The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox

“There is a zoetrope inside her head and she doesn’t like to be caught out when it stops. Whir, whir. Stop.”

A zoetrope is an old-fashioned device used by children; it spins through a series of images that can be seen through a viewfinder. Esme’s memories flow through her mind like the images in a zoetrope, and she fears the moment the device will stop (or won’t). The author also employs onomatopoeia in describing the sound of the zoetrope’s movement.

“Slap shunt slap shunt slap shunt.”

Esme is attentive to sounds linked to her memories. She remembers visiting her mother and father in the garden, as her sister Kitty jump ropes in the distance. Using onomatopoeia, the author describes the sound of the jump rope hitting the ground, a discordant sound compared to the relative peace of the garden.

“Esme has felt it, wriggling like a caught fish.”

Esme feels an attachment to her baby brother Hugo even before he is born. Her mother is emotionally distant, but when Esme sits in her lap, yearning for physical affection, she feels Hugo’s movement in her mother’s stomach. The author uses a simile to compare the baby’s movement to a wriggling fish, a strange pairing, but one that matches Esme’s playful nature.

“Lilies stand, proud and impassive, in a glass vase; the clock counts down seconds, a napkin slips to a chair.”

After Esme’s family leaves her tethered to a dining room chair, she takes in the scenery around her. She doesn’t scream or fight the bindings, but quietly contemplates her predicament. The author personifies the lilies, giving them the human-like quality of standing. Just as Esme is too proud to fight her confinement, so do the lilies stand stalwart despite being restrained in a vase. The movement of the clock is animated as well, marking the passage of each moment in which Esme remains trapped.

“Impassive stone tenements rear up, glittering with rows of unblinking windows.”

Iris takes in the scenery of the city as she walks to her store, thinking about the life-like character of Old Town. Using personification, the author makes the bleak streets of Edinburgh come alive. The stone buildings stand tall, and the windows appear to have eyes.

“Jamila’s sari shushes and whispers as she comes across the room and Esme feels a hand on her shoulder, cool and soft.”

Jamila is Esme and Kitty’s ayah, their nanny in India. During the British colonization of India, wealthy families often employed Indian women to care for their children. Esme’s memories of Jamila recall her tender care of the sisters, a stark contrast to the cold detachment of their mother. The author uses sensory imagery to describe Jamila’s sari, a traditional garment worn by Indian women; its sounds are as gentle as Jamila’s child-rearing.

“Esme was holding a finger against one nostril, breathing in, then held the finger against the other, breathing out. The gardener had told her it was the way to serenity.”

Alternate nostril breathing is a yogic technique known in Sanskrit as Nadi shodhana pranayama, and involves alternating between nostrils while breathing in through one and out through the other. The practice is believed to help reduce stress and calm the central nervous system. Esme attempts the practice, perhaps hoping it will help calm her. However, she is trying the technique her way, lying upside down on her bed instead of assuming the traditional seated posture.

“In Esme’s face, for a moment, she saw her father’s.”

The author uses foreshadowing to add intrigue and mystery to the narrative. Iris feels an unexplainable pull to Esme beyond the fact that she’s her great-aunt on paper. The passing reference to Esme’s likeness to her father suggests she may be more than a great-aunt and foreshadows another reveal later in the story.

“I have to say I am not entirely sure where I am. But I don’t want anyone to know this so I shall sit tight and perhaps someone will—”

Kitty’s Alzheimer’s disease causes her to experience periods of disorientation in time and space. However, her condition is a metaphor for a larger theme in the story. At different times in the narrative, different characters feel lost both physically and emotionally. Esme was lost to her family while inside the walls of Cauldstone, yet also became lost inside her mind. Iris feels lost in her personal life and admits to experiencing similar feelings about her career.

“She doesn’t think she doesn’t think she doesn’t think anything at all as they walk up the steps and into the hall and there is the marble floor of the entrance hall again—black white black white black—and it is amazing that it is unchanged […].”

Though it is unclear if Esme truly had a diagnosable mental illness when she was admitted to Cauldstone, it is evident that her 60 years of incarceration led to further trauma. Having never been properly treated for her trauma (i.e., Jamila and Hugo’s deaths and her assault by Jamie), Esme develops coping mechanisms for her anxiety, one of them being avoiding thinking altogether.

“Iris was watching from under the kitchen table when George and his son arrived.”

Iris’s behavior calls back to Esme’s parents tying her to a chair for crawling under the table. Hiding in small spaces is normal behavior for young children, as it’s a way for them to explore their imagination and find comfort when they’re feeling anxious. Iris’s mother is unbothered by her behavior, a stark contrast to Esme’s mother’s harsh punishment.

“We are all, Esme decides, just vessels through which identities pass: we are lent features, gestures, habits, then we hand them on.”

Identity is a prominent motif in the narrative, especially as the truth about the Lennox family comes to light. As Esme looks at Iris and sees a resemblance to her mother, she realizes the power of genetics and reproduction. Familial heritage and lineage are complicated, but in the end, they all come down to the science of inherited traits.

“Mother said that no parent in their right mind would display a portrait like that.”

Esme’s mother’s rejection of their family portrait is about more than a photo. This act is a rejection of Esme, and displays Ishbel’s lack of love and compassion for her child.

“She is aware of those numbers, that two and the eight, trying to find a place to slip back in. They have been lurking at the edges where she pushed them and they are mounting an assault, a break-in.”

The mention of Iris’s father’s birthday upsets Esme’s carefully tended mental state. The numbers begin to replicate, multiply, and take over her mental landscape in a way that makes her feel untethered to reality. The author uses figurative language to personify the numbers, as if they were human-like entities burglarizing her mind. This depiction illustrates the torturous experience of intrusive thoughts and feeling powerless to stop them.

“And there would be no escape, no relief from these walls, from this room, from this family until she married, and the thought of that was as bad, if not worse.”

The author develops a claustrophobic tone, as different characters are trapped in specific ways, both physically and emotionally. Esme is physically trapped in her home under the rule of her parents and grandmother. She is only allowed to leave to attend school and parties deemed appropriate for her social development. However, Esme is also trapped by societal standards of the day. Her only way to escape her house is to marry, which she considers another type of prison.

“Why not ask her directly? Did she not have a voice of her own?”

Mrs. Dalziel avoids directly addressing Esme when asking about her plans for the future. This is representative of an era when parents made all decisions for their daughters, including whom they would marry—leaving them with little to no agency over their lives. Esme is forced to attend a tea party at the Dalziel house, and listens to her mother lay out the plans for her life. Esme’s exclamation that she plans to travel the world shocks everyone in the room, but allows her to express herself freely if only for a moment.

“Esme thought about how, perhaps, she would cut her hair after all, the sound of the rubber trees, how she must just keep breathing, a box she and Kitty kept under the bed with programmes of films, the number of sharps in F minor diminished.”

As Jamie assaults Esme, she disassociates from the trauma. This sets up a pattern in her mental health that will follow her into the present. She learns to bury her traumatic thoughts and when they try to resurface, she wipes her mind. While this type of behavior was self-preserving for a time, it becomes torturous for Esme; when she leaves Cauldstone, she can no longer keep the painful memories at bay.

“You are not well, the doctor says. And Esme thinks she may be starting to believe this.”

Esme’s problems stem from repressed trauma. When her father leaves her at Cauldstone, she knows she’s not mentally “unstable,” but there is no hope of convincing the medical staff otherwise. Ironically, the longer she stays incarcerated, the more she begins to believe she has a mental illness. Esme doesn’t realize the strange sensations she feels are signs of early pregnancy.

“—a terrible thing to want a—”

Kitty repeats this fragmented phrase multiple times. The full phrase reveals her desire to have a child, but she can’t due to her husband’s refusal to consummate their marriage. The reader can also see the phrase as symbolic, as there are many characters in the novel who want things, people, and lifestyles that they cannot have.

“And she sees that the girl is hers, too.”

Iris and Esme felt a connection the moment they met. However, when Esme sees a photo of Iris’s father, Robert, she realizes that Iris is her granddaughter, not Kitty’s. The moment is ironic because while she’s gained a granddaughter, this revelation also reveals all that was taken from her in the last 60 years.

“She has managed to rewrite her own history, almost.”

As Iris uncovers the mystery of her grandmother (unbeknownst to her), her own secrets begin to surface. In the same way that Esme has buried her trauma, Iris long buried her desire for Alex and the memory of Kitty discovering their forbidden romance. Iris wrestles with guilt and regret over her past and present decisions.

“[…] Esme, walking with her fingers splayed out, dress fluttering in the breeze like a curtain at a window […].”

Having spent most of her life incarcerated, Esme basks in the freedom of wearing clothing of her own choosing and drinking in fresh air. The author uses a simile to compare her dress to a curtain in a window, a contrast to her barred window back in Cauldstone.

“‘What have you done to your hair?’ Kitty shrieks, making Iris jump.”

The author continually reinforces the importance of hair, particularly for women. One of Esme’s first acts of rebellion is refusing a haircut, but when she enters Cauldstone, they forcefully cut her hair. Iris sports a modern haircut which expresses her personality and refusal to adhere to societal expectations—but the sight of it shocks Kitty.