The Good Liar

by Nicholas Searle

  ‘It’s a pivotal period in our history, with the Hanoverian succession and the struggle between Scottish Catholicism and Presbyterianism.’

  ‘Very interesting I’m sure. I never was one for history. Not the

  academic type. What’s the point of looking back? I ask myself.

  What’s done is done in my humble opinion. You’ll never undo it.’

  ‘But you may begin to understand it.’

  ‘Oh yes. I suppose so. I don’t mean to knock it,’ says Roy. ‘I bow

  to your greater knowledge. Just not for me, that’s all. All that living in the past.’

  The clock ticks, measuring the distance between them.

  ‘Oh well,’ says Roy, ‘each to his own.’

  ‘I’d better be getting on,’ says Stephen. ‘I said I’d be at Gerald’s by six.’

  ‘ Righty- ho,’ says Roy, and turns to the window again. In his head Stephen has already left.

  3

  The beginning of autumn, as is customary after a summer whose

  occasional promise failed to materialize, is perversely fine and

  warm.

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  Roy ventures out for a stroll, to get out of the house. Betty has

  commenced her fussy cleaning routine. The racket of the vacuum

  cleaner and the disruption of his having to move his feet while trying to sit in peace with the newspaper are usually enough to stir him.

  She picks up items, sprays, dusts and tidies away the detritus of his existence, splashes water in invisible places and flushes the lavatory, all the while humming with tunelessness and cheerfulness in equal

  measure. He cannot bear a repeat of the excruciating mini- lecture on the toilet habits of ‘little boys’ to which she once subjected him.

  He felt almost sorry for her, she was so embarrassed, poor thing.

  So he has mumbled that he will get out from under her feet and

  leave her in peace, and now shuffles his way across the cobblestones in shambling discomfort. Only once he is out of sight of the house

  will he be able to pick up his feet and quicken his pace.

  It is a real effort, but a necessary one, to convey this message of infirmity. It has demanded thought, planning and occasional

  self- denial to suppress that reflex urge to vigour. But this way is in his interests, and Betty’s too. They know their places. Betty is far better off contentedly managing the household and its quirks, preparing his meals and keeping everything sanitary. This is what he

  has aimed for.

  For the moment. His ambitions range somewhat more adventur-

  ously than simply securing the ease of someone else catering to his needs. It’s a neat trick to pull, to be sure, but he also wants one last punt, one final heart- stopping session at the roulette table. And he thinks Betty is the one to enable it. The cessation of purposeful

  activity rankles, and Betty can – inadvertently of course – help him scratch the itch. There will be a series of delicate balances to manage. That is his forte, he thinks fondly.

  He is now some distance from the house and nearing the dark

  passageway that gives on to the pedestrian area. He feels it is safe to move faster. But just as he does so he finds he has to slow again. His heart is pounding, he is breathless and he feels vaguely nauseous

  and faint. He reflects that perhaps he is not in the tip- top condition he likes to imagine. He is no longer of an age for bravado. He tot-ters on, somewhat disorientated.

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  In the Little Venice Coffee Shop he orders a cafetière and a slice

  of chocolate cake smothered in cream. This is his haven. He has few indulgences, but decent coffee is one. Not many places in England,

  let alone in this small cathedral city lying nicely out of sight and out of mind in the Wiltshire wilderness, have the competence to purchase good Arabica beans and produce something palatable from

  them. This is one, and it has the gentility of good service too, solicitous but with a spine of efficiency. When the coffee arrives he sighs, closes his eyes and breathes the aroma. If he suspends disbelief

  sufficiently he can imagine that he is sitting in a cafe in Vienna or in a well- upholstered Konditorei in some bourgeois, complacent German town. All German towns are of course bourgeois and

  complacent, he thinks. He can imagine, but only briefly, and is soon brought back to dog- shit England. Maybe sixty years ago, he thinks; more like seventy, and the rest. He unfolds his newspaper and is at peace.

  At last he has gone out. It seems the only way to rouse him from

  that seat in the afternoon is to start to clean. She occasionally has to resort to leaving the house, for fictitious tea with fictitious

  friends, or an imaginary shopping errand, so that she can compose

  herself, bring her heart back to near normal and find the right face again.

  He has his routine. He rises earlier than she does. Occasionally

  she is woken by his movements as early as six, as he clatters in the kitchen preparing his cup of tea. Then, after an hour or so, she hears him slide across the floor and clump slowly up the stairs. He remains in bed for a further two or three hours before reappearing.

  This is a good thing, since it provides her the opportunity to start her day at leisure. She can go into the small bathroom and, while

  she is running her bath, clean the toilet and the area of vinyl floor around it. At the outset this task made her gag. How could one elderly man spray his urine so indiscriminately across the surfaces yet apparently be so oblivious? But she has become inured to it. Roy has proved impervious to her requests to develop strategies that either 18

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  deal with the problem after the event or avoid it altogether. He

  simply looks at her uncomprehendingly and says nothing.

  Still, this is a small price to pay in the greater scheme of things, she tells herself, as is the full range of his idiosyncrasies. Though the idiosyncrasies – altogether too pleasant a term, she thinks – are accumulating into a tidy stack, she continues to put up with them

  for the longer- term benefit.

  She will bathe and take a leisurely breakfast before Roy reap-

  pears, having shaved. He will sometimes have laid waste the

  bathroom once more with his ablutions. She knows to ensure that

  the newspaper is at hand on the small kitchen table and he will cast a sceptical eye over it while she busies herself with his breakfast. It took several mornings of his opening and slamming cupboard

  doors cluelessly for her to realize that it is easier this way. He will take the toast from the plate while giving his attention to the broadsheet he holds deftly in his left, slightly trembling hand at reading distance. From time to time he will make an acerbic comment

  about the state of the nation, but usually she will be free to carry on with her daily chores.

  Now she hums, alternately, themes from Beethoven’s sympho-

  nies, snatches from Ella Fitzgerald’s Cole Porter Songbook and the choruses of Beatles hits, as she dusts the bookshelves.

  Is this enough? she thinks as a cloud passes across the window. Or

  perhaps it has crossed her heart. Will this be enough? Can it sustain her and if so for how long? How long before she returns to life on

  her own? It must endure, she concludes, at all costs. She must do

  everything she can to accept Roy’s less salubrious habits, together with his idleness, for the sake of the satisfaction and security she craves.

  Stephen, she knows, is beginning to show a restive reluctance

  to put up with Roy’s ways and to conceal his dislike. An unusual

  thing for an unusually courteous
young man, she thinks; and so

  far expressed in minute turns of the head, mild facial expressions

  and marginally infelicitous phrases that, it seems, only she can

  decode.

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  Perhaps he has been brought to this. He worships her, she knows.

  She will have to talk to Stephen. He must understand. He must bear

  it. He must disguise his feelings. She knows that he cares for her and does not like Roy, but he simply must.

  4

  ‘Do you enjoy living here?’ asks Anne as they sip their sherries some five weeks later.

  ‘Oh yes,’ says Roy. ‘Oh yes.’ He glances surreptitiously at his

  watch and resists the urge to shake it for fear – no, in the hope – that it may have stopped. But he knows it hasn’t. Good God, have they

  really only been here for twenty- five minutes?

  All this for this scrawny, unimpressive man and his blowsy wife.

  He casts them a smile that might as well be a grimace. Roy has had

  to spend almost the whole of Saturday exiled from the house while

  Betty primped and prepared it, spending hours, it seemed, over

  whether the extravagant bouquet of cut flowers she had bought

  should sit on the coffee table or the small walnut sideboard. They’ll bring flowers anyway, he’d said forlornly; it’s a waste of money. And sure enough they have.

  This morning he has been subjected to geriatric hyperactivity, a

  running commentary on the preparations and a lengthy debate over

  what he should wear. Good God, he knows full well how to turn

  himself out. He’d had to put his foot down.

  So here they sit, drinking sherry, the component parts of this odd

  gathering, all of them transparently ill at ease apart from Roy, in spite of their quite hopeless attempts to pretend otherwise.

  It is cramped in the small living room. There is a real risk that

  someone will knock over one or more of Betty’s knick- knacks.

  Michael and Anne perch awkwardly on the edge of the small sofa.

  Their unprepossessing daughter, Emma, with spectacles, lank hair

  and an unspecified skin problem, sits on a kitchen chair. Stephen sits on the stairs. Roy thinks, where do they get their ugliness from?

  Certainly not from Betty. Her hubby must have been something to

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  behold, with dominant genes. Michael, Stephen and Emma resem-

  ble to him a family of weasels, with their beady eyes and sloping

  foreheads. Not to mention their snarly, unpleasant Mancunian twangs.

  Betty is in continual motion between them, covering the small

  patch of carpet furiously hither and thither, fussing with nibbles, muttering irrelevancies thirteen to the dozen. Roy leans back in his chair. On one level he is quite enjoying this. Their discomfiture at meeting him for the first time is amusing.

  He stifles a yawn and looks outside. At least they have a decent

  vehicle. Michael’s large metallic German car stands at the kerb in

  the rain. So this nonentity must amount to something despite the

  evidence.

  Someone has spoken to him. The lids close momentarily over his

  eyes as he contains his boredom and strives for civility. ‘Pardon?’ he says.

  ‘I said, you’ve acclimatized to life outside the metropolis all right?’

  asks Michael with infinite patience but in a voice that suggests he is dealing with an imbecile.

  Acclimatized. Yes, that’s the kind of word this bespectacled geek

  would use. He even calls his mother by her given name. Betty this,

  Betty that; not Mother or even Mum. No respect. Disgraceful. But

  it is necessary to hold one’s temper in check.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he says with a thin smile that even he thinks may not be

  entirely convincing. ‘It’s not so hard. I like living here.’

  ‘And you sold your place in London?’

  Cheek. Roy knows what he’s driving at. But he answers calmly.

  ‘No. Not yet. I’m thinking about it, and considering my invest-

  ment options.’ He looks in Betty’s direction and smiles.

  ‘You play the market, then?’ asks Michael with a persistence Roy

  might not have credited.

  ‘Oh no. Not really. No, my money’s safe. I have an associate from

  the old days. A broker who’s looked after me for many years. What-

  ever he comes up with, I’m OK. We’ll be all right, won’t we, my

  dear?’

  ‘Pardon?’ says Betty, flustered as she is interrupted on her way to the kitchen. ‘Oh yes, of course.’

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  They all smile at one another insincerely and then sip their sherry.

  You don’t like me, thinks Roy. Except Betty of course. You don’t like me. And I don’t care. He chuckles inwardly, and then starts. It is

  becoming harder, much harder, as time goes on, to maintain that

  necessary veneer of politesse and feigned eager, smiling interest.

  The ageing process. He must not merely try harder; he must do bet-

  ter. For all their sakes he must show himself an engaged and

  enthusiastic participant, a welcome initiate in the bosom of this

  complacent coterie, not an interloper.

  But it is so very hard. Tolerance has never been his strong suit, he will freely admit – to himself. Disguise of intolerance, yes, but that’s a very different thing. It has been entertaining over the years, as well as rewarding, to mask his true feelings with an indulgent smile and a kind word, for the greater good. But now he is short of time and, it has to be said, low on stamina. Yet he must make the effort.

  ‘So you worked in the City?’ asks Michael as, shuffling and edg-

  ing, they gain their appointed places at the table Betty has laid in the tiny kitchen.

  There is barely room for the six of them and with difficulty they

  extend their elbows behind them to place Betty’s carefully pressed, ancient linen napkins on their laps.

  Roy pauses for a beat to assure equanimity. He says cheerfully, ‘At one time. I was in property. Among other things. I’ve had a few jobs in my time. I can’t say that I was one of the big players. The City then wasn’t what it is today.’

  Stephen thinks: that smile, when he turns it on, is avuncular. Repulsive but avuncular. The ruddy cheeks, the shining eyes, the oozing

  confidence, it fits perfectly. The smile of the assassin, he thinks, and wonders whether others see it this way, unburdened by his preju-dices and the knowledge that he has recently acquired of this man

  at close quarters. Roy, even in old age, is a fairly impressive act.

  He observes Betty, bustling around so far as bustling is possible in such a small space. She is somewhat out of breath, from anxiety, he thinks, as she attends diligently to the needs of her guests, distribut-ing plates, pouring wine, passing bread. The candles are lit and her 22

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  unaccustomed disarray and nervousness confer a certain glowing

  radiance. There is a fixed smile on her lips and the soft light draws out the depth of her brown eyes. She has been to the salon and her

  hair shines and hangs straight and elegant. She is on stage. To him, her performance shines. At the end of the table Roy holds court

  with his smile. He neither helps Betty nor contributes much to the

  conversation yet is the conductor of proceedings. Everything refers back to Roy eventually. Which is only natu
ral, since this occasion, postponed from the summer, is intended to introduce him, induct

  him indeed, into this peculiar family. It is only natural that they should show such interest in him and he deals with their inquisitive-ness with a rediscovered bonhomie and energy. He does not,

  however, display a corresponding curiosity about them.

  ‘Christmas,’ says Michael apropos of nothing, it seems. They all pay attention and it is implicit among them that the statement is directed at Roy.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Roy says in response, a wary curiosity infusing its rising pitch.

  ‘It’s only a month away. Are you one for Christmas, Roy?’

  ‘Well, put it like this, Michael,’ replies Roy. ‘Time was, I was as keen as the next man on Christmas. Those were times of austerity,

  mind you, when if you summoned up an orange for the boy’s stock-

  ing you were something of a magician. I used to make toys, you

  know, for my son, from odd bits of wood. Good with my hands, I

  was. But these days, with all the commercialism and what have

  you . . . And when you get older . . .’ He pauses for a moment of

  reflection. ‘I was on my own last Christmas. I had two pork sausages and a tin of beans for my dinner and I don’t mind telling you I shed a tear or two while I was watching the Queen’s Speech.’

  Stephen and Emma share a glance, and Roy senses the begin-

  ning, quickly quashed, of a smirk passing over her face.

  ‘Well, it doesn’t have to be like that this year,’ says Michael. ‘We were wondering whether the two of you might like to spend Christmas with us. I’m happy to come down on Christmas Eve to pick you

  up, so you don’t have to worry about the train.’

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  ‘Well,’ begins Betty, smiling, but Roy talks across her.

  He says, ‘Too kind, too kind. We couldn’t possibly.’

  ‘No,’ says Michael quickly. ‘You must. Betty would normally

  come to ours anyway and it would be nice to have the two of you.’

  ‘Ah no,’ says Roy, looking directly at Michael. ‘You misunder-

  stand me. Betty and I have set our hearts on our first Christmas

  together being here, alone. Haven’t we, my dear?’

  Betty, looking at Michael, says, ‘Oh yes. I was going to mention