The Lies We Tell

  Inside the shop there’s little to tempt her amongst the neatly stacked microwave-able pasties, stale buns and sausage rolls. So she forces herself to select a cheese sandwich and an over-priced bottle of orange juice so highly concentrated she knows it will make her wince.

  On a low shelf beneath the magazine rack she spots stacks of newspapers yet to be untied. Behind the till, the assistant is listlessly cleaning her fingernails with the cap from a biro. She is a pale-faced girl with a dull brown rope of hair that reaches to her waist. Katy waves to attract her attention then waits as the girl slowly makes her way towards the magazine display. Pulling a box cutter from the front pocket of her nylon trousers, she bends down to release the tightly-bound piles of newsprint.

  As she waits, Katy’s gaze ranges across adjacent shelves of jumbo puzzle books and cheap wax crayons until she spots a small selection of local guide books. Quickly, she selects one which includes a pull out map and places it on top of the copy of the local paper which the assistant is now holding out towards her like a peace offering. A few minutes later, she is back in the car examining the web of cul de sacs and crescents as she eats the sandwich.

  It doesn’t take long to locate the hospice. Strange to think how close she is, she thinks, after spending so many years running away. The possibility of discovering something even more awful than she fears fills her with dread. It’s not too late to turn back, is it? Because no-one knows she’s here. There would be no shame in changing her mind.

  But then she thinks of her mum. How her old school friend has tracked her down, inveigled her way into her life, lied to her. How she must have somehow been involved in her attack. She wouldn’t put it past Jude to have sent those flowers at the hospital. Trashed her car, even. How can she know Mum will be safe when she gets home from hospital if she stands by and does nothing?

  Katy shudders, the elation she felt a few minutes earlier now matched by something else. Fear, because that’s how Jude had always made her feel. Frightened. But now the time has come to stand her ground, hasn’t it? The past, though long gone is still part of her present. Like something lodged deep inside her. A weight she must carry every day. But perhaps by finally confronting it she can leave behind the creeping shadow of her guilt, once and for all.

  Tossing the empty bottle and sandwich packaging onto the newspapers on the back seat, Katy leans forward, puts the key in the ignition and turns the key. To move on with the rest of my life with Michael and my baby, she thinks, this has to be done.

  *

  With its historic coaching inn Cow Vale once prospered as a suitable place for travellers to change horses, according to the guide book. But it’s hard to imagine now, Katy, thinks, as the place looks just like any other area of south coast semi-urban sprawl. Its outskirts are punctuated by cul de sacs of bungalows and red brick crescents of cost efficient, Seventies-built family homes. Its centre is a cluster of drab cottages served by a terraced row of shops, all but one of which still serves its original purpose.

  On the road leading northwards out of the centre stands St Olave’s. She pulls into the verge opposite a pair of large, iron gates and gazes upwards at the painted sign. Behind it she can see an arc of gravel that leads up to a large, double-fronted Victorian house. Meticulous gardens stretch either side of the drive with beds planted with military precision and lawns trimmed to a consistent pile. As if the staff, unable to control the messier aspects of life and death within, have instead beaten the tiny patch of nature within their control into perfect submission.

  To the left of the gate is a small wooden door built into the wall and beside it an entry phone. Staring at the buzzer, Katy plays out the words she has decided to use. She is an old friend of the family recently back in the country after years abroad who has heard Siobhan is ill and has come to pay her respects. That’s the easy bit. What happens next she would have to play by ear. Suddenly a loud voice erupts from the tiny box on the wall before her, as if from nowhere.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  Katy stares up at the house with its facade set into a fixed grin by its gleaming paintwork; the window boxes defiantly bursting with life. The knowledge that someone is up there, watching, back-foots her. But the sudden thought of Andrew’s message, the way he talked to her at Diane’s the day before, spurs her on. ‘Um, yes. Sorry. Well. I’ve come to see Mrs Davies – Siobhan Davies.’

  ‘Ah.’ There is a pause. ‘Well you had better come in.’ Then a click as the door is released.

  Up the drive by the front door steps, a woman appears from the building’s left and beckons Katy to follow through a side entrance. Slightly built with grey cropped hair, she is dressed in a tailored white shirt and a knee-length floral print skirt. With an encouraging smile, the woman leads Katy inside then through a stone-flagged hall into a small sitting room crammed with ill-matched sofas and armchairs which remind her of a dentist’s waiting room.

  The building’s interior is library quiet for a moment, as if the world within has been suspended in time. Until the illusion is quickly shattered by the pre-lunch clatter of a distant kitchen.

  Katy takes a seat on a large leather armchair next to a pair of French windows which are slightly ajar. Inching forwards on her seat, she watches with a racing heart as the woman carefully positions herself in the chair opposite. Aware she is staring, Katy busies herself with trying to decipher the titles along the spines of the bound volumes in a nearby bookcase. There is a pause that seems to last minutes then, when at last she looks up, she notices how the woman’s face has rearranged itself. Her expression now is one of compassion and regret.

  ‘Would you like something to drink?’ the woman offers.

  ‘No. Thanks,’ Katy quickly replies, eager to get the scene underway.

  All she needs is a few minutes to pay her respects to Jude’s mum; time enough to slip a few gentle enquiries into their small talk. About what happened to Jude. About everyone knowing what her own dad was like. About how Jude is now, and what’s driving her apparent desire to take down Katy and all she cares for.

  As the woman leans forward, their knees almost touch. ‘You say you’ve come about Mrs Davies …’ Her eyebrows steeple and her hands clasp together, as if in prayer.

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Siobhan Davies. I believe she is a resident here?’ But as soon as the words are out Katy can see, as if a veil has been lifted. She is too late.

  ‘I’m extremely sorry to have to tell you that Mrs Davies recently passed away.’ The woman speaks gently. ‘I thought her daughter, Judith, said all family and friends had been told.’

  Unexpected tears cloud Katy’s eyes. She is too late. The one link she had with their shared past other than her own mum is dead and there’s no one else left she can ask. Except Jude. The disappointment of it is crushing. But there is other family, the woman has suggested. Family, like Jude’s son, she never knew about. Perhaps there is still a way …

  ‘Oh, I’m sure they were,’ she gushes, surprised at the ease with which the lie now gathers momentum. ‘Actually, I’m an old friend of the family – I’ve been abroad. I knew she was ill, but I didn’t know she had died.’

  Katy feels her face flush. What is she doing here, meddling with other people’s lives and deaths?

  ‘I’m so very sorry,’ the woman replies, reaching out to place a warm hand on Katy’s. ‘But I can tell you where she is buried if you would like to pay your respects. Or, of course, you could drop by the house on Hill Rise – I believe some of the family still live there. Would you like something to drink, some coffee or tea, perhaps, while I get the details?’

  Katy rises to her feet abruptly, her head feels engulfed by a sudden rush of heavy, pulsing heat. ‘Thank-you,’ she blurts, trying not to register the other woman’s surprise. All she wants now is to be back outside. ‘But I really should be going.’

  The room, cool with the sweet smell of recently-mown grass just a few minutes earlier, now feels oppressive; its dark woodwork, thick carpet and ov
erloaded bookcases intimidating. Katy swallows. Her tongue is sticky; her mouth paper dry. It’s like the air is being sucked out of this space, she thinks. To create a vacuum in which her pounding head will surely explode. Oblivious to the trickle of sweat, her flaming cheeks, she shakes the woman’s hand with ham-fisted enthusiasm then blindly stumbles towards the door.

  Back in the car, she quickly starts the engine and pulls away. But as soon as the house is out of view she pulls in once more and buries her face in her hands and chastises herself for being so stupid. She sits like this, hunched forward, gently rocking, for a few minutes as she struggles to decide what to do. But before she can come to any conclusion, she is tugged back to the awfulness of what she’s just done by the ringing of her phone. Her bag is in the footwell of the passenger seat and as she fumbles for the phone its contents spill onto the floor.

  The call is from a number she doesn’t know which makes her hesitate. Will it be Jude? A beat later she has answered and her heart is soaring as she recognises Joyce’s voice. But her relief is short-lived. The voice is anxious. Urgent.

  ‘Katy, is that you?’

  ‘Yes, yes, it’s me. Is mum OK?’ A tourniquet of panic tightens Katy’s throat.

  ‘Your mother’s fine,’ Joyce soothes. ‘But I need to talk to you about something that I didn’t want her to hear.’

  Deafened by relief, Katy doesn’t notice the edge to the other woman’s voice. ‘Thank goodness,’ she laughs easily.

  ‘Katy, there was a picture of your mum …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘ … in her bedroom – I only noticed the frame was empty once you’d gone …’

  ‘Oh.’ Katy checks her watch, wondering if she’s yet been missed. What is Joyce driving at?

  ‘Some time last night … someone brought it back – ’

  ‘Oh?’ Katy struggles to grasp the implications of this.

  ‘ – torn up. Pushed all the pieces through the letterbox. I found them on the doormat this morning. At first I thought it was a strange kind of junk mail, but then when I pieced together what it was – the picture, Katherine, it was defaced. Whoever did it used red ink.’

  Each clings to the end of the line like climbers left dangling, Kathy thinks, as a taste of blood wells in her mouth. Casting a quick glance into the rear-view mirror she sees she’s bitten her lip.

  ‘They’d written the F-word,’ Joyce concludes in a low voice. ‘F-you, bitch, it said. Have you any idea what any of this could mean?’

  Katy tells Joyce to throw away the envelope and discard its contents then thanks her for keeping an eye on things. Reassures her she’ll be there in an hour or two. Urges her not to worry. Just kids messing about, she says. A sick prank, that’s all. Best not say anything about this to Diane. Unconvinced but marginally brighter, Joyce finally says goodbye.

  Despite the sandwich she ate earlier, Katy feels light-headed. Overwhelmed by the strangeness of it, every sense seems numb. This cannot be happening, she thinks. And yet of course she is wrong. And now, worse, she knows for sure her mum is in danger. That when she comes out of hospital in a couple of days she will be vulnerable to further attack. Exposed. No time to pussyfoot around playing detective, she decides. She must confront Jude before things go any further. Not by text or phone, in person.

  Directing her gaze towards the bus stop a short distance ahead on the opposite side of the road, she stares at three bare-chested teenage boys in baggy board shorts who are standing beneath it, laughing and chatting. They look no different to the youths who regularly patrol the streets of her own neighbourhood by bike, although their London cousins always seem to dress in hooded tops regardless of the heat, or time of day, or night.

  As she watches, a single deck bus draws up and the threesome disappear inside. The driver pulls away, slowly advancing towards her, but despite this it isn’t until it is almost drawing level that Katy notices the destination written on the front. Hill Rise. Her hands shake as she once more unfolds the map and scans the squares straddling Cow Vale in search of the street where the woman in the hospice mentioned Siobhan had lived. It does not take long to find the L-shaped road that stretches northwards beyond the coaching inn. She stares at the phone still in her laps then picks it up and dials directory enquiries.

  ‘I’m looking for the number of an S Davies, that’s Davies spelled with an i-e-s, on Hill Rise, Cow Vale.’ Her voice is brisk. Urgent.

  ‘What number Hill Rise?’ asks the operator, an officious-sounding woman with an unidentifiable regional accent.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Katy bluffs, desperately. ‘I can’t quite remember.’

  ‘Well I can’t give you a number without the correct address,’ the woman retorts.

  ‘Listen, it’s very important,’ Katy begs. ‘I just need to check my friend’s still there. If you can’t give me the number can you at least tell me if she is still listed? Please. It’s a matter of … of life and death.’ She bites her lip again, considering this final piece of dramatic embellishment.

  The operator hesitates, then there is a pause before she comes back on the line. ‘Look, I can’t give you the number or the address,’ she says. ‘But your friend’s still listed, OK?’

  Jiggling her car keys in one hand, Katy traces the route on the map she needs to take with the other. Then she executes a brisk U-turn to follow in the bus’s wake.

  Chapter 20

  It’s a curious word, isn’t it? Mum. Everyone has one – or had one, at least. I am one; you soon will be. A by-word for protection. Reassurance. Dependability. The one pillar in your life who you can trust. Well that’s the theory. But now’s the time to get real. Think about the facts, Kat. Because none of us – you, especially – can promise any of that, let alone deliver. All of us are fucked up by and as parents. The fairytale is screwed. Once upon a time there was Siobhan. Then there was your dad. Andrew. Then you. And what a mess you all whipped up, the lot of you. So I set out to serve you all right … and only ended up making things worse. But that wasn’t my fault. How was I to know what he’d do? What either of us might be capable of?

  Chapter 21

  Guildford – February 1989

  The house was cloaked in a damp mist, its upstairs windows slick with condensation, when Jude arrived home from school on the first Friday following spring half term.

  Siobhan was drowning her sorrows in the bath once more and, judging by the building’s silence, its darkened kitchen, the empty coat hook behind the front door, Dave was out. Slipping off her shoes, Jude crept upstairs. A light was visible through the cracks of the bathroom door and she could just make out the gentle slap of water on porcelain as the occupier shifted position, but she was reluctant to alert Siobhan too soon to her return.

  It was two days since she had identified Charles’s handwriting on the note to her mum and she had spent that 48 hours in a state of suspended emotion. Stunned by the enormity of Siobhan’s lie, she felt numb. Unable to decide how to respond, she did nothing. Life since had been negotiated on automatic pilot. Now, finally, she’d made it to the end of the week and all she craved was the release she would find in his arms.

  Yet how could she seek that now? With Andrew.

  The knowledge that through Charles they were connected was both thrilling and dreadful. She wanted him inside her, blotting out the dreadfulness of the world around them. But wasn’t the fact that, despite everything, she still wanted this unnatural? Illegal? All of which left her feeling muddled and confused. A freak. He had no idea, of course, and she wasn’t about to tell him. For no one else had even a clue that she knew. And besides, wasn’t it obvious Charles wanted it to stay that way?

  Jude checked her watch. They’d arranged to meet later that evening at The Bridge. It was a low rent kind of place but their preferred rendezvous now so many of Andrew’s college friends hung out at The Three Pigs. Then, after a drink or two they would go back to the bedsit a mate of his had given them the key for while he was away for the weekend. Should she still
go anyway? It wasn’t right and yet the molten intensity of her desire to be with him, her need for physical contact, made her want to sob.

  Once inside her room she closed the door softly, placed her schoolbag in front of it then sank down onto the bed. She knew she had to be with Andrew, whatever the consequences. Just like she knew she had to return the envelope, too, if she was to avoid arousing Siobhan’s suspicions.

  Against the wall opposite, to the left of her desk, stood a large bookshelf that almost touched the ceiling. Quickly, she manoeuvred a chair in front of this, stepped onto the seat then reached up towards the dusty top shelf. Feeling her way with her fingertips, her hand soon found what it was searching for.

  The old anthology of Hans Christian Anderson fairy tales that until that morning had been forgotten for years fell open easily and she removed the envelope nestled within. Tugging the handwritten note from her pocket, she slipped it back inside the envelope before carefully sticking it down – not perfect, but it would do. Then she crept back downstairs and carefully positioned the envelope by the front door, partially obscured by the mat. A sudden dull knocking from the house’s pipe work signalled her mum’s bath time was over.

  Softly opening the front door, she slammed it shut. Then, shrugging off her coat, she retraced her steps upstairs and paused outside the bathroom door.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘Won’t be a minute.’ Siobhan‘s voice was slurred.

  Leaning back against the wall, Jude drummed her fingers on the wooden door frame. A minute later the door opened and Siobhan stepped out, securing her kimono with a defensive hug. The damp towel tightly knotted around her head had tautened the slackening skin around her eyes giving her a cartoonish look of surprise. It was hard to imagine her mum with Charles. He was a man who’d always struck Jude as dully predictable and overly formal. What he could have possibly seen in her mum?