Pandora’s Box

GISELLE GREEN

Pandora’s Box

Copyright

AVON

A division of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London, SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2008

Copyright © Giselle Green 2008

Giselle Green asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Source ISBN: 9781847560674

Ebook Edition © 2008 ISBN: 9780007329007

Version: 2015-01-07

Dedication

To dearest Jonathan, who is a hope and inspiration to us all.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1-Rachel

Chapter 2-Rachel

Chapter 3-Shelley

Chapter 4-Shelley

Chapter 5-Rachel

Chapter 6-Rachel

Chapter 7-Shelley

Chapter 8-Shelley

Chapter 9-Rachel

Chapter 10-Shelley

Chapter 11-Shelley

Chapter 12-Rachel

Chapter 13-Shelley

Chapter 14-Rachel

Chapter 15-Shelley

Chapter 16-Shelley

Chapter 17-Shelley

Chapter 18-Rachel

Chapter 19-Shelley

Chapter 20-Shelley

Chapter 21-Shelley

Chapter 22-Rachel

Chapter 23-Rachel

Chapter 24-Rachel

Chapter 25-Rachel

Chapter 26-Rachel

Chapter 27-Rachel

Chapter 28-Shelley

Chapter 29-Rachel

Chapter 30-Rachel

Chapter 31-Rachel

Chapter 32-Shelley

Chapter 33-Rachel

Chapter 34-Shelley

Chapter 35-Rachel

Chapter 36-Rachel

Chapter 37-Rachel

Chapter 38-Rachel

Chapter 39-Shelley

Chapter 40-Rachel

Chapter 41-Rachel

Chapter 42-Rachel

Chapter 43-Rachel

Chapter 44-Shelley

Chapter 45-Rachel

Chapter 46-Shelley

Keep Reading

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

When at last I saw her fall, it was exactly as I had imagined it would be. Her face was a white flash of shock, eyes wide open and full of surprise. I watched her hair riding up in tumultuous curls behind her, the light filtering through every strand, all in slow motion like some scene from a film where they slow everything down to savour every last agonising detail.

All the while that she fell I had the worst feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was the knowing that, oh god, I did that. It’s my fault. I should never have let her go. I could have saved her but I didn’t. I can’t believe that I didn’t. And the shocked, horrified part of me that had let her go turned on the bit of me that had wanted her to fall all along.

You needed to be free of all this. How many times have you thought that? You needed her to fall so that you could be free, didn’t you, Rachel? So you just let it happen. By the sins of our commission and omission…

You were responsible for her safety and her wellbeing and you knew this was going to happen and you just let it.

And I could not deny it.

How many nights had I lain awake fantasising about just such a scenario, my escape route from the prison that my life had so long ago become? Would it have made any difference if I had not succumbed to temptation and looked inside Pandora’s box? I really cannot say. I’m feeling too numb now. My world has crumbled, everything has gone. I don’t know anything at all any more.

And so she fell and I did nothing. And why? Because although I loved her, as long as we were yoked together I could never be free.

1 Rachel

Pandora’s box arrives on a grey Saturday in March, wet on its cardboard bottom where the postwoman has laid it down in a puddle outside our front door. My first thought is: I told my mother not to send it. I know what’s in it and I don’t want it.

I’m not even going to open it.

The box has ‘This will cheer you up’ scrawled in my mother’s handwriting along the top. But I know that it won’t. My mother, Pandora—who is emigrating to Sydney with her new ‘boyfriend’—has already told me exactly what she is sending:

‘Just some of your childhood things I’ve been holding on to. All your stuff, you know. Your school certificates and your medals and some old letters I kept. Photos of you and Liliana doing your dancing. God, what promise you two girls once showed!’ she had sniffed, remembering. She didn’t have to spell it out to me that we’d never lived up to that promise. ‘But there’s nothing I can really take with me all that way.’

Of course she can’t and, fair enough, I thought, I am forty-two after all. I can’t expect Mum to hang on to all my childhood paraphernalia forever.

I just wish she’d chucked it out herself instead of sending it on to me. There is something disquieting about having this stuff turn up at my door this morning; something I can’t put my finger on. I look at the box. It’s 7.45 a.m. and the children aren’t even up yet. The hallway is still dark when I pad through to the kitchen with the box, hoping for a tiny bit more light. The fact that she’s sent this to me…it’s as if I’ve been left holding the past in some way. My stomach catches tight at the thought. I feel as if I’ve just filled it with a bowlful of cold porridge.

What I want to do is just chuck the whole lot out without even looking at it—after all, why waste the time? Time is precious. Time is something I never have enough of, these days. The lino on the kitchen floor is freezing my feet and the scissors aren’t in the drawer where they’re supposed to be. My little kitchen faces north but when the sun shines I can see the blue sky in the distance over the tops of the houses and trees. When the sun shines all the pansies and daffodils struggling through in the garden don’t look so battered and lifeless. It isn’t shining today.

It’s all very well for Pandora, I think suddenly. She gets to jet off to sunnier climes with a new life and a new man. ‘I couldn’t believe it when Bernie asked me to join him out there.’ The memory of her voice fills my head again. ‘You know I’ve always wanted to emigrate but the time never seemed right till now. Bernie said he couldn’t possibly set up his new PR venture without me. Just think, at my age!’ The cold feeling in my stomach resolves itself into an uncomfortable patch of envy.

I’ve got the wintertime blues, that is all.

The cardboard box—underneath all the masking tape—looks vaguely familiar. Surely it’s got to be the same one that my mother has kept, tucked away in the back of her wardrobe for the last, oh, century or so?

It must be at least that long because that’s how old I feel. I set about one corner of the box with my little vegetable knife. It must have been at least a hundred years ago that I was young enough to have won certificates at school and drawn pictures that anybody judged worth keeping and…had Mum said medals?

I hadn’t won any medals. I pull a face as the brown tape sticks onto my hands, winding itself around my fingers as if it wants to tie me up. Liliana had won all the medals. All those championship rosettes for the under-fourteens’ ballroom dancing events. Yuck. I had hated those events. I was the taller one so I always had to be the ‘boy’. I didn’t remember anything much about them except that I hated them.

‘You will come out and visit us, won’t you? Just as soon as we’re settled.’ Pandora’s voice over the phone had been breathless, just the slightest edge of anxiety to it had warned me: just say yes, say you’ll come. Don’t bring up Shelley and the fact that she can’t fly so you won’t ever come, even assuming you could get the money together in order to do so…

We are trapped, basically: Shelley and me and her brother Daniel. I pull vengefully at one long piece of sticky tape that has been wound interminably around the top of the box.

My mother can’t—or won’t—see that.

Hell, she doesn’t even really accept the fact that Shelley is dying.

‘Hope springs eternal’, as she likes to tell me gaily every time she calls. Well, she is Pandora, so maybe in her world it does. I just wish I could tap into that eternal spring when I get faced with things like Shelley refusing to go to school because it is ‘a waste of the precious little time she has left’. And maybe Shelley is right. What does school matter, for her? She won’t need the exams. She won’t ever be going to university. She won’t live long enough to ever get herself a job.

It is an unfathomable thought, but it is the stark reality, a truth that winds itself like a steel cord around my heart every time I think about it, threatening to cut me in two.

I cut the masking tape away from my fingers with the knife and flick open the door under the sink to throw it in the bin. Damn it. Why did things have to work out this way? Nothing matters any more. Things only ever matter when you’ve got hope, and today I don’t have any.

My daughter might seem fine, but I know she isn’t. Recently her consultant has been keeping an even tighter check on Shelley. Our one-monthly check-ups have become fortnightly. Lately he even offered to make them weekly, even though there has been no real change in her condition for a long while. But there has to be a reason why he is tightening up on her care, doesn’t there? They warned me last year, after her friend Miriam died with the same condition, ‘Shelley doesn’t have long.’ But how long is ‘not long’? How long is a piece of string?

And how long do I really want to waste this morning, going through all this old junk? I stare at the space behind the little pedal bin. There is just about enough room in there for me to store this old box away without ever having to give it another thought. What do I care about old certificates and photos, anyway?

‘Mum? What was that, Mum? What did the postie bring?’

Shelley can be deadly silent on that wheelchair of hers. She must have oiled the wheels because I didn’t hear her come in at all. She looks wan in the pale morning light, I think, even younger than her fourteen years without all her usual Goth war-paint on.

‘Um, just some paperwork your gran sent through. I’ll have to plough through it sometime. Nothing for you to concern yourself with.’

‘And you’re putting it in the bin?’ She leans forward in her wheelchair to see what I’ve been up to.

‘No. Behind the bin.’

‘You don’t usually put stuff there,’ she notes. She knows I’m angry. She can tell, just like I can always tell what she is feeling. We spend too much time in each other’s company for it to be otherwise.

‘Are you upset because Granny Panny’s left the country?’ Shelley enquires sagely. ‘She was never really much use to you anyway, even when she was here.’

‘Well, what use would you expect her to be? She’s got her own life to live, hasn’t she?’

Shelley sits back, slender shoulders slumped. She is wearing the same pink pyjamas she wore last summer. She hasn’t grown much in the year when most of the girls in her class have shot up to about six foot, it seems. The rest of them have all begun to blossom out.

But something in Shelley’s face has definitely changed. There is a different look in her eye that I don’t remember being there before, a certain angle to her jaw that has made her face more defined, another year older, more worn by life.

And she shouldn’t be worn by life, why should she? She’s never had any fun, never been anywhere, never done anything. She doesn’t know yet what it is like to love or to be loved. How can she be so worn by life when she has never really lived?

‘This will cheer you up’ indeed! I shove the pedal bin in front of Pandora’s box with my foot and close the cupboard door. I’ll give the whole lot to Liliana when I see her. She’s into nostalgic memories and memorabilia. It isn’t of any use to me, that’s for sure.

As far as I’m concerned, the past is dead and buried, and all my hopes were buried years ago, right along with it.

2 Rachel

‘Why can’t I pull it down? I don’t want any “New Year resolutions” hanging up there for me. Daniel can keep his own if he wants to but I don’t see why I have to have any. It’s just plain silly.’ Shelley grimaces at me as I squeeze past her to get milk from the fridge. ‘It is March, after all.’

‘No.’ I push the door firmly shut with my elbow and take another look at the list her brother had Blu-Tacked onto the fridge door in January.

Family New Year’s Resolutions List (by Daniel Wetherby)

Daniel

1. Find mate for Hattie.

2. Ride bike without stabilisers (before I am eleven).

3. Help mum more.

Mum

1. Become famous artist and get rich.

2. Find cure for Shelley.

3. Buy the house on Strawberry Crescent.

4. Have a proper holiday.

Shelley

1. Get cured and be healthy and walk.

2. Get a boyfriend.

3. Do well at school.

‘If it’s March, that still gives us the next nine months of the year, doesn’t it? All we’ve got to do is find you a cure, make me a famous artist, buy that gorgeous property up on Strawberry Crescent and get you a boyfriend.’

‘Huh. Granny Panny is the only one of us who’s ever going to get herself a boyfriend, Mum. And the fame, the house and the cure are all non-starters, wouldn’t you say?’ She gives a little laugh. ‘I mean, you, famous? What could you ever be famous for? You don’t actually do anything, do you? Daniel’s mad. And you haven’t done any art since you left art college.’

‘He’s just a kid, Shell. You’ve got to let him have his dreams. Don’t you dare take his list down.’ I stay her arm as she reaches out to pull it off.

I don’t care if there’s no point in you going to school any more, I think suddenly. At least it gave us some respite from each other when you did.

I should never have given in to her on that point. I should have made her keep on going.

‘It doesn’t matter if it’s silly, or if none of it can come true. It matters that he’s still got things he’s hoping for in his life. That’s all. He wants us to have things to look forward to as well. That’s why he wrote us lists, don’t you see?’ Her comment that I don’t actually do anything is one that I choose to ignore. Oh, I do things all right. She just doesn’t see it because everything I do is invisible. I’m like the invisible thread that holds the whole fabric of our household together—but she’s right, it’s not something I’m ever going to become famous for.

‘Oh don’t worry, Mum.’ Shelley’s voice is suddenly dripping with sarcasm. ‘He can leave it up there if he likes.’ She turns to gaze through the window where a sudden squall has sent a splatter of rain across the glass. Outside, a disused flowerpot is rolling up and down on the patio. We are supposed to be planting seeds this weekend. I don’t suppose we’ll get round to it now.

The kettle boils and I fill up two mugs with some coffee. There is a moment’s silence. A truce.

‘So. Are you going to tell me what’s in the box from Granny then, or what?’ Shelley’s voice is amicable, conciliatory. She seems to have forgotten about the resolutions list already. She feels more like the old Shelley when she’s like this, more like the daughter I remember. When she’s all done up with that black lipstick she favours these days I hardly recognise her.

‘I think I’ll go for “or what”’. I pull a face at her. She should just take the hint that I don’t want to talk about it or accept what I tell her at face value. But teenagers never do.

‘It’s something to do with Aunt Lily, isn’t it?’ Shelley sucks on her lower lip, pensive. ‘Why don’t you two ever meet up? Are you making arrangements to meet up sometime soon?’

‘You’ve been eavesdropping,’ I accuse her.

‘I can’t help it if I occasionally overhear things,’ she counters. ‘This house isn’t exactly massive, is it?’

‘Well no, it isn’t.’ Not as big as the one we lived in before Bill and I split up, which is the subtext to her comment, I know. But there is nothing that can be done about that. ‘However, it would be polite to…move somewhere else in the house if that happens.’

‘If I moved far away enough in this house I’d end up next door,’ she observes. ‘Come on, Mum,’ she adds before I can reply. ‘What’s the big secret? Just tell me what’s in the box? Why are you trying to hide it?’

‘Oh, fine!’ I kick the pedal bin out of the way and heave the box out again. The cardboard sides are soft and a bit mushy and the whole thing smells musty, like the dark secret place at the back of unused cupboards where nobody ever goes and the spiders breed, un molested, for years. You’d think Pandora would have rummaged around for a new box before she posted all this stuff off.

‘Here we go, if it will keep you quiet, madam.’ It isn’t a big secret after all. There is nothing in there that matters; just a load of old dust and memories I’d rather not be dredging up at this moment. But it’s guilt that makes me cave in to her, guilt about the fact that she might not be around to ever see any of it, if I wait too long. ‘It’s just some old keepsakes, photos and things that Granny sent over. Most of it will go to Lily. When we meet up.’

Once the masking tape is all off the side flaps of the box fall open limply, revealing a pile of yellow-stained envelopes. Most of them seem to contain photos. A few hold old birthday cards, flowery and beribboned with ‘to our darling daughter’ on the outside. On the inside of one of them, all embellished in curlicues, are the words ‘from Pandora and Henry’.

‘Who’s this, all dressed up like a dog’s dinner?’ Shelley pulls my attention back to one of the photos. ‘She looks vaguely familiar.’

She’s found a picture of me and Liliana in our dancing outfits. I, as usual, being the taller, slimmer one—albeit two years younger—got to be the ‘male’ partner, dressed up in a tuxedo with my dark red hair cut appropriately short. Thankfully, though, Shelley hasn’t even noticed me. It is Lily she is frowning at; Lily with her long blonde bubbly curls and that frilly dusty-pink dress with all the sparkly sequins sewn into the hem. I take the photo from her for a minute, feeling my fingers trembling, even after so many years, as a gush of unhappy memories comes flooding back.

‘I can’t believe she kept that!’ I make as if to tear it in two and then change my mind because, after all, Lily might still want it.

‘It’s Aunt Lily, isn’t it?’

‘It is. She always got to wear the most beautiful dresses.’

‘Oh, Mum!’ Shelley’s face crumples in mirth. ‘You didn’t really think that dress was beautiful, did you? The only thing she’s got on that’s halfway decent is that string of blue beads around her neck.’

‘Well, actually…’ I do a double-take of Lily’s glammedup version of a ra-ra skirt before dropping the photo back into the box. Shelley is right. How things change! That dress really does look rather hideous. ‘Okay Point taken. It was the kind of thing we thought was beautiful at the time. One of these days you’re going to look back at yourself wearing all that Goth war-paint…’ I stop and catch Shelley’s eye. ‘Oh, Shelley, I’m so sorry. You won’t, will you? I can’t think that way. I just can’t get used to thinking that way, it’s so unnatural.’

‘It’s all right, Mum.’ Shelley’s wide blue eyes are calm and focused. ‘It’s funny how Pandora kept all those things for so long, though, isn’t it? Look, she’s even—she’s even kept that necklace in here. The one that Lily’s wearing.’ Her nimble fingers dive in and pull it out. She holds it up to the light so we can both see. Oh, but I had forgotten that necklace! Its pale blue nuggets of rounded sea-glass are all held individually in place by a tiny filament of gold wire. The central portion of the necklace is a darker blue stone—also sea-glass though you’d never know it—it’s so dark it could be lapis lazuli—and that is framed by the iridescent halo of a cut-out piece of mother of pearl.

‘It looks just like something a mermaid might wear,’ Shelley breathes. Exactly, I think, and her comment makes me smile. I designed it with a mermaid in mind, all those years ago. I collected all those bits of blue glass myself, on solitary walks, trawling along the coast of Cornwall.

‘Can I keep it?’ my daughter begs, and I shrug. Why not? If Lily were here she would claim that it was hers, that she always wore it. But the truth is, I found the glass, I designed it, and I fashioned it up with the limited tools that I had at my disposal. My friend—a lady in the second-hand jewellery shop—had cut the mother of pearl into shape, but she’d shown me how to do everything else. The only thing I wasn’t allowed to do, I realise now, was actually wear it. It so happened that the colours and the theme were a perfect match for the dance outfit that Lily was wearing that season. I had to give it over to her. Oh, I wasn’t exactly forced. It was just the kind of thing we were expected to do, back then.

‘All these things—I mean, they must have been so precious to Pandora once. Maybe to you too?’ Shelley glances at me curiously but I look away. She will never really know the truth about that.

‘The things that matter to us change,’ I say simply. ‘What mattered so much yesterday doesn’t matter so much today. What matters today, we might not give a fig about tomorrow.’

‘When you look at it that way,’ Shelley is scanning Daniel’s list on the fridge again, this time looking quiet and thoughtful, ‘maybe those resolutions aren’t so stupid after all. Maybe it means we should just make the most of things while they’re important to us. For instance, we could still get Daniel the second tortoise, couldn’t we? Hattie could have her mate. And I was thinking…we could still take that holiday. Just you and me. Daniel’s away on scout camp the week of my birthday. I’d really love it if we could go down to Cornwall, back to Summer Bay for one last time. It could be this year’s birthday present for me. That shouldn’t break the bank too much, should it?’