The Day the Lies Began

by Kylie Kaden

  * * *

  Hannah had tried every avoidance strategy; mentioned how tired she was, wore the ugly button-up pyjamas and turned her back to him to read, but Blake still curled his arms around her waist, pressed his body into hers and gave it a shot. Hannah couldn’t even pretend tonight or hope to warm with a little prodding. She needed time to establish her position on the fact he was hiding something. Weren’t they supposed to share emotional problems with each other? It made her wonder what else she’d been excluded from. She resumed her default position – polite passive–aggressiveness, until she could figure out whether she really did have reason to be pissed off.

  ‘So, here’s the thing,’ Blake whispered. She felt obliged to at least turn towards him, a little. ‘I’m not on late shift. I’m actually in bed with you, awake, for a change. I’m not even on call.’ He smoothed her hair to one side and kissed the nape of her neck. ‘I suggest we make the most of the opportunity.’

  ‘I’m kinda tired, hon.’

  Blake groaned. ‘Okay, then. See you in three weeks.’ His tone left her unsure whether he was actually giving up, or just onto the next round. ‘If we want this to be different this time, we have to do something different. Talk to each other.’ He turned over to face the wall. The two of them, back to back, looking out in different directions.

  The guilt stung. He was right. The history between them, the cycle of one pulling away when the other needed more, rushed to her thoughts. This was an opportunity to show she had matured. Verbal communication was such a big part of teaching. Why did she suck at it in her personal life? She couldn’t do her nice voice every waking moment. Did she use up all her patience during the day with the kids?

  But she had to try. She turned to him, stroked his back, thought of the online interpersonal communication module she’d just completed. Stick to ‘I’ statements, she thought. Avoid defensiveness. But she couldn’t talk about her feelings without revealing that she’d stalked them earlier that day. She let out a breath. ‘I thought I saw you, this arvo. Down at the beach.’

  ‘When? After work?’ He turned back to her.

  ‘I saw Abbi there, too.’ She’d tease it out in a slow dance.

  ‘That’s why you don’t want a bar of me? Because I saw Abbi?’

  ‘I heard you talking.’

  Blake frowned, played innocent, but Hannah could tell he was panicked. ‘Where exactly were you, to hear us? Hiding in the bushes?’

  ‘No! Yes, well, sort of – stop deflecting! You’ve been all weird and whispery since I got back. What happened tonight? Why was she so upset?’

  He sucked his lip – his way of hiding his expression. She knew all his tells. ‘It doesn’t concern you.’

  Hannah inhaled. She didn’t want to accuse him straight up, so she settled for a red herring. ‘I realise some things are private, that you don’t have to tell me everything, but I knew her before you, her daughter goes to my school. If something significant is going on, I should be in on it.’

  Blake’s face coloured. ‘You talk like you’ve been left out of an insider’s joke.’ He huffed. ‘Besides, it’s not my call. Abbi wanted it to stay between us. I respect that. I keep things confidential when she asks me to, just like I would if you did. It’s called loyalty. I keep my work from you every day, I can’t share the gory details about what I have to deal with, despite wanting to.’ Perspiration lined his lip and Blake grew quiet. ‘Why’d you follow us?’

  She thought of Will’s words: I trust her; if people were more honest with each other, life would be simple. She thought of her psychology course: Avoid inflammatory words. ‘I want to be the woman you share things with. I get jealous when I see what you two have, and, I guess I just wanted to watch, to see the way you are together – when I’m not there.’

  Blake inhaled, then breathed out as if he were a weightlifter preparing for a powerlift. She could see he was trying to keep tabs on his anger. They were both trying. ‘You thought we might, what, have a quick shag in the dunes the second you’re not there to chaperone us?’

  He was joking, trying to make her think he thought the idea preposterous. Hannah didn’t believe it was. She shrugged. ‘It’s not impossible.’

  Blake pulled away, folded his hands behind his head. ‘Here we go. At least this time it took you, what – a month to fester enough insecurity about Abbi to start at me again. Well don’t bother with the rant, Hannah, I can remember it by heart.’

  Hannah’s throat tightened. If you do the same thing, you will get the same result. She leaned up on her elbow. ‘Blake, instead of fighting, maybe we can just talk about it. Tell me how you really feel about her.’

  He paused, thinking. ‘Now that Gail is gone, and the other foster kids have all moved away, me and Abbi are all that’s left – she’s my family.’

  Hannah raised her eyebrows. ‘Except she isn’t. She’s no blood relation. Gail never even adopted you, officially.’

  ‘So? That’s how I think of her. Not everyone hatches in a perfect fucking nuclear family, Han.’

  ‘You have no idea how far from the truth that is, Blake. Have you seen my father, lately?’

  ‘Not for a while.’

  ‘That’s because he doesn’t leave the house. I really wish I could talk to you more about my stuff. There are things I want to share. But it’s hard when I don’t know where we stand. You know I’ve always been jealous of your sister.’

  ‘Do you hear how stupid that sounds? Jealous of my sister? Look, I care about her, I want to make sure she’s okay. But you’re my girlfriend. You’re the one I want to build a life with, come home to. It’s entirely different.’

  ‘But the way you look at her …’

  ‘For the last fucking time, it’s not like that. She’s my sister. You don’t fuck your family where I come from.’

  Her brow unfurrowed. She couldn’t not believe him, with that emphatic performance. ‘We all seem to fuck them up, one way or another.’ Hannah thought of a few things that had shaped her life – they came down to Will’s theory on invisible luck. Was control an illusion? Her mind wandered, her eyebrows pulled together, but then Hannah looked over at her boyfriend. The only man she’d ever let undress her with the light on, who’d ever felt like home. Was she overthinking this? Another Hannah self-sabotage? There was so much she wanted to disclose about her own family that she couldn’t. Not yet. Not until she sorted out whatever tensions were bubbling below the surface in this town. Sorting out the friction between Abbi and Blake was part of it. But her instincts told her it was broader than that. That perhaps even the noble doctor was involved somehow. She had to dig deeper.

  She ran her finger along Blake’s freckly arm, the wrath of the day melting. ‘In a word, how would you describe your relationship with Abbi?’

  ‘Seriously?’ He rolled his eyes, before meeting hers again and seeing she wasn’t laughing. ‘Protective.’

  That sounded platonic. Acceptable. ‘And me?’

  He considered the question, his eyes direct. ‘Infatuated.’

  Hannah blushed. He kissed her like he meant it. Or maybe he just wanted sex.

  Either way, she could live with it.

  But as Blake began their old routine, right hand caressing left breast, something niggled again. Her brokenness – like a bad case of asthma, always returned in her weak moments. Now she’d come back to the place that manifested so many of her hang-ups, she had the choking feeling. Was there something sinister beneath the surface of this town, or was she just catastrophising? She’d always felt like second choice to the men in her life; Blake preferred the easier Abbi, her father adored the more agreeable Molly. Hannah had to work out if this was her usual habit of over-reacting, or something real. The lines had been so blurry for so long, she no longer knew the difference.

  Chapter 11

  31 DAYS AFTER THE MOON FESTIVAL

  Will went through the motions of his usual workday morning. Part of the appeal of a career in medicine had been the adventure, the
absence of nine-to-five in a collared shirt. But here he was, conforming to the modern daily grind.

  He and Abby had designed the blueprints of their life for simplicity. His commute was less than five minutes. She packed his lunch. Eadie blew him kisses as he waved goodbye each day. He’d done it for years, with no bitterness about the sidestep in his career.

  But today it stank. He bashed about, burned Eadie’s porridge, and now lamented the idiocy of shaving each day, ironing a shirt and playing the professional game.

  He kept hearing Hannah’s words from the day before. I saw them together. He couldn’t imagine any reason she’d lie about it. Hannah was highly strung, but she at least believed what she said. He’d then asked Abbi in passing if she’d seen her foster-brother yesterday and she’d denied it. The important question was why?

  Here he was, convincing Hannah to accept those two for what they were. Had he been the fool, all these years? His fingers scratched over his greying whiskers and he was lathering the shaving cream when Abbi snuck up behind him. Her hands smoothed over his back. She smelt like toast and tea and home.

  ‘Want me to shave you?’ Her voice was low and soft and as ragged as their hessian rug. He’d always loved that voice (she’d missed her calling as a newsreader). But today he questioned the motive behind her words.

  ‘Is that your way of telling me that the chest hair spreading over my shoulders is finally turning you off?’ He raised one brow, momentarily forgetting his anger.

  ‘I meant your face.’

  A smirk landed on his lips. ‘Can you do it without shredding my skin?’

  Abbi circled around him in her sports bra and leggings, planted her round behind on the vanity and grabbed the white foam, smoothing it across his skin in swirls. Will was surprised to find his wife had technique, grace and accuracy, working methodically across his cheek like a pro. ‘Another hidden talent.’

  ‘Don’t wriggle.’ She smiled. ‘What’s the first one?’

  Will furrowed his brow. ‘Journalistic flair?’

  ‘Thought you were going to say hand jobs.’

  ‘Would you rather I had?’

  ‘They probably pay better. And at least the demand is pretty reliable.’ She continued shaving him, smooth and systematic.

  ‘You’ve done this before.’ But not for him.

  She grew quiet.

  Will resisted the urge to bring him up, but only for a second, then the need raced forward and overran his mind. ‘Did you use to shave Blake?’

  ‘What?’ She stalled, razor poised mid air. ‘I have known other people with facial hair. Why do you always assume—’

  ‘Is it that unreasonable? He’s male. You shared a bathroom for years.’

  ‘Him and six others. Besides, he barely had bumfluff back then and he moved out when he was sixteen.’

  ‘Moved out? Or kicked out?’

  Abbi lurched back, her shoulders pressing against the mirror, toothbrushes tumbling to the tiles. ‘Is that what he told you?’

  Will wished he’d resisted the urge to start this now. He didn’t have time for this shit today. ‘Your mum told me, actually. Years ago.’ She’d been chatty when he’d taken her for chemo in her final months, flowing in and out of consciousness. Will almost felt her muscles tense from a foot away.

  ‘Told you what?’

  Will shrugged, grabbed the razor from her hand. ‘About the need to have a lock on your bedroom door. About the reason she made Blake move out.’ He inspected the clean lines of one side of his face in the mirror, anything not to look at her. ‘Still took her carer’s allowance too, she admitted – passed it on to him to ease the guilt. Paid his rent.’

  Abbi pushed past, adjusting her barely-there clothes.

  She made her way to the door before pausing. ‘Where’s this coming from?’ Her nose wrinkled in that way she did to stop herself crying. She did it the whole first day Eadie started kindy.

  Will rinsed the razor under the tap, his jaw rigid. He was sick of pussyfooting around. ‘I always wondered what side it was on. That bedroom door lock. Was it to keep you in, or him out?’

  She pressed her hand to her throat. ‘You’re never like this. And last night. Asking me where I was? Who I was with? You barely took note of which days I worked, before.’

  ‘You’ve never lied to me, before.’

  Her face fell. That pretty face, sad in that way he usually did everything to prevent. ‘When did I lie?’

  If she’d just come out with it. That she’d seen Blake the day before, and had her own reason she didn’t want to tell him, he’d have accepted that. He was not her keeper. It was not the act itself that got to him, it was the cover-up. But she didn’t. She was sheepish, regretful. Cagey.

  ‘Do you lie to me so often you can’t narrow it down? That it?’ His heart sank. This was not the isolated incident he’d originally assumed.

  ‘You talk like I’m the only one keeping secrets.’ ‘What does that mean?’ Will had been so sure of his marriage it bordered on arrogance. He thought they were immune to the ailments he saw his patients’ relationships suffer from: lies, mistrust, miscommunication. But it seemed they were every bit as vulnerable as the next couple.

  She had tears now. The second time this week – he’d caught her crying in the shower for no good reason the other night.

  What was happening? He felt rattled. ‘Should I be worried?’

  His wife shook her head. ‘No, you just leave that to me,’ she blurted out, pushing him away with both fists, then exhaled. Her eyes dropped almost immediately but before they did, her look was scathing. Resentful. Full of blame – for what, he had no clue and he hated feeling like his wife had become a stranger.

  His eyes narrowed. ‘What are you talking about? You think I’m keeping something from you? Think I make you take on too much? What’s going on?’

  She didn’t answer, just exploded in tears, shaking her head as if she was now full of remorse, a different woman to the one who just cut him down with a steely glare. He could see tell-tale signs of conflicted emotion, but over what, he had no clue.

  Will threw the razor into the sink with a snap and stormed out, half shaven.

  She gasped and followed. ‘Will? It’s not what you think.’

  He turned. ‘Then what is it?’

  Her mouth opened but no noise came out.

  * * *

  Blake was fed up with Abbi thinking he had nothing better to do than answer her cryptic texts (even though he kind of didn’t, most of the time). But there had been a chill in the air, he was tired and he had a city-cop meeting and a day’s paperwork to finish, not to mention the fact that Hannah had been present when Abbi’s number lit up his phone earlier. He crossed his arms to keep warm, wished he had a cigarette. Then he thought of the flutter he felt in his heart that morning and thought it best he didn’t.

  He waited in the car park near the boat ramp, far away from Lago Point Primary so there was no chance Hannah would inadvertently see his car. He sipped his muddy cappuccino, glanced over to the boot camp exercisers wearing fluoro lycra and vitality. Morning walkers strutted along the boardwalk, past the row of craft-industry shops and waterfront cafes. Friendly waves and nods were the norm. Very little crime happened this early – all the bad seeds were still asleep – so the town possessed a certain kind of utopia.

  He watched her walk his way across the lot.

  Abbi was petulant when she got in his car, crossing her arms. She’d ordered him down here as if the sky had fallen, muttering something about how Will was ‘onto us’, and that she couldn’t do this anymore, but now the brat was reluctant to explain.

  ‘Come on, spit it out. What’s with the mope? Where’s your annoying chirp?’ Still nothing. She put her feet on the dash the way he hated, but he let it slide. ‘Okay, is there something specific? You had a fight? Or is it just a general, girly notion that you’re scared he doesn’t love you as much as you love him?’ His voice was singsong, and he regretted the insult.
<
br />   ‘Why do you say that?’ Abbi presented two durries from her bra like a schoolgirl, and he wasn’t sure if he was impressed or disgusted.

  He started to fidget – this could be a long detour in his day. He placed his coffee in the cup-holder. ‘I just know you. And you only urgently want me when you think he doesn’t.’

  It was a fairly accurate description of his function in her life since she came back to town, besotted by some bloke he’d never heard of. Blake got that husband trumped brother – it was the natural way of things and he’d take what he could get. The brother got lumped with the moving days, drunken lifts home or the worst job: the taste-tester during her culinary-experiment phase (she had looked so sweet, plodding away in her apron doing trial runs of dinners for Will and she still couldn’t cook more than three edible meals). He knew he was Will’s understudy, always second choice. But he was happy with that.

  Abbi was still in a daze. ‘Does he? Want me, that is.’ She sniffed.

  ‘What are you on about?’

  ‘We had a big fight before he left for work. God, it was awful. He doesn’t trust me now. And that’s everything to him,’ Abbi whispered. ‘He thinks I’ve lied about something.’

  ‘You have.’ He looked at his watch. At her. ‘You’re annoying, you know that? Couldn’t you have had this existential crisis after work?’

  ‘Since when do you say things like existential?’

  ‘Hannah. She’s got me reading.’ He cringed like he’d said something dirty. ‘Anyway, I have to be back for Penny soon.’

  ‘The new cop? Aren’t you her boss?’

  ‘Just ’cause I outrank her doesn’t mean I can be late.’ Civilians.

  He liked Constable Ho. She was a straight shooter and was up for anything – even cuffing blokes five times her body weight. He had to respect that. To make a point on her first day at the station, she had pretended not to speak English for half an hour before suddenly conversing with perfect enunciation. Turned out she was fluent in three languages and four steps ahead of him half the time.