Sometimes I Lie(74)

‘Can I come in, please?’

She stares at me for a while, as though assessing the risk. Her arms unfold themselves before her eyes decide. She nods and steps inside the hall, leaving just enough room for me to follow.

‘You’re wet, take your shoes off.’

I quietly close the door behind us and do as I’m told. I stand barefoot on her new cream carpet and worry about what happens next. We’re somewhere we’ve never been before. I wonder where David is, whether he can hear us.

‘David is upstairs. He passed out not long after you and your husband left,’ she says, reading my mind. My husband, not Paul any more. She’s already disassociating herself from the person she has identified as a problem. Her eyes are dark, cold. I can see that she’s already gone to that place inside herself that scares me so much.

‘I want them back,’ she says. I don’t need to ask what.

‘I’ve burned them.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘He didn’t read them.’

‘Why do you even have them?’

‘They were here. In the attic. I found them after Mum and Dad died. They’d kept everything of yours. There was nothing of mine.’

‘So you stole them?’

‘No. I just wanted something. They left you everything. It was as though I didn’t even exist any more.’

‘You shouldn’t have taken them and you shouldn’t have let Paul read them. Or did you want something to happen to him?’

‘No! He didn’t read them. Stay away from him!’

‘You need to calm down.’

‘You need to back the fuck off.’ I push her. I didn’t mean to. She stumbles backwards, that flash of something I remember in her eyes. She steps forward again, her face in mine. I feel her breath.

‘He read them and now the situation needs to be dealt with,’ she says calmly.

‘He doesn’t know.’

‘He read them.’

‘No, he didn’t.’ I plead with her, already knowing her ears are closed to the sound of truth.

‘Two. Peas. In. A. Pod. That’s what he said to me. He read them.’ She spits the words at me and, with each one, the pain in my stomach increases, so much so, that I think she must have stabbed me. That’s when I see the blood. I look at both of her hands, but they’re empty, there’s no knife. She’s looking down too now at the single line of red running down the inside of my right leg. My hands reach down to my belly and the pain bends me in half.

‘Oh, God,’ I manage to whisper. And then my knees are folding and I’m sinking lower and lower into the pain.

‘What’s happening?’ Claire asks.

‘Oh, God, no.’

‘Are you pregnant?’ She looks down at me, a mix of awe and disgust on her face. She doesn’t wait for my answer. ‘How could you not tell me something like that? We used to tell each other everything.’ I can see her mind working, overwhelmed with this new piece of information. Plotting a new course.

‘I’m sorry,’ I manage to say, because she thinks I should be. Her face doesn’t change.

‘It’s just a tiny bleed. You’ll be OK. Give me the car keys.’

I shake my head. ‘Call Paul.’

‘Just give me the keys. The hospital is fifteen minutes from here, it’s quicker than calling for an ambulance. We’ll call him on the way.’

I do what she says, like I always have.





Now

Tuesday, 3rd January 2017


‘Are you hungry?’ asks Paul. I’ve been sleeping, the kind of sleep you can wake up from. I sit up in the hospital bed and let him adjust the pillows behind me. The door is open and I can see a trolley just outside.

‘She needs to take it slow, just a little at a time,’ Northern Nurse says to Paul, giving him a tray of food. I recognise her voice. She doesn’t look the same in real life as she did in my head. She’s younger, slimmer, less tired-looking. I never pictured her smiling, but she does, all the time. Some people appear happy on the outside and you only know they’re broken inside if you listen as well as look.

Paul takes the tray and puts it down in front of me. There’s chicken, with mash and green beans. A carton of juice and what looks like strawberry jelly. I’m so hungry but now that I can see what’s on offer, I’m less eager to eat it. Paul picks up the cutlery and loads some mashed potato onto a fork.

‘I can do it,’ I say.

‘Sorry.’

I take the fork from him.

‘Thank you.’

I eat most of it. I chew and swallow small pieces at a time, my throat still hurts from the tube. It didn’t look like much, but right now it feels like I might have eaten the best meal of my life. The chicken was overcooked and the potatoes were lumpy, but just to be able to chew and swallow and taste again made every mouthful exquisite. Because it means that I’m alive.

‘Can you remember any more?’ Paul asks.

I shake my head and look away. ‘Not really.’

He looks relieved. He talks about the future as though we have one and it makes me feel real again. I can’t imagine how it must have felt, seeing what Paul saw, watching a man do that to me. But it doesn’t seem to have changed things for him, not yet at least. My thoughts start to flatten out, his words ironing out the creases until the folds in my thinking are smooth. He persists over any remaining lines until the imperfect is made neat and tidy, as though brand new, unused and unspoiled.