Under Lying

by Janelle Harris

  Jenny gasps, impressed. ‘The talent behind these photos blows my mind. They’re so good.’

  ‘I always told you they were.’

  I hear the noisy electric shower come on overhead and I know Paul will be in there for a long time, running the hot water on his aching legs.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’ I ask, hating myself as the clichéd words of a good host slip out, but I’m anxious to steer Jenny away from Adam’s photos. ‘Tea or coffee?’

  ‘Coffee would be lovely,’ Jenny smiles. ‘I’m exhausted after the long trek down here.’

  I watch as she makes herself comfortable on my couch. She crosses her legs and flops her head on the back of the couch and puffs out a sigh of exhaustion, as if she’s just flown in from Australia instead of simply following the motorway from Dublin to Cork. I roll my eyes as Jenny’s usual flair for drama pushes my buttons.

  ‘Jenny. What are you doing?’ I finally say. ‘Why are you really here?’

  ‘I told you.’ Jenny lifts her head and looks at me with huge eyes. ‘I want to help. If I can.’

  ‘Really?’ I don’t believe a word. ‘You came all this way, after all these years, to help me?’

  ‘Isn’t that what friends do?’ she smiles.

  I can’t think of anything to say. I have no idea why she’s here, but she must know something. I can’t suddenly ask her to leave, Paul would ask questions, and besides, if I piss her off God only knows what she’ll go down to the local pub and say. Maybe Jenny and I need to be friends again, at least until I figure this out.

  ‘That coffee, Susan?’ Jenny bounces, as always.

  ‘Yeah.’ I swallow. ‘Coming right up.’ On my way to the kitchen I hide the photo on the dresser of Paul and me on our wedding day. It’s pointless, really, since my husband is upstairs and will come down at any moment to chat with this spectre from my past, who is sitting way too comfortably on my couch.

  I take some deep breaths and fill the kettle.

  ‘She’s just absolutely gorgeous,’ Jenny says, now pacing the open downstairs space and taking in every photo of Amelia dotted around on the walls and cabinets and shelves.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, unsurprised she didn’t stay sitting for long.

  ‘She’s very like her father, isn’t she?’ Jenny adds.

  Her words sting, and I wonder if she’s chosen them on purpose. I’m distracted by the floorboards creaking overhead and I know Paul is out of the shower. The kettle shuts off and I look at the two china cups I’ve no memory of taking out of the cupboard and placing on the countertop.

  I spoon some coffee into the cups. My hand is shaking and I spill boiling water over the edge of one of the cups and scald my fingers. I shove my finger into my mouth and suck, trying to cool it down.

  ‘How long have you been married?’ Jenny asks, suddenly appearing behind me.

  I’m reaching overhead to put the coffee back in the cupboard when she startles me. I drop the jar and the lid flies off. I watch it roll along the floor, picking up speed before it crashes into the leg of the table and comes to a wobbly stop. Coffee grains scatter across the porcelain tiles.

  Jenny laughs awkwardly and bends down to pick up the empty jar. ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I didn’t mean to give you a fright.’

  ‘Now?’ I say. ‘Or when you turned up on my doorstep after fifty million years.’

  Jenny laughs again.

  I open the larder cupboard behind me and fetch the sweeping brush.

  ‘Susan. Stop,’ Jenny says.

  I begin to sweep the coffee grains into a pile.

  ‘Susan?’ she says again.

  I walk a little further away and sweep a few stray grains that have made their way under the table.

  ‘Susan, I said stop.’ Jenny grabs my arms.

  I shake her off as if her touch burns.

  ‘He’s your husband?’ She finally says the words I’ve been waiting to hear since she walked through the door, and there’s an odd sense of relief in accepting that she recognises Paul. ‘Your husband, Susan. I can’t believe it.’

  I press my finger against my lips and throw my eyes upwards, as if I can see Paul walking around overhead through the ceiling. ‘Please, Jenny. Just be quiet. He’ll hear you.’

  ‘He doesn’t know who you are?’ Her eyes widen. ‘Oh holy shit.’

  ‘Shh,’ I whisper. ‘No. No, he doesn’t. Of course he bloody doesn’t.’ I rest the broom against the wall, then hurry towards the patio doors and fiddle with the lock. When the doors finally open, the gust of fresh air hits me like a drag of marijuana.

  I take a deep breath, and when Jenny follows me into the garden I lock the doors from the outside behind us.

  ‘Oh Susan, I know you had your issues, but this is beyond messed up. Even for you,’ she says, glancing around at the vast green fields that seem to stretch on for miles.

  The odd house, cattle shed or stable dare to interrupt the landscape somewhere in the distance but I’m confident no one can hear or see us out here, and for the first time since Jenny arrived unexpectedly I’m not deafened by the sound of my own blood coursing past my ears inside my pounding head.

  ‘Paul Warner,’ Jenny says. ‘The Paul Warner.’

  ‘Yes,’ I admit.

  Jenny grows pale and drags her hand around her face. I eye up the patio furniture.

  ‘Let’s sit down.’ I point.

  ‘You know, when I saw Amelia’s disappearance on the news . . .’ Jenny grabs a chair out from under the table and the metal legs squeak and scrape against the patio before she sits down and her weight silences them. ‘. . . I thought to myself – no! No way. The name Warner is just a coincidence. It couldn’t be.’

  ‘Jenny, I can explain,’ I say, pulling a chair out.

  ‘No.’ Jenny raises her hand to silence me. ‘Let me get my head around this for a second. Please.’

  Jenny’s authority catches me by surprise and I wonder why she wasn’t as assertive when she accused me of sleeping with her husband all those years ago. Maybe she’s been for counselling, I think, making no effort to hide the smirk that thought splashes across my face.

  ‘Why?’ Jenny shakes her head, visibly disgusted. ‘Why would you marry him?’

  I shrug. ‘Because I love him.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’ Jenny begins to shake. ‘I listened to you telling me over and over how much you hated that man. You were consumed by it. I watched it eat away at you. I watched the hatred hurt you every single day. And what? Suddenly that all went away and was replaced by wonderful, beautiful love? Oh c’mon, Susan. I’ve never heard such bullshit.’

  Jenny stands up suddenly and the chair falls behind her, crashing loudly against the patio. The back cracks a tile as it lands. Jenny doesn’t notice. She’s pacing in circles with her hands in her hair.

  ‘People change,’ I say.

  ‘No one changes, Susan,’ Jenny says. ‘Not that much.’

  ‘I have,’ I protest. ‘I’ve changed so much. You don’t know me any more.’

  ‘And has Paul changed?’

  ‘Yes. He’s grown up. We both have.’

  Jenny snorts. ‘Well, no matter how much he’s changed, Susan, he’s still the man who killed your brother. Nothing will ever change that!’

  Chapter Twenty-four

  THEN

  Dear Susan,

  A birthday is a special day.

  It comes just once a year.

  Take the time to laugh and smile,

  and give a little cheer.

  Hope you have a wonderful birthday. I can’t believe we’re 25 already. Feeling old lol. I miss you. Maybe we can catch up soon. Please, please get in touch.

  Love you lots, Hon.

  Jenny x

  I snap the card shut and tear it down the middle. I turn it sideways and tear again. I keep going until I rip it into tiny pieces, letting them fall to the ground.

  I glance over my shoulder at my calendar. There’s a red circle around today’s date tha
t I scribbled in permanent marker a couple of weeks ago. As if I could ever forget my own birthday. It’s just a regular Tuesday for most people, but I don’t have to go to work today. I let them know weeks ago that I’d be taking the day off. No one asked why, and I didn’t say. I like it best this way. I hate being reminded by anyone that it’s my birthday.

  The huge bouquet of flowers Jenny sent sits in the centre of my kitchen table. This bouquet is even bigger and brighter than the one she sent last year. The colourful flowers brighten the room and their fresh scent covers the stench of takeaway pizza and beer from last night. Deep green leaves spill over the edge of the lilac box with cream polka dots that says Happy Birthday in swirling gold writing and the purple and yellow fluffy flowers sit proudly on top.

  The alarm on my watch beeps and I can’t believe I was so distracted by the flowers and Jenny’s card that I almost forgot it’s time to go to the coffee shop. I lift the bouquet off the table and tuck it under my arm, taking care not to squash the box and spill water all over myself. I press the pedal on the bin with my foot and drop the flowers inside.

  Less than an hour later I order a double espresso and take my usual seat by the window in The Sugary Spoon so I can people-watch. I’m way too hot. A coat and scarf was a bad plan today. It was cloudy when I left my flat but it’s mild and humid for late October. I couldn’t get a parking space outside the café and it’s a pedestrian area around the corner, so I had to drive more than a kilometre in the wrong direction to the nearest multi-storey car park and run all the way back so I would be here on time. My back is sticky and I can only imagine what colour my cheeks must be as I feel them burn. But it’s worth it when I see Paul walk through the door seconds after I sit down. He goes straight to the counter to order his daily coffee.

  I’ve been following Paul Warner twice weekly for almost a year. On Tuesdays and Thursdays he comes to The Sugary Spoon shortly after midday. I imagine he stops by most other weekdays too, but I’m on a later lunch those days and can’t make it down. He works in an accountancy firm around the corner. It’s a huge office, a couple of hundred staff by the looks of it. Sometimes he’s with a colleague or two when he comes in for coffee. He’s alone today.

  Paul made it particularly easy to find him. The silly arse attended an alumni ball at the college last Christmas. The college newspaper couldn’t resist writing an article on the sizeable donation his firm made to the maths department, as if he was some wonderful philanthropist they were honoured to call a past student. Unsurprisingly, the article left out the part where Paul graduated behind bars while serving a sentence for manslaughter. It would seem the little details aren’t important when you’re throwing money around. You can clearly buy yourself a clean reputation these days.

  ‘An Americano and a croissant to go, please,’ Paul says, as I crane my neck to listen.

  ‘Anything else?’ the girl behind the counter asks routinely.

  ‘No,’ Paul smiles. ‘That’s everything. Thank you.’

  ‘That’s four euro and eighty cents, please,’ the girl says.

  Paul passes her a fiver and tells her she can keep the change. She rolls her eyes and I cover my mouth with my hand to hide my snigger.

  After just a couple of months following Paul I decided he must be one of the most boring men alive. Tuesday is black coffee and croissant day. Thursday is cappuccino and a Danish. Every now and then he will mix up Tuesday’s order with Thursday’s or vice versa, but nothing as adventurous as ordering a cappuccino with a croissant. Paul owns three suits, four shirts and three ties. At least he mixes his outfits up more often than his coffee order. Although someone should really tell him to stop wearing the red tie with the yellow shirt. It’s fuck ugly. Every day he walks to and from work. No surprise there. His driving ban lasts another year. His rent must be crazy in the posh part of the city centre, so I can only imagine he’s earning a lot as an accountant in that fancy firm. I can barely afford my tiny flat around the corner from campus, since a lot of my counselling work is still voluntary while I try to expand my experience.

  ‘Thank you.’ Paul’s familiar voice cuts into my thoughts.

  I watch him reach up to take the brown paper bag the girl behind the counter passes him in one hand, and he takes his coffee in the other.

  ‘There’s milk and sugar over there.’ The girl points to the usual spot as if Paul isn’t in here every day.

  Feeling light-headed from the heat and a little shaky from my double espresso, I stand up and try to time it so I reach the door at exactly the same moment as Paul. It’s actually rather tricky as he takes longer than I expect, trying to get the lid back on his coffee cup after adding such a tiny drop of milk I wonder why he even bothered.

  Finally, he’s moving and I pick up pace as I swerve around tables and chairs and pass the counter. I’m practically power walking as he opens the door and I lunge forward so my arm collides against his as we squeeze through the gap at the same time.

  ‘Oh my God, I’m so sorry,’ I say as I watch his coffee cup fly out of his hand.

  Scalding coffee rains down on his grey suit jacket. Ironically, I like this jacket best out of all of his suits.

  Paul takes his jacket off quickly, but the coffee has soaked right through to his shirt.

  ‘Here, let me help you.’ I pull some tissues out of my bag and begin to dab at his shirt. ‘I’m so embarrassed,’ I say. ‘That was all my fault. I was rushing for my bus and I just didn’t see you there.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Paul says, pulling away from me.

  Clearly my dabbing is making him uncomfortable. I stop and pass him some fresh tissues instead.

  ‘Can I buy you another coffee?’ I ask.

  He shakes his head. ‘Thank you. But I really need to get back to work.’

  ‘I could pay for your dry-cleaning, maybe?’ I suggest, curling a strand of hair around my finger. ‘Would that help?’

  ‘No. It’s fine, really,’ Paul says and he’s not even looking at me. ‘It was just an accident. Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘I feel awful,’ I continue.

  ‘Well, don’t.’ He finally looks at me and his big blue eyes are round and kind. ‘Accidents happen all the time. Don’t beat yourself up over it.’

  ‘Thank you for being so understanding, eh . . .’ I extend my hand.

  ‘Paul,’ he says, shaking my hand.

  ‘Nice to meet you, Paul,’ I say. ‘I’m Susan. Maybe I’ll see you again sometime.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe,’ he says, slipping on his wet jacket and walking away.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  THEN

  Wednesday drags by. On the one hand I’m relieved it’s no longer my birthday, but on the other I don’t want to be at work listening to people drone on about their boring lives and minor problems that they blow out of proportion. The only one with a real problem is me. But that’s all getting sorted out now. I have a plan.

  At five minutes past twelve there is a knock on my office door. I lift my head from filling in some boring paperwork after my last client.

  ‘C’mon in, Deacon,’ I say, expecting him for his midday, midweek session.

  The door creaks open and Deacon’s head appears around the door first.

  ‘What’s behind your back?’ I ask, standing up and walking around to the front of my desk.

  ‘I know you hate birthdays,’ he says, blushing.

  Deacon has a present behind his back. I can see the top of a bottle of wine peek out on one side, and the corner of a box of chocolates juts out on the other.

  I shake my head. Deacon wouldn’t remember my birthday. He’s terrible with dates – he can’t remember his own daughter’s anniversary or the date he and Jenny got married. He considers it an achievement if he guesses the month correctly. Jenny must have told him. I sigh, disappointed that they’re obviously keeping in touch.

  ‘But I couldn’t resist bringing you a little something,’ he continues. ‘It’s almost lunchtime. What do you s
ay we have a little birthday drink?’

  Deacon pulls the wine and chocolates out from behind his back and brushes past me to set them down on my desk.

  ‘I can’t.’ I try to smile, masking my frustration. ‘I’ve back to back clients this afternoon.’

  ‘Surely one glass won’t hurt?’ he says.

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ I say, sitting behind my desk again, ‘why don’t you come round to my flat later? We can open it then. I’ll even cook dinner.’

  I can fill Deacon with wine and fill his head some more with how terrible a father he was. There’s only so far we can get in our sessions before he starts to pull back. It’s easier to get inside his head when he’s drunk. It does mean I have to have dinner with the boring bastard at least twice a month, but it’ll all be worth it when the time comes to call on Deacon for help. By then, I’ll have him so convinced we’re two broken kindred spirits he’ll practically be begging me to do away with Paul.

  ‘No.’ He shakes his head and catches me by surprise. ‘I’ll cook. There’s something not right about you cooking dinner on your birthday.’

  I smile and nod. ‘My birthday was yesterday.’ I can see I’ve burst his bubble.

  ‘I knew that,’ he says. ‘But I don’t see you on Tuesdays. Can’t we do a post-birthday dinner?’

  ‘Sounds good,’ I smile.

  He takes a seat and we begin our session as usual. I wait until we’re halfway through to ask the question that’s been burning a hole in my mind like acid since Deacon wished me happy birthday.

  ‘How’s Jenny?’ I finally blurt, completely out of context as Deacon was telling me about his childhood collie and how losing her was his first experience of death.

  ‘Erm,’ he swallows. ‘Okay, I guess. We signed the divorce papers on Friday.’

  ‘Oh Deacon. I’m sorry,’ I lie. ‘That must have been hard.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he sighs. ‘I didn’t think it would ever really happen, you know. I always thought we could fix things.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I nod. ‘I know.’

  He turns and stares out the window, becoming emotional.