Liars: A gripping psychological thriller with a shocking twist

by Frances Vick

  ‘I just can’t believe you did this.’ She dragged her eyes from the shoes and looked up at David. Then she glanced at Freddie. ‘But I can’t—’

  ‘You can.’ David was firm.

  ‘Well will you let me—?’

  ‘Pay me back? No.’ He sat back, took a sip of his juice. ‘All of this is really down to Freddie anyway.’

  ‘What?’ Freddie asked.

  David smiled, with just a touch of condescension. ‘Something you said made a real impression on me. “Knowing what you want and going for it”?’

  ‘Well, I meant… I was talking about Jen, and the career and all that…’ Freddie trailed off confusedly. ‘I didn’t mean buy the shop.’

  ‘No, it was very useful. I took it to heart, really.’ He looked at his phone. ‘So, shall we eat? What’s a nice place, Freddie? What would you recommend?’

  ‘There’s a nice Thai place round the corner?’ Freddie answered weakly. ‘We went there on a work do once, the all you can eat buffet is nice and—’

  David wrinkled his nose. ‘No. I think we can do better than that. I’ll just nip outside to make a call. It’s too… loud in here, don’t you think? Why does the music have to be so loud?’ And he bounded out of the door again, leaving Jenny and Freddie facing the boxes and bags strewn on the table.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Freddie managed after a while.

  ‘I know.’ Jenny opened the shoebox again, took a dreamy peek. ‘The shoes alone are £300.’

  ‘What’re you going to do? I mean—’

  ‘Jenny?’ A man with a greying mullet and a Celtic Frost T-shirt shambled towards them. ‘Sal’s kid? Jenny? Dougie? Remember me?’

  Jenny froze, half turned. ‘Hey, Dougie.’

  ‘Boyfriend?’ He nodded at Freddie.

  ‘Just a friend,’ she answered tightly.

  ‘And how’s Sal getting on now then?’

  ‘She’s dead,’ Jenny said shortly. Then she stood, picked up the bags.

  ‘Christ! What? Sal?’ Dougie wobbled in his boots. ‘How? How’d that happen then?’

  ‘Got to go, Dougie.’ Jenny got up quickly. ‘Freddie, come on.’ She pointed at the door. Freddie nodded dumbly to Dougie, and followed Jenny out like a dog.

  ‘Who was that then?’ Jenny didn’t hear him. She was casting about in the darkening street, looking for David. ‘Jen? Who was that? Why’d we have to leave?’

  ‘Just some… old friend of Mum’s. One of the old gang. Marc and all those types.’ Her mouth tightened with distaste. ‘One of those bastards.’ She shivered. ‘Where’s David got to then?’

  ‘Call him?’

  ‘No, better not, he doesn’t like to be called,’ she answered absently. ‘We’ll just wait. That’s all.’

  ‘Well can’t we wait inside? It’s freezing out here. What d’you mean he doesn’t like to be called?’

  ‘He just— He just doesn’t like to be called, that’s all,’ Jenny said shortly. ‘And I don’t need Dougie and his old crew asking about Mum.’

  ‘How come he didn’t know? About Sal I mean.’

  ‘I don’t know, Fred. Maybe he missed the leaflet drop. Or maybe I didn’t fancy inviting every dodgy drunk she used to knock about with to the funeral?’

  ‘All right.’ Freddie’s voice was hurt. ‘I didn’t mean anything—’

  ‘No. You didn’t mean anything.’ Her voice was hard. Then she looked at him, and it softened. ‘I know you didn’t. I’m sorry. It just… it freaks me out when I see people from all those years ago, that’s all. It makes me think I haven’t come that far after all.’ She smiled tightly, but it was still a smile. She checked her phone. ‘I have to get to the hair salon. Here, can you take one of the bags?’

  ‘What are you going to do about all this stuff?’ Freddie asked, puffing under the weight of the bag as they trotted across the road.

  ‘I can’t keep it. Can I?’

  It was difficult to gauge her meaning. Was she asking for his permission, or stating a fact? He looked at her pale face, sad now. The wind streaked around the corner, blowing her hair back from her forehead, exposing her creased forehead, her pinched eyebrows.

  ‘I can’t, can I? Keep this stuff?’ she asked again.

  And Freddie thought about Dodgy Dougie and His Old Crew. Such a sinister phrase. It sounded like a pub band from the 70s, reformed after serving their sentences for various sex crimes… The Old Gang. What must it be like to be Jenny? To have a past like that, all those demons, all that pain. So close to happiness, but never quite reaching it… and so he did what he knew would make her feel good. ‘Yes, you can,’ he told her. ‘You deserve everything good Jen. He wants to buy you nice things and, well, you deserve nice things.’ She looked so grateful that he went further. ‘He’s really... nice. David, he really is.’

  ‘He is, isn’t he? I know he’s a bit… old-fashioned, but he really gives a shit, you know? And there haven’t been many of them in my life. It’s just been you, really. And now him, and—’

  ‘Speak of the devil!’ Freddie was relieved to see David bearing down on them. He didn’t especially want to carry on singing David’s praises, or listen to Jenny doing it either.

  He accompanied them as far as the salon door, and then made his excuses. Early meeting. Presentation. Prep to do beforehand.

  ‘Oh, Fred, don’t go,’ Jenny said anxiously.

  ‘Yes, can’t you stay out a little longer? Have dinner?’ David was less convincing. ‘I managed to get a table at the new place on the wharf. It’s meant to be very good.’

  Freddie paused for a second. That place is Michelin starred…

  Then his phone rang, and Barbra Streisand had her predictable effect on David. He stiffened, and when Freddie silenced the phone, shuddered.

  ‘No, I’d love to, but I just can’t,’ Freddie said firmly. ‘But have fun, and, Jen, send me a picture of your hair after? And tell them to go easy on the product. Serum is not your friend.’

  As he left he heard David giving Jenny precise haircut instructions: ‘Only an inch or two off the length but layers for body. And a conditioning treatment…’

  22

  You Can’t Go Home Again

  Unpublished post

  A while ago I was watching some American talk show, and the peppy host was interviewing a mother and her child. They’d been in a terrible car crash, and, despite being injured herself, this mother had somehow managed to rescue her child by lifting the entire car off him and dragging him out. She tore all her muscles doing it, but she didn’t let herself feel the pain until her baby was safe. Then, and only then, she collapsed. She said something that really struck me: He’s more important than me. Any mother would do the same.

  Huh. I thought. Any mother? Really?

  The other day I saw one of Mum’s old friends. Ran into him in a pub. A pub I haven’t been to in years. A pub I’ve never liked. He was exactly the same, just greyer. The same dried patches of spit at the corners of his mouth. Hands still shaking and nicotine stained. Fewer teeth. He knew Marc too. They all knew Marc.

  I was with people I loved, people who cared about me, but as soon as I saw this man, the old fear swept in and I had to run away, chased by my own childhood, poking and prodding at me.

  For the first time I have someone who needs me (yes, I’m hearing Stevie Wonder too). I thought that if I made my place in the world, if I was loved and valued, everything would be all right, and yet The Bad Thing isn’t going away. It’s coming back with more force. Maybe that’s what happens? Maybe your mind waits until you’re safe to process all the unsafe memories?

  So, *trigger warning*: This post is about abuse. I need to write this, but not at the expense of your comfort. Please, please don’t read further if it might in any way harm your own recovery.

  OK, here goes.

  My mum had a boyfriend. We moved in with him when I was eight, and for a few years nothing bad happened. To me, anyway. Then it started.

  He’d come into the bathroom whe
n I was in the shower, sit on the toilet, just ‘having a chat’, but he’d stay until the water ran cold, and he knew I couldn’t stand it any more, and I’d have to get out. Then he’d hand me a towel. That was all. Later I had to ‘pay’ for the towel by kissing his cheek. Sometimes I had to let him dry me. I’d be about eleven then. Mum once told him not to be so affectionate with me. That’s what she said, ‘affectionate’.

  I hate writing this. I hate it.

  Mum didn’t know. No. No, I’m being honest, I have to be honest. Perhaps she did know? I think, on some level, she had to, because her attitude towards me changed. I stopped being her child and became her competition. She seemed jealous of me. She borrowed my clothes, somehow managing to squeeze herself into my twelve-year-old’s jeans and tops, as if this was some twisted love triangle, and we were fighting over this man – this balding man, with his cigarettes and pot belly and coke habit.

  Then she stopped buying me clothes altogether. Maybe it was her way of punishing me for what was happening? I don’t know, but soon only my school uniform still fitted me. One day Marc came back with a bag full of clothes – I don’t know where he got them from – but they were teenagers’ clothes, kind of slutty – crop tops with slogans on them. Tight jeans. I remember Mum trying to make a joke out of it – ‘You never get me anything nice!’. She tried to normalise it. ‘Let’s have a fashion show – Jen, model your new clothes for us.’ And she made me put on every outfit, in every permutation. I didn’t want to wear this stuff, but I had no choice, I didn’t have anything else to wear. People stared at me in the street, and girls said nasty things. Once, on non-uniform day, I was kerb-crawled by a man, all the way home from school. That was scary, but I didn’t want to tell Mum in case, somehow, she blamed me.

  I want to say I’m remembering all this now, but it’s not true. I’m re-remembering it. I’m letting myself think about it.

  There’s other things, but I don’t want to write them down. Maybe some time, but not now.

  When you’ve experienced abuse, it’s very difficult to understand safety, permanence, comfort. When you’ve experienced abuse, it colours everything, alters your perceptions. To this day I can’t, hand on heart, say I feel safe.

  But I will say this – I’m going to try, as hard as I can, to recover. And that means putting down my burdens, letting myself be looked after, pampered. Babied? Maybe. But there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s what I deserve.

  Anyway. Apologies for the self-indulgence. And, as ever, take care of yourselves!

  Jay XOXO

  23

  ‘I’m telling you, Fred, it’s just, God, awful, the things some of them have gone through,’ Jenny said through a mouthful of food. ‘I mean, I can’t talk about the details obviously, but. God.’

  ‘Is this the group sessions or the one-to-one?’

  ‘Both. But the group sessions are probably more intense.’ Jenny had been on placement now for two months and, since their truncated evening at The Bristolian, Freddie hadn’t seen a great deal of her. Between work, college and her placement she barely had any free time. This hurried lunch was in lieu of several missed dates.

  ‘So, what are the group sessions like?’ he asked.

  ‘Strange. Fascinating, but strange. They say all the right supportive things to each other, listen respectfully and all that, but then immediately counter with their own experience. So there’s almost this one-upmanship going on, you know? “Yes, I totally understand how lost you must feel after your ninety-year-old nan died, because I felt the same when my entire family died in a car crash”. “Yes, your miscarriages are awful; when my eleven-year-old died of cancer…”.’ She laid down her fork, and took a sip of water. ‘There’s these two competing dynamics. One is, like, intense empathy and the other is a kind of competitive narcissism, you know?’

  ‘That sounds shit,’ Freddie told her.

  ‘It is. But it’s fascinating too. Just seeing how people work to impress each other in strange ways, you know? It’s all about feeding the ego with sympathy.’ She pushed her plate away. ‘But, yeah, it’s… intense.’

  ‘Are you eating enough?’ Freddie pointed at her half-eaten plate of food.

  ‘Oh.’ She waved one hand in an irritated way. ‘You sound like David.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No, not in a bad way.’ The irritation disappeared. ‘I mean, he said the same thing the other day. I’m probably not though, in fairness. I forget to eat lunch most days. Too busy.’

  ‘You need to look after yourself a bit more,’ Freddie told her anxiously. ‘You don’t want to burn out. And what about the blog? That’s been pretty quiet lately.’

  ‘I know. I know.’ She sighed. ‘I just haven’t had the time—’

  ‘I’m not criticising. It’s just, you always found it useful, a safety valve.’

  ‘David’s a bit iffy about the blog at the minute.’ She pushed her hand through her hair.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh, he’s very private. And he worries about me – especially after all the comments after Mum died, you know. He doesn’t want me to go through that again.’

  ‘It’s nice that he’s supportive,’ Freddie said carefully. ‘But you have to do what feels right for you, haven’t you?’ It felt strange to pick his phrases so carefully. But he hadn’t seen her in such a long time, and she was so tired and stressed that he didn’t want to tire her further with any criticism of David – however minor.

  ‘Can I tell you something?’ She looked out from under her hair. ‘About David?’

  His heart sped up a little. ‘Of course.’

  ‘He has a real problem with Matt. He wants me to move out of the flat and in with him and Catherine.’ She flopped one tired arm onto the tabletop. ‘What d’you think?’

  ‘Why does he have a problem with Matt?’

  ‘It’s my fault really. I shouldn’t have… I knew he’d freak out a bit.’ She frowned. One finger picked at an already bitten nail. ‘Sometimes I think Matt’s been in my room. It’s silly, it’s just a feeling.’

  ‘Oh what?’ Freddie spluttered. ‘You didn’t tell me that! What?—’

  ‘But I’m probably imagining it. I’m so tired when I get back I can’t see straight. I’m probably just being paranoid.’

  ‘But why d’you think he’s—?’

  ‘Oh, like I said, it’s silly. Just sometimes the door’s open when I know I left it closed. Things in my drawers look different, like they’ve been touched. But it’s all just… nothing. Anyway, stupidly I told David and, well, you know how protective he is of me. He really wants me to move in.’

  Freddie paused. The idea of her moving in with David was… alarming. ‘You could come and stay with me?’ he said eventually.

  ‘No, I can’t leave. I’ve got ages left on the lease. And anyway, if I stay with you, that’ll hurt David’s feelings.’ She shook her head. ‘No, I’m just being silly. I’m just tired and… anyway, listen, what’re you doing this weekend? David’s invited us to his house for a meal.’

  ‘You’re sure I’m invited?’

  ‘Well, yes. Of course.’ She smiled. ‘Why wouldn’t you be?’

  ‘He’s not invited me before,’ Freddie replied. ‘I don’t think he likes me much.’

  ‘He does!’ Jenny was over-bright. ‘He thinks you’re brilliant.’

  ‘Oh come on, Jen...’

  ‘He just takes a while to open up, that’s all. He likes you. He does!’ Freddie ducked his head, absurdly aware that he was suddenly close to tears. Silly. Childish. But he was used to people liking him. And he wasn’t used to seeing less and less of Jenny. The fact that she was trying so hard to deny the obvious was painful. Sweet, but painful.

  ‘I’m a third wheel nowadays.’ He tried to mitigate the self pity with a laugh, but that only made things worse. His throat closed. His head felt hot.

  Jenny took his hand. ‘Look, I know that David is a bit reserved, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t like you. If it me
ans anything at all, it means he doesn’t know you. It’s taken me a while to get my head around it too, but all it is is that he’s very English, you know? He’s not impulsive, he’s careful. He kind of lets his actions speak for him. Like when he bought me all those clothes, and the shoes. That was his way of telling me he loved me. Some people are just like that, aren’t they? They don’t say what’s on their mind; they show you, and I know that making a meal is a big deal for him.’ She smiled. ‘He’s actually planning menus! We had a long conversation last night about how much you might like mussels.’

  ‘Not at all. You told him that, right?’

  ‘Yep. And then he started worrying about desserts.’

  ‘That’s sweet.’

  ‘It is sweet. He’s sweet. That’s one of the things I like about him – he’s… different. He thinks about things, he’s very deliberate. Because he really wants you to like him, he’s nervous around you, and maybe that shyness comes across as… being standoffish? Anyway, a meal, well that’s his way of asking if you’ll be his friend. Genuinely. Please come? You’re my two favourite people, and I need you to get along so I can be happy. Not going to lie, I’m being incredibly selfish, here, OK? Please?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s the thing about you. Completely self-centred.’ He grinned and blinked a tear away. ‘Absolute bitch. I should warn David about you.’

  ‘Warn him this weekend then. That’s your chance to save him.’ She squeezed Freddie’s hand, and became serious. ‘I’ve missed you, Fred. Just because I’m seeing someone, it doesn’t mean that you and me—’

  ‘Stop.’ He dabbed at his eyes. ‘Christ, all right. I’ll come. Don’t say anything else about it or I’ll dissolve completely. What’s wrong with me?’

  She patted his hand again. ‘Menopause?’

  He’d been planning on mentioning the ringtone thing, and telling her about the profile picture but, now, after such a long time apart, and after this heartfelt exchange, how could he? He hadn’t so far, so why would he now, after David was making such an effort to be his friend? And they didn’t signify anything anyway – Jenny was in love with a nice man, a man who worried about and cared for her, a decent man who was just a bit on the shy side, and Freddie feeling a bit left out and lonely, jealous even, had blown things out of proportion. That was all.