The Liar's Room

by Simon Lelic

  Oh Emily. Where are you? What has Adam done to you?

  “You think this makes up for it,” Adam says. “Don’t you? Doing what you do. You think by acting like you’re helping people you can erase all the damage you inflicted in your former life. What was it you said earlier?” His voice goes higher. “My life isn’t about me anymore!” he mimics. “I’ve made it so it’s not about me!”

  He looks at her with all the hatred he’s only shown so far in flashes.

  “You don’t even realize, do you? You don’t get that this, all of this, it only makes things worse. You’re a hypocrite, Susanna,” he says, mocking her name, the very person she’d thought she’d become. “You ask people to tell you their secrets and all the while you’re hiding behind your lies. About who you are. About what you did.”

  Adam stands, so abruptly he dislodges his chair. It knocks the side table, and one of the water glasses tips and smashes on the floor. The sound is like a splash of cold water and it jolts Susanna from her shock.

  “What are you doing?” she says, panicking. She presses herself deeper into her chair.

  Adam levels the knife at Susanna’s chest. His fingers adjust themselves around the handle. “You’re guilty, Susanna,” he declares. “I said I’d judge you and that’s my ruling: guilty as charged.”

  “No, wait, I—”

  “It’s too late,” Adam says. “Anything you say to me now, you’re eighteen years too late. You’re guilty—and it’s time you were finally made to pay.”

  21.

  Ruth has drunk too much wine. In the end she and Alina opted to share a bottle, which was always going to end badly—for Ruth, anyway—because Alina rarely drinks more than a single glass. She had two this evening but, even so, that left two-thirds of a bottle for Ruth, which she can take, no problem, and still be safe to drive—but being legal to drive, that’s a different story.

  It’s a good job they ordered that plate of food. Ruth has nine points already, for speeding, a traffic light, not drinking, but even so she is flirting with a ban and if she lost her license she doesn’t know what she would do. Take to sleeping on her dental chair, probably, because how otherwise would she be at the surgery in time for work? But at least with something in her belly there’s a chance, if she does get breathalyzed, she might, just, sneak under the limit. Christ, those chicken goujons were so dry they no doubt soaked up all the alcohol anyway. If Ruth had wanted to, she probably could have stayed for another glass.

  But that would have been a mistake. She was later leaving than she intended to be as it was, and although she had a fairly decent time there is only so much of Alina’s company that Ruth can take. It would have been different if Susanna had been there. Then Ruth really would have drunk too much, because it was turning into one of those evenings where the wine was slipping down like water. Unfortunately/fortunately, however, Susanna wasn’t there, meaning Ruth managed to tear herself away.

  She wonders how her friend made out with her client. Made out—ha! There’s a double entendre if ever there was one. A double entendre or a Freudian slip? Susanna would know. Just as she knew exactly what she was doing earlier when she gave Ruth and Alina the brush-off. Ruth quizzed Alina at the pub and though this client of Susanna’s might not have been a Leonardo DiCaprio, he apparently wasn’t that far off a young Johnny Depp. “Doubling up,” my arse, Ruth tells herself. Her friend was flirting—lusting—pure and simple, and why the hell not? She knows Susanna is far too much of a professional to ever act inappropriately with one of her clients but that doesn’t mean she can’t permit herself the occasional harmless fantasy.

  Ruth smiles as she totters toward her car. And she is, she is definitely tottering. One glass, Ruth. Two glasses maximum. How many times does she really need to tell herself?

  And look: she’s heading up the wrong street. There’s a parking space right outside the surgery, which usually Ruth thinks of as hers, but this morning she arrived later than usual and the space had already been taken. So instead she had to park in the next street over, meaning she should have turned left outside the pub, the way Alina went, not right and back the way they’d come.

  Cursing with more color than is really justified, Ruth turns on her heels. But as she does so, she manages to drop her car keys, which she knocks with her foot into the gutter. There’s no drain, thank goodness, but even so. Ruth casts her eyes heavenward. Honestly, how is it she can pluck a molar from a ten-year-old and barely cause them to flinch but in the real world is an Olympic champion at tripping over her own feet? And it’s not the wine. Not always. If anything, mostly, alcohol actually makes her coordination better.

  Yeah, right, says a voice. Save it for the policeman in the lay-by, old woman.

  She is just about to bend to retrieve her keys when something catches at the tail of her eye. Movement, in the window across the way. Their window. Susanna’s window. Which must be a mistake because the window is dark and if Susanna were still up there she would have turned on a light. As it is the glass reflects back at her blackly, just like every other window in their little mews. The street is empty, the buildings too. And as Ruth looks again she is certain: there is nothing, no movement of any kind. There is only the flicker just above her from the solitary streetlight, which glows a warm, shadowy pink that could have been plucked from the horizon of the dying sky.

  Ruth picks up her keys. She doesn’t totter this time. The sudden spookiness of the cul-de-sac has sobered her. She feels an urge to hurry off to find her car but before she does she takes a final look around. She checks the doorways first, the little alleyway that funnels toward the parade of shops, just in case the movement she thought she saw was closer than she assumed. It is only after she is certain there is no one around that she lifts her gaze once more toward Susanna’s window . . . and that’s when she sees it once again.

  Movement. Unmistakable this time. The quick, back-and-forth tussle of shadows scuffling in the dark.

  And that’s not right. Whatever it is that’s going on up there—whatever was going on up there earlier—Ruth is all at once convinced: it isn’t right. Susanna doesn’t flirt, for pity’s sake. Ruth doesn’t know what she was thinking. And doubling up? When has Susanna ever? Really, Ruth should have known better. More than that, she should never have left her friend alone.

  22.

  It doesn’t come. The pain—the release Susanna is expecting: when she opens her eyes, Adam is past her and heading for the door. He has the knife, his bag, everything he arrived with bar Jake’s letters. And incredible to Susanna as it seems, the fact of the matter is inescapable. He is leaving.

  “Wait . . .”

  Adam doesn’t stop, doesn’t turn round. Susanna stares helplessly at the back of him, and all the fear she was feeling before transforms abruptly into rage.

  “Stop!”

  Susanna finds herself on her feet. It is only the fact that Adam turns this time that prevents her lunging and hauling him back.

  “You’re just . . . You’re going?”

  “It’s over, Susanna. Our little therapy session? There’s nothing left for either of us to say.”

  “But you can’t just go!”

  Adam sniffs. “You’ve made your bed, Susanna. I suggest you lie in it. See how cozy it feels now.”

  “But what about Emily? Where she is? What have you done to her? Tell me what you’ve done to my daughter!”

  Adam smiles. And this time when he turns away Susanna knows he will not be turning back.

  For a moment it is all she can do to stand and watch. She is pulsing, raging, to the point she isn’t sure what she is capable of. On the one hand she is aware that any moment she could collapse onto the floor. On the other she is convinced that, if she wanted to, she could shoot electricity, lightning bolts, from her fingertips.

  He is not leaving.

  Susanna will not let him.

 
Not until he tells her about Emily.

  Almost before she realizes she is doing it, she has freed the paring knife from her sleeve. The knife that, the last time Susanna used it, slipped and cut her almost to the bone. It is in her grip now, pointing down, but as she steps she raises it above her head. It is as before: Susanna doesn’t know quite what she intends to do. Threaten Adam? Stab him? All she knows is she needs to keep him here. Pin him here if necessary.

  He is reaching for the door handle when he hears her coming. The room is so dark now it is mainly shadows and it is possible when Adam spins he doesn’t immediately notice the knife. Susanna catches the anger on his face, the surprise too. But then he notices Susanna’s raised arm, the glint perhaps of what is in her grip, and he drops everything he is carrying as his hand shoots up and grabs her wrist.

  “What the . . .”

  Susanna makes a sound somewhere between a shriek and a scream. She is driving downward with all her strength and for a second she has a dreadful premonition that she will win. The knife will plunge into Adam’s shoulder, deeper, toward his heart, through it, and Susanna will have killed him.

  Her own blood. Once again she will be guilty of spilling her own blood.

  Perhaps it is this insight that makes her waver. Possibly—probably—Adam is simply stronger. Either way the tussle is over in a few short moments. Susanna feels her wrist bend, and then something explodes into her stomach. A fist, a knee, a foot. Whatever it is that has hit her, it drives her back, away, and she staggers and stumbles to the floor. Her head whips backward and hits the wooden panel on the front of her desk, and for several seconds she lies sprawled where she has fallen, stunned.

  When the fog lifts, Adam is laughing away his fury.

  “You lunatic.” Somehow Susanna’s knife is in his hand, replacing the one he dropped. He tosses it so it skids toward her feet, and Susanna yelps and does her best to draw away. It hits her anyway but if it pierces her skin she doesn’t feel it.

  “You were going to stab me?” Adam splutters. “You were going to stab me?”

  Susanna, in response, gives a whimper.

  “Is that what you’ve been waiting for all this time? For me to turn my back? You fucking bitch.”

  Adam takes a step toward her, his hands clenched. There is no sign anymore of his laughter.

  “Where did you get the knife, Susanna? Do you keep it in your drawer? In your desk? Just in case . . . what? You ever get a client like me? Or do you carry it around with you, sleep with it tucked beneath your pillow?” Something occurs to Adam and his expression warps into something like a smile. “I wonder, is it just for protection? Or do you get tempted sometimes to use it on yourself?”

  Adam kicks her feet and the knife lying next to them clatters away. Susanna cries out again, at the pain this time that shoots up from her ankle.

  “Unless . . . you got it from the kitchen. Didn’t you, Susanna? What was it, just lying there? I’m surprised you had the guts to pick it up, sniveling coward that you are. Just look at yourself. Look at how pathetic you’ve become.”

  Susanna does. In her head, she looks down at herself lying on the floor, broken in too many ways for her to count.

  “Please,” she says as Adam leans over her. What light there is left coming from the window paints his face a ghoulish white, the color of dug-up bones. “Please,” Susanna persists. “Emily. Just tell me what you’ve done to Emily. Did you . . . Is she . . .”

  “Is she . . . what? What, Susanna? Is she dead? Is that what you’re asking? Whether your daughter is as dead as your son?”

  The words explode like another kick in Susanna’s gut.

  “Maybe if I don’t tell you, you’ll never find out,” Adam says. “Because there’s a chance you won’t, you know. There’s every likelihood you’ll have to finish up this second life of yours without ever knowing what became of your second child.” He smiles again, horribly. “I must say that appeals to me: the thought of you having to live with not knowing. The way I lived for so long. The way I was forced to live because of you.”

  Susanna does her best to sit up. “They’ll find you,” she says. “They’ll catch you. If you leave without telling me, the police, they’ll force you to tell them where she is.”

  “Ha. One thing I’m good at is disappearing. Maybe because I’ve never really existed.”

  The sound Susanna makes isn’t quite human. It is a keening sound, something between a whine and a wail.

  “Please,” she says. “Please just tell me where my daughter is. You’ve made your point. You have. I understand now, I do. But don’t punish Emily for something that isn’t her fault. She wasn’t even alive when any of this happened!”

  Adam’s features darken. “Neither was I.”

  He glares, and then his lips twitch out a narrow smile. “You realize that even if you do find her, you’re never going to get her back?”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “There were so many options, that was the problem,” Adam says. “She was just so willing, you see. So desperate to follow wherever I led. I thought of keeping her in a basement somewhere, like that girl on TV. I thought of pushing her in front of a train. Best of all, I thought of gutting her with one of the knives from the rack in your kitchen and leaving her body for you to find.”

  Susanna moans.

  “But in the end the solution I chose was the simplest. The most obvious. The most painful too, I’m afraid. It’s almost a shame I won’t be there to see your face when you finally discover what I’ve done. If, of course, you ever do.”

  Adam retrieves his bag and slings it across his shoulder. He finds the knife he dropped and picks that up too. He looks at Susanna one last time, the wreckage of her on the floor.

  “Adam, wait, I—”

  “Good-bye, Susanna.”

  She watches his back as he walks toward the door. Her mouth opens, shut, opens again. “Your mother,” she finds herself saying.

  There is a glitch in Adam’s movements.

  “I’ve been thinking about your mother, Adam,” Susanna says. “And what I think is, you got it all wrong.”

  Adam’s head turns before the rest of him.

  “You said she never wanted you. But think about what she did. Think about what she went through just to try to keep you safe.”

  “Don’t,” Adam answers. Just that.

  “She changed her name,” Susanna presses, because what more has she got to lose? “She got married to her childhood sweetheart, the only person I imagine she could trust. Probably she didn’t even love him, not the way he loved her. But both of them: they went away, hid away, left their families. For you, Adam. She was protecting you.”

  All at once Adam is upon her. “I said, don’t.” He points the knife at Susanna’s left eye. “We’ve done this before, played this game before. You already know how it ends.”

  She does. They have. But last time Susanna was wrong. This time, she feels it, she is right.

  “Your mother didn’t choose to get ill, Adam. She didn’t choose to leave you alone. What she chose was to give up her life for you. Her career. Her chance of justice, her reputation, everything.” Susanna swallows. “If it’s true she didn’t want you, that she only had you because of her beliefs, then why didn’t she just give you up? She fought so hard for you. She fought so hard to keep you.”

  There is something running down Susanna’s cheek, and she cannot tell whether it is water or blood. Adam’s knife is so close the blade is nothing more than a blur.

  “Even your father protected you from the truth. He may have hurt you,” Susanna adds hastily, when she notices Adam give a twitch, “but he never betrayed your mother. He never betrayed her love for you. He knew how much you really meant to her, which is why he never told you the truth. Because if he had it would have betrayed her faith in him.”

 
It is the first time Susanna has seen Adam so still. Throughout their session he has been pacing, twitching, fiddling, as though movement were a pressure gauge for his anger. Is it a good sign? Is he listening? Or is he simply coiling and readying to spring?

  “Your mother loved you,” Susanna tells him. “The way I love Emily.”

  Adam jerks at this, flinches almost, as though for once he is ashamed to hear Emily’s name.

  “The way I love Emily,” Susanna says again, “and the way I’ll always love Jake. I never wanted him to die, Adam. Never.”

  She watches Adam closely for his reaction. He is listening. She is not imagining it. Something she has said, somehow, has got through.

  “I thought maybe . . . I don’t know what I thought,” Susanna goes on. “But you helped me realize, Adam. You helped me see. What happened to Jake was my fault, I know that, but that doesn’t mean I wanted it to happen. I didn’t intend for him to take what I said to him the way he did. I was trying to help him. To save him. The way, if you’ll let me, I want to try to help you.”

  Susanna blinks, her eyelashes tickling the knife blade, and when she looks she can’t believe what she is seeing. Adam is scowling, hating, but there is a tear slipping down his cheek.

  He draws the knife away from Susanna’s face.

  “Adam,” Susanna says, softly this time. “Let me help you. Please. Tell me where Emily is. Tell me where I can find my daughter.”

  There is a moment when time seems to teeter.

  Susanna does not move. But something stirs, just inside her: the faintest shiver of hope.

  Adam pulls back, just a fraction, and the hand holding the knife falls to his side.

  His eyes meet Susanna’s, and for the first time since this began Susanna sees the part of him he fought so hard to conceal. Lost, frightened, alone: she could as well be looking at Jake.

  She is crying now too, Susanna realizes. Not in fear, this time. With relief.