A Few of the Girls (16 page)

He had that look again, the one she had seen in the mirror.

“Lorna, dear,” he said, as if speaking to a very slow learner, “dear, dear Lorna, you're talking about our
friends,
you're not talking about four couples in some kind of case study called Tragedy of the Eighties. They'll love to come and sit down and eat and drink anything with us and talk. Like friends do. You don't have to talk about being sensitive and sensible as if they were all some kind of victims.”

His voice was affectionate, and Lorna noticed, with a rising sense of annoyance, also rather patronizing, as if he were patting her down.

“Well, it comes to the same thing, darling, doesn't it?” she said in a silky voice.

“
That's
how you see our friends? Over twenty years and longer,
that's
how you've always thought of them?”

“Not all the time, George. Oh, come on, you know as well as I do that life hasn't treated all of them very well. They didn't exactly come through the last decade…well,
unscathed,
did they?”

George had stood up and moved away from the sofa that the magazine article had said would show they were a family that was into cuddles. He stood at the mantelpiece that had never known a fire. He looked across at his wife, who was dressed immaculately even though they were not going out.

Lorna looked up at him, that upwards glance she had practiced so long and so often. She saw something in his face that she didn't want to read. Something that said that
she,
Lorna, was the one who had fallen victim to the eighties. For a long time he said nothing. When she could stand it no longer she asked, “What are you thinking about?” It was a question she didn't normally ask. Lorna knew from experience that men were rarely thinking of anything. But at least it put the ball in his court; he would have to say something.

“I was thinking about the farmyard years ago, when I was a boy, and how the cock would come out and crow, and he always managed to find something high to stand on where people could see him crowing and know what he was doing. I was wondering what part of the house we could use for it.”

He didn't look at her; he went and got his hat and coat. She knew he would come back again, later in the evening. He wasn't a man for grand gestures. And she knew he wouldn't mention it again, and that she would be big-hearted enough to forgive him, unlike the other wives, who would have made unmerciful scenes over it all. But she also knew, which was most important of all, that he wouldn't go and cry on the shoulders of Kevin or Teddy or Jim or Brian. So that when the day of the party came there would be no chink in the armor, and no one would ever know about this silly little nonsense that, in less wise hands, could have become an Incident.

It would have been all right if on the day of the viewing she hadn't overheard the couple talk about how valuable the mirror was. Geri would never have even considered taking it otherwise. It was enormous for a start, very old-fashioned, and rather overfancy. They were each to choose one piece of furniture from their aunt Nora's possessions before the auction took place.

Geri's sister had taken the piano, her brother had taken the rocking chair, and she had been about to select a little octagonal sewing table when she heard that the mirror was worth a lot of money. Geri loved a bargain; the others used to tease her about it, but she said that she got such genuine pleasure from knowing she had bought something valuable, they surely couldn't begrudge it to her.

So she told nobody about the overheard remark and said that the mirror was what she would choose.

“We don't
want
a huge mirror,” her husband, Seán, said.

“Why don't you take the bath with the funny legs?” asked her son, Shay, who was eighteen and into weird ideas.

“It would fall on someone and kill them,” said her sixteen-year-old daughter, Marian, who would disagree with anything on earth that her mother suggested.

But it was Geri's aunt who had gone to the retirement home, and Geri's choice when it came down to it, so the huge mirror was taken down from the hall and delivered to their house.

Aunt Nora had been surprised. “You don't have a hall big enough for it, dear,” she had said.

This was, of course, true, but Geri hadn't wanted it for a hall: she wanted it as a big showpiece in her dining room. She knew just the place, and there would be candlesticks beside it. It would knock everyone's eyes out, and gradually she would let slip how valuable the ormolu mirror was and how rare a piece, how lucky she was to get it.

She wouldn't need to say that to their neighbors Frances and James—they would know at a glance. And what a wonderful glance that would be. Even though Geri didn't like to admit it to herself, she was very anxious indeed to impress this couple. They seemed to have effortless style and confidence.

Geri would enjoy their reaction when they saw the mirror at the dinner party.

“Where
are
you going to put the mirror, dear?” Aunt Nora wanted to know.

Sometimes her aunt irritated Geri: she seemed to know everything and be right about all subjects.

“In the dining room,” she said, and waited for the objection. She hadn't expected it to be so forthright.

“You can't be serious!” said the old woman, who had settled herself into the nursing home with a small selection of perfectly chosen pieces around her. Aunt Nora did have good taste, that couldn't be denied, but she was also very, very dogmatic.

“That's where I'd like it, Aunt,” Geri said, with more confidence than she felt.

She wondered why she felt so defensive, so apologetic.

Geri often asked herself this. She was a perfectly acceptable-looking woman of thirty-eight, she worked in an office five mornings a week, she went to the gym two afternoons a week. She was married to Seán, a civil servant, a man who loved her inasmuch as we ever know if anyone loves us. She had a handsome son, Shay, who would eventually get his act together and realize he had to work for a living, she had a discontented daughter, Marian—but all girls of that age hated their mothers. She had a nice house, and she worked hard to keep it looking well.

Geri would go miles to get an inexpensive rug that people would think was much more classy than it actually was. But when you thought about it, was this a crime? Was this something that should make her feel guilty and humble? And in front of an elderly aunt?

“Why is that a bad idea, Aunt Nora?” she asked, keeping her temper.

“My dear girl,
nobody
has a mirror in a dining room, you must know that.”

Geri hadn't known it and doubted if it was true. She listened patiently while her aunt, speaking from the point of view of another generation, told her it was unwise to let people see their own reflections. They spent ages titivating and making faces at themselves in a mirror and totally lost interest in the art of conversation, which was what a dinner party should be all about.

“Everyone knows that, Geri,” Aunt Nora said disapprovingly.

Geri decided to be very understanding—this was an elderly woman who had just been forced to leave her own home. Allow her to have the last word. Pretend to agree.

“I'm sure you're right, Aunt Nora. I'll have to think of somewhere else to put it,” she lied soothingly.

Aunt Nora snorted. She had been around a long time and she knew Geri hadn't a notion of changing her plans.

By chance, that evening on a television program about interior decorating someone made the remark that you'd never put a mirror in the dining room. It unsettled Geri for a moment, but she rationalized it. It was one of these old superstitions, like not walking under ladders, some fuddy-duddy thing about having to have antimacassars on your sofa.

The mirror arrived in Geri and Seán's house and was hung over the dining room mantelpiece.

“It sort of dwarfs the room a bit, doesn't it?” Seán said tentatively.

“You have no idea how valuable this is,” Geri implored.

“Oh well, all right then.” Seán was all for an easy life.

“I'd have loved the bath. It was like something from a horror film,” said Shay wistfully.

“It'll fall down in the middle of their dinner party, mark my words,” said Marian confidently.

But Geri took no notice. She planned the party relentlessly. Seán had met some fellow who was in the running to be an ambassador, and Geri insisted that he and his wife would be invited. She planned for happy hours how she would drop this piece of information in front of Frances and James.

She had also invited an old and rather tedious woman who was leasing her castle to Americans and a man who was involved with the development of film. It would be a guest list that would impress anybody; all that and the new mirror—Frances and James would be stunned.

The children were being well paid to serve the meal, money to be handed over discreetly when the coffee was on the table and Shay and Marian had said a courteous good night to the company.

To Geri's great disappointment, nobody mentioned the mirror when they filed into the dining room. She just couldn't believe it. Frances and James had been in this house before: they
must
have noticed it. Perhaps they didn't comment on it out of sheer jealousy. The young wannabe diplomats must surely have been in smart places with heirlooms and antiques before, maybe they just expected such elegance.

The elderly castle owner and the future filmmaker said nothing.

And so the meal was served. Geri noticed that Frances was constantly moving her hair from behind her ears to in front; twice she took out her lipstick and once even a powder compact. Her eyes never left her own reflection. She heard nothing of what was being said.

The film man frowned at himself darkly, held up his chin with his hand, sucked in his cheeks, and kept bringing the conversation around to liposuction, laser therapy, and the unfairness that it should only be women who had a little nip and tuck under the eyes.

The old castle owner sank into an ever-deeper despair and asked for neat whiskey.

“I had absolutely no idea I looked like this,” she told Geri four times. “I'm a perfect fright. I shouldn't be allowed out. What a depressing, depressing discovery.”

The young diplomat couldn't see himself, but he was so alarmed by the way everyone opposite him was looking over his shoulder that he kept turning around to see what was behind him. His wife said to him that he'd better stop acting so nervy if they were ever to land that plum post.

Seán just talked on good-naturedly, smiling at her proudly from time to time, and noticing nothing of the disarray. Geri had never known such failure and letdown.

Perhaps it was just too dark, the whole thing; she must light more candles. As she stood to do so, she saw her son, Shay, reflected in the mirror. He had worn a collar and tie, part of the exorbitant price she was paying him for his good behavior. She noticed that for every glass of wine he poured he was drinking one himself.

Her eyes hardened as she sat down.

“Perhaps you could just leave the decanters on the table,” she said in a voice of steel. One of the candles was dripping wax, so Geri went to sort it out. Again she looked in the mirror to see how what she had fondly believed to be the most elegant dinner party in Ireland was progressing.

This time she saw Marian, who had worn a rather shorter black skirt than Geri would have liked, being fondled by the lecherous filmmaker. And Marian was not running away from him. She was smiling in a very upsettingly knowing way. Geri sat down abruptly. Nothing was going right.

Her aunt had known. Nobody should have a mirror in their dining room, it was a disaster. Why had she not understood?

Frances had momentarily stopped pouting at herself in the mirror. She was smiling at Seán: a very fetching smile.

“Seán, will you please come and pour my wine for me, now that Shay has stopped being wine waiter?” she said. Seán stood up obligingly.

This was the moment that the silk flowers on the mantelpiece caught fire and Geri leaped to her feet. Everyone's eyes and attention were on the activity.

Tears of rage and humiliation were in her eyes. And as she doused the candles and rescued the charred silk stems, she saw Frances smiling at Seán and reaching out her hand for his. Geri had thought there was nothing else that could go wrong; she believed that she had seen as much upset as was possible for one human to see in this terrible mirror.

Geri looked down at her square, practical hands. She wished they were long and narrow and white, and had long pink nails. She wished her watch looked too heavy for the fragile wrist, as Frances's did. But Seán had managed to move away from the perfectly groomed long white fingers and he was sitting back in his place.

“Well done, Geri, firefighter,” he said. It wasn't exactly the role she had wanted to play, nor the words she had wanted to hear, even though he spoke them with praise and love.

“And the mirror didn't get burned at all?” He was cheering her up.

Please may he not mention the awful mirror and that it was valuable. Please let him understand that she had totally changed her view. There was so much she had to sort out, like Shay's drinking, Marian's sexual awareness, the fact that her admired neighbor Frances was coming on strong to Seán, that the two other guests were still staring at themselves gloomily in the damn mirror, and that the would-be diplomats were in the middle of a major row.

“Geri took this mirror from her aunt's estate,” Seán said proudly.

Geri closed her eyes.

“How very kind of you,” Frances said patronizingly.

“Geri is the kindest person in the world,” Seán said.

Geri opened her eyes. She stood up slowly and walked to her aunt's mirror, which she was going to sell tomorrow. She looked deep into it and she saw the wreckage of what had seemed an important dinner party. She was a better-informed person, a better-armed person.

She knew much more than she had known four hours ago. She knew that whatever old fool had said you shouldn't have a mirror in a dining room was right. She knew that you could never impress James and Frances, no matter how you tried. She knew the old trout with the castle was self-obsessed and would be of interest to no one. She knew that the filmmaker was a pathetic old lech, driven to groping teenagers to prove he wasn't over the hill. She knew that the future diplomats wouldn't get to first base with the Foreign Service or with each other.

She knew that Frances, elegant Frances, fancied Seán, her Seán, and that she couldn't have him.

Because Seán loved Geri.

Geri hated to make a bad investment, and maybe the mirror had been a poor choice. If the sewing table hadn't made its reserve at Aunt Nora's auction, she would take that.