Her Fearful Symmetry

seldom alone. If I left now, before Julia wakes up, no one could find me. I could just vanish. She slid off the bed carefully. Julia didn’t stir. There was a dressing room connected to Aunt Elspeth’s bedroom, a kind of walk-in closet with a built-in dresser and a full-length mirror. Valentina glanced at herself in the mirror: as always, she looked more like Julia than herself. She opened a drawer in the dresser, found a vibrator, and shut the drawer again, embarrassed. Elspeth stood in the doorway, slightly apprehensive. She watched as Valentina tried on a pair of red platform heels. They were just a bit long, maybe a half size. They would fit Julia better. Valentina took a grey Persian-lamb coat off its hanger and put it on. Elspeth thought, She’s a mouse in sheep’s clothing. Valentina rehung the coat and went back into the bedroom. Elspeth let her walk through her. Valentina shivered and rubbed her upper arms briskly with her hands.

Julia woke and turned her face towards Valentina. “Mouse,” she said thickly.

“I’m here.” Valentina climbed back onto the bed. “Are you cold?” She pulled the bedspread over the two of them and twined her fingers into Julia’s hair.

Julia said, “No.” She closed her eyes. “I had such a bizarre dream.”

Valentina waited but she did not continue.

Eventually Julia said, “So?”

“…Yes.” They smiled at each other, their faces pumpkin-coloured in the filtered light under the chenille.

Elspeth stood watching them, fused together into a single form under the coverlet. She had not seriously worried that they might refuse her, but she was still giddy with pleasure now that she understood that they would stay. Think of all the things that will happen to you-to us! Adventures, meals…Books will be taken off shelves and opened. There will be music and perhaps parties. Elspeth twirled around the bedroom a few times. She swapped the red wool jumper and brown corduroy trousers she’d been wearing for a bottle-green strapless gown she had once worn to a summer ball up at Oxford. She hummed to herself, twirling out through the bedroom door, into the hall where she danced up the walls and across the ceiling a la Fred Astaire. I’ve always wanted to do that. Hee hee.

“Did you hear something?” asked Valentina.

“Huh? No,” replied Julia.

“It sounded like mice.”

“Zombies.” They giggled. Julia got off the bed and stretched. “Let’s bring up the luggage,” she said. Elspeth followed them to the door and made little skipping steps as she watched the twins dragging their belongings into her flat, ecstatic with novelty as they hung their clothes next to hers, stuck bottles of shampoo in the shower and plugged their laptops in to charge. After some discussion, they set up Valentina’s sewing machine in the guest bedroom, where it was to gather dust for months. Elspeth watched them with delight. You’re beautiful, she thought, and was surprised to be so surprised. You’re mine. She felt something like love for these girls, these strangers.

“Well, here we are,” said Julia, after they had emptied their suitcases and fussed over the placement of every sweater and hairbrush.

“Yep,” agreed Valentina. “I guess.”

Mr. Roche

THE FOLLOWING morning Julia and Valentina went to see Mr. Xavier Roche, their solicitor. Actually, he was Elspeth’s solicitor; the twins had inherited him along with the rest of Elspeth’s things. For many months now Mr. Roche had been sending them papers to be signed, as well as instructions and keys and dry, admonitory emails.

Their cab deposited them in front of a faux-Tudor Hampstead office block. The firm of Roche, Elderidge, Potts & Lefley was above a travel agency. The twins climbed the narrow stairs and found themselves in a small anteroom which contained a door, a bare desk, a swivel chair, two uncomfortable armchairs, a small table and a copy of The Times. The twins sat in the armchairs for ten minutes, feeling anxious, but nothing happened. Finally Julia got up and opened the door. She beckoned to Valentina.

In the next room was another desk, but this one was occupied by a neat, elderly secretary and an enormous beige computer. The office was done in a style that Elspeth had always referred to as Early Thatcher. To the twins it seemed oddly modest; it was their introduction to the British proclivity for making certain things important and shabby, expensive and self-deprecating all at once. The secretary ushered them into another office decorated in the same style but with more books, and said, “Please sit down. Mr. Roche will be with you directly.”

Mr. Roche, when he arrived, was startling, even Dickensian, but not in the way the twins had imagined. He was an old man. He had been quite small to begin with and had shrunk with age; he walked using a stick, slowly, so that the twins had plenty of time to consider his comb-over, his prodigious eyebrows and his well-made but loose-fitting suit as he crossed the carpet and took each of their hands in turn, gently. “The Misses Poole,” he said, in a grave voice. “It is a great pleasure to meet you both.” He had dark eyes and a prominent nose. Julia thought, He looks like Mom’s gnome cookie jar. Elspeth had sometimes called him Mr. Imp, though never in his hearing.

“Let’s sit here at the table, shall we?” he said, moving incrementally. Valentina pulled out a chair for him and then the twins stood and waited while he eased himself into it. “It’s so much nicer and more informal than the desk, don’t you think? Constance will bring us some tea. Oh, thank you, my dear. Now then, tell me all about your adventures. What have you done since you’ve arrived?”

“Slept, mostly,” said Julia. “We’re pretty jet-lagged.”

“And has Robert Fanshaw been to see you?”

“Um, no. But we just got here yesterday,” Julia said.

“Ah, well, I expect he’ll come by today, then. He’s very eager to meet you.” Mr. Roche smiled and looked at each of them in turn. “You are astonishingly like your mother’s side of the family. If I didn’t know better I’d think I was sitting with Edie and Elspeth, twenty years ago.” He poured them each some tea.

Valentina asked, “You knew them then?” Mr. Roche was so ancient that she would have believed it if he claimed acquaintance with Queen Victoria.

He smiled. “Dear child, my father was your great-grandfather’s solicitor. I dandled your grandfather on my knee when he was tiny, and when your mother and aunt were small they used to sit on that carpet and play with blocks whilst I talked to their parents, just as the three of us are talking now.” The twins smiled back at him. “It’s a pity that Elspeth is no longer here to greet you. But I can tell you that she was excited about your coming to live here, and she has provided for you quite handsomely. I hope the terms of the will are clear?”

“We have to live in the flat for a year before we can sell it,” said Julia.

“Mom and Dad can’t visit us,” said Valentina.

“No, no,” said Mr. Roche. “I certainly hope your parents will come and visit you; that isn’t what Elspeth meant. She only stipulated that they aren’t to be in the flat.”

“But why not?” said Valentina.

“Ah.” Mr. Roche looked regretful. He spread his gnarled hands, tilted his head. “Elspeth often kept her own counsel. Have you asked your mother? No, I imagine she wouldn’t want to discuss it.” Mr. Roche watched the twins as he spoke. It seemed to Julia that he was expecting some kind of reaction from them. “People can be odd about their wills. All sorts of strange things get put into wills, often with unintended effects.”

He waited for them to say something. The twins shifted in their chairs, embarrassed by his scrutiny. Finally Julia said, “Oh?” But Mr. Roche only lowered his eyes and reached for a folder.

“Now then,” he said, “let me show you how your money is invested.” The twins found the next half hour confusing but thrilling. They had made money babysitting, and had spent one summer as counsellors at a Girl Scout camp in Wisconsin, but they had never imagined possessing the sums Mr. Roche spread before them.

“How much is there altogether?” Julia asked.

“Two and a half million pounds or so, if we include the value of the flat.”

Julia glanced at Valentina. “We can live on that pretty much forever,” she said. Valentina frowned.

Mr. Roche shook his head very slightly. “Not in London. You’ll be surprised at what things cost.”

Valentina said, “Can we work here?”

“You don’t have the proper visas, but we can certainly apply. What sort of work do you do?”

Valentina said, “We aren’t sure yet. But we’re planning to go back to school.”

“Actually, we’re done with school,” said Julia.

Mr. Roche looked from one to the other and said, “Ah.”

“We were curious,” said Julia. “Why did Aunt Elspeth leave everything to us? I mean, we’re really grateful and all, but we don’t understand why she never came to see us but she left us her stuff.”

Mr. Roche was silent for a moment. “Elspeth was not a very-nurturing sort of woman, but she did have a strong family feeling.” He added, “I’m afraid I really couldn’t say why, but here we are.”

Couldn’t say, or wouldn’t say? the twins wondered.

“Can I answer any other questions?”