The Truth About Lies

by Tracy Darnton

  I’m revisiting the single event in the deepest room in the deepest basement of my mind-library and I’m scanning the scene. But it’s blurry, it’s unclear. “I’m looking through frosted glass,” I say. “Why can’t I see it better?”

  “You were out of it at times with the shock and whatever pharmaceutical crap they were giving you. You’ve replayed it so many times, how can you possibly know which version is true?”

  “But my memory,” I splutter, “my memory is…”

  “Is infallible?” says Dan. “Really?”

  We go back inside, realizing we’ve shown it isn’t. It’s flawed like everyone else’s.

  I fold my arms and chew my lip again, trying to process it all while Dan gets us a couple of snacks from the machine. He hands me a chocolate bar and we sit on a clapped-out sofa, side by side. A couple of students in the year below come in to play a noisy game of table tennis. Like nothing has changed in the world.

  “When I was seven, I went to the beach with my cousin,” says Dan. “We got Mr Whippy ice creams from the van. I had mine for literally thirty seconds before I tripped and dropped it on the sand. I cried. My cousin gave me his one.”

  “Sweet of him.”

  “But what if I see a photo of that day and we’re holding ice lollies instead of big ice-cream cones of Mr Whippy. Which version is true? The Mr Whippy ice cream I remember or the Fab ice lollies in the photo?”

  “It could be a photo of a completely different day,” I say.

  “If I make the connection enough between the day out and the photo, or what my dad says about it, I might ‘remember’ it as the day I dropped my ice lolly and be convinced that’s the truth of it.”

  “Your brain unintentionally stores false memories. The invented parts have been woven in by your own imagination or by what others, your dad, your cousin, have told you. There’s a famous study where loads of participants were easily convinced that they’d once got lost in a shopping mall as a child when they hadn’t at all. Memory is dynamic. But my brain is … extraordinary.”

  “Is that your only argument?” says Dan. “Why shouldn’t your mega-memory be misled like mine? I’m not saying it would have been easy.”

  “If the full machinery of the Programme had glided into action to change my memories, you mean?”

  “Isn’t that exactly what they did do, after the accident?” he says. “All while supposedly taking care of you?”

  I breathe out slowly. “I think ‘CV’ in her precious books stands for ‘cognitive vaccine’. She was trialling the drug regime to create the winning cocktail.”

  “A vaccine to change memories?” says Dan.

  “Yes, and now the accident itself doesn’t seem so accidental if Brett was driving the car.”

  “A whole new level of twisted.”

  The table-tennis game is getting rowdier. Dan and I lean in towards each other and I say quietly: “We’re saying they engineered a traumatic incident so that they could test me on it, try out the cognitive vaccine?”

  “Why not?” he says. “It’s just a bigger version of what you say this Brett guy was doing to you on a weekly basis.”

  “A bigger, deadlier version. My mum…”

  “The ultimate traumatic memory,” Dan says. “I mean, what a mad way to be. Amoral, unethical, illegal.” He runs his hand up and down my arm.

  “So what really happened that day? I don’t know any more.” I sink back and close my eyes.

  “There’s a real version in that amazing head of yours somewhere,” he says.

  “Maybe,” I say.

  “We need to think what we do with this.”

  But I’m thinking about the hypnotherapy practitioner certificate on Dr Harrison’s wall and whether I can trust him.

  31

  From the days of Franz Anton Mesmer in eighteenth-century Vienna to the present-day entertainment of stage magicians, hypnosis has had an uneasy relationship with science. For what is it but a state of suggestibility, wholly unmeasurable? And yet some would swear that it works.

  Principles of Memory – Professor A.E. Coleman

  Dr Harrison is surprised to find me waiting at the door five minutes early for counselling. I’m usually late to make the session as short as possible. But today I have plans to lull him into a false sense of usefulness and then strike with the killer request.

  We take our usual positions, mine in the saggy, flowery armchair, his in the leather one. The custard creams are counted out and carefully placed on the small plate on the table, and we each have a mug of tea. His hand shakes slightly. From the strong smell of peppermint breath spray, I’m guessing he’s been drinking again. But at least he hasn’t dashed from the room clutching his stomach yet.

  “So how have you been?” he says. “Any more…?” No doubt he’s casting around for the politically correct word.

  “Meltdowns?” I offer. “Offensive language in the library?”

  “Quite so. We all have times when we can’t cope, when the pressure cap blows off.” We both know he’s talking about himself now but pretend it’s still about me.

  “Vulnerability is not a weakness,” I intone solemnly, like one of his fortune-cookie sayings, and he smiles gratefully at me. “In fact, I was thinking about what you said when I met with you and the Principal, about how a recent tragedy can stir up the past.” I reach over and take a tissue to build up the dramatic tension as he leans forward eagerly on the edge of his chair. He removes his pen lid ready to scribble notes in my file. What a privileged position he has here at Dartmeet, hearing the secrets of teenage souls, being trusted to sort them out and make things better when it’s obvious his own life is one big mess. He must live for revelations such as this to brighten up the usual fare of humdrum anxieties and depression. To make him feel better about his own miserable life and reassure him that he can exert control over something.

  “It’s made me think a lot about my mum’s death,” I say. And in case that’s not enough for him to get excited about, I add: “She died in an accident, right in front of me.”

  “Aha. Why didn’t you say before?”

  “Because I was at a new school, a fresh start, and I didn’t want anyone to feel sorry for me. I’d hate that.” And it’s nobody else’s business.

  He leans over and rests a sweaty hand on my knee. “People would want to help. I want to help.”

  I tolerate his hand today. I’ve noticed he does it at least once in his sessions. I’m pretty sure it’s not in the Counsellors’ Guide to Good Behaviour. Is it what he used to do with Hanna? Does he like girls to be needy and vulnerable?

  “And I’d done so well to bottle it up,” I say, sniffing. “But I guess, after what happened to Hanna, it’s spilling out.”

  His hand gently squeezes my kneecap. “We’ve spoken before about the five stages of grief. There really are no easy shortcuts. It’s a process you must go through to come out coping on the other side. Bottling things up is not the way to go.”

  I smile and nod back, as though I now realize he was right all along and what a fool I’ve been not to have listened to him before. “So will you help me?” I say with a gentle break in my voice. “Because I’ve not been sleeping well. I’ve been replaying the accident in my head but something’s not right.”

  He nods eagerly.

  “I need to remember exactly what happened,” I say, my lip trembling.

  “Good idea,” he says. “Face it head on.”

  “So I need you to use hypnosis.”

  His face drops and he sits back in his chair. “I don’t know, Jess. I haven’t used hypnosis for a long time.” From the way he’s reacting, I’m guessing his certificate of competency to practise is out of date but he doesn’t want to own up to having a big fat lie on the wall. Next to his other dodgy certificates. But I don’t care. I can’t do it by myself.

  “You said that you’d help me.” I’ve already had to tell the man more than I wanted to about the accident to get this far. “It’s haunt
ing me, not being able to remember exactly what happened to her. I need to revisit the day my mum died to move on, to get closure.” I use the language of counselling to sell him the idea.

  “Sometimes the brain prefers not to remember,” he says. “It’s a useful defence mechanism. We could be opening up Pandora’s box and once it’s open we can’t put everything back to the way it was. It’s a risk.” He gets up and walks to the window, looking out across the courtyard. “I don’t want to make matters worse for you,” he says quietly.

  I honestly don’t think things can get any worse. But to him I say: “I’ll take the risk. It’s all on me.” He still doesn’t turn round. I hoped I wouldn’t have to spell it out but here goes: “And you owe me. That night, remember?”

  He sighs and sits down, this time behind the desk, at a distance. I’ve crossed a line he didn’t think I’d cross. “Hypnosis is not a precise science. Even if I do as you ask, I can’t promise that it’ll get the result you’re after.”

  “I know that.”

  “Patients are suggestible in a hypnotic state,” he says. “Many so-called recovered memories are false but the patient vehemently believes them to be true.”

  “So don’t ‘suggest’ anything to me when I’m hypnotized. Just ask questions. I’ll bring Dan so he can take a record and we can be sure of who said what.”

  “And it’s questionable ethically.”

  “Then it’s our little secret. Strictly between us.” I pause. “Like what happened the other night.”

  His eyes flit to the window and he lowers his voice. “You leave me little option. I suppose if we keep it to ourselves…”

  “Yes – definitely. It must all be strictly confidential. You’re bound by patient confidentiality, aren’t you?”

  He rubs his temples with his fingertips and sighs deeply; a resigned sigh. “All right. I’ll dig out my old books and refresh my techniques. We’ll fix a time when we won’t be disturbed. Maybe when everyone else is at the Friendship Supper tomorrow.”

  “I’ll have a migraine and skip it,” I say. “See you at six tomorrow.”

  I’m one step closer to finding out the truth.

  32

  Sometimes we just need a cue to retrieve a memory; a Proustian moment of involuntary recall sparked by a taste or smell from our past.

  Principles of Memory – Professor A.E. Coleman

  “You’ll never guess,” says Maya, dashing up to us in the lunch queue the next day.

  “Why bother if we’ll never guess?” says Keira.

  “Is it to do with the hike planning?” I ask, hoping it’s not and wishing that I’d never been roped in to help with it.

  “No, silly!”

  “Then I give up.” I go back to selecting a topping for a jacket potato, which is usually more interesting than keeping up with Maya’s gossip.

  “Ramesh Desirable has gone. Il a disparu,” Maya says with dramatic flourish.

  “We know,” I say. “He left our lesson, remember. Something came up.”

  “No, he’s actually gone. For good,” says Maya. “I overheard Barker on the phone. I went to top up my printer card in the office and I heard her because her door was open. ‘…completely left us in the lurch,’ she said, ‘not answering his phone and appears to have cleared out all his belongings from his room.’ Barker was livid. Saying how she couldn’t get Ms Mac back at such short notice and how irresponsible he was, etc. etc. Maybe he’s been caught with his pants down in the stationery cupboard? Clearing off before it gets out.”

  “Phoebe Fitzpatrick in Year 12 was always flirting like mad with him – flicking her hair and hanging on his every word,” says Keira.

  Just like Keira with Dan. It takes one to know one.

  “But then I sneezed,” says Maya. “You know when your nose is so itchy and you try to stop yourself from sneezing which only makes it worse? And I couldn’t help it. So Barker stopped talking and came to the door of her office and asked me what I wanted. I stammered something about the printer card but I don’t think she believed me. I would not make a good spy.”

  “Maybe he’s gone off with Phoebe,” says Keira. “We should check.”

  I stand there listening to all this gossip and speculation, pretending I’m finding it riveting while knowing his sudden disappearance has everything to do with me.

  Keira’s theory is blown out of the water when we spot Phoebe Fitzpatrick on her way to play tennis. She’s swinging her racquet and laughing. If she’s heartbroken, she’s hiding it well.

  “Unless she’s hired a stunt double, she definitely hasn’t run off with Mr Desirable.” Keira sounds disappointed.

  I leave her and Maya working on their next theory.

  *

  I go back to my room, sit at my desk and close my eyes. Will I get closer to the truth after putting myself through hypnosis with Harrison tonight?

  There’s something nagging at me from earlier, fighting for my attention amongst the mass of information. Review your memories, Mr Desai said. Everything’s in there, you simply need to retrieve it. I’ve got all the pieces of the puzzle but I can’t see the whole picture.

  I open up the window and enjoy the blast of cold air like Hanna used to do. The photos of us at Halloween, which Maya printed for me, blow on to the floor. As I prop them up again on my desk, I catch a glimpse of Lena outside and I realize what’s been troubling me. I run downstairs and intercept her.

  She smiles broadly at me. “Ah, my fellow ninja,” she says and kisses me on both cheeks.

  “Lena, at the Fox and Badger, why did you say that man in the car park thought you were someone else?” I ask.

  “Oh, because of the only thing he said, apart from the swear words after I hit him. As he grabbed me, he said: ‘Trick or treat, Freya?’”

  I go straight back to my room and pull out Lena’s scarf from my chest of drawers. The one I was wearing when I saw Callum, when he fondled me with my eyes tight shut. He’s smarter than I thought. He sent someone to find Lena Petrova. Her name tape, which I’d casually picked at on the beach, is gone.

  33

  I summon up remembrance of things past

  ‘Sonnet 30’ – Shakespeare

  The lights are dimmed in Mandela Lodge, the curtains drawn. Dr Harrison has seated me in the flowery armchair and pulled up his desk chair to a few inches away. He looks nervous. There are tiny beads of sweat on his upper lip and forehead. His breath smells of garlic and stale cigarettes. I’m focusing on his nose hair to concentrate. Dan sits on the small sofa ready to record everything.

  Dr Harrison reviews his notes again and fiddles with his fountain pen. I gave him a summary of the accident, without mentioning my amazing memory or the Programme. His bushy eyebrows briefly shot up into his hairline but they’ve stabilized now.

  “I wish you’d shared what happened to your mother earlier. Dealing with not one but two deaths in close succession is a tall order for anyone. I could have helped.”

  I doubt that very much. And I don’t think his help was much use to Hanna. But I need him to feel indispensable today so I nod. “I just didn’t know how to begin with it all,” I say, perfecting my vulnerable look.

  His hand hovers near my knee again. I cross my legs and look over at Dan, who’s fiddling with his phone. Harrison pulls back to adjust his glasses. “People have different tolerances for hypnosis,” he says. “If you resist at all or show any scepticism, it won’t work.”

  It’ll work. I’ve had plenty of experience of people delving into my brain. I’ve sat patiently while the full technological armoury has scanned me. Anyway, there’s only one way to go with all this. I need to go through with the hypnosis and review what I actually saw the day of the accident. Callum has obviously told them ‘Lena Petrova’ is my new name. He knows I did Russian on the Programme. And they managed to track Lena or her car to the Fox and Badger. So even if they know now she was the wrong person, it won’t be long until they come to check out Dartmeet College. And this time
I won’t have the benefit of a full disguise. I’m running out of time to get to the truth.

  “Let’s begin,” says Dr Harrison. “First I want you to tense your muscles. Make fists with your hands, scrunch up your toes. And release. And repeat. As you release, you feel the tension draining from your body. Focus on your breaths and the sound of my voice. Nothing else exists beyond this room. Breathe in for four and out for four. Empty your mind.” His voice grows quieter.

  It’s an impossible task for me to empty my mind, but I can battle to subdue it. In my head I’m running around my mind-library, pushing doors shut, dimming the lights, shutting out the memories. Me aged twelve watching a Christmas movie with Mum; my thirteenth birthday treat of ice skating and a cake decorated as an ice rink; the complete Harry Potter movies trying to burst into my vision…

  “We’re focusing on the rise and fall of your chest,” says Dr Harrison. “One, two, three, four.”

  My mind’s still racing – the university department, Coleman’s house in Kensington, Dartmeet. So many memories, so many objects.

  “As you listen to the breaths, so you will start to feel more relaxed. Now focus on my finger,” he says, holding up a nicotine-stained index finger.

  I look up at it, trying not to blink, staring at the lines around the knuckle, the flecks of dirt under his nail.

  “As you look at my finger, your eyelids are getting heavier. Your whole body is feeling heavier. It’s OK to shut your eyes now. We’re descending a ladder and as we count down the rungs you will go further into the trance. One, two…”

  My eyes are so heavy they fall shut. I can’t open them. I want to drift into sleep. Dr Harrison is counting, but he sounds so far away – like he’s in another room. I climb down the ladder, my hands gripping the sides. I can feel the wood beneath my palms.