The Lies We Tell Read online

  ‘Room service!’ he called, knocking again.

  ‘Hang on,’ she replied, climbing out of bed before he could come in. Hovering at the door to steal a quick glance in the mirror, she ran a hand through her tousled hair then turned the handle. A moment later she was face to face with Dave, her mother Siobhan’s new boyfriend, standing on the landing wearing a matching dressing gown to her own though his barely reaches his knees. Determined not to notice how disconcertingly the kimono gaped at his waist. How he appeared not to be wearing anything underneath. Holding out what he’d just carried upstairs – a warm pile of freshly ironed clothes – he let slip a sly grin then held out his arms.

  While Siobhan did most of the housework, Dave’s occasional domestic responsibility since moving in was putting away the laundry. It was a job he appeared to take seriously – rotating each item of washed clothing in the airing cupboard before neatly folding, stacking then putting away T-shirts, trousers and the lace-trimmed pastel rainbow of Jude’s pants and bras. Someone should give him a job at Benetton, her mother often joked. But Jude didn’t find the early weekday morning knock on her bedroom door funny. She hated the meticulously stacked pyramid of clothes crowned, without fail, with a carefully-folded item of her own underwear.

  Now, as the alcoholic tang of his aftershave teased her nostrils, the burning in her cheeks told her she’d begun to blush, and in that instant she hated him more than she had hated anyone, ever. For his unwelcome intrusion. For the time alone with her mum which he had stolen from her. And for the way his lurking presence threatened to undermine her own carefully assembled self-confidence. Self-consciously, she looked away – she doesn’t need to see his face to know that her discomfort has been registered. Then, grasping the laundry towards her chest, she moved to shut the door.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ he said, taking one step forward and firmly placing his foot against the doorframe to stop her shutting him out. Glancing down, she registered his toes, which were long with nails like polished pebbles, and hairless skin which was girlishly smooth. The heat in her cheeks intensified. ‘Mum says she’s got to work the late shift this evening so she won’t be here when you get home to cook tea but I will, OK?’ Jude looked up sharply. The familiarity of Mum instead of your mum seemed indecent, somehow. Working every muscle in her face, she concocted a blank stare then nodded. ‘Just wanted to let you know, that’s all,’ he concluded. Then, with a wide smile, he took a step back onto the landing leaving the door to swing to.

  Back inside her room, she sank down onto the bed holding the laundry then, feeling that it was still warm, quickly put it to one side. As she reached for the bra and pants on the top she hesitated, wondering for a moment whether she dared put the clothes through the wash again. But no, she’d rather not give him the satisfaction. Besides, what would she say to her mum? Sorry, but I don’t like your boyfriend touching my underwear. Please make him stop? That wouldn’t work, though, because mum would just think she was trying to cause trouble.

  Jude selected another set of underwear from the top drawer of her dressing table. Across the room, she noticed, her new school uniform was hanging from the handle of her wardrobe door. The black A-line skirt, unfashionably cut to the knee. The green and white check blouse with its ghastly cardigan in a complementary, verdant hue. And on the floor, beside freshly-blacked lace-up shoes, the hideous felt cloche hat, squatting on the floor like a malevolent toad. Her blazer was downstairs where her mum had spent the previous evening meticulously darning a hole in the right sleeve. Beggars can’t be choosers, Siobhan Davies had said the night before, laughing at the look of horror on her daughter’s face as she bit off the final thread on the last name tape she sewed on to every single piece of Jude's new school clothes.

  The list of required paraphernalia Jude would need for St Mary’s had run to almost two A4 pages. Yet Siobhan relished the challenge of how to exceed expectations on a shoestring by cleverly scouting for budget alternatives to the over-priced stock offered by Kinch's, the official uniform supplier on West Street. Miss Shackleton, the headmistress, had been pretty helpful, too, assuring them that St Mary’s was a school that prided itself on supporting bright pupils from less well-off families. Only we’re nothing like beggars are we, Jude? she had continued, pausing briefly to re-thread her needle. We don’t owe anyone anything, and don’t you forget it. You got that scholarship fair and square. And, thank God, now you’ve got a real chance to make something of yourself.

  Jude scowled, though there was no-one to see. She'd not wanted to leave her old secondary school in the sprawling south coast town where she grew up in, let alone move to a place she’d barely heard of in the heart of the Surrey commuter belt. How she dreaded meeting the other girls who'd be in her new class, all of whom would surely live in double-fronted timbered piles down leafy lanes with a pony or two tucked away in the stable. What would they say when they spotted that much of her school uniform was second hand and find out that she lived in a modern house unfashionably close to the commercial hub of the town? St Mary’s was an all-girls school, too; she just knew it was going to be awful.

  Yet Jude knew that following her mum’s break up with Colin Dixon they’d had little choice but to move on. He had what Siobhan coyly referred to as a bit of a problem with drink. Or, to put it another way, he knew when to stop but more often than not did not care. Proof came late one night after an argument got out of hand and he almost broke Siobhan’s jaw. The following morning they'd moved out of their rented flat and into a bed and breakfast in a small village on the seaside city’s outskirts from where Siobhan began planning the new life they would soon begin in the Surrey town which had last been her home over a decade before.

  Slowly, Jude started to dress. In the bathroom, she glared defiantly at the stranger in the mirror as she brushed her hair. Angrily tugging the mane back from her pale face into a tight ponytail, her grey eyes took on a vaguely oriental slant. Sitting on the edge of the bath, she pinched the cupid’s bow of her upper lip between her forefinger and thumb for precisely three minutes before examining her handiwork in the mirror. It was a daily ritual she’d begun three months earlier as an angry insurance policy against inheriting the flaccid line of her mother’s lips. And it was starting to work, she thought as she assessed with grim satisfaction how the shallow V of her own upper lip was finally taking on a sharper shape. A minor triumph, but victory nonetheless in the secret battle against becoming Siobhan.

  Pulling a face, she tested the look of cool disdain she calculated would be appropriate for her first day at St Mary’s. You’ve got to speculate to accumulate, Siobhan had explained when she took her daughter out of her first school, where she’d been happy, to send her to a better one in a neighbouring catchment. Which was how Jude had come to attend three schools before her eleventh birthday. And why she'd given up trying to fit in long ago. Why bother if you’d not be staying?

  Yet she didn't hate her mum, not really. For she respected the way Siobhan single-handedly raised her after Jude’s dad died in a traffic accident. How she'd worked hard, taking on a series of soul-destroying day jobs then studying nights to train as a dental nurse – a stubborn, defiant approach to life Jude secretly knew she would emulate. It was the way Siobhan tried to live through Jude the life she could have had had she not fallen pregnant that was intolerable. How cowed Jude felt by the dull weight of her ambitions. That's all.

  ‘Don’t you look the part!’ Siobhan exclaimed as Jude walked into the kitchen a short while later. Pushing a strand of bleach-blonde hair from her eyes with the back of one hand, she gave the pan of fast-congealing scrambled eggs a quick stir with the other. ‘Don’t you think, Dave? Doesn’t she look the part!’ she repeated, re-tucking her top, a low-cut satin blouse of dazzling cerise, into the waistband of her black pencil skirt then smoothed the front panel.

  Jude glared at her mum’s boyfriend who was leaning against the worktop cradling a mug of tea, willing him not to speak.

  ‘Yeah, you s
how ‘em, girl!’ As he raised his mug his lips curled into a teasing smile.

  ‘You’re a bright girl, Jude, and just as good as anyone else,’ Siobhan cried, suddenly darting across the room to her daughter to put an arm round her shoulders. ‘Remember,’ she added, tapping her head. ‘What’s in here is what really counts.'

  ‘Thanks Mum,’ Jude muttered, momentarily disarmed by such innocent desire for everything to be OK.

  Clearing his throat, Dave reached for a piece of fresh toast now cooling in the toast rack. ‘Hands off,’ Siobhan scolded with an expert snap to the back of his hand with her tea towel. ‘That’s Jude’s. You’ll get yours later.’

  Taking a seat at the table, Dave grabbed Siobhan around the waist then tugged her downwards onto his lap. ‘I look forward to that,’ he chuckled.

  It was good to shut the front door behind her, Jude felt, as she stepped out onto Station Road to inhale the fresh September air. And despite the damp tarmac and the welling clouds above suggesting it would rain again later, her spirits stirred.

  Turning left at the gate, she slowly walked along the street. Their street now, a world away from Hill Rise, the wind-swept crescent of Seventies semis Jude would always think of as home – a red brick tiara crowning the last hill between the South Downs from a brackish sea. The new place was close to the city centre, too – an unfashionable location where a cluster of once grand yet now decaying Victorian residences were being systematically demolished to make way for new development. No-one wanted to live in town any more, it seemed, as anyone who could afford to had traded up to sprawling homes nestling in neighbouring villages.

  Looping a finger through the hook of her blazer, Jude swung it over her shoulder and set off down the street. Stoical and determined, she covered the ten minute walk at a steady pace but as she caught her first glimpse of the imposing Victorian façade of St Mary’s Upper School for Girls she couldn’t help but note, with a sinking heart, how her old life on the coast had never felt so far away.

  Chapter 5

  Richmond – July 2013

  ‘Where did you say Michael was this evening?’ asks Diane Parker, neatly dissecting the last asparagus spear on her plate.

  With her hair newly styled, freshly manicured nails, and the silk shirt she bought in the mid-season sales, Katy's mum looks radiant and younger than her sixty six years. She seems buoyed, too, by an air of birthday self indulgence and the sense of freedom the fifth floor flat in the stylish Parkview development overlooking Richmond Park still gives her six years after the unexpected windfall she received in Katy’s dad’s will.

  Guilt money – that's what Andrew had called it when, having missed his father’s funeral due to food poisoning, he’d come over from Washington a few weeks later with his new wife, Dee, to help Diane move in. Now, as Katy scans the room in which she sits, she can only smile at the memory of how worried they'd been that with its stripped floors and white-washed walls the flat was unwelcoming. Dour, even.

  There’ll be plenty of time for shag pile and thermals when I’m in my dotage, Mum had chided. For now I want to have some fun in my city pied a terre. Charles owes me that much, don’t you think?

  It was the city bolt hole Diane had always dreamed of. An ideal base from which to pursue the cream of the capital's cultural pursuits. Evidence of these exploits is all around the room, from theatre posters of her favourite West End shows to shelves heaving with books and coffee table guides to latest art exhibitions. An African mask with beaten-bronze nose guard and demonic horns – a memento from a trip to Mali the previous year – hangs above a large sofa covered with a rainbow-coloured artisan quilt picked up for a song in Marrakech.

  Can it really be just eighteen months since the woman had been rushed to hospital with a suspected heart attack, Katy wonders, taking another sip of soda. A development which had drawn Katy back into Mum's daily orbit.

  Carer was a role she was unused to, but duty forced her to concur. Andrew was now living in the US and given the lack of any other close family members nearby, there really was no-one else. Though short-lived, Diane’s health scare was a timely reminder of the need for vigilance after being diagnosed with high blood pressure following Charles’ death. Following this, the woman had carefully adjusting her daily routines to cultivate a healthier lifestyle which, bizarrely, had emboldened her to be more adventurous, not less.

  Katy smiles. Yes, mum has certainly done her best not to miss out on the swinging sixties second time round. ‘He's having dinner with another design company interested in hiring him. If he gets the job it would be a real step up,' she replies. 'Although I know he'd rather be here.’

  ‘So tell me, how are things?' Diane dabs her buttery lips with her serviette. 'And I don’t just mean with work, I mean with Michael. The two of you – is everything OK?’

  How long has it taken, Katy wonders, her face tightening with the effort of resisting the urge to check her watch. Half an hour at most. Shifting position in her seat, she wills her body to relax; her mind not to rise to the bait. For theirs is not a relationship built on easy confidences. Mum has always been direct, a side to her personality sharpened by the bitterness of her separation from Charles.

  Long-dreaded, the eventual split brought only temporary relief, her mother once confided. Like the misjudged lancing of a stubborn blister. For Diane, never quite managing to fall out of love with her husband, failed in her attempts while he was still alive to move on. The 'parting', as Diane would forever after call it – for Charles and she never quite got round to getting a divorce – diminished her, somehow.

  Alone, Diane grew brittle, at times sharp-tongued. Judgemental. A lasting legacy of both parents' over-protectiveness and high expectations for their children when young, Katy reasoned, but of course it had all begun with Jude.

  Jude.

  The friend who, at the lowest point in her parents’ marriage, was the one thing they stood united on. Or, rather, against. The friend they feared was a bad influence, someone who’d distract Katy from her studies and lead her astray. The only best friend Katy ever had, for she’d struggled to construct any close female friendships since. The one person to whom she is still inexplicably bound.

  Stop it, Katy tells herself, brusquely. Don't let Jude in – not now. Tonight is about Mum. And this time is about me. I have a life now. A new life with Michael that's taken years to achieve and now my focus must be on what lies ahead. Because here and now is when the main act is about to start.

  ‘Fine, thanks,' she hears herself reply.

  What else is there to say? Even now – after the years she and Michael have been together, the time they’ve spent sharing the flat, the almost but not quite splitting up followed by the getting closer after, and just a few weeks ago the twelve week scan … She is lucky and knows it, so is it any wonder she's wary of tempting fate? Fearful that her feelings for him are still too fragile a flower to expose to the piercing light of Diane's expectations.

  Perhaps things will be different once everyone knows. Better late than never, Shrimp, she imagines Andrew will say.

  Katy smiles. How proud she’ll feel recounting to her mum how great Michael has been; how he offered to support her however she felt, whatever she wanted to do. How he’d even suggested they marry, which they will – soon. How, fingers crossed, everything has worked out OK. Because there’s always a proviso; a but. For coming to terms with having a baby and now getting married is taking longer than she hoped. She cares about him enough now and soon, surely, she’ll believe it, too.

  Christ, how can she explain any of this to Mum?

  ‘Good,’ Diane declares, rising to her feet to clear the plates. ‘No, no – you stay there, we can have a break before the main course, can’t we? Pour us both another drink.’

  Pulling the wine from the cooler, Katy refills Mum’s glass then sits back and surveys the room. From the open French windows to her left drifts a heady mix of scents from the hanging baskets, pots and tubs that fill the narrow
balcony beyond. The room feels fresh despite the evening’s heat thanks to a light breeze blowing in from the park below. She closes her eyes.

  Got your eye on filling Miriam's Louboutins, have you? Sally-Anne teased earlier, once she’d returned from the park after lunch. I’ll have to tell her to watch her back! Katy had been busying herself sifting through the outstanding correspondence awaiting the return of Sally-Anne’s second in command who was due back from six months’ maternity leave the following week. Periodically setting members of her team against each other is one of Sally-Anne's favourite pastimes and, she seems to think, an effective way of keeping underlings on their toes. How will the woman react to another pregnant employee? Katy now wonders.

  Opening her eyes, she gazes at the mantelpiece opposite along which stands a battalion of postcards, pictures and photographs – some framed, others not. In the middle is one of Katy’s favourites: a picture of Diane in her early twenties taken just after she first met Charles. With her long auburn hair carefully pinned back into an elegant chignon, the twenty something version of Diane is wearing a satin cocktail dress. And her tiny, pinched-in waist and satin pumps are to die for.

  The picture stands beside a bright orange piece of folded cardboard featuring Katy's twin nephews’ hand prints which someone – the dutiful Dee, probably – has turned into a pair of butterflies with a few deft strokes of a felt tip pen. It was taken somewhere in Kensington by a friend of Charles’s as they left some work function or other. Diane had been looking forward to it for weeks, then he was late picking her up. But in the end it hadn’t really mattered, her mum would fondly recall, because when they got there it turned out to be the perfect evening. Katy sighs. If only the same could have been said of the years that followed.