The Lies We Tell

  With a quick glance around her to make sure she was unobserved, she opened her school bag and took out the rectangular wad of tissue in which she’d wrapped the used predictor kit. In the distance a low rumble signified that for once, British Rail was sticking to its timetable. With no time to lose, she leaned over the railing and dropped the cardboard box and the bitter secret it concealed downwards onto the tracks below.

  As the anonymous package rested briefly on the railway line Jude gazed down at it, bitter and resentful in the face of a looming sense of guilt. Then, with a dragon’s roar, the 7.15 Portsmouth Harbour to London commuter train thundered between her legs churning and shredding sticks, leaves, litter and any other detritus it found in its way.

  She felt a familiar quiver of delight at the pounding noise and the juddering of the bridge as the train passed by. She wanted to scream but fought the urge, fearful that once she began she might not to stop.

  So instead Jude held her breath and, with tightly closed eyes, turned her face to the sky wishing she could click her heels and disappear.

  The air was still when the sound and the fury had passed as she looked down to the tracks once more and saw it was gone. The world felt empty. Silent. She would have to tell someone sometime about Andrew’s child, of course, but not yet. She needed time to think what to do. How to deal with this. To sit her exams. Then and only then would she decide what to do, she thought. Because there was still plenty of time.

  Bending down, Jude picked up her bag. Then she retraced her steps back up the narrow path towards school, oblivious to the creamy daffodils budding knee-high through the rusting railings.

  Chapter 27

  Richmond – July 2013

  ‘Andrew! I was going to call – ’

  Katy winces. It has taken just four words to make her regress to childhood. To become again the silly little sister incapable of doing or saying the right thing, the anxious and insecure teenager, the high school drop out who despite his fatherly cajoling once he’d graduated from university and started in the city, never quite found her way.

  ‘It’s what mobiles are for, Katy,’ he presses on, tightly. ‘Emergencies. And staying in touch when you are out and about – ’

  Catching Diane’s eye, Katy mouths her brother’s name and gives an apologetic shrug as she retreats onto the balcony then perches on the edge of the nearest chair.

  ‘Stop it,’ she interrupts. ‘Because before you say anything I want to say I’m sorry. I know I should have called, but there’s been so much going on. When the hospital rang there was no time, then I spent the night with her on the ward and the next day getting the flat straight, OK? They told me she’d be in until Monday, which is why I was out of town sorting something else out today. But now I’m back, here, with mum. And she is alright, really.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course I can see you’ve been too busy.’

  Pulling herself upright, Katy leans against the balcony railing to direct her voice away from her mum’s apartment towards the gardens below leading to the edge of the park beyond. Down on the street, four floors below, two small children are playing on the narrow strip of grass by Parkview’s front entrance. She tightens her grip on the phone ‘Of course I understand you feel bad about not being able to be here with Mum, but please don’t take that out on me,’ she says and Andrew grunts. ‘So how was the flight back? And how are Dee and the kids?’

  Her brother sighs, his anger gone. ‘Fine. They’re all well. In fact they’re at the beach today. I had some work to do so they’ve gone off for a barbecue.’ His voice has softened. Slightly.

  ‘That sounds … nice,’ she says, thinking of the pictures she’d seen of Dee’s parents’ beach house. Its interior all white wood floors, nautical paraphernalia and Cath Kidston. Like something from a mail order catalogue.

  Andrew lets slip a weary laugh. ‘Yeah. Well, I wish I could have gone too.’

  There’s an awkward pause as Katy registers his regret and yearns to reach out to him to ask him if he is really OK. To share and to confide. But she doesn’t, of course, and can’t bring herself even to try. For their lives are light years apart and have been for years. But not always, she thinks. Perhaps it is worth a shot. As she casts a glance over her shoulder towards the sofa which is now empty, a burst of laughter comes from the kitchen.

  ‘Listen,’ she says in a low voice. ‘While you’re on, I need to ask you something.’

  ‘Shoot,’ he says.

  ‘Someone from school has got back in touch and started talking about stuff – ’

  ‘What kind of stuff?’

  Closing her eyes, Katy slowly counts to five before answering in as neutral a voice as she can manufacture. ‘Stuff about us, the family. Mum and Dad. And you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes, you. And … Jude.’ She wonder if it is her imagination that she can detect a subtle shift in the rhythm of her brother’s breathing.

  ‘And the name of this old school friend who has just got back in touch is …?’

  Katy hesitates. It’s now or never, she thinks. And with the conviction that it was Jude’s son, James, who followed her in the park, mugged Diane, confronted her on Hill Rise and, most likely, instigated the attack on the flat and trashed her car there really is no choice if she was to put a stop to all this. Though fearful of how Andrew will react, she needs his response.

  ‘Jude.’

  ‘It would have to be, wouldn’t it!’ he exclaims with a humourless chuckle. ‘That’s sweet, real sweet. So surprise me, what else did she say?’

  ‘She told me Dad had an affair with her mum, Siobhan. She told me Siobhan had a baby as a result, and that that baby was her. She told me you and she … that you and she went out together. Is this true?’ Katy bites her lip, willing what Jude said to be a lie. The thought of her brother and her best friend, together, behind her back. Her face burns with a sudden flush of jealousy, though of whom she’s not quite sure.

  Now it’s Andrew’s turn to be hesitate. ‘From what I was able to piece together, yes,’ he replies after a moment. ‘I remember Mum and Dad having a massive argument soon after Jude started at St Mary’s. It was around the time you and she started hanging out together. Dad didn’t want the two of you to be friends, but he didn’t tell Mum why – not at first. Though as you know, Mum never liked Jude …’

  ‘Why? Did she ever say?’ Katy wills herself not to react to his judgement on their friendship, and the bitter truth buried within. But her pulse races at being so close to the truth.

  ‘Because she had such a hold over you, I guess. That was before Dad woke up and realised who she was. He saw Siobhan waiting in the car outside our house for her one night, you see. Though Siobhan must have always known – did you never think to wonder why she never came in when she came to collect Jude after tea?’

  ‘Well no, actually, it didn’t – ’

  ‘Though you didn’t hold back when it came to tell Dad about Jude and me – ’

  ‘Well actually that was a lie. I mean, I made it up. I didn’t know, I only wanted to –’

  ‘Get even, right? With her and with me?’

  ‘I guess,’ Katy admits, miserably, tears welling in her eyes. ‘I’m so sorry – ’

  ‘Forget it. It was a close call, that’s all. She and I got together for a while. It was after she chatted me up one Friday night in a pub down town. She was a laugh. It was just a bit of fun. We met up a few times at the weekend, too. Then the next thing I knew Dad took me to one side and told me to break it off, not that it was ever that serious. Still, I couldn’t believe he’d have the nerve so of course I said no. Then he told me she’d been putting it about – playing the field, was the phrase he used. And when I said so what, he told me he’d once had an affair with Siobhan … Well that was enough for me. I dropped her. Felt I had to, really. She was quite cut up about it I think.’

  ‘So Dad told you he was Jude’s … father?’ The words stick in her mouth like stale dough.

  �
�No, no. To be honest, I guessed.’

  ‘How?’ she whispers, not entirely sure she really wants to know for sure. How does he know all this? How is it that she does not?

  ‘The weekend after the incident on the heath, while mum was with you in the hospital a woman phoned dad at home. He answered the call downstairs but then asked me to transfer it to his office. I did, but there was something about his expression … so I listened in on the downstairs extension. She was asking for money, a lot of money, to go away and never bother him again. She told him something about having a baby and he lost his temper, accused her of making it up. Then he started to cry.’

  ‘But it might not have had anything to do with Siobhan. Or Jude. How can you be so sure?’

  ‘Oh I’m sure.’ Andrew says in a low voice. ‘Because when I went up to bed he was still sitting at his desk. It looked like he hadn’t moved an inch. I said goodnight to him and he spun round and ordered me into the room. He accused me of still going out with Jude, of sleeping with her, of making her pregnant. I couldn’t believe it. It was rubbish, of course. We’d always been careful – ’ He interrupts himself with a bitter laugh. ‘– though given how much help Dee and I needed to have the twins there was never any risk. So I denied it, and I think he believed me. But then he buried his head in his hands and told me either way, whatever the truth, it was all too late.’

  Closing her eyes, Katy swallows hard as a bell rings somewhere in the background. ‘What did he mean?’ she whispers, tightening her grip on the phone.

  ‘Damned if I know.’ Andrew has snapped back into business mode. ‘Listen, that’s my other line: I’ve got to go. Look, I’m not sure there’s any good to come from raking over all of this now, you know. Knowing Jude, whatever she’s up to it will be no good so I’d steer well clear, if I was you. Move on – it’s ancient history. And for god’s sake ring me if anything – and I mean anything – is going on with Mum, right?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Tell her I’ve got to take a call but will buzz her right back.’

  Katy returns the phone to its cradle and picks up the Polaroid of her younger self that stands on the mantelpiece. So it was true. Andrew did have a fling with Jude. The truth is incredible. Especially as Jude by then must have known Charles was her dad. Then there was the business about the baby and Jude’s lie about Andrew.

  Excited shrieks from the children still playing on the grass below merge with the sound of Joyce and Diane’s voices as Katy ponders all this. And wonders, too, just how much her mum had really known. I look so small, she thinks, gazing down at the picture in her hand. So innocent of what would come. Remembering the message her father wrote, Katy slips the image from its frame. She turns it over to read once more and notices the browned square of folded newspaper stuck to its back.

  Unfortunate incident on heath, the local paper’s headline reads. An understatement that makes her heart double-beat.

  ‘Will you be staying for dinner, Katy?’ Diane is standing in the sitting room doorway staring at her, intently.

  ‘No, thanks,’ Katy mumbles, slipping the photo back into its frame then placing the frame back on the mantelpiece. How much did Mum hear, she wonders?

  ‘You were talking to Andrew just now,’ her mum continues, dully.

  ‘I was.’

  ‘About Jude. And your father and Siobhan.’

  Katy drops her gaze. ‘I was,’ she mumbles, awkwardly.

  ‘About who knew what, and when.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Diane lets slip a sad smile. ‘It was a very long time ago, you know,’ she sighs. ‘And I’m not sure Siobhan meant to do it, not at first.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Katy sinks down onto the edge of the sofa.

  ‘Well as far as I can remember, she moved back from the coast with Jude without knowing for sure your father was still there. And she enrolled Jude at St Mary’s because she wanted the best for her. But then, when you and Jude became friends, the penny dropped. For her, at least – it took your father, bless him, considerably longer. Then when he confronted her, told her to leave, she asked him for money to keep silent. I noticed a number of monthly withdrawals from our joint account, but didn’t work out what they were for until later. Then – ’

  Diane steps forward and takes up position on the sofa beside her daughter before pressing on.

  ‘– when Jude fell pregnant, Siobhan threatened to tell me everything if he didn’t give her more cash. Which is when he admitted to me the whole story.’ She shakes her head, lost in thought for a moment. ‘I was deeply hurt and so very, very angry. But I wanted to protect the rest of my family, you see. Which is why I did it – I gave her a lump sum to move away. So you mustn’t blame yourself for any of this. Because none of this is anything to do with you, you see?’

  Katy stares at her mum, unsure quite what to say. Because there’s something not right. A missing piece to this story. Something to do with her, though she can’t pinpoint precisely what it is. Not yet.

  ‘Listen, Mum, it’s alright. Really. But it’s getting late and I should be going.’ Pocketing the slip of newsprint, she gives Diane a hug. ‘And Mum? Andrew said he’ll call you right back, only he had a take an urgent call.’

  ‘Not to worry.’ Diane quickly squeezes her daughter’s thigh. ‘He’s rung me twice today already. Such an attentive son.’ She smiles. ‘And so very, very much unlike his dear, departed father.’

  A few minutes later, as Katy leans back into the driver’s seat with folded arms, the shadow stirs once more. The problem with all this is not what Jude and James are up to, she thinks, staring at the steering wheel. It’s to do with her. Not what she didn’t do, but something she did. Out on the heath that day. An action, rather than inaction, that set all this in motion.

  It’s not your fault.

  That’s what mum had said when she admitted how guilty she’d felt for all these years about what happened to Jude. About not being able to help her. But now she has a curious feeling that the key to this is something else entirely. That the truth is close by, but still just beyond her grasp.

  She rubs her eyes, willing herself to think. Cursing ragged gaps in memory and the lost hours following the last time she saw her friend that day.

  Remembering the newspaper article, she slips it from her pocket. It’s a news story about the fire on the heath that happened later that afternoon and includes an interview with one of their classmates, Ruth Creighton, who had been walking alone on the heath that day with a drawing pad and box of watercolours.

  On reaching the copse, Ruth had found a place to paint then been distracted when the wind turned bringing with it the acrid smell of something burning, the report reads. Hastily, she gathered up her things then, as she made her way back through the copse and out onto the footpath she noticed a bag discarded in the dust and recognised it as belonging to another girl in her class who she’d seen the day before in the same spot secretly meeting her boyfriend. Unable to see her classmate now and fearing her in danger, Ruth ran – back towards camp to raise the alarm.

  Jude. It had to be Jude, Katy thinks. But she can’t make any sense of reference to a boyfriend. Not Andrew of course, not by then. Noticing for the first time the grainy picture that accompanies the story, she sees the caption: Heroine of the hour. The picture is of Ruth Creighton – and just as she remembered, her, too, complete with thick plaits and mouth brace. A doctor now, Mum had said.

  You should be careful, Kat Parker, of the friends you choose, Ruth told her once. Jude’s saying all sorts of things about you behind your back, you know. And stuff about your mum and dad.

  Once more Katy pulls out her phone, activates the web browser and keys in Ruth’s name. In only a couple of seconds, she has found her: a senior partner in a medical practice in Brentford. The irony of how close she is to where Ruth must now live makes Katy’s breath come quick. There it is, the surgery’s address, but what about Ruth’s? A couple of clicks later she finds Ruth’s name once
more on the latest edition of a newsletter for the Sandycombe residents’ association near Kew Gardens above what must be her phone number and address.

  Siobhan may be gone but perhaps there is someone else who can help her understand what Jude was referring to, Katy thinks. But the prospect of seeing her former classmate once again makes her inside clench. And whether this is caused by anticipation, guilt or fear, she cannot tell.

  Chapter 28

  Guildford – July, 1989

  Jude re-tied the belt of the kimono around her waist then tried again.

  Stretching her arm upwards into the open cupboard before her, reaching her hand forwards to find the last clean mug tucked behind assorted cracked plates and chipped dishes to the cabinet’s rear. Standing on her toes, her fingers strained towards the handle and this time she managed to move it forwards, just a millimetre or two. But before she could grasp it securely a sudden arm looped tentacle-like around her waist and in her surprise the mug fell forwards, narrowly missing her head before crashing onto the floor.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be easier just to wash one up?’ Nuzzling his face into the back of her neck, Dave sniffed her hair.

  ‘Stop it, Mum’s upstairs,’ she whispered, crossly pushing his arm away then squatting down to gather up the chunks of broken china.

  Dave stood back and watched in silence as she briskly dropped the debris into the bin then noticed her right hand where blood had started to well from a tiny porcelain cut. ‘Hey,’ he said, following her gaze then taking a step towards her. He reached for the injured hand and brought it to his lips then, taking her finger in his mouth, he sucked it gently. Powerless to resist, Jude said nothing but as his warm tongue licked her skin she felt the anger subside. Instinctively, she shot a glance over his shoulder towards the kitchen door and the empty hallway beyond but there was no sign of movement from Siobhan; no sound from upstairs.

  Still holding her hand, Dave pulled away then smiled. ‘Don’t worry, she’s taking a bath – I think she’ll be a while.’