Between the Lies

by Michelle Adams

  I stand under the water, let it wash over me, my eyes closed. But in that blackness I can’t help but think of my parents: how they have lied to me, how they have manipulated me, how they have made my recovery so much harder. They have behaved in ways I can’t even begin to explain or excuse. But I also think of moments of genuine tenderness: my father’s reaction to the photo of me and Joshua on Facebook; the tender way my mother mopped my brow. Nothing about any of this makes sense.

  I dry off and fold the towel into a neat square, then dress in an old tracksuit of Guy’s that he left for me on the spare bed. It’s soft, smells freshly laundered. Homely. When I return to the lounge I find him sitting on the settee, a laptop on his knees.

  He looks up as I arrive in the doorway. ‘You look better.’ I washed my hair, and it has already started bouncing up, falling into the shape of my curls. ‘Have a seat, I’ve got something to show you.’ I sit alongside him, keeping a distance, and he turns the laptop so that I can see. ‘I was interested in what you said about your father this morning. The drug, propranolol. It’s a beta blocker, usually used to treat hypertension. But it does have some uses in psychiatry. Specifically in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorders.’

  He closes the laptop, twists in his seat. ‘There was an interesting study to come out of MIT a few years back. The researchers realised that if you administered propanolol before the recollection of traumatic experiences, it was possible to diminish levels of ongoing stress associated with the index event. They found that people started to care less about their past, and stopped being debilitated by their trauma. The theory is called reconsolidation, the same thing your father mentioned to you. Sort of a reorganisation of your memories. By recalling the memory it becomes malleable. It’s almost as if you are storing it for the first time, and hence it’s amenable to change.’

  ‘You think that’s what he’s doing to me?’

  He shakes his head, appears indecisive. ‘Chloe, it has been hypothesised that the same technique could be used not only to minimise stress, but also to remove memories that incapacitate a patient.’

  ‘So you think he’s trying to erase my husband from my mind? My son?’

  He fidgets, clearly uncomfortable. ‘I’m not sure. But I don’t think you should have any more therapy sessions with him just yet. Not until we can establish what’s going on. It’s not right for a patient to be in the dark about their treatment like that.’

  He orders a pizza, and before it arrives he pours himself a drink, kicks off his shoes. He puts on an old movie, something from the eighties about two teenage boys who manage to bring a mannequin to life. He laughs along with the terrible jokes, the pizza box between us smelling of grease and cheese. I end up with my legs curled up on the sofa, my belly full and plump. For a moment, just the briefest of seconds, I forget.

  I wonder if it really is so bad of me to enjoy being around Guy like this. To want to be around him. Part of me feels guilty, as if somehow it’s duplicitous to even think it; as if the joy I find in his company is a betrayal, disloyal to a man I can barely remember. Yet being here with him makes me feel whole. He makes me feel like more than just a victim, more than a woman lost. As if I’m a person with a life. Surely there’s no better reason to spend time with somebody than that. Surely such a feeling shouldn’t be something to feel guilty about.

  After the movie finishes, I find my eyes drawn to the framed picture of the two boys on the shelf. I realise that apart from the model boat, it is the only personal item in the room. Guy mutes the television, and when I turn to look at him, I see he has caught me staring.

  ‘Sorry, I don’t mean to pry,’ I say.

  He stands up, walks to the shelf and picks the picture up. ‘You’re not prying.’ He hands it to me and I study it hard, conscious of my greasy fingers as I gaze at the two small boys. Now that I’m looking close up, one of them is undoubtedly Guy, the dark eyes and curly hair the same as today. Even at that young age it is easy to see his bone structure, the pout to his lips, and the high line of his hair. The other boy looks the same, albeit with softer features.

  ‘Your brother?’ I ask, remembering his story about the younger brother who died.

  ‘Yes. My father loved to sail.’ He takes a sip of his drink. ‘Kept a boat near Holly Hill beach, on the River Hamble. It was only a small thing,’ he says, almost apologetic, as if he should be embarrassed for having a boat. ‘He used to take it down the Solent, to the Needles and back. Do you know the northern coastline of the Isle of Wight?’ I shake my head. ‘Well it’s beautiful. Towns nestled on the water, boats everywhere. Striking green cliffs that merge into brilliant white rocks. All the way down to the Old Battery lighthouse.’

  The picture he creates is idyllic, potentially the beginnings of a happy memory. But I set the frame down on the sofa, knowing that there is something awful to come.

  ‘He was a year younger than me, always excited to be on the water. Me, never so much, and I was a bit reckless, I suppose. Slapdash, my dad used to call me. Never did things quite the way I should.’ His eyes blink in rapid motion. His discomfort causes a tight pain in my chest. ‘The day we lost him, I hadn’t tied the boom in properly. It swung out, knocked him overboard.’ He looks down into his glass and brings it to his lips, draining it. ‘We never found him.’

  For a moment I can’t say anything. The thought of a young boy’s death. I look up, find Guy composed, his bottom lip nibbled between his teeth. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I stutter, knowing first hand just how empty a sentiment that is. How little it helps. But it is, in that moment, all I can find.

  ‘It was never the same after that. They didn’t want to blame me, but they couldn’t forgive me either. As soon as I could, I left. I felt like I’d become his ghost, you know? No matter how many tears they cried, no matter how hard I tried to be perfect for them, none of us ever managed to raise the dead. Can you imagine, living in that house for another ten years after the accident, being blamed for my brother’s death, even though I was only eight years old at the time?’

  And the thing is, I don’t think I can. Because even now, after everything that’s happened, my family want me around, despite the problems they have and the complications that my accident has caused. I remember them at my bedside in the hospital, and even when I protested their presence, claimed I didn’t know who they were, they stayed there with me, sometimes throughout the night. No matter what, I always felt wanted.

  ‘It’s pretty late and I’ve had a drink,’ he says. I look at the clock, see that it’s coming up to ten in the evening. I have been here for hours, but it hasn’t felt like it. ‘Why don’t you just stay the night? The spare bed is already made up.’

  ‘OK,’ I say. I don’t know where else he thought I might have been able to go.

  * * *

  I lie awake for over an hour, unable to relax in the unfamiliar surroundings. Eventually I get up, walk in the dark through to the lounge. I open one of the windows and listen to the distant hum of the waves breaking against the shore. Joshua’s ashes somewhere out there in the cold. Andrew somewhere else, a potential suspect. It’s hard to keep my mind focused. After a while, I close the window and move back through the lounge, along the corridor, until I find myself standing outside Guy’s bedroom.

  ‘Come in,’ he says when he hears me knocking. He’s sitting up on top of his bed, nursing a brandy. The sheets are crumpled and messy beneath him, and he has photographs strewn about across the surface. ‘Everything all right?’ he asks as he organises some of the pictures into a pile. ‘Was there something you needed?’

  ‘I can’t sleep. Want some company?’ He nods his head and I sit on the edge of the bed, my hands tucked beneath my legs. But I see him move aside, motion to the space alongside him. Part of me feels that I should stay where I am, but I came in here for the company and so I shuffle up the bed as he scoops yet more pictures away. It’s hot in his bedroom, the air dry. ‘What are you looking at?’ I ask.

  ‘Jus
t old photographs. Sometimes I get them out, take a look. I suppose it’s because we spoke about it earlier. Still searching for answers I guess, same as you are. Wondering whether it could have been different.’ He smiles and gives a little shake of his head. ‘If I could have been different.’

  ‘Nothing is ever different, though, is it?’ I say, remembering what Joshua said to me that day at the beach. Guy casts his eyes down to the bed, takes another brief look at the pictures of his brother. He hands me his brandy and I sip it, without question. I feel it go to my head, my eyes blurring.

  ‘You’re right. It’s always the same. You can’t change the past, unfortunately. Only yourself.’

  ‘Can I ask you something?’ He looks up, waits. ‘If you could take a pill, have some sort of treatment to forget like my father is trying to give me, would you do it?’

  He shuffles about, brings one leg up to his chest, wraps his arm around it. ‘No, Chloe, I wouldn’t. Life is not ours to manipulate. Life is given to us, a gift. We follow our path, meet people, experience pain and joy and all the things that make us who we are as part of that gift. It’s like that expression, what is it?’ He glances off into the distance as the wind whistles past the window. ‘It’s the journey that matters, not the destination. Something like that, anyway. Without our past, we are not ourselves. Without our memories, we cannot explain our choices. Why try to forget when instead you can use the past and everything you have ever learned in order to become something better. I’m stronger because of what’s happened to me, including what happened with my brother. Yes, the mistake I made still hurts, but it’s a lesson.’

  Our conversation flows between his pain and mine, a dead brother, a lost son. ‘I just wish something made sense to me,’ I say. ‘That I could remember something more solid than snippets of memory. That something would feel real.’ I think of his kiss in the bedroom at my old house, how that moment offered me more comfort than anything else since I have woken up. Is that why I agreed to come back here, and why I wandered about in the dark until I found myself here on his bed? To feel something? Something real?

  He takes the glass from me and sets it on the side. He edges towards me and I can feel his body close to mine. His heartbeat. The heat. His pulse. ‘I’m real,’ he whispers. And then he kisses my lips, his stubble soft against my skin. This time I don’t stop him. I touch his face, his cheekbone, the curve of his shoulder, the muscles flexing in his arm as I run my hand across it. I press myself against him, savouring the taste of his kiss.

  He lifts my arms up, his movements gentle, nothing like the urgency in the bedroom earlier on. That was a stolen moment, but this, now, is ours. He knows I’m not going to push him away. He doesn’t have to rush. He slides the jumper over my head, exposing my skin, and traces his lips across my neck. He stops, stares at me. I don’t look away. He runs his hands from my face to my shoulder, across my bare chest and down to my side. I shiver at his touch, his fingers light.

  ‘Let me make it go away,’ he says. ‘Let me make it just me and you.’ And I think in that moment: yes, I want that. What I crave most is to forget, to simply feel the moment I’m in. I close my eyes, and for a while, with his consuming weight on top of me, I am lost.

  THIRTY-ONE

  When I wake the next morning, it’s still dark. I am naked under the sheet with Guy’s arms wrapped around me. His breath is fluttering across the back of my neck. My head is sore, the pain behind my scar immense. The ease with which we lay together the night before seems lost to me now. I shouldn’t be here like this, tucked against this stranger in his bed. But last night all I wanted was something new, something that might bring me peace, and the chance to feel the comfort of another person’s touch. And for a while I found it.

  I sense him stirring behind me. I use the opportunity to slip out from underneath his heavy arm. He fidgets for a moment, but doesn’t wake, burying his face deep into the pillow. Rain strikes the window, and it feels like violent condemnation, passing judgement, screaming at me: What did you do, Chloe? What did you do?

  What did I do?

  What am I doing?

  The sex comes back to me as flashes of memory. As guilt. As pleasure. As relief. I stand up, my feet on his family photographs, the cold hitting my body. My movements are awkward and stiff as I collect his old tracksuit from the floor. With no curtains at the window a weak grey light bathes everything silver, including my naked skin. I feel as if the whole world can see me as I creep from the room like I’ve done something wrong. Have I done something wrong? I just don’t know any more.

  I move to the bathroom, dress in his old clothes and splash my face with steaming hot water. I rummage in the cabinet for something that looks like pain relief, but all I find are Band-Aids, a spray for athlete’s foot, and a half-used box of condoms. The realisation that we didn’t use anything last night scares me. The idea of being pregnant is terrifying. How could I protect any child I bring into this life when I don’t even know the truth about who I am?

  I find my clothes creased in a pile in the tumble dryer; I slip them on and leave his old tracksuit in its place. I move into the living room and stand at the bare window, looking out to sea, watching the waves, endless in their efforts. The air outside is grey, full and heavy, a mist hanging over the horizon. I can just make out the outline of the seafront Ferris wheel, little more than a ghost appearing through the haze.

  I glance down to see a light flickering on the answering machine beside me. Five messages in total. I don’t even want to think about who they might be from. I make a cup of tea and find some paracetamol in one of the kitchen cupboards, then sit down at the table, the flat and me both silent. I think about leaving, even though I have no idea where I would go. Still, it’s tempting to slink away, to avoid the shame of admitting that last night shouldn’t have happened. What was I thinking?

  But then I hear the handle of a door, footsteps coming down the corridor. Seconds later Guy is in the doorway, just his boxer shorts between us. His body looks so good, tanned and strong. I can still feel him on my skin, remember the way he touched me. The memory feels so good I have to look away.

  ‘Good morning,’ he says, ruffling a hand through his hair.

  ‘Morning,’ I say, my eyes cast down at the table. ‘I’m sorry about last night.’

  ‘Really?’ He looks almost disappointed. He flicks the kettle back on, reaches for a mug. I watch his muscles rippling, the contraction across his stomach and the movement of his hip.

  ‘I just … I guess I just feel like we shouldn’t have done that.’

  ‘Why not?’ He sits down at the table with his mug of tea, prodding at the bag with a teaspoon. When I don’t answer, he says, ‘Listen, Chloe. You wanted it and I wanted it. There’s no harm done, is there? Did I hurt you, force you into it?’

  I shake my head. ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Well then,’ he says, as if that is that.

  He splashes some milk into his tea and takes a sip. I take in his puffy eyes and messy nighttime hair. For some reason I think of Julia, the girl he blew off last night so that he could be with me. Did he know what would happen when he made that decision? Did he expect it? Can he read me better than I can read myself?

  ‘We agreed yesterday to put the kiss behind us and nothing has changed,’ he adds.

  It’s a relief that he doesn’t have any expectations of me, but strange to feel a twinge of disappointment too. But it’s for the best, I know: I couldn’t manage anybody else’s feelings on top of my own right now.

  ‘When I woke up and you weren’t there, I wondered if you had done a runner,’ he tells me. ‘I’m glad you hadn’t.’

  Perhaps I should have left. But although I have nowhere else to go, it all comes down to one simple fact: I didn’t want to leave. I felt something here with Guy last night. It was a genuine connection to another person, and no matter how loose or physical it was, it was more than I’ve had elsewhere. I stayed because I don’t want to give that up just y
et, for it to be over almost as soon as I found it.

  He reaches over and his fingers brush against mine. At first I hold back. But as he persists, doesn’t give up on my touch, I allow his fingers to weave around mine. And as we sit there holding hands, I realise that right now there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.

  ‘You should check in with your parents,’ he says. ‘Call them, let them know you’re OK.’ He stands up and grabs a couple of bowls, sets them on the table. He reaches into another cupboard and holds up a box of chocolate muesli. ‘After we get some food inside us, I believe we have an office to visit, right?’

  ‘Don’t you have work to go to?’ I look at the clock. It’s coming up to 8 a.m.

  ‘I’ll call in sick.’ He tips some cereal into his bowl, then he smiles, and his eyes meet mine. ‘I’d rather be here with you.’

  THIRTY-TWO

  As I push open the door, I’m hit by the warmth of central heating. A woman wearing a red T-shirt sits at a desk just inside the door, tapping away on her computer. The atmosphere is damp, condensation blanketing the windows. I realise that I know her name, and that this desk functions as a reception for the office.

  ‘Dawn?’ I ask, and the woman looks up. It takes a moment for her to place me, find the features she knows on the sallow, drawn face masquerading as my own. But then she sees it, a flash of recognition as she stands up.

  ‘Oh my God, Chloe.’ She shuffles out from behind the desk, hurries into a position where she can get close to me. She seems to want to hug me, but backs off at the last minute when she sees the dressing on my head. It results in an awkward embrace, the type where nobody is sure about the rules. ‘We heard about your accident. We didn’t think … We heard that … Oh God, Chloe, I’m so sorry.’