Little White Lies

by Philippa East

  In the five a.m. darkness, Robert carried her out to the car. She was fifteen – no, sixteen now – but he was strong and she weighed almost nothing. I followed behind them, sickened with guilt as I shepherded the twins. At home, just as at the very start, we put her straight to bed. Moving like a sleep-walker, she pulled off her clothes, burrowed her way into her sleeping T-shirt and turned over on her side. I knew and I had known it all the way along: Abigail had taken that moment with her into her abduction and Abigail remembered it when she came back. When I picked up her crumpled red dress from the floor, I saw the smudge of blood on the shoulder.

  Dawn was close to breaking outside when I slid into bed next to Robert. I could feel the fury in him. I knew how angry he was.

  He covered his face with his hands as we lay there. ‘How could you not tell me?’

  I could say it now. ‘I should have. I was a coward. I know I let you shoulder the guilt by yourself.’

  ‘You did. I always thought I was to blame. I thought it was all my fault. You know I’ve struggled with that for years.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Why then? Why couldn’t you have told me?’

  I felt the tears come to my eyes, it was so painful for me to voice this other part of it and my throat ached as I brought the words out. ‘Because it was such a terrible thing to have done. It was the worst part of me, everything I didn’t want to be. I thought if I showed you that, I thought if you knew—’ my words were small as teardrops in the dark.‘Robert, I thought for sure you would leave me.’

  In the dissolving darkness, Robert fell silent. For a long, long while we lay there, two bodies in one bed, two paths ahead of us, one choice. There was nothing more I could do. I was no longer hiding from him; he knew my story now, he knew the truth. I knew I might lose him, that I might lose everything, but if I did, at the very least there were no longer lies between us, and knowing that, I felt a strange sense of calm.

  At last, in the breaking light, he reached out for me. His hand slipped over my hip, my stomach, feeling for me in a way he hadn’t done for many, many months. I felt my skin shiver and tears come to my eyes, too much emotion suddenly to hold in. I hardly let myself breathe and I tried to make barely a sound as I turned myself towards him, ready to accept whatever this meant, whether it was goodbye or whether it was love.

  He was rough at first and I couldn’t blame him. I felt the deluge of banked up emotion spill out of him as he pushed and pulled. I accepted the jarring embrace, and I let him because I understood all of this was part of our working through, something that didn’t have words but had the deepest chords of meaning. Before long he slowed and sank and became gentle; the pain disappeared and his anger lifted away, and in the movement and closeness I understood him as well as if he had spoken out loud: he was saying, you aren’t to be blamed, or maybe simpler: I can forgive.

  Afterwards, in the morning light, I showered; the burning water washed all the rest away. With my hair wet, in my dressing gown, I made a mug of tea to take into Abigail. She lay in her bed straight out on her back, as though lying in a coffin. When I set the tea on her bedside table though, her eyelids quivered and I knew she was awake. I gently drew the curtains back, filling the room with bright autumn daylight.

  I pulled the chair over from her desk so that I could sit right beside her. The little blue rabbit lay flopped over on the floor. I set it upright on the table, her flopsy who had come through it all.

  ‘Does it hurt a lot?’ I lifted my hand towards the white bandage on her forehead.

  Her voice was croaky; her throat must have been very dry. ‘No. Not much.’ She squinted in the glare.

  They had given her painkillers when she left the hospital and I was glad she was getting some relief. I took her hand in mine, her skin cool, despite the warmth in the house.

  ‘I wanted to say something the first moment you came home,’ I began. ‘But I didn’t and it’s left you with a terrible misunderstanding.’

  She listened, lids flickering, while I talked. For the first time, I spoke to her about everything that happened that day while her hand lay unmoving in mine. Having confessed once, the second time was easier, and whenever I asked if she understood, she nodded. I stumbled only a little when I got to the end. I found myself repeating phrases, my words becoming clumsy. I got it out though: what I needed to say.

  ‘Anywhere else, Abigail, it wouldn’t have mattered. I’d done that with you before, the same as I did that day. You often dawdled and nine times out of ten I’d walk on the same way. You would only be mad at me for a second and then you’d be right there, catching up. That time wouldn’t have been any different, it was only a stupid moment. The problem was just that you were on the platform. Whatever else he’s made you think, it was never anything else: just a tiny, stupid mistake. I was tired and not thinking straight and in that split second when I expected you to step up, the doors … Then we were in the tunnel and the driver wouldn’t stop and – honestly, Abigail – there was nothing else I could do.’

  She squeezed her eyes tight shut. I placed a hand against her cheek. ‘Can you see how it was?’

  She nodded again and opened her eyes. She had said it didn’t hurt, but I could see the pain now in the tightness of her face.

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘But is there anything else? Anything at all you haven’t told me?’

  I felt a weight slip away from me then. Finally, I could look at her honestly and say: ‘No, Abigail. I promise you. That’s all.’

  She lay there, unblinking eyes open to the ceiling and I could almost see her fighting with herself: to believe me or not. To accept or push away. At last she let out her breath and nodded, as though she had won – or given up – the fight.

  ‘All right then,’ I said. ‘I love you.’ It couldn’t have been, surely, but it felt like the first time I’d said those words to her, directly and aloud, since she came home. Now I would leave her to sleep. She was here, she was safe, and everything was in the open. As I closed her door behind me, I saw her sit up and take a sip of the lukewarm tea.

  Chapter 28

  Saturday 21st September:

  Day 118

  JESS

  Abigail’s voice on the phone was small, flat. But not just that. She sounded – scared?

  ‘Can I come and stay at yours?’ Her voice was crackly on the line, like she was calling long distance.

  ‘Now?’ I said. Her call had woken me from the dead of sleep. ‘I thought you were going to London tomorrow? Isn’t it the trial? Isn’t it the day after tomorrow it starts?’

  ‘Please, Jess.’

  ‘Where are you?’ It was the middle of the night.

  ‘I’m here. Right outside.’

  I pulled back my bedroom curtain. A downpour was bashing off our window ledges, pinging off the flagstones of the front drive. Through the sheets of rain, I could make out her huddled figure at the end of the drive.

  ‘Shit, Abigail – wait right there.’

  Downstairs, I fumbled open the heavy front door. When I got to her, her face was so thin, her eyes huge hollows under the white strip of plaster across her forehead. ‘What are you doing here?’

  She didn’t answer, just said, ‘Is your mum in there?’

  ‘Of course, but she’s sleeping.’

  Abigail looked up at the dark windows above us. With no lights on, the house looked like a cave. Abigail was shivering. Water had soaked up the ankles of her jeans. ‘Jesus,’ I said, ‘did you walk the whole way?’

  Abigail half opened her mouth to answer.

  ‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘Just come on inside.’

  We slipped into the house and I helped Abigail struggle out of her drenched coat. With a finger to my lips, I led her upstairs and switched on the low lamp in my bedroom. Lit up, Abigail looked worse than ever, her hair in wet ropes, her lips bluish. She sat down on my bed, like she’d come to stay for good.

  I found her a clean towel from the airing cupboard to rub the worst
of the wet from her hair, and plugged in my hairdryer. ‘Here. Sit here.’

  I pulled out a cushion for her to sit on the floor and I sat cross-legged on the bed behind her. Her hair smelled of raspberry from the shampoo she used – the tall pink bottle I’d seen at their house. She bent up her legs and wrapped her arms around her knees. With the hairdryer on its lowest, quietest setting, I ran the stream of warm air over her, praying that Mum wouldn’t wake up. ‘Do you remember, when we were little?’ I said. ‘When we’d plait each other’s hair?’ I separated the strands, curling them round my fingers. In the low hum, her hair was growing dryer, softer.

  I didn’t hear her the first time. Her voice was muffled, she still had her forehead resting on her knees. She had to repeat herself. ‘I need you to do something for me.’

  ‘Okay … what is it?’

  She lifted her head, I felt the tendons of her neck pull under my hands. ‘At the trial. When they read out the verdict in court, I want to be there.’

  I felt shivery. ‘What do you mean?’

  She hesitated. I tried to read her expression but sitting behind her, I couldn’t make anything out.

  ‘My parents don’t want me to go in the courtroom. But I need a chance to see it properly.’

  I kept the strands of hair tight in my grasp. ‘See what?’

  Very carefully, she twisted herself free of me and turned around on her knees to face me. ‘Jess. Can you keep a secret?’

  I clicked off the hairdryer and stared back at her. My old playmate, my cousin. My mirror image, the other half of me, the person I would do anything for in the world.

  ‘You remember,’ she went on, ‘about the photo? The one I told you about – the picture John Henry said was sent to him? Well, I have to prove the truth, get through all these lies. I’m going to confront them, there in the courtroom. No one can lie in there, and then I’ll know. Jess, finally I’ll know.’

  Something cold and dark rose up in my stomach. Because none of what she was saying made sense. There was no photo, not a real one anyway – but maybe that was all she wanted to prove? Finally convince herself she’d been wrong? And I had promised, hadn’t I, that I’d never hurt her again. Never betray her, never let her down.

  Carefully I set down the hairdryer. ‘But what exactly is it you want me to do?’

  ‘Speak to your parents. To your mum. My mum always listens to yours. Tell them I have to be there at the verdict.’

  I hesitated. ‘But they said it’s best if you don’t go in.’

  Her hands were like claws against the floor. ‘I need this, Jess, can’t you see that? He told me that they didn’t want me. He told me that they gave me away! And Mum told me what happened, how on the train she just left me, and now I have to know, Jess, I just have to know!’

  It hit me then where this was all coming from. All right, she had reason to still be mad. She had reason to be hurt. But I thought about Dad, what he had murmured to me after Auntie Anne told her story. He’d talked about it with such compassion. I reached out and wrapped my arms around Abigail’s cold shoulders. Her hair was almost dry by now, lying across her shoulders like a cloak.

  ‘Listen, Abigail, Auntie Anne told us. What happened between you, before any of the rest.’ I let my head rest against her neck. ‘It was only a moment,’ I went on, ‘a mistake, like that stupid night with us at the fairground. Moments like that, they don’t mean anything. I promise you, your mum never meant it. She loves you. We all do. You don’t need anything to prove that.’

  But instead she pulled away, curling into herself. My arms went slipping from her shoulders. In that moment, she looked like some strange animal. When she spoke again, her teeth looked so sharp. ‘Somehow, Jess, you think everything’s so simple. Even now, you think all of this was some simple mistake. You can’t get it, can you? You still don’t believe me. You can’t see how it’s so much worse than that.’

  I was a statue, I couldn’t move. Her words hung there, dissolving into my silence, breaking completely apart when a door creaked, footsteps on the landing.

  ‘Shit,’ I whispered, my lips finally moving. ‘Mum’s up.’

  At that she seemed to cower, like she couldn’t bear to get into trouble.

  ‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘I’ll explain to her, she won’t mind.’

  But Abigail just shook her head, clasping her arms around her knees. ‘Don’t let her in, Jess. Please, don’t let her.’ I hardly recognized my cousin at that moment. With the white bandage across her forehead, the bumps of her spine sticking up through her jumper, she looked so bizarre, so not normal.

  Now the footsteps were going past my door, crossing the landing and heading down the stairs. Surely Mum must have seen the light under my door, so why hadn’t she knocked? Then I heard it: the growl of an engine out in the street, the click of the front door opening.

  ‘Stay here,’ I said to Abigail. I got up from the bed. Now I heard Dad’s footsteps following Mum downstairs. Abigail hardly moved as I opened the door. Out on the landing, in the gloom, I took a moment to steady myself. I could hear their voices from downstairs: Mum, Dad, and I already knew who the other person was. I closed the bedroom door tight shut behind me and crept down.

  They were in the living room – my parents and my uncle – their voices clearer than ever as I came down. Below me, the hall floor was covered with wet footprints. I pictured Mum’s face. Without saying anything, without letting the grown-ups know I was right there, I crept into the kitchen and found the rolls of kitchen towel under the sink. In the hallway I quietly tore off a wad of paper and listened.

  There’d been an argument, I made out, a row of some sort. Abigail yelling. Because my aunt and uncle had heard her again in the night. Sleep-talking. Silently I got down on my knees and let the wet soak into the paper. If they found me here, I argued with myself, I would tell them I was cleaning, that I hadn’t wanted Mum to find the floor in such a mess.

  ‘Her bed was empty,’ my uncle was saying. ‘We found her kneeling by the wall.’

  On my own knees, my arms locked, I went still. For some reason, the image came to me so strongly. Abigail, the wall – it was like I’d had that image in my head for weeks.

  ‘She was asleep?’ I heard the shiver in Mum’s voice.

  ‘Yes. But talking.’

  I pulled another wad from the roll, tearing down until only the cardboard tube was left. If they heard me, so what? They must know by now that Abigail was here. They must know the two of us were awake.

  ‘Could you make out anything she was saying this time?’ said Dad.

  Uncle Robert said a word that I didn’t catch.

  ‘“Sorry”? She was saying “sorry”?’ Mum exclaimed. ‘Sorry for what?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Uncle Robert. ‘And in the morning, she said she didn’t remember any of it.’ His words came out faster now, like a rush of ball bearings. ‘In the end, we called her therapist. We only wanted to know how to help.’

  Above me, a floorboard creaked. Abigail on the move. I got up from the floor, scooped up the sodden paper and bent cardboard tube. My uncle was still talking but I didn’t want to hear any more. I stumbled up the stairs to Abigail. I dropped the sodden paper towels in my wastepaper bin and shoved the empty kitchen roll down on top of them. I sat down in the chair by my desk. I wanted her to explain. The story of her sleep-talking was creepy enough, yet all of that I could almost understand except – ‘Why do you keep shouting at them?’

  But now, suddenly, there were footsteps on the stairs, a knock at the door. Dad in the bedroom doorway, his face set.

  ‘Abigail? Robert’s here.’

  Without another word, she unfurled herself from the bed and pushed past me and Dad. I followed her downstairs. Uncle Robert was waiting by the open front door, holding out her still-wet coat. As Mum came out of the living room, I swear I saw Abigail flinch – but then as I stepped forwards, my cousin held her arms out for me to hug her. As I pressed my cheek to the cold of her n
eck she whispered: ‘Ask them, won’t you?’ In the confusion I had almost forgotten. The verdict. To be there, with him.

  I pushed away the part of me that was frightened by what she had said. The secret that I still didn’t understand. See, I told myself, no matter what else has happened she trusts you. No matter what else, she wants you to help. And you can help. Better than her parents, better than anyone. I held her close, breath-for-breath. I didn’t hesitate, just said: ‘Yes.’

  And I did, as soon as they’d gone. I kept my word and spoke to my parents, exhausted in the small hours of morning. I created arguments, elaborated reasons I could safely believe in. I said she wanted the chance to confront him. I said she just needed to see him found guilty. When it came to it, I surprised even myself by how persuasive I sounded.

  ‘Well,’ said Mum when I had finished, pulling her dressing gown tight around her. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘you know her best.’

  Chapter 29

  Saturday 21st September:

  Day 118

  ANNE

  My daughter had done that: walked alone to the Bradys’ in the middle of the night. And all because the day before I had called her therapist.

  The intention had been with me for weeks, ever since that night when I followed Abigail up into the loft. And the night of her birthday, I’d had to confront her with mistakes of the past, dragging all the pain of that up, and now she was sleep-talking again. It was only days now until we had to face trial and I was so worried that she wouldn’t make it through.

  Her weekly therapy had been the cornerstone of our routine. In the beginning, I’d driven her there but once she was used to it she wanted to walk by herself. She walked there, she stayed for her hour, she came home.

  On Friday, when I rang, the therapist – Jenny Coulson – wasn’t available; I did my best to explain myself in my message: who I was, why I was calling, why we were so in need of her advice. It was the next morning, the Saturday, when she called back; Robert was home and Abigail was upstairs. Robert closed the door of the living room. On speakerphone, we took the call together.