Smoke and Mirrors

Excerpt From: Smoke and Mirrors

Max scraped the razor carefully over his stubble, pulling ridiculous faces in the mirror to stretch his skin taut. He was dark-haired, with a touch of premature grey he didn’t really mind. If he didn’t shave twice a day he got that five o’clock shadow look. The laughter lines around his eyes spoke of lots of smiling, rather than age. Behind his image, in the reflection, he could see an old woman sitting on the toilet seat and sobbing as though her heart were breaking. Her flowered house-dress and her oversized, fuzzy slippers were as familiar to him as his own face in the mirror. He didn’t turn around, because if he turned around she wouldn’t be there. She wasn’t really an old woman—she was a spirit, or a memory, or an echo. So he rinsed his face, then vigorously brushed his teeth, humming discordantly around the brush and his mouthful of peppermint foam.

He’d always seen things that weren’t really there—or maybe he was able to see things that were really there; things that other people were blind to.

He saw things in reflections—in mirrors, and puddles, and the darkened windows of late-night diners. Saw things the way they really were.

Mostly it was innocuous—an elderly gentleman whose reflection in his soup spoon was handsome and virile, because inside he was still eighteen. A harried and hen-pecked middle-aged man whose wife, in the glass of a revolving door, was always looking over his shoulder.

At first the old lady had made him feel wretched, made him wish there was some way he could reach out to her and comfort her—but there wasn’t. So she’d just become part of his daily routine. And when the wing-mirror of a car had shown him his ex-girlfriend’s real face—pinched with bitterness and spite—he’d looked at her pretty, flattering smile and known what she was inside.

He wandered into the kitchen and poured a glass of orange juice, then grimaced when the taste clashed with the mint of his toothpaste. He stuck a slice of bread in the toaster and sat down to browse through the local newspaper until the toast popped.

There was a piece about the local community college, and an editorial about a rise in crime and how it related to closures of youth centres. A follow-up story on Matty Hopkins, the seven-year-old who’d gone missing almost two weeks ago. Max’s heart hurt for him. In the photograph the news had reprinted again and again, he was a tousled tow-head with wide, blue eyes and a broad grin. A port wine birthmark covered half of his forehead and trailed down to his cheek underneath his right eye. The cinema listings yielded nothing of interest. His horoscope was bullshit that could have applied to anyone, as usual. A colourful advert caught his eye and he took another absent swig of orange juice as he examined it. This time it tasted better.

The ad was for a circus—a proper, old-fashioned carnival. It offered a cake-walk and a hall of mirrors, a big top, a funfair. There would be candyfloss and hot dogs and toffee apples; rollercoasters and tilt-a-whirls to make you feel sick afterwards. The advert was offering twenty-five per cent off the ticket price. Well, why not?

* * * *

He was late arriving. Max was chronically late for everything. He didn’t mean to be, but he was a daydreamer. Fifteen minutes here, wondering why a beautiful girl looked so unhappy when he glimpsed her face reflected in her patent-leather shoes, ten minutes there, watching a quiet and restrained little man raging in the highlight on his wine glass, and the time just flew. So as he took his seat, shuffling and ‘excuse-me’-ing past the rows of already-seated show-goers, the clowns were just tumbling off the stage, a straggler throwing a bucket of confetti over the audience to squeals of delight and peals of applause.

As he settled down, the house lights dimmed and a drum roll began. An angel stepped out into the ring, her feet kicking up little puffs of sawdust.

Max was used to being disappointed by women. It came with his rare and unusual talent—judging a book by its cover was almost always a mistake, since whenever he glimpsed the truth in a girl’s reflection, his first impression was usually proved wrong.

He couldn’t see the reflection of the woman who walked forwards—she’d stopped just out of the spotlight’s glare, visible, and yet not. As the drum roll was overshadowed by a dramatic voice, he had no way of knowing her true nature. And yet...