‘You left the oven on!’ I yell at no one as I march from room to room, looking for someone to blame. But Paul is not here. I come to a standstill in the front room, which is empty apart from an enormous Christmas tree in the corner. It wasn’t there when I left this morning, we’d agreed not to bother with decorations this year, but there it is, taller than me and covered in tiny white twinkling lights. Almost every branch of the tree has a decoration that Paul and I have bought together over the years: a miniature little brown bag from Bloomingdales from a trip to New York, a tiny greenstone angel from New Zealand, a white lace snowman from Germany. We used to travel so much, we’ll lead that life again now that he’s written another book. I stand there transfixed by the memories hanging from each branch and realise that I’m smiling without an audience, I’m happy just for the sake of it. I switch off the Christmas lights, I’ve read about them catching fire when left on for too long, houses burning to the ground.
I hear a floorboard creak upstairs and try to shake off any remaining irritation as I climb the stairs in search of Paul. He’s done a nice thing so I must forgive the other. I walk from room to room, there aren’t many so it doesn’t take long, but he isn’t here either. I retrace my footsteps back to our bedroom, something seemed different about it, something was out of place. I scan the room and spot the offending wardrobe doors which are ever so slightly open. They should always be closed. I’m breathing faster than normal and the hairs on my arms are standing to attention but I tell myself I’m just being silly. I walk over to shut them and notice that my clothes have been moved, they’re not in the right order. I always hang things up according to size and colour, I have a system and this isn’t it.
Something is wrong.
I’m sure of it now.
I’m not imagining it.
I stand perfectly still and listen for the smallest sound. Nothing. I creep along the landing, peering around doorways, scared of what I might see. Even my breathing seems too loud. I stop at the bathroom door. Now that I’m looking properly, I can see the medicine cabinet is slightly ajar and the towels are not lined up how I like them. Paul would never do this, he knows it would make me crazy. Someone else has been here.
Claire.
Claire would do this to punish me, to teach me a lesson. I don’t understand how she got back here before me, or how she got in without a key. I hold my breath until my thoughts are suffocated and I can be sure they won’t be heard.
I have to find Paul. I need to know that he is safe. I hear him then, walking around downstairs, he must have come in from the garden. The relief that he is OK permits me to abandon the chaos up here for now and run down the stairs, I just want to see his face. He isn’t in the kitchen, where I was expecting him to be. I double back along the hallway towards the front room and paint a smile on my face as I open the door I don’t remember closing.
The Christmas tree lights have been switched back on again, but that isn’t the first thing to catch my eye when I enter the room. The thing I spot first is Edward, sitting on the sofa. He looks up at me as though he has been waiting, as though we had arranged to meet, as though it is perfectly normal that this man from my past is sitting in my lounge. I want to shout, but, more than that, I want to run. He smiles up at me.
‘Hello, Amber. You look tired, why don’t you sit down.’
Before
Monday, 21st December 1992
Dear Diary,
Dad put up our Christmas tree today. It’s not a real tree, it’s made of plastic and it isn’t really ours, it was Nana and Grandad’s but I don’t suppose they would have minded. It’s a funny colour green, like it faded and would like to be grey instead. I was allowed to decorate it. The lights don’t work and there are no presents underneath, but I like it anyway. Jo said it looked good when I was finished. I quite like having her around for company.
Dad has got a new job, which should have been good news, but wasn’t. His new job is in Wales, which is nowhere near here. Wales is so far away that it’s a completely different country. They even have their own language which sounds like people talking backwards, Dad played me a cassette. Taylor told me that she’s been on holiday to Wales before and they speak English as well as Welsh, but I still don’t want to go and live there.
There are three big reasons why we shouldn’t move to Wales:
1. I’ll have to change school, again.
2. I’ll miss Taylor too much.
3. Nana won’t be there.
Nana isn’t here either, but because all her things are, it’s quite easy to pretend she still is.
Dad has been packing our lives away into boxes. Little bits of our history are stacked up all around the house, a maze of forgotten old things we won’t need carefully wrapped and packed as though they are precious. We still had the old boxes up in the loft from when we moved last time, that’s when Dad found the tree. He asked Mum to help with all the packing but she’s not very well, so he’s been doing it on his own. Mum doesn’t even get dressed any more, just wanders round in her pyjamas. The doctor gave her some sleeping pills, which seems a little odd to me because she spends all day in bed already.
Dad says that I’m old enough to pack my own things this time. He put thick brown tape on the bottom of two boxes and put them up in my room, then he told me to fill them up before dinner. He found a ten pound note in one of the kitchen drawers and said we could have fish and chips as a treat, just me and him. I’m glad he found some money, I think we’ve almost run out. A man came to the door asking for Dad yesterday and I heard him say we hadn’t paid our water bill. I checked the taps in the kitchen and bathroom and they still work. Dad said that if anyone else comes to the door we have to pretend not to be home and hide under the windows so they can’t see us if they look in.
I have tried to fill up the boxes in my room, but it’s harder than it sounds. I put some of my books in one of them, but it just felt wrong, so I took them out again and put them back on the shelf. I don’t think my books want to leave this house, it’s their home and they should be allowed to stay here as long as they want. I put my clothes in the boxes instead. I don’t need many clothes anyway, I’ve been wearing the same thing for two days now and it’s fine. I’ve also stopped showering to save the water we haven’t paid for but nobody seems to have noticed. I sealed one of the boxes with the brown tape, then left the roll dangling from the box, I’m not allowed scissors in my room.
The fish and chips were the best ever! I had salt and vinegar and ketchup on mine and I felt so full but I finished them anyway. I think Dad liked his too. We were having a nice time just the two of us, but then he started drinking red wine out of a box and got all moody. I asked him why the wine was in a box, not a bottle, and he told me I asked too many questions and said to be quiet. I don’t think Dad should drink so much, it makes him into a not very nice person. He pretends to be nice with Christmas trees and fish and chips, but he doesn’t like me really. I watched him for a while after dinner while he watched the big TV. His beard had bits of food in it and his lips had pieces of dry skin on them which were stained purple from the wine. I don’t think I look like him at all, I’m not even sure I believe that he’s my Dad. I hate him when he drinks too much. HATE HIM.
I spotted the scissors when I went to get a glass of water from the kitchen. I know I’m not supposed to touch them, but I am eleven now. I decided to close the boxes in my room properly with the tape. But then a funny thing happened when I got to the top of the stairs. My feet came up with a different plan without telling me and walked into the bathroom. I turned on the light and Jo was standing in the bath, she gave me a proper fright. She told me to close the bathroom door, so I did. Then I looked in the mirror so I could see what I was doing.
There was lots of my hair on the bathroom floor when I was finished. Cutting it into a bob was Jo’s idea. When I squinted my eyes in the mirror, I could pretend it was Taylor looking back at me and that made me feel happy. I smiled and she smiled too. I
asked Jo what she thought and she said I’d done something very clever because it means that so long as they have mirrors in Wales, I can take Taylor with me.
Now
New Year’s Eve, 2016
I wake up to the sound of a cork popping in the distance. Someone somewhere is celebrating. A flash of something comes back, Champagne at Christmas, the clinking of glasses, the twins crying upstairs. I struggle to retrieve more, but the rest of the file is blank. I don’t think I was drunk but I honestly can’t remember and the mere possibility feeds the shame that has been growing inside me. Our parents used to drink and the alcohol changed who they were. I never wanted to be like them, but history has a way of repeating itself whether you like it or not. I hear laughter down the corridor and wonder what there can be to laugh about in a place like this.
Paul takes my hand in his. He’s here, he hasn’t given up on me yet.
‘Happy New Year,’ he says and kisses me ever so gently on the forehead.
New Year.
So I’ve been here a week. Time here seems to stretch like an accordion: sometimes it’s all squashed together, sometimes it feels as though my folded-up existence is infinite, tucked away between the creases of life-shaped cloth and cardboard. I’m a little confused and a lot lost.
I think back through the New Year celebrations of my past. I can’t think of a single good one, not really, although I suppose they must all have been better than this.
‘Just move your finger, if you can hear me,’ says Paul. ‘Please.’
I picture him staring intently at my fingers, willing them to move. I wish that I could do this one small thing for him.
‘It’s OK, I know you would if you could. They said I could stay until midnight, so long as it was just me. It’s 12.03, so . . .’ I hear him zipping up his jacket and I panic.
Please don’t go.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll still be watching over you. Just between us, I’ve set up a little camera in your room, the one I was going to put up at the back of the house. I’m going to put it right here, where nobody will notice. It’s activated by movement, so if you get up and start dancing in the night, I’ll be able to see you on the laptop at home. I know that you’re in there, Amber. They don’t believe me, but I know. You just have to hold on; I’ll find a way to get you out.’ He kisses me again, then switches off the light before quietly closing the door behind him, like a parent putting their child to bed. I’m alone. Again.
So this is 2017. It sounds so futuristic in my head. When we were little we thought that there would be flying cars and holidays to the moon by now. Things have changed since we were children, perhaps not as much as we might have liked, but the world is a different place. Faster, louder, lonelier. Unlike the world around us, we haven’t changed at all, not really. History is a mirror and we’re all just older versions of ourselves; children disguised as adults.
Then
Christmas Eve, 2016
‘What are you doing here? How did you get into my house?’
Edward sits calmly on my sofa, smiling up at me. As though this is normal, as though any of this makes sense. He’s even more tanned than before and I remember the ancient-looking sunbed in his flat.
‘Calm down, Amber. Everything is fine, why don’t you have a glass of wine? Unwind, tell me about your day?’ he says. I spot the bottle of red on the coffee table and two glasses. Our glasses, mine and Paul’s. Our wine.
‘I’m calling the police,’ I say.
‘No you’re not. Unless this is how you want your husband to find out that you’ve been seeing another man?’ He picks up the bottle and pours two glasses. I try to stay calm, to think, to understand what is happening. ‘You wanted me to come here, that’s why you left your keys at my flat.’ He puts them on the coffee table and I feel a brief moment of relief. I need those keys, not all of them belong to me. And then the penny drops.
‘You took the keys from my bag last night . . .’
‘Now why would I do a thing like that? By the way, it was very rude of you to leave my flat like that without saying goodbye.’
‘You put something… in m-my drink,’ I stammer.
‘What are you talking about?’ he asks. His perfect white smile still fixed on his bronzed face.
‘You must have. It’s the only thing that makes sense.’
His smile fades. ‘Don’t play games, Amber. We’re too old for that now. You wanted to come to my flat. You wanted me to take your clothes off. You wanted all of it.’
I feel myself start to crumble.
‘I didn’t.’ My words seem to be coming from someone else, someone small and far away. He stands up and I take a step backwards. His eyes darken before the smile returns to his face.
‘May I?’ Without waiting for an answer, he reaches down and picks my phone up from the coffee table. He unlocks it without needing to ask for the code, then holds the phone up to my face so I can see what he’s looking at. ‘Does it look like I’m making you do something you didn’t want to?’
Everything stops. I want to look away but I can’t.
He scrolls through various pictures of a woman who looks a lot like me, but I’ve never seen myself like this before. My naked body. My open mouth. A look of pure pleasure on my face. I close my eyes.
‘You wanted to go all the way, but I’m too much of a gentleman for that. We must be patient and wait for the right time. I want you to end things with your husband, first – I’m not going to share you with him. We’ve wasted too many years apart but now we’ve got so much to look forward to.’ He takes another step closer, I take another step back.
‘You’re crazy.’ I instantly regret my choice of words as he slams my mobile back down on the table.
‘Don’t worry, there are plenty more pictures on my phone. I have a favourite. I was thinking of sending it to Paul. Such a pathetic sounding name, Paul. Poor Paul, I think it suits him. His email address is on his little author website, but then I thought no, you should be the one to tell him. Wasn’t that considerate of me?’ I turn to face him, my anger only slightly outweighing my fear. ‘You need to tell Paul the truth and ask him to leave. Then I’ll move in and we can start again.’
‘Start again? You’re fucked up, do you know that? You drugged me, you must have, none of this makes sense. I wouldn’t do that.’
His face twists into something sour. ‘You were begging for it,’ Edward says, standing right in front of me now. ‘Begging me to fill up every one of your dirty little holes.’
I have to get out of here, I have to find Paul.
I rush for the door but Edward gets there before me, slamming it shut with one hand and slapping me hard across the face with the other.
He hits me again and I fall to the floor.
‘Why must you always spoil everything? I’ve forgiven you for what you did to me years ago but I won’t let you make a fool of me again.’
I remember the letters that Claire said she wrote about him when we were students. I try to explain but he hits me again, knocking the wind and the words right out of me. I stop hearing what he is saying as his hands tighten around my throat. He lifts me off the floor and it’s almost impossible to breathe. I hit him with my fists and try to kick him but it’s as though he doesn’t feel the blows, like a fly trying to hurt a horse, I’m just an irritation.
I have to do something, anything, he’s going to kill me…
‘I’m pregnant,’ I manage to say. The two little words dance in the air between us. He wasn’t the person I had imagined telling first. I don’t think he hears me; I don’t think he wants to. I can’t think, can’t breathe. The very edges of my vision start to turn black, the darkness slowly spreading like ink spilling on blotting paper.
I hear the back door open.
Edward hears it too and drops me to the floor. I stay perfectly still, scared of what is going to happen next. He steps back and I think he’s going to kick me in the stomach. I wrap my arms around my belly and close my eyes, but
there’s no need. Edward calmly walks out through the front door, quietly closing it behind him. I hear Paul fill the kettle in the kitchen and I know that I am safe, for now. He can’t see me like this. I stand up on shaky legs, double lock the front door, grab my phone from the coffee table and hurry upstairs, locking myself in the bathroom. Within moments Paul has followed me up.
‘Is that you?’ he asks.
‘Yes,’ I manage, struggling to remember how I normally sound and trying to mimic that.
‘How was Claire?’
Lunch with Claire seems so long ago now I’m confused at first as to why he is asking.
‘She’s good. I’m just going to have a quick bath, is that OK?’ I lean against the door. I so badly want to open it and let him hold me. I want to tell him how sorry I am for everything and how much I love him. I wish I could tell him the truth but he’d never forgive the real me. I look down at the phone in my hand and see the frozen image of my naked body on the screen. I feel sick. I delete it and another takes its place.
‘I put the Christmas decorations up,’ he says.
‘I saw that, looks really nice. I’m glad you got a tree.’
‘I found something else in the attic, when I got the decorations down.’ I hold my hand up to the wood. Imagining his hand on the other side, wishing I could hold it.
‘Not another wasps’ nest?’
‘Not this time. I found a box of old notebooks.’
I’m quite sure I stop breathing.
‘They look like diaries.’
We are all just ghosts of the people we hoped that we were and counterfeit replicas of the people we wanted to be.
‘I hope you didn’t read them,’ I say, wishing I could see his eyes, to know what he’s thinking and whether his next response is the truth.
Sometimes I Lie: The gripping debut psychological thriller you can’t miss in 2017 Page 19