Cecelia Ahern - Girl in the Mirror

He handed her his umbrella. It was black, large, silk, with a sterling-silver handle. An eagle. It had been a gift. From the person he doesn’t talk about. Can barely even think about. He didn’t think twice about giving it away. He thought twice about not thinking twice. This intrigued him, made him wonder if he was healed after all this time. Then he thought of her face and her smell and her touch and his heart twisted and he knew the wound was as open and sore as it always was. She was not the umbrella; he was not giving her away.

‘This is your umbrella.’

‘Technically, they’re both mine.’

‘Why don’t you give me the new one?’

‘Why would I do that?’

‘This is too good.’

‘But I offered you this one.’

‘But I don’t mind the plaid one.’

‘That’s very kind of you but I’m a man of my word.’

She ran her hand over the handle. It was huge in her small hand.

‘What’s your name?’

A long pause. ‘Judith.’

An accident. It was an accident. No signs. No such thing.

‘Well, good day to you …’ He couldn’t say the name. Not yet.

He argued in court that day that hypnotists, pyschologists and other alternative-medicinal practices should also be closed down on the same ‘mind-altering’ grounds he was being accused of. He questioned Dr Freud’s theories of the unconscious mind, the defence mechanism of repression, his transference and his clinical practice of psychoanalysis, until they were all tired of listening to him. He altered peoples’ minds no more than they. He won the case, though he would not know that until some weeks later.

The following day, he returned. It was not to see her, but because that was the route he must take. Though he had thought about her all night. He stopped beside her. She looked up.

‘Did you forget your umbrella?’ he asked.

‘You mean your umbrella?’

‘I gave it to you, it’s no longer mine.’

‘Well it’s not mine either. I sold it.’

She wasn’t sorry nor did he think she should be.

‘Aren’t you angry?’

‘It was yours to do with as you wished. How much did you get for it?’

‘A half-penny.’

He shook his head.

‘You just said I could do as I wished,’ she said, defensively.

‘Indeed. But it was worth a great deal more.’

She shrugged.

‘Well I needed a half-penny.’

He thought she needed a lot more than that.

‘You don’t have a cup.’

‘A what?’

‘A cup. For begging.’

‘I’m not begging.’

‘Then what are you doing?’

‘I’m just sitting here.’

‘Do people give you money?’

‘Sometimes. Sometimes they give me umbrellas.’

He smiled. ‘Would you like to work for me?’

‘Doing what?’

‘Administration. Taking in the post, reading letters, making appointments, that kind of thing.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Why would you ask me?’

‘Why not?’

She shrugged.

‘If you think there’s a reason why I shouldn’t, you should be kind enough to tell me.’

She looked thoughtful, then looked him up and down and he got a sense of what her life must have been like up until the moment she met him. ‘What do you want in return?’

‘Nothing like that. Just exactly what I’ve asked you to do.’

She studied him for a long time. She appeared older then, her mind accessing the memories from which she has learned to make decisions.

‘Okay.’

And so she began working for him. Others that saw her come and go assumed incorrectly that she was a housekeeper; company, though paid, marked the end to one aspect of the old man’s self-appointed purgatory. But in reality she learned that the old man did not live an empty life, because it was filled to the brim with the ghost of his past with whom she worked alongside everyday.

She didn’t know what he did initially but she learned as time went on and not from asking him questions. She never once asked if she could use the machine and he admired her for that because he could imagine there would be many memories she would like to change. She never asked him any questions and he didn’t ask her any either. They were just two people who did what they did in the moment. They rarely spoke. She opened mail and without discussion he discovered she had learned his way of doing things. One evening, when she had left after the day’s work, he sat at the table and read through the letters she had left behind. He took it up with her the following day.

‘Why didn’t you make an appointment for this man?’ he asked.

He wasn’t angry. He was never angry. He was merely interested and felt an answer would give him more of an insight into the workings of her own mind rather than why the man had not been granted an appointment.

She didn’t look up as she hung her oversized coat on the hook on the back of the kitchen door and placed her - new - shoulder bag on the floor. She was looking much better these days.

‘I didn’t believe him.’

‘But you don’t know which letter I’m referring to.’

‘I do. The man whose wife died in a road accident.’

He swallowed. ‘Yes.’

‘I didn’t believe him.’

She looked at him pointedly then and he became a little flustered. Unusual for him and it was only slight, but it came over him all the same. He averted his eyes, was momentarily knocked off course, but if she noticed she didn’t show it. She opened the large desk diary that he’d bought for her and looked through the appointments. He needed to cover up his obvious discomfort. He pointed to any letter on the table.

‘And this woman, what about her?’ He saw that his hand had a slight shake.

She sighed.

‘Are you going to question every letter I refuse? Because if so, there’s no point in my being here. You could just go back to doing this yourself.’

He nodded then stood. A cup of tea before the first appointment of the day. He placed a cup of tea, three sugars, lots of milk before her. She liked it in a mug, not a cup and saucer like he. He had to buy her one and this mug was the only one in his home. He considered it hers.

‘She writes gossip,’ she said then, after taking a sip.

‘Is that so?’

‘I don’t read it of course but I have seen her page before. A high-society woman. She finds everything a nuisance.’ She put on a fancy accent. ‘Writes about who is seen having afternoon tea with whom. I didn’t think you would want her here.’

He nodded.

‘I won’t ask you any more.’

The office was the kitchen. Judith based herself there from eight a.m. until four p.m. every day. She rarely moved from her chair at the table, never looked around, rooted in the drawers, barely looked up from her desk diary to take in her surroundings. She sat on her chair at the table with the letters and the appointment book as though it was the driest part of the room.

The door bell rang. He opened it to a young man in a suit, dark circles under his eyes, a sensible hair cut, cleanly shaven, aftershave emanating from his skin in waves. He was a banker of some sort, an accountant. Something to do with numbers and straight lines. He removed his fedora hat and looked left, right, and both again before stepping inside, nervous to be seen at this address.

He stepped away from the doorway to welcome the man in.

‘My name is Jack Collins.’

‘Yes.’

He left the door open and turned and walked down the hall for him to follow. Jack hesitated at the door, rethinking the entire situation. How much did he really need to be here? He took in the empty hallway, the original tiles, some cracked, faded, a smell of mould that any amount of bleach and spray could not remove, the bare walls and he stepped inside.