See How They Lie

by Sue Wallman

  “I hate that you’re not allowed to spend tokens,” says Thet. “Facials aren’t the same without you.”

  We walk slowly, and I listen to her talk about her novel, and I wish that I knew how to help her with the ending.

  Every so often, the cleaners do a deep clean of the apartment. Everything’s inspected – my clothes, my books, my stationery, my toiletries – and I have to rescue the second-hand pens in worn-out cases from the throwing-away pile, along with notebooks that are more than half full. Soft furnishings are steam-cleaned, furniture is moved, and everything scrubbed, polished, vacuumed and assessed for replacement.

  Several years ago, a cleaner discovered a half-eaten packet of Haribo that I’d hidden under the T-shirts in my chest of drawers. I’d forgotten they were there.

  I’d found the packet on the ground at an athletics tournament. It was only the second time I’d left the Creek. They were already half-eaten when I found them. Looking back, I’m not sure why I never ate any myself. I think I liked the bright colours and the squashy texture, and just having them.

  The cleaner handed them to Dad and that evening for my punishment he gave me a pink drink that made me throw up within minutes. He never asked me how many I’d eaten, and I never told him because he would have thought I was lying anyway. And lying was worse than eating refined sugar that hadn’t been measured out by the Creek kitchen.

  Usually there are signs that a deep clean is about to take place: a pile of extra cleaning products and bin liners the day before or steam-cleaning equipment delivered by the maintenance department. But not this time. I come back from breakfast a few days after moving up to quarter privileges and see that a deep clean’s already begun.

  I struggle for breath, and the room spins. The textbooks. My extra lessons. Homework I’m part way through. Essays I’ve had marked. I don’t know if they’d be a problem, but I haven’t even hidden them properly; I don’t want to get Ms Ray in trouble. I’ve kept them on my shelves with my notebooks. I walk into my bedroom as steadily as I can, and out of the corner of my eye see that they haven’t been touched yet.

  The mattress is on its side against a wall, and the cleaner’s checking all round the cherry wood bed frame.

  After saying hello I tell her I need to get changed.

  “Use the bathroom,” she says. “That’s already done.”

  I can’t argue or plead. She’ll think I have something to hide. So I nod, select some clothes from the chest of drawers and take them into the bathroom. I scan the small room, circling once before snatching a jar of bath salts from the side of the bath. I drop it from above my head on to the floor. It cracks but doesn’t break so I have to tread on it with my sneaker to break it enough that the salts spill out. If I scream it’ll be too obvious so I make an agggh noise, loud enough for the cleaner to hear, then I come out and say, “I’m sorry. I’ve knocked a jar off the bath and made a mess.”

  She rolls her eyes, walks into the bathroom to check, then without a word, goes to find a dustpan and brush.

  I grab my lesson books and essays from the shelves and hide them in my backpack.

  “Why do you have to do a deep clean so regularly?” I ask the cleaner when she returns.

  She frowns. “This is a psychiatric facility, miss. We have to look for banned substances.”

  “But I’m not a patient,” I say.

  She shrugs. “I do as I’m told.”

  In the schoolhouse I work solidly through the extra questions Ms Ray’s sneaked into the middle of my booklet. Each time I look up and see Drew’s empty chair and desk, the loss inside me expands. I just want to lay down my head on the table and cry. But I don’t.

  At lunch my salmon nicoise looks pitifully small, and my stomach grumbles for more. I wonder if someone is screwing up my calorie allocation. I don’t notice Noah follow me out of the restaurant until he’s actually hissed my name, and I turn on the third step down to see him.

  He walks down past me while murmuring, “I’ve checked the cameras outside Hibiscus. There aren’t any above the fire-exit door. I’ll let you know when the incompetent orderly’s back on night duty. By the way, a good place to have a private conversation is the indoor pool. Sound will be hard to pick up and there’s only one camera, at the shallow end, which you can turn your back on.” He’s gone before I can say anything.

  I don’t know what to think of his clandestine behaviour, but a couple of hours later when I’m in the juice bar, I note that there are three cameras inside and one outside covering the patio. When Thet comes in and says she overheard an admin assistant whisper something about the military visitor during her computer session, I tell her I’m on my way for a swim in the indoor pool.

  “Come with me,” I say. It’s important. Please trust me. “Get your swimsuit. I’ll meet you there.”

  I’ve done ten lengths before Thet appears. She’s twisted her hair into an intricate braid, and she’s wearing a new pink-and-white marbled-effect swimming costume, teamed with the pink glitter plastic shoes which she keeps exclusively for trips to the swimming pools.

  “Since you’ve been in isolation, I’ve been rethinking my allegiance to pink,” says Thet, crouching down by the ladder into the pool, which I’m hanging off by my feet. “I might branch out into orange. Shake things up.”

  “Cool,” I say, smiling, and I move away from the ladder. Thet doesn’t leap into anything, especially water. It takes a while for her inch down the ladder.

  When she’s fully in the water and we’re swimming side by side up to the deep end, I tell her about the rooftop. I say I’m going to ask Noah if he’d mind if she joins us up there before she leaves.

  “There’s a great view – and it’s a really neat place to be,” I say.

  “You know I hate heights,” says Thet. “And, I mean. The security building. Hello? What are you thinking?”

  “It sounds strange, but it feels safe up there,” I say.

  We’ve reached the end of the pool and she holds on to the rail with one hand and spreads her other hand on the water. Her nails are beautifully manicured with a pearlized colour called shell pink. They make me long to see shells along a seashore.

  “Four weeks until I leave,” says Thet. “My schedule’s already been changed to give me a chance to relax and reflect on what I’ve learned here.” She chews her lip. “I don’t want to leave, but Gran says I have to.”

  This is the second time Thet’s left. I know it’s unlikely she’ll be coming back.

  “Have they stopped your vitamins?” I ask.

  “I’m on three-quarters of a tablet.”

  “From two tablets?”

  “No, I used to take one.”

  That means I’m on double her dose. “D’you feel any different?” I ask.

  She thinks. “No. I don’t think so. I’m stressed, but that’s because I’m leaving. Mae, the doctors know what they’re doing.” She turns to swim back to the shallow end, but I stop her.

  “Wait. There’s a camera that end. Let’s stay here a moment.” I wait until we’re both facing the other way again before I say, “I’ve stopped taking my vitamins.”

  Thet shakes her head. “You shouldn’t have done that. Vitamin supplements are good for you! I mean, people on the outside are always taking multivitamins. You can’t be sure you’re getting everything you need from food.”

  “I wanted to see how I felt.”

  Thet frowns. “I’m worried you’re getting paranoid.”

  “Listen,” I say, desperate for her to hear me out. “D’you think the amount of cameras here is excessive?”

  “It’s for protection, isn’t it? The more there are, the better we’re protected. My grandmother has cameras installed everywhere at home.”

  Is that because she’s still looking over her shoulder? Worried for her safety? I guess Thet is the wrong person to ask about cameras.

  We swim another couple of lengths. My eyes ache but I don’t think it’s from the chlorine. When we’re ba
ck in the deep end, I ask Thet if she knows anything about the new software on the Creek laptops. She doesn’t, and she’s never heard of the Energy Scale either.

  “We’re always being measured for something,” she says.

  “But I’m not a patient,” I say. “I don’t want to be rated.” I regret my words as soon as I’ve said them. We never really talk about it, the patient non-patient thing.

  “Don’t you mind it, Thet?” I ask gently. “Being tested, watched and rated?”

  She sighs. “Not really. I’m scared of what it’ll be like when I’m not.”

  TWENTY

  We’re doing the warm-down when my heart races and sweat breaks out all over my body. I don’t want Joanie, who’s beside me, to notice, so I keep going, doing a weaker version of the stretches, scared of the creeping blurriness in one eye. I wonder if my watch might set off an alarm when it detects my heart has gone into double-time. If Raoul’s going to come running with a syringe.

  The moment passes. I stumble to my feet, stack my mat on top of the others. I eat half a blueberry wheat pancake at breakfast and feel slightly better. Perhaps it was a panic attack, or maybe my heart’s malfunctioning because of Drew being gone.

  Today for the first time I notice a tiny camera, the same pinkish colour as the walls, on top of a framed print of a group of hummingbirds in the schoolroom. It’s a big drawing I’ve looked at many times. In big lettering at the top it says A Group of Hummingbirds Is Called a Charm. I guess I’ve always been too taken by the fact they’re called a charm, and by the illustrations of the hibiscus and larkspur plants that hummingbirds love, to notice the camera.

  I think it’s lucky Ms Ray hardly ever sits at her desk, which is where it’s pointing to. She likes to move about.

  Later, when I listen to Joanie reading on the swing-chair on the veranda, I notice she’s rubbing her neck.

  “Is your neck OK?” I ask.

  Her hand springs back to her lap.

  “Does it fizz a bit?”

  She bites her thumbnail. “Like fireworks,” she mumbles.

  I smile even though I’m worried. “Did you tell Dr Jesmond?”

  She shakes her head.

  I swing the chair back and forth by bending and straightening my legs. Even up to a year ago, I could make her fall asleep by doing this if I did it long enough. It relaxes her.

  “I don’t want more injections,” she says. “They hurt.”

  “I understand,” I say.

  “Time to come in, girls,” calls Ms Ray through the window.

  The sun is hot but not fierce as Luke and I trudge across the lawn for lunch. He’s grown in the last couple of months which makes him look even more skinny. He tells me he wants to go fishing so much he’s prepared to leave the Creek for it. His dad says that one day there might be a lake at the Creek. “But it’ll be a fake lake, won’t it, Mae?” he says. “Fish dumped in there for me to catch. Like, on purpose.”

  “Maybe it’s better than nothing,” I say. I can’t imagine a lake at the Creek. I remember when they drained a small pond years ago; there were too many safety issues. “But you can learn about fishing while you wait until you’re old enough to go to a real river.” I’ve never taken much notice of Luke. I guess I’ve always been too wrapped up in Drew, to think about him, but I realize that while Zach and Ben are buddies, and Joanie kind of has me to talk to, Luke doesn’t really have anyone.

  In the restaurant, the glass doors have been folded right back, and tables and thick white sunshades have been placed on the terrace above the outdoor pool area. A member of kitchen staff stands discreetly in the corner of the terrace, to stop anyone attempting to jump off the marble railings on to the patio below, even though they’d land in carefully positioned soft vegetation. The pool water sparkles, and there’s a slow-motion quality to the day. I am doing everything I can to keep from nodding off.

  I smile at Noah as I sit at the staff kids’ table. He’s at the next table, but the seat he’s chosen means he’s almost sitting next to me. He acknowledges me with a smile which lights up his whole face, and makes his eyes scrunch. They’re a golden-brown colour with green flecks, and even though they’re fairly closed right now, I can picture the exact shades. I smile back before he carries on talking to Will, and I’m ashamed at the elevator whoosh in my stomach. Drew has been gone less than two weeks. Thet is on the table beyond that, surreptitiously cleaning her cutlery with an anti-bacterial wipe.

  The inside of the restaurant area is dark and shadowy because we’re out in the bright sunshine, so when a figure staggers towards us, it takes us a few seconds to recognize that it’s Austin.

  Will lifts his sunglasses. “Over here, buddy.”

  Austin’s not walking in a straight line, and then he stumbles. Will says, “Oh my God.”

  Everyone looks as Austin lurches on to the terrace, as if he’s been shoved from behind.

  “Something’s wrong,” says Will.

  Austin is between our tables now. He grabs hold of Zach’s chair. His eyes are red-rimmed and glazed over, and he doesn’t seem to be focusing on anything.

  “S … slorry,” he slurs.

  “Oi,” says Zach. “Are you drunk?” He shouts to the member of staff in the corner. “Hey, over here! I think this guy’s drunk.”

  Austin sways. He picks up a glass of water. I think he’s going to drink it, but he swings round and throws it. It flies sideways, in the direction of Thet’s table, but it goes over the terrace and smashes on the white stone slabs below.

  Thet screams. She’s on her feet, water on the sleeve of her top. Piper shouts a string of swear words at Austin.

  The member of the kitchen staff runs towards him, her hair net slipping down her head. Austin shouts words at her that don’t mean anything: “You vile… Can’t contain… No… Bitch!” He slumps, twitching, to the floor and she’s frozen to the spot, blinking.

  “Ben, get help,” I say.

  Ben shoves through the crowd that’s gathering, and Will drops to the ground next to Austin. Austin’s eyes have rolled back and his face is grey; I’m not sure he’s breathing.

  “Put him in the recovery position,” Noah says. “Mae, help us.”

  The three of us roll him on to his side.

  “You’re OK, Austin,” says Will. “You’re going to be OK.” His tone tells me that he’s as scared as I am.

  The member of staff shouts, “Step back. Step back. That guy needs some air.”

  “Call an ambulance,” someone shouts. But we have no phones.

  The crowd parts and Karl Jesmond is there, a few paces ahead of Dad. He has a bag of instruments. A stethoscope. Needles. Dad checks Austin’s pulse, then uses a pair of surgical scissors to cut Austin’s T-shirt from the bottom to the round neckline. Then he grabs a defibrillator from the bag and I realize that Austin’s heart must have stopped.

  “Stand back,” calls Dad. “Karl, clear the restaurant.”

  Austin’s body jerks as Dad shocks him, and I can’t help but watch. Thet is beside me, sobbing, but I’m numb. Dr Jesmond pushes us. “Everyone leave. You” – he points at the member of kitchen staff – “take them outside.”

  We walk down the stairs in stunned silence. Will is the last one on to the lawn where his shocked composure gives way to huge, horrible howls.

  Mick appears and shouts for quiet. We’re told to go to our rooms for a while. Our schedules will resume at four p.m. There’s nothing to worry about. Austin’s getting the best possible care. Snacks will be available in the juice bar later for those who didn’t finish their lunch.

  The patients walk towards Larkspur, while Zach, Ben, Luke and I head towards Hibiscus. Zach is in a state of excitement about the defibrillator.

  “Did you see that guy’s body leap?” He jolts his own body in demonstration.

  “Shut up,” I say. “And his name is Austin. Of course he wasn’t drunk. He’s ill.”

  “You’re an expert on alcohol, are you?” says Zach. “I bet h
e smuggled some in.”

  I tut with disgust but Zach’s looking past me, towards the ambulance slowly rolling through the gates.

  At four p.m., us staff kids have our monthly art therapy group. Kacey, who heads up the department, asks us to bring a stool into a circle. I’m not in the mood for one of her visualize-yourself-as-an-animal-to-unlock-creativity sessions, and wrap my ankles round the legs of the stool to prevent myself tapping my feet impatiently and being fined.

  “So,” says Kacey, pulling up a stool herself, her Creek laptop under her arm. “Dr Ballard tells me that you experienced a distressing incident at lunchtime. I’m sure you’re still processing it, hmm?” She looks round. We nod. I hope we don’t have to discuss it. As it is, my heart is beating like crazy, and I feel like the walls are closing in on us.

  “Anyone want to share what they’re feeling?” Kacey swivels her head, like a bird looking for movement from its prey.

  “Sad,” says Joanie.

  Kacey nods. “I’m going to read you a statement about Austin, from Dr Ballard.” She opens up her laptop, and peers at her screen. After a quick cough she reads.

  “I know everyone will be thinking of Austin today. It is with great sadness that I have to tell you that he died this afternoon in the hospital. We don’t know the exact cause, but he had complex medical needs, so the definitive reason may never be known. Dr Jesmond and I, and all the therapists at Hummingbird Creek, are here to support you through this difficult time and will do our best to answer any questions you have. Hummingbird Creek will be looking at ways we can best remember a fine young man who had much to give.”

  Kacey looks up. I’m dimly aware of Luke sniffing. I hear him as if I’m the other side of a glass wall. I can’t believe Austin is dead. The phrase Complex medical needs echoes in my head. I remember what Peter said to Dad the day Austin had his first attack: That boy today. It was extremely interesting, I thought.

  The ambulance I saw coming up the driveway wasn’t in a hurry. Does that mean they’d been told Austin was already dead? If that was the case, I don’t know why Dad would say he’d died in the hospital.