The Liar's Room

by Simon Lelic

  Ugh! You’d think I’d never been asked a question before. Yes or no, Emily! He wanted a seat, not your life story.

  But he sits down opposite me anyway, like diagonally opposite, which he probably figures is far enough away that he can make a run for it if I start foaming at the mouth.

  “Sorry . . .” It’s him again, talking to me when I’m sitting there praying he won’t. I’m staring at my phone and basically glowing like a beetroot. “I don’t suppose you happen to know the Wi-Fi password, do you?” He waggles his iPhone.

  I tell him what it is and he types it in.

  “Thanks,” he says, smiling, and my head, it’s like a beetroot now that’s been set on fire. I have to hold my iced coffee up to my cheeks to try to cool myself down.

  It’s at that point I become aware of the tittering. Amy and the others, they’ve seen me and Adam talking, and obviously this becomes hilariously amusing to them. I mean, they’re jealous, basically, so what else can they do except take the piss? Seriously, grow up. It’s people like Amy Jones that make me think maybe Mum’s right to be worried about who I choose to hang around with. Not that I would ever want to hang around with her.

  “Friends of yours?” Adam (I don’t know his name’s Adam yet, but that’s what I’ll call him), he’s playing it cool. Looking at his phone, sipping his smoothie. Amy and that are behind him, so when he moves his eyes to gesture toward them, he does it so as only I can see.

  I act like I’m looking at my phone too. In reality I’ve texted Frankie ages ago, and there’s no real reason for me to still be sitting there. Or, there wasn’t.

  “Not exactly,” I say. “More like the opposite.”

  Adam makes this face, then. He freezes and his eyes go wide. “So like, enemies?” he whispers, aghast.

  Laughing is the last thing I’m expecting to do, so when I do I give this little snort. A snort! Smooth, Emily. Real smooth.

  “Deadly enemies,” I reply, recovering myself. “The deadliest.”

  Adam checks across his shoulder. “They look pretty deadly,” he says. “I mean, I’m practically choking on all the perfume from here.”

  I laugh, and this time manage not to sound like Frankie snoring.

  “It gets worse,” I say, leaning in. “The one in the middle? With all the hair? She’ll freeze your blood with just a smile. And if you say something bad about her behind her back? She’ll look at you and turn you to stone.”

  Adam tries not to smile. “Like Medusa,” he says. He looks behind him. “Maybe that’s what all the hair’s for,” he adds, turning back. “To cover up all the snakes.”

  I’m sipping my drink and when I laugh this time, some goes up my nose. It hurts, the way it does if you do a somersault underwater, but at the same time, it only makes me laugh more.

  We carry on like that for a while. I mean, just for a few minutes it seems like, but long enough that Amy’s stopped sniggering and instead starts giving me evils. Which obviously plays right into our hands and soon it’s not even a challenge. You know, coming up with stuff that makes her seem ridiculous. Which I guess is cruel but it’s her own fault because it’s exactly what she does to everyone else. And besides, there’s five of them and two of us so it’s not as though we’re ganging up.

  But then Adam gets up to leave. It seems like he’s only just sat down but when I check my phone after I realize he’s been there twenty minutes.

  “Watch your back, soldier,” he tells me as he gathers his things. “And don’t forget to eat plenty of garlic.” He winks then, which could be like eeeww, but somehow he makes it look sweet. Like a secret, basically. Just for me.

  And then he’s gone.

  So that’s that, right? That’s what I’m thinking. Even Amy’s smiling now she can see I’m sitting on my own again. But I don’t engage. I make like I’m sending another text and finish my drink and then casually get up to leave. Playing it cool, you know? Like I won already, so why would I bother playing her stupid games? And it feels good. And it keeps feeling good, so I hit a few shops, buy a magazine, a new case for my phone, pick up some smellies for Mum. Just some Body Shop stuff I know she likes. So that kills about an hour, after which I reckon it’s time to leave. Amy and the others will be around somewhere and I figure get out while I’m ahead. So I do, I head to the bus stop. And guess who’s there, waiting for the very same bus!

  I mean, what are the chances? Right??

  So that’s when we get talking properly. On the bus ride. We’re upstairs. He’s got one front seat and I’ve got the other but then it gets busy and he asks if it’s OK if he moves across. He acts all shy about it, as though he’s worried it’ll make me uncomfortable, but just as this guy is about to sit down next to me, Adam gets up and gestures to the place next to mine. “Is this seat taken?” he says.

  And I grin. I couldn’t have stopped myself grinning if I’d wanted to.

  And we just chat. We ride the bus for three round trips. And Adam’s asking about Amy and about school and about everything, basically. He’s so interested in my life and it’s refreshing, you know? Me and Frankie talk all the time but we’ve known each other so long, sometimes it feels like we’ve said all there is to say. Also, with Frankie, it’s often like she’s just waiting for her turn to talk. She acts like she’s listening, but she’s not really hearing what I’m saying. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love Frankie to bits (except when she stands me up, of course) and she is absolutely, positively my best friend. But with Adam it’s different. He’s a boy, obviously, so that’s part of it. But also, it’s like he knows me. Like, really knows me. And when I talk to him, when I tell him stuff . . . the thing with Adam is, he really listens.

  4 P.M.–5 P.M.

  5.

  “You know him.”

  Susanna looks up, half expecting to see someone else in the room. Alina or Ruth or . . . or Emily. But there are just her and Adam in opposite chairs, the ticking clock on the wall between them.

  “What?” Susanna says.

  Adam looks at her questioningly.

  The voice comes again: you know him, and it takes another moment for Susanna to realize it is in her head. She has heard it before. The voice, not the words themselves. She has even seen things. Faces, figures—forms she would rather have forgotten. The voices, the visions, they came fairly frequently at first and for a while Susanna was convinced she was losing her mind. Steadily though, and in particular as she started her training, she came to realize that what she was experiencing was a psychological manifestation of her guilt. Which, at the time, didn’t make it any easier to bear.

  “I said I want to talk about Jake, Susanna.”

  Susanna feels a pang that forces her to focus.

  Adam tips his head. “Did you ever care? About Jake, I mean. Was there ever a point you loved him?”

  The room, the voice, the memories that have come raging back, everything slips into a void. There are just Adam and the charge he has laid before her.

  “What are you talking about? How can you even . . .” Adam doesn’t interrupt her, but Susanna stops talking as though he does. She is speechless. The opposite. There is so much she wants to say—needs to say—that she doesn’t know where to start. “Of course I loved him. I never stopped loving him. Never.”

  Adam seems pleased. That he has riled her again? That she is responding to his accusation so vociferously? Or that Susanna has chosen to engage at all?

  She shakes her head. She will not do this. She won’t.

  “Where’s Emily? Tell me what’s happened to Emily or so help me God I’ll . . .”

  Adam gives her time to finish. “You’ll what?”

  “I’ll . . .” Scream? Shout? Kick? Cry? Take your pick, Susanna. Each would be about as effective as any other.

  “I’ll take that knife and I’ll cut your throat from ear to ear.”

  Susanna hears th
e words as she utters them and is shocked by them. By the violence, not only in the words themselves, but in her tone. Yet that’s not all. She is pleased too, she realizes. Reassured that she is still capable of standing up for her children. Of protecting them, at whatever cost.

  Until Adam starts laughing.

  It is not an act. His amusement is real. The implied dismissal, terrifying.

  “Go ahead.”

  Susanna just stares.

  “Here,” Adam prompts, suddenly serious. “Take it.” He offers her the knife hilt first.

  He is baiting her, yet Susanna can’t help but consider the odds. She is standing perhaps six feet away from the chair in which Adam sits, meaning the knife is now two feet closer. And it is pointing toward him. He will be primed for her to make the leap but that doesn’t mean he’ll be ready. If she moves quickly, there’s a chance she could seize the handle, or Adam’s arm at least, and then it would come down to whoever was fiercer. Her chances aren’t even, Susanna figures, but they’re not far off.

  Minutely Susanna turns her head.

  “I didn’t think so.”

  Susanna doesn’t look up but she senses Adam place the knife on the arm of his chair.

  “Still, at least that’s settled. Now, hopefully, we can get on with things.”

  “Please.” So much for being capable. So much for being fierce. “Please,” Susanna repeats. “Just tell me she’s OK. Tell me she’s safe, that you haven’t . . .”

  “Haven’t what?”

  Susanna flinches from Adam’s gaze. “Haven’t . . . touched her, or . . .”

  Adam’s lips twist sideways. “No, I haven’t touched her. As for whether she’s safe, that’s entirely up to you.”

  “But—”

  “Look. It’s quite simple. The sooner you talk, the sooner this is over. OK? I mean, is that so difficult to understand?”

  Susanna recoils. She finds herself nodding.

  “So, let’s begin. Shall we? In fact, let’s start with that.”

  “With what?”

  “With whether or not you ever loved your son.”

  * * *

  • • •

  It’s not as straightforward as she made out. She told Adam she never stopped loving Jake and she did love him, of course she did. Susanna is as sure of that as she is of her love for Emily. Which is overpowering sometimes. So intense that it stops her sleeping, so smothering that every so often she finds she can’t even draw breath. But with Jake . . . although Susanna knows she loved him, it is a love she struggles to remember. It’s like trying to bring to mind a sunset, when all you can recall clearly is the night.

  Susanna has spent a long time over the years exploring how other parents like her have dealt with the emotions she’s experienced: reading memoirs, listening to transcripts, searching archives for interviews. Parents of fundamentalists, for example; of terrorists; of kids who shot up a school. And while Susanna has been able to draw certain parallels, she has also remained acutely aware that her experience was completely apart, not least in how it all ended. That’s confounded Susanna more than anything. How could it not?

  “You haven’t answered me.”

  “I’m trying to,” Susanna responds. “And anyway I already have. I said to you!”

  “Said what?”

  “That I loved him. Always. Through it all!”

  She needs to calm down. She needs to be able to think clearly, to allow herself to concentrate on Adam. Her best hope is to work out what he wants—and, more specifically, how she can give it to him. He knows who she is, obviously. He knows—or at least suspects—what really happened. And it’s obvious he feels some empathy for Jake, which means he could indeed be a “fan.” In which case it’s possible that Adam has no direct connection to Susanna or her daughter whatsoever, and that Susanna’s best strategy would be to focus on addressing Adam’s sense of self-worth. Of disabusing him, basically, of whatever misconceptions he’s allowed to take root.

  Except, You know him. The voice, this time, is like a breathless whisper in her ear.

  Adam notices her jump. “Are you OK, Susanna?”

  She clasps the desk to steady herself.

  “Why don’t you sit back down?”

  “No, I—”

  “Sit.”

  It is not a suggestion. Susanna allows her feet to carry her to her chair, where normally she feels so comfortable. It is usually a safe place for her, in spite of how exposed the act of counseling sometimes makes her feel. But it is exposed in a good way, and—crucially—to other people’s demons instead of her own.

  As she takes her seat, however, she can’t help noticing how claustrophobic this room of hers is making her feel. The rug beneath her feet, the comfy upholstered chairs, the normally calming presence of her plants and books—even the sunlight reaching through the slatted blinds: none of it distracts from how close Adam is. Their knees must be two ruler’s lengths apart. Two dagger’s lengths, in fact. Adam’s knife rests on the arm of his chair, in front of his elbow. Susanna cannot help but stare. And, looking at the edges of the blade, all she can think about is Emily.

  “You were saying?” Adam prompts.

  Susanna feels the strength drain out of her as she exhales. Her head is all at once in her hands.

  “Look, you know what happened. Clearly. You think you do, anyway, otherwise why are you here? So if you know, you know as well that what you’re asking me about isn’t that simple. Love is never that simple.”

  Adam doesn’t hesitate in his response. “It should be. For the mother of a child, a father of one, it should be.”

  Susanna looks up. Is this another clue? Another hint about why Adam is here?

  “You say that,” Susanna ventures, “but what does that even mean? ‘It should be,’” she quotes. “Are you saying I had no right to be upset? To be conflicted?”

  “Conflicted,” Adam scoffs. “Yes, Susanna. That’s precisely what I’m saying. No parent has the right to be conflicted when it comes to loving their child.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because that’s not what they’re there for! They’re there to protect them. To love them. Unconditionally!”

  From nowhere Susanna recalls the song she used to sing to Jake when he was small. The tune was something she’d appropriated from a nursery rhyme, the lyrics made-up nonsense, but almost without fail it would make Jake laugh. She even sang it to him when he got older—ten years old, eleven—and though he would squirm in embarrassment, not once did he ever ask her to stop.

  “And is that what your parents offered you?” Susanna asks Adam.

  “Ha.” Adam has been leaning forward. He slumps back, disgusted, and with the knife starts picking at the upholstery on the arm of his chair. “I told you before, my parents were a waste of space. They were even worse at it than you are.”

  The barb cuts, even though Susanna is half expecting it. “You said your father was a waste of space,” she counters. “You didn’t tell me anything about your mother.”

  “There’s nothing to tell. My mother died when I was five. The week before my sixth birthday.”

  In spite of everything, Susanna feels a pang of sympathy. They say that when a parent loses a child, it’s the worst pain of all and for a long time Susanna believed that to be true. But objectively, and having seen firsthand with her clients the damage it can do, she knows that for a child who’s lost a parent the anguish is often on another scale entirely.

  “I’m sorry, Adam. That must have been very hard for you.”

  Adam is prodding at the chair, using the tip of the blade to worry at a thinning patch of thread. He stops and looks up. “I barely knew her. And anyway it was worth it, just to see the pain on my father’s face.”

  Susanna is well practiced at keeping her reactions neutral but she is powerless to disguise her shock
. “What did he do to you to make you hate him so?”

  The question, Susanna knows, represents another slip. There is no way, in a normal session, she would ever be so direct.

  Even so, for a moment it seems as though Adam might answer. Clearly he is thinking of nothing but his father as the blade pierces and then slices into the fabric of the chair. “Just . . . everything. He . . .”

  And then Adam looks up. His expression—astonishingly—is close to one of elation. “You are!” he declares. “You’re good at this!” He laughs, shakes his head, places the knife lengthwise along the chair arm. “You nearly had me,” he says. “You genuinely almost got me speaking. Not that I’m hiding anything,” he adds, spreading his hands. “Ordinarily I’d be happy to tell you anything you want to know about my background. But I’m conscious we don’t have much time and really I’m here to talk about you. About your failures as a parent.”

  Another barb. Another opening of old wounds.

  “Trust me,” Adam says, “I know exactly how my parents fucked me up. I . . .” He stops himself. “I can say that, right? That word, I mean? Because of the poem. All you counselor types love that, I know. ‘They fuck you up, your mum and dad, blah-di-blah-di-blah.’” He checks Susanna’s reaction, presumably to see if she’s impressed. “I told you, I’ve done my research.”

  Larkin. The poem he means is by Philip Larkin. And Susanna doesn’t like it, as it happens. Not because she doesn’t like swearing (which she doesn’t) but because Larkin’s words cut so close to the bone.

  “You can say what you like,” Susanna responds, “use whatever language you like.” In a session—a real session—she would say the same thing, encourage the client to use whatever vocabulary most helps them to get across their feelings. She only says it now, however, because she knows she’s in no position to object.

  “Wait.”

  Something has occurred to her.

  “What did you mean?” Susanna says. “What you said just now, about us not having much time?” There is something hateful filling her insides: a bulging, sick-inducing warmth.