Lies Like Love (26 page)

By the time Mr Bruce finally saw
Macbeth
for what it was – a piece of political propaganda designed to flatter James I and entertain the masses – he and Leo had come to a truce. Leo answered his questions and participated in the lessons and Mr Bruce accepted that his Marxist rereading of the play was wrong. On many levels. For a treat, Brucie said, they could do a bit of acting.

‘I want to see the tragedy in sixty seconds. Key quotations, freeze frames, whatever. I leave it to your ingenuity.’ Brucie smiled. Sadist.

Leo teamed up with a couple of other guys, Jon and Billy – nice enough; they’d always got on. They messed about, improvised, got it together. When the bell rang, Jon followed Leo out into the corridor.

‘So, I hear you play keyboard.’

‘What? How’d you hear that?’

‘Dunno. Grapevine. We need someone for our band.’

‘What band?’

‘It’s a new project: me and Billy. He’s on drums, I’m vocals, guitar. You interested?’

‘Maybe; what sort of stuff do you play?’

‘Oh, we write our own music. Bit of folk, Americana, country.’

‘All right.’ What the hell. He didn’t have much else to do. It might be fun; take his mind off all the things Sue said he needed to stop thinking about.

‘So, tonight, seven o’clock, here.’ Jon scribbled down an address. ‘See you later, mate.’

Leo was shocked. They were good, really good. Lyrics dark and seeping with menace as Jon sang in a deep throaty voice about black waters rising, biblical fear, girls with eels in their hair. Leo listened for the chords. He could do something with this definitely. Touching the keyboard, working it out, he felt right, good. Wished Audrey was here. She’d loved to hear him play. Don’t think about that, not now. Just make noise.

They worked on the songs for a couple of hours. Went down the pub after. Apparently the landlord didn’t mind they were underage so long as no one got rat-arsed. The local police turned a blind eye too.

Jon was the talkative one; Billy didn’t say much, communicated mostly in grunts, but he was the lyricist.
Still waters
, thought Leo, smiling.

‘That was fucking great, Leo,’ Jon said. ‘So, you’re in? We could get a couple of gigs this summer.’

‘Yeah, I’m in. Why not? But I tell you what – you should maybe try a RAT distortion pedal. I had one. I’ll see if I can find it, let you have it.’

‘You play guitar too, then?’

‘Sort of. I can play a bit of most things.’

‘Renaissance man,’ said Jon, laughing, draining his pint. Real ale. Leo liked it.

When Billy got up to put something on the juke box, a girl sidled into his seat. Swishy hair, sickly perfume. Sat too close. Lizzy. Leo stifled a groan and, for the millionth time, regretted the manners instilled in him from birth.

‘Hey. So, how’s it going?’

‘Fine.’ He looked at her, wondered what she wanted this time.

‘I haven’t seen you out much.’

‘Oh.’

‘Mum says your girlfriend’s proper sick. Sorry, I mean your ex.’ She put emphasis on the word, grinding in the reminder.

He stared at Lizzy. There were no sea-coloured clouds in her eyes or flowers in her hair; there was no poetry in her head. She didn’t wear glasses, wasn’t humming some silly song that she sang with Peter. It was simple: no one else shone. No one else made his skin prickle, his belly lurch. His heart ache.

‘Yeah, I told you she was mental. Psycho. You should have listened.’

Jon and Billy were listening. Leo would not ask her what she meant. He would never give her the satisfaction. He sipped his drink, not sure how rude he could be and still get away with it. Lizzy smiled round the table, her little white teeth glistening and sharp, but no one smiled back. She nudged him, giggled and sipped her drink, some radioactive-looking alcopop.

‘She’s proper schizo, Leo. I knew it. She always freaked me out. My mum reckons they’ll have to put her away
soon; she was in the surgery the other day, all monged out, Mum said.’

Leo tightened his grasp on the glass in his hand, knuckles hard and white. Jon asked him something, if he wanted to meet up again next weekend, and he nodded as Lizzy interrupted again.

‘So, you’ve joined the band, have you? Is that what this little gathering’s all about?’

This time Leo answered her. He could speak about this without losing the plot.

‘Yeah. They’re really good. Play really well – I love their stuff. I’m a bit rusty though –’

Jon interrupted. ‘He’s not. He’s like some genius. And he’s going to be our chick magnet.’ Jon swigged the end of his pint and nodded at Leo, making him laugh.

Lizzy nodded, not getting it. ‘You’re right.’ He reckoned she actually batted her eyelashes at him. He felt a little queasy.

‘We’re all going on to Amy’s. You coming?’ she said, moving closer, wriggling her skirt a little further up her thighs, adjusting her hair so it swished too close to him.

‘No.’ Leo stood up. ‘I ought to get going.’

‘See you, then,’ she said, following him. ‘At school on Monday?’

‘Sure. Take it easy.’

And he walked away from them, out of the pub on to the black roads towards the embankment, finding his way in the dark by the moon glowing silver bright in the night sky.

Leo stopped, halfway home. Put his hand in his pocket.
Took out his phone. It had been so long since he’d spoken to her. It was no use pretending he didn’t care.

The phone rang and rang. Clicked on to answer machine.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’ Over and over and over.

When Mum wheeled me in to see Mr McGuiness he stared, although I’m sure he wasn’t meant to. He must have had training not to gawp like that; surely I wasn’t the worst he’d seen. My body had bent and adjusted to the chair, adopting its shape, so it was harder to walk now, harder to stand. Sometimes at night I lay in bed and tried to cycle my legs in the air, but it was hard; I got out of breath fast.

‘Audrey won’t get up. She says she can’t walk,’ Mum explained. ‘Of course, we both know that’s not true. But it’s part of her illness; it’s the way it’s affecting her, doctor.’

‘And the hair?’ he asked. I’d forgotten about that and grown used to the look. Mostly people thought I was having chemotherapy; Mum never contradicted them and I was too tired to mind now. In a way they were right – there was a cancer, but it grew outside my body, operating in disguise.

‘She shaved it off. The lot. I couldn’t believe it when I found her – all that beautiful hair all over the floor. I cried.’ Mum sniffed and Mr McGuinness nodded and didn’t stop Mum’s explanations, her stories. It was amazing how sure she sounded, as if she believed every word she was saying. ‘Like I said, it’s the illness. It’s like she’s trying to destroy
herself, any way she can. Like she wants to be ugly and awful. Heartbreaking.’

Mum’s eyes goggled and popped at me, then at the doctor. She sat down, pulling her chair closer to mine, then took my hand and I let it rest in her palm, trying not to feel – the touch of her skin made me want to gag, to turn myself inside out and worm free. Mr McGuiness cleared his throat. My head swam with the stories and the words, questioned the facts and the fiction, the truth and the lies. What was memory? What was dream? I’d looked up those words.
Factitious disorder
. I knew what they meant now. I knew it meant we were pretending. I was her proxy. Last night I’d lain awake thinking it through, wondering – how long had I been a lie? How long had I been a puppet? What was real about me? I didn’t know. My mouth worked the words,
factitious disorder
, twisting and chewing them like gristly meat. The psychiatrist stared.

‘Right, of course I remember you, Audrey, from when – way back in January? What’s been happening?’

‘Nothing much,’ I said. Acting nasty, mean, like Mum said I should.

And then I shut my mouth and left it to Mum; she was better at this than me. But, like Dr Caldwell, he didn’t want to know and got me on my own. Mum left the Thing though, nestled beside me. It prodded and poked as I explained, reminding me to tell him, tell him all.

Leo decided it wasn’t good enough just to be sorry. He waited for Peter after school and fell into step beside him. Peter marched on his little legs, his backpack too big, hanging from his shoulders. Leo tried to take it but Peter dodged away.

‘Your mum picking you up?’

‘No.’ He scurried faster, his hair flying. It was long, past his collar, like Leo’s. His little chin jutted up to look at Leo, who recognized the expression on his face. Defiance. Pain. Bewilderment.

‘How about Audrey?’

‘She can’t.’

Leo didn’t ask why not. It wasn’t fair.

‘Anyway, I’m big enough to walk on my own now, Mum says.’

‘Can I walk back with you, then?’ Peter nodded and they walked on together and it was almost like the old days, almost.

‘I saw a heron the other day,’ Leo said. ‘Are you still watching the birds, Pete?’

‘No.’ He hesitated. ‘We don’t really go in the woods now. Aud can’t go. I’m going to watch TV when I get home.’

‘How about a game of football first?’

Peter’s eyes shone. He looked his old self for a moment.

‘Really?’

‘Yes, let’s go. Come on.’

As they passed the ball, Leo tried to get Peter to talk. At first it was hard work; the answers were short, simple, vague.

‘Do you remember your last house, Pete? Was Audrey not well then too?’

‘I don’t know,’ Peter said.

‘Did she go to school?’

Peter shrugged.

‘She always looked after me,’ he said eventually. ‘She’s my best friend.’

‘I know. Me too.’

‘But you don’t like her any more,’ Peter accused.

‘What? Who said that?’

Peter ran, dribbling the ball away from Leo. ‘No one ever likes us,’ he shouted over his shoulder, ‘not really.’

There were so many pills now. I swallowed each one, the procedure long and slow. Afterwards my words slowed and slurred and I sat beside Mum, staring at the floor or her hands as they knitted and scratched and pressed the keys on her phone. Time was rubber and though I tried to poke my nose through into each day, stretching and testing, pushing against its thickness, it never gave; it never let me in. And there were places in my brain I didn’t visit any more, high places, where I might find a bird on a branch, its head turned to the sky. Instead I stayed below, down in the darkness, the pain places, locked inside.

One evening, somewhere at the end of May, I looked up. I’d been lost in that blackness, and Peter was staring, looking at me like I was a stranger. I sat up straighter and tried to smile, to seem normal, and glanced around for a pack of cards, a book, to distract him.

‘What’s happened to Audrey, Mum?’ Peter said.

Mum looked up from her magazine. She flicked the ash off her cigarette and looked back down, her eyes scanning for her place.

‘Your sister’s a very poorly girl, Pete. You can tell your friends at school, if you like, and your teachers. Tell them that Audrey’s not well. That she’s seeing the doctors, up at the big hospital.’

I reached out and held Peter’s hand. Gripped as tight as I could. This wasn’t supposed to have happened. It wasn’t the plan. Peter stared at me again. His eyes watery.

‘Are you going to die, Aud? I don’t want you to die,’ he whispered.

I managed a smile, managed to mouth a
no
. But we’d had the conversation, of course, so many times. I remembered now. Suddenly realized why.

When I was five I said I’d probably wear my Snow White costume. Mum liked that idea, made a note and set it aside with the matching satin shoes, bag and headband. Dad bought me a Jessie outfit to replace it and I marched around in sparkly red boots, swinging imaginary lassos for some time after. Aged ten, I opted for yellow – my favourite colour – yellow dress, flowers, and the song ‘Yellow Submarine’ instead of a hymn. That was the start of my Beatles phase, when I’d listen to Dad’s LPs at night, playing them turned down really low, when Mum and Peter were asleep. She hadn’t been quite so keen on that, said it was a bit too fun, but that she’d bear my thoughts in mind. Age thirteen, I said I’d think about it and felt a bit sick when I did so later, alone in my room, staring at a ceiling I’d painted black, where I’d stuck constellations I didn’t know the names of, that the city sky had never shown me. And now I had no idea. But the whole family knew what Mum’s send-off involved. A lot of Elton John. Her name picked out in pink roses on top of her coffin. Plumed horses, undertakers in long black coats. A procession, if possible, like in the videos she watched of Princess Di’s funeral; Peter centre-stage, stoic, pale (I, of course, would
be long gone by then). And the headstone: ‘Devoted mother. Who lived for others, not herself.’ She made up the wording and I said nothing. Now I knew it wasn’t true.

Later that evening I finished washing up, walked slowly, excruciatingly, up to Peter’s room, ignoring Mum’s voice calling me back. I was reading him
The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe
and it felt very heavy in my hands.

‘Go on, read it, then, Aud.’ Peter sat up, excited, ready. I put the book down; I didn’t have the breath. There were special voices required for the witch and Aslan, for Lucy and Edmund. Energy was needed to bring the words to life, and when I looked at the page the sentences seemed too long, like snakes twisting out of the book and fading to nothing. Peter picked it up, opened it and began to read aloud to me instead. But he couldn’t manage, stuttering and tripping over the long words and the difficult punctuation. If I wasn’t around to read him this story, then who ever would? He’d never know the end. I must have groaned.

‘What is it?’ Peter said. ‘Why do you sound like that?’

‘I’m fine, don’t worry.’ I coughed, trying to clear my throat.

‘Sorry, Aud,’ he said, patting my head.

‘What are you sorry for, mate?’ I took his hand.

He snuggled up to me. ‘Do you wish you hadn’t come back?’

‘No.’ It was a struggle to get that out. It was only half a lie. I wished there was another way to do this. But it was too late to run away now; I couldn’t make it. The thought banged in my brain and I ground my nails into my palms.
Leo’s face flickered on my eyelids, his face when he’d tried to ask if something was wrong: anxious, biting his lip, how he’d flushed when I’d said no and pushed him away. And he hadn’t been to see me. Not for months. There had been no letters, no secret messages twisted out of ancient paper.

‘Do you ever see Leo these days, Pete? Up at the school or anything?’ I whispered. Mum might be listening. She was always listening. There was a long pause. Peter rubbed his head on the pillow. His hair would be ratty with knots in the morning.

‘Yeah,’ he whispered back, blinking. He put his mouth to my ear. ‘Mum says I’m not allowed to tell you though.’

‘What?’

‘If I tell you, you won’t get well.’ He frowned.

‘Just tell me. It’s OK.’

‘He meets me after school and he asks about you every day, Aud.’

I sat up, leant forward. ‘What do you say?’

‘I say that you’re OK. I didn’t tell him about your hair falling out.’ He reached forward and touched my head again, running his palm over the smooth shell. Mum shaved it almost every day. He shrugged. ‘Shall I tell him that you’re ill? Do you think he’ll come and see you then?’

‘No.’ I grabbed his hands and squeezed. ‘No. Don’t tell him that. Thanks, Pete.’ I dropped a kiss on his head, pushed myself up and walked slowly out of the room.

‘Night, little brother.’

‘Night. I love you, Audrey.’

‘I know.’