by Grace Lowrie
Kindred Hearts
Grace Lowrie
When Natasha Graham lost touch with her childhood friend Celeste Walker, she thought her world had ended. Now, ten years later, they are reunited by chance and Tasha is swept up in Celeste’s glamorous lifestyle.
Still harbouring a long-hidden bond for Celeste’s brother Sebastian, Tasha can’t help but be drawn to him, once again rekindling feelings she thought she’d buried years ago. As Sebastian struggles with his own feelings for Natasha, Celeste struggles with sharing her best friend with her brother, and embarks on a dark, downward spiral that could lead to disaster.
Is there more to Celeste than meets the eye, and can Tasha make the right choice when it comes to matters of the heart?
My strength and my weakness are twins in the same womb.
Marge Piercy
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter Forty-five
Chapter Forty-six
Chapter Forty-seven
Chapter Forty-eight
Epilogue
PROLOGUE
I stared at my blood-covered hands in shock. It was still warm and sticky, congealing in the lines on my palms. It looked almost black in the low light streaming from the house. My teeth chattered and the ridged concrete at the lip of the pool dug uncomfortably into my knees, but I didn’t think I could stand up. There was so much blood …
Chapter One
The squealing sound of metal shutters rising woke me as usual at 7 a.m. on Thursday morning. Andrea, who ran the florist shop downstairs, always opened early to catch commuters on their way to the tube station at the end of the road. Back when I’d been looking for a place to live, somewhere to buy with the life insurance money Dad had left me, most people had been put off this flat by the early morning hustle and bustle in the shop below. But I felt more than compensated by the fabulous floral fragrances that assailed me at the front door and drifted in through the windows on summer air. Of course right now I could happily have stuck my head under my pillow and gone back to sleep.
Before long a list of all the things I had to achieve today tumbled through my mind, galvanising my body into action, and I wearily dragged myself into the shower with my eyes still shut. Luckily it was only four steps away from the bed.
By the time I was dressed and drying my hair I was clear-headed and eyeing myself critically in the mirror behind the bedroom door. I’d swapped my usual jeans, shirt, and boots for a pencil skirt, blouse, and heels. They were low heels, the only ones I owned, but heels nonetheless. I imagined that Celeste would approve. I automatically glanced at the dog-eared old photo tucked at the corner of the mirror – she and I together, colourfully incognito and so happy. I wondered, as ever, where she was and what she was doing now. Was she happy?
I was just thirteen when I first met Celeste Walker – she offered me some pick’n’mix. It was warm and squishy from being concealed in her pocket, but it was my first day at a new school so it tasted particularly good.
‘Hi, Tasha, I’m Celeste.’
As she held out the small paper bag, I smelled strawberries on her breath and was instantly wary. She had pale blonde hair, angelic blue eyes, and a mischievous smile. Her snug uniform implied soft curves at her chest and hips where I had none. Delicate studs sparkled at her ear lobes, multi-coloured bracelets gathered at her wrists, and high-heeled shoes made her almost as tall as me. These embellishments were strictly ‘Against School Uniform Policy’ but she obviously got away with it. Here was someone who was used to getting what she wanted. She was trendy, self-assured and popular – the sort of girl who had bullied me at my old school. And yet here she was offering me sweets.
I smelled a trap and politely declined, but Celeste was insistent and I was loath to offend or provoke her. As the cola bottle fizzed on my tongue she gently interrogated me about my old school, my family, songs I liked, books I’d read … It was difficult for me to answer at first – I’d learned the hard way to play it safe amongst my peers and was reluctant to provide her with ammunition that would be cruelly used against me. But despite my instinctive fears, Celeste seemed genuinely fascinated by everything I had to say. I was flattered by her attention and found myself talking more than I ever knew I could. Before long the words spilled almost eagerly from my lips, under Celeste’s beguiling gaze.
At lunchtime, at Celeste’s invitation, I kept her company in the girls’ loos while she skilfully applied mascara to her long lashes. She perched on the edge of the sink, her skirt riding high on her legs and pressed up against the mirror, absently huffing stray curls of hair out of her way in concentration. The shade of her lip gloss perfectly matched her nail polish and the silver rings on her fingers tapped delicately against the glass with every stroke. I observed her, mutely fascinated – I’d never worn makeup and I didn’t own any rings. My straight-up-and-down body, muddy green eyes, and lank red hair reflected blandly back at me. Of course I say ‘red’ because my hair was dark and nearer to red than orange, but to everyone else I had always been intolerably ‘ginger’ – a fact corroborated by my translucent skin and freckles. As I silently compared us side by side in the mirror, I struggled to understand Celeste’s apparent interest in me. But I was new and Celeste liked new things.
Against all my expectations, as the weeks progressed, Celeste and I became firm friends. I’d never had a real friend before; up until that point I’d lived in books. I would borrow six books a week from the local library and then steadily devour them in bed, on the bus, in the playground, in front of the TV – anywhere except at the dinner table, which was strictly forbidden. I read about anything that caught my eye, from snow monkeys in the mountains of Japan to Henry VIII’s wives. The idea of beheading particularly appealed. But mostly I escaped into books of fiction – tales of adventure, ghosts, and faraway imaginary lands. But now Celeste shared her lunch with me, partnered me in PE, and made space for me beside her in class. I helped her with her book reports, her sums and her spelling, things I found easy and Celeste taught me to speak French; she could speak it fluently.
When I unconsciously doodled on the cover of my ring binder in blue biro, Celeste joined in with a purple one. We started on opposite sides and met in the middle, filling the cover until my name was lost in a writhing mass of stars, flowers, and shadows. Mr Timmons wasn’t impressed but Celeste rol
led her eyes behind his back and we did the same thing to Celeste’s folder until they matched. At some point I noticed that my handwriting had changed – had become rounder and bolder with circles above each i instead of dots, like Celeste’s. It was only a small change but I found it curiously exhilarating, as if it meant something more.
Every girl in our year adored Celeste, even the quiet ones. I watched as they hung on her words, mirrored her gestures, and hovered nearby in the playground with a hopeful air. But I couldn’t blame the other girls for feeling the way they did – I was as helpless to resist Celeste as they were – so I tried to be as friendly and inclusive as I could manage. Making friends was new to me, but I was learning fast.
At break times Celeste and I would devise new games to play. Celeste stood on a bench in the playground and did impressions of various pop, film, and TV stars just to make people laugh. Soon our classmates took turns doing impressions too, even the boys, and we voted for our favourites. I would suggest new characters, help to come up with new ideas and routines, and then stand back to enjoy the show. I didn’t want to perform and, refreshingly, nobody tried to pressure me into it.
One day Celeste started coming home with me after school. We lived in a rented maisonette at the time, similar to the one we’d just moved from in the neighbouring suburb, except that it was smaller and without a garden. I didn’t particularly like it, but I was no longer a victim, no longer being bullied on a daily basis, and for the first time ever I had a best friend. Moving house had saved my life.
My family was small; it was just the three of us. My grandparents died soon after I was born and neither of my parents had siblings. Both my mum and dad worked long hours, so I would let myself into the flat after school and remain alone until dinner time. Celeste loved this – she called it freedom. We would quickly get our homework out of the way at the fold-down kitchen table before escaping to my bedroom, getting dressed up and creating dance routines to our favourite Madonna songs. Almost every session resulted in us collapsing into giggles, lying on our backs until our stomachs and cheeks ached.
Celeste loved to go through my wardrobe, pulling out old skirts and blouses that I was embarrassed to own, but she saw them with fresh eyes, adapting them and putting combinations together that I would never have thought of.
‘Oh, Tasha, can I borrow these? Just for a while?’ she asked one afternoon. She was wearing my denim shirt like a dress, with a plastic belt around her waist and a flowery, sleeveless shirt over the top. She looked like a hip American pop star.
‘Sure.’ I shrugged indifferently, but inside I was so pleased.
Things were different once Mum arrived home from work, weighed down with bags in her hands and under her eyes, her mouth set in a line. She would insist we change back into our school uniforms and nagged me about my piano practice at the dinner table. But Celeste didn’t tease me about it, she just asked me what music I played and I told her about my keyboard.
‘Tasha’s very talented,’ Dad said once, a forkful of potato halfway to his mouth. ‘She’s just too modest to say so.’
‘Dad …’ I groaned, spearing a spaghetti hoop and blushing.
I didn’t think I was particularly talented but I secretly loved that Dad was a fan. He worked long hours writing reports that no one ever seemed to read and was always tired, but he tried to bolster my self-confidence every chance he got. My mum was a cleaner. That was how they’d met – he would work late in his office, getting in her way while she tried to clean it. But eventually he had asked her out to dinner by way of apology and she had accepted, albeit grudgingly.
At school Celeste and I set up a band with two boys from our class – Reggie Arnold played the drum kit with Tommy O’Dwyer on guitar. Tommy was good-looking with sandy blond hair and long eyelashes, but he knew it; I could tell by the way he always glanced around to see who was looking at him. Celeste Walker, lead singer and star performer, danced about provocatively with a microphone while I played my keyboard. We called ourselves Blue Candy but we only had one song, of the same name – I wrote the tune and Celeste wrote the lyrics. Our lunch breaks were spent rehearsing and then we performed at a Bring & Buy sale in the school hall, two weeks later in June. We raised seventeen pounds and eighty-four pence for charity but I’m not sure that anyone was really listening, especially by the third rendition. Celeste secretly fancied Tommy but she didn’t think they were suited enough to actually date. I didn’t fancy Tommy at all – somebody else had caught my eye.
Sebastian was in another class in my year. He was taller than me, with longish dark brown hair like a rock star and startlingly blue eyes. I first noticed him in a year-group meeting when, across the school hall, our eyes met above the heads of all the other kids. It was only a brief glance, and with my newly found confidence I smiled at him, but he didn’t smile back – instead, he turned away. My cheeks burned with embarrassment and I wasn’t brave enough to look at him again. My only consolation was that no one else had seen our exchange.
But I was hooked. From then on I subtly looked for Sebastian in the playground and surreptitiously watched him from afar. He was always surrounded by a cluster of other boys and though he wasn’t especially loud or rebellious he was the natural leader of the group, quietly inspiring respect. One day he walked right past me in the corridor and I saw up close the impressive breadth of his shoulders, the flawless quality of his skin, and the startling force of his eyes. He wore a small frown, his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows and his hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets. I desperately wanted to know what he was thinking.
On a sweltering day at the end of June I was invited to Celeste’s place for tea – her mum wanted to meet me and I was excited to see where Celeste lived. The Walkers’ house was only two streets away from mine, but it felt like a world away. They had a large, five-bedroomed Edwardian-style house complete with a front drive, a double garage, and a vast garden with a stream running through it. The entrance hall was big enough to be a room in itself – the staircase swept up around the wall and a long glass chandelier hung down in the middle, where it could be seen from every step. They had a dinner table in their kitchen even though there was an even bigger table in the dining room next door. Their sitting room was smart and tidy and they had a separate room specifically for watching television, with colourful walls, eclectic paintings, and low squashy sofas.
The house was elegant and inviting, just like Celeste’s mum, Lucille. She offered me home-baked butterscotch biscuits before dinner and gently asked me about school, her French accent softly compelling. As I talked she arranged pink peonies and blue irises in a globular glass vase, with immaculately manicured fingertips. She looked like Celeste, with wispy blonde hair and sparkly, water-blue eyes, except when she laughed and little crinkles appeared around her eyes. Celeste’s parents were much younger than mine. For a long time my parents thought they couldn’t have children and I suspect my mum had been content with that, until I appeared unexpectedly late in their forties. Too late, maybe. Lucille Walker didn’t have an office job and she didn’t clean. She organised charity galas and seasonal fairs and hosted big dinner parties with her husband. She carried a breezy air of happy contentment in her movements and a flawless smile on her face.
We went up to Celeste’s bedroom to do our homework before tea and I was in heaven. It was an Aladdin’s cave of colour. Sun streamed in from windows on two sides, where floor-length translucent curtains gave the room an opulent, rosy glow. The air smelled faintly intoxicating, of incense and flowery perfume. A large, canopied double bed was buried under a mountain of cushions of all shapes and textures, and behind it hung a wall-mounted noticeboard plastered with a colourful array of leaflets, ticket stubs, magazine cuttings, and postcards. Shelves bursting with books and decorated with plastic flowers covered the other walls, reaching to the ceiling and right over the door. In the far corner stood a grand ornate wardrobe and next to it, a vanity table with light bulbs mounted around the mirror like
a Hollywood dressing room. Necklaces and scarves were strewn around the head and torso of a shop mannequin atop a chest of drawers, amongst pots and bottles of makeup and scented candles. The carpeted floor was scattered with rugs and littered with clothes in complete disarray. I was surprised by how messy the room was compared to the rest of the house, but I instantly wished that my bedroom was more like this one.
Celeste opened two of the windows, causing the curtains to billow in the breeze and loaded a Shakespear’s Sister tape into her HiFi while I took everything in.
‘Your room is so cool, Celeste.’
‘Thanks,’ she said, clearly pleased. ‘It’s a mess though.’ She gathered cushions from the bed and threw them on the floor before unpacking her homework on the covers. When she belly-flopped onto the bed it took me a moment to realise that we would be working there. I joined her on the bed and as she spread our books out, I marvelled at how decadent it felt.
At 6.30 Lucille called us down for dinner and we stepped out through French doors onto a spacious patio. Lucille had covered a garden table with a lacy white tablecloth and set the pretty vase of flowers in the centre. As Celeste set out the cutlery she introduced me to her dad, Philip, who wore a suit, but with his jacket and tie removed. He was tall, slim and slightly intimidating with salt and pepper hair and dark blue eyes framed by spectacles. He didn’t look as cuddly as my dad and he wasn’t very talkative, but he was polite and I thought he must’ve been tired. As we waited for Lucille to arrive with the food I felt excited to be eating outside in the sunshine, as if I was on holiday. I noticed that there were five places set at the table and only then remembered that Celeste had once mentioned she had a brother. As I looked up he walked around the side of the house carrying a pile of plates and our eyes met. It was at this moment that I learned that Sebastian was Celeste’s twin brother.
Chapter Two
I glanced at my watch and tutted to myself; now was not a good time for reminiscing. The heads of department were meeting today at 2 o’clock and Evelyn Reed, my boss and mentor, had asked me to sit in and take notes for her. Assistant Curators such as myself weren’t normally invited to meetings so it was a big deal. Apparently Evelyn was pleased with my work so far on the upcoming Arts & Crafts exhibition and this was her way of thanking me. I was just grateful for the opportunity. All the long hours, late nights, and weekends might just have been worth it.