The Truth About Lies

by Tracy Darnton

  I start with my biology homework and dig out the textbook. A postcard flutters out on to the table in front of me: a picture of Haytor Rocks on Dartmoor. The reverse has a single handwritten sentence:

  THINGS ARE SELDOM WHAT THEY SEEM

  “Found you!” It’s Maya. “You look pale, Jess. Are you feeling all right?” She moves my bag off the chair and sits down without asking. “Headache?”

  “Yes. Migraine coming on,” I say, slipping the card back into the book.

  “Bummer. Maybe you should have a scalp massage. I can do it. Felix said I’m really good at massage.” She whispers, “Though I wasn’t just massaging his head.”

  “No thanks. I’m best off sitting here quietly.”

  “Have you seen how big the Lego model is getting? It was such a good idea of yours.” She fishes out her phone. “I’ve been looking at pictures of models online. It’s so therapeutic for everybody, building something together. The camels are going to be tricky. It’s weird but there are no curved bricks, just…”

  “Bricky bricks?”

  “Yes. You obviously know way more about it than I do.” She smiles at me with her trusting puppy face. I know way more about everything than she does, except piano grades and how to play Goal Attack in netball. She’s returned to her phone, scrolling through pages while talking. “Are you doing that essay yet for Mr Desirable? That’s what Keira and I thought we should call him. We’ve been starved of a teacher under thirty for too long.”

  “Yes. I was about to get started on it. You know, really concentrate in the quiet.” Hint effing hint.

  “Why jam your brain with stuff you can look up really easily?” says Maya. “That’s what I think. I just need to stretch out my theory for the thousand words somehow.”

  I’m worried that she’s settling down to stay here. In my corner.

  “We could do it together. Neither of us should be alone at A Time Like This.” She tilts her silly head to one side and holds a sad-face pose. Then she waves wildly. “Over here, Keira!”

  Keira’s towing Dan, her arm linked through his. Poor bloke.

  “I’m making sure Dan knows his way around the library,” Keira says, pointing at the shelves. “This is where all the books are kept, Dan.”

  Of course, the fact that Dan is an athletic, exceptionally good-looking, nice guy has nothing to do with Keira’s wish to help with orientation. I don’t remember her taking such an interest when that spotty kid Sean with the squint arrived from Arizona.

  I sense Dan’s trying to wriggle free of Keira’s wrestling hold. He grins at me. For a moment, he has a look of the lovely Ed about him. “And this must be the happening area of the Dewey system,” he says.

  “Definitely. How about a library par-ty!” says Maya. “I’ll message everyone.”

  “It’s a school night,” I find myself saying, like I’m a fifty-year-old woman in a cardigan. “And it’s the library.” I put my finger on my lips.

  “Libraries – where shhh happens,” says Dan, which makes Keira laugh as though it’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard.

  A loud ‘shush’ travels over the stacks from the direction of the librarian’s desk. She’s back from her nicotine fix.

  “Shhh,” adds Maya, then Dan, then all around the library is a riot of shhh-ing and giggling. They are so rock and roll.

  And then I think I should play the Hanna-grief card to get rid of them. I guess at some point I won’t be able to. What’s the timescale for getting over a death? One month? Two months? A year? There must be a graph drawn up somewhere with closeness of relationship on one axis and time passed on the other. For normal people, time heals as memories fade. But what if, like me, your memories are so sharp that you can still see a person in your head like they’re in front of you? Still smell them like they’re in the room? What if they follow you everywhere?

  “Shut up! Shut the hell up!” someone is shouting at the top of their voice. It turns out to be me.

  6

  Many of us have an ability to ‘see’ an image for a short while after it’s taken away. For a rare few, this ‘eidetic imagery’ or photographic memory persists for many years.

  Principles of Memory – Professor A.E. Coleman

  I’m here again. Mandela Lodge. The flowery armchair with the tissues. This time the Principal is along for the ride, which has sent Dr Harrison into a cheesy show of caring concern. Today he gives me a cup of tea and a biscuit.

  We all sit balancing a mug and a custard cream and listening to the clock tick until Principal Barker gets the ball rolling. “Jess, we’ve shown you a certain amount of understanding, given both the tragic death of Hanna and your own difficult home circumstances.”

  By which she means I don’t actually have a home, except here. Not that she knows the half of it.

  “But obviously the librarian cannot turn a blind eye to that sort of behaviour and language,” she adds.

  Language? I barely said anything. Anyway, libraries are just the place for language. Why, there are 228 instances of ‘bad language’ in Catcher in the Rye alone. And that’s on the library shelf. But it’s not the right time for this discussion. They may be disturbed to know I count swear words in modern classics when I can’t sleep.

  “But obviously we’re concerned about whether you’re coping after losing your friend. And I still haven’t been able to speak directly to your guardian yet,” continues Barker.

  “He travels all the time,” I say. “He’s hard to get hold of.” Especially as I made him up.

  “I have sent him emails,” she says.

  To which I always reply within a decent interval. I’ll be eighteen in January, after which my fictitious guardian can retire. Then I’ll take the International Baccalaureate Diploma in the summer and head off into the wide blue yonder. Maybe college in the States. I’ll put the Programme and my past behind me.

  “Dr Harrison and I are wondering if a sabbatical would be appropriate? To give you some time to get over what happened to Hanna,” says Barker. Is her concern really for me or for the college? They want normality restored. They don’t want screaming in the library. Neither do I. Maybe I’m more freaked out by recent events than I thought.

  “I wonder if there are other issues at play. From your life before you joined us at Dartmeet…” Dr Harrison checks my file. “In January. So, just over nine months ago.” He’s enjoying his moment in the limelight, showing off all the psychobabble he’s picked up over the years. “Sometimes a recent tragedy – like Hanna’s death – can stir up things that happened to us in the past which we’ve tried to forget.”

  He has no idea. He isn’t up to the task of unravelling what’s happened with me.

  “Sometimes a divorce…?” he suggests.

  I nod sadly for his benefit. He thinks he’s hit the crux of the matter. He glances at Principal Barker, looking for approval. Mum got divorced when I was six months old. He wasn’t even my dad in the first place. That’s why they got divorced. I can’t miss something I never had.

  “Post-traumatic stress disorder is not to be taken lightly,” says Dr Harrison. “You don’t have to make a decision today but think about the time-out option. You’re young. A few months out at your age won’t matter in the long term.”

  But he’s wrong. It does matter. I’m staying put. I don’t have anywhere else to go.

  “Or maybe extra counselling sessions with you instead,” I say. Dr Harrison’s eyes light up and he grows taller in his chair, glancing again at Barker with a smug smile on his lips. He’s bound to drop the dumb sabbatical idea now. “It’s really helping,” I say as earnestly as I can.

  Barker looks at both of us. I wonder if she, like me, is not convinced that more time with Dr Harrison would be of any help to anyone. But I’ve handed her an easy solution, which means she can get back to her yoga mat and tofu. “That’s settled then,” she says, draining her cup and standing up to go. Another problem crossed off her ‘To Do’ list. Her duty done.

&nb
sp; All this psychobabble means I have to run to make the start of the TOK lesson. Mr Desai’s standing at the door to the classroom with a tray. “All phones please, all electronic devices, headphones. We’re going to rely on our natural resources today.”

  There are grumbles but the class play along. Maya makes an elaborate gesture of saving me the seat next to her, hugging me and whispering loudly, “Are you OK now?” So embarrassing. This sort of situation triggers memories of other times I’ve been embarrassed, too. They are so immediate, so real, that soon I’m a blushing, shaking mess of embarrassment until I get a grip and shove the recollections of those days back on the shelves of my mind-library. Each new time this happens the feelings are compounded – I now have the feeling of the remembering from today to add to the initial memory. A small snowball rolling and rolling gathering more snow until it’s an enormous scary avalanche of emotion. I force the last memory on to the shelf and refocus.

  Mr Desai’s collecting in our essays. Makoto’s talking to him in a low voice and showing him something. His English isn’t fluent yet, and he’s pretty shy, but Mr Desai leads him to the front and asks him to talk to the class about what inspired his essay. The final assessment includes an oral presentation so he wants us to practise.

  Makoto shows us photo albums made from stiff card with tissue paper and tassels. He passes them around the class while he talks. “When I came here, I hadn’t lived anywhere but Japan. I hadn’t been away from my family.”

  Maya turns the pages for us when one reaches our table, revealing black-and-white photos of people in Japan, some traditionally dressed, some men in uniform, other more candid shots of babies. I look at the family groups, long-dead, huddled in their best clothes, staring down the camera lens. Ghosts and spectres.

  “I enjoy looking at these, seeing my family, my ancestors,” says Makoto.

  The next album is from the sixties or seventies. Fading colour shots and Polaroids of flares and miniskirts, kids on beaches with doting parents. I’ve never really bothered with photos since this memory of mine kicked in – I don’t need them – and since leaving the Programme I’m careful not to appear on any, not to leave a trace of myself.

  “Now in my family we take selfies,” says Makoto. “We share them briefly but we never print them or make albums.”

  Mr Desai’s encouraging Makoto to expand his idea, talking about the way images are stored and our reliance on technology which is soon replaced.

  “I’m overwhelmed by the number of images,” says Makoto. “I can’t sort through those thousands of images. I can’t tackle the, what’s the word?”

  “Backlog?” suggests Mr Desai.

  “Yes, backlog.”

  At least it’s possible to edit photos. I wish I could edit out my memories, rather than have this mountain of images.

  “But the longer you leave it…” says Maya.

  “You need discernment in what you choose to keep,” says Mr Desai. “You guys aren’t curating your life for the next generation in the same way that Makoto’s relatives have here.” He holds up an open album.

  “It’s so much effort,” says Felix. “They’ve invested in this and made it something important. Camera, film, processing, choosing the album, choosing the best photos or the ones with meaning.”

  “And that’s harder to do with a huge volume of material,” says Makoto.

  “And you have the same difficulty with knowledge,” says Mr Desai. “When there is so much information at your fingertips, how do you sort out the important from the trivial, the truth from the lies, from the alternative facts?”

  Makoto collects the albums together and holds them to his chest. “My great-aunt’s nurse, she found these in an old suitcase that was being thrown out. Finding the albums in the trash was … er, sachi,” he says. The guy’s struggling with his English again. Blank faces in the class.

  I consult my Japanese dictionary in my mindlibrary. “Serendipity,” I say. “Sachi means serendipity.” I absorbed words from Japanese and Russian on the Programme. The role of a super-memory in language-learning was one of the early research topics that excited Professor Coleman.

  “Serendipity,” repeats Makoto, tripping over the consonants slightly. “So I bring them with me to England because it reminds me that there are many before me, even though I had to pay excess baggage.” He does a small bow and we all clap.

  “I didn’t know you speak Japanese, Jess,” says Maya.

  I realize I’ve broken my rule about never being exceptional. “I can’t. I know some vocab from a friend I used to have, that’s all.”

  “A pretty brainy friend,” says Maya. “What does serendipity even mean in English?”

  “Most people can just say hello, goodbye, thank you and two beers please,” says Dan.

  “Look around you,” I say. “Dartmeet’s international.” But I know I’ve shown too much. I’m slipping.

  7

  Did you ever play the ‘I went to market and I bought…’ listing game as a child? Or ‘Aunt Sal went on holiday and she packed…’? How about ‘Jess packed … a one-eyed teddy, a pendant and a wooden box’?

  Work Your Memory

  The Dartmeet swimming pool looks almost pretty in the evening. The underwater lights are on, picking out the mosaic tiles at the bottom of the pool. The glow reflects on the wall of windows that look out on to the darkness of the gardens and the night sky. I sneak here after hours and defy the ‘Never swim alone’ health and safety sign. I swim up and down, counting lengths. It’s hypnotic. I like the rush of the water in my ears and the weightlessness. The déjà vu of completing lengths is a mindless repetition for me as I reach for the wall and spin-turn, kicking my legs in a fizz of bubbles again and again. It’s the way I ‘relax’. I guess it’s my form of meditation or mindfulness, which Barker and Dr Harrison are always forcing on us. For me, the appeal is mindlessness. I focus on the breaths and the strokes and calm my brain.

  One of Professor Coleman’s assistants, Nadia, got me hooked on swimming, teaching me front crawl and how to breathe on every third stroke. We swam together every morning before she tested me on the type and volume of things I could remember.

  But Nadia wasn’t there for long. She was far too nice. Plus dissent and strong opinions were not tolerated by Coleman and I overheard them arguing. They went silent when I entered the room, and Nadia was red-eyed. She wasn’t at the next session. Then the new assistant Brett arrived and the focus of the research shifted to how memories were laid down and reconsolidated. He had very different methods from Nadia. I swear he got a kick out of all the uncomfortable stuff he put me through.

  One day I was pleased when he said we’d be playing games but it turned out to be visuospatial task games to be played after he’d inflicted various bad experiences on me. I’d play Tetris in the lab wearing my usual blue rubber cap with sensors while he tested me. The emphasis was on post-traumatic stress disorder memories. I guess Brett was there to provide the trauma. That was my new routine.

  I shake the memories away again. I’ve tried so hard to shut those times away but they keep pressing in, forcing me to relive them.

  Now I break the lengths and float on my back in the darkness, my head cushioned by the water, ears half-submerged. I need the break from the stimulation of my senses.

  “Is it a private pool or can anyone dive in?”

  I start and lose my buoyancy in an ungraceful splash. I scramble to stand up, but the pool’s too deep here. As I resurface, spluttering, Dan’s standing by the shallow end.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” He holds up a hand in apology.

  I swim to the ladder and climb out, shivering, reaching for my towel. “It’s one a.m. You scared me half to death,” I say. “No one’s meant to be in here.”

  “You are. I saw the door was ajar. Do they always leave the fire exit open?”

  “Yes, but not the changing rooms so…” I slip my hooded surfer towel over my head and start changing in front of h
im. I expect him to turn away embarrassed while I wriggle out of my costume under the towel. But he holds my gaze. I’m wishing I’d paid better attention to shaving my legs, even though it’s pretty dark. “I couldn’t sleep,” I say. “I come here rather than lying in bed, staring at the ceiling.”

  “Guilty conscience?” He hands over my neat pile of clothes from the bench. “Or too much cheese before bed?” I stand there in my enormous towel, hugging the clothes to me. “I’ll, er, give you some privacy,” he says, turning away to face the windows.

  “I’ve got in the habit of not sleeping since…”

  “Since Hanna?” Dan turns back as I slip my jumper on. I realize he’s been watching my dim reflection in the glass.

  I say nothing and let him think that. I haven’t slept well for ages. The Programme messed with my sleep patterns by exploring whether sleep deprivation would affect my ability to remember.

  “Is this where all the insomniacs hang out, or just you?” he asks.

  “Just me. And now you.” I rub my hair with the towel while the secret hangs between us. “I’d rather you didn’t say anything. Barker’s on my case already.”

  I don’t like asking for favours. They end up having to be repaid.

  “Sure. I won’t tell if you won’t.” He reaches over and wipes a drip from my cheek.

  I tremble or shiver; I’m not sure which. “And what exactly are you doing here at one o’clock in the morning?”

  “I realized I’d left my watch in the gym.”