The Lies We Hide (ARC)

by S. E. Lynes

  ‘Are you shocked?’ Graham asks.

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘No. But my mum saw me do it. I mean, I don’t know how much she saw, but that wasn’t good, like.’

  ‘And how did you feel about that?’

  ‘Well, at first I felt all right, because I hadn’t hit the girl, you know? I thought I’d found a way round it. I was like, clever me, sort of thing. But then when I saw my mum, I felt bad, like. Yeah, I felt well bad then. I was ashamed.’ He puts his hands flat over his eyes and inhales deeply, pushes his fingers to the end of his nose and keeps them there, as if in prayer.

  It is a relief to see him so contrite. His sense of right and wrong is intact. Perhaps it is this very sense that has fuelled the hate and self-hate. Shame is a terrible force; it circles endlessly, gets no one anywhere.

  He huffs. ‘I think when I saw my mum I just thought about my dad and how sometimes he could be so scary just by the way he spoke. He didn’t just use his hands, do you know what I mean? I mean, one minute you’d be having a laugh and the next he’d put his face really close to yours and say “What are you laughing at?” or “What did you say?” that kind of thing, and you’d shit yourself, do you know what I mean?

  ‘And so after that girl, I was like, that’s it.’ He puts up his hands in a stop sign. ‘I gave up drinking then. Just stuck to weed after that, used to smoke a lot with Barry and them. I tried to settle down, honest. Barry even came over to ours, to my mum’s, like, but he always wanted to get stoned and my mum wasn’t having that, so we cleared off back to his most of the time.’

  Graham has paused but is nodding slowly to himself, as if building up to something else. Richard holds his breath and waits.

  ‘I thought the weed was OK,’ he resumes. ‘More mellow, like. I thought I’d be fine. Thought that would put some distance between us, like.’

  ‘Between you and the person you became when you drank?’

  ‘No. Between me and … him, like. My d-dad.’ He looks up, narrows his eyes. ‘I was wrong.’

  Thirty-Nine

  Nicola

  2019

  I have returned to my mother’s bedroom. I know I shouldn’t, but I open the second drawer of her bedside cabinet. There are letters in here. Some are from me, sent to her in hospital. I can’t read those, not now. I flick through the rest: get-well cards from her friends, one from Pauline with the message Soon have you back on the Blue Nun, cock; and a postcard with four photos on the front, a rose in the centre and the words City of Roses. I turn it over, see that it’s from Jim. I don’t feel too bad reading it, because after the first few words, I realise I’ve read it before. I remember my mother handing it to me, her eyes round as saucers.

  Dear Carol,

  I thought a card would be better, but I didn’t want it dropping on your welcome mat unannounced, so excuse the roundabout postal service and the crap postcard, which I’ll admit I just grabbed at the airport. I wanted Pauline to give this to you by hand, to make sure you got it. How are you doing, anyway? I’m OK. Thought of you at Xmas. If you’d seen us in our paper hats out on the rig, you’d have laughed. I was sorry to hear about Ted, but Tommy tells me things are working out for you. I’ll put my number at the bottom just in case you’ve lost it. It’d be nice to have a wee blether. I think about you often.

  Love, Jim

  ‘What do you think?’ she asked me, giddy as a schoolgirl. ‘Do you think I should ring him or what?’

  ‘Yes,’ I’d said. I didn’t see why not, unburdened as I was by any romantic past of my own. And I like to think that at twelve, I was mature enough to realise that she deserved someone in her life. Perhaps having a brother who caused so many problems made me grow up faster than I would normally have done. In families, we assume roles without even knowing we’re doing it. We fill in the blanks.

  I lie on my mother’s bed and stare at the ceiling. The bedding smells of the detergent she used, but not of her, not anymore. She spent her last weeks in a hospice in Halton. When I first heard, I felt her death without me as a kind of betrayal. How could she? I thought. How could she leave me out? But when you’ve loved someone all your life, when you’ve never fallen out, when you harbour no resentment for them and in your heart there is only love, well, what is there left to say? There was never going to be a last-minute dash to tell her I was sorry, or that I forgave her, or that I loved her. She knew I loved her and I know she loved me. We didn’t say it much; hardly ever, in fact. My mother never threw out the words I love you in any kind of casual way. She was not brought up like that. I tell my own children that I love them all the time, but things are different now, and even I’m not sure if the words have been cheapened through overuse. My mum would think so. I can’t be doing with all this ‘I love you’ business every five minutes, she would undoubtedly say. And she’d have a point. Where do we go to when what we want to say is that very deepest thing? Perhaps there are no words for that anymore. Perhaps no words are needed for those who know it of one another: a hand on an arm, a meeting of eyes, a smile.

  My mother died in peace. After all the pain and turmoil, she was free, had been free for many years, and happy. It was Graham who was with her at the end. My brother, so lovely and so beloved, and the cause of so much angst. Of course it was him. He will have wanted to say sorry, though he was forgiven long ago.

  I think my mother hoped that our return to our home after we’d left the safe house would mean we could really start again. It was our second chance. But the thing about second chances is that they drag with them the scars of the first fucked-up attempt, scars that infiltrate and derail our best attempts at redemption. What happened the first time round can take so much longer to eradicate than we anticipated. It is only really possible to start again once the decks are cleared. With my father dead, perhaps my mother thought this was so. But it was not. Graham, red-eyed and stumbling blind through life, was a stranger to both of us. My mother told me later that she was afraid of him. As for me, I didn’t know him, not anymore. After our brief and precious return to closeness, he had once again vanished from my side. And perhaps I had lost hope that he would ever come back.

  But with the passing of summer came a breakthrough. My brother turned eighteen. There was a sense of things looking up. Graham announced that he had got a part-time job, cash in hand, at the Esso garage up on Clifton Road. I was in the living room with my mother when he told us, his face brighter than I had seen it in years. As autumn progressed, he came home at night more often, seemed to mention his friend Barry less, was less black around the eyes. I can remember my mother still complaining that he had left all the lights on, the electric ring glowing orange on the hob, the smell of burnt toast up the hall. But at least he wasn’t as aggressive and seemed at last to want to work, to live well. The year turned. A little after, we found out he had a girlfriend. Her name was Tracy. She was quiet, with brown hair, as unremarkable as it gets. That sounds uncharitable, but she was so young – she had not left school – was not, in fact, that much older than me, and like me, she had not grown into herself. She was an ordinary girl, but with her, Graham appeared to finally be settling and my mother could not, would not argue with that. And I think because of that, she finally found the confidence to call Jim.

  She was not to know that whatever peace Graham had found, it would not last.

  Forty

  Carol

  1987

  After a few faint ticks, the phone rings loudly in her ear, and then quietly in Scotland: near and far, near and far, over the hills and far away. She runs her nail down the frame of the mirror and sucks her teeth. Come on, Jim, answer. Near and far. A click. She inhales deeply, pulls in her stomach.

  It’s a woman’s voice. Another woman; she should have known. She’s about to put the phone down when she hears what the woman is saying. ‘Please leave a message and your number after the beep.’ The voice is electronic-sounding. A machine, not another woman at all.

  Beep.

  ‘Oh.’
Her own voice is high, startled. ‘Hello. Erm, this is Carol Green … I mean, you know me as Watson … I mean Carol, anyway, leaving a message for James MacKay, sorry, Jim MacKay, I mean Jim. My number is one five one, seven two nine, three five six. Thank you. That’s the message. Thank you now.’ She hesitates, puts down the phone and feels the heat of a blush spread to the roots of her hair.

  Her hand is still on the receiver. She picks it up again and dials Pauline’s work number.

  ‘ICI Human Resources, Pauline speaking, can I help you?’

  ‘Hiya. Can you talk?’

  ‘Aye, go on. Make it quick, though, I’ve got a BO case in five minutes. Last warning, smelly bastard’s killing us by stealth.’

  Carol giggles. ‘I called him. Jim, I mean.’

  ‘You never?’

  ‘I did.’

  Pauline gives a squeak. ‘Get you, scarlet woman.’

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘So what did he say?’

  ‘It was one of them answering machines. I nearly died.’

  ‘Did you leave a message?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well bloody good for you, love. Well done. I hate them things.’

  Carol smiles to herself. ‘Well, I mean, I was thinking, you know, our Graham’s been so settled recently. I mean, he’s almost cheerful sometimes. And Nicky’s busy with exams and that.’ She gives a little excited chuckle. ‘And so I just thought – what the hey-ho, you know?’

  ‘About bloody time. Listen, love, I have to go. Niffy Nigel’s here and I’ve got to tell him how to use a bar of soap. Thirty-bloody-two, you’d think he’d’ve figured it out by now.’

  ‘Righto – off you go, love.’ Carol laughs, though she’s disappointed not to be able to chat. ‘Ta-ra.’

  ‘Ta-ra, temptress.’

  ‘Give over.’

  * * *

  The following Saturday morning, Carol is halfway through spring-cleaning the kitchen cupboards and thinking about a quick cup of coffee and a cigarette. Five minutes later, she’s sitting in the armchair by the window with a cup of Mellow Bird’s and a B&H.

  Bliss.

  She pushes her bottom back into the chair, closes her eyes and tries not to think about Jim. He hasn’t called back. She’s been a fool to think he would. He’s kind, that’s all. She waited too long. If only she hadn’t left that stupid message.

  ‘Mum.’

  She opens her eyes. Graham and Tracy are looming over her, holding hands like a torn-out paper chain.

  She jumps up and plumps up the cushion. ‘I didn’t hear you come in.’

  ‘Mum. Sit down, you’re all right.’ They’re standing a little apart in front of the gas fire.

  Carol perches, then moves her bottom properly onto the chair.

  ‘I’ve only been here a minute,’ she says. ‘I’ve literally just this minute sat down.’ She looks into Graham’s face and sees something she doesn’t like. ‘What’s the matter?’

  As if in answer, he puts his arm around Tracy’s shoulders. ‘We love each other, me and Trace, right? We really do.’ He sounds strange, like he’s rehearsed it or something. ‘I’ve calmed down loads, I really have, so this could be the icing on the cake, like.’ His knuckles whiten on Tracy’s shoulder. He grins. Tracy looks like she’s faking a smile for the camera.

  Carol moves back to the edge of her seat but realises she doesn’t trust her legs to stand. Her chest has tightened. ‘What could be the icing on the cake?’

  ‘We’re … we’re going to have a b-baby. We reckon it m-m-must be d-due in about August. Tracy’ll be out of s-school by then and she’ll get a flat on the c-c-council. I’m going to ask Mr Weston if h-he’ll take me on as t-t-trainee m-manager.’ He raises his eyebrows, giving her a flat, hopeful smile.

  ‘You’re having a baby?’ Carol hauls herself to her feet but sees black. She bends over, rests her hands on her knees.

  ‘Mum, are you all right?’

  She straightens up slowly, her vision clearing, and meets Graham’s gaze.

  ‘Listen while I tell you something.’ She reaches for her cigarettes, to give her fingers something to do whilst she tries to control the temper she can feel bubbling up the walls of her, hot as oil in a vat. She lights up, trying to stall, but still her blood rises. ‘You think you’ve got it all worked out, do you? Think this baby will be different? Different from all the other millions and trillions of babies?’ Her voice trembles. ‘Look at you! You’ve barely been together five minutes. Kids, the pair of you.’

  ‘C-c-come on, Mum, I’m not a kid, d-don’t be like that.’ Graham takes his arm from around Tracy and spreads his hands.

  ‘Like what, Graham? Knackered?’ She is shouting now. She can’t help it. ‘Is that what you mean? Like that? Worrying you’re going to punch some customer in the face if he speaks to you wrong? Choking half to death from the fumes in your disgusting midden of a bedroom – worrying all the time, all the time, about how much of that stuff you’re smoking. Is that what you want, is it? Hassle, grief, trouble, fighting, money worries, tiptoeing around your moods, explaining to some kid’s parents that no, he doesn’t come from a broken home, he just can’t control his bloody temper? You think you’re a hard knock, don’t you? Cock of the walk? You think because you’ve stayed calm for all of two months you’re ideal father material? What’re you going to live on, son? Two pound fifty an hour won’t feed it! Christ, how the hell do you expect to look after a child when you’re still one yourself? You’re still living with your mother, for pity’s sake.’ She takes a drag of her cigarette and blows the smoke up, away from them.

  ‘You can f-frigging talk.’ Graham spits the words. Typical – nought to belligerence in two seconds. ‘You didn’t exactly w-wait, d-did you? Eh?’

  ‘No, love. No, I didn’t. And that’s how I know how hard it is.’ She looks at Tracy, who has shrunk away from her. ‘And you, love? I tell you something, my girl, I hope you know what you’re taking on with him. He’s a piece of work, I tell you that. And don’t expect me to come and play babysitter; I’ve got enough on my plate without bloody grandchildren.’

  Graham’s face darkens. ‘Well if h-having me was so b-b-bad, I’ll get out of your w-way. All I ever d-did was try to look after you. Who h-helped you get away from D-Dad? Eh? F-f-forgotten that, have you? I’ve done everything for you, everything. Wasn’t enough, was it? Nothing’s ever enough for you.’ He drags his bewildered girlfriend out of the room. ‘Come on, Trace.’

  ‘I don’t want to be a grandmother,’ Carol shouts after them. ‘I’m only thirty-eight.’

  ‘Well don’t worry,’ he shouts back. ‘We won’t be bothering you with your own fucking flesh and blood.’

  Forty-One

  Carol

  The house howls with silence. Graham and Tracy have been gone an hour. Carol has no idea what to do with herself. She could ring Pauline, but decides not to, not yet. Her son’s stupidity feels, for the moment, private.

  A moment later, she hears Nicola’s music start upstairs. Another moment and the banging of her feet comes through the ceiling. The sooner this aerobics craze is over, the better. And on top of that, the phone is ringing.

  ‘Can you turn the music down?’ Carol shouts up the stairs. ‘I said, can you turn it down? Oi!’ The music drops. Still irritated, still furious with her stupid son and his stupid girlfriend, she picks up the phone.

  ‘What?’ she shouts into the receiver.

  ‘Carol?’ The roll of the R, the swallowed L. Jim. He has called – just when she’d given up hope. And she’s just yelled into the phone like a madwoman. Buggeration. She puts her hand over the receiver. A deep breath shudders out of her. Once she’s sure her voice won’t betray her, she takes her hand away and speaks.

  ‘Jim.’

  ‘That’s me.’ His voice carries the hint of a croak. ‘Long time no speak. How’re you doing, anyway?’ He sounds so normal, not tragic like the women at work when they ask that question, heads to one side, biting their lips at
the imagined tragedy of the newly widowed woman. It dawns on her how much she misses people speaking normally to her. There’s only Pauline. And Tommy. And now Jim. His voice, deep with cigars, rattles away, seems nothing but glad to be talking to her, and now she too feels glad and clear and uncomplicated. ‘Finally come to your senses?’ he is saying. ‘Can’t live without me?’

  She tells herself to keep her voice steady, to ask how he’s been and for that to be that. But he speaks again before she has a chance to ask him anything.

  ‘So what’s new?’

  ‘I’ve been gardening.’ She smacks her forehead with her hand. Idiot. ‘And I’m redecorating. I’ve got the paint – it’s a Dulux one: magnolia. I’ve told Graham I’ll pay him if he gives us a hand. Could do with some shelves putting up too, except the car’s falling to pieces, obviously.’

  ‘That an invite?’

  ‘Oh. I didn’t mean. I …’ Stupid woman. She needed bloody duct tape putting over her mouth.

  ‘I’m just teasing.’

  Down the line comes a smack-smack-smacking – Jim lighting a cigar, probably. Just the sound makes her feel less angry inside; he doesn’t even have to speak. She imagines him in his kilt, in an armchair with old-fashioned rounded arms in some country hotel, the head of a deer on the wall, cut-glass tumbler of whisky on the coffee table. She imagines him on the doorstep, right now, suitcase in hand and no other home save hers.