The Secrets We Left Behind

by Susan Elliot Wright

  ‘Jo!’ Eve’s voice called from downstairs. ‘Jo, are you up? It’s gorgeous outside. Let’s go for a swim.’

  ‘I . . . I don’t have a costume.’

  ‘That’s all right.’ Eve was coming up the stairs. ‘You can have my old one – it’s too small for me now, anyway.’

  ‘Oh, okay,’ Jo said slowly. ‘Thanks.’ Usually, when people said they wanted to go for a swim, they meant they wanted to paddle or play about in the water for a bit, so she probably didn’t need to say anything.

  Eve’s old costume was made out of a slightly shiny, sea-green material and it had five metal rings going up each side so it looked like it was only held together by chains. It was a bit big on the bust, but she didn’t look too bad. Not as good as Eve, though. Eve had a bit of a tummy but she was so curvy anyway that it suited her. They’d just stretched their towels out on the pebbles when Scott came crunching down the beach towards them in cut-off jeans and with a towel rolled up under his arm. ‘I didn’t know Scott was coming,’ Jo began, but Eve was already bounding down to the water.

  Scott spread his own towel alongside theirs, reached down behind his neck and pulled his T-shirt off over his head, then stretched out on his towel. Feeling suddenly self-conscious standing there in Eve’s swimming costume, Jo sat down next to him, drew her knees up and held them to her chest as she watched Eve wade into the sea.

  Scott turned on his side to face her. As he moved, she caught a faint trace of his hot, male smell. He was so close that she could feel the heat coming off his skin.

  ‘You going for a swim, then?’

  She shrugged. ‘I might, in a minute.’

  ‘I think you should, you know,’ he said. ‘Because if you sit here much longer in that swimming costume’ – he fixed her with his eyes as he put his finger through one of the metal rings – ‘you’re going to end up with five ring-shaped burns on each side.’

  She could feel herself going red. His finger was still touching her skin, and now she could feel the metal rings, which were indeed getting hot.

  ‘Come on, Jo!’ Eve shouted from the sea. She was already in up to her thighs, jumping up and down and squealing with the cold.

  ‘Go on,’ Scott said, moving away from her and lying on his back. ‘I’ll watch your stuff .’

  As she hobbled down the shingle, she could feel the hot stones burning the soles of her feet and the midday sun cooking her skin, which was already sore from spending too long in the garden. She went in gingerly as far as her ankles and at first it felt quite warm, but then a step further and she shivered as the chill nipped her calves. When the water reached mid-thigh, she stood up on tiptoe so the lapping waves didn’t get any higher. It was a weird sensation; her legs were turning red with the cold, while the drops of water that splashed on her shoulders sizzled as the sun bore down onto her skin.

  ‘Come on, Jo. Straight in up to the waist! You’ve got to get your aunt Minnie wet quickly or you’ll never do it.’ Eve was grinning as she splashed Jo with the flat of her hands.

  ‘Pack it in,’ Jo yelled, but she was laughing too as Eve continued to whoop and shriek as she went further and further in.

  ‘Look – this is what you do.’ Eve leapt up, holding her nose, and plunged her shoulders and head right down under the water, springing up again, wide-eyed and gasping as she shook the silver droplets from her flattened hair. ‘Ooh, shit and sugar! It’s bloody freezing.’ But then she dived down like a mermaid and disappeared, bobbing up again about six feet away. ‘You, Joanna Casey’ – she grinned, putting her icy wet hands on Jo’s burning shoulders – ‘are going to get your hair wet.’ And she started to push Jo’s shoulders under the water. The weight of Eve’s hands knocked her off balance, and the moment she felt that her feet weren’t connected with the ground, that she wasn’t firmly rooted, the panic began to rise up through her stomach and into her chest. Her arms shot out in front of her but there was nothing solid to hold on to, and she could feel herself going under. The shouts and shrieks of the other people on the beach became distant and echoey as the icy water closed over her head. She scrabbled frantically with her feet, trying to find the sharp pebbles she knew were there, but her panicked kicking had thrown her into a chaotic backwards somersault. She felt a burning sensation as the water went up her nose, then her shoulder bumped against the sea bed and she clutched at the shingle with her fingers. At that moment, she felt hands go under her arms and she was being pulled upwards.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Eve was saying. ‘Jo! It’s okay. You’re all right.’ Eve had her arms around her but she was still kicking, imagining that Eve was doing a life-saving technique, then she realised that Eve was standing and the water was only just higher than her waist.

  At last her feet touched the ground and she regained her balance. She was gasping, her heart was thumping and her nose and throat stung with salt water.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jo,’ Eve said. ‘I didn’t mean to knock you over.’ She still held on to Jo’s arm, and was looking at her with a mixture of alarm and curiosity.

  ‘I should have told you,’ Jo said, still panting. ‘Can’t swim.’

  ‘You can’t swim? Oh Jo, why ever didn’t you say?’

  Jo coughed, wincing at the pain. ‘Can we get out?’ Eve held her hand as they waded through the water back to the shore.

  Scott was sitting up now, watching them, his arms draped loosely over his bent knees. She avoided his eyes as they walked up the beach, the tips of her fingers tingling with embarrassment; he must have seen the whole thing. But all he said as they drew near was, ‘Is everything cool?’ And when Eve assured him it was, he lay back down and closed his eyes.

  ‘So how come you can’t swim?’ Eve said as they dried themselves. ‘I thought you grew up a stone’s throw from the sea?’

  ‘I did. I just never learned. My mum couldn’t swim, either. My dad always said he was going to teach us but, well, he never got round to it.’

  Eve spread her towel out on the shingle then lay down so the sun could finish drying her off . ‘But what about school? That’s where I learned – I was in the school team.’

  So Jo told her about Mrs Watkins, the sadistic PE teacher who’d singled out the three non-swimmers in the class and made them line up at the side of the pool – the deep end – trembling with fear, their toes curled round the edge as they tried to cling on to the broken tiles. ‘She walked up and down behind us a few times, then she pushed us in, one at a time, saying, “Sink or swim, girls, sink or swim.” I sank.’

  ‘What a bitch, man,’ Scott said without opening his eyes or changing position.

  ‘How awful,’ Eve said. ‘What a horrible, cruel woman. So many teachers really are bullies, aren’t they?’ She propped herself up on her elbow. ‘I know! I’ll teach you to swim.’

  ‘I’m not sure . . .’

  ‘It’ll be okay,’ Eve insisted. ‘I won’t let go of you until you’re ready, I promise.’

  So over the next week, on her days off or before she started her shift at the pub, Jo went with Eve to Covehurst Bay, a quiet beach further along the coast, and she learned to swim, initially just enjoying the way the incoming waves would raise her up, lifting her almost off her feet before setting her gently back down again, and finally, after days of thinking she’d never get the hang of it, realising that she was moving her arms and legs confidently through the water and that Eve was no longer holding her. She was swimming!

  Whether it was due to the exhilaration of achievement, or to the sudden realisation that she’d never be able to tell her mum, she didn’t know, but before she could stop herself, she burst into tears. Eve’s arms went around her and held her while she cried. She breathed in the warm, salty sea smell of Eve’s hair and skin, and in a moment of absolute clarity, she knew that Eve was the most important person in her life.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  By the third week in June the temperature had hit the nineties in some places, and Jo had never known it so hot. The summer fayre
was coming up in a couple of weeks and Eve had been busy making jewellery and tote bags. Scott had made some picture frames and little wooden boxes decorated with tiny painted shells and bits of sea-smoothed glass, and Jo herself had been plaiting strands of leather to make bracelets and chokers; the house was a hive of industry.

  Today, she’d volunteered to make candles, but now she was beginning to regret it, given that it would require having the electric rings on for goodness knows how long. This kitchen was sweltering as it was. She took out the two old saucepans that Eve kept for the purpose, filled the larger one with water and the smaller one with tiny white pearls of paraffin wax and set them to heat on the Baby Belling. She added a disc of beeswax, which looked like Wright’s Coal Tar Soap, because that helped the candles to burn for longer, apparently. While the wax was melting, she prepared the moulds as Eve had shown her. They were using polystyrene cups this time – Eve said you could use almost anything as long as it was clean and waterproof, something she’d discovered a couple of years ago during the three-day week and the power cuts. ‘We used to sell them to the local shops,’ she explained. ‘It didn’t matter what size or shape they were, someone would buy them. We couldn’t make enough of them. Almost makes me want the power cuts back!’

  Jo threaded lengths of wick through holes in the bottom of each cup, then she placed a cocktail stick across the top and tied the wick around it so that, when you poured the wax in, the wick would stay in the middle. With the moulds all lined up ready, she added some dye to the melted wax, a little red, a touch of blue, the right amounts, she hoped, to create a lavender colour – she was going to scent these ones with lavender oil and she wanted them to look right, too, because apparently you could get 35p each for the scented ones.

  The lavender oil was in a miniature wooden chest of drawers in Eve and Scott’s bedroom, so she turned off the heat while she went upstairs. Their room was next to hers and, though she’d walked past the open door many times, she’d never been inside. Now she peeped tentatively around the door even though she knew they’d both gone out hours ago. The air was still and warm, and it smelled of patchouli and of hot wooden floorboards and tobacco. There was another smell that she recognised but couldn’t quite put her finger on, a strong, spicy aroma; reminded her of Christmas. Cloves! That was it; oil of cloves. Then she remembered that Scott had a toothache and Eve was treating it by dabbing clove oil onto the tooth with a cotton bud. Eve didn’t believe in dentists.

  There were two windows overlooking the garden and fixed across them were lengths of the same red fabric with gold embroidery that Eve had given her that first night. They had the effect of bathing everything in a warm red glow as the sun shone through them into the room. Jo’s eyes were drawn to the bed which, like hers, was a mattress resting on several wooden pallets, except of course it was a double, and instead of a continental quilt pulled neatly over like her own, there were rumpled orange sheets and blue blankets and a lot of pillows strewn around, like the aftermath of a pillow fight. Scott’s guitar stood against the wall next to an empty cider bottle and a glass jar full of pennies and half pennies. The mini-chest was on top of the tallboy, and as she walked past the bed to get to it, she caught the faintest whiff of nakedness. On the floor with the pillows were a couple of burned-down incense sticks and a hairbrush, swathed in strands of Eve’s thick, dark hair. She picked up a couple of pillows and put them back on the bed. What must it be like to sleep with someone every night? Tentatively, she pulled back the bedclothes and got in, swinging her legs up and curling into a foetal position. She tried to imagine what it would feel like to wake up and see Scott’s face next to hers, then she turned over and buried her nose in the pillows. They smelt of patchouli, but with a salty, warm-hair smell underneath. Eve’s face swam into her mind. She sat up. The room reeked of intimacy.

  She found the lavender oil. She should go back to the kitchen and get on with the candles, but there was something enticing about this space; being in it made her feel closer to Eve, and to Scott, as though the essence of them was more accessible in here. One of Eve’s cloth bags was hanging on a drawer knob; she couldn’t resist it. She lifted it off, undid the toggle and lifted the flap, releasing a new, intense waft of patchouli. There was a packet of Aspro, a fountain pen that had leaked a violet stain onto the brown lining, a couple of Lil-Lets and a Blue Peter badge. In the inside pocket was an envelope; she peeked inside. When had she become such a nosy-parker? There was a National Insurance number card, some photos, and . . . Eve had a driving licence! But she’d never said anything about being able to drive. Eve was her friend, her best friend, but there was so much she didn’t know about her. She flicked through the photos, feeling a pang of jealousy at the photo-booth pictures of Eve with two other girls in school uniform, all pulling silly faces. There was a colour photo of a tabby cat curled up on a cushion, and one of a couple with a little girl. There was no mistaking the young Eve; those huge eyes with their double layer of lashes were so distinctive. The woman, clearly Eve’s mum, was heavily pregnant and wore a dark-coloured maternity smock with a large white bow at the neck. So Eve must have a younger brother or sister. Where, she wondered? Eve was one of those people who encouraged you to talk about yourself but rarely discussed their own lives; she really must ask Eve about her family. She thought back to that day they’d met in London a little over three months ago; although it often felt like they’d known each other much longer, she knew so little about Eve’s background that it sometimes seemed they’d only just met. That day in London, Eve had obviously wanted to talk about her dead parents, but had stopped because Jo herself had been so upset about her mum. She would make a point of asking; it would probably set her off thinking about her own mum again, but so what? She looked again at the photo. Eve’s mum was smiling down at her, resting a hand on her shoulder. Eve’s dad was tall and almost bald but with a full, dark moustache nestling under his nose. He too was smiling, and looking at his wife. The only one looking at the camera was Eve. Jo felt her throat tighten as she remembered a similar picture of herself with both her parents, and how her mum had ripped it in two after her father had left.

  She closed her eyes for a moment and tried to remember her mother’s face, but yet again she couldn’t get it quite right. It was like a jigsaw with bits missing. She could see her mum’s eyes, sometimes an olive-green, and sometimes a brighter and more sparkly green, like emeralds, or she could see her mouth, or her nose or the purple birthmark she used to cover with make-up before she stopped caring. But she couldn’t ever seem to see her mum’s whole face in one go. Everyone should be able to remember their own mum, shouldn’t they?

  She put the photos back, all except the one of Eve with her mum and dad which she slipped into the pocket of her skirt. She looked in the envelope again; she really shouldn’t be doing this. The birth certificate she pulled out was folded into three; she unfolded it. ‘Genevieve Christiana Leviston,’ she read aloud. It sounded so pretty, so much more interesting than her own names, Joanna Margaret – Margaret after her auntie who died just before she was born. What had happened to Eve’s parents, Douglas and Audrey Leviston? She and Eve had such a similar background, they should be sisters. She returned the envelope to the bag, which she put back where she’d found it.

  She just wanted a quick look at Eve’s clothes, and then she’d go back downstairs. She lifted the sheet that hung from a curtain wire across the alcove. The metal rail was bowing under the weight of long floral-print dresses, cheesecloth skirts and shirts, embroidered peasant tops, velvet jackets and heavy knitted cardigans that came down past your knees. They were the sort of clothes she’d started wearing herself now, things that didn’t fit Eve any more, or things that Sapphire had left behind. Her own clothes, she now realised – the short suede skirt, the white trousers, the blue tank top and cardigan twinset she’d bought from C&A – now felt far too neat and tidy; far too square.

  God, this room was hot. She held up a long cream cotton dress smothered with
pink roses; it had a deep, scooped neckline and was ruched over the bust. When Eve wore it, she didn’t wear a bra, and you could see her nipples as clear as anything. She looked amazing in it. Without thinking, Jo took off her blouse and skirt, relishing the sensation of breeze as she did so, then slipped the cool cotton dress over her head. As an afterthought, she pulled the elasticated top down so she could slip off her bra. There was only a head-and-shoulder mirror in here, so she was about to go along the landing to one of the empty rooms where there was a wardrobe mirror propped against the wall when she heard a movement downstairs. She froze.

  ‘Anyone home?’ Scott’s voice called out.

  She could feel the panic rising up through her body as she tried to calculate whether she had time to sprint back to her own room before replying.

  ‘Hello?’ he called again.

  Her room was only next door, so perhaps he wouldn’t be able to tell from her voice. She decided to risk it. ‘Hello,’ she called back. ‘Down in a sec.’

  She grabbed her skirt and blouse from the floor and was about to nip into her own room when, to her horror, she heard him bounding up the stairs. She’d only taken a few steps when he appeared in the doorway. He stopped, half smiled and then appeared to register what he was seeing.

  ‘I . . .’ Jo started, but couldn’t think what else to say.

  ‘That dress.’ Scott was looking at her curiously, as though he wasn’t sure who she was. She’d expected him to be angry. ‘It’s Eve’s, isn’t it?’

  Jo nodded. ‘I’m sorry, I just came in for the lavender oil but it was so hot and—’

  And then his mouth was on hers and she could smell his cigarettes and the oil of cloves, and she could taste the coffee on his tongue which was feeling its way around her mouth and making her insides liquefy. It was only when he slipped his hand down the front of the dress and touched her bare breast that she pulled away. He immediately let her go. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled. Then he pushed past her, grabbed his guitar and bounded back downstairs and out of the house. She stood still for a moment, aware of the tiniest ripple of disappointment.