The Truth About Lies

by Tracy Darnton

  “I think I’d have liked her,” says Dan. “Especially the pants behaviour.”

  “She was really beautiful but she couldn’t see it herself.” I remember her in that last week, peering in the mirror, popping pills. Asking my opinion. She didn’t have to take it.

  Dan hugs me to him, right there in the walking-boot section of Dart Outdoors, before I can react. “Sorry,” he says, patting my back. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

  No, he shouldn’t have. Because now I’m seeing again in my head Hanna’s parents clinging to each other when they came to collect the body. Remembering how I helped her dad pack away all her things while he tried so hard not to crumple in a heap. I hid some stuff. No grieving father wants to see the nitty-gritty of his daughter’s contraceptive pills and medicine cabinet. How he thanked me for helping, being such a comfort to them, offered me a memento.

  I blink again, refocusing on the boots displayed in front of us. I’ll remember this instead: every stitch mark, every lace, every price. I’ll concentrate on the smell of Dan, how strong his arms feel, how deep his voice is.

  I did nothing wrong. Hanna was a fool. I pull back from Dan. “It’s OK. It’s good to remember,” I say and falter a smile.

  *

  Dan’s bought me a hot chocolate with extra marshmallows and whipped cream, and a madeleine cake to dunk. He softly talks to me about how he’s lost someone before, how hard it is, how it’s OK to feel sad. I feel I’m trapped in an edition of a touchy-feely show. “Maybe because it was sudden, there are things you feel you should’ve said to her or apologized for?” He takes my hand. “You can always talk to me – vicar’s son and all that. We’ve only known each other a short time, but I feel I’ve known you for ages.”

  He’s right, and I haven’t had that before with anybody. But if he thinks I’m about to spill my innermost secrets to him, he’s way off. I preferred him when he was dancing round the shop and distracting me from the memories. I don’t want to list them all. He’s expecting me to cry on his shoulder right now. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t normally blub over people.”

  “Hey, what are second-hand jackets for, if not to wipe your nose on?”

  But that’s not what I meant at all. I meant I don’t normally cry about people. I don’t normally cry full stop. Professor Coleman and her techniques kind of knocked that out of me.

  “Come and choose some snacks and a DVD,” says Dan, pulling me up. “We could have a movie night.”

  We head down the High Street. He reaches for my hand but I shove it firmly in my pocket. We stop by the Ashburton Stores but I can’t go in. It’s a minimarket with CCTV. It’s not worth the risk.

  “You go on. I need to run a quick errand. Meet you by the clock tower.” And before he can follow me I start walking, saying, “Don’t get any chick-flick rubbish.”

  “Pretentious foreign films with subtitles only, I swear,” he says.

  The tiny post office/craft shop/tourist office smells of cats but it doesn’t have a working camera. I do my banking here over the counter, withdrawing cash, checking my balance. It’s always a relief that the money’s still there. I’ve been careful, but even so. I didn’t steal it – how can you steal it if nobody knows it’s gone? And she shouldn’t have had it in the first place. I reckoned Coleman owed me. I worked out an hourly rate for all the time I’d spent, and Mum had spent, on her research, on making her a big name in cognitive neuroscience, plus a healthy chunk for expenses to carry me through. And then I took a percentage of what she’d been paid – and what I saw she was going to be paid. The figures I found hidden in her documents. I’m not an expert on university research funding, but it’s definitely not usual to be paid in wads of cash.

  I flick through the postcards of Dartmoor made by local artists while I’m waiting, and spot a pack of five which includes the Haytor Rocks postcard that was put in my bag. They’re just some cheap postcards, I tell myself. Nothing to get freaked about.

  But then my eye is caught by the community noticeboard on my way out. Amid the car boot sales and the charity coffee mornings and the open-air pool hours, there’s something new since last time. Something that chills me to the core: a printed flyer which I take down quickly and scrunch into a ball.

  ‘MISSING – Freya Walsh. HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL?’

  There’s a contact number. The name to call is Brett Young.

  And the girl on the flyer is me.

  *

  I wait for Dan by the clock tower, holding the screwed-up flyer in my pocket, trying not to think about Brett. I can smell the exhaust and hear the purr and splutter of Uja before I see it. The horn toots.

  Dan leans over and shoves open the passenger door. “Hey, you, want a lift in a classic car?”

  I am genuinely pleased to see him. “Yes, but I’ll settle for this heap of junk.”

  “But this ‘heap of junk’ has a minibar. Ta-da!” Dan smiles and opens the glovebox, showing me the pile of chocolate, crisps and cans. “Hop in. And to think you weren’t keen on coming out with me today. Look at how much fun you’re having now. Who would you have got to insult if you’d stayed behind?” He taps me on the knee and smirks. “Put on one of the new cassettes and navigate us home, Miss Google Maps.”

  I play the ‘Classical Spectacular’. I focus my racing mind on listening for the beats. Breathe. Breathe. Don’t panic. The photograph was grainy and two years old. I split the orchestra into different sections in my head, listening for each instrument. First the violins, then the violas, the cellos and the double bass. Breathe. I can feel the fear. Fear from seeing Brett’s name again, and all the fear I’ve felt before. I’m flashing back, replaying, replaying.

  Dan’s whistling along, cheerful, carefree.

  I listen for the brass section, isolate the tubas, the horns, the trumpets and the cornets. I’m remembering Brett. I can feel his hands on my arms, holding me until they bruise. Thinking How far will he go? Thinking Surely he’ll stop. Surely Coleman will stop it. Wishing I was stronger.

  The wind section. The bassoons, the oboes, the clarinets and flutes. Calm. Breathe.

  Dan interrupts me and I open my eyes again. “Jess? Which way?”

  I hear the timpani and can feel my pulse regularizing.

  “Straight on. Keep going.”

  I listen for the finale, the cadence at the end of the piece. An unfinished cadence. And my fingers tighten around the paper in my fist. They’re looking for Freya.

  They’re looking for me.

  11

  A half-truth is a whole lie.

  Yiddish proverb

  Nobody at Dartmeet knows I’m called Freya. I did a professional job on my new identity. It’s always better to steal one than start from scratch and it’s best to choose something common, but not too common. So that rules out Smith and Jones. Wilson is in the top ten British surnames. And Jessica was in the top five names for girls across the years 2000 to 2005. And there are permutations to muddy the water: Jess, Jessica, Jessamy, Jessie (extra popular after Toy Story). Best not to be unusual if you want to fade into the background.

  If Coleman is number one on my list of people to avoid, Brett Young is number two. When I left the Programme, I made it clear that I didn’t want to be found. I take precautions, I stay silent and, so far as I know, they haven’t looked. Until today.

  Dan nudges me when we arrive back at Dartmeet. “Help me carry the gear to mine,” he says. “Or do you want to meet me later?”

  But after the shock of seeing my face on the flyer, I don’t want to be on my own, in my room. I’d like a distraction this evening, a strong displacement activity. And, let’s be honest, I fancy the pants off him. His arm brushes against mine as we take the bags out of the boot and I know he’s feeling a spark there too.

  We skip supper and the noise and company of the dining room and go to Dan’s room in B-Block.

  “Felix is away for the night at his parents’,” he says. He nods over at the unmade bed. “His dad’s fi
ftieth or something. So we won’t be disturbed, you know, if…” Their room smells of Lynx and games kit. He shoves some books off his bed for me to sit down.

  Dartmeet may be a progressive college but there are limits. When Lena Petrova was found in the swimming-pool showers with Benjamin in a compromising position they were both suspended for a week.

  Benjamin didn’t come back – his parents didn’t want their son corrupted and moved him to a Quaker college in New Jersey.

  Lena spent a week in the family apartment in Knightsbridge, supervised by the housekeeper, catching up on her shopping, but came back, promising to avoid ‘certain situations’ as Principal Barker put it.

  What they really want is discretion and effective birth control because, let’s face it, lock up a mixed bunch of sixteen- to eighteen-year-olds in an isolated community and you’re going to have ‘certain situations’. A few of the Americans have taken the virgin pledge at their previous high schools so they’re no fun at all, hanging at the edge of parties like the morality police. Though I’m not the type to sleep around. Rejection replayed a thousand times over is tough. Until Ed, I hadn’t really wanted to. And then, thanks to Hanna, I didn’t get the opportunity to take the risk. But Dan…

  “We can either go to the Common Room to watch the DVD, intense and subtitled as requested,” says Dan, ineffectually pushing back his fringe. “And ask your friends along: Keira, Maya?”

  “Or?” I say, looking straight into his eyes, feeling my heart go boom boom in my chest like we’re stuck in a lame teen-magazine romance.

  “Or…” He blushes in a completely charming, make-me-melt way. “Or stay here. And play games.” He pulls Twister and Frustration from our shopping bags.

  While he puts some vinyl on the turntable, I ponder whether I’ve misunderstood and he actually wants to play a board game, or whether there’s an obvious innuendo at play and he assumes that I know exactly what he’s talking about. Now I look silly because I’m not responding in the correct way, but then if I’ve got it wrong I don’t want to act like an idiot. I tell myself the type of music he chooses will show which way the evening’s panning out.

  But then it’s jazz. What the heck does that mean?

  “You’re still wearing my jacket,” he says. “Better, you know, take it off.”

  That must be a sign, surely. I swallow and ease it off my shoulders, sensing Dan watching. Intently.

  “Twister, then?” he says, managing to make it sound like a filthy idea. I spin the arrow and, before I know it, I’m definitely in one of Barker’s ‘certain situations’. Good. I desperately want to think and feel something else in my present, to be in the moment not in the accumulated past. I’d thought Coleman wasn’t looking for me, that I’d left all that behind. I’ve got used to being Jess Wilson with the long blond hair and the sketchy past. I am Jess Wilson. I’m Jess Wilson making out with Dan. Gorgeous, funny Dan.

  *

  I wake up and take a moment to work out where I am. It’s after midnight. I disentangle my limbs from Dan’s, get fully dressed and step over the discarded Twister mat so I don’t wake him. I haven’t gone all considerate and thoughtful – I just don’t want a conversation about what happened. Not that very much did – it was not a non-stop night of passion – it was fooling around and then falling asleep. But I don’t want to see any regret on his face or disappointment or embarrassment. What was I even thinking? I’ve known him for, like, five whole minutes. A bad decision. When I’m stressed, that’s what I do. Idiot.

  I grab my swim stuff and slip into the pool. I want to clear my head, process the time with Dan and try to stop cringing with embarrassment. Length after length to make it better, more manageable. But I can’t even concentrate on that, the Missing Person flyer keeps interrupting.

  I take a long hot shower back in my own room. As I dry my hair, I check if the colour’s fading. My dyedblond hair covers my ears and masks the shape of my face, which makes it harder to spot me on CCTV. It’s not that much of a change of appearance from the younger girl on the flyer with her shorter brown hair but as I can’t grow a beard or undergo plastic surgery with no questions asked, it’s the best I can do. That and show up in public images as little as possible. If Coleman is looking for me, she’ll use the super-recognizers.

  I tear up the flyer and flush it down the loo, watching it spiral away.

  *

  Dan takes the seat next to me at lunch. “Hey, you,” he whispers, nudging my elbow in an overgrown schoolboy kind of way, which is what he is. He’s grinning broadly. He may as well stand on a chair and make an announcement: “Jess and I fooled around together last night, people.” Maya’s gossip antennae are twitching away and Keira’s mouth is open in an OMG shape already.

  “This roast chicken is delicious,” I say and Maya kicks me under the table.

  “Shall we try out the route for Hanna’s Hike this afternoon?” says Dan, looking only at me. “Or do you want to chill?”

  Oh dear. This whole ‘are we a couple?’ type conversation is weird. I don’t know what got into me last night. But I do know I don’t want someone following me around like a puppy dog, acting like we’re betrothed. I need to refocus on Coleman, Brett and my whole existence here.

  “Or do you want to resume our board games? Maybe Frustration this time? Or not…” he whispers in my ear. Maya and Keira exchange knowing glances and raised eyebrows.

  “I’ve got so much homework to do,” I say, which everyone round the table knows is a lie this weekend. “And there’s revision for the test in biology.”

  He looks hurt. Embarrassed. He knows the biology revision is not an issue for me. He knows I’m making excuses.

  Keira’s looking pleased, though. No doubt hoping to be first reserve, a shoulder to cry on for Dan. “I’d love some help sticking up the Hanna’s Hike posters if you’re free, Dan,” she says, doing the full pouty smile, as I retreat from the room.

  I’ve got bigger things to worry about than Keira. When I get back to my room, there’s a postcard of Ryders Bridge wedged under the door handle.

  HISTORY IS WHAT WE CHOOSE TO REMEMBER.

  12

  A mnemonist is a trained memorizer. All of us can benefit from an understanding of their techniques and exhibit an improvement in memory. But a true eidetiker isn’t knowingly using those techniques. Their recall comes from a different place entirely.

  Principles of Memory – Professor A.E. Coleman

  I stay up late, pretending not to hear Dan knocking on my door. One postcard I can ignore as a lame joke, or put in the wrong bag, but now there’s a second I can’t dismiss it so easily. I work for hours, trying to find everything recent on Professor Andrea Coleman. I need to get up to speed. After all these months trying to shut them out of my thoughts, I have to think about her and Brett Young again. The deluge of information online is exhausting as my brain gets sucked into absorbing the hundreds of links. I read page after page, twisting Mum’s pearl in my fingers. I check Coleman’s university website and see pictures of her smiling, receiving awards. Brett’s still there, shown pointing at a shiny new scanner. He’s written a moving piece on the spread of Alzheimer’s in his own family, as though he cares about people and has an actual heart, which I know is completely false.

  I look at science journals, newspapers, Facebook entries, reviews of her new book, just out: Principles of Memory. What is she up to? Is the flyer connected with the postcards? It’s a jigsaw. I’m looking for all the pieces but I don’t know yet what the full picture is behind the public veneer. In a way, I’m looking for missing pieces, the ones you don’t see, the ones they need to hide. The lies.

  Why are they trying to find me now, after all these months? I need to read her book. I eventually fall asleep propped up in bed, slumped over my laptop.

  *

  Today I’ve decided I’ll be the model student, the model friend: I want no more drama. I say hello to everyone when I sit down at Maya’s table. I pass Keira her pencil case and off
er round my chewing gum without being asked. I even say a perky ‘Good Morning’ to Mr Desai as he hands back our essays on delegating memory.

  I half-smile at Dan at the back of the class to make amends. He glances down. Then he glances at Keira.

  “We’re going to be using techniques in this workbook. Use it to make your own notes, create your own games and tools,” says Mr Desai. He looks at me. I swear, he looks me straight in the eyes. “To improve your memory.”

  I flick through the book: Work Your Memory. Mind maps, number-rhyme, loci and peg systems, memory palaces, etc.

  “Mnemosyne was the Greek goddess of memory, as those of you with the benefit of a classical education will know. We’ll be making use of some mnemonics, or memory aids,” says Mr Desai, handing out worksheets. “You’ll be familiar already with some rhyming ones: Thirty days hath September, April, June and November, etc. But we can also use the first letter of each word to make a more memorable word: BIDMAS in maths or SOHCAHTOA in trigonometry. Or to make a new phrase. You all know the rainbow colours from Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain, for example.”

  Mr Desai holds up the sheet. “So at the risk of our lesson turning into a round at a pub quiz, I want you to have a stab at these. There will be a prize for the best pair.” He places a tub of Celebrations on the desk. Suddenly everyone is keen. You wouldn’t think a bunch of teenagers could be so easily motivated by a small chocolate in a shiny wrapper but there’s a flurry of activity. I scan his list: