The Lies We Tell

  Spinning around on her heels, Katy braces herself against the wall half-expecting to see Jude standing beside her. But in either direction she can see the alley is still empty. Which is when she notices a line of three windows that run along the wall to her right. Each is only a foot or so in height and at knee-level if you’re standing outside. But through the iron security bars that encase each, it is possible to look down onto the lower level of the interior of the basement flat that lies within.

  Crouching down beside the first window, Katy peers through the open slats of a wooden blind into a white tiled bathroom. Above the bath hangs a London 2012 shower curtain. A selection of hand washing is draped across the towel rail.

  Inching towards the next window, she sees this one is open. The voices from within, Jude’s and a man’s, are louder now though – she guesses, rightly, as she peeps down inside – the kitchen below is empty. On the drainer is balanced a tower of yesterday’s washing up. On a shelf above the cooker stands a black and white photograph in a cheap plastic frame of a man who bears a passing resemblance to James Dean. The image, which appears to have been torn up then clumsily stuck back together with Sellotape, has an unusual brown patina.

  ‘And your conclusion is?’ the man demands.

  Jude laughs. ‘How well she’s worn.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Kat.’

  ‘Ah,’ he chuckles. ‘I thought you meant the coffin dodger.’

  ‘About that – ’ Katy hears the clink of glass. ‘I’m not going to pretend we ever got on. But, for Christ’s sake, you were only supposed to –’

  ‘I know, I know,’ he laughs. ‘Blow the bloody doors off! But listen, how the fuck was I to know what would happen. The stupid bitch just wouldn’t let go.’

  Jude exhales, slowly, as if gathering enough strength to retain control. ‘Why did you do it?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Your hair, it’s just it makes me – ’

  ‘It was too hot, that’s all,’ he snaps. ‘Not that it’s any of your business.’

  ‘And your hand – how did you hurt it?’

  Something slams onto a hard surface. A beer bottle, perhaps. ‘Get off my case, or you’ll regret it. I’d say it did the trick, though.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Fuck, woman, are you deaf or something? I said: nothing.’

  ‘Listen,’ she soothes, her voice suddenly dropping. ‘Let’s just take things one step at a time, OK? There’s no need for you to charge in all guns blazing – ’

  ‘Forgive me for not being more patient, but I’ve not got much time, you know,’ he snaps. ‘They’ve given me to the end of the month to find another five thousand then, if I don’t clear the balance in another four weeks, the boys pay me a personal visit – get me? So excuse me if I’m a little on edge. And by the way, don’t tell me she’s not loaded – I’ve seen her place.’

  ‘Stop it!’ Jude gasps as Katy hears what sounds like some kind of scuffle.

  ‘You stop it,’ he counters, roughly. ‘Because I’ve had it up to here with your lies. You wouldn’t tell Nan who he was, even when she begged you in her dying days. You’ve spent a lifetime lying to me. And now you think you can tell me what to do? Well you can’t. Not any more, OK?’

  Katy’s hands clench at the sudden and unmistakable sound of a rough slap as Jude cries out.

  ‘You should go to the gym,’ the woman rasps when at last she can speak again. ‘You know you always feel better after a good workout.’

  ‘And you?’ the man counters, his voice now calm. ‘You should look to yourself.’

  Footsteps on the stone floor below make Katy flatten herself against the wall. Someone has entered the kitchen – she wonders if it is Jude’s boyfriend – and now the steps are approaching the sink above which she stands. Carefully adjusting her position so she can peer down unobserved, Katy can just make out the top of Jude’s head as she leans forward to splash her face with cold water from the running tap. She can see, too, the white enamel now pebble dashed with red.

  Unable to move for fear that the merest flicker in Jude’s peripheral vision will alert her to her presence, Katy holds her breath, praying the alleyway in which she crouches remains empty. Jude straightens up and dabs her face on a tea towel. Then she moves towards the fridge from which she extracts a bottle of white wine. Taking a tumbler from the draining board, she pours herself a large measure then gulps a generous mouthful. She is facing away from Katy now, but estimating her line of vision, she seems to be staring towards the black and white framed picture.

  ‘Here’s to you, Dad,’ she mutters, wearily, raising her glass in a silent toast.

  Katy’s phone vibrates inside her pocket. Though the mobile is on mute, the chance Jude might look up makes Katy step back from the window. Briskly, she retraces her steps towards the front of the house and beyond that the safety of her mum’s car but, by then, Michael has hung up.

  Chapter 16

  Guildford – December 1988

  Jude shrugged off her dressing gown and stared at herself in the mirror. It was a daily challenge she had set herself since just after starting at St Mary’s. To out-face the rapid changes happening to her body; to learn to love the shape she would become. Cupping a breast in each hand, she marvelled at their silky smoothness. Analysing her skin in the morning light, she registered with satisfaction its milky glow.

  Turning sideways to the mirror, she scrutinised her near-flat belly which, as always, looked a little too round. Jude frowned. She was careful about what she ate – a lesson learned early from Siobhan who’d spent a lifetime dieting. Reaching forward for the tub of Nivea standing on the chest of drawers next to the tape deck, she applied the soft cream to her body in gentle sweeps with the careful precision of a soldier oiling a weapon. And as she did so, she thought of Andrew.

  They’d been seeing each other almost four months as often as they could without arousing suspicion. For while outwardly both appeared to be buckling down to the final weeks of revision leading up to their mock O and A-level exams, each also found themselves deliciously preoccupied with the welcome distraction of their relationship.

  How easily Siobhan had been impressed by the number of revision sessions Jude scheduled after school at her friend’s house! She’d have been less so had she realised how few had actually taken place. Diane, meanwhile, was monitoring her son’s absences from the dinner table while he stayed late in the college library with mounting anticipation. Everyone was counting on Andrew to get four straight A grades, it seemed, even Kat. Kat! What would she say if she knew, Jude wondered, flashing a sly smile at her reflection at the thought of this. The secret felt like a kind of badge of honour, which was why she’d no intention of letting on. At least not yet.

  Dressing quickly, Jude hurried down to the kitchen where she found Siobhan cutting a grapefruit in half. Without a word she extracted a bowl and spoon from the washed crockery piled onto the drainer then placed both on the table beside a half-consumed package of Special K. ‘Where’s the skimmed milk, Mum?’ she demanded as she peered into the fridge.

  ‘There’s only gold top left,’ Siobhan replied, surveying the kitchen room table with a frown. ‘Is that all you’re having? Honestly, Jude, you really need a better breakfast than that if you’re going to last the day.’

  ‘You know I’m never hungry at breakfast time,’ Jude muttered, sulkily pushing the cardboard husks of air round her bowl with the tip of her spoon.

  Placing the flesh pink slices of freshly cut grapefruit in a bowl, Siobhan set it on the table then sat down to eat. Today was a Red Day during which she would only eat food that was red-coloured or reddish, which in its broadest sense could cover most things that weren’t green – her latest diet fad. ‘I’m working late tonight,’ she added, wincing at the acidity of her first mouthful.

  Siobhan worked at the dental surgery on River Street where she got her first job, as a receptio
nist, almost sixteen years earlier. Ever since leaving Surrey for the south coast the year before Jude was born, Siobhan had dreamed of training to be a dental nurse – an ambition it took her five long years of night school to achieve. After qualifying, she got her first job at a practice just outside Portsmouth. Then, when things turned sour with Colin, she got back in touch with the River Street surgery to see if they had any vacancies. And she’d been lucky. Not only had her old boss provided her with the lifeline she needed to start afresh, it was also at the surgery that she had met Dave.

  ‘Home alone with the mother’s boyfriend,’ Jude muttered, without looking up. ‘Great.’

  Siobhan shot Jude a hard stare which her daughter ignored. Jude knew her mum worried that she didn’t like Dave, but she was determined not to give Siobhan the satisfaction of her confidence. Besides, what would she say? Sometimes, like when he brought the laundry to her room on a Monday morning, she hated him with all her being but, at other times, she supposed he could be OK.

  The man was an idiot – almost as stupid as Siobhan who had excitedly confided after just a fortnight that, at last, she might have found ’the one’. A hot shot, the woman seemed to think. Just because he worked as a mechanic in a local BMW garage. As if that made a shred of difference because, at the end of the day, wasn’t he just another toe rag working under a dingy railway arch? No, to Jude, Dave was just another unwelcome house guest seduced by a forced laugh and a brassy smile. Though, she had to admit, her mum was right: with his ear stud, motorbike and obligatory leathers, he did indeed bear a passing resemblance for David Essex.

  ‘Come on, love, eat up and get a move on,’ said Siobhan, glancing up at the kitchen clock as she poured herself a glass of filtered water. ‘I want a shower.’

  ‘Actually I’ve a free period first thing so they said we can use it for revision at home if we like. I don’t have to be in until half ten.’

  Back in her room Jude stared miserably at the pile of textbooks spread out on the floor beneath her desk. With a sigh, she sat on the chair and bent down to pick up a Letts revision guide to Biology. But as she tried to read, the rhythmic drone of a vacuum cleaner softened the focus of her attention. The words on the page began to dance, and Jude’s mind started to wander.

  What minor misdemeanour was Dave seeking to amend? He’d picked her up from hockey practice the previous day, too. Because it’s raining, he’d said with a self-conscious grin, although now Jude was not so sure. She’d seen him pull into the car park at the far end of the playing fields a good twenty minutes earlier than is strictly necessary, which gave him ample time to observe at leisure the pink-cheeked girls running around in their muddy box-pleated PE skirts. The brazenness of it had made Jude smile. Not now, though, as a crash from downstairs made Jude flinch, her daydreaming abruptly halted by the brief silent interlude that followed before Dave began fumbling in the cupboard beneath the stairs for a dustpan and brush.

  ‘Everything alright?’ Siobhan called out from behind the bathroom door.

  ‘Yes, fine,’ he shouted.

  Poking her head around the sitting room door a minute later, the first thing Jude saw was the framed photo that has been the centre point of her mum’s mantelpiece arrangements for as long as she can remember, smashed on the floor amidst a pool of brackish water.

  Lying on its side on the tiled hearth, broken into jagged chunks, was a cut-glass vase that until a few minutes earlier contained a fading bunch of carnations – another hastily-bought guilt purchase from the petrol station at the end of their street. Dave was on his hands and knees dabbing at the rug with a clump of kitchen towel. But it wasn’t to his side that Jude rushed but the fireplace where she dropped to her knees and carefully picked up the precious photo which was now sodden and flecked with green plant sap.

  ‘Get us some more kitchen towel, then,’ Dave muttered crossly but to deaf ears, his eyes darting towards the hall. ‘Come on, help me here. Your mum will be down in a minute.’

  But Jude was transfixed. She had cut her finger on some broken glass, and a tiny spot of blood veined the creases of the ruined picture. She stared, her gaze fixed on the rosy blemish colouring the handsome face of the young man sitting astride his Norton shortly before the fatal collision with a speeding car. The only surviving photograph there was of her dad. She opened her mouth to say something but instead, without any warning, emitted a single, heart-felt sob.

  Dave’s anger evaporated, instantly, leaving him awkward and contrite. ‘I just knocked it with my elbow when I was vacuum cleaning. But it was about time – the water needed changing –’

  Jude, however, couldn’t have cared less about the stupid vase. ‘What have you done?’

  ‘It was an accident,’ he shrugged. ‘If it’s important we could always get another print done. I’m sure your mum will have the neg somewhere …’

  ‘If it’s important?’ Jude hissed. As she stared at the sodden paper in her hand she wondered, desperately, if she could salvage it by pressing it between some blotting paper and a couple of books. ‘Of course it’s important.’

  ‘But your mum was only saying the other day the mantelpiece was getting too cluttered and it was about time she chucked it in the bin.’

  ‘She can’t have. She’d never have said that,’ Jude countered, fiercely. ‘He may be some old ex- to her, but he was my dad.’

  Dave laughed. ‘You’re having me on! Your mum told me about your dad … he’s still alive.’

  Jude shots him a disbelieving look, challenging him to take back his words. ‘You’re lying.’

  ‘No, I’m not.’ Dave rose to his feet. ‘And if you ask me, you and your mum need to talk,’ he called over his shoulder as he disappeared into the kitchen.

  Still clutching the photo, Jude charged back upstairs into her room and slammed the door. Sitting on the floor amidst her revision notes, time stopped as she grappled with the enormity of what Dave had said. Her dad was dead – had been since she was a baby. End of story. Only now it wasn’t, or so Dave claimed. Which was ridiculous, of course. But what if … What if he wasn’t lying? What if this was just the beginning? The possibility that her mum had been deceiving her had never crossed Jude’s mind before. Why would it?

  The chance he was still alive made her angrier than she had ever been. Why had her mum told her he was dead if he wasn’t? If he was alive, why had he never been in touch? And who was the man on the bike? Overwhelmed by a sudden surge of emotion that just as quickly left her high and dry, washed up, empty, she realised it was as if something integral to her very being had been ripped from her body. Her mind felt blank, her memory defiled. Then there was a tentative knock on her bedroom door.

  ‘Jude?’ Siobhan waited for an answer then, after a moment or two, gently tested the handle and the catch softly clicked open. ‘Jude?’ she called again. ‘Dave just told me what happened. Can I come in?’ Silence. Siobhan poked her head around the door, paused for a moment, then stepped into the room. Though dressed in her work things, her hair was still wet. Cautiously, she walked towards the bed. ‘You needed someone to believe in,’ she said softly. Apologetically.

  Jude scowls. ‘You lied.’

  ‘No, when you saw the photo years ago you asked if that was him. I didn’t tell you you were wrong: that’s different,’ Siobhan counters, firmly.

  ‘No it’s not.’

  ‘So you would have liked me to tell you aged six that your real dad was a married man with a family of his own who’d made it abundantly clear he didn’t want anything to do with you and certainly nothing more to do with me, ever again, would you? You deserved better than that.’ Siobhan’s look of surprise suggested that she knew she had said too much but couldn’t stop herself.

  ‘I deserved the truth.’ Meeting her mother’s gaze for the first time, Jude challenged her to look away. It did not take her long to win. ‘So who is he?’

  ‘Who’s who?’

  ‘The man. In the photo. Who is he?’

  Guilt clou
ded Siobhan’s face. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It was a photo I picked up … already framed … at a second hand sale.’

  Jude’s heart felt fit to burst. She wanted to scream and shout, yet somehow she knew that making a scene would make it easier for her mum to deal with the situation. No, she would not let her off the hook so easily. ‘How … convenient,’ she said, tightly.

  Tentatively, Siobhan took a seat at the foot of Jude bed. As she sat in silence for a few minutes, Jude read from the anguish now etched on her mother’s face the inner struggle to decide just what to say next. Eventually, Siobhan reached out to touch Jude’s leg. As if stung by something poisonous, her daughter sharply moved it away. ‘Sometimes, you know, the truth hurts too much – especially when you’re just a child. I always planned to tell you one day.’

  ‘Did you, Mother? Really? Just when, exactly? My sixteenth birthday? Eighteenth? Or twenty first? Just when would have been the right time?’ Fury rocked Jude’s core as she decided she had never hated anyone so much as she did her mum at that precise moment, and that she was unlikely to despise anyone as much ever again.

  ‘I can’t … Jude, I really can’t say. It’s not fair.’

  ‘Not fair on who, exactly? Him? Does he deserve fair? Fairer than me? I don’t think so. Not how he’s behaved. We’re the ones who’ve been wronged, here. He abandoned us: you and me. And you – you just don’t seem to care.’

  ‘Of course I care, Jude.’ Siobhan’s voice was icy. ‘You have no right to tell me what I think or feel. I’ve lived with his rejection for almost 16 years – at least you’ve spent 15 in ignorant bliss.’