Little White Lies

by Lesley Lokko

  Boston, gritty and grey, slid past the tinted windows in an excited blur. Didier slept, woke up, gazed out of the window and then fell back asleep again. For the first time in a long while, Yves’ hand rested slackly, warmly, against her thigh. Annick had never been to America before and was utterly absorbed by the unfolding scenery in front of them, at once familiar to her from countless televisions shows and films, and at once strange and remote. She couldn’t get over the sheer size of the roads – lanes wide enough to fit three cars, not one! Yves laughed indulgently at her observations. Frances was right; within hours of leaving London behind, a new, almost forgotten warmth had re-emerged between them. The wellspring of hope that had been buried and dampened down for so long began to cautiously rise in her again. There would be an easy explanation for it all. There had to be. Looking at him now, his gaze preoccupied by whatever lay beyond the car window, she felt a sudden surge of love, mingled with gratitude, towards Tash, Frances, Rebecca . . . everyone.

  ‘Look!’ Yves’ grip on her leg tightened suddenly. ‘There’s the bridge.’

  She followed his finger. The outline of the island swam into view, a dusky line of land that rose out of the shimmering blue. A small plane, far in the distance, rose slowly out of the greenery, dipping gently this way and that as it climbed beyond the tree line and began to head towards the puffy white cloud mass on the horizon. Behind it she could see an unbroken line of dunes, shifting sand held together by long grasses that, even from the road, brushed the horizon in long, slow caresses. A great flock of seagulls rose majestically out of the water, flying directly out of the wet light and into the sun. She gripped Yves’ hand, covering it with her own.

  ‘Have you seen some of these houses?’ Yves pointed to the pretty New England clapboard houses that were beginning to emerge out of the trees.

  Annick laughed again. ‘You wait until you see Tash’s place. I’ve only seen pictures, mind you. I can’t wait. I still can’t get over it, can you? I mean, all this is Tash’s?’

  Yves smiled and shook his head. ‘I’ve long since stopped being surprised where you three are concerned. Nothing surprises me anymore.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ Annick laughed in protest.

  Yves shrugged. ‘Nothing,’ he murmured, turning to look out of the window again. ‘Everything. You’re hardly run-of-the-mill, Annick.’

  There was a tenderness in his voice that had been absent from it for a long time, Annick realised. ‘You neither,’ she said quietly, hoping her voice was steady. She was filled with a sudden impatience, not just to reach Tash’s magical house, but also to begin the long, painful and yet joyous process of repairing the rift that had opened up between them, years ago.

  ‘You’re here! At last!’ Tash was standing in the doorway as the driver neatly brought the car to a halt a few yards from the white front door with its oversized brass knocker and giant brass numerals. ‘I thought you’d never get here!’ she cried, springing forward as soon as the car stopped.

  Didier was out of the car first, tumbling out with all the uncoiled energy of a two-and-a-half-year-old who’d been kept cooped up for far longer than his constitution would allow. ‘Didi! Careful! Don’t run, chérie . . . walk!’ The cry was lost on him as he tore past Tash and burst into the house.

  ‘Go on,’ Yves laughed, ‘yes, go right inside. Don’t wait to be asked.’ They all laughed. He kissed Tash on both cheeks, holding her by the elbows and giving her a warm squeeze. ‘What a journey . . . and what a house, Tash. It’s stunning. Everything I’d imagined it to be . . . more, to be honest.’

  Tash was beaming. The colour was up in her face. It still took Annick a while to get used to the new, carefully sculpted features that she only just recognised as belonging to her best friend. She smiled a lot these days. It was as if the new Tash was simply a prettier, sunnier, more winning version of the old one. She would never be the beauty Rebecca was, or have the same exotic sultriness that could still be seen in Annick’s face by everyone except Annick herself, but Tash was no longer the butt of all fashion jokes. She now looked like who she was – an exceptionally successful, driven, capable woman in her late thirties who’d finally grown into her features. Or who’d bought herself a new set of features, others, less charitable than her friends, were wont to say. It mattered little; she now had the looks to match the kind of person she’d always been. Annick loved her unconditionally.

  ‘You look beautiful,’ she whispered in Tash’s ear as they hugged. She meant it. She was dressed in the kind of androgynous white linen shift that suited her long, lean shape. With a high Mao collar, thick silver earrings and flat white Superga plimsolls, she looked every inch a Martha’s Vineyard resident – tall, tanned, lithe, with minimal make-up and no fuss. Her one touch of glamour – deep red, almost black, short nails – lifted her whole appearance into the realm of the glamorous holidaymaker, welcoming friends and family to her sumptuous home. The image was a seductive one; Annick found herself being drawn warmly and voluptuously into it.

  Standing just inside the doorway was a young girl who bent down to Didier’s level and welcomed him very formally but with a wide grin. She was the au pair. Clea was Irish; her voice had a soft musical lilt to it that made you want to listen closely. ‘Why don’t you come with me, little man. I’ll show you where we’re all going to sleep. Upstairs, right at the top of the house with all your cousins. Let’s see who gets there first.’ Without so much as a backward glance, Didier went off with her, anxious to show this new friend that he wasn’t about to be left behind. The three adults looked on indulgently.

  ‘Come on,’ Tash tucked an arm into Annick’s, leading them both into one of what seemed to be several sitting rooms on the ground floor. The room was stunning: pale-grey walls, a highly polished wooden floor against which the light bounced and was reflected back up towards the ceiling. No expense had been spared. Tash’s exquisite taste in all things was everywhere. There were plump white sofas for lounging in, beautifully upholstered chairs to admire, a fireplace in one corner, dramatic photographs on the walls and, best of all, an almost uninterrupted view of the gardens and the water beyond. Annick’s mouth dropped open. On the polished mahogany coffee table were several silver trays bursting with food and drink. It was almost too much to take in. Even Yves seemed lost for words.

  ‘When did you do all this?’ he asked finally, looking around him in awe.

  Tash couldn’t possibly have looked happier. ‘Oh, I didn’t do it. A whole team’s been working on this. D’you like it?’ At that moment Annick wanted only to hug her. It was so typically Tash. Her pleasure lay not in the fact that the house was beautiful, but in the fact that she was sharing it with them. She was catapulted backwards in time to the moment she and her friend stood in Tash’s suite at the hotel in Paris. Then, as now, her generosity had been overwhelming. She’d looked at Tash, too embarrassed to do anything other than stand by numbly, as Tash directed and organised the events that would lead her out of the desperate hole into which she’d fallen, and into a new life. It was a moment Annick would always remember. At that moment, she saw very clearly what Tash wanted from her. Not an appreciation of her achievements, or the wealth she’d managed to accumulate. Anyone could do that, Tash seemed to be saying. She wanted something more, some deeper understanding of what life might be all about – love, generosity, care. Tash cared about them, deeply, and asked almost nothing in return, just that Annick and Rebecca see it, be witness to the person she’d chosen to become. It had taken Annick a while to see it in her, and understand it, because it was strange to her. She’d always had people to care about, and who cared for her. Tash was different. She quickly turned her head. She didn’t want them to see just how deeply Tash had touched her.

  114

  ANNICK/REBECCA/TASH

  From the lofty heights of whatever arguments, fights and private irritations they’d brought with them to Martha’s Vineyard, it took the three couples less than a day to climb down. Even Adam, arrivin
g a day later than everyone else, succumbed. By Tuesday evening, six very different people had emerged, chrysalis-like, out of the tense guests who’d arrived. The children were splendidly and blissfully entertained by Clea and Adriana and spent almost every waking moment outside, either at the edge of the shimmering blue pool, or in the gardens leading to the beach. The beach itself was very firmly off-limits; after a solemn talking to by their godmother, each child understood that to venture down there where the adults sometimes went to sit and stare at the sea was a transgression worthy of an afternoon spent indoors – and none wanted that.

  Rebecca and Annick were amused to see Didier bossily taking charge of the baby Maryam, possessively hugging her to him, waiting patiently beside her as she crawled, desperate to keep up. Here, in the wide openness of Tash’s home, their personalities emerged stronger than before. David and Joshua quickly made friends with the neighbour’s two grandchildren, Cliff and Dean, who, although a couple of years older, were quickly entranced by the four English children. From the minute they woke up until they were put to sleep after supper, they were inseparable. For Rebecca and Annick it was a return to pre-children days, to the long evenings of early summer and university days, sitting on patios and in bars with a glass of chilled white wine and the prospect of an evening spent doing nothing but talking. Within hours of their arrival, it was clear that a different sort of atmosphere had enveloped them. Under Tash’s generous, benevolent gaze, they found themselves slipping under her gentle spell.

  ‘Did you ever think this would happen?’ Annick asked Tash on their third evening. The women were sitting on the veranda facing the beach, glasses of wine in hand. The men had all gone off that afternoon to play a round of golf at the course just down the road and the children were upstairs being bathed, fed, soothed to sleep. Amid roars of delight, Cliff and Dean had been asked to sleep over. Poor Betty Lowenstein had hardly seen her grandsons but she’d reluctantly agreed. From upstairs came the occasional shriek of laughter.

  Tash took a sip, considered the question for a moment and then smiled. ‘By “this”, I take it you mean the house?’

  Annick shook her head at first, then nodded. ‘Well, yes, the house, of course, but all the rest. Your business, Adam . . . all of it.’

  ‘Not exactly. I mean, I always knew I would do something – I don’t mean be successful – but I knew there wasn’t going to be anything to fall back on after university.’

  ‘Not like us,’ Rebecca mused. ‘Well, not like me, at any rate.’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ Tash said quickly. ‘Just because you don’t work doesn’t mean you haven’t done anything.’

  Rebecca looked at her hands. It was that time of the evening when the shadows had all but disappeared but the outdoor lights weren’t yet strong enough to assume the mantle of night. The low-lying clouds that had been hovering all day at the point where the horizon met the sea had all but disappeared and a hard blue sky, now slipping slowly towards night, was busy turning pink and orange at its edges. The housekeeper had thoughtfully placed a few citronella hurricane lamps on the steps just before the grass began; every now and then a whiff of lemon-scented wind touched their noses and tongues. She lit a cigarette and put her feet up on the cushion-covered ottoman. ‘Yes, I suppose I have done something,’ she said carefully, quietly.

  ‘Of course you have,’ Tash said automatically, reaching forward to top up their glasses.

  Rebecca put out a hand to cover hers. ‘No, not yet. I don’t want to get drunk tonight. I overdid it last night. This morning was awful.’

  ‘Come on, you’re on holiday.’

  ‘I know, I know. But honestly, the hangovers aren’t worth it,’ Rebecca laughed a little shakily. ‘How come you never seem to have one?’

  Tash grinned and lifted her full glass to her lips. ‘I’ve clearly had more practice. Anyhow, the boys won’t be back for hours. I know Adam. He’ll take them to the clubhouse, they’ll watch whatever boring match is on the box, have a few more brandies . . . it’ll be the wee hours of the morning before they come home, I promise you.’

  ‘We haven’t had a night like this in ages,’ Annick said suddenly. ‘Just the three of us . . . no kids, no husbands.’

  ‘No one to scold, no one to soothe, no arguments to settle. Bliss.’ Rebecca smiled, a wistful, almost sad smile. ‘Sometimes I think I’ve got four children instead of three.’

  ‘What about you two?’ Annick asked Tash.

  ‘What about us?’

  ‘Don’t you want any?’

  ‘Any what?’

  ‘Children, you idiot. Or is that rude of me?’

  Tash shook her head. ‘No, course not. It . . . it just hasn’t happened. I’m not sure I’m that bothered, to be honest. Besides, I’ve got your four. It’s hard work being a godmother, you know.’ She grinned at them and lifted her glass again.

  Annick was about to say something but Rebecca quickly flashed her a warning glance. There was something slightly too determinedly cheerful about Tash’s response. ‘They adore you,’ Rebecca said, meaning it. ‘And not just because of this,’ she added, waving a hand to bring in their surroundings. ‘Though I’d have given anything to have a godmother with a house like this,’ she added impishly.

  ‘As if you don’t,’ Annick laughed.

  ‘I don’t!’

  ‘You’ve got that amazing place in Italy, can’t remember its name now. D’you remember that summer we all went out there? Just after our A-levels?’

  Annick nodded. ‘I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. It was so beautiful. Your mother was amazing. So welcoming.’

  ‘Bit like me, then?’ Tash grinned.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Funny, everything seemed so simple back then, didn’t it?’ Rebecca was suddenly gripped with anxiety again.

  ‘Everything was simple. We were . . . how old? Eighteen? Nineteen? Everything’s simple at that age.’

  Annick shook her head. ‘No, things just seem that way from here, looking back. I’m happy just to be here, now, in this moment, y’know? No matter what’s happened or what’s gone on before.’

  A long mass of creamy white cloud turned suddenly mauve, like a far-off landmass, hovering above the horizon. Rebecca slowly rubbed her toe along the arch of her other bare foot. ‘That’s the thing, isn’t it? So many things have happened. You can’t go back to that state of . . . of being. Not anymore.’ The unrest that had been churning within her for days, weeks, months, rose to the surface. She felt as she often did early in the mornings, when she woke before she’d completely moved out of her dream world into the present one, when time had no clear dimension – have I been awake for a minute or an hour? – and when it was possible, but only just, to imagine that the one terrible thought that dominated her waking moments might belong, after all, not to the present, but to her dream. Maryam is not my husband’s child. It seemed such a dreadful abomination of everything she, and everyone around her, held dear. Maryam is not my husband’s child. How would she ever explain it. To anyone?

  ‘Rebecca? Are you all right?’ Tash’s eyes were on her.

  She nodded quickly and stood up. ‘I . . . I’ll be back in a moment,’ she stammered. Her hair fell forwards, shrouding her face. She hurried indoors, grateful for the momentary respite it provided. A searing hot flush of emotion had erupted over her entire body – shame, mixed with the most powerful desire to see Tariq again that she’d ever felt. She had to get away from the patio with its glasses of chilled Chardonnay and trays of biscuits and cheese, none of which she could force down her throat. She had to hear his voice again, if only for a second . . . if only for the bizarre satisfaction of hearing it on his answering phone. She slipped upstairs to the bedroom she shared with her husband, shut the door behind her and leaned against it, her face damp and flushed with that terrible mixture of conflicting emotions that had become her state of mind. She eyed the phone on the bedside table. One call. One more call. To tell him where she was, where Maryam was .
. . and how much she loved him still.

  ‘D’you think she’s all right?’ Annick asked Tash carefully, watching as Rebecca practically ran from the patio.

  Tash shrugged. ‘Are any of us?’ she asked after a moment.

  ‘What’s got into everyone? A few minutes ago, everything was fine,’ Annick said, surprised.

  Tash reached for the bottle. She was drinking rather a lot, Annick noticed. ‘Life,’ she said with a sigh. ‘It turns out to be way more complicated than you think.’

  ‘Is everything okay with you . . . and Adam?’ Annick asked delicately.

  Tash nodded. ‘I suppose so. I don’t know. I don’t have anything to compare it to, that’s the problem. What about you two? Did you ever get to the bottom of that whole mystery about his name?’

  Annick felt a hot wave of embarrassment travel up through her chest and neck. She hated lying to anyone, most of all Tash. ‘Yeah,’ she said, as nonchalantly as she could. ‘It was nothing. Just a . . . a misunderstanding.’