Arvon shortlisted entry- Woman Much Missed by Helen Patuck

Woman Much Missed by Helen Patuck

There was nothing extraordinary about the young man who walked out of the town department store at midday, except perhaps that it was exactly midday, and stories rarely begin so punctually. To be fair, it was his lunch break; it broke his working day quite perfectly into two halves. It was an hour in which he would not be on the sixth floor of the department store, in the mirrors and lighting section, advising customers on how best to display themselves in their houses.

            There was a peculiar awkwardness there that he hated. It was the way people avoided looking at themselves when he took them over to a mirror. There they both stood, he in his un-ironed lilac, they with their wandering eyes, taking in the frame, the wall behind it, him, but never themselves. They would look into his eyes almost forcefully to avoid their own. Refracted light had placed them there together, but perhaps there was something shameful in it: to see oneself whilst another looks on. He would look back at them and see the slight distortions of the original image: a raised eyebrow, a slightly lower left eye, a slanted, nervous smile.

            No, he did not desire to be around that discomfort for longer than he was contracted to be.  Finding himself alone, he began to wander, but in wandering, found himself unbearable. He took the roads he had walked since childhood and the unease he felt thickened. Beneath a dull roof of blackening cloud, he felt the pressure of a thousand nothings press down upon him, and sick of himself, threw his half-eaten sandwich away.  As he did, something drew his eye.

            A colourful masquerade mask sat in the middle of a window display. Approaching, he made out angular shapes of dark mahogany in the dimly-lit interior. It looked like a shop of shadows, he thought, having little on display and even less within. He caught his reflection in the glass, backlit by the pale greys of the street around him, and pushed his face closer to the window to get rid of it. He had seen it enough times that day. He looked closely at the mask, but before he could inspect it, a sudden movement in the darkness caught his eye, a sharp glimpse of white looming out of the black. The soft, broad-cheeked face of a woman emerged, made brighter in the gloom by an encircling crop of pale hair. She seemed to recognize him for her mouth was agape with surprise. The young man quickly glanced about him, looking for other people, but she was speaking to him, saying things and gesturing with her hands, though the glass silenced any sound between them.

            He felt awkward, standing there, unsure of what to do. He had never seen her in his life but looked into her face uncomfortably, unable to break contact with her bright, excited eyes. She hadn’t seemed to notice the glass that separated them and continued to speak, her mouth moving rapidly. She was calling to him, he could tell, through the glass. There was a lightness, an infectious happiness on her face. He could not remember the last time he had produced such happiness on a woman’s face. Not even his mother’s. He had no idea who the woman was, or how she knew him, but now she had broken into giggles, realising that there was a window between them, and beckoned to him wildly with a pale arm to enter.

            Standing before her in the shop, he found her still recovering from her embarrassment, clutching her side, her cheeks a little flushed.

            ‘Oh dear,’ she said, with a clear, bell-like voice, a stage voice, ‘what have I done? How silly of me - the glass. The window.’ She was panting slightly after her fit of laughter, hot little breaths.

            ‘Michael,’ she said, half-whispering:

            ‘Michael.’

            The awkwardness returned to the young man, as swiftly as the unavoidable cramping of muscles. He was not Michael. He was as far from Michael, whoever Michael was, as it was possible to be. He could not speak for she would hear the roughness of his accent, and his lilac uniform seemed to glare outrageously in the half-light of the shop. She watched him expectantly, though what he thought she expected - a reaction of some sort, an affirmation perhaps – she apparently did not, for she continued:

            ‘I can’t quite believe it’s you. I’d heard you’d moved away after all those things with Marian, all those letters, all that writing. All that time,’ she shook her head, still laughing a little, ‘all that time.’

            He stood quite still. He was simply the object of her rapt gaze, which took him in hungrily and rapidly, roving over him as she spoke, dressing him with her words,

            ‘We all thought – well, I thought – you might have gone abroad or married elsewhere. It was such a mystery! You really left us all in the dark. Some said – some thought - I can’t think why – oh, it doesn’t matter. I can’t think of anything anymore, it was so long ago. And look at you now. Look at you. There you are!’

            He wondered when would be the right moment to correct her. He truly did. He felt incredibly stupid. Tension rose in his body, heightening, tautening his nerves, but before he could do anything, she suddenly leant forward, took him by the shoulders, and kissed him on the cheek. The touch of her lips against his skin was moist. It felt warm and real and stung his flesh in the cold shop.

            ‘What have you been doing?’ she asked, stepping back. He opened his mouth to speak, feeling it drop down as inelegantly as a comedy trap door, bur she stopped him short -

            ‘Actually, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. You’re here now,’ and there he was, ‘what are you doing now? That’s what I want to know.’

            Clearing his throat, he told her slowly that he was a lighting and mirrors salesman. She blinked for a moment, her face unmoved.

            ‘Not writing?’

            ‘No.’

            ‘Nothing?’ she asked.

            ‘Nothing.’

            ‘Marian is, you know,’ she said, watching him closely, her face suddenly sober. ‘She’s very serious about it now. You must have heard that.’

            The young man made no indication that he had, nor that he knew any Marian.

            ‘She has a play on, in fact. Have you heard? Is that why you’re back?’

            Unsure what to answer, he opened his mouth but was cut short once more by a gasp and a hand raised quite violently to her broad, pale forehead.

            ‘No, wait, you told me. The lights.  The mirrors.’

            This would have been the moment to stop. Perhaps she mistook his uncomfortable silence for pondering, for the thoughts that Michael might entertain at such news. She watched him for a moment, looking at his dark featured face, its immovable expression.

            ‘Well it’s on. Quite good, I’ve heard. It’s called ‘Identity’, I think, or something like that. You know Marian. It’s on now. It’s the last night tonight, actually -’

            Hesitating for a moment, she added, ‘- you’re probably busy.’

            ‘No,’ he said, as if the word had leapt uncontrollably from him, too quickly perhaps for she looked up at him strangely. Their eyes met, these two strangers, and held fast. He thought of the evening he would spend alone, getting in to bed, secretly hoping his father might call him up to sort through their old light bulbs, to test those he did not trust, or to fit a new mirror, a new bookshelf -

            ‘No,’ he said again, quite firmly.

             She seemed pleased. He felt a sickening sort of panic in his stomach but not without a thrill of excitement. They arranged a time to meet and parted awkwardly, as though their bodies at least sensed the strangeness of their acquaintance.

            Michael would wear a suit that evening, the young man knew that much. Ever aware of his lilac shirt, he spent the rest of his day at work planning his outfit, happy, for once, to be in the company of mirrors. He would realise later on that he could have spent a lifetime preparing his outfit and it would not have made a difference. When he arrived at the theatre, slightly sweating from his hasty dash from work to home, and from home to the theatre –a journey that entertained a thousand fears for one who had never been to the theatre - he knew he could never have looked like Michael would have. Standing in the shadowy entrance, shivering slightly, stood the young woman, dressed elegantly in an air-blue gown. He surprised himself, strangely, given the madness of the whole business, that he did not even know her name. He approached slowly, taking her in, every last blue bit of her. She saw him and flushed.

            ‘Michael!’ she called delightedly, moving towards him: ‘There you are.’

            When they took their seats, the young woman spoke endlessly about Marian.

            ‘She wrote this whole thing up. She’s always writing, always thinking things up – but I don’t need to tell you this. You know Marian.’

            He does not. The play began. It was a simple thing. A farce of sorts. Misunderstandings, disguises, a man with a charming wit and a wandering eye. It didn’t appeal much to him; he thought it all too silly, all too far from reality.

            ‘You want to see her now, don’t you?’ she asked quietly when it had ended, apparently mistaking his boredom for something else. He said nothing.

            ‘Well, we can try, but she likes to be behind the scenes. She won’t come out.’

            The truth is he did not want to meet her, for when he did he would no longer be Michael. He felt childishly afraid of her. They waited by the stage door first, then, after the last members of the cast had left, moved back to the reception. To his relief, no one came.

            ‘There you are!’ came a voice from behind them. A tall fair-haired man was striding towards them, dressed in an odd sort of grey uniform, the sort one might put an usher in, or a nurse. He was looking at the young woman in relief. She, however, blanched when she saw him, looking suddenly panicked. She said something inaudible in a little voice, smiling weakly before clutching the arm of her suited companion, grabbing him as she might an on-hand prop: ‘look who I’ve found!’ she said, excitedly, ‘Can’t you see? It’s Michael.’

            The man turned exhausted eyes upon him, saying,

            ‘Ah, so it is. Hello, Michael. How are things?’

            The young man nodded nervously in response, surprised and confused by the man’s acknowledgement.

            ‘Excellent. Well, if you don’t mind, I’m going to have to steal this one from you.’

            Unsure of what to say or do, the young man looked to the woman in the air-blue gown. She was looking beyond them both, suddenly very sad. The fair man took her arm gently, bidding her come. Without warning, she looked at her suited companion, her eyes bright with fear, full of terror and sadness, crying,

            ‘Oh, Michael! You will write, won’t you? Say you will?’

            Stunned by her sudden emotion, the young man said nothing. She was led gently to the car.

            ‘Michael!’ she called to him, and began to sob. It was a dull, sad thing to hear. Returning from the car, the blonde man leapt lithely up the steps.

            ‘I don’t know who you are, but thanks,’ he said, pulling him into a handshake.

            ‘For what?’

            ‘For finding her. Do you know the family?’

            The young man hesitated, before saying, ‘I’m a friend of Marian’s.’

            ‘And she hasn’t told you?’

            ‘Told me what?’

            ‘That woman,’ he said, rolling his eyes, ‘she’s always writing. Ask her.’