Let Me Lie(60)

‘It wasn’t as simple as that.’

I remember hiding in my bedroom once, my iPod turned up to drown out the argument going on downstairs. Wondering if this was it; if they were going to get divorced. Then, in the morning, going downstairs to find everything calm. Dad drinking his coffee. Mum humming as she put more toast on the table. They pretended everything was fine. And so I did, too.

‘Please, Anna, let me explain.’

I will listen. And then, when Mark gets back, I will tell him. To hell with what Joan thinks. I’ll phone the police, too. Because once everyone knows, I can distance myself from this insane scheme cooked up by my parents as a preferable alternative to divorce.

‘You found a vodka bottle under the desk in the study.’

She’s been watching me.

And I thought I was going mad. Seeing ghosts.

‘Did you find others?’ Her voice is calm. She stares at the table in front of her.

‘They were Dad’s, weren’t they?’

Her eyes snap to mine. She searches my face, and I wonder if she resents me for not acknowledging this sooner, for leaving her to shoulder the burden alone.

‘Why did he hide them? It was no secret he liked a drink.’

Mum’s eyes close briefly. ‘There’s a difference between liking a drink and needing a drink.’ She hesitates. ‘He was clever about it, like many alcoholics are. Careful to hide it from you; from Billy.’

‘Uncle Billy didn’t know?’

Mum gives a humourless laugh. ‘The cleaner found a bottle of vodka stashed in the bin under Dad’s desk. She brought it to Billy in case it had been thrown away by mistake. I panicked. Told Billy it was mine. Said I’d bought the wrong sort and no one would have drunk it so I’d thrown it away. He didn’t believe me, but he didn’t push it. Didn’t want to, I suppose.’ She stops and looks at me, and there are tears in her eyes. ‘I wish you’d told me you knew Dad drank. You shouldn’t have had to cope with that on your own.’

I shrug, an obtuse teen again. I don’t want to share confidences with her. Not now. The truth is, I’d never have said anything. I hated that I knew. I wanted to exist in my happy bubble, pretending everything was perfect, and never listening to the myriad signs that told me they weren’t.

‘Well.’ Another deep breath. ‘When he was drunk – and only when he was drunk’ – she rushes to make this clear to me, as though it makes a difference; as though any of this makes a bloody difference to what they’ve done – ‘he hit me.’

My world spins on its axis.

‘He never meant it – he was always so sorry. So ashamed of what he’d done.’

Like that makes it all right.

How can she be so calm? So matter-of-fact? I picture my father – laughing, teasing – and try to reframe my memories. I think of the arguments that would end abruptly when I came home; the shift in atmosphere I took pains to ignore. I think of my smashed paperweight; of the stashed bottles around the house. I had seen my dad as a loveable rogue. A loud, jovial, generous man. Fond of a drink, occasionally crass, but ultimately good. Kind.

How could I have got it so wrong?

I open my mouth to speak, but she stops me. ‘Please, let me finish. If I don’t get it out now, I don’t know if I can bear to do it at all.’ She waits, and I give the tiniest of nods. ‘There’s so much you don’t know, Anna – and I don’t want you to know it. I can spare you that, at least. Suffice to say, I was scared of him. Very, very scared.’ She stares out of the window. The garden light is on, and the shadows around the patio flicker as a bird flies across its beam.

‘Tom messed up at work. He took out a business loan without telling Billy, and they couldn’t make the repayments. The business started going downhill – oh, I know Billy will have told you it was fine, but that’s your uncle for you. Tom was mortified – three generations, and he’d put them into debt. He came up with a mad plan. He wanted to fake his own death. He’d disappear, I’d claim the life assurance, and then in a year or so he’d turn up at a hospital and pretend he had amnesia.’

‘And you went along with it? I can’t even—’

‘I thought it was the answer to my prayers.’ She gives a shallow laugh. ‘At last I’d be free. I knew there’d be repercussions when he turned up, but all I could think about was not being frightened any more.’

I look at the clock. How long does midnight mass last?

‘So you went along with it. Dad disappeared.’ I want to know about how he made it look like suicide, but the detail can wait till I know how this ends. ‘You were safe. And then you …’

You left me too, I want to say, but I don’t. I’m keeping emotion out of this; treating it like a case study at work. An awful, shocking story that happened to someone else.

‘Only I wasn’t safe,’ she says. ‘I was stupid to think I would have been. He kept calling me. He even came to the house, once. He wanted money for a fake passport. Documentation. Rent. He said the life assurance was his; that I’d stolen it. He’d changed his mind about faking amnesia; said it wouldn’t work. He wanted the money so he could start a new life. He said he’d hurt me if I didn’t pay up. I started giving him small amounts of money, but he wanted more and more.’ She leans forward and pushes her hands towards me. I stare at them, but make no move to take them. ‘That money was for your future – it’s what you would have inherited when we died. I wanted you to have it. It wasn’t fair of him to take it.’