A Suitable Lie

by Michael J Malone

‘But…’

  ‘Go,’ I shouted and pointed in the direction I wanted him to move.

  He ran from me, crying, and I felt even worse. ‘Pat,’ I shouted after him, my tone an apology. Too late. The living room door slammed shut.

  ‘Poor wee lamb,’ said Mum. ‘He knows there’s something wrong. They both do.’ Her subtext was that we needed to tell them. I needed to tell them.

  ‘I can’t go there just now, Mum.’

  The kitchen door slammed open and Jim stalked in. He was wearing a suit, but the top button of his shirt was open and the knot of his tie was at mid-chest level. His hair looked like it was no stranger to a hedge.

  ‘What the bloody hell is going on?’ he demanded of us both. ‘I’ve had the polis round my work asking all sorts. And everywhere I’ve been today it feels like everyone is pointing and staring.’

  ‘It’s gossip and speculation, Jim,’ Mum answered.

  ‘Do they actually think that between us we killed Anna?’ Jim asked, his eyes large and bright. ‘Are they fucking nuts?’

  ‘Killed Anna?’ I heard a small voice at my side.

  Oh no.

  ‘Pat. I’ll…’

  He ran.

  Mum looked at me, her face a model of disgust that this was the way he’d found out about Anna’s death. ‘Go to him, Andy. He needs his dad.’

  It was dark by the time I re-joined Mum and Jim in the kitchen.

  ‘How are they?’ Mum moved to the edge of her seat as if to go to the boys.

  I stretched my neck to the side as if to iron out a kink in the muscles there and shook out my hands, willing the blood to return. I’d been lying on the bed for hours with both boys in my arms. Ryan didn’t have much of a clue as to what was happening, but he read his brother’s weeping and got caught up in it.

  ‘Ryan’s upset cos his brother’s upset. Pat is inconsolable.’ I looked back over my shoulder. ‘He’s sleeping at the moment, but I need to go back to him in a moment.’

  ‘We’re trying to work out who could have done it,’ said Jim. ‘We know you couldn’t hurt a fly, and it sure as shit wasn’t me. So who murdered your wife, Andy?’

  I looked from Jim to my mother. Read the confusion and concern in their eyes. How do you deal with such an event? How do you take such a violent, irrevocable act and give it sense or meaning? Murder is something that happens on the news or in a book or TV drama. Not to someone you knew and loved.

  ‘The cops have got you and me in their sights, Andy,’ said Jim. He ran his right hand through his hair. ‘Why the hell did I go over there? What was I thinking?’ he asked no one in particular. ‘Somebody in this town just committed murder.’ Jim shivered. ‘Who?’

  We sat in silence for a few moments, each of lost in terrible imaginings. I saw Anna’s face as it was two nights before, when I went to see her. Read the contradictions in her behaviour from the distance of time. At first she’d been hateful, angry, but it was almost as if she was playing a part. Then the phone call and she switched completely. Told me to take the boys.

  What one earth had been going on in her head?

  Jim stood. Moving from a seated position to standing in a blink. The feet of the kitchen chair squealing in protest.

  ‘I can’t handle this,’ he said, his eyes on a fixed point in the distance. He looked at me. ‘Got to go.’ He made a tiny movement with his head, telling me he wanted to talk to me outside on my own. He kissed Mum on the cheek and without another look at me he left.

  I counted to thirty and followed him outside.

  He was sitting in his car. Drumming on the steering wheel with rigid fingers.

  ‘Jesus,’ he said when I sat in the passenger seat. ‘This is fucked up.’

  I twisted in the seat to face him. There was something more here. This wasn’t just about my dead wife and police suspicions.

  He turned to face me. Eyes large. He wiped a hand over his mouth. Returned to drumming. He looked into the driver’s mirror at my mother’s house behind us.

  ‘Those wee boys,’ he said. ‘These beautiful wee boys.’ His smile was tortured but full of love. ‘You know, I wouldn’t blame you if you…’ He paused. ‘Whatever happens, those boys have to be looked after.’ His eyes searched mine as if looking for some sense of my culpability in the death of my wife.

  21

  Next morning, Ryan was full of energy, but Pat hung onto my shirtsleeves as if he was worried I might disappear and never return. I read the haunted expression on his face and tried to reassure him with smiles, a hand on his shoulder and regular hugs.

  ‘Take them to the park, Andy,’ said Mum as she served up some toast for breakfast. ‘Some playtime is just what the doctor ordered.’

  ‘Good idea,’ I replied. We had to aim for some version of normality for the boys’ sake.

  An hour later and we were in Belleisle Park, walking past the deer enclosure on the way to the swings and climbing frames. Ryan was zipping about. His movement like the flight of a bluebottle, he didn’t spend more than a moment in one place. He moved quickly and at random, as if as soon as something snagged his attention, something else replaced it.

  Pat was by my side, but I was relieved to note that his grief was temporarily being elbowed aside by the fresh air, the greenery around us and Ryan’s infectious movement.

  My youngest son reached the play area first. As he ran, he kicked up little clouds of the bark the council had used to cushion the ground. I took a seat on a bench and was followed by Pat.

  Despite the early hour there was already several children in the playpark; parents dotted the area, holding jackets, keeping guard.

  ‘On you go,’ I said to Pat, using the tone I might with a pup with a sore paw. ‘I’ll hold your jacket.’

  He looked from me to Ryan. Eased one arm out of its sleeve. He looked at me again. His eyes large, the pupils like bruises.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere, buddy,’ I said and leaned back in the seat. The sun peeked out from behind cloud. I felt its warmth and leaned my head back and closed my eyes, hoping my relaxed posture might help.

  ‘Pat. Daddy,’ Ryan shouted over. ‘Swing.’

  Without opening my eyes I spoke to Pat. ‘Go push your wee brother on the swing?’

  I felt the light touch of his jacket land on my lap and heard him turn away and walk over to the swings.

  Ryan let out a high, excited squeal and I sent a note of thanks for his sunny disposition and lack of awareness. He’d asked several times for his mother, but didn’t dwell on her absence, moving on to whatever was interesting him at the time.

  I crossed my arms and legs. Exhaled. Felt a stab of grief. And then a note of relief – I wouldn’t need to justify anything to Anna when I got home. Then came a shock of shame that my thoughts had gone there.

  In my imagination I was back in Jim’s car and listening as he spoke, my hands tucked under my arms as if that might stop me from punching him. His words had haunted my sleep, running over and over in my mind.

  ‘She was alive when I left her,’ he had said. ‘Believe me.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ I replied. ‘You said to Mum that you didn’t go in.’

  He looked at me. Quickly moved his eyes away as if looking at me caused him pain.

  ‘I was furious, Andy. That witch battered you and then tried to keep your sons away from you. I couldn’t just stand by.’

  ‘What did you do, Jim?’

  ‘Fucking vicious,’ he said. He rolled up his sleeve to display two red lines on his forearm. One wound through the thick hair there for about four inches. The other was about an inch shorter. Both looked like they’d tore off a good layer of skin. I recognised the shape and intent of them. Anna had inflicted those on me on many occasions.

  ‘Why didn’t you go straight to the police, Jim?’

  He looked at me as if I’d asked him to lie down in front of a train.

  ‘A woman dies. You might well be the last person to speak to her. An innocent man would help the police and
cross himself off their investigation.’ I couldn’t keep the anger from my voice, but I didn’t know who I was angry at. Him, her or me.

  He pushed at me. ‘Andy, how could you think…’ Disappointment and anger vied for attention in his tone. He cut off his question as if he was telling himself that I was confused and bound to be looking for someone to hit out at. The confusion lingered in his eyes as if he was processing our conversation and everything he ever believed about me.

  He rolled his sleeve back down. Buttoned it with his usual precision as if in this action he was closing off that part of the conversation.

  ‘Went round there like I said. She was in and got annoyed that I’d just walked in without knocking.’ He looked at me. ‘She said you’d just picked up the boys, which kinda took a wee bit out of my steam.’

  ‘Jim, what were you thinking?’ This wasn’t good. When the police got the details of his visit it wouldn’t look good for either of us.

  ‘I’m an idiot. What can I say? Anyway, we got into it. I told her she was a bitch and if she did anything else to hurt you she’d have me to deal with.’

  Footsteps approached and I was back in the present. I opened my eyes, expecting to see Pat.

  It was a woman with shoulder-length brown hair, a red fleece jacket that struggled to contain both her and her expression of disgust.

  ‘How dare you,’ she hissed at me. Judge, jury and social-executioner. She crossed her arms under her bosom and glared, her small, dark eyes telling me she found my very presence to be harmful. Then she turned away from me. ‘Chloe. Ashley,’ she shouted. ‘Come on. We’re leaving. You are not playing anywhere near those boys.’

  I was on my feet before I knew it. Took two steps and towered over her.

  ‘What the hell is your problem?’ I’d wear any kind of criticism, but involve my boys and I’m a she-bear protecting her cubs.

  Everyone around us stopped what they were doing to watch. A man who was a matching pair for my accuser, wearing an identical fleece inched closer. It was clear from his movement that he didn’t share his wife’s disgust, but felt pressure to back her up.

  ‘You’re sick,’ she said. ‘Everybody knows what you’ve done.’

  She spat at my feet. Actually spat. I was so stunned I could do nothing but look up from the white glob on the tip of my right shoe to the righteous, tight expression on her face.

  ‘We’re leaving.’

  She turned and walked away to the side, gesturing at her children, and sending looks that demanded solidarity from the other parents. A couple of other women made a point of walking close to me as they left.

  ‘They think it was him and his brother,’ said one.

  ‘Police don’t have enough evidence yet or they’d be locked up.’

  ‘Hangin’s too good,’ said the first one as she looked me up and down.

  As they passed me they both looked at me as if they were daring me to strike out at them. As if they’d take courage from standing up to me and use that as a force field for the rest of their lives.

  Within minutes the play area was empty apart from my two boys. Ryan was completely oblivious. Pat had paused in his play when he noticed people were all leaving at once.

  ‘Dad, why did everyone leave?’ he asked as he ran to me.

  I fell back down on to the bench as if my knees had been taken from me. Throughout my life I’d always been popular. People liked me. They gravitated to me. My mum used to say it was a combination of my size and benign expression. According to her it said trustworthy and helpful. And now for the first time I was the object of scorn and hate.

  Pat tugged at my sleeve. I looked at him. His face held a twist of fear and love. ‘Did you and Uncle Jim kill Mum? Are the people lying?’

  I couldn’t answer him. My job was to protect him, not be the source of his pain. I’d found him a mother to replace the one he never knew and we’d both let him down grievously.

  ‘Son.’ I turned to face him, loss a suffocating weight in my throat and chest. I heaved at it. My breath in gasps. And tears took me for the first time since that moment the police broke the news.

  Not sure what to do, he placed a hand on my shoulder while I cried, as if he was too frightened to come any closer.

  22

  I dropped the boys off at Mum’s and headed back out. Jim said he didn’t do it, that she was still alive when he left the house, and I had to believe him.

  My conscious mind was elsewhere but memory kept me on the right track as I drove and soon I was parked and walking up a familiar path. I knocked on the door. It opened quickly.

  ‘Andy, what are you doing…?’ Sheila Hunter asked. She was wearing black leggings and a tight pink t-shirt as if she was just about to go to the gym.

  ‘Are you heading out?’ I asked, taking a step back.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said with a smile on her lips and a question in her eyes. ‘Come in. What’s up?’ She stepped to the side and I was greeted by her dog who wound himself in small circles, wagging his tail as he showed his pleasure in seeing me again. I reached down and patted his head then made my way into the kitchen.

  ‘I’ll just put the kettle on,’ Sheila said as she bustled in.

  I sat at the small pine table, taking in the space around me, spotless save for a couple of dirty plates and mugs in the sink. A small radio was sitting on the window sill. An advert sounded out followed by the opening bars of a Michael Jackson song.

  ‘So you’re one of them?’ I asked with a smile. ‘One of the people who does actually listen to West Sound Radio.’

  ‘Shut it,’ she laughed. ‘It’s not that bad.’

  ‘Did you have a visitor last night?’ I asked, my gaze returning to the dishes in the sink. The words were out of my mouth before I could consider that the question might be impertinent.

  ‘Just one of the girls,’ she smiled and turned from me with the kettle in her hand. She filled it and put it on its cradle. ‘What’s up, Andy?’ She looked at me as if it was the first time that morning. Concern at what she saw was clear on her face. Made me think that I must have looked like shit.

  ‘You said that you heard Anna was having an affair?’

  Sheila sat down in the chair in front of me and studied my expression. ‘Why do you ask?’ Then, when the thought struck, her mouth opened a little.

  ‘You’ll have heard the gossip?’ I asked.

  She made a small face of apology. ‘You don’t want to listen to…’

  ‘Jim didn’t kill Anna. If he didn’t, the only person I can think of … I mean, they say that most killers are known to their victim…’

  ‘And if it wasn’t Jim…’

  ‘It could be this mysterious guy who Anna had an affair with.’ I sat back in the chair and crossed my arms, struggling to keep the desperation out of my face and voice.

  Sheila made a dismissive sound. ‘Office gossip. You know what folk are like at the bank. When would a woman with a house to run and two small boys to look after find the time to have an affair?’

  ‘You didn’t ever hear a name?’

  Sheila shook her head, but her eyes slid from mine.

  ‘If you know anything, Sheila, please tell me.’

  ‘If I thought it was worth telling you I would, Andy.’ She reached across the table and held my hand. I felt the heat of her and took reassurance. Everyone else, it seemed, was running from me. I sent her a look of thanks.

  But.

  Maybe I was misreading her, but it felt like she was hiding something.

  The dog pawed at the back door, stopping my train of thought. Sheila stood and opened it for him. In a flash of tail and yellow fur he was outside. I pushed myself off the chair and followed him outside.

  There was a small patio area with red flagstones and varying sizes of plant pots at regular intervals around it, as if Sheila had wanted a low wall and this kind of planting was an affordable alternative. The dog walked over to the fence that bordered the back lawn and cocked a leg.
>
  I spotted a couple of cigarette stubs at the side of one of the pots.

  ‘Didn’t know you smoked, Sheila?’

  She coloured and tried to hide that with a smile. ‘I don’t. My friend likes a puff now and again.

  I looked away from her as I tried to work out why she was so uncomfortable. Did she have a new boyfriend and didn’t want me to know in case I was disappointed it wasn’t me? Normally, I would have let it pass, but that morning social niceties weren’t high on my list of behavioural skills.

  ‘If you’ve got a boyfriend, Sheila that’s fine. You don’t owe me anything.’

  ‘A new boyf…’ She tailed off and I mentally rewound her words. Heard the stress on the word ‘new’. Then I looked over again at the white stubs. They each held a twist of paper at the end as if they’d been self-made.

  A memory swooped in and I was holding a cigarette stub in my back garden. I saw a shadow. Then a tall, lean man hunched over a bar. And my brain made a connection that was as unwelcome as it appeared to be unlikely.

  ‘Was Ken here?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s not what you think, Andy.’ She crossed her arms. The dog circled back to her and stood by her side as if he sensed something was wrong.

  ‘I don’t know what I think, Sheila.’

  ‘I had one of the girls over last night. Ken appeared at my door, all agitated. I dragged him out here. He had a cigarette or two. Spouted all kinds of crap and then left.’

  I don’t know where the connection came from, but it was there, undeniable.

  ‘Was Ken having an affair with my wife?’ I asked.

  ‘If Ken was here last night, it’s none of your concern.’ Sheila looked at me. Defiant. ‘And as far as him having an affair with Anna…’

  ‘Why are you protecting him, Sheila?’

  ‘How dare you,’ she said, her face going pink. She turned away from me and walked back inside. I followed her and read the hurt in the stiff line of her shoulders and back.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sheila,’ I said. ‘I don’t mean to offend you.’