I was about nine when I worked out something was going on. His late night outings, the constant secrecy, this strange stuff I’d see left around the house sometimes.
Mum pretended not to know. You saw her, the definition of Bourgeois, walking around like she eats caviar for breakfast. Would do her and her reputation no good if anyone found out. She couldn’t even stand looking at him and instead she busies herself with me, fussing over me, tutoring me, making me the person she missed out on being. Her best friend Elaine tells her that her daughter’s just come back from university and needs some teaching experience and would I like to have some piano lessons? Well of course I would apparently, and next thing I know I’m being carted off to Kit’s house three times a week to play that damned piano.
A few months later, this guy turns up at our house. He’s yelling and swearing and Dad goes to him and Mum takes me upstairs. I don’t know what’s going on. All I can hear are thuds and yelling. You don’t know what that’s like, to know something bad is happening but you can’t do anything.
I’m off to Kit’s house again that afternoon. She knows something’s wrong straight away. She asks me what happened. Mum told me I can’t tell anyone. What Dad does is a secret. But Kit tells me to tell her the truth. So I do.
All I remember after that are police cars outside our house, and then Dad’s gone and Mum’s crying on the stairs and I’m still playing that damned piano, but it sounds different now. More hollow.
How can I tell the truth when it was telling the truth that got me into this mess in the first place?
You know this part of the story. I fell in with Ryo’s crowd, kissed goodbye to my good grades and any chances of university, Becky died, and after that I didn't want to leave the house or do anything, so my Mum just got fed up. Kicked me out. Just like that.
I went to live with Nick in Elmview. Had nowhere else to go, really.
Except that part didn’t happen. I lied again. I’m a liar. And you know what? It’s only just hit me that that didn’t actually happen. When I said that, I actually meant it, because I’d forgotten the real story after the amount of times I’ve told that story. The new story is just instinct now.
That’s the weird thing about lies; they take on a life of their own the more you tell them. They start to become real. You can’t even remember yourself what really happened, so you just keep telling that story, and soon that's the story other people start telling too. Soon that's the story believe. And that's when you've done it. You've changed history, rewritten it, made it better. That's a hell of a superpower, that is, to change history.
I didn’t get kicked out. I just told everyone that, even Nick. Really, I just ran away. I couldn’t take it anymore. Now you tell me which story you like more: the story where I get the Hell out of there with my tail between my legs like some shunned puppy or the tragic, Mary Sue story where poor, good Jayce is thrown out onto the streets and forced to fend for himself.
There you go; there’s the truth you wanted to hear so badly. Now you know. And what? Do you feel any different now? More special? Did knowing any of that change your future, change you, change the alignment of the planets? No. Nothing happened at all.
*****
He faces the river and glares. I place a hand on his shoulder, which makes him look at me, surprised. Then the most unnerving thing happens.
His expression switches off. A new one slivers onto his face. He tilts his head. His pupils dilate. The left corner of his mouth tips up in some twisted smirk, the other side remains fixed in a still line.
It’s a mocking face. Psychotic, even.
But what scares me most is that I know this face. This is the face that pulled me up from the pavement by the hair screaming at me to work out why he’d kidnapped me. The face that stared back at me when his hands were around my throat in the phone box. The face that tried to kill Jeffrey.
I suddenly feel a sharp pain and look down to see he has wrapped his hand around the hand I placed on his shoulder and is digging his nails right in. I try to move away but he just grips my hand even tighter.
“Look at you. Look how stupid you are!” he taunts, his burning, unseeing eyes lapsing into madness. “Look how you think I’m on your side, how you think I’m actually starting to care about you!” He throws his head back in wild laughter.
“Don’t you get it? The only reason I haven’t killed you yet is because I haven’t been given orders to. You don’t mean anything. You’re just this kid someone’s handed to me. You’re just in the way of Becky and I being together. You’re just there.”
Canine-like, he somehow senses the fear I’ve been trying to swallow and his elastic grin stretches even wider.
“How sweet. Look how upset you’re getting. I’m so, so sorry. Have I hurt the poor baby’s feelings?” He throws his head back and lets out a crazed laugh that sounds more like a ripping sound.
“You really thought we were going to end up together, didn’t you? You thought I was going to let you go because I liked you too much and then we were going to get married and honeymoon in Hawaii and have ten kids and retire to Fiji. I’m disappointed, really,” he says the last part in a flat tone, mimicking actual disappointment. “At first I thought you were something special. Now I see how pathetic you really are.”
He tightens his grip around my hand even more and I let out a gasp. In one liquid movement he wrenches my arm all the way around, then pulls it around my neck. He’s making me strangle myself.
I can’t help it; I let out a grazing scream.
I thrash about and struggle against him with my last pencil shavings of energy. But it’s no use.
“You don’t even speak. Who in their right mind would like you?” He pulls me into him so my back is pressed against his chest. He’s still wrenching my arm around. Desperately, I try to struggle, but he holds me in this mousetrap effortlessly. With his free hand, I feel him fish for something in his pocket.
“I’ll lay it out straight for you. Maybe then you’ll actually understand. It. Was. All. An. Act. I knew you’d be less likely to attack if you started to think I was on your side. Everything was leading up to this - the moment when I tell you how it really is, show you how good a liar I really am. The moment when I shoot you because your useless dad didn’t fulfill the ultimatum for your release.” He pushes the cold end of what can only be a knife into the side of my neck.
Jayce speaks again, this time in a slow whisper where every letter is elongated. “You thought you could replace Becky… but you mean nothing to me.”
Liar.
I’m sure I heard someone whisper that, but I don’t know where it came from.
Liar.
There it is again. It’s a raspy and croaky voice, but I can hear the word perfectly.
“Liar!”
It takes me a while to realise that the raspy voice I’m hearing is my own.
No, no, no, no. This can't be happening. This isn't happening.
He pushes the knife closer. I scream. I scream for my life.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Time was running past us on his daily journey when the I let out the shattering scream that sent the birds behind us flapping away in frantic squawking from their now drunkenly swaying tree. I saw him; he was right there in front of us. He slowed right down, swivelling his clockwork neck to get a good look at us. What happened? He quizzes us, as all twelve numbers around his face twisting themselves into crooked question marks. He’s clicking his tongue to the beat of every passing second. I don’t know, I reply. Shrugging his mechanical shoulders, he turns around and sets off again. He’s got other places to be. No time to stop. He speeds off, and the world spins forwards in stop-motion speed to make up for the seconds we just lost.
The first thing that hits me is that I’m still alive. It’s so stupid, but it hits me with relief. There is no pain against my neck. Nothing. I open my eyes. They adjust to the darkness and pull the world around me into definition. Jayce has still got me in this su
ffocating vice-grip where my left arm is twisted around my neck as though I’m strangling myself. And the cold edge of the knife is still pressed against my neck. I crane my head to look at him. His lips are tightened into a horizontal line and his skin is slipping into a very faint red colour. His green eyes are still crazed and unseeing, but now they’re burning through something up ahead.
I follow his line of sight and see exactly what he’s staring at. There’s someone in front of us - only about ten steps away, standing outside the radius of light emanating from the streetlight behind us, meaning all I can see is a silhouette. I think it’s a man. He’s broad with square shoulders and appears to be wearing a uniform; I’m guessing police uniform. He’s tall – almost three heads taller than me. He’s got a firm stance and impeccably straight posture that only years of military training could achieve.
That's when I realise he’s pointing a gun straight at us.
My hands have completely clammed up and I can feel myself shaking again. My breathing has become completely unhinged and uncontrollable. I’m literally panting and I have to breathe out of my mouth because the vice- grip Jayce has put me in makes normal breathing hurt too much. I think I’m going to be sick. I can hardly hear over the sound of blood resounding in my ears.
“Let her go,” the man demands, his voice unnaturally steady for a situation like this. But his voice sends me into movement. I gasp. I know this voice.
It’s the voice of my father.
It takes a moment to process this.
He’s actually here! It’s him!
I break into a huge smile and breath a sigh of relief. My heart rate slows down a little.
He’s here! He’s come to take me home!
“Don’t come any closer!” Jayce warns, tightening his arm around my neck, which cuts off my breathing even more.
“Let go of her and step away.”
“Come any closer and I’ll do it. I’ll do it. I’ll really do it, you just watch me.” Jayce is jabbering. He does that when something throws him. Maybe he hadn’t expected the police to actually find him.
“Alicia, don’t worry. I’m here now,” Father reassures me. He steps into the pool of light and his face illuminates. It’s definitely him, except now he looks… older. It’s as though he’s aged a few years since the last time I saw him. The lines cutting into his forehead seem more prominent now, and his heavy eyes now rest on thick shadows. His whole face seems drawn and elongated, like someone has been stretching his skin downwards every night. In fact, in this weak, eerie light, he looks almost skeletal.
“I’m not scared of you,” Jayce insists, his voice wavering slightly. “You can’t shoot me. You’ll miss and shoot your daughter instead.”
“True. I’ll give you that one. But that line of thought isn’t going to work when my backup arrives. When all twenty-four police officers join in this fun little game of yours.” Jayce’s face falls at this. “You heard me right. Twenty- four. We take it to heart when it’s one of our own.”
“I’ll shoot her,” he repeats again. “Rebecca Louise Meyer.”
Jayce loosens his grip around me, giving me enough time to move my neck away from him. I can finally breathe normally again! I inhale the cool air around me and then crane my neck to look at Jayce. His face has completely dropped, looking drawn and solemn, and his mouth is parted slightly in a half-gasp.
“What did you say?
“Rebecca Louise Meyer. A bright, cheerful girl, naturally good at whatever she tried. Perfect attendance. Class prefect. Predicted all As and A*s. She died on the 18th February 2011 from knife wounds, aged just fifteen. Her battered and bruised body was found in a ditch on the twentieth. Donald Owen and Alex Hall, then also fifteen, pleaded guilty to the murder, claiming they had acted independently. Both were sentenced to nineteen years imprisonment. This is her death certificate.” Father fishes in his pocket and pulls out a folded piece of paper and throws it at us. It falls on the ground in front of us.
“Look at it. Really look at it. She’s dead, Jayce.” “Liar!”
“She’s dead, Jayce! Dead!” Father says, raising his voice.
“Liar!” Jayce shrieks again, even louder.
“She’s alive, and we’re going to be together-”
“The person who has been contacting you is just an imposter.”
“Shut up! Just shut up!” Jayce is screaming at the top of his voice now.
Calmly, Father tries to reason with him. “You don’t have to be our enemy. We can grant you immunity if you help us find out who this impersonator is. They’re the real criminal here.”
“Liar! You’re all just lying to me!”
It all happens so fast. Jayce’s knife clatters to the floor, he lets go of me and collapses to the ground on his knees.
He grabs the death certificate and clutches it against his chest, cradling it.
He makes strange animal sounds similar to sobbing, but it sounds forced and inhuman, more like gasping for breath.
His whole body heaves with every breath he takes.
I hurtle away from him and run to my father, who puts his free arm around my shoulder, still keeping his gun steadily pointed at Jayce.
“She can’t be dead. We’re… we’re going to be together…” he trails off, his breathing getting shorter and more forced with every second.
I know exactly what’s happening. Jayce's panic attack has started up again.
And I know it's crazy, but after all this has happened, there is still a small part of me wants to hold him and help him like I did back at Kit’s house.
“Let’s go now,” Father says coldly. The words come as a surprise to me and I look at him incredulously – can’t he see what’s happening? Can’t he see that he’s hyperventilating? We can’t just go now; we need to help him.
I turn to Jayce for a moment, then to Father, then back again.
I’m free now.
But I can’t just leave him like this.
Father looks at me, turning his head to the side slightly, tapping his foot repeatedly. The lines in his forehead have slipped right down, sinking into his narrowed eyebrows and pulling his whole face down. He’s glaring at me. It’s a burning and impatient glare. The unsettling kind that makes you look away without realising.
“Let’s go, Alicia.” The words string themselves out coldly and devoid of tone and emotion.
I catch movement from the corner of my eyes.
Jayce has twisted to face me, his body heaving with the weight of his jagged breathing. His mouth is parted to make way for his breathing and his teeth are gritted tightly. His skin looks paper white in this light and his cheeks look suddenly gaunt and drawn in. He’s looking right at me, with wide, pleading eyes.
But his icy words from a few minutes ago echo in my mind: you mean nothing to me.
And I make my choice.
I turn around and walk away.
Chapter Twenty-Three
??? March 2011
??? AM
I’ve got a throbbing headache.
I’ve just woken up. I don’t want to call it waking up. It’s more like forcing myself to get up over the melodramatic, highly exaggerated fear that I’m going to die from this headache.
I didn’t want to wake up. I wanted to stay in bed for the rest of my life. Just stay here until I shrivel up like an orange in the sun.
I don’t know what the day is or how much time I’ve wasted lying here. It feels like minutes, but it’s been at least a week. I tried to get up in the first few days, but I got a vertigo-like feeling every time I tried to, where I felt dizzy and ill, like al the blood was rushing to my head at once. So I gave up. Now I spend my time lying here in bed instead. It’s better here. Safer.
Everything kind of just blurs together in this room. If I stayed here for long enough I can imagine myself going up to the mirror and seeing grey hair and wrinkles. That thought scares me and I pick up the hand-held mirror on the night table next to me just in case. Thankfully, it�
�s my own face that stares back at me. It almost isn’t. There are thick, deep purple bags under my brown eyes and I’m so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open. My brown, once-curly hair has become completely tangled, every ringlet knotting into the next, to the point where it’s partly standing on end and there are knots the size of tennis balls running throughout it.
I haven’t been able to sleep at night. My sleeping is done at ungodly hours in the morning and at lunchtimes. The rest of the time I spend with my eyes shut tightly, wishing everything else would just go away. I slip in and out of consciousness. Sometimes I can’t tell whether I’m asleep or not. I’m just drifting somewhere in between.
It’s pitch black in my room. I like the dark; it feels calm. The dark is consuming. I hope that if I stay here long enough it will consume and silence all my thoughts.
There is no time here. The only thing that acts as my calendar is my father, who comes in before and after work. He brings me some food and tries to talk to me. Asks if I’m awake and if I’m all right. Asks me if I want to go to school. I stay silent and motionless and keep my eyes shut until he gives up and leaves. That’s the only reason I know that any time is passing at all. All the hours pull into each other, one by one.
My chest hurts. It’s fed up with my heart, which only has two states now. It is either beating with dread or panic, which happens whenever I remember anything that has happened these past few days, or it slows right down, to the point where I can put my hand on my chest and can’t feel anything. That happens when I think about Jayce. Not scary Jayce, the Jayce that tried to kill Jeffrey and pushed a knife to my neck. The Jayce who took me around Bath, who wrote me a song, who held onto me when he was having a panic attack at Kit's house.
My head keeps throbbing. It’s become even louder, to the point where all I can hear is this stubborn, tireless pounding against my skull.
I need painkillers.
I drag myself out of the warmth and safety of my bed and face the real world for the first time in what feels like months. I drag my feet along every step until after this tiring, endless journey I finally reach the bathroom. After showering, dressing and drying my hair and combing it, I haul myself to the kitchen, a journey that takes even longer.
The Mute and the Liar Page 17
