by Hannah Emery
‘I really want to help you. I’ve nothing else to do anyway, and I obviously want you to pass. But you just need to write it, Grace. You did so well at college. You need to try as hard as you did there.’
‘I know, I know,’ Grace sighed, then suddenly sat up straight, her expression bright. ‘I have an idea! Maybe we could watch the film together!’
Noel laughed and shook his head. ‘Isn’t that the worst thing you can do as a student? Watch the film instead of reading the book?’
Grace laughed too. ‘No! I know you think I’m being lazy, but I’m not. This is for one of my drama modules. The essay is about its portrayal on screen and on stage. We went to watch the play last month in Manchester, but I haven’t watched the film yet. I was going to try to manage without, but I’ll never pass then. Watching the film is the perfect way to get me in the right frame of mind! Would you mind? It might not be your kind of thing … ’ she trailed off, slumping a little again on Mags’s velvet sofa.
‘I don’t mind at all. Do you have it with you?’
‘No. It’s at home. Elsie’s probably in, but she won’t mind if we watch it there.’
‘Then I’ll get my keys.’
Grace smiled, and Noel’s heart jumped a little, and he thought what a shame it was that he was never this excited about watching a film with Bea.
When they pulled up outside Grace’s house and Noel looked up, a pain seared through him as he remembered all the times he had visited Louisa here with Mags. The house was unchanged: the bay windows still had their original worn leading and watery stained glass. The burgundy hood over the front door flopped down weakly as a reminder of the house’s past as a busy bed and breakfast.
‘Don’t you fancy starting it up again as a hotel someday?’ Noel asked as Grace swung open the front gate and fumbled in her huge bag for her keys.
‘Nah. The hours are ridiculous. Our friend’s mum has a hotel on the prom and she never stops. She’s up till midnight working the bar and then up first thing to cook the breakfast,’ Grace said. ‘I told you, anyway. Don’t you remember? I’m going to be an actress,’ she grinned as she unlocked the front door, the heels of her boots clicking on the tiles in the hall.
‘Not if you don’t get your essay done first,’ Noel said as he followed Grace into what he remembered as the dining room. It still had one of the original mahogany dining tables in it, which was overflowing with loose sheets of paper and biros, and a fruit bowl filled with change, paperclips and the odd hair scrunchie. A couch sagged in the corner, with a navy throw drooped over it, and a pizza box that appeared to be a couple of days old rested on the floor next to the gas fire.
‘Not as nice as you remembered?’ Grace asked, wincing at Noel’s possible response.
‘Just different. But hey, it’s a student house now, isn’t it? You’re living exactly how you should.’
‘Elsie and Eliot think so,’ Grace smiled as she grabbed a couple of the papers from the table. ‘But I hate it being so messy. I sometimes think of moving. It’s sometimes just too hard to be here after…you know.’
Noel looked around the room, as though he would see Louisa drifting past somewhere. ‘I can understand that.’
‘Anyway. I’ll go and get the film from Elsie’s room. It seems like she’s out. We’ll watch it in the lounge, so go in if you like, and make yourself at home.’
Grace disappeared upstairs and Noel moved into the lounge, which he couldn’t remember ever going in before. It had always been saved for the guests in the times when he used to visit Louisa with Mags. It was a small room that smelt of incense sticks and brandy. Sitting in there was like being swept back in time, to a place where orange velour curtains were the height of fashion. A huge, ripped couch spilled out from the back wall, and Noel sat on it, wanting to take off his shoes and put his feet up but not feeling it would be appropriate, even though the room was crumbling with neglect.
‘Got it,’ Grace announced as she burst into the room. ‘I’ll put it on.’
As Grace knelt in front of the video player, Noel realised how much she was starting to look like Louisa. Even though Elsie was Grace’s identical twin, her attitude towards things and manner somehow excluded her. Grace’s hair hung down in the same way that Louisa’s used to, untamed, and more beautiful for it somehow. She pulled her lips tightly together when she was thinking, in the same way Louisa used to, as if she was scared of her thoughts spilling out of her mouth. Her eyes, although a different colour, for Louisa’s had been blue, were beginning to share the same fearful glaze that he saw in Louisa’s as he was growing up.
Grace turned from the video player self-consciously, as though she could feel Noel watching her.
‘Are you sure you don’t mind watching this?’
Noel wanted to tell her that there was nothing he’d rather do, and the words almost slipped out, but then he remembered with a jolt the way Grace had looked at Eliot the night before.
‘I don’t mind at all.’
Grace stood still for a moment, taking all of Noel in, as though she was deciding something. Then she crossed the room and yanked the curtains shut, before pressing play on the remote control, throwing the room into an eerie orange darkness.
Chapter Thirty Seven
Noel, 2008
Noel looks down for a minute before he tells Grace his news. He wants to blurt it out, which is a feeling he isn’t used to, one that takes him by surprise. But he can tell she has rushed out to see him, that she still has Shakespeare’s lines whizzing around her mind, and he wants to give her time to consider what he is saying, and to see what it could mean for them both. So he stares at the carpet, which is a deep red and stained with years of shoes and spillages and sticky wrappers.
He has never been to a local performance like this before; he’s never been to anything like it before. Seeing Grace on stage was strangely exhilarating, almost as though he was performing himself. The very thought of performing makes Noel feel nervy, and as he watched Grace tonight, gesturing grandly to the other actors and throwing out her lines with that theatrical twang, the uneasy knowledge that Eliot and Grace have this passion in common crawled through his mind like an unexpected spider.
But, Noel reminded himself as he sat alone in the stale red chair and waited for Grace to come out from backstage, their similarity was the very reason for Grace and Eliot’s incompatibility. Together, they were destructive. He remembered Bea then, and the thoughts in his mind began to scurry, building tangled webs of frustration from nothing.
Things had been stale with Bea for a long time. They’d had another disagreement just before Noel had left for the opening of Ash Books, a few months before. This one had been about the washing machine, which needed fixing. Noel had forgotten to buy the spare part he needed to fix it. Bea lashed out, angered by wearing the same trousers twice in a row.
‘How did we get to the point where we’re arguing about washing?’ Noel had attempted to joke. But Bea had shaken her head sadly, as though that question, unfortunately, proved everything she had ever suspected about him.
‘I think we need to talk,’ he’d said in the end. Bea had explained patiently that she couldn’t always remind him what needed doing, what needed fixing, Noel had interjected when defending himself was necessary. Bea didn’t cry, or shout. Her eyes were still and unblinking as they discussed the necessity to not give up on so many years. The whole conversation reminded Noel of a particularly grim meeting at work: objectives that had to be tackled, the delegation of tedious tasks, the unified sighs at what lay ahead.
They’d had the same conversation over and over again for the last few years. One of the early conversations had resulted in a couple of promising changes. Bea had even gone out and got her hair cut to kick start a new her, a new them. It had swung neatly just below her ears and it suited her more than Noel thought it might. Noel had joined a gym. They made an effort to go for coffee after work every Thursday afternoon, which had been pleasant to start with, but then
Bea had started working late on Thursdays. Eventually, her hair grew to her shoulders again and looked much the same as it had a year before. The silences grew, and then turned sour, until they weren’t even silences, but clumps of bickering.
‘I think we have to call it a day,’ Noel said last week.
Bea had shrugged curtly. ‘If you say so.’
And that had been that. She had packed up her things that night, and gone. Noel had stared out of the window and watched as she leaned into her Fiesta to place the boxes of her things in neat stacks. She was wearing a floral dress and a white coat from M&S, and leaned carefully to avoid touching the car with her clean white sleeves.
Twelve years, boxed neatly away within two hours. It said a lot, but Noel didn’t want to dwell on exactly what that was. He moved away from the window and went into his bedroom. His bedroom, not theirs.
Bea had cleared out her drawers, which had always been painfully tidy. She had left a few things of Noel’s that had made their clandestine way into there on the top of her bedside table. One was Noel’s watch: he was wondering where that had gone, and felt a spike of irritation poke his insides. She would have known it was in there, but instead of telling him, she waited for him to check: punishment for his carelessness. But now, with the battle over, the neat stream of punishments flowing into a wide sea of insignificance, the watch sat winking at him. Beneath it was a piece of card. Noel put his watch on and then turned over the square card.
You are cordially invited to the wedding of Eliot and Elsie, it said.
Noel’s first thought, ridiculously, was about the style of the card. It was thick, purple and shimmering. It was nothing like a traditional cream wedding invitation.
Typical Eliot.
Noel’s next thought though, waiting patiently behind the larger, but less important dithering ideas about card colour, was about Bea, and why she had kept this in her drawer for so long.
It didn’t matter. It didn’t make any difference. Grace had told him about the wedding more than once. But Bea didn’t know that; she didn’t know that Noel spoke to Grace on the phone. She didn’t know anything about those conversations, charged with love and caring.
Well that’s precisely the point, isn’t it Noel, he heard Bea’s voice say in his mind. If I’d have known you spoke to Grace so very much I wouldn’t have bothered to hide the invitation, would I?
He strode into the lounge and propped the invitation up on the mantlepiece, an action that reminded him, disconcertingly, of his mother. As he digested the idea that Bea hid the invitation so that he wouldn’t have a chance to see Grace, the icy edges of his irritation melted, turning to liquid guilt. He should have ended his relationship with Bea a long time ago. They both knew that. He had done the right thing today. But he had left things too late. He hoped, so much, that Grace wouldn’t do the same.
Now, Grace takes his hand. He wants to pull her towards him, wrap himself around her. But he stops himself. He lets himself compliment her on her performance, but she is impatient with words that do not reveal anything. He looks at Grace’s face, thick with stage make-up, waiting, wide with confusion and doubt and fear, and he begins to tell her the news: not that it’s over with Bea, but the other bit of news, the same bit of news that he should have had all those years ago, when Grace was sixteen and had just lost her mother.
Chapter Thirty Eight
Grace, 2008
Grace feels her flushed cheeks drain to white. Marriage, or babies, or both, with Bea. It has to be. She remembers the vision of having Eliot’s child that she had as she walked on stage, and her head aches with confusion. She searches Noel’s face for a clue to what he’s about to say, not able to wait, powerless for the few agonising seconds that he takes to reply. There’s nothing to go off. His eyes are wide, sincere. He isn’t smiling, but his face doesn’t betray any unhappiness either. His features are tight with anticipation, but anticipation of what, they do not say. So Grace has to wait. She takes his hand. It’s warm and solid and pleasantly big around hers.
‘You were amazing in the play. I’m so glad you ended up with a main part.’
Grace smiles, but is impatient. ‘What’s the news?’
Noel takes a breath and squeezes her hand.
‘I’ve had a job offer. In New York.’
There’s silence. Grace stares into Noel’s eyes, which are fixed on her, unblinking and steady. She feels his hand around hers. She feels as though she is falling, and only grasping Noel’s hand will stop her. She fumbles for some words, but all the words in her head are Shakespeare’s, useless now she is off stage.
‘Is Bea going with you?’ she eventually manages. At least, she thinks, she has got the question over with.
‘Bea’s not going anywhere with me. It’s over with Bea.’
Grace watches the tips of Noel’s ears turn pink. He never seemed besotted with Bea, but the break-up must have ripped up what he knew of his life.
‘It’s a good time for you to go, then. A good time for a change.’ Grace wonders what has happened to her articulation. It’s stunted and inadequate for such an important conversation. Her lines have washed over her own selection of vocabulary, making them wet and unable to grasp.
She can’t think of what else to say, or do, so she falls towards Noel, and hugs him tightly. Having Noel’s arms around her is always the same, always make her feel safe and as though she won’t ever be alone. Ironic, considering his news.
‘When do you go?’ she says when she steps back, refreshed and ready to continue trying to talk.
‘Not for a couple of months. I need to work my notice in London, and sort out somewhere to live in the States. It’ll probably be somewhere tiny, but that doesn’t bother me. It’s a great opportunity. I’m pleased it’s come around again.’
Grace nods, the thought of a life without Noel making her sting, the thought that because of her, he’s had to wait years for this move.
‘I am happy for you. It’s such an amazing opportunity. I’ll miss you, though. I’ll miss you being here,’ she gestures around the empty hall. ‘Nobody else comes to things like this. It’s always you. You’re my best friend, Noel. ’
Noel nods and a little bit of Grace’s heart breaks.
That’s the way it should be though, surely. Eliot should be her husband, and Noel should be her best friend. Even if she doesn’t pursue Eliot, she’s not meant to be with Noel.
You cannot change what is meant to be.
He’s safer in New York than with Grace.
Grace is suddenly exhausted. She yawns, and Noel hugs her again, and drives her home.
Christmas passes quickly, leaving, as it always does, heavier waistlines, a disappointing selection of strawberry and coffee creams rattling about in a chocolate tin that once promised so much, and a subtle despondency. January promises new beginnings and freshness, but brings only rain and grey skies. The shop, after a brief flurry of business during the Christmas holidays, is quiet again. Macbeth runs its course, Noel returns to London, and Grace’s drama group continues to meet weekly, holding Grace in a higher esteem than it did before her role as Lady Macbeth.
Grace stands behind the counter on the last day of January, watching torrents of rain batter the world beyond the window of the bookshop. Elsie has gone for her final wedding dress fitting: the wedding has been booked for April. Eliot is due any minute to deliver some boxes of vintage magazines that the twins found at a book fair the day before. There has been one customer in today, two if Grace counts the dog that joined the elderly lady who wandered around as though she was lost. Grace stared at the terrier and it stared back, daring her to expel it.
‘Nice dog,’ she said to the customer in the end, who ignored her and pulled at the door to leave without buying anything.
Eliot turns up just before lunch, shaking his wet head and making himself look rather like a dog.
‘Careful,’ grins Grace, ‘we don’t want soggy magazines!’
Eliot doesn’t smile bac
k. ‘I really think you should have gone with her, you know.’
Grace feels a stab of guilt. Elsie didn’t ask Grace to go with her to the wedding dress fitting, but Grace knows that she should be there regardless.
‘She didn’t ask me to be there,’ Grace defends herself and takes the box from Eliot. She places it on the counter and begins to unload the magazines. One is a tattered copy of Cosmopolitan from the 1960s. She flicks it open and looks down at the comical advertisements featuring shapely domestic goddesses sporting this dress and that fridge. She can feel Eliot’s dark brown eyes boring into her but refuses to look up.
‘You are utterly aware that Elsie wouldn’t ever ask you to go with her, but you also know that she wants you there at her fitting. You’re her twin, Grace, and this is her wedding.’
Grace stares down, her eyes glazing over at an article on keeping husbands happy.
Eliot takes a step forward. ‘I have to ask, Grace: is this some kind of rebellion, some display of jealousy?’
Grace’s eyes shoot up from the yellowed page. ‘Jealousy?’ she spits. ‘Oh yes, because I simply must be jealous of Elsie if she’s marrying you.’
Eliot throws his hands up in despair. ‘So what the bloody hell is it? You should be there each step of the way with her, and she’s told me you’ve had nothing to do with it! She’s chosen the flowers, she’s chosen the colour scheme, her dress,’ he ticks off items on his slender fingers, ‘and she’s done it all without her best friend making any kind of comment on any of it. Doesn’t that seem wrong to you?’
‘It’s not like you’re making it out to be. It’s more complicated.’ Grace barges past Eliot, slamming the magazine down on the way.