Mirror Read Free Page B

afterward that somebody told him who it used to belong to. And what’s more … it used to stand in the very
room
where poor little Boofuls was – you know – done away with. Quite the most awful thing ever. I mean even worse than Charles Manson, because she
chopped
that dear little child into – well, I don’t even like to think about it. And nor does anybody else, more’s the pity.’
    ‘Can we – er – look at it?’ asked Martin.
    ‘Well, of course. It’s down in the cellar. I mean it hasn’t seen the light of day since Arnold’s father gave it to us. Arnold didn’t even want it but his father insisted. Arnold never had the nerve to stand up against his father. Well, not many people did. He was an absolute tyrant.’
    Mrs Harper led the way through to the kitchen. She stood up on tiptoe, revealing so much skinny leg that Martin had to look away, and groped around on the top shelf of the kitchen cupboard to find the key to the cellar.
    ‘I should sell up, you know, and move to San Diego. My sister lives there. This big old house is such a nuisance.’
    She unlocked the cellar and switched on the light. Martin hesitated for a moment and then followed her down the steep wooden steps. The smell of drains was even stronger down here, and it was mingled with a smell of dried-out lumber and cats.
    ‘You watch your step, now,’ said Mrs Harper. ‘Those last two steps are pretty rotten. We had termites, you know. Arnold thought they were going to eat the whole house right around our ears.’
    ‘They didn’t touch the furniture?’
    ‘Don’t ask me why,’ said Mrs Harper, her pink-fingernailed claw illuminated for a moment as she clutched the stair rail. ‘They ate just about everything else. They even ate the handle of Arnold’s shovel, I’ll always remember that. The whole darned handle. But they never touched the furniture. Not a nibble. Perhaps even termites have respect for the dead.’
    ‘Yes, maybe they do,’ said Martin, peering into the gloom of the cellar.
    Mrs Harper beckoned him forward. ‘It’s all over here, behind the boiler.’
    Martin caught his sleeve on an old horse collar which was hooked on a nail at the side of the stairs. It took him a moment to disentangle himself, but when he had, Mrs Harper had disappeared into the darkness behind the boiler. ‘Mrs Harper?’
    There was no reply. Martin groped forward a little farther. The boiler was heavy cast iron, one of those old-fashioned types, and almost looked as if it had a grinning face on it, with mica eyes. ‘Mrs Harper?’
    He came cautiously around the corner of the boiler and there she was. But the back of his scalp shrank in alarm, because she was suspended three feet above the floor, at a frightening diagonal angle, her white bouffant hair gleaming like the huge chrysalis of some gigantic moth.
    ‘Ah!’ Martin shouted; but almost at the same time Mrs Harper turned her head and he realized that he was looking at a reflection of her; and that the real Mrs Harper was standing beside him quite normally.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ she said without much sympathy. ‘Did I startle you?’
    ‘No, I uh –’ Martin gestured toward the mirror that was hanging from the ceiling.
    ‘Well,’ Mrs Harper smiled. She rubbed her hands together. ‘That was Boofuls’ mirror. That was the very mirror that watched him die.’
    ‘Very nice,’ said Martin. He was beginning to wonder whether it had been such a good idea coming down here to look at Boofuls’ old furniture. Maybe the tedium of retyping his
A-Team
script had something to recommend it. Maybe some memories are better left alone.
    ‘The chairs and the sofa are back here,’ said Mrs Harper. She dragged at the corner of a dustcover and revealed the shadowy outlines of an elegant reproduction sofa and two matching chairs. They were gilded, French château style, with pale green watered-satin seats – grubby and damp-stained from so many years in Mrs Harper’s cellar. Martin peered at