The Liar

by Jennifer Wells

  ‘Good girl,’ he said. Then he went to sit back down, but he didn’t. I heard the creak of his chair but he just slid away into darkness. I looked at the candle on the table, but the flame was circling, tracing snakes of light and the windowpanes were ghosting squares of purple.

  ‘I’m going to bed,’ but I didn’t hear myself say it, just a noise, a grunt from swollen lips. I stood up, but my legs weren’t there and I fell through the air, landing back on the chair. I held my head up with my hand. It was heavy, as if it would topple from my shoulders.

  Maudy folded the blanket and put it behind my head. She was looking right through me, as if I was not there. She raised her hand and waved it slowly in front of my face. ‘Gone!’ she said.

  Clarence came over, his body dark and blurred, but his hand was big next to my face. He put something on the table next to me. It was a copper basin, the one Maudy used to mix the dye. But there was no water inside. It was red – a mound of red carmine powder.

  ‘I told you,’ he said. ‘I told you we’d need the whole mug.’ His voice was hard like a thimble on a washboard. He took something from his pocket, something white and clean against his dark overalls. It was paper, a photograph. A grey print of a baby’s head, a baby with a patchy face.

  ‘Like this,’ he said and they both stared at the photograph. ‘It’s important that we get it right. The pattern must match exactly. Three long marks and a longer one under the eye.’

  The lamps flickered. Maudy breathed heavily. ‘I ain’t sure about this,’ she said, but he glared at her and she lowered her head.

  ‘What is it now?’ he barked.

  ‘She won’t never believe us,’ she said quietly. ‘She won’t never believe she fell.’

  ‘She won’t remember, will she? She’ll have to believe us.’

  Maudy was looking up at him, a ripple across her eyes.

  Clarence strode across the room and kicked the stove door. It clattered as it fell away and sparks circled, smoke and soot filling the room.

  Maudy screamed.

  ‘There!’ he shouted. ‘That’s what she did. That’s where she fell. That’s where the brat fell, you get a nasty burn from these things if you go running into them.’ He came back over, his face was black with soot, making his eyes seem white and huge. ‘Just hold her in case she wakes.’

  She nodded, but she didn’t move, just wrung her hands.

  ‘That poker ready?’

  She glanced at the fire but just mumbled.

  ‘Well, go on then!’ he shouted.

  Then she was gone and I felt her hands pressing on my shoulders.

  Clarence wrapped a rag round his hand and took the poker from the fire. I saw the end circling in the darkness. It clanked into the basin of carmine and the smell of burning filled the room. The powder in the bowl started to crawl like ants and Clarence lifted the poker in front of his face. He stared at the hot tip, twisting it in front of his eyes, like it was magical to him. Then he blew on it gently, and it glowed white, the light fading with his breaths.

  I felt Maudy’s hands start to tremble.

  ‘No!’ But the scream was inside my head and I heard only the click of my mouth opening.

  Then the white metal was by my face, ghosting purple insight my head. I twisted against the chair, but Maudy’s hands pressed hard on my forehead, pushing me down.

  Then white heat. The smell of fire. Metal pressed hard into my cheek, then the ache of bone and teeth. Then there was only silence and all was black.

  Like I told you, there are some things I don’t like to talk about. This was the bit you didn’t want to know.

  46

  Emma

  Late that evening George left me for the last time. All he took with him was a small suitcase that he had packed several days ago and hidden in the back of the wardrobe. He did not take anything else; not his armchair, the wireless or his crystal decanter. These things, he said, had been bought for a house on the Sunningdale Estate and that is where they should stay. After all, they held too many memories. He did take Smokey though, bundling him into and old cardboard box and tying it carefully with string. He had never cared for children, but he liked cats.

  I felt numb as I watched his car pull out of the driveway, the clatter of the engine deafening in the still air. Next door the bedroom light came on, the curtains twitching as the neighbours peered after the car that had woken them so rudely.

  I went upstairs and tidied the back bedroom, putting the crumpled sheets and pillowcases into the washing basket. Ruby had left a small knitted rabbit on the windowsill and I took it into the nursery, placing it in the empty cot. I took the silver rattle and the old baby photograph of Violet from the sideboard and buried them deep in a drawer. Then I covered the cot and the furniture with sheets and drew the curtains across the dark windowpane. I stood on the landing and turned the key in the nursery door; the room sealed for good with the clunk of the lock.

  In the lounge, the light switch clicked on and off in the darkness, the coil of wire and domed glass fitting still piled against the skirting board. I walked through the darkness and sat in the bay of the window, pulling my shawl tight around my shoulders as the chill of the night wafted under the curtains. The timbers of the house groaned and clicked and somewhere a pipe shuddered deep in the skirting.

  Some hours later pale moonlight glowed through the crack in the curtains, an owl calling out as if to encourage it. A narrow beam of cold light struck the mantelpiece and I saw both hands of the clock pointing to the twelve – it was the start of a new day.

  Around me the walls and furniture emerged from the fog of darkness. The chairs were empty, a small indent in the sofa cushion where Ruby had once sat. On the mantelpiece was the jagged outline of the repaired vase; reminders everywhere, just as George had said.

  Then the doorbell rang.

  ‘Who’s there?’ I called.

  47

  Ruby

  My name is Ruby Brown. It has always been Ruby Brown and never Violet Marks. There was a Violet, of course, a lone violet, the worst, the type that bring death. But this Violet never made it indoors, to her home at Little Willow, and the death she brought was her own. But when a violet dies, another can replace it. The new bloom will not be the same as the original, but a copy of it, like a memory returning.

  ‘Why were there two photographs of Emma’s baby and why was one of them in Aunt Sadie’s cigarette case?’

  It was just a question, I had not meant anything by it but, as soon as it left my lips, the van had stopped suddenly. We were flung against each other, furniture tumbling as if it was made of matchsticks and packing crates crashing onto the floor. For ages there was nothing but darkness and silence, and I sat up slowly, the screech of metal still ringing in my ears. Then, at last, came a long sigh, like everyone breathing together from one big lung.

  ‘What the hell—’ yelled Clarence. He raised a fist to Fatkins’ face but the big man didn’t even turn his head. He just sat dead still, his huge shoulders hunched over the wheel.

  Clarence’s fist fell back into his lap and he turned to look out the windscreen. The road was empty, the light from the headlights showing only two bright circles of nothingness. Somewhere next to me Maudy shuffled awkwardly.

  Then I saw the windscreen mirror. And I saw those eyes again. Fatkins was watching me, his eyes frozen in the glass, all bright and blue and they were looking right at me.

  I opened my mouth, but closed it again quickly. It was all my fault again; I wasn’t sure why, but I knew that it was. Then the driver door flung open so hard that it slammed into the side of the van. Fatkins jumped out and crossed through the light beams. He wrenched open the passenger door and his face was right up close to Clarence’s and I thought that he was going to punch him, but he didn’t. He grabbed at the front of Clarence’s overalls and pulled the purple envelope from his pocket.

  ‘That’s my money!’ yelled Clarence. ‘Where do you think you’re going with it?’

/>   ‘Where do you think? To give it back to this “grand lady” of yours. It’s only thanks to Ruby’s little remark that I know who she is now. This money isn’t yours.’

  ‘No, you can’t do that to us!’

  But what Clarence said didn’t matter to Fatkins. He slammed the door shut and punched his fist into the side of the van, so hard that everything shook.

  ‘I looked at that photograph every day that I was on duty,’ he shouted. ‘The other soldiers had wedding rings and pictures of their sweethearts but I just had my mother’s cigarette case and a photograph of a dead baby. But it was more than that to me – it was a photograph of a family that I could have started, part of a life that I could have lived.’

  ‘Darling, I am so sorry,’ said Maudy quietly.

  ‘You say that you’re sorry? Oh yes, you’re sorry for scabbing the odd shilling off me or for passing me shoddy tailoring or for making me drive you to Birmingham and for losing me a day’s pay, but sorry isn’t really enough now, is it?’

  ‘We was going to give you some of the money,’ said Clarence suddenly. ‘We still can give you a good share of it, how’s about that then? As for the baby, well, how was we to know that you cared so much? That ain’t our fault. It was Sadie who had the photograph not you.’

  ‘I gave the photograph back to my mother when I was sent home wounded,’ shouted Fatkins. ‘I was returning to a place with so many memories that I felt I didn’t need any more reminders, so I gave the cigarette case back to her, and the photograph with it.’

  ‘Shut up, Clarence,’ hissed Maudy before he could even open his mouth. ‘For once in your life just shut up.’

  ‘Then years later I thought I saw the infant in the photograph again,’ Fatkins wasn’t shouting any more but he was talking all loud and slow. ‘But then she wasn’t a baby of course, she was a grown girl but the birthmark was still the same. But the girl I saw wasn’t a ghost; she was Ruby, dear old Ruby, just the same as I had always known her, but now her cheek was marked. You all said that she had fallen but she wasn’t going to talk about it with me – she had a secret she wasn’t going to tell. At first I thought my memories were playing tricks on me. But then my mother told me that you had got hold of the photograph. I wanted it back; I didn’t trust you but I still had no idea what you were planning. Now I see how it all happened. And I have to find it out from an innocent child!’

  Then he was gone from the window and I heard his footsteps at the back of the van. He flung open the doors and apple crates and dining chairs crashed onto the road. He peered inside the van, but it was dark and he struggled to see me. ‘Where are you, Ruby? Are you really so innocent in all this? Or are you as dishonest as the rest of your family?

  He was right, my family were all liars. They had lied to me about what happened the day the stove got broken and they had lied to me about Maudy’s illness. They had lied about who Emma was and why I was sent to stay with her. But Emma had lied too – she had wanted me to be Violet so badly that she had lied to herself about who she really was. But none of those lies would have happened without me. Through Maudy’s cunning and Emma’s longing, I had been the one forced into a life that should have belonged to another child, and that life had been a lie. I had not known it at the time, but I had become the liar.

  ‘Nothing to say, Ruby!’ Fatkins stared into the darkness. ‘Come on! Someone must be able to tell me. How did you mark her to look like Violet? Did she really fall or do you paint the mark back on every morning? Come here, Ruby, so I can rub it off!’

  I opened my mouth but the words stuck in my throat. I felt tears slide down my cheeks and my own sobs were all I could hear for the next few minutes. I felt Maudy’s hand on my shoulder but I shook it away. ‘It won’t rub off,’ I whispered at last. ‘They burnt it on and it hurt me. It still hurts me.’

  Maudy sucked in a quick little breath but she did not say anything, nobody said anything for what felt like ages. I suppose there was nothing more for anyone to say. Then at last, Fatkins said: ‘I’m sorry, Ruby,’ but his voice sounded all funny as if he was only saying the words because nobody else would, like he knew that I wouldn’t hear them from Clarence or Maudy. Then his fist slammed into the side of the van. There was a loud bang and a ring of metal, the seats rocked and crockery tinkled beneath us. Then he hit out with another fist and then another and another until he was pounding the metal so hard that the seats quaked underneath us and thunder rang in my ears.

  ‘Sadie, your devoted sister, was the baby’s grandmother,’ he yelled. ‘But that meant nothing to you – you still went and did this! You stole the picture from her cigarette case so you could copy the baby’s birthmark and even brand your own daughter for your little scam.’

  ‘But—’ began Clarence.

  ‘You really didn’t care, did you? All of that didn’t mean a thing to you. All you wanted was money. You didn’t care about Sadie or me or Emma or Ruby.’

  ‘Look, just stop this for a moment,’ said Clarence at last. ‘Please get back in the van and listen,’ but his voice wasn’t like I had ever heard it before; it was all quiet and shaky.

  ‘Yes, calm down, please,’ said Maudy. ‘Please calm down.’

  ‘We can come to an arrangement,’ whispered Clarence. ‘Please remember I have children to provide for…’

  I stopped listening. I thought of the photograph, remembering when I had first seen it tucked inside the cigarette case. I smelled the carmine wafting from the blanket against my face and my stomach started to churn. I touched the side of my cheek and it stung with heat. I closed my eyes but under my lids there was nothing but red. I felt the press of the poker on my face once more; the scour of the flesh and the ache of the bone. Then came the cold sweats of restless agony, the heat of the swelling and the blistering of the skin, the cracking of the scabs and the itch of the scars. I didn’t want to talk about it, I didn’t want to remember, but the memory was throbbing inside me – my skin my blood, my flesh, my bone – they burned me and they did not care. They burned me.

  ‘Wait!’ I shouted. ‘Please wait!’ I scrambled over the Singer and the rocking chair. There were hands pulling at my legs but I kicked myself free. And then I was standing on the road, next to Fatkins. ‘I’m coming with you,’ I said and the voice that said it wasn’t one that I recognized but somehow it seemed like my own.

  Fatkins stared at me, his mouth open and he just stood there a while like he couldn’t decide what to do. But I stood with him and I was not going to move.

  ‘You can’t take it all from us,’ said Clarence. ‘Ruby and the money was both sides of the deal.’

  And at that moment I saw the whole story like someone else was telling it and everything suddenly seemed clear: I saw Maudy, wheezing, her face swollen, coughing blood into a handkerchief; I saw Clarence’s eyes staring at the tip of the white-hot poker; I saw Emma’s face large over mine, her eyes all big and watery asking if I wanted to stay with her forever. I realized now what she was asking me. She had looked happy because she had believed it really could happen –she believed that she could have me forever and that was all that she had ever wanted.

  ‘You burned your child!’ shouted Fatkins. ‘You burned her and then you sold her!’

  There wasn’t even a whisper from Maudy and I started to think that even she couldn’t face the truth when she heard it like that.

  But the truth meant nothing to Clarence. ‘Without that money we can’t make it to Birmingham,’ he said. ‘We would have to stay round here forever, begging favours from Sadie and you know she ain’t never going to turn us down. All you have to do is give us back the money and we are gone. You won’t have nothing to do with us ever again. Just give it back and we won’t be no trouble to you no more.’

  I didn’t know what two hundred pounds bought but I knew that it was more money than I had ever heard of and more numbers than I could count. For a moment Fatkins held onto the envelope and suddenly I saw all us Browns walking back along the road in the d
arkness and opening the door of the cold empty cottage, unpacking all those apple crates and waking up the next morning to Clarence’s swearing and the sound of Maudy’s sewing machine like this day had never happened.

  I looked up at Fatkins and then, ever so quickly, I thought that he glanced down at me, but he didn’t look long enough to catch my eye. He flung the envelope back into Clarence’s lap and slammed the door.

  Maudy made a pitiful little cry like she had pricked her finger, but Fatkins didn’t care, he just walked off, back past the van, glowing all red in the backlights for just a second, and then away into the darkness and he was gone.

  I stood by the back of the van for what seemed like hours, just staring through the open doors but I didn’t see my mother or brothers any more, just shapes in the darkness.

  ‘Ruby!’ It was only the sound of Clarence’s voice that woke me and then I ran as fast as I could.

  Somewhere behind me the van started up but then it shuddered and stopped like the engine didn’t want to drive anywhere and all I could hear was the squelch of my feet as I flew over the mud.

  Then I saw Fatkins in front of me, a shadow, moving along the hedge. I tried to catch up but my shoes cut into the back of my ankles and my lungs burned. ‘Stop!’ but it was just a whisper as if there was nothing left in my lungs.

  I heard the van again, the engine failing over and over, but I didn’t think of the people inside, for now they were just memories, and even the sound of the moaning engine was starting to fade as I ran further and further into the night.

  But soon my breaths became long and heavy and my legs felt as if they would buckle and I had to slow down and walk. I started to cry again. I could still see Fatkins some way ahead of me but the lane around me was sunk into darkness with only a dull glow from behind the clouds to show where the moon was hidden, and I feared that I would be swallowed up into the night. I felt like I had walked further than I ever had walked before but I knew that I had to keep moving and, after what felt like forever, the road became lined with high hedges and I started to recognise the curves of the track and the shape of the hills.