Contents
Title Page
ALSO BY ALEX CAMPBELL
Dedication
Lies
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Secrets
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Truths
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
One Year Later
Chapter 21
Acknowledgements
Alex Campbell
Copyright
ALSO BY ALEX CAMPBELL
Land
To Lucy, the truth-seeker, and Duncs, my best mate
LIES
Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
1
Sadness is a scourge
Leata
Her
Live life with hope …
… I get the usual burst of pleasure tapping out my catchphrase, seeing those familiar words, black on white. Proudly, I lift my fingers from the keyboard, drumming them on my lips. What next …?
It’s imperative I keep every post fresh, see, and more importantly, uplifting. I mean, people actually live their lives by what I say! What I say matters.
I switch from my blog’s dashboard to its proper site, checking out today’s pop-up. Leata’s promos often inspire what I write … There, see! Artistic as ever, and oh-so pretty! All sepia print with swathes of colour painted in. Like always, the advert holds a moral story: a confident, cool-looking boy strolling relaxed and happy through a field, while blue and yellow hot-air balloons rise up behind him. There’s a girl with him he’s making laugh – who, hey, if I’m honest, doesn’t look that unlike me! Right? Dark brown hair, olive skin, even the dimple in her chin. Which reminds me of that nice comment from EvieR last night:
You make the perfect Leata poster girl, Hope!
Wow, thanks, Evie! Believe it or not, you’re not the first to say that.
Cue a stream of believers. My followers are all adorable. There’s so much love on my blog and my channel!
So what do my followers want to hear today? I can’t just write anything. There are millions of other blogs and vlogs and random posts competing for a piece of Leata sponsorship. Not that I’m in it for the money. No, for me – it’s enough that I’m helpful to others. That I bring positivity into millions of lives.
Okay: click back and curl my hands above the keyboard – like I’m about to play piano. No – I’m simply making music with my words – ha! But seriously though, it’s what I’m known for: ‘Yeah, like Hope, the Live Life blogger? You know: Livelifewithhope?’
I am known therefore I am. Isn’t that what some ancient philosopher said? At the end of the day though, it’s not about me, I understand that. It’s about making others my age feel connected and good about themselves – that’ll be my 1,998,042 total subscribers (and counting) – ahem, need I say more? I am incredibly blessed.
Except still, my fingers remain poised mid-air.
I can sense it, something blocking my words. The something curling snake-like at the far corners of my mind. The funeral. Is it today?
I dance my shoulders about a bit, take a deep breath. Don’t even go there. Squash. It. A smile, there you go, that’s it: a big beam of a smile.
Okay! Countdown Back to Happiness!
Ten: ‘Bad thoughts lead to bad lives.’
Nine: I have an incredible family.
Eight: Fantastic friends.
Seven: ‘Life’s short. Enjoy it!’
Six: Nearly TWO MILLION SUBSCRIBERS! And let’s not get started on Twitter and Instagram!
Five: My followers LOVE me …
Four:… They’re forever telling me I’m beautiful! That I bring positivity into their lives!
Three: ‘When darkness comes, turn the light on brighter.’
Two: I have a BRIGHT future.
One: I can become whatever I want to be.
It always works. Every time. I really must tweet again how the Ten Second Countdown is the best tip from LeataLiving.com. And I love the app for it. It counts down with you, then leaves you with a mirror at the end, Smile for a Leata selfie!
I copy out that last quote onto my draft post (officially, one of my favourite Leata messages to date!) as Mum calls up the stairs, ‘Girls! Hurry! You’re going to be late!’ At the same time the bathroom door opens – fin-a-lly, Rose! I hear her padding barefoot to her room. I swing off the bed, darting onto the landing.
Knock slam into Dad.
‘How many times?’ he snaps. His hands are up like he doesn’t want to catch something. ‘Do not run around the house in only a towel, Hope!’ Smartly suited, his harried face is the only creased part of him.
I beam a big ‘sorry’ at him as Rose pokes a wet head out of her door. Dad continues along towards her, his voice softening. ‘Honey … that Egyptian project you’re working on, I was thinking about a trip to the British Museum …’
Wow, Dad can be so sweet, despite being seriously stressed. What with being a senior partner in his law firm, and PharmaCare his main client (so, so, sooo proud). And of course Mum doesn’t work; it’s Dad alone who pays for all this. Massive house; our education; clothes allowance; skiing holiday; summer holiday; occasional in-between holiday! I watch Dad tuck a wet strand of hair behind Rose’s ear. We’re privileged to have a father who’s such a family man.
I am incredibly lucky.
Him
He rubs a hole in the condensation on the cabinet mirror. Stares blankly at himself. A younger version of his dad stares back. His insides churn. Tom darts back to the toilet. He’s been about ten times already, even though he’s not eaten since god knows when.
He’s drunk though. Yeah – his tongue skates over the morning-after fur in his mouth – he’s drunk all right.
Tom flushes again. One hand circling his battle-strewn stomach, he returns to the sink.
‘I don’t want to go,’ he murmurs at his reflection. Somehow it makes it seem more final. He doesn’t know why. It’s not like his dad’s not already dead. His mum went and saw him DEAD two months ago. Accompanied by his godfather, Ralph – Dad, lying in a morgue, life leaked out of him; a parcel label probably hanging off his toe: MATT RILEY: DEFINITELY NOT IN HERE ANY MORE.
Yet somehow, putting his dad into some cushioned box into a worm-hole in the ground … means it’s really over. Dad isn’t coming back.
How can Dad not be coming back?
How can that even be possible?
Tom picks up his black-rimmed glasses from the side of the sink, pushing them on. His features grow magically defined: a junior version of Dad’s widow’s peak hairline, same shade of mud brown. A thin crooked line of a mouth beneath a straight nose partial to flaring. Not a great legacy, but then his dad was all about the inside. His dad had life sussed.
Pity he didn’t inherit that too.
What would Dad say for right now? No one knows when the light’s going to get switched off, Tommo.
Tom bangs a fist against the cabinet, rattling its contents. But couldn’t you have bloody warned me you were going to switch yours off?
The dread that’s ever-brewing in his stomach boils more furiously. Shit. Sh
it. Crap. Shit. Just. Want. You back. Dad. Here. Home. Each thump on the mirror accelerates the pumping rhythm in his head. It’s becoming second nature, to have a permanent hangover, pulsing under his skull like some crap Ibiza dance tune.
Physical pain, it might alleviate the other kind, but it still hurts. Flipping open the mirror, he roots through the cabinet for pain relief. Constipation, diarrhoea, anti-histamines, old pills, new pills.
New pills. His breath slows. A whole box of them. The prescription label, made out to his mum. He lifts out the blue and yellow branded box. After PharmaCare ruined Dad? How can she? Tom slides out one of the foil trays. There, the messages he’s only ever heard about, printed over every Leata pill, a tiny flowery font, stamped in blue and yellow. ‘Turn your face to the sun’, the first one says. ‘Sadness is a scourge’, the next. The stuff of Chinese fortune cookies. Except his dad said a good few million pounds a year goes into paying people to think up these. PharmaCare expect a return on their investment: for other people to suck them up – that was the by-line his dad used on his final national story, five years ago. The story where he accused PharmaCare of paying GPs to prescribe Leata. The story that did nothing to stop the nation taking the small blue and yellow pill. But lost Dad his job when PharmaCare brought criminal charges against him.
Tom roughly shoves the box back in the cabinet; grabs the ibuprofen and pops out two pills. He swallows them with cold water cupped in his palm. Bowing his head down low, he grips the edge of the sink, fingers tightening against the pain as a message of his own copies out detention-style inside his head: Why did you kill yourself, Dad? Why did you?
WHY DID YOU?
Her
‘At last, Hope,’ Mum says to me, as I wander into the kitchen. ‘Do you want to be late for your first day of a new school year?’ She’s sat in her satin purple dressing gown, making mice-nibbles at her toast (her latest diet is to take small bites of everything).
‘Morning, Mum,’ I smile at her, ignoring her question. ‘Sleep well?’ Mum’s not a morning person, so she needs my help to stay cheerful. It’s not like she means to be critical. I read a really good piece by a journalist recently whose column is sponsored by Leata. She was saying how confrontation only confronts your own anger, and that if we meet any kind of negativity with positivity eventually positivity will win out.
I go and kiss Mum on her cheek. She’s talking to Lily – ‘you’re going to be the prettiest little girl in your drama show’ – but staring ahead. Her hair’s not yet brushed and her face looks flushed and bloated. Courtesy of the number of empty Pinot Grigios by the recycling bin? I wonder if I should write another post about the dangers of drink and leave my tablet lying around for her to see.
I take a seat at the new table, banquet-long and shabby chic wood, the chairs, all colours of the rainbow. New things make Mum happy. So every now and again she points to a style magazine and says ‘that’. And everything changes in our house again. I liked the last table, but, having a house that’s forever on-trend is a big plus. Your environment has a major effect on you, right?
Rose, along from me, has her Saxon-blonde head buried in a book – as per, she’s very serious. Lily, kneeling up on my other side, is chattering away like a little chirpy bird. Mum always encourages it. ‘My beautiful baby girl.’ So I try to as well.
‘Good luck on your first day back, poppets.’ Dad rushes in, midway through stuffing folders into his briefcase. He bends over Rose’s head, kissing the top of it, then moves past me and does the same atop Lily’s. I lift my eyes to catch his glance like I notice Mum does, but Dad’s propping his briefcase up on the other end of the table, wearing a frown beneath his thick sandy hair as he flicks through inside. Poor Dad, he’s got so much on.
I start buttering some toast.
‘Easy on the spread, Hope, you don’t want hips like Grandma Lizzie.’
I scrape some off onto the side of my plate and Mum nods approvingly. She has two fingers pressed to her mouth as if she’s smoking. It’s a habit of hers since she quit a few years ago at a PharmaCare Health Farm. Because you really mustn’t smoke on Leata. It cancels out some of the benefits.
I can hear Rose and Dad continuing their chat about the British Museum. I glance over, waiting for a polite gap so I can speak. Take away the fact he’s a forty-five year old man with lines framing his eyes and mouth, he’s a doppelganger for my fourteen-year-old sister. I watch his gaze take her in, like he’s really listening. Despite all he’s got on. My stomach lurches with love for him. For all he does for us.
Rose goes quiet; I clear my throat, start bouncing around on my seat, like I’m an engine revving up. ‘Dad, can you believe it: I’m just a thousand off two million total followers and subscribers. That means soon my Leata advertising income will increase!’ I let out a squeal.
‘Good, you can buy your own car when you pass your test then,’ he replies distractedly, his eyes back in his briefcase.
‘Daddy, I want a red Ferrari when it’s my turn,’ Lily pipes up.
Dad clicks his briefcase shut and goes over to Lily, pressing her pale blonde head against him. ‘That’s because you’re one of life’s racers, princess.’
I smile at Lily. She’s only nine. Young enough for cuddles and kisses still. Whereas me: ‘You act so capable these days,’ Mum always says. I’m proud of that fact.
I join in laughing with Dad and Lily as Dad starts raspberry-kissing Lily’s neck and Lily giggles and Dad tickles Lily and Lily giggles. I try to recall the times when he did stuff like that to me, when I was Lily’s age and – my memory’s so bad these days! Early Alzheimer’s or what? Too much thinking in the present. As it should be! The past is a bleak place. No one lives there.
I look down at the toast in my hand; drop it back onto the plate. You know, I’m not really that hungry.
And heck – No. Thank. You – I do not want hips like Grandma Lizzie.
‘Get a move on, Bryony,’ Dad’s saying to Mum. He’s looking a tad peeved. I feel for him. I wish Mum could get dressed before she comes down in the morning. Put her face on for Dad at least. Millie says she’ll wear overnight make-up when she starts sleeping over with her boyfriend, Ryan. She has a vlog tutorial all planned out for it.
‘Give me half an hour, Jack.’ Mum pushes her bed-hair back from her face, getting up slowly. ‘Girls, remember, Mrs Chichon is taking you to school.’
‘Why, where are you going, Mummy?’ Lily looks over, baby-face worried.
‘Your dad and I are attending Matt Riley’s funeral,’ Mum says brightly, as if for funeral she means wedding, for Lily’s benefit I’m sure.
Meanwhile, I’m trying to ignore the fist that seems to have appeared from nowhere, grinding my stomach. Really! It won’t do to go thinking about Matt Riley … and how he died … and Tom. I mean I’ve hardly seen Tom come out of his house since it happened. I have looked for him of course. Not that Tom’s known for being that pleasant to me. But if I can catch him, I want to share the positivity I’m known for. Tell him the best cure for grief is to be with other people. Happy people. You can’t help but smile when you’re around smiles.
‘And you’re sure I shouldn’t come?’ I stare at Dad, frowning uncertainly – say no – then Mum when he doesn’t look over. ‘I mean, I did used to play with Tom lots.’ My frown deepens at the statement; something sharp now is prodding me from inside. Why?… I mean, it’s been years since we were friends. ‘It pays to forget. It hurts to remember.’ Thank. You. Leata.
‘A funeral might make you sad,’ Mum cuts in, her face expressionless, ‘… you’re better off at school.’ Those two ex-smoker fingers are back tapping at her mouth, as if she’s blowing me an awkward kiss.
I nod vigorously. Right answer. Death. It doesn’t pay to be reminded of it. Life is for the living.
And Tom? All I am to Tom now is the girl who lives next door. He probably never thinks of when we were tight. Best friends. And the treehouse.
I know I don’t. Really, I don�
��t.
Him
Tom resumes horizontal on the guest bed, re-connecting with the damp patch on the ceiling. His favoured view this past month. There’s a new spiral-bound notepad, the kind his dad liked to use, lying next to him. His dad always said pen and paper helped him find answers. Trouble is Tom has no other questions except the same one that won’t stop circling his head. Why, Dad?
Matt Riley must have been depressed, the coroner said when he finally made it official, ‘suicide’, and released Dad’s body for burial. Dissatisfied with his job, he also hinted. Not on Leata, the local newspaper noted. Tom’s insides clench, cramping as if he needs the loo again. He claws at his shirt collar, the whole suit’s suffocating him. A size too big – his brother Nathaniel’s – it might as well be straitjacket tight. He pats the bed for Dad’s silver hipflask. The blackness grows like spilt tar through his mind the minute he’s sober again. It’s best to keep drinking. His hand finds it, lifts it up, his thumb stroking the engraving, from when Dad left the Daily Herald: The truth is never told during working hours. Hair of the dog. Tom knocks it back, the whisky burning his throat, as if it’s ripping away a layer of his insides. He reckons if he keeps on ripping soon there will be nothing left. And then he won’t feel so bad. Will he?
Another slug, longer this time, wiping at his mouth where the liquid dribbles out. Breathing out dragon-heat, he props himself up on his elbows, staring round the guest room that also acted as Dad’s study. Nothing’s changed. Preserved in aspic, like a museum piece: even his dad’s favourite old cardigan is still lying over the back of his chair, like his dad’s just left the room for a piss or to sneak a smoke.
His head jerks at a familiar soft wailing noise from the next room, like a subdued siren.
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