“I think it’s because now that we’re husband and wife we just feel
09
like a flat probably isn’t the right sort of home for us anymore, you
10
know?” Marnie continued. “We just feel like a house would be more
11
appropriate. I love that flat, but there’s an argument, isn’t there, that 12
this is the time to start thinking about the next steps in life. Room to
13
grow and all that. Maybe in September. I think that’s meant to be a
14
good time to sell.”
15
“You should do what you want to do,” I said. “Whatever feels right.”
16
“You sound just like Charles,” she replied. “You’re both so sensible.
17
He keeps saying that we’re only just married, that we have all the time
18
in the world to do these things, that there’s no pressure whatsoever. But 19
I think he wants to do it too, you know, just that he doesn’t want to be
20
pushy. I think he likes the idea of more space. I could get him a dog—
21
you know the one he wants; is it a husky? But then, as he says, there’s
22
always more time, and dogs are so much work, aren’t they?”
23
I didn’t respond.
24
“Jane?”
25
I turned off my bedside lamp and closed my eyes.
26
“Shit,” she said. “I’m so sorry. Was that insensitive? There isn’t al-
27
ways more time. I know that. It’s why I think this way, I think, because
28
of Jonathan. I know that sometimes life shifts unexpectedly, that the
29
choices get taken away. Shit. Jane, I’m sorry. I was just . . . Jane?”
30
“It’s fine,” I replied. “Really.”
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I wanted to go to sleep. I didn’t want to have this conversation.
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E L I Z A B E T H K AY
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I could see that her life was expanding as mine was shrinking. I had
02
once had the conversations that she was now having— asked myself
03
those very same questions— and looked ahead toward a life that offered
04
answers.
05
Jonathan had always wanted to move away from the city, to live in
06
the countryside: he’d wanted to keep chickens, and have more bed-
07
rooms than children, and build a treehouse at the bottom of the yard.
08
“You know the smog outside the flat? Well, there’d be none of that,”
09
he’d say, trying to persuade me.
10
“Did you hear that?” he’d whisper, in the middle of the night, in
11
response to bottles being broken or tires screeching on the street out-
12
side. “You don’t get that in the countryside.”
13
He’d go to the supermarket and, as he unpacked the vegetables,
14
each clinically wrapped in plastic, he would say, “I could have grown
15
this myself.”
16
I knew that eventually I would say: “Yes. Okay. Let’s do it.”
17
But that moment never came.
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
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02
03
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Chapter Twelve
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k
06
07
08
09
10
H
11
ere’s the thing. When something starts to slip away, it becomes
12
almost impossible to think about anything other than how it
13
was at its best. I tried to fall asleep, but I couldn’t. I could only work 14
backward through our friendship and try to find moments that felt
15
equally fragile.
16
We had one row at school, only one. It was about something and
17
nothing, as arguments so often are. She always pressed snooze on her
18
alarm clock, half a dozen times at least, until she was frantic and rush-
19
ing and falling into the classroom. We were partnered in every lesson,
20
and drama was first on a Thursday. Almost every activity required a
21
pair; a one on its own simply wasn’t enough. She rarely apologized for
22
being so late. And eventually I lost my temper. It was selfish of her not 23
to think of me, to forget that her behavior affected others. I said that I 24
wasn’t sure that I wanted to be her partner anymore. She said fine, if
25
that was how I felt, and she stormed off with her scarf trailing behind
26
her and her homework still clasped in her fist.
27
This friction lasted an entire day. We didn’t sit together and we
28
walked separately between classes. The hostility was unprecedented.
29
We were normally the harmonious anomaly in among endless teenage
30
conflict. Our teacher was so shocked by the situation that she sat us
S31
down after our last class and unraveled the issue— with words like
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E L I Z A B E T H K AY
01
“responsibility” and “compassion”— and insisted that we stop being so
02
immature and learn to address our problems in an adult manner.
03
And that was it. The only argument. We forgave each other, but we
04
didn’t forget it. Instead, we carried it like a trophy, because just one
05
argument in the course of an entire friendship seemed something worth
06
celebrating.
07
There hadn’t been another blip since. We’d moved to separate cities
08
to study at eighteen but it felt like we were barely apart, because there 09
was always a reason to call, a story to share, something only she’d un-
10
derstand. We snapped back together three years later. And then we
11
were better than we’d ever been, a concrete team against a world that
12
seemed confounding.
13
It was in that first year in the Vauxhall flat— perhaps only a month
14
or two before I met Jonathan— that Marnie first tried to quit he
r job.
15
She’d written a letter of resignation, but her boss, Steven, had refused
16
to accept it. She’d returned to the flat that evening perplexed and rather 17
despondent but determined to find a solution. She hated the work and
18
the people and her boss in particular, who thought he was irresistible to 19
younger women, which was very much not the case. I’d met him a few
20
times before— at her various work events— and it was clear that he still 21
thought himself as handsome as he’d been thirty years earlier.
22
Marnie tried to resign again the following week. She cornered her
23
boss and confronted him with her letter in front of their managing di-
24
rector.
25
“As discussed,” she’d said, firmly, “my resignation.”
26
“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that,” Abi had said. “You must be disap-
27
pointed, Steven.”
28
“Very,” he’d replied as he reluctantly accepted the envelope.
29
“I hope you’re moving on to exciting new things,” Abi had said, and
30
she’d smiled. She had been appointed a few months earlier. She was six
31S
foot one and fiercely ambitious. The younger women in the company
32N
were impressed by her; the older men less so.
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S E V E N L I E S
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And so Steven wasn’t going to make things easy; he was determined
01
to make Marnie suffer for the simple crime of suggesting that she might
02
not be entirely content in his presence. He pulled Marnie aside later
03
that day and informed her that she had a six- month notice period and
04
would be expected to serve the full duration. Marnie argued that it was
05
ridiculous— that she hadn’t known what she was signing and that it was a
06
disproportionate term of notice for an assistant— but he was insistent.
07
That evening she threw herself onto the sofa and buried her head
08
beneath the cushions and seethed because it wasn’t fair, simply wasn’t
09
going to happen, because she couldn’t do it, wouldn’t do it, couldn’t be
10
expected to work for such an odious man for another six months.
11
“Help me,” she pleaded, peeking at me from between two pillows.
12
“I will die if I spend another month with that man. I can smell his
13
breath on my clothes,” she said, “and I can hear his nasal laugh grating
14
in my head all the time, even when we aren’t together, even on week-
15
ends. Help me, Jane.”
16
So we devised a plan. I had done this before, of course, without her,
17
to retaliate against her seemingly charming but fundamentally volatile
18
first boyfriend, but it was so different, so invigorating to be sharing the 19
anticipation. Their company’s annual summer party was the following
20
weekend. It was a big event designed to charm their suppliers and in-
21
vestors and to thank the employees and to entertain their partners. It
22
was held on the river in the garden of the company’s largest pub and the
23
attention to detail was inspiring. It was themed— they always were—
24
and this year the spotlight was on the circus.
25
We arrived early. Giant gates sprayed in gold paint had been erected
26
in the car park and we were ushered in by two clowns and directed
27
through to the circus itself. There was a big top tent in stretched blue
28
plastic and a man on stilts strolled past in bright red flares, looking
29
straight ahead, as though entirely unaware of the world playing out
30
around his feet, the smaller lives scrabbling at ground level.
S31
Marnie took my hand and together we weaved through the masses.
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She was wearing a black leotard and sheer black tights and she looked
02
elegant, confident, as though her body was the very thing that she
03
wanted it to be. I was wearing a long floral skirt and a small crystal ball 04
on a chain around my neck. I had wanted to wear my jeans.
05
Marnie paused in front of the bar and pointed at a very tall woman
06
dressed in a red leather jacket with striped gold cuffs and black leather 07
lapels. A small red top hat was perched on her head and a bull whip was
08
clasped in her fist.
09
“There,” she said. “That’s her; that’s Abi.”
10
I nodded. “And where will I find you?” I asked.
11
Marnie pointed at a wooden caravan just beyond the popcorn stand.
12
It was painted lime green and had bright yellow stripes down the sides.
13
“Behind that,” she said. “In fifteen minutes.”
14
I approached Abi. I interrupted her conversation. I introduced myself
15
as Pippa Davies.
16
She recognized the name immediately. Pippa Davies was the daugh-
17
ter of one of their principal suppliers. Pippa had called Marnie the pre-
18
vious week and said that she was no longer able to attend, and Marnie
19
had chosen not to amend the guest list.
20
Abi was delighted to see me. She led me through the circus— she
21
wanted to show me their site, their flagship pub, the scale of their
22
operation— and she was pitch- perfect as she sold me their success and
23
their ambition. I followed her willingly and slowly, subtly, focused on
24
maneuvering us past the popcorn stand and toward the green caravan.
25
“This is very elegant,” I said, and I started to circle it.
26
“Sure,” said Abi, a little surprised by the unexpected detour. “I ex-
27
pect your father has mentioned the parties we host for the customers
28
too: Saint Patrick’s Day, Halloween, New Year’s Eve.”
29
I stopped and I stared. It had worked. I could see that they were
30
squabbling and so I cleared my throat. Marnie looked up and then her
31S
posture softened slightly, her weight shifting to one side, her hip jutting 32N
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out, and she stepped toward him and put her hand on his shoulder. It
01
looked illicit, flirtatious, and I felt both repulsed and delighted.
02
“We feel that attention to detail is paramount and, for me, this is
03
one of the many things that separates us from our competitors and— ”
04
Abi looked up and made a tiny noise, a tiny gasp, and her hands flew
05
up to cover her lips, her whip falling to the ground beside her.
06
“Steven,” she said. “What on earth . . . ? What is this?”
07
He furrowed his eyebrows— it was rather endearing, really— and he
08
glanced among the three of us, bewildered and unable to process what
09
exactly was happening and why his boss was looking so shocked, so
10
horrified. And then he understood. He looked at Marnie and he raised
11
his eyebrows and he turned his head to one side as though about to
12
shout, and then he recognized that there was a more important con-
13
cern, someone else who he ought to address.
14
“Abi,” he said, and he stepped backward away from Marnie. “This is
15
not what it looks like. This is absolutely— ”
16
“Don’t,” said Marnie, and she held her hand up and out. “Please.
17
Let’s just be honest. We can’t keep this a secret, not now, not anymore.”
18
She was not a great actress, probably not even a good one, and her
19
words were stilted and sharp, her actions unnatural. But he was playing
20
his part so perfectly. His wide eyes were scanning the garden either side 21
of us, presumably looking for his wife. His mouth was opening and
22
closing, unsure what to say, unsure where to start.
23
“I’m sorry. We should have told you,” continued Marnie. “But for
24
obvious reasons we’ve been trying to keep this quiet. But you should
25
know, I think, that Stevie and I . . . we’re in a relationship.”
26
“A relationship?” said Abi.
27
“A what?” said Steven.
28
“And I know— I’ve checked the policy— that one of us needs to re-
29
sign. I understand and you know already that I’ve been thinking about
30
my next steps and— ”
S31
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E L I Z A B E T H K AY
01
“Effective immediately?” asked Abi, clearly keen to find the least
Seven Lies (ARC) Page 14