Three Little Lies Read online

  Ellen

  September 2017

  ‘I wish you’d told me about the letters at the time,’ Mum says, helping me to too many potatoes.

  ‘There didn’t seem much point, and I didn’t want to worry you.’

  ‘You should have taken them to the police,’ Dad says.

  ‘They couldn’t have done anything. He wasn’t threatening us – well, only vaguely in that first one. The others were just accusing us of lying.’

  ‘I know you didn’t lie, sweetheart,’ says Mum. ‘Or Karina. I went round to see Dilys the next day, to see if there was anything I could do.’ This is news to me. ‘I saw her, the poor girl. She looked terrible.’ I remember. Curled in a ball on the frozen ground, her skirt hitched up, catatonic with shock. ‘But Sasha… I wouldn’t put it past her.’

  A piece of chicken lodges in my throat. I take a sip of water, trying not to react. The days when Mum and I would argue about the Monktons are long gone, buried in a past where I was so blinkered I couldn’t see the value in my loving, stable parents.

  ‘Sasha didn’t lie, Mum,’ I say evenly. ‘Let’s not talk about it.’

  ‘You still haven’t heard anything?’ asks Dad.

  ‘No, nothing. The police don’t seem that interested. And also…’ I am torn between wanting to tell them that Daniel is definitely back, so someone else understands the seriousness of this, and the desire to protect them. If Daniel has got Sasha, I am in danger too.

  ‘What?’ she asks, concern clouding her features.

  ‘Nothing. Just… Olivia and Tony, they weren’t that helpful.’

  ‘You’ve seen them?’ There’s something of the old animosity still there. Neither of us mention the night of Olivia’s concert and the hurtful remark I flung at her as I left, but I know we are both thinking of it. Part of me is surprised it still hurts her, but I suppose I shouldn’t be, given how much the whole thing still haunts me. Live in the present, that’s the advice, isn’t it? Look forward, not back. However much you try to do that, though, you can never escape your past, the way the things that have happened to you shape you.

  ‘Yes, I went to see them at the weekend, and then again tonight. I thought they might be able to help, might know something that would help to find her.’

  ‘Why would they know anything?’ says Dad. ‘To be honest, I wouldn’t trust anything Tony says these days, anyway. I saw him once in the street at 10 a.m., staggering about, reeking of drink.’ There’s a back note of satisfaction that makes me wonder if he, too, suffered from my teenage infatuation with the Monkton parents.

  ‘Yes, that’s what Olivia said. Also, he’s really not very well. He said… He told me he was dying.’

  ‘Oh. Poor man.’ Mum can’t help but be compassionate. Vengefulness isn’t in her nature.

  ‘I found out something else, too… about Sasha’s mum.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ Mum is suspiciously neutral.

  ‘Did you know?’ I ask, aghast.

  ‘I don’t know anything. It’s just… I wouldn’t be surprised if what she told you wasn’t entirely true. It certainly sounded made up.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say anything at the time?’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ Mum laughs. ‘You would have bitten my head off at the mere suggestion. Plus I figured it must be something pretty unpleasant for her to want to conceal it. Who was I to say she had to tell the truth?’

  ‘Well, you were right. Her mum wasn’t a jet-setting model. She was a drug addict. Sasha was taken away by social services. That’s why she came to live with the Monktons.’

  ‘Ah, I see.’ Mum says this as if it explains a lot.

  ‘What do you see?’

  She looks at Dad.

  ‘She seemed like a troubled soul, that’s all Mum means.’

  My instinct is to argue, to defend her, but of course they are right. They were always right, about it all. I was too involved with Sasha, too invested in the Monktons. I lost my heart and my head to them, and nothing has been the same since.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, poking a piece of broccoli around my plate with my fork.

  ‘What on earth for, sweetheart?’ says Mum.

  ‘You know – how I was back then. Always going on about the Monktons…’

  ‘Water under the bridge,’ says Dad firmly.

  ‘All teenagers argue with their parents,’ says Mum. ‘There’s no need to apologise.’ She starts clearing the plates. ‘But thank you,’ she adds as she places them on the serving hatch and walks round to the kitchen.

  My phone buzzes in my bag. It’s a text from Rachel: Are you doing anything tonight? Can we meet for a quick drink in the Forresters?

  It’s only 8.30 p.m. Mum and Dad are probably hoping I’ll stay the night, but I text back: OK, I can be there at 9. All OK?

  Yes fine, she texts back instantly. See you there.

  I make my excuses to Mum and Dad, who are disappointed, but let me go without a fuss, and hop back in the car. When I arrive shortly before 9 p.m., Rachel’s already there, immaculate as ever in dark jeans and a crisp, white shirt, a large glass of wine half-drunk on the table in front of her.

  ‘Have you heard anything?’ She cuts straight to the chase as soon as I sit down with my drink.

  ‘No.’ My heart sinks. She doesn’t have any new information, she’s ambulance-chasing, wanting in on the action as usual. ‘Have you?’ I know she hasn’t. Why would she?

  ‘No, but… there’s something I need to talk to you about.’ She’s being cagey, but you never know with her if she’s dramatising for effect, to make herself seem important.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I’ve been going back and forth about whether I should say anything, but I’ve decided if there’s even the tiniest chance it could have something to do with where Sasha is, I should tell you.’

  ‘What?’ The sounds of the pub around us fade away and all I can see are her eyes, dark and anxious.

  ‘When I saw you in here with Leo yesterday, I said I knew he was an old friend of Sasha’s. But I didn’t tell you I also knew he was an old boyfriend of yours. Sasha told me.’

  ‘When we were teenagers, yes. So what?’

  ‘That’s why I didn’t tell you last night. I wasn’t sure if you’d be upset or…’

  ‘Tell me what?’

  ‘That night, a month ago, when I met Leo at that party… Jackson wasn’t there, and…’

  I know what’s coming, but I wait for her to say it, giving myself a few more precious seconds of unknowing. Part of me wants to get up and run, and never stop, so I don’t have to hear her say it.

  ‘Sasha slept with him. It only happened the once, I’m sure.’

  Something inside me crashes and crumbles, like a tower block being demolished by dynamite. It’s stupid, shaming, how hurt I am. Leo and I went out for six months when we were eighteen. I don’t have any rights over him. So why do I feel as though they have both betrayed me in the most horrible way possible?

  ‘She made me swear not to tell you. She said you’d be really upset. It was only one time. She never meant it to happen. She felt terrible.’ She’s babbling now, the words she’s had to keep in pouring out like a waterfall.

  So Jackson was right about her. Beneath the anger and despair, there’s a tiny part of me that feels vindicated for my teenage self, the girl who flinched every time Leo glanced in Sasha’s direction. Not so paranoid now. What I felt, what I feared – it was real. I concentrate on breathing in and out. I need to be present for this. I need to hear it, to understand it.

  ‘How? What happened?’

  She looks away, out of the window into the darkness. ‘Will it help, Ellen? Really?’

  ‘Please.’ I put my hand out and grasp her arm. ‘I want to know.’

  She swallows. ‘OK.’ It has taken courage for her to come here and tell me this, I realise.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, withdrawing my hand jerkily.

  ‘I don’t know much. They were drunk. I saw them talk
ing for hours in the corner at this party. I don’t know all the details, and I’m sure you don’t want them anyway.’

  Don’t I? Part of me does; part of me wants to see how the curve of her body fitted into his, to hear the sounds she made, to know if he did the things to her that he did to me.

  ‘I saw them kissing. I didn’t know then that he was an ex of yours, but I knew she was cheating on Jackson, obviously. The next day she called me. She said she felt guilty, about Jackson, but you too. She said she needed to get it off her chest, needed someone to confide in, but…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She likes it, doesn’t she, inviting you into a secret? Making it something just the two of you know.’ She speaks quietly, and I realise how brave she is being to admit that she liked it, as I did. That we both thrived on feeling like Sasha’s confidante, her one and only. That we craved her attention, her love; blossomed under it.

  ‘I wasn’t going to say anything, but when I saw you with him last night, I thought… maybe he’s got something to do with it? Maybe he knows something. I’m sorry. I hope I did the right thing.’

  ‘It’s OK.’ I’m not angry with Rachel. I’m not sure that I’m angry at all. I am shattered, yes, but I’m also resigned. Of course this has happened. It feels, if not right, then expected. I’ve been waiting for it to happen since the day when she sat on her desk, swinging her legs, and he couldn’t take his eyes off her. There’s a nub of anger growing, though, and it’s directed at Sasha. However foolish it might be on my part, she would have known exactly how I would feel about her sleeping with Leo – that’s why she didn’t tell me. Yet she went ahead and did it anyway. The anger burns a little brighter, but I don’t know what to do with it. I’m so unused to being angry with her.

  As I watch Rachel making her way through the tables to get us more drinks, another thought eases its way in. I’ve been so busy focusing on Sasha’s betrayal (and it does feel like a betrayal, no matter how I try to rationalise it), I’ve failed to fully take in that Leo lied to me too. Was it because he knew I’d be hurt? Or did he have another reason for wanting to keep his relationship with Sasha from me?

  Ellen

  May 2006

  ‘Someone’s been in my room.’

  ‘What do you mean? Who?’ I slid my tongue around the edge of the cone to stop the ice cream dripping on to my fingers. The weather had been unseasonably warm this half-term, so Karina, Sasha and I had decided to make the most of the last couple of days of the holiday by coming to the park with a rug, snacks and magazines.

  A group of boys I recognised from school, including Leo Smith, had set up their own camp not far from us, where they were blatantly trying to impress Sasha with their football skills, self-consciously swearing and taking the piss out of each other. Sasha was totally oblivious, as ever.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, pushing herself up on to her elbows and gazing into the distance. ‘But things have been moved. Nothing important: the book I’m reading, my make-up bag, my pencil case. But they’re not where I left them.’

  ‘Maybe it’s Olivia cleaning up, dusting,’ said Karina, without taking her eyes off the boys. She’d been lying on her front facing them, chin on hands, since they arrived.

  ‘No, she doesn’t clean our rooms. She says we’re old enough to do it ourselves or live with the consequences.’

  ‘That’s weird,’ I said.

  ‘I know.’ Her face crumpled and I realised she’d been worried we wouldn’t believe her.

  ‘Have you told Olivia?’

  Sasha sighed. ‘She still thinks I took that money. She’ll think I’m making it up.’

  ‘Why would you do that, though? I mean, why would she think that?’ I said.

  ‘Oh, she thinks I want the attention. She’ll want to sit me down and have a serious talk, try to get to the bottom of my “issues”. Psychoanalyse me. Well, she can forget that.’

  ‘Are you sure? She seems so…’

  ‘What? Wonderful? For God’s sake, Ellen, just because you think she’s the perfect mother, doesn’t mean it’s true.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, reddening. I’d been trying to keep my mum-crush on Olivia under wraps, but I’d obviously failed. ‘What about… Could you…’ I paused, unsure whether to go on. ‘I mean, have you thought about asking your mum to talk to Olivia?’

  ‘I’ve told you, I don’t want to bother her with stuff like this,’ she snapped. ‘She’s got enough on her plate.’ She lay back down and closed her eyes.

  Karina and I exchanged glances. Every now and then, one of us would gently probe Sasha about her mother, but neither of us had ever got anywhere. I picked up the suncream and rubbed some more into my legs. I hated myself for it, but I began to wonder if Olivia was right that Sasha was making the whole thing up. It sometimes felt as if she moved around the world in a little bubble, nothing touching her; that other people’s opinions of her streamed off like rainwater. But could that be true? Was anyone truly impervious to how others saw them? Did she have some reason for wanting to paint herself as the victim of a stalking campaign?

  ‘Sorry,’ she said after a minute, her eyes still closed.

  I waited for her to offer an explanation for her shortness, but none was forthcoming, so I picked up a magazine and started to read, or pretend to. If she was going to be like that, I wasn’t going to indulge her by asking all the questions she wanted me to ask. If she wanted to talk to me, let her. If not, fine. Karina resumed her surveillance of the football game, and the three of us lay there in silence for twenty minutes or so. I was just dropping off, lulled by the sun on my face and the sounds of other people having fun, when something whacked into my leg. I sat up too quickly, head spinning. Someone was standing above us, his head blocking out the sun, making his face appear dark, so that for a moment I couldn’t tell who it was.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said to me, picking up the ball, and I realised it was Leo.

  I hastily pulled part of the rug over the top of my legs. I was attempting an early-season tan in a navy one-piece that had seen better days. Karina was in a strappy sundress and Sasha was sporting a white halter-neck bikini and an all-over butterscotch tan.

  She opened her eyes lazily and stretched like a cat. ‘Oh, hi, Leo.’

  He smiled at her, seemingly oblivious to the acres of tanned, smooth flesh on display, and then at me, jiggling the ball from hand to hand as he spoke.

  ‘We’re going to have a game of volleyball. Do you guys want to play?’

  ‘No thanks.’ I was hopeless at ball games and had no desire to embarrass myself.

  ‘I will!’ Karina jumped up eagerly, adjusting the shoulder straps on her dress. I realised she wasn’t wearing a bra at the same time Leo did. He caught me looking and gave me a wicked grin.

  ‘Lovely jubbly,’ he said, and I couldn’t help smiling back at him, a little thrill running through me at the idea of having a private joke with Leo Smith.

  ‘Sasha? How about you?’

  She shrugged her shoulders. ‘OK, why not?’

  She stood up and started walking over to the boys without putting so much as a T-shirt on over her bikini. Some of them could barely close their mouths. It was like something out of a Bond film. Karina followed awkwardly a few paces behind. I looked back up at Leo, expecting him to be gawking at her too, but instead he was looking down at me.

  ‘She’s laying it on a bit thick today, isn’t she?’

  I blushed. ‘What d’you mean?’

  He flung himself down next to me on the rug. ‘You know, strutting around in that tiny little bikini, laying it all out there… I know you and her are close, and I’m not being funny or anything, but…’

  I watched as the boys set up a makeshift net consisting of a piece of rope strung between two trees. A couple of other girls had also joined them, and I saw them looking at Sasha in her bikini with a mixture of distaste and naked jealousy.

  ‘I thought…’ I kept watching the volleyball game, a barely perceptible tremor
in my voice at my disloyalty. ‘I kind of got the impression you liked her. Fancied her, I mean.’

  ‘Yeah, I did when she first started at school,’ he said breezily, unfazed. ‘But now I think she’s a bit obvious. A bit fake. I prefer someone more down to earth.’

  ‘Like Karina?’ I said. Actually she’d seemed less interested in him recently, but I was sure she’d still be delighted if he liked her.