Liar

by K. L. Slater

  35

  Amber

  It never failed to amaze Amber that the people who thought they were so clever in deceiving others never once stopped to think that two could play a dirty game.

  Like the tenants upstairs at her old flat, whom she’d watched tumble out and down the street to the bar. She’d loaded the last three boxes into the boot of the car, taken the final meter readings ready to email them to the management company and then pulled on rubber gloves and taken a plastic bag into the overgrown back garden.

  Several of the tenants had dogs, and the garden was basically the mutts’ toilet. She’d retched and heaved while she collected as much stinking shit as she’d physically been able to carry, and then she’d taken it upstairs and systematically shoved the whole fucking lot through the letter box of the inconsiderate tenants’ flat.

  And when that little deed had been done, she turned the bag inside out and smeared what was left in it over the door, taking special care to fully coat the handle. She half wished she was sticking around a bit longer so she could witness the cries of outrage and revulsion when they returned.

  She’d ditched the shitty rubber gloves at the door, popped back into her own flat to thoroughly wash her hands and she was off. She’d escaped at last.

  She smiled at the satisfying memory.

  This morning, she’d parked well down the road, away from the house. Judi was at the surgery and that daft old fart Henry was on one of his fishing trips. At least she laughingly gathered that that was what he liked to call his little jaunts away.

  She’d had Henry and Judi’s door key duplicated some weeks ago when Ben had been on a school trip with his class and had left the car and his keys at home. His parents’ door key was on there so Amber had simply whizzed down to the local Tesco store and had one quietly cut at the key kiosk there.

  Now she walked up the drive and knocked at the door to make sure nobody was home before sliding the key into the lock and letting herself in. The nice thing about the house being detached and screened from next door with conifers was that it made life a whole lot easier for intruders like herself.

  Inside, the smell of wax polish and then an after-scent of potpourri that whiffed of cloves and oranges assailed her nostrils, and she sneezed. The sound echoed around the hallway and she froze for a few seconds, imagining what excuse she’d make if Henry or Judi appeared at the top of the stairs.

  But of course she needn’t have worried. She was alone … to do completely as she wished.

  She climbed the stairs and walked straight to David’s room. She opened the door and closed it behind her.

  And then she began.

  36

  Judi

  I don’t remember much about the walk home from seeing Ben at the school. Just the feel of the cool air buffeting my face and the rolling heat inside of me.

  Once I’m home, I don’t bother with lunch or even a drink. I just sit staring into space for most of the afternoon. I must half doze off at some point because I start, jumping up from my seat, when I hear the gravel skid and fly at the top of the driveway.

  I snatch up the remote control and flick on the television. Then I curl my legs up onto the couch and grab a magazine, opening it on my lap. I don’t want Ben to see that I’ve been moping about.

  I hear a key turn in the lock, the front door opening and then closing. I hear shuffling around in the hall and Ben appears at the living room door.

  ‘Hello, Mum,’ he says, his arms swinging slightly like a shy little boy. It seems so odd to see him here in the house without Noah and Josh shooting up and down the hallway like bullets.

  ‘Hello, darling, come and sit down.’

  On his way past, he stops and kisses the top of my head. I turn off the TV, close the magazine and look up at him. ‘Cup of tea?’

  ‘No, I’m fine, honestly,’ he says, sinking down into Henry’s chair. ‘I’ve got to get off soon.’

  Get off back to Amber, he means.

  ‘Look, I’ve not dealt with all this very well, and I’m sorry, Mum.’ His fingers tap out an irregular rhythm on his thigh. ‘I shouldn’t have just stopped coming over like that; it’s natural you’d miss the boys. I really left you no choice but to turn up at school, but I so wish you hadn’t.’

  ‘You should’ve talked to me, not just cut me off.’

  Ben sighs. ‘I’m finding it difficult to include you in things at the moment because you get so defensive about Amber’s involvement in anything to do with Noah and Josh.’

  I try to think logically for a moment before answering.

  ‘I’ve missed not seeing you and the boys,’ I say softly. ‘But I came to see you at school today because I’m genuinely worried about them, Ben, not to tackle you about your lack of visits. In my opinion, Amber shouldn’t have any involvement in disciplining the boys, and yet that’s clearly what she was doing at the park.’

  He sighs and stills his fingers. ‘Mum, please don’t start this nonsense about Amber again. This is the reason why I’ve stayed away. I told you, Noah hurt his wrist playing footie in the garden.’

  ‘So you say. But Esther Cairns is no liar, and she said—’

  ‘You told me what the interfering old bat said and it’s not true. Amber didn’t hurt Noah, she’d never do that. She cares deeply for the boys.’

  ‘Esther said he cried but that you had taken Josh down to the stream. So you can’t have seen what happened, Ben.’

  ‘Noah always cries in temper if he can’t get his own way, especially lately.’ Ben rolls his eyes. ‘He’s turning into a bit of a behavioural nightmare, if I’m honest.’

  I look at my son and wonder how he can be such a wonderful teacher but not understand the first thing about his own children. ‘And have you stopped to think for one second why that might be?’ I say quietly.

  ‘Oh, I see. I suppose that’s Amber’s fault, too,’ he says smartly, staring out of the window.

  ‘I don’t think it’s Amber’s fault at all.’ That makes him sit up and listen. ‘You are the one allowing her to discipline the boys as if she’s their parent. You are the one who’s let her loose on the house so it can be transformed into a hippy’s den.’

  Ben laughs, but he isn’t amused.

  ‘I didn’t realise we had to ask for your permission to redecorate,’ he snipes.

  ‘You don’t need my permission to do anything, as well you know,’ I say, making a huge effort to stay calm. ‘But when you suddenly rid the house of Louise’s memory and then cleanse the entire downstairs space of Noah and Josh’s toys, don’t be surprised when you see a negative reaction in their behaviour.’

  Ben snorts. ‘That’s one hell of an exaggeration, Mum. We’ve had a tidy round, that’s all. Amber says it’s good practice for kids to have separate playing and living spaces.’

  ‘Oh, there’s nothing Amber doesn’t know, is there?’ I snort. ‘Despite having no children of her own.’

  He ignores my barbed comment.

  ‘Look. Before we changed anything, I sat the boys down and explained that we were taking down the photographs and redecorating ready for Amber moving in,’ he says. ‘And they were absolutely fine about it.’

  The photograph under Noah’s pillow flashes into my mind.

  ‘Perhaps they seemed fine, but beneath the surface they may have been upset, Ben. Maybe they felt as if they couldn’t voice their true feelings.’

  ‘I don’t think so. They seem more worried about when they’re going to get the next Transformer robot for their collection.’

  ‘I couldn’t help noticing that their room has been tidied, too. The walls have been stripped of their favourite posters.’

  ‘Like I said, we’re redecorating, Mum.’ Ben tips his head to one side and narrows his eyes at me. I’m fairly certain he’s remembering the other day, when I told him that I left the cleaning supplies in the hallway and didn’t stay.

  ‘Look, I’m just concerned that the boys’ needs don’t get forgotten in this whir
lwind romance of yours,’ I say firmly, hoping to gain the upper hand. ‘Just lately, it seems to be you might be losing your mind as well as your heart.’

  ‘I’m not the one making wild accusations,’ he says grimly. ‘I’d never forget about my sons. Never. And it’s very unfair of you to even suggest that. The boys’ best interests are always uppermost in both mine and Amber’s minds. I wish I could talk to you about our plans, but that’s just not possible with you in this mood.’

  I don’t want to hear what their plans are. Any luck and this relationship will burn out as quickly as it appeared. It’s time to change tack.

  ‘Can I ask why Amber has removed me as an emergency contact for Noah? I take it you’ve left your father on there as the additional contact?’

  Ben shrugs. ‘Dad is still on there, yes. We talked about it; Amber didn’t just do it of her own accord. Like she says, there are two of us there for the boys now; we don’t need you to have to fly down to school if one of them is ill or something.’

  ‘But I don’t mind.’

  ‘I know you don’t, but like Amber says, it seems silly that you—’

  ‘It seems I’m being cut out of anything to do with my grandchildren.’

  ‘Mum, that’s not true.’ Ben sighs and runs his fingers through his hair. ‘That’s not the case at all.’

  ‘I’m just saying what it looks like.’ I shrug. ‘You’re their father and you should be the one making any decisions that affect them. Not some virtual stranger.’

  ‘Amber knows an awful lot about kids, and to be honest, it’s nice having someone else to help me manage the boys. I know you think they’re little angels, but they can be quite a handful.’

  ‘Don’t you think I know that? The point is, it’s not Amber’s place to discipline them.’

  ‘You make it sound like she’s a wicked stepmother or something.’ He scowls.

  ‘Well, if the cap fits …’ I bite down on my tongue, but it’s too late.

  ‘Come on.’ Ben holds out his hands to me in appeal. ‘I just want you to like her, Mum. That’s all I want. You always said you hoped I would find someone else, after Louise. I want you to be happy for us.’

  ‘I do like her,’ I lie. ‘But the boys will always remain my priority. I can’t help that and I’m not going to apologise for it. As long as I’m breathing, I will always look out for you and the boys.’

  ‘I know that and I love you for it. Honestly I do.’ Ben smiles. ‘Look. What about if we all come over on Sunday for one of your legendary lunches? Let’s treat it as a bit of a fresh start and try to get things on track. I just think you and Amber have got off on the wrong foot. I really think that’s all it is.’

  ‘That would be lovely,’ I say, keeping my real feelings off my face. ‘I’ve so missed you and the boys.’

  ‘Me too. And they’ve missed you,’ Ben says. He stands up and walks over to the couch, sits down beside me and slides his arm around me. ‘Do you know, they’ve asked for you every day.’

  He says it to make me feel better, but it almost tears the heart out of me to hear it. I lay my head on his shoulder and close my eyes, but I don’t reply.

  When Ben has left, I walk upstairs. I need to have a lie-down in my cool, quiet bedroom.

  I pad down the landing in bare feet and stop outside David’s room. His door is slightly ajar. I push it open with my foot and step inside. I swear it feels different in here, like the tranquil privacy of the space has been disturbed. But of course, that’s impossible.

  I scan the bedroom. That drawer … it seems not quite closed, and under the bed I see that David’s box of stones is visible, just the corner. It’s as if someone has been in here, touching. Meddling.

  It crosses my mind that I might be starting to imagine things. I have no one to blame or accuse this time. Henry is away and only Ben has been in the house, but he didn’t leave the living room.

  Maybe Henry is right and I am going crazy after all.

  37

  Noah

  She’d sent him up to his bedroom again for being cheeky. All he’d said was that he was too busy watching cartoons to help Josh with his homework.

  It was just baby work his brother was doing anyway. It wasn’t even going to be marked by the teacher. The real reason was that Amber really liked Josh but she didn’t like him.

  Amber was a really stupid name. Noah had looked it up online and amber was actually fossilised tree gunk, which was quite funny because it matched her gunky face perfectly.

  She had turned the television off in the middle of his programme and sent him upstairs. But Noah didn’t care really because he hated being downstairs now, when Daddy wasn’t home.

  It used to be fun when Nanny had them after school, but now it sucked, just like everything else did since Amber had been around.

  Noah got down on his hands and knees and reached right under the bed to the shoebox that he’d pushed behind the big plastic box of toys, nearly to the far wall. He’d had to be careful to hide his treasure trove well, because Amber was a neat freak, even worse than Nanny.

  After listening for a few moments and satisfying himself that Josh, the creep, and Amber were still talking downstairs in the kitchen, Noah sat on the floor with his back against the bunk beds and opened the box.

  He’d only recently started collecting the treasures – since just before Amber moved in – so he hadn’t got that many yet. But that didn’t really matter. Looking and holding the items in his box made him feel calm inside. He liked inspecting them in a certain order, as if that was his special job that nobody else was trained to do.

  When his fingers dipped inside and brought out a treasure, his heart stopped blipping and he forgot about what might happen if Amber convinced Daddy to send him away and just keep Josh, who she liked. Noah had noticed that Amber could convince Daddy to do lots of things.

  At the bottom of the shoebox lay the photograph of Mummy that Noah had rescued from the clean-up downstairs. On top of that, there was a folded piece of pale yellow tissue paper that had come with the new shoes that used to be in this box.

  Noah had laid the other three items in a neat row on top of it like the display of Egyptian treasures they’d seen on the British Museum school trip last year.

  There was a hairgrip of Amber’s with little multicoloured stones that glittered when you twirled it in your fingers. Noah wouldn’t normally want anything that belonged to her, but this was simply too much treasure to pass up when he found it on the edge of the bath.

  There was a small painted soldier that he had slipped in his pocket after Mr Norton had shown his class the World War II display in the school hall last week. Noah supposed you couldn’t really describe a figurine as treasure, but there was something about this soldier’s face that made him wish they were friends in real life.

  Noah thought the soldier might understand why he kept waking up in the middle of the night. It was always the same. Noah would be crying in his dream and then he’d let out a sob and that would wake him up with a jolt, and when he sat up in bed, his face was wet with real tears, not just dream ones. Yet he could never remember what it was that had upset him.

  But the fourth treasure was his very favourite and one Noah knew he couldn’t keep. He reached for it now, held it up toward the window and let the beautiful stone spin at the end of its pale gold chain.

  Nanny had explained to them that this stone was called a citrine and that Mummy had chosen it especially for her birthday before Noah and Josh were even born. The citrine was see-through in some bits but then shone like a rainbow in others. It was beautiful, as his mummy had been.

  Noah hadn’t stolen the necklace; he would never steal anything from Nanny. He wanted to ask if it would be all right to borrow it, like they had done the Lilliput cottages, but Nanny had seemed to stop listening to him. She’d taken to wandering around the house as if she was looking for something, and snapped at Grandad if he asked her what she was fretting about. Sometimes she disappeared ups
tairs and Noah heard her crying behind Uncle David’s door.

  But that was before, of course. Nanny didn’t collect them from school any more. Stinking Amber picked them up now and gave them tiresome jobs to do around the house.

  Noah couldn’t wait until Daddy got a new girlfriend. One who liked children.

  38

  Judi

  ‘I’m so glad you’re back,’ I say, watching as Maura opens the office blinds on Friday morning. ‘How are you feeling now? You don’t sound stuffy at all.’

  ‘No, it just sort of petered out and then disappeared completely,’ she says. ‘I’m so grateful, although I’ve still got three days of antibiotics to take. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.’

  I put down a steaming mug of coffee in front of her.

  ‘I don’t do things by halves, you know.’ She picks up her coffee. ‘Anyway, how’ve you been? Sorry to drop you in it like that.’

  ‘Oh, it’s been fine. I just let Esther get on with it. As she told me several times, she could run this surgery on her own with her eyes shut.’ We both chuckle. ‘Things haven’t been so good at home, though.’

  Maura raises an eyebrow when I tell her about Ben’s house being transformed, how Amber has appointed herself stepmother to the boys and the way I’ve been sidelined when it comes to domestic duties and the daily school pick-up. I also explain how I panicked when I saw Noah’s bandaged hand.

  ‘The worst thing is, I stormed into Ben’s school yesterday and accused Amber of hurting Noah when apparently, it turns out, he sprained it when he fell over playing football in the garden.’

  Maura looks aghast. ‘I don’t understand how things could have moved this fast. It only seems five minutes ago that you met Amber for the first time.’