One day, at some point in your future, someone will tell you that
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lies breed lies and they will be right but they will say it as though it is a 01
problem when in fact it is the solution.
02
“He said that he wanted me, that he’d always liked talking to me; he
03
asked if I felt the same way,” I said. “His hand was touching me through
04
my dress, and he was fiddling with the edge of the fabric, fingering it,
05
the seams of it. When it was only his hand on me, touching me, I
06
couldn’t be sure, you know. It might have just been too much to drink,
07
not thinking, not noticing what he was doing. But when he started talk-
08
ing, then I knew,” I said. “I knew it was intentional.”
09
And she was unsure again.
10
And was that a lie? Really? Because I truly think that another two
11
minutes and that’s exactly what would have happened; he’d have said
12
something just like that— I know he would have— because that was the
13
man Charles was. He knew how to use words to manipulate, to con-
14
struct a story. And the words gave credence to an action that on its own
15
was deemed insubstantial, unimportant, in no way noteworthy.
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But, yes, okay. It was a lie. That was the third lie I told Marnie.
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It would be the last lie I’d tell her while Charles was alive.
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01
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Chapter Fourteen
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k
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Marnie asked me to leave. After everything had been said and
not said, she stood up straight and said, “I think you should
go now.”
15
I sat shocked and didn’t move.
16
“You can leave,” she repeated. “Now. Please.”
17
Charles and I looked at each other and I could tell that we were
18
thinking the same thing, that neither of us could confidently read Mar-
19
nie’s expression. We could see that she wasn’t happy, not at all, but the 20
anger had dissipated, replaced instead by something less clear. I didn’t
21
recognize the sharpness of her eyes, her pinched lips, rosy as ever but
22
pressed tightly together. Her skin was sallow and heavy, the weight of
23
it sinking into her jaw.
24
I saw him tighten his grip around her waist, a gentle squeeze.
25
She didn’t respond. She was frozen, her hands fixed against her hips.
26
I stood up.
27
“Okay, I’ll go,” I said. “But only if you’re sure that’s what you want.”
28
Did I think she might reconsider? I certainly hoped so. But she didn’t.
29
“I’m sure,” she replied.
30
I walked into the hallway and plucked my raincoat from the row of
31S
pegs. My umbrella had been propped against the radiator and had left
32N
a puddle of water sliding across the wooden floor. I put my hand on the
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doorknob and then turned back to look at them. They were standing
01
exactly as they had been before, side by side, his arm around her waist,
02
but they were now peering over their shoulders and staring at me as
03
though to make sure that, after all of that, I really did leave.
04
I let myself out and I walked home. It took hours and the rain was
05
relentless, but it was exactly what I needed in that moment. I needed to
06
feel the water soaking through my shoes and my socks and my feet
07
wrinkling within. I needed to feel the wind pulling at my umbrella, to
08
have something to fight against. I needed to march, to stamp, to feel the 09
water splash at my ankles and my elbows grazing my hip bones.
10
I stood outside my flat and rifled through my bag for my key, and by
11
the time I had found it and let myself in so much water had dripped
12
onto the carpet that a patch of the taupe fabric was damp, a murky
13
brown. I had a hot shower and turned up the heating and I lay in bed
14
and I couldn’t sleep. I needed to be somewhere else. London was too
15
big and too busy, the people too fraught and stretched, the air too dense 16
and angry.
17
I set my alarm and I was still awake when it echoed around my bed-
18
room several hours later. The sun was finally shining and I went to visit 19
my mother— briefly, she didn’t recognize me and I didn’t have the pa-
20
tience for her relentless questions and generic nonsense— and then
21
caught another train, not back toward the city, but farther away, follow-
22
ing in the footsteps of a younger version of myself.
23
I arrived at Beer in the early afternoon. I had only a small rucksack.
24
I went straight to our hotel, barely recognizing that my legs were pro-
25
pelling me in that direction. Our room was available, just for the one
26
night, on the first floor at the end of the corridor and with the window
27
overlooking the beach.
28
I left my bag on the bed and walked outside, toward the coast.
29
I stood and stared and watched as the waves rolled in; the sun was
30
out and yet they were angry, smacking against the pebble beach.
S31
“This way,” I heard him say. “Let’s go this way.”
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E L I Z A B E T H K AY
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I turned toward the cliffs, retracing the path I had walked four years
02
earlier. The beachfront was busy, a draw for young families on a sum-
03
&nb
sp; mer holiday and couples in love in their twenties or eighties or any-
04
where in between. There were very few young women alone, although
05
I can’t have been the first to bring her heartbreak to the beach. There
06
were parasols and sand castles and children shivering in striped towels.
07
There were badminton rackets and windbreakers and plastic shovels in
08
reds and yellows and blues.
09
I walked away from it all. I climbed the road, trudged along the
10
pavement. The gulls were still there, squawking and flapping their
11
wings overhead, and I wondered if they remembered me as I remem-
12
bered them.
13
I felt closer to Jonathan than I had in months. I hadn’t been near our
14
maisonette since the morning of the marathon; I never returned. It was
15
packed up and sold on without my involvement. And I never visit the
16
places we loved. I haven’t been to The Windsor Castle since that eve-
17
ning and I very rarely pass through Oxford Circus. And yet here, in a
18
place that felt familiar, the ache sort of seemed to ease.
19
I reached the café in the next village and I sat on the very same
20
picnic bench and I watched the sea from the same spot, and I was
21
frightened by how much my life had changed. And how much I dis-
22
liked it. I so wanted to be the other me, the one who sat there with
23
her husband at the beginning of a life together. She was optimistic—
24
uncharacteristically so— looking ahead to future anniversaries and new
25
homes and children and a lifetime of laughter and love. I didn’t want to
26
be the newer version, the bitter, cold one who felt permanently unan-
27
chored from the life she was meant to lead.
28
I wish I could tell you that I found a way to move past that version
29
of myself. Wouldn’t it be lovely if I could say now that I found a way to 30
let go of the sadness and the anger, that I had found something ground-
31S
ing and stable and secure? But I didn’t. I haven’t.
32N
There were no fishermen; they must have been there earlier in the
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day, when I was lying in bed waiting for my alarm, more than a hundred
01
miles away, in a world filled with car horns and smog. I walked along
02
the shore again, underneath the cliffs, the pebbles crunching beneath
03
my soles, still damp from the tide that morning.
04
I noticed the cutaway in the overgrowth at the foot of the cliffs. The
05
thorn bushes were dense and the gap was barely visible, but I think I
06
was looking for it, trying to find ways to be near to him. I remembered
07
him marching ahead, zigzagging with the path, clambering over the
08
nettles, so focused on the climb.
09
I took my time.
10
It had rained and the track was still slippery, mud resting against
11
rocks and in the hollows where the path dipped. The trail was over-
12
shadowed by tall branches with thick bushes on either side and I won-
13
dered how long it took for the sun to dry out this small thread of a path.
14
I couldn’t see the sea, but I could hear it. I couldn’t see the gulls, but I 15
could hear them, too. I was very much alone, but I knew that the world
16
was still out there, mere minutes away.
17
I reached the steps carved into the pathway, heading left and toward
18
the bank above. That was the route I’d chosen the first time. It took me
19
away from Jonathan, although admittedly only for a minute or two. But
20
there is nothing I wouldn’t give now— no sacrifice too extreme— for
21
just a minute or two together.
22
I decided to turn right. There were no steps, just the muddy path,
23
drier now that I was higher, but still slimy and unstable. I imagined
24
where his feet had landed and I placed my boots in their long- gone
25
tread. I pressed myself against the cliff edge and I wondered if his body 26
was once here, hugging these very same rocks. I remembered the feel of
27
his hand against my back. His heart would have been beating calm and
28
steady, though mine was floundering in my chest.
29
There were nettles ahead, but I felt confident that everything would
30
be all right this time. The sky above me was a glorious blue, not a cloud S31
in sight, and although I have never been a spiritual person— not at
N32
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01
all— I knew that he was there with me. I turned, my back against the
02
rock face, and looked out at the sea, at the waves crashing beneath. I felt 03
giddy, as though I was drunk, almost light- headed with the adrenaline.
04
I thought I could do it. I thought that I could be as fearless as he
05
once was.
06
I was wrong.
07
I continued to climb, my palms gripping the cliffs to my left and my
08
feet moving forward, one in front of the other, a straight line, as close 09
to the rocks as I could possibly be. I stepped carefully over the nettles 10
and I kept my eyes up, looking ahead.
11
“I will meet you at the top,” I whispered, mainly to myself but also
12
to the space above the sea. “One day,” I said, “I will find you and I will 13
meet you at the top.”
14
I noticed that my hands were trembling slightly and found some-
15
what unexpectedly that I was crying. Breathe, I thought, but I couldn’t.
16
The air kept catching in my throat, and I found that I was inhaling,
17
gasping, over and over again. My breaths kept spilling from my lungs
18
and congealing in my mouth, rushing so fast and so hard that I was
19
shaking, like my bones were separating.
20
I tried to balance my trembling body on the edge of that cliff, to
21
keep my feet fixed in place, but I couldn’t. I shrank, sitting, trying to be 22
as small as possible, hoping not to fall, and stayed crumbled there until 23
&
nbsp; eventually I was almost still but for the breaths softly shaking in my
24
chest, hiccuping again and again and again.
25
At last, I stood and retraced my steps, back toward the fork in the
26
path, sliding my hand along the rocky edge, not thinking, not feeling,
27
trying very hard not to hurt. I took the other route— the steps on the
28
left, the path from the first time— and clambered to the top.
29
I had failed. Again.
30
I climbed higher up the grassy plinth. I sat down with my legs
31S
straight in front of me and facing out toward the sea.
32N
And then I cried.
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There have been just a few loves in my life, but I think it’s fair to say 01
that the greatest love of all will have been forged in death. I was madly 02
in love with Jonathan when he died. We hadn’t been injured by the
03
crashing waves and blunt traumas of a long and well- lived life. We
04
weren’t threadbare from a lifetime of ordinary love. We were still ob-
05
sessed by each other, and the things I loved most— his pedantry, his
06
efficiency, his unique way of folding his socks, his tousled hair in the
07
mornings— hadn’t yet become mundane or irritating.
08
If I’m being completely honest, I don’t truly believe that they ever
09
would have. He was always the very best. When he poured two glasses of
10
orange juice in the morning and gave me the first and kept the second for 11
himself, because he knew I didn’t like the thicker, bittier juice at the bot-12
tom of the carton. When he let me wear his gloves, because my hands
13
were cold even though his must have been, too. When he drove the long
14
distances, because I refused to learn to drive, because I hated the thought 15
of sitting still for that long. When I came home from work to the smell of 16
bleach and furniture polish and knew that he’d cleaned the entire place
17
so that I wouldn’t have to, while I had been out with Marnie, having fun, 18
being happy. When he turned out the lights every night when we went
19
to bed, so that I would never have to climb the stairs in the dark. He
20
loved me in a million little ways. He believed in a love that proved itself, 21
again and again, that was present and generous and never unimportant.
22
That love is forever frozen as it was when he left.
23
Marnie is my second greatest love. And yet I felt that I had lost her,
Seven Lies (ARC) Page 17
