I’ll tell you no lies

by Norman Wills

  When his employers found out the truth about his life away from work however, they felt duty bound to dispense of his services forthwith. Keith made his intention to sue for wrongful dismissal clear on his departure. He had had the law on his side once, why not again?

  Lucy’s public life had been hectic since Steve Summer came a calling. She had felt appeased by his death, she’d finally done what she realised she should have been prepared to do some time ago. She’d finally got one over on the male race.

  Sally-Anne knew better though, she knew that Lucy’s real target for revenge would always be Keith Waterson. In truth Sally-Anne didn’t mind who it was, she had her playroom and a room full of shiny white coffins just waiting to be filled. Sally-Anne was just waiting for a trigger.

  Driving without due care and attention; six points on his licence and a fine. Keith Waterson, aided by the British legal system, had brought shame upon Lucy and Jayne’s life by valuing it so low. Shame somebody in public and they are far more likely to want revenge.

  Lucy didn’t sleep well the night of the verdict. Reporters had wanted her view on the outcome of the judgement that very afternoon. They were finally putting to bed the story that started on Christmas Eve 2010, putting the final nail in Jayne’s coffin. Most people in the same circumstance, maybe with the benefit of foresight, would view this as the moment to move on, a turning point. Lucy just felt terribly sad.

  At a little after four o’clock the following morning Lucy had reached the point where her body finally overcame her mind, she fell into a fitful sleep.

  She was back at school, running a cross-country race; training for the inter-schools athletics championships. Five girls and Miss Parkinson on a rain soaked course. Conditioning Miss Parkinson had called it, Sally-Anne had called it an opportunity. Lucy’s memory was playing tricks on her though, she knew this day had been significant for some reason; she just couldn’t quite grasp it out of the ether. She thought this was maybe the day she and Jayne had kissed for the first time, she couldn’t be sure.

  The dream started just as it had been in reality. Lucy’s long legs were once again giving her an advantage over her shorter team-mates, she found herself out in front, running by herself. What was it about this day that was so significant? She couldn’t remember; then she tripped on a tree root. Now it was coming back, slowly, the fall had been manufactured, purposefully at the furthest point out on the course.

  That was where the dream had started to deviate from reality. The four girls, who had been following, just like when she’d been a fourteen year old, didn’t stop to show concern. They just carried on in their stride, jumping over her as if she didn’t exist, not even giving her a second glance.

  When Jayne did exactly the same she couldn’t believe what was happening, it was as if she wasn’t there. But they must have seen her; they’d avoided her skilfully enough. Jayne, whose job it had been on cross-country to run at the back, to make sure any stragglers made it back safely, stopped after a further twenty yards and walked back to where Lucy was lying. Lying in both senses of the word; on the floor and through her teeth. Leaning in closely, as if she was having trouble seeing who Lucy was, Jayne said, “Oh, it’s only you Kirkpatrick, come on there’s nothing wrong with you, get up and finish the course or you’ll be off the team. There are no places for stragglers on my team.” At that point Jayne turned round and continued running, leaving Lucy to pick herself up off the floor.

  This wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen. This wasn’t what had happened before, was it? Her brain was trying hard to recall what had happened next in 2006. As hard as she tried though nothing was coming through, it was as if what she’d had with Jayne, from that day onwards, had never existed.

  She couldn’t remember the dream when she finally woke, but she still felt quite depressed about the previous day’s events. The dream was lost to her conscious mind, but her sub-conscious mind was still trying to figure out its meaning, giving consideration to it while Lucy got on with her day.

  Lucy continued, unknowingly, to have the same dream at regular intervals. And barely a day went by without the word revenge popping into her head at least once, and the vision of Keith Waterson’s grinning face, captured for the newspapers, outside the courtroom.

  …

  24 June 2012

  The day had been a difficult one for Lucy. Jayne would have been thirty years old, had she lived. She’d spent the day at home, their home, thinking about what could have been, if only.

  If only that jerk hadn’t nearly decapitated her.

  If only we’d driven in my car, not the one Stein had bequeathed her in his will.

  If only it had been me instead of Jayne.

  If only, if only…

  The last thing she did on Jayne’s thirtieth birthday was to place a single red rose inside Steve Summer’s ‘coffin’, in memorium. She vowed to herself and Sally-Anne that there would be more next year.

  It’s what she would have wanted, Lucy; blood for blood.

  Yes, Sally-Anne; I want him to pay the price. I want him to suffer just like he’s made us suffer. I’m sure it’s what she would have wanted, revenge worthy of her memory. I feel like I’m beginning to forget.

  Blood cannot be paid for by a simple fine, there is always a higher price to pay. Blood for blood, it has to be Lucy. I think it’s what Jayne has been trying to tell us.

  No name was mentioned, they knew who it was they both spoke of. No more words were needed.

  25 June 2012

  Rosie’s fourth birthday. Lucy couldn’t help but wonder at the double celebration they should be having. It had been the cruel hand of fate that had allowed Rosie to be born on the day after Jayne’s birthday. Lucy would never be given the opportunity to get over Jayne, not that she would ever want to. Every year Rosie’s birthday would be a constant reminder of Jayne’s birthday; every day her own home would be a constant reminder of when she had been her happiest. She wouldn’t change her home though, not for the world.

  It hadn’t been fate that had guided Keith Waterson that day. She didn’t believe, like many people do, that you go ‘when your time is up’. She didn’t believe that the sand in Jayne’s life-timer was pre-ordained to run out at that particular time, on that particular street. Lucy would never allow herself to forget. She decided that she was going to stay faithful to her lover; she would never again enjoy the intimate company of another woman. She was a one-woman woman. That is of course, apart from the intimate companion she’d been living with in her head these past seven years and more.

  John and Steph had decided to celebrate Rosie’s fourth birthday by giving her the option to choose whatever she wanted to do. This was a risky strategy to play with a four year old. Four years old, is an age where few, if any, boundaries apply when given the option to choose for yourself. Luckily for John and Steph she chose well.

  She chose a trip to the zoo on a beautiful summer day. She did specify a proviso though, as the brightest children of that age frequently do. If her auntie Lucy couldn’t come with them, she didn’t want to go anywhere. Within ten minutes Lucy was in her car, driving to her brother’s house. She had a big smile, lighting up her whole face, and a teddy bear so big it needed the whole of the passenger seat, all to itself.

  She was just as happy as Rosie to be going to the zoo. She didn’t care how many people she saw pointing in their direction, and nudging each other, she was with the people she loved. It was her niece’s fourth birthday; no amount of public gawking was going to spoil the fun.

  Rosie was thrilled with the teddy bear. She told Lucy she was going to call her Jayne. Different people have different methods of dealing with grief. Rosie had her own shrine to Jayne’s memory, six teddies, all lined up in ascending order of size, all called Jayne.

  Dawn Waterson, fifty-four year old single mother of Keith, couldn’t believe her eyes when Lucy walked through the door of the gift shop. The same gift shop she herself managed, at the same zoo where Rosie was en
joying her fourth birthday.

  This was the same woman she had wanted to speak to ever since the accident. The same woman she had wanted to apologise to for what her son had done. The same woman, who it appeared, was more beautiful in the flesh than on TV or on the glossy pages of the magazines. That same woman stood no more than fifteen feet away from her at that very moment. Dawn Waterson was a great believer in the hand of fate.

  The gift shop was relatively quiet compared with other times during the day. Dawn was able to get close to Lucy by pretending to restack the miniature farm animals into some sort of order while Lucy picked Rosie up to show her some stuffed giraffes and elephants on the top shelf. From her lofty position Rosie spotted her dad near the ice cream freezer and immediately wanted to be with him. As soon as Rosie had her feet on the floor she was off like a shot.

  “They can be a hand full at that age can’t they?” Dawn remarked, as a means of an introduction to a conversation. “Enjoy your kids while they’re young, sweet and innocent I say. Believe me they only cause you heartache in the end.”

  “Oh she’s not mine, I’m only her aunt. At least I get to give her back when I’m tired.” replied Lucy, happy to be discussing Rosie with this total stranger.

  “I wish I could give mine back,” said Dawn, “but he’s thirty three now.”

  Lucy laughed at the comment, thinking that this woman she’d never met before, this woman with the kind face was just being friendly.

  “Let me introduce myself, dear. I’m Dawn, Dawn Waterson.” When that produced no reaction, “My son is Keith Waterson.”

  Lucy stopped dead, frozen to the spot. “This is some sick joke, right?”

  “No, unfortunately I am Keith’s mother.”

  Lucy turned to leave, the conversation now finished.

  “I’m sorry,” said Dawn, “I’ve wanted the chance to say sorry for so long. When you walked through the door I knew I just had to say something. I was wrong, I’m sorry.”

  Lucy turned on Dawn with thunder in her eyes. “Sorry? Sorry? Well thank you, Mrs Waterson; that makes me feel so much better now. Maybe now I’ll be able to sleep at night!” At that particular moment sarcasm wasn’t Lucy’s strongest suit, but Dawn had known exactly what she’d meant. Now had not been the time or the place. There would probably never be a time or a place. Sorry could never put right what her son had done to this poor girl, she had only been thinking of her own selfish needs. She had wanted to get something off her chest and all she had done was to become the cause of more pain.

  Lucy stormed out of the shop. Fortunately, for Rosie, the others had been concentrating too much on which ice cream to choose to pick up on the conversation. The last thing Lucy wanted was to spoil Rosie’s big day. She put the conversation out of her mind, for now. Back in the safety of her home, however, she was able and most willing to discuss the day’s events in full.

  …

  26 June 2012

  At 10.00 am, on the day after Rosie’s birthday, Lucy was making her way back to the zoo. Sally-Anne had made the suggestion; they’d talked long into the night. This woman was a way to get to the real prize, why waste the opportunity?

  Wrap around sunglasses, her hair worn up beneath a baseball cap, and an extra-large sweatshirt, went some way toward fooling the public away from instant recognition. She wouldn’t be hanging around today though; she only wanted to speak with Dawn Waterson.

  People usually make the gift shop their last port of call when they visit the zoo. The zoo’s efforts to squeeze the last few pounds out of the public’s pockets were invariably well rewarded; children can be very persuasive at the end of a long day.

  The gift shop was usually very quiet for the first couple of hours. When Lucy walked through the door she was the very first customer. Dawn was the only member of staff there at that time; Emma who should have been there too had called in sick. Dawn was always first to arrive and last to leave, her staff was mainly made up of casual seasonal workers, students usually.

  Dawn was surprised to see Lucy enter the gift shop for a second day running. Like waiting for a bus, you stand in the pouring rain for an age, and then two come along at once.

  “Hello again,” said Lucy nervously.

  “Hello, you’re the last person I expected to see in here today.” Replied Dawn, not sure of what was happening.

  “Look, I was angry yesterday, I’m not going to apologise for that but maybe we should talk. It’s obvious that you’ve got things you want to say to me and I’ve got a few things I should probably get off my chest too, maybe we could do each other a favour, kill two birds with one stone?”

  “I have got things I need to say to you,” replied Dawn, “I’ve tried speaking to friends about the way I feel. God only knows I’ve tried, but they don’t understand.”

  “Can you come to my place, tonight? I’ve thought about it since yesterday and I now think you could help me,” said Lucy, “I think that’s what you want isn’t it? To help repair the damage your son caused.”

  “That’s exactly what I want to do,” replied Dawn, “I realised after we spoke yesterday that it must have been a shock to you when I told you who I was, but the last thing I wanted was to cause you more pain. My son has caused us both enough pain already, I can’t forgive him and I don’t expect you to, I just want to talk.”

  Lucy drew a map of where she should come from the tube station and asked her to use her discretion. “Obviously I’d rather the papers didn’t find out about this, they’d have a field day if they knew. Neither of us would come out of it unscathed but I think I might just fair better than you when it comes to the headlines, trust me.”

  “Okay, whatever you want.” Dawn said.

  “Thank you. I’ll’ see you later.” replied Lucy.

  That was more than Dawn could have ever wished for, a real chance to explain her resentment toward her son, and to somebody who had good reason to understand exactly how she was feeling.

  That evening Dawn Waterson rang the ground level buzzer to Lucy’s apartment. She was buzzed in and Lucy was at the top of the stairs waiting.

  “I came straight here, I hope you don’t mind.”

  “No problem, I invited you, come in, let me take your jacket.”

  Dawn entered the apartment and followed Lucy through to the living room.

  “Thank you for letting me do this,” she said, “I was worried you may have changed your mind and told me to go away. I would have understood if you had.”

  “No I needed to see you, when you introduced yourself yesterday I thought it was probably destiny that brought us together. You can’t ignore your destiny,” Lucy said. “Would you like a drink, coffee or tea?”

  “Tea, please”

  “I’ll not be long.”

  Lucy went into the kitchen, made a drink, composed herself and came back to the living room. Dawn had picked up the copy of the bible that Lucy had left on the coffee table.

  Come into my parlour said the spider to the fly.

  “Are you religious, Mrs Waterson?” asked Lucy, nodding towards the bible. “Can you turn the other cheek? Let somebody take a second shot?”

  “I used to go to Sunday school when I was a child, but that was as far as it ever went,” she said, putting the book down again. “I’m sorry about yesterday, I must have shocked you. I hope it didn’t feel like a slap in the face, it wasn’t a cheap shot if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Well.” Said Lucy, “At the time I was angry, I must have sounded awful, but now I think we could help each other. I don’t exactly feel like turning the other cheek yet, but there must be something in the bible that can work for us.”

  “I hope so. As I said yesterday, I’ve wanted to contact you since the accident, to tell you how sorry I was. Still am. When it first happened I wanted to ask you to forgive Keith for what happened but I soon realised I couldn’t ask you to do that if I couldn’t forgive him myself.”

  “But why would you need to forgive him, he ne
ver did you any harm did he?”

  “He’d been lying to me all his life, I didn’t know at the time,” said Dawn, “you see it’s like he has two sides to him, a good side and a bad side, two personalities. I only ever saw the good side until the newspapers uncovered his other side. I’ll never be able to forgive him.”

  “And what do you want me to say? Good? Or maybe thank you for your support, it’s much appreciated? What exactly is it you want from me?” said Lucy, her voice rising in pitch.

  “I don’t know,” said Dawn, “This doesn’t seem like such a good idea now. I’m sorry, I should go.”

  “Does he know you’re here, your son? Is he out there waiting in his car, getting some thrill knowing you’re in here now asking for my understanding, wanting me to bear my soul?”

  “No he doesn’t know I’m here, nobody knows I’m here, and I’ll keep it that way. I can see that all this has done is to bring all the pain back for you. I’m sorry if I’ve upset you again, I shouldn’t be here. I’ll leave now.”

  “No, please, it’s me who should be sorry.” Said Lucy lowering her voice, “Jayne didn’t die at your hands, you’re only crime in all this, as far as I see it, was to have given birth to him in the first place. Stay, please. There is something I want to show you, if you want me to feel better you’ll stay for a little longer.”

  “Okay, if you think it will help.”

  “I just want your opinion on something that’s all, it won’t take a minute. Then maybe you’ll understand me better.”

  “Okay.”

  Lucy and Dawn finished their tea. If you knew no better you would have said they were mother and daughter sat there, chatting over a cup of tea. That was unless you could have listened in to the conversation.