Lies Between Us Page 2

  ‘That’s terrible! How are his family coping?’

  ‘They’re struggling. Heidi, his wife, is broken up. He was in a coma until two days ago; now he’s progressed into a vegetative state. She can’t quite wrap her head around it, I don’t think. And she’s heavily pregnant – only a month away from her due date – with a little kid at home.’

  ‘God, poor lady.’

  ‘She’s dealing with it well. She’s a strong one, I think. And she has the support of their friend Watson. He seems like a good guy. I really feel for them both.’

  ‘How long have she and Tim been together?’

  ‘Fifteen years.’ Maisie nods, thinking of Heidi with her wild blonde curls and bright-green eyes, black bags hanging like small thunderclouds beneath. She’d stood over her husband’s bed, hand sailing back and forth between her chest and swollen stomach, as if it couldn’t quite decide where it needed to be. For the most part, she simply looked lost. Someone suspended in a state of shock. But, for a moment, all of that had given way and Maisie had thought she’d glimpsed something else. A swift shift in expression, a bowing of her shoulders, a balling of her hands, lips thinning to pale strips of ribbon, fear-laden eyes locked on the floor, then suddenly skittering across the room as if searching for the source of a noise. It was as if a film of something had settled across her face, a reality, a truth that, for a few seconds, was laid bare for those around her to see, all before her composure returned and she wiped away this look like she would wipe away dust on a shelf.

  Maisie didn’t ask Heidi why. She didn’t want to intrude on her grief. She had never seen a reaction like that before, not from the other distraught wives who sat weeping by their husbands’ sides, or the girlfriends who looked like big-eyed children as she gently explained treatment and tried to buoy their hopes. Heidi wept for her husband, fear and pain painted clearly across her face, but there was something else too. Something she was trying to keep hidden.

  Her friend Watson, a tall, bearded man, fetched her tea and snacks although they were only pushed to the side and steadily grew into a small tower of food. He constantly held her hand, his eyes finding their way to Tim, his fingers removing a tear from his cheek when he thought no one else was watching. Maisie spoke words of comfort and eased them into a new world as she had done with so many others before.

  Some families struggled to talk in front of the patient but, when they did, it soothed their fears and lightened the atmosphere. She always asked them questions that allowed them to open up a little more easily. ‘Jam or marmalade? Rainy days or sunny days? Cats or dogs? Which does he or she prefer? Tell me the simple things.’

  ‘I hope this chap, Tim, recovers. Does he have a fair chance?’

  ‘He does but then it’s early days. Heidi was telling me this really sweet story about how he injured himself when he was little and his mum bought him a pair of Mickey Mouse socks to cheer him up. He kept them on for weeks, literally, wouldn’t take them off because he thought they were lucky. He still has them.’ Ben inches down the sofa, resting his chin on his hand. ‘His daughter had to read this story out to her class a few months ago – she was so nervous. Apparently Tim washed his socks with a pair of her own and told her she’d have some of his luck. It worked a treat because the little girl pulled it off.’

  ‘That’s adorable.’

  ‘Mmm. Heidi’s not sure about letting her visit Tim. It’s tough. She had a mishap at school – a kid pushed her off the climbing frame and she broke her hand so she’s feeling a bit vulnerable. Heidi’s worried it might be a bit much for her to see Tim like that. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it just upsets everyone. Always depends on the people.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think it’s worth a shot if it helps the little girl.’ Maisie nods, visualising Heidi’s expression; how, despite fishing for a look of calm, her anguish had been brushed across her face like black paint over a white wall. Her reaction to seeing Tim was one of the strangest Maisie had experienced. She had cared for countless VS patients over the years, and each one seemed like a shell, their personality replaced with an abyss that crippled those around them. In her precious moments of quiet, Maisie sometimes wondered if it would have been easier if they had stayed in a coma for ever. At least then they’d look as if they were sleeping. In a vegetative state they were watching, moving, reacting to the environment around them. But it was only reflexes, would only ever be reflexes. Until the brain had had a chance to heal, Tim would still be lodged firmly in the landscape of his mind.

  ‘What about the friend… Watson? How did he seem?’ Ben heaves himself off the sofa and jogs into their tiny kitchen where he boils the kettle, swiping a strand of brown hair from his eye.

  ‘He tried to cover it up but you could see he was heartbroken. He was supporting Heidi, making sure she was comfortable, fetching her snacks. I think he seems really sweet.’

  ‘Do you want some tea, sweetheart?’ Ben hooks the handle of a mug with his finger and raises an eyebrow.

  ‘Yes, please. Fancy cracking open the good biscuits?’

  Ben winks, shooting a mischievous grin her way. ‘You’re a bad influence on me.’

  She laughs, tucking her feet under a blanket. Rivulets of steam spout from the mugs like smoke from twin chimneys. Ben passes her a mug and props a plate of custard creams between them. ‘I have an early shift at the café tomorrow. I can drop you off at work if you want to go a bit earlier?’

  ‘That would be lovely, thanks!’ She nestles into his arms, nibbling on a biscuit and delighting in his warmth after a day on the ward. As an ICU nurse, her job entailed keeping a tight lid on her emotions, building a wall, brick by brick, to enable her to remain professional, but sometimes, when she least expected, cracks rocked through her defences. And it was at times like these, when she could curl up with Ben and leave behind her life in the hospital, that she found the sense of calm she needed to relax.

  Ben wraps his arms around her and deposits a gentle kiss on her head. And Maisie savours it – savours the small pause before this day ends and a new day begins.

  Chapter 4

  Miller

  ‘Tell me a story. Tell it again.’ That is what you used to say, sitting by my side, bright-blue eyes peering up at me, thirsty for knowledge, for an insight I could give you. I called them stories but they weren’t. They were facets of life only I could see.

  The neighbours clocking each other in the street, bidden, despite trying to avoid each other with the utmost stealth, to stop, smile, chatter through clenched teeth by a need to be perceived as polite that is almost tangible. As if they are in pain. But it is not pain. Only disdain.

  The man who watches his girlfriend laugh and throw about gossip like tinsel at Christmas, impatience boiling under his skin, shooting glares in her direction. But she doesn’t see them, and her friends don’t see the bruises that mark her skin like different-coloured counties on a map. Later she will pay for every word that passed her lips.

  The mother on the sidewalk, fondling her newborn baby. Yes, that is what you see, but you miss the husband standing off to the side, frustrated eyes staring not at the woman but at the baby. His baby. You miss the pursing of his lips and the balling of his fists, you miss the jealousy that pours from his muscled body like steam. Jealous of the attention and love his baby receives from its mother. You miss the truth in its brutal, disgusting form. Far better to only see the sweet picture. But by missing the small things, you miss everything. Everything.

  ‘Tell me a story. Tell it again.’ Shall I tell you mine? Shall I tell you who I was before I met you? Before you exploded into my life in a riot of colour and noise and happiness. Before I took her from you in the water that day and slotted myself into the place she left behind.

  I’ll start with my family because you know the beginning is just as important as the end.

  Sunday 1 January, 1984

  The girl squeals as she is hoisted into the air by her father, eyes alight with the
simple pleasure of his unconditional love and devotion. Her mother stands to the side laughing, hands – nails long and lacquered – clenched into an elated fist at her chest, as if she is trying to stop her heart from leaping out. She watches them, proud of her husband for his surprising skill at handling his own child, proud of her child for her beauty and innocence. When the father props the girl on his left hip, the mother joins them, arms round their shoulders, fingernails tenderly caressing their faces, one third of their happiness. One third of their lives. Their love. One third of their family. A family of three. Or so it seems, standing as they do, ignoring the boy who hangs on the outskirts wondering why that circle of happiness doesn’t extend to him.

  I spend hours watching them, noticing the finer details of their family. Theirs, not ours. It is always the three of them. The father is besotted with his bundle of freckles and blonde curls. The mother is besotted with them both, and neither notices the boy to the left, peering up at them, seeking affection, validation, encouragement. The boy who sneaks into their bedroom when he has a nightmare only to find their little angel already there, snuggled up to her parents, who even in sleep wear smiles.

  I stand there for what seems like hours some nights, wishing I could see into their dreams. But then why would I need to? I already know who would be there.

  Father plants a kiss on her cheek – his little angel, Mary. She giggles and squirms in his arms, swinging a podgy arm around Mother’s neck, consumed with joy. Mother takes her from Father and the girl nuzzles into the space between her neck and collarbone – so perfect for a child’s head. She pats her back and swings from side to side. To and fro. Dancing in their circle, proud of one in a brood of two.

  Something I have always found fascinating is this: we share so much of one another. DNA, characteristics, mannerisms. Her eyes are my eyes, her nose is my nose, her lips are my lips. We are nearly the same person. We eat with our fingers even though Mother and Father tell us not to. We smile the same, laugh the same. We are one. And yet, if we both cry she is the one who is kissed and hugged and loved until the pain has passed. She is the one in the circle, I am the one outside. Sweet, angelic, innocent Mary.

  I wonder if it is because I am not special. Not someone who catches the adoring looks of neighbours and friends. Someone who, if they do something wrong, is given a forgiving, sympathetic look. Nobody ever likes the odd boy, the strange boy… the naughty boy.

  Once, when we were playing in the garden, our plastic toys strewn across the grass, slightly more on her side than mine, Mrs Taylor sauntered over, cheaply produced clothes and badly applied make-up not boding well against the backdrop of her newly permed hair. She looked at us, smiling even though it looked like a wince, and said loudly, ‘The little dears!’

  Father grimaced and forced himself to look at her slightly uneven features, desperately trying to tame the eyes that flitted to the wart sitting sentinel under her left brow. ‘Good morning, Mrs Taylor? How is Mr Taylor? Good, I hope. Sunny today, isn’t it? Enjoying the fine weather?’ The words tumbled out of his mouth, one after the other, as if he was trying to fill the space where an apology should have been. His eyes found her wart again.

  ‘Oh, good, good.’ She brushed away the questions like flies from her T-shirt. ‘And how are these lovely children?’ She knelt down and made popping noises into thin air. As we were hidden by her mass, if anyone had walked past it would have looked as if she had lost her mind. ‘Oooh. Aren’t we a pair of cutie pies?!’ She was talking to us both and yet her eyes peered at Mary, who looked back at her with a slightly bewildered expression. Mother and Father came over, sharing a look behind her back. ‘And how is little Mary Moo this morning?’ She poked her in the ribs, like an animal in a cage. Poke. Jab. Poke. Mary, confused, grabbed a pebble from the ground and popped it into her mouth, grinning.

  ‘Mary!’ Mother screeched, eyes widening, rushing forward, picking her up as Father prised her mouth open. The pebble dropped at Mrs Taylor’s feet, covered in saliva. She stared at it in shock, stumbling back, affronted.

  Mary grinned, a string of spittle hanging from her mouth. Father wiped it away and awaited Mrs Taylor’s reaction. She came forward and tickled Mary’s cheek with hairy fingers, her features growing horrifyingly animated as she whispered, ‘What a special girl!’

  Mother returned her to the ground and they looked at a cat across the road. I reached out and pinched her arm. She whimpered, tears forming in her eyes. I pulled away as they turned back round, and smiled when I saw I had left a mark.

  I stand by the staircase in our small detached house, watching them, wondering why, if we are so similar, if we are nearly the same person, why I’m not wanted and loved and tickled and poked? Why am I not as special as Angel Mary? I watch them, their happiness drowning me, wondering what makes me different. What makes me the oddity?

  Monday 2 January, 1984

  I run my fingers down her blonde braid as she plays with a doll, permanent grin etched on her face, enjoying the pull and tug of my fingers. I watch her, studying her mannerisms, her expressions, the way she laughs, the way she sticks her thumb in her mouth and sucks – as if on a lolly – when she is thinking, the way a frown creases her forehead when confused. Mother is cooking in the kitchen, stirring soup, tapping her nails on the worktop. Do you know, I lay awake last night imagining ripping them off, prising her nail away from her skin and taking it between my teeth, feeling the soft shell of the varnish crumble in my mouth. When I finally went to sleep, it was to the sweep of silence in my mind, not to the tap-tap-tapping of her nails.

  Father is beside her, turning three times a minute to check on us – or rather, on Mary, his eyes ever so slightly concerned as they alight on me, pulling at her hair. Gently though Father, gently.

  Our house is a two-up, two-down box with an open-plan living area and a garden roughly the size of a postage stamp, which leads on to the quiet street beyond. In the evenings, children and teenagers bundle on the kerb, kicking footballs, thinking themselves as good as George Best, skittering when a car honks its horn and goes on its way. Girls sit in groups, legs crossed, giving one another tutorials on the application of the latest make-up. Mothers slave away indoors, cooking chicken, cursing their husbands. Fathers combat the stress of their wives with a steady flow of alcohol down the pub, and the elderly residents of our street enjoy the comings and goings with watchful eyes, like owls from a tree. The young yearn to be older and the elderly yearn to be younger. A strange sort of world we live in.

  The neighbours complain that their similarly built houses are not big enough for the relatives who come and stay at Christmas and New Year. But we do not share their problem. I have never told you this although you have asked plenty of times. Eluding and sidestepping questions is easy once you have become practised at it. We are a family of three – the quandary that is me somewhere within it – and only three. Our relatives are dead. ‘Nice and cosy in their graves,’ as Mother likes to say, sarcasm lacing her words, as if they chose to die just to spite her and dodge babysitting duties.

  At Christmas, as our neighbours celebrate, planting kisses, administering hugs, proffering gifts, we sit around Mary, me slightly back where Father has patted the floor. We watch her rip open her presents, Mother holding Father’s hand. When it is time for them to exchange gifts, they tentatively pass them over. A laugh. A nervous smile. A kiss. An ‘Oh, how lovely!’ A pat on the arm or shoulder, all before the presents are silently nudged to the back.

  Father swivels on his heels, penetrating eyes watching my hand as it brushes across Mary’s cheek. ‘Careful. Don’t want to catch your sister now, do we?’ He persuades a smile onto his twitching lips, brow furrowing. I look up at him and shake my head.

  ‘No, Daddy.’

  He gives a little nod and turns around to help Mother with the soup. Mary giggles as I twirl her braids round my finger. Her Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah braids, I call them. She grins up and squeals ‘Hummy’. Her name for me. I nod and study her pi
nk lips, pulled back to reveal her baby teeth.

  That sweet smile slips as I lean back and pull her braids. And it keeps on slipping until tears shimmer down her skin and her cheeks bloom red as she screams. And even then, I keep on pulling.

  Chapter 5

  John

  Tuesday 1 December, 2015

  Two Weeks Later

  He runs his finger across the photograph in what is nearly a caress. He scans the child’s face, and it is as if a map has been drawn across it, the red lines navigating the black and blue bruises, traversing the blotchy skin and the swollen, bloodshot eyes as if to reach some unknown destination. He touches the girl’s face, hovering over her parted lips where blood has dribbled down and dried on her chin. She peers up at him, a silent plea in her eyes.

  He feels a body brush past him and then hears a muffled gasp somewhere off to his right. He catches Jules just as she slips to the ground and sits her on the staircase. She weeps into her hands, hiding her eyes from the photo, as if it will burn itself onto her retinas. She can’t bear to see it and yet he can’t take his eyes off it. He knows it will come; within minutes an avalanche of emotion, bearing an almost unimaginable force, comes crashing into him. Turning the photo, he reads the inscription and his hand begins to tremble. His wife, sensing the change in the air, glances up at him, then down at the photo, hands falling to her swollen stomach as if to protect her baby from the photo and the assailant who has suddenly marched into their lives. She takes a ragged breath and stares at the typed message on the back, Bonnie’s scrawl signing it off with her name.

  Do you remember that day in 1992, John? Do you remember what happened?

  John swipes his thumb across the six-year-old girl’s writing and shuffles to the sideboard, feeling as if he is wading through mud. He grabs the phone and dials.