The Truth and Lies of Ella Black

by Emily Barr

  Everything is going to unravel. I work so hard to keep myself separate from Bella, and now they’re going to pull my life to pieces. This is why, since I was seven, when I realized how bad I was, I have tried so hard to keep it secret. I’m trembling all over, waiting for the ringing in my head to get louder, because I know Bella won’t take this lying down either.

  ‘Absolutely right now, I’m afraid,’ she says, her lips tight. She is always dressed like a hippy, my mum, but today, I notice, she is trying to look upmarket. She’s wearing a floaty dress with flowers all over it and the seashell necklace she puts on to go to weddings and parents’ evenings.

  I try to gauge from her face whether she is scared of me. My parents have no idea what goes on in my head and I need to keep it that way. I have worked hard to make them think that I’m awkward and shy (both of which are true) and absolutely nothing else.

  Mum is worried about me. She is treading carefully. She is going to take me to some clinic.

  I have always known that she would do anything for me, within a carefully defined range of things. If I said I wanted to learn the oboe, for example, she would have sorted it out for me instantly. Ballet would be a yes (and it was, for years) but cheerleading would be a no. If I wanted to see a counsellor to talk about the monster in my head, I imagine she would work hard to convince me there was no need for that sort of thing at all.

  Mum could have done things with her life because she’s clever and lovely, but all she did was have one baby and then chain herself to a healthy cookbook and a drawer of craft materials for evermore. She opted out of everything. I kind of respect her for that. I love her for devoting her entire life to me. How can you not love that? She waits for Dad to come home from work and puts healthy food in front of him. She buys me the things I need for my art. She looks after us. She considers it to be her job. If I thank her for a lift, or anything at all, she says: ‘Oh, that’s OK. It’s my job.’

  She could have done anything, and she chose to look after me instead. It’s not a choice I’d be making if I ever had a child. We have talked about this, though we never argue. She says, ‘Part of feminism is having a choice, and my choice was to stay at home.’ I tell her that is a bit of a cop-out as it’s a choice you can only make if you have a spouse who can support you while you do it, and instead of arguing her point she says: ‘Yes, you’re probably right, darling.’

  She is already on her feet. ‘Now, Ella,’ she says. ‘We have to leave now. Right now.’

  I don’t know where to start.

  ‘But, Mum,’ I say. ‘I’m at school. It’s education. I should really stay here. I’ll see you at four. OK?’

  I wait for backup, but it doesn’t come. I realize that the head teacher of my expensive school had me collected from the common room for whatever this reason is.

  She would only do that if it was an emergency. She wouldn’t do it for no reason.

  She would do it if someone was dead.

  Mum is here.

  It could be Dad. I’d rather it was her.

  I push that thought away and pretend it never happened.

  ‘Is Dad OK?’ I say, talking to my shoes.

  ‘Yes,’ Mum says, though she doesn’t sound surprised to be asked. ‘He’s perfectly fine. He’s meeting us here. Now.’

  ‘What, then?’

  Mum is alive. Dad is alive. They wouldn’t collect me from school if it was the cat. Still, I hope it’s not Humphrey.

  ‘I’ll tell you on the way,’ says Mum. ‘Like I said. Come on.’

  I look at Merkel.

  She nods. ‘Off you go, Ella,’ she says. ‘We’ll see you when we see you.’

  That fills me with horror. She should have said tomorrow. She doesn’t know when I’ll be back. But I have studying to do. I need to be at school. I don’t want to go to therapy. She will see me when she sees me. That opens up a chasm. I hold on to the edge of her desk, trying to tether myself.

  Merkel looks calm, but she is holding a little piece of card and tearing it into tiny pieces, dropping the shreds into a pile. There was handwriting on it. I wonder what it said. When I look into her face she looks away. I look at Mum, who is standing by the door now. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to go. I hate it at school but I want to stay.

  ‘Why?’ I manage to say. ‘What’s going on?’ My voice is tiny.

  ‘We’ll talk in the car.’ Mum’s not looking at me.

  ‘Do I really have to go?’ I say this to Mrs Austen. My voice is trembling.

  ‘Yes, Ella,’ she says. ‘You really have to go. Don’t worry about school for now. We’ll still be here. You’ll be all right. Off you go.’

  On the way to the car I text Lily and Jack. Mum seems to be kidnapping me, I write to our group.

  ‘Put your phone away,’ says Mum.

  Dad is parking in the teachers’ car park as we get there. He is all right, and I am surprised to find that I’m so swamped with relief that my legs nearly give way. A part of me didn’t believe Mum at all and thought she would tell me in the car that, actually, he was in a coma or something. Dad is so much more straightforward than she is. He is just Dad.

  It’s still raining, but just drizzling now. Dad gets into Mum’s car, apparently ready to leave his Audi behind without a backward glance. Parents aren’t allowed to park in the teachers’ car park. They’re certainly not allowed to abandon their cars there.

  Abandoning his car is very much not a thing my dad would do. He is very organized.

  I am so glad he’s still alive that I actually hug him and whisper: ‘What the hell is going on with her?’

  ‘So sorry, darling,’ he whispers back. ‘It’s not Mum. I promise. We’ll tell you in a minute. Let’s just get away for now.’

  I swallow. ‘OK.’

  I turn round in the back seat and watch the school disappearing through the rain-splattered window. I don’t know when We’ll be back. I am utterly terrified. I can feel Bella inside me, biding her time, waiting to see what this is before she starts to deal with it. I hope Dad really will tell me in a minute.

  The car radio beeps the hour. Everyone in the common room is talking about me and I am not there.

  ‘The news headlines at eleven o’clock,’ says the radio. ‘Nuclear tensions increase as the stand-off continues. Amanda Hinchcliffe is released from jail after a third appeal. Two more cases of simian flu have been confirmed in the United Kingdom –’

  Mum jabs at the car radio and it goes off, flicks on again, then goes back off. She and Dad both inhale sharply. Her hand is shaking. Dad wobbles the steering wheel and almost runs over a long-haired woman who is standing at the end of the school drive, texting.

  ‘What?’ I say. ‘Tell me. What is it?’

  ‘Let’s just have some peace and quiet so we can talk,’ says Mum. ‘Sorry, darling. I know this is weird but it’s nothing to worry about. It’s to do with Dad’s work. We’re going to be away for a little while, but it will be fine. In fact it’ll be fun. You’re going to enjoy it.’

  It turns out that this is all they are planning to say. This is the promised ‘explanation’ in all its pathetic glory.

  ‘Dad?’ I say, my voice so quiet it barely comes out.

  ‘Later,’ he says.

  Mum passes me a Twix, and I put it in my pocket for later. Bella loves bad food, and I might need it to pacify her.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I ask. ‘You have to tell me that, at least.’

  ‘Heathrow,’ says Dad.

  I text Jack and Lily the word Heathrow without looking at my phone. I don’t know what word it actually sends.

  ‘And after that we’re going to Rio.’

  Dad and I sit in a coffee shop while Mum goes and sorts some things out. I am drinking ‘coffee’ that is actually mildly flavoured milk. I hate milk. I’m drinking it anyway. It gives me something to do with my hands now that they’ve taken my phone away. Mum just picked it up from the table and walked off with it, and she pretended not to hear
me calling after her.

  ‘Did you look at my list?’ I say. ‘My list of the places I’d like to be? Why are we going to Rio?’

  He smiles. ‘Ellie, you’ve talked about Rio a lot. You did that huge painting which your mother and I thought was wonderful. What list?’

  Only my dad calls me Ellie. I like it.

  They know that everything about Rio enthrals me. It seems wonderful and alive and full of samba and life and excitement. Before I stumbled on Rio while looking for a tropical setting to paint (from photographs), I had no idea that there could be a place like that. I want to be someone who is at home in Rio de Janeiro, rather than a nervous schoolgirl in Kent who can’t do anything more daring than dye her hair an outlandish colour after a tense internal struggle.

  I don’t want to go there like this though. I would prefer to get myself there when I’m older and braver, rather than being escorted by weird shifty parents who apparently no longer trust me with my own phone.

  But right now? I can’t even express how weird this is.

  ‘I know, Ellie,’ Dad says, and he looks exhausted. There are big things he’s not telling me; I wish he would just spill it all out, whatever it is. ‘This thing came up for me, workwise, and we know how much you’d love to visit. So we thought we could make a family trip of it.’

  ‘Right.’ As if I would believe that. As if.

  His eyes are begging me to pretend. ‘Aren’t you a little bit pleased?’

  I sigh. I take a sip of coffee and wipe the milk froth off my top lip with a napkin. I contemplate pretending to be delighted at being taken along on this ‘work trip’. I imagine myself saying: It’s amazing! Thank you so much! It wouldn’t work really, would it?

  ‘It’s just a little bit too weird,’ I say. ‘You like me going to school. If we were all going because of your work, then you would have arranged that and sorted the time off. In no universe do you just decide on the spur of the moment and grab me from school and drive to the airport. Then take my phone. Fuck’s sake. I’m not that stupid.’

  I said ‘fuck’ to my dad. That’s never happened before. I look at him. He looks at me. His eyes crinkle. We both know I would never have said that if Mum was here. I push Bella away again.

  I’M WATCHING, she says.

  I know, I tell her.

  ‘We thought you’d love the idea,’ he says.

  ‘What about Humphrey? Who’s looking after him?’

  I can see from Dad’s face that he has no idea. My poor Humphrey will be baffled. He will hate me when he realizes I’ve gone away, and if no one is going to feed him then he might die.

  He won’t die. There are feral cats. Humphrey’s vicious enough to survive. I know that better than anyone. But still. When I get home he’ll be thin and tough and he won’t bring me presents any more.

  ‘I’m sure your mother’s got that covered,’ Dad says after a while.

  ‘And Jack,’ I say. ‘Jack’s coming over tonight. I won’t be there.’

  I know that Jack won’t actually turn up because I told him I was going to Heathrow. The rest will have been filled in for him by my schoolmates: he will know that I’ve been swept off halfway through the morning, immediately after being rude to Mrs Browning.

  ‘Oh.’ Dad is way out of his depth. This is actually scary. It feels as if we are running away, but we can’t possibly have anything to run from because we are normal and boring and law-abiding; or at least they are. We’re running away from something they’re not telling me about. This is spiralling into something very, very weird; but at least they’re not dropping me off at an asylum, I suppose.

  ‘Can I call him?’ I say. ‘Can I at least tell Jack that I’m off on the “trip of a lifetime” and will be back … next week? Shall I say that? How long are we going for?’

  ‘Oh. I’m not sure. Look, you know you can’t call him. We don’t really want anyone to know that we’re going to Rio.’

  ‘Yeah. You’ve got some work stuff to do in Brazil and it’s Top Secret?’ I think of something. ‘Have we even packed? Oh my God, Dad. Where’s my stuff?’

  I look around the concourse purely as a dramatic move, but I’m glad I do because someone is walking in our direction, and even from this distance I can see that it’s Jack. I know his blond hair and his tall skinny body. I know the way he walks.

  ‘It’s complicated,’ says Dad. ‘Mum’s packed some things. We’ll buy stuff.’

  ‘Jesus.’ But I’m not looking at him. I’m looking at Jack and I’m grinning. I hoped he would do this. Jack has a car and we both use Find my iPhone.

  Dad turns to follow my gaze and then closes his eyes and breathes deeply. ‘Ellie,’ he says. ‘Oh, for God’s sake.’

  But I am on my feet and running towards Jack. He sweeps me up in his arms.

  ‘Thank you so much,’ I say. ‘Thank you for coming.’

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘No idea.’

  My dad is right next to us, of course. He says, ‘Good to see you, Jack,’ in a tone that makes it clear that he means the opposite.

  ‘Ella sent me a couple of texts,’ Jack says, seeing that he needs to explain, ‘and I had a free period and I had my car at school and I just thought I’d come and say goodbye.’

  ‘Well, that’s very romantic.’ Dad doesn’t see what’s right in front of him. They were both so pleased when I started hanging out with Jack that neither of them noticed that we’re not boyfriend and girlfriend at all. That’s fine by me and fine by Jack, though I found it hard to keep a straight face when Mum insisted on ceremonially handing me a bag of condoms a few months ago.

  ‘Dad,’ I say. ‘Can Jack and I just have a minute? I promise I won’t say anything about the thing you just said not to say about.’

  He rolls his eyes. ‘I’ll get you a drink, Jack,’ he says. ‘What’ll it be?’

  ‘Flat white?’ he replies. ‘Thanks so much.’

  Those minutes with Jack are exactly what I need. We lean forward, chins on hands, and talk with our heads close.

  ‘What’s the thing you’re not meant to tell me?’ he says as the airport bustles around us.

  ‘That we’re going to Rio. Don’t tell anyone.’

  ‘Fucking Rio! Can I come?’

  ‘I wish! I don’t know what’s happening.’

  ‘Enjoy it, babe. Whatever it is.’

  ‘Will you be OK?’

  Jack sighs. ‘Yes. I will. I’ll miss you. I had a close call on Saturday. I went to the Admiral Duncan with Tony, and there was a teacher from my school there. Mr Jones. He’s quite new. Young. Fit. Anyway he saw me and I saw him and I was scared that he’d tell the other teachers, because why wouldn’t he, and also he could see I was technically breaking the law by drinking. So I had to grab him at school this morning and beg him not to tell anyone. He said he wouldn’t. I hope he means it.’

  ‘He will. He’ll know what’s at stake. He’ll have been there himself. And you’ll be out of there soon.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘You’ll be OK without your girlfriend for a while?’

  ‘Yeah. Will you be OK without your boyfriend?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  There are tears in my eyes. I don’t want to leave Jack. We met in Wetherspoon’s one night when I was tagging along with Lily’s friends and he was pretending not to be on a date with a boy. Poor Jack. He was having a drink with someone, and then half the girls’ school walked in. I watched him leap in the air and walk away from his date. That was intriguing: I’m always on the lookout for other misfits. We started talking, and then I found I had a new best friend. When everyone assumed that we were going out it worked for us both, so we kept up the pretence.

  Obviously it’s fine to be gay. Obviously it’s not the nineteen-fifties any more. Try telling that to Jack’s parents and their church though. He just needs to avoid them taking him to conversion therapy until his exams finish and he can leave home forever. I’ve never seen anyone fit into their environment
quite as badly as Jack does.

  I reach out and ruffle his blond hair. He grabs my hand and squeezes it.

  ‘I’ll miss you,’ I say. ‘Email me. Keep in touch. I’m sure I’ll be back soon.’

  He laughs. ‘Yeah. You’ll probably be home in a couple of days and my dash to the airport will look ridiculous.’

  ‘It’s the best thing anyone’s ever done for me.’

  Bella has gone silent. She doesn’t want to leave Jack either.

  When he’s gone Dad and I sit quietly. There are echoing announcements that I cannot quite hear, and there are people all over the place, none of them looking as if they are travelling for fun.

  This morning Mum drove me to school and told me to have a lovely day. A few hours later she abducted me to take me to Brazil and now she has my phone.

  That doesn’t happen.

  ‘Going to the loo.’ I say it in an offhand way, hoping that this will make Dad casual too.

  He shifts in his chair, runs his fingers through his hair. ‘Can you wait for your mother to get back?’

  ‘No. No, I can’t. Am I not allowed to go to the toilet any more?’

  I walk away before he can reply, aiming for a distant yellow and black sign with a lady in a sticking-out skirt on it. Dad actually gets up and follows. I cannot begin to address how weird and embarrassing this is, so I pretend he’s not there. I’m not going to bolt for Jack and his car (someone has to behave properly around here, and it’s clearly not going to be them), so I walk across the concourse with my father gaining on me all the way. When we get there I stand aside and gesture for him to go into the ladies’ ahead of me.

  ‘I’ll just wait here,’ he mutters, and he stations himself there, a toilet guard.

  I sit on the loo and try to think. My parents are boring. They can’t have done anything they have to run away from.

  I THINK THEY’VE DONE SOMETHING TERRIBLE, Bella says helpfully.

  Like what?

  STEALING. ARSON. DRINK DRIVING. WHATEVER PEOPLE DO.

  They must have done something, she’s right, but it feels impossible.