The Book of Lies

by Mary Horlock

  I looked into his burning coals/bottomless pits/eyes and I didn’t know what to say.

  He wiggled his hands in my face, pretending to cast a spell. ‘Don’t worry. I can jump off anything and survive!’ He walked over to the nearest bench. ‘Fair enough you’re freaked out, though. You actually liked her.’

  It took a minute for me to catch him up.

  ‘So did you. It was obvious. Don’t try and deny it.’

  Michael stared at me for a second, then burst out laughing. His laugh was like a bark. ‘That’s a good one.’ The frown twitched back and he looked around. ‘Couldn’t stand her. Who cares if she’s dead. One less to worry about.’

  I was shocked (but vaguely pleased).

  ‘So,’ he kicked at the ground, ‘your mum’s still working too hard to look after the garden. If she needs help, tell her to name her price. Tell her to call me.’

  ‘OK.’

  He stared at me, so I stared harder.

  He shrugged. ‘What?’

  I was sure he’d want to hear more about Nic. I thought he’d want me to tell him about Vicky’s stupid party and how, after Dr Senner closed it down, everyone went off to Bluebell Woods. I thought he’d want all the blood and guts of it. But I suppose he’s probably heard it from his dad.

  So I sat down on the grass next to his feet and said Mum could definitely give him a few odd jobs, blah-blah, but surely too much lifting and carrying wouldn’t be good. I asked if he needed a helper, etc. It was massively frustrating and boring. I wanted to tell him the important stuff (i.e. the-truth-the-whole-truth-and-nothing-but) only I wasn’t sure how he’d react. He says he’s not sorry Nic’s dead but that doesn’t mean he’ll want to hear how I killed her.

  ‘The garden’s taken quite a beating because of all the storms, and it was because of the storms that everyone thinks Nic fell.’

  ‘At least they can’t blame me. I suppose I should be angry, though, I’ve been upstaged by a fucking airhead like Nicolette Prevost!’

  I turned back and saw Michael smirking in what I’d call a most worrying way.

  ‘So come on, brain-box, you can’t really think she was swept off the cliffs by accident.’ He nodded towards the cliff edge. ‘She’d have had to get right up close to the edge and she’d only have done that if she was going to jump.’

  My heart went into reverse and stalled. I wondered if Michael was trying to trick me.

  He was glowering expertly. ‘No one likes to imagine she’d do something so fucked up, eh? She had it easy, why would she want to die? Just shows you never know what’s going on in people’s heads. We’re all a bit twisted under the skin.’

  He was now staring at me in an officially-mad way, so I bobbed my head happily.

  ‘Yes, we’re all twisted, I absolutely agree, but I really think you’ve got it wrong. The Senners’ homebrew is lethal. She could’ve got lost in the dark and she wore such stupid shoes.’

  Michael made a huffing noise, then he brushed his hands on his jeans. ‘Nicolette Prevost was never on her own, so why the fuck was she on her own here?’

  I shrugged. ‘Accidents happen. People get drunk and make stupid mistakes. After all . . . you did.’

  The minute the words were out of my mouth I wanted to take them back. Michael was already on his feet.

  I scrambled after him. ‘Hey! I didn’t mean – where are you off to?’

  I tried to grab at him and he staggered forward, and because of his weak leg he almost lost his balance. It’s quite a steep slope and I was honestly just trying to slow him down. Then we got entangled. I’m not sure if I was holding on to him or if he was holding on to me, but as we tumbled onto the grass he doubled up and reached for his knee.

  ‘Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!’

  A real-live tear slid down his cheek and his whole face creased like paper. I felt the soggy earth press through my leggings, I tried to put my arm around his shoulder. He looked up and his eyes were all over me, which was strange but also great. I imagined us rolling around in the mud together (although he clearly didn’t).

  ‘I’m really sorry.’

  He winced as he hinged his leg back and forth.

  ‘Yeah, yeah. It was an accident.’

  I didn’t know what to say so I just sat there. Michael rubbed his knee for a little bit longer, then he stared at the ground in between his legs. After a while he took up a stick and started breaking it into pieces. I waited and picked at my fingers (I know, I know, a revolting habit). Minutes passed. Then, finally, he asked me to help him get back on his feet.

  I stood up and held out my hands to him.

  He smiled up at me and didn’t move an inch.

  ‘By the way, I jumped.’

  I blinked.

  His smile broadened. ‘It was no accident, I was off my head and I thought “What-the-fuck!” I felt really strong and powerful, not like I do the rest of the time. It was really something.’

  ‘Wow,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah. I felt like I’d been taken over and before I knew it I was up, up and away. Fucking brilliant. I was free. There’s something about this island makes you go a bit mental, I reckon. It’s hidden, I don’t know where. Maybe it’s in these bunkers and tunnels and towers, eh?’

  I grabbed his hand and hauled him up. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Accidents don’t just happen, Cat. People make them happen.’

  I was totally amazed and enthralled but also slightly scared. Michael’s eyeballs were all over the place and I was worried that they’d escape out of his head. I wanted to ask him if there was anything else he had to tell me – if there wasn’t some other reason why he’d jumped. He rubbed his forehead like he had a headache. I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d done something very-very bad. Then I wondered if he’d done something worse than me. Then I realised no one could’ve done something worse than me. I wondered how I could tell him that.

  I looked into his diesel-oil eyes and wanted to tell him everything, but it was so confusing. There was a time I thought I knew everything, but the truth never comes out like you want it to, it’s just like Liberation Day.

  But that needs a whole other chapter of explaining.

  18TH DECEMBER 1985, 7.30 p.m.

  [Back in bedroom, with wet bottom but better pen]

  Liberation Day is important on Guernsey, but not always for the right reasons. Officially it’s a public holiday when we are meant to celebrate being freed from German rule.51 Trouble is, anyone who remembers this momentous and long-awaited event will tell you there wasn’t much to celebrate. By the end of the Occupation most islanders were starving, and they were furious with the British for making next-to-no effort to help them. They had to wait ages for France to be liberated and Hitler to go mad and the Germans to surrender before they were freed. This was because the British had decided that the Channel Islands were a bit of an embarrassment and islanders no better than collaborators.52 They therefore deliberately kept references to the Occupation out of the national newspapers and off the airwaves in case it put a dent in Great British Morale.

  Then, when the Liberation finally came Winston Churchill didn’t. Apparently he wasn’t too keen on associating himself with ill-will, and there was a lot of that from the evacuees who came back to find their houses plundered. But the people who’d been put in concentration camps or prisons (like my Uncle Charlie) were in a much worse state, and they were never compensated. All in all, life in Guernsey was/is grim. Thus it’s probably right that on our day of supposed celebrations everyone ends up getting blind drunk and brawling, or jumping into the harbour wearing fancy-dress, and swimming in what is essentially their own sewage.

  And Liberation Day last year was especially disastrous, because everything went officially wrong with Nic. Let me elaborate (good word): I was meant to be meeting her and Pete and Pagey and a few of their friends and second cousins from the Grammar. It had all been arranged weeks in advance. We were going to meet at the Vale Castle53 with buckets of out-of-date booze and a
mega-ghetto-blaster. Everyone I knew (even vaguely) was going and it was a V.B.D. (Very-Big-Deal). I thought it’d be the most excellent party and it was just what I needed after all the bad feeling re: Michael.

  The only thing that was still bothering me was Bloody Lisa Collenette, the in-bred ferret/weasel.

  After Michael’s accident the Lisa-Ferret was always hanging around Nic, as per a bad smell, and it slowly drove me demented. Three is never a good number – I should’ve known that – and Lisa had an amazing talent for turning up in Town whenever and wherever I’d arranged to meet Nic. The trouble was, Nic didn’t seem to mind, and I started to get the feeling that she even wanted her there.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ she’d say. ‘It doesn’t have to be just us two, and Lisa’s up for anything.’

  Did that mean I wasn’t? I tried my best; I stole and drank as much as I could, I had my ears pierced three times, I lied to Mum and stayed out late. It wasn’t enough, though. I was out of my depth and not a good swimmer.

  And Michael didn’t help matters. There he was in his coma/Southampton, pretty much forgotten about by everyone. Lisa pretended to blame me for what had happened and she used it as an excuse not to invite me to her house. Of course, it was nose-on-face obvious that the real reason Lisa never invited me was because she wanted Nic to herself. I tried to ignore it, but Nic went round there more and more. And then Lisa had that party. It turned out her parents were getting divorced and the house was going to be sold, so her mum wanted to trash it to spite her dad. Or maybe it was the other way around. Anyway, Lisa decided to have her party in secret and not invite me, and what was more upsetting was that she had it on Liberation Day, knowing full well what we’d already got planned.

  So, there’s me at Vale Castle, all alone on a lovely, sunny day. I waited and waited and waited, but there was no sign of Nic. There was no sign of anyone. There was only pug-faced Dickie Guille from Sark and a rough-looking girl he was probably wanting sex with.54 Eventually I asked him if he’d seen Nic, and he squinted at me (because, in fact, he always had a squint).

  ‘Everyone’s at Lisa Collenette’s from what I heard. She’s having a barbecue today. Didn’t you know?’

  I blushed tomato-red so it was obvious I didn’t.

  ‘Oops,’ Dickie laughed. ‘N.F.I, is it?’

  (Which means ‘Not Fucking Invited’, in case you didn’t know.)

  I was gutted. I couldn’t believe Nic (and everyone) had stood me up, and I was especially angry with Lisa. She’d done this out of spite, to make me look moronic. Talk about Low-Life! Talk about Two-Faced! I jumped on my bike and cycled at top speed in first gear to the nearest phonebox. Then I looked up Lisa’s number and dialled it.

  It rang for ages, and I could hear the sound of a party the instant Lisa picked up. There was laughing and screaming and (terrible) music.

  ‘Lisa,’ I said, quick-as-a-flash, ‘are you having people over? Only I arranged to meet Nic at the Vale Castle – is she there? Can I talk to her? I must’ve got my days muddled.’

  There was the sound of muffled laughter, and I’m sure someone said ‘Shit.’

  ‘I’m sorry! Sorry? Helloooo? I can’t hear you. Who is this?’

  Lisa’s voice was loud and clear to me.

  I tried again. ‘Can I speak to Nic?’

  ‘Hello? Is that Cat?’

  (Honestly, Lisa’s a terrible actress – I knew she was only pretending not to hear me.)

  ‘Yes,’ I replied, trying not to get angry. ‘Can I talk to Nic, please?’

  ‘Sorry? Did you want the animal shelter?’

  Someone barked in the background.

  ‘Very funny. Please can I talk to Nic?’

  ‘There’s no one by that name here. You must have the wrong number. Go and get a life!’

  The line went dead before I could argue. I stared angrily at the mouthpiece and thought about smashing it as per a hooligan. Then I tried to imagine what was happening at Lisa’s. Had Nic been listening in on my call? Probably. Maybe. I bet it was a big joke to them. H-I-L-A-R-I-O-U-S. Lisa was poisoning everyone against me. I was so angry I cycled straight over to Lisa’s to see exactly what was going on behind my (stabbed-inthe) back. I also needed to know for sure that Nic was even there. Maybe she was sick. Maybe something else had happened. I mean, we’d made plans, the two of us. She wouldn’t just change them without telling me. She couldn’t. Could she?

  Yes.

  I got to Lisa’s house just after 3 o’clock and there was Nic, in the garden, gyrating to what I think was Jesus and Mary Chain (because it sounded like someone killing themselves and then a cat). As per usual she was flirting with the nearest boy to Pete who wasn’t Pete, which was greasy Caz Mitchell. Pete was sitting a little way off, clutching a six-pack of lagers and resembling unaccompanied luggage at an airport, the kind that might just explode.

  I walked in through the garden gate and tried to act casual and not trip up, then I tapped Nic lightly on the shoulder.

  ‘Hi. You look like you’ve been at it for a while. Did you forget we were meeting?’

  Nic wasn’t surprised to see me. She shrugged just like she always did. ‘Shit, yeah. Sorry. I thought I could get away but, you know, things got a bit mental here. It’s a cool party.’

  ‘I can see that. You could’ve told me, though.’

  Nic wrinkled up her nose. ‘How could I? I didn’t want to hurt your feelings and it was all a bit embarrassing. Pete wanted to come here and I did ask Lisa if I could tell you, but you know what she’s like.’ She shrugged again, like she was embarrassed for me. ‘What could I do?’

  I was staring at Nic, arms folded, and I think I was tapping my foot.

  She sighed. ‘It’s only one party!’

  But it wasn’t just that. Half of Guernsey was in Lisa’s garden and they were all giving me funny looks. Guernsey’s so small and everyone knows everyone, and when someone doesn’t like you, well, it’ll easily make the pages of the Guernsey Evening Press.

  I remember Pete’s ugly sneer.

  ‘Couldn’t keep away, eh? I told Nic you’d turn up. Desperado.’

  Nic was pretending not to hear.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re letting this happen,’ I told her. ‘You’re supposed to be my friend. What right has Lisa got to make me feel like I’ve done something wrong? I’m getting the blame for what happened to Michael, but it had nothing to do with me!’

  Pete stood up, waving his beer can at me. ‘No one’s interested in your opinion. I heard what you said to Nic about me. You think I’d go after Michael and push him off the tower? Jes-sus!’

  ‘I never said that!’

  The veins on Pete’s thick neck were pulsing like a disco beat.

  ‘We all know Michael Priaulx jumped off Pleinmont because he was a nutjob. P’raps you should do the same.’

  Lisa was suddenly standing beside me. (Her sharp, pointy ears meant she had good hearing.)

  ‘Who’s the nutjob?’

  I turned to her ferret/weasel snout.

  ‘Nothing. This has nothing to do with you.’

  ‘Yes, it has!’ Pete snarled, nodding to Lisa. ‘Cat here is really looking forward to your cousin coming out of hospital. She reckons if he’s brain-damaged she might finally stand a chance with him.’

  That was just about the meanest thing anyone’s ever said to me.

  ‘At least I care about Michael,’ I replied. ‘The rest of you obviously couldn’t give a shit what happens to him.’ I turned back to Lisa. ‘You don’t. All you want to do is have a party!’

  Lisa scrunched up her mean ferrety eyes. ‘I can have parties whenever I want, and you’re just jealous because you’re not invited. You’d better leave now or I’ll get Pete to throw you out.’

  She then said some really mean things to me (which I shan’t repeat) along the lines of everyone was bored of me, I wore terrible clothes and I was a big, fat cow. Of course I answered back and told her she should stop butting in and trying to take Nic
away from me.

  That’s when Nic burst out laughing.

  ‘I’m not your personal property. You’re totally overreacting.’ I thought that was unfair, and told her so.

  ‘Come on!’ I said. ‘We’re friends. You don’t mess friends around.’

  Nic glared at me. Her eyes were hard as glass (but also twinkling). ‘Is that right? Well, we’re obviously not friends then. A good friend wouldn’t turn up here and embarrass me like this. Snap out of it, Cat. You want things all your own way and if you don’t get what you want you sulk and try to make us all feel guilty. But guilty for what? Christ! You’re stuck in your own little world! No wonder Lisa didn’t invite you. She’s not the only one who thinks you’re weird.’

  I should’ve expected that, really. I was becoming the weirdo everyone said I was. And why did Nic matter so much? She didn’t care about me, so why did I let her hurt me? It’s a question I still can’t answer.

  Maybe I need THE WISDOM OF HINDSIGHT.

  As I cycled away from Lisa’s my heart was in my mouth. I wasn’t crying but I felt so rotten and I didn’t want to go home in case Mum caught me crying. I dumped my bike at the Vale Castle and went for a long walk instead. I climbed onto the low wall that borders the beach and followed it as far as I could. It’s strange, because it wasn’t a route I could remember taking before, but it felt weirdly familiar.

  Bordeaux Harbour isn’t really much of a harbour anymore since most people now keep their boats in Town. I counted the yachts bobbing in the water and listened to the ‘chink-chink’ sound of the rocking masts in the wind. That’s still the most soothing sound I know. I sat down and hugged my knees in tightly, feeling nearly hypnotised. I could’ve stayed like that all night. I don’t know. I’m the first to admit that I hated sailing, and I hated Dad for making me do it. It was boring, and it took for ever, and I never tied the sails up right. But as I sat at Bordeaux and watched the sunset all I wanted was to be back in my sleeping bag, curled up at the bow of our boat, looking through the hatch at the big, darkening sky.

  I never thought you could miss the things you didn’t like, and miss them so badly, but it turns out that you can.