Would I Lie to You?

by Aliya Ali-Afzal

  I gripped the wheel tighter. I didn’t want to think of the terrible possibilities barging into my mind. I ran through a red light without noticing until the car to my left almost hit me and beeped its horn violently.

  Tom called on the speakerphone. I waited a second, dreading what he might say, then answered quickly.

  ‘We found him! He’s safe.’

  I had to pull over because I was crying too much to see the road.

  When I got home, the police were already in our living room. Two huge officers sat on either side of Ahmed, who was looking down, his face expressionless.

  ‘Son, you mustn’t do this again,’ said one. ‘Look how worried everyone is.’

  Ahmed nodded, as if on auto pilot. I rushed over to him, squeezing in next to him. He shrugged off my arm as I tried to hug him.

  Once the police left, Ahmed went straight to his room.

  ‘I just want everyone to leave me alone,’ he said.

  Tom held me as I cried.

  ‘I’m going to spend more time with him,’ he said. ‘We’ve forgotten him in the middle of everything.’

  I called Dr Keane, then Tom and I sat with Sofia and Alex and tried our best to reassure them.

  Ahmed didn’t leave his room or eat dinner. I couldn’t sleep until I’d spoken to him so, later, I took his favourite cherry jam crumpets and chocolate milk to his room. He sat up in bed and ate, while I perched at the edge of the bed, pretending to scroll through my phone. Once he’d eaten, I edged towards him, and when I pulled him close, he let me. I stayed with him stroking his hair.

  ‘What happened, darling?’ I said after a while.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Twenty-Four

  It was almost midnight when Sofia came into our room. Tom and I were still awake. We wanted to make sure Ahmed was asleep before we talked, and when I popped my head into his room, I saw that he was sleeping peacefully.

  Sofia sat down on our bed.

  ‘I asked Ahmed why he ran away,’ she said.

  I sat up quickly. He had refused to answer any of my questions.

  ‘Did he tell you?’

  ‘He went to the Common and walked around.’

  ‘But why would he disappear like that? Did something happen at school?’

  ‘No. He says he just kept thinking about what would happen if his friends turned against him like they did at his old school. He didn’t want to come home so he just ran to the Common before you got there.’

  If I hadn’t been late from going to the gallery, he wouldn’t have had time to run away.

  I stroked Sofia’s hair. She was chewing her thumb and staring at the floor.

  ‘I’m so glad you talked to him. We just need to let Ahmed know we’re all here for him,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t worry, Sofia, he’s safe now and he didn’t go far. Get some sleep now, darling,’ said Tom.

  I walked her back to her room with my arm around her and tucked her into bed. I could see she was still shaken.

  So was I. Ahmed had always come to me when he was feeling upset or worried. Why did he feel that I couldn’t help him? He must have felt so alone.

  That night I couldn’t stop thinking about the turmoil inside Ahmed, and the turmoil I was about to unleash into his life – into all our lives. I had to protect him, whatever it took.

  I looked at Tom as he slept. My life had changed the moment I’d met him. I watched his eyes move under closed eyelids and reached out and stroked his hair carefully. I couldn’t lose Tom. If I did, I’d lose everything.

  My eyes snapped open.

  I tried to guess what time it was. I woke up like clockwork two or three times a night: at 2 a.m., 4 a.m. and 5.50 a.m. The last slot was the worst as it didn’t leave enough time to get back to sleep before the morning alarm went off at 6.45. I checked my phone. It was only midnight. I seemed to have added another insomniac pit stop to my routine.

  I crept downstairs and paced the room, but my worries chased me wherever I went. It felt as if I was standing by the side-lines, waiting for my family to be destroyed. There was no one I could ask for so much money.

  Ami and Baba had very little savings, less than ten thousand pounds. Their money was saturated with sacrifice and the stress of living as frugally as possible for their entire lives, so they could safeguard their future. Baba always said that they didn’t want to be a burden on Farrah or me. If I asked for any of their meagre savings, I’d also have to tell them we were having money troubles and Baba’s last check-up had been concerning; I couldn’t risk his health.

  Farrah had used up her savings to fund her stay in America. In fact, I helped her pay some of her rent from the emergency fund.

  Theoretically, I could’ve asked Sam, but it wasn’t an option. Years ago, she’d told me how her father and uncle had fallen out over money – they were still estranged twenty years later.

  ‘I wouldn’t even lend money to my children. It destroys relationships,’ Sam had said.

  I ran my hands through my hair as I stood at the French windows and looked straight into the eyes of a fox as it darted across the garden. It was just the two of us, alone in the dead of the night.

  I looked at my phone. If I could find some sort of work that paid daily, I could settle Dr Keane’s bill. I’d do anything. I googled and searched page after page, but there was nothing that started immediately or wasn’t commission-based. I was about to log off when a banner started dancing cheerfully across the screen.

  Want some money today? Payday loans £££. Apply now.

  It had never occurred to me to get a loan from anywhere besides the bank. My hand shook as I opened up the tabs, rushing, tripping over the keys.

  The process was user-friendly. There was an arrow on a sliding scale to choose the amount you wanted to borrow; I chose fifteen thousand and, for the repayment period, I chose a year.

  I couldn’t believe it. The solution had been here all along! It would solve everything, and could keep us going until Tom or I got a job. I whizzed through the form, filling in my bank details. The money would go straight into my account within twenty-four hours.

  I watched the circle turning on the screen like a roulette wheel as the loan was processed. A message flashed up: Application declined; unable to offer unsecured loans to those not in employment.

  I tried other loan sites, to borrow less and pay more interest, but I was rejected every time.

  Twenty-Five

  10 days to May 30th

  In the middle of the project collapsing and Ahmed’s disappearance, Tom hadn’t asked me whether I had transferred the money from the emergency account. He would, though, and soon, because the direct debits were due to go out in ten days. It was just a matter of days, or even hours before he discovered the truth.

  My heart raced continuously and nothing would slow it down. That was how hearts really broke, I thought, from fear and regret.

  Tom had kept up a cheerful front around Ahmed and the other children, but when we were alone, he was back to either staring silently into space, or at his iPad. As I drove to school, I couldn’t stop thinking about Tom’s face. It was drained, defeated. I had tried to distract him, given him chores, held him and kissed him, but nothing worked.

  Only one company had contacted me from all the ones I had applied to, a temping agency for office work on minimum wage, all over London. They emailed weeks ago but couldn’t offer a date for interview until three weeks later. The time had passed and the appointment was today. I decided to go. I had nothing else and I could perhaps earn enough to cover Dr Keane’s direct debits. We couldn’t stop the sessions now.

  As I left for the interview, I heard the now-familiar and maddening sound of Tom playing Solitaire on his phone. I told him I was going to meet a headhunter. He was slumped on the sofa, hair rumpled, still in his pyjamas, bare feet on the floor and eyes glued to the screen.

  I sighed at my frustration. His only crime was playing Solitaire on a loop. Mine was to bankrupt us. I stood
behind him and put my hands on his shoulders then kissed his head. He didn’t wish me luck.

  At the temping agency, the twenty-something executive told me that they couldn’t help me as I didn’t possess any of the skills on their checklist. I had wasted my time. I wanted to rush back to Tom and be there when Ahmed got back from school.

  At Waterloo, all the trains were delayed. I paced the platform. I’d make some sweet-and-sour chicken for dinner, I thought. The children loved that. And Ahmed and Tom’s favourite, prawn dumplings. I couldn’t think about what would happen next. My mind had shut down.

  I managed to squeeze onto the first train I could, but it moved much slower than usual. I didn’t know what I’d do when I got home. Would I finally tell Tom that I had lied to him, or would I wait until the deadline got closer and he discovered the truth himself? Waiting seemed like the better option. I couldn’t actively destroy everything.

  When the train suddenly stopped on the tracks between stations, I looked at the sealed windows and doors, feeling as if I might suffocate. To calm myself I tapped my phone. The last search results for the loan site came up and I started to click link after link, still hoping to find one company that might give me a loan. As I was tapping, my screen was suddenly filled with pert nipples pointing straight at me, attached to naked women with long hair and pouting red lips. Become an escort, start earning today. My fingers moved as if of their own volition and clicked an icon saying fees and services. The figures for various ‘services’ flashed up. I closed the page, my face burning, too afraid to check if the man sitting next to me had seen my screen.

  What was happening to me? I couldn’t believe I had considered, however fleetingly, that the fees on that page might be an answer to my problem.

  This had gone too far. I had to tell Tom about the money as soon as I got home. I tried to rehearse what I’d say. I kept stopping when I got to, ‘Tom, I’m so sorry…’

  Twenty-Six

  The platform was packed as we pulled into Wimbledon station. Makeshift metal barriers had been set up and we were herded into single files as we got off the train. Station staff, some wearing high-vis jackets with the words ‘British Transport Police’, moved us along. I wondered if there had been a bomb scare?

  A woman’s voice floated over the heads of the crowd towards me. ‘Someone jumped in front of a train at platform six.’

  Another woman replied, ‘No! Did they die?’

  ‘I think so. It’s not the first time, is it? I just wish they wouldn’t do it at our station. Bloody selfish, if you ask me. I should have been home three hours ago.’

  ‘Imagine being that desperate though. How awful…’

  The voices moved away but the words kept ringing in my ears. I glanced back. It had happened just a few feet away. I shivered. Who knew what desperation could drive you to? If anyone had told me, a year ago, that I would be forging Tom’s signature, selling family heirlooms and looking at dodgy loan sites or how much escorts made, I would not have believed it.

  I thought about the person who had jumped. I’d seen the trains thunder past platform six. I couldn’t imagine how anyone would step off the platform and let themselves fall onto the rails, knowing that they would be crushed, sliced, run over, between the tracks and the trains. It was guaranteed death.

  I was doing the right thing, telling Tom. The man who jumped might not have had anyone to turn to. I still had Tom.

  A woman was handing out leaflets from the Samaritans.

  I took one. Whatever you’ve done, we are here to listen. I couldn’t stop staring at the words.

  An elderly woman standing near the exit spoke to me.

  ‘Terrible, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘I heard it was a banker who got fired today. He was sitting at the station for ages and then suddenly got up and jumped.’

  I walked away quickly. I called Tom, needing to hear his voice.

  ‘Hi, I’m waiting for the bus,’ I said.

  ‘All right.’

  He sounded low.

  ‘How are things?’ I asked.

  ‘How do you think things are?’

  In the bus, I worried about how he’d react when he found out about the money and my lies, when he was already so down.

  I was almost at my stop. I thought about the man who’d killed himself: someone’s son, someone’s husband and someone’s father, maybe. Tom was not himself. It was as if he’d lost his balance, the way Alex did after he’d been spinning round and round in the garden. I’d never seen him like this.

  If he found out about our financial situation on top of the hopeless job search and the cancelled project, it might be too much. I still had ten days before the thirtieth. I’d tell Tom that there was a slight delay in transferring the money from the Post Office, as I was waiting for a bond to mature, but that it would be in the account by the thirtieth for sure. I’d use this time to lift his mood and get close to him again, before the truth came out. I’d been so busy trying to get hold of the money that I hadn’t been able to look after him at all. I’d remind him of what we had, not just what we had lost: that we loved each other, that we had three wonderful, healthy children.

  It would give me time to help Ahmed too, time for him to feel stronger after what had happened yesterday.

  My confession would have to wait.

  Twenty-Seven

  7 days to May 30th

  The next few days were wonderful.

  Once I’d stopped worrying about raising thousands of pounds, I could shift my attention back to Tom and the children. Like someone with a terminal diagnosis or on death row, I was aware that this might be the last time we were all together like this.

  The change in my mood had a ripple effect. In the mornings I blasted music in the kitchen, flipping pancakes and cutting Alex’s French toast into small squares, just the way Baba used to cut it for me when I was his age. I could sense an easing of the children’s tension, even Ahmed’s. We laughed at silly jokes in the car like we used to. I felt affection and amusement at their spats, rather than tearful frustration.

  Tom had been more difficult to cajole out of his emotional coma. At night, I rolled towards him, pressing my body into his. He put his arms around me, but wouldn’t let me take it further. Well, if sex wasn’t going to work, then perhaps a different kind of fun would.

  The next day the children were at school and we were having coffee.

  ‘Do you realise we’ve hardly spent any time together since you left Apex?’ I said. ‘I know it’s awful that you’re not working, but let’s take advantage of it. Let’s be tourists in the city. Remember our walks along the South Bank? We used to love taking the river taxi from Putney pier. We could go to Richmond for a picnic or maybe see a film in the middle of the day?’

  I saw something flicker in his eyes. I perched in his lap and his arms circled my hips.

  ‘I can’t remember the last time we did anything like that,’ he said.

  He went to get ready and I closed my eyes. I was getting him back.

  We walked from the Royal Festival Hall along the Thames, right up to the Tate Modern. I pulled him inside, protesting, to look at some sculptures, and he stopped me, wanting to listen to a busker singing Beatles’ songs.

  Tom and I were opposites in everything. He was serious and I tried to joke about life. He loved sports, both playing and watching, and I had to force myself for a thirty-minute session in the gym. He spoke very little, and I talked non-stop, but he loved to listen. Between the two of us, though, we had found the perfect middle.

  We walked across the wobbly bridge, our eyes swivelling from one side to the other, exhilarated by the view of skyscrapers gleaming in the sunshine. He put his arm around me and the wind blew my hair into his face as it fluttered happily in the air; he tucked a strand behind my ear, his fingertips warm on my skin.

  We picked a different location every day. We ate churros and samosas from stalls in Borough Market, perching on walls or benches when the weather was good, and if it was ra
ining, we sheltered under shop awnings, wolfing down shawarmas, sauce dripping on our chins. Instead of buying dessert, we had mini bites of the free samples, feeling like university students.

  It was lovely to be us again. And I didn’t have to lie all week.

  In the evenings, Tom started sitting with me and the children on the sofa again instead of going up to bed early. He helped Ahmed with his homework and cuddled Alex. He got Sofia’s favourite ice cream from the late-night supermarket when she was up till 1 a.m. doing an essay. He even started shaving.

  One night, he stopped me as I was changing my clothes before bed and started to undress me himself, slowly taking off my jeans, my knickers, my T-shirt, and then my bra. He kissed me, then mumbled straight into my mouth, ‘No PJs,’ and led me to bed.

  Despite the joy of our time together, I was always aware of the impending deadline. Most of the time I pushed the thought away, so that its presence was like a nightmare you remembered only vaguely, but at night I couldn’t sleep.

  Six days before the thirtieth, I was lying in bed staring at the dark, when my chest started to burn. I rubbed the spot, trying to ease the pain, but it became sharper until it hurt to breathe. I sat up, my face hot, my heart racing. I knew these symptoms from Baba’s cardiology appointments. I tried to slow my breathing. Was I having a heart attack? A shot of fear ran through me.

  Then, another unexpected thought burrowed into my head, overtaking fear. If I died, right at that moment, would it be such a terrible thing? The idea felt seductive. It felt like peace. No more explanations or worry. I rolled over to Tom, who had his back to me and wrapped myself around him. If I was going to die, I wanted to be close to him.

  ‘I love you,’ I whispered into his back.

  He turned around and pulled me close to him, wrapping his legs around me. The pain was sharp again. I didn’t want to die. I couldn’t leave my children. I imagined them seeing my body in the bed.