After the Lie: A gripping novel about love, loss and family secrets (25 page)

A
s the autumn
term drew to an end, with Christmas a couple of weeks away, it dawned on me that Mark was probably just staying until the festivities were over, clinging on for one last family tableau of togetherness. One day soon, I’d have to pose the question. I’d tried to be open, to make it easy for him to ask me anything. But he’d turned in on himself. Apart from occasional bursts of rage over Mabel licking plates in the dishwasher, the kids finishing the bread without bothering to get any more out of the freezer and an uncharacteristic bellow at a delivery boy who chucked a package over our wall, it was like living with a grudge-harbouring ghost.

‘Is there anything you want to know that might help us work through this?’ The words sounded all wrong, so alien for our marriage. Working through had never been a strategy for our relationship in the same way that ignoring or brushing under the carpet had. We’d managed pretty well for eighteen years. But there was no more ignoring to be done. The issues were out there, raw and exposed, like jagged wounds that could squeal under a dose of TCP and stand half a chance of healing or be left untreated to fester into further infection.

One morning, with Mark dressing with his back to me, a retracted image of unhappiness, I could stand it no longer. ‘Mark. We can’t go on like this. I can’t bear to see you so unhappy, knowing that I’ve caused it. I know the kids haven’t picked up on anything yet but they’re not stupid. If you really can’t stand to stay with me, then we need to make plans.’

As an ultimatum, it would have been quite effective if I hadn’t stood there with a torrent of tears pouring out of me.

Mark put his hand on my shoulder. ‘Lyddie. Lyddie. Don’t cry. Please don’t cry. I’m sorry. I wish I could just let it go, get over it, move on or whatever I should be doing. But I can’t. Every time I even hear the word ‘Italy’, I feel sick. I keep thinking about you with that bloke. I’m not sure I can get past that. I just feel so ridiculous, so stupid that our entire life has been one big farce.’

‘No, that’s just not true.’

His response, ‘That’s not what it feels like to me,’ slipped out into the bedroom and curled, coldly, around my heart.

T
he day
the kids broke up from school for Christmas, Mark popped home from the shop just before pickup. There was something decisive about him. Hope flared in me. He looked lighter of spirit, younger than the careworn man who’d been moving round the house as though he wanted to disappear into the walls.

‘It’s really quiet in the shop so I’m going to close early for Christmas and head off for a few days.’

‘Where?’

‘I don’t know yet.’

Alarm roared through me. ‘Are you coming back for Christmas? What about Tara’s wedding on the twenty-third?’

‘I don’t know whether I can stomach a wedding.’ He laughed, a sound that seemed to call into question the idea that laughter was something joyful and spontaneous.

I wanted to insist, to tell him that he had to come, that I couldn’t face everyone on my own. Not my brother, mother or anyone at all. But I had no right to insist on anything. ‘The kids will be devastated if you’re not here for Christmas.’

I heard myself keeping my voice neutral, non-accusatory, sticking to the facts like a proper grown-up. I wanted to fly at him, snatch up my brush from the dressing table and batter him about the head with it, spike some sense into us, into our marriage.

‘I will be here for Christmas.’ Mark’s measured tone matched mine, cocooning within its words the unspoken threat that he might not stay beyond that.

Was this what a marriage falling apart looked like? Clipped, calm sentences batting about a bedroom while the whole family edifice was tumbling off a cliff, chunks of unity shearing off in all directions and plunging down a jagged rock face into a swell of oblivion?

I stood. I watched. The careful folding up of the T-shirts. The tucking of socks into shoes. The packing got quicker, more slapdash, as though he just needed to be gone. I heard the squeak of the bathroom cabinet opening and closing. The rustle of the razor packet. The snap of the toothbrush charger coming out of the socket. The sounds of leaving.

He stood opposite me with a holdall over his shoulder. ‘Tell Jamie and Izzy I’ve had to go away for work.’

I nodded.

Feeding that lie into Izzy at pickup proved to be a doddle as she was far more distraught about not being invited to a party that
everyone
was going to than Mark’s whereabouts.

Jamie, on the other hand, sat morosely in the front seat.

‘Aren’t you happy it’s the holidays? I thought you were desperate to break up.’

He turned to me. ‘Katya wants to go to the police. She’s told Eleanor she’ll get me arrested for having sex with a minor.’

‘What?’

I swerved round an old man on his bike, who almost met his maker prematurely. Maybe Jamie and I could share a lawyer.

Jamie muttered, ‘For fuck’s sake,’ under his breath. For fuck’s sake indeed.

‘When we get home, you can start by telling me the truth and we’ll take it from there.’

I looked in the rear-view mirror to see if Izzy was listening but she’d taken refuge in her phone, Instagramming or Snapchatting or some other hideous thing that Mark had argued she should be allowed to have because that was how children communicated these days. I’d fought him over it, never telling him why I felt so strongly. I’d trotted out all the arguments about damaging a developing brain, the kids not having the maturity to understand that pictures were somewhere on the internet forever, peer pressure to post stupid things.

Now he knew.

But back then, it had been three against one, a trendy little team taking on the pterodactyl and in the end, they’d worn me down. As it happened, I’d been proved right.

Now, all the hate I’d once felt for Sean had transferred itself to Katya. But the anger I’d aimed at Sean looked like watered-down orange squash versus the surging one-hundred-per-cent-proof absinthe of evil I harboured towards Katya. She wanted to have a pop at my son.

She would regret that.

When we got home, Izzy dashed upstairs to FaceTime the girls she’d been sitting next to all day at school. I managed to stop myself shouting at Jamie to ‘sit down right now and tell me what’s bloody well been going on’, when he insisted on getting changed first. Instead, I made myself a cup of tea, feeling my emotions ratcheting up cog by cog. One thing I was crystal clear about was that Katya was not going to get my son a police record to blight his life.

Before his life had even started.

I washed up the pan I’d used for scrambled eggs that morning, cursing myself. I’d had my eye on the wrong things. A bit less worry about whether Jamie was getting enough protein and fibre and a bit more about his girlfriend hovering over a smart phone with her pants down would have been a more productive use of my time. There was so much fury pulsing through my body, I half-expected to look down and see the washing-up water bubbling up like a witch’s cauldron. But it was just me, in my Marigolds, figuring out how I was going to stop Katya before another McAllister-related disaster blew my family apart.

I’d defended Sean all those years ago. A memory of a policewoman sitting opposite me, all soft-voiced and ‘you can tell me anything’ speared into my mind, as sharp as glass. I’d sat there, silent. Even when she’d asked me if there was anything at all she should know that could help my dad, I bound my knowledge to me, swaddling it in layers of obstinacy. I wasn’t sorry Sean had a photo of us naked. I was sorry we’d been found out; mortified that Dad, the police, a whole array of people had seen me on a bed with everything on display. But I still knew, clung onto the fact, that Sean loved me.

He made my ordinary life extraordinary.

When I was with him, I wasn’t the girl whose mother wouldn’t let her wear high heels, who had to leave parties at eleven-fifteen instead of midnight, who had to scrub her black eyeliner off before she went home. I was a girl to be envied. Someone, who, under the umbrella of Sean’s attention, had become fascinating and intriguing – and capable of snaring the boy every girl wanted. Sean loved quirky old me. When he could have had any one of those girls with their flicky hair and ready smiles. I wasn’t going to get him in trouble by telling that policewoman I’d had sex with him.

And I certainly couldn’t risk my mother finding out.

I glanced up as Jamie came in. ‘Sit down, lovey.’

He slumped in a chair and immediately started scratching at something on the table – probably a lump of dried-on porridge. Currently, it was as much as I could do to ensure no one had to wear the same pants and socks for two days in a row.

I put my hand on his shoulder. ‘Truth time. Did you have sex with Eleanor?’

No hesitation. ‘Yes.’

My stomach felt as though it was on a ferry in the Bay of Biscay in a gale. I steadied myself on the back of the chair.

‘How does Katya know?’

‘She went through Eleanor’s school bag and found her pills.’

‘How did Eleanor get the pill? She’s only fifteen.’

Jamie wrestled to take the ‘Don’t be an idiot’ look off his face. ‘We ordered them on the internet.’ He put his head in his hands. ‘I didn’t want her to get pregnant. We tried to be really careful.’

I wished their care had extended to flushing the pills down the loo the second the shit had hit the fan.

Jamie looked up. ‘Do you think I’ll go to prison like granddad?’

‘No. No!’ I took a deep breath to get my voice into something more solid than a scream. ‘No, of course you won’t. I won’t let that happen.’

I still wanted to pretend I could make everything all right. My kids weren’t going to sit in their rooms staring into the mirror, wondering whether running away would be an option, what it would be like to have their faces on a ‘Missing’ poster.

I dragged myself back to the present.

Jamie stood up. ‘Can I have a hug?’ he said.

I held him close, marvelling at how that little boy who’d lain on the rug lining up his cars with absolute precision, was now so much taller than me. ‘I’ll talk to Katya.’

Jamie pulled away. ‘Do you think that will help, Mum? Only Eleanor says she hates you.’

‘I think Katya is probably one of those people who exaggerates for effect. I doubt that she really wants to go to the police. It would be a real ordeal for Eleanor, too. Perhaps I’ll have a chat with Sean. He seems a bit more reasonable.’

Sean McAllister. The boy who hadn’t even bothered to say goodbye when I moved away was now the man who could help me save my son.

I
spent
the evening and the early hours of the morning calling Mark. Repeatedly. I imagined him holed up in a hotel somewhere, watching my number flash up on his phone. I pictured him turning away, realising that he didn’t care whether he ever spoke to me again. But this wasn’t about us. This was about keeping Jamie out of trouble with the police. I cursed the fact that Jamie had already had his sixteenth birthday in September. I looked at the class list to see when Eleanor was sixteen. Of course she was an August baby, one of the youngest in the year. Two bloody weeks later, she would have been in the year below, not even on Jamie’s radar.

In between trying to contact Mark, I Googled laws governing sex and the under-sixteens. I’d started off thinking sex between two consenting teenagers might somehow be more permissible these days but in the end, it was like Googling a headache and convincing yourself that you had a brain tumour. The more I read, the more frightened I became that Jamie was looking at five years in a young offenders’ institution. What if Eleanor turned against Jamie and said she hadn’t consented?

As much as my brain picked away, scouring for alternative ways to protect Jamie against Katya’s accusations, I kept returning to a single unpalatable option. I went back to Google and began to type, screwing up my eyes before pressing return, bracing myself for what I hoped and dreaded I’d find.

I tried Mark again. I left yet another message on his voicemail, not even bothering to contain my distress, which fear was turning to anger: ‘I know you’re pissed off with me and you have every right to be but you can’t just walk out of the kids’ lives when they need you,’ accompanied by a desperate sob.

At three in the morning, I took myself off to bed.

I lay there in the dark, my eyes flicking over the shadows and shapes in the room, seeing bogeymen in every dressing gown and armchair. My mind darted between possibilities. Was it better to talk to Sean first, or just present Katya with a
fait accompli
? I needed to move quickly before she involved the police. I was going to have to make this big decision, carry out this undoable act without speaking to Mark. It couldn’t wait.

I pushed my face into his pillow, breathing in the smell of his hair and the slight fragrance of Issey Miyake that lingered there. Now it came to it, I didn’t want revenge on Sean. But I’d promised Jamie I’d make it right.

I wished I didn’t have to make it wrong for someone else.

On Saturday morning, when Mabel dived Scooby Doo-like onto the bed, I had to work hard to wake up. She jumped about madly, straining to lick me as I took refuge under the duvet. I tried to stop thoughts bouncing round my brain – veering from Jamie going to prison, to where Mark was, round to Sean, Katya and the next instalment of this particular horror story.

Mabel was quite a good distraction. It was impossible to focus on anything when her great raspy tongue was flapping towards its target. She picked up my bra and scarpered off down the landing, shaking it like a rabbit whose neck she wanted to snap. I ran after her, which thrilled her. She stood at the top of the stairs, ready to bound in either direction, depending on whether she thought a telling-off or a cuddle might be coming her way.

In the end, she chose a dash down the stairs in a manner which I could only describe as foolhardy, smashing right into Jamie who was carrying a huge bowl of Rice Krispies up to his room, now splattered all over his bare chest and pyjama bottoms.

‘Shitting hell, Mabel, you bloody dog!’

I raised my eyebrows at the swearing but really, I couldn’t have agreed more.

‘What?’ Jamie was all aggressive. I recognised the way his fear worked. Like mine, it ran in tandem with anger.

‘Language, Jamie.’ For all I gave a hoot about his swearing right now, I could have said, ‘Go and have a shower,’ with more conviction.

‘Shit isn’t swearing. Fuck is swearing.’

My mother would have disagreed, but shit, fuck or otherwise, a few swear words weren’t going to change my world. In fact, there was a strong possibility I was going to hear more of them shortly.

My voicemails to Mark’s phone oscillated between anger and worry. I didn’t want to alert the children to my suspicions that he’d just walked out on us completely, so I pretended my mobile wasn’t working. ‘Have you heard from Dad? I can’t seem to receive messages on my mobile at the moment.’

Izzy rolled her eyes and said, ‘Have you switched it on?’

Jamie just shook his head and lay back down on the sofa, watching reruns of
Friends
in his dressing gown. I paced up and down, wondering how long Katya would wait before she went to the police if she decided to go. I spent the day clearing things out. Baking tins I never used. Old gloves and slippers. The single socks that sat in a basket in the airing cupboard in the hope that their mate would turn up from the corner of a sports bag. I found it oddly comforting.

By Sunday morning, I couldn’t sleep or eat. I couldn’t risk waiting any longer. There was every chance this final act could finish off my marriage completely. The last part of the puzzle that I’d prayed I’d never have to slot in. God, I really hoped Mark would understand.

No point in roaring round to the McAllisters’ at the crack of dawn though. Not much traction to be gained in standing on the doorstep with Sean faintly embarrassed by his pyjamas or Katya worrying about being braless under her nightie. I needed attention that wasn’t diluted by them trying not breathe on me because they hadn’t cleaned their teeth yet.

I decided that eleven-thirty would be perfect timing. That left me with three hours to fill. I decided to start on my tax return, that guaranteed mood enhancer. Businesswoman of the Year. That was a joke. My work had dwindled over the last month. I’d taken my time to follow up on enquiries, been a little less prompt about calling people back. And a damn sight less patient with the ones who phoned, picked my brains for half an hour and then decided that their mum knew how to arrange flowers and Great Aunt Nellie knew a man with a Costco card.

The tributes on my website of ‘patience of a saint’ would soon become ‘bad-tempered old harridan’ if I didn’t get a grip. If Mark left me, I’d need the business more than ever. Just letting that idea waltz through my brain triggered a rush of despair so deep that it transported me back to the turbulent days following Dad’s dismissal from school.

I put the radio on, forcing myself to sing to every song until the shaky feeling passed. The irony of
I Won’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me
wasn’t lost on me. I sang it at top volume until Mabel leapt up excitedly, catching one of her paws in the pocket of my cardigan and laddering the fine knit with her claw. I didn’t have the heart to shout at her. Mabel didn’t understand about living life in moderation.

I walked round the kitchen, using Mabel as my audience for what I was going to say to Katya and Sean. Her floppy ears kept twitching up in puzzlement, her eyes widening then hooding over every time I said a word beginning with ‘w’ that didn’t translate into ‘walk’. My whispered speech sounded mean-spirited, petty and vindictive. I had the sense that instead of raising myself up, I’d sunk down to someone I despised.

I tried Mark again. That slight South-West accent in his answerphone message. That voice I trusted. That man I should have told everything to.

I marched out to the car. I couldn’t think about my dad’s words – ‘Two wrongs don’t make a right’ – the mantra that he’d repeated to me so often whenever I’d told him I’d get my own back on the McAllisters one day. He’d be really sad that his daughter could stoop so low. But Katya wasn’t going to ruin my son’s life. She wanted to fight dirty.

She had no idea how filthy I was prepared to get. Whatever the cost.

I drove carefully, talking myself through the directions to Sean’s house. I noticed more and more that the things that I used to do automatically – drive, make a cup of tea, feed the dog – required me to concentrate.

I edged round the corner into the cul-de-sac where Katya and Sean lived. My eyes were stinging as though sheer will was holding back the water in my tear ducts. It took me a moment to realise that Mark’s car was outside their house. A surge of relief that he was all right and still in the area made me tremble. The unpleasant feeling that they were all in there, talking about my despicable behaviour followed. Maybe Mark had decided to interrogate Katya about my affair.

My rational mind knew that Mark would be focused on Jamie, if he knew what Katya was planning, if he’d listened to my messages – any one of the five hundred that would be clogging up his voicemail by now. But I still wanted to burst in and say, ‘We’ve all bloody well made mistakes. I’ve done some good things, too!’

I turned the car round at the end of the cul-de-sac so I’d be able to zoom straight off once I’d said my piece. I looked in the rear-view mirror, a last glance at the person I was before everyone’s opinion of me shifted forever. I was just getting out when the front door flung open with a crash and Mark appeared. Katya followed, screaming at him and lashing out. ‘You bastard, you bloody bastard. Don’t you ever come near us again. Just fuck off. Fuck off.’

Sean was behind her, trying to grab her wrists, barking, ‘Katya! Katya! That’s enough! Stop it!’

Then she turned on Sean. ‘This is all your bloody mother’s fault. Stupid cow. What was she thinking of? Protecting someone else instead of her own son.’

Sean clocked me first but didn’t react. Mark was too busy dodging Katya. He didn’t retaliate, just did that thing he did so well – stayed completely calm, backing down the drive at his own pace, not rushed, not chased out, just resolute. ‘Think on what I’ve said. And be very clear that I’m not making idle threats. I have no interest in carrying them out, none at all, but I will if you leave me no option.’

I was looking from one to the other, seeing anguish everywhere. I felt as though I had been handed the impossible task of piecing together the fragments of a delicate vase that had just smashed to the ground, without ever having seen it whole.

And then Katya saw me, broke free from Sean and flew at me like a Jack Russell intent on devouring the postman. ‘You bitch! You absolute bitch! You put him up to this.’

Mark wasn’t quick enough. She managed to claw my face before he grabbed her by the shoulders and restrained her. For the first time ever, I heard him shout, a great deep baritone that reverberated round the cul-de-sac: ‘Enough! That is enough! Go inside and get your own house in order before I call the police.’

I froze like my life depended on winning Grandmother’s Footsteps. Katya wavered – my god, did she waver. Her desire to give me a good thumping almost triumphed. I sensed the energy surge in her body subside, before Sean reached her and she collapsed, sobbing, against him.

He nodded at me. ‘Mark will explain.’ He paused. ‘I’m so sorry, Lydia. I don’t know what to say.’

I tried to understand why he was apologising to me. His face was full of emotions I couldn’t decipher. I grappled for a moment, feeling as though everyone was talking a language I was powerless to comprehend.

Mark put his hand on my back and propelled me down the drive. For a moment, we felt like a unit again. Then the McAllisters’ door slammed shut, Mark moved away from me and I slithered down a couple of rows on the family snakes and ladders board.