Secrets in the Shadows

by Hannah Emery

  ‘She saved my life!’ Suzie continued mercilessly, like a steam train.

  Elsie raised her eyebrows. Louisa wondered for a moment if Suzie might grind to a halt here, and leave things unharmed. If the twins knew that Louisa had kept her gift from them, they would be hurt and angry. If they thought she had happened to just save a life, then they would be moved.

  ‘She saw into the future, and knew that I was going to drown. So she saved me!’ Suzie was gushing, gathering a rapid pace. ‘She has such a gift. You girls should be so proud of her, being able to stop things from happening to people she cares about. And think of all the people she has seen into the future for, and she never gets it wrong. Do you still do it, Louisa?’

  The table was silent for a moment. Then came the question that she dreaded.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us that you can see into the future?’ Grace said, while Elsie sat glowering silently.

  Louisa looked either side of her at her daughters and shook her head. ‘I didn’t really want to drag you both into it. Having this gift is unsettling. It makes you think you can stop bad things happening, and save people—’

  But before Louisa could finish, there was an unpleasant screech of wood. Elsie pushed her chair back and stood to leave the table. Louisa started to follow but Grace leapt up instead. ‘I’ll go. You stay here. She’s upset. You might make things worse.’

  Louisa pulled her wine towards her as Grace thudded up the stairs after Elsie.

  Just one sip.

  One of Lewis’s postcards arrived in April. This time, it was a postcard from Blackpool. Louisa flipped it over almost carelessly, expecting to see the words she knew so well. But this time, it was blank.

  ‘What does this mean?’ Louisa asked Mags, who shrugged and sucked on a cigarette.

  Louisa couldn’t understand it. Why hadn’t he written anything? Was Lewis going to come back? She had bought some mints and ran a brush through her hair every morning now. If she woke in the night, which she often did, she looked at her reflection in the tall swinging mirror in the corner of her bedroom to check that her skin wasn’t creased, that her mascara hadn’t run.

  She wondered what he would think of the twins.

  He would know straight away that they were his.

  They knew about him. Louisa had told Grace and Elsie who the postcards were from when one plopped through their rusty letterbox when they were about to leave the house one day. The twins were about eleven then. They hadn’t talked much about it since. They were fine with it. Things were different, these days. Most of the girls’ friends had divorced parents and parents they had never met.

  ‘He was wonderful,’ Louisa had said, but she knew the girls didn’t believe her.

  If he was that wonderful, their crossed arms demanded to know, why is he not here right now?

  ‘Has he stopped loving me?’ she asked, snatching Mags’s cigarette and taking a gulp of bitty, smoky air herself.

  Mags sighed. ‘It’s been a long time, Lou. The twins are sixteen soon, almost adults. They don’t need him now, and neither do you.’

  Louisa looked across at Mags’s face. She was the best friend Louisa had ever had. Louisa saw now, as she stared at her friend’s face, that her skin was looser than it once had been, that her eyes were lined and her hair was strewn with silver.

  Where had all the time gone?

  The night before the twins’ birthday, Louisa tossed and turned in bed. She was having the dream again: the same dream that had haunted her for so many years. It was what, the third time that night? The image kept coming back and back, like a pin to a magnet.

  Grace’s face drifted before Louisa’s eyes, then duplicated so that Elsie’s was there too. Elsie was frowning, and Grace was smiling. Louisa felt herself being pulled into the dream, even though she flipped over and moaned, trying to avoid it, trying to wake, but it was no good. She watched as Grace threw the glass. It exploded into a thousand glittering pieces and its contents sprayed over Elsie.

  Louisa kicked and grappled with the dream, wanting release, but she saw what she always did. Grace looking up at her sister, her crimson face streaked with make-up, her hair tangled; Grace pulling at her necklace, clawing at the aqua stones with trembling fingers. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong.’

  Elsie’s voice, almost a whisper. ‘You’ve done everything wrong. You’re too much like our mother. I will never forgive you for this, Grace. Never.’

  It was at this point that Louisa woke up with a start.

  She knew now. She knew what the dream meant, and the choice she had to make to stop it from becoming reality.

  She closed her eyes again, and lay back, her black hair splayed out on the pillow behind her like a fan. Another dream came, a different one now. This one was a slow-moving image, with no sound. It was the image of Louisa’s mother stepping towards the sea, being pulled towards somebody or something invisible to everyone but her. She walked with purpose, her grey skirt billowing out like clouds as the water became deeper and deeper around her.

  Come, the sea said. Come, and it will make everything right.

  Louisa sighed in her sleep and her eyelids fluttered. She saw her mother walking further and further into the water, away from Louisa and away from pain. She saw the boy with purple eyes waiting for her mother on the horizon, smiling at her, wanting her to go towards him. And then the boy blurred into darkness, and her mother’s figure was swallowed by the blue-black sea, and Louisa was awake again. Weak light like milky tea soaked through the curtains. It was almost dawn now, the dawn of her twins’ sixteenth birthday.

  Chapter Thirty Three

  Grace, 2008

  ‘What are you doing tonight?’ Grace asks as Elsie’s car swings onto Burleigh Road and alongside Rose House. The vintage fair was a success: Elsie’s mini is weighed down with annuals and trinkets to put in the shop.

  ‘Nothing. Eliot texted me before and he’s got some work to do, so I was just going to have an early night.’

  ‘I could come round for a bit if you want? I can bring some stuff and cook us something.’

  Elsie tightens her mustard scarf before opening her car door. ‘Yeah, if you want,’ she says, her voice muffled by the cawing gulls that circle above them. ‘Are you staying for a bit now? I can drive you home when we’ve had a coffee, then you can come back again later? It’s only twelveish.’

  Grace stands on the pavement and looks up at Rose House. It looms down, oppressive. The newly replaced Sold sign creaks with the effort of remaining up in the seafront breeze. It’s already got a crack down one side. She touches her new necklace, finds it under the collar of her coat. It’s cool and the stones are smooth. She feels again a flicker of excitement that Elsie bought it for her, that somewhere under the mounds of earthy memories and resentment, there lies devotion. She wants to keep this happiness clean and bright, before it’s somehow bruised by a word or a look or a sigh of irritation.

  Grace can see Eliot through the stained glass, making his way to the door to let Elsie in. She can make out every angle of him: his jagged black hair; his slim waist; his narrow, clever face.

  ‘No. I’ll walk home, and come back later. And I’ll stay over, then we can go to the shop together in the morning.’

  Elsie smiles and Grace waves goodbye, turning around and hearing the murmur of conversation as Eliot greets Elsie, the rustle of a brief hello hug, the front door of Rose House closing softly behind them.

  That night, Grace catches the train to Elsie’s house, laden with shopping bags. When Elsie answers the door, Grace heads straight for the kitchen and flicks on the kettle.

  ‘I’m going to make us some pasta and cheese,’ she says. ‘Like I used to.’

  Elsie smiles a little blandly, never one to get excited about food.

  Grace unloads the bags: fresh pasta, mushrooms, purpling garlic bulbs, a bag of rocket salad, some mozzarella and a bottle of Chardonnay. She reaches for two wine glasses in the cupboard above her head and then pours the wine.
It’s warm, because it came from the shelf in the shop, rather than a fridge, but Grace wants a drink now, doesn’t want to wait for it to cool.

  They talk about the shop as Grace chops the mushrooms and boils the pasta. The aroma of the garlic in the pan is warm and lingers pleasantly in the air of the kitchen. Grace lists the items they still need to find to have a completed retro children’s corner in the shop. She wants a vintage chair; perhaps an old school chair. Elsie talks about the small profit they have made and how she thinks they can build on it over the next few months. Grace watches her sister as she speaks, sees Elsie’s eyes become calmly determined and focused. Elsie has researched running a business in detail. Textbook phrases slip from her lips: phrases about forecasts and numbers and profit and loss.

  Grace sips her wine. She won’t feel bad that Elsie has done more research than her, because it’s an unspoken agreement that Elsie will take care of the figures, and Grace’s area will be aesthetics and marketing. After all, finding stock at the vintage fair today was Grace’s idea. As she empties the pasta into a colander, steam puffing in front of her face, the thought of Elsie’s wedding planning slices into Grace’s mind. She wonders if Elsie is managing the aesthetics side of that okay. She puts the colander down in the sink and finishes her glass of wine in one gulp.

  She’ll ask her later.

  They eat in the lounge with the bowls of buttery pasta on their knees, the television in the background flooding the room with a high drama soap opera: all yelling and drinking and crying. Elsie has lit some candles and incense sticks and the room glows with tiny orange flames and the scent of myrrh.

  After they have finished eating, Grace takes the bowls out to the kitchen and then returns to the lounge, flopping down on the sofa next to Elsie.

  ‘It will be so strange to have nothing to do with this house anymore,’ she says, looking around the room.

  She remembers their mother recalling her own childhood in the house, listening to her own mother’s stories by the fire. She remembers watching a film with Noel in here, around the time of university. She remembers wanting to kiss him, but deciding then, as always, that her future with Eliot meant that it was an impossible thing to do. She remembers lying on the sofa with Elsie, entangled with her sister, the day of the car crash, moments before Elsie heard their mother admit to Mags that she had chosen to save Grace.

  The memories flicker across the room like flames. Soon, the house will belong to someone else and the Ash memories will die out.

  ‘I know. It all seems to be going through quite smoothly. Eliot and I have decided to rent somewhere until after the wedding. We can’t see anywhere that we like, and we don’t want to rush into buying something we’re not sure about.’

  What kind of home will Elsie and Eliot choose? It’s difficult to imagine them anywhere other than here.

  ‘That seems sensible,’ Grace says, her words and thoughts wooden now that Eliot has drifted into the conversation. She touches her necklace fleetingly, then drinks her wine clumsily so that a drop lands on her jeans.

  They sit in silence for a while. The soap opera finishes, its maudlin theme tune taking over the lounge.

  ‘I’ve been looking at wedding venues,’ Elsie says after a few minutes.

  Grace takes a breath. ‘Anywhere nice?’

  ‘A few. Eliot wants somewhere in Blackpool.’

  Grace pulls a face. ‘Why?’

  Elsie shrugs, her expression clamping shut like a trap, and Grace immediately feels a surge of guilt.

  ‘I’m just glad he’s taking an interest,’ Elsie says pointedly, switching channels on the television.

  Grace stands up, moves out to the kitchen and tops up her wine. The mood of the evening has gone sour, and it’s her fault, but she can’t help it. Talk of the wedding fills her with a sickly dread, a feeling that she is going to ruin it somehow. She drinks greedily and then fills the glass again before returning to the lounge, tasting acid.

  ‘Grace, I really need to know that you’re happy for me. I don’t feel like you are,’ Elsie says calmly as Grace sits down again. Her face is tense. All the brightness has been switched out.

  Grace’s blood freezes in her veins. ‘I just care about you,’ she says slowly, her head aching.

  ‘That’s not the same as being happy for me. I asked you if you were happy for me.’

  It would be so easy to lie, to say yes, of course I’m happy for you. But Grace can’t do it. Her sister is her own skin and cells and blood. She’s part of her.

  ‘I want things to be good between us,’ Grace attempts, but Elsie rolls her eyes.

  ‘So we’re now talking about what you want? You can be so selfish, Grace.’

  ‘That’s not fair!’ Grace’s voice rises above the noise of the television, above the horrible clanking pipes and the vague sounds of a party next door. ‘I just mean I want us to get along. And I just want to do the right thing.’

  Elsie frowns. ‘I don’t even know what that means. I don’t know why you can’t just talk to me properly instead of speaking in riddles.’

  Grace feels a jolt. She is so used to trying to prise the silent Elsie open that it hasn’t ever occurred to her that she might come across as secretive too. Perhaps she isn’t as good at hiding things as she thought she was. She stays silent, a tear rolling down her cheek. She wipes it away savagely.

  ‘I just sometimes worry about what’s meant to be,’ she says finally.

  ‘Don’t say things like that. You sound just like Mum. You look like her too.’

  Grace bursts out laughing, a manic sound even to her own ears. ‘We’re identical twins! If I look like her, then so do you.’

  ‘No. It’s more than that. It’s the way you are. You share something with her, something that I don’t.’ Elsie’s eyes darken.

  ‘Why is that so bad? Not everything is a competition, Elsie. Not everything is about which one of us is better, or has more in common with someone we both love.’ Grace’s voice has risen again and she picks up her glass. She can feel energy in her, trying to escape, howling inside of her, fuelled by alcohol.

  Elsie shakes her head. ‘I don’t want you to be like our mother, Grace.’ Her words are soft, and Grace has to strain to hear them. ‘And it’s not because I’m competing with you. ‘

  ‘Well then, why do you hate the idea of her being the same as me then?’ Grace feels a resentment gnaw at her that Elsie cannot handle the truth. It’s hard work keeping a secret. If Elsie knew, she wouldn’t accuse Grace of being selfish. If Elsie knew what Grace went through each day, then she would surely come to life, her infuriating calmness would dissolve and fizz into the fury that had somehow become Grace’s. Perhaps she should tell Elsie right now. Perhaps she should scream at her what she sees every time she closes her eyes, whose wedding they should really be planning.

  She puts her hand up to her new necklace. Things seemed fine between them this morning. What was Grace thinking? Of course they weren’t fine. Her fingers begin to pull, ever so slightly, at the aqua stones that hang around her neck, until she hears Elsie’s next words, quiet and sad.

  ‘I hate the idea of you being like Mum because I lost her. And if you’re the same as her, it means that I’ll lose you too.’

  Grace’s hands drop from the necklace, and she puts her glass down on the table gently.

  ‘I didn’t know that’s how you felt,’ she said, the energy inside her deflating in an instant.

  Elsie shrugs. ‘Come on. This was a stupid conversation. I didn’t want to fall out with you. Let’s just leave it. Let’s go to bed.’

  They stand, and Elsie blows out the candles, throwing the room into a peaceful, smoky darkness.

  PART FOUR

  Chapter Thirty Four

  Noel, 1995

  The drive back was long. It was May, but the roads were wet and sleek.

  ‘She’s gone,’ Noel’s mother had said that morning on the phone.

  The small words circled round and round his mind lik
e bombers as he sped along the motorway. As the road signs told him he was heading further and further towards the north, Noel thought of where he should be heading now.

  There were four other people being interviewed for the news editor’s position in the New York office. Four other people would be rehearsing answers to corporate questions right now, laying out their suits and running over their presentations while Noel was speeding away from it all.

  He thumped his steering wheel in frustration, and the car swayed lightly, bumping over the cats’ eyes.

  What was he doing?

  Jack, Noel’s boss, would be furious. He knew how long Noel had waited for an editor’s position to come up. He had watched Noel begin as a junior reporter, had encouraged his meticulous style and late nights at the grey office. Noel was the only one from the London office who had been shortlisted for this week’s interview. Jack had put in a good word for Noel at the New York office, and that meant that Jack’s reputation was on the line as well as Noel’s. Noel scanned through possible excuses he could give Jack as he moved further up the country, away from the success of London to the blustery, tired north.

  Family stuff, he could say. But that was too vague. Jack would see straight through it. Noel could possibly get away with it if he told Jack that somebody had died. Who might he say had died? Or was that a bit sick?

  Noel gazed out at the glossy road ahead of him, the car cruising underneath him as though he wasn’t even in control anymore.

  He’d have to come up with something.

  He couldn’t tell Jack the truth: it was all for her.

  Even then, when she was sixteen, it was all for her.

  Noel decided to ring Jack instead of waiting for him to find out from somebody else. He pulled into a service station about an hour from Blackpool and plopped a twenty pence piece into a worryingly sticky pay phone.