Sometimes I Lie: The gripping debut psychological thriller you can’t miss in 2017

by Feeney, Alice

  My packed lunches have also taken an interesting twist. Part of Dad’s job is to fill up the sweet machines where he works. One of the perks of his job is being able to bring home boxes of free chocolate and crisps. Last week, he brought home a box of forty KitKats. We ran out of bread before the last day of term, so Mum gave me two KitKats for my packed lunch instead of butter-and-crisp sandwiches, which was fine with me. But then the lunch monitor spotted what I was eating and thought I’d forgotten my lunch, even though I told her that I hadn’t. She sent me to join the kids who have hot meals, which was great, because that’s what Taylor does.

  She was sitting alone, as usual, so I sat down on her table. But then there was a fuss because, apparently, Mum hasn’t paid the school for the last time I had to have a hot lunch. In the end, I think Mrs MacDonald felt sorry for me or something, because she paid for it herself and told me not to worry. By the time I got my fish and chips, everyone else had been sent out for playtime. I could see almost the whole school on the field while I ate my lunch. I spotted a group of girls from my class and saw Taylor standing in the middle of them. They pushed her between them as though she was a rag doll and she didn’t look like she was enjoying it. When she tried to leave, they joined hands and closed the gaps between them, pushing her back to the centre of their circle. I left my chips and said that I didn’t want any of the dessert either, even though I was still hungry. I ran to the playing field but I couldn’t find Taylor or any of the other girls. I ran to the quadrangle where she sometimes sat on the steps on her own, but she wasn’t there either.

  I went back to our classroom, even though it was still break time, but it was empty. Then something caught my eye, something out of place. I walked over to the class fish tank and looked at the dead goldfish floating on the surface of the green-tinged water. Taylor and I had helped clean the tank a few weeks ago. Mrs MacDonald taught us that you empty the liquid by putting a piece of hose in the water and sucking the other end. The water rushes out by itself if you do it right, and you can collect it in a bucket. It’s all to do with gravity. Like the moon and the stars. I got a mouthful of fish tank water the first time I tried it and Taylor laughed at me. I don’t think anyone has cleaned it since.

  I knew the fish was dead and I couldn’t decide how I felt about that. I had a goldfish that died when I was little. Nana flushed it down the toilet and I was sad. But that was mine, it had belonged to me. This fish wasn’t mine but, while I tried to find the right feelings to feel about it, my hands did their own thing and opened the lid of the tank. I don’t know why I wanted to hold it. It was wet and slippery and cold. Taylor came into the classroom then. She looked at the dead fish, then she looked at me. She took the fish from my hands, put it back in the tank and closed the lid. She took a tissue out of her sleeve, like a magician takes a rabbit out of a hat, then she dried my hands before drying her own. I was glad that she was all right.

  Last year, I had two Easter eggs. One from Mum and Dad and one from Nana. Nana’s was better because it had sweets inside the chocolate egg. I counted them and there were thirteen sweets, which I remember because it was lucky and unlucky all at the same time. This year, I’ve only got one Easter egg, but that’s OK because it’s from Taylor. I didn’t get her anything, but I will. I might give her some of the KitKats, we’ve got loads.

  Now

  Thursday, 29th December 2016

  My parents are dead. I don’t know how you forget a thing like that, but I did. They were here in my hospital room, as real as anyone else, and yet they weren’t here at all. They can’t have been; they’ve been gone for over a year now. The mind is a powerful tool – it can create entire worlds and it’s certainly more than capable of playing a few tricks in order to aid self-preservation. We weren’t even on speaking terms when they died. I remember the last words my dad said to me – I can still hear him speaking them, a cruel stuck record of a memory:

  ‘Listen to me, Amber. Any distance that exists in our relationship was created by you. Ever since you were a teenager you withdrew into your own little world. You didn’t want us there and we wouldn’t have been able to find you even if we tried. I know because we did try. For years. The world does not revolve around you; if you’d had children of your own you would have learned that by now.’

  They didn’t call again after that and neither did I.

  Claire was the one who called to tell me that they were gone. It was a coach crash in Italy. I’d seen it on the news but even when the presenter talked about the British tourists feared dead, I had no idea that the voice from the TV was speaking directly to me. We never knew what happened, not really. There was speculation that the driver of the coach had fallen asleep at the wheel. It was on the news for a day or so and then our parents were forgotten again by everyone who wasn’t us. Something bad happened to someone somewhere else and that became the new news while we carried on watching our story alone. They’d written Claire’s name as their next of kin in their passports, not mine. Even in death, they chose her over me.

  Claire did everything: arranged to bring them home, organised their funeral, dealt with the solicitor. I cleared out their home, disposed of their things, distributed parts of their lives to other people in other places. Claire said she couldn’t bear to do that.

  I’m still shocked by how very real they seemed to me in this hospital room. I must have wanted to share my solitude with someone so badly that my mind obliged by returning my parents to me as living memories. The dead are not so very far away when you really need them; they’re just on the other side of an invisible wall. Grief is only ever yours and so is guilt. It’s not something you can share. Claire was genuinely heartbroken when they died. She cried on the outside for weeks, I cried on the inside for ever. I’m starting to question everything my mind presents to me now, trying to sift through what is real and what might be a dream.

  The door opens and someone pulls up a chair. He takes my hand and I know it’s Paul just from the way he holds it. His hands are mostly soft, except for a lump of hard skin on his middle finger where he grips his pen too hard when writing. He’s back. The police must have let him go. We sit in silence for a long time. I can feel him staring at me, he doesn’t say a word, just holds my hand. When the nurses come to turn and change me, he waits outside as requested. When they leave me, he is there again. I want to know what happened to him, I want to know what the police said, what it was they thought he had done.

  A nurse comes in to tell him that visiting hours are over. He doesn’t reply but his face must have said something to her, because she says it’s fine for him to stay as long as he wants. Whatever the police thought he did, the nurses clearly think he’s a good husband. We sit in silence for a while longer, he can’t find the right words and mine have been taken away.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says.

  Just as I’m wondering what for, I feel him lean over me and the routine panic sets in. I don’t know why I am afraid and then there is that flash of memory again, a man’s hands around my throat, it feels like I can’t breathe despite the machine forcing oxygen into my lungs. Paul’s hands are on my face, not my throat, but I don’t know what he is doing. I want to cry out as he pushes something into both of my ears. The soundtrack of my world deflates a little and I don’t like it at all; hearing is all I have left.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asks Claire and I am shocked to hear her voice. I don’t know how long she has been here; I didn’t know that she was.

  ‘The doctor said it might help,’ says Paul, taking my hand in his again.

  ‘The police let you go?’

  ‘It would appear so.’

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asks.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think you look like crap and smell like you need a shower.’

  ‘Thanks. I came straight here.’

  ‘Well, it’s over now.’

  ‘It’s not over, they still think that I . . .’

  But it’s over for
me because I can no longer hear them. My ears are filled with music, which pulses and bleeds down into my body, diminishing all other sensation until it is all that I know. Everything else, everyone else is gone and I am taken away from this place by a series of notes culminating in a memory; this is the song I walked down the aisle to when Paul and I got married. The lyrics about trying to fix someone you love pull me back in time. Even back then he wanted to fix me, when I didn’t know I was broken. He’s still trying.

  The memory is a little torn around the edges, but it’s something real, so I slow it right down and hold on to it. I can see Paul in the corner of the memory, sliding a ring onto my finger, he is smiling at me and we are happy. We were happy then, I remember now just how much. I wish we could be that version of us again. Too late now.

  It was a small ceremony; I’ve never had many friends. The truth is I just don’t like many people, not really. Everyone you meet is inevitably flawed. Once I know someone well enough to see all the cracks and blemishes, I don’t really want to spend time with them any more. I don’t avoid broken people because I think I’m better than them, I just don’t like looking at my own reflection. Besides, everyone I’ve ever got close to gets hurt in the end, that’s why I don’t bother to make any new friends any more. I’ve learned it’s best to just hold on to what you’ve got.

  The track stops and I’m back. The music replaced by the rhythm of the ventilator accompanied by a less familiar beeping sound. A nurse has joined us. I can tell by the shh of her plastic apron as she sashays past the bed. The apron has got its wish, the room is silent. I paint my life by sounds, not numbers now, my overworked ears holding the brush. The beeping stops. When the nurse leaves, Paul and Claire resume their conversation and I can’t help wondering about the words I missed.

  ‘You have to stop blaming yourself, Paul. It was an accident.’

  ‘I should never have let her go.’

  ‘You’ve got to keep it together. She needs you and right now you’re a mess. You need to wash and rest and get your head sorted.’

  ‘They still think I was driving the car, that I’m some guy who beats his wife when he’s drunk and then forgets about it. I’m not that guy.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘They hate me. They won’t give up, they’ll come back, I know it. I’m not leaving her again. You go if you want to.’

  When I want them to speak the most, they stop. Someone else was driving the car, I’m sure of it. But not Paul. I’m relieved that Claire believes him too.

  ‘I’ll stay a while, keep you company if you like?’ she says.

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  They settle themselves down into the silence. Paul plays me another memory; a song we fell in love with on our last holiday. There are more songs, more memories, but then the music stops, the silence resumes and it’s so much louder.

  ‘Do you want to talk about the baby?’ asks Claire.

  What baby?

  ‘No,’ says Paul.

  ‘Did you know?’

  Know what?

  ‘I said, I don’t want to talk about it.’

  I want them to talk about it.

  But they don’t. The ventilator huffs and puffs, echoing the frustration in the room.

  ‘Right, well, I’m going home. It’s late,’ says Claire. ‘I can give you a lift or I can pick up some clean clothes and a washbag for you, if you want to give me your house keys?’

  Don’t give her the keys.

  ‘I’ll take a lift home, then come back in a couple of hours.’

  ‘You need to rest.’

  ‘I need to be with Amber.’

  ‘OK.’

  Claire kisses me on the cheek and I can smell her peppermint shampoo. I wonder what my hair must look like having not been washed for so long. Paul kisses me too, then tugs the tiny speakers out of my ears. I don’t want him to go and I feel my mood darken as the door closes behind them, leaving me alone with my silence and machinery. I hear the door and think that Paul has changed his mind and come back to stay with me, but it isn’t Paul.

  ‘Hello, Amber,’ says a man’s voice. I hear a lock turn and I know it’s him, the man who was here before, the man who deleted my voicemail. ‘I just bumped into your husband. Rather dishevelled chap, not sure what you see in him. I hear from one of my colleagues that we nearly lost you? But you found your way back, so no harm done there then.’

  Colleagues.

  He works here?

  ‘Did you know that one of the drugs we use to keep people in a coma is the same drug they use in America for the death penalty? That’s why I’m so surprised to see you tonight, because that dose really should have killed you. I got the maths wrong, you see.’

  This can’t be real, this isn’t happening. Wake up. WAKE UP!

  ‘Everyone makes mistakes. The important thing is to learn from them. I’m going to do a much better job of looking after you from now on.’

  This is not a dream.

  ‘You’re welcome. I know you’d thank me if you could.’

  I know this man.

  He strokes my face.

  I remember him now.

  He leans down to the bed and kisses me, then slowly licks my cheek, as though tasting my skin. I shrivel inside of myself. He moves my breathing tube to the side and kisses my mouth, pushing his tongue inside my lips, his teeth gnashing against the tube and my own. His hand slides along my body, cupping my breast beneath the hospital gown. When he is finished he puts me back how he found me.

  ‘You’re right, we should take it slow,’ he says and leaves the room.

  Then

  Thursday, 22nd December 2016 – Evening

  I’m not doing this because Paul isn’t coming home again tonight. And it isn’t because of the disappearing bag of black lace, there could be a perfectly reasonable explanation for that. I’m doing it because I want to and that’s OK. Plenty of people are friends with their exes, it doesn’t have to mean something and I’m not doing anything wrong. I encourage the words to repeat themselves in my head until I might believe them. Every step forward feels like I’m going in the wrong direction, but I carry on regardless down my chosen path.

  The Southbank is alive with people wearing each other’s smiles. The Thames dances in the moonlight and the buildings rise up majestically in the distance, snaking around the river’s shores. I love the city at night, you can’t see the dirt or the sorrow in the dark.

  I spot him straight away at the bar, his outline still strangely familiar even after all these years. He has his back to me but I can see he has a glass of something in his hand already. It isn’t too late. I could just turn around and walk out the door, forget the whole thing that never happened.

  It’s just a drink.

  My heeled feet seem stuck to the floor until the nausea rushes up through my body, screaming at me to run. I see a neon sign for the toilets and push my way through the early evening drinkers, fearful I won’t make it in time. But the feeling passes as soon as I’m inside a cubicle, just nerves perhaps. I wash my hands. I don’t know why, they’re not dirty. I take a paper towel and roughly dry them, my attention suddenly focused on the wedding ring on my left hand. I take a deep breath, exhale and then stare at my reflection in the mirror, grateful that there is nobody else here to see this me. The eyes that stare back look tired and far away but overall things are satisfactory. My new little black dress looks good, flattering my neglected body, and the heels, although uncomfortable, give me confidence. I’ve tamed my brunette mop of hair and painted my face and nails. I don’t know why it matters so much, but I want him to see me looking good.

  I try to reassure my reflection with a smile, but she responds half-heartedly. I return my features to neutral. The quiet stillness that calmed and embraced me smashes as the door bursts open. The loud chaos of the bar floods the space and sucks the air out of the tiny room. I struggle to keep my head above the noise and grip the basin, white knuckles pointing at the exit. Two women, slightly w
orse for wear, stumble inside, laughing at something I’m not privy to. They look younger than me, though I suspect we are probably the same age. Their skirts are short, their lips are red and their paper hats remind me that it is Christmas. It doesn’t mean anything any more – Christmas. The chatter spilling out of the women is just loud enough to drown out the voices in my head telling me to walk away, so I take a deep breath and head for the bar.

  I stand right next to him, breathing in his smell, already so familiar and forbidden. He doesn’t seem to notice me at all.

  ‘I’ll have a glass of Malbec, please,’ I say to the barman. In my peripheral vision, I see Edward’s head turn, his eyes drinking me in from top to bottom, the way they always did.

  ‘Hello, Edward,’ I say, turning to face him. I do my best to keep my voice and my expression level. He smiles back. Time has changed me, but clearly left him alone. Over a decade of life seems to have only improved him. I can’t help noticing the tanned skin, white teeth and mischievous brown eyes that seem to dance with delight as he stares at me.

  ‘I’ll get that and another pint of Amber Ale – I like the name.’ He takes a crisp twenty pound note from his leather wallet and places it on the bar. His white cotton shirt looks almost too small for him as it struggles and strains to hide the muscles beneath. He was always at the gym when we were students and clearly still works out now. ‘So, you came.’

  ‘I did,’ I reply. His stare feels too intense and I struggle not to look away.

  ‘It’s good to see you.’ Something about the way his eyes hold mine makes me shrink a little. The wine arrives and I am greedy for it.

  ‘Well, I had a couple of hours free this evening and thought it might be nice to catch up,’ I say.