Sometimes I Lie

I feel much better after the show. Madeline, however, is not feeling at all well. She’s been waddling back and forth to the toilets throughout the morning and is covered in sweat. She thinks it must be food poisoning. I think it is far more likely to be the laxatives I put in her coffee just before we went on air. Madeline likes coffee, she drinks a lot of it, never says no, as long as it’s black. She also likes to drive to and from work. She thinks public transport is ‘dirty and full of germ-ridden commoners’. She’s in no fit state to drive herself home now, so I offer to, much to her surprise and Matthew’s approval. I don’t think she’s going to go for it at first but, after another impromptu visit to the lavatory, she seems to come round to the idea and I am glad.

I carry her bag as we leave the office because she ‘feels too weak’ and I pretend not to know which car is hers when we reach the car park. She unlocks the black VW Golf, then passes me the key, before folding herself into the back seat, as though her car has metamorphosed into a taxi. She barks her postcode at me as I tap it into the satnav, then warns me to ‘drive bloody carefully’ and ‘watch for foreigners on the road’.

She sleeps as I drive and I decide I like her a lot better like this. Silenced. The poison is trapped inside her while she sleeps, opposed to seeping from her lips when she is awake.

I hate driving in London. It’s too busy and loud. There are too many people on the roads and all of them are in a hurry, though few of them have anywhere they really need to be. It’s better once we’re out of the city centre, the roads seem to widen and are less crowded.

When the satnav suggests we’re only ten minutes away from our destination, the car makes a warning sound and an angry red symbol glows on the dashboard.

‘You’re almost out of petrol,’ I say, observing the narrowing eyes of my passenger, awake again, in the rear-view mirror.

‘I can’t be,’ she says.

‘Don’t worry, I’m sure there’s enough to get you home.’

‘Do I look worried?’ We make eye contact in the mirror again. I hold her stare for as long as seems sensible when driving at forty miles an hour, then look back at the road ahead.

We don’t speak again after that, not until I turn left into the road where she lives. She barks at me again then, telling me where and how to park, but I don’t really hear her. I’m too busy staring up at the house she says is hers, unsure how to feel about what I’m seeing. I recognise this place. I’ve been here before.

Before

Easter Sunday, 1992

Dear Diary,

Taylor is on holiday with her parents for the whole of Easter and I feel miserable. I haven’t seen her since the last day at school and I won’t see her again until next Tuesday when we go back. She sent me a postcard. Mum barged into my bedroom with a big grin on her face to give it to me a couple of days ago. She thought it would make me happy. It didn’t. Taylor seems to be having a lot of fun without me and I don’t think she misses me at all.

I’m not going on holiday this year, not even somewhere in England, Mum says we can’t afford it. When I pointed out that Dad has been working loads so we should have lots of money, she just cried. She’s always crying lately and she’s not fat any more; I wonder if maybe she’s too sad to eat. One night last week she was too sad to make lunch or dinner. I’m not allowed to touch the oven, so I just ate crisps and biscuits. I asked Mum if she was still sad about Nana and she said she was sad about everything.

Mum said she’d take me to Brighton again one day next week if I was good. I asked her where she would take me if I was bad, but she didn’t laugh. I’ve reminded her that I’m ten and a half now, so I’m a bit old for the kids’ rides, but I don’t mind walking along the pier and I like the sound of the sea. Now that I am older, Mum has started looking for a part-time job, like Taylor’s mum. She hasn’t got one so far, even though she’s applied for loads. Every time she gets an interview, she wears her hundred-year-old black suit, puts on too much make-up, then comes home and drinks all afternoon. I wouldn’t give her a job either, she’s too sad and lazy. I had to wear the same shirt for school three days in a row before the holidays. She said it didn’t matter and that nobody would notice, then sprayed some disgusting perfume on me so that I stank of her all day.

My packed lunches have also taken an interesting twist. Part of Dad’s job is to fill up the sweet machines where he works. One of the perks of his job is being able to bring home boxes of free chocolate and crisps. Last week, he brought home a box of forty KitKats. We ran out of bread before the last day of term, so Mum gave me two KitKats for my packed lunch instead of butter-and-crisp sandwiches, which was fine with me. But then the lunch monitor spotted what I was eating and thought I’d forgotten my lunch, even though I told her that I hadn’t. She sent me to join the kids who have hot meals, which was great, because that’s what Taylor does.

She was sitting alone, as usual, so I sat down on her table. But then there was a fuss because, apparently, Mum hasn’t paid the school for the last time I had to have a hot lunch. In the end, I think Mrs MacDonald felt sorry for me or something, because she paid for it herself and told me not to worry. By the time I got my fish and chips, everyone else had been sent out for playtime. I could see almost the whole school on the field while I ate my lunch. I spotted a group of girls from my class and saw Taylor standing in the middle of them. They pushed her between them as though she was a rag doll and she didn’t look like she was enjoying it. When she tried to leave, they joined hands and closed the gaps between them, pushing her back to the centre of their circle. I left my chips and said that I didn’t want any of the dessert either, even though I was still hungry. I ran to the playing field but I couldn’t find Taylor or any of the other girls. I ran to the quadrangle where she sometimes sat on the steps on her own, but she wasn’t there either.

I went back to our classroom, even though it was still break time, but it was empty. Then something caught my eye, something out of place. I walked over to the class fish tank and looked at the dead goldfish floating on the surface of the green-tinged water. Taylor and I had helped clean the tank a few weeks ago. Mrs MacDonald taught us that you empty the liquid by putting a piece of hose in the water and sucking the other end. The water rushes out by itself if you do it right, and you can collect it in a bucket. It’s all to do with gravity. Like the moon and the stars. I got a mouthful of fish tank water the first time I tried it and Taylor laughed at me. I don’t think anyone has cleaned it since.