The Good Liar (4 page)

the newspaper is at hand on the small kitchen table and he will cast a sceptical eye over it while she busies herself with his breakfast. It took several mornings of his opening and slamming cupboard

doors cluelessly for her to realize that it is easier this way. He will take the toast from the plate while giving his attention to the broadsheet he holds deftly in his left, slightly trembling hand at reading distance. From time to time he will make an acerbic comment

about the state of the nation, but usually she will be free to carry on with her daily chores.

Now she hums, alternately, themes from Beethoven’s sympho-

nies, snatches from Ella Fitzgerald’s
Cole Porter Songbook
and the choruses of Beatles hits, as she dusts the bookshelves.

Is this enough? she thinks as a cloud passes across the window. Or

perhaps it has crossed her heart. Will this be enough? Can it sustain her and if so for how long? How long before she returns to life on

her own? It must endure, she concludes, at all costs. She must do

everything she can to accept Roy’s less salubrious habits, together with his idleness, for the sake of the satisfaction and security she craves.

Stephen, she knows, is beginning to show a restive reluctance

to put up with Roy’s ways and to conceal his dislike. An unusual

thing for an unusually courteous young man, she thinks; and so

far expressed in minute turns of the head, mild facial expressions

and marginally infelicitous phrases that, it seems, only she can

decode.

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Perhaps he has been brought to this. He worships her, she knows.

She will have to talk to Stephen. He must understand. He must bear

it. He must disguise his feelings. She knows that he cares for her and does not like Roy, but he simply must.

4

‘Do you enjoy living here?’ asks Anne as they sip their sherries some five weeks later.

‘Oh yes,’ says Roy. ‘Oh yes.’ He glances surreptitiously at his

watch and resists the urge to shake it for fear – no, in the hope – that it may have stopped. But he knows it hasn’t. Good God, have they

really only been here for twenty- five minutes?

All this for this scrawny, unimpressive man and his blowsy wife.

He casts them a smile that might as well be a grimace. Roy has had

to spend almost the whole of Saturday exiled from the house while

Betty primped and prepared it, spending hours, it seemed, over

whether the extravagant bouquet of cut flowers she had bought

should sit on the coffee table or the small walnut sideboard. They’ll bring flowers anyway, he’d said forlornly; it’s a waste of money. And sure enough they have.

This morning he has been subjected to geriatric hyperactivity, a

running commentary on the preparations and a lengthy debate over

what he should wear. Good God, he knows full well how to turn

himself out. He’d had to put his foot down.

So here they sit, drinking sherry, the component parts of this odd

gathering, all of them transparently ill at ease apart from Roy, in spite of their quite hopeless attempts to pretend otherwise.

It is cramped in the small living room. There is a real risk that

someone will knock over one or more of Betty’s knick- knacks.

Michael and Anne perch awkwardly on the edge of the small sofa.

Their unprepossessing daughter, Emma, with spectacles, lank hair

and an unspecified skin problem, sits on a kitchen chair. Stephen sits on the stairs. Roy thinks, where do they get their ugliness from?

Certainly not from Betty. Her hubby must have been something to

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behold, with dominant genes. Michael, Stephen and Emma resem-

ble to him a family of weasels, with their beady eyes and sloping

foreheads. Not to mention their snarly, unpleasant Mancunian twangs.

Betty is in continual motion between them, covering the small

patch of carpet furiously hither and thither, fussing with nibbles, muttering irrelevancies thirteen to the dozen. Roy leans back in his chair. On one level he is quite enjoying this. Their discomfiture at meeting him for the first time is amusing.

He stifles a yawn and looks outside. At least they have a decent

vehicle. Michael’s large metallic German car stands at the kerb in

the rain. So this nonentity must amount to something despite the

evidence.

Someone has spoken to him. The lids close momentarily over his

eyes as he contains his boredom and strives for civility. ‘Pardon?’ he says.

‘I said, you’ve acclimatized to life outside the metropolis all right?’

asks Michael with infinite patience but in a voice that suggests he is dealing with an imbecile.

Acclimatized. Yes, that’s the kind of word this bespectacled geek

would use. He even calls his mother by her given name. Betty this,

Betty that; not Mother or even Mum. No respect. Disgraceful. But

it is necessary to hold one’s temper in check.

‘Oh yes,’ he says with a thin smile that even he thinks may not be

entirely convincing. ‘It’s not so hard. I like living here.’

‘And you sold your place in London?’

Cheek. Roy knows what he’s driving at. But he answers calmly.

‘No. Not yet. I’m thinking about it, and considering my invest-

ment options.’ He looks in Betty’s direction and smiles.

‘You play the market, then?’ asks Michael with a persistence Roy

might not have credited.

‘Oh no. Not really. No, my money’s safe. I have an associate from

the old days. A broker who’s looked after me for many years. What-

ever he comes up with, I’m OK. We’ll be all right, won’t we, my

dear?’

‘Pardon?’ says Betty, flustered as she is interrupted on her way to the kitchen. ‘Oh yes, of course.’

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They all smile at one another insincerely and then sip their sherry.

You don’t like me, thinks Roy. Except Betty of course. You don’t like me. And I don’t care. He chuckles inwardly, and then starts. It is

becoming harder, much harder, as time goes on, to maintain that

necessary veneer of politesse and feigned eager, smiling interest.

The ageing process. He must not merely try harder; he must do bet-

ter. For all their sakes he must show himself an engaged and

enthusiastic participant, a welcome initiate in the bosom of this

complacent coterie, not an interloper.

But it is so very hard. Tolerance has never been his strong suit, he will freely admit – to himself. Disguise of intolerance, yes, but that’s a very different thing. It has been entertaining over the years, as well as rewarding, to mask his true feelings with an indulgent smile and a kind word, for the greater good. But now he is short of time and, it has to be said, low on stamina. Yet he must make the effort.

‘So you worked in the City?’ asks Michael as, shuffling and edg-

ing, they gain their appointed places at the table Betty has laid in the tiny kitchen.

There is barely room for the six of them and with difficulty they

extend their elbows behind them to place Betty’s carefully pressed, ancient linen napkins on their laps.

Roy pauses for a beat to assure equanimity. He says cheerfully, ‘At one time. I was in property. Among other things. I’ve had a few jobs in my time. I can’t say that I was one of the big players. The City then wasn’t what it is today.’

Stephen thinks: that smile, when he turns it on, is avuncular. Repulsive but avuncular. The ruddy cheeks, the shining eyes, the oozing

confidence, it fits perfectly. The smile of the assassin, he thinks, and wonders whether others see it this way, unburdened by his preju-dices and the knowledge that he has recently acquired of this man

at close quarters. Roy, even in old age, is a fairly impressive act.

He observes Betty, bustling around so far as bustling is possible in such a small space. She is somewhat out of breath, from anxiety, he thinks, as she attends diligently to the needs of her guests, distribut-ing plates, pouring wine, passing bread. The candles are lit and her 22

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unaccustomed disarray and nervousness confer a certain glowing

radiance. There is a fixed smile on her lips and the soft light draws out the depth of her brown eyes. She has been to the salon and her

hair shines and hangs straight and elegant. She is on stage. To him, her performance shines. At the end of the table Roy holds court

with his smile. He neither helps Betty nor contributes much to the

conversation yet is the conductor of proceedings. Everything refers back to Roy eventually. Which is only natural, since this occasion, postponed from the summer, is intended to introduce him, induct

him indeed, into this peculiar family. It is only natural that they should show such interest in him and he deals with their inquisitive-ness with a rediscovered bonhomie and energy. He does not,

however, display a corresponding curiosity about them.

‘Christmas,’ says Michael apropos of nothing, it seems. They all pay attention and it is implicit among them that the statement is directed at Roy.

‘Oh yes,’ Roy says in response, a wary curiosity infusing its rising pitch.

‘It’s only a month away. Are you one for Christmas, Roy?’

‘Well, put it like this, Michael,’ replies Roy. ‘Time was, I was as keen as the next man on Christmas. Those were times of austerity,

mind you, when if you summoned up an orange for the boy’s stock-

ing you were something of a magician. I used to make toys, you

know, for my son, from odd bits of wood. Good with my hands, I

was. But these days, with all the commercialism and what have

you . . . And when you get older . . .’ He pauses for a moment of

reflection. ‘I was on my own last Christmas. I had two pork sausages and a tin of beans for my dinner and I don’t mind telling you I shed a tear or two while I was watching the Queen’s Speech.’

Stephen and Emma share a glance, and Roy senses the begin-

ning, quickly quashed, of a smirk passing over her face.

‘Well, it doesn’t have to be like that this year,’ says Michael. ‘We were wondering whether the two of you might like to spend Christmas with us. I’m happy to come down on Christmas Eve to pick you

up, so you don’t have to worry about the train.’

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‘Well,’ begins Betty, smiling, but Roy talks across her.

He says, ‘Too kind, too kind. We couldn’t possibly.’

‘No,’ says Michael quickly. ‘You must. Betty would normally

come to ours anyway and it would be nice to have the two of you.’

‘Ah no,’ says Roy, looking directly at Michael. ‘You misunder-

stand me. Betty and I have set our hearts on our first Christmas

together being here, alone. Haven’t we, my dear?’

Betty, looking at Michael, says, ‘Oh yes. I was going to mention

it. I hope you don’t mind.’

There is an awkward moment in the air. Roy can see Michael

thinking, battling perhaps with an instinct to vent his annoy-

ance. Come on, man; show some spirit at last; spit it out, he thinks.

But no.

‘Oh well,’ says Michael. ‘It was just an idea. A romantic Christ-

mas with just the two of you. Wonderful. Great.’

Is that relief Roy sees shimmering on Stephen’s face? Possibly, but then again maybe not. It was there for just a second and he finds

these days that his senses are not as finely tuned as once they necessarily were, and his eyesight not so sharp.

5

It’s a truism that the older one grows, the more conscious of the

seasons one becomes and the separations and transitions between

them. Maybe it’s just true. Or possibly, Betty thinks, our weather

has become more extreme, as the experts say, and the seasons are

consequently delineated more starkly.

Whatever. A young person’s word that, with its tone of resigna-

tion and extinguished hope, signifies the point this generation has reached on the journey from inquiry via bewilderment and disillusion to despondency. Not, therefore, a word for Betty. She rephrases the concept in her mind: it’s beyond me. Accompanied by a win-some girlish giggle, it will suit perfectly, she thinks; a suitably little- woman expression.

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Roy would know the answer for sure. Which is to say he would

be sure he knew the answer, whether or not he did, and would be

able to state it with sufficient authority to brook no argument. He is very strong on certainty, Roy, and this is a good thing for Betty.

At any rate the season is currently biting at its coldest, with relentless ferocity. In September she found herself wishing away summer

and welcoming in cooler evenings and the march of the night. Bet-

ter a genuine autumn than the apparition of summer. Strange for

her. Since her childhood she has been a creature of the summer:

those hot days whiled away in the garden with her sisters, the sounds and cares of the city beyond the high rose- covered brick wall; white dress, bare legs, dipping her toes in the clear pond by the summer

house; playing with Elsa, the dog; and those fragrant evenings

watching the elder girls through the balustrades of the gallery as

they were courted in their ball gowns by dashing army officers. So

long ago. Autumn brought gloom and equinoctial winds blowing

leaves and dust along grey avenues under grey skies.

Now the moon is full and she watches through the kitchen win-