Seven Lies (ARC)
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disruptive solution and to minimize her own embarrassment.
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“Of course,” said Marnie. “I’ll collect my things on Monday.”
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“Fine,” said Abi. She turned to me and put her hands on my upper
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arms and apologized profusely for the behavior of her staff and prom-
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ised to address it immediately and asked if I’d please excuse her so that 07
she could have a quick word with her colleague. And then she walked
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up to Steven and marched him into the pub.
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Marnie ran up to me and she squealed and she threw her arms
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around my neck and we were laughing because the whole moment was
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so ridiculous, and because we couldn’t believe that it had worked but it
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had, and because we felt powerful and galvanized, and because we
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thought then that we were agents of our own lives rather than simply
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two young women. We were united. It bonded us in a way that felt
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exciting: a secret shared, a collective triumph, the sense that together
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we were unstoppable.
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We went to a bar on the way home and commandeered two velvet
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armchairs tucked into a corner. It was still early in the evening and
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there were few other customers, but the band was warming up at the
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back and the bar staff were lighting candles and cleaning glasses. I or-
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dered a bottle of champagne, because although my salary was low and
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hers now nonexistent, we had something to celebrate.
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We walked home later that evening, her arm looped through mine,
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and we recounted the madness of our day. She clapped her hands to-
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gether excitedly when I reminded her that there was no work anymore,
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that she was free from the nine- to- five of office life. She breathed hot 27
air onto the mirrored wall of the elevator and drew a smiling face with
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her finger. She jumped on our sofa, and insisted that I jump, too. It was 29
silly. It was fun. She held my hands as we bounced. I remember that we
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were laughing and that it felt so ordinary to laugh noisily together. But 31S
now? I struggle to recall what it really felt like to be that way with her, 32N
to lose myself in her, to be so effortlessly us.
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Chapter Thirteen
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I
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visited Marnie and Charles the following Friday— just after they’d
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returned from their honeymoon— and we were sitting, the three of
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us, on their sofa. The chandelier overhead was switched off and the
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wall lamps cast a golden shadow against the walls. There were candles
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everywhere, flames flickering around their wicks. The balcony was hid-
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den behind thick red curtains hanging in waves.
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It had turned into the wettest August on record and— everyone had
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agreed: the postman, the weather forecaster, my colleagues— the most
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miserable in living memory. Every day that week had been obscured by
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dense, heavy rain, fat droplets that bounced when they hit the sidewalk
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or the hood of a car.
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“The rain!” said Marnie. “We’d not seen anything like it for weeks,
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not a drop. Everyone had said that summer in Italy was madness, that
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we’d roast right through, and they were right. So we weren’t dressed for
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it at all when we landed back here. We were drenched by the time we
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got the bags out of the cab and into the lobby. Weren’t we, Charles?
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Weren’t we drenched?”
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He nodded with the rhythm of her words. “Oh, absolutely,” he re-
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plied. “Soaked right through.”
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They said that they had ventured out only once in the last two days,
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a hasty trip to the supermarket to restock the cupboards, and kept
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E L I Z A B E T H K AY
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the curtains closed and the windows locked and the rain as far away as
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possible. Rebecca and James— I recognized the names— had come for
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lunch the day before.
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“They’ve taken joint parental leave,” said Charles. “They’re both off
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work. It’s the strangest thing.”
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“Did I tell you they had a baby?” asked Marnie. “She’s four months
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now. I’ve genuinely never seen a cuter child. She’s adorable. These big,
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bright eyes, piercingly blue— ”
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Charles pointed at my empty wineglass. “Top up?” he asked, and I
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nodded.
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“He was so good with her,” whispered Marnie, as he went into the
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kitchen. “Honestly, there is nothing sexier than an attractive man with
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a baby. He does this swaggery, confident thing, I know, but he’s soppy
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as anything, really. He wanted to hold her the whole time. He barely let
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me have a go at all.”
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I smiled and nodded, although I couldn’t imagine it.
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“Did you fill mine?” asked Marnie as Charles returned with the
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bottle.
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“Of course,” he replied. “It’s on the side.”
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“Thank you,” she said, standing to kiss him. “I better check on
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dinner.”
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He filled up my glass and then connected his phone to the fancy
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new television, bought, he said, with gift vouchers from the wedding.
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“I’ll show you some of the photos,” he said, and then explained the
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intricate details of this specific model— the display, something about
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pixels, the strength of the processor, and several different acronyms
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that meant nothing to me. I nodded and smiled and tried to look im-
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pressed. I was struck more than anything by the size of it; it was
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stretched across the entire fireplace.
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I reached for the remote control, which was standing upright in a
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small wicker basket on the side table. Charles was in front of the screen, 32N
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facing it, blocking my view, and yet he must have heard my movement
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because without turning around he said, “Put it down.”
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“Don’t you need— ” I began.
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“The control? No. If I need it, I’ll get it. If that’s okay with you, Jane.”
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He twisted, peering over his shoulder, inspecting me, staring at the
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remote still clasped in my fist. I placed it on the sofa cushion.
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He smiled. “Trust me,” he said. “You’ll be amazed at what this thing
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can do.”
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He pressed a few buttons and began scrolling through their honey-
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moon photographs. Somewhat unexpectedly I found myself intrigued
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by the different locations, the beautiful scenery, that sense of the unfa-11
miliar. I wasn’t so keen on his ongoing commentary— “and that was
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where we . . .” and “when we visited that beach . . .” and “that was the 13
bathroom of the second hotel”— but the images themselves were quite
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something. I responded to his questions, to his descriptions, to his end-
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less twaddle— “Oh, what glorious fields,” I said, and, “Sorry, where was 16
that again?”— but I wasn’t really listening.
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Instead I imagined myself on their trip: posing beside Marnie on the
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Spanish Steps, smiling on a bike at the top of a hill, surrounded by a
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dozen wineglasses in a vineyard. It was surprisingly easy to erase
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Charles from each image, to blur his entire being, so that he barely
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existed. I could unsee his broad shoulders, his tight T- shirts, his white 22
teeth embedded in a perfect smirk. I could unsee his hair, slicked back
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and thick with gel, and his muscular calves and his golden tan.
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I could hear Marnie in the kitchen, and I amplified her noise to over-
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whelm his. She was talking into her camera, filming herself as she pre-
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pared dinner, describing each step that she was taking, every ingredient
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added, every slice and stir and shake.
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“I always wash my hands after breaking eggs, particularly when I’m
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separating out the yokes, and I’ve been doing this quite a while, but it
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still gets everywhere.”
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E L I Z A B E T H K AY
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“Should you throw spaghetti at the wall to see if it sticks? I mean,
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it’s entirely up to you, but I firmly believe that it’s the most accurate 03
way to test whether or not your pasta is cooked, and oh”— a yelp— “looks 04
like it is!”
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“Should you put tomatoes in a green salad? Absolutely not.”
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“Two minutes,” she called. And then, a little quieter, “When some-
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one’s cooking for me, I’m always grateful to have a little bit of notice
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before I’m due to sit down to eat because— and maybe this is just me;
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let me know in the comments if you get this, too— I always need to go
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to the bathroom before a meal. I don’t know what it is, but I just do!”
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Charles looked over and rolled his eyes— gently, lovingly— and I
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smiled in response.
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“Right- oh,” he said. “Let’s whiz through the last few before dinner.
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You’re not bored, are you?”
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I shook my head and he flicked through the photographs at speed—
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beautiful sunsets, orange and yellow and pink and purple, the rolling
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hills, rippling in every shade of green, the poppy fields, a canvas of red 18
peppered by small black seeds. Bowls of pasta, platters of cured meats
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and cheeses, pizzas the size of dustbin lids. Charles on a train, his eyes 20
closed, a crossword half finished on the table in front of him. (You
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might like to know that crosswords were the only thing that Charles
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and I could discuss, could do together, without the air thickening
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around us.)
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He continued to jab at his phone, but the television had frozen and
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one image remained static and unblinking on the screen. It was a pho-
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tograph of Marnie, sitting up on a sun lounger, her legs either side of the 27
wooden frame, smiling as she rubbed sunblock onto her arms. Her
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straw hat hung jauntily over her forehead and her bikini had lifted
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slightly, revealing the even fairer skin on the underside of her breast.
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She was smiling, laughing, I think, and I can picture her scolding
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Charles, like a mother might scold her son, telling him not to take a
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photo, not then, only when she was ready.
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But I would have taken that photograph, too. Because entirely un-
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aware of the camera she was far more herself, far less stretched and
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posed and pouting, and far more the woman we both recognized and
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perhaps loved.
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“That was the last hotel,” said Charles, turning off the television so
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that the screen snapped back to black. “It had the most incredible res-
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taurant. It had a Michelin star. We did the tasting menu, which was
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quite expensive but totally worth it, just delicious.”
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I wondered if perhaps I would one day go on a second honeymoon.
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I thought it unlikely then and I think it even less likely now.
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Marnie called us to the table.
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“I’ve made carbonara,” she said. She looked at me as she pulled out
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her seat. “But not the normal one, not the one we used to make at the
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flat.” She turned to Charles. “It’s an homage to our honeymoon,” she said.
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“With the recipe from that hilltop place. Do you remember the one?
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Did you show Jane the pictures from the top? The food there was just— ”
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She held her fingers to her lips and kissed them: a loud, wet mwah. “I 17
had to beg for the recipe— a
family classic, apparently— but it’s particu-18
larly good, I think. Better than the one we did in the flat. I’ll stop ram-19
bling. I’ll let you try it.”
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She scooped a large serving into my bowl and a ridiculous portion
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onto Charles’s plate. He didn’t like to eat from bowls. He didn’t like it 22
when the different constituents of a meal mixed together. He didn’t
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want to have spaghetti and salad in the same mouthful.
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I twisted my fork against the lip of my bowl, and I could see straight-
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away that the texture was different. The eggs had formed a silky coat-
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ing around each strand of spaghetti. Our carbonara— and don’t get me
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wrong; I liked it, and I still think it’s my favorite— was clumpy with
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lumps of scrambled egg.
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“Delicious,” said Charles. “Honestly, this tastes exactly the same.”
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Marnie clapped her hands together. “That’s what I wanted you to
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say. And, Jane? Do you like it?”
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“Well,” I said, “I’m not going to say that I prefer it to our carbonara, 02
because that would be disloyal, but it is delicious.”
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Marnie smiled. “I knew you’d love it.” She refilled my wineglass.
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“We brought this bottle home,” she said. “I thought it was a bit mad—
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you know it’s never going to taste as good— but actually it’s traveled
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rather better than I thought it would. Don’t you think?” she asked.
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Charles nodded. “Definitely,” he replied. “Great pasta, wonderful
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wine. If it weren’t for the rain, I could almost believe we were still
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there.”
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This might sound strange— and perhaps you won’t believe me— but
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until that moment I’d never once felt like an unwelcome guest in their
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relationship. I’d been very aware of the two competing relationships.
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But I’d assumed that they could coexist, sort of side by side. And yet I
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was becoming more and more conscious that my friendship with Mar-
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nie felt like a paragraph in their story, that there was no space for
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anything other than that one love.
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The first few months after Jonathan died are shadowy; I can’t re-