Lies Like Love

by Louisa Reid

  ‘Whatever,’ I said, wondering if I should go over to see Leo and explain.

  I went downstairs and lined up my pills on the worktop. The one to stop me feeling depressed. The one to stop me feeling sick. The one to stop me sleeping all day. The one to stop me cutting rivers in my arms and legs and thighs. There was a pill for everything. Everything except a pill to be free.

  Leo

  Audrey’s kiss had been a shock. Leo hadn’t been sure that she really liked him that much at all. He’d thought that if any moves were going to be made, then he’d be the one to make them, and the fact that Audrey had beaten him to it made him laugh. He’d call her later, he thought, and say something. About how he was glad. About how it felt, how he felt. He screwed up his face, thinking, and stared at the phone. Damn. He didn’t have her number. It didn’t matter; they were back to school the next day and he’d see her then, but in the meantime he could maybe run past the Grange, just to see if she was there.

  ‘What’s made you so sprightly?’ Sue said as they cleared up the debris of the night before.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You enjoyed yourself last night, then?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Sue smirked.

  ‘What?’ Leo laughed, facing her with wide, innocent eyes. ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. Nothing at all,’ she answered, leaving him to it, whistling as she walked back into the house.

  But later when he passed the Grange all was quiet, eerily still. He paused, his breath clouding in the chill November air. From now on he was going to do more to help, Leo decided. And if Lizzy Carr started up anything else he’d be straight in there. It was a mission. He jogged away, throwing glances back over his shoulder, but nothing stirred.

  Audrey

  Leo found me at break on Monday when he strode into the classroom and grabbed my hand. Someone whistled and I saw Lizzy’s face out of the corner of my eye before he pulled me out into the corridor. At first we just grinned at each other.

  ‘Leo –’

  ‘Audrey –’

  Our voices overlapped and I blushed and looked down at the floor, then back up into his eyes. I could just kiss him again; that had worked before. But this was school. And I couldn’t make a habit of it, of kissing people the second they showed me the slightest bit of attention.

  ‘I missed you,’ he said, and that made me shout out a laugh.

  ‘I only saw you on Saturday,’ I said.

  ‘Ages ago. And I don’t have your number. Why don’t I have your number?’

  I shrugged, still smiling. He frowned, tangled both hands in mine.

  ‘So, after school? Come over?’

  ‘I’ll try,’ I said, and he nodded and held my hand for a second before the bell made us both jump and he let go and walked away.

  At the end of the day Mum was waiting in the car outside the gates and I didn’t even get the chance to tell Leo that our plans would have to wait.

  ‘Come on,’ she yelled. ‘I’m over here, Aud.’ The kids milling around outside the school turned and stared. Peter was already in the back, tapping the edge of his stone against the window. Mum reached in and snatched it out of his hand.

  ‘What’s going on? What’s happened?’

  ‘No panic. Just your appointment,’ she said. ‘Don’t tell me you forgot?’

  ‘Oh.’ I started to breathe again. ‘I thought that was next week.’

  ‘I brought it forward. Lucky I phoned; they had a space. I managed to persuade the secretary.’

  ‘Mum.’ It came out in that whiny voice little kids use.

  ‘What’s the problem? You don’t have somewhere else you need to be, do you?’ She raised what was left of her eyebrows. She’d picked them red raw.

  ‘No. Obviously not. Because I don’t get to have a life, do I?’

  ‘Watch your mouth, young lady.’

  The rest of the drive she didn’t speak. The air in the car grew thick and hot and I wound down the window to lean away from the smell.

  At the hospital we waited ages; you always do. Then we went in, leaving Peter in the waiting room, sitting there playing with the box of toys meant for much littler kids.

  ‘You’ll watch him for me, won’t you?’ Mum said to the woman on reception, who nodded and smiled.

  ‘Audrey. Mrs Morgan?’ The bloke was in a pinstripe suit. Clean shaven. He didn’t look like any of the other shrinks I’d seen.

  ‘Yes, that’s us,’ Mum said, holding her bag in front of her like a shield, her eyes narrow and assessing.

  ‘I’m Harry Wakeman. Take a seat.’

  Mum sat, raised an eyebrow, looked at him – her dead-eye stare. It made no impression. Harry Wakeman just smiled and rubbed his hands together before placing them flat on his thighs and leaning in.

  ‘So, Doctor Caldwell has referred Audrey to me. She suggests that Audrey’s dealing with a number of issues. I’d like to talk a little about them, if that’s all right; try and work out where we are as things stand today.’

  ‘I can tell you straight off,’ Mum began. He held up his hand.

  ‘Bear with me, Mrs Morgan, I’ll come to you in a moment. Audrey – how are you doing?’ He had this matey voice, like we could be pals. I hated this sort. I didn’t need a friend; I needed a life.

  ‘Fine.’ I folded my arms, crossed my legs.

  ‘Fine, Aud?’ said Mum, huffing, rearranging herself on the chair.

  I nodded. She sighed.

  ‘I’m afraid, that’s not the case. I wish it were.’ She began to tick off my problems on her fingers: ‘Depression. Self-harm. She’s not sleeping, paranoid, refuses to go in her bedroom – says there’s something in there, for God’s sake, something that’s going to get her.’ That meant Mum had read my diary. She wouldn’t know that otherwise. I stared at her, wanted to slap her. Hard. ‘So I’ve got her sleeping on the sofa, taking up the living room every night. Her moods are up and down: one minute she’s delightful, the next minute moody and unpleasant and out of my control. And I’m not talking about your normal teen angst, here. I need help. And now.’

  ‘OK. Mrs Morgan. If you could take a minute to calm down. Let’s try and deal with things one step at a time.’

  But Mum was seriously going for it, sitting up ramrod straight, shoulders tant.

  ‘Plus there’s sex. There’s this lad; she’s mad about him and I’m worried where this could lead.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, she’s clearly vulnerable. And this boy’s older and could be out to take advantage. I’m on the verge of saying I’m not able to cope. I’m on the verge of saying I can’t have her at home any more.’

  ‘How does that make you feel, Audrey?’

  I shrugged, kicked my feet on the floor, making the tiles squeal.

  ‘It must make you feel something, to hear your mother so evidently concerned. So upset.’

  ‘She won’t talk to you,’ Mum told him, and I zoned her out, began to hum quietly, then louder. Mum’s mouth was still moving but at least now I couldn’t hear, and I watched as she pulled up her sleeve, bared her arm to Harry, showing her bruises.

  Harry said something to me. I didn’t hear what, so I just nodded again. Like those stupid dogs you see sitting on the back shelf in cars, heads bobbing up and down, fixed inane grin.

  It went on like that for another twenty minutes. Mum saying things about me. Me not speaking. The therapist trying to get me to open up, as he put it. But there was no point telling him the truth. I wasn’t shy or a mean girl or insane. Not any of those things. Blocking them out, I wrapped my arms round my legs, dropped my head on my knees, humming then rocking. Backwards and forward; forward and back, a cradle for a baby. Whatever it took to get out of there, to shut them up.

  When we got back in the car I couldn’t help a huge sigh. It was so much work, so hard not to feel. Not to care. Mum patted my knee, singing along to the radio as she drove.

  ‘Don’t worry, Aud,’ she said, turning to me for
a second. ‘I’m here. You stay home with me tomorrow, love. Nice and safe.’

  The next morning Mum dropped Peter off at school, then came back home to be with me. She sat talking for ages on the phone.

  ‘Your form tutor’s very understanding, Aud,’ she said when she finally hung up. ‘Nice lady. She says they’ll get some work home for you, that she’ll notify your teachers so you won’t fall behind.’

  ‘I reckon I’ll just go in.’ It was stupid to sit here when there was nothing wrong with me. And I actually wanted to go. Lizzy was nothing. I had Leo.

  ‘Don’t worry, love. I think you need the rest. Just take a day – you’ve been overdoing it; you look tired.’ Mum gave me a hug, passed me a glass of juice. ‘What can I get you? What d’you need?’

  ‘Nothing.’ I walked to the window and looked out.

  Mum sat at the computer, reading her favourite websites, her horoscope, then mine, tutting, laughing, reading out little snippets about her favourite celebs and the royal family. I didn’t listen. I thought about Leo. Itched to get out of the house and find him, just to talk more. My head was full of him. Carrying Peter on his shoulders, holding my hand at the fair, finding me at school, his face pleased to see me, and how he always knew what to say. I thought about kissing him again.

  ‘I’ve been thinking of ways to keep you busy, Audrey, take your mind off your problems,’ Mum said, chewing on a bit of toast, gesturing towards me with the crust.

  I didn’t answer that. She’d once tried to teach me to knit; apparently that would help me deal with things. I’d been useless, all fingers and thumbs. The same with cross stitch – I turned the silk thread into a tight ball of knots within minutes.

  ‘I thought you could set up a page.’ She typed ‘blogging’ into Google. ‘Look at all this. It’s all here, all the advice, how to get started. I was thinking you could do your own little page or something, just to keep yourself busy while you’re sitting at home.’

  ‘What would I blog about?’

  ‘You know, how you’re feeling and things. We could call it something like “A Prayer For Audrey”. What d’you think? There’d be a lot of people interested, you know; there’s a lot of kids out there like you.’

  ‘I dunno.’ I hated it. Really hated it. I didn’t want random people knowing about me. Staring at pictures. It was like holding me up, saying, Look, come and laugh at the weirdo. Imagine Lizzy, if she found it. Imagine what she’d say.

  ‘Look,’ she said, loading a page. ‘Look at this girl here.’

  I read through it. The page was all about a little kid’s battle with cancer; she was only thirteen, there were pictures of her in hospital and a long bucket list of things she wanted to do before she died.

  ‘Mum, I’m not terminally ill.’

  ‘Well, you are sick though. Very poorly. Audrey, mental illness is a serious condition. Sometimes I think you don’t realize.’ For a second I wondered if she’d rather I had cancer. Then at least she could make people feel sorry for me, for her. I would be a much better patient then.

  ‘I think it might be a bit OTT, Mum, that’s all. I just want to get better. Get back to normal. Things were going all right before.’

  ‘They weren’t, Aud. That’s just it. You’ve started cutting again; you’re not sleeping. You can’t pretend that you’re all right; you’ve got to face up to things and work a bit harder to get better. And if these doctors can’t sort you we’ll find some who will.’

  I slumped into the chair.

  ‘Well, tell you what, let’s get it set up anyway. Then see how you feel.’

  So Mum spent the morning doing that. I had to sit next to her and watch. Admire. Agree. Mum chose a colour scheme, designed it all pink and yellow, found some pictures of me that she said she’d scan in at work. They were old ones from when I was a baby.

  ‘Here you are, just out of hospital,’ she said staring. ‘Look, you’re so cute. Tiny though. My God, I thought I’d break you, just picking you up.’

  ‘All right, Mum.’ When she got like this it was hard to stop her. She’d be crying in a minute and I hated it when she cried. It made me itch, want to walk away and scratch my face to ribbons.

  ‘You were so precious. Just this little scrap of a thing. Your dad fell in love with you the second he saw you. He was always a right soppy bugger.’

  ‘My dad?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She never usually mentioned him. Never let me ask questions.

  ‘Do you know where he is now?’

  ‘No. Why would I?’

  Why did he leave us? I wanted to say. Where did he go? Can we find him? I want to know him, Mum, please.

  She checked her watch.

  ‘And it’s time to get Peter. You go, Aud. Fetch something for tea too. I’m knackered with all this. Need a bit of lie down.’

  She took a pill, one of the sleeping tablets a doctor back home had prescribed me, and took herself off to bed. Those pills worked. Like horse tranquillizers or something. She wouldn’t be up for hours now, which meant after I’d met Peter I could see if Leo was around after all.

  Leo

  Leo was thinking about Audrey a lot; when he should have been doing other things, mostly. Like taking notes in English, or listening to the teacher at least. He rested his head on his hand and remembered her, lit up. Her eyes staring at him wide and dark, a shifting smudge of grey, green. And her mouth. Soft. Ridiculously soft. All half-term he’d imagined her with him and that they were hopping on and off London buses together, peering into cases holding ancient artefacts, staring at dinosaurs, skulls, sarcophagi. He could feel how excited she’d be about everything. As if it were all brand new. And now she wasn’t at school.

  ‘Anyone tell me what a paradox is? Hmm?’ The teacher prowled past his desk. Turned on his heel; prowled back the other way.

  No one answered his question. Of course. Leo looked round the room; by all accounts they were mostly asleep.

  It was a mistake to have raised his head. Mr Bruce pounced.

  ‘So, Leo. Perhaps you can enlighten us. You seem to be a mine of technical information.’ For some reason his prior knowledge of this subject irritated Mr Bruce. He was pretty sure he’d heard him sneering about posh kids waltzing around with their silver spoons dangling from their mouths. Leo could have set him straight but he had stored up the story for Sue and they’d laughed about it instead.

  ‘Sure, I know.’

  ‘Would you like to share your interpretation with the class?’

  ‘If you really want.’

  ‘I do. Go ahead.’

  ‘A paradox is a strange contradiction,’ he said, staring out of the window, ‘like the fact that we’re supposedly free to leave here –’ he looked back at the teacher for a second, then gestured at the classroom – ‘any time we choose, but in reality if we did, then the shit would hit the fan. So we are both free and not free at the same time. That’s a paradox. Something that’s true and false. At the same time.’

  The teacher smiled. That was a first. At least he’d made one person happy today.

  ‘An interesting definition, Leo, thank you. I’ll remind you of what Jean-Jacques Rousseau said, perhaps only a little more eloquently than you: “Man is born free, but everywhere is in chains.” You’d agree, I suppose?’

  ‘Yeah, maybe. But Rousseau was a bastard. Dumped his kids. Apparently philosophy was more important than fatherhood. So I wouldn’t necessarily agree with anything he said.’

  Leo switched off again after that. He’d studied Macbeth too many times to care about equivocation and the supernatural and paradoxes.

  The bell rang and he walked fast, forgetting to dawdle, after spending a week with his mother. They’d charged in and out of museums like there was someone chasing them. It seemed the faster you went, the more you’d know, or something like that. And Mum rabbiting on and on about his future, the bloody UCAS form he still hadn’t completed nagging at his conscience. Leo was considering running away. Building a boat and sailing
round the world. Maybe Audrey would come.

  He was some way out to sea when he heard his name being shouted.

  ‘Leo, Leo!’ Voices in unison. Thudding feet behind him. He spun round. Peter barrelled into him, Audrey was a bit behind, but hurrying, her hair streaming out behind her like the girl in the painting in the Tate he’d stared at last week, thinking he recognized her. Not realizing, until now, how that could be.

  ‘Can we come with you?’ Peter said, charging past as Leo paused. ‘I want to play football.’

  ‘You’re on.’

  Leo grabbed Audrey’s hand, didn’t listen to her squealing, ‘Stop,’ but he caught her laughter like a bird in his heart and dragged her along the path; he could have sworn right then there was a chance they might fly.

  Audrey

  At Sue’s we stuffed ourselves, raiding the cupboards for snacks, then lay on the worn rugs in the living room as the light began to fade. Leo crouched beside a record player and began flicking through a pile of albums. Peter and I knew what albums were because once we’d had a huge collection spanning decades: they’d belonged to my dad, Mum said, but he’d left them behind when he’d buggered off. The Beatles, the Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, mixed up with my mum’s Elton John, Tom Jones and Cher. Dad’s prized possessions were the Rolling Stones LPs, first editions which he’d trawled auctions to find. Mum had flogged them at a car boot before we moved. She’d said it was about time; I hadn’t been able to watch and had walked off with Peter and left her to it. Now I sat beside Leo and looked with him.

  ‘Oh, my God. We had these.’ I turned over the copy of Loaded, the names of the songs smiling at me like old friends.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah.’ I remembered dancing. Swinging high off my feet, then staggering, dizzy, hands clutching fistfuls of carpet as I sank to the floor, Dad lifting me up, laughing. A kiss on the top of my head.

  Leo laughed. ‘Pick a record. Anything.’ He sat back and let me get on with it.

  It was a hard choice; I could have spent all day just rummaging.

  ‘OK. I’ll take this.’ I handed over Please Please Me. ‘I feel like dancing,’ I said, then bit my lip. Seriously, Aud. Seriously? You’re going to dance? In the middle of the day? In front of Leo?