The Lies We Told

by Camilla Way

  When she reached Old Street, she paused, gazing off toward the station in the distance. A group of laughing teenage girls clattered past her in high heels, followed by a drunk man weaving along in the gutter behind them, clutching a can of cider. A cool breeze picked up. Across the road was the narrow side street that led to Hoxton Square. She hadn’t been back to her flat for five days and she longed to go home suddenly: to the quiet and privacy of her own space, to be surrounded by her own things, to take a shower and make a cup of tea and take stock of everything that had happened without feeling she was encroaching on anyone else, hospitable as Mac was. And what if Luke had come back while she’d been away? What if he had phoned or written or left a message? Before she knew it, she found herself crossing the road at a run.

  It was past eight now, the square’s bars and restaurants busy, clusters of people standing outside them, smoking and chatting in the cool spring air. When she reached her building, she glanced up at its three rows of windows and paused. Only the first floor showed signs of life: electric light shining through the gaps in the curtains, the shadow of a figure crossing the room. The Japanese couple who lived on the floor below her, she thought. Her own floor and that of the flat above—Alison? had that been her name?—were in darkness. Perhaps she would just go up to collect some more clothes, she told herself. Have a quick check round to make sure all was well. It would take only a few minutes, after all.

  As she climbed the stairs and passed the first-floor flat, she heard the noise of a TV, of the scraping of cutlery and a toilet flushing from within: comforting, ordinary sounds that made her nervousness ease a little. When she reached the second set of stairs, she hit the light switch on the wall, but the hall and stairwell remained in darkness and she swore under her breath. Holding her key in her hand, she ran up the next flight and felt around for her floor’s switch, but it, too, gave no response when she pushed it. She shivered, mentally cursing her landlord, and glanced quickly up the stairs to Alison’s flat, but all was quiet. Perhaps she was still away, she thought. When Clara reached her own door, she pulled out her mobile and used its light to guide her to the keyhole.

  Once inside her flat, she hurried around hitting every switch until the rooms were bathed in light, then stood looking about herself. It was still in disarray since the break-in, and the place had a sad, abandoned air. Something that had been niggling her ever since she’d received the first message from Emily returned to her now. She got up and went to the living room, taking down a small wooden box tucked away out of sight on one of the bookshelves. Opening it, she breathed a sigh of relief. Inside, untouched still, was the T. S. Eliot book Luke had shown her all those years before. Ever since they’d moved into this flat, he’d kept it with a few other precious bits and pieces in the same place. It had not been touched, she was sure of it—the box was still covered in a thin layer of dust from where it’d sat untampered with for half a year. She put the box back on the shelf.

  As she wandered into the bedroom, her hip knocked against the chest of drawers and something fluttered to the floor. Picking it up, she saw that it was the Valentine’s card Luke had given her a few months before, a line drawing of one of Picasso’s doves on the front. Inside was written, simply, Love you Clara, always will.

  She went to the wardrobe and pulled out his favorite T-shirt, a faded Stone Roses one he used to wear in bed. Holding it to her face, she breathed in his scent. A rush of memories hit her: his face, his kiss, the way he said her name, the smell of his body first thing in the morning. An image of the van’s bloodstained seat flashed into her mind and she sank onto the bed, tears choking her. At this moment, more than ever before, she felt sure that he was dead, that she would never see him again.

  Suddenly she was desperate to get out of there. It had been a mistake to come—his absence far more brutal here between these silent walls than it was at Mac’s. She realized it didn’t even feel like home, not anymore; whoever had broken in had destroyed that sense of safety and sanctuary now. Hurriedly she wiped her eyes and, snatching up an empty carrier bag, began to fill it with clothes. Leaving the flat, she closed the door behind her, using the light from her phone to make sure she’d double-locked it.

  But as she stood standing in the hall’s blackness grappling with her keys, she thought she heard a sound from the floor above. She stood stock-still. What was that? “Hello?” she called. Nothing. And then, the name unfamiliar on her lips, “Alison, is that you?” Again, silence. “This isn’t funny,” she shouted. “If that’s you, say something.” Still nothing, yet she couldn’t shake the feeling there was someone there. Suddenly the air was ripped in two by a deafening roar of music. Her heart lurched and involuntarily she screamed, before hurtling down the stairs, but the music stopped as abruptly as it had begun the moment she reached the main door. Finally she bolted out of the building, gasping for air in the cool, orange-tinged darkness of the street. Across the square, voices drifted over to her from the string of bars and restaurants. She turned, and, her heart still pounding, set off at a run toward the station.

  SEVENTEEN

  CAMBRIDGESHIRE, 1994

  Those few brief years of peace ended not long after Hannah turned thirteen. She seemed, physically, to change overnight— or perhaps I hadn’t really been looking; maybe I had grown used to letting my gaze flicker over my daughter, it being too painful to linger on her for too long. Whatever the case, I remember vividly the morning I looked up from my breakfast and noticed something I’d failed to see before.

  “What?” she said, as she sullenly emptied some cereal into a bowl.

  “Nothing.” But though I lowered my gaze, I couldn’t help but watch her from the corner of my eye as she began to eat. Toby, seven by then, was halfway through his Cheerios, engrossed in a comic. Doug had already left for work, and Hannah was eating her breakfast as she stood by the window, having long ago refused to join us at the table.

  Perhaps it was the too-small T-shirt she was wearing, or the angle in which she was standing, but for the first time I noticed the small breasts that had begun to bud on her chest, the waist that had become more defined, the thickening of her hips. My eyes traveled to her face. It was, as usual, half hidden behind a wild tangle of hair, but I saw now that it had begun to lose some of its childish plumpness, her features becoming more certain—the beauty she’d always had becoming more distinct.

  I can’t quite put into words the emotion that filled me at that moment. But I guess, mainly, it was a kind of panic. As long as she was physically still a child, I was able to fool myself that there was still time—for things to turn themselves around, for her to grow out of her difficulties, for me to become the sort of mother who knew how to deal with someone so clearly out of step with the world. That moment when I noticed she was growing into an adult triggered a sort of terror in me, because it meant that soon it would be too late for me to work out how to help her, to change the course on which her life was going. Perhaps I had a premonition of how badly things would end for us all. It terrified me; in that moment of clarity I was utterly terrified.

  Nevertheless I took a deep breath and chose my words carefully. “Hannah, I was wondering if you would like to come shopping with me at the weekend.”

  Her head shot up. “Can I get some new computer games?”

  “I thought we’d look for some bras for you, some toiletries . . . or new clothes, perhaps. We could even get your hair cut. What do you say?” I heard the wheedling edge my voice always seemed to have when talking to her and cringed, but forced myself to continue smiling brightly.

  Her glance fell downward to her chest and I steeled myself for her embarrassment, but her expression when she next looked up was one of ambivalence. For a while she held my gaze, before she plonked her bowl back down on the work surface and muttered, “Don’t want any,” then turned and walked away, the conversation clearly over as far as she was concerned.

  Still, in the f
ollowing weeks I bought her a variety of bras in different sizes, hoping that some of them might fit. I bought her some shampoo, deodorant, some sanitary towels and tampons, some nice new clothes that I chose with painstaking care. I even bought her a book about puberty. It broke my heart, of course, every purchase driving home the fact that this should be so very different: an opportunity to guide her lovingly through this important life stage, a chance to bond among the racks of Topshop. I tried not to mind, had long ago told myself to let go of the fantasy relationship I’d always longed for, but it still hurt.

  Days later I found the clothes and toiletries dumped, still in their packaging, in the bin. She never wore the bras I bought her; as her breasts grew bigger, she let them flop around beneath her grubby T-shirts. She began to smell. Though she never talked about school, I knew she had no friends, and I could only imagine how she must have appeared to the other children: the smelly kid. The school weirdo. I felt so sorry for her, but my pity was useless. She didn’t want it. Really, it was self-pity, I suppose, and it’s amazing how even that turns to nothing after a while: even the hardest things become acceptable, just another part of life.

  Her bedroom door remained firmly closed. I would stand outside it and listen sometimes while she played her computer games, the sounds of simulated death and destruction seeping between the cracks, before I’d creep away and leave her to it, turning up the television or closing the kitchen door. I told myself that at least she was safe, and happy, in her own way.

  * * *

  —

  It was less than a year later when everything changed. I don’t know how long she’d been sneaking out at night before I realized what she was up to. It was three in the morning and I was in the kitchen getting a glass of water when she came creeping in through the front door. I screamed, seeing her so suddenly, so shockingly, in the dark hallway like that. “Hannah,” I said once my heart had calmed, “what the hell are you doing? Where have you been?”

  “Nowhere.”

  I stepped toward her, wincing at the pungent smell of cigarette smoke. “Where have you been?” I demanded again. “Who have you been with?”

  At that moment Doug appeared at the top of the stairs, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “What’s going on?”

  Hannah shrugged, a sly smile on her face. “Nothing. Just went out. What’s wrong with that?”

  “You’re only fourteen!” I said. She took her coat off and threw it over the banister, stumbling a little as she did so. It was only then that I saw that she was drunk. We stared after her with openmouthed astonishment as she climbed the stairs, pushing past her father as she did so. A moment later we heard her bedroom door slam shut, and Doug and I stood staring back at each other in dismay.

  * * *

  —

  No matter how much Doug and I threatened, begged, and cajoled over the following weeks, Hannah continued to make her midnight escapes. We tried everything—took away her allowance, put extra locks on the door; we even hid her shoes—but nothing worked. She must have been getting money from somewhere, because she continued to come back smelling of alcohol and I often found boxes of cigarettes in her coat.

  “You’re too young to be doing this, to be out by yourself at night,” I pleaded when she returned close to dawn one morning. I had long since stopped being able to sleep, my anxiety and worry for her keeping me awake while I waited for her to return.

  She smirked. “I’m not by myself.”

  “Then who are you with?”

  “Friends.”

  “What friends?”

  “No one you know.”

  “There are bad people around,” I told her. “Bad men who take advantage of young girls like you. Don’t you understand that, Hannah? Don’t you realize it’s not safe?”

  “So what? I’m having fun.” And then she’d sneer and add, “You can’t stop me. You know you can’t.”

  She was right, of course. She knew that the secret she held over us ensured that we would never try to force the issue. We were too afraid of what she’d do, and she understood that only too well.

  Little by little, the scruffy, shapeless T-shirts and tracksuit bottoms disappeared to be replaced with miniskirts and tight, low-cut tops; she would often go out with her face plastered inexpertly in makeup. It terrified me. Sometimes the police would bring her back, drunk or high. There they’d stand in our living room, describing how they’d found her at a squat party they’d searched for drugs, or hitching home alone at night, or getting stoned at bus stops with God knows who.

  She loved that, the police involvement. Absolutely loved it. She’d watch us with her kohl-lined eyes, a smirk on her face, while the police officers sat in our living room reminding us that she was a minor, that it was our responsibility to ensure she didn’t come to harm. She knew how terrified we were of them, that she could blow open our secret there and then with just a few choice words. And I would think of my sleeping boy upstairs beneath his Star Wars duvet and grit my teeth and say, “Yes, Officer, we’re sorry. It won’t happen again.”

  I grew used to the hostile looks from my neighbors, who no doubt thought it was all our fault, that if she were their child, they would have done things differently. No doubt they would have, but they didn’t have to deal with someone like Hannah, someone utterly devoid of conscience or love for us, someone who wouldn’t think twice about exposing us if we really tried to force her hand.

  Eventually, filled with a burning shame and dismay, I took to leaving packets of condoms in her underwear drawer when I knew that she was out. She caught me only once. I turned to find her watching me from her bedroom door, the expression on her face one of amused enjoyment at my discomfort.

  We thought of moving away, but what would have been the point? The situation would have stayed the same wherever we went. And we liked our village. We both worked in the area—I had found a job at the medical center in the next town, resuming the nursing job I’d had before Hannah came along, and I loved it there, situated as it was far away enough for no one to know me, or Hannah. Besides, we’d had to leave our home, fleeing my childhood village, once before. I couldn’t face doing it again.

  There were many, many nights that Doug and I spent driving around the nearest towns looking for her, Toby, wrapped in his duvet, sleeping in the back. They were dark and desperate times; I was convinced that we’d eventually find her left for dead in the street. I was permanently terrified for her; I lost almost two stone, the knot of fear that seemed always to lie in the pit of my stomach preventing me from eating. But though those months were unbearable, she always stopped just short of going too far, staying just enough out of trouble to ensure that the police and social services never followed through with their many threats to remove her from our care. She was smart enough to know that if that happened, the freedom that her hold over us afforded her would be curtailed. And besides, she had bigger fish to fry, as we were soon to find out.

  * * *

  —

  It was an ordinary morning, not long after she’d turned sixteen. Toby, who was ten by then, was getting ready to walk to school. I was dressed in my nurse’s uniform in preparation for another shift, and Doug was clearing the breakfast things away. I didn’t even look up when she came into the room, though I was surprised she was out of bed. She had finished school without passing any of her exams and, having flatly refused to re-sit them, spent her days at home, rarely surfacing before noon as she slept off the night before. I remember I glanced at Doug, and my first hint that something was wrong was the expression of astonishment on his face. It was then that I turned and looked at my daughter.

  Of all the awful things she had shocked us with over the past couple of years, nothing could have prepared me for how she looked that morning. Because it was an entirely different girl who stood before me now. Her usual rat’s-nest hair was clean and neatly brushed. And though I had assumed she’d long
ago thrown out all the nice clothes I’d bought her, today she was dressed in a pretty coral-colored jumper and a plain, knee-length denim skirt. Her makeup was subtle, the black nail varnish removed, as were the nose ring and multiple ear studs she’d taken to wearing lately.

  She didn’t look at us as she made herself some toast. Doug, Toby, and I stared at one another in mute disbelief.

  “Hannah,” I finally said nervously. “You look very nice today.”

  She looked up then, but though she raised her eyebrows mockingly, she didn’t reply.

  “Going somewhere?” Doug asked.

  “Nowhere special,” she said. We watched as she finished her breakfast, and then she got up and left the house. I didn’t find out for a long time what she was up to. And when I did, it was far too late to stop her.

  EIGHTEEN

  LONDON, 2017

  Clara closed the door to Mac’s spare room and sat down on the bed, listening as he moved around the flat turning off the lights, before going into his own room. On the table was a pile of books he’d left there for her, and she smiled at his thoughtfulness. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to sleep. From the moment they’d said good-bye outside the bar, Emily had haunted Clara’s thoughts. Their meeting had done nothing to shed light on the mystery of her disappearance, leaving Clara more plagued by questions than ever.