Graham Masterton - Mirror

Emilio continued to suck Coke while he thought about that. His face was pale because it was the middle of the night and he should have been asleep, and there were plummy little circles under his eyes.

'How come he's still a kid?' Emilio suddenly wanted to know.

'I don't know,' Martin admitted. 'He's supposed to be dead. I mean I don't think he's actually a real kid. That kid you can see in the mirror is more like a ghost.'

Emilio thought about that and then said, 'Wow. I never met a ghost before.'

'Me neither.' Martin tugged open a bag of Fritos. 'That's why I don't think it's such a good idea your playing with him,' said Martin.' You don't want to wind up a ghost, too, do you?'

'Would I be invisible? I mean if I was a ghost? Could I walk through walls?'

'I don't know. But from everything I've heard about ghosts, ghosts are not too happy. I mean, Boofuls isn't too happy, is he? Listen - do you want anything to eat? Fritos or something? I've got some what-do-you-call-'ems someplace Twinkies.'

Emilio shook his head. He was too tired, and too fascinated by the otherworldly nature of the friend he had met in Martin's sitting room. Martin could almost see it all churning around in his mind, like five different colors of Play-Doh, Tve been playing ball with a ghost, fve been talking to a ghost. A ghost! A real live ghost! Not like Casper; not like Poltergeist, like me! A ghost kid just like me!'

Martin said, 'It's possible, Emilio - it's just possible - that playing with Boofuls might not be safe. Do you understand that? I mean, Boofuls doesn't mean you any harm. Leastways, I don't think he does. But this is all pretty weird stuff, right? And until we can find out what's happening, why he's here, what he wants - well, I think it's better if you don't come up here.'

Emilio looked completely put out. 'Doesn't Boofuls like me?'

'Sure he likes you, Emilio. He probably thinks you're his best pal ever. But just at this moment you two guys have got something to work out between you. Like, he lives on one side of a mirror and you live on the other. And the way I see it, either you're here and he's there, or he's here and you're there. And that's a little too weird for anybody to handle.'

Emilio yawned. 'All right,' he surrendered.

Just then, Mr Capelli came stomping into the kitchen, wrapped up in a gleaming striped satin bathrobe in chrome yellow and royal purple. Underneath it, Martin glimpsed gray woolen ankle socks.

'Emilio!' he exclaimed. 'I've been searching for you everywhere! I walked all the way down to Highland!'

'You've been walking the streets in that robe and they didn't arrest you?' asked Martin with pretended astonishment.

Mr Capelli tugged his bathrobe tighter. 'Mrs Capelli gave me this robe for Christmas.'

'Don't tell me, tell the judge. Thank your lucky stars they don't send people to death row for premeditated bad taste.'

'And what do you call taste, anh? Your wreck of a car, parked outside my house?'

Martin lifted Emilio off his stool and gave him a good-night kiss on the top of the head. Funny how kids' hair always smells the same: fresh, alive, pungent with youth, chestnuts and hot pajamas and summer days.

'Here,' he said, 'you'd better take this young somnambulist back to his bed.'

Mr Capelli took hold of Emilio and clasped him in his arms. 'You're a crazy person, you know that, just like your mamma.

Martin said quietly, as Mr Capelli carried Emilio toward the door, 'Listen, Mr Capelli. . .' but he realized when Mr Capelli turned around that there were tears in his eyes, one of those sudden unexpected pangs of grief for his dead daughter; one of those moments of weakness that hit the bereaved when they're least expecting it.

Emilio's mother, Mr Capelli's daughter, had died three years ago. Her husband, Stanley had walked out on her. (Mrs Capelli had told Martin all about this, like a soap opera, complete with actions: you should have seen the fights, you should have heard the cursing, how two people could hate each other so much, you'd've never believed it.)

Sad, disoriented, feeling that she had somehow fallen from grace, Emilio's mother had overdosed one Sunday morning on Italian wine and Valium. She had been found dead in her apartment white as Ophelia, her arms outspread, her hair outspread, almost beautiful, but smelling like hell itself, and the whole apartment thunderous with blowflies.

Stanley had gone to Saskatchewan to chop timber. Mr and Mrs Capelli had been given custody of Emilio. Garlic, dust balls, and all.

Mr Capelli said, 'It's all right, Martin, he has to get back to bed.'

'Mr Capelli, I have to talk to you,' Martin insisted. 'Could you come right back?'

'Talk?' Mr Capelli demanded.

'About Emilio, please. Can you spare me five minutes?'

'It's gone three o'clock.'

'Sure, yes, I know, but please. I don't know whether it's going to keep until tomorrow.'

He tore off a piece of kitchen towel and handed it to Mr Capelli, and Mr Capelli wiped his eyes. It was an act of acceptance, an act of reconciliation.

'Okay,' Mr Capelli promised. 'But five minutes, no more.'

Martin looked at Emilio resting against his grandfather's shoulder and Emilio was already asleep.

Mr Capelli came up ten minutes later and rapped at the door.

'Hey, come on in,' Martin told him.

Mr Capelli stood in the hallway in his yellow and purple bathrobe, looking tired and embarrassed. Tm sorry,' he said, 'I shouldn't've sounded off. It just gets to me sometimes, you know what I mean, Andrea and all.'

Martin slapped his arm. 'I know. I'm sorry, too. You know what scriptwriters are. Smart-asses, all of us. It's the way we make our living.'

Mr Capelli nodded, oblivious to Martin's irony. 'She was so beautiful, Andrea; and Emilio looks just the same way; nothing of Stanley; that jerk; Stanley had eyes that were too close together, you know? But Emilio is Andrea. Beautiful, Italian, what can I say?'

Martin suggested, 'How about some coffee?'

Mr Capelli said, 'No - no thank you. I don't sleep good already. Just talk.'

'Okay,' said Martin, taking a deep breath. 'This isn't easy okay? Try to bear with me. But even if it doesn't sound logical, try to accept that I wouldn't be telling you if I weren't worried about Emilio.'

'Why are you worried about Emilio?' Mr Capelli demanded. 'Why should you worry about Emilio?'

'Listen, Mr Capelli, Emilio is your grandson, but Emilio is also my friend. Well, I hope he is. I don't think it matters very much how old anybody is, do you? I mean the difference between your age and my age is a lot more than the difference between my age and Emilio's age. So you can't say that he and I don't have any right to be buddies, can you?'

'No, I didn't say that,' replied Mr Capelli stiffly, his hands resting on his knees.

'All right, then,' said Martin. 'What I'm saying is in Emilio's best interest, believe me. If Emilio comes up to my apartment anymore - well I don't want him here anymore.'

Mr Capelli leaned forward, his hands still clutching his knees. 'You're not saying . .. what, you're gay?'

'Oh shit, Mr Capelli!' Martin shouted at him, slapping at the hallway wall. Tm not talking about me! Gay! What the hell is the matter with you? It's that mirror you helped me to carry upstairs.'

'The mirror, hah? Boofuls' mirror? What did I tell you, you shouldn't give it houseroom.'

'Maybe you were right,' Martin admitted. 'I don't know what it is, but there's something wrong with it,' Martin told him. 'It's hard to say what. But it's not your usual kind of everyday mirror.'

'It's a trick mirror,' said Mr Capelli, trying to lighten up this dire and ominous conversation before Martin started talking about death and hackings and all the other gory topics of conversation that (along with saraghine alia brace) invariably gave him nightmares and agonies of indigestion. 'You look in the mirror and what do you see? You don't got clothes on.'