The Secrets We Left Behind
Read The Secrets We Left Behind Online
Authors: Susan Elliot Wright
Susan Elliot Wright grew up in Lewisham in south-east London, left school at sixteen and married unwisely at eighteen. She didn’t begin to pursue her childhood dream of
writing until she left her unhappy marriage and went to university at the age of thirty. After gaining a degree in English, she decided to choose a new name, and began flicking through the
phonebook for ideas. She settled on Elliot and changed her name by deed poll. Then she met ‘Mr Right’ (actually, Mr Wright) to whom she is now happily married. She has an MA in Writing
from Sheffield Hallam University, where she is now an Associate Lecturer. Several of her short stories have won or been shortlisted for awards, and one of these, ‘Day Tripper’, was
broadcast on BBC Radio 4. She is the author of
The Things We Never Said.
To find out more, visit her website http://www.susanelliotwright.co.uk/ or follow her on twitter @sewelliot.
Praise for
The Things We Never Said:
‘Passionate, intriguing and beautifully written,
The Things We Never Said
deserves to stand on the shelf next to Maggie O’Farrell’s books. A powerful
and talented new voice’ Rachel Hore, bestselling author of
A Gathering Storm
and
A Place of Secrets
‘This is a staggeringly accomplished first novel, perfectly paced. It sweeps you up from the very first page and doesn’t let you go until the end. The hauntingly
nostalgic tale of the trauma of an unwanted pregnancy in the sixties, it has echoes of Lynn Reid Banks and Margaret Forster. You can almost smell the boarding house and feel the cold of an
unforgiving winter as aspiring actress Maggie faces up to some brutal choices that will affect her for the rest of her life. The ensuing trauma is entwined with a very modern tale of marriage,
impending fatherhood and the perils of the workplace in twenty-first-century Britain. The two stories dovetail to perfection. It’s both deeply moving and uplifting – an emotional
rollercoaster.
If you love Maggie O’Farrell, you will love this’ Veronica Henry, bestselling author of
The Long Weekend
‘A brave and moving story about how much can be lost and what happens next. A compelling and impressive debut’ Alison Moore, author of the Booker-shortlisted
The
Lighthouse
‘Two intertwined stories explore a past filled with terror and grief, and a heart-breaking present, in writing as smooth and bittersweet as fine dark chocolate’ Jane
Rogers, author of the Booker-longlisted
The Testament of Jessie Lamb
‘Tightly-woven and tender, The Things We Never Said is a beautifully crafted story that explores harsh family secrets with effortless clarity. A wonderful debut’ Isabel
Ashdon, award-winning author of
Glasshopper
‘I was swept along by Elliot Wright’s assured storytelling’ Katie Ward, author of
Girl, Reading
‘Compelling and deeply moving . . . this is superb storytelling which transports the reader with ease between past and present, across a gulf of fifty years, while
gradually revealing the connection between the two. I couldn’t put it down’ Jane Rusbridge, author of
The Devil’s Music
and
Rook
First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2014
A CBS COMPANY
Copyright © Susan Elliot Wright, 2014
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.
The right of Susan Elliot Wright to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act, 1988.
Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
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222 Gray’s Inn Road
London WC1X 8HB
Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney
Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Trade Paperback ISBN 978-1-47110-234-9
Paperback ISBN 978-1-47110-235-6
Ebook ISBN 978-1-47110-236-3
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual people, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Typeset by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY
For Emma and James
And for Francis
PROLOGUE
Sheffield, October 2010
The clocks went back last weekend so it gets dark even earlier now. She curses herself; she should have left more time. She drives a little too fast because she wants to get
there before the light goes completely, and if she misses them today, it’ll be another week before she can be sure of seeing them again. The sky is darkening rapidly by the time she’s
parked the car and walked through the old stone gateway to the park. It is unusually cold for late October, and the smell of wood smoke is in the air. The autumn colours are particularly vibrant
after the rain, and the wet leaves smell fresh and earthy, though they’re slippery and she almost loses her footing more than once as she hurries down through the woods.
Although she once loved this park, she keeps her head down now, avoids looking around. She has walked these winding paths so often in happier times that it is almost painful to come here, but
this is the only real opportunity she has to catch a glimpse of them without being seen, and she must take it. She walks alongside the pond, but there’s no sign of the ducks or moorhens that
live around it, nor of the pair of grey herons that sometimes appear on the opposite bank. Today the pond is still and silent, and in this light, the water looks almost black. There is something
about dark water that she finds achingly lonely and depressing.
She makes her way down behind the café to where the stepping stones cross the stream, taking care to stay behind the trees. Most of her clothing is black, but the scarf she’s
wearing is a pale, silvery colour; it’s unlikely that it would show up in the darkness, but just in case, she pulls it from her neck and slips it into her bag. There are a few mothers and
children in the play area and she strains her eyes as she searches their faces, but it’s immediately obvious: they aren’t there. She glances at her watch; surely they should have
arrived by now?
To her left, a small black-and-white cat slinks through the metal railings that surround the swings before hunkering down, ears back and tail flicking as it spots some real or imagined prey in
the undergrowth. She watches it for a moment, briefly distracted by the intense, snowy whiteness of its paws and whiskers. It’s a pretty little thing, barely more than a kitten and yet
already practising its skills as a hunter. The cat pounces, then examines the dry leaf it has caught between its paws.
At that moment, she spots them, just coming into the play area. She recognises their voices and she instinctively moves nearer so she can hear them more clearly, but then she stops. This is as
near as she dares be to them now. If she is spotted, as she was once before, they’ll stop coming here and then she may never be able to find them again, so she must content herself with
lingering in the shadows for the time being.
Sheffield, 21 December 2009
I listened to the squeaky crunch of my boots as I walked to work. It was a sharp, crisp morning. The sky was still dark, but the whole of Sheffield was hidden under a blanket
of snow and I was struck by the contrast of the white rooftops and church spires against the inky blackness. There had been another heavy fall overnight and there weren’t many people about
yet, so it all looked new and perfect with only my own dark tracks spoiling the pristine whiteness. Today was the winter solstice, and it was also my fiftieth birthday, though no one knew that. As
far as my family was concerned, my fiftieth was three and a half years ago when we celebrated according to the date on my birth certificate – which by a bizarre coincidence was the summer
solstice. It felt strange, knowing that it was such a significant day and not being able to tell anyone. As a child I thought it terribly unfair that my birthday fell on the shortest day of the
year.
Tell you what, chicken,
my mum said in the end,
we’ll have another party just for you in the summer; you can have two birthdays, like the Queen.
And now I really did have
two birthdays, except I didn’t get to celebrate them both. I was used to it now, but it was hard when it was a special one, one with a zero on the end. I sighed as I walked, watching my
breath crystallise in the morning air. No point in dwelling on it.
It was my last day at the Young Families Project until after New Year. I was sure they’d rather I worked up until Christmas Eve, especially as I’d already had a week off, but they
knew my daughter had just had a baby and they were pretty flexible. I usually finished at noon on Wednesdays, but after what felt like a particularly long morning, I realised that I still had some
case notes to write up and I didn’t want to leave them until after Christmas, so I just got my head down and carried on until everything was done.
It was gone two by the time I was ready to leave the office. I wished everyone a merry Christmas, put my welly boots on and headed out into the snow. I turned off Queen Street and trudged up the
steep, narrow, cobbled road towards the cathedral. This was a pretty part of the city, and the little Georgian square where all the solicitors’ offices were looked particularly attractive in
the snow; the fairy lights in the windows and the old-fashioned lamp-post in the middle of the square made it look like a Christmas card.
As I walked into the warm fug of the veggie café where I usually had lunch, the lunchtime crowd was beginning to thin out and the tea-and-carrot-cake brigade was starting to drift in. I
recognised some of the other customers. It tended to be the same faces here, mostly a mix of students and academics from the two universities – colourful, arty women and what my husband
Duncan sometimes called
weird beards.
Like me, they came mainly for the organic food, but with its wooden floors, scarlet walls and free newspapers, this café was a popular place to
hunker down away from the busy town centre, especially on cold, grey days like today.