The White Lie

by Andrea Gillies

  She was surprised to find Rebecca on the landing, sitting in one of the colonial chairs with her eyes closed.

  “Rebecca—are you alright? Has something happened?”

  “Migraine,” Rebecca said. “Could you get pills out of my bag? It’s on my bed. Front pocket. Sorry, but it affects my vision and if I try to focus I start to feel sick.”

  Joan went and got the tablets, then went downstairs to the reception table and fetched a half-glass of abandoned champagne for Rebecca to wash them down with.

  “Did you see Alan?” Joan asked her. “A few minutes ago? I saw him coming downstairs.”

  “Yes, he was here.”

  “Did you see where he came from?”

  “He came to see me, that’s all.”

  “Oh—I—to see you?”

  Rebecca half opened one eye and closed it again. “Yes.”

  “Sorry—does it hurt to talk?”

  “Bit.”

  “We’ll talk later if that’s better.”

  “It’s fine,” Rebecca said softly. “It’s not really pain. Just weirdness and flashing zigzags. Black and white. And nausea.”

  “That sounds unpleasant.”

  “I can deal with it as long as I keep my eyes closed.”

  “He didn’t go in the rooms?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What did he want?”

  “He’s a strange man, isn’t he? Very strange. He said he wanted to tell me the truth about Michael, and then I was to tell you that I know.”

  “About Michael? What did he say?”

  Rebecca didn’t tell the story the way that anybody who lived at Peattie would have done. When Alan said, “Michael isn’t really dead”, she failed to be astonished, just gave him that look that had been growing on her face since he put his head around her bedroom door, part alarm and part pity, an amalgam that swam in her eyes visibly and embarrassed him. “Michael survived it,” he said. “The day he vanished. He walked away. He left Peattie. I saw him walk away.”

  “Well, yes,” she said. And then, “I know.”

  Alan looked confused.

  “What do you mean, survived it?” Rebecca added. “What do you mean, what do I mean?”

  “I know that he left Peattie, if that’s what you mean. Everyone knows that. What do you mean, survived it?”

  “They told you?”

  “I don’t understand what you’re saying. I think we must be talking at cross purposes.” She flinched, raising her shoulders and tipping her skull gently back. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

  Alan moved his chair closer towards her, his breath sour and warm.

  “You know that they think Michael is dead in the loch; that most of them think that. That’s the starting point. You do know that.”

  “I didn’t know that. That’s surprising.” She didn’t sound surprised, though the concise speaking style the migraine necessitated was partly to blame.

  “Yes! Yes! They thought Ursula killed him.”

  “They did not.”

  “They did. They thought Ursula killed him.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m going to tell them that he’s alive.”

  “Okay.”

  “I already have. I told one of them at the time. But they preferred not to share the information. The only conclusion possible is that they prefer him to be dead.” He looked at her intently. “You don’t believe me.”

  “Of course I do. But if I were you I’d go home now.”

  “You Salter women are all the same.”

  “Thanks. Charming. Now go home, Alan.”

  ***

  So you see, Joan and Rebecca’s subsequent conversation, seated in those same cane chairs, was not the sensation it might have been. Joan got the measure of the situation quickly and is an able firefighter.

  “What did he say to you exactly?”

  “That Michael isn’t dead, but that you all think he is.”

  “Some of us do, certainly, but not all of us, by any means. And over the years, we’ve all gone through phases of thinking it, and not thinking it.”

  “No—it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t about what happened when he left here. It was about him never leaving here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Rebecca opened her eyes. “Dead in the loch. Murdered.”

  “Oh, that; is that all?” Joan said, deadpan.

  Even Rebecca laughed, although economically because it hurt. “He said that most of you think that’s what happened, but one of you knows he’s alive.”

  “What?”

  “He said that one of you knows he’s alive.”

  “One of us knows? How come? I don’t follow.”

  “I can’t remember exactly how it went. And that Ursula killed him. Or you thought she did, but she didn’t.”

  “He said what?”

  “I didn’t realise,” Rebecca continued. “That he’s—you know. Ill or whatever.”

  “We try not to make too much of it,” Joan said, her voice full of self-approving tolerance. “In fact we downplay it, his mental disadvantage, but it’s obvious actually, isn’t it—you just have to look at him; you just have to listen to the way he talks. And why else does a 57-year-old man share a bedroom with his father?”

  “Such a shame.”

  “Excuse me, there’s something that I need to . . .” Joan said, not finishing the thought but getting up and going down the stairs.

  “I’m going to go and lie down,” Rebecca told her.

  It took Joan a little while to locate Euan. He was in the study, a room that had become cluttered with dogs, standing talking with friends of Henry’s, though Henry was absent. They were drinking whisky in a serious and critical way, Euan drawing out new and fresher examples from the bookcase of older and rarer malts: bottlings that Henry had put some energy into collecting and which he continued to receive as presents. There was no longer any need to find things to talk about. The tasting provided its own content: the whiskies themselves had become the conversation and there was exuberant relief in participation in the game. When Joan came into the study she found Euan playing the host to a throng of half-recognised semistrangers, faces that swam in and out of old memories. All of them were men, interrupting their chat only momentarily to greet her and ask after her health, with purposeful chivalry, before continuing on and paying her no heed.

  Joan tugged at Euan’s sleeve. “I need to speak to you. Outside.”

  “Really, Joan, can’t you just—”

  “Urgently.”

  ***

  When Euan got to George’s cottage he found Alan sitting in the porch. He was sitting on a vegetable box that had been made into a seat with a derelict chintz cushion that dated from his mother’s era.

  “Got locked out,” Alan explained.

  He looked tired. His head lolled back against the old plaster of the porch wall. Above it, flesh-pink geraniums leaned down from a shelf on long stems. “I’m sorry about earlier,” he said, “if that’s why you’re here. I only went upstairs because I needed the bathroom.”

  “It’s not about that,” Euan told him. “That’s not why I’m here. You know why I’m here. We need to talk about Michael. Why did you say that thing you said to Rebecca?”

  “Because it’s true.”

  The conversation proceeded with unlikely calm. Euan stood with his hands in his pockets, and Alan sat on the chintz cushion, each in deadly earnest. Stand-off. Stalemate.

  “You say anything like this again to anyone and you’re out, you’re out of here. It’s that simple,” Euan told him. “In fact, Joan thinks it’s too late and she’s probably right. We’re at the end of the road now.”

  Alan looked Euan in the eye. “I have a question for you.”

  “Fire away,” Euan said blandly.

  “Why did you marry Joan when it was Ottilie that you wanted?”

  The two men stared at each other.

  “You’ve got it all wrong,
” Euan said eventually. “And what makes you—what makes you say—”

  “It wasn’t just Michael that she told.”

  “That who told?”

  “Ursula. You know who and you know what. Don’t play the innocent with me.”

  “Ursula. How would Ursula know this and why would she confide in you?”

  “That’d be telling.”

  “I thought we’d already established that Ursula’s really a liar.”

  “I’m just interested.”

  “Well, seeing as we’re asking intimate questions, I’ve one for you. Why’d you pretend to be the father, all these years? All these years, Alan.”

  “I never pretended. I never claimed. I didn’t say anything about it, since you ask. Other people decided.”

  “The truth doesn’t lie in what people don’t tell each other.”

  “What?”

  “You’ve let them think it.”

  Alan got up and moved forward. “Which suited you very well! Hypocrite. Total bloody hypocrite.”

  Euan took several steps hurriedly back, out of the porch, and stood holding onto the top of the door frame, hands placed above his head.

  “She could have put a stop to it in 30 seconds flat,” Alan said. “You could have put a stop to it in 30 seconds flat. Nobody did though, did they? Suited you. Suited her. The least I could do was agree.”

  “What was it for you, Alan?” Euan asked him. “Was it a sort of prestige?”

  Alan was shaking his head. “I might ask you the same question. What was it for you? You had sex with her the night before your wedding. The night before your wedding! And then you went ahead and married her sister.”

  “You’re completely barking.”

  “Barking and up the wrong tree? I don’t think so.”

  “Ursula is easily misled. Tell her something and she believes it.”

  “Ah, but you see it wasn’t Ursula who told me. It was Michael, before he left here.”

  “You’re a piece of work, aren’t you?”

  “He came to me before he left, and he told me it was you. Before he left here for good. That’s what happened.”

  “Enough. Enough.”

  “It’s time to own up,” Alan said. “You tell them or I will.”

  “Own up?”

  “Tell Joan or I will.”

  It was obvious, the bubbling-up and then the collapse of Euan’s indignation. “She wouldn’t have me, Alan,” he said.

  “She wouldn’t have me either, and that makes us brothers.”

  “That doesn’t make us anything,” Euan said flatly.

  “I think it’s time the truth was told, don’t you?” Alan’s suggestion was unmistakably a threat.

  “What truth is that? Yours or someone else’s?”

  “There is only one.”

  “Course there isn’t.” Euan turned away, went to the gate, and stood with it half open.

  Alan came after him. “Think what you like,” he said. “I’m not here to try and convince you of anything.” He seemed to be having trouble catching his breath, and began to fidget, putting his hands to his ears and to his waist and to his ears once more. Now he was flattening his hand at his throat. Now he was looking at his wrist, putting his fingers to his pulse.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Euan asked him.

  “I get—everything goes fast sometimes. It comes on suddenly. Heart racing. And racing thoughts.” Alan began circling the small garden in the drizzly rain, breathing with great concentration, in through the nose and out through the mouth. “I’ll be alright. In a little while. I over-breathe when I’m upset.”

  Euan waited and then he said, “You’ve got to give up on this, Alan. This business about Michael. This lie.”

  Alan bent forward, clasping his knees, and came up again. “It isn’t a lie. Ask Henry. Henry’s lied to all of you. He’s known all along that Michael survived it.”

  “What? What do you mean? How could he think that?”

  “Because I told him. Right afterwards. A few weeks afterwards. He said he’d get in touch with the police and then he did nothing. Because it was better for him if Michael was dead. Look at your face.” Euan’s mouth had gaped open. “You don’t get it. You’re not very bright really, are you? Actually a bit thick. Good at books and talking but actually a bit thick.”

  Euan went out of the gate and stood at the other side of the hedge. “I don’t think you’ve thought this through, Alan. When they find out you’re not Michael’s father: what will they do then?”

  “They’ll know that it’s you and that you lied and you’ll be out of here, pal.”

  “Don’t you ‘pal’ me,” Euan said hotly. “It’s the lie you told Henry that’s the unforgivable lie. The other thing was Ottilie’s choice and my behaviour was gentlemanly.”

  “Gentlemanly, my arse.”

  “Let’s get out of La La Land a minute and face facts. Michael didn’t tell you anything. He didn’t know about me until he got into the boat with Ursula. That’s what she told him in the boat; that’s the secret. I know that. I’ve known that all along: it’s something I’ve had to live with. But spare me this sanctimonious cant. Michael didn’t tell you. Ursula did, afterwards, didn’t she, in the boat, rowing back? Come on, Alan. Admit it.”

  “I’ve known a lot longer than that,” Alan said. “You’ve me to thank for Ursula not telling her mother. Back when Ottilie was pregnant.”

  “That’s rubbish.”

  “Not rubbish. Ursula knew then, and Ursula came to me. She needed to talk to somebody who wasn’t family. She tried my father first but he stopped her before she could tell, saying he didn’t want to know, he was sorry but she wasn’t to tell him any more of it. Ignorance is bliss, that’s Dad’s motto. So she came to me. She overheard you, the two of you. She was watching, at the loch, when you went to have your private chat and you demanded Ottilie get an abortion. Ursula was only a little girl. She didn’t know what it meant. It was me that persuaded her not to tell. I’ve carried this for you all of these years, Euan Catto.”

  “So Ursula does what you tell her. That’s interesting. That’s a different perspective on things. I’ve just had a big question answered. I’ve wondered why it was that Ursula told him the secret, that particular day. What made her decide, suddenly, to do it. And now I know. You told her to, didn’t you?”

  “I might have. I thought it was time.”

  ***

  When Euan left Alan, knowing he’d have to own up to my paternity: that walk home was a journey of five minutes and a decade, ageing him by ten years at the least. By the time he walked into the house, hearing—in the porch as he hung up his jacket and wearily eased off his shoes—Joan’s imperious call of his name, her from-upstairs called-out demand for news, fresh worry-lines had etched themselves on his forehead, had worried at the skin around his eyes, had provoked a more insistent dusting of grey at his temples. His mouth had taken a distinctive downturn, as if it had taken its imprint from the practice of years. White hair was springing victoriously through the brown, skin had furrowed on the backs of his hands and his upper spine had embarked on its rounding. The man who opened the door from the porch into the house, who stood among its glowing Scandinavian furniture, the man who cleared his throat and said, not as loudly as he’d anticipated, towards the stairs, “Yes, there’s news”: he was a different man.

  Joan trotted down towards him, still unaware for these few moments, still assuming she was dealing with the old Euan. As she came she was complaining that she’d been kept waiting, and why hadn’t he texted, why hadn’t he phoned. Still not looking at him directly, she went to correct a vase of peonies on the hall table that had drooped their blooms over to one side, and as she did this she was asking why everything he did had to take so long, for heaven’s sake, why it was that he had to make every transaction into an epic, talking and talking. Finally she turned to look at him and gasped. The man Joan saw was so changed from the man of earlier that she was
stopped in her tracks, mid-sentence.

  “Euan, my god, what’s happened?”

  “I need a drink.”

  She followed him into the kitchen, watched him remove the pedal bin from its corner position and bend to rummage among the bottles hidden behind the cereal boxes, emerging with a bottle that had three inches of Scotch remaining. He took the top off and swigged.

  “Euan!”

  “Don’t. Just don’t.”

  “This thing about Michael . . .”

  “Rubbish. All rubbish. Forget it. Rubbish and lies. What goes on in Alan’s head—I can’t fathom it. It’s unfathomable. How he could do that to Henry.”

  Joan was silenced, watching with growing alarm as he swigged and swigged again. Finally, having shaken the last dribble into his throat, he put the bottle on the worktop and said, “We have to talk.”

  She followed him into the sitting room.

  “You’re frightening me. What is it? Tell me now. I have to get back to the party.”

  He sank down heavily onto the sofa and positioned himself three-quarters turned away, looking towards the window. She went and sat on the window seat, still in the fish-scale dress, intercepting the direction of his gaze, her hands laced tightly together on her knees, her posture tipped forward. He turned his attention to the fireplace, where the woodburner glowed orange.

  “First, I’ve a question for you,” he said. It was a weary voice that asked this question apparently of the woodburner.

  “Yes?”

  “Why weren’t you surprised?”

  “About what? Surprised about what?”

  “When you told me that Alan was saying Michael is alive. You weren’t surprised. Why was that?”

  “I need a cigarette,” Joan said, and then, raising her hand, “Just don’t. I know where your stash is.” She left the room and was back almost immediately, lighting up two and handing one to Euan, who waved it away. “Dad told me.”

  “Henry.”

  “He told me Alan had recanted. Alan confessed he’d lied about Michael, that Michael was alive.”

  “Henry told you when?”

  “Recently. He’s known for years. Almost the whole time. He told me and he told Pip and he swore us to secrecy.”

  “You should have told me.”