Lying Beside You, page 2
My new plan is to pretend to do something with my life. I will tell people that I’m writing a book and if they ask me what it’s about, I’ll steal the plot from some Netflix drama and call it “an homage.” I learned that term from Mr. Joubert, my English teacher.
If that doesn’t work, I’ll tell people I want to travel and dreamily talk about the mountains I want to climb and the seas I want to sail across. Nobody ever questions a grand passion.
My third option is charity work. I’ll volunteer for a week or two—so I can spend the next ten years banging on about my love for “helping others” and “giving back.” That should make my life seem worthwhile.
“Ever worked with customers before?” asks Brando.
“Yeah.”
“Doing what?”
“I was a waitress.”
I leave out the location—Langford Hall, a secure children’s home—and the fact I was technically not an employee. He also doesn’t have to know I got banned from working in the kitchen because I stole a month’s supply of drinking chocolate. That was the old Evie. The angry Evie. The ward of the court. The girl in the box. Angel Face. The child who hid in a secret room while a man was tortured to death.
Brando turns over my single-page CV as though expecting to see something typed on the other side.
“Ever been in trouble with the police?”
“No.”
Another lie.
“Why do you want to work at the Little Drummer?”
“I need a job.”
Brando waits, expecting more.
“I’m a people person,” I say, lying through my arse. In truth, I’m a dog person.
“What is your best quality?” he asks.
“I’m unbelievably humble.”
He doesn’t get the joke. Idiot!
Brando twirls his mustache. “I can give you a job collecting glasses. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. You start at eight, finish at two. Nine quid an hour. The tips are pooled with the kitchen staff.”
“And that’s all I have to do—collect glasses?”
“You smile. You clean up spills. You mop out the women’s loo. You’re the dogsbody.”
“A what?”
“It’s a figure of speech.” He hands me a form. “Fill this out.”
It’s some sort of employment contract.
“Why do you need my address and phone number?”
“Tax.”
“I haven’t earned anything yet.”
“That’s how it works.”
I borrow a pen and take a seat at the bar, half watching him while he restocks the fridges. I like watching his shoulders move beneath his cotton shirt. I wish I knew more about men. Not the bad ones, but the good ones.
Ten minutes later, Brando studies the completed form, licking his thumb when he turns the page.
“Start Friday. Don’t be late. And wear something decent.”
I’m dressed in jeans and a baggy sweater I stole from Cyrus’s wardrobe weeks ago and he hasn’t missed yet.
“I’m only picking up glasses.”
“We’re a cocktail bar, not a local boozer. Our customers expect a little glamour. Wear a black dress. Show a bit of leg.” He looks me up and down. “You do have legs, I suppose.”
All the better to kick you with. He turns away and puts a six-pack of cider into the fridge. I’m still standing at the bar when he straightens.
“Can I get an advance—to buy a dress?”
“Yeah, right.” He laughs. “Get lost before I change my mind.”
* * *
Outside, I zip up my parka and avoid being stampeded by a coachload of Japanese tourists who are taking photographs of the Adams Building, an old lace warehouse that is now part of Nottingham College. The tour leader is waving a folded yellow umbrella and counting heads to make sure she hasn’t lost anybody.
I walk along Carlton Street and Long Row, heading for Old Market Square. A charity collector with a clipboard tries to make eye contact, but I keep moving. I don’t like talking to strangers.
I check out the latest responses on my dating app. Someone has matched with me. I check their profile. Attractive, sporty, on the short side, but this isn’t about me. I’ll check out their other social media pages when I get home. In the meantime, I send a first message, trying for a casual vibe.
Hey, we matched.
A message pings back:
Obviously!
It’s a little more sarcastic than I’d hoped for. I try again.
Nice pictures. You look great.
Don’t say that or I’ll find you boring.
Sorry.
And don’t apologize. I hate that even more.
Can we start again?
What would you like to know?
Dogs or cats?
Dogs.
Your thoughts on pineapple on pizza.
A travesty.
Coffee or tea?
Neither.
So, I can’t invite you for a coffee?
We could have bubble tea.
Sassy. Promising. I’m running out of questions.
What frightens you more—spinach or spiders?
Spiders. I’m a vegan.
Isn’t that a cult?
I’m trying to save the planet.
Or to be extra annoying at restaurants.
TBH this isn’t going to work out.
Have a nice life.
Another aborted romance. Maybe I’m too picky, but who knew that Nottingham would be such a shallow pool? I’m not looking for perfect, but I have some standards. No hats. No emo haircuts. No oversized sunglasses. No pouting. And keep your clothes on. A smile goes a long way.
* * *
My friend Morty is busking on the steps of the Council House. He’s looking after Poppy, my Labrador. When she hears me calling her name, she stands to attention, pricking up her ears. Her entire body wags and she presses her head into my hands. I feel a surge of happiness.
“Has she behaved?”
“Totally,” says Morty. “She earned more than I did.”
An upturned fisherman’s cap is resting between his feet. Only a handful of coins are inside.
“This cashless economy is killing me,” he says.
Morty, whose real name is Mortimer, plays the harmonica and only knows four songs, all of them sea shanties. He likes making out that he’s homeless even though he’s couch-surfing at his sister’s place. And he’s always telling stories about people who were “discovered” busking, like Ed Sheeran and Passenger.
I put a five-quid note into his hat.
“What’s that for?”
“Looking after Poppy.”
“You don’t have to pay me.”
“I know.”
He slips the money into his pocket. “Did you get the job?”
“I’m officially a cocktail waitress.”
“Is that a euphemism?”
“Fuck off!”
I feel a drop of rain on my forehead and glance up into an ugly grey sky. I’d better hurry. Cyrus took the car today so I’m catching buses.
Morty tips the coins into his pocket and pulls the cap onto his head. The rain is getting heavier.
“You want a ride?” he asks.
“You’re not going my way.”
“I can make a detour.”
His car is parked nearby, an aging Mini with blue doors and a brown hood. A hand-painted “for sale” sign is resting on the dashboard.
“You’re selling it.”
“My sister is giving me her old car. She thinks this one is a death trap.”
“Is it?”
“No.”
“How much do you want?”
“Three hundred quid, but I’d knock off fifty for you.”
“I have ninety-two pounds.”
“I’m not a charity.”
“Shame.”
Morty drops me outside the National Ice Centre, and I run through the rain, late for my therapy session. Poppy leads the way. We dodge pedestrians, who are huddled under awnings and in shop doorways, or dashing between cover. A hatted man with a briefcase, head down against the rain, almost runs into me.
Pausing at a crossing, I wait for the signal to turn green. I step off the curb. Brakes screech. Metal meets metal. The nearest car is bumped from behind and shunted forward. I jump out of the way and the woman driver looks horrified.
Out of her car. “Are you all right? Did I hit you?”
She’s in her fifties, maybe older, well preserved, dressed in black except for a brightly colored scarf knotted around her neck.
“I can take you to the hospital.”
“I’m fine.”
Poppy puts her body between us, either introducing herself or protecting me.
A second driver emerges from his van. A big guy. Fit once. Muscled once. Gone to seed. He looks at the front of his van and starts yelling at the woman, calling her a “stupid cow.”
“You just stopped. No warning. No indication.”
“That’s not true,” she says indignantly. “I signaled.”
He looks at the damage to the front of his van and swears under his breath.
“Are you going to pay for this?”
“It wasn’t my fault. You ran into the back of me.”
He mimics her accent and repeats the line, bouncing on his feet, crowding her space. I see her backing away.
Pedestrians have stopped to watch, and traffic is building up. Horns sound impatiently.
“He’s lying,” I say, stepping closer to the woman. “Don’t let him bully you.”
The man glares at me, but I see the flicker of doubt on his face. The lie. I cannot explain how I know these things. I wish I could point to a twitch, or a facial tic, or a vein pulsing in his forehead; or say that he double blinked, or his voice changed, or his eyes looked up to the left. I just know he’s lying. I always do.
“Are you calling me a liar?” he says, focusing his anger on me.
Poppy growls.
“Yes. Maybe your phone rang, or you changed the song on the radio, or you were checking out some woman who was walking across the road. It’s your fault.”
The van driver isn’t used to being challenged. He wants to bully me, or hit me, or shove a sock down my throat. He could, I suppose, but I’d hit him back twice as hard. I’d bite and scratch and gouge. I’d fight like a girl.
I take a photograph of his van and the hatchback.
“You should call the police,” I say to the woman. “I’ll give a statement.”
In reality, I don’t want to get involved. I hate being the center of attention. The van driver starts making excuses, saying that we don’t need to get the cops involved and we can sort this out ourselves.
“How about we pull around the corner and swap details,” he says.
The woman looks relieved.
“Can you come with me?” she asks.
“I’ll go with him,” I say, nodding towards the van.
I follow the driver.
“Were you going to drive off?”
“No.”
He’s telling the truth. He cocks his head to one side. “Who are you?”
“I’m an eyewitness.”
3 Cyrus
Take away the twin steel fences, the razor wire and CCTV cameras, and Rampton could be mistaken for a health-and-wellness retreat, or an adventure sports center with landscaped gardens and outdoor areas, a swimming pool, a shop, recreation rooms, and a gym.
In all my visits, I have seen very few patients. They are kept apart, separated by gender and the acuteness of their illnesses. When Elias first arrived, he was in the Peaks, a unit for men with severe personality disorders, and spent eleven months in solitary because of his violent behavior. For years, when moved around the hospital, he had to be chaperoned by four people. A lot has changed since then. He is medicated. Lucid. Placid as a winter pond.
Admittedly, he is not the brother I remember, the one I idolized and whose hand-me-down clothes I willingly wore because it made me feel closer to him. I didn’t mind being mistakenly called by his name by teachers, or by relatives, who remembered him more readily than me. The firstborn child is always the most fussed over and photographed. I came second. And the twins had a genetic advantage because who isn’t fascinated by an embryo splitting to form two perfect yet different halves?
Elias was a teenager, sitting his tenth-grade exams, when the problems began. He drifted away from me like a Poohstick thrown from a bridge. Mum blamed puberty and raging hormones, but I knew it was something more serious. He hid away, spending hours in his room, where he sat on the windowsill, smoking hash, blowing each depleted lungful into the night air, while he listened to “headbanger music” on his Walkman.
When he did emerge, it was only to eat, or to argue, or to lift home-made weights in the garden. He lost his weekend job mowing lawns, but later bought a whetstone and bench grinder, and began sharpening knives and axes and mower blades. The neighbors were queuing up for the service and Elias would revel in how sharp he could make each tool.
Try as I might, I couldn’t quite solve—or articulate—the mystery of what happened to change him. The slow disintegration. The whispered arguments through his bedroom door. “Leave me alone,” he’d say to nobody but himself. “I’m not listening.”
Once he told me that he could control the planets and that without him the moon would hurtle into Earth and make humankind extinct, just like the dinosaurs. I wanted to believe him. Did it seem any more ridiculous than what I was being taught at Sunday school?
The diagnosis made things easier for a while. The drugs helped, although Elias called them “zombie pills.” By then his grades were in free fall. A Levels were out of the question. Weeks passed. His silences grew longer. His isolation. Dad caught him sneaking out at night and not returning until the morning. Twice the police brought him home, his shirt torn and bloody.
We lived like that for two years—up and down, good weeks and bad, never knowing what to expect. Later, I told a counselor it was like living with a time bomb, that I could hear ticking, sometimes faster, sometimes slower, always ticking. Until one day it stopped.
* * *
Dr. Baillie finds me in the garden, trying to discover some warmth in a sun that offers nothing but pale yellow light filtering through the high clouds.
“Sometimes I wish I was a smoker,” I say. “It would give me something to do.”
He sits beside me. “They’re coming back.”
“Any indication?”
“No.”
We make our way to the conference room where Elias has been waiting patiently with his hands pressed together between his thighs. The three tribunal members enter in single file and shuffle between the long wall and the table, taking their allotted chairs. They are like a jury returning with a verdict.
Elias didn’t have a trial. A judge found him not guilty on the grounds of insanity and ordered he be “detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure,” which meant indefinitely. I remember wondering if the Queen took “pleasure” in detaining people. Did she even know Elias’s name, or what he’d done?
My phone is vibrating in my coat pocket. I glance at the screen. Detective Superintendent Lenny Parvel has sent me a message:
You’re needed. Call me.
I ignore it. Carrying a mobile phone still feels foreign to me. Until Evie came to live with me, I used an old-fashioned pager that meant people couldn’t simply call me and talk. I didn’t want to carry a computer in my pocket or be instantly contactable. My job involves human interactions, speaking face-to-face and reading body language and picking up on physical clues, which can’t be done over the phone, or in a text message.
Now I have a phone that is smarter than me. It can calculate more quickly and knows where I am, and where I’m going, and when I’m looking at the screen. It keeps track of my likes and dislikes, and my Internet history, and can predict the words I’m about to type, which could be progress or surrender.
Judge Aimes pours himself a glass of water. He lifts the glass. Sips. Tastes. Sips again. Speaks.
“We are here to consider an application by Elias David Haven, who has been detained under the Mental Health Act since 2001, after his role in the deaths of four people, namely his parents and twin sisters.
“Upon his arrival at Rampton Secure Hospital, he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and found to be suffering from antisocial and narcissistic personality disorders. It has only been in the past five years that Elias has come to terms with what he did that night. Psychotropic drugs have led to a considerable improvement, according to the testimony of his psychiatrist and caseworker. Elias has also learned coping skills and behavioral modification strategies, which have seen a moderation of his psychosis, so much so that he now presents little or no management problem.”
He raises his head to look at Elias.
“In the eyes of the justice system, Elias, you are innocent of any crime and should only be detained until such time as the experts consider you are no longer a danger to the community. The question we must answer today is whether you have reached that point and if you are ready to take your place in society. The safety of the public is paramount, and our decisions must also respect the feelings and fears of those who were directly affected by your offenses.
“We on this tribunal panel are very aware that any decision we make today will be subjective. We are attempting to predict the future behaviors of a latently dangerous mental patient, relying on recommendations from psychiatrists and psychologists who acknowledge that the sciences they study are inexact. Not everybody managing your case has been in agreement. Dr. Reid, a resident psychiatrist, expressed the view that you could be cold, distant, and unemotional, with a perverted arrogance that is the basis of your paranoid thinking.
“We have also heard oral evidence from two consultant psychiatrists and your caseworker, Dr. Baillie, who agree that your psychopathic disorder has been brought under control by medication and therapy.”
There is a pause and Judge Aimes glances along the table at his colleagues. Neither wants to add anything, but there is a trembling quality to the room, as though everything is poised to change. I’m nervous for Elias. I am nervous for myself.
