Little Liar

by Lisa Ballantyne

  He was just about to press the doorbell a second time, when the door opened.

  Donna looked worse than usual: wild greasy hair, ruddy face and large wide eyes that seemed crazed.

  Stephen put his hands in his pockets and rocked back lightly on his heels. ‘Is Angel ready?’

  ‘Come inside.’

  Something about her eyes – leery, maniacal – made him wary.

  ‘It’s all right. It’s a nice day. I’ll just wait for her out here. Is she getting her things?’

  He strained his neck a little, over Donna’s head, looking for a sign of his daughter or the sound of her fairy elephant feet on the stairs.

  Suddenly Donna took a step towards him and poked her forefinger into his chest so hard that it felt like the impact of a rubber bullet. Dennis glanced up over the hedgerow.

  ‘You filthy, disgusting pig.’

  She was whispering. It wasn’t her normal anger: hurt and indignation. This was rage – calcine, incinerating. The blaze of it drove him back from the doorstep.

  Still a whisper. ‘You’re never going to touch her again. Never going to lay a finger on her, never going to talk to her, or see her, you are never, never …’

  Stephen didn’t counter her, only hoped that she would keep her voice down. Dennis was stooped over the hedge, eyes on the primroses, ears on the conversation. Stephen had always known how to take Donna down in an argument – she was so vulnerable, so easy to criticise, to hurt – but not today. He heard her words, and his hands began to tremble, but he managed a smile, tried to shrug it off. She couldn’t mean what he thought – it was just Donna, hung over, ranting.

  ‘Wipe that smile off your face, you sick, sick man. You’re a policeman, for God’s sake. I’ll kill you for doing this to her. She’s only a little girl.’

  His instinct was to get back into the car and drive away, but Angela had to be inside the house and ready for him. She had to be waiting.

  ‘Angel?’ he called, almost embarrassed to raise his voice like that in the street. She came. She appeared at the door, but she didn’t have her coat on. She didn’t have her rucksack in her hand. She just stood at the door in her bare feet, her stomach sticking out.

  ‘Understand?’ Donna said.

  She was like a wild thing.

  Stephen put his hands on his hips. ‘Angela, get in the car, sweetheart.’

  ‘Your mother’s ring? That big old rock that you wouldn’t let me have when we got engaged. Your secret’s out now.’

  Again Stephen attempted a slack, nonchalant smile. His bowels knew what she meant, but his brain was still hopeful. She was jealous. ‘Well, she’s my only daughter. My mother would’ve—’

  ‘Your mother’s turning in her grave, that she brought filth like you into the world.’

  Stephen sighed, hands in the air. ‘Look, have you been drinking?’

  She was now so close that he could smell her, but it wasn’t wine or cigarettes that made him turn his face away. There was a blinding glow of illumination in her eyes, as if she could see right inside him.

  Suddenly, Donna turned from him and pointed at Angela.

  ‘Get back inside. Get back inside, right now.’

  Stephen tried to smile, slipping his hand into his pocket as if to suggest he was calm. He told himself it was just the same old Donna, using Angela as the pawn in their relationship.

  Remarkably, Angela didn’t push past her mother and into his car, but instead slipped back inside as she had been told. As she vanished from the doorway Stephen suddenly felt eclipsed.

  ‘Look,’ he began, ‘I don’t want to have an argument.’

  She laughed then, a strange bitter laugh. ‘I’m not going to argue with you, Stephen. You raped our daughter.’ Tears flooded her eyes suddenly, making them seem crazed. ‘You filth.’ Spit left her mouth with the word.

  Throat dry, Stephen glanced towards the car. He felt an urge to curl up, hide. He couldn’t look at Donna. She had been so easy to break but now he felt powerless before her. Fear flushed through him. He didn’t want to be here, couldn’t bear to hear her voice or see the stark accusation in her eyes. He turned left and then right, as if calculating his escape. Dennis was busying himself in the flowerbeds, but Stephen sensed he was listening.

  Donna’s face was fierce, her eyes black as stones and her mouth turned down.

  ‘I thought it was me,’ she said. ‘I thought I was the bad mother. And you know what? I did let her down … but not anymore.’ She leaned close again and he could smell the wrath of her breath.

  ‘Donna, please.’ His mouth was so dry he could almost hear his lips parting.

  ‘Don’t Donna me. You can’t talk your way out of this. I’m going to make sure that you never, ever hurt her again.’

  Chilled to his fingertips, he turned his back on her and walked to the car. As he reached the door, he felt her fist between his shoulder blades. He gasped, winded and off balance, more from her words than the blow, a hand on the roof of the car to steady himself.

  ‘That baby was yours,’ she said.

  ‘I didn’t think it was possible,’ he said, facing her again, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. ‘I thought she was too young.’

  ‘She was too young,’ Donna whispered.

  She wrapped her cardigan around her, a gesture that had always made her seem insecure, but was now terrifying, as if she were gathering resolve. He felt himself trapped within the vortex of her anger, helpless, stuck, like an insect in amber, unable to move or even look away from the glare of her eyes.

  She raised her chin and looked at him down her nose. ‘You know better than me what they do to people like you in prison.’

  Stephen almost fell into the driver’s seat. His tyres skidded on the road as he drove away.

  35

  Marina

  ‘But what do you mean, I cannot see him now?’

  Ava was in her arms, screaming loudly in her ear so that Marina couldn’t hear. Luca was silent and pale at her side, but squeezing her hand too tightly, making her fingers numb. Ava was heavy and Marina had to wrench her hand from Luca to move Ava to the other side of her hip.

  ‘His condition is critical and there are no visitors allowed at this time.’

  ‘I’m his wife!’ She was crying now. She had tried so hard not to, in front of the children. ‘Please … I need to see him.’

  ‘We will let you know as soon as that is possible.’

  She sat down, sobs breaking her body as she tried to comfort her daughter.

  ‘Is Daddy going to die?’ said Luca, his face pale but dry-eyed.

  ‘No, no.’ Marina pulled Luca into her and wiped a hand over her face.

  *

  Rusty had been found and reported lost before Nick.

  He had not picked up the children from school and Betty had been called, but when Marina got home and found the holdall on the bed and Rusty missing, her first thought was that he had taken the dog and gone off on his own.

  Nick had been in the undergrowth of Morley Park, unconscious, but Rusty had been found whining near the reservoir with his lead hanging, and taken straight to the RSPCA. Finally, another dog walker had seen Nick’s boot, kicked free of his broken ankle, and peered underneath the lower canopy of the trees before calling an ambulance.

  He had been taken straight to surgery and Marina had been called.

  On the plastic chairs, she hugged both of her children. Her phone rang constantly and Luca took over answering it: granddad, Melissa, Mark. Betty and Tom texted to say they would come and take the kids. When finally it was her parents, Luca passed the call over.

  ‘I can’t talk right now,’ she cried, Luca stroking her plaited hair. She wanted to tell him to stop, that he was a child and shouldn’t be the comforter. ‘I still haven’t seen him. I still don’t know what’s happening.’

  ‘Gracias, cielo,’ she said, kissing his forehead when she hung up.

  Luca returned a thin-lipped smile.

 
‘Mrs Dean?’ the doctor called.

  It wasn’t her name, but she didn’t care. They all sprang to their feet.

  *

  The nurses looked after the children while she went to him. He had a broken jaw and eye socket, although his eye had been saved. His nose was broken, as was his radius and tibia. His beautiful face was swollen beyond all recognition.

  ‘Mi amor,’ she said, tears chilling her cheeks.

  His lips were dry and he struggled to speak but a tear left his eye and she caught it with her forefinger before it reached his bruised cheekbone.

  ‘Don’t say anything. I love you. The police said they will try to talk to you but the doctors say it may be a while before you are ready.’

  His hand reached for her and Marina took it. His fingers were grazed and bloody, as if he were a bare-knuckle fighter, and yet they were protective wounds. She kissed each bruised knuckle, then smoothed the hair from his head.

  ‘You’re going to be okay,’ she said. ‘Whatever has gone on between us does not eclipse us. You have to get better. You are my children’s father. You are the man I love.’

  ‘I love you. I’ll get better. I’ll be better.’ His words were slurred and she could sense the pain he felt when he spoke.

  ‘The children want to see you. Can I bring them in?’

  ‘Do I look okay?’ She watched his bloodied iris slither under the lid.

  ‘You look horrible, but they need to see you. Just like I did – they need to see you’re alive.’

  Marina spoke to the children, squatting in the corridor, each of them curled into her arms.

  ‘He’s all right, but he has to heal. Just like when you fall over and skin your knee. You can’t get up on the bed and touch him, but you can talk to him. You can tell him that you love him. It will make him feel better.’

  Marina walked into the hospital bay with both of their small hands in hers. There was no way to explain why this had happened. He was there and he was broken, but he was going to be okay. There was nothing else she could tell them, or tell herself.

  Epilogue

  Two Years Later

  Donna apologised and asked if she could squeeze in. Couples nodded obligingly and stood so that she could work her way to the single free seat. There were whole rows free at the back, but she wanted to be near the front.

  She had only just sat down and taken off her coat, run a hand through her newly lightened hair, when the curtain was drawn back.

  In the first scene, Alice was asleep. The spotlight found her, pale blue dress and golden wig. In the darkness, a white rabbit appeared and Alice chased it and then followed it down the rabbit hole.

  The lights went up on the stage. Donna covered her mouth with one hand. The set was wild and colourful, the crazy mind of Wonderland. There were black and white stairs going every which way, like an Escher print; lush colourful forests of leaves and flowers, a huge looking-glass in the middle, with the gold frame shining and detailed. It had meant months of work for Angela, gold leaf in her hair, paint under her fingernails.

  Donna sat forward in her seat, straining to see. She only had a small part, one of the Cheshire cats, but she had worked on all the scenery and designed a lot of it herself.

  Music burst into the room, and then other characters appeared – the caterpillar, the pigeon, the mad hatter.

  All through the legal proceedings, this play had been a lifeline. Her art teacher had asked Angela if she would design the set. Working away with her brush and pencils behind the scenes had been just what she had needed at this time. She had had to testify on video camera with a social worker beside her. She was getting counselling now. Stephen pleaded guilty and so it was easier than it might have been. She had not been put through a trial or cross examination and Stephen had been kept on remand until the sentencing hearing. He had been sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment. Angela would likely be in her late twenties by the time he was released.

  ‘Miaow.’

  It was her! Angela! Wearing an elaborate purple mask that she had finished painting just the night before. The hall carpet was still stained with purple and blue paint.

  ‘Look at the state of that,’ Donna had joked, treating the stubborn stain.

  ‘You know when I grow up?’ Angela had said, slumped against the stairs, paint on her forehead, ‘I think I want to go to art school.’

  When I grow up. She had almost lost her twice.

  What could growing up mean, after all she had lived through? Donna hoped it meant being happy, being loved. In the darkness, Donna smoothed the skin above the knuckle on her ring finger, where her wedding ring had been. The same man had hurt them both so much, but Donna still felt responsible.

  After her father had been sentenced, Angela had come to Donna with one closed fist held out towards her.

  Close your eyes and hold out your hand.

  Donna had done as she asked and soon felt the weight of the antique engagement ring in her palm. ‘What should we do with it?’ Donna had asked, the hurt and revulsion still fresh at the back of her throat. Her fingers remained open, unable to clasp and hold that thing.

  ‘Don’t care,’ Angela had shrugged.

  ‘We could sell it. Go on holiday,’ Donna had smiled painfully, willing every ounce of succour within her, wanting to give strength to Angela. Now she understood how her little girl had treasured that ring, as she had held dear the chance of her father’s love. What she feared most for Angela was that love itself would always be tarnished for her now because of the hard, bitter promise in that ring and the violence that Stephen had offered in the guise of love.

  Angela shook her head. ‘Let’s throw it out. I don’t want it. Even the money,’ she stopped and bit her lip. ‘But … if you want it, you can. I don’t mind.’

  Together they had gone outside and found a drain on the Portland Road. When Angela let the diamond ring fall from her fingers she crouched quickly to hear the plop of its fall into the dark sewer water beneath.

  ‘That’s done then,’ Angela had said as Donna took her hand. Her fingers were freezing.

  From the back of the stage, Angela spoke her only line: ‘Every adventure requires a first step. Trite but true, even here.’

  Donna put one hand over her chest, feeling herself swell with pride at her daughter.

  Could it be that Angela was going to be all right? Could it be?

  *

  ‘Just stay in the car. I’ll be back before you know it,’ said Nick, as Ava whined that she wanted out of her car seat to come with him.

  This afternoon, the family were going to drive to Bristol to see Mark and Juliette. Nick parked on a double yellow line as he ran into the chemist to pick up his pain medication. He was lucky; there was almost no queue and he was back in the car in minutes, yet there was a ticket on the windscreen.

  When he turned the engine back on Ava’s CD began again and he quickly cut it off.

  ‘Daddy!’ Ava complained.

  ‘Not now, we’re nearly home,’ he said, anger flaring in him.

  In Firgrove Hill, he reversed into the driveway and was about to get out when he saw Marina, changed into her jeans, locking up the house. He watched her in the rear-view mirror: her round backside, white striped top, sunglasses pushed into her hair. He loved her, only it was harder to make her believe him now.

  ‘Ready? Sorry I’m late.’ He put a hand on her thigh when she got into the car.

  ‘Dad got a parking ticket,’ said Luca, smiling nervously.

  Marina turned to face Nick, eyes wide, memories they seldom mentioned almost visible in her large brown irises.

  ‘Good start to the weekend, huh?’ He tried a smile.

  She turned from him and put on her seatbelt, brought her sunglasses down over her eyes.

  ‘Let’s get going,’ Nick said into the rear-view mirror, waiting for his children’s smiles.

  Before he pulled out of the drive, he leaned towards her, lips just parted for a kiss.

  �
��Llegamos tarde,’ she said, the muscles in her neck tensing. ‘Es un camino largo.’

  Relenting, he kissed her cheek. She was right. It was a long road ahead, and he hoped they would make it.