The Lies We Tell

  At first, Michael confided, he’d suspected her of seeing someone else. It had happened to him before. He revealed that the reason for leaving his last job and joining Janssens was his need for a fresh start after discovering his last serious girlfriend, Megan, had had an on-off affair with one of his work colleagues for most of the time she and Michael had been going out.

  Believe me, I understand how once you’ve been hurt how difficult it can be to let people in, he told her. But Katy, really, we’ve nothing without trust.

  He thought that she, too, had been let down by someone in her past. And in a way this was true, wasn’t it? So as they got back together, she vowed she would tell him the whole of it – eventually. Everything. Just not yet.

  ‘Of course, I remember, clearly,’ Katy adds, more softly now. ‘I remember how much I hurt you before. I remember how I promised to work harder to let you in. And I did, didn’t I? Things have been good these past few months. I know neither of us expected a baby, but that’s going to be good, too. Is good already, or at least will be once this bloody morning sickness has passed – ’

  She laughs, briefly. Trying to lighten the moment.

  ‘ – please, don’t mix up what’s happening now with what happened six months ago. Everything’s OK, really. Except Mum’s in hospital and for now I need to be with her by her side. I’ll be back tomorrow, OK? I’ll see you then. And until then, I’ll be thinking of you, alright?’

  He sighs. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Thank-you, Michael.’

  ‘And Katy?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I love you.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Keep me posted, then.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘On the mobile. Because I’ll be out later … with an old school friend.’

  ‘Another one?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Old school friend. Wasn’t the head hunter – ?’

  ‘An estate agent. I just thought it might make sense to consider our options – you know, because soon we might be in need of a bit more space?’

  Leaning back in her chair, Katy shuts her eyes. Surely she should feel relief at the success of this deflection. Yet all she feels is hollow. Why is it so hard to let him in? she wonders. If it wasn’t for the baby now growing inside her would they still be together, trying as hard as they are now to make all this work? How she wishes she could be sure. Just like she wishes she knew how she really feels about becoming a mother. Can anyone really know it’s going to be right for them when they find out they’re pregnant for the very first time?

  Or maybe’s it’s never right. Perhaps that only becomes with time, when you’re left with no choice. Is that why when pressed so many people, even women who know what they want, admit that there’s never a perfect time to be a parent.

  ‘You finished with this, love?’

  A hand reaches in front of Katy across the table towards the cup she has left untouched, the contents of which are now cold. Looking up, Katy finds herself staring into the face of a pale-faced girl wearing a brown chequered tabard. Her bottle-black hair has been carefully peeled back, secured with grips then confined beneath a hair net. A quick nod, then Katy gazes back down. Should she call him back? she wonders. Try to explain some more? Now she finds herself regretting the prospect of not seeing him for another 12 or maybe 18 hours. Maybe it would help to have him by her side. To confide. But tell him what, exactly. How much?

  Katy slips the phone back into her bag. No, she knows what she must do and she needs time, too, to get things straight in her head. This business with Jude. How, despite using a different name, she appears to have built the beginnings of some kind of relationship with her mum. She shudders. Much as she wants to, she can’t wish Jude away. And now, she sees, she’ll need to see her again if she’s going to understand what’s going on. Looping the bag over her shoulder, Katy rises to her feet then re-traces her steps back to the ward somewhere upstairs in the building above in which her mum would soon be coming to.

  *

  Diane lies in the bed with eyes closed, her chest gently undulating beneath the pale cotton sheet. She is wearing a hospital gown and there is a plastic tube taped to the back of her right hand. Asleep. Though as Katy watches, her face twitches. Though only a barely perceptible movement, it is a welcome indication of her upward drift towards consciousness. How frail she looks and old, too, Katy thinks, her eyes welling at the contrast with the image of her mum’s younger self captured in the photo of her wearing that cocktail dress.

  Ten years her senior, Charles had just returned to England after three years working in Geneva at the head office of the insurance firm he worked for, when they had first met on the central concourse at Marylebone Station. Diane had just been taken on as a secretary at Baxters, a firm of educational book publishers based just off the Edgware Road. New to the city and still living at home, she commuted daily to and from London from the leafy countryside near Thame. He’d been running late, as usual, having just missed his train. As she rushed from the platform she’d bumped into him – quite literally – as she hurried towards the main exit. Her bag went flying; he picked it up, then conscientiously dusted it down before handing it back.

  It was a silly, inconsequential shred of gallantry that seemed so proper, somehow, at the tail end of a decade that had grown so disrespectably louche. Charles Parker, it seemed, was the perfect gentleman. Over the weeks that followed, they exchanged a few polite smiles without her realising that to do so he must have switched to a later train. With no time after work to fraternise with colleagues in London and no single friends to socialise with left at home, Diane was easily flattered by his attentions. Then, the week before Easter, he invited her out on a date.

  They went to a West End cinema to see a new film, What’s Up Doc? Afterwards, he paid for a taxi to get her back to the station just in time to catch the last train home. She’d not had the heart to admit she hated Barbra Streisand – a secret dislike she endured for years despite the numerous records he bought her over countless Christmases – but it had been a pleasant evening, nonetheless. Soon afterwards, she moved into a flat in St John’s Wood with an older woman, recently widowed, who Charles knew through work. He became a frequent visitor, often dropping in unexpectedly for dinner, until late one evening he missed his train and stayed the night. Two months later she found herself pregnant.

  The first few years weren’t easy. After a low-key registry office wedding and a hasty relocation to an up and coming town nestled in Surrey’s leafy commuter belt, Diane gave birth to Andrew and then, two years later, a daughter, Katy. It could have been the perfect happy ending. But, instead, Charles made little effort to conceal from his wife how much he resented the broken nights of sleep. How infuriated he was by the constant noise and disarray that bedevilled their home. Or how deeply he despised the way motherhood was changing his wife. Always tired and listless, often distracted, Diane survived in the hope that when the children got older things would change – meticulously over-looking the creeping coldness of his touch.

  So went the story Katy concocted from memory and imagination. For she’d never understood the breakdown of her parents’ marriage nor the reason why, after its deterioration seemed irreversible, they stayed together so long. For the children’s sake, perhaps. Some old-fashioned sense of duty. Whatever the explanation, neither of her parents commented on it then or after. For the past was not a language the Parker family spoke.

  Where did it all go wrong, Mum, Katy wonders. Between you and dad; between you and me?

  ‘Love?’

  Opening her eyes, Katy quickly narrows them against the unfamiliar shards of light that cut through the white plastic blinds still drawn at the window. Stiffly, she shifts position. Slowly, she turns her head towards the bed where her mother now lies propped up against a mound of pillows. ‘Mum?’ she whispers. ‘Is everything OK?’

  ‘You’ve not been there all night, have you?’ Diane’s voice is a croak.


  Katy nods, briefly, then shrugs away her mother’s concern. ‘Actually, it wasn’t that uncomfortable,’ she lies.

  ‘You always were a hopeless fibber,’ her mother chides as she road tests a cautious smile. ‘When you were little I could always tell – there was an expression you had, nothing obvious, just a subtle look … That and the fact that when you were doing it you could never meet my eye.’

  Katy, who without thinking has dropped her gaze to the floor, looks up quickly. ‘Alright, mum, you’ve got me: it was an awful night!’ she smiles. ‘But really, it doesn’t matter. How are you?’ She leans forward to pour water from a jug which stands on a narrow chest of drawers beside the bed into a plastic cup and passes it to Diane.

  ‘Thanks love,’ Mum replies, slowly bringing the plastic to her lips. ‘My throat feels parched.’ She takes a sip then winces.

  ‘Still sore?’ asks Katy. When will the nurse come with more painkillers, she wonders. Diane nods. ‘I’ll call someone.’ She reaches towards a small control panel attached to a white cable knotted around the metal framed bed head. At the touch of her finger, a red button on the plastic box lights up. Sitting back in her seat, she struggles to stifle a yawn.

  ‘You were sleeping, though, weren’t you?’ Diane looks guilty. ‘I’m sorry I woke you. Only you were mumbling to yourself. Something about the dew.’

  Katy looks away towards the window. She is unaware she’s been dreaming of anything at all let alone talking in her sleep. She’s not done that in years, and the sudden memory of it makes her ashamed. It was only in her late twenties that the recurrent hate dreams – a series of imagined heated confrontations with Jude – had finally stopped.

  Often, the two of them would be having stand up arguments in public places; always, they involved Katy finally confronting Jude with how she really felt about their so-called friendship. In the early years she’d often woken before dawn, feverish and tense, convinced it had been she who’d been dragged into the bushes, not Jude. That it was she who’d stood her ground, not run away. Confronted him. Defended her friend. It would certainly have been easier to live with. Rather that, surely, than this feeling of uselessness that had permeated into even the finest crevices of her being and lodged there still, waiting to split her apart.

  ‘How are you feeling this morning, Mrs Parker?’

  A nurse has approached unnoticed and now stands at the end of Diane’s bed adjusting the curtain that separates her area from the next bed along. In her hand she holds a small paper cup. ‘I thought you might need something for the pain.’ As Diane nods, weakly, she moves towards the head of the bed and holds out the cup. ‘Ah, good, you’ve got some water,’ she adds, smoothing down the sheet. ‘A doctor will check in on you shortly then, once he’s given you the all clear, there’ll be toast and tea.’

  Diane swallows and, with her tubed hand, hands back the paper cup. Then, when the nurse has gone, she turns back to Katy. Raising her free hand towards the damaged side of her face, she stops just short of touching her face. ‘So go on, tell me the worst,’ she murmurs. ‘How bad does it look?’

  Katy stares at the swollen skin which is ripening towards the colour and sheen of a full-blown aubergine. The eye on that side is puffy and wet. Bruising is now also starting to show around one side of her neck. ‘Well the doctor said it would look worse before it started to look better,’ she begins. ‘And I’m afraid to say he was right.’

  ‘Ah.’ Diane closes her eyes. ‘But nothing broken.’

  ‘No,’ smiles Katy. ‘So with a bit of luck you’ll be home soon. Unless you’d rather come back to ours …’ Her voice trails away at the thought of Michael. He wouldn’t mind, would he? Which reminds her, she must try ringing again – catch him before he leaves for work. He said to try any time. ‘Mum, if you’re OK for a few minutes I think I’d better call him.’

  ‘Send him my love,’ Diane murmurs as Katy walks out of the door.

  Although early, a long line of hospital staff and bath-robed patients are already queuing for cappuccinos and croissants by the time Katy reaches the ground floor. Breakfast, however, is the last thing on her mind as she quickly counts another two messages on her answerphone. The first isn’t from Michael, however, but a friend of her mother’s – Joyce Patterson, the retired school teacher who lives in the flat opposite at Parkview.

  Poor old Joyce. She and Diane had been due to go to the theatre the night before to see a Noel Coward revival but, instead, she’d driven over to the hospital with a bunch of flowers and an overnight bag of bits and bobs to make her friend feel more comfortable. Now, though, the woman’s usually calm voice is upset and agitated as she relates hearing someone moving around Diane’s flat when she got back home late last evening. At first she thought it might be Katy collecting some more things for Diane but, when she’d knocked on the door and called out her name, no-one had replied. Perturbed, she quickly retreated into her own flat, secured the bolt and chain and dialled 999. But by the time a policeman arrived the intruder was long gone.

  ‘Call me as soon as you get this message,’ the woman implores. Katy leans back against the wall to let a heavily pregnant woman shuffle by. ‘The locks will have to be changed, of course. But it’s not just that. You’d better come over. Because whoever it was, they’ve been through … everything.’

  Chapter 13

  What else would you have had me do, Kat – curl up in a corner and die? There were times it was tempting, of course. No, not to die but slip from view and reinvent myself as someone else. A nicer, better, cleaner person. An Estelle. But I was trapped, you see, by the stuff life threw at me. Have you ever felt what it’s like to have everything you ever believed about yourself turn out to be a lie? That’s my story, Kat. But shit happens and all you can do is respond. You can’t blame a person for simply dealing with other people’s mess as best they can. It makes you stronger. Because you’ve got to be strong if you’re going to get by.

  Chapter 14

  Guildford – December 1988

  ‘I said: a Bacardi and coke, a half of Merrydown and two bottles of Becks, OK?’ Jude shouted against the dizzying roar from the Christmas revellers now packing the saloon bar.

  Removing his glasses, the barman pinched the skin on the bridge of his nose with bloated fingers red and raw from years spent wiping down tables and rinsing out glasses. ‘And I said: we don’t serve alcohol to anyone like you who’s under age,’ he shouted back, articulating each word carefully as if talking to a half-wit or small child. ‘If you want me to sell you a drink, prove you’re over 18.’

  ‘Miserable old git,’ Jude spat back, stuffing her five pound note back into her jeans pocket before heading back towards the table where the others were sitting. Drawing close she could see Charlotte, who was perched precariously on Bob’s lap sharing his cigarette, let out a piercing laugh as Graeme dropped what was left of an ice cube from the bottom of Jude’s empty glass down the front of her blouse.

  ‘Wanker!’ the girl declared, brightly, with a toss of long, bottle-blonde hair that had been so vigorously back-brushed and lacquered that the only thing that shifted position was a festive hair band made of tinsel.

  With a stupid grin, Graeme stretched his arm across the wall of glasses between them – a movement which brought Jude to a halt three tables away where she stood, unseen by the others so far, wondering what he would do next. She knew it was a trivial test of his loyalty. But it was also a measure, of sorts, of their fledgling relationship.

  As his hand touched the front of Charlotte’s blouse, the girl adjusted her position to lean towards him. However it wasn’t this that caught Jude’s attention but the brief exchange of glances between Graeme and Bob – a knowing look that seemed to suggest unspoken agreement between them that whatever belonged to one could, by rights, be shared. A beat later and Jude’s boyfriend was slipping his hand down Charlotte’s top to extract what was left of the ice. There wasn’t much, and when he pulled out his hand his fingers are dripp
ing. Then, holding her gaze, he brought his hand to his mouth and slowly licked his fingers. Leaning towards him conspiratorially, Charlotte whispered something in his ear then all three of them laughed.

  The spell broken, Jude stepped to one side and out of view behind a pinball machine. What did she expect, she wondered, crossly. The three of them, sixth formers two years older than her who attend the local technical college, always hung out together. Might even have had a bit of a threesome going on, according to some reports, though the subject had not even been hinted at over the three months she and Graeme had been going out.

  They’d met in the same pub in September just after the start of Jude’s second year at St Mary’s. Siobhan had finally agreed that now she was in the fifth year she could go unaccompanied to the weekly youth club at the Christian Fellowship meeting rooms opposite the multi-storey car park at the bottom of town. But it hadn’t taken long for Jude to tire of the awkward assembly of teenagers who loved nothing better than an hour shuffling with heads bowed to the sound of Seventies B-sides that crackled from a second-hand tape deck.

  Just a dozen paces from the Christian Fellowship meeting rooms, The Three Pigs on Maiden Lane with its dank carpets, sticky table tops and nicotine walls was another world. It was peopled, too, by an alien race of off duty squaddies from the army training camp ten miles out of town, blunt-faced youth opportunity scheme conscripts and sharp-faced shop girls – the last place she would ever have expected to bump into anyone she knew from school let alone Dave and Siobhan which, of course, had been its appeal. And it was here, the first Friday night Jude ventured inside, alone, that she’d run into the students from the local tech.

  Graeme Willis was the youngest son of St Mary’s deputy headmistress. A tall, dark-haired athlete with wiry chest hair sprouting at the neckline of his skin-tight cotton T-shirt, he wanted to join the army like his older brother, Shaun, who’d fought in the Falklands. Mrs Willis, however, was determined Graeme should keep his options open so had persuaded him to defer his decision until he’d got some technical qualifications. That way he’d have something to fall back on, she’d said. Which was how Jude came to lose her virginity to Graeme on the newly-laid, faux terracotta lino on her deputy headmistress’s kitchen floor.