was situated high up on the plain!

I opened the door and gazed out across that vast expanse, asking myself if I’d left it too late to resume my search. It was the afternoon of a desolate winter’s day, and as I stood there a savage gust of wind warned of the hardship that such a life would bring. Quickly, I stepped back into the warmth.

There probably isn’t even a canyon,’ I said, by way of explanation.

‘How far did you look?’ she asked.

‘Quite far.’

‘And you found nothing?’

‘No.’

‘Well, I suppose it hardly matters really,’ she remarked. ‘As long as you’ve got a roof over your head.’

Maybe so, but I was curious as to why she’d raised the subject in the first place. At no time had she questioned my desire to live in a canyon, and seemed only concerned with my obvious failure to do so. At first I assumed this was simply another criticism to add to the current list. After a while, however, I began to suspect there was more to it than that. Nothing else was said about my unfulfilled plans, nor did she mention them again over the next few days. Instead, she adopted a strategy of silence, during which I couldn’t help thinking that she was waiting for me to do something. Over and over again I felt her eyes on me as I carried out some domestic duty in the house. When I brought some extra pillows to the upper floor, for example, she sat on her bed watching while I struggled to get them into their covers. She didn’t utter a single word, but instead looked at me as if to say, ‘You’re wasting your time doing that: there are much more important things to be getting on with.’

This unsatisfactory state of affairs continued for almost a week, and at last I could stand it no longer.

‘Right,’ I said, one cold, bright morning. ‘I’m going out.’

‘Where?’ she asked.

‘To look for a canyon to live in. I might be gone a while.’