Secrets in the Shadows

by Hannah Emery

  ‘Of course.’ Grace grins as she slides her phone back into her bag.

  ‘Who was that?’ Elsie asks, joining Grace in the back. ‘You look like you’ve had some good news.’

  ‘I have!’ Grace fills Elsie in on her new part in the play.

  ‘Congratulations! I’m pleased for you. It’s been years since you did any drama stuff. I think it will do you good,’ Elsie says, turning as she hears the shop door open.

  It’s Eliot. He is wearing a suit, and a bright green tie that purposely betrays his eccentricity.

  ‘What’s the matter? Why aren’t you at work?’ Elsie asks.

  ‘I had to have some space. I’ve got a free session, so I thought I’d come and see you.’ Eliot’s slim face is dark with annoyance. ‘We’ve just had a departmental meeting, and we’ve been told that they are restructuring the whole Creatives department to make some savings.’

  Elsie rushes over to him. ‘You’re not losing your job, are you?’

  Eliot sighs in irritation as he stalks over to the chair behind the counter and sits down.

  ‘No, not entirely. I do have to reapply for my full time position, though. All of us do, and then hours will be split according to who appears to be the best candidate. So it’s likely that my hours will ultimately be cut, which isn’t particularly good news.’ He looks up at Elsie. ‘I’m sorry. It looks like the wedding might have to be a small one.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter at all,’ Elsie says, and Grace wonders at her sister’s serenity. Eliot seems grateful. He reaches out and takes Elsie’s hand.

  ‘Thanks. I’ll do my best in the interview.’ His fleeting moment of calm passes again then, to make way for another explosion of resentment. ‘It’s so infuriating! I’ll bet that Stacey gets all the bloody hours. You know what it’s like there. If your face fits … ’ he finishes sullenly.

  ‘Stupid Stacey,’ Grace offers. Eliot looks up and smiles at the childish gesture. Stacey is a frequent source of exasperation for Eliot: constantly showing him to be the poor relation of the department with her long hours, her wise contribution to meetings and her pristine lesson plans.

  ‘I need a drink,’ groans Eliot.

  Elsie starts to shake her head, then relents.

  ‘Why not?’ she says, and Grace sees her sister glance down at her twinkling engagement ring as she speaks.

  Less than ten minutes later, the three of them are in the pub opposite Ash Books. A lone man with grey hair and a dipped head nods from his bar stool as they walk in. Other than that, and a girl drying glasses behind the bar, it’s empty.

  Elsie orders a lemonade. ‘Too early for me, it’s only 2 p.m.,’ is all she says, but Grace knows what she’s thinking.

  ‘I’m going to have a small glass of wine. I need to calm my nerves for rehearsals,’ Grace says, and orders her drink.

  Eliot leans on the bar and gazes along the selection of bottles behind. ‘I’ll have a bottle of Bud. I’ve only got one lesson to teach later and it’s a timed exam so I barely have to do anything.’

  ‘Eliot, I don’t think you should. I hate to be a nag, but if anyone at the College catches a whiff of alcohol on you when you’re meant to be working, you’re not going to stand a chance. I really don’t want them to think Stacey’s better than you.’

  Eliot doesn’t look at Elsie, but Grace can see him digesting the words. ‘Okay,’ he replies eventually and gives Elsie a quick peck on her forehead. ‘You’re completely right.’

  They make their way to a small table near the window. Grace gazes outside as Eliot and Elsie chat about Eliot’s job. She sips her wine and watches out of the huge leaded windows at the few passers-by, holding their hoods against the freezing wind or battling with rebellious umbrellas. She sits back in her seat, glad to be inside.

  ‘So, when will the interviews be for the full time role?’ Grace asks Eliot when there’s a pause in the conversation.

  ‘That’s the worst bit. It’s next week. I’m going to have to spend all evening writing out my application for my own job. I don’t know what I’ll do if they cut my hours.’

  ‘You can help in the shop,’ Elsie says.

  Grace drains her glass. The thought of being in the bookshop all day with both Elsie and Eliot sends a shot of panic straight through her body.

  Eliot, however, appears to be placated a little by Elsie’s proposition. ‘That’s true. I’d like to get stuck into helping you out. And whilst we’re playing “The Glad Game”, I suppose a smaller timetable would free up more of my time to get involved in directing, too. Do you think they need anybody at your drama group, Grace?’

  Grace stares across the pub, at the empty bar. The lone man is ordering another pint and shuffling a newspaper about to get the pages to crease in the right places. She really is trying to distance herself from Eliot, from what she knows about her future, and his, but even when she turns the other way, Eliot seeps into her life. ‘I’m not sure. There are other drama groups, though.’

  Eliot doesn’t seem to notice the subtle rebuff, but Elsie catches Grace’s eye and smiles.

  Thank you, she seems to say.

  The next weeks pass in a blizzard of rehearsals and late nights, which then merge into early mornings at the shop. A few days before the opening performance of Macbeth, Grace stands behind the counter at Ash Books, tapping through online auctions for book collections. The last ordering date before Christmas is looming, and Grace wants to order some new stock before the holidays begin. She is sending a message to enquire about a collection of boys’ annuals from the 1950s when Eliot arrives. He’s cleanly shaven for once, and his tie is a sober brown.

  ‘I didn’t get the teaching hours I was hoping for,’ he says, before Grace has said anything.

  ‘Oh, Eliot. I’m sorry. Hang on, Elsie’s in the back.’

  Grace leaves Eliot standing forlornly at the entrance and dashes to the little office at the back of the shop.

  ‘It’s Eliot,’ she hisses to Elsie. ‘He’s come from work. He didn’t get the full-time post. He looks really upset.’

  Elsie drops the pile of receipts she is holding and they flutter to the ground like petals. Grace waits until Elsie has gone and kneels down to pick them up. She hears Eliot sigh, and glances up to see Elsie wrapped around him, his arms around her. They are locked together and Grace feels as though she shouldn’t be there. She stifles a yawn: rehearsals and full-time working are beginning to take their toll. She hosted some after-rehearsal drinks on Saturday night, too, which turned into a party at her flat. She can barely remember who ended up there in the end, just that most of the group went home and Grace stayed up drinking with a couple of eighteen-year-olds who have the roles of extras in Macbeth’s battle with Macduff. She’s getting too old for all-nighters, she realises as she rubs her forehead and shuts her eyes for a moment.

  She stands up, and places the receipts neatly on the desk behind her before going back out to the shop. Elsie and Eliot have stopped hugging now, but are standing holding hands. Grace clears her throat.

  ‘I really am sorry, Eliot. It’s so infuriating. I’m really angry for you’. She wonders if she should hug him, and decides against it, touching his slim arm fleetingly instead.

  ‘He’s still got half a timetable. He’s got pretty good part-time hours, so he obviously did well,’ Elsie says reassuringly, stroking his back, her calm words making Grace feel too loud and out of control.

  ‘It’s all a huge conspiracy,’ Eliot says, then exhales loudly and tugs at his tie. ‘Like something out of a George Orwell novel. I’m starting to wonder if I want to be there at all.’

  ‘But you love the students, and you’re great at teaching drama. Stick with it, and help out here too, and then reassess it all over the summer,’ Elsie says. She motions behind the counter. ‘Sit down. I’ll make us a coffee.’

  Eliot drops down onto the chair behind the counter and eyes the open laptop that Grace has been working on.

  ‘Tiger Annuals, eh? Cute. I like it
.’

  ‘I’m on the lookout for some others. We want to create a retro cosy corner, over there,’ Grace gestures to the back of the shop. ‘I’ve just sent a message to the people who run this website asking if we can buy all the annuals they’re selling at a discount.’

  ‘That’s a pretty hefty price they want for them individually. And it says here that some of them have torn covers. Can’t you find some better ones?’ Eliot says as he stares at the screen.

  ‘I suppose so. I’m tired of looking now, to be honest. I’ve got Lady Macbeth’s lines buzzing in my head too.’

  Eliot rubs his hands together. ‘Well, as we all know, I now have all the time in the world. I’ll have a look. You go and have a run through your lines. We’ll be fine, won’t we Els?’ he raises his voice to a shout at the end so that Elsie can hear from the back.

  ‘Of course!’ Elsie shouts. ‘Is that just two coffees, then?’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Grace says uncertainly. ‘I feel a little guilty leaving you to do something that I started.’

  Eliot smiles. ‘We will be fine, Grace. Do your own thing, and leave us to it,’ he says, and his words float between them awkwardly until Grace turns away and goes to get her coat.

  Chapter Thirty

  Louisa, 1992

  It was summer again.

  Louisa’s house was full of guests: loud, and grubby from their days on the beach and various tired attractions. Most of Louisa’s guests these days were regulars, returning year after year. Some were impromptu visitors who turned up last thing at night wanting a spur of the moment stay. Neither kind of guest expected much from the decor or furnishings, so Louisa never did get round to swapping her orange velour curtains for fashionable smoky glass and leather.

  Every evening of the summer, Louisa sat in the dining room, pouring drinks and staring into space and telling people their futures. Cash stacked on the table next to Louisa, and paid for Grace’s extra maths lessons and Elsie’s pencil crayons and Grace’s friends’ birthday presents. That is, until one damp evening in August when Louisa’s gift disappeared.

  It had happened a few times before, but this was different. When she took Maria Booth’s hand in hers, Louisa didn’t see black space or nothing or a vagueness that couldn’t be put into words. She saw what she had seen in so many of her dreams: a blank version of the lounge of Rose House, Grace and Elsie arguing, Grace pulling at her necklace frantically, Elsie blaming her twin for something, her hatred for Louisa hovering in the room. Candles flickering, threatening to swallow the room in one ferocious flame.

  How had this happened? Since the day of the car accident, the adorably precocious Elsie had withdrawn into a world that Louisa could not see or understand. Gone were her carefully selected ‘adult’ words; her peals of laughter. She was still and calm. And, as Louisa saw now, she always would be, even when war broke out with her twin. What were they going to fall out about? Louisa squinted to try and see or hear what the problem between the twins was, but the image was a hazy dream from which she could understand no reasons. She squeezed her eyes shut, seeing colours: blue and purple and orange.

  ‘Excuse me. Is it meant to take this long? Last time I had my fortune told I was out by now,’ whispered Maria Booth, snatching her hands from Louisa’s grip and shaking her back into the present.

  Louisa’s eyes opened. Maria was glaring at her, arms folded, her fee beside her in a small, jumbled pile of gold and silver coins.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m feeling a little under the weather tonight, I’m afraid.’ Louisa smiled weakly. ‘Let me try again.’

  Maria nodded curtly. ‘Just tell me if it’s true,’ she said as she gestured impatiently for Louisa to take hold of her hands.

  Louisa nodded, trying to remember what Maria Booth had asked her about when she first appeared in the dining room. She closed her eyes again, straining to try and see something, anything, related to Maria. At first, there was nothing. Louisa felt her head ache slightly, and then she saw the same image. Grace’s adult face, wet with inky tears. Elsie, stony-faced.

  Louisa shook her head. ‘I can’t do it. I can’t see anything tonight. It’s been a busy day and I—’

  Maria stood up abruptly, causing Louisa to stop mid-sentence. She pulled back the pile of coins from the table and they jingled merrily as she returned them to her purse.

  ‘I won’t be paying for this, of course. What a disappointment. I was going to stay in one of the hotels on the promenade with a swimming pool, but my friend told me about you. I paid your high rates because I thought that you could offer something a bit different. But it’s all a big con!’ Maria’s voice, drenched in wine, became louder as she spoke.

  ‘Look, come back tomorrow night. I’ll try again then.’

  ‘I’d rather not waste my time. I left the bingo early for this as it is. I’m not wasting any more of my holiday.’

  Louisa sighed, wishing that this angry woman wasn’t staying in her home for the next few nights, wishing that she didn’t have to make her breakfast the next morning, wishing that it would all go away. The weight of seeing Grace and Elsie fighting and unhappy pulled at her insides, twisting them and making Louisa feel quite sick. She poured herself another drink, and pushed past Maria into the hallway, where the next guest waited for their future to be revealed.

  ‘Don’t bother,’ Maria barked at the waiting woman. ‘She’s a load of rubbish. She would have taken my money if I’d let her, and she told me nothing.’

  That night, Louisa thought of the days where she could sneak into the twins’ room and watch them sleep. She wanted to do it now, to remind herself that she had family, that she wasn’t alone and that the twins were still at peace with one another.

  The twins might wake if she went into their bedroom. They weren’t young enough to sleep through her visits now, and woke, suspicious, with every twitch and sound. But Louisa suddenly couldn’t help herself. She found herself clambering out of bed and along the hall, past sleeping guests, past the clatter of bottle against glass in Maria Booth’s room, to the bedroom that the twins shared. She opened the door slightly and immediately heard the girls’ steady breaths, heavy with sleep. Stepping in, she saw Grace stir and sit up. The light from the landing spilled into the room, making it golden.

  ‘Mum? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing at all. I wanted to see you.’

  ‘What do you want?’ Grace asked as she stared up at her mother with those violet eyes that said so much about where they had all come from.

  Louisa stepped over clothes and magazines and a hairbrush, and sat next to Grace on the bed. She put her arms around her daughter and held her tightly, feeling Grace’s cool skin, her long satin hair, her softly slept-in t-shirt. She wanted Lewis back, she wanted to know that she could stop Elsie and Grace from becoming enemies, she wanted to sell the house and go somewhere else where her family would all be together and get along. She wanted so much. But for now, holding Grace tightly in a bedroom drenched in darkness and sleep, would do.

  Chapter Thirty One

  Grace, 2008

  On Sunday morning, Grace wakes early.

  Typical.

  She squeezes her eyes shut and tries to summon sleep back to her rousing body, tries to dull the feeling of the day around her. But it’s no use. By 7.30 a.m., she’s up, making coffee. She feels like she needs to do something, so she showers quickly, blow-dries her hair and then pulls on her warmest clothes, her boots and her gloves. She shuts the door softly behind her, knowing that everyone else in the block of flats will still be asleep.

  The frozen air burns Grace’s cheeks as she walks. The morning is silent and untouched. She moves away from the sea, from its grey whorls of secrets, from its stale, salty odour. She runs her lines for the play through her head as she walks. Eventually, she reaches the centre of St Annes. The bookshop watches her from the other side of the square, and she turns her head. There’s a coffee shop open, and aching with cold, Grace heads towards it.


  As Grace sips on a huge bowl of cappuccino, the gritty chocolate dust sticking to her lips like sand, she gazes out onto the small square of shops of restaurants. She can still smell the stale sea, even though she knows she should smell coffee and warm croissants.

  Grace shudders, imagines herself in London, having breakfast with Noel in a smart coffee bar. Or perhaps – she allows herself the luxury of a rare daydream – if she were with Noel, she’d still be in his bed, luxuriating in sheets that were warm from being stretched over both of their bodies all night. Perhaps if she were with Noel, she wouldn’t have felt the sharp need to be out so early in the morning. If she were in London, or a bright, buzzing city, there would be none of the ghosts that haunt her now.

  As she drinks the rest of her coffee, Grace’s eyes wander around the café for something to distract her from her thoughts. She jumps up when she sees a newspaper stand by the counter, and sits back down with a crumpled broadsheet from yesterday. She leafs through the giant pages idly. There’s nothing that Grace finds interesting, until she reaches an advert for a vintage fair at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool town centre later today.

  She swipes the paper from the table and jams it back in the stand, nods a thanks to the teenaged barista and rushes back out into the freezing morning.

  Elsie is still in bed when Grace arrives at Rose House. Grace waits for a while at the door, looking down at her brown leather boots. Her hair lashes around her face, stinging her raw cheeks. She knocks again, louder this time, and the glass rattles threateningly. The colours of the glass spill into one another through their cracked leaded segments: blue, purple and orange merge as Grace stares through the window and waits for her sister.

  Eventually, Elsie’s silhouette appears, bear-like in a huge dressing gown. She yawns as she pulls open the front door. Her feet are bare and Grace winces at the thought of how cold they must be on the cracked tiles.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she says as Grace leads the way into the hall. The smell of the house that seeps from its depths: roses and the old green carpets stained with brandy and tears, greets Grace and momentarily transports her back to childhood.