My Sister and Other Liars

by Ruth Dugdall

  He turned to me, pulled his Ray-Bans down and gave me a grin. Despite being almost sixty, he was still handsome, and I hated that I noticed this.

  ‘Do you want to go on the rollercoaster first, Sammy? Get some adrenalin in your system.’

  Andy put his hand on my shoulder, and I tried not to flinch or to enjoy it, but his hand warmed my skin.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Too babyish for you? I keep forgetting you’re a young woman now.’ His hand skimmed my bottom, squeezed it, sending a pulse through me against my will. I moved away from him and, longing for the perspective of my camera lens, lifted my Leica to my face.

  Everywhere, there were children. Sucking lollies, screaming. Snap: a group of teenage girls in cut-off shorts and cropped vests passed us and he winked at them, making them giggle. Litter covered the ground like fallen leaves. Snap: the paintwork on the food stalls was chipped, the chrome on the rides was smeared. Even the smiles on the painted children on the signs looked strained.

  Everything was damaged.

  Putting my camera down, we walked around, watching the rides. Everyone who worked here knew Andy; he was greeted warmly, especially by girls, and sometimes with a certain wariness, like by the worker on the gun range who handed us rifles and quickly busied himself elsewhere. We both tried shooting rings from the edges of jars containing iPods and money, but no matter how vulnerable they looked, the rings stayed put. And I was a rubbish shot.

  ‘Do you remember,’ I asked, trying to sound sweet and nostalgic, hiding the bitterness I really felt, ‘when Dad brought me and Jena here?’

  ‘’Course.’ He looked at me sideways. ‘Your dad kept you amused on the baby rides, and I took Jena off for an hour or so, to do more grown-up things. We all had fun.’

  He put his arm around me, and this time I didn’t move away.

  After about an hour, he’d had enough of playing happy families.

  ‘Come on, Sam, I haven’t got all day. Let’s go shoot some film.’

  ‘Can we get a drink first?’ I asked. ‘I’m parched.’

  ‘I have milkshakes in the studio,’ he said.

  We walked into the staff area, through the restroom where a few people sat around eating lunch, reading magazines and watching the TV. Andy waved at them, and they seemed to sit to attention as we walked by, then down an unlit corridor and through a door with the sign: ENTERTAINMENT MANAGER, ANDY NICHOLLS. It opened into a small office, and he then went to another door, behind his desk. He took a key from his fob and opened it.

  ‘This is where all the magic happens,’ he said. ‘My studio.’

  It was a larger, darker space. I’d been here before, years ago, but it seemed different. I didn’t remember that the walls were covered in pictures of women in swimwear and skimpy dresses, Marilyn Monroe laughing alongside Kim Kardashian, or that the floor was dirty plastic that sucked at my feet.

  ‘Here’s my pride and joy.’

  He tapped the plastic lid of the milkshake maker, which I’d loved so much. It was old and there were stains on the plastic. It was just a blender; how could I have ever thought it was special? A couple of half-empty bottles of syrup stood beside it, the glass sticky with dead fruit flies.

  ‘Chocolate or strawberry?’

  ‘Either.’ I knew either would make me sick, especially when he opened the small fridge for the milk and I saw the cans of Red Bull, beer, and – at the back – a half-used tube of KY Jelly.

  Andy pointed me to an empty plastic chair next to a wonky table, splattered with spilt soda. As he prepared my shake, I saw him as a stranger might: good-looking, well groomed, smart in jeans and shirt.

  He didn’t look violent. But the room had a bed, and there was a sheet on it, not too clean. The camera was set up on a tripod, directed at it.

  ‘Here you go.’

  He put the frothy brown drink on the table, and got a beer from the fridge for himself, swigging from it greedily, then he reached an arm around my shoulder. He moved closer.

  ‘You’re really pretty, Sam. I bet you’ll look great on camera. We’ll have some fun and make a lot of money at the same time.’

  I moved away, my eyes catching the grubby bed. Had my sister been here?

  ‘When you were at the police station did they tell you about their prime suspect?’

  He swallowed hard. ‘A bit. Just that someone was remanded. They’ve let him go now; it was in the papers. No name, though.’

  ‘I know his name. I read the police file.’

  I watched him digest this information. He took a long drink, and put the can on the plastic table.

  ‘So, spill the beans. Who is it?’

  ‘Douglas Campbell.’

  Andy’s eyes widened. ‘But he doesn’t even live in Suffolk.’

  ‘He came back, to meet Jena. The night of the attack he was waiting for her, around the back of Our Plaice. He said he found a coat.’

  I paused again. Andy was strangling his can, and his face was drained of colour.

  ‘The raincoat had blood on it.’

  Andy gazed at the blacked-out window, open enough so we could hear screaming coming from the rollercoaster.

  ‘So why have the police let him go?’

  ‘Not enough evidence to proceed with a trial,’ I said.

  ‘Bloody typical. The police round here are so crap, they couldn’t even win at Cluedo unless someone told them who was in the envelope.’

  I tried to control my voice. ‘They’ve organised a press conference for Monday, and Jena will be speaking publicly about the attack. She’s going to say what she remembers.’

  ‘Fuck. Well, that’s going to be some show, then.’ He ran a hand through his thinning hair, then moved it to his mouth, as if he was about to cover it, to stop the words falling out. ‘Having someone banged up for years won’t change anything, Sam. I used to think it would, but that was stupid. People still do what they want, make the same mistakes. Do you have any idea what I’m talking about?’

  He sounded genuine, and I felt myself losing ground. He was playing me, with this sympathetic act, but I did have an idea what he meant. In my darkest thoughts, I sometimes hated Jena. Not that the attack was her fault, but I had to put the anger somewhere.

  ‘Jena’s my sister,’ I said, as if this concluded all my muddled thoughts.

  ‘Well, I have a sister too. Sonia and me, we’re closer now. It was awkward, y’know, when she was with Douglas. They were fighting all the time; it was chaos. But since she’s been on her own she’s doing okay, and I do what I can for her boy. I’d like it to stay that way, so there’s no love lost between me and Douglas. I’d pay a lot of money to see him banged away again.’

  He finished his drink. I still hadn’t touched mine.

  ‘Poor Sonia,’ he said.

  ‘What’s Sonia got to do with this?’ I snapped, and he frowned at me.

  ‘Oh shit, you don’t get it, do you?’ He almost laughed, but then stopped himself. ‘If Douglas is back in town, then he’ll soon be showing up at her door, and he’s bad news. When he was locked up, it was a blessing for everyone, and a good job he went to Scotland after he was released. But if he’s back, he’ll be stirring things up again.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Jesus, Sam, think about it. He’s told the police he’d found a coat covered in blood near the chip shop he used to manage with Sonia. He’s trying to set her up!’

  ‘Set Sonia up?’

  There was a long silence, and in seconds his skin paled and his eyes looked heavy; he looked his age for the first time.

  ‘Think how this will look to the police: when Douglas went to prison for rape, Sonia lost everything. Her man, her shop. Even her boy, if Social Services had had their way. She hates Jena, and she’s got good reason. She’d be a perfect scapegoat.’

  My brain clicked over the words, replaying them. Yes, I knew that Sonia hated my sister, and I’d seen her temper first-hand.

  ‘She couldn’t be scapegoated, though. I sa
w the person who attacked Jena. I didn’t get a good look at the face, but it wasn’t Sonia.’

  Andy looked at me with pity. ‘Of course not, Sam. Sonia wouldn’t do something like that. But that doesn’t mean the police won’t start sniffing around her. And she’s on a suspended sentence.’

  I closed my eyes and saw it, Sonia pushing Jena to the ground, standing over her as blood pooled around my sister’s head like a halo. I didn’t know if it was a memory, or just my imagination, as I tried to think how much bigger than Jena the attacker was. Sonia wasn’t very tall, no more than average height, and in my imagination the attacker had mythic proportions. Had I imagined Douglas as the attacker for so many weeks that I’d forgotten the height and build of the figure in the raincoat? Could it have been a woman?

  I didn’t know what I was doing, or who I could trust. I looked at my hands and they were shaking. I looked at the floor and it spun up to meet me.

  ‘I don’t feel good. I’ve had enough of Pleasurepark, Andy. I’m not going to make a film, now or ever. Take me back to your place and I’ll walk home from there.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘You’ve kind of brought the mood down anyway. Maybe another time, yeah?’

  Back at the flat, I didn’t hesitate. I took the first chance I got, when Andy went for a piss, and opened the drawer in the cabinet where I’d seen the Wedding Day DVD.

  It was still there; he hadn’t even thought to move it. And it was my last hope.

  CHAPTER 32

  28 January

  ‘How did you fool them, Pearl?’

  Today, Mrs Rabbit has brought her rabbit baby, in its tiny plastic pram. Pearl bends over her animals so that her hair covers her face, but her scalp is clearly visible: a perfect disc of white skin. I kneel next to her on the floor, though my knees hurt from the pressure on the scratchy carpet. She continues to push the tiny pram with her forefinger, back and forwards, cooing to the baby bunny as Mrs Rabbit looks on.

  ‘Come on, spill the beans. Did you borrow someone else’s sanitary pad?’

  I’ve known girls do that before. In a place where so many things are not allowed, a black market always exists. Perhaps Pearl has bartered with one of her precious tiny animals.

  ‘No. It’s my blood.’

  I gently take her chin in my hand, and lift her face so it’s level with mine. Her anime eyes are wide and innocent, but desolate.

  ‘Tell me, Pearl.’

  She moves away from me, and lifts up her skirt. On her inner thigh, close to the knicker line, is a long cut, red at the edges and puckered where a scab is trying to form.

  ‘Shit, Pearl! You can’t fool them like that. You’ll have to show them a bloody pad every few hours for at least three days. You’ll have to open that wound again and again. It could get infected. You could bleed to death!’

  ‘Please don’t tell on me, Sam,’ she begs, her eyes erupting with tears. ‘I borrowed Stacey’s scissors. I just wanted the staff to stop watching me; I couldn’t bear it. Promise you won’t tell.’

  She pushes her face into my shoulder and cries, the cradle with the bunny baby held tight in her fist.

  ‘Of course I won’t tell, Pearl. I promise.’

  Clive looks up blearily when I barge into his office the following morning, determined to break my promise and tell him about Pearl’s deceit. It will get her in trouble, and she’ll hate me for it, but at least she’ll be safe.

  A watery sun is attempting to rise on the horizon, the slushy sand a sick yellow in its light. He pushes the newspaper across the desk towards me.

  ‘Have you seen this?’

  I lean on his desk. ‘Clive, I’m worried about one of the girls. I think she’s seriously ill.’

  ‘Everyone is seriously ill here, Sam. But if you tell me who, I’ll make sure I look in on her after our session. Please don’t panic; the staff here are all highly qualified to address whatever it is you’re worried about. But right now we really need to focus on you. And this.’

  He taps the newspaper, the East Anglian Daily Times, and my eyes drift to the headline on the front page.

  ORWELL ESTATE SHOOTER: LATEST NEWS

  The Ipswich teenager, who was just sixteen at the time of the shooting, may soon be released, officials have said. Samantha Hoolihan has been in a secure hospital since the shooting. See page 3 for the full story.

  I don’t turn to page three, though I know Clive wants me to.

  He leans back, and reaches for a typed report. ‘This report has to be written, Sam. Your future is in the balance, and my responsibility is to you. And to the people of Ipswich who want the correct outcome, and need to know that you aren’t a danger to them.’

  Clive looks at me directly for the first time, and I see how bad he looks. Uncared for, unwashed. I’ve got under his skin; the weight of responsibility for this report hangs heavy on him. Another person affected by my crime, another casualty.

  He fiddles again with the newspaper, unable to resist glancing back at whatever the journalist has written. It unnerves him, the attention in the paper; since the shooting, I’ve been a freak show to the press; they can’t get enough of my ugly story. Whatever he concludes, his report will be judged by the media. Especially if he recommends release.

  ‘Write whatever you like,’ I say, getting up to leave. ‘I don’t give a fuck.’

  ‘Sam! Sam, guess what?’

  Stacey’s yelling like something amazing just happened. She runs down the corridor, grinning madly. ‘I’m getting released this weekend. They say I’m well enough.’

  ‘You were always going to be, Stacey. The NHS can’t afford to keep you here forever.’

  She looks stung. ‘You’re such a bitch sometimes, Sam. You just can’t bear for it not to be about you, can you?’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  But she turns and walks away from me without saying another word. I’ve pushed her away, which is what I’ve always done to anyone who cares for me.

  Back home, after stealing the Wedding Day film, I found the house empty. Mum would be at the hospital with Jena, and when I looked out of the window to our garden, I could see Dad was in the shed, so I was safe.

  I pulled the ladder down by its blue rope, and climbed up into the attic.

  Jena’s Easter Bunny costume was still propped against the joist, one ear flopped at a painful angle. The fairy on the Christmas tree still dangled from a single gold thread, her arms above her head as she gazed at the ground. The black bin bag meant for charity had been moved, so I knew someone else had been up here. I reached inside, curious, but when I saw it was just more discarded clothes I didn’t delve further. Instead, I took the Wedding Day DVD from my rucksack and slid it into the player, pulling my knees to my chin as the screen flickered into life.

  Jena is sat on a bed wearing a white wedding dress; I recognise it as the one hung in the wardrobe of her flat. She has her hair pinned up in a chignon, like a bride, and she looks nervous as one too. This film is old; she looks younger, maybe only seventeen or eighteen. But her eyes are the same, old beyond her years and full of fear.

  As the camera pans back I see she’s in Andy’s studio at Pleasurepark. They’ve put a bottle of Buck’s Fizz on the table, and flowers, trying to make it look like a hotel room, but I can see the plastic table is still stained, the sheets on the bed aren’t hotel fresh and the flowers are dying.

  Jena looks up at the screen, and says hesitantly, ‘I was waiting for this night. I’m a virgin.’

  ‘That’s okay, I’ll be gentle.’

  It’s Andy’s voice. Playful, coming from somewhere off-camera. Whoever is filming doesn’t care about him, and zooms in to focus only on Jena. In the reflection of the window I can see two, no, three other men are in the room. One is hidden behind the camera, the other two are just leaning against the wall, watching. The picture is filled with Andy’s naked back, the muscles pronounced, as he squats on the edge of the bed and reaches behind Jena to unzip the dress.

&nbs
p; She looks directly at the camera, a tight smile. ‘I’m so happy right now. Can’t wait for everything that’s coming, the honeymoon, moving to our flat.’

  Andy has released her breasts. He’s not responding to anything she says; it’s as if only Jena has a script. A script of her own fantasy.

  ‘Let’s take this dress off.’

  She sits straighter, staring intently in the direction of the camera. ‘What do you want me to do now?’

  She’s asking the cameraman; it’s clearly him who is in control.

  Jena shields her eyes with her hand, as if the lights in the room are too much, and when she removes her hand, I see how sad her eyes are, how her mouth has turned down at the corners. Her face looks sad but determined, as if she won’t allow herself to cry, even though there are tears in her eyes.

  The man reflected in the window, the cameraman, looks bulky and familiar. But his face is hidden.

  The attic was silent, except for my heavy breathing. I stared at the empty screen, feeling just how alone I was, blood whooshing in my ears.

  Andy had used Jena. This was why he had befriended us, why he’d taken us on trips. Not out of friendship to Dad, or us, but because he wanted Jena to star in his porn film.

  I wondered how many times it had happened, and if it was still happening. Jena had worked at Pleasurepark since she left school: was this why? All of these years, had she been involved in this seedy film-making? Was that how she had finally afforded the flat? It looked like she was a willing participant, lost in some imaginary world where Andy was her boyfriend, not just someone she was paid to have sex with.

  Shaking, hardly able to gather up my things, I staggered down the ladder, trying to make sense of the world.

  I hadn’t heard Dad come inside the house, and was shocked to see him stood there, waiting, at the bottom.

  ‘What are you doing, Sam? You have no reason to be up there!’

  I swallowed, hard. I couldn’t tell him.

  ‘Just looking at old photos. Thinking about Jena.’