Secrets in the Shadows

by Hannah Emery

  And then, past Seaton’s sweet kiosk, past the ticket kiosk and next to the closed doors of the Indian Pavilion, Rose saw the boy, his face a shadow amongst the bright, swirling colours of the pier. He smiled and beckoned her, and although there was a flurry of noise around her, Rose’s world fell into a blurry, underwater silence.

  As Rose moved nearer towards the boy, she noticed that he was holding a small, glistening box. Could this be her gift? Her heart fluttering with all kinds of ideas about what a small silver box could contain, she broke into a run. When she reached the boy, she was breathless and laughing, although she didn’t quite know what she was laughing at.

  The boy didn’t speak to her. He took out of his pocket an odd, gold key, and without looking like he was doing anything he shouldn’t, unlocked the grand, high door of the Indian Pavilion. Rose stared at the boy, wondering how he looked so confident when he was doing something he wasn’t allowed to. Rose knew that she would have dropped the key and been caught red-faced straight away. The boy turned to her and grabbed her arm.

  ‘Quickly!’ he hissed, and they tumbled into the giant room, the door blowing shut behind them with a bang.

  The Pavilion looked different in the daytime. Although Rose had thought it beautiful when she had visited the other night, the crowd of people and roar of the orchestra had hidden much of the extravagant decoration. It was even grander than the Winter Gardens. Rose lay back and rested on her elbows so that she could stare up at the huge glass skylight that ran along the centre of the roof. She could make out gulls circling ahead of them, their grey wings bouncing on the blustering winds.

  ‘You know, I am going to live somewhere like this one day,’ the boy announced, making Rose sit up and look at him.

  ‘It’s true,’ he said, seeing Rose’s doubtful expression. ‘It’s meant to look like an Indian temple. And I have Indian blood.’

  ‘You can’t be all the way from India,’ Rose said, wrinkling her nose in confusion.

  ‘Well, my grandfather was. I could be an Indian King for all we know. And one day, I’m going to travel there, and I’m going to find out. And my palace will look just like this.’

  ‘Can I come and visit?’ Rose asked.

  The boy shrugged as though he didn’t care either way, and Rose wondered, not for the first time, if she had found the right boy after all. He flicked open his silver box, but before Rose’s heart could begin fluttering again at a possible gift, he picked out a drooping cigarette and lit it with a matchstick.

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’ Rose said, suddenly feeling very much like her mother.

  The boy stared at her with his violet eyes, smoke floating out of his mouth and curling around Rose’s face. The smell was heavy and almost pleasant in a way, and Rose took in deep breaths until her head was filled with grey, making her cough delicately into her powder blue sleeve.

  I don’t think you’re allowed to smoke in here, Rose was going to say. But something stopped her. Not the fact that the boy might be an Indian King, or the fact that Gypsy Sarah had told Rose to find him, but because Rose wanted this moment to last. She wanted to be in the Indian Pavilion in Blackpool with smoke curling around her ears and weaving through her hair and her mouth, with the boy and not with her parents. She felt as though she had left a grey world behind and had stepped into a world of power and movement and colour, and she didn’t want to leave it. Not just yet.

  And so they sat, with the colours of India all around them, yellowed and hazy with smoke.

  After a time of sitting, the boy jumped to his feet, tossing his cigarette end away. ‘They’ll be coming in to set up for tonight’s concert soon. You’d better go. I’ll lock up again.’

  They walked to the doors of the Pavilion and Rose looked out to the sea which was glinting with the dipping sun, and then back at the boy.

  ‘You can come and visit me, if you like,’ he said after a few seconds. ‘When I’m King.’

  Rose smiled at the boy. ‘Goodbye.’

  She skipped a little as she headed back to the north of the pier. She liked the idea of seeing the boy again, in a land as exotic as the Pavilion. She pulled her collar up to her nostrils and inhaled the smell of cigarette smoke, smiling as she did so. She surely hadn’t been with the boy for too long. She would be able to get back to the hotel in plenty of time for the train home.

  But as Rose neared the end of the pier, she saw that the swarm of people in front of her had swelled. There were screeches and wails floating out from the crowd, and Rose felt a prick of fright at trying to find a path through it. People were gesturing, clambering over one another. They all seemed to be looking past Rose, behind her.

  She turned, and what she saw in that moment haunted her forever.

  The end of the pier was a terrifying orange. Flames roared up into the sky, shooting higher and higher with each second. The dark smell of burning wood was suddenly thick in the air.

  ‘The Pavilion!’ she heard someone wail.

  At that moment, a burst of sparks flew from the pier and shattered the sky into fragments.

  ‘Good thing the Pavilion is empty,’ the man next to Rose murmured.

  And suddenly, Rose was running towards the pier, snaking through the gasping crowd, the flames pulling her like a magnet. She thought of nothing but his purple eyes as she moved closer and closer towards the rumbling pavilion. The crowds trickled to nobody but two pier officials, who launched buckets of water towards the flames in panic. They didn’t see Rose: didn’t see her pause for half a second for fear of being eaten by the flames; didn’t see her sneak down the side of the crackling wooden sweet kiosk. They didn’t see her pull a boy underneath the tangled iron of the pier, into the safety of the sea. Everybody watched the frightening, flashing sky, mesmerised by the cloud of black smoke dancing above their heads.

  The water tasted black, and Rose struggled to swim and clutch the boy’s bony body at the same time. He seemed to be dozing, his eyes half closed in a sort of dream. Rose tried to shout, but the sound of her voice was washed away with the waves. She pounded her legs against the heavy water, trying to move away from the splitting pier. Shards of glowing wood floated around her and slices of fire hurtled beside them.

  She pounded, and moved, slowly, slowly, until the boy’s eyes began to open.

  ‘Swim!’ Rose shouted as his eyelids flickered. ‘Swim!’

  And soon, his weight became lighter, as he began to move beside Rose in the littered waves. The tide was working with them and carried them towards the shore. Rose felt her legs give way as they reached the sand, and she felt herself retching, her body forcing black water from her stomach out onto the sand. She felt his arm around her and his smoky breath next to her face as they lay together. Still, nobody saw them, nobody noticed their entwined bodies, for everybody was staring up at the flashing sky.

  ‘My train,’ Rose moaned, and tried to shuffle herself up on the sand. She lifted her hand to her hair, which was slick and cold. ‘My parents,’ she said next.

  ‘I’ll come with you. I’ll tell them what you did for me,’ said the boy.

  Rose looked at the boy, who, even after almost drowning in water, was still filthy. She looked at his nest of knotted black hair and his jutting collarbone and his clever smile.

  ‘No. You mustn’t do that. They wouldn’t like you.’ She stumbled to her feet, which squelched beneath her like two jellies. ‘I have to go.’

  The boy lay on the sand and stared up at her. ‘Come back to me one day, won’t you.’

  Rose smiled and thought that she might love him. ‘Of course I will.’

  She climbed the stone steps up onto the promenade and made her way through the sighing crowds.

  It was only after she had told her parents that she had gone in the sea to rescue a little girl’s dog, after she had joined them in the dash to the train station, after she had flopped down on her seat on the train in a dry lemon-yellow dress, that Rose remembered.

  She remembered as their
train huffed through the damp green countryside, over steep hills and past glassy lakes.

  She still didn’t have her gift.

  Chapter Ten

  Grace, 2008

  Eliot is late picking Grace up.

  ‘I wasn’t ready anyway,’ Grace waves Eliot’s apology away with her hand, bracelets twinkling and jangling with the movement.

  ‘Did you book a table?’

  ‘No, but it’ll be quiet, it’s a weeknight.’

  Eliot shrugs. ‘Okay.’

  They walk from Grace’s flat into Lytham square. The grand, tree-lined houses they walk beside gradually give way to small, independent shops, much like the one Grace and Elsie have just opened. Towards the square, the gold light spilling from the restaurants and wine bars twinkles with the movement of people.

  When Grace and Eliot arrive at the new tapas restaurant, a troubled middle-aged waiter with a faint smear of sweat on his forehead greets them at the door. ‘Name?’

  ‘Oh, we didn’t book. Do you have a table for two?’ Grace asks.

  ‘You didn’t book? Not a chance. We’ve got an opening special, and it’s gone down a storm. You’ll be waiting hours,’ the waiter sneers, apparently cheered a little by his bad news. ‘Should’ve booked,’ he smirks, as Grace and Eliot turn to shuffle out of the door.

  ‘Sorry. I didn’t think. Shall we go somewhere else for a few drinks and see if they have room for us in a bit?’ Grace suggests.

  ‘Can do. Look, Grace, I feel guilty about not having Elsie with us. She’s my girlfriend … your sister. She should be here with us.’

  Grace looks down to the cobbles, feeling sick. ‘You’re right. Phone her.’

  As Eliot wanders away, shoes crunching on the ground, phone to his ear, Grace wonders what it would have been like if she had told Elsie the truth in the first place. If she had told Elsie her secret, then Eliot wouldn’t be phoning Elsie now. Grace wouldn’t be wearing a heavy necklace of resentment around her neck. And Elsie, most probably, would have met someone else.

  But then, Grace reminds herself, Elsie would never have forgiven her. That’s why she could never tell her.

  ‘She’s not coming,’ Eliot says abruptly as he walks back towards Grace. ‘She’s still angry.’

  Grace sighs. ‘Come on. Let’s get a drink.’

  As they queue at the bar, jostled by people who are ordering pints, Grace remembers when she first met Eliot.

  ‘Shakespeare is a genius,’ Eliot had been insisting in the student union. A few of Grace’s friends from her English degree were having drinks there, and Eliot, who was studying some English modules as part of his Drama course, had joined them. ‘Imagine writing something now that people still care about and can still relate to hundreds of years in the future!’

  ‘But his writing doesn’t make any sense!’ Grace had cried before swigging from her alcopop bottle. Elsie was working on a presentation with a group of people from her course that night so wasn’t there. Grace had been tense to start with; it felt strange to be without her twin. Since they had started at university, they had been inseparable. They had chosen mostly the same modules, and at every social event, Elsie sat next to Grace, a silent observer. For the first half hour of the evening, Grace had found herself turning to her side on more than one occasion to try to bring her sister into the conversation, surprised to see an empty seat. But now, feeling light-headed from her Bacardi Breezers, and in the full swing of conversation, she realised with a sticky sensation of guilt that she was enjoying being alone with these people.

  ‘Of course it makes sense. Love, death, murder, friendship! What more is there?’

  It was as Eliot threw out these words, carelessly as though he had better things to do, that Grace’s head had suddenly split with pain and an image of a wedding had flown into her mind. It was her own wedding. People threw confetti that was carried away by the wind. Grace wore a heavy wedding dress with lace daisies stitched onto the sleeves. And Eliot stood by her side, wearing a suit, his hair a little longer, his stubbled jaw a little wider.

  Grace had paused, her heart shuddering. She had her mother’s gift to see into the future. This was a vision. Although it was the first premonition Grace had ever had, she knew exactly what it was, and she knew exactly what it meant.

  ‘I bet Shakespeare didn’t even write half of the plays he is famous for,’ Grace said, after taking a few minutes to pull herself together. Her heart hadn’t slowed yet, and she placed a hand on her chest to try and steady it.

  Eliot threw his head back and laughed: a deep, throaty laugh that somehow managed to imply that he was sure of himself, affluent and popular.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re throwing that in! Nobody has ever proved that theory. Everybody knows it’s a load of bollocks.’

  Grace shrugged, feeling a little fluttery and nervous, like a moth trapped under a glass.

  ‘I’m not going to defend the theory, because I haven’t done my research. Yet,’ she smirked. ‘But when I have, I’ll be in touch.’

  The group of friends she was with went to a house party after that. Grace went with them and drank primary-coloured strong drinks that she hadn’t even known to exist before that night. She saw Eliot a couple of times. Once, in the kitchen, she dared herself to go up to him and kiss his cheek. She edged towards him slowly, through shards of conversation and a net of cigarette smoke. She caught his eye. He had green eyes, like a cat. She smiled. He smiled back, his face fractured by people moving around in front of him. Somebody called his name. He turned. And the moment was gone.

  So that was all Eliot was for now. A new friend.

  But Grace knew that he was meant to be so much more.

  ‘I’m not even hungry anymore,’ Grace announces now, as Eliot tips the last of their second bottle of wine into her glass. ‘I think we should go into town.’

  ‘Now?’ Eliot looks at his watch. It’s not a nice watch. It has an ugly tan-brown leather strap which is fraying around the buckle. ‘It’s nearly ten o’clock.’

  ‘Oh, come on! That’s a ridiculously boring thing to say and you know it.’ Grace snaps her clutch bag shut and stands. The bar they have come to has settled and is dotted with full, tired people who all seem to be having quiet after-dinner drinks. ‘I want to go somewhere a bit more lively. I haven’t been out in Blackpool for ages. It’ll be fun, and you’re coming with me, and I won’t take no for an answer.’ Grace clamps her hand over Eliot’s arm and leads him out into the freezing night.

  ‘Okay, okay, you win,’ Eliot laughs as Grace flags down a taxi with steely determination, and clambers in next to her.

  ‘Let’s go to The Coaches,’ Grace says. ‘Do they still do amazing cocktails there?’ she asks the taxi driver.

  The driver mumbles in response, suggesting that he isn’t interested in any kind of small talk, or cocktails. Grace finds his hostility surprisingly amusing and giggles quietly into her clenched fist, her head warm and hazy with wine.

  When they arrive at the pub, Eliot tosses a note into the taxi driver’s lap. ‘Keep the change,’ he says casually.

  ‘That’s one of the things I really liked about you when I first met you,’ Grace says as they push open the heavy, clouded glass doors to the bar.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I thought you were generous. You bought me a drink at the student union bar. And I have liked you ever since,’ she laughs as she says this. As soon as the words leave her lips, they seem naked, embarrassing. She bites back all the other words that she wants to say: all the other things she is thinking, she leaves lurking in the darkness of her mind.

  ‘What are you drinking? A cocktail?’ Eliot asks.

  ‘Oh, I’m not sure. It doesn’t seem the same in here as it used to be,’ Grace replies, looking around at the tired bar. ‘It’s probably changed owners or something. I’ll have wine.’

  They drink at the bar, jostled by people who slosh more of their beer onto the bar and the already filthy carpet with each minute. As G
race drinks her sweet, yellow wine, the jostling becomes pleasantly familiar, like the lapping of waves against her skin. The music thumps down on them like rain. Grace sets her glass on the bar and turns to make her way to a bit of sticky linoleum which appears to be the dance floor. As she gestures for Eliot to join her, she feels something brush against her hand and sees her glass suddenly tumble to the floor. It shatters around her feet. She takes a tentative step forwards and feels her heel crunch against the glass. Shards stick to the sole of her shoe with a glue of spilled drinks and make her topple slightly as she walks.

  ‘I want to go on the beach,’ she says to Eliot suddenly.

  Eliot’s face breaks into a wide grin. His teeth are pointed and narrow and his smile somehow gives him a look of intelligence. ‘You’re so spontaneous, Grace. I can’t keep up with you.’

  Grace tuts impatiently. ‘So, do you want to come with me?’

  ‘Do I have a choice?’ Eliot smiles.

  ‘No,’ Grace replies as she drags Eliot out into the freezing night.

  ‘It’s too cold to be walking on the beach.’

  ‘It’s always cold here. I’d give anything to move away, you know. Somewhere warmer, somewhere different. I really don’t want to start my thirties in Blackpool.’

  Eliot shakes his head as they head for the promenade. ‘Well, then why are you still here?’

  His words are unexpected, and sting. Grace pulls her jacket around her and turns her head so that Eliot doesn’t see he has upset her. Across the road, a tramp huddles on a wet concrete step, surrounded by dirty blankets and cider cans. He doesn’t ask Grace and Eliot for money, but simply stares across at them. Grace wonders how his life has reached this point. Where did he start, and how did he end up in a doorway in Blackpool on a freezing night? She thinks of her mother and suddenly feels sick.