'Yes. My gran had a heart attack in the bath. It didn't kill her though…'
'You're right!' The bus was climbing up the hill now. Muswell Hill Broadway was straight ahead. Isabel gathered her things. 'I could go there on Saturday. Will you come too?'
'My mum and dad wouldn't let me.'
'You can tell them you're at my place. And I'll tell my parents I'm at yours.'
'What if they check?'
'They never do.' The thought made Isabel sad. Her parents never did wonder where she was, never seemed to worry about her. They were too wrapped up in themselves.
'Well… I don't know
'Please, Belinda. On Saturday. I'll give you a call.'
That night the bath played its worst trick yet.
Isabel hadn't wanted to have a bath. During dinner she'd made a point of telling her parents how tired she was, how she was looking forward to an early night. But her parents were tired too. They'd argued earlier in the evening… they were going to the cinema the following week-end and couldn't decide on the film. The atmosphere around the table had been distinctly jagged and Isabel found herself wondering just how much longer the family could stay together. Divorce. It was a horrible word, like an illness. Some of her friends had been off school for a week and then come back pale and miserable and had never been quite the same again. They'd caught it… divorce.
'Upstairs, young lady!' Her mother's voice broke into her thoughts. 'I think you'd better have a bath…'
'Not tonight, Mum.'
'Tonight. You've hardly used that bath since it was installed. What's the matter with you? Don't you like it?'
'No. I don't…'
That made her father twitch with annoyance. 'What's wrong with it?' he asked, sulking.
But before she could answer, her mother chipped in.
'It doesn't matter what's wrong with it. It's the only bath we've got so you're just going to have to get used to it.'
'I won't.'
Her parents looked at each other, momentarily helpless. Isabel realized that she had never defied them before - not like this. They were thrown. But then her mother stood up. 'Come on, Isabel,' she said. 'I've had enough of this stupidity. I'll come with you.'
And so the two of them went upstairs, Susan with that pinched, set look that meant she couldn't be argued with. But Isabel didn't argue with her. If her mother ran the bath, she would see for herself what was happening. She would see that something was wrong…
'Right…' Susan pushed the plug in and turned on the taps. Ordinary, hot, clear water gushed out. 'I really don't understand you, Isabel,' she exclaimed over the roar of the water. 'Maybe you've been staying up too late. I thought it was only six-year-olds who didn't like having baths. There!' The bath was full. Susan tested the water, swirling it round with the tips of her fingers. 'Not too hot. Now let's see you get in.'
'Mum
'You're not shy in front of me, are you? For heavens sake…!'
Angry and humiliated, Isabel undressed in front of her mother, letting the clothes fall in a heap on the floor. Susan scooped them up again but said nothing. Isabel hooked one leg over the edge of the bath and let her toes come into contact with the water. It was hot - but not scalding. Certainly not icy cold.
'Is it all right?' her mother asked.
'Yes, Mum
Isabel got into the bath. The water rose hungrily to greet her. She could feel it close in a perfect circle around her neck. Her mother stood there a moment longer, holding her clothes. 'Can I leave you now?' she asked.
'Yes.' Isabel didn't want to be alone in the bath but she felt uncomfortable lying there with her mother hovering over her.
'Good.' Susan softened for a moment. 'I'll come and kiss you goodnight.' She held the clothes up and wrinkled her nose. 'These had better go in the wash too.'
Susan went.
Isabel lay there on her own in the hot water, trying to relax. But there was a knot in her stomach and her whole body was rigid, shying away from the cast-iron touch of the bath. She heard her mother going back down the stairs. The door of the utility room opened. Isabel turned her head slightly and for the first time caught sight of herself in the mirror. And this time she did scream.
And scream.
In the bath, everything was ordinary, just as her mother had left her. Clear water. Her flesh a little pink in the heat. Steam. But in the mirror, in the reflection…
The bathroom was a slaughterhouse. The liquid in the bath was crimson and Isabel was up to her neck in it. As her hand - her reflected hand - recoiled out of the water, the red liquid clung to it, dripping down heavily, splattering against the side of the bath and clinging there too. Isabel tried to lever herself out of the bath but slipped and fell, the water rising over her chin. It touched her lips and she screamed again, certain she would be sucked into it and die. She tore her eyes away from the mirror. Now it was just water. In the mirror…
Blood.
She was covered in it, swimming in it. And there was somebody else in the room. Not in the room. In the reflection of the room. A man, tall, in his forties, dressed in some sort of suit, grey face, moustache, small, beady eyes.
'Go away!' Isabel yelled. 'Go away! Go away!'
When her mother found her, curled up on the floor in a huge puddle of water, naked and trembling, she didn't try to explain. She didn't even speak. She allowed herself to be half-carried into bed and hid herself, like a small child, under the duvet.
For the first time, Susan Harding was more worried than annoyed. That night, she sat down with Jeremy and the two of them were closer than they had been for a long time as they talked about their daughter, her behaviour, the need perhaps for some sort of therapy. But they didn't talk about the bath - and why should they? When Susan had burst into the bathroom she had seen nothing wrong with the water, nothing wrong with the mirror, nothing wrong with the bath. No, they both agreed. There was something wrong with Isabel. It had nothing to do with the bath.
The antique shop stood at the corner of Swiffe Lane and the Fulham Road, a few minutes' walk from the tube station. It was somehow exactly as Isabel had imagined it. From the front it looked like the grand house that might have belonged to a rich family perhaps a hundred years ago: tall imposing doors, shuttered windows, white stone columns and great chunks of statuary scattered between it and the street. But over the years the house had declined, the plaster-work falling away, weeds sprouting between the brickwork. The windows were dark with the dust of city life and car exhaust fumes.
Inside, the rooms were small and dark - each one filled with too much furniture. Isabel and Belinda passed through a room with fourteen fireplaces, another with half a dozen dinner tables and a crowd of empty chairs. If they hadn't known all these objects were for sale they could have imagined that the place was still occupied by a rich madman. It was still more of a house than a shop. When the two girls spoke to each other, they did so in whispers.
They eventually found a sales assistant in a courtyard at the back of the house. This was a large, open area, filled with baths and basins', more statues, stone fountains, wrought-iron gates and trellis-work - all surrounded by a series of concrete arches that made them feel that they could have been in Rome or Venice rather than a shabby corner of West London. The sales assistant was a young man with a squint and a broken nose. He was carrying a gargoyle. Isabel wasn't sure which of the two was uglier.
'A Victorian bath?' he muttered in response to Isabel's inquiry. 'I don't think I can help you. We sell a lot of old baths.'
