Never Tell A Lie

by Gail Schimmel

  ‘I’m so delighted to have reconnected with you,’ says April. ‘I don’t care if you live in a cardboard box inside a dumpster.’

  I laugh. ‘It’s not quite that bad – although God knows, there’ve been times it’s come close.’

  April laughs too. I know she can’t begin to imagine how close to the truth that has been. I know someone like April can’t begin to imagine much about my life. But I like her. I hope we will be friends.

  As I’m thinking this, April reaches across the table and takes my hand.

  ‘Mary,’ she says. ‘What you said about your mom at the reunion? Well, I don’t want to push, but if you need to talk, I just want you to know that I’m here.’

  And suddenly, I do want to talk. More than anything. And I tell her the whole story – about my mother’s death and how that must be true, but how I found the postcard and it’s made me question everything.

  ‘You trust your dad, right?’ says April, when I’m finished.

  ‘Implicitly,’ I tell her. ‘He’s my rock. But now I’m constantly on edge with him.’

  ‘Talk to him,’ says April. ‘There’ll be an explanation. There must be. He wouldn’t have lied to you all these years, so there must be some explanation for that postcard.’

  ‘You’re right,’ I say. ‘You’re right. There must be.’

  Chapter 11

  Only there wasn’t.

  I stop at my dad’s house after I drop Django at school on Thursday. In my bag, I have the postcard that I found. And the photo.

  ‘What a surprise,’ says my dad, when he opens the gate and finds that it’s me at the door. ‘Not like you to pop in unannounced.’

  I can’t tell if he’s pleased or annoyed. I probably should have let him know – he could have one of his lady friends over.

  ‘I need to talk to you, Dad,’ I say. ‘I found something and it’s eating away at me.’

  ‘Lord, that sounds awful,’ he says, smiling. ‘Best you come in.’

  He can’t have a big secret, I think, as I follow him in and watch him make us mugs of tea. Or he wouldn’t be able to joke around like that. He’d immediately know.

  ‘Okay then,’ he says, once the tea is made and we are both seated at his kitchen table. The table where I ate all my meals and did all my homework and have had countless cups of tea with my father. ‘Tell me what’s bothering you, Mary.’

  I open my bag and take out the postcard. I slide it across the table, picture side up.

  My father glances down, and then back up at me. ‘Oh,’ he says.

  ‘Don’t you want to look at the back?’ I say. ‘So that you can see what it is.’

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘I know what it says. She only sent that one. I wondered where it was.’

  ‘In a book,’ I say, trying to make sense of his reaction. ‘I found it in a book.’

  He looks down again and touches the postcard with one finger. ‘I should’ve hidden it, so I should.’

  ‘But you can explain,’ I say. ‘You can explain why you have a postcard from my dead mother.’

  ‘Well,’ says my father. ‘It’s like this, Mary.’ Then he stops talking. He looks at the ceiling and then at the table, like maybe someone wrote a speech for him and left key words written on the house, if he could just find them.

  ‘It’s like what, Dad?’ I say. ‘Why is this postcard from after she died?’

  ‘Your mother’s not dead,’ he says, so softly that I have to lean forward to hear what he is saying. ‘I told you that because it would be easier for you, especially then. And then . . .’ He stops and takes a sip of his tea.

  ‘It’s like this. I was going to tell you when you were older. But then, when I thought you might be ready, I thought why rock the boat? We were happy, so we were. And I just didn’t want to upset you. It would have been so hard to explain. So I just left it. What’s the harm, I told myself.’

  He takes another sip of tea. I feel like I should be saying something – shouting; screaming. But I can’t make my mouth move.

  ‘But I knew that of course I was wrong,’ he says. ‘Lying to my only daughter. My only child. That wasn’t right.’ He shakes his head, as if we’re talking about someone else, someone who made a terrible mistake that my father doesn’t accept.

  ‘But if she’s not dead,’ I say, my voice a croak, pushed past the knot of fear in my throat, ‘If she isn’t dead, then what happened? Where is she? Why isn’t she here?’

  My father looks up at me, and I see his eyes are wet. ‘She left us, Mary, when you were just a wee thing of two. She had what we called the baby blues back then. Postnatal depression, you call it now. I tried to help her. I really did. But she was like a robot. She did what she had to do to keep you alive, and I could see that she loved you, but it was like a piece of her was missing. I kept thinking that it couldn’t be that bad because she never cried or anything like that. But I suppose I should have paid more mind to the fact that she also never smiled. Except sometimes, at you because, Lord knows, you were the cutest thing ever born.’

  I think of the photo in my bag, the look on my mother’s face, and I take that out too and slide it across to him.

  He looks down. ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘like that. After she left, I couldn’t look at that picture in the album. I tore it out.’

  ‘Do you know where she is?’ I ask.

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘I got that one postcard, and that’s all. So I presume she either was or is in London. But then after that, silence.’ He sips his tea again. ‘I kept hoping, Mary, that she’d come back. That one day I’d open the door, and there Lorraine would be. Only better. That wherever she went and whatever she did, it would have fixed her. I would have taken her back, whatever it was. For you, but also for me. There was never anyone like Lorraine for me. But it never happened. She never came back to me.’

  I had wanted to be angry with him, but I look at my father now, his forehead wrinkled with a frown, trying to understand the long-ago events of his life, and all I feel is sympathy. It’s my mother that I’m angry with. How do you just walk out on a two-year-old child? What sort of bitch would be able to do that? I think of Django at two. I would never have left him. Never.

  I reach across the table and take my father’s hand. ‘We didn’t need her, Daddy,’ I say. ‘We had each other.’

  He nods. ‘That’s what I thought. And what good would it have done you to know that she left? Weren’t you better off thinking her dead?’ He looks at me with such hope.

  I’m not sure what I really think, but I know what my dad needs to hear. ‘Totally, Daddy,’ I say. ‘You did the right thing.’

  I smile, as if my heart isn’t breaking.

  Chapter 12

  Friday comes around faster than I would like.

  I am still reeling from my father’s revelation, and I’ve hardly slept. I’ve tossed and turned, trying to make sense of the lie that has underpinned my whole existence. Mostly, I find myself coming back to one question: where is she?

  I wake up tired and grumpy, and then my most tiresome client – a small investment brokerage for whom I write blog posts – gets it into their heads that they need an urgent post that is cheerful and interesting to be put up by the end of the day. So I have to do that.

  Then I fetch Django from school, and the moment he gets into the car, I know that he’s had a bad day and I know that I’m going to have to handle this carefully. I feel too exhausted for this, too aware of my own problems, and distracted. But I have to pull it together for Django. Normally I ask him about the day or comment that he looks down, but this often makes him angry and he’ll snap at me and ask me how I expect him to ever be happy. Today, I try a different approach.

  ‘Weekend now!’ I say. ‘And Granpops is babysitting you tonight! And I was thinking of going to a movie tomorrow! Two lovely days with no school!’

  I’m speaking with exclamation marks. Every writing teacher that I have ever had would be cringing. Django is looking at me with his dark b
lue eyes, so like my own, as if I’m something the cat vomited up. (We have a cat. It vomits a lot. I know this look of his.)

  ‘Aren’t you . . .’ His voice is shot through with pain and accusation and hurt and anger. ‘Aren’t you even going to ask how my day was? Is that how little you care?’

  How does he do that? Get so much into one tone?

  ‘Well, darling,’ I say, in what I hope is my most reasonable tone. ‘I can see that you’ve had a terrible day, so I thought maybe we should look forward to the good things in the weekend, rather than dwell on today.’

  ‘I knew it,’ he says. ‘You don’t care. You just pretend to care. You’re not even a real mom. You’re a fake mom. I bet I’m not even really your son. I bet you stole me. I wish my dad was still alive. He would care. He would care so much. And he would beat up those boys at school one time.’

  I don’t even know where to start with this. I try to remember what the therapist at the school has said, and what the endless parenting books that I read would tell me to do.

  Reflect, maybe. They’re all big on reflecting.

  ‘I can hear that you’re very angry, love,’ I say, glancing over as I drive.

  He scowls for a moment. I don’t think it’s worked. And then something happens, and his face crumples.

  ‘Oh, Mommy,’ he says, pushing his fringe out of his eyes. ‘I’m not angry. I’m tired. And I’m sad. And I’m tired of being sad.’

  ‘That’s a lot,’ I comment, thinking that today, this is exactly how I feel too. And it is a lot.

  ‘Yes,’ he says with a deep sigh. ‘It is.’

  We’re quiet while I negotiate a tricky intersection.

  Django is kind of leaning against the passenger door of the car. I can see his hand is near his mouth, and I know he’s probably resisting the urge to suck his thumb. I want to tell him he can or tell him that I’m proud that he is resisting or something. My instinct is to make him feel seen. But I know that he finds his thumb-sucking deeply embarrassing, and will just get angry again if I bring it up. I bite my tongue – literally – to stop myself commenting.

  ‘Mommy,’ he says. ‘Tell me again . . .’

  Oh God. He’s going to ask me to explain again why he can’t be home-schooled. This is his favourite broken record on a Friday.

  ‘Tell me again why you named me Django?’

  Django doesn’t love having a special name, but he does love the story.

  ‘When you were born,’ I say, ‘I knew you were the most special baby in the whole history of time and space. And I wanted to give you a name that was as unusual and special as you. And so I named you Django. I’ve never met anyone else called Django. Have you?’

  ‘No,’ he says. I can’t tell if it’s a good ‘no’ or a bad ‘no’.

  ‘Daddy also thought I was special, right?’ he says.

  Django never called Travis Daddy when he was alive. He called him Dad, or nothing at all.

  ‘Daddy thought you were magnificent,’ I say. ‘He loved you so much. That’s why we agreed that you needed such a special name.’

  It’s not a lie, really.

  He seems to be thinking about it.

  ‘Mom . . .’ It sounds like he’s going to say something really important. I take my eyes off the road for a moment and look at him. His forehead is furrowed, a sharp v between his eyebrows like my father gets.

  ‘Yes, love?’

  ‘I’m calling my kid “Bob”.’

  My heart breaks a little bit, but I laugh, and after a moment Django does too.

  When we get home, I make Django a toasted cheese, which is his favourite comfort lunch. He curls up on the couch, watching a show that is much too young for him, the thumb in his mouth now. I don’t say anything, I just fetch a blanket and tuck it around him.

  I phone Stacey.

  ‘I don’t think I should go out tonight,’ I say. ‘Django had a bad day.’

  ‘Then don’t go,’ she says. I can tell she isn’t really concentrating.

  ‘But it’s my first date in years,’ I say. ‘I shouldn’t miss it, should I?’

  ‘Then go,’ she says. There’s a noise in the background. I think she might be at the shops.

  ‘And my dad will be with him,’ I say.

  ‘Exactly,’ she says. ‘Now go and shave your legs and pluck your pubes and do all the things that are necessary for a date.’

  ‘He’s not going to see my pubes,’ I say, hoping that she hasn’t just said this at the checkout.

  ‘No, not you,’ I hear her say, with a laugh. And then to me, ‘I’d better go. I’m causing a stir at the pharmacy.’

  I try to laugh. ‘Sure,’ I say. ‘Have a good weekend.’

  ‘You too,’ she says. ‘Bye.’

  ‘Bye,’ I say, but the line is already dead.

  I wish I could phone April, but I don’t know her well enough. I didn’t even tell her I was going on a date with Joshua.

  I stare at my phone for a few moments, wondering who else I can call. But there isn’t really anyone. So I go and have a bath and shave my legs, like Stacey told me to.

  When I come out, wrapped in a towel, Django is asleep on the couch. His thumb has fallen out of his mouth, which is slightly open, a thin stream of drool pooling on the cushion. He’s not going to want to sleep tonight, but I don’t wake him. My dad is taking him out anyway, so perhaps it’s better that he’s well rested.

  I have no idea what people wear on dates. Joshua has messaged me with the name of the restaurant we are going to – it’s an Asian restaurant in Rosebank with a view of Johannesburg, and I am really excited, because I’ve heard about it and have wanted to go, but it’s not the sort of place I can afford. And because I love Asian food and you just really don’t get to eat much exotic food when your usual date is a twelve-year-old boy. Added bonus, there is absolutely zero chance that Django and my dad will somehow wind up there. They both wouldn’t be caught dead. They’ll go somewhere where they can have meat with meat, most likely, even though Django does love sushi. If Django wins, they will eat somewhere with a playground. If my dad wins, it will have a bar. I make a mental note to make sure that they Uber. Django loves Ubering.

  I google the restaurant to try to get an idea of what one should wear there. There are no pictures of diners, so I’m as clueless as ever. But the menu looks great. I decide on jeans, with a really smart top. But then at the last minute, I decide to wear a nice dress. I always feel pretty in dresses and I love wearing them, and I don’t get much chance to wear my nicer ones out. I choose one with a Seventies-style psychedelic print, with cap sleeves and a Fifties flare. When I wear it, I feel like a person with an opinion. I think that maybe on a date, it’s important to have opinions. I want to break my old patterns.

  At the thought of my old patterns, Travis’s face tries to squeeze its way into my head. I close my eyes very tight and count to ten, a trick I use whenever I start thinking about him and his death.

  When I open my eyes, Django is standing looking at me.

  ‘Why do you do that, Mom?’ he says.

  ‘What’s that, love?’

  ‘This.’ He pulls a face with eyes closed so tight that it goes squinty.

  I laugh. ‘Is that what I looked like?’

  ‘Yes, and you do it often.’

  I open my mouth to try to get some sort of answer out, but he’s moved on.

  ‘Why are you dressed up?’

  ‘I’m going out,’ I say. ‘And Granpops is taking you out. Cool, huh?’

  ‘I guess.’ He looks at his shoes. ‘Do you have a boyfriend, Mom?’

  ‘No!’ I’m quick to reassure him; one date is not enough to get him worried and shake the foundation of our lives together, that’s for sure.

  ‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Pity, because Aiden says that when Stacey has a boyfriend, she goes all soft in the head and lets him play PlayStation for hours while she stares at the sky. I thought that sounded like a good plan for us.’

  I laugh again. ‘O
kay, love,’ I say. ‘I’ll keep that in mind.’

  Chapter 13

  I am slightly late arriving at the restaurant because I couldn’t make up my mind whether to Uber or drive, and by the time I decided to Uber, I had to wait.

  When I walk into the restaurant, I see that Joshua is sitting at a table near the window, so we will have the famous view. He’s been watching the door and as soon as he sees me, he stands up and waits for me to approach. He’s wearing a jacket and a collared shirt, and I’m glad that I dressed up a bit. There’s an awkward moment where we don’t know whether to hug, or cheek kiss, or what – but we both laugh and it’s okay.

  ‘I never know what to do,’ I say, as we do the hug-kiss-handshake fumble.

  ‘Especially on a date.’ He laughs.

  I might as well come clean immediately.

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ I say, sitting down. ‘This is my first date since my husband died.’

  ‘Sorry,’ says Joshua. ‘The way you spoke, I thought he died some time ago. I didn’t realise it was recent.’

  ‘He died eight years ago.’ I meet his eyes, knowing what I will see.

  ‘Wait,’ he says. ‘You haven’t dated in eight years?’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘I haven’t.’ I stare at him, almost daring him to say more. I know that he’s thinking about the other, unsaid thing. That I haven’t had sex in eight years. I know he must be thinking about that. God knows I am.

  ‘Well,’ says Joshua. ‘Then I have to say that I am supremely flattered. And even more nervous than I already was. But I think this calls for champagne. What do you say?’

  I lean forward, as if I’m going to tell him a secret.

  ‘I’ll tell you a secret,’ I say, and his eyebrows go up. ‘I never say “no” to champagne.’

  The date is so easy after that. We laugh and we reminisce, and it feels like we’ve known each other for ever. Which, I suppose, in a way, we have. But it’s not all about the shared history. He’s interesting and funny, and he makes me feel interesting and funny too.