Frankenplot - The Gentleman's Wardrobe - Part 1

 

‘Oh so this is where you put the wardrobe?’ Gwen stood back to admire the handsome piece of furniture, rubbing her fingers across the surface of the wood.

 

‘Yes. I never realised what an incredible feat of engineering and carpentry it is. There are five sections and it all comes apart, interlocking with all these pegs and hinges.’

 

Sylvia was proud of her wardrobe. It was the one thing she’d wanted from the house when her uncle died. With its suave flaming panels and intimidating breadth, it had never really fitted into his boxy 1950’s semi. Indeed, it eclipsed the rest of the house, compounding its dull suburban weakness. Shoehorned into his largest bedroom, it straddled the full width of the wall.

 

After the breakdown of his marriage, Uncle Leo began sleeping in the small bedroom at the back and the wardrobe had its own room and the effortless job of protecting a few old coats and hats. 

 

It appeared much more at home in Sylvia’s substantial Victorian semi; the high ceilings gave it some breathing space.

 

‘So you moved it in quite easily,’ said her sister, Gwenda.

 

‘Not easily, no. It’s solid mahogany so each of the parts is very heavy and you have to remember how it all slots together and which screw goes where. Ian and I struggled with it a bit.’

 

‘Of course, Peter and I could never have taken it, we spent a fortune last year on fitted wardrobes. I’m glad it went to you. It’s the mirror I always found fascinating. The long dark shadow down the centre is sort of sinister, almost looks like a phantom but then there are all these glittery stars at the bottom.’

 

Sylvia grinned, ‘Yes it was made using old methods, heavy metals and wotnot.’

 

Gwen studied her reflection for a few seconds, then flattened her hair at the sides and said, ‘Well, I think your outfit is beautiful, Sylvia. You’re so lucky to have kept your figure. Don’t upstage your daughter-in-law now!’

 

Sylvia laughed, ‘I don’t think I will be.’ She placed her outfit, an aqua coloured, knee length dress and matching boucle jacket, back into the wardrobe and shut the door but as she turned away, it silently flung open again.

 

‘Oh look, the door’s not shut!’

 

Sylvia went back and closed it again but it did the same, calmly but defiantly opening. It was the door with the mirror, a heavy door due to the nature of the glass. ‘Oh what’s wrong with it!’ she cursed and pushed it closed, harder this time.

 

The two ladies watched it and then laughed and started to walk away but a faint sound indicated that the door had defied them again. ‘Maybe it’s your floor,’ said Gwen, ‘or just the weight of the mirror. I’ll do it. I’ve always been stronger than you.’ She pushed it shut with a bang and held it closed for a second or two. ‘There.’

 

It was several hours later when Ian and Sylvia were going to bed that the hazard was spotted on the rug which lay in front of the wardrobe. 

 

‘How was your sister,’ Ian said as he removed his slippers, the sheepskin sort, to keep his feet warm in their drafty old house.

 

‘Gwen, she’s fine. She approved of my wedding outfit. Mother of the groom,’ she tittered.

 

‘Hang on..’ Ian was bent over peering at something on the floor.

 

‘What, what is it?’

 

He reached out and touched it, inspecting his fingertip, ‘Christ! There’s mercury on the floor, beads of mercury. Look Sylvia!’

 

Sylvia got up, wrapping herself quickly in a dressing gown for warmth. She knelt down on the rug and put out her hand to touch the beads, each like little silver planets floating on the fibres of the rug, reflecting the image of the room but Ian grabbed her wrist.

 

‘No. Don’t disturb it. I’ll go and get some gloves and pieces of card to remove it.’

 

‘But where’s it come from?’

 

‘The mirror in the wardrobe. I told you it was a bad idea. That mirror was either going to have lead or mercury in it, maybe both. It’s obviously been bashed a bit in transport and now it’s leaking out.’

 

‘We had trouble closing the door earlier.’

 

‘The door with the mirror?’

 

‘Yes. Gwen slammed it shut.’

 

Ian shook his head. ‘She’s so heavy handed, that sister of yours. Maybe we should get rid of it before you get too attached. It could be a health hazard. We could probably get five hundred pounds.’

 

‘No Ian! I am attached, it’s staying in the family. I’ve loved that mirror ever since I was a child. Gwen and I used to hide in it when Dad took us to visit him…that was when he was very sick.’

 

‘I thought how healthy he looked just before he died.’

 

‘Sick in his mind, I mean, when he was about, I don’t know, his mid fifties I suppose, he was not a well man.’

 

Sylvia got back into bed and watched her husband diligently clean up the hazardous material. She loved how conscientious he was, his attention to detail. He placed the offending element into a sealed jar which he took outside the garden shed. ‘Whatever you do, don’t vacuum that bit of the carpet!’ he said as he returned to bed.

 

The wardrobe quickly made itself at home and began to sink heavily into their lush wool-pile carpet, just as the tiny beads of mercury did, the ones which Ian was unable to see. It settled in and began intimidating the rest of the furniture and absorbing the reflections of the sky and the trees in the windows, forging a new energy, a new power.

 

The couple made some enquiries about the mercury spillage, they sought the opinions of some local antiques dealers. It was something to be cautious about but not overly concerned and certainly not concerned enough to miss out on living with such a wonderful piece of furniture.

 

Ian took the jar containing the mercury to the local tip. As he sat in his car queueing to get in, he reflected on Uncle Leo’s lonely life; how his middle years had been fraught with difficulty. He’d received money from his father’s will and anticipated an early retirement but then his wife had requested a divorce, immediately removing the financial cushion of his inheritance. 

 

He’d continued to live alone with only the wardrobe from his father’s estate. A nervous breakdown followed, a few years later he was made redundant after a period of sick leave. The pension from his civil service job allowed him to live comfortably, just, but he became something of a recluse. It occurred to Ian that they should have visited more and maybe offered help.

 

He let out a heavy sigh as he rolled into the parking area at the tip. It had such a strange atmosphere; people shedding their belongings, looking relieved but somehow exposed as they released personal belongings into communal pits of detritus. Slithering back to the shelter of their cars, bright eyed and smooth as freshly moulted snakes. 

 

The jar housing the mercury beads was placed in the hazardous waste area. An official assured Ian that it was nothing to be concerned about and the whole scene was reflected like a film upon the surface of the tiny beads of mercury. 

 

In the weeks that followed, Sylvia discovered that when she was seated at her dressing table in the morning, using a small mirror to do her hair and make-up, she could also see the back of her head in the wardrobe mirror. This was because its habit of flinging open continued, if only on an ad hoc basis and there was a certain angle which facilitated a 360 degree view of her head.

 

Previously she’d been oblivious to the appearance of the back of her head. Not that this had reduced her quality of life, indeed this new revelation had given her a rod for her own back. She realised that she sometimes carried herself through the day with a flat patch of bed hair or that a certain spot on the crown of her head hadn’t been dyed properly and was showing streaks of silvery grey.