Everything Is Lies

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Everything Is Lies Page 18

by Helen Callaghan


  For the first time in a long while, this Nina was in control.

  What are you going to do? asked the other Nina, the docile, quiet one, Aaron’s creature.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I whispered aloud to myself when the others had gone. ‘But I’m not staying here.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  They caught me by the gates of Morningstar at dawn. I had waited for the sun before opening the big sash window and crawling out, slipping and sliding on the tiny lip of icy sloped grass at the edge of the moat. I judged the grand creaking of the front door to be too dangerous to risk at that quiet, still hour. The swans on the bank had hissed at me as I pattered round to the drawbridge, both of my bags with my meagre possessions banging against my back, my breath misting in the cold air.

  Wolf had been sat on the front step, smoking – his perpetual, omnipresent habit. I had not been expecting him. Why was he awake now?

  Had he been keeping watch for me?

  Shit.

  ‘Nina … what are you doing?’

  ‘What does it look like? I’m leaving,’ I said, with a defiance I didn’t feel. I shrugged myself into one of the big waxed jackets, which was cold and smelled a little mouldy, and slipped my feet into a pair of wellington boots I’d purloined from the porch while he stared at me.

  ‘What? Where will you go?’

  I buttoned up the coat, shoved my shoes into my already overstuffed bag. ‘Dunno.’ It was a question that I dared not contemplate the answer to. ‘But anywhere’s better than here.’

  ‘Wait …’

  ‘No, sorry.’ I had no interest in speaking to him. I remembered how he’d held the door open while the others carried me out to the barn. ‘Have a nice life.’

  I strode off quickly, and his calls soon faded, though when I looked over my shoulder, he was gone and the front door was lying open.

  I started to run. The wellingtons were too big for me and made me ungainly, the path was slippery with slush.

  I took another look over my shoulder, my breath steaming in the air. The sun was getting higher and, despite the cold, it was a beautiful morning.

  Then, coming from the direction of the house, I heard the tiny mechanical roar of an engine turning over.

  Wolf’s told them I’m running, I thought with a tiny flare of rage at such betrayal, but also, oddly, a twinge of gratitude.

  Out on the drive, the trees lining the gravel were bare and the fields covered in snow. There was nowhere to hide, and besides, they could probably just about see me from here.

  I realized I had no choice but to confront my pursuers.

  Within two minutes I could hear the hot growling of a jeep drawing up alongside me as I stomped through the slush.

  ‘Nina!’ shouted Lucy. ‘Nina!’

  It was very hard to look at Lucy. Lucy, I knew, could be persuasive.

  ‘What?’ I shouted eventually.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Her head stuck out of the jeep window. She had a haunted look, as though she’d seen a ghost, but she could have just been hungover.

  ‘Home. I’m going home.’

  ‘You can’t go home,’ said Lucy. Her dark brows knitted together. ‘Are you mad?’

  ‘I’d be mad to stay,’ I snapped back.

  The jeep came to a halt, and Lucy jumped out and ran in front of me, holding out her hands as though to slow my progress. ‘Nina, please. Please don’t leave like this. I know last night was bad.’

  ‘Bad is one word. I can think of others,’ I said, trying to hold on to my fury at the expense of my fear. ‘Criminal is another.’

  ‘It was horrible, I know. We all know it was. But if you want to go, let’s talk about it and do it properly – at the very least we can give you a little cash and a lift to the station. If you’re still sure.’

  I regarded her silently, my chest heaving. Despite all that had happened, this offer was unbearably tempting – maybe I would see Aaron one last time.

  You don’t want to see him again, remember? That’s why you’re leaving. And if he is that keen, why hasn’t he come out here himself?

  I shook my head a little to clear it.

  ‘At least you can say goodbye to the others. And I know Aaron is desperate to speak to you, to sort things out.’ Lucy’s eyes were huge, sorrowful, and she took my hand, as she had in the beginning, and tugged me. ‘Come on.’

  * * *

  When I opened the door to his study, I felt it, that old Bluebeard’s wife feeling, as if I was in the wrong room and if I were caught there I’d be in trouble. I had to stop my gaze from darting to the safe.

  Aaron was sat on the chair in the corner, and from it somehow he seemed to occupy the whole room. I swallowed, tried to meet his gaze, but found I couldn’t. He had an instant, almost terrifying effect on me, always – a mixture of fear, faith and a boundless desire.

  He was everything I thought I knew about love. It was that simple.

  That said, today he was subdued, his shirt buttoned high, as though he was working hard to appear harmless, contrite.

  It’s a performance, said that newly re-emerged inner voice of mine. When are you going to get it through your thick head? That’s what he does. He performs.

  ‘You were going to leave,’ he said. He looked inexpressibly sad, almost betrayed.

  ‘Yes,’ I tried to keep my voice firm. ‘I thought that was what you wanted.’

  ‘I never wanted that, Nina,’ he said softly.

  ‘Well,’ I said, shivering, because in the cold light of day, the habit of contradicting him was a difficult thing to navigate. ‘You must have wanted it last night, when you accused me of breaking into your safe and stealing your money.’

  ‘Everyone said a lot of things last night that they regret.’ His face had gone very still, and I sensed this was difficult for him. I realized, with a little flash of insight, that this was the nearest I’d ever seen him come to an apology. ‘Things everyone said and did to hurt, not things they truly meant. I know I keep telling you how much stress I’m under, Nina. Stress you could barely imagine. Things have to work here, I have to get that deal, and it takes great energy. Sometimes that energy breaks free, you know what I mean? Dark things as well as light are attracted to what we do here.’

  ‘And I have seen these dark things,’ I said, with real bitterness.

  ‘Don’t be that way,’ he said, with a commanding gesture, and I felt again that thrill of terror at contradicting him. ‘You know you need me. And now I know I need you. You, more than any of them.’

  ‘You don’t need me. I’m here to make up the numbers. I’m here to replace Sarah, whoever she was. Someone smarter than me, I’m guessing.’

  He was, just for a moment, absolutely still, as though I’d surprised him. ‘Who told you that?’ he drawled as though this was a risible notion.

  I offered him a tiny, nervous shrug. I had no interest in getting Tristan into trouble. He was probably in enough trouble already now his cash had dried up.

  ‘Can you really understand so little about me? So little about yourself and what you mean to me?’ he said, and I could see he was growing impassioned, rising from his chair and coming towards me.

  And of course, the sad thing is that he was right, I didn’t understand him then. I didn’t understand that if anyone was doing the rejecting in our relationship, it had to be him. I didn’t understand then that my value to him was conditional – while he was sure of me I meant less than nothing, and when I was walking out the door I was worth my weight in diamonds.

  Seconds ticked by, measured by the sonorous clock on the mantelpiece, the flickering of the flames in the fireplace.

  ‘Nina, you must not go. I need you. You’re a gift I’ve been taking for granted for far too long. Last night, I realized this. It’s so very clear now. It’s you that needs to be at the centre, not Lucy. You’re the strong one. You alone know the way.’

  My mouth was dry, my head felt light.

  ‘Me? I don’t …’
/>   He nodded ferociously. ‘It’s got to be you and me in the ritual.’

  What?

  ‘I don’t … I don’t know what you—’

  ‘I know, I know,’ he said, stealing over, soothing me with his hands, caressing my shoulders. ‘But you must be my Receiver. You’re the vessel that will be filled with revelation, don’t you see? Already last night was full of revelations – about you, about me … there’s a light in you that shows me the way.’

  ‘I …’ I didn’t know what to say. ‘I don’t …’

  ‘Don’t be afraid. It will be so, so beautiful. The best yet. Come here.’

  ‘But what will happen? What am I supposed to do?’

  ‘I’ll show you what to do. You will do what the Creative Spark moves you to do. It will be glorious. Transcendent.’

  I was overwhelmed. I was going to be the centre of the ritual. My terror, imprisonment, flight – they had all been worth it. It had all been worth it. I could have wept.

  You don’t think this is all a little convenient?

  ‘Ah, Nina.’ He kissed me, his hands warm beneath my dusty, mouldy coat. ‘Everything is going to be perfect.’

  It sounded perfect. I had no idea what it actually meant, but it looked like I was staying to find out.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Wolf was not happy with the new announcement for some reason.

  It made him even more foul-tempered than usual, and I felt that he blamed me more than Aaron for the change. There was almost a rage in him when he discovered that the ritual would centre around me now.

  But Lucy appeared to bear me no ill will, embracing me as Aaron announced the alteration to the room. Penelope, on the other hand, seemed to be working hard to mask her obvious cold displeasure, but then again, Penelope never recovered from finding me in the safe that day – possibly she never recovered from my coming here in the first place. I noticed that her smirking bullying of Tess seemed to ramp up, as though, since I was now off-limits, she had an excess of stored-up bile that needed to be vented.

  And me? I had no idea what was now expected of me. ‘The spirit will move you in divine ways,’ was all Lucy would say, ‘and you will respond to Aaron as the Creative Spark.’

  Aaron would only tell me that he and I would be enacting a symbolic marriage. ‘You don’t need to worry, little Nina,’ he said, drawing me into his arms and kissing the top of my head. ‘You just follow my lead; you only have to do what you feel comfortable with.’

  That was all I was getting.

  Everything about it was a source of anxiety. If the ritual failed this time and Aaron didn’t get his deal, it would all be down to me. And I was too caught up in it, in them, to realize how monstrously unfair this was, a poisoned chalice I’d be drinking from at the same time as the Sacred Draught, whatever that was.

  Perhaps this was why Lucy was so sanguine about giving up her place.

  You can leave anytime you want, I told myself, but in truth, I was not so sure. The feeling that I was being watched, and constantly gently probed about my loyalty, was becoming stronger and stronger. At this point I don’t think I could have chatted with Wolf the way I had in the past, even if he’d managed to put his inexplicable anger aside.

  For now, we were all concentrating on the preparations for the ritual – the morning prayers, the led meditations, Aaron cross-legged in the centre while we sat circled around him, at the compass points. The days filled up with spiritual busywork.

  The gender division of labour at Morningstar continued as always. We women cooked and cleaned, fetched mugs of tea and instant coffee for the men upstairs. The men played with the recording equipment, jammed together on Aaron’s collection of instruments, or smoked and waited for dinner in the kitchen below.

  One good thing came of it though – there was no sign of Peter. I seemed to have scared him off.

  * * *

  ‘So, you know what this all entails, do you?’ Wolf asked, leaning against the back door. In the moonlight his face was hidden, saturnine. ‘You know what it means?’

  He’d said he’d help me carry the rubbish from the kitchen out to the compost heap – Michelle the cook had left the week before, after a quietly hissed conversation with Penelope about her continually delayed pay.

  His offer had surprised me – we hadn’t really spoken since he’d betrayed me on the front steps of Morningstar, and I hadn’t shaken the feeling that he was furious with me for some reason I couldn’t fathom.

  I was still pretty angry at him, too, truth be told.

  ‘Do I know what’s entailed in chucking out the peelings?’ I asked.

  ‘No, you silly mare. Entailed in the ritual.’ Even in the darkness his cynicism was crystal clear.

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘And you’re happy with that, yeah?’

  ‘Happy with what?’ I asked.

  ‘Being filmed in your own personal porno with your Magus?’

  ‘What are you on about, Wolf?’ I asked irritably.

  ‘What I say. You’re going to be engaging in this bloody stupid “divine marriage” with him. Sharing the “Sacred Draught”.’ He rolled his eyes theatrically. ‘Where does he come up with this shit, I wonder?’

  ‘Look, Wolf, I’ve had this out with Aaron already. I don’t have to do anything I’m not comfortable with. We can have a symbolic union. It’s not like we’re going to be getting it on in public.’

  He didn’t reply.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s exactly what you’re going to be doing,’ he said. ‘And furthermore, Aaron is counting on it.’

  ‘That’s not what he says,’ I said, getting angry.

  ‘I would have thought, Nina, that by now you would have worked out that there’s a big difference between what Aaron says and what Aaron means. You don’t know what you’ll be doing. You’ll be off your face.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘All the others have gone on to have sex with him. I have the tapes. You’ll do it. You won’t dare say no.’

  I blushed hotly.

  ‘I know what’s involved,’ I snapped. ‘And anyway, I hate to break this to you, but I have slept with Aaron before. We’ve seen each other with no clothes on and everything.’

  Wolf’s face darkened and he looked about to speak.

  ‘What? What are you trying to say?’ I asked peevishly.

  He shook his head. ‘Have you ever wondered why it has to be on camera? Why I’m here?’

  ‘I know why. We’ve all been told why. It’s to capture evidence of revelation.’

  ‘I don’t mean what you’ve been told about capturing spiritual evidence and all that bullshit. I mean the real why.’

  ‘No,’ I said, flustered, trying to lift the bin up so I could drop the rubbish into the heap by the field without getting any on my clothes.

  Suddenly the bin was out of my hands and he was emptying it. Its organic stench accompanied us back to the house. He wouldn’t give it back to me, insisted on carrying it to the door. Our feet crunched in the snow. His voice grew low, quiet.

  ‘See,’ said Wolf, ‘we think different things about all this, you and me. You think that this is all some big experiment. I’ll bet you think, Well, even if I do have to admit he’s a gigantic fucking fraud in the end as well as a bully – as I know you already know in your heart of hearts – I’ll have taken the risk. I’ll have nothing to regret.’

  ‘I’ll admit nothing of the sort. And I do have nothing to regret.’

  ‘Well, nothing yet.’ His pale eyes glittered. ‘But see, I think, if you go ahead and do it with that man in there?’ He leaned forward, pointed at me. ‘He will own you, Nina. And for all time. The same way he owns all of those other silly bastards, did they but know it.’

  ‘That’s a little melodramatic …’

  ‘For. All. Time.’

  His gaze did not waver as he lit a cigarette with a little flick of his Zippo, sucking it into burning life. ‘And he’ll make you know it.’ Wolf off
ered me a tiny, bitter smile. ‘One day, when you really leave here, leave for good,’ he dropped the lighter back into his jacket pocket, ‘and sooner rather than later.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked sharply.

  ‘What I mean is that five, ten years down the line, you’ll be holed up with some fat bastard who does accounting or risk management or whatever the fuck else in some nice village in the Cotswolds with the two-point-four children you’ve managed to squeeze out, and you won’t have a care in the world.

  ‘And then not him – he’s too clever for that – but some other twat he’ll send, will come knocking on the door. Reminding you of that film, at just the moment you don’t want to be reminded of it. Wanting something off you. And whatever you give them, and however much you give them, they’ll never be satisfied.’

  ‘That’s a horrible thing to say!’

  Wolf shook his head at me, one eye always on the door.

  ‘You might have no time for that dickhead Peter Clay, but let me tell you, when us lads are upstairs drinking and snorting the end of Tristan’s fucking trust fund away, that man can tell a story or two about your Magus. If you’d gone with Uncle Petey to see some puppies like you were supposed to, you’d have heard them, too.’

  I was trembling. Every one of these words cut me like a knife.

  Wolf appeared not to notice, or if he noticed, not to care. If anything, he had a little grin on his face.

  ‘If ever there lived a man who was destined to die with his throat cut in a dark alley, it would be Aaron fucking Kessler. Or Tim Littleton, to use his real name.’ He shrugged. ‘Do you still want me to film you naked with him?’

  * * *

  By four o’clock the next day, we were deep in preparations for the ritual. Aaron was barely present, unable to concentrate; he kept vanishing from the dining room, lingering in the hallway by the front door, as though waiting.

 

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