Everything Is Lies

by Helen Callaghan

  An ex of mine had been a bit of a rocker on the quiet, and his copy of Green Eyed Monster had always fascinated me with its iconic cover, depicting a stylistic hand-drawn swamp in brilliant viridian. In the centre, the knotty forehead and cat’s-slit eye of an alligator lurked, barely hidden beneath the surface of the still water.

  I rubbed my eyes. This was all just too much. I needed to get to bed; I had work in the morning. I could think about all this tomorrow night once I got the Scottish Heritage presentation out of the way. That had to be my focus, at least for now.

  I had picked up the Maglite, the notebooks still crushed to my chest, when suddenly there was a faraway but very familiar click, loud in the pre-dawn silence.

  I turned and froze.

  Through the window I could see that the front of the house was lit up in stark white. Something had tripped the security sensor and the floodlight had come on.

  It’s just a fox, I told myself, or an owl, setting it off. This happens all the time.

  But almost without thinking about it, I had withdrawn to the wall of the shed and snapped off the striplight.

  All was darkness as I tiptoed to the window, peering out from behind the sill.

  There was nothing there. No sign of anyone, no noise, just the bald fact of the floodlight illuminating my parents’ front door, shining on to the path leading up to it. Around the shed the trees were black, the air too still to even stir the leaves.

  Five seconds became ten, and then fifteen, as I crouched there, with my father’s signature scent of creosote and old tobacco emanating from the curtains, my knees brushing the wooden wall as I struggled to control my breathing and urge myself to stay calm.

  Nothing moved outside, and there was no noise.

  After twenty seconds, the security light snapped off again with another click.

  The inside of the shed was completely dark, except for the long shadows cast from the house. The lamp on the kitchen table glowed cosily at me from the window as I cowered by the shed’s windowsill, as though beckoning me back indoors.

  I waited, my heart pounding.

  Stop this, said a firm inner voice. The security light was frequently set off at strange hours by random wildlife; it had happened for as long as I could remember. It didn’t require an intruder to behave this way. Get a grip, get up and go back inside.

  But I couldn’t move, not to save my life. My mother had died a little over a fortnight earlier not twenty feet away from where I was huddled, and as far as I was concerned, her killer could still be out there.

  After all, someone had been troubling my parents with break-ins in the months before …

  I would ring the police, that’s what I’d do, and report a prowler. I didn’t care that I might be wasting their time, that it might just be a stray cat. Under the circumstances, a little caution was only to be expected. I would ring them now and not move from here until they …

  Except, I realized, patting my jeans, I’d left my phone in the kitchen.

  ‘Fuck,’ I whispered. ‘Oh, fuck.’

  Now what?

  I couldn’t stay out here all night.

  And besides, I told myself firmly, I had the Maglite, which could double as a wickedly heavy cosh if required, which it wouldn’t be. I just had to run up the garden, through the unlocked door, and this would all be over, this non-event I was making a fool of myself over.

  I rose silently to my feet, took a deep breath, and crashed out of the shed door, running.

  Ahead of me the house loomed across the long strip of lawn, the lamp in the kitchen window shone in encouragement as my legs pounded, and then, with that self-same click, the security light came back on.

  The front of the house was immediately drowned in white light.

  Nothing was there.

  I threw open the door, stumbling over the step, then turned and locked it, my hands shaking with adrenaline, the notebooks and Maglite at my feet, my blood singing in relief.

  I checked every room in the house before retreating back to the comforting haven of the kitchen, unable to shake the idea that someone could easily have slipped inside while I was reading out in the shed.

  There was nobody there.

  * * *

  I left the notebooks lying on the bedside table in my room and crawled into the narrow little bed of my girlhood. My posters of pop stars and actors were gone, only the smudged traces of Blu-tack where they’d been hung remained.

  And I started to think.

  Who were these people my mum had known? I wondered. I had never heard any of their names mentioned, not even in whispers. I had gone through years and years of correspondence after my mother’s death, and hadn’t found a single reference to any of them.

  If you’d asked me before she died, I would have told you that my mum didn’t have a degree and had never gone to college.

  Why would she conceal such a thing from me? No matter how I tried to pitch this to myself, there was something sinister about it, something that spoke of guilt and flight.

  Once I got this bloody presentation out of the way, I would get on with tracking down these people. Max Clarke would be able to help with that. And one of them at least should be easy to find. The famous one.

  I sat up, pulling my laptop towards me, aware that I should be trying to sleep ahead of my career-deciding meeting tomorrow morning. Instead I opened Google and typed in ‘Aaron Kessler’.

  There was a sudden, astounding plethora of entries and images. Pictures of a youngish, square-faced man with impossibly high cheekbones and brown flowing hair. He was frequently shirtless or wearing buttoned garments that had come undone, revealing a superbly muscled, hairless chest.

  I grunted a little at this. I suspect if you worked out that much, you probably wanted people to see the results. I wasn’t much disposed to like him, considering what I’d read about him, but there was no doubt that he’d been very good-looking back in the Eighties, and this didn’t appear to have changed much.

  I tabbed through to the articles, which were all roughly similar, at least in the beginning. The initial results tended not to be about Aaron Kessler himself, but about the band, only mentioning in passing his stint as their lead singer from 1984 to 1986, though the dates themselves only added up to a little over thirteen months. The split was apparently due to irreconcilable differences, which struck me as the sort of wording you would use in a divorce.

  I let myself fall back against the pillows, astounded. I couldn’t get over it – my mother had been sleeping with the guy that sang ‘Mean River’, which had been covered multiple times since I’d been born and became a hit again a few years ago when it was used as the music for a smartphone ad.

  If I closed my eyes I could hear ‘Mean River’ playing in my head, with those dark, portentous chords and that baritone boom – ‘And now in my arms I can feel you shiver/Oh baby time is a mean mean river …’

  I shook myself awake. I wasn’t interested in his musical career right now.

  After a while, the pages of Boarhounds results started to give way to something less generic and a little more interesting – IS THE ORDER OF ASCENDANTS A MIND CONTROL CULT?! screamed one tatty website that didn’t look like it had been updated since the Nineties. The answer, a brief glance through the glowing fonts assured me, was definitely yes.

  There was an article in the Guardian from 2008 – WE LOST EVERYTHING TO A GURU – ‘How Martin and Sam bounced back after losing their house, jobs and almost their children to an ex-rock star’s Society for Spiritual Enrichment’ – where an unhappy bohemian couple, a slouching man in a loose shirt and glasses; a woman in jeans and a pink tunic, shared how their relationship had broken down and they had signed over everything they owned during a brief flirtation with ‘a secretive organization run by Aaron Kessler, ex-musician’, who had declined to comment on the article, according to the reporter.

  Looking through the links I’d turned up, he must have rebranded at some point in the Noughties. Judging fr
om his own website, what they seemed to do now was host very expensive seminars – £2,000 for a week, including food and accommodation – called Creative Spark Workshops.

  The Society for Spiritual Enrichment exists to promote a healthy work–life balance and to provide our clients with the tools to enable them to get in touch with their creative self. We believe that this creative identity is the inner wellspring that fully ignites all human beings to live more passionate and authentic lives.

  A full engagement with one’s creative self encourages stress reduction, increased focus and concentration, and a growth in mental and physical energy. All of these things lead to more successful and fulfilling business and personal relationships.

  Get in touch today to find out more about how the Society for Spiritual Enrichment can help you unlock your inner creative nature.

  There was a picture of Kessler in the ‘About the Society’ section. He looked older, but still handsome in that deep-set, dark-eyed way that my mother had correctly described as ‘intense’, standing near an antique wooden desk with his arms folded, well-defined muscles barely hidden by a white shirt.

  But I couldn’t think of this now – I was insanely busy and had to prioritize. Once I got back from London I would be able to look again and read the second notebook.

  It would soon be morning. It was nearly time to shower and get on a train.

  Chapter Ten

  ‘Oh, you’re back.’

  My timing was terrible or wonderful, depending on your point of view. I was in my smart blue office dress and jacket, laptop slung over my back, and mounting the steps to Amity Studios when I heard the brisk clatter of male feet behind me.

  I tossed a look over my shoulder, startled. It was James, the managing partner, who’d been studiously ignoring my emails and calls.

  I made myself smile and appear relaxed. ‘Yes, today’s the day.’

  ‘Are you sitting in on the Scottish Heritage presentation then?’ he asked. There was nothing remotely remarkable in the way that he didn’t offer me any condolences. I had expected none.

  ‘No,’ I said coolly. ‘I’m not sitting in on the Scottish Heritage presentation. I’m giving the presentation.’

  ‘Is that still your project? I thought Benjamin took it over.’

  ‘No, it’s still mine.’ I’d chased up the client yesterday and straightened this out with them, remembering to copy Benjamin into the confirmation email, letting them know I was back at work and thanking Benjamin for his ‘caretaker’ duties during my compassionate leave.

  He had not replied.

  ‘You’re sure you’re up to that?’ James asked.

  ‘Quite.’

  He said nothing further, pushing open the steel and untreated larch-clad door, and I passed in behind him.

  * * *

  I was early; it was only half seven in the morning. I had wanted a little peace and quiet before the project manager, Trish, and the other guys from Scottish Heritage got here, so that I could update the model with the work I’d done at home. I was looking forward to this time, this return to normality – tinkering with the model is my favourite part of the process. I get lost in the software, designing fly-throughs and filling in the virtual background. I like to make the biggest mug of coffee I can manage, and vanish into the machine.

  ‘Oh, Sophia!’

  Cleo was in the kitchen, her small hands clasped around a mug of tea. She looked bleary and tired, her top crumpled, her hair pinned back unevenly.

  ‘Hello, stranger!’ I grinned. ‘I see you got lucky last night.’

  She looked at me like I’d slapped her, and her cheeks went a fierce pink. ‘What do you mean?’ There was something hard in her face.

  ‘You’re in early,’ I said, taken aback. ‘Relax, I was only kidding.’

  She seemed to calm down. ‘Sorry. I hate this time of day.’ She yawned, or rather, I thought, she pretended to. ‘It’s good to see you, Soph,’ and I was pulled into a little embrace. ‘Are you sure you’re … I mean, you’re good to come back?’

  ‘Yes.’ I reached around and selected a clean mug from the cupboard. ‘I was going mad at home. Look, my morning’s rammed, but do you want to grab a coffee later this afternoon at Café Louis?’

  I turned back to her and was surprised: there was something both shocked, eager and pitying in her expression. I couldn’t understand or interpret it at all.

  ‘Cleo?’

  She shook her head. ‘Sorry, Soph. I just … I can’t believe your parents are …’

  ‘Well, my mum is,’ I interjected crisply.

  She blushed again. ‘Sorry, sorry, I know, I didn’t mean … sorry, I know about your dad. How’s he doing?’

  ‘They say he’s comfortable and stable.’

  ‘Oh, well that’s good news. When did he wake up?’

  ‘He hasn’t.’

  She bit her lip. ‘Sorry,’ she said again. ‘You would have said. I just don’t do mornings. But yeah, of course I’m up for coffee. What are you doing till then? Catching up?’

  ‘I’m doing the SH presentation, remember?’

  ‘What, still?’

  ‘Today’s the day. And it’s my project.’ I tried to smile. ‘My Amity debut.’

  ‘Oh. Yeah. Anyway, I’ve got some stuff I need to crack on with before ten. So yeah, see you after lunch.’

  I nodded. ‘OK.’

  After she’d gone I made the coffee on the company machine, hitting the button for one, then two extra espresso shots, all the while feeling troubled.

  * * *

  It took me a little while to work out that something was wrong – I scanned through my emails for anything urgent, then loaded up the modelling software.

  I tried to open the last project I’d been working on, the Orkney visitors’ centre.

  ‘The system cannot find this file: please browse to new location or attach missing external drive.’

  Shit, I thought. I’d updated the file from home. I must have saved it locally on the laptop. But a search on my laptop showed nothing.

  It was gone. In fact, not only was it gone, but the folder with the other drafts and their backups was gone. It was empty.

  No, I thought, feeling the blood drain from my face. It had been emptied.

  I leaned back in my chair, staring at the impossible blankness of my screen. A seismic tremor of sobs was building somewhere around my diaphragm and moving upwards.

  Had I done this, in my desperate grief, my confusion, my conflicting duties? Had I hit the wrong button and lost all of that work?

  And then the door to Benjamin’s office opened.

  He emerged into the main office floor, heading for the kitchen. He was constantly drinking filtered water from the dispenser there. As he came back, glass in hand, I made sure that my face was turned to my iMac, but still, in my peripheral vision, he paused, just a fraction, slowing down in the same way that cars slow down as they pass a wreck in the opposite lane, just so they can check the mangled metal for bloodstains.

  I didn’t stir, not even as he moved off again, and there was something almost like a satisfied sway in his hips as he glided back into his office, throwing the door shut behind him.

  I did not move.

  Oh, you fucker, I thought. You absolute bastard.

  Shit. Shit.

  What am I going to do?

  I was shaking with rage. I was going to cry. I was going to pick up the po-faced iMac from my desk and fling it through the steel-silled glass wall of Benjamin’s office …

  And then I had a sudden memory of my mother.

  She was standing in the garden, not far from the tree I’d found her hanging from. She was leaning forward and drawing in a deep breath, inhaling the scent of our lavender bush.

  I didn’t remember when I’d seen this, only that I had.

  My breathing started to slow down.

  From when I was a little girl, to when I was a teenager and moving out to university, my mother had said the same thing –
no matter what my moods or rages: ‘Do whatever you want, my darling heart. You get to choose. But before you do, first of all, you need to take a deep breath and think.’

  This moment felt like a gift and a lesson for me.

  Now was the time to breathe slowly, to be calm. And to think.

  Think.

  * * *

  It took three hours.

  It was desperately ramshackle and if anyone asked too many questions I would be in trouble, but I built that bastard again from the ground up, based on my locally saved notes and preliminary drawings. All the whizz-bang plans I’d had for the presentation would have to be shelved, so it would be very low-key. Noticeably low-key.

  I’d have to wing it on charisma and sheer nerve.

  And the design, of course.

  When Olympia rang through, her voice was so tentative, I wondered if she was in on it. ‘Sophia, Scottish Heritage has arrived. Do you want me to …?’

  ‘That’s fine, Olympia, I’ll come and collect them now.’

  * * *

  I was on the 16:00 to Ipswich, then another train change. Once I arrived, I had a long drive ahead of me to the hospital.

  The presentation had been awful. I’d been tired and muddled – I hadn’t slept a wink the night before – some things all the espresso in the world can’t fix. There had been a couple of times when I’d had to ask the Scottish Heritage contact – a big guy in a grey suit and bottle-bottom spectacles – to repeat himself, which had been mortifying.

  The only bright spark had been the design itself. As I talked them through it, with its slate and seawater inspiration, I felt a tiny rush of the excitement I’d had when I first conceived the idea.

  It was a great design; my best yet, and I’d salvaged it at the eleventh hour, rather than falling to pieces.

  My mum and dad would have been proud of me today.

  The train was noisy and hotter than hell. Through the window, the urban sprawl of Ipswich had given way to the secretive greenness of Suffolk proper. I tried to let it soothe me.