‘Victoria!’
The shout was unexpected, so unexpected that Victoria swivelled around in panic, almost dropping the mirror. It slipped slightly from her grasp and the jagged sapphires on the back scraped across her fingers. She tightened her grip around it and looked up at her mother, who was staring at Victoria in horror.
‘What are you doing with that mirror? Where did you get it from?’
Victoria hesitated. She’d had the story all planned for her father. A customer opened the case and got the mirror out. I was just about to put it back. But her mother was different. She hadn’t expected her mother to even come into the shop, and she certainly hadn’t thought her mother would notice the mirror, because her mother never really noticed anything.
‘I found it in the suitcase. I like it.’ Victoria said.
But her mother wasn’t listening. She was trying to take the mirror, trying to unpeel Victoria’s fingers from its rough, glittering handle.
‘You mustn’t play with that, darling. It’s not safe.’
Victoria thought of Harry, remembered how she could somehow smell his skin, remembered the way he shook her hand. He did think she was beautiful, she was suddenly sure of it again. And the mirror, the whole morning, was now a part of Victoria’s time with Harry. She didn’t want it to end, any of it. She didn’t want it snatched from her hands, treated like a childish game and nothing more. She wasn’t a child: she was sixteen, and if she was going to be trapped in this shop all day every day for the rest of her life then she should be able to touch whatever she wanted to.
‘Victoria!’ her mother shouted again, giving up on wrestling with Victoria’s tight grasp. ‘You cannot play with that mirror!’ Her hands crept up to her face, and Victoria watched as her mother suddenly seemed to wilt. The fight in her had gone as suddenly as it had arrived. ‘Just promise me you will put it away and leave it alone,’ she finished quietly. She turned and disappeared behind the white door again, as smoothly as a ghost, leaving the mirror behind.
Sleep was out of reach for Victoria that night. Her mind was bright with the image of Harry, and she tossed from one position to the next, wondering when he might return to the shop. She replayed their conversation over and over again in her mind until the black night had turned into a blue dawn. He hadn’t said he would be back the next day, or even soon. It all depended on Robert Bell, the author, and when he arranged to give the talks that Harry would invite Victoria to.
Robert Bell, thought Victoria as she heard the clatter of the milkman’s bottles break through the silent morning, please, please arrange to do your talks soon.
And as the milkman clinked his way down the winding hill of Silenshore, and the birds began to sing, and the blue dawn turned into a pale-yellow morning, Victoria finally fell asleep.
Since they had left school last month, Sally Winters had come into the antique shop every Tuesday to see Victoria. Sally worked at Clover’s Tea Rooms at the other end of Silenshore, near the promenade, and Tuesday was her day off. Normally, when the door swung open with Sally’s rather forceful push, Victoria would do a quick mental run-through of all the things she wanted to talk to Sally about, all the things she wanted to ask Sally about the week that had just passed. But this Tuesday, the day after Harry, Victoria yelped and jumped up as soon as she saw Sally through the glass, scurrying over to the door and ushering her in.
Sally’s silver-blue eyes widened in wonder at the tale of Harry. She sighed when Victoria had finished talking, her slim face drawn down in disappointment that she wasn’t at the centre of this thrilling new romance.
‘Is he handsome?’ she asked without waiting for a response. ‘I wish I could meet someone handsome. I hate working at Clover’s. Do you think Harry has any nice friends who would like to meet me?’
‘I’ll ask him,’ Victoria said. She turned to the mirror, which she had brought downstairs with her when she had opened up the shop. ‘Do you think,’ she said quickly, ‘that I should start wearing my hair up more often? Do you think it makes me look older?’ Victoria tore off her red headband and gathered her black hair in her hands.
‘A little, perhaps.’ Sally frowned. ‘How old is Harry?’
Victoria shrugged. ‘I’m not sure, exactly. In his twenties, I think.’
‘Twenties? Wow, Victoria. I bet he’s nothing like the boys from school.’
Victoria grinned. ‘You’re right. He’s nothing like them at all. I have a special feeling about him. I feel so excited all of the time.’ She poured two cups of tea from the teapot that she’d also brought downstairs. Every Tuesday when she visited Lace Antiques, Sally always stayed for a cup of tea served in one of the beautifully fragile china cups that had been collected by the shop over the years. Victoria had bought an orange sponge cake from Blythe’s Bakery across the road yesterday and had already sliced a piece each for Sally and herself.
They sat chatting about Harry for a while, the cake and cups between them on the counter, the sweet tang of orange in the air, until Sally stood up from her stool and brushed down her striped dress, yawning as though everything was a terrible bore. ‘I suppose I’d better be going. Mum’s given me so many jobs to do at home that Tuesday rarely feels like a day off lately.’
When she’d waved Sally off down the street, Victoria poured herself another cup of tea. She had chosen the blue cup, the one with the very fine crack around the base, finer than a hair. Using the blue cup took a certain amount of bravery; it could split and break at any moment. But today felt like a day where it wouldn’t split. And feelings were everything. Whenever Victoria felt something, it was usually right. And that is why, when Harry didn’t come through the door of Lace Antiques that day, or the next day, or the day after that, Victoria couldn’t quite believe it.
Surely the Robert Bell talks have been arranged by now, Victoria thought on Friday. Her mother had been in bed all week, and her father rarely bothered to work in the shop, so Victoria had spent three days waiting for the door to open and Harry to saunter in. She couldn’t remember if he was the sauntering kind, but she thought that he might be.
‘Where is he?’ she asked Frederick the cat. ‘Do you think he’ll ever return here?’
Frederick glanced at her regally, then began licking his pristine grey coat. Victoria touched her shoulder where Frederick’s claws had dug into her when Harry had been there. The mark had gone, she had seen that morning as she had dressed; the final speck of dried blood had been brushed away to reveal brand-new skin. It was, quite simply, as though nothing had ever happened.
Suddenly alive with frustration, Victoria took one final look at the unmoving front door, burst out of the back of the shop and flew up the narrow stairs and along the landing to her mother’s bedroom. She swung the door open, stagnant air rushing from the room in a bid to escape.
‘Are you getting up today, Mum? I need to leave the shop. I need to go out somewhere.’
There was a murmur from the bed, from beneath the mound of knotted blankets and pillows.
‘Mum?’
It was quite normal for Victoria’s mother to spend days, sometimes weeks, in bed. Mrs Lace did not live, she slept. Sometimes, she would get dressed and float down to the shop, stinking of perfume, long strings of pearls rattling around her slender neck. But then Victoria’s father would storm home and shout something, or worse, smoulder silently and then push past them both. Silence meant the worst, because silence was normally followed by a storm. Storms were followed by the pearls being hung up in an upstairs cupboard, the perfume fading, and Victoria’s mother returning to her bed for a week or so.
‘I heard you, darling. I’ll be down later, perhaps.’
Victoria stood in the doorway of the bedroom. The air was heavy with sleep, with heavy breaths and dreams and sweat. Her mother’s bony body was motionless in the middle of the bed somewhere.