The Lying Room

by Nicci French

She felt like she was arriving at a party in her own home. But it wasn’t a party. It was just last night’s party still going on. In fact the party seemed to have begun days before and just moved from place to place with occasional breaks. At the far end, in the corner, Fletcher and Will were standing amidst the unassembled pieces of the greenhouse. Next to them was a woman in jeans and a white sweater that emphasised her breasts and her slim, strong figure. Just the sight of her made Neve feel tired and old and bedraggled. She wondered who the woman was and then realised that of course it was Elias’s mother, Sarah. Neve realised that her brain wasn’t working very well. She was having difficulty recognising a woman she had met multiple times at the school gate. She had even been to her house on several occasions to collect Connor. She needed to be careful.

  Connor and Elias were doing something with trowels in a flower bed. Gary was standing by Whisky’s hutch with Jackie, leaning towards her and gesticulating. She was large and made of curves, he was small and made of straight lines and uncomfortable angles. Neve heard him say something about the Levellers. Jackie looked bemused.

  ‘They wore sprigs of rosemary in their hats to identify them, and sea-green ribbons,’ he said.

  Tamsin was sitting alone at the wooden table. On it was a half-full cafetière and several mugs and tumblers and an empty jug. Neve sat beside her. Tamsin was sipping from a glass of what looked like tomato juice.

  ‘Fletcher fixed me a Bloody Mary,’ said Tamsin. ‘Hair of the dog. Do you want to join me?’

  Neve shuddered at the thought of alcohol. She poured herself a mug of lukewarm coffee.

  ‘I’m a bit surprised,’ said Neve. ‘I think of you more as coconut water and a five-mile run before breakfast kind of person.’

  ‘Well, it’s Sunday. You’re allowed to have one day off.’

  They looked across at the progress with the greenhouse. Will seemed to be doing most of the work.

  Sarah walked across to them. She bent down and kissed Neve on both cheeks. Neve saw that she had beautifully clear skin, lightly tanned, as if she had spent time in the open air. She had a clean smell, lavender, roses, sandalwood, whereas she, Neve, smelt of sweat and fear.

  ‘Join us,’ she said. ‘It feels wonderfully gendered. The women sitting drinking coffee while the men assemble things.’

  Sarah laughed and said she wished she could but she and Elias had a lunch to go to. She dragged a protesting Elias away. Neve saw he had several fat worms in his free hand.

  When they were gone, Tamsin looked at Neve. ‘You attract people,’ she said. She wasn’t smiling.

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Wherever you are, people want to be with you. It’s like this party. Perhaps nobody is ever going to leave.’

  ‘The party will end at some point,’ said Neve warily. ‘Not that there’s any hurry.’

  Tamsin drained her Bloody Mary. ‘You’re the breadwinner now, aren’t you?’

  ‘I wouldn’t put it like that.’

  ‘Men find it difficult. They go along with it, of course. Usually there isn’t an alternative. And it’s convenient. The woman earns most of the money and she still does the majority of the housework and the cooking. But even so, they still resent it. It’s not just that they need to succeed. They need to be seen to succeed.’

  Neve knew that Tamsin, aided by the Bloody Mary, was mainly talking about herself and her own experience but she still felt that she had to respond.

  ‘That’s not true of Fletcher, any of it. He’s always done his share with the house and the children.’ She thought of all the evenings she hadn’t been at home. ‘More than his share, sometimes. He’s had difficult times. We all have. But he’s been good about it. Mostly.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ said Tamsin. ‘You’ve stayed in an office job so that Fletcher can follow his dream. Good for you. And lucky him.’

  Neve looked across at Fletcher and Will. They had assembled the frame of the front of the greenhouse and were trying to attach it to the frame of one side. It was strange to see him doing the sort of thing that English men were meant to do on Sunday mornings. Was he really following his dream? It didn’t feel like it, most of the time.

  ‘This week,’ Neve began slowly. ‘It’s made me think about things.’

  ‘What things?’

  Neve looked at Tamsin’s face and saw at the same time the slightly awkward, funny, self-mocking young woman she’d met at college and the lines at the edges of the eyes and the mouth, the loose skin around the neck.

  ‘I always thought there was nobody like us,’ said Neve. ‘We weren’t just friends and comrades. We were almost family.’

  ‘And you know how people feel about their family.’ Tamsin gave a snort.

  ‘I wonder if some people might feel cross with me about the merger.’

  ‘Why would they feel that?’

  ‘They might feel I’d betrayed the spirit of what we had together.’

  ‘When you say some people—’

  ‘What do you feel?’

  ‘Let’s be honest, it wasn’t really a merger. That’s like saying a hyena is having a merger with a lion.’

  ‘We weren’t exactly killed and eaten.’

  ‘Tell Gary that,’ said Tamsin, pulling a face. ‘My own opinion is that if we hadn’t . . .’ She hesitated. ‘Merged – let’s say merged – our company wouldn’t have survived. And in my current state of abandonment, that wouldn’t be a good thing. So it would be ungrateful of me to complain too loudly.’

  Neve didn’t think this was an especially warm endorsement. ‘Wait,’ she said.

  She went into the kitchen and returned with two bottles of pale ale from the fridge. She walked across to the two men. They looked round at her and both grinned. Tamsin joined them.

  ‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ she said. She was looking at Will, but he didn’t seem to notice her.

  ‘Hang on,’ said Fletcher.

  Fletcher and Will gasped instructions to each other as Will inserted a bolt connecting the two parts and then secured it with a nut. They stood back, contemplating their work. Neve handed them the two bottles and they both took a drink.

  ‘You look like real workers,’ said Tamsin.

  ‘We’ve got about three-quarters of it to go,’ said Will.

  ‘It’s the manual’s fault,’ said Fletcher. ‘It’s like doing a jigsaw without a picture to go by.’

  ‘No problem,’ said Tamsin. ‘The rest of us will just have to stay here, eating and drinking until the greenhouse is completed and full of pots.’

  Fletcher laughed. ‘You and Neve must be getting sick of the sight of each other.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Neve had a sudden sense of what might be coming and she felt as if the ground under her feet had suddenly tipped.

  ‘You’re seeing more of her than I am,’ Fletcher said.

  ‘I’m just glad she’s here while you two are working,’ Neve said desperately. ‘I was just saying it feels very gendered. We were saying that, weren’t we?’

  ‘We’re all spending time together,’ said Tamsin. ‘These last few days have been like a party that never stops.’

  ‘I know,’ said Fletcher. ‘And they came after the two of you had just spent that long evening together.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘More ale?’ asked Neve. ‘More coffee?’

  Jackie and Gary were coming towards them now; Jackie had a yellow leaf in her hair.

  ‘That’s . . .’ Fletcher paused, working it out. ‘Six days on the trot together, at work as well. And before that, all those other evenings when she was round at yours. You must have run out of things to say to each other.’

  Was this going to be it? Was this going to be the stupid thing that brought everything down? She made herself look at the remaining pieces of the greenhouse as if she found them interesting, the strips of metal, the sheets of glass leaning against the garden wall ready to be mounted. Meanwhile, she waited for Tamsin to speak, waited f
or her to tell Fletcher that his wife hadn’t been round that evening. She seemed to be taking a long time. How could they all bear this silence? Then she felt Tamsin’s hand grasping her arm.

  ‘You know me and Neve,’ she said. ‘We never run out of things to talk about.’

  Neve had to get away. It felt physically impossible to continue standing there with Fletcher and Tamsin looking at her. She said she would go in and make more tea and coffee for everyone.

  ‘I think lunch would be good,’ said Fletcher. ‘It’s past two. There must be bits and pieces.’

  ‘Gary’s been telling me about Charles the First’s execution,’ said Jackie brightly. ‘In great detail. He seems to think the king was asking for it.’

  ‘This is going to take the rest of the day at least,’ continued Fletcher. ‘The least we can do is feed people.’

  Neve turned to go. Her eye fell on something and she stiffened. It was the toolbox. Of course. They were putting up a greenhouse so they needed tools. The lid was shut. She took a few cautious steps forward, as if it might explode. Lifted the lid. The hammer wasn’t there.

  ‘Looking for something?’ asked Fletcher.

  ‘I thought I’d hang that picture up in the kitchen,’ she said weakly. ‘I’ve been meaning to for months. Do you have a hammer?’

  ‘Here.’ He handed across a hammer. Small, with a forked head. Not the right one. Not the one that had cracked open Saul’s skull.

  She took it. ‘Thanks,’ she said.

  She went inside, into the quiet of the house. Mabel and Louis were still at the table, but now Neve’s sewing basket was in front of them.

  ‘What’s that for?’

  ‘Louis needs another piercing in his ear.’

  ‘Don’t be daft!’

  ‘It’s OK. We’ll use a potato,’ said Louis.

  ‘What?’

  ‘A potato. To stab the needle into,’ said Mabel slowly, as if she was talking to a very small and very stupid child.

  ‘You’re stoned.’

  ‘So?’

  Neve left them and dragged herself upstairs, just to be somewhere nobody else was. Her head was thudding. Mabel’s bedroom door was open and she couldn’t stop herself from glancing inside. It was completely bare. It had been like a Gothic horror story and now it was like a nun’s cell. Very quietly, she went inside. There were no pictures or posters on the wall, just marks from where they had been, and even the mirror was gone. She opened the wardrobe and saw it was largely empty, metal hangers in a row. She went into her and Fletcher’s room, glowing in the afternoon sun, and sat on the side of the unmade bed. She thought about taking off her shoes and lying down. The pillow looked so soft and fat.

  The doorbell rang, then rang again. With an immense effort, Neve stood up. Who else could be coming to this madhouse? She slowly descended the stairs, hearing a yell from the kitchen as she did so.

  Renata stood outside, her hand and arm in its great white shroud. She was wearing clean clothes but her face was still smudged and her hair a mess. There was a streak of dried blood on her neck.

  ‘Come on in,’ said Neve.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Renata said. ‘Oh dear.’

  Neve led her through to the kitchen, where Louis was dabbing at his ear with a piece of kitchen roll. Mabel had gone into the garden and was talking to Will, her face turned up towards him, her arms dangling by her side. She looked so sweet, thought Neve; anxiety darted through her.

  ‘Sit,’ she said to Renata. ‘I’m making everyone something to eat.’

  There was some bread left, and a couple of half-baked baguettes; sour cream, a few cherry tomatoes, a knob of fresh ginger, butter, a bag of spinach, some parsley. It was hard to make a meal out of that. She thought of all the vegetables in the allotment waiting to be harvested. There were the eggs she had bought that morning though.

  ‘Scrambled eggs?’ she said to Renata, but Renata was gone, and so was Louis. Neve looked out into the garden, and saw everyone gathered there, standing around the rudimentary beginnings of the greenhouse in the sunshine. People were laughing. Gary had his arm around Renata – and even she was smiling, leaning against his shoulder with her floppy mass of hair gleaming.

  Suddenly Will crouched down, put his head on the ground, then eased himself up into a headstand. Everyone was applauding. He lowered himself, stood up and bowed. Yes, of course Neve remembered him; she remembered all of them when they were young and foolish and eager for their future to begin. Now Tamsin stepped forward into a clear space, lowered herself, stretched her body into a plank and was doing swift and perfect press-ups. She stopped, collapsed on the grass and lay there, smiling. Fletcher was saying something to her and Neve hoped with a small lurch of pity that he wouldn’t try any gymnastics; he’d never been the sporty type.

  But why hadn’t Tamsin blown her cover? What did she know; what had she guessed?

  Neve melted a generous amount of butter into a pan, cracked in all twelve eggs, added salt and plenty of black pepper. She stirred the thickening mixture, still looking out at the garden. It looked such fun, so companionable: a gathering of old friends on a warm Sunday afternoon in September, backlit by the sun. Connor did a crooked cartwheel, then another. His face was muddy and flushed with excitement. He’d be impossible this evening. Neve turned the heat down low while she cut bread and put the slices in the toaster. The baguettes in the oven were nearly ready. She checked the eggs and got plates from the cupboard.

  In the garden, Mabel was standing between Will and Louis, pointing at something. Neve stared at her: her daughter, her firstborn, her tormentor and protector. Her beloved child.

  At any moment, this golden picture could crack and shatter into a thousand pieces.

  Suddenly she stiffened: the door to Whisky’s hutch was slightly open. She yanked open the back door.

  ‘Where’s Whisky?’ she called.

  Everyone turned towards her and then to the cage. Neve ran out and knelt down. There was no sign of the guinea pig. She made a clicking sound, calling him, and waited for his inquisitive face to appear out of the hay. Nothing. She pushed her hand into the hay and felt for him. He wasn’t there.

  She stood up. Everyone had gathered round. Unsupported, the frame of the greenhouse swayed.

  ‘He’ll be somewhere in the garden,’ she said. ‘This big.’ She showed them with her hands. ‘Dirty white colour with black patches.’

  ‘Why did you call him Whisky then?’ asked Jackie. Neve ignored her.

  They all fanned out round the garden, stooping down to look under bushes, rustling in the fallen leaves.

  ‘He’s there,’ said Louis after several minutes. His voice was low and excited. He gestured towards the compost bin. The snug little body of Whisky was inserted behind it, half covered in dry leaves.

  The group made a semicircle around the bin. Fletcher cautiously crept forward, holding out his hand, murmuring encouragement. Very slowly, he lowered his hand. Whisky shot out the other side at a surprising speed, through Gary’s legs, and halfway across the lawn.

  ‘He mustn’t get into another garden,’ said Neve. It seemed like a matter of life and death that the little animal should be captured and returned to safety.

  Once again they made a circle around the guinea pig, all crouching and ready to make a grab. Whisky made a run for it, Neve launched herself and felt his coarse hair under her hand but then he was gone and she was tumbling on to the lawn, and there was someone else almost on top of her. She felt the weight of them, heard them panting, and saw just ahead two arms stretched out and two large hands holding the little creature.

  ‘Got him,’ cried Will triumphantly, clambering to his feet and holding Whisky against his chest. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said cheerfully to Neve.

  Neve lay on the ground, her bruised cheek on the cool damp grass, which was muddy from all the football that Connor and Elias had been playing. She looked up at everyone. It felt to her that she was lying at the bottom of a deep hole, staring up at the f
aces far above her. She started to laugh, a weak, watery, helpless sound. She realised she was crying.

  A slight figure detached itself from the huddle and came and squatted beside her.

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Mabel hotly into her ear. ‘Get up! Fuck it, stand up!’

  Neve gave a groan and closed her eyes.

  ‘Well, well,’ said a soft, low voice above her. ‘I seem to have interrupted some kind of garden party.’

  Neve looked up, into Hitching’s face. He loomed above everyone else, like a solid wall. Will, standing beside him, still clutching Whisky, looked small. Gary was positively miniature. Hitching was dressed in black trousers and a dark shirt and was holding a briefcase. His skull shone.

  ‘Detective,’ she said.

  Mabel clutched at her hand so tightly that Neve could feel her wedding ring bite into her fingers.

  It’s come, she thought. This is it.

  ‘Your son let me in. Rory, is that right? Quite a gathering.’ Hitching gave a chuckle.

  ‘We’re putting up a greenhouse,’ said Fletcher. He came forward and held out a hand to Neve who took it and got to her feet. She gazed around desperately for the hammer, which must surely be lying on the grass somewhere.

  ‘Tricky business. I know to my cost.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is it me you’ve come to see?’ asked Renata. She was standing beside Will; her bandaged arm, held in a sling, looked curiously like the muddy white of Whisky against Will’s chest.

  ‘Not today,’ said Hitching. He took in her bandaged hand. ‘I’m sorry to see that you’re injured.’

  ‘A stupid accident.’ Renata’s voice wobbled.

  ‘It’s Mrs Connolly I’ve come to see,’ said Hitching.

  ‘Ms.’

  ‘Ms.’

  ‘Why can’t this wait? It’s Sunday,’ said Tamsin. Her cheeks were flushed. There was another Bloody Mary in her fist.

  ‘That’s what my wife has been saying,’ said Hitching genially. ‘This won’t take long.’

  Neve nodded. ‘Why don’t you all go inside,’ she said to the group. ‘Make tea.’

  ‘There’s something burnt on the stove,’ said Hitching. ‘I turned the flame off but I think it’s ruined.’