One More Lie by Amy Lloyd

Author:Amy Lloyd
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473558328
Publisher: Random House

25

Her: Now

I sleep badly, keeping the phone next to my pillow, occasionally rolling over and checking the map to see Dr Isherwood’s dot on Hawkwood Avenue, which must be her home. When I do sleep I dream of dirt: shower curtains crawling with mildew, grouting clogged with brown filth that falls in thick lines into a greying bathtub. No matter how much I scrub I can’t make it clean. Mr Sampson’s hollow mouth wails at me in the dark; blood trickles from a wound on his head; his neck is purple and his eyes bulge as if they will burst. I wake on a pillow drenched with sweat and check the phone again. Dr Isherwood is still at home.

I lie in bed for a long time, poring over every detail I can remember about Mr Sampson’s house. It’s so vivid it’s like I’m there again, feeling that same terror and the hurt when Sean left me. I want to ask him if he remembers, too. Does he remember how the police made us write letters to say we were sorry? And how two police constables came to the school to talk about being kind to our elders and even though they never said our names, everyone knew it was about us. Does Sean remember all that rust, the colour of dried blood, that throaty wail and the mouth as black as night?

Eventually I force myself to get up, even though I don’t have work until this afternoon. I shower, noticing the orange grime around each hole in the shower head, the black that rings the taps in the sink, and the long hairs around the plug hole, on the tiles, stuck to the tiles. I look in all the cupboards for cleaning equipment but all the bottles are empty and the sponges and cloths so dirty and stiff with muck I can’t bear to touch them.

I have no appetite but my stomach growls. I take a box of teabags from my wardrobe and go to the kitchen, not expecting to see anyone else, but when I get downstairs there is a lot of chatter and noise, the clinking of spoons against bowls, laughter. The long table in the kitchen is almost full and a lot of the women are smiling. The chatter quells as I enter, people twisting to see who it is, then starts up again while I boil the kettle.

‘Ooh, I’ll have one if you’re making,’ someone says.

‘And me,’ they say in a chorus, laughing. They bring mugs and various requests: ‘Two teabags, I like it strong’ and ‘Leave plenty of room for milk’.

I stress, no way to remember it all, no way I want to use all my teabags. My eyes sting while I fill the kettle to the max.

‘I’ll give you a hand,’ a woman says, smiling. She has kind eyes, a piercing in the top of her lip, a tattoo of an angel on the back of her neck, dyed black hair.

‘Thanks,’ I say.

The woman gets out a big box of teabags from the cupboard.

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