Good Girls Lie(19)

“Excuse me, what are you saying, exactly?”

“I’m sorry, Dean. Dr. Grassley passed away an hour ago.”



JUNE

Oxford, England



14

THE FIGHT

Gravel spits and an engine revs, then cuts off. The front door slams a second later, shaking the mullioned windows. My father screams my name from the foyer. I can hear him though I’m on the third story of the house. I wince. He knows. He knows I know.

“Ashlyn Elizabeth Carr! Where are you?”

I weigh my odds. If I stay here and he has to come up, will he be more furious or less? Time heals all wounds, though whoever penned this bon mot clearly didn’t have a teenage daughter. Our wounds only get deeper, wider, nastier. They fester.

“Ashlyn! Come down here immediately.”

I creep from my room to the hall. I can hear my mother now, emerging from the solarium where she keeps her office. She spends all day in there, arranging dinner parties and sojourns to the countryside, writing thank-you notes. She is useless. Meaningless. Living a pretend life in a pretend world. Since my brother died, she’s done nothing but plan her stupid parties and nip on the sherry. A tot in your tea, dear?

“Damien? Whatever is the matter? Why are you out here screeching like a lunatic? I thought you were in London today.”

“Is she here?”

“Ashlyn? She’s in her room, most likely. Why, what has she done?”

There is a momentary scuffle.

“Damien, really. There’s no need to manhandle me. It’s beneath you,” and my father’s ironclad voice, “Step aside, Sylvia.”

Footsteps now, running up the stairs, thunking hard against the gray wool runner. Father used to be thin, but years behind computers and rich meals in his clubs have robbed him of his runner’s physique.

I scramble back to my room, slam the door, and try to turn the lock, but his hand grips the knob and the door swings open, jettisoning me across the room.

Damien Carr is suitably named. He has eyes like burning coals. Possessed. Driven. Evil. He looks to have the devil inside him now.

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything. I haven’t a clue what you’re speaking about.”

“You’ve cost me the deputy exchequer position. They’ve pulled my name from the short list. Someone sent a salacious email from an anonymous account. I know it was you.”

“It wasn’t me, Father. I don’t care enough about you to bother destroying you. It must have been one of your other enemies.”

This brave speech costs me a molar. The pain of his fist blinds me; I see stars. When my ears stop ringing, I spit the tooth into my hand and sneer at him.

“You can hit me all you want, but I didn’t do it.”

“You’re lying. You’re a lying, thieving little cunt, aren’t you? How did you do it, Ashlyn? How did you manage? I know it was you, don’t bother denying it. The IP address was from that dingy café you skulk about, off Broad Street. Oh, you thought I didn’t know where you spend your days? Who’d you open your legs for to get this done, eh, Ashlyn? I know you’re not smart enough to have managed on your own.”

“Damien!” My mother watches this scene with horror from my bedroom door. I can only imagine what it looks like. A play in which I am the writer, director, and producer.

Here’s what I want to see.
Ashlyn: grinning maniacally, teeth rimed in red, holding a tooth in her hand. Her cheek and jaw are already swelling, she can feel her skin stretching out so it’s shiny and tight. She knows what this looks like; she’s been on the receiving end of her father’s fist many times.
Damien: his face puce with fury, eyes bulging with hate, spittle in the corners of his mouth from his buffalo clumsy sprint up the stairs, desperately trying to restrain himself from attacking again and failing.
Now start the fight again, only this time, give the audience a second, a beat, to realize he’s going to punch her before he does it.
The two of us face off as we have so often lately: my body bruised and battered, his sides heaving like a prized Thoroughbred flogged to the end of the race.

A beat. Yes, that’s right. That’s better.
My father hates me. Always has. All my parents see when they look at me is the irresponsible twat who let their beloved heir drown. It doesn’t matter that I was barely more than a wee babe myself, I was supposed to be holding his hand. I looked away for a moment and when I looked back, he was facedown among the lily pads.

Ever since Johnny died... Well, there’s no reason to pretend we ever were a happy, loving family, but the rift was complete when Johnny was four and I was six. Johnny, sainted, beloved Johnny, forever cast as the four-year-old cherub. The innocent facing the monster’s maw. I sat with my hand on his tiny back and wondered if Monet would have liked to paint him there, his sturdy little legs disappearing into the muck, the green of the lily pads vibrant against the white of his shirt and the brown of his wet hair.

Then the screaming. So much screaming.

I prodded at him, yes. But I did not hold him under. I did not push him in. No matter what the witnesses said. They lied. They realized who my father was and wanted a piece of the action. As if Sir Damien Carr would reward them for their accusations.

I don’t think my father cared for me much before the accident, though his animus after was legendary. He expected decorum at all times; I was a wild, rough-and-tumble girl child who liked to set fire to the curtains and tear apart the ancient silk and wool rugs with my rollerblades, and, because of the Queen’s magnanimity, could inherit all of Damien’s vast fortune. Not that I wanted it, who cares about money?