by Frances Vick
Kirsty wasn’t listening though. Her mind, leagues ahead of her sense, was already into conspiracy territory.
‘Now I understand. Whenever I tried to talk about it, or do some research about what really happened, you’d shut me down, you’d say I had to move on, stop dwelling on it, but it wasn’t because of me, caring about me, it was because you were worried I’d find out! That was it, wasn’t it? Were you in the park that day too? You and Bryan and Dale and… did you see Lisa? Did you?’
Even in her rage there was a large part of her that wanted Lee to keep on denying things, push back… She wanted him to do what he’d always done and convince her that she was wrong and he was right. There was safety in that, comfort.
But he didn’t. Instead he bowed his head, looked at the carpet. His brown, strong hands dangled from his knees.
‘I wasn’t. But I don’t expect you to believe me. Not the mood you’re in now,’ he muttered.
‘“The mood I’m in”?’
‘I’m sorry. I’m… I’m just in a bit of shock, that’s all. Give me a minute.’
‘What, now I’m supposed to feel sorry for you?’
‘No. I don’t think you should feel sorry for me,’ he looked up and his eyes were old. ‘But I do think that if you’d calm down and listen—’
‘Don’t do that! Don’t do that patronising “calm down little lady” thing.’
He dropped his gaze again. ‘I didn’t think I was,’ he said flatly.
There was a long silence. Lee dug out a crushed packet of cigarettes from his pocket, put one bent cylinder in his mouth, lit it with shaking hands.
‘What about Dale?’ Kirsty’s voice was calmer now. ‘How did you get him not to tell me anything?’
‘I didn’t have to. His dad was stationed in Germany just before it all happened. He didn’t know anything about it. Then my dad was stationed in Aldershot – we left in June – and that was the last time I saw Bryan. I didn’t even remember him very well, and we weren’t friends. I’d just turned fifteen then, Kirsty, I moved around so much, went to so many different schools; I’d get bullied unless I made sure I wasn’t, and how I made sure I wasn’t was to gravitate to the bullies, copy them, get under their wing a bit, you know. Bryan was just that… I was a little kid, I had the wrong accent, but I knew that if Bryan liked me I’d be left alone. Plus he could always get hold of cigarettes and lager.’ He laughed shortly.
‘It’s not funny,’ Kirsty told him.
‘It’s not, no. It’s pathetic, is what it is. But, listen, didn’t you do stupid things when you were a teenager?’
‘Not like this. And not things I’d lie about.’
‘I didn’t think I had a choice! Look at it from my point of view, OK? I meet you, and you’re fucking amazing; you’re what I’ve been waiting for. Then you tell me all about this horrible experience you had when you were a kid, and I put two and two together and remember maybe knowing someone who made your life a misery. So, I call Dale, I’m seeing this girl, I love her to bits, and it’s really serious, what would you do? He said I should just keep it to myself, why upset you for no reason? What are the odds on meeting the perfect person in the first place, you know? Why fuck it up because of one weird coincidence that didn’t mean anything?’
‘So us meeting, that was a coincidence then?’
‘No, Kirsty, it was a plan. I deliberately worked for Ollie, so I could wait till his marriage broke up and get myself invited to his future wife’s godawful party, so I could hopefully chat up her sister, thereby keeping quiet about who I knew when I was fifteen. Come on, that’s insane. Listen, please?’
He leaned forward, his eyes pleading. ‘Kirsty, I made a mistake. I was trying to protect you in a really badly thought-out way. I can see that now, but it’s not a hanging offence, is it? Come on!’
‘If you barely knew Bryan, why did you run away from him today? And why did he recognise you straight away? He didn’t recognise me straight away, and I really did know him for years, but you? Bingo! “Hi, Lee!”’
Lee opened his palms, all weary confusion. ‘I don’t know why he recognised me. I wish to fuck he hadn’t.’
They were silent again for a long time.
‘I’m taking a shower,’ Kirsty said eventually.
‘Do you want me to order food?’
‘I don’t care,’ she told him. His stricken face pained her, so much so that she could feel herself wavering, giving up. But she made herself resist, turned, locked herself in the little bathroom. As the water pounded her mind yammered: Boys in the park are a bad lot. Boys in the park are a bad lot. Boys…
Three things in one day: An old ‘friend’. The angel ring. Lee being one of the Bad Lot Boys in the park. The more Kirsty thought about it, the more woozy she felt, and the more she wished she could speak to Sylvia – the only other person on earth who would understand how she felt and help her figure out what to do.
When she got out of the shower, pink and wrapped in towels, Lee was still sitting at the table, but instead of wearing the abject expression he had before, he was now red with rage. He held her phone in his hands.
‘You’ve got a message from your guru,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘“I’m worried about you. Someone close isn’t being fair.”’ His voice was a nasty, mincing parody of a nosy old lady. ‘“They’re lying and will still lie. Any word from L?”’ He held the phone in one hand, the other curling into a fist on the table top. ‘What’s that mean?’
‘Give me that!’
‘Who’s L? It’s me, isn’t it?’
‘No.’
‘Of course it’s me,’ Lee said slowly, quietly. ‘What other L would it be? What’s she been saying about me?’
‘It’s… all this, Lee, it’s difficult to explain. It’s…’ She closed her eyes, heard his chair scraping closer to hers. The tension in the room dropped, was still dropping. ‘It’s Lisa. L is Lisa. Sylvia says she’s in contact.’
Lee paused, looked at her. ‘Fuck off.’
‘But that’s got nothing to do with anything, anyway. You’re just trying to change the subject!’
‘So what else has she been – sorry Lisa – been telling you about me?’
‘Nothing about you. Why? What’re you scared of?’
‘Honestly? You losing your fucking mind is what I’m scared of!’
‘It’s not a difficult question, Lee!’
‘No. No, it’s not a difficult question. Difficult is being briefly acquainted with some wanker decades ago – that’s impossible to understand.’
Kirsty took a deep breath; decided to ask a question that only a few hours ago would have seemed insane.
‘Do you know what happened to Lisa? Tell me the truth.’
She sounded quite calm.
Lee flinched as if he’d been slapped. ‘What did you just say to me?’
‘Lisa.’ Her calm was cracking now. ‘I think you know something about what happened. I think you were in the park that day and you saw her and—’
Lee got up then, and walked straight out of the door. She could hear his footsteps on the worn stair carpet and they were slow, dragging, as if he was injured, and still Kirsty sat, as if frozen, on her chair, hearing him climb into the van, close the rattling door, start the engine. She began to thaw only as she heard him drive away. When she made it to the window, she saw that he’d taken the discarded bouquet Kirsty had left on the passenger seat and tossed it onto the street. Some scattered flowers were already being nosed into the drain by a stray dog. The sky, grey, threatened rain.
Twenty-Two
Kirsty had spent her entire life avoiding conflict; now she was the source of conflict – or if not the source, the person who made sure it escalated. She cried, now, for many reasons: shock at her own audacity, at Lee’s betrayal, at being faced with the ogre from her childhood. And this shock was sharpened by doubt in herself – had she been fair? Was Lee squirming under pressure or genuinely, crushingly contrite
? Was his anger justified, or was it merely deflection? Had he run like a caught coward, or had he fled under friendly fire? And Bryan… him showing up, a ‘friend’ who was not a friend, the ring for his daughter in the shape of an angel… The fact that Bryan was connected to the Leaveses, that he was thrown in Kirsty’s path like that. Perhaps (surely!) this was merely evidence that she was back dealing with a small underclass in a small city. This wasn’t like London: this was a place where everyone knew everyone else, no-one left, and all families, at some point, had a common ancestor. Looking at it like that, it would be more surprising if Bryan hadn’t had a kid with Mona. And the ring? Well, it was just a ring, a cheap bit of ugly tat, that’s all. A snake or an angel, it was just a ring. The Argos catalogue was full of them…
And so she called Lee, but he didn’t answer the phone. She left three voicemails before he turned it off. He’d never ever turned his phone off before. She didn’t know what that meant. Pain? Anger? Cowardice? Guilt? It was all so cripplingly confusing that she cried like a child. When Sylvia called her at eight, she was still crying.
* * *
‘Poor man,’ Sylvia murmured. ‘I mean, poor you, but, oh, he must feel terrible. So guilty.’
Kirsty’s voice was a cracked whisper. ‘I handled it really really badly.’
‘Well, yes and no. I can understand why you… It’s none of my business but… Well, he did lie, didn’t he? And for – how long have you been together?’
‘Nearly ten years.’
‘But, now I’m thinking of it, he didn’t lie so much as not tell the whole truth. There is a difference, I think. Don’t be too hard on him, Kirsty! He’s a man and men are like that. They don’t like to be challenged. I could see that in him when I first met you at that party – he’s forceful, yes, but it’s all to protect you, isn’t it?’
‘But that’s the thing, Sylvia, this wasn’t to protect me, it was to protect himself.’
Sylvia hesitated. ‘Yes. Yes, I can see your point.’
‘And he only got angry when he read your message. Before that it was me that was angry and as soon as he read your text he just turned it all around and suddenly he was the victim—’
‘He read your private message?’ Sylvia was shocked.
‘Yes!’ Something about Sylvia’s disapproval kick-started Kirsty’s own righteous indignation. ‘That’s not right, is it? I mean, I have every right to be angry about that, don’t I?’
‘You certainly do,’ Sylvia replied warmly.
‘He has a… problem with psychics and mediums—’
‘Why?’ Sylvia asked. ‘I mean, I could tell, of course. At the party he made that quite clear. I felt sorry for Marie, having to ignore him. But, do you know why he hates me?’
‘He doesn’t hate you, he doesn’t really know you. I’m sure if he did he’d think the world of you. It’s psychics and fortune tellers and all that he hates. He thinks they’re all charlatans.’
‘Oh lord, I’ve caused so much trouble,’ Sylvia whispered. ‘I’m so, so sorry! I should’ve kept my mouth shut, minded my own business.’
‘It’s not your fault. He just needs to calm down.’
‘And, does it take him a while to calm down?’ Sylvia asked after a pause.
‘He doesn’t get angry often, but when he does it takes him a long time, yes. But this was different. I’ve never seen him like this before.’
‘Mmmm,’ Sylvia said, after another delicate pause.
‘What? What do you think about it?’
‘What I think is neither here nor there,’ she said stoutly. ‘It’s what you think that matters.’
‘I’ll give him an hour and try again,’ Kirsty said miserably.
‘Well – and this is none of my business, so please tell me to keep my nose out – but, well, he stormed out, didn’t he? He kept the truth from you for all these years, didn’t he?’
‘Well…’
‘And so why is it you who’s trying to smooth everything over? It seems to me… no. No, it’s none of my business.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Well, do you remember your cards? The Ten of Swords had you feeling betrayed and unsupported? And crossing that was the King of Swords? Do you remember what that card means?’
‘Someone who is all about reality and rules and the way things should be?’
‘Exactly! And if you remember, the rest of the spread pointed to that man being frightened or something being discovered, willing to lash out about it.’
‘Well that happened, didn’t it? I found out he knew Bryan and now he’s ashamed and…’
‘Ye-es. That’s a part of it, for sure. But something tells me that that’s not all of it. That spread – it’s stuck in my mind – it was so vivid… that spread went deep. Do you remember the last card? The Three of Cups?’
‘And I thought that meant Lisa…’
‘And I think that too. But not just her. You and me also.’ Sylvia paused. ‘Sometimes the cards reveal their meaning over weeks, over months. They’re tricky that way, but they always tell the truth, however much you might not want to hear it. They’re… merciless. But if you’re strong and take what they’re saying on board, they never steer you wrong.’
‘I’ve never seen that side of Lee,’ Kirsty said, almost to herself. ‘Never. It was scary. It came out of nowhere.’
‘Nothing comes out of nowhere,’ Sylvia told her. ‘Take care of yourself. Write down your dreams, look out for clues. Something is coming to a head, I can feel it. You can too, can’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Kirsty answered. ‘Yes I can.’
Two days later she received another note at work, but this time it wasn’t shoved under her door. This time it was in an envelope, neatly Sellotaped at eye level.
Everything that is happening and everything that will happen is because of you. You cause trouble wherever you go. Bad lot.
After reading this, Kirsty stayed sitting, her head on her desk for some minutes, trying to take deep breaths. She tried to summon up the strength she’d had before during the epiphany in her office. She tried to make herself believe that the person sending the notes was scared of her, desperate. They had to be, didn’t they, if they were trying this hard to make her leave?
But, oh! She wanted to leave now! She wished to god she’d never come back now! If she hadn’t come back, she would never have known that Lee was a liar, she wouldn’t be alone.
It was true. She did cause trouble, this was all happening because of her. She’d discovered things she’d never wanted to discover, unearthed secrets she’d rather never have known. Her marriage was in limbo, her sense of self was fractured. And she’d done this all herself by coming back here and stirring up the past like a wasps’ nest.
The sound of her phone made her jump. Sylvia. Kirsty felt a welcome wave of safety.
‘I was just thinking about you. I had a feeling you might need a chat?’
‘Oh my god, Sylvia, you have no idea!’
‘Did… call…’ Sylvia’s voice wavered in and out, crackling like an old record. ‘After…?’
‘I can’t hear you very well, the signal’s—’
‘… awful after… can’t help… my fault…’
‘What? Sylvia, you’re breaking up—’
‘I…’ in and out, like a ghost, ‘strange… note…’
‘Note?’ Her heart quickened. ‘What note? Where?’
‘Under my door… came in the night.’
‘What did it say?’
‘Whatever you think you—’
‘—know you don’t,’ Kirsty chimed in.
‘Same thing?’ Sylvia’s voice was as wavering as the connection. ‘What does it… I don’t know… mean… you?’
‘I can’t hear you. I’ll come over after work if that’s all right? We can talk about it?’
Sylvia’s voice throbbed with relief. ‘… like that… scared.’
Then the phone cut out.
The note and the knowledge that Sylvia,
too, had received a note from what must be the same person thrummed through Kirsty’s body like caffeine, and her mind was split in two all day – half of her roamed the humid, soupy wards and negotiated the crowded sick and their sick-looking relatives swelling the corridors, with a brisk pace. She rap-rapped on doors, nodded, took notes with a brisk efficiency that smacked of central casting. The morning held meetings with a psychiatric nurse with halitosis; an abrupt accountant on the autistic spectrum who needed painstaking guidance on how to care for his dementia-ridden mother; and something her jolly, over-medicated line manager had dubbed a ‘file cleanse’ (‘best-practice-overview-sort-the-wheat-from-the-chaff’). All the while the other half of her mind ran along feverish lines to the same fixed points: Sylvia, Lisa and, between them, some hidden, buried truth, and this dispelled the self-doubt she’d felt in the morning. The truth, she knew for certain, was within her grasp, being pushed closer and closer by Lisa herself.
She skipped lunch and opted for caffeine pills washed down with more coffee from the Spice of Life. It tasted like iron filings. Time sped, she was efficiency itself, and she was walking purposefully down a busy corridor when she collided with a woman who was just leaving the lift and dropped her phone. It broke into three neat pieces.
‘Shit!’ Kirsty – un-caffeinated, well-rested, less-distracted Kirsty – would have apologised. This Kirsty merely barked, ‘Can you find the battery? It went over there somewhere?’
The woman stayed still, making no attempt to help or move on.