buckler to withstand the onslaughts of society. I know the daily battle – the loneliness of the fight!’
He leaned back then, and I steadied myself from tumbling into his wake. Could he be the prince Donkey-Skin told me about? She wasn’t answering. I glanced at Mama, her tea growing cold in its cup, and saw the famished look written on her: hungry to be rid of me, to walk out of the house without the thought of me warming the shadow of her steps. She seethed with hope, and guilt, and fear; and though he saw less than half of it, I knew he saw enough to wet her, stick his thumb into her innards and spin her like a pot on a wheel.
‘Dear ladies.’ He stood, squeaking back his chair. ‘I have taken up too much of your valuable time. I will leave you now.’
He stood before me, and I dropped my eyes to the floor. His boots gleamed. I thought of his elbow, in and out, in and out, pumping a shine into the leather. He lifted himself on to the balls of his feet, lowered himself, and then rose again. My neck ached from staring at the rug.
‘Madam,’ he coughed. ‘You have a jewel here. A pearl of great price.’
I lifted my head at last, to snort a laugh into his face, but a fire had been lit in his eyes and it quenched all my sharpness. I had a sudden fancy he intended to swallow me up, then and there, thrusting his teeth into the pit of my stomach. I found myself quivering.
‘I have stayed too long. I should not wish to tire you or your esteemed mother any longer with my tiresome chattering.’
Mama jumped up, begging him to stay, but he would go with the most earnest politeness. I stayed seated, and did not speak a word to hold him. Still he paused, holding my eyes with his.
‘I beg your mother’s permission to leave you a small gift. Perhaps you would look upon it kindly after I have gone?’
He did not place it into my hand directly, but laid it on the table.
‘This token is for you,’ he said. ‘Open it later and think of the giver.’
Mama stood behind me and twisted the hair on the back of my neck so that I had to grind my teeth against the pain.
‘Thank you, Mr Arroner, for your kind attention,’ I squeezed out.
‘Dear madam,’ he said to Mama over the crown of my head. ‘I thank you for permitting me to visit you and your enchanting daughter today. Most devoutly I hope you might permit me to call upon you at a future date? If that does not inconvenience you overmuch?’
I felt the tremor of Mama’s frantic nodding. He gripped the brim of his hat and tipped it to me, flapped the tails of his coat like a ringmaster. I looked down straightway.
‘Dear ladies. I will now take my leave, and wish you a pleasant afternoon, and a more pleasant evening.’
His feet crossed the floor; the door opened, he stepped through it, and the door closed.
I hovered my hand in the empty space where he had stood only a few moments before and felt the air that had just now lapped his cheek.
Mama returned. ‘Well, then?’ she whispered.
‘Well what, Mama?’ I yawned.
‘The gift. What has he left you?’
‘I had almost forgot it,’ I lied. ‘I suppose I must see what it is.’
I stood and walked to the table very slowly, for all that Mama would not stop clucking for me to hurry. It was a kidskin pouch, glazed to a top-of-the-milk sheen, the breadth of my palm and containing something square and unforgiving: a piece of slate, perhaps. I lay my hand where his had been and took the pulse of whatever lay within, testing the beat of its tiny heart. I undid the string and ferreted my hand into the smooth dark burrow, soft inside as it was outside.
Donkey-Skin was whispering: Tight as a purse and you are the coin inside. Are you so ready to be spent?
My palm dampened inside the tight grip of the bag. It could almost make me believe I was hairless. I felt him watching me, so close his breath warmed my ear. Slip in your hand, he said. Discover what is within the suppleness of this little pouch. Think of me as you do it; for I am watching the expression in your remarkable face as you draw out the treasure I have given you.
Blood crackled in my veins; my fingers closed around a hard object and I pulled out a looking-glass. It froze at the sight of my face and leapt away from me, clattering against the skirting board.
Mama shrank away. ‘It is a vile thing!’ she cried. ‘What a cruel gift. Throw it away!’
I bent and picked it up. It had not suffered the smallest chip. I looked at it more carefully: it did not jeer ugly, ugly, ugly. Did not wink its broad silver eye and hiss, Who are you to crack me from side to side? How dare you look into a glass? Leave mirror-gazing to pretty girls with plump pink cheeks.
Instead, it shimmered with admiration at my hair: how it waterfalled down each side of my nose! See the curls twirling on each temple! It admired my beard: oh, the softness! Those honeyed lights shining like a twist of caramel sugar!
Who gave you that? asked Donkey-Skin, peering over my shoulder. She picked at a lump of mud in her hair.
I smiled. ‘No one important.’
She laughed, and her teeth rattled in my ears. The Cat-Faced Girl has got a beau! At last, at last, Beast has got a Beau. Let Heaven rejoice! Ma can be shot of you.
I had to smile. She was my friend. ‘I think it’s time for you to go,’ I said, not taking my eyes off the mirror.
When I was a child, I had Donkey-Skin for my friend, a thing sewn from raw-headed scraps of dreams and rag-tag stories, knitted out of all the words my mother could not say, from the grandmothers I never met, the fag-ends of fathers who never stayed long enough for me to know their names. Now I was a woman. It was time to put away childish things.
Me? Go? she hissed. Now? Not likely. You need me more than ever.
That night, as I lay in the bed beside Mama, I was glad that it was warm; it meant that she curled away on to the far side of the mattress, and I desired greatly to be alone. I stretched out on my back, listening to her mutter herself to sleep, about how hot I was to lie next to, why did I heat the bed so, it was impossible to sleep with such a hearthrug next to her, and over and over, ungrateful child, thoughtless and uncaring, to forget all the years I have protected her from mirrors, until the words drifted into deep breathing.
I allowed my thoughts to creep out and fill the room: thoughts so thrilling and wicked I was sure they would wake her. I imagined Mr Arroner coming back into the room, standing at the foot of this very bed. He shucked off his clothing, piece by piece, and I watched him the while, my excitement growing. Then all at once he sprang: leapt on to me, pressing his face deep into my belly and biting me fiercely, teeth sharp as knives, but not fiercely enough to satisfy; not fiercely enough to tear my hide. I wanted him to rip me open, and my voice begged him, Harder. Bite me, my love, harder. Harder.
In the morning Mama sighed and held her aching places, as though the holding might make them sting the less. I feigned sleepiness, which was not difficult, because I had had so little in the night. She called me lazy.
‘Do you wish the world to wait upon you?’
She was angry. I did not care. I was courted. I offered to rub her feet.
‘I am not helpless yet,’ she grumbled.
‘I will have him,’ I said to her and tried to make it sound like submission and not greed. ‘If you will allow it.’
I tipped my head to one side, playing the shy maid at the thought of marriage, a ring on my finger, a handful of hurled rice. A wedding night.
‘You’ll leave me,’ she said. ‘Then what will I become?’
I had stopped listening. I dreamed of a priest with a swim of lace around his throat, four white horses