The Radical (Unity Vol.1)

by Lynch, S. M.

  ‘She never mentioned him by name but I knew she’d known great love during her lifetime. It was written all over her face sometimes. A woman who has been loved truly has a certain look about her, one of heightened knowledge and undeniable mystery. She lost that great love and it is that which made her what she was. But I cannot tell you anymore than that.’

  When Camille finished her explanation, she sat on the coffee table in front of me. Her head bowed, she began to cry, sniffing and dripping with tears. I knelt and took her in my arms; we played mother and daughter.

  My mind turned to one thing – when had this love affair taken place and what happened to him? I didn’t want to launch a barrage of questions at Camille, who was obviously grieving and was just as forlorn as I over Eve’s passing. I decided I would find out for myself, even if it killed me, I would finally lay it all to rest.

  I didn’t care what it took, I would do it. It was time.

  CHAPTER 10

  We spent some hours after that telling each other tales about Eve. We reminisced about jokes she told, mannerisms of hers that were funny without a tagline, hairstyles she tried but abandoned. Even though Eve was not in the room with us, what we three shared went beyond sisterhood. It was a shared, innate ability to find strength within. That made everything in the world seem ridiculous if we looked hard enough. We knew our hearts; we only needed gainful employment to be happy.

  ‘Did you leave anything in your hotel room?’

  ‘I never leave a trail. Why?’

  ‘Why don’t you just stay here tonight? It’s homelier and safer.’

  I had a nervous disposition toward ghosts but realized Camille probably wouldn’t take no for an answer. ‘That would be lovely.’

  ‘I’d better get back to my team, otherwise they may forget who’s in charge. Make yourself at home, you know. Don’t feel you have to stand on ceremony. If I don’t see you later tonight, I’ll see you in the morning for the funeral.’

  The mention of the f-word made me wince. A look of dread passed between us, because we both knew it wasn’t going to be an easy day.

  ‘Okay, I’ll see you later then.’

  ‘Oh by the way Seraph, she didn’t want anyone wearing black.’

  Camille seemed to be hinting at my perennial choice of clothing.

  ‘That sucks… I don’t have anything that isn’t!’

  ‘If you look in Eve’s closets, I’m sure you’ll find something colorful.’

  And with that, Camille left.

  I threw open the sliding oak wardrobes that stretched across the entire length of the room and eyed the huge closets. There was not one hint of black clothing in sight. Everything was vibrant, multicolored and patterned. There were various sizes of dresses, hats, shawls, scarves, skirts, sweaters, shoes, boots, vests, evening gowns, slippers, pajamas – everything you could possibly imagine. Some still had the labels on. I didn’t know where to start and decided the search would keep until the morning.

  Instead, I began to explore the rest of Eve’s flat. I assessed the thousands of thank-you cards in the desk and found there was nothing out of the ordinary there. The two bedrooms were impeccably tidy and didn’t reveal anything either. However, I had a thought as I noticed a loft cover in the hall. I pulled it and a set of stairs tumbled down.

  Climbing the steps, I felt sure I was on the right track. Turning on the attic light, however, I was disappointed to discover the loft contained only a few old boxes. Still, there might be something interesting in these. There were deeds to the shop, bank statements from decades ago, old employee records and receipts. It all seemed pretty mundane and tedious. However, there was a box pushed right to the back of the loft, draped in a blanket that had been perishing for years.

  In there I discovered pictures of Eve when she was young. I had never seen her like that before and I had to take a breath. She reminded me a little of a younger version of myself. She was different, though. I knew my look was boring classical, whereas Eve was a mixture of quirk and beauty. She had a plump mouth that was uneven but moved so gracefully and twitched easily with the tiniest amount of delight. She had such round cheekbones and freckles, lots of them in fact, whereas my skin was alabaster, and her red hair was much brighter than mine ‒ almost orange.

  She must have been young in the photos, perhaps in her early 30s ‒ what sprang to mind was who took them. Photo after photo showed Eve happy and smiling, in different poses, but looking much the same in each of them. At the bottom of the pile was one of her with a man. It looked like he had taken the photo at arm’s length, because their faces filled the frame. He had dark hair, strangely handsome features and a gentle demeanor. The pair of them looked very much in love.

  Sifting through box after box, I found no other evidence of Eve’s love interest. There were just boxes full of more business papers. Frustrated, I moved to the steps to descend back down.

  When my foot fell heavily on a floorboard at the bottom, I heard a creak and a crunch, before the floor seemed to cave in and my foot fell through the wood. A slat broke in two and I was forced to cling on to the ladders to prevent myself falling.

  After I wiggled my foot free, I took a step back and peered down at the floor. Dropping on one knee, I picked through the splintered shards and threw them to one side. There was a wad of papers hidden beneath, wrapped in a cardboard sleeve bound by an elastic band.

  I realized it probably contained documents I wasn’t meant to find. Testing its weight on my palm, I wondered whether I could handle anything more and contemplated calling Camille up to look over it with me. However, my curiosity was piqued and something told me to just get it over with.

  I moved back to the sitting room, slamming the pile on the solid coffee table. Sat on the Victorian sofa, I ripped off the elastic band and pulled open the file.

  The first document was a marriage certificate. As soon as I saw the words “Eve Marie Maddon” in the first column of the document, shock flooded me. Eve had portrayed herself as the eternal singleton for a reason. Camille was right, there was a man.

  I eagerly examined the rest of the information and discovered Eve had married a Thomas David Bradbury at York Register Office in August, 2013. Eve was 30 years old and he was almost 33.

  Shit. Oh god, what happened to him?

  I turned over the document and looked at what was underneath. There was a birth certificate, but it was only Eve’s, revealing she was born in York, January 20, 1983. Her parents were Valerie and Frank, 23 and 35 at the time. Quite a large age gap, but then I remembered that Frank had been married before he met Valerie. That previous marriage had produced Harry, my grandfather and Eve’s half-brother.

  The next item I arrived at was a photograph. It was Eve and Tom on their wedding day, stood outside an ordinary brick building I presumed was the register office. They were both tall and slim and he held her hand against his chest while they laughed in the direction of the camera. He wore a grey suit with a red tie and a matching rose buttonhole. He sported dark-brown hair, dark eyes and an extremely proud grin. Meanwhile Eve cut a most magical figure. Her hair was pulled up into a beehive and delicate strands framed her face. Her huge smile revealed large white teeth and she wore blood-red lipstick, but her other make-up was understated. Her dress was a short, Sixties-style pinafore in white, worn with matching laced-up platform shoes. She held a small bouquet of pink carnations wrapped with white ribbon.

  My heart beat wildly in my chest. The photograph spoke volumes. It showed that Eve had truly loved somebody, and that for them to have been separated, something terrible must have happened. How could Eve have kept so much from me? I stared at the photograph and my heart broke at the scene of happiness. I searched the other documents for more photos, but there were none. This was the only one picturing them together.

  Tears welled in my eyes but something else drew my attention. Amongst the items was a small, fragile envelope with the words, “To my darling Eve” written on the front. I picked some thin pag
es out of the envelope and held the letter in both hands, trying to steady myself as I realized this would prove to be a sacred window into Eve’s secretive life.

  My lovely, sweet, girl…

  I am so lost without you, we both are. Imogen and I miss you so much. I love you more each day, even after all these years. I can barely breathe without you. I count the hours and the days until we might see you again. This thing that has ruined our peaceful existence is intolerable, unfair, unjustified. Some days the bitterness grips me so badly that hate wrenches my heart. Imogen sees it but she tries not to show it. Like you, she knows a kiss or a hug is enough to soothe me back to sense.

  I fear for you each day you remain in York. I know you will never abandon your work but if I could ask you to leave, I would. I might implore you to seek safety with us if I knew you might be swayed. However, I know you won’t be able to leave your post. Part of me loves you more for braving that foul regime while a corner of me aches and yearns for the life we once shared to return. I miss the love we were able to give freely, before that dreadful disease ravaged our world and everything we held dear.

  How confident we were for ever believing our world was safe, secure and everlasting. I suppose all I can take comfort in is knowing you are alive. That alone is enough for me some days. I know you, my clever girl, will keep yourself safe. I know that.

  But sweetness, I crave the day I feel you in my arms again. Surely it will be safe enough soon for you to travel? I write though this might never reach you by post, so I shall save it for when we do see one another again, and you will see then, I never stopped thinking about you.

  Tom x

  It was dark outside the bridal shop when Camille rushed up the stairs like a bat out of hell and found me in a crumpled mess on the sofa.

  ‘Seraph! I thought something terrible had happened to you when you said come quickly! Where’s the fire?’

  I struggled to get my words out, ‘Look. At. This. Stuff.’

  Camille seated herself and saw the wedding photo first.

  ‘Mon dieu, mon dieu! Look at her. Wasn’t she beautiful?’

  ‘I know,’ I spluttered.

  I felt like a god, damn, wreck, sniveling over some old photos. Truth was, Eve had known real love. That was clear, to me, from having read the letter. I felt thankful for that. At least she died having known love.

  I was left with so many questions.

  ‘My dear, I thought you were tougher than this.’

  ‘I thought so too, but look how beautiful she was. Look how happy they were. I just don’t understand why she didn’t tell me about him!’

  Camille took my hand and looked over some of the other things in the folder, realizing there was little else of note.

  ‘Come here,’ Camille pulled me into her arms and we rested back against the sofa.

  ‘What I can’t get over is that she wasn’t the person I thought she was. I always used to view her as this untouchable being – the one person out there in the world untarnished by desire, or greed, or want. For me, that kept me going. I aspired to be like her and knew that even if I was just a little bit like her, I would be okay.’

  ‘She was real, Seraph, just like you or I. We look to our elders for support and succor, but at the end of the day, we’re all just human. We all have foibles, issues, troubles, pasts and quirks of our own.’

  ‘I thought I was stronger than this but I’m a total fuckin’ mess. What’s wrong with me?’

  ‘You’ve just had your heart broken, my love,’ she chided me.

  I might have spiraled into another round of crying, so I attempted to walk off my pain, pacing the creaky floorboards.

  ‘Do you know what happened to Tom?’

  I gazed down on her but judged she wasn’t reacting at all. That spelled it out for me – Camille was the bearer of my aunt’s secrets and had been instructed in their safekeeping. I doubted she would give them up, for neither love nor money.

  ‘I never even knew his name until I saw this. By the way, where did you find it?’ she asked, her hands clasped together on her lap.

  ‘Underneath the floorboards as I came down from the loft.’

  ‘I never used to like going up in that loft for her, it always gave me the creeps. Was there nothing of interest up there?’

  ‘Not much. A photo. Then this stuff under the floor.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Camille mustered contemplatively, biting her lip.

  It didn’t seem right to press her. She was grieving too, clearly. I would find out the truth for myself, I decided.

  Eve’s life was proving to be just another unsolved case to add to the pile… yet, I still felt that my trip was fated.

  ‘She was so passionate, wasn’t she? I just can’t comprehend any of that. It’s not her at all, not the Eve I knew.’

  ‘It’s incredible, but I believe it.’

  Oh, I bet…

  I knew Camille would give up nothing without a fight and she was more than my equal, so instead I let my mind wander.

  ‘Eve never spoke of her childhood. In fact I pressed her on it occasionally, you know, if conversation dried up and my mind turned to trying to figure her out. I always sensed it was a no-go. Like, she may have had a hard life at some point, though she tried not to show it. There are still so many gaps in the story,’ I surmised wearily.

  Camille took a few moments for contemplation and decided, ‘For now Seraph, you should feel very lucky. She was an immense spirit, and you should feel extremely grateful to have been so close to her, to have known her even. We both know there are terrible things to come, if we are ever to right a few wrongs in this world. We must remember that there was once love, and family, and righteousness. Your heritage is a rich one, chérie.’

  That day passed into nothingness. How time wasted under spent contemplation. I was not used to it. I filled minutes with dozens of tasks usually, but the eve of my treasured aunt’s funeral had descended into tears, disbelief and on my part, a weakening of spirit.

  ‘What now Camille? What do I do?’

  ‘We say goodbye and hope that more answers are forthcoming.’

  I knew Camille was holding on to the hope that she wouldn’t be forced to do Eve’s dirty work. Meanwhile I secretly wished there was nothing else to face. Yet I knew there had been a web of secrecy surrounding my relative that needed unraveling. It would have to be picked apart and the fact that Eve’s resistance force were embroiled in this made the reality all the more clear. There were lives in danger and I was facing a crossroad.

  Camille kissed my forehead and told me she slept in the flat next door and to call on her if I needed anything during the night.

  I retrieved a flash meal from the kitchen and was thankful I couldn’t taste a thing, I was too numb. I feebly hoped it would all look better in the morning. So I crawled into Eve’s bed fully clothed, wrapping the covers around me, trying to absorb some of my aunt’s presence. I needed to feel a connection to someone, or something, which might give me comfort. Closing my eyes, I pictured Eve and Tom so happy on their wedding day, and fell into an instant deep sleep.

  CHAPTER 11

  I slept so deeply that when I woke, I shot up with a start, having entirely forgotten I had crawled into bed there the previous night. Everything looked different that morning and I was comforted seeing Eve’s surroundings staring back at me. As if telepathically, Camille knocked on the door holding coffee and toast in her hands.

  ‘Morning. Feel better today?’

  ‘Much, much better, thanks.’ I even managed a smile.

  Camille had dressed in a pink, fitted dress that showcased an impressive figure for a woman of her age. After she sat down at Eve’s dressing table in the corner, Camille produced her xGen and appeared to be engrossed with something. Her sleeveless dress revealed extremely defined muscles in her arms – and she wore full make-up, her hair loose and straightened – and I kind of saw her appeal. I mean… I’d heard noises from the flat next door all night and had thought t
hem a part of my dreams, but evidently as she sat there, she had enjoyed a good time.

  ‘I guess you were more careful when Eve was around? You know? Thin walls and all?’ I teased her.

  She didn’t respond but raised an eyebrow and continued to be ensconced in her messages, or whatever.

  She was stunning, quite simply. It was a waste of good Parisian breeding that she was stuck in York.

  ‘I don’t have to make an effort too, do I? I think I could just about manage jeans and a t-shirt today.’

  Camille shot me a look of unacceptability. ‘You are the niece of Eve Maddon. Plus, we need to show the world what we are made of, remember?’

  ‘Fine. I’ll throw something on then.’

  ‘We’d better leave soon Seraph, it starts in an hour. Hop in the shower and I’ll get some items from the wardrobe for you that should fit. I’ll leave them out and you can meet me downstairs when you’re ready.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ I saluted, before heading off to the bathroom.

  An hour later, we clung to each other as we made our way into the Minster – a gargantuan Gothic, medieval marvel that looked unreal against the background of the ruined city. Some of the shop staff trailed behind, but a lot of them had been forced to stay on back at the complex.

  Camille had thrown on a little matching jacket to go with her dress and I noticed many of the other guests also wearing similar, sophisticated clothing.

  So this is more like a gathering of UNITY, I thought.

  ‘I’m giving the eulogy. Remember, as far as the world is concerned, she was Eve Maddon, bridal designer,’ she warned, whispering under her breath, ‘our enemies are not beyond us, even in here.’

  ‘Understood,’ I smiled and nodded.

  I found a seat near the front of the packed-out Minster and noticed almost every seat taken and several hundred people also stood in the aisles, corridors and wings of the venue. Every shade of the rainbow splashed the congregation.