Secrets in the Shadows

by Hannah Emery

  ‘Eliot,’ she says, grabbing his arm and knowing she shouldn’t. She shouldn’t touch him, but at this moment, she has to. ‘If I ask you a question, will you answer honestly?’

  ‘That’s a ridiculous thing to ask me before you’ve even asked me the question. How do I know if I’ll be honest?’

  ‘Oh, Eliot,’ Grace snaps, frustrated. ‘Just say yes. Be simple for once.’

  ‘Okay,’ Eliot says, putting on a slow voice. ‘Yes, I’ll be honest.’

  Grace stares down at her feet as she walks. ‘Do you think my mum is still alive?’

  There’s a pause.

  ‘Grace, I can’t possibly know that.’

  ‘I didn’t ask if you knew. I asked what you thought.’

  ‘Well let me ask you something. If she is alive, would you still want anything to do with her?’

  Grace stops walking. ‘Of course. She’s my mother.’

  ‘She left you, Grace. You were sixteen. Just sixteen.’

  ‘I know that. But I don’t think she was very well. I think she was struggling. I understand that.’

  ‘Do you?’ Eliot has stopped now too and faces Grace. She no longer clutches his arm.

  ‘Yes, I do. I know that Elsie doesn’t understand, though.’

  ‘Elsie won’t ever mention your mother. She barely acknowledges her. It’s very sad.’

  They begin to walk again.

  Grace looks back at the homeless man, still huddled in the doorway. ‘I hope that wherever she is, she is happy and at peace. Do you think she is?’ she ventures.

  Eliot sighs. ‘I can’t tell you that.’ He turns and sees Grace’s pinched face. ‘You told me to be honest,’ he reminds her.

  ‘I know, I know. Forget it. Come on, let’s get to the beach.’

  The beach is deserted and black, the waves hissing against the sand. Grace has an urge to take off her shoes and walk barefoot but she knows that the sand would be frozen and sharp with fragments of shells and litter. She nuzzles her chin into her coat, buttoned up to the very top.

  ‘I feel a bit sick,’ she says to Eliot after a few minutes of walking.

  ‘Me too,’ Eliot admits. ‘We haven’t eaten. That’s probably why.’

  ‘Let’s not tell Elsie that we didn’t go out for dinner in the end. She won’t like that we just went drinking.’

  ‘Only because it worries her. She doesn’t like drinking, and she thinks we always end up drunk every time we see each other.’

  ‘Well. We kind of do,’ Grace replies, and for some reason, after feeling so melancholy only moments before, suddenly finds everything hilarious. Eliot walking alongside her, the crash of the waves, the way her head feels as though it is wobbling, all make her want to laugh. She begins to cackle, and loses her balance, and Eliot has to steady her with his arm, and when he does, she stands, and just for a moment, feels his touch through her coat. She wonders what Elsie thinks of his touch: if it feels like it should be hers and nobody else’s.

  It was the day after Grace had first met Eliot, after the party where Grace had wanted to kiss him but had left it a moment too late, after she’d had the vision of marrying him, that Elsie met Eliot too.

  ‘Grace! Guess what?’ Elsie had called, entering their lounge in a flurry of jangling keys and denim, and interrupting Grace’s thoughts about the previous evening’s party. ‘I’m going on a date tonight!’

  Grace looked up from the modernism study guide she was working through. Something about Elsie was different. Her movements were quicker than usual, her face bright. Grace smiled as she thought of Elsie having a boyfriend too. Perhaps this was all Elsie needed to be happy. And perhaps, as soon as Grace had managed to arrange something with Eliot, they could all double date. ‘That’s so exciting! Who with?’

  ‘A guy I met in the bookshop on campus. Grace, he’s gorgeous. He seems so … adult. Does that make sense?’

  Grace thought of the small sample of men that, between them, they had associated with. Sadly, none of them could have ever been described as ‘adult’.

  ‘It makes perfect sense. So where’s he taking you?’

  ‘To the Grand Theatre. We’re seeing a play. He’s doing drama and some of the people on his course are performing so he wants to support them.’

  ‘That’s so nice. I’m really pleased for you. Makes my night of reading about Virginia Woolf seem even more dull than it did before,’ Grace said, a little pebble of resentment plopping down into her stomach. A few of her new friends were doing Drama. She wondered if she knew the guy Elsie was talking about. He must be something special to get the usually silent, aloof Elsie to even talk to him. ‘So what’s his name?’

  ‘Oh, it’s a gorgeous name. And it goes really well with mine. He’s called Eliot.’

  A second passed where Grace was unable to say anything at all. She busied herself with underlining a meaningless section of her study guide with a pink highlighter. ‘That is a nice name,’ she said eventually, her insides twisting in dread.

  Grace had seen Eliot in the student union bar the day after he had dated Elsie. Elsie had been typically evasive that morning, simply saying that Eliot was fun to be around and that they’d had a nice time. Grace had fought the urge to shake her, to try and get the old Elsie out, the one who would tell her twin exactly what he had worn and how he had smelled and what he had said and how he had said it. Instead, Grace had said she was pleased and had climbed up to bed, where she stayed awake for hours, replaying the scene of her future wedding day in her mind.

  ‘Eliot! How was the play?’ Grace had asked Eliot the day after. He wandered over to where Grace was sitting in the student union. He looked slightly different to how he had the other night. His features seemed sharper, his manner a little calmer. Or maybe he didn’t look different, maybe Grace had just remembered him all wrong.

  ‘Ah, so your sister told you all about me, did she?’ Eliot asked unashamedly.

  ‘She did. So how was it?’ Just get it over with. Tell me you’re with her and get it over with.

  ‘I liked her. I can’t believe you’re identical twins! It didn’t even register when I met Elsie, because you have different hair, and to be honest I didn’t really think … ’

  ‘Ah.’ Grace turned and watched some people playing pool. The white ball swung into the pocket, clicking against the sides and tunnelling its way under the table. She wasn’t going to beg him to tell her about it. She’d have to ask Elsie again tonight. But for some reason, she’d rather hear it from Eliot.

  ‘Your sister’s an interesting girl. We had a good time.’

  Grace sprung up. ‘Want a drink?’

  Eliot looked at his watch: tan with a leather strap. ‘I have a late lecture. At five thirty.’

  ‘Well, then you definitely need one,’ Grace said and headed to the bar.

  ‘So how’s your course going?’ Eliot asked as they waited for the student behind the counter to serve their lagers.

  ‘I like it. We’re doing modernism at the moment, and it’s a bit confusing. A lot of the stuff we’re reading sounds like nonsense. But I kind of like it.’

  ‘Ah. “Friendship between man and woman is impossible because there must be sexual intercourse,”’ Eliot replied.

  Grace had been staring at the student behind the bar, who wore carefully arranged red chopsticks in her hair. Now, she spun around to face Eliot.

  ‘What?’

  Eliot shrugged, a wide smile breaking out on his face and making him look quite pleased with himself.

  ‘It was a James Joyce quotation. He’s the master of modernism.’

  Grace sighed and pulled her lager towards her. ‘Well, it sounds like he talks nonsense too.’ She eyed Eliot from underneath her fringe. He was swigging his beer casually, but his expression was thoughtful.

  ‘Nonsense is actually a very measured form of art, you know. It takes a lot of skill.’

  ‘Maybe. Although I still think what you’ve just said is nonsense. Anyway,’ she said, wanting to
change the subject all of a sudden, ‘how’s your course?’

  ‘I like it. It seems like there will be a lot of opportunities,’ Eliot had said. Grace watched him as he talked, his gesturing becoming more animated, his pint placed down on the bar to free up his hands. What Elsie had said was true: Eliot was more adult that any other males they’d associated with. Apart from Noel. He seemed adult too, although it was a different kind of masculinity to Eliot’s, Grace realised as she watched Eliot.

  Noel. Grace thought of Noel’s arms wrapped around her when she had felt so scared after her mother had vanished, of the card he had just sent her to wish her luck at uni. Then she thought of the image of marrying Eliot, and a shiver coursed through her body, even though the bar was warm. She shouldn’t ever compare Noel and Eliot.

  ‘That’s great,’ she said when Eliot finished describing the play he was going to perform in. ‘I always thought I wanted to do acting, but I love books too, and I wanted to be on the same course as Elsie, so English won in the end. I might do some drama modules next year though. I would like to do some acting too. I did some at college and I loved it.’

  ‘Well then you should definitely consider the drama modules. You can get into all sorts here. Even though I’m an acting student, I’m going to be directing a performance next semester.’

  ‘That’ll be so cool. Imagine if I can get a part in the play you’re going to direct!’ Grace said, just for a moment the thought of being on stage eclipsing her thoughts about Eliot.

  It was seven thirty when Grace and Eliot finally stopped talking and left the student union bar. Eliot had missed his lecture. They were both drunk.

  ‘So, can we still be friends even though I’m your twin’s boyfriend?’ Eliot asked as they wandered out of the campus.

  There it was. Boyfriend. And although Grace had been waiting for it, expecting him to say it, it still stung.

  ‘Yes, Eliot,’ she replied, trying to walk steadily, trying to speak steadily, ‘we can still be friends.’

  Now, Grace stands on the beach, deserted apart from her and Eliot, and holds onto him for another moment before letting his arm drop to his side. For the first time tonight, she suddenly wishes Elsie were with them. Being on her own with Eliot is too difficult. She stares up at the sky, its blackness interrupted by the flashing lights of Blackpool Tower.

  ‘You know, I’ve never been to the top of Blackpool Tower?’ Grace says, suddenly feeling quite sad.

  ‘That’s impossible. You’ve lived here all your life.’

  ‘How many times have you been up there?’

  There is a short pause. ‘About eight,’ Eliot eventually says. ‘We had cousins who used to visit and wanted to do the touristy stuff every summer.’

  ‘Have you been up there as an adult?’

  ‘Just once.’

  And as he says it, Grace remembers that she knows he has. She remembers Elsie returning home, glowing with the happiness of a perfect day, commenting that she and Eliot had decided to ‘be tourists’ and do the Tower and the prom and the Pleasure Beach.

  ‘You should go up there. You’d love it. It’s quite thrilling in its own tacky little way.’

  ‘I don’t want to. I bet it’s horrible going up on your own.’

  Eliot stops walking and lights a cigarette. The smoke drifts around Grace, seeping into her skin and warming her.

  ‘Don’t be so melodramatic. You don’t have to go up on your own. Go with friends. Or with Elsie. Or me.’

  ‘I want to go up there with someone who loves me,’ Grace says mournfully, finding herself suddenly on the brink of violent tears.

  ‘I love you, Grace. You know that. And Elsie does.’

  ‘Yes. But you love each other more.’

  ‘Oh, Grace, don’t.’ Eliot’s voice hardens. ‘You sound like a child.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Grace chokes, still staring up at the tower, her tears blurring with the glimmering lights.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ Eliot asks quietly, before taking a long drag of his cigarette and puffing out the smoke into the darkness.

  ‘Nothing. I don’t want you to do anything,’ Grace says, swallowing her abrupt tears. She casts her eyes down from the Tower and looks ahead of her, to North Pier. The shapes of the various bars and amusements loom over the sand, casting black shadows. The image in front of Grace is still for a moment, then seems to rear in an ugly blur. She puts her hand up to her mouth as she watches a luminous flame rip into the end of the pier nearest the sea. The horrid reflections of fire twinkle in the water as the sudden flames crash through the pier. People spill out into the road from the orange pier, their screams engulfed by the roar of flames and cracking of wood.

  ‘Eliot! Eliot, look!’ Grace shouts, her stomach swirling in fright.

  He says nothing, just looks beyond them. ‘Look at what?’ he says after a few moments.

  ‘The pier! It’s—’ Grace stops abruptly as she motions to the pier. Her arm drops to her side and she frowns in confusion. ‘It was on fire,’ she says slowly. ‘I saw it.’

  There is a moment’s silence.

  ‘Come on, Grace. It’s fine, there’s nothing to worry about. You’re hallucinating after all the dodgy wine we’ve had. Let’s get you home.’

  Eliot takes Grace’s arm and guides her away, away from the Tower and the pier, and the black sea which twinkles with reflections of nothing but the moon.

  When Grace clambers out of the taxi to her flat, she wants to ask Eliot to come in, but doesn’t. As the taxi flies off into the night, Grace imagines phoning him and asking him to come back. They would probably drink even more, and smoke. Grace only ever smokes with Eliot. She might tell him about her visions and that she has her mother’s gift to see into the future. She might tell him about the biggest vision of all, the one that makes her unable to think about anything but him.

  She peels off her shoes as soon as she is in her flat and flings her keys on the couch. She looks around her lounge as she slumps down onto her loveseat. Grace’s flat is always immaculate. Her mother was messy, and late, and all the things that suggested that she wasn’t in control. Grace had decided a long time ago that she would be different. Her coffee table is home to four precisely placed red coasters and a neat pile of magazines. Her shelves are bare, except for a couple of photos, and polished every other day. Her bed, when she crawls into it shortly, will be freshly made with white sheets that are cool and stiff.

  Grace wouldn’t live any other way. She doesn’t know how Elsie bears it in the draughty old house in South Shore, amongst her mother’s clutter and memories. How does she sleep every night, Grace wonders, in their mother’s old bedroom?

  As Grace leans her head back on her sofa and pictures her sister, she feels a familiar thud of guilt in her stomach, and knows that she won’t ring Eliot and ask him to come back, not tonight. Not ever.

  She wants to crawl into bed fully clothed, make-up still on, teeth unbrushed, but if she does this then she will be plagued through the night by images of crumbling teeth and poisoned skin. Plus, she still has her contact lenses in. There’s no way she can leave them in overnight.

  She drags herself into the bathroom and pops out her lenses, the room around her snapping into a watery blur. Elsie has perfect sight, but Grace’s eyes have failed her for years. She splashes water onto her face, which drips down her chin and onto her chest. She reaches lazily for her toothbrush and brushes slowly, feeling her mood lift now that it is almost time to squash herself down amongst her pillows.

  Sleep comes easily. It winds itself around her, lulling her, pulling her from the day and into the night. She breathes deeply, her thoughts finally breaking away from reality, fragmenting into pleasantly bizarre images.

  Then there is fire, and pain. Grace tries to take a breath but the room is full of smoke, and the air is too thick to pass down into her lungs. She gasps, but still nothing enters her mouth. Her heart panics and flaps about. Air! Air! She tries to move, but without air she i
s dead and still. Flames jump up at her like excited dogs, licking her face and burning her with their heavy orange paws. She is dragged down, still fighting for breath.

  Just one breath.

  She struggles, and struggles, and suddenly she can breathe: clean, white air.

  She sits up in bed, her lungs satisfied but her heart still whipping around in panic.

  Chapter Eleven

  Louisa, 1965

  After her father’s funeral, Louisa asked the guests if they wanted to return to the house for some refreshments. She had pushed pineapple pieces onto cocktail sticks and cooked some cocktail sausages that Mr Geoffrey, the butcher, had given her as a goodwill gesture. She didn’t care for most of the people at the funeral. She imagined that her father was with her, his eyes crinkling, his mouth giving nothing away, as Louisa made remarks about each of their habits: Mrs Harris barking commands at her scrawny husband; Mr John huffing and puffing for at least half an hour after his walk up the hill; Rebecca Whitely smoking without actually inhaling anything from the cigarette that dangled casually from her long fingers.

  As it turned out, there weren’t nearly enough sausages to go round. Once they had all gone, people began picking at the squelching pieces of pineapple, juice running down their hands, which, in the absence of napkins, they all wiped on their black clothes when they thought nobody was looking. When the table was bare, Louisa remembered a square of cheese in the fridge: people gobbled up the little cubes that Louisa diced within seconds of her putting them down.

  ‘I feel like a waitress,’ she’d have said to her father, if he had been here. Or perhaps, if Hatty had come, Louisa would have said it to her. But Hatty had a ‘rotten cold’ and unfortunately couldn’t make the funeral. She had telephoned Louisa that morning to tell her. But Louisa didn’t think Hatty sounded at all ill. She knew that, really, Hatty was avoiding her, and that her parents had probably told her to. Louisa knew that she wasn’t meant to be friends with Hatty, or anybody like Hatty. But she couldn’t help but want to be like her. Hatty would have served the right amount of sausages. Hatty’s father would have served the gentlemen brandy, because Hatty’s father wouldn’t have gone mad and then died.