Between the Lies

by Michelle Adams

  ‘I just knew immediately you weren’t the kind of woman to crash a car on purpose. I was aware that you had fought your way back when all the odds were against you. I knew you weren’t someone who would just give up.’

  His words bring such relief that I can barely articulate it. But then a few minutes later my father calls, asks to speak to Guy. He is needed back at the hospital after all. He tells him to leave the notes on his desk and return as soon as possible.

  I open the door to the study and we step inside, that familiar smell in the air, everything old and troubled by dust. I can feel it in my throat. Guy gazes around at the books, the piles of papers. He casts a look over the desk as he sets down the brown file, notices my father’s Roberta award.

  ‘I always used to wonder what people did with these after they took them home.’ He picks up the glass trophy, then puts it back down as he notices the picture of me with my sister and parents next to it. ‘Wow, look at you here,’ he says as he picks up the frame, holds it with a smile. ‘What a great photo.’

  I reach across, take it from him, set it face down on the desk. I don’t want him to see me like that. I don’t want him to think of me now as a shadow, a lesser version of someone else. He looks embarrassed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say.

  ‘No,’ he says, hands up. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just a lovely photo, that’s all.’ My hand is still on the frame, but he reaches towards it, momentarily rests his hand on mine. He wants to look again. ‘May I?’

  I let go of it and glance away as he gazes upon the face of the woman I used to be. After a moment he sets it back upright in the place it was before. ‘It’s a lovely photo,’ he says. ‘Don’t worry. You’ll get back to normal soon.’

  ‘I hope that’s true.’

  ‘Of course you will. Your father will help you. He’s an expert when it comes to memory. If anybody can help you, it’s him.’

  I sit on the edge of the desk. He is still looking down at the photo. ‘An expert in memory?’

  ‘Yes,’ Guy says, surprised, as if I should have known. ‘That’s his speciality, if you like. Experimental psychiatry. In particular, memory and its formation. That’s why he won this Roberta award a few months ago. He wrote a paper about the creation of false memories and how you could use them in the clinical setting to ease the burden of past traumas. He proposed that if you could provide somebody with an alternative history, just a few subtle changes, then the trauma would cease to be so debilitating. That actually the patient would learn to believe in the memory construct and eventually be able to leave the trauma behind.’ He lets go of a breath. ‘Amazing stuff.’

  ‘That sounds like science fiction,’ I tell him, still trying to process what he’s said.

  He laughs. ‘Yes, only it’s not. It’s a proven fact. The mind does it all the time. Like when you lose your keys and you’re so certain that you put them in one place, and then they turn up somewhere else entirely. The mind is malleable, Chloe. Open to suggestion. Your father hypothesised that by creating false memories under hypnosis, you could get a person not only to believe in something that had never happened, but also to forget something that actually had.’

  ‘What?’ A cold shiver runs down my arms. ‘Hypnosis?’

  ‘I know. He’s quite a remarkable man. Anyway,’ he says, ‘I really should be getting back.’

  He picks up his briefcase and heads towards the door. The hall clock shows he has been here for nearly an hour. He steps outside underneath the wisteria that clings wet and barren to the frame of the porch. The sound of falling rain intensifies; water pools in muddy puddles on the driveway.

  ‘Listen, Chloe, your father said that your mother should be home soon anyway. You just get yourself back inside. It’s freezing out here. But you need to give me the code to get out.’

  I do as he asks then watch as he follows the driveway, pulling up his collar to protect his neck from the rain. After a while he turns back to face me, smiling, before he disappears into the fog. Seconds later the red lights of his car are disappearing into the distance. The chill is so strong it stings my eyes.

  I close the door and walk to the living room, stare at the mess on the floor. I have never asked myself what exactly it is my father does at work. But memory specialist? Is it possible that he is using me as part of some strange treatment plan I know nothing about? I have to start taking charge of the things that are going on around me. I have to grow to be more than a remnant of the person I once was.

  I start by picking through the broken china to find my wedding ring. I want it back, that connection to the old me, that woman in the photograph who was beautiful and radiant and who impressed people just by the sight of her. When I can’t find it, I grab the letter from the mantelpiece and go to the phone to call Damien Treadstone’s lawyer. I want to warn him that his client was here at the house, get it on record before my father organises another therapy session, tries to convince me it was all a hallucination.

  I find it difficult to control the thoughts going round in my head as I stare at my old address on the letterhead. I can’t remember the place that I used to call home. Can barely even picture it save for a few sporadic flashbacks. Why can’t I remember the old me? My son? My husband? My life?

  I dial the solicitor’s number. A secretary picks up, tells me that Treadstone’s lawyer is at lunch, unavailable. I leave a message asking him to call me back, giving her the number written on the base of the phone. Even as I hang up, I know he won’t, and I wonder how bad it will look when this effort at contact is raised in court.

  I gaze at my reflection in the hallway mirror. I notice a fresh drip of blood on my cheek, so I grab a tissue, push it up against the wound. The phone begins to ring. I snatch up the receiver.

  ‘Hello?’ I say.

  ‘Is that Chloe?’ A woman’s voice. Nobody I recognise. ‘I’m Alison, and I’d love to talk with you for a moment if you have time.’

  Alison? Do I have a friend with that name? Does this voice belong to a person from my past? Nothing comes to mind.

  ‘Are you calling me from the lawyer’s office?’

  She laughs. ‘No, Chloe. I’m calling you from the Argus. I want to interview you for a piece we are running about you and Damien Treadstone, get your version of events regarding what happened that night.’ I glance across at the magazine rack and see an old newspaper lying there, The Argus printed across the top. ‘I thought you’d want to tell your side of the story. After all, it’s only fair we give you the opportunity to speak to us before we write about your accident. Plus it’s quite something for you to be called as a witness for the defense, when really you’re the victim in all this.’

  I hang up, or at least I try to. I don’t know if it’s the blood loss or shock, but I miss the telephone base and feel my legs go weak. My eyes fuzz over like they’re suddenly filled with water. A trickle of blood creeps down my death-pale face. I’m going to faint, I think as I reach for the table. Seconds later I hit the deck, the last thing I see the bloody tissue scrunched up in a ball on the parquet floor.

  SIXTEEN

  As I hit the floor the memory comes to me, my old life crossing paths with the new. Something jolted perhaps, knocked back into place. I am in my old house, my old bed. The sheets are cold, and I am alone. Early morning sun is already creeping over the horizon, enough to light the room. Outside I can hear the frenzied gulls as they fight over the fish shoaling in the shallow water.

  It is near the coast, a small house with two bedrooms and one large room downstairs that spreads into a neat kitchen and small dining room. I can see it now, the way the light catches the kitchen cabinets, that place I can recall warming milk. The rear window affords a slim view of the sea, framed between the walls of two other houses. And on that morning, the sky is on fire as the sun rises over the pier, bathing the water in a golden haze. It should be beautiful, but I have long stopped finding the beauty in such days; Andrew should be there. I have no
idea where he is.

  The floor is covered with a scattering of plastic toys and miniature cars. I collect some of them, toss them into a large wicker basket underneath the stairs. It was one such toy that led to the argument last night. Andrew stepped on one of the tipper trucks, the sharp edge cutting the underside of his foot. He stormed out, hasn’t been home since.

  Despite the early hour and the lack of sleep, I feel alert, wide awake, as I do most mornings. It is more a sense of vigilance than anything else, a little like a soldier asleep in a war zone, never sure if this is the day I will wake to find an enemy gun thrust in my face. Gladiatorial awareness from the second I open my eyes.

  I get Joshua up and dressed. I watch as he performs his daily ritual, checking each room, under the beds, inside the cupboards. He never asks where his father is, not by now. He just conducts his own circuit of the house, looking in each of the rooms. If he finds him in our bed it is a good day; on the sofa a cause for concern. When he can’t find him at all, that’s when he is the quietest.

  We drive west along the seafront that morning, watch the waves rolling in to shore, gentle and submissive as they break under the pier. It is a call to swim, a glorious day, the sun painting the surface of the sea a brilliant white as it rises in the sky. The stucco hotels loom tall on our right, and the early vacationers are out walking on the promenade, serenaded by the call of gulls. I listen at the traffic lights to the tap, tap, tap of somebody hammering in a windbreak.

  I drop Joshua at school and continue towards work. Piles of paperwork await me as I walk into the sweaty office at Fresh Starts, the heat of an early summer. I sit down, open the window as far as it will go, gasp at the cool air. I can smell grease and chips, the saltiness of the English Channel. I glance over at the others. George, one of my colleagues, waves at me. But nobody stops for a chat, or includes me in the office gossip. I keep myself to myself now. It’s easier that way, limits the need for explanations. Everybody knows about my problems with Andrew. You can’t share in the office gossip when you are the subject on everybody else’s lips.

  At lunchtime I slip out, grab a sandwich stuffed with pastrami from the Italian deli I go to every day. I walk down to the beach, peel off my summer dress to reveal a plain black swimsuit underneath, and step into the water, the waves lapping at my feet, comforting and calm. I breathe the sea air as I wade in further, the cool surface swelling around the soft stretch marks that appeared on the tops of my legs midway through my pregnancy.

  Gulls circle overhead as I swim, the water washing against my face. It feels good, a relief from the humidity, the headache I have been nursing all morning beginning to relent. But the day is changing, a storm brewing out at sea that promises a downpour later, the clouds deep and grey on the horizon. I can feel it coming, the sky a little darker, the breeze a little cooler as I sit wrapped in a towel on the shore.

  I like the changeability of the coast, the strength of the sea. It is a comfort to see the seasons change, feel the passage of time. Even on the coldest of days I bring Joshua here, both of us wrapped up in thick winter jackets. We sit on a bench where we can feel the spray from the water, sipping from a flask of hot chocolate, watching the relentless push of the waves. Andrew never comes with us.

  ‘The world is always working on a new day, Joshua,’ I told him once, on one of those days when I could feel the weight he carries on his shoulders. The weight of having a parent who drinks, who disappears for days at a time. ‘Don’t ever think that one bad day means the next has to be the same.’

  He looked up at me and blinked, and a tear streaked down his freckled face. ‘But every day is the same, Mama. Nothing ever changes.’

  SEVENTEEN

  I wake to the sound of screaming, a shrill note of confusion and despair.

  ‘Oh Chloe,’ wails my mother, tears smeared across her face. ‘What happened?’

  In those first moments, I’m not sure. The dream of being with Joshua at the beach is still with me, so strong in my mind I can almost smell the salt water. It’s my old life, right there, still lurking beneath the surface. It gives me renewed confidence that I must be able to remember other details about the person I used to be if only I try. But as I look up to see my mother’s familiar red hair dangling over the telephone clutched against her ear, the past is gone, a memory turned to dust.

  ‘Peter?’ she cries into the phone. ‘Peter, Chloe’s hurt. She’s bleeding. She’s…’ She pauses, and I imagine Peter—whoever he is—telling her to slow down. ‘Well I don’t know. How could I know that? Please just come and see her.’ She is getting irritated. Desperate. ‘Please, Peter. I can’t get hold of him and I don’t know whether to call an ambulance. He won’t be back for hours. You have to come. Chloe, don’t move,’ she instructs. ‘Lie back down. Peter’s on his way.’

  I recognise Peter as soon as he arrives. He’s the resident doctor in Rusperford. It’s the flushed cheeks and messy hair; I’ve seen him like this before. I remember that he once became the talk of the village after being suspended. He came to the house red-faced like now, demanded to speak with my father. I recall the two of them arguing on the driveway, my mother having to separate them before it ended in a fight. In the end, Peter left, shouting about it being my father’s fault. I can remember my parents arguing about it afterwards, my mother telling my father that the allegations were false. Something about fraudulent prescriptions and misuse of opiates.

  ‘Chloe, hello. How are you feeling now?’ He removes the saturated tissue that my mother has been holding to my bleeding wound, before helping me to move through to the living room couch. ‘Do you remember what happened? Did somebody do this to you?’

  I shake my head. ‘I cut it while out walking. On a tree branch. I fainted, that’s all.’ I try to sit forward but find that everything feels fuzzy, my head a fug of delirium. I look up at my mother. ‘A journalist called, wanted to talk to me. Honestly, though, I’m fine. You didn’t give me a chance to explain.’

  ‘But what about all that?’ she asks, pointing at the pile of broken china on the floor.

  ‘That was something else,’ I say, and she shares a look with Peter. I know they both understand who is responsible for it. Neither of them asks me any more questions after that.

  Peter opens his black bag, pulls out some fresh gauze swabs and begins dabbing at my cut cheek. ‘Can you pass me that saline, Evie?’ he asks. My mother hands him a small vial. He inspects the label and snaps off the top, squirts the contents at the wound. The saline runs over my face, and I notice a few pinkish drips falling on my jeans. ‘And I think Chloe could use a glass of water. Why don’t you fetch her one?’ My mother heads into the kitchen.

  ‘I’m sorry to send her away,’ Peter whispers once she has left the room, ‘but she doesn’t do too well with things like this.’ He pulls a small pack from his bag. ‘It’s quite deep. You need a couple of stitches. Are you feeling brave?’ He takes my lack of resistance as a positive sign and pinches out a crescent-shaped needle from a sterile pack with a pair of forceps. He holds onto my face and I grit my teeth as he pierces the skin around the wound. By the time my mother arrives back with the glass of water, he has completed three quick stitches and has got a fresh dressing in place. ‘That should do it,’ he says. ‘Those stitches will dissolve in due course, but you might want to call by the surgery at a later date for me to have another look.’

  ‘Stitches?’ my mother cries, water sloshing from the glass. ‘Oh goodness me, Peter. Was it really that bad? I should’ve been here. I shouldn’t have—’

  ‘Everything is fine, Evie. Relax. Chloe didn’t feel a thing, did you?’ I shake my head. The pain of the needle was nothing compared to the pain of when I awoke in hospital.

  After asking me a few questions about the time and date, recording my blood pressure and providing me with a prescription for some extra antibiotics, which he assures me are a precaution rather than anything else, he makes his excuses to leave. My mother follows him out. I can’t see
them from where I’m sitting on the couch, but I can hear the mutterings of conversation, just too quiet for me to make out. I’m sure it must be about me, and, determined to avoid any more secrets, I stand up and head towards the hall.

  As I arrive at the doorway, the pearly light of an early winter’s afternoon is just strong enough to illuminate the tableau. My mother looks anxious, sad maybe, her head hanging down against her chest. Is it about me? Is my injury worse than I think it is? But then Peter reaches towards her, a gentle hand brushed against her cheek. It’s nothing really, just the briefest of moments. But still, it’s something I didn’t expect. Something illicit. I can tell by the way she raises her hand to his, as if she can’t bear the thought of him letting go. But I’m stunned not only because of this exchange, but also because of the feelings it stirs within me. I have been in the same situation, I think, the comforting touch of a hand that shouldn’t have been on me. A hand that belonged to somebody other than my husband. Is that what Ben wants to talk to me about? Is that what he meant when he said he wants things to go back to what they were, that he needs me? My cheek feels alive at the mere thought of it. I slip back into the room, sit quietly on the couch.

  My mother follows me in just a few minutes later. ‘What a fright you gave me,’ she says. But I say nothing, my mind still a jumble. I’m trying to remember what it is that I’ve remembered, what part of my life this sensation is linked to. And who. But I can’t reach anything more concrete. I feel blind to the truth. ‘I think we both need a nice cup of tea. What do you say?’ I nod my head and force myself to smile.

  I dream of you, Chloe, do you know that? In my dreams we are together, just you, me and Joshua. Doing normal things. Last night I dreamed of Christmas, of him coming downstairs and opening his presents. It’s because I saw some fairy lights; I guess they set me off. On another night, before you tried to end things, I dreamed of us all at the beach. You know that thing he does where he stacks pebbles into tiny cairns, like a hill walker marking a route?