Short story by one of our readers, John Arnett

MIRROR, SIGNAL

A short story by John Arnett

For several summers in succession, we used to rent a large detached house in Suffolk for a week or more. It was set back from a tiny, winding lane, away from any village, and surrounded by fields as far as you could see in any direction. It wasn’t too far from the coast – the lane was sandy at the edges – and that was part of its appeal. Any form of traffic was a rare occurrence.

The house belonged to the headmaster of a nearby primary school, who used to go away to France for the whole of the summer holidays with his family. It was an ancient, rambling place with tall, ornate chimneys, flagstone floors and a huge, homely kitchen about the size of the entire London flat we lived in at the time.

There was a beautiful music room downstairs – we called it the music room because it had a slightly out of tune walnut-cased piano and a zither with rusty strings. The acoustics were fabulous. We used to take various guitars, whistles, things to shake and blow. It was always full of sunlight and sound.

There was also a little out of the way room we called “the den” which just had a TV, a big box full of games and piles of cushions. You could be pretty sure that was where the kids would be, if you couldn’t find them. There was plenty to keep you happy, even if the weather wasn’t so good. The thing is, though, it invariably was. My recollection – and I have albums of photographs to prove it – is of a parade of glorious warm summer days, stretching from morning till late in the evening. The doors were always open.

The house was surrounded on all sides by gardens, a profusion of wild flowers, brambles and fruit trees. There was a pond with an overhanging willow, a well-stocked vegetable garden and an orchard. Looking out of the kitchen window you would see a pleasingly ramshackle patio, and beyond it a large lawn which was in more or less constant use as a cricket and football pitch.

We had some wonderful times there. Two of the holidays we had were with another family, close neighbours and friends of ours from London, who had two boys of exactly the same age as ours. The four boys had known each other all their lives, grown up together, been to the same schools, had similar interests – playing music most of all – and moved in similar circles. They were the best of friends.

Another summer, we had invited some other close friends, a couple,

but this time it hadn’t been such an unqualified success. In actual fact, they left before the end of the week, greatly to our surprise. Everything had seemed to be fine up until their sudden announcement that they were leaving. All they said at the time was that something had come up in London, which meant they would need to leave a couple of days earlier than they had originally planned.

Quite some time afterwards, at a rather well lubricated dinner party, they let slip that in truth they had begun to feel that there was something a little unsettling, sinister even, about the house. They had both felt it. The house had two staircases; the main one, and a secondary one, which connected one of the bedrooms – the one in which they were sleeping – with the kitchen. It was this staircase that was the focus of their anxieties, so much so that they wouldn’t use it, even in daylight. At night they would hear noises. There was an unnatural light that came from that direction.

None of this we were aware of at the time of the occurrence that is the real subject of this story. One night towards the end of what would be our last holiday in the house, the four boys decided that they would all like to sleep in the same room together. It would be fun, a memorable ending to what had been an altogether idyllic week. The younger boys would have been about ten, the older two about fourteen. We had to move an extra single bed into the room, but there was plenty of space for it. It was the room near the second staircase that our other friends had been in before.

When it came to bedtime, there was a good deal of hilarity and high spirits. No-one was in a hurry to go to sleep. It was all perfectly good humoured, so we let them get on with it. We were busy, in any case, talking and working our way through a bottle or two of wine downstairs. Eventually the noise from upstairs subsided. It was late when we went to bed ourselves, but before we did we checked their room – all sleeping peacefully in the moonlight, nothing amiss.

The next morning, some time after nine, we were up and about making the usual leisurely preparations for breakfast, sun streaming through the kitchen window and the open door. Soon everything was set out ready, but there was still no sign of the boys – not that there was anything unusual about that. It had been a late night, but still, we did have plans for the day. I went up to their room and knocked gently on the door. No reply. I pushed the door open – all still fast asleep, a picture of contentment.

And then something else caught my eye. The four beds were arranged around the four walls, leaving a space in the centre, where I was expecting to see bare floorboards, perhaps some trainers or T-shirts, a paperback or two. Instead, placed with the utmost precision and filling the available space was a perfectly formed, shimmering six pointed star. It was made of broken pieces of mirror. Broken is perhaps the wrong word – there was nothing haphazard or ungainly about this. It radiated outwards in an astonishing geometric gesture, each piece perfectly spaced and shaped to create the whole. It had been made. I couldn’t speak.

After a while I went downstairs to tell the other adults. We woke the boys up and tried to find out what they knew about it. A mirror falling off a wall would make a great deal of noise – had they heard anything? No. Neither had we. Had they woken in the night at any point? No. It was completely evident that they knew nothing about it. They were as dumbfounded as we were. How could you sleep through that? How did it get there? We were each lost in our own thoughts. We knew that we couldn’t leave it there, because of the danger from the broken glass. There was nothing for it but to sweep up the pieces and put them in the bin.

When the owner came back from France we would telephone him and explain what had happened, and of course offer to pay for the damage. A few weeks later, and still no wiser, this is exactly what we did. After I had explained and apologised, he asked me in which room we had found the broken mirror. I described it to him. There was a lengthy silence at the other end of the line. “There was no mirror in that room. There never has been.”

johnarnett@btinternet.com

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THE ECO AGENDA

Caroline Topping looks at some of the ‘SMART’ ways we can mitigate our impact on the climate

The climate is changing, so anything we can do to reduce our impact on it has got to be a good thing. But it’s hard to set ourselves goals and achieve them if we take on too many at once – and if the people we live with don’t embrace what we are trying to accomplish.

But those goals are a lot more achievable if we think ‘SMART’, and make each one Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timed. Each little pledge you make collectively will make a positive difference, you will be able to see what you are achieving, and over time you can hopefully bring the rest of your household along with you. I started my eco journey by creating ecobricks; items of packaging the local council doesn’t recycle, cut into pieces and trapped inside the ‘brick’. Then I decided to TerraCycle hard to recycle packaging. I now make a conscious effort to buy in independent shops, taking my bags for life and pre-used stretchy plastic bread bags. Saying ‘No to Fast Fashion’ wasn’t so bad. I had a wardrobe full of clothes, some actually dating back to the 80s, that I still wore, but I didn’t need any more clothes. Mixing them up with different scarves, necklaces, cardigans make them feel like different outfits. I now put all my coat hangers facing one direction and then once I have worn an item, rehang it, and turn the coat hanger the other way to see what I am and am not wearing. A decision can then be made to restyle, sell or recycle.

Also, trust in the ‘sniff test’. Every time you wash your clothes they shed microfibres which pollute our oceans. Small stains can be removed by hand and jeans don’t need washing after every wear. Wool is naturally odour resistant and won’t need washing that often. If you wear something and it smells OK, instead of washing it hang it up to air. When you do wash smelly or dirty items, check the weather forecast for a dry day so you can hang it outside. Tumble dryers use a huge amount of electricity.

Lots of people try different things during the year like ‘Dry January’, or ‘Movember’. I’m going vegetarian for a month, not leaping straight into vegan, as I won’t be able to do it. The idea is to help the planet, not set yourself up to fail and be miserable. I will plan ahead, pick a month, and commit to some meat-free menus. If we slip up, we have to forgive ourselves and try again. Just cutting down on meat consumption helps our carbon footprint. I love a glass of flavoured gin and lemonade, but went ‘Dry for January’. I am still dry at the middle of February, so meat free for a month should be a doddle, shouldn’t it?

If you are interested in looking at your personal environmental footprint, try this calculator at www.footprint.wwf.org.uk

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