When you are furnishing a 1930s flat in London, you don’t really expect to find something appropriate amid the rustic pine of a Sussex antique shop.
I wasn’t really looking; I was just wandering in the Lanes of Brighton enjoying the sunshine. I turned the corner and saw a tiny, crooked, dusty shop whose name above the door read Dombey and Son. A joke? Or had I strayed on to a film set? Intrigued, I went inside. Just as I had expected: a clutter of decaying dressers with wonky legs, ‘distressed’ pine tables, mis-matchd chairs with rotting rattan seats – and everywhere that unmistakable smell of damp cardboard and forlorn hope.
And then, under several generations of dust and cobwebs I saw a faint gleam. Shoving aside a box full of books with broken spines, I excavated the object: a small table with a square-section central pedestal, covered in mirror tiles. It could have come straight from ‘The Great Gatsby’, and it was exactly what I wanted for our black and scarlet dining room. The faded label said £35. A bargain! You’d never find anything like it at that price in London.
I got my mobile phone out to call my husband. Hunting for a signal, I found a spot where a small grimy window let in some semblance of light, beside a clouded full-length mirror. ‘I think I’ve found what we’ve been looking for,’ I said excitedly, and started to describe my find.
As people will do when talking on mobiles, I roamed distractedly round the small, cluttered space, until I came face to face with the clouded mirror. Only it wasn’t clouded: it gleamed as if some parlour maid had put her very best exertions into shining it.
I saw my reflection.
Oh yes, it was me: I know my own unruly hair, the nose I despair of (though my husband, bless him, calls it characterful). I rather liked the high-necked white blouse, the long grey skirt, even the button boots were becoming. Rather different from the jeans and T-shirt I had put on that morning, though. And someone had cleaned up the junk shop. Reflected in the mirror, I saw that most of the furniture had gone, the floorboards were shining, the rugs deep and luxurious. Candles flickered on a mahogany sideboard. I swear I could smell lavender furniture polish, and I could definitely hear the gentle tick of the grandfather clock in the corner.
Unwisely, perhaps, I reached out. The woman – me? – held out her hand and grasped mine. Shocked, I tried to pull back, but her grip was strong.
I can still see the junk shop, though the mirror is clouding up again. As I stand in the soft candle light I can just make out something on the floor of the shop: a dropped mobile phone.
Want to know what happens next? Watch out for The Dinner Party, coming soon.
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