The Perfect Lie

by Karen Osman

  ‘Cheers, mate,’ said Paul, dumping his bag in his locker and double-checking the lock was secure. He had a few deliveries in his bag for a couple of the cleaning ladies, who had a nice little habit, which he would hand over once Dereck was out of the way. At this hour of the morning, there was only the two of them; the cleaning teams wouldn’t arrive for another thirty minutes and Paul had come to appreciate Dereck’s company as they sipped strong tea and reviewed the jobs for the week. It was one of the rare times Dereck wasn’t talking about his various health issues. Between them, they did the gardens, the many odd jobs around the hospital and oversaw most of the cleaning rotas.

  When Gladys at the Jobcentre Plus had told him about the hospital vacancy four years ago, he’d laughed bitterly at the irony, the unexpected sound from her surliest jobseeker causing Gladys to spill hot tea on her blue flowery top. He was glad. He’d never liked her. She was always looking down on him even though she could barely use the computer. It always took her ages to bring up his profile on the system.

  He’d been in and out of the jobcentre over the years, and Gladys was always there, her large rolls of stomach fat resting on the tops of her thighs. Her mouth was always moving, either taking large gulps of tea or sucking on her boiled sweets, but rarely talking. That was one thing he was grateful for. Gladys was not a talker, unlike Dereck whose frequent chatter occasionally irked Paul. But Paul hadn’t had the luxury of choice when it came to work. His last contract had finished, and he needed the job. Plus, if he was honest with himself, Dereck’s yakking could sometimes be a welcome distraction especially on Paul’s worst days when he struggled to believe that he’d ended up working in a hospital in the maintenance department and not striding around in a white coat followed around by adoring female nurses.

  Dereck handed him his tea and the two of them sat down at the well-worn table, poring over the various printouts. Twenty minutes later, the staffroom door opened again, and the cleaning ladies came in, disgruntled before they’d even begun, their tired blue tabards little defence against the endless hours of cleaning up other people’s shit. He watched them, his eyes falling on Susie. They’d shagged a few times, outside behind the bins after their shift. He’d tried to invite her back to his place the last time, but she’d pulled up her jeans, lit a cigarette and walked quickly away, the smoke puffing out behind her in the cold air. Probably for the best.

  Paul gulped down the rest of his tea, stood up and opened the cupboard to get his toolbox. The cleaners were chuckling now, something about one of their husbands unable to get it up, their laughter cruel and mocking to his ears. As if sensing his stare, Susie looked at him then, her face still smirking. In his mind, they were laughing at him and he felt the fury rise in his chest before he turned and walked away, gripping the handle of the toolbox too tightly.

  29

  Rose sat in front of Claire, moody and unresponsive, and Claire had a flash of insight of what her life might have been like if she’d given birth to a girl instead of boys. The second time Claire had fallen pregnant, she’d secretly hoped for a girl. Not that she ever said that out loud. When anyone ever asked, which they did frequently, she’d trotted out the clichéd line about being happy with whatever the gender, but when the midwife announced a little boy, she couldn’t deny she’d felt a flicker of disappointment.

  However, ever since she’d started working on Rose’s case, she’d gained an insight into the mind of a teenage girl and it made her wonder if she would have been able to handle a daughter. One thing was for sure, if Rose had been her daughter, Claire knew she would’ve struggled as a parent.

  Rose came into the office several times over the weeks and it was always Claire’s best guess as to what mood she would be in. Sometimes, she would be communicative and helpful, her manner almost friendly but then other times, she would withdraw, refusing to speak, the effort of going over every detail clearly difficult. Still, between Claire, Chloe and Greg, they’d managed to build up a profile. A rough childhood on one of Manchester’s toughest housing estates. Absent father. Drug-using mother. A chaotic household of siblings. Too many mouths to feed and not enough money.

  Although she’d left school early, at least Rose had a job and a roof over her head. But Rose had another weapon and that was her beauty. Or perhaps in this case, it had been her downfall. It was clear from her social media profiles and by her own admission that Rose spent much of her time partying. She never bought her own drinks, she had announced, almost proudly, and anyone could see Rose was used to being the centre of attention.

  Claire needed to find something to counter the party-girl image Rose was portraying.

  ‘Are you doing any form of study or training?’ asked Claire.

  ‘No,’ replied Rose. ‘What does that have to do with anything anyway? Rape is rape.’

  Good point.

  ‘Well,’ said Claire cautiously. ‘The defence will try their best to discredit you. They will alter the narrative so that the focus shifts to you and your lifestyle rather than what happened.’ She paused. ‘They may try and imply that you are lying. That it didn’t really happen, or if it did, then there were other factors—’

  ‘But it did happen!’ protested Rose. Claire wasn’t surprised she hadn’t been able to finish her sentence. It was the ultimate insult to those brave enough to come forward. But it didn’t change the reality. And it was Claire’s job to make sure Rose was properly prepared for that reality. She couldn’t afford for Rose to crumble.

  ‘Of course, it did,’ replied Claire soothingly. ‘We just have to make sure there’s no room for doubt in the jury’s mind.’

  Rose sighed and stared off into the distance and Claire watched her. What was she thinking? How her life could have been different? Should have been different? Rose was nineteen and at her age Claire had been in the first year of her degree. She’d had plans. She’d had a boyfriend. She’d had parents who were always there if she needed them.

  What had led Claire and Rose to lead such different lives? Claire thought back to her own school years. Despite the gossip and the rumours, she’d gone on to the complete her exams. Her shock and horror at the incident with Paul had been channelled into her studies. She didn’t want to go to parties, she didn’t want to socialise, so each day after school, she locked herself in her room with her books and worked, her mind refusing entry to anything else that tried to get in.

  During the day, the girls treated her like a wounded animal and while she was still part of the Queen Bees, she was on the fringes. The Queen Bees had never met in drama room three again. Charlotte had made the announcement while looking meaningfully in Claire’s direction. Claire had pretended not to notice. Instead, the Queen Bees met in different classrooms during breaks or lunchtimes when they were empty. And just like her mother had promised, time helped.

  After her GCSE exams, she went on to sixth form and she started to socialise a little bit more. When Claire asked her mother if she would take her shopping for an outfit for a party, Claire could feel the relief practically emanating from her mother at the typical teenage request. They’d spent the day shopping and by the end of it, Claire didn’t just have a new outfit but a brand-new wardrobe. She remembered hanging up all the clothes, feeling like she was a normal girl after all and, eventually, she had learnt that the longer you pretended, the easier it was to convince yourself.

  So, when Chris had approached her at a party, she didn’t think twice. She went for a drink with him and ended up spending the summer with him. They collected their A-level results together, went to Manchester university, and for the most part she was happy. Paul had moved away, and that chapter of her life had been replaced with a law degree, a man who told her he loved her, and the prospect of an exciting career. Nothing could hurt or threaten her now and it was a relief; a relief to know that despite the incident, she was living what her mother often told her was a dream life.

  So, now as Claire looked across her desk at Rose, it was understandable for Clai
re to feel uneasy – the case was a stark reminder of her own past, which she had worked hard to put behind her. But there was something else that had troubled Claire. It was the phone call that had done it. Her home phone had rung just after Chris had left with Joshua and Jamie that morning. Her initial thought was that it was Lucy telling her she was ill and couldn’t come in that day. Who else would call so early in the morning?

  So, picking up the receiver, she was already half planning a contingency plan to leave work early and pick up Jamie. But as she placed the phone to her ear, she could hear slow and steady breathing. It had happened before, not frequently enough to cause major concern though and Claire had just put it down to prank calls. They happened to everyone. What did people expect when the council shut down the youth club? You were left with a group of kids with nothing better to do. But over the years, Claire wondered if she’d had more than her fair share.

  Pushing that morning’s call to one side, she reasoned with herself that she had taken this case on against her better judgement and it was making her jumpy. Knowing she wasn’t going to get much further with Rose, she decided to call it a day.

  *

  ‘I was thinking about us today,’ said Claire to Chris as they sat at home eating their evening meal. ‘About when you first asked me out.’

  It was almost eight o’clock and the house was quiet. Jamie was in bed and Joshua had wolfed down his meal before heading to his room with his laptop. Chris looked up from his plate, the pasta poised on the fork.

  ‘Really? What made you think of that?’

  ‘Nothing in particular,’ said Claire, not wanting to share details of Rose. ‘Do you remember? You asked me out for a drink at the sixth form social. Later you told me you were worried I was going to say no.’

  Chris laughed. ‘Yeah, I wasn’t a hundred per cent sure you would be up for it, but I got you in the end.’

  ‘That was a great summer, wasn’t it?’ reminisced Claire, ignoring her husband’s possessive language. Their first summer together, they hadn’t done anything special like go on holiday. Well, Chris’s parents had asked him to go on holiday with them to America, but he’d refused, wanting to spend every minute with her. At that point, they didn’t know if they would both get into the same university. Claire remembered thinking it was the most romantic thing in the world, for him to give up a trip to the US for her.

  Claire’s parents usually took her abroad most years but that summer they hadn’t planned anything in case she’d preferred to go away with her friends after finishing her exams. Instead, she spent it with Chris. They took romantic day trips to the Lake District, went for drives, enjoyed long walks and pub lunches. And they talked a lot.

  After a few weeks, Chris had broached the subject of Paul; said that he’d heard what had happened, told her he would never hurt her, that she was always safe with him. He didn’t press her for any details and she was glad. She couldn’t talk about any of it. She just wanted to forget it. So instead, when he put his arms around her, she held him close, closed her eyes, and breathed in his scent, pushing away the memories of Paul. It was over and her new life was about to begin with Chris.

  ‘It was a great summer,’ agreed her husband, finishing his mouthful of pasta. ‘Although it was a long time ago now. Do you remember going to collect our exam results? God, we got so drunk afterwards.’

  Claire remembered. She’d got straight As and her parents had been so proud. They had both come to the school with her, her dad taking a rare day off work, and they were thrilled when she’d shown them the results paper. To his credit, her dad had barely flinched when she’d told him she was planning to go to Manchester university with Chris instead of her first choice, Edinburgh. He didn’t try and persuade her to go further afield and for that Claire was grateful. Her dad had simply said it was her choice and she had to do what made her happy. Surprisingly, her mother hadn’t said anything either and she suspected she was relieved she would have her daughter closer to home.

  Now, as she sat at the dining table opposite Chris, she wondered how her life would have turned out if she’d gone to Edinburgh instead. Would she have met someone else? Would she be living somewhere else? It was a pointless hypothesis, but one Claire couldn’t help occasionally wondering about.

  But then she reminded herself how lucky she was to have met someone like Chris. He was good-looking, came from a wealthy family, and he loved her. Her parents had been thrilled when they announced their engagement and they’d had a great life so far. They argued, but what couple didn’t? Chris was often tired and irritable but that was life when you had two kids and the pressures of work. Yes, she told herself, as she smiled across at him, everything had worked out for the best.

  30

  Paul peered through the window of the youth club, his hat pulled down low over his face, his scarf protecting him from the harsh November wind. Paul was pretty much bald now and had started shaving his head as soon as he noticed his hair thinning. His dad had had a comb-over for years and when he got really enraged, the carefully placed strands would fly around like ribbons on a maypole. It would have been funny if the circumstances had been different.

  The first time Paul had shaved his head he’d watched the strands of strawberry blonde fall to the floor and they’d reminded him of a conversation he’d had with Claire years ago. She’d commented how nice his hair was and at the time, he’d ignored what he’d thought of as a girlie comment, his attention far more focused on her body than his own.

  Paul scratched his beard and looked at the scene inside the youth club where he volunteered. He could just make out the young woman’s outline, her long coltish legs clad in tight-fitting jeans and long blonde hair tied up in a ponytail. Her name was Simone and she’d been coming to the youth club most Friday nights for the last few weeks. Paul had been coming for the last five years. Initially, it hadn’t been through choice but as penance sentenced by the Honourable Judge Greenwood for getting caught in possession of weed. What started out as a six-month obligation had turned in to an easy supply of girls and Paul often thought the pompous, patronising Judge Greenwood would have been left speechless if he knew what he’d started.

  This particular youth club was in one of the worst areas, not just of the city, but of the country – unemployment and crime were rife and the effect on the children of such families was everywhere to be seen. Paul had learnt this from Gloria, who had set up the youth club, and was almost as old as the church hall in which the club was held. On his first evening, Gloria had taken him into her office, a tiny box room piled high with papers. The majority of those visiting the youth club lived or had grown up in poverty, had little or no education, and didn’t have much of a future to look forward to.

  Paul had immediately felt right at home. He remembered Gloria telling him that the youth club received about five hundred kids a week between six and nineteen years old. Paul supervised the sixteen- to nineteen-year-olds and many of them were boys and young men. But there were girls too thought Paul now, his eyes following Simone as she chatted with her friends. He knew that in a few minutes, she would remove her coat and sit down at one of the tables where all the materials were spread out ready for the craft and textiles session. Simone loved designing and making clothes. She’d told him if she had the money, she would have gone on to do a proper design course. But Paul knew so much more about Simone than just her career aspirations.

  He knew that like many of her peers at the youth club, she’d had a hard time living at home. She was just four years old when her father left. Her mother didn’t work and they struggled to keep a roof over their heads. Simone moved around a lot with her mum who crashed on various friends’ couches, and inevitably turned to drink and drugs to deal with the disappointment that her life had become.

  He knew that Simone had watched as her mother became more and more dependent on drugs, to the point where she needed them just to get up in the morning. Simone was used to preparing her own breakfast and making her
own way to school, desperate to escape whichever house or flat they were staying in at the time.

  He knew that she’d dreamt of her father returning and rescuing her and that she imagined he’d gone off in search of a better life and that he’d always planned to come back for his daughter.

  He knew that at five years old, Simone was worried her father wouldn’t be able to find them because they moved around so much. At six, she went back to their old house on her birthday just in case he came by with a birthday present. At eight, she wrote him a letter and saved it in her special box for his homecoming and at nine years old she made of list of things that a better life might look like and thought maybe it would take a little bit of time for her father to do all those things. By ten, she asked her mother if she thought he was ever coming back, and at eleven, she screamed at her mother that it was all her fault.

  After that, she tried not to think about him.

  It was clear her mother’s behaviour had made him leave because all she did was lie on the couch, half sleeping, half watching television. At night, she drank and smoked and talked with whoever was in the house where they were staying at the time. When Simone found her one morning passed out on the floor, her arm draped over another body, the smell of booze, vomit, and urine almost making her gag, Simone could understand exactly why her father had left. The only part she couldn’t understand was why he hadn’t taken her with him.

  All this, Paul had learnt from his conversations with Simone and his reading of her case file. Now at sixteen, Simone reminded him of a young Claire – the blonde hair, the slim frame, the blue eyes.

  Lovely. Perfect.

  Paul left the window and went into the youth centre and as he stood there, relishing the warmth of being indoors, he caught Simone’s eye and winked.

  *