The Friend Who Lied

by Rachel Amphlett

  And then there was darkness.

  Winter.

  Death.

  I open my eyes.

  There is a cemetery at the southern end of the Common; old, unused, going wild. It’s guarded by wrought-iron gates between two stone pillars, and inside can be found grave markers for those souls lost at sea on the Titanic. There is an ornamental lake to the north of the Common, but it is to this one near the historic cemetery that I’m drawn.

  I keep promising myself that I’ll stop coming here, that it’s not good for me, but I don’t.

  I don’t know if the others come here: I suspect they do, but it’s not like it was during that first term. We no longer congregate here, not after that first winter.

  When my mum was still alive, until the cancer finally ripped her from my life three years ago, she asked me why I stayed in the area and visited the lake if I hated it so much. I’d slipped up that day, talking to her.

  The old fear had begun to tear at me, creating an unsettling paranoia that I couldn’t shake.

  ‘You should find somewhere else to settle,’ she’d said. ‘The change will do you good.’

  Except it wouldn’t.

  It would make it worse.

  I had to stay in the area after finishing university. I had to visit the lake from time to time. We all did, because we had to be sure.

  I reach out for my bag that I’d dumped on the bench beside me when I first sat here, and pull out a black leather purse.

  Opening the catch, I unfold it, ignoring the debit cards, the credit cards, the store cards, driving licence. I stick my thumb between the inner flap and slide out the photograph, its edges battered from years of receipts, cash and to-do lists being shoved next to it in a hurry.

  The last ever Christmas photograph I posed for.

  There he is.

  Greg.

  Standing next to Lisa with his fingers held up like bunny ears behind her, acting like a fool because he was head over heels in love with her, and she didn’t have a fucking clue.

  Lisa, so naïve. So much younger in some respects than the eighteen years she’d celebrated only weeks before the photograph was taken.

  I’m standing between Simon and David, grinning like an idiot with those stupid fake reindeer antlers on my head.

  To my left, Simon is playing up to the camera – Bec took this photograph and there was already a growing spark between them at that time.

  David is glowering, and if I didn’t know better or have this niggling suspicion at the back of my mind then I’d assume he was sulking about the fact that none of our photographs that night, not a single one, was posed with any seriousness.

  I suppose it’s strange these days to carry a photo around like this. It’s something my dad used to do with a fuzzy coloured image of me and my older sister, taken before we started school.

  This isn’t saved on a phone, not relegated to a social media account that I might use a virtual private network to log into once every few months, and not kept to share with others.

  No, this was printed out so we don’t forget.

  Ever.

  29

  David

  Lisa looks exhausted when she opens the front door to her parents’ house.

  She’s wearing a bit of make-up but it does little to disguise the sallowness of her skin, and her eyes are bleary, unfocused.

  ‘David? What are you doing here?’

  I move towards her, giving her no option but to step to one side and let me in. ‘I was worried about you. I haven’t heard from you since we saw you at the hospital. Are you here on your own?’

  She closes the door and runs a hand through her hair. ‘Mum and Dad always go to the cinema on Tuesday or Saturday afternoons. There’s always a cheap matinee performance of the latest release. Some sort of costume drama tosh today, I think.’

  She manages a smile, and for a moment I see a hint of the old Lisa. The one who was the life of the party before she got ill.

  There’s hope, after all.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I rip apart the Velcro straps on my cycling shoes, kick them off next to the row of boots and slippers in the hallway, and follow her shuffling footsteps through to the living room. ‘You sound a bit out of it.’

  ‘I’ve just got back from another check-up at the hospital.’ She winces as she sits on the sofa and pulls a blanket over her legs. ‘And the painkillers are taking a while to kick in.’

  That explains the woozy look in her eyes.

  ‘How much longer do you have to be on them?’

  ‘A few more days, and then they put me on a lower dosage. You should see the concoction of meds I’m on; I could start my own pharmacy. Still, if they stop the kidney from rejecting it’s worth it. Have you spoken to Bec?’

  I sink into one of the armchairs and tap my cycling helmet on my knee. ‘They’re still not letting her see any visitors apart from immediate family.’

  ‘Christ, it must be bad.’

  ‘She probably just needs a lot of rest. I imagine with something like that they’ll want to do a psych evaluation too, right?’

  ‘I suppose so. For all the good it’ll do. Bloody psychiatrists.’ She curls her lip, and then a thought seems to occur to her. ‘I met with Simon’s mum and dad yesterday.’

  ‘Really?’ I can’t hide my surprise. ‘Whose idea was that?’

  She frowns. ‘The hospital. One of the staff broke with protocol and let slip to my parents who my donor was. They organised a meeting with a psychologist for us – some sort of mitigation strategy, I think, in case Simon’s parents were thinking of taking action…’

  Her attention wanes, and her gaze moves to the window, the view to the outside world obscured by net curtains and a windowsill cluttered with her mother’s awful knick-knacks.

  ‘Lisa?’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘How did it go?’

  ‘Oh, all right, I suppose. In the circumstances.’ She pulls at an errant thread on the blanket, her eyes lowered. ‘It was a bit shit, to be honest. I mean, what are you supposed to say? Sorry your son’s dead but, hey, thanks for the kidney.’

  I can hear the bitterness in her words; the pain and guilt that spills from her lips.

  I dump the cycle helmet on the armchair and move across to where she sits. ‘Come on, budge up.’

  She shuffles along and I ease next to her, then reach out and wrap my fingers around hers before giving her hand a squeeze.

  ‘It’ll get better, I promise.’

  ‘It doesn’t feel like it will at the moment. I mean, if I’m still around ten years from now, I’m still going to be thinking about him, aren’t I? Wondering what would’ve happened if he hadn’t—’

  Died.

  Neither of us say the word.

  I turn to her. ‘What do you mean, if you’re around in ten years? You’ve got a new kidney, haven’t you?’

  A wistful expression crosses her face, and then she untangles her fingers from mine and rubs at tired eyes. ‘A kidney transplant is only a treatment, not a cure. This will buy me time, for sure, but no one knows how long – a year, ten, thirty. But the kidney will definitely fail at some point, and then, if dialysis is still off the table for me…’

  ‘You never said anything.’

  ‘I didn’t want to scare any of you.’

  ‘Oh.’ I stand up and stretch, easing the kinks from my calf muscles. After a half hour session around the criterium circuit and then riding over here, I’m in danger of cramping up. ‘You always got on well with Simon’s parents, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes. I used to go around to theirs to do my homework – even before me and Simon were actually going out together.’

  ‘I can’t remember the last time I saw them both.’

  ‘Frank’s still working as a courier driver. I thought he’d retired a couple of years ago, but he’s still out there in all weathers.’

  ‘He always seemed so quiet compared to Cassandra,’ I say. ‘I can remember a barbecue at the
irs – we must’ve met the rest of you at uni by then because Hayley was around there, too. He seemed content to stay in the background, just listening to the conversation rather than taking part.’

  ‘I think he’s probably just shy,’ says Lisa. ‘Oh, that reminds me—’

  I stop stretching and turn to face her. ‘What?’

  ‘Frank said he saw Simon arguing with Hayley the day before he died.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘At that Italian café in the town centre. Frank was delivering a parcel to a solicitor’s firm across the street and said he saw them outside.’

  ‘What did Frank say to them?’

  ‘Nothing – he said he was on the clock for the delivery so he had to do that first, and when he came back outside they’d both gone.’

  And Simon was dead twenty-four hours later.

  ‘Has Hayley told you what it was all about?’

  Lisa shakes her head. ‘No, I only found out about it from Frank yesterday. Hayley’s been acting weird since Simon died though, haven’t you noticed?’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘She used to have this nervous tic at university when she got stressed out about something. She twiddles the middle earring she wears. She hasn’t done that for ages. She did it a lot in our final year, and she’s doing it again. I noticed, when she came to see me at the hospital.’

  I wander over to where I left my cycle helmet and pick it up before perching on the arm of the chair. ‘Look, it’s better if you ask her if she’s okay when you next see her. I don’t want to upset her, not after everything that’s happened.’

  Lisa lets her head fall back against the cushions. ‘Maybe you’re right.’

  ‘I am. Perhaps it’s something she doesn’t want to talk about at the moment.’

  ‘I know, but—’ She sits upright, wincing as her abdomen muscles protest.

  I move to help her, but she shakes her head.

  ‘I’m okay. I do wonder what they were arguing about though.’

  ‘Well, you probably shouldn’t say anything to the police if they ask.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Simon’s dead and, the day before he dies, Hayley is seen arguing with him. Let’s face it – what would that detective, Forbes, make of that if she knew?’

  ‘Jesus.’

  She sits, stunned for a moment, and then I see the kindling of an idea in her eyes.

  ‘David? What if the police are right?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘What if Simon was killed? What if he told Hayley he wasn’t going to donate a kidney, and she decided to take matters into her own hands after they argued?’

  ‘That’s a bit far-fetched, Lisa.’

  ‘It’s not though, is it? It’s motive.’

  30

  Bec

  There’s a solitary blackbird pecking at the stunted grass outside the window of the ground floor hospital ward, its wayward zig-zagging progress interrupted from time to time by a grey squirrel darting between the haggard rhododendron bushes.

  I’ve been watching them for the past half an hour, although I haven’t been concentrating on whether the bird has managed to find something to eat.

  My mind is elsewhere, my jaw clenched as I try to piece together the last twelve days of my life.

  No one ever talks about what happens after someone’s attempted to kill themselves.

  I glance down at the thick gauze dressings around my forearms and pray that the painkillers kick in soon. My skin and muscles are on fire, ripped to pieces by the cheap kitchen knife I bought in the hardware store down the road from my house the day after I moved in.

  I don’t remember doing it, but it seems I was pretty accurate.

  Another half a centimetre and I’d have severed a major artery, according to the surgeon who stitched me back together and ensured new blood was pumped into my system within moments of the ambulance crew getting here.

  She looked down her nose at me as she detailed everything she’d done to save me, making it quite clear without actually using words that she had better things to do than preserve the life of someone who’d done a good job of trying to end it an hour before.

  I haven’t seen her since.

  For the past few days, I’ve been in the care of the specialist ward nurses who are kind, orderly, soft spoken.

  I’m cut off from the outside world, my mobile phone back at the house and my only visitors are my parents whose concern turned to confusion as the days progressed.

  I have no answers to their questions. No reassurances to provide.

  I turn my back on the window and settle into the chair, my book forgotten on the table in front of me. An exhaustion settles across my shoulders; a familiar sensation that seizes my limbs and makes my eyelids heavy.

  Normal, they tell me. All that blood gone, and my body adjusting to the trauma. It’ll take time, they say. Rest.

  I can’t.

  There’s a memory I can’t grasp; a conversation or something I’ve seen that I know is important.

  I recalled it, just before I passed out, and my addled brain is struggling to find it, locked away in my subconscious.

  Stuck here, unable to communicate with the outside world until the medical experts reckon they can risk it without me having a second attempt to kill myself, I start to appreciate how Lisa must’ve felt in the days following her kidney transplant.

  Lonely, bored, with too much time on my hands, I understand now why she was so angry that I didn’t visit.

  Until I told her the truth.

  The detective, Forbes, took some persuading. For a moment, I didn’t think she was going to let me go. I thought she’d found something, which was both ridiculous and terrifying.

  The police officer – Phillips – looked as exhausted as I felt by the time Forbes escorted me out of the station.

  She sneered at me as I walked through the glass double doors and took a deep breath of fresh air.

  She’s been here, apparently.

  One of the nurses, Melanie, told me as she was changing my dressings this morning. I’d been shocked, a sickness silencing me as she’d taped off the ends and patted my shoulder before moving across the room to an elderly man.

  I’d been mulling over the news ever since.

  Melanie didn’t know why Forbes wanted to speak with me. It wasn’t a planned visit, that much was clear, and of course the nursing staff are under strict instructions to let me see no one but my parents.

  For the moment, I’m safe. I can hide here, recuperate, regroup.

  I need a plan, that much is certain.

  I rub at my temples. A dull ache persists, one that hasn’t left since I woke up after the surgeon had performed her miracles. Dehydration, they’ve told me. When David found me, there was an empty vodka bottle next to the bath.

  I don’t remember any of it, of course. For the past six months, and despite trying to convince myself otherwise, my drinking consumption has doubled – no, tripled. I don’t know why. It just seems easier sometimes.

  I work hard, I rent a scruffy terraced house with a nightmare of a neighbour next door, and I’m broke – I can’t afford to get my own place. I watch my friends and work colleagues balance all the problems in their lives, and they seem to sail through.

  Me? I go home and open a bottle of wine for starters. And it goes from there.

  My gaze falls to my wrists, bound up and on fire from the damage I’ve done.

  I need to fix this. I need to fix me.

  How could I have been so stupid? How could I have done this to myself when Simon’s parents are mourning the loss of their son? How will the news of this make them feel?

  I’ve told the specialist the hospital has assigned to me that I’ve never had suicidal thoughts before, and it’s true.

  So, why now?

  I bite my lip, that last memory trying to resurface once more.

  I clutch at it, and try to hold on.

  31

  Lisar />
  I push the leftover mash potato and steamed broccoli to one side of my plate, lower my knife and fork, and lean back in my seat.

  ‘Everything all right, love?’

  Mum’s staring at me, a worried expression in her eyes that I hope she loses as soon as I’m well enough to move out. I’ve spoken to my former boss at the graphic design agency, and I’ve got my old job back there whenever I’m able to start.

  The constant fussing is wearing me down, and even though I know Mum means well, we were never meant to share a confined space again once I’d bought my flat and moved out.

  I bite back the first retort that reaches my lips, and instead force a smile.

  ‘Just tired, Mum. That’s all.’

  ‘I expect that meeting with Simon’s parents took more out of you than you realised,’ Dad says. He reaches over, grabs my plate and scrapes my leftovers onto his, then adds a dollop of brown sauce to the potato and demolishes it with gusto.

  I take my empty plate from him, slide Mum’s across the table from her and begin to stack the dishwasher.

  ‘Don’t overdo it,’ she warns. ‘You’re not meant to be lifting anything heavy.’

  ‘I think I’ll be okay doing this. I can’t sit around doing nothing anymore.’

  Besides, I’m feeling better. Physically, at least.

  I took the last of the strong painkillers yesterday. I know I told David I had to take them for another three days, but after his revelation about Hayley and Simon I need a clear mind. I’m making do with anti-inflammatories from the supermarket, enough to keep the last of the bruising at bay.

  I have a purpose now, a way ahead of me.

  Something to do.

  The light is waning outside the window above the sink, and as I pull the blind down I wonder what Hayley is doing right now.

  I’ve been wracking my memory since David’s visit whether she mentioned anything to me before Simon died and I got rushed into hospital. I can’t imagine what she might have been arguing about with him. Surely, as one of her closest friends at university and since, she’d have confided in me?