Three Little Lies Page 10

  ‘And there were no communications between you – no texts, emails, phone calls?’

  ‘He didn’t want us to call or text or anything. We would arrange each time when was the next time we would see each other. Usually it would be times when he knew there wouldn’t be anyone in at his house. It didn’t matter because if I turned up and there was someone there, I could pretend I’d come to see Sasha.’

  I try to remember if there were times when she came to the door and looked surprised to see me, but it’s hopeless. She and Ellen spent so much time at the house it’s impossible to pick out any particular occasion.

  ‘So there is no evidence whatsoever that this three-month relationship actually happened?’

  ‘No, but that was because —’

  ‘I put it to you,’ she interrupts smoothly, ‘that no such relationship existed. That on the night of the thirty-first of December 2006, you engaged in consensual sex with Daniel Monkton. Then, for reasons I can only guess at, you took his beer bottle, broke it and used it to cut your own thighs, and you falsely accused him of raping you.’

  ‘No, that’s not true.’ Her knuckles are white on the rail in front of her.

  ‘When you were eleven years old,’ the barrister continues, ‘did your parents take you to see an educational psychologist?’

  Dilys’s back goes rigid a few rows in front of me, her head very still. Karina throws a panicked look up at the public gallery.

  ‘Yes.’ It sounds more like a question than an answer.

  ‘Can you tell me why that was?’

  ‘It was nothing. I only went a couple of times. The school asked them to… They were worried about me…’

  ‘Why were they worried?’

  ‘I was… making stuff up. About things that were happening at home.’

  ‘What things, specifically?’ she asks, steely-eyed.

  ‘I told a teacher that my dad had… interfered with me.’ Her voice has dropped to a whisper. Dilys’s head is down.

  ‘And that wasn’t true? Your father wasn’t sexually abusing you?’

  ‘No,’ she says to the floor, two bright spots staining her face.

  ‘And did the psychologist help you to get to the bottom of why you were telling these untruths?’

  ‘She thought…’ Karina throws another despairing look up at Dilys. ‘She thought I was doing it for attention. Because I was having some trouble settling into secondary school.’

  ‘So at the age of eleven, you levelled some very serious accusations at your father, accusations that could have got him into a great deal of trouble and seen him prosecuted under the law, because you wanted attention?’

  ‘It wasn’t like that…’ Her words hang helplessly in the air. She knows she has no choice but to answer. The barrister waits, looking at her enquiringly, knowing the same thing. ‘Yes,’ Karina says, almost under her breath.

  I watch her as she steps down from the stand, and a shameful seed of triumph sprouts in me at the defeated slump of her shoulders.

  Ellen

  October 2005

  Karina had seen me, of course. I don’t know how I thought she might have missed it, so obsessed was she with the comings and goings at the Monktons’. I knocked for her as usual on the Monday morning to walk to school, but when Dilys answered the door, she looked confused.

  ‘Karina’s already left, love. Didn’t she tell you?’

  ‘Oh!’ I thought quickly. I didn’t want her mum to get involved if Karina was going to fall out with me. ‘Oh yes, sorry, she did tell me she was going to go in early today. I must have forgotten.’

  ‘You’d forget your head if it wasn’t screwed on.’ She laughed fondly. She’d always liked me, said I was like one of the family, especially since Karina’s dad died.

  ‘I’d better get to school. Sorry about that.’ Back on the pavement, I stood for a moment, pretending to rummage in my bag for something. Did I dare to knock for Sasha? We’d had a good time at the party, but in spite of her assertion that Tony and Olivia were great, I could see that she wasn’t yet part of the family. Not a cuckoo in the nest, exactly, but still a relative stranger. There’d been an edge in the room when the boys were there, but I wasn’t sure if that was because of Sasha, or simply a result of the spiky relationship they had with each other. The party had still been in full flow when I’d bowled home, having promised to be back by 11 p.m., my head whirling not only from the wine but from a heady mix of Sasha’s sophistication, the house, the books, the music. She hadn’t said anything about when I’d see her next, or mentioned walking to school together. Just as I’d decided to leave it and walk alone, the front door opened and the whole family spilled out on to the path. The two boys were arguing furiously and didn’t notice me. They headed off down the street, Daniel walking a few paces ahead, with Nicholas gesticulating in his wake, Olivia shouting last-minute instructions at them before climbing into the passenger seat of their battered Citroën. Tony swung into the driver’s seat, calling for Sasha as he did so.

  ‘Sash! Do you want a lift?’

  She closed the front door behind her and smiled at me.

  ‘No, thanks, I’ll walk.’

  She took my arm as we walked down the road. I tried not to think about what Karina would say if she saw us.

  ‘I’m so glad you could come to the party,’ Sasha said. ‘It would have been even more weird without you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said, feeling that same warmth steal over me again at the thought of being the one who made things better for her.

  ‘Oh, you know, what we were talking about, fitting into the family and all that. They’re all trying so hard. Well, Olivia and Tony are, anyway.’

  ‘Not the boys?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, they’re… boys. Always thinking about one thing.’

  ‘What, you think they… fancy you?’ I asked, slightly appalled. I knew they weren’t her brothers, but still.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not that. It’s just, you know what boys are like.’

  I didn’t, not really. My entire sexual experience consisted of the kiss at Tamara’s party in the summer. I didn’t have any boys that I considered friends. They were a race apart as far as I was concerned.

  ‘Don’t tell anyone I said so, though, will you?’ she said.

  ‘Of course not.’ A little thrill went through me at this sign of her trust in me. ‘I’m really glad you’ve come to live here,’ I added.

  She squeezed my arm. ‘Yeah, me too.’

  I saw Karina as soon as we walked through the school gates. She was on the far side of the playground talking to Roxanne and Stacey, a couple of girls we hated, and Leo Smith. Karina was flicking her hair around and laughing, her eyes never leaving Leo’s face. Although she was hanging from his every word, he was mainly talking to Roxanne and Stacey, hardly even looking at Karina. I was pretty sure he had no interest in her and never would, and I felt a strange kind of pity for her. I wasn’t used to feeling sorry for Karina; we’d always been pretty much on an even social footing, part neither of the popular gang, nor of the unfortunates with the thick glasses, or the bad hair, or the oddball parents – the ones who got bullied. But I could see her as I knew Roxanne and Stacey were seeing her, and probably Leo too, if he was thinking about her at all: pathetic; a hanger-on; someone trying too hard to be liked – a failsafe way of making sure the opposite occurred.

  She flipped her hair again, and as she did so, she caught my eye. For a second, panic skimmed across her face, and then she smiled. It was brittle, and I wasn’t sure what lurked behind it, but it was a smile nonetheless. Maybe she wasn’t pissed off with me. Roxanne said something to Leo and she and Stacey flounced off towards the school building. Karina and Leo stood there uneasily for a few seconds, neither of them apparently speaking. Leo said a few words and loped after the girls, leaving Karina twisting her hands together as if she didn’t know where to put them.

  ‘I’m just going to go and say hi to Karina,’ I said t
o Sasha.

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘Um, do you mind if you don’t? I think she might be in a bit of a mood with me. I should test the water first. If you don’t mind, that is,’ I added hastily.

  ‘Oh God, is she one of those that gets pissed off with you if you talk to anyone else?’ Sasha rolled her eyes. ‘What is she, eight? Best friends for ever, cross your heart and hope to die?’

  ‘Yes, something like that,’ I said, laughing but feeling gut-wrenchingly disloyal to the girl who’d come with me to buy my first bra. ‘I’ll see you later, OK?’

  Sasha waved me off, dismissing me from her presence.

  As I made my way over to Karina, there was a second when she almost sped off into school, but something stayed her feet, and she looked at me challengingly.

  ‘You left early this morning,’ I said, when I realised she was waiting for me to speak first.

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t realise we had to do everything together.’

  ‘We don’t. But we always walk to school together.’

  ‘We certainly don’t do everything together, though, do we?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I knew exactly what she meant, but we had got ourselves into a strange conversational dance, stepping gingerly around each other, confrontation hovering at the borders.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, you know what I mean, Ellen.’ The dance was over.

  ‘Sasha invited me when you were off sick. What was I meant to do – say no?’

  ‘No, of course not. But did you ask her if you could bring me?’

  I didn’t say anything and she laughed scornfully.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘I don’t know her that well, Karina. It’s a bit weird if I ask to bring my friend. She doesn’t even know you.’

  ‘You know how much I wanted to see that house. You know I like the brother, the older one.’

  ‘He’s not her brother, actually.’

  For a minute her face lit up, eager for details, but then she closed down again, remembering she was still angry with me.

  ‘Whatever. Sorry to have got it wrong. Obviously you know all about them now.’

  ‘Come on, Karina, let’s not fall out. If I get invited there again, I’ll definitely ask if you can come. OK?’

  She hesitated, torn between her desire to get into Sasha’s world and her need to punish me. Desire won, as it usually does.

  ‘OK.’ She paused, and I knew she was battling with her curiosity. ‘Go on, then, what was it like?’

  ‘Exactly what we thought,’ I said. ‘Dust everywhere, shelves and piles of books, massive pictures on the walls. All the adults got drunk and they were playing the piano and singing opera songs.’

  ‘Oh my God! And what about the boys? Who are they, if they’re not her brothers?’

  ‘None of them are her family,’ I said, eliciting a satisfying gasp from Karina. ‘Her mum is some international model and she decided Sasha needed some stability, so she sent her to live with the Monktons. Olivia and Tony are her godparents. The boys are their sons.’

  ‘And did you meet them?’ breathed Karina. ‘What are they like?’ There was a hunger in her voice, and for the first time I properly understood what this family meant to her. The summer spent staring out of her window had mainly been a distraction for me, something to do on the long, hot days while other girls took exotic holidays. But it was more than that for her. She was… invested in them, somehow. No wonder she was so pissed off with me for getting in there first.

  ‘Yeah, I met them. We didn’t spend that long with them, though. They’re quite… competitive. Spent most of the time taking the piss out of each other. I don’t think Sasha gets on with them all that well.’

  ‘Maybe they’re in love with her,’ she said. ‘I mean, they’re not related, are they? That would be so romantic!’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ I thought about what Sasha had said on the walk to school today, and also about the way Daniel had looked me up and down on the bed. I decided not to tell Karina about that, pretending to myself that I thought she might be jealous and didn’t want to rock the boat now we were getting on again. The truth was I wanted to keep Sasha to myself, wanted to protect our fledgling relationship. I’d never had secrets from Karina before, and although I felt ashamed, part of me revelled in it.

  ‘Why don’t we all do something?’ I said, prompted by guilt. ‘The three of us – you, me and Sasha?’

  She was torn again, I could tell, between wanting in on whatever I had going with Sasha and remaining aloof, keeping up the pretence that she didn’t care. But by the time we got to the classroom, we’d decided I would ask Sasha to come to the cinema with us at the weekend.

  As we walked in, the first thing we saw was Sasha sitting on her desk, legs neatly crossed. Leo Smith was standing a touch too close and talking in low tones. Sasha was doing none of the hair flicking and giggling I’d seen from Karina earlier, and yet Leo was hanging from her every word. Karina’s face fell.

  ‘It’s not her fault if he likes her,’ I said to Karina, sensing that all the work I’d done to get her back on board was crumbling. ‘She’s not interested in him anyway. She said he was a creep.’

  ‘Really?’ said Karina dubiously. ‘I suppose she doesn’t look that interested.’

  She didn’t, it was true. Leo was doing all the work. Sasha caught my eye and relief swam across her face. She smiled and beckoned us over. Leo was mid-sentence but she interrupted him.

  ‘See you later, then.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ He looked crushed. I’d never seen him anything but brimful of confidence and it was strangely pleasing. He ambled off and sat down at his desk, searching through his bag for something that didn’t exist.

  ‘Thank God you two turned up,’ Sasha said. ‘Thought I was going to die of boredom.’

  I felt Karina relax beside me.

  ‘This is Karina,’ I said. ‘She lives opposite you.’

  ‘Oh yeah, I’ve seen you,’ Sasha said smoothly.

  I sensed Karina tense up again, and I knew she was wondering if Sasha had noticed her summer of surveillance.

  ‘Do you fancy coming to the cinema with us at the weekend?’ I asked quickly, hoping to distract them both from what they might be thinking about each other.

  Sasha threw a look at Karina and back to me.

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ she said.

  We made a plan to meet on Saturday evening. As Miss Cairns came in and we took our seats, I glanced over at Leo. He’d given up the pretence of looking through his bag and was gazing hungrily at Sasha. I knew I’d seen that expression somewhere before, but it took me a few seconds to place it. I’d gone my whole life without seeing anybody look at someone else like that, but now I’d seen it twice in three days. Leo was looking at Sasha in exactly the same way Daniel had at the party.

  Ellen

  September 2017

  I finished the bottle of wine and made reasonable headway on another after Jackson left last night. Mouth fuzzy and head bleary with lack of sleep, I squeeze into a parking space a few doors down from Karina’s house, realising I haven’t given much thought as to how I’m going to approach this. I suppose all I can do is be honest, but there’s a tremor in my hand that I can’t still as I reach for the doorbell. When the door opens, a jolt of adrenaline floods my body. For a confusing second I think the woman at the door is Karina’s mum, Dilys, but she looks too young. It takes my mind a few seconds to catch up with the fact that it’s not Dilys, miraculously younger: it’s Karina herself, ten years older, much larger and wearing thick-rimmed glasses. She has filled out, her hard edges smoothed by the extra flesh she has gained since I saw her last. I know she recognises me straight away because her hand flies to the ends of her mousey hair, twisting them around her fingers, in a gesture so recognisable it almost brings me to tears. She doesn’t speak, so I do.

  ‘Hi. Sorry, I know this is a shock.’

  She stares at me as if she can make me disappear by merely mai
ntaining eye contact.

  ‘Can I come in?’

  She twists her head and looks behind her helplessly.

  ‘No,’ she whispers. She takes a step closer. ‘Are you here because of him? Or has she said something?’

  ‘What? Who?’

  ‘Karina! Who is it?’ calls someone from inside the house. Dilys.

  ‘Oh, no one,’ she says unconvincingly over her shoulder, but the stairs creak, someone puffing down them laboriously, and Dilys hoves into view. She too has put on weight, and she looks at me uncomprehendingly, breathing heavily, until realisation dawns and she smiles.