Sometimes I Lie: The gripping debut psychological thriller you can’t miss in 2017

by Feeney, Alice

  ‘Of course not. Well, at least not when I realised what they were. I was intrigued by the 1992 in big letters on the front of one of them though. How old were you then? Ten?’

  ‘Eleven,’ I reply. ‘You should never read another person’s diary,’ I add, sinking to the floor, closing my eyes and leaning my head against the wall. ‘They’re private.’

  Before

  Christmas Eve, 1992

  Dear Diary,

  I have never been awake this late before. It’s 1 a.m. and when the sun comes up it will be Christmas Eve. Taylor came to stay at our house last night and she’s still here, asleep up in my bedroom. Mum and Dad said she could stay one last time before we move; I threatened to cut my hair even shorter if they said no. We’re moving out on 27th December so that Dad can start his new job the next day. I’ll have to start at another new school in a whole new country in January, they don’t even know which one yet, that’s how little they care about me. Mum says Taylor can come and visit us in Wales once we’re settled in. Mum says things will be different this time. Mum is a LIAR.

  Taylor didn’t say much during dinner and hardly ate any pizza. It was Mum’s fault because she got us a Hawaiian, which meant Taylor had to pick off all the little bits of pineapple before she could eat it. Taylor’s mum would never have got that wrong, she knows what we both like to eat. We’ve really got no money left at all now, not even any coins in Nana’s rainy-day jar. Dad was at the pub. He has a friend there called Tab who pays for all his drinks and I heard Dad say there was no need to pay him back before we leave. Mum was cross about it for some reason, so she put the pizza on Dad’s credit card, which is strictly for emergencies only, and said not to tell. It was like we ate an emergency pizza.

  Mum went to bed early, she said she was exhausted. If she’s so tired all the time, I don’t know why she has to take sleeping pills every night, but I was glad she left us alone. Taylor and I watched a film. I’d seen it before so I watched Taylor watching the big TV. I turned all the lights off, like her parents do on movie nights, and her face was all lit up from the glow of the screen, like she was an angel. She didn’t laugh at some of the funny bits, even though I did, she just gave me a sad look and then stared back at the screen. I held her hand because I wanted to and she let me. I squeezed it three times and after a little while she squeezed it three times back, she still wouldn’t look at me though.

  When the film was finished we went up to my room. We talked for a while, but not for as long as we normally do, mainly because Taylor kept talking about things that had happened that I wasn’t a part of. She’s been hanging out with a girl called Nicola, they do ballet classes together at the church hall. I don’t do ballet classes, we can’t afford them. Apparently, Nicola is really funny and tells jokes all the time. Taylor says I’m still her best friend, I checked to make sure. I don’t know why she needs other friends, I don’t have any and I’m fine.

  Taylor told me she’s really looking forward to Christmas Day. Her whole family will be at her house and Taylor says her mum has bought the biggest turkey she’s ever seen, as big as an ostrich, which is very big. Her nana, who she calls Grandma, is going to stay with them and it made me feel sad about my nana, so I didn’t speak for a while, just listened. I’m good at listening, people say all sorts if you just let them. That’s when she said she didn’t want me to go to Wales and it made me so happy that the thought of me leaving was what made her so sad. I promised her then that I wouldn’t be going anywhere and I meant it, I keep my promises.

  Dad came home drunk and made a lot of noise when he came up the stairs. I was embarrassed but also a bit glad, he sleeps very deeply when he’s been to the pub and Mum’s sleeping tablets work so well it’s almost impossible to wake her. Taylor is asleep upstairs too. They all are.

  I’m not allowed matches. They are on the same list as scissors, but I have a whole box of them. I’ve had them for a while now. I took them from school the day we learned about Bunsen burners, I learned a lot that day. I lit one match before I came downstairs. A little bit of me wanted Taylor to wake up, so that we could do this together, but she didn’t move so I let her carry on sleeping. I liked the smell of the match burning so much I let it burn the ends of my fingers. I wanted the flame to extinguish itself.

  I’ve packed my school rucksack with all the important stuff.

  The three most important things are:

  1. My favourite books, (including Matilda, Alice in Wonderland and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe).

  2. My diaries.

  3. My best friend Taylor. I’ll never leave her behind, because we’re like two peas in a pod.

  Then

  Christmas Eve, 2016

  I lie in the bath, wishing that the water was hot enough to burn my body, but I don’t want to hurt the child trying to grow inside me. I imagine how this scene might look in a few weeks’ time, a skin-coloured hill protruding from the bath water, a new land, waiting to be claimed. I rest my right hand on my stomach, gently, as though it might hurt me back, as though it isn’t a part of me. I don’t feel anything. Maybe it is just too soon.

  When the water is colder than I can bear, I step out and dry myself. The steam has already run away and I’m shocked when I see my own reflection in the bathroom mirror; red fingerprints are clearly visible around my white neck. The bruises I have on the inside are less recent, but just as easy to see if you know how to look.

  I open the bathroom door and hear that Paul is downstairs. Then I smell the fire and it almost makes me gag. I tread carefully over a carpet of lies, trying not to disturb them. Once I’m in the bedroom I pull on a polo-neck jumper and some comfy jogging bottoms before rushing downstairs to the front room.

  ‘There you are,’ says Paul. ‘Drink?’

  ‘Is it safe?’

  ‘The drink?’

  ‘The fire. Doesn’t it need to be swept before we use it?’

  ‘It’s fine, I thought it would be cosy, given it’s Christmas Eve.’

  The room is lit by the Christmas tree and the flames. He’s trying to do a nice thing, but he’s got it so wrong. I don’t need to say anything, he reads the thoughts on my face.

  ‘Shit, I’m sorry, it probably makes you think of . . . I’m sorry, I’m an idiot.’

  ‘No, it’s fine, it’ll just take a bit of getting used to, that’s all.’

  He takes the bottle of red that Edward had opened and tops up the wine glasses. I don’t want to touch them or drink it but I make myself play along. There is so much to say and yet I’m struggling to find any words willing to come out.

  ‘Here’s to you and the new book, congratulations,’ I manage, clinking my glass with his.

  ‘Here’s to us,’ he says and kisses me on the cheek. I take a tiny sip and watch as he swallows half his glass. We sit in silence for a while, just staring at the flames. Funny how the same thing can have a different meaning for different people. I wish he knew about the baby. He’ll think it’s some kind of miracle. I suppose in a way it is. I can’t tell him tonight now, too much has happened today. I want to create a memory that isn’t torn before it’s made. I reach for Paul’s hand at the same time as he reaches for his laptop.

  ‘So, Laura emailed her initial thoughts for the tour. It’s going to be amazing. New York, London, obviously, Paris, Berlin. Thank God it’s just the two of us, we’d never be able to go if we were tied down.’

  My fantasy future pops like a child’s bubble in the wind, cautiously floating along one minute, then obliterated the next. My words retreat and I offer a smile instead. Paul closes the laptop and puts it on the table, taking another sip of his drink. I stare at the flames dancing in the fireplace. They look wild and disobedient and make me want to run from the room.

  ‘So do you still keep a diary now?’ he asks.

  ‘What? No.’

  He reaches down the side of the sofa, a mischievous smile creeping across his face. ‘Maybe we should read a little bit, just for fun?’

>   I see the diary in his hands, the familiar swirl of 1992 on its cover, and I turn cold despite the heat. ‘You said you’d put them back.’

  He mistakes my tone for playful, he thinks this is a game. ‘Just one entry, go on.’

  ‘I said, no.’ My voice is louder than I meant it to be and I realise I’m standing. His face changes and he holds the diary out for me to take. I snatch it like a child and hold it to my chest before sitting back down. Paul is staring straight at me but I can’t look away from the fire, I’m scared of what might happen if I do.

  ‘Why did you keep them if they upset you so much?’ he asks.

  I’ve spoiled the evening now and I hate myself for it. I ruin everything. My face feels hot and the flames look bigger to me somehow, as though it’s only a matter of time before they reach out and burn what I’ve got left.

  ‘I didn’t. I found them in the attic at Mum and Dad’s when I was clearing the house out last year.’ Paul puts his empty glass down on the coffee table, next to the one I’ve barely touched. I close my eyes so I can’t see the flames, but I can still hear their screams.

  ‘I thought we didn’t have any secrets?’ he says.

  ‘We don’t. They’re not my secrets. The diaries belong to Claire.’

  Now

  New Year’s Eve, 2016

  My sister wasn’t always my sister, she used to be my best friend. She always called me Taylor back then, almost everyone called me by my surname because that’s what I preferred. Amber always sounded like second best to me, like a traffic light. Red, Amber, Green. Red for stop, green for go, but Amber meant very little at all, it was insignificant, just like me. I was convinced my name was the reason the kids at school didn’t like me, they didn’t call me Amber, they called me other names instead. It drove my parents mad at first, they tried to convince me that Amber was a precious stone, but I knew I wasn’t precious. I wouldn’t respond to anything other than Taylor for weeks, so in the end they called me that too. Things only changed when I got married. Taylor got rubbed out, replaced by Reynolds. They started calling me Amber again after that and it felt like I was someone new.

  I remember my mum getting off the phone and telling me I’d been invited to stay at Claire’s house one last time before she moved. I didn’t want to go, I was cross that she was leaving, but Mum said I should, said it was the right thing to do. She was wrong. It was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made and I’ve been paying for it ever since.

  Claire’s mum got us a pizza for our dinner that night, she wasn’t much of a cook. I can still remember Claire screaming at her that I didn’t like pineapple, she was terrifying when she got like that, out of control. I never spoke to my parents the way she did and always found it odd how they just let her get away with so much. Her dad wasn’t around very often, he liked to gamble away what little money they had and was always losing jobs as well as bets. Her mum had a bit of a drinking problem and always seemed so sad and tired as though life had defeated her. She gave up on Claire as well as life in the end and it made me realise that people who do nothing are just as dangerous as those who do.

  Claire wasn’t popular at school back then, she was an angry child, angry at the world and almost everyone in it. They’d moved a lot and she got herself into trouble at nearly all of the schools she attended. She was very clever. Too clever. It was like she was weary of most people as soon as she met them, as though she could instantly see who and what they were and was perpetually disappointed. She preferred reading stories to real life, so that some of her best friends were in the pages of books. I was her only real friend. She got jealous if I even spoke about anyone else, so I learned not to.

  I still think about what happened every day. I wonder if it was all my fault, whether I could have done something to prevent it. She was just a little girl, but so was I. Little girls are different from little boys, they’re made of sugar and spice and scar for life. I’ve still got my scars, just because they’re on the inside doesn’t mean they’re not there.

  I heard her get up and creep around the room that night. I had my back to her but my eyes were open. I heard her light a match and I smelt it burn. I thought she must be lighting a candle or something, the electricity sometimes went off at her house, her parents always struggled to pay the bills. Then she went out into the hall. I waited a while, but when she didn’t come back, I got up to see where she had gone. It was always cold in their house so Mum had packed my new pink dressing gown. I wrapped it tightly around myself and tied a knot.

  I crept out onto the landing, tiptoed past Claire’s mum’s room and stood at the top of the stairs. All the doors were closed except the door to the bathroom and I could see that it was empty. I heard a noise downstairs and made my way down the first couple of steps, trying to be as quiet as possible. That’s when I saw her, it was such a strange sight. I crouched down and watched through the banisters as she walked around the kitchen.

  Claire was wearing her school backpack over her pyjamas and I watched as she stood perfectly still in front of the old white oven. She turned one of the knobs and just stood there, staring at the cooker as though she was waiting for something to happen, then she turned another. I stayed where I was for a while, like I was frozen. Then she turned her head really slowly in my direction and I thought she could see me there on the stairs. It was like she was looking straight at me, her eyes flashing in the darkness, like a cat. I remember having an urge to scream then. If only I had. She looked away and turned back to the cooker, twisting another knob.

  I stood up as quietly as I could and crept back upstairs. I didn’t really understand what was happening but I knew that it was bad and wrong. I tried the handle of her mum’s room, it was locked. I should have knocked on the door, or done something, anything, but I went back to Claire’s room and got into bed, still wearing my dressing gown. I think I just hoped it was all a bad dream.

  It soon started to smell of gas even up in the bedroom, like an invisible cloud was spreading itself around the house, filling up every space, every dark corner. I pulled the duvet up over my head, hoping that would be enough to save me, then someone pulled it away. I opened my eyes and saw Claire, still wearing her backpack, standing over me. She shook me as though I was asleep, even though I was wide awake, then she smiled down at me. I’ll always remember what she said then.

  I’m always going to look after you, Amber Taylor, take my hand.

  I always did what Claire told me, I still do. She stopped in the bedroom doorway as though she had seen a ghost. It was dark and at first I couldn’t see what she was staring at. Then she bent down to pick up her Nana’s cast iron doorstop and put it in her bag. It was shaped like a robin, a tiny statue of a bird that would never be able to fly away. She led me out onto the landing, then stopped again and turned to face me, putting her finger to her lips.

  Shh.

  She held my hand tight in hers and pulled me down the stairs, the smell of gas getting thicker in my nostrils with every step. At the bottom of the stairs she turned right, away from the kitchen and towards the front room. She sat me down in an armchair and bent down next to the fireplace. Her mum always had a little fire built and ready to go but they only lit it on Sundays. It was just a little pile of newspaper and sticks, sometimes with an old candle thrown on top. Claire lit a match, setting light to the small pile of kindling. Then she threw the box of matches on top of the pile, took my hand and led me out the front door, which she closed behind us. I didn’t have any slippers and I remember the cold gravel biting my feet as she dragged me down the drive. She held on to my hand so tightly, as though I might run away if she let me go. Then she told me not to cry. I hadn’t realised that I was.

  We went to sit on the wall of a house on the opposite side of the street, I could feel the cold of the stone even through my dressing gown. We sat on that little wall for what felt like a very long time. She didn’t say a word, just held my hand too tight and stared up at the house smiling. I was scared to look at her fo
r too long, so I mostly just stared at my little bare feet, turning blue in the cold. Even when she started singing, I didn’t look up.

  Twinkle, twinkle, little star,

  How I wonder what you are.

  Up above the world so high,

  Like a fire in the sky.

  Claire loved nursery rhymes. She said they reminded her of her nana, but she was always getting the words wrong. Claire is the kind of person who sees what they want to instead of what’s actually there.

  The house didn’t explode exactly. It was like it just slowly burst at the back. There was a bang, not as loud as you hear in the films, but like the silence was pulled out from under the bricks. The front of the house looked exactly the same at first, but I could soon see the flames dancing behind the windows. We heard the sirens way before we saw the fire engine. She was silent then, the smile slid off her face and tears ran down her cheeks. She cried for her parents for hours then, like a tap that couldn’t be turned off. I’ve cried for them ever since.

  The smoke became a part of me that night, so that no matter how many times I washed my hair or scrubbed my skin, I could still smell it. It twisted itself around my DNA and it changed me. She said she killed them for me. She said she thought it was what I wanted, so that we could stay together, so that she could keep me safe. I’ve spent my life since wondering what it takes for a person to do something like that. She said they didn’t love her; I don’t know if that’s true. There are different kinds of love, one word could never accurately describe them all. Some are easier to feel than others, some are more dangerous. People say there’s nothing like a mother’s love, take that away and you’ll find there is nothing like a daughter’s hate.

  The sound of an ambulance outside startles me and shakes the memories from my head. I stare at a tile on the hospital ceiling that doesn’t quite match the rest and it takes a good few seconds before I realise that my eyes are open. It doesn’t feel like a dream, it feels real. My eyelids seem to have just decided to roll up by themselves. The room is dark, and I can’t move my head, but I can see, I’m sure of it. I blink, then I blink again. Each time my eyes close I’m scared they won’t open again, but they do. Slowly, my eyes start to adjust to the dark and I can see my room. The window is right where it is supposed to be, but smaller than I had imagined. I can see a table next to the bed, there are some get well cards, not many. Just beyond my useless, broken body stretched out in front of me, I can see the door. I hear someone outside and see the handle start to turn. Instinct tells me to close my eyes and I plunge myself back into the darkness, back to my world of being seen but not heard.