The Lies We Tell Read online

  ‘You’re up early.’ The sound of her voice is a husky rasp.

  ‘I’ve got a breakfast presentation at half eight.’ He pours himself a mug of coffee which he drinks strong and black then lies down across the bed, staring at her intently. ‘That’s what I was working on last night when I got back, but I guess I must have fallen asleep. Then, after I came to sort you out – you were in quite a state when I found you downstairs – I thought it best to spend the rest of the night on the sofa bed in the office. You were dead to the world as soon as your head hit the pillow, you know. And snoring like a train.’

  Popping two pills in her mouth with what stale water remains, she gulps them down then exhales, slowly. ‘You were here? All the time?’

  ‘Asleep. Downstairs. But what about you, it must have been quite a party.’

  ‘Party?’

  ‘At your mum’s. I must admit I was quite surprised seeing you like that – I thought you’d foresworn alcohol, for the next few months at least.’

  ‘I have. I mean, I wasn't drinking. It’s just – I was upset. About … What happened to the car, have you seen? And you weren’t here.’ Katy shivers. ‘Christ, I feel awful.’

  Michel smiles. ‘Yes, I’ve seen you look better.’

  ‘How bad is it?’

  ‘What, the car? Undriveable. It was down to some kids, apparently. A bunch of chancers – Phil's younger brother, Kevin, saw them. I bumped into him earlier, so you know. He's in between flats at the moment so will be staying downstairs for a week or two until he gets himself straight. He says when he gave them some cigarettes they happily went on their way. I'll call the insurance company later – see what they can do.’

  Katy frowns. Given how dark it was last night with the street lights out of order, it's difficult to be sure quite what she saw. But the sudden memory of the hooded figure in the early morning sunshine watering the flowers makes the pressure pounding at her temples start to ease. ‘And dinner, how did that go?’ she sighs.

  ‘Hard to call,’ Michael answers with a noncommittal shrug. Stifling a yawn, he reaches down to scratch the soft skin on his ankle around his tattoo. Then, leaning across the mattress towards the electric fan that sits on the blanket box at the foot of the bed, he sets the button on the base to maximum rotate. ‘It’s going to be another scorcher, everyone’s saying so. You’d be best off taking a duvet day. Get your head together then maybe find somewhere cool and shady to sit in the garden later. You owe it to yourself . . .’ He lets slip a gentle smile. ‘ … the both of you. I’ll ring the insurance company when I get into work.’

  ‘Oh God,’ Katy groans, suddenly remembering. ‘I’ve got to stand in for Sally-Anne at eleven at a meeting with a new client.’ She slips a leg out of the bed and rests her foot on the stripped wooden floor to ground herself then, feeling queasy, sinks back against the pillow. What’s wrong with me? she wonders. Because this is worse than just a hangover. Or the fallout from something she ate in last night’s dinner. Without wanting to, she thinks of Jude. The stranger in the park. The youths last night on their street. Though the room is hot, she suddenly shivers. Her body is limp, her energy drained by a looming sense of dread. ‘I can’t go in,’ she croaks.

  ‘No, you can’t,’ he agrees, reaching into his pocket and pulling out her mobile phone. Scrolling up and down with his thumb for a moment, he scans the screen then sets the timer. ‘Give it an hour then leave a message for Dawn just before nine – she’s rarely in before quarter past.’

  ‘OK,’ Katy replies, taking the phone from him without thinking to ask why he’d had it. ‘The alarm, right – in case I fall back asleep.’

  Michael nods then stands up. ‘Listen. I’d love to stay and chat but I really need to go. Don’t worry, I’ll call the garage about the car.’ Bending down he kisses her, tenderly. ‘Take it easy,’ he adds as she closes her eyes. ‘Tranquilo. Everything will be OK.’

  *

  Michael’s parting words drift like flotsam in Katy's head over the next hour or so as, her mind ebbing and flowing between oblivion and distress, her body twists and turns in the building heat. But the more she tells herself everything will be alright the more it seems a shabby mantra. And the more something else, another voice from long ago, vies for dominance as memories stir in her pressure cooker mind.

  It started with a conspiratorial whisper closely followed by gentle blowing in her ear, she recalls. Shake a leg! Though she had turned her head away, Kat could not so easily ignore the warm breath on her face. Or the pinch on her arm that followed. Come on, grinned a victorious Jude as her eyes cracked open. Let’s go for a swim!

  It was gone six on their first morning at Gallows Hill. After arriving the previous day, the girls had spent the afternoon on an orientation ramble across the Punch Bowl’s southern sweep. A little later, seated outside the main building in the fading light, senses softened by a heady cocktail of baked heath land and barbecue smoke, Kat watched Jude flirt with Ben, the camp’s young Australian cook. She seemed happier than she'd been in weeks. And as Kat lay back on the grass, gazing up at the first star to puncture a cloudless sky, she'd wished the day would never end.

  Are you mad? Kat mumbled, feeling beneath her pillow for her watch. Everyone’s still sleeping. It’s – what’s the time – Christ!

  They stole out of the dormitory past the room where Mrs Willis, St Mary’s’ deputy head, and Miss Gordon were still snoring. Creeping along the corridor, a distant clatter from the kitchen signified the first preparations for breakfast. Then, as they padded barefoot into the outside world, Kat was struck by a sudden and unexpected acute awareness of every detail around her. As if the focus of her senses had been sharpened. The gentle freshness of the air as they slipped through the main glass doors in reception. The tantalising dampness beyond of the neatly manicured strip of lawn against her feet. The rubber tang of the plimsolls she held in her hand.

  Like co-conspirators, Kat thought, suddenly elated. Partners in crime. It was the two of them against the world. And in that instant she felt closer to Jude than she'd done in months.

  Duck – so we won't be seen from the kitchen, Jude instructed in a commanding whisper as she led the way, combat-style, in a crouched run beneath the windows of the centre’s administrative office. Wait a minute, how – But Jude's only response was a conspiratorial tap to her nose. Keep down, she mouthed, with a bold wink. Don't dawdle. Let's go!

  At the end of the wall the girls slipped on their shoes to make a break for it across the dusty car park separating the main building from the pool area. Less than a minute later they reached the poolside fence. Jude rattled the padlock. Not to worry, she grinned. We can climb over. To their left was a metal drum that once contained pool chemicals. Though empty, it looked robust enough to stand on. Jude pushed it into position then hopped on and pulled herself up and over the fence. Kat, emboldened by an intoxicating rush of excitement and fear, clambered up after her then hoisted herself over the top and slithered down onto the paving stones the other side. Jude was already crouched down at the water’s edge gazing down through the slick surface into the still depths beneath.

  Kat sat down by Jude’s side and slipped her legs into the water. Cold needled her skin, yet the sensation was not wholly unpleasant. Slowly, she began swinging her feet left then right in a figure of eight, entranced by the tiny eddies the action formed. Taking a seat next to her, Jude began doing the same, and in the early morning stillness Kat imagined she could almost feel the re-plaiting of the fibres in the bond that once so closely bound them. Soul mates, that’s how Jude had described it soon after they first met on day in the playground as they sat, side by side, compiling an unofficial audit of their lives so far. And Kat could only agree.

  Jude had stood out from day one as different, of course. Everyone else in their class was locally born and bred; Jude was the outsider. Everyone else lived a short drive or train journey outside town; Jude lived a short walk from the school gates. Everyone enjoyed the reassuring
predictability of being part of a nuclear family except for Jude, who lived alone with just her mum. Though as Kat would later confide, while Charles remained physically present emotionally he'd walked out on his family many years before – which made her and Jude not so different after all.

  In Jude, Kat felt, she'd not only found someone like her who did not fit in but, better still, someone who didn’t seem to care. She could still remember the first real test of their friendship when, just before that first Christmas, she was almost grounded by her parents. Rather than catch the usual bus home after school one Friday, she and Jude had gone into town Christmas shopping.

  Unable to find a working pay phone to alert Diane to this last minute change of plan, she arrived home two hours late to find her parents about to call the police. They were livid, of course, threatening to go back to driving her to and from school if she couldn’t prove herself to be more responsible. And they would have done, too, if Jude hadn’t intervened. Sensing Kat was in trouble, she'd rung her house that evening – not to console her friend but to speak to Diane. Kat never discovered quite what was said but Jude, it seemed, had apologised profusely, blaming herself for losing track of time and urging Diane not to treat her too harshly. The unexpectedness of this intervention and its apparent charm seemed to soften Kat’s parents’ line, leaving Kat awed by her best friend’s nerve and grateful for her protection. Which is how, over subsequent months as things got worse at home, she came to see their friendship as daily affirmation that in the end everything would be okay.

  A flash of emerald green drew both girls’ attention to the centre of the swimming pool. A dragonfly was drowsily skimming the water’s oily surface trailing a line of tiny, ever-expanding rings in its wake. For a minute or two they watched the glittering insect in silence until, with a final swoop, it soared sun-wards and out of sight. Jude turned to face Kat. So here we are again, then! she declared, staring at her companion for an instant before jumping to her feet and tugging her T-shirt up over her head. What are you waiting for? Let's swim!

  Bending forward to unbutton her shorts, Jude let her clothes slide to the ground. Struggling not to register her surprise that her friend wore no underwear, Kat looked away. Then Jude stepped forwards, lining her feet up carefully on the paving stones that fringed the pool's edge. Standing tall, she looked up towards the sky with out-stretched arms to embrace the day. Christ-like, Kat thought, though there was nothing devotional about Jude's nudity which seemed more like a defiant shout. Geronimo! Jude cried as she stretched up on her toes then executed a faultless dive into the glassy water leaving her friend alone in the balmy air.

  Kat bit her lip, cursing herself for not bringing her swimming things. How she envied the sleek confidence of Jude’s body – the fullness of her breasts, her rounded belly, her long legs. She felt the familiar resentment that her own – awkward and childishly thick-set by comparison with its clumsy limbs, oily skin and stubborn hair that never straightened, even with crimping irons – was conspiring against her. She sighed. Because she knew there was nothing else she could do. That of course she must follow Jude’s lead: she always did.

  Slipping off her dress, Kat unhooked the teen bra Mum had optimistically bought her the previous Christmas, and wriggled out of her M&S pants. Quickly, her self consciousness outweighing the water’s icy bite, she slithered in. As she dived down beneath the surface, her body tingled with pleasure at the water’s icy suck and as her head broke the surface a few moments later she could not help but laugh at their recklessness. For it felt good to be alive as she breast-stroked towards Jude who was now lying motionless on her back with eyes closed.

  As she swam closer, Kat stared in awe at how the hair between her friend’s legs glistened like a sea anemone in the early morning sun. How her breasts moved in the soft swell like jelly fish. The way the water’s chill made Jude’s breathing quick and shallow. The faint flicker every now and then of the lids of eyes. And yet as she lay there, in watery suspension, she looked as comfortable as if she were lying on a mattress. Her lips, slightly parted, imperceptibly twitched into a beatific smile. Relaxed, Jude could almost be mistaken for angelic.

  Gently treading water, watching, something deep inside Kat stirred. A curious and unexpected realisation which at once both intrigued and horrified. For she was suddenly aware of an overwhelming sense of desire. A yearning for the sensation of the slippery skin puckering so invitingly towards the nipple’s dark pebble. To feel the weight of Jude’s smooth, milky breasts in the palm of her hand. Want to touch? Jude had opened her eyes and was now watching her, intently. Despite the cold, Kat's her cheeks burned. Sorry, she mumbled.

  For what – looking? There’s no law against that, Jude laughed then stopped, abruptly. Come on, she added softly. Teasingly. Don’t be embarrassed. It could be fun.

  Confused by her friend’s words and alarmed by her own feelings, Kat dipped down beneath the water and swam away, praying that when she re-emerged from her icy submersion the awfulness of what had just happened would have gone. Stroke after stroke, she swam beneath the water’s sparkling surface, on then on. Only when Kat's lungs felt fit to burst did she finally surface, panting and flushed. With no idea in which direction she had gone, she was surprised to find herself close to the pool's far side.

  Turning to see where Jude was, Kat felt a vague sense of disappointment to see she was now calmly swimming lengths, her bobbing head slick like a seal’s in the strengthening sun. Kat knew she couldn’t escape the reality of what had just happened, but decided to gamble. Taking a deep breath, she swam slowly but purposefully back towards her friend.

  Let’s go back to the copse we passed yesterday, Jude called brightly when Kat got close. As if nothing had happened. They’re organising a paper chase. We could skive off and when we get back later say we got lost. Let’s take books and lie in the sun.

  Kat smiled with relief.

  Come on, then, Jude urged with a sudden grin. Let’s get some breakfast.

  *

  With her heart still racing, Katy wakes at nine. She is hunched on her side, her body tense, with her right arm clamped between her thighs and as she frees her hand she can feel her fingertips are wet. Grabbing the sheet from the floor where it has slipped, she covers herself quickly. Her face is hot with shame. Don't let Jude do this to you, she tells herself, fiercely. Don't let her in. Because it wasn't your fault. None of it was anything to do with you.

  Suddenly she is sitting upright in bed. The phone in the sitting room is ringing. But though her head now feels clear and her hands no longer shake, she isn't quick enough and by the time she’s pulled on the silk dressing gown Michael bought her in Thailand and made it down downstairs, whoever it is has rung off leaving their message on the answer phone. Cursing softly, she pulls the phone from its cradle and stares at the screen which shows the last caller’s number was withheld: a typical Sally-Anne trick. She decides to call her back quickly to prove she really is at home, poorly, but when she does there’s no answer so she leaves a voicemail for Dawn. But before she can pick up her message, two sustained blasts from the front door bell make her drop the phone.

  Katy hesitates, struggling to keep calm. Admonishing herself for being so jumpy. It’s the postman, probably. A parcel delivery, perhaps. They usually come at this time. If she creeps downstairs she could use the front door peephole just door to be sure. Better sign for it now than have to go to the Parcelforce depot which is miles away in the shadow of Wormwood Scrubs. So softly, she creeps downstairs to the ground floor and slips into the hallway.

  Through the whorled glass of the front door the dark outline of the figure beyond makes her chest tighten. With clenched fists she steps forward, oblivious to the whitening of her knuckles as she carefully approaches the door, then pauses. But she has miscalculated. Though she’s not turned on the overhead light there is enough daylight coming from the door to the upstairs flat, which she has left open behind her, for the visitor to register her movement. Which is ho
w, before she can even peer through the peep-hole, a youth's voice is cajoling her to open the front door.

  'Just a minute of your time,' the stranger calls. ‘That’s all it would take to take to change a young girl’s life.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Her voice is faint.

  ‘Sixty seconds, that’s all I ask.’ Barely aware of what she is doing, Katy secures the chain then opens the front door a crack to see a pale youth with an earnest expression and damp grey eyes whose shoulder-length dark hair hangs lank in a thin ponytail. He is almost good-looking despite his pock-marked skin. Scars from an accident of some kind, perhaps, or maybe teenage acne. A charity T-shirt which hangs low below his black jeans – Action Against Abuse, reads the logo beneath a simple drawing of interlocked hands and a pyramid of three capital As. ‘Do you support good causes?’ he purrs, swiftly following through.

  Katy frowns. ‘I … well, of course I do.’ She despises doorstep charity fundraisers even more than the ones who hunt in packs for direct debit mandates along the nearby high street. ‘But I don’t like being – ’

  ‘Good for you!’ he declares. ‘It’s a dreadful thing isn’t it, teen rape?’

  Katy reaches out an arm to brace herself against the doorframe. 'Sorry?'

  ‘Rape.’ The chugger frowns, casually resting an unexpectedly large hand on the side of the front door. ‘Of young teens below the age of sexual consent. Typically, by an older predatory male – ’

  The ground seems to shift and Katy finds herself gulping for air. ‘No,’ she gasps.