Now
New Year’s Eve, 2016
There are people right outside. I can’t make out who they are so I keep my eyes closed. I start to interpret the words, just distilled fragments of sound straining through the tiny gap between the wood and the wall. The door opens a fraction more and the quick-spoken sentences refine themselves just enough to clarify that they’re not the voices I want to hear.
‘No, I’m sure. You head off, get a couple of hours’ sleep. No need for us all to have a shit New Year. I’ll see you in the morning.’
It’s Edward.
I keep my eyes shut and try to stay calm. He closes the door and I hear the lock turn. He leaves the lights off and walks slowly towards the bed.
‘Well, hello there, Mrs Reynolds, and how are we this evening? No change I see. Well, that’s a terrible shame.’ He walks over towards the window and I hear the sound of curtains being closed. I can picture my surroundings far more clearly now I’ve seen them. It’s less like being in a dream and more like trying to see through a blindfold.
‘It’s New Year. Did you know that? I had such high hopes for the start of 2017. Thought I’d be spending it with this girl I used to know, but: She. Fucked. Things. Up. So I volunteered to do an extra night shift, actually volunteered so that I could be with her anyway. And now it’s just the two of us, the way it always should have been.’
I hear him doing something next to the bed, but I can’t tell what.
‘I’ve been thinking about your husband a lot over the last few days and I have to say, he isn’t at all what I was expecting. The police still think he did this to you, by the way, but after everything I’ve been telling them, that’s hardly a surprise. I’m amazed they still let him into the hospital. I told them I was one of the doctors here and they believed me. But then you believed me too, didn’t you?’
He stands right next to the bed and starts to stroke the top of my head. I involuntarily hold my breath. He tucks my hair behind my ears and I can hear my heartbeat banging loudly inside them, trying to raise the alarm.
‘He’s not an unattractive man, Poor Paul, your husband, but he doesn’t take care of himself, he looks a mess, frankly. Is that why you came back to me? Did you want a real man again instead of a skinny little runt?’
He traces the side of my face with his finger, caressing my cheek and then resting his hand across my mouth.
‘It’s fine if you don’t want to answer, I understand. Besides, I learned the hard way that everything that comes out of this mouth is a lie.’
He leans down, so that he is speaking directly into my right ear.
‘You need to stop telling lies, Amber. They’ll catch up with you.’
I can’t breathe and it gets to the stage where I think I’m going to push him away but then I remember that I can’t. He removes his hand from my face.
‘He does seem to love you, I’ll give him that. But that was never enough for you, was it?’
I try to stay calm, control my breathing, bring myself back to centre. I wonder if he might kiss me again and I feel sick at the thought of his tongue inside my mouth.
‘Was he not fucking you right? Was that it? I remember how you like a good fuck, don’t you, Amber? Must be difficult, come to think of it, lying there all this time with nobody taking care of your needs. I’m prepared to take some responsibility for that, as one of the staff at this medical establishment dedicated to making you as comfortable as we possibly can.’
His hand strokes my right thigh and then slips under the covers. His fingers find their way between my legs and he pushes my thighs apart with ease. I scream inside my head as his fingers force their way inside me.
‘How does that feel? Any better?’ he says. ‘Do speak up, I can’t hear you.’ His fingers thrust harder. ‘I’ll take your silence as a no. What a shame. But then it’s hard to make people better when you’re not really a doctor. And it’s hard to be a doctor when some silly little bitch sabotages your career by sending bullshit letters.’
His whispers have grown up into shouted words. Surely someone must be able to hear him. Why don’t they come? Why does nobody save me?
‘You broke my heart, destroyed my career and thought you’d get away with it, didn’t you?’
I feel a spray of saliva as he spits his words out at me.
‘I’m a fucking night porter because of you, but that’s OK. I’ve got the keys to the whole hospital, I can lock any door and open any medical cupboard. And I know stuff. I haven’t forgotten my training. I know how to keep you here and nobody suspects a thing.’
He’s breathing faster. I have to remind myself not to move, not to make a sound.
‘Anything to say for yourself? No?’ He’s panting like a dog. ‘I still forgave you, watched you, waited for you to realise what a mistake you’d made and put things right. I still thought we might have a chance. But women like you never learn, that’s why I have to teach you a lesson, do you see?’ He stops what he’s doing and for a moment I think it’s over, but it isn’t. ‘I saw you here at the hospital two years ago, when your bitch of a sister gave birth. You walked right past me. Twice. As though I was nobody, as though I was nothing to you. I followed you home that day. I’ve loved you for almost twenty years and you didn’t even remember me. Well, perhaps you’ll remember me now.’
I hear him unfasten his belt. I hear a zip. He turns on a light above the bed then roughly pulls the sheet down and my gown up.
‘Look at all that filthy hair,’ he says and repeatedly flicks his finger between my legs. ‘You used to wax when we were students, used to make an effort. Look at the state of you now. I’m doing you a favour really. You better be grateful.’
The bed shudders as he climbs on top, his skin touching my skin, his weight pinning me down, his breath on my face. He pushes himself inside me and I try to shut myself down. It’s as though this is no longer happening to me, I’m just being forced to watch with my eyes closed. The top of the hospital bed thuds against the wall, a metronome of revulsion beating steady inside my head. I know I can’t fight him, he’s too strong, I’d lose.
‘On a scale of one to ten, how is the pain now?’
He’s hurting me and he’s getting off on it. I have to keep still and silent. He’ll kill me if not, I’m sure of that now. To live, I have to pretend like I’m already dead.
He climbs off me as soon as he is finished. Everything is quiet for a while and I think that he will leave, but he stays standing over me. I can hear his rushed breathing. I can smell him. It sounds like he is doing something to my drip. Without warning he plunges his fingers inside of me once more, then he pulls them out and rubs them on my face, inside my mouth, long fat digits pushing themselves between my lips, rubbing my teeth, my gums, my tongue.
‘Can you taste that? That’s you and me, that’s what we taste like. It wasn’t as good as I hoped, but then looking back it always was a bit like fucking a corpse.’
I hear him fasten his belt. He pulls the sheet back over my body.
‘Goodbye, Amber. Sleep well.’
He turns off the light, then leaves.
It feels like I’ve reached a full stop and there is nothing after it. I’m scared I won’t be able to open my eyes again, I’m scared of what I’ll see if I do. I can’t feel anything any more, so I start to count. After one thousand, two hundred seconds I try to believe that I am safe. Twenty minutes have stuck together to form a wall between me and him. It isn’t enough, but when I open my eyes I can at least see that his physical presence has gone. It’s only now I realise that my fingers have been moving, I have been using them to count. I can move my hands. It’s still dark and my eyes are adjusting. For now, all I can see beyond the edges of my bed is cloudy grey pain. If I can move my hands, I wonder what else I can do. Slowly, as though I might break it, I lift my right arm. It feels heavy, hard to balance, like an overloaded tray. I see a thin tube attached to the back of my hand and pull it out, crying in pain. I need to get help and I
need to hurry, but everything seems to be very slow, very difficult.
I still can’t move the rest of my body. I look around at what I can see from my position on the bed until my eyes find a red cord. It looks like the sort of thing you should pull if you need help, and I do need help. I launch my right arm and it shakily manoeuvres itself into position banging the drip on the way. I stop and stare at the half-empty bag of clear liquid gently swaying on the stand. I’m sure it contains the drugs he’s been pumping inside me. I yank it free and manage to throw it in the side cabinet, hoping someone will find it and know what to do. Something is definitely wrong, my eyes want to close and they’re becoming quite insistent. I reach up again for the red cord, this time my fingers wrap around it and I pull. I see a red light come on above the bed and I let my arm fall. My hands grip on to the sheets so tight that my nails dig into my palms. Sleep is pulling me under. I let my eyes close and feel myself fold into black.
I think I might be dying but I’m so tired of living that maybe it’s OK. I allow my mind to power down. Far above me, beyond the cold, black waves, I hear voices, but the words won’t unravel themselves. Two of them swim down from the surface to find me.
‘She’s crashing.’
I crashed.
Then
Christmas Day, 2016
Christmas is a time for tolerating the family you didn’t choose.
‘That’s a lovely scarf,’ says Claire, as she ushers us through the hallway. Paul and I follow her inside. There’s not a hint of tension after our row at the market yesterday, but this is what my sister and I do best. Acting is something we’ve always had in common. Still, I doubt she’d be able to remain this calm if she knew that Paul had found her childhood diaries. She doesn’t even know that I’ve seen them. It’s a strange sensation, reading your own history through another person’s eyes. Your version of the truth is a little bent out of shape because it’s no longer your own.
We step into the new open plan kitchen and dining room. There are toys everywhere, but apart from that, the place is spotless. They’ve had a lot of work done since Mum and Dad died, the house is hardly recognisable; impressive since I lived here from the day I was born. Claire has redecorated the whole place, papering over the cracks in our family. I still tell myself that it made sense for my parents to leave the house to Claire and David. They needed it more than we did and his garage is right next door, it’s how they met.
‘David is just upstairs changing the twins, he’ll be down soon. Drink?’ Claire’s long blonde hair is pulled back off her flawless face and she looks radiant. It wasn’t always blonde, of course, but the peroxide has been expertly applied for so many years now, that you’d never know. Her black dress looks new and hugs her body. I feel a frump in comparison, I hadn’t realised we were dressing up. I’m the eldest but she looks considerably younger than me given we were born on the same day just a few hours apart.
‘Not for me, thank you,’ I say.
‘Don’t be daft, it’s Christmas!’ says Claire. ‘I was going to open some bubbles to get us started . . .’
‘That sounds nice,’ says Paul.
‘OK, then, just the one,’ I reply looking over at the larder. My height every year of my life until I was a teenager used to be marked on the back of the wooden door. Claire had it painted over.
We sit down on the corner sofas and I feel like an accessory in a photo from one of Claire’s home decorating magazines. The kitchen looks like it’s never been cooked in, and yet something smells amazing. My sister, the undomestic goddess. David comes marching in with a child beneath each arm. He’s too tall and always walks a little bent over, as though permanently worried he might bump his head. His hairline is rapidly retreating and the ten-year age gap between him and Claire is really starting to show.
When we were sixteen, he fixed Dad’s car, and took Claire’s virginity as well as his payment. I was shocked and a little disgusted at the time. She thought I was jealous, but I wasn’t. The idea of him doing things to her repulsed me. I remember when she first started sneaking out to see him. I often went with her, then I’d wait on my own and try not to listen, while they did whatever they were doing. One night like that, Claire and I stayed drinking in the park, just the two of us. It was long after David had gone off to the pub we were too young to get into. When the bottles of cider he had given us were empty, we staggered out from the shelter of the trees. It was so late that the iron gates at the park entrance were already closed, with a padlock and thick chain.
We weren’t worried, our teenage bodies could easily climb our way up and over, but Claire said she wanted to rest first and lay down on the concrete path. I lay down next to her and she held my hand. She gently squeezed it three times and I squeezed hers three times back. We lay there in the moonlight, drunkenly laughing at everything and nothing, and then she stopped and turned to face me, supporting her head on her elbow. She whispered as though the trees and the grass might overhear us. I didn’t ask what the two of them had been doing while I was waiting, but she told me anyway. She said it felt nice. I remember feeling sick, a little bit confused and a lot betrayed somehow. I thought she was making a huge mistake. A marriage, two children and almost twenty years together suggest that maybe I was wrong. She’s never been intimate with any other man. Never been interested. When Claire chooses to love you, it’s forever.
‘You’re here,’ he booms. David has a tendency to speak louder than is necessary. ‘Make yourselves useful and entertain these two, will you.’ He gives us a child each and walks over to the fridge, grabbing a handful of Claire’s yoga-sculpted bottom as he walks past. She doesn’t seem to mind or notice. I’ve got Katie, Paul has James.
The twins seem so alien to me, despite being family. Paul is naturally good with children, perhaps that’s why he’s always wanted his own. He makes the right sounds, gives off a good vibe. It’s more of an effort for me and I don’t always get it right. I try talking to Katie in a soft voice, asking her if she thinks Father Christmas has been to visit. Claire has gone completely overboard with presents and decorations this year, she says it’s all for the twins, as though they’ll even remember. Katie reaches for my scarf and tugs at it. I manoeuvre the material out from her tiny clenched fist, I need it to stay where it is, to cover the hand-shaped bruises on my neck. She isn’t happy about it and starts to cry. Nothing I do works, so Paul offers to swap. He gives me James and as soon as Katie is in his arms she stops screaming. She stares at me, as though she’s suspicious, as though she knows more than she possibly can. I make sure my scarf is still in place.
Paul is going to make a great dad. I’ll tell him tonight. It will be my Christmas present to him this year, there isn’t anything else I can give him that he doesn’t already have. I’m glad I haven’t told him already, he wouldn’t have been able to keep it from Claire and I don’t want her to know yet. I’ll tell him as soon as we get home, when it’s just the two of us.
The afternoon drags as the four of us eat our way through too much food, plugging the gaps with polite conversation and stories we’ve bored each other with too many times before. I imagine this scenario being replicated in thousands of homes all over the country. I spend the hours playing multiple roles: the caring sister, the doting wife, the adoring aunt and take tiny sips of my wine so that I never need a refill. When Claire heads to the kitchen, I snatch the opportunity I’ve been waiting for, offering to help her. Paul shoots me an evil glance, he doesn’t like being left alone with David, says they have nothing in common. They don’t.
‘Something has happened,’ I whisper as soon as we’re alone in the kitchen.
‘What?’ asks Claire with her back to me.
‘Something that shouldn’t have.’
‘What are you talking about?’ she says, stacking the plates in the dishwasher. My bravery retreats.
‘Nothing. It doesn’t matter. I’ll deal with it myself.’
She finishes what she is doing and turns to face me. ‘A
mber, are you OK?’
This is my chance. If I tell her about Edward, I know she’ll help me. I study her face, I want to tell someone how afraid I am but the words won’t come. This isn’t the right time and I remember that I’m afraid of her too. She might make me go to the police. She might tell Paul. She might do something worse.
‘Yes, I’m OK.’ It’s her turn to analyse me now; she knows that I’m not. I need to give her something more. ‘I’m just tired, need some rest, that’s all.’
‘I think you’re tired too. You keep getting yourself all worked up over nothing.’
The rest of the day goes by in a blur. The twins eat, sleep, play, cry, repeat. The adults wish they could do the same. Mum and Dad always made us wait until the afternoon to do presents and we seem to be continuing their rather miserable tradition. We watch as the twins half open beautifully wrapped gifts, predictably more interested in the wrapping than the contents. Then we exchange adult-sized presents, neatly wrapped, crisp gift receipts tucked inside. I open one from Paul and it takes me a while to register its relevance. I thank him and try to move on to something else.
Sometimes I Lie: The gripping debut psychological thriller you can’t miss in 2017 Page 21
