Here We Lie (10 page)

‘I see you met some of the girls from Dee Dee’s class,’ he says, his voice flat with misery.

‘Yes.’ I stroke his arm. ‘She had some really good friends, and that’s something to take comfort from. They are lovely girls. And they
really
cared about
her.’

My brother’s birthday falls at the end of the month. I haven’t seen either him or Rose for weeks and I’m looking forward to the fancy do Cameron has planned
in a Mayfair restaurant. It’s a swanky affair, with a private dining room, expensive champagne flowing freely and gifts for all the guests. Martin greets me with a huge hug but then he
whispers in my ear.

‘Talk to Rosie, will you? She’s upset about something, but she won’t tell me what.’

I’m immediately concerned. For a start it’s very unlike Rose to be down, she’s usually so steady and sensible. It’s even more peculiar that she won’t confide in
Martin. They’ve always been close, since the days immediately after our parents died when Martin’s insistence that Rose should become our legal guardian made the difference to that
decision. Of course it’s true that they are very unalike: Martin is a free spirit whereas Rose likes to conform and it’s also true that whereas Martin and I seem to ‘get’
each other without effort, Rose often seems puzzled by the way we think – and act.

I leave Jed chatting to Cameron and hurry to find my sister. She’s in the ladies, applying some lipstick in the mirror. My mouth actually falls open as I clock what she’s wearing: a
short, fitted dress that shows off her long legs and high, thin stiletto heels. Her hair is different too: styled into a sweeping bob that suits her heart-shaped face rather than bundled into her
usual ponytail. She’s wearing eyeliner and if I’m not mistaken, a slash of Chanel’s Rouge Noir on her lips. She might have restyled herself after her break-up with Simon but this
is taking her look to a whole new level.

‘Wow,’ I say. ‘You look
incredible.
Really glamorous.’

Rose smiles at me in the mirror. ‘Just wanted to make the effort for the boy’s birthday.’

I can’t stop myself staring at her shoes. I’ve never seen Rose in anything so . . . so sexy. Normally she wears flats or court shoes. ‘Er, Mart seemed to think you were down
about something. Is everything okay?’

Rose turns. Her bright expression falters. ‘I keep thinking about Dee Dee,’ she says. ‘How she looked when I found her . . . I . . . it’s just
so
upsetting to
imagine her alone . . . in pain . . .’

‘I know.’ For some reason I wasn’t expecting this to be the reason Rose is upset. A wave of grief washes over me. ‘Still, all the post-mortem reports say she probably
died very quickly, so . . .’ I hesitate. ‘It’s really hard but I think nights like tonight are important for Jed to have reminders that normal life is out there.’

Rose smoothes her hair self-consciously away from her face. ‘Sometimes one loss triggers off another, like that day reminding me of Mum and Dad.’ Her mouth trembles. ‘And right
now all I can think about is that I’m here on my own.’

‘You mean without Simon?’

She nods.

‘Oh.’ Now I’m really flummoxed. Rose hasn’t even mentioned Simon since the night before Dee Dee died when she joked sadly about being on the ‘misery diet’
since their break-up. And then I remember that Simon is a work colleague of Mart’s and that this is Martin’s birthday dinner. ‘Oh my God, is Simon
here?’
I hiss.

‘No.’ Rose makes a face. ‘Martin asked how I felt about inviting him and I said I’d rather not have him here so he isn’t. It’s just hard being here
alone.’

She looks away, tears clearly pricking at her eyes. I rush over and give her a hug. It feels awkward. I’m not used to Rose opening up. She’s always been very discreet about her
relationships, at least around me. It’s one of the many ways in which she’s much more like a mother to me than a normal sister. Rose stiffens as I hug her and draws quickly away, wiping
her eyes. She turns to check her make-up in the mirror.

‘Sorry for being so emotional,’ she mutters. ‘I’m fine, really.’

A moment later we head back into the party. There are about twenty or thirty people here and I can see most of them doing a double-take as they catch sight of Rose. Several of Martin’s
friends comment on how good she looks but when I mention the fact to Jed he just nods, distracted. He’s staring at the glass bar visible below us in the main part of the restaurant.

‘You know what that takes me back to?’ he murmurs.

I gaze at the bar and all the handsome people milling around it. ‘What?’

‘The night we met.’ Jed draws closer.

I sigh. It’s not really a memory I’m proud of, though Jed loves to remind me about it. I was on a spa weekend at a fancy hotel with a couple of girlfriends, Jed at a conference in
the same place. He chatted me up in the bar. I was initially interested – charmed not just by his good looks but also his easy manner and fierce intelligence – but pulled back
dramatically as soon as he mentioned he was married, about half an hour into our conversation.

‘I’m telling you because I don’t want it to be a secret,’ he said, his eyes at once sorrowful and twinkling with devilment. ‘I don’t want to play games, so
here it is: I’m unhappy in my marriage. Deeply unhappy and just hanging in there for the kids.’

I confessed I felt uncomfortable and Jed apologized.

‘I would be lying if I said I didn’t find you incredibly attractive,’ he said, his hand a light pressure on my arm. ‘But the last thing I want is to make you feel
uncomfortable. Let’s just finish our drinks, I’m enjoying your company so much.’

So we finished our drinks, then ordered two more . . . the last two, I insisted. Jed nodded and asked me about my job. He listened attentively to everything I said. I told him about my work, how
I loved the kids but was looking for more responsibility and hated the constant changes to the curriculum according to the whims of political fashion. More drinks appeared as if by magic while Jed
hung on every word I uttered, before gradually steering the conversation onto my personal life. He expressed astonishment that I had no boyfriend and impressed me with his evident devotion to his
children. Before I knew it, it was past midnight and we had been talking for almost three hours. I said I had to go to bed and he offered to escort me to my room, promising not to come inside.

At my door he asked, hesitantly, if he could see me again. I said no and he looked so upset that when he leaned forward to kiss me goodbye I let him find my lips rather than my cheek. Suddenly
the kiss was properly passionate and Jed pressed me against the wall with a groan. I could feel him, hard, against me.

‘Oh, Jesus,’ he breathed in my ear. ‘You are such a fucking turn-on.’

I only just managed not to sleep with him and spent the whole of the next morning in the hotel wondering if he would reappear. He didn’t and I left the hotel unable to stop thinking about
him. I knew that if he contacted me again I would surrender entirely but assumed that he wouldn’t, that he was understandably a bit embarrassed he had come on to me so strongly and was now
eager to get home to his family. Anyway, we had swapped neither email addresses nor phone numbers and though I had told him that I lived in south London and taught at a primary school near Oval, he
didn’t know any of the details.

Back at school, life seemed flat and dull, the men around me entirely lacking in charisma. I found my thoughts drifting to Jed over and over again, especially to our kiss. It had been months
since I’d been on any kind of date and far longer than that since anyone had truly sparked my interest. I told Rose, of course, who made a face and told me I’d done the right thing in
walking away.

I knew this was true, of course, but still I thought about him. And then, five days later, Jed sent flowers to me at school – a huge bunch of white roses. He included his phone number at
the end of his note:

Thank you for an enchanting evening.

I phoned up, fully intending just to say thank you for the flowers. But Jed was so delighted to speak to me that I stayed on the call. Jed made it very easy, confessing with just the right
balance of embarrassment and passion that he had been trying to track me down ever since he got back from his conference and that he couldn’t stop thinking about me. He said (again) that his
marriage was a sham and I said I would go for dinner with him. Later, we talked and talked over French langoustines and rack of lamb then he saw me all the way home, even though it was miles in the
wrong direction and I had already told him my sister would be home and I wasn’t going to invite him in. He kissed me at my door and left, having secured another date. This time we went for
dinner in a Malaysian restaurant near Jed’s offices in the City. Jed told me that he felt terrible about putting me in this position, but that he had fallen in love with me, that I was the
one he had been waiting for all his life. Overwhelmed and totally in thrall, I gave myself up to him that night.

Jed pulls me closer now, his arm tight around my waist. He gazes across the room, at all of Martin and Cameron’s good-looking friends.

‘Do you realize how much every single man in this room envies me right now?’ he whispers.

I snort, rolling my eyes. ‘
Please
, most of the men here are gay.’

Jed laughs and I smile with pleasure. It’s been a long time since I heard him laugh. Then I look over and catch Rose staring miserably into her wine glass. I feel instantly guilty. Despite
losing Dee Dee, I am so lucky to have found Jed, so lucky to be happily in love. All my petty insecurities over Zoe and concerns that Jed has withdrawn into a narrow focus on his case against
Benecke Tricorp seem to melt away. Jed squeezes my hand.

‘I spoke to my solicitor earlier,’ he says. ‘The decree nisi will be through any day and once it’s issued I think we should start making definite wedding
plans.’

I gaze at him. We haven’t talked much about getting married since Dee Dee died. Somehow any kind of celebration has felt inappropriate.

‘Are you sure you’re ready to start thinking about that?’ I ask.

Jed nods. ‘If Dee Dee were here she’d be nagging me about it.’

I fall silent, remembering the conversation the three of us had just after the engagement party where Mart and Cameron gave Dee Dee and me our bracelets. Dee Dee had been keen to be a
bridesmaid, though decidedly against any kind of frothy pink frock.

‘I’d like to keep it small,’ I say. ‘It just seems wrong to do anything bigger without Dee Dee being here.’

‘Whatever you want.’ Jed smiles sadly.

‘I love you,’ I whisper.

Jed leans in, his breath hot on my ear. ‘Good,’ he says. ‘Because I’m not letting you go. Ever.’

SO I worked out how everyone has seen the photo Sam Edwards took of me. Basically he showed his friends and one of them is going out with Georgia Dutton in my class and she
has made sure EVERYONE has seen. I don’t know what is worst, that Sam broke his promise not to show anyone so he can’t really like me even a little bit OR that EVERYONE at school has
now seen and thinks I’m a slut AND ugly, including Ava and Poppy who haven’t really spoken to me all week except to say things like ‘I don’t mean anything by it, but you
were showing off for a boy.’ Which I WASN’T. It’s not just the photo either. Sam has told people I let him touch me and that I was all hairy and now the boys in my class are
calling me ‘hairy Dee’ then laughing like they’ve made the funniest joke in the world. I have been thinking that if I got all the hairs waxed off then maybe that would stop. I
could casually just tell Ava or whoever that I’d done it, and then gradually everyone would find out and they’d think more of me. I don’t know, I am so worried I just don’t
know but it has got to be worth a try.

I can hear Mum downstairs, she’s had a few glasses of wine now so I’m going to go and ask her if I can go to her beauty place this weekend. I’m going to say I want to have
my eyebrows plucked and my legs waxed. I’m NOT going to say about the other bit, I’m not stupid and I know Mum wouldn’t go for that OBVIOUSLY but once I’m in there I bet I
could get the girl to do it.

And then maybe Ava and the others would be my friends again.

It’s the first Friday in December. Jed is off at a conference on counterfeit medicines and won’t be home until late. I’d been hoping that now the court case
is properly lodged in the system, Jed’s focus on Benecke Tricorp might ease up. But instead he has become interested in the many terrible stories his research into fake drugs has unearthed,
from the diethylene glycol used as a substitute for glycerine in children’s cough syrup to the leukaemia clinic in which patients were given false oncology drugs.

‘There’ll be sessions on lots of useful things including a seminar on international law,’ he explains eagerly. ‘There’s even going to be a practical demo from the
lab guys at the Campaign against Counterfeit and Substandard Pharmaceuticals; they’re going to show how to use a spectrometer to analyse exactly what ingredients are inside fake drugs.’
He pauses, his eyes glittering. ‘Maybe it doesn’t make sense to you, but I need to know that the law can and will change, that companies and dealers can and will be held to
account.’

I nod. I understand better than Jed thinks that without things changing in the future, it’s as if the pain of the past has no point, no meaning. Unfortunately, I also understand that past
pain
often
has no point and no meaning. My parents’ death taught me that many years ago. You can rationalize and focus your ambitions all you like but, in the end, the dead stay dead
and the agony of their loss must be absorbed, only transmuted in its own time, from within, and not through signing up to good causes or forming action plans to change the world.

My day at school is long and tiring. I hurry out to the school car park just before 5 p.m., two heavy bags in each hand. I’m planning to have a soak in the bath then head into town to meet
Laura for a drink. I don’t see her very often these days, not since the week after Dee Dee died. In fact, since I moved in with Jed I’ve hardly seen any of my old friends. It’s
not just that I’m preoccupied with my home life: my oldest friend, Moira, who I shared a flat with for several years, emigrated to New Zealand at the start of the year and most of my other
friends – including Laura herself – have small children, which makes it far harder than it used to be to arrange to meet. On top of that, my new role as head of Key Stage One means
I’m bogged down with admin and, like a total glutton for punishment, I have also taken on responsibility for the end of term production – coming up in just a few weeks now – which
involves rehearsing the kids every other lunch hour.