All the Little Lies

by Chris Curran

  Cereal bowl still in her hand she headed up the stairs. A loud rap at the front door broke the silence, making her jump and spill some milk down the leg of her jeans. She couldn’t see who was there, but the window at the side meant whoever it was might be able to see her. Another rap.

  It was probably one of her housemates’ friends. She crept down, put her bowl on the telephone table and, as quietly as she could, slipped on the security chain. A deep breath then she eased open the door.

  Pamela Houghton, looking pale and so haggard she must be ill. Stella took off the chain and let her in. The woman didn’t speak just stood looking at her, one hand on the telephone table as if in danger of falling.

  A surge of hope. Ben must have told her everything and maybe she still had enough money to bail them out. But then Pamela’s mouth hardened. When she spoke there was ice in her voice. ‘You might prefer it if we talk in your own room.’ She looked down at the cereal bowl and shook her head. Then followed Stella up.

  Unlike Ben she stayed standing, narrowing her eyes at the clutter and the rumpled bed. Stella waited, trying to keep her expression steady and her fists from clenching.

  It was clear Pamela was struggling too. Her breath was uneven and her hands twisted together at her waist. When she finally did speak, Stella couldn’t take in her meaning.

  ‘The hospital tells me Ben will never walk again.’

  It was so surprising, so different from what she had been expecting, that Stella could only stare at her. And her next words made even less sense.

  ‘At the moment he’s letting everyone think it was his own carelessness and neither of us has mentioned that you were even there. I don’t like it, but he insists that’s what he wants.’

  A shudder inside. ‘Ben has had an accident?’

  Pamela laughed a mirthless laugh. ‘You’re asking me that? You know very well what happened. You were there trying to get money out of us, but it didn’t work because there is no more money.’

  ‘You don’t understand.’

  ‘I understand perfectly well, but that’s not important. What is important is that I came home to find him at the bottom of the stairs. Where you left him.’

  The room shifted and she grabbed the bookcase next to her to keep steady. ‘What?’ It was more a gasp than a word.

  Pamela’s voice softened. ‘Oh I realize you may not have meant to hurt him, at least not as much as this, but that doesn’t excuse you running away instead of helping him. He’ll never walk again, and if I hadn’t come back when I did, he could have died.’

  Stella tried to say something, but Pamela just shook her head slowly. ‘Luckily for you Ben doesn’t want any fuss, so neither of us has said anything to the police.’

  Finally Stella found her voice. ‘Mrs Houghton. I didn’t do anything. I just came to talk to Ben. And when I left he was fine. It must have been that gang, the forgers. They’ve been threatening us.’

  Painted eyebrows raised, Pamela stared at her. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

  ‘I drew some pictures and Ben sold them as forgeries.’

  Pamela snorted and tucked her black patent leather bag under her arm. ‘This is ridiculous and I can’t imagine how you think it will help you. But it doesn’t matter anyway because, as I said, Ben can’t face talking to the police. He just wanted you to know the full extent of the damage you’ve done.’ When Stella tried to speak she held up her hand. ‘That’s all I have to say.’ She turned away.

  Stella followed her downstairs. ‘You have to listen to me, Mrs Houghton. They threatened to hurt him and they must have done it. We need to tell the police.’

  At the door Pamela wheeled round so fast Stella almost collided with her. ‘You’re living in a fantasy world, you silly girl. A dangerous fantasy world. And if my husband ever does decide to speak to the police, it won’t be about your imaginary gang – it will be about you.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Eve

  Alex was hardly talking to her. As they’d agreed, he’d been waiting outside Foyles when she got there after saying goodbye to Simon. It was very cold and Alex was so pale and silent that at first she thought he was freezing. ‘I didn’t think you’d be here this soon. You should have waited inside the shop,’ she said as they walked to the little restaurant they liked. He didn’t reply and she left it until they were sitting at their table and had ordered. Then she reached over and touched his hand. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘My last meeting was cancelled, so I came to the café. Timed it so I would catch you as you left. Thought it would be a chance for you to introduce me to Simon Houghton.’ He pulled his hand back and began tracing patterns on the table with the end of his knife, his eyes focused on what he was doing. ‘You never told me what he looked like.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘I saw you outside the café. The way the two of you were clutching each other.’

  This was ridiculous. ‘For God’s sake, Alex, I’m hugely pregnant and he’s probably my brother.’

  ‘Well, you didn’t look like brother and sister to me.’

  Their food arrived, and she bit the inside of her mouth until it hurt to avoid making a scene. When the waiter was gone she was able to clamp down on her anger and talk normally. ‘You don’t really think I could have feelings like that for him, do you?’

  He started to eat. She tried to talk to him, but he carried on methodically cutting, chewing and swallowing, and when he’d finished, he glanced at her nearly full plate.

  ‘Are you going to eat that?’

  She shook her head, and he called for the bill.

  As their train pulled out of Charing Cross, Eve’s phone rang – Simon –she rejected the call. Alex glanced over, but said nothing. A message:

  Good to see you again and we really must get together for longer soon, hopefully to talk about more pleasant things. Let me know if you’d like me to ask my mother about what you told me today. Good luck with the baby and keep in touch. Simon X

  Alex was pointedly staring out of the window. She replied:

  Nice to see you too. Please don’t say anything to your mother. There’s no need to upset her. If she hasn’t told you before then she obviously doesn’t want to talk about it. Look forward to seeing you again fairly soon. Eve X

  Alex had taken out his laptop and was tapping on the keyboard. Although she wanted either to cry or to shout at him that he was being childish, she made herself put on her earphones and listen to some music.

  When they got home he lit the fire in the living room then went straight up to their office. Eve had hardly eaten anything at the restaurant, so she made herself some soup, but didn’t call Alex. Let him sulk.

  It was becoming bitterly cold and she huddled close to the fire. Outside a few flakes of snow floated past the window.

  She had switched on the TV to distract herself when a fierce surge of pain went through her. So strong she couldn’t breathe. It must be the baby, although she wasn’t due for two weeks. When the contraction stopped she waited, breathing steadily and trying to stay calm. Everyone said first babies took their time and it could be a false alarm.

  When Alex came down two hours later she was in the middle of another contraction and his face turned almost as pale as hers must be. Sitting next to her, he very carefully took her hand. Squeezing his helped her ride out the pain, but when it was over and she looked at him he rubbed his hand roughly over his face.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s just, oh I don’t know, but you never mentioned how goodlooking he is.’

  Eve smiled and kissed his cheek. ‘Is he? I didn’t notice.’

  ‘I’m a pathetic, jealous bastard and I don’t deserve you.’ She rested her head on his shoulder, and he stroked her hair. ‘How frequent are they?’

  ‘Not regular yet. So let’s just sit here for a while, shall we?’

  He kissed her hand and rubbed her bump and they stayed like that into the early hours when she said, ‘
I think we’d better go now.’

  Stella

  The nursing home in Newcastle called Stella to say her nana was seriously ill. Pneumonia and problems with her heart on top of the dementia. ‘I’ll be there tomorrow,’ she said, hardly able to get the words out. Then she went back to her room and lay on the bed dry-eyed. They wouldn’t have rung unless it was serious.

  At her last visit her grandmother had only briefly been aware of who Stella was and when she did recognize her she had begun to cry and plead to go home. It had been a relief when she lapsed back into confused apathy.

  It was still sometimes possible to think of her as her old self, pottering about in the tiny, spotlessly clean house where Stella had grown up. But if – when – she died that would all be over. And Maggie was gone too. James had filled the aching gap for a while, but soon there would be no one. Stella would be utterly alone.

  Except, of course, she wasn’t alone. She rested her fingers on her stomach. There was a little life fluttering inside her.

  Staring up at the cracks in the ceiling she remembered how James had laughed when she told him they looked like the spokes of a broken umbrella. The room had seemed cosy and comfortable when he was with her, but now she could only see the scuffed paint on the door, the flaking wood on the window frame. The sun shone outside, and she knew the garden next door was full of flowering plants. But when she swung her legs over the side of the bed she felt a swell of nausea and could only see the sun showing up a mass of grimy smears on the window pane.

  Her easel was standing in the corner with a canvas propped on it but every time she tried to work she felt queasy. Any strong smell was likely to send a surge of sickness through her, but underneath the physical nausea was a constant sense of unease. Ben Houghton had warned her they might both be in danger. Had those people made good their threats?

  Accusing her of causing his accident could be his way of stopping her from going to the police. And it had worked. She couldn’t risk it.

  Pamela had ridiculed her when she mentioned the forgers, and Stella knew he could have invented the gang to frighten her into doing what he wanted. But she had no way of sifting the truth from his lies. It was clear he had been drinking that night, so falling downstairs could have been a simple accident.

  She scrubbed at her hair until her scalp hurt. It was no good going over and over this. The only thing that mattered right now was seeing her nana. It might even give her the strength to find the best way out.

  On the bus north she tried to remember her happy childhood and teenage years with Nana. But her mind kept straying back earlier – to her mother. And those were times she never wanted to revisit.

  The sun shone hot and bright through the coach windows, forcing her to close her eyes, and she drifted in and out of sleep. Whenever she jerked awake it was with garbled snatches of dreams lingering in her mind. They were daylight nightmares. In each one she was running away, terrified that the horror she’d left behind would catch up with her. She couldn’t always see the horror. But when she could – oh when she could – she was with her mother in that filthy room again, watching her mam’s eyes bulge with fear, as she gurgled and reached out for her. Sometimes it was Ben, all crumpled and bleeding at the bottom of his grand staircase, begging her to help him.

  At last they reached Newcastle and in the bus station toilets she splashed her face and neck with cold water. It helped to clear her head, and at the nursing home she was able to paste on a smile. ‘I’ve come to see Mrs Carr, Thelma Carr.’

  The gentle tone of the nurse’s, ‘Your grandmother’s quite poorly, you know,’ told her everything.

  Stella nodded and followed her. Always before her nana had been sitting or wandering about in the day room or in the garden outside. Today she was bedbound, so pale and thin Stella’s heart stumbled for a moment, thinking she was already dead.

  The nurse patted her arm. ‘If you talk to her she usually comes round for a while,’ she said.

  Sitting beside the bed Stella took her nana’s hand. The blue-veined skin was so thin it felt like damp tissue paper. ‘Hello, Nana, it’s Stella.’

  Her nana’s eyes opened. For a moment Stella saw them as they used to be: sharp green buttons. Then they darkened and took on the muddy puzzlement she’d grown used to in the past few years. Still holding her hand Stella talked about things she hoped might trigger memories. Jumping back and forth over the years just as Nana’s mind seemed to do nowadays.

  ‘Remember when I told you I was painting your picture? Well I’ve finished it and I’ve put a garden full of lovely flowers all around you.’ No response. She cast her mind back further. ‘Remember when we used to go to Whitley Bay? The Spanish City fairground and that ice cream shop where you always let me have a banana split?’

  Nana’s eyes sprang open. ‘That was years ago,’ she croaked. Then something sparked, bringing the green back to her eyes. Her hand tightened on Stella’s. ‘You’re a good girl.’

  Stella bent to kiss her dry cheek. ‘Hello, Nana. How are you?’

  But her grandmother’s hand had gone loose again, her eyes had closed and her face was a blank once more.

  Stella sat with her for an hour, until the nurse came with a bowl of something beige and mushy. She hoisted Nana up in the bed and pushed a pile of pillows behind her. Passing the spoon and bowl to Stella she said, ‘Why don’t you have a go?’

  Although Nana took a couple of spoonfuls, eyes mostly closed and jaw working awkwardly, there was as much of the mush on her lips and chin as in her mouth and she soon turned her head away. ‘Don’t like it.’

  ‘Please, Nana, try for me.’

  As she said it her nana’s eyes shot open, staring at Stella’s swelling stomach. Then, with something close to hatred. ‘It’s no good coming crying to me now, Karen. You got yourself in trouble, so you have to get yourself out of it. I wash my hands of you.’

  The nurse who had just come in put a warm hand on Stella’s shoulder. ‘Pay no attention, pet. She doesn’t know what she’s saying. She’s not talking to you.’

  Stella stood looking down at the bed. She forced herself to nod and give the woman a pinched smile. ‘I know.’ She thought, but didn’t add, She was talking to my mother.

  Stella had lived with Nana in her rented house from the age of nine to eighteen, but they never owned it and when Nana went into the home she had to give it up. So she spent the night at a B&B nearby. The room was poky and the bathroom along the corridor didn’t look too clean. The sheets on the bed were scratchy. But even if it had been palatial Stella wouldn’t have been able to sleep.

  Sitting up in bed she turned on the light and grabbed the book she was trying to read, but her mind wouldn’t stay still. She hadn’t known her grandmother well until her mam’s death. They had visited her occasionally, but Stella had only vague memories of lovely food, days marred by arguments and her mam drinking even more than usual. Then when she was eight she had spent the whole of the summer holidays with her. It had been the best time in her life, and when her mam came to pick her up, in an old banger owned by an occasional boyfriend, Stella had cried.

  ‘You could leave her with me, if you like. She’s no bother,’ her nana had said. But her mam just shook her head and pushed Stella into the back seat. And Nana stood watching as they drove away.

  When they got home her mam told her, ‘That old bitch won’t be happy till she’s taken everything from me. We won’t be going there again.’

  Her nana had given her a scrap of paper with her phone number on and Stella kept it, although she never dared call her. But when her mother died she gave the details to the social worker, and Nana came for her.

  She sent Stella to school on the day of her mother’s funeral. ‘That’s all over with. Best forget her.’ Another time she said, ‘She ran away when she was fifteen and had you a few months later. Only good thing she ever did. And you’re much better off with me. I always told her that. She wasn’t capable of looking after herself, let alone
a child.’

  Stella hated it when Nana talked like that, but she did try to forget. And most of all to forget the day her mam died.

  In the grubby B&B, with the open book on her knee, the words making no sense, she couldn’t stop herself remembering the next morning when her grandmother came for her and was so cross with Mrs Ahmed who kept saying the same thing over and over: I’ll never understand why Stella didn’t run next door to me. Must have realized her mam needed a doctor.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Eve

  Eve had never been so tired. Even though they had waited to go to hospital until the contractions were coming every ten minutes or so, Ivy hadn’t made her appearance for many sleepless hours. The first night home it felt as if she woke, screaming, every half hour. She was in her carrycot on Eve’s side of the bed, but Alex got up several times to hand her over. ‘Maybe we should buy some formula milk so I can do a few of the feeds,’ he said the third time he’d struggled round.

  Eve, fighting to keep her eyes open, shook her head. ‘I’ll try to express some milk tomorrow. Put a few bottles in the fridge.’

  At 4 a.m. Alex was sleeping heavily and Eve, wide awake, took the baby downstairs. At least one of them should get some rest. With just the little lamp on the table beside the sofa she tried to read. She had no idea how Alex was feeling. In the moments after the birth they had clung together, and when he looked at Ivy, Eve could see he was as overwhelmed with love as she was.

  But now he felt far, far away from her. Everyone did. Eve’s parents had come to the house while she and Alex were at the hospital and decorated it for Christmas. There was a beautiful tree in the corner of the room and cards and flowers everywhere. When she and Alex arrived home her dad waved a bottle of champagne at them, popping the cork as her mum carried in a pretty pink and white cake inscribed Welcome Ivy. Everyone was smiling, but Eve just wanted them to go away, to let her crawl into bed and hide her head under the covers.