The Lie of You: I Will Have What Is Mine

by Lythell, Jane

  We’d chosen a perfect day for our picnic as the sun was high and brilliant overhead and gilded the landscape before us. We walked over a wide heath without a single tree in sight. There were sturdy bushes at the perimeter. These had been bent out of shape by the pressure of the wind that swept over them. The path was shaley and here and there outcrops of granite reared up from the earth. The grass was yellowy-green and tussocky and scattered with purple wild flowers. The sea was to our right and foamed against the granite cliffs. Most of the walk was level until we reached a steep hill that led down to the cliff-top we were looking for. Here the loose shale made it precarious with Billy strapped to my back, so Markus went in front of me and helped us down. At the bottom of the hill the cliff-top opened into a plateau with an expanse of heather in full bloom stretching all round us.

  Where the land ended there was a steep granite cliff leading down to a jagged rock formation, which indeed formed the outer perimeter of a natural pool. The sea surged in through the gaps in the rock circle to fill a central crevasse and the water was so clear in the centre and you couldn’t tell its depth.

  ‘This is fantastic!’ Markus said.

  We unpacked the blanket and our stuff a good distance from the cliff’s edge.

  ‘I think I’ll go straight in,’ he said eagerly.

  ‘Don’t you want something to eat?’

  ‘No, I’ll wait. That water looks so inviting.’

  He pulled his wetsuit out of the diving bag. I set Billy down on the blanket and helped zip Markus into the tight-fitting suit that stretched over his firm shoulders. I kissed him on the back of his neck and he turned round and kissed me back.

  ‘Is it safe to go in on your own?’

  ‘Quite safe. Don’t worry, I’m only snorkelling.’

  He put his mask, snorkel and fins into a string bag over his shoulder and climbed nimbly down the rock face. I could never have made it down there with Billy on my back. I saw him reach the plateau and sit down to put his fins on. He looked up, grinning with anticipation, waved at me and jumped into the pool. I walked back to the blanket and rocked Billy in my arms until he fell asleep. I laid him down on the blanket in the shade thrown by the diving bag and walked back to watch Markus in the water. He was swimming round and round and then diving down, his fins poking up in the air. He was a strong and graceful swimmer and looked completely in his element.

  I stretched out next to Billy and watched the seagulls wheeling overhead. It was so peaceful. There was the faintest breeze rustling the heather and the air smelled good. Someone once told me that heather only smells when the sun shines on it and today I could smell its subtle scent. I decided to unpack the picnic and turned onto my stomach. I saw the name label on Markus’s diving bag written in his strong handwriting. He had written his name and there was an address below it. I sat up to examine the label more closely; yes, it was definitely an address in Helsinki. The name label was coming out of its leather case so I pulled it out fully so I could put it in again more securely.

  Behind the name label I found a section of a photograph, cut to fit behind it. I pulled the photograph out. I saw a young Markus in a white T-shirt and khaki shorts sitting on a harbour wall. He had his arm around a woman’s slender shoulders. She was tanned and dressed in a turquoise halter-neck sundress and her blonde hair was hanging free around her face. Her body was turned towards Markus, nestling into his, her face in half-profile. He looked so happy and she was beautiful; radiant. And the woman was Heja. I turned the photograph over and read the words written there.

  You will find this one day and remember how happy we were.

  I shuddered deeply and felt I might retch. It was as if the sky was full of seagulls screeching her words again and again.

  How happy we were.

  How happy we were.

  I knelt on the blanket with my arms over my head and rocked back and forth in shock and pain. It was a physical pain, like a prickling all over my body. And not just physical pain, also a feeling of intense humiliation that I had been lied to for months. My harsh, truthful, puritanical Markus was a liar. He had lied to me all along and shut me out and made me feel shallow because I wanted to know more about him and his past. And what made it even more painful was that she knew all the time. She knew that he was lying to me. I saw her face then, as she sometimes looked at me across the office, curious and supercilious at the same time.

  I could not stay there a moment longer. I could not bear the thought of seeing Markus and his lying face. I picked Billy up, waking him to put him in the baby-carrier, and he cried at being woken like this. I had to shut my ears to his cries. I took the photograph and a bottle of water and left everything else lying there.

  I walked to the hill and tried to scramble up it. It was difficult to get up with Billy on my back and I slipped on the shaley path, scratched my ankles and slid to the bottom. I abandoned the water bottle then and tried to get up the hill again, using both hands to scrabble to the top. Sweat was pouring between my breasts, my hands were grazed and the strap of the baby-carrier was rubbing against my shoulders. These physical discomforts were as nothing compared to the rage and misery I felt.

  Somehow I reached the village with its ugly crouched houses and only then did I get my mobile out and phone for a taxi to take me to the hotel twelve miles away. There was no taxi company in that small village and the car took a long time coming. I paced up and down the main street of the village, with Billy bobbing up and down on my back, terrified that Markus would catch up with us. Finally the taxi driver arrived. He was intrigued at me calling him out to Botallack.

  ‘Bit of a distance to St Ives, with the baby and all. Did you walk here?’

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ I said weakly.

  ‘The buses here are few and far between.’

  ‘I made a mistake,’ I said, wishing he would leave me alone.

  When we reached the hotel I nearly ran up to our room and packed my things and Billy’s as fast as I could while my jealousy and my rage pounded in my temples. Then I sat at the table and wrote him a message.

  I found this photograph in your bag. You and Heja were lovers and perhaps you are still lovers. You lied to me. I asked you about her and you lied to me. It’s all been a great big lie. You made me feel stupid but I knew something was wrong. The great big rotten lie of you makes me sick to the stomach.

  Heja

  AUGUST

  ‘I like that dress,’ Tim said from behind a pile of his corrected proofs. ‘It’s very Jackie Kennedy.’

  I was wearing a duck-egg-blue linen dress for the lunch with Philip and the advertiser.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  ‘It’s more Audrey Hepburn,’ said Stephanie.

  ‘No, she always wore black,’ Tim retorted.

  They pulled silly faces at each other, as they so often did.

  Philip gave me a quick briefing on the Mr Chudleigh we were going to meet as we walked down the stairs. He ran the marketing for a large and successful travel company, he said, and had spent money in the magazine before. Victoria looked put out when she saw us leaving the office together. Philip’s PA had booked us a table at Odette’s, which was a ten-minute walk from the office. On our way there I mentioned to Philip that I had once compèred an award ceremony for the advertising industry in Finland. This seemed to impress him, as I thought it might.

  Mr Chudleigh was late joining us and Philip had already started on the good red wine he had ordered. Then he walked into the restaurant and I saw him squeezing his way between the tables. This was a man who went to a lot of business lunches. He was wearing a pinstriped suit that seemed inappropriate for an August day. He and Philip knew each other quite well and a lot of easy banter went back and forth between them. They ate rich food: rabbit stew and roasted wood pigeon. I chose pea and mint risotto.

  We did not talk much about the heritage guides, in fact. As I had suspected, I was there to add glamour to the lunch. At one point, fairly late on, Philip made a r
eference to the award ceremony I had compèred, so I had to explain that I had once been an anchor for Finnish TV news. Mr Chudleigh expressed surprise that I had left that world. Did I miss television? I was more forthcoming than I usually am as I need to keep Philip on my side. After Mr Chudleigh left us we sat on and Philip ordered a calvados.

  ‘That went well. I could tell he was impressed by you. I’ll have to take you along another time.’

  ‘I’d be delighted.’

  ‘So you’re enjoying your new career?’

  ‘I’m happy to be working on the best architecture magazine there is,’ I said.

  ‘No downsides? It must be less lucrative?’

  ‘I put money away during the TV years. I guess the only downside for me is that I am not good at the whole team thing. I find the joshing and the gossip tiresome and, occasionally, unpleasant.’

  ‘And are they a gossipy lot?’

  He appeared blasé but I knew he was keenly interested.

  ‘Of course they are. It was the same at the TV station.’

  ‘And what do they gossip about?’

  ‘They gossip about you, Philip.’ I smiled at him playfully. ‘Teams always gossip about the boss.’

  ‘That’s gratitude for you! It’s my efforts that keep the magazine going and pays their wages.’

  I had taken a risk. Had I hit a raw nerve? That was enough for that day. It would be too much to plant the idea now that it was Kathy who had told his wife about his affair with Andrea. That would be the next conversation; that would be the unexploded mine that would get her into serious trouble.

  Philip paid the bill and we left the restaurant. I decided to play it contrite.

  ‘I’m sorry if I offended you just now. I didn’t mean to. I really enjoyed our lunch.’

  He stopped in his tracks and looked at me as if I had excited him. ‘So did I. You didn’t offend me at all.’

  Then he said he was going away for his summer break next week. He was spending three weeks in Tuscany. He would very much like to take me to dinner on his return. And I agreed, of course.

  Kathy

  AUGUST

  I took another taxi to Jennie’s. As the taxi was drawing up outside her cottage in Newlyn I remembered she’d said she would be out most of the day. I paid the driver – thank goodness I had the holiday money on me – and then tried her front door, just in case she’d left it open. It was locked. I wheeled Billy round to the back garden and the back door was locked too. I lugged my suitcase round and left it on the path at the back. Odds were it would be safe here, this was Newlyn, not London. It was just after three and Jennie would probably not be back till six so I had to get through the next three hours somehow.

  I took Billy for a walk and was remembering every exchange Markus and I had ever had about Heja. I remembered his ‘She was much admired in Finland.’

  I pushed his buggy fast along the seafront past the large car park. There was a seagull on top of the pay-and-display machine and two gulls were examining the grit at its base. Billy pointed at the gulls so I let him get out. He’s not quite walking yet. He can do a few steps if I hold both his hands and help him. As we walked nearer the gulls launched themselves into the air and flew off towards the sea. Billy stood there, a bit unsteadily, looking after them. The feeling in my chest was now like very painful heartburn as I remembered his cold, dismissive ‘Why should you care?’

  I picked Billy up and hugged him tight and then I pushed him in the buggy up to the centre of town. Newlyn is not as prosperous or as touristy a place as St Ives and it feels more like a working town. I passed one of those cheap bakeries with yellow glazed sausage rolls in the window and the smell of hydrogenated fat wafting out of its open door. Next door was a charity shop and then a surfers’ shop. I kept seeing that photograph of her nestling into his body; it was as if her body fitted his and they looked so in love.

  After an age of tormented walking up one street and down the next, Billy started to grizzle and I realized that he must be hungry. We hadn’t eaten for hours and I remembered our abandoned picnic on the cliff-top. I spotted a small café in a side street called Sea Breezes, which had a blackboard outside with the day’s specials written up in coloured chalk. I couldn’t see through the windows as they were steamed up so I pushed the door open and saw that most of the tables were taken. There was one table with three chairs by the window that was occupied by a young girl with a baby in a buggy next to her. There was a seat free so I asked if we could sit opposite and she nodded.

  She was reading a book and rocking her baby to get him to sleep. She was a thin little thing with a pointed, wistful face and shadows under her eyes and she looked about eighteen or nineteen. Her sharp shoulders protruded from a purple strappy top. She was engrossed in her book, which I saw was The Beach. It had a plastic wrapper on it, as if borrowed from a library. Her fingernails were bitten and every now and then she chewed on the corner of her thumbnail.

  I ordered a pot of tea and treacle tart with custard and took out a jar of parsnip and carrot for Billy. I spooned it into his mouth. He was hungry and ate it all so I gave him a second one of puréed apple. The young mum closed her book with a sigh and drank from her can of Diet Coke. Her baby was very bonny with a mass of dark curls and was nicely dressed in a red T-shirt and striped dungarees. His eyes were getting heavy as she rocked his buggy gently from side to side. My treacle tart arrived and I ate it hungrily, letting the warm sweetness melt in my mouth. It was comforting and I wanted to cry. I gave Billy a rusk to suck on. Her baby had gone to sleep and our eyes met.

  ‘How old is he?’ she asked, nodding at Billy.

  ‘Ten months. And yours?’

  ‘He’s just had his first birthday.’

  ‘He’s gorgeous.’

  ‘Best thing that ever happened to me.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Rory – Rory, Peter, Patrick. The Peter and Patrick are from his granddads and I chose Rory. What’s yours called?’

  ‘Billy.’

  ‘He’s very blond.’

  ‘Yes, and I think he’ll stay blond.’

  ‘And you’re so dark.’

  ‘I know. His dad is very blond. He doesn’t take after me at all.’

  ‘Rory’s the image of his dad too.’

  We both gazed at her baby. Rory had plump rosy cheeks and thick dark lashes.

  ‘You visiting...?’

  ‘Yes, my aunt lives here. What’s it like living here with a small baby?’

  ‘It’s OK really. There’s a drop-in place for mums and kids. They look after the babies so we can have a coffee and a break.’

  ‘Sounds good...’

  ‘It’s all right. I go there most mornings. They have DVDs and books you can borrow.’

  She put her novel in her bag and stood up to go. ‘Been nice meeting you...’

  ‘And you. I’m Kathy.’

  ‘Tina,’ she said.

  Later I walked back slowly to Jennie’s house. Talking to Tina had helped me forget my misery for a while. Now it had come back full force. Markus and Heja had been lovers. Then I saw that Jennie’s car was parked in the road in front of her house and I nearly cried with relief. I could tell her everything. I needed her support and her special brand of warm good sense so much.

  Heja

  AUGUST

  My body always lets me down. I had been feeling fine for several weeks and then on Wednesday I started to feel sick and shaky. I went into work but left early. It was evening and I was lying on the sofa wrapped in the kimono Robert had given me. I was about to go to bed when the phone rang. It was Markus. He said he would be over in fifteen minutes. He sounded tense. I did not understand it. He was supposed to be in Cornwall with her all week. What had happened? I opened the door to him in my kimono.

  ‘Come in. I’ve made you some coffee how you like it,’ I said.

  ‘You look very white. Are you OK?’

  ‘I think I may have flu. I’m a bit shaky.’

>   I poured coffee into a large cup and pushed it across the bar towards him.

  ‘Aren’t you having any?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t drink it any more. Markus, you look really tired. What’s wrong?’

  ‘I just drove back from Cornwall.’

  ‘Why?’

  He took a photograph out of his pocket and slid it over the bar towards me. I looked down at it. I could feel my face get hot. I picked it up and gazed at it for a long time. Then I turned it over and read my words. You will find this one day and remember how happy we were.

  ‘I haven’t seen this in ten years. It was that summer at Aland.’

  ‘I know. Kathy found it in my diving bag. Where did you put it?’

  ‘It was under your name label. You were supposed to find it after that row. It must have been there all this time. You look so young.’

  ‘So do you.’

  I turned away from him with the cafetière and took my time rinsing it under the tap. My hands were shaking. I knew that I looked ill and old and that he was contrasting me with the young Heja in the photograph.

  ‘Heja, I can’t go on seeing you.’

  ‘Why not...? Because of a photograph?’

  ‘I’m so sorry. I have Billy now.’

  ‘I would never come between you and Billy.’

  ‘This has to end now, tonight,’ he said.

  I waited for a moment and then I said it. ‘Kathy still sees her ex.’

  He sat up and pulled his shoulders back as though he was about to face an enemy.

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Just that: she still sees her ex. I saw them hugging in Reception at work a few weeks ago. Why shouldn’t we still see each other?’