Sometimes I Lie(51)

Now

New Year’s Eve, 2016


The sound wakes me, I’ve heard it before. My bed is tilting me backwards, so that my feet are pointing up towards the ceiling and the blood rushes to my head. They lift me a little further towards the very edge, I’m scared I might fall and that nobody will catch me, but then they carefully let my head lean right back and I feel the warm water and gentle fingers on my scalp.

I’m having my hair done today, I didn’t even need to book an appointment! I can smell the shampoo and picture the suds and, if I try really hard, I can convince myself for a few seconds that I’m at the hairdresser’s, that life has been restored to my version of normal. I try to extract some pleasure from the experience, I try to relax, try to remember what that means.

I think about time a lot since I lost it. The hours here stick together and it’s hard to pull them apart. People talk about time passing but here, in this room, time doesn’t pass at all. It crawls and lingers and smears the walls of your mind with muck-stained memories, so you can’t see what’s in front or behind you. It eats away at those who get washed up on its shores and I need to swim away now, I need to catch up with myself down stream.

‘That should feel better, all the dried blood gone,’ says a kind voice, before wrapping a towel around my head. I imagine blood staining white porcelain and an ever decreasing red orbit until another part of me is washed away.

‘I’ll do that, I imagine you must be very busy, I don’t mind,’ says Claire. She’s been watching, so quiet I didn’t even know she was here. The nurses like her, I can tell. People do tend to like the version of her she lets them see. They put the bed back upright and leave us alone. Claire dries my hair, then plaits it the way we did for each other when we were children. She doesn’t say a word.

‘You’re here early,’ says Paul, coming into my room just as she’s finishing.

‘Still can’t sleep,’ says Claire.

It looks like I’m sleeping all of the time, but I’m not and even when I do sleep, people are always coming and going. Turning me, cleaning me, drugging me. Edward hasn’t come back for a while, at least I don’t remember him being here. I tell myself that he might leave me alone now, then maybe I’ll wake up for real, for good.

‘Something weird happened last night,’ says Paul.

‘Go on,’ replies my sister. I preferred it when they had the rule where he arrived and she left. They’re spending too much time together now and nothing good can come of that.

‘I charged Amber’s phone, but there was no contact number for anyone called Jo.’

‘That’s strange.’

‘I called her boss, thinking he’d be able to give me her number. He was very nice at first, but then got all agitated and said he couldn’t give it to me, because he doesn’t know anyone called Jo.’

‘I don’t understand,’ says Claire.

I know that she does.

‘Nobody at Coffee Morning is called Jo. I asked him if maybe it was a nickname or something, told him that she was definitely a friend of Amber’s from work. Then he got all flustered and tried to find a polite way to tell me that Amber didn’t have any friends at work.’

Please stop.

‘How strange.’

‘I’m starting to understand why she quit, the guy sounded like an arse.’

Please stop talking.

‘She quit?’ asks Claire.

Don’t say another word.

‘Sorry, she told me not to tell you; I forgot.’

‘Why?’

‘She just wasn’t happy there any more.’

‘No, I mean why didn’t she want you to tell me?’

‘I don’t know.’





Then

Friday 23rd December 2016 – Evening


I can’t make eye contact with the taxi driver as we pull up outside my home. I could see him repeatedly looking at me in the rear-view mirror as he drove me away from the block of flats, unable to tell whether it was disgust or concern in his eyes. Maybe it was both. I hand over the cash and don’t wait for the change, mumbling my thanks before climbing out and closing the door. The first thing I see as the cab drives away is Paul’s car parked outside. He didn’t tell me he was coming back tonight. He’s hardly been in touch at all.

I search inside my handbag for a mint and spray myself with a spritz of perfume. I find my small compact mirror and examine different parts of my face in the glow from the street light outside the house. It’s the first time I’ve had to look myself in the eye since I woke up in someone else’s bed. Most of my make-up has rubbed off but my mascara has bled down my face. No wonder the cab driver was staring at me. I lick my fingers and rub the skin beneath my eyes before checking my reflection once more. I still look like myself, even though I am not.

I step from the pavement onto our property, crossing an invisible border and closing the gate behind me, cementing the decision to proceed with caution. The air is so cold that the frozen wood needs persuading to shut all the way and burns the tips of my fingers in protest. I force myself to walk towards the house, leaving all the truths we haven’t shared out on the street. I survey the front of our home as I trudge up the gravel path. The place looks tired, unloved, in need of some attention. White paint has flaked in places, peeling away like sunburnt skin. Everything in the garden looks dead or dying. A thick trunk of wisteria ascends and divides into a network of dry brown veins all over the front of the house, as though it will never blossom again. I try to tell myself that maybe I haven’t done anything wrong, but the guilt of what I can’t or won’t remember slows my steps. Madeline has been dealt with but now I fear I’m facing something so much worse.