The Secrets We Left Behind (17 page)

So Jo told her about Mrs Watkins, the sadistic PE teacher who’d singled out the three non-swimmers in the class and made them line up at the side of the pool – the deep end –
trembling with fear, their toes curled round the edge as they tried to cling on to the broken tiles. ‘She walked up and down behind us a few times, then she pushed us in, one at a time,
saying, “Sink or swim, girls, sink or swim.” I sank.’

‘What a bitch, man,’ Scott said without opening his eyes or changing position.

‘How awful,’ Eve said. ‘What a horrible, cruel woman. So many teachers really are bullies, aren’t they?’ She propped herself up on her elbow. ‘I know!
I’ll teach you to swim.’

‘I’m not sure . . .’

‘It’ll be okay,’ Eve insisted. ‘I won’t let go of you until you’re ready, I promise.’

So over the next week, on her days off or before she started her shift at the pub, Jo went with Eve to Covehurst Bay, a quiet beach further along the coast, and she learned to swim, initially
just enjoying the way the incoming waves would raise her up, lifting her almost off her feet before setting her gently back down again, and finally, after days of thinking she’d never get the
hang of it, realising that she was moving her arms and legs confidently through the water and that Eve was no longer holding her. She was swimming!

Whether it was due to the exhilaration of achievement, or to the sudden realisation that she’d never be able to tell her mum, she didn’t know, but before she could stop herself, she
burst into tears. Eve’s arms went around her and held her while she cried. She breathed in the warm, salty sea smell of Eve’s hair and skin, and in a moment of absolute clarity, she
knew that Eve was the most important person in her life.

By the third week in June the temperature had hit the nineties in some places, and Jo had never known it so hot. The summer fayre was coming up in a couple of weeks and Eve had
been busy making jewellery and tote bags. Scott had made some picture frames and little wooden boxes decorated with tiny painted shells and bits of sea-smoothed glass, and Jo herself had been
plaiting strands of leather to make bracelets and chokers; the house was a hive of industry.

Today, she’d volunteered to make candles, but now she was beginning to regret it, given that it would require having the electric rings on for goodness knows how long. This kitchen was
sweltering as it was. She took out the two old saucepans that Eve kept for the purpose, filled the larger one with water and the smaller one with tiny white pearls of paraffin wax and set them to
heat on the Baby Belling. She added a disc of beeswax, which looked like Wright’s Coal Tar Soap, because that helped the candles to burn for longer, apparently. While the wax was melting, she
prepared the moulds as Eve had shown her. They were using polystyrene cups this time – Eve said you could use almost anything as long as it was clean and waterproof, something she’d
discovered a couple of years ago during the three-day week and the power cuts. ‘We used to sell them to the local shops,’ she explained. ‘It didn’t matter what size or shape
they were, someone would buy them. We couldn’t make enough of them. Almost makes me want the power cuts back!’

Jo threaded lengths of wick through holes in the bottom of each cup, then she placed a cocktail stick across the top and tied the wick around it so that, when you poured the wax in, the wick
would stay in the middle. With the moulds all lined up ready, she added some dye to the melted wax, a little red, a touch of blue, the right amounts, she hoped, to create a lavender colour –
she was going to scent these ones with lavender oil and she wanted them to look right, too, because apparently you could get 35p each for the scented ones.

The lavender oil was in a miniature wooden chest of drawers in Eve and Scott’s bedroom, so she turned off the heat while she went upstairs. Their room was next to hers and, though
she’d walked past the open door many times, she’d never been inside. Now she peeped tentatively around the door even though she knew they’d both gone out hours ago. The air was
still and warm, and it smelled of patchouli and of hot wooden floorboards and tobacco. There was another smell that she recognised but couldn’t quite put her finger on, a strong, spicy aroma;
reminded her of Christmas. Cloves! That was it; oil of cloves. Then she remembered that Scott had a toothache and Eve was treating it by dabbing clove oil onto the tooth with a cotton bud. Eve
didn’t believe in dentists.

There were two windows overlooking the garden and fixed across them were lengths of the same red fabric with gold embroidery that Eve had given her that first night. They had the effect of
bathing everything in a warm red glow as the sun shone through them into the room. Jo’s eyes were drawn to the bed which, like hers, was a mattress resting on several wooden pallets, except
of course it was a double, and instead of a continental quilt pulled neatly over like her own, there were rumpled orange sheets and blue blankets and a lot of pillows strewn around, like the
aftermath of a pillow fight. Scott’s guitar stood against the wall next to an empty cider bottle and a glass jar full of pennies and half pennies. The mini-chest was on top of the tallboy,
and as she walked past the bed to get to it, she caught the faintest whiff of nakedness. On the floor with the pillows were a couple of burned-down incense sticks and a hairbrush, swathed in
strands of Eve’s thick, dark hair. She picked up a couple of pillows and put them back on the bed. What must it be like to sleep with someone every night? Tentatively, she pulled back the
bedclothes and got in, swinging her legs up and curling into a foetal position. She tried to imagine what it would feel like to wake up and see Scott’s face next to hers, then she turned over
and buried her nose in the pillows. They smelt of patchouli, but with a salty, warm-hair smell underneath. Eve’s face swam into her mind. She sat up. The room reeked of intimacy.

She found the lavender oil. She should go back to the kitchen and get on with the candles, but there was something enticing about this space; being in it made her feel closer to Eve, and to
Scott, as though the essence of them was more accessible in here. One of Eve’s cloth bags was hanging on a drawer knob; she couldn’t resist it. She lifted it off, undid the toggle and
lifted the flap, releasing a new, intense waft of patchouli. There was a packet of Aspro, a fountain pen that had leaked a violet stain onto the brown lining, a couple of Lil-Lets and a
Blue
Peter
badge. In the inside pocket was an envelope; she peeked inside. When had she become such a nosy-parker? There was a National Insurance number card, some photos, and . . . Eve had a
driving licence! But she’d never said anything about being able to drive. Eve was her friend, her
best
friend, but there was so much she didn’t know about her. She flicked
through the photos, feeling a pang of jealousy at the photo-booth pictures of Eve with two other girls in school uniform, all pulling silly faces. There was a colour photo of a tabby cat curled up
on a cushion, and one of a couple with a little girl. There was no mistaking the young Eve; those huge eyes with their double layer of lashes were so distinctive. The woman, clearly Eve’s
mum, was heavily pregnant and wore a dark-coloured maternity smock with a large white bow at the neck. So Eve must have a younger brother or sister. Where, she wondered? Eve was one of those people
who encouraged you to talk about yourself but rarely discussed their own lives; she really must ask Eve about her family. She thought back to that day they’d met in London a little over three
months ago; although it often felt like they’d known each other much longer, she knew so little about Eve’s background that it sometimes seemed they’d only just met. That day in
London, Eve had obviously wanted to talk about her dead parents, but had stopped because Jo herself had been so upset about her mum. She would make a point of asking; it would probably set her off
thinking about her own mum again, but so what? She looked again at the photo. Eve’s mum was smiling down at her, resting a hand on her shoulder. Eve’s dad was tall and almost bald but
with a full, dark moustache nestling under his nose. He too was smiling, and looking at his wife. The only one looking at the camera was Eve. Jo felt her throat tighten as she remembered a similar
picture of herself with both her parents, and how her mum had ripped it in two after her father had left.

She closed her eyes for a moment and tried to remember her mother’s face, but yet again she couldn’t get it quite right. It was like a jigsaw with bits missing. She could see her
mum’s eyes, sometimes an olive-green, and sometimes a brighter and more sparkly green, like emeralds, or she could see her mouth, or her nose or the purple birthmark she used to cover with
make-up before she stopped caring. But she couldn’t ever seem to see her mum’s whole face in one go. Everyone should be able to remember their own mum, shouldn’t they?

She put the photos back, all except the one of Eve with her mum and dad which she slipped into the pocket of her skirt. She looked in the envelope again; she really shouldn’t be doing
this. The birth certificate she pulled out was folded into three; she unfolded it.
‘Genevieve Christiana Leviston
,’ she read aloud. It sounded so pretty, so much more interesting
than her own names, Joanna Margaret – Margaret after her auntie who died just before she was born. What had happened to Eve’s parents, Douglas and Audrey Leviston? She and Eve had such
a similar background, they should be sisters. She returned the envelope to the bag, which she put back where she’d found it.

She just wanted a quick look at Eve’s clothes, and then she’d go back downstairs. She lifted the sheet that hung from a curtain wire across the alcove. The metal rail was bowing
under the weight of long floral-print dresses, cheesecloth skirts and shirts, embroidered peasant tops, velvet jackets and heavy knitted cardigans that came down past your knees. They were the sort
of clothes she’d started wearing herself now, things that didn’t fit Eve any more, or things that Sapphire had left behind. Her own clothes, she now realised – the short suede
skirt, the white trousers, the blue tank top and cardigan twinset she’d bought from C&A – now felt far too neat and tidy; far too
square.

God, this room was hot. She held up a long cream cotton dress smothered with pink roses; it had a deep, scooped neckline and was ruched over the bust. When Eve wore it, she didn’t wear a
bra, and you could see her nipples as clear as anything. She looked amazing in it. Without thinking, Jo took off her blouse and skirt, relishing the sensation of breeze as she did so, then slipped
the cool cotton dress over her head. As an afterthought, she pulled the elasticated top down so she could slip off her bra. There was only a head-and-shoulder mirror in here, so she was about to go
along the landing to one of the empty rooms where there was a wardrobe mirror propped against the wall when she heard a movement downstairs. She froze.

‘Anyone home?’ Scott’s voice called out.

She could feel the panic rising up through her body as she tried to calculate whether she had time to sprint back to her own room before replying.

‘Hello?’ he called again.

Her room was only next door, so perhaps he wouldn’t be able to tell from her voice. She decided to risk it. ‘Hello,’ she called back. ‘Down in a sec.’

She grabbed her skirt and blouse from the floor and was about to nip into her own room when, to her horror, she heard him bounding up the stairs. She’d only taken a few steps when he
appeared in the doorway. He stopped, half smiled and then appeared to register what he was seeing.

‘I . . .’ Jo started, but couldn’t think what else to say.

‘That dress.’ Scott was looking at her curiously, as though he wasn’t sure who she was. She’d expected him to be angry. ‘It’s Eve’s, isn’t
it?’

Jo nodded. ‘I’m sorry, I just came in for the lavender oil but it was so hot and—’

And then his mouth was on hers and she could smell his cigarettes and the oil of cloves, and she could taste the coffee on his tongue which was feeling its way around her mouth and making her
insides liquefy. It was only when he slipped his hand down the front of the dress and touched her bare breast that she pulled away. He immediately let her go. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled. Then
he pushed past her, grabbed his guitar and bounded back downstairs and out of the house. She stood still for a moment, aware of the tiniest ripple of disappointment.

The day of the summer fayre dawned. The radio news said that record temperatures had been reported over the last few days. It was much hotter than usual for this time of year,
and there was more to come, according to the long-range weather forecast – a proper heat wave. Jo had woken early and taken her toast upstairs into the thinking room, but she’d found
the early morning sun and glittering sea so enticing that she’d decided to go for a walk on the beach. She’d worn a floaty white halter-neck dress – another hand-me-down from Eve
– and the slight breeze had felt delicious on her bare neck and shoulders, but by nine o’clock, she could feel the heat prickling her skin and, by the time she walked back into the
house, her shoulders had definitely reddened.

‘Oh, there you are.’ Scott barely glanced at her as she walked into the kitchen. Things had been a bit strained between them since he’d come home and caught her wearing
Eve’s dress, but neither of them had mentioned it. She’d tried to say something the following morning. He’d been in the living room, restringing his guitar, when she went in; he
looked up and nodded, then went back to what he was doing. She said good morning, then sat on the settee and watched him for a while, wishing she’d thought about what she was going to say
before she came in. Then she found she couldn’t take her eyes off his hands. She kept staring, looking at the way those pale slender fingers moved as he twisted the fret keys to tighten the
strings; the tiny black hairs that grew just above the knuckle. What would it be like to feel those fingers moving over her body? She stood, but made no move towards the door. Scott looked up, and
for a moment she could feel his eyes resting on her. Then he went back to what he was doing. ‘Haven’t you got something to be getting on with?’