The Lies We Hide by S.E. Lynes

Author:S.E. Lynes [Lynes, S.E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781838881863
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The following Thursday at 3 p.m., Graham fills the doorway – the haunted outline that Richard holds ready-sketched in his mind. He sits down, looks at the floor and brushes imaginary dust off his right leg.

‘All right,’ he says.

‘Well, thanks. How are you?’

‘Very well, thank you for asking.’

‘Do you always say that?’

‘What?’

‘“Very well, thank you for asking”?’

‘D-dunno. My mum always says it. She t-taught us to be p-p-polite, you know?’ Graham looks towards the window. ‘So we could speak nice to the prison officers when we grew up.’ He smirks at his own flippant remark, shifts in his seat, moves as far back into it as he can. He looks a little better: still thin, of course, but muscular, with an athlete’s sprung potential for physicality, for violence.

‘Last week you began telling me about Jonathan Livingston Seagull,’ Richard begins. ‘Did you say you’d read the whole thing?’

‘Even I can read a book that short.’

They both smile at each other.

‘I dug out my old copy,’ Richard says. ‘It was in the loft with my university bits and pieces.’

‘Sound.’ Graham’s smile fades. He looks at his thumb, worries the skin around the nail until he’s made a tiny ridge. He puts his teeth to it, pulls a shaving of white skin away into his mouth. ‘What did you think – of the b-book? Did you still l-like it or what?’

Richard has made a loose plan of what to say, and for the first time since he met Graham, he feels prepared. ‘I thought to myself, I bet Graham knows this isn’t just a story about a seagull. And I also thought I should give a copy to all the lads who come and see me from now on.’ This is the truth. Reading the book, he remembered his younger self and the impact it had at the time. Although Graham is twenty-four he is, like most of the inmates, held in a kind of stasis, pinned, perhaps, to the moment when his life outside came to an end, to late adolescence and all its intensity and questing, flippancy and lunacy. ‘So I wanted to thank you for putting me on to it.’

‘Ha.’ Graham folds his hands together and tucks them between his legs. He looks directly at Richard for the second time, albeit fleetingly, with those dark and soulful eyes. Richard remembers him, weeks ago, at the door to this chapel, and it seems there is less fear there than that first day. He imagines him now with longer hair, with skin that has seen the sun, exercise in his blood.

‘I mean,’ Graham says, interrupting his thoughts, ‘it’s all about breaking out, isn’t it?’

‘I think so, partly.’

‘I really liked the way, though, that even though he went higher up than the other seagulls, he didn’t f-forget his m-mates, did he? I mean, getting out of the crowd was one thing, but he was like, “Hey, lads, it’s great up here, c-come on up.”’

‘That’s right. And—’

‘And,’ Graham interrupts him; he actually interrupts him, ‘I like the way it’s written.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.