Perfect Liars

by Rebecca Reid

  ‘A girl. A woman.’

  She stopped, setting the plate down on the side. ‘A friend?’ she asked tentatively.

  Charlie shook his head. ‘He had his arm around her waist. They’d been playing tennis. He was all over her.’

  She hadn’t expected to feel sad. That was a surprise. An unwelcome one. There was no room for sadness. It was a shame. The whole big mess was a shame. But it couldn’t be helped, and it would do no good to dwell on it. Another picture filled her mind: Lila, in her wedding dress – a see-through lace thing – her hair heavy with flowers, laughing and looking at Roo like he was her saviour.

  ‘Don’t tell anyone,’ said Charlie, his face suddenly pinched again. ‘He caught up with me in the changing room and started giving me all the guff about how she was an old friend from work, that Lila would be jealous if she found out, that she’d get the wrong end of the stick. He looked pretty spooked. I said I’d keep schtum, but she’s not in a good way, is she? Do you think that’s why they haven’t come in? Do you think they’re talking about it? On top of the miscarriage, it isn’t good, is it?’

  Georgia smoothed her hands over his temples and stroked his hair. ‘I don’t know. I won’t tell anyone. I promise. I love you.’

  He looked happier now. Would their sons be like him? Easily hurt, but easily healed. All his emotions swimming at the surface. She hoped so.

  ‘You’re sure they’re sleeping together?’

  He nodded. ‘He had his tongue down her throat when I walked past him. Stupid cock.’

  ‘In public?’

  Another nod. ‘Must have been going on for a while if he’s got that lazy. I probably shouldn’t have said anything—’

  ‘Don’t be silly. Anyway, you did the right thing. I can give Lila better advice this way.’

  Charlie’s face clouded. Georgia spoke before he could: ‘I won’t say a word. But if she’s thinking about calling it a day, I would have told her to stick it out before. I won’t now. OK?’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  She nodded. ‘Positive.’

  THEN

  Nancy

  ‘Nance, your mum’s on the phone,’ yelled Katie. Nancy stood up, rolling her eyes. ‘Can you tell her I’m busy, please?’

  The common room was full of girls in pyjamas, splayed over sofas and floor cushions, playing with their phones or half watching the TV, just as it always was on weeknights.

  ‘I tried,’ said Katie. ‘She said you’d say that, and she said that you can come and talk to her or she’ll stop your allowance,’ she laughed.

  ‘Classic Allegra,’ said Nancy, relishing her audience. The fact that she called her parents by their first names was something that the rest of the year never seemed to get bored of. As if it were some big deal, it seemed endlessly exotic. Not like their families. They were all so typically, tediously middle class. Most of them didn’t even live in London. The girls only boarded because their parents liked the cachet of it, or because they couldn’t be bothered to take the Land Rover across Hampshire in traffic to pick them up by five thirty.

  ‘Yep?’ she said, picking up the phone. There were three phone booths in the downstairs hall at Reynolds House, and one on each floor. They each had an ancient armchair and a box of tissues, separated by thin plastic walls. She heard a flurry of Spanish from the cubicle next to her. It was clearly an emotional conversation; the girl would be glad of the tissues.

  ‘Darling, it’s me,’ came a voice. ‘Listen, I need you to do something for me.’

  ‘I’m very well, thank you. No, I didn’t flunk my exam this morning and yes, I am looking forward to seeing you when I’m eventually unbarred from this place,’ said Nancy deliberately. She sat down on the floor of the cubicle, the phone cord stretching as far as it could. She scraped her knuckles over the carpet. It had to be thirty years old. God this place was shabby. Boys’ schools probably had proper modern phone booths with nice, new carpets.

  Her mother was laughing. ‘Sorry, sorry, I know. I’m the worst mother in the world.’

  It was an old joke. If you could call it a joke.

  Her mother had written a column for a broadsheet until Nancy was seven. It was called ‘the worst mother in the world’ and it largely consisted of a series of anecdotes about how Nancy had been unplanned, how Allegra hadn’t been prepared to be a mother. The picture that accompanied it each week showed her, beautiful and aggressively thin, at a desk, with a cigarette in one hand. She looked the picture of a writer, only Nancy was sitting on the desk, clutching a fountain pen in her fist. She was covered in ink. Allegra still told people the story of that day – how the photographer had come along and found Allegra in nothing but T-shirt and knickers, trying to clean up four-year-old Nancy, who had tried to suck on the end of the pen.

  It was a complete lie, of course. The whole thing had been set up. Nancy could still half remember the photographer dabbing her skin with the ink, while her mother stood around chatting with him. Did Allegra believe her own story by now, Nancy wondered. How often do you have to repeat a lie before it becomes true?

  ‘What do you need?’ she said, pulling herself back to the conversation.

  ‘I’ve heard a rumour,’ her mother said. ‘And I think there’s a feature in it.’

  Whenever anything interesting happened in any of their lives, Allegra would cry ‘That’s a feature!’ Her friends thought that Nancy’s parents were amazingly, gloriously welcoming. They loved sleeping over, they were always invited to. But they didn’t realize that they were paying rent with their stories. Allegra and Daniel didn’t turn a blind eye to smoking and forgo curfews because they were nice. It was because they needed young people. They’d always bemoan their daughter’s tendencies. ‘She’s just so bloody mature,’ her father would say at dinner parties. ‘I know it sounds like a dream but honestly, we were banking on her to keep us relevant!’

  Clearly, it was a brag. He only cloaked it in an insult so no one would think that he was praising her.

  ‘What rumour?’ Nancy asked.

  ‘One of the girls interning in the office has a friend who’s recently started working at a boarding school. Her name’s—’

  ‘Miss Brandon,’ said Nancy flatly. ‘She’s the one who barred us.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Ah. Does that mean you’re not exactly simpatico?’

  ‘You could say that,’ replied Nancy. ‘She’s a cunt.’

  Her mother sighed. ‘Darling, cunt is a celebratory word for a beautiful organ.’

  Nancy said nothing.

  ‘Anyway,’ her mother went on. ‘I have gossip about what she’s going to do.’

  ‘Yes?’ said Nancy.

  ‘Well, if you’re not interested, darling …’ her mother trailed off. Nancy knew this game. Her mother wanted to tell her, but she was stubborn enough to withhold if she didn’t feel suitably appreciated.

  ‘I am,’ she said quickly. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Well,’ her mother said slowly. ‘That’s why I’m calling. Have you heard anything about this social next month?’

  ‘The one with Whitlowe School?’

  ‘Yes. Apparently, it’s not happening—’

  ‘Not happening? But everyone’s been planning outfits. Lila’s decided she’s finally going to get off with Jack Bull.’

  ‘Well,’ her mother sounded excited now, ‘this girl at work says that Phoebe – Miss Brandon – thinks these socials are outdated and antiquated and sexist. So she’s cancelling it.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Nancy’s head was hot. She gripped the phone. ‘What?’

  ‘Yes, there’s going to be an announcement. I mean, you can see her point. The way they get you all dressed up and then send you over to a boys’ school and then let you flirt for a few hours and God knows what else, and then bring you home. It’s like they’re trying to get you all married off, isn’t it?’

  ‘Or like they’re trying to make sure that we don’t go an entire half-term without seei
ng a member of the male species,’ Nancy ground out from between her teeth.

  ‘Anyway,’ her mother went on, ‘the exciting bit is that, because it’s called a “social” and she wanted to replace it with something, she’s planning a different event.’

  Nancy didn’t want to ask. But she had to know. ‘What kind of event?’

  ‘Not sure yet. It sounds like it’ll be all about you girls working together.’

  Nancy considered smacking the phone against the wall of the phone booth, wondering if she could hit it hard enough to shatter the white plastic.

  ‘Nancy?’ echoed her mother’s voice.

  ‘Yes, I’m here,’ she replied. ‘They haven’t told us about it yet.’ She wanted to add that it was a fucking ridiculous plan and she felt sick at the idea that the school was trying to score attention and publicity instead of letting them see the guys they’d been friends with for years.

  ‘I was wondering how you felt about it, darling?’ Allegra said. Great. She wanted a quote.

  ‘I think the social enterprise aspect is a wonderful idea,’ said Nancy, tossing her hair back. ‘However, I do feel there is some issue in attempting to break down the existing relationship between the Fairbridge Hall girls and the Whitlowe boys. Many of us have been friends for years,’ she finished.

  ‘You’re a star,’ her mother said. ‘I might need to rough it up a bit though, to make you sound more like a normal teenager.’

  I’m not a normal teenager, Nancy wanted to reply. You pay thousands of pounds a term for me not to be a normal teenager.

  ‘No problem. You’ll skewer her, right?’

  Her mother laughed. ‘Obviously not. Think how Fairbridge would react! Imagine if they kicked you out and you had to move back home with me and your father.’

  ‘Imagine,’ replied Nancy flatly.

  ‘One other thing – if any of your friends try to talk to the press, remind them it’s against the code of conduct for the school, and they can get suspended,’ Allegra giggled. ‘That way I’ve got an exclusive.’

  ‘Sure thing,’ said Nancy as she tangled her finger in the cord of the phone.

  ‘Fairbridge are going to love it. They’ll probably give me a discount on your school fees.’

  If there was one thing her mother liked more than a scoop, it was getting something for free that other people had to pay for. The idea of it revolted Nancy.

  ‘What are you up to tonight?’ she asked her mother.

  ‘Tonight? We’ve got people over for supper, and we’ve got to make some wall space because we’ve got that painting being delivered tomorrow. How about you?’

  ‘Nothing much,’ said Nancy quietly. She could see her mother standing in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, doodling as Nancy spoke, drawing trees and flowers on the notepad where her quote was written. She could almost smell the toast and laundry aroma that filled it. To her shame, she felt a huge wave of homesickness swallow her. It had been years since she’d felt that. Homesickness was permissible during the first weeks of school when you were eleven, not when you were about to turn seventeen.

  She started to ask, ‘It wouldn’t be so bad if I lived at home, would it?’ but at the same time her mother said, ‘Well, I’d better go, darling. Chin up.’

  Nancy didn’t say anything. Tears were spilling on to her cheeks. Ridiculous, inexcusable tears.

  ‘Nancy?’

  ‘Yes. Have a good evening,’ she managed to force out, before reaching up and clapping the handset back into the cradle. She sat still for a moment, pressing her hands tightly into her eyes to stop the crying. She told herself that she was waiting for the flush in her face to recede before she could walk out of the booth. But she knew that she was waiting to see if her mother had caught the break in her voice, whether she would call back.

  Nancy gave herself until the count of forty. If by forty her mother hadn’t rung back, she would go.

  At twenty-seven, the phone rang. She snatched up the handset. The voice on the other end was thick with an accent. ‘Is Rocio able to speak on the phone?’ it asked.

  ‘Sure,’ she sighed. ‘I’ll go and find her.’

  Nancy stepped from the phone booth, intending to make a half-hearted attempt at finding Rocio before telling the person on the phone that they’d have to call back. But as she looked down the corridor, she was confronted with a sea of backs clad in floral pyjama bottoms and hoodies, the default uniform in winter.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she asked as everyone continued to file past her.

  ‘No idea,’ replied Carmen, a tall Spanish girl whom Nancy had a begrudging respect for on the basis of her toned upper arms and impressive academic record.

  ‘Nance!’ called Lila from behind her. She ran up, wrapping her arms around Nancy’s shoulders.

  ‘There’s a house meeting,’ said Georgia, pulling her jumper down over her hands. ‘God knows why.’

  Nancy doubled back and hung up the phone, not bothering to tell whoever was on the other end that Rocio wasn’t around.

  ‘I think I know,’ said Nancy darkly. The sofas in the common room were already full so they grabbed a couple of the floor cushions from the pile in the corner and collapsed, cross-legged, in a heap.

  ‘What?’ asked Lila.

  ‘She’s cancelling the social.’

  ‘Social?’ asked Georgia. ‘Why?’

  ‘Cancelling the social?’ asked someone from behind them.

  ‘I wasn’t talking to you, Harriet,’ Nancy snapped.

  ‘They’re cancelling the social?’ Nancy heard the words moving around the room. Perfect. It would have been utterly infuriating to have known first and done nothing with it. Admittedly, it would have been more fun to have done something – organized some kind of protest or petition – before Brandon even announced it, but still. Better than nothing.

  ‘Guys, can I have your attention?’ a voice came from the back of the room. Brandon was standing in front of the TV. This long room, high-ceilinged and lined with books, was where they did everything. Prep was here, house meetings, movie nights. All of it happened here. House meetings were usually only once a term, a bollocking about their rooms not being tidy enough and an announcement that because it was the end of the term they’d be subjected to double chapel before they were allowed to go home.

  Miss Brandon pulled a chair out and sat on it, cross-legged. What an affectation.

  ‘So, I want to talk to you all about the social next week.’

  Silence. Brandon ran her hands through her hair and pulled it up into a messy bun. She’d clearly changed into her ‘house’ clothes after teaching all day. As if wearing the same Abercrombie tracksuit bottoms that the rest of them wore was somehow going to make them like her more. ‘I wanted to have a word with you about the upcoming social. I wanted to discuss whether we feel like this type of thing is what we really want to be doing with our time.’

  The room erupted with whispers. ‘Guys!’ she said over the noise. ‘We need to all have our say, we can’t just whisper to each other.’

  ‘She’s pretending that we get a say in it,’ Nancy whispered to Lila.

  ‘I fucking hate her,’ Lila whispered back. Georgia’s face was in profile, looking resolutely at Brandon. She wouldn’t join in, of course. Nancy wasn’t unsympathetic to the whole scholarship thing, but Georgia could be a bit precious about it when she wanted to. No one got their scholarship taken away for getting one detention.

  ‘I’m going to tell you my thoughts about the whole thing and then we’ll talk about it. OK?’

  A murmur of assent.

  ‘So, I didn’t go to a school like this, I never had one of these socials, but to be honest they seem really, really weird to me.’ She paused. God, she was such a drama queen. ‘You guys are amazing. You’re smart and bright and charming and you’ve got these incredible futures ahead of you.’

  Get on with it, thought Nancy.

  ‘So the idea that on a weekend we just let you, encourage you re
ally, to put a load of make-up on and then stick you on a bus and drive you to a boys’ school, like you’re some kind of delivery, and then leave you to pretend to have a normal social life for like three hours, before bringing you home, it’s not something that I feel comfortable with. You guys are better than that. Right?’

  Nancy tried not to smile. This woman had no authority, she didn’t even try to speak like a grown-up around them. Who did she think she was? Any minute now she was going to open the floor and the rest of the girls were going to show the silly bitch exactly how little she knew about them, and it was going to be great.

  ‘I’m not saying that you shouldn’t spend time with boys – obviously you should. I’m saying that we should be bringing boys to you! We should be organizing more normal ways for you to hang out – like activities. I mean, how many of you actually want to start making out with a guy in front of your teachers? That’s weird! If we revamp the system, you’ll probably end up seeing more boys!’

  There was another murmur, but to Nancy’s horror, it didn’t sound like anger. It sounded like she was winning them over. Heidi was sitting at the front of the group, nodding along with everything Miss Brandon said as if her neck was in spasm.

  ‘So,’ Miss Brandon looked around the room. ‘We’re going to take a vote. If the majority want to cancel the social, we’ll cancel it. But if you don’t think it’s outdated or sexist and you still want it, we’ll go ahead.’

  Nancy pushed her hand into the air. ‘Can’t we just go to the social if we approve of it, and not go if we don’t?’

  ‘Please wait to be asked to speak, Nancy,’ she replied.

  Jesus Christ, it was like being back at nursery.

  ‘Can’t we though?’ asked Lila.

  ‘I understand why you’re asking,’ Miss Brandon replied, smiling at Lila, ‘but no, we can’t, and I’ll explain why after we take the vote. So, is everyone ready? Good. If you’d like to change the way that we do socials, put your hand up now.’

  Unadulterated horror filled every cavity of Nancy’s body as she watched the hands go up. All of the loser group, who would have stood around the sides of the social looking tragic. Half the Chinese girls. A chunk of the horsey group. Miss Brandon was looking smug as she counted. ‘Thirty-five votes for change! That’s more than half of you, so I guess it’s motion carried.’