Believing the Lie

by Elizabeth George

  Had that been a hint? Zed wondered. His real story. Was there more to uncover? He thought he’d dug, but perhaps he’d been too smitten with the subject of his piece. And perhaps he’d been too smitten with his subject because he wanted to believe such things were possible: redemption, salvation, turning one’s life around, finding true love…

  Perhaps that was the line to follow: true love. Had Nicholas Fairclough really found it? And if he had, did someone envy it? One of his sisters, perhaps, because one of them was unmarried and the other divorced? And how did they feel anyway, now that the prodigal had returned?

  Further rustling through his notes. Further reading. Another sandwich. A wander through the train to see if there was a buffet car— what a ludicrous thought in these days of marginal profits— because he was dying for a coffee. Then it was back to his seat, where he finally gave up the ghost altogether and then popped back up with the idea of ghosts because the family home was what had got him started in the first place on this piece, and what if the family home was haunted and the haunting had led to the drug addiction, which had led to the search for a cure, which had led to… He was back to the bloody wife again, the South American siren, and the only reason he was back to her was caramba and yikes, and he’d be better off crawling back home and forgetting this whole damn thing except home meant his mother and Yaffa Shaw and whoever was going to follow Yaffa Shaw in a never-ending procession of women he was meant to marry and get children on.

  No. There was a story here somewhere, the kind of story that his editor wanted. If he had to dig further to find something juicy, he’d get out his shovel and aim for China. Anything else was unacceptable. Failure was not an option.

  18 OCTOBER

  BRYANBARROW

  CUMBRIA

  Ian Cresswell was setting the table for two when his partner arrived home. He himself had taken off early from work, a romantic evening in mind. He’d bought lamb, which was in the oven with a fragrant blanket of seasoned bread crumbs browning over the shoulder of it, and he’d prepared fresh vegetables and a salad. In the fire house, he’d uncorked wine, polished glasses, and moved before the fireplace two chairs and the old oak game table from one corner of the room. It wasn’t quite cold enough for a coal fire although the ancient manor house was always rather chilly, so he lit a bank of candles and fixed them to the cast iron grate, then he lit two more and placed them on the table. As he did so, he heard the kitchen door open, followed by the sound of Kav’s keys being tossed into the chipped chamber pot on the window seat. A moment later Kav’s footsteps crossed the kitchen flagstones, and the squeak of the old range’s door caused Ian to smile. It was Kav’s night to cook, not his, and Kav had just discovered the first surprise.

  “Ian?” More footsteps across the slate flagstones and then into and across the hallan. Ian had left the door to the fire house open, and he said, “In here,” and waited.

  Kav paused at the doorway. His gaze went from Ian to the table with its candles to the fireplace with its candles to Ian again. His gaze went then from Ian’s face to Ian’s clothes and it lingered exactly where Ian wanted it to linger. But after a moment of the kind of tension that, at one time, would have sent the two of them directly to the bedroom, Kav said, “I had to work with the blokes today. We were shorthanded. I’m filthy. I’ll have a wash and get changed,” and backed out of the room without another word. This was enough to tell Ian that his lover knew what the scene before him presaged. This was also enough to tell Ian what direction their coming conversation was, as usual, going to take. An unspoken message of this kind from Kaveh would at one time have been enough to stymie him, but Ian decided that wouldn’t be the case tonight. Three years of concealment and one year in the open had taught him the value of living as he was meant to live.

  It was thirty minutes before Kaveh rejoined him, and despite the fact that the meat was ten minutes out of the oven and the vegetables were well on their way to becoming a culinary disappointment, Ian was determined not to feel affronted by the time it had taken the other man to return. He poured the wine— forty quid for the bottle, not that it mattered, considering the occasion— and he nodded to the two glasses. He picked his own up, said, “It’s a good Bordeaux,” and waited for Kav to join him for a toast. For clearly, Ian thought, Kaveh saw that a toast was Ian’s intention, else why would he be standing there with his glass lifted and an expectant smile on his face?

  For a second time, Kav’s gaze took in the table. He said, “Two places? Did she ring you or something?”

  “I rang her.” Ian lowered his glass.

  “And what?”

  “I asked for another night.”

  “And she actually cooperated?”

  “For once. Aren’t you having some wine, Kav? I got it in Windermere. That wine shop we were in last— ”

  “I had words with bloody old George.” Kav inclined his head in the direction of the road. “He caught me on the way in. He’s complaining about the heating again. He said he’s entitled to central heating. Entitled he said.”

  “He’s got plenty of coal. Why’s he not using it if the cottage is too cold?”

  “He says he doesn’t want a coal fire. He wants central heating. He says if he doesn’t have it, he’s looking for another situation.”

  “When he lived here, he didn’t have central heating, for God’s sake.”

  “He had the house itself. I think he saw that as compensation.”

  “Well, he’s going to have to learn to cope, and if he can’t do that, he’ll have to find another farm to rent. Anyway, I don’t want to spend this evening talking about George Cowley’s grievances against us. The farm was for sale. We bought it. He didn’t. Full stop.”

  “You bought it.”

  “A technicality soon to be taken care of, I hope, when there’ll be no I. No yours and mine. No me, no you. Only we.” Ian took up the second glass and carried it to Kav. Kav hesitated for a moment. Then he accepted it. “Jesus God, I want you,” Ian said. And then with a smile, “Want to feel how much?”

  “Hmmm. No. Let’s let it build.”

  “Bastard.”

  “I thought that’s how you like it, Ian.”

  “First time you’ve smiled since you walked in the door. Tough day?”

  “Not really,” Kav said. “Just a lot of work and not enough help. You?”

  “No.” They both drank then, eyes on each other. Kav smiled again. Ian moved toward him. Kav moved away. He tried to make it look as if his attention had been caught by the gleam of cutlery or the low bowl of flowers on the table, but Ian wasn’t deceived. What he thought in reaction was what any man would think when he’s twelve years older than his lover and he’s given up everything to be with him.

  At twenty-eight there would be any number of reasons Kaveh could give in explanation of why he wasn’t ready to settle down. Ian wasn’t prepared to hear them, however, because he knew there was only one that served as the truth. This truth was a form of hypocrisy, and the presence of hypocrisy was central to every argument they’d had in the last year.

  “Know what today is?” Ian asked, raising his glass again.

  Kav nodded but he looked chagrined. “Day we met. I’d forgotten. Too much going on up at Ireleth Hall, I think. But then— ” He indicated the table. Ian knew he meant not only the setup but also the trouble he’d gone to with the dinner. “When I saw this, it came to me. And I feel like a bloody wretch, Ian. I’ve nothing for you.”

  “Ah. No matter,” Ian told him. “What I want is right here and it’s yours to give.”

  “You’ve already got it, haven’t you?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Kaveh walked to the window and flicked the heavy closed curtains open a crack as if to check where the daylight had gone to, but Ian knew that he was trying to work out what it was he wanted to say and the thought that he might want to say what Ian didn’t want to hear caused his head to begin its telltale throbbing and a flash of bright stars t
o course across his vision. He blinked hard as Kaveh spoke.

  “Signing a book in a registry office doesn’t make us any more official than we already are.”

  “That’s bollocks,” Ian said. “It makes us more than official. It makes us legal. It gives us standing in the community and, what’s more important, it tells the world— ”

  “We don’t need standing. We already have it as individuals.”

  “— and what’s more important,” Ian repeated, “it tells the world— ”

  “Well that’s just it, isn’t it,” Kaveh said sharply. “The world, Ian. Think about it. The world. And everyone in it.”

  Carefully, Ian set his wineglass on the table. He knew he should get the meat and carve it, get the veg and serve them, sit, eat, and let the rest go. Go upstairs afterwards and have each other properly. But on this night of all nights, he couldn’t bring himself to do anything more but say what he’d already said to his partner more than a dozen times and what he’d sworn he wouldn’t say tonight: “You asked me to come out and I did. For you. Not for myself, because it didn’t matter to me and even if it had, there were too many people involved and what I did— for you— was as good as stabbing them through their throats. And that was fine by me because it was what you wanted, and I finally realised— ”

  “I know all this.”

  “Three years is long enough to hide, you said. You said, ‘Tonight you decide.’ In front of them you said it, Kav, and in front of them I decided. Then I walked out. With you. Have you any idea— ”

  “Of course I do. D’you think I’m a stone? I have a bloody idea, Ian. But we’re not talking about just living together, are we? We’re talking about marriage. And we’re talking about my parents.”

  “People adjust,” Ian said. “That’s what you told me.”

  “People. Yes. Other people. They adjust. But not them. We’ve been through this before. In my culture— their culture— ”

  “You’re part of this culture now. All of you.”

  “That’s not how it works. One doesn’t just flee to a foreign country, take some magic pill one night, and wake up the next morning with an entirely different system of values. It doesn’t happen that way. And as the only son— the only child, for God’s sake— I have… Oh Christ, Ian, you know all this. Why can’t you be happy with what we have? With how things are?”

  “Because how things are is a lie. You’re not my lodger. I’m not your landlord. D’you actually think they’ll believe that forever?”

  “They believe what I tell them,” he said. “I live here. They live there. This works and it will continue to work. Anything else, and they won’t understand. They don’t need to know.”

  “So that they can do what? Keep presenting you with suitable Iranian teenagers to marry? Fresh off the boat or the plane or whatever and eager to give your parents grandbabies?”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “It’s happening already. How many have they arranged for you to meet so far? A dozen? More? And at what point do you just cave in and marry because you can’t take the pressure from them any longer and you start to feel your duty too much and then what do you expect to have? One life here and another in Manchester, her down there— whoever she is— waiting for the babies and me up here and… goddamn it, look at me.” Ian wanted to kick the table over, sending the crockery flying and the cutlery spinning across the floor. Something was building within him, and he knew an explosion was on its way. He headed for the door, for the hallan that would take him to the kitchen and from there outside.

  Kaveh’s voice was sharper when he said, “Where’re you going?”

  “Out. The lake. Wherever. I don’t know. I just need to get out.”

  “Come on, Ian. Don’t be this way. What we have— ”

  “What we have is nothing.”

  “That isn’t true. Come back and I’ll show you.”

  But Ian knew where showing you would lead, which was where showing you always led, which was to a place having nothing to do with the change he sought. He left the house without looking back.

  EN ROUTE TO BRYANBARROW

  CUMBRIA

  Tim Cresswell slouched in the back seat of the Volvo. He tried to close his ears to the sound of his little sister begging their mother once again to let them live with her. “Please please extra pretty please, Mummy” was the way she put it. She was, Tim knew, trying to charm their mother into thinking she was actually missing something without her children in constant attendance. Not that anything Gracie might say or the way she might say it would do any good. Niamh Cresswell had no intention of allowing them to live with her in Grange-over-Sands. She had fish to fry that had nothing to do with any responsibility she might feel towards her offspring. Tim wanted to tell Gracie this, but what was the point? She was ten years old and too young to understand the workings of pride, loathing, and revenge.

  “I hate Daddy’s house,” Gracie was adding in hopeful good measure. “There’re spiders everywhere. It’s dark and creaky and full of draughts and it’s got all these corners where there’re cobwebs and things. I want to live with you, Mummy. Timmy does ’s well.” She squirmed round in her seat. “You want to live with Mummy ’s well, don’t you, Timmy?”

  Don’t call me Timmy, you stupid twit, was what Tim actually wanted to say to his sister, but he couldn’t ever get mad at Gracie when she looked at him with that expression of trusting love on her face. When he saw it, though, he wanted to tell her to harden up. The world was a shit hole, and he couldn’t understand why she hadn’t yet worked that out.

  Tim saw that his mother was watching him in the rear view mirror, waiting to hear how he would answer his sister. He curled his lip and turned to the window, thinking that he could almost not blame his father for dropping the bomb that had destroyed their lives. His mother was a real piece of work, she was.

  The bloody cow was acting true to character, even now, all pretence about why they were heading back to Bryan Beck farm. What she didn’t know was that he’d picked up the phone in the kitchen the exact same moment she’d taken up the phone in her bedroom, so he’d heard it all: his father’s voice asking would she mind keeping the kids another night and his mother’s voice agreeing to do so. Pleasantly agreeing, for once, which should have told his father something was up, because it certainly told Tim as much. So he was unsurprised when his mother came out of the bedroom less than ten minutes later dressed to the nines and breezily told him to pack up because his father had phoned and he and Gracie had to go back to the farm earlier that evening than usual.

  “Something nice he has planned for you,” she said. “He didn’t say what. So get yourselves together. Be quick about it.”

  She went on to search for her car keys, which Tim realised he should have pinched. Not for his own sake, but for Gracie’s. She damn well deserved another night with their mother if that’s what she wanted.

  She was saying, “See, there’s not even enough hot water for a proper bath, Mummy. And the water trickles out and it’s brown and disgusting. Not like your house where I c’n have bubbles. I do so like bubbles. Mummy, why can’t we live with you?”

  “You know very well,” Niamh Cresswell finally said.

  “No, I don’t,” countered Gracie. “Most kids live with their mums when their parents get divorced. They live with their mums and they visit their dads. And you got bedrooms for us anyways.”

  “Gracie, if you want so much to have all the details about the situation, you can ask your father why it’s different for you two.”

  Oh right, Tim thought. Like Dad was actually going to give Gracie the facts on why they lived on some creeped-out farm in some creeped-out house on the edge of a creeped-out village where there was nothing to do on a Saturday night or a Sunday afternoon but smell the cow shit, listen to the sheep, or— and this would be if one was truly lucky— chase the village ducks from their stupid duck house and their holding pen into the stream across the lane. Bryanbarro
w was the end of nowhere, but it was just perfect for their father’s new life. And about that life… Gracie didn’t understand. She wasn’t meant to. She was meant to think that they took in lodgers, only there was only one, Gracie, and after you go to bed where do you think he really sleeps and in what bed exactly and what do you think they do there when the door is closed?

  Tim tore at the back of his hand. He dug in his nails till he broke the skin and felt tiny crescents of blood bubbles form. His face was a blank, he knew, because he’d perfected that expression of absolutely nothing going on in his head. That and the hands and the damage he could do to them and his overall appearance kept him where he wanted to be, which was far away from other people and far away from everything else. His efforts had succeeded, even, in getting him out of the local comprehensive. Now he attended a special school near Ulverston, which was miles and miles and miles from his father’s house— all the better to cause a mind-boggling inconvenience to him every day, naturally— and miles upon miles from his mother’s house and that was the way he wanted it because there, near Ulverston, no one knew the truth of what had happened in his life and he needed it that way.

  Tim watched the passing scenery, silent. The drive from Grange-over-Sands to his father’s farm spun them north in the fading daylight, up through the Lyth Valley. There the landscape was patchwork: paddocks and pastures that were the green of shamrocks and emeralds and that, like a wave, rolled into the distance to swell up to the fells. On these, great outcroppings of slate and limestone burst forth, with grey scree fanning out beneath them. Between the pastures and the fells stood groups of woodland, alders that were yellow with the autumn and oaks and maples that were gold and red. And here and there erupted buildings that marked the farms: great hulking stone barns and slate-fronted houses with chimneys from which wood smoke curled.