‘Mum, where’s my red dress?’ Elsie hollered as the twins stood in a rubble of discarded clothes. ‘I can’t find it anywhere!’ She lowered her voice and frowned as she rooted through the pile of tangled items that she had tossed from her wardrobe. ‘Everyone else will be wearing something new. I just want to look nice.’
‘I don’t have a new outfit,’ Grace pointed out. She didn’t want Elsie to feel as though she didn’t look nice. She decided that she would try to get Elsie to wear the same as her. She loved dressing the same as her twin.
‘That’s not the point. I have absolutely nothing to wear.’
‘Just wear your jeans,’ Grace suggested. She was wearing her favourite white jeans that Mags had bought her for Christmas. Elsie had been given a bright pink pair.
Elsie looked at Grace and pretended she was horrified, even though Grace knew she was just trying to be dramatic. Rachel Gregory was turning twelve before anybody else in their year. She looked older than all the other girls, and always had new clothes and hairstyles. Elsie always tried to copy Rachel, and tried to make herself look older as well. Grace could tell that Elsie wished they were twelve now too: that another six months of being eleven was too long for Elsie to bear.
‘Jeans are fine for you. But I want to appear as though I have made an effort for this party.’
Grace shrugged and looked at her watch. ‘Well, if we’re any later, then it won’t look like you’ve made an effort. The party started ten minutes ago.’
Elsie shook her head as though she didn’t know what to do any more. She wiped a tear that was sitting on her cheek and beckoned for Grace to join her in their bedroom.
‘The consequences of this are going to be catastrophic,’ she said, shutting the door behind them.
Once the door was closed, Grace laughed. ‘You’re so funny, Elsie.’
Elsie tried to look adult, but Grace could tell she was struggling to stay serious. A little smile was trying to break through her sister’s lips. It won in the end, and Elsie let out a giggle.
Elsie found her dress eventually. It had been crumpled up in the guest lounge, which, Grace supposed, seemed strange, but she didn’t think much of it at the time. She just wanted to get to Rachel’s party. She saw her mother frown as they pulled away from the kerb, as though something had gone wrong. A few minutes later, their mother jolted the car to a stop and turned round, staring at them in a way that made Grace wish they were already at the party, safe, and where they were meant to be. Her mother’s eyes were wide and scared, and Grace felt a shiver curse down the whole of her body, even though she wasn’t cold.
‘Grace. Come and sit in the front, please,’ her mother said. Even her voice sounded strange, as though she was being strangled.
Elsie obviously hadn’t noticed her mother’s bizarre stare, because she sighed and said, ‘Mum, we’ve already established that we’re late. We haven’t got time to start playing silly games.’
But their mother ignored Elsie. ‘Grace. Now. Otherwise we’re turning around and going home.’
‘Okay, okay.’ Grace clambered out of the back and sat in the front seat, sneaking a glance at her mother and seeing that she already looked much calmer. It was minutes later, when they had reached Rachel Gregory’s wide, pretty street, when a gold car whizzed beside them, and suddenly came closer and closer until there were the horrible sounds of metal on metal and glass on glass, and Elsie screaming.
After the crash, after they had ruined Rachel Gregory’s birthday by making it all about them, and after Elsie had been checked over and given a lollipop that she had pretended to be too old for but crunched on anyway, the twins went home.
Elsie slept when they got back to Rose House, and everybody said that it was for the best, to leave her. But Grace couldn’t rest without thinking about the crash and how they had ruined Rachel Gregory’s party. She was worried about Elsie’s arm, which she had seen soggy with burgundy blood. She tried to watch the comedy programme that her mother had put on for her, but she couldn’t concentrate. So she wandered into the hall, where the telephone was, and dialled Mags’s number.
When Noel answered, he couldn’t tell if it was Elsie or Grace.
‘It’s Grace. I’m glad you answered. I wanted to talk to you.’
She told Noel about the car accident.
‘I know,’ he said when she’d finished. ‘Mum told me. She’ll be coming to see your mum soon.’
Grace told Noel that her mother had made her move seats in the car.
‘That’s strange,’ he said.
Grace nodded, then remembered that he couldn’t see her. ‘Yep,’ she replied.
‘But you’re both okay?’
‘Yeah. Elsie’s worse than me. I’m worried about her arm. It was bleeding a lot. The people at the hospital said it would be fine.’
‘Well, then it will be.’
‘What if it scars? We won’t be the same as each other anymore.’
‘Yes, you will. A scar doesn’t change anything. Not really.’
They chatted some more. Noel told Grace that he had a scar on his right knee from when he fell off his bike when he was six. There had been a lot of blood that day, but the scar was only small now. That made Grace feel better. Perhaps she’d ring Noel again soon.
As she was hanging up, Grace saw Elsie edging down the stairs, wincing with every step. Her face was even paler than normal, and her hair, which was normally plaited or twisted into clips or bands, was hanging down like a pair of dusty black curtains. Grace leaped up the stairs and helped Elsie down to the lounge. They switched over from the comedy and watched cartoons together instead, mocking them and pretending to hate them. The light dipped in the room until the television was the only brightness. The twins heard Mags arrive and bustle into the kitchen. There was always a lot of noise when Mags was around.
‘I’m going to see Mags,’ Elsie said, and disentangled her legs from Grace’s before limping out into the hall.
It was after that day, after the few moments that followed, that Elsie changed: hid in her own shadow and refused to come out into the light.
Now, Grace picks up her shampoo from the side of the bath. Cold water drips from the bottle onto her skin, making her flinch. Elsie will be angry about tonight. But she is the one who is choosing not to come. She could be in her own bath right now, getting ready for dinner, wondering which dress to wear, if only she would trust Grace like she used to, before things changed.
Louisa, 1965
Tomorrow, Louisa decided, she would go for a walk. She would set off after her father’s breakfast, when he was having his morning doze, and she would walk down the hill, to the very bottom. She would call into the shops and buy the things she never bought: fresh flowers, shampoo, and some meat for their dinner. Nancy always bought these things. But tomorrow, Louisa would tell her not to.
And if the morning was taken up with buying fresh flowers and shampoo and meat for dinner, then an afternoon sitting in her brown chair next to her father in his blue chair would seem a little more bearable. All she needed was some exercise, and more purpose, and Louisa would be fine.
The next day, Louisa woke early. The promised fuzzy heat of the day shimmered through her curtains and she wiped a faint line of perspiration from her forehead as she sat up in bed. After a few moments, she remembered that she was going out today and