My Lies, Your Lies

Did the others notice? They’re dancing, eyes fixed on him, but not on me. I don’t dance, I just watch him turning away, his movements seeming to happen in a strange slow motion.

When the song finishes everyone’s waiting to hear what he has to say about a man trying to resist his love for a much younger girl.

He doesn’t say anything. He simply applauds, and his eyes are laughing as if admitting that he’s got the joke, but he’s not going to be baited, and now it’s time for someone else to share a record choice.

Tricia Hill steps forward with a Turtles EP she’s borrowed from her older sister. I don’t take much notice of it, I’m too distracted by the way Sir looked at me, during ‘Young Girl’. I can’t seem to shake myself free of it. He’s moved on, he’s talking about The Turtles, and making everyone laugh when he tries to play one of the tracks on the piano and gets it wrong. He does that sometimes, and we know the mistakes are on purpose. It’s his way of trying to change the mood if things have become too chaotic or flirtatious or intense.

It usually works and it does today. He can play us as smoothly as he strums his guitar or as skilfully as he masters the flute. We are innocent, uncomplicated notes on an elementary score; his humour and charm provide the sophistication we believe to be ours. We think ourselves clever and irresistible, but I sense that for him we’re merely girls with crazy hormones and dangerous dreams. He talks and sings and laughs, holding us all in his thrall. He doesn’t look at me again, not even when I ask if he can talk to us some more about the Moody Blues album Days of Future Passed. I know he’s fascinated by some of Justin Hayward’s work, the bringing together of orchestral compositions and modern rock, and I can sound reasonably intelligent about it, because my parents are big fans too. They discuss it a lot and I take it all in.

Sir is happy to change the subject, but he still doesn’t look my way so I sit feeling crushed and confused and even slightly angry. I’d felt us connect over Gary Puckett’s song, and I know he felt it too, but now he’s pretending it didn’t happen.

I was too young then to realize what his studied lack of attention meant, but I did find out. I can feel myself smiling now as I recall those times. The early memories are the most beautiful, the most thrilling; the sweet percussive notes of a love song before the rest of the orchestra is brought in to provide the darkness and tumult of the drama to come.

CHAPTER TWO

Joely was on a train heading away from London still not sure what to expect when she arrived at her final destination. She was trying not to think about it too much, although creating scenarios for what lay in store was infinitely better – and probably healthier – than tormenting herself with what she’d left behind. Better still, at least for the moment, might be to create a little fantasy around the attractive bloke sitting opposite her.

It was a good try, but it took next to no time for her mind to circle back to Callum, her husband, who’d left her two weeks ago.

He’d actually left her.

She’d never imagined he would, had always believed in their marriage so completely that she still couldn’t make herself accept it had happened.

She wasn’t sure he’d accepted it either.

‘So what’s this assignment you won’t tell anyone about?’ he’d asked when he’d called by the house only yesterday, using his key to come in as if he still lived there. His deep brown eyes had shown only amusement, a gentle tease; an invitation to trust him to keep the secret if she was willing to share. If he’d felt anything deeper she hadn’t been able to detect it, but in spite of everything she was sure that he did. Why else was he finding it so hard to stay away?

She knew he was put out that she’d declined to share the details of her new assignment. Nowhere near as put out as she was that he was now living with another woman. It was all wrong, and she couldn’t believe that he didn’t think so too. Even if he did, it remained a reality. He’d actually given up the beloved home they’d created in the Artesian Village of Notting Hill to go and live in Hammersmith with Martha. Clearly this meant that he now preferred Martha’s company, Martha’s body, Martha’s love, Martha’s everything in fact. She’d become so important, so vital to him that he’d put aside twenty years of marriage as though for him it had amounted to little more than a book that had been enjoyable but had come to an early and unsatisfactory conclusion.

Was that really how he saw it?

Needless to say Martha was no longer a friend. Callum, however, remained the big love of her life and she had absolutely no idea how to remove him from that space. She was crushed by the weight of pain and grief that had accompanied her every move and thought since he’d told her he was leaving. It even hurt to breathe. He wouldn’t know that, because she had no intention of letting him see how afraid she was of trying to move forward without him. She had her pride and a few shreds of dignity left – and now she had a new assignment.

‘I don’t understand,’ he’d said, ‘why it has to be so hush-hush. Is it dangerous?’

Joely had walked to the table – the one they’d had specially made to fit their kitchen, had sat around with their families at Christmas and for birthdays; it was their daughter’s homework desk and often where Callum had spread out his own work if Joely was using their shared study. She picked up the mug he’d filled with coffee when he’d come in and rinsed it.

She turned to face him. He was still sitting at the table looking faintly baffled and far too present, too in charge, too much as if he’d never gone away. His hands were bunched loosely in front of him, large, masculine, not beautiful or straight, just his hands – the ones she’d gripped during Holly’s birth, that had folded her to him on their wedding day, that had aroused her in so many different ways, had stroked and comforted her through the wrenching grief of her father’s death. There they were now looking as though they had nothing to do, that they might even be contemplating a way back to her, but really they were momentarily resting or waiting before returning to Martha.

She could see them on Martha’s skin, brushing lightly over her hair, touching her face …

How could imagining something hurt so much? It was like taking a flame to her insides and holding it there. Wasn’t reality painful enough without using her own mind to make it worse?

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked. She hoped her moss green eyes showed only impatience and perhaps a hint of distraction. I’m busy, I really don’t have time for this. Her shoulder-length sandy hair was a mess, twisted awkwardly into a knot at the back of her head, and she knew her face was strained because she could feel it. He wasn’t seeing her at her best, but it hardly mattered any more.

‘Holly mentioned your assignment,’ he explained, ‘and I thought … Well, I wondered why you’re not telling her what it’s about.’

She said, ‘The client has requested confidentiality, which I’m respecting. As the producer of highly sensitive documentaries, I’m sure you understand that. Now, can I remind you that you have a new life? You left this one, remember? So please see yourself out and the next time you come you’ll find I’ve changed the locks.’

He looked startled, and hurt. ‘It doesn’t have to be like that,’ he protested. ‘I thought we could be friends.’

Were all men so naïve, delusional, stupid?

She turned abruptly away and switched off the coffee machine.

‘Are you going back to reporting?’ he asked. ‘Is that what this new assignment is about? Are you going undercover or something?’

She almost wanted to laugh. He knew very well that her reporting days were over, that she was well established in her new career as a ghostwriter so this was a transparent attempt to provoke an answer.

More minutes ticked by until, with her back still turned, she said, ‘I’m leaving tomorrow and as yet I’m not entirely sure how long I’ll be gone. I’ll be on my mobile in case of emergencies, but I know Holly will be fine with you.’ She didn’t add, and Martha – that would have been too hard. And if Holly wasn’t fine with them, she’d go to her grandma, Joely’s mother, where she had her own room, an inter-generational best friend and even easier access to school.

As Callum got to his feet she could see his reflection in the window and knew he was casting around for a way to make this right. He’d never liked loose ends, he was used to being able to fix things, including those he’d broken himself. People found it easy to forgive him: colleagues, family, friends, no one ever had a problem believing that he hadn’t meant to hurt them, because he wasn’t someone who deliberately hurt anyone. Even when he’d set out on an affair with his wife’s best friend he wouldn’t have been doing it to cause pain to Joely. That wouldn’t have been his intention at all. In fact he probably hadn’t as much as thought about her until after the crime had been committed. That was the way those things usually went, wasn’t it? Satisfy the insatiable urge now, deal with the consequences later.

Yes, that was definitely the way it went.

‘Joely,’ he said softly.

‘For God’s sake, Callum,’ she cried angrily, and grabbing her phone she answered an incoming call when she probably shouldn’t have.

‘Yes, this is Joely. I’m fine. How are you?’ It was the publisher who’d given her the new assignment. As he spoke she was so aware of Callum watching her and listening that she missed most of what was being said.

When she was finally able to ring off, she put the phone down and turned around. Callum was holding his coat but making no move to put it on.

‘Was that about your new project?’ he asked.

‘Yes, if you must know.’

He nodded, waited and finally accepting she was going to say no more, he attempted a smile. ‘I hope it goes well,’ he said, and after more moments of awkwardness he left.

Now here she was on a train staring out of the window watching fields and hedgerows passing by in a frantic blur, and feeling thankful that it wasn’t possible to read someone’s thoughts, or see inside their hearts. She wouldn’t want anyone around her to know why she was so glad to be escaping London, while feeling utterly desperate to return.

The train plunged into a tunnel, turning the windows into mirrors and she gazed at her ghostly reflection seeing some of what others saw, she supposed. A normal, non-threatening woman the wrong side of forty with soft honeyed curls and a smattering of freckles over a delicate nose.

Callum used to say she was beautiful. ‘When I put my arms around you,’ he’d say, ‘I feel as though I’m capturing the impossible, because no one can capture the ethereal or the magical, and yet here you are.’

He could be very romantic, if a little corny, could Callum.

She wondered how he described her now, apart from as his ex. He might say he’d opened his arms and she’d simply flown away, the way ethereal things did. No, he wouldn’t be so whimsical or poetical about her these days. In fact, he probably didn’t talk about her at all if he could help it; it wasn’t a subject he and Martha would be comfortable with.

What did it feel like when he put his arms around Martha? Could he actually get them all the way round? You’re being a bitch, Joely. Martha wasn’t fat, exactly, she was strong-boned with masterful shoulders and sturdy legs. Her attraction would be of a more earthy nature, so did he feel as though he was embracing a tree, perhaps? Or a small truck?

Slagging her off isn’t going to change anything. He chose her; you didn’t try to stop him, so now you have to live with it. Just like you have to live with everything else.

They emerged from the tunnel and she watched the world outside rushing by, rushing, rushing into the past. There it went, like her life, her marriage, her dreams. There one minute, gone the next.

‘Excuse me, can I get you something from the buffet?’

Joely started. The handsome man opposite was looking at her, clearly expecting an answer.

‘Uh, um, no, I’m fine thanks,’ she stammered.

He smiled and wound his way through to the next car, tall, athletic in black jeans and matching t-shirt that looked as though it had swirled out of a glossy magazine with him in it. She wondered why she hadn’t asked for a coffee when she was dying for one. Now she wouldn’t be able to have one at all.

What she could have though was a few minutes imagining her return to London with the handsome stranger as her main squeeze (she could hear Holly cringing, ‘no one says that any more, you muppet!’) glowing with happiness, as radiant as a new bride fresh from an exotic and erotic honeymoon, and totally over all the shabby misery the ex-husband and ex-best friend had inflicted, because she had a much better life now.

Yes, that was a fantasy she could happily run with to distract herself from her own guilt, the part she’d played in the breakdown of her marriage because it had never been put into words.

Or she could try to use up the time testing out various scenarios that might crop up over the next few weeks in order to prepare herself for all eventualities. She wasn’t nervous about her new assignment exactly; in fact she was quite excited by it, and grateful that it had come her way at this time when she’d so badly needed the distraction. Regrettably, her heartache was coming too, there was no leaving it in a cupboard at home, or burying it in a time capsule to be dug up by strangers a century after her death.

Before leaving this morning, in a fit of despair and utter stupidity, she’d composed a text to Callum: I’ve told Holly she can get me on my mobile if she needs to. If you happen to come to your senses while I’m gone please know it’s already too late. You’re stuck with Martha and her moustache.

She hadn’t actually sent the last two sentences, but it had given her a momentary satisfaction to see them there until she’d realized how pathetic they made her look. Although Martha really would have a moustache if she hadn’t shelled out for several sessions of electrolysis some years ago.

And she was definitely fat.

What are you talking about, Martha, you’re absolutely not fat. You’re curvaceous and sexy and totally scrumptious, which is what all men love – and honestly they don’t look at ankles.

What a wonderful best friend she’d been, always ready to stretch the truth to make Martha feel good about herself.

Callum had texted back: Are you going to tell me where you’re going? Are you all right?

She hadn’t replied to that, mainly because she wanted him to feel intrigued and worried and guilty and altogether sick of himself for breaking up their home and their family and taking their daughter with him.

‘I think it’s best if I go,’ Holly had sighed when Joely had gone into her room the day they’d left to ask her to stay. She’d seemed unfocused, earbuds in, suitcase half full, decisions in progress.

‘But why? This is your home. I’m your mother.’

Holly turned to regard her own lovely face in the mirror, innocent, almond shaped eyes, exquisitely wide sculpted mouth, silky blonde hair drawn over one shoulder. So much beauty and sophistication in one so young, except Joely wasn’t fooled. No matter how grown-up and worldly she looked, or liked to believe herself to be, at heart Holly was still a child.

‘Is that who you are?’ Holly asked, still gazing at her own reflection, not at her mother’s.

‘Holly, please …’

‘It’s best I’m with Dad.’

Joely wondered what she’d done to alienate her daughter, what had happened to the closeness they used to take for granted, the easy laughter, shared clothes and long-into-the-night confidences. These days she was almost impossible to get close to.

‘What can I do to make things right between us?’ Joely asked, unable to let her go like this.

‘You’re asking me? Why don’t you ask yourself?’ She could be so sharp at times. An over-privileged, over-beautiful teen who hadn’t yet learned how easy it was to hurt people. Maybe because she was hurting too.

‘Holly, that’s enough with the attitude,’ Callum interrupted, appearing in the doorway.

Throwing out her hands, Holly cried, ‘You’re treating me like I’m the one to blame around here, but it’s her. It’s like we’ve all stopped existing, we don’t matter any more!’

‘I said enough. Your mother loves you and she’s going to miss you, so try to be nice before we leave.’

Holly’s frown darkened as she muttered, ‘From you, that’s great, but whatever.’

Later, when Holly was outside in the car waiting to go, Joely used pride to suppress her tears as she looked at Callum, still not quite believing he would go through with this. They belonged together; surely he felt that as deeply as she did. They’d shared so much, had digital albums full of it, and what about all the dreams they had yet to see through? He was going to find out pretty soon that he was making a mistake. Martha wouldn’t rub his back when it ached the way Joely did. She’d balk at cutting his toenails, and hate the way he hawked and coughed like a stuck volcano in the mornings. She already didn’t share his love of France and fine wines – Martha liked Spain and beer. What sort of woman preferred beer? Not Callum’s sort, that was for sure.

Maybe she’d never known him.

‘Come on, Dad,’ Holly shouted from the car.

Finding his brown eyes waiting for hers to reach them Joely turned away. Too many rows had already bounced around the walls of their beautiful home, she didn’t want to be left with the echoes of yet another as he walked away.

He was now living at Martha’s Edwardian end-of-terrace in Ravenscourt Park, Hammersmith, where, over the years, Joely and Martha had spent hours, days, weeks, trying to work out why Martha had so much bad luck with men. Joely had always been there for her, turning up at a time of crisis with boxes of Kleenex, an overnight bag and a loyal friend’s shoulder. She brought wine and beer and vodka and all the support and advice she could muster.

She’d always known that Martha would die for someone like Callum. That was how Martha used to put it, that she’d die to have a man as successful and sensitive, as sensual and masculine as her best friend’s husband.

Now she’d taken not only him but Joely’s daughter as well. She’d given Holly the entire loft conversion as her own private space where Holly could hold sleepovers and take drugs. (To be fair, she hadn’t actually offered the option of drugs, nor had Holly ever shown any interest, but it could come and how was Martha going to cope with that?)

More to the point, how was she going to cope without a best friend to pour her heart out to, to bring booze and love and even laughter to a nightmare that couldn’t be borne alone?

The first call she’d received after the car had pulled away had been from Callum to check she was all right. He couldn’t have got much further than the end of the road. Then Holly had rung to say sorry for being so mean, probably because Callum had told her to, but at least she’d sounded as though she meant it. Minutes later Martha had rung, but Joely hadn’t picked up.

She’d stopped taking calls until the next morning when her mother had finally got hold of her.

She’d been standing in the kitchen staring at empty porridge bowls like a tragic, dumbstruck Goldilocks.

‘I had a text from Holly,’ her mother said gently, ‘so I know it’s happened. Are you OK? No, obviously you’re not. What did he have to say before he left?’

‘Nothing really.’

‘Do you want me to come over? I can stay for a few days, longer if you like.’

Tears had stung Joely’s eyes. Her mother was her real best friend and always had been, so why had she wasted her time with Martha? ‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘We’ll only end up going round and round in circles and we’ve already done enough of that …’

‘But I don’t like to think of you on your own.’

‘I’ll be fine, honestly.’ She probably wouldn’t, since right at that moment she felt like topping herself, but her mother was a busy woman. Marianne Jenson might have retired from her job as the most glamorous and popular head teacher the local primary had known, but she was now a top part-time sales exec for an upmarket estate agent specializing in high-end properties, and with the way things were going in that world she was having to work extra hard.

Sighing, her mother had said, ‘I know it feels awful right now, but to be honest I really don’t think it’s over. He’ll come to his senses, I’m sure of it.’

How loyal and lovely of her to say that. It was the kind of thing you said as a parent who was also hurting, because how could you not hurt when your child was suffering?

‘And if he doesn’t?’ Joely asked crisply, unable to be kind. Was everyone destined to hurt their mothers? First Holly had hurt her and now here she was doing the same …

‘It’ll take time, but you’ll get over it,’ her mother said.

Such a platitude. It was outrageously insensitive and not what she’d have expected from her mother. ‘You mean the way you got over Dad?’ she shot back, and instantly regretted it, because her mother really hadn’t deserved that. ‘Sorry,’ she said, before her mother could respond.

‘Your father died; that was quite different.’

Yes, it had been different. No rejection there, just an awful, wrenching grief that he’d been taken from them too soon, and an emptiness where he’d been that never went away, sometimes seemed even bigger, and then so big … No one had told her that losing her father would be so destabilizing that it would change her in ways she didn’t even begin to understand, make her do things she could never excuse.

What she wouldn’t give now, sitting here on this train, to be on her way to her father, to know that he was probably already waiting at the station, an hour in advance, not wanting to miss her. He’d cry, ‘Ha! Ha!’ when he saw her and envelop her in an embrace that would shut out all the bad things and make her feel loved and safe and able to cope with anything as long as he was there.

Feeling the burn of self-pity in her eyes she blinked quickly to check her mobile as it rang. Seeing who it was, she felt the tug of a smile pulling her out of the gloom and clicked to answer right away.

‘Hey you. Mum tells me you’ve already set off for your secret assignation.’

Joely had to laugh. Her brother Jamie was as special to her as their father had been to them all. ‘You’re making it sound romantic,’ she chided.

‘You mean it isn’t?’

‘Nothing like. How are you?’

Affecting a southern Irish accent, he said, ‘We’re all great over here. Clare and kids send their love and we all want to know when you’re coming to see us.’

She’d always loved going to visit her brother in Dublin, Callum had too. ‘I’ll be there as soon as this job is over,’ she promised. ‘I feel in need of a you-fix.’

‘Same here. How are things with Callum, as of today?’

Steeling herself, she said, ‘We’re kind of speaking, but he’s definitely with her.’

Jamie sighed. ‘I can’t help thinking there’s something I’m missing in all this, because it’s not making any sense to me. Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to have a chat with him?’

Joely’s eyes closed. He’d made the same offer several times now, and while in some ways she’d love her brother to be able to fix things, she knew it wasn’t fair to drag him into it. ‘You’re just like Dad,’ she told him, aware of the catch in her heart, ‘which is probably why we’re all so mad about you.’

‘Well, you know I’m always here for you, and don’t forget to stay in touch while you’re on this clandestine mission. Clare and I are dying to find out who you’re going to be working for. Mum says you haven’t even told her.’

That wasn’t strictly true, for she’d realized it would worry her mother terribly if she had no idea at all of where her daughter would be for the next few weeks so she’d divulged as much as she could. Clearly her mother was keeping her confidence, unless Jamie was trying a double bluff. It didn’t matter, she was more than happy for him to know what she’d told her mother.