The Liar's Room

by Simon Lelic

  Susanna looks back at him and nods.

  “I wanted to finish school. My GCSEs, at any rate. And I did, I passed them all, and the moment I found out I packed my bags. Before I left, though, I needed money. I knew my old man had some in the house because he hated banks, hated any kind of institution. Probably because he’d spent some time in prison when he was younger but that’s a whole other story. So anyway, I figured he owed me. Right? And he was always magicking tenners from somewhere, so I reckoned I was due basically whatever cash I could find.”

  Adam carefully picks up his knife.

  “Also, I needed ID. Documents of some kind, just to prove I was me. I knew I didn’t have a passport but there had to be something. My birth certificate or whatever. And again, I knew all that stuff would be somewhere but it was like with the money: I had no idea where my father kept it.”

  The knife in Adam’s hand appears so much more threatening than Susanna’s. It is bigger, sharper, meaner. Susanna’s, against her wrist, feels no more menacing now than a toothpick.

  “So I ransacked the house. Literally. Started with the kitchen, made as much mess as I could, and worked my way up to my father’s bedroom. It was childish, I know, turning the house upside down like that, but it was fun. Therapeutic,” he adds with something like a wink. “Hurling the bag of flour at the wall, slicing up my father’s mattress. I got so into it, at one point I almost forgot what I was supposed to be doing.”

  Adam’s hand has tightened around the knife handle and somehow Susanna understands that it is the very knife he used to slash his father’s bedding. And that he has been carrying it with him ever since.

  “I didn’t find anything, though,” Adam goes on. “A couple of quid down the back of the sofa but that wouldn’t have even covered my bus fare. But the thing was, I’d overlooked my mother’s shelf. The one I told you about before? With her belongings? It was so ingrained in me not to touch it I guess subconsciously I must have considered it off-limits.”

  Adam stops talking. His eyes sparkle with anticipation, as though he is about to draw back the curtain.

  “So I got on a chair, and I pulled myself up so I could see into the cupboard . . . and guess what I found there? In a box tucked right at the back of the shelf, behind all those dusty old photos.”

  Susanna, all of a sudden, doesn’t want to know.

  “Money, yes. Almost a grand, as it happened. But what else, Susanna? Can you guess what else?”

  She shakes her head, as much a ward against what’s coming as a response. “The . . . documents,” she says. “Your birth certificate?”

  Even as she says it, Susanna feels herself sickening. There is a dread budding in her stomach.

  Adam beams.

  “My birth certificate. That’s right. Both my birth certificates. The fake one . . . and the real one. And that’s what I meant about it all being a lie. My mother’s name wasn’t Catherine Geraghty. It was Alison. Alison Birch.”

  Susanna opens her mouth uselessly. She shakes her head once more, uselessly. It’s not possible, she tells herself. It’s not.

  “You understand,” Adam says. “Don’t you? You get it. Finally.”

  He lets go of the knife, reclines in his chair. He laughs on an exhalation of breath.

  “To be honest, I was getting a little worried. And I’m disappointed that it took you so long. But I guess we got there in the end.”

  Susanna’s hand is wrapped across her mouth. She peers at Adam over her fingertips. She knew him. She told herself she knew him and she did.

  And her theory. She was right. In spite of the lies, in spite of Adam’s misdirection, she was right.

  Adam watches her watching him.

  “So,” he says, with that oh-so-familiar schoolboy grin, “now that we’ve got that out of the way, perhaps we can get back to the story.”

  “The story?”

  “Jake’s story, Susanna. We’ve discussed how adept he was at making friends. We’ve established that you never really loved him, not the way you clearly love Emily.”

  Adam allows Susanna the space to interject. She couldn’t say anything coherent if her life depended on it. Which, quite possibly, it does.

  “Now we just need to fill in the gaps,” Adam goes on—and he reaches into his messenger bag and pulls out a ragged stack of paper.

  EMILY

  22 AUGUST 2017

  I didn’t think I’d ever feel this happy again. After yesterday and the day before and obviously that day on the common . . . I’ve just been so worried. I haven’t slept and I’ve barely eaten and I’ve been ignoring Frankie when she’s called. Like it was her fault. You know? And Mum too. I’ve been snapping at Mum. She’s been trying to get me to leave my room, to come downstairs, to go for a walk, to sit in the garden in the sunshine, just anything other than lying on my bed staring at the ceiling and listening to misery playlists on Spotify.

  Mum figures I’ve had an argument with Frankie, which is basically what it feels like times a thousand. What it felt like rather because today, guess what he did? Adam, I mean, obviously. He texted me and asked me to meet him at the park, the one round the corner from my house. He didn’t say why, so what I’m thinking is he’s going to break up with me. Not that we’re even together at this point, not officially, but that just makes it even worse. You know, that it’s over before it’s even really begun.

  But when I get there, he’s standing there with this single white rose.

  “Hey,” he says, when I come up to him.

  “Hey,” I tell him back.

  There’s a pause, and then we both start talking at the same time.

  “Look, I—”

  “I’ve been meaning to—”

  And we laugh. Both of us. Together. And the best part is, we don’t need to say anything after that.

  * * *

  • • •

  He takes me to this place out of town. This big country house. We go on the bus and because it’s busy we don’t really talk much the whole journey, which in the end takes almost an hour. But it’s nice, actually, just looking over at each other and smiling. Also, the waiting to talk. It’s like walking home with a magazine and a bar of chocolate.

  Adam pays and we go in. Not into the house, which is just this big old stone building that’s half in ruins anyway. Instead we go to the garden, out back. And the garden at this place, it’s like a whole other world. A secret garden, like in the book, which I always loved when I was a kid. Also, it’s huge. Endless really, because at some point at the bottom of the hill the garden turns into countryside. But you can’t see any of it from the front of the house, which is what I mean about it being secret. There are paths leading this way and that, and types of trees I’ve never even seen before, and this amazing variety of flowers. The smell is incredible.

  “Wow,” I say when I see it.

  Adam grins at me and takes my hand. “I wanted to bring you a whole bunch of those,” he tells me as we walk, gesturing to the rose in my hand. I’ve carried it all the way with me on the bus. “But I figured you’d have to put them somewhere and your mum . . . Well. She’d see and she’d figure something was up.” He looks at me bashfully. “So seeing as I couldn’t bring flowers to you,” he says, “I figured I’d bring you to the flowers.”

  He stops as we come out into this meadow, and makes this grand gesture with his arms. And the feeling, what I’m feeling, is that everything in the garden has been planted just for me.

  I turn away so Adam can’t see me blush.

  “Thank you,” I say. “I mean it. Thank you.”

  And Adam just gives this little smile.

  * * *

  • • •

  We walk for ages. Just ambling along the paths, through the flowers, around the edge of this little lake. Just chatting.

  “I had no idea this place even existed,”
I say. “I had no idea there were places like this in the entire world, let alone so close to home. I thought you only found them in, like . . .”

  “Stories,” Adam says, as though he’s reading my thoughts. Seriously, it’s almost biological or something, we’re so in tune.

  “Right,” I say, grinning at him. I look around, out across the lake, taking it all in. The sun on the surface of the water is like glitter, sparkling in the ripples from the breeze. “Honestly,” I say, “my mum would love it here.”

  “Yeah? Your mum likes flowers too?”

  I bump him gently as we walk. “All women like flowers, silly,” I say. “But yeah, she loves anything to do with nature. Trees, fields, flowers. And the sky, especially at night.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. And the whole nature thing, I think it feeds into what she does. She’s a counselor. I’ve told you that, right?”

  Adam narrows his eyes like he can’t quite remember. “Maybe,” he says. “I think so.”

  “Anyway. Counseling, nature, the environment. She thinks it’s all part of one big whole. Like, human nature is part of just, like, normal nature. You know?” I check to see if Adam gets it. “I’m not explaining it very well,” I say. “If you asked her, Mum would probably explain it better.”

  “Maybe one day I will,” Adam says. Then, “Tell me about her. Your mum, I mean.”

  I shrug. “There’s not much to tell.”

  “What about her job, though? The . . . counseling, did you say? That sounds interesting.”

  I look at him to see if he’s joking. “Really?”

  “Really. I mean, unless it’s, like, top secret or something. Like, your mum’s got some secret identity.” He pauses, looks at me. Grins. “Like she’s a spy, I mean,” he says, “and the counseling thing is just a cover.”

  “Ha. Right. Like anything in my life is that exciting.”

  We walk on for a minute and then he asks me again.

  “Seriously. Tell me. I’d like to hear.”

  I’m still doubtful, still thinking he’s humoring me, but in the end I do. I talk about Mum, about what she does. And you know what? It turns out that counseling isn’t as boring as I thought it was.

  “Whoa,” Adam says, when he’s finished listening. “I bet as a counselor you could really mess someone up. Put ideas into their heads, get them thinking there’s something wrong with them when there isn’t. That sort of thing.”

  And yeah, it’s a joke, but it’s the one time he tries to be funny that I don’t laugh. “My mum would never do that,” I say. “She’s the most caring, most honest person I’ve ever met.”

  And Adam, then, gives me this look.

  “What?” I say, a bit defensive.

  “Nothing,” he goes. “Sorry. I wasn’t taking the piss.”

  I twitch a smile at him, embarrassed. “S’OK,” I say. “I know you weren’t. It’s just, she takes it so seriously, that’s all. The counseling. I think she’d get upset if I didn’t take it seriously too.”

  Adam nods, like he totally gets it. “It sounds like you love her very much.”

  Which I guess I frown at. “Course,” I say. “I mean, she’s a pain in the arse sometimes but only because she tries so hard to keep me safe. Why? Don’t you love your mum?”

  Adam shrugs then. “To be honest I never really knew her. She died when I was young.”

  Which makes me feel like a total idiot. You know, for bringing it up. I want to say something to make it better but I don’t know what.

  “What about your dad?” Adam asks me after a moment.

  “My dad?”

  “Is he around? You live with your mum, you said. Just you and her. But do you see him?”

  “Nope. Never.”

  “How come?”

  “He ditched me and Mum when I was a baby. Which, as far as I’m concerned, good riddance. Right? If he’s the kind of bloke to do something like that?”

  Adam nods. “I never knew my father either,” he says. “My real father, I mean.”

  I stop walking. We’re back by the meadow, near where we started. “Really? So, who did you live with? After, like . . .” I trail off, wishing I’d never started the sentence.

  “After my mum died?” Adam says, rescuing me. “My stepdad, I guess you’d call him. Who, basically, was a fucking arsehole.”

  Adam’s expression goes sort of dark then, a bit like it did that day in the park when he first saw that little boy crying.

  “Wow,” I say. “Sorry. I guess that must really have sucked.”

  Adam shrugs, like it did, yeah, but what can you do?

  Poor Adam. Poor baby.

  “He was a liar,” Adam goes, out of the blue. I mean, I’m not expecting him to say anything after that, not on the subject of his stepdad at least, but out of nowhere, suddenly, he does. “A coward and a liar,” he says. “He lied to me pretty much my whole life.”

  “Lied to you? What about?”

  He looks at me, opens his mouth, then shakes his head, like it’s all too complicated to explain. “Everything. Everything and anything.” We’ve started walking again but now Adam stops and turns to face me. “Can you imagine, though? Not being able to trust your own parents? The people who are supposed to love you. Can you imagine how you’d feel if you found out they’d lied to you pretty much from the day you were born?”

  And what I’m thinking is, Jesus. You know? Like, what could his stepdad have lied about that would make Adam that upset?

  All I say is, “No. I can’t imagine it.”

  Adam gives this little sniff.

  “I’m lucky, I guess,” I go on. “My mum can be a pain in the arse, just like I said. She always wants to know everything about who I’m spending time with, who my friends are, where we hang out. Just everything, you know? But she loves me. More than anything. And there’s no way she’d ever lie to me. She always tries so hard not to lie to anyone.”

  Adam’s smiling now, sort of to himself, but I’m just pleased I’ve managed to distract him from thinking about his stepdad.

  “You must be curious, though,” Adam goes, after a moment. He’s looking out across the meadow. “About your dad, I mean. I would be, I think. If I was in your position. Didn’t you ever want to try to find him?”

  I shrug. “Not really. I used to want to. But not anymore. I don’t need him. Not when I’ve got my mum.”

  Adam looks at me, then looks away.

  “And anyway you are,” I say.

  “Huh?”

  “You are in the same position I am. With your real dad?” I grin at him, waiting for him to catch on. To realize how perfect that is, that our backgrounds are so identical.

  “Oh,” Adam goes. “Right. Yeah. I guess I am.”

  I bump him again, to chide him or whatever for not realizing.

  “So are you?” I ask him.

  “Am I what?”

  “Curious. About your real dad.”

  He shrugs, smiles, but you can tell he’s making an effort because the smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “A bit.”

  “Do you think you’d ever try to find him?”

  Adam stops. He pauses, just for a second, then turns to face me. “One day,” he says. “Maybe.” He tucks my hair gently around my ear. “You know, if the opportunity were to ever present itself.”

  I think—hope!—he’s about to kiss me, but instead all he does is just stare. Like, properly, deeply into my eyes.

  It’s so intense I have to look away.

  “Come on,” I say, and I tug his hand.

  “What? Where?”

  I’ve startled him, I can tell, and I grin at him to try to get him to stop frowning.

  “Come on,” I insist, and I start pulling him into the middle of the meadow.

  “I think we’re supposed
to stick to the paths.”

  “It’s fine,” I say. “Don’t be such a baby.” And once we’re in the middle of the meadow, I pull him down onto the ground. When we’re lying like that among the flowers, we’re completely hidden from view.

  “Emily . . .” Adam says in a voice a bit like one Mum would use.

  “Relax,” I say. “No one can see us.”

  “No, I know, but . . .”

  “Kiss me.”

  “What, I . . .”

  “Kiss me.”

  Adam swallows. He shuts his eyes. And then he kisses me, finally, and it’s tentative, worried almost, but it’s also about the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted.

  When I open my eyes, Adam’s are already open too.

  “We should go away somewhere,” he says.

  “Go away?”

  His expression has gone all dark again. What I figure is he’s feeling a bit like I am, that he’s annoyed the two of us have to hide.

  I try to kiss him again but when I do, he pulls away.

  I prop myself up on my elbows. “You mean a trip or something?”

  “Right. A trip.” He smiles and it looks a bit weird this time but I guess it’s just because he’s so close.

  I think about it. “But where? How?”

  “Could you get one of your friends to cover for you? Tell your mum you were staying over at their house? Without your mum checking up on you, I mean.”

  I think of Frankie, obviously. And I feel a bit guilty about the way I’ve been ignoring her lately.

  “I guess,” I say.

  “When?”

  “Huh?”

  “When?” Adam says, and I smile because it’s obvious he’s suddenly all eager. Before, I thought there must be something wrong with me. You know? Because until today he hasn’t even kissed me, has barely even held my hand, but all of a sudden he’s talking about us going away together.