Little Liar: A nail-biting, gripping psychological thriller Page 11

‘Now you’re sounding crazy.’ And Jackie stood up and walked out into the garden. She had never liked the confrontation I would endlessly push for.

  I saw her through the window. My regret fought with my anger. I knew I should go out there to say sorry. But if I admitted to being in the wrong, she would automatically be in the right, and the child in me couldn’t handle that.

  Mum’s arrival was a welcome interruption.

  ‘What’s going on, you two?’

  Before I had a chance to reply, Jackie flung the backdoor open and stepped back into the kitchen.

  ‘Look, Gemma, none of us is getting it right, okay? I am an absolutely crap mother most of the time. I barely manage to bath them once a week, and I always let them play outside when they should be doing their homework, and I feed them pasta pesto too often, and, seriously, I could go on and on, but the thing is, you know all this because I talk about how crap I am all the time. The difference is, you never do. You never ever admit to making mistakes. You’re always telling us how perfect everything is.’

  Mum’s eyes batted furiously as she looked from Jackie to me. In old photographs, Mum’s eyes were as bright as buttons. Now they had a milky film, as though the sadness and disappointments of life had brought diaphanous curtains across her vision to shield her. ‘Sorry, Jacs,’ I said, and hung my head. My heart contracted with shame. My sister never raised her voice to me. ‘I didn’t mean to take it out on you.’

  Jackie dropped her hands from her hips, stepped into my arms and hugged me tightly.

  ‘Sometimes it’s okay just to ask for help.’

  ‘I’m the worst sister ever. And the worst mother ever,’ I moaned.

  ‘No, no, you’re an amazing mother, and don’t for a second forget it.’

  We stood stuck to each other until mother piped up.

  ‘Plainly, I haven’t done a very good job though. You’re a pair of basket cases,’ she said, and all three of us fell about laughing.

  ‘You’re right. You totally fucked us up,’ Jackie said, kissing Mum on the cheek.

  ‘Hi Mum.’ I kissed her other cheek. ‘It’s okay, I blame the hormones,’ I joked, holding both hands over my stomach, trying to warm it, to soothe it somehow, to counteract the surge of stress hormones. If its exposure to high levels of cortisol was anything to go by, the poor little mite was going to be crazier than all of us put together.

  Peter came back in, with dirty trousers from the mud pit that surrounded the swings. ‘What’s all this hugging about?’

  ‘Sorry, you have to be a crap mum to get a hug. But you can have a cup of tea,’ Mum said, waving a teabag in his direction.

  ‘What about being a crap dad? If you don’t hug me, it’s discrimination.’ And he hugged Mum, who stiffened a little at such an open display of affection.

  ‘Speaking of crap dads, either of you called him recently?’ Mum asked.

  Jackie and I glanced at each other and grimaced.

  ‘Girls, seriously,’ Mum reprimanded.

  ‘I called him after Jill’s funeral,’ Jacs offered up sheepishly.

  ‘That godforsaken village he lives in is ten miles from a village shop and he’s all alone now. You really should call him.’

  ‘He was coping all right when I last spoke to him.’

  ‘You know, he might surprise you, he might be able to offer some good advice,’ Mum said.

  ‘Don’t you dare tell him about the police, Mum,’ I begged, knowing Mum spoke to him weekly.

  ‘There’s no shame in it, darling. You know, I spoke to John last night and apparently something like this happened to Immy’s friend, a few years back...’ Mum began.

  ‘Did you tell John, too?’ I cried.

  ‘It’s only John.’

  She told John everything. John and Sarah, and their daughter Imogen, had lived in the next-door house to us on the Victorian terrace we had grown up in. John and Sarah were the parents Jacs and I wished we had. I minded less that she had told John.

  ‘Go on, what happened,’ Jacs said, bringing us back to the point.

  ‘Well, apparently, Social Services called to arrange an appointment and then they came around to her house to interview her, and they interviewed the son at school.’

  ‘Why were they suspicious in the first place?’ I asked, my heartbeat quickening at the mention of Social Services.

  ‘It was a mum at school who made the allegation. She accused her of neglect.’

  ‘And they were completely innocent?’

  ‘Completely, apparently. It turned out the child had some allergy or something, which explained how skinny she was. They dropped the case in a couple of weeks. But Imogen remembers her friend went through hell. They spoke to their doctor and the child’s teachers, and all sorts.’

  There was silence. Possibly, we were all thinking the same. I knew what I was thinking: no smoke without fire. When someone points a finger, you are naturally left wondering why. If it isn’t true, why accuse them in the first place? I recognised the hypocrisy of my suspicions. It was an insight into how other mothers might feel about me if it got out.

  ‘It won’t come to all that. As I’ve said, you’ve got nothing to hide,’ Jackie restated reassuringly.

  Some of us have more to hide than others, I thought. I knew that my sister would never have had the urge to hit her children and I knew how shocked she would be if I told her that it came to me when Rosie was in a tantrum. I had never seen Jackie raise her voice to any of her four near-feral children. They wouldn’t know a boundary if it smacked them in the face and I had often judged her for it.

  I stood to clear the empty cups of tea. ‘More tea, anyone?’

  Jackie stood up. ‘Peter, come out to the paddocks with me and say hello to Still Standing. She’s doing so well.’

  ‘Love to,’ he said, and they both disappeared outside.

  I was left alone with Mum, who helped me put the mugs in the dishwasher.

  ‘I was wondering, darling, if it might be a good idea for you to have a day out with Rosie this week.’

  ‘Actually, I was thinking of booking a surprise trip for all of us to Disneyland Paris, or something, as a bit of a treat.’

  ‘No, I meant, just you and Rosie. Something simple.’

  ‘Oh. Yes. That might be a good idea.’ Dread twisted in my stomach. I felt actual fear of a whole day alone with her.

  ‘Are you very busy at work at the moment?’

  The potential promotion, which I had kept secret for now, loomed largely in my mind. ‘No more than usual,’ I said.

  ‘You know, I realised last time I looked after them that you arrive home terribly late at night.’

  Here we go again, I thought. Jacs and Mum had obviously been talking. To save a row, I decided to ignore her, as though she hadn’t spoken at all. It was the way my mother and I had always operated.

  ‘Maybe I’ll take her into London to see a show,’ I suggested.

  My mother seemed happy to drop it too. ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream is on at the Barbican.’

  I tried not to laugh. ‘I was thinking more like a musical.’

  ‘She’s very bright. You don’t need to dumb it down,’ Mum sniffed.

  When I was young, my mother would slam the door shut to the sitting room if Jacs and I watched a soap opera on the television instead of a documentary. ‘I’ll have a look at what’s on,’ I said, trying to placate her.

  ‘It’ll be lovely, darling, whatever you do,’ my mother said.

  I wished I shared her optimism. Online later that night, the pressure to choose the right show sent me into paroxysms of indecision. The bigger shows were booked out, the smaller ones were not special enough, some were too grown-up, some too babyish. It was like choosing a party dress for her all over again, but worse. I was bound to get it wrong. After two hours of research, prevaricating hopelessly, I bought two tickets for a musical production performed by a circus troupe from Paris. And I crossed my fingers.

  Chapter Seventeen

>   Rosie was standing there under a film of drizzle in her red-and-white striped nightdress, slap bang in the middle of Mira’s driveway, staring up at their house. Her black hair was slick and shiny, a neat strip in front of each shoulder, as though it had been combed one-hundred and two times.

  Mira, who had been about to pull her own nightdress off to get dressed for work, leapt to the side of the window out of sight.

  ‘Barry,’ Mira whispered. ‘Look, Rosie’s out there.’

  He poked his head over his newspapers and peered out of the window.

  ‘Whatever is she doing?’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s seven in the morning.’

  Mira looked on at her, reluctant to go out to her, worried about what the child had to say. It was a chance to study her face. She was pretty, in a pale and interesting way, not unlike Gemma Bradley in terms of colouring, Mira thought. But that was where the similarity ended. Rosie’s features were refined and in proportion, like Peter’s quiet, self-contained handsomeness, while her mother’s features were attractive, but less settled somehow, less refined – thicker brows, wider smile. More like a child’s than Rosie’s, Mira thought.

  ‘I’d better go see what she wants,’ Mira said, pulling her dressing gown down from the hook on the back of the door.

  When she opened her door, Rosie scarpered, disappearing as though she had never been there.

  Mira stood with her back leaning into the door, like it were a barricade, long enough to hear Gemma’s car crunch out around the roundabout and out of the cul-de-sac.

  Had Rosie been coming to ask for help? A sense of responsibility for her burrowed its way into her soul. Whatever was going on next door, Mira was inextricably involved now. Rosie had come to her house for a reason. If Mira didn’t respond, she would be letting her down.

  Most days, Rosie and Noah came home through the back gate at around four o’clock. Their nanny would arrive at their house at about a quarter to four. There were after-school clubs – which Mira could find out the times for if she watched carefully – but essentially, there would be a ten-minute slot when Rosie would be alone, with Noah of course, walking across the recreational ground from the back gate of their school. If Mira intercepted their journey, Rosie would be able to talk to her freely without her mother’s input. It would provide Rosie with some time at least for her to communicate with a trusted grown-up. There was no crime in bumping into someone randomly was there?

  ‘Did you speak to her?’ Barry said, coming down the stairs dressed in his gardening scruffs.

  Mira moved away from the door. ‘She ran off before I got the chance.’

  ‘What an odd bod.’

  ‘Children who are going through a lot at home often do strange things.’

  Barry stopped midway through tucking his shirt in. ‘Are you okay, love?’

  ‘Oh, for goodness sake, of course I am. Stop asking me all the time,’ Mira snapped.

  Once Mira had thought of this plan to help Rosie, she became quite set on it. Throughout her normal Monday at school – hearing the children read, clearing up the learning tools, writing accident reports, monitoring dinner – she was clock-watching. She was reminded of how she used to clock-watch at school throughout double Biology on Thursday afternoons, when every minute felt like a lifetime before she could escape to meet Craig. The clock face above the blackboard had had a white face and black numbers and the second hand was red, moving forward in slow motion.

  She looked up to a similar clock in the Year Two classroom. It was five past three, and twenty seconds. Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, she counted, almost willing the clock to take her back in time.

  The children had been walked out into the playground for pick-up and it was quiet at last. She felt inside her skirt pocket for the little square photograph nestled there. Before leaving the house that morning, she had peeked into the dining room to check everything was in order for her work on the album later. The photograph of Craig had been lying there on the top of the pile. It had struck her that it was a bit like leaving a text message from your lover on your phone display for your husband to read. Barry hadn’t known about her involvement with Craig, and she didn’t want him to find out now. So, she had pocketed it.

  Occasionally, its corner pricked her thigh through the material of her skirt as she moved about, reuniting named coats and shoes to their corresponding pegs, slowly clearing the space. Every now and again, she would slip her fingers into her skirt pocket to feel for the photograph. Working her fingertips across the smooth surface, sliding them across the edges, imagining his face was a comfort to her, like flicking through worry beads. The image of Craig in his white T-shirt was crystallised in her memory.

  ‘You feeling okay?’ came a voice from outside of her head. Patricia’s voice.

  Mira realised she was sitting down on the low gym bench with a trainer resting in her lap.

  ‘Oh, sorry, I felt a bit light-headed. I’m fine now,’ Mira lied, unable to explain why she had stopped to sit, why the dreams of the past had taken over her like a temporary blindness of the present.

  ‘You sure? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

  ‘It’s the pong of this, probably!’ Mira joked, stuffing the trainer into her gym bag.

  ‘Off you pop home, Mrs Entwistle!’ Patricia said.

  * * *

  By a quarter to four, Mira was parking up in her drive. A few minutes later, the Bradleys’ nanny’s blue hatchback whizzed around the roundabout.

  Mira changed quickly into an old tracksuit and trainers.

  Her route to the recreational ground was more convoluted than it would have been from the Bradleys’ back garden. This fact had always irked her. The houses on the close with access to the grounds via their back gates were considered more desirable than the houses without access. An estimated fifty thousand pounds was added to the value of those privileged few on the other side of the road. It was a microcosm of the social divide in their town. Those on the west side seemed to drive bigger cars, tended to send their children to the same private school and shopped in Waitrose over Tesco.

  Mira had to walk to the top of the close onto the main road, walk a few hundred yards down the B road (which lacked a pavement), round the corner into the small gate on the other side, through a small car park and finally onto the large expanse of green at the brow of the town’s hill. The views beyond the tennis courts and the playground encompassed thickets of trees over rolling hills dotted by beautiful large Arts and Crafts houses that she imagined belonged to millionaires. The view reminded Mira of the fairytale The House with the Golden Windows, where the little girl in her simple house dreamt of living in the house she could see across the valley whose windows shone gold. When the little girl finally made the trip to visit the house she had coveted, she realised the windows were broken and dirty. Looking back over the valley to her small house, she was amazed to see that the windows of her own home were shining golden as the sun reflected upon them, and she understood that her home was where she had always been happy and loved.

  There were no golden windows on the millionaires’ houses today. The sky was a suspended ceiling of grey.

  Mira began to run for a few paces along the lines of the football pitches, and then stopped to walk, and then began to run again, her lungs shouting at her to stop this unfamiliar activity, shocked by how unfit she had become.

  A handful of children emerged from the chicken-wired back gate of New Hall Prep, inadequately secured by a keypad with the pass code 1066 known widely to all.

  By the time she spotted the familiar little figures of Rosie and Noah in their brown and yellow tartan uniforms, she was red in the face and her breasts ached from all the bouncing up and down.

  Catching her breath, she power walked over to the corner of the football pitch where she estimated their journeys would converge naturally.

  ‘Hello, you two!’ she puffed, slowing down to fall into step with them.

  Noah replied a mumbled ‘hello
’ while kicking his football in front of him. Rosie didn’t reply at all and sped up, which Mira thought was rather rude. Her behaviour reflected how poorly their parents had taught them manners, Mira thought petulantly.

  Mira jogged to keep up with Rosie’s quickened pace. ‘Good day at school?’

  ‘Uh huh.’ Rosie tugged her school rucksack further onto her shoulder and checked behind her for her brother. ‘Come on, Noah.’

  They turned left out of the recreational ground through a discreet hole in the hedge and ducked into a gloomy walkway. The bough of branches overhead stole the light and the oak-panelled fences that lined the mulch path seemed to push nature away with ugly, uniformed force. A little shiver ran down Mira’s spine, which she put down to the drop of temperature. Estimating that they were three back gates away from the Bradleys’ garden, she got straight to the point. ‘Was everything okay this morning, love?’

  ‘Uh huh,’ Rosie replied.

  ‘If you want to come in for a cup of tea and a piece of cake, just knock on the door or send a message in the blue bucket, any time, all right? My door is always open.’

  ‘No, it’s okay!’ Rosie cried, breaking into a run. ‘Come on Noah!’ she yelled behind her. Noah charged past Mira, almost knocking her over.

  Mira understood that their parents had fed them their fear. She would try again tomorrow, and the next day, and onwards, so that they knew that she was there for them, and that she was on their side.

  Chapter Eighteen

  TOP SECRET

  * * *

  Dear Mummy,

  * * *

  INVISIBLE INK ALERT: Noah swore on our whole family’s lives that he would never EVER, EVER tell you that we talked to Mrs E (I do not know how to spell her weird name). If you found out what I did, you would kill me. I promise I didn’t do it on purpose. I was curious, like Alice in Alice in Wonderland going into a hole. (Curious is a word I used in my composition at school and I got a gold star for it).