Never Tell A Lie Read online

  ‘So she turned to me and asked me which house I had liked best of the ones we’d seen,’ says Leo. ‘And I asked her which one she would choose, if the house was for her. Because by then I already knew that it was.’

  ‘And I looked at him, and said that if I was going to live in one of those houses, it would have to be the last one we had seen.’

  ‘And so I bought it,’ says Leo.

  ‘And it’s the house you live in now,’ says Linda, caught up, wanting the perfect final line to the tale.

  ‘Don’t be crazy,’ says April. ‘It was a terrible buy. We’ve moved three times since.’

  ‘April likes buying and selling houses,’ says Leo. His smile is a bit less warm now. ‘She used to do it as a job, and now she does it with my money.’ He shrugs, as if to say, ‘What can I do about it?’ Everyone laughs, except April. She looks down at her lap.

  Leo puts his arm round her. ‘I’m lucky,’ he says. ‘She seeks perfection for us. Not only does she negotiate the crap out of each deal when we buy or sell, she’s an inspired interior decorator. The kids and I are very lucky.’

  I try to imagine Travis ever saying anything so nice about me, and I can’t. He thought that I was a complete waste of space, and told me so, frequently. Maybe I sometimes find the dynamic between Leo and April a bit strange, but they obviously love each other. I glance at Joshua sitting next to me, and I wonder what he would say about me.

  The conversation moves on to Linda and Chris, and Michelle and Laurel, and then Steve regales us with various terrible dates he’s been on, and we can’t help laughing.

  By the end of the evening, I have that same feeling I did after the reunion: like I’ve been with my tribe and want to see them all again. Even Django seems to have enjoyed himself. When we climb into the car, he is full of stories until he quite suddenly falls asleep, his head against the window.

  It’s been a good day.

  Chapter 21

  On the Sunday after Linda’s lunch, still feeling good about where my life is, I decide that it’s time to do something about finding my mother. Something organised.

  I’ve already looked through the Facebook profiles of the various Lorraine Wilsons. It’s not something that I have sat down and done in an organised way, but more like an itch I scratch when I have nothing else to do – on the toilet, waiting for Django, before I fall asleep. Because I have gone about it so haphazardly, I haven’t got very far, and I keep having to start again.

  So this time, I print out a screen grab of all the possibilities, and I start to work through them methodically, crossing off those that simply cannot qualify and then sending messages to the rest, saying simply, ‘Are you the Lorraine Wilson who was married to Sean Wilson and lived in Johannesburg?’ It’s possible that there is more than one person that even that fits – but less likely. But this doesn’t feel like something that is going to bear fruit.

  So then, I do a bit of research into which Facebook groups are best for finding lost relatives. The one that comes up again and again is linked to a website called FindYourFamily.com. I look at the stories of successful reunions – a rabbit hole of tear-jerking material – and then carefully craft my own post. You pay $20 for this, but then they boost your post according to certain criteria that they think might help you find the missing person.

  My post says:

  Lorraine Wilson, married to Sean Wilson, mother of Mary Wilson, last seen in Johannesburg in 1984. Please contact Mary at [email protected].

  I think about adding more – the site recommends as much detail as possible – but I find it too hard. This will have to do.

  April and I are having coffee first thing on Monday morning for a post-mortem about Saturday. Our Monday-morning check-ins are becoming part of my routine. I wonder if this is what other people have with their mothers; but from what my friends say, mothers aren’t that easy. With April and me, things are easy. And funny. We’re always laughing at something.

  But this morning April looks terrible. She is, of course, late, and when she arrives, she’s wearing big sunglasses that cover most of her face. I can’t help noticing that they’re expensive sunglasses, not like the cheap rubbish that I always buy and then wonder why they break so quickly. April looks a bit like a movie star, really – slight, pale, looking like she’s wearing a disguise. All she needs is a hat pulled down low, and I’d feel like I was in the presence of greatness. As it is, I feel like I’m in the presence of something rather strange.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I ask after we hug.

  She sits down and takes off the sunglasses. Her face is drained, there are bags under her eyes, and she looks like she’s been crying.

  ‘God, April,’ I say. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘I haven’t slept at all,’ she says. ‘Not since Saturday.’

  She says this as if it should be self-evident, as if everybody should not have been sleeping after Saturday.

  ‘Sorry, April, I don’t understand. I saw you on Saturday. Everything was fine. What happened? Why haven’t you slept?’ Suddenly I remember something April mentioned last week; that her mom was sick. She’d mentioned it more in the context of what an irritation it was, having to take her to the doctor, so I hadn’t really thought of it more. ‘Is it your mom?’ I ask, my voice dropping. ‘Is she . . . okay?’

  ‘My mom?’ April looks momentarily confused. ‘Oh. No, she’s fine.’ She manages a small laugh. ‘She was probably faking it. She lies a lot.’

  I flinch slightly. Partly because I am always jealous of people who have mothers, and I think they should be more appreciative of them. This has got worse, not better, since I discovered that I actually do have a mother. One that left me.

  ‘Well,’ I say, trying to keep all of that baggage out of my voice, ‘what’s the matter? Why haven’t you slept? Are you sick? We could have cancelled.’

  ‘Oh, Mary,’ she says, looking at me with her pale eyes. ‘I’m so embarrassed after Saturday. I almost did cancel. I mean, what must you think of me?’

  I stare at her. I have literally no idea what she’s talking about. I desperately cast my mind back, trying to think of whether anything happened. Nothing.

  ‘April,’ I say. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. What on earth are you embarrassed about?’

  April looks at me with her eyes wide, like she’s saying, ‘Come on, we both know the truth.’

  ‘April,’ I say. ‘I honestly have no idea.’

  She looks down at her hands, and a memory stirs for me.

  ‘What Leo said,’ she says. ‘I am mortified. I don’t know how he could have said that in public.’

  Again, back over the memories, searching. Had he said something inappropriate? Rude? Maybe something about the bring-your-own-everything story? But nothing is jumping out at me; nothing that would have April in this state.

  She’s still looking at her hands, and I have a flashback to the afternoon. Leo saying something about April not working, and her looking at her hands. But that was so benign, and he was so nice afterwards. That can’t be it. And I am too scared to guess, in case she’s then upset about two things instead of one.

  ‘You’re going to have to tell me,’ I say.

  ‘The way he completely had a go at me about spending his money,’ she says, starting to cry. ‘I mean, he goes on and on about it at home, but in front of my friends. I was so humiliated. Which is obviously exactly what he wanted.’ She’s sobbing now, like someone has died.

  I don’t really know what to say.

  ‘Um, April,’ I eventually venture. ‘I kind of remember what you’re talking about. But the way I remember it, he also said such lovely things about you. I was actually jealous.’

  ‘Please, Mary,’ says April. ‘You don’t need to pretend. He made me sound like such a leech. And then afterwards . . .’ She starts to cry again.

  I’m not sure how to respond. I think she’s completely overreacting, but you can’t say that, and you never know what happens in
other people’s marriages. I think for a moment, and then I say, ‘Husbands can be complicated.’

  To my ears it sounds completely fatuous. But April reaches across the table and touches me.

  ‘That’s it, Mary,’ she says. ‘Leo is so complicated, you can’t believe. Nobody would believe it.’ She’s quiet for a moment and seems to be pulling herself together. She takes a tissue out of her bag and wipes her face. ‘That’s what I can’t explain. He had a really bad childhood, you know. His parents were very religious, very intolerant. They were furious when he married me because I wasn’t Jewish. He needs our lives to be perfect, you know, to prove them wrong.’

  I nod.

  ‘And you can’t blame him for being confused. He thought I was a career woman. And now I do nothing.’

  ‘You’re bringing up two kids,’ I say. ‘His two kids, let’s be clear. And you make a wonderful home for him. He sounded very proud of you.’

  ‘I guess.’ She pauses. ‘He’s got a strange way of showing it sometimes.’

  ‘Well,’ I say, ‘isn’t that men for you?’ I’m thinking about Travis as I say that, but then my mind turns to Joshua. He’s not really like that. He’s kind of easy-going and fun. Like a woman friend, but with sex. Rather wonderful sex.

  I suddenly have a terrible thought. Maybe Joshua is so nice and easy because he doesn’t see a future with me, so when I annoy him he doesn’t really see any point in fighting about it, because he knows he won’t have to live with it. Like, even though I get a bit annoyed when April is late, or doesn’t follow up on an idea, or has forgotten her purse and I have to pay, it doesn’t really matter to me because I don’t have to deal with it all the time. Maybe that’s how Joshua feels about me.

  ‘You’ve gone quiet,’ says April. ‘I knew this would happen. You don’t want to be mixed up in my mess. I can’t blame you.’

  So I have to tell her what I was really thinking, except for the part where I was thinking about how I couldn’t live with her.

  ‘Maybe conflict happens when we care?’ I say when I’ve finished.

  ‘Like it’s a sign of love?’ says April. She sounds hopeful.

  ‘I guess so,’ I say. ‘A sign of seeing a future with the other person in it, at least.’

  I think this conversation makes April feel much better. I don’t particularly, but I do like how conversations with April often make me see the world in a slightly different way.

  It’s only later that I wonder if I asked her enough about Leo. Maybe she was trying to tell me more and I cut her off. I sigh and make a vow to be a better friend to her.

  Chapter 22

  If my biggest worry about Joshua is that we never fight, and he therefore doesn’t care about me, that is soon put to rest. Because we have our first fight. About fighting.

  I see April on the Monday morning, and Joshua stops by for a drink on Monday evening. We have started doing this more and more on the days when we don’t see each other properly, by which I mean have dinner or spend the night. Just a quiet hour in the late afternoon, catching up while Django finishes his homework or watches TV.

  As always, we catch up on each other’s days, and after he tells me about a challenging case, and I tell him about an amusing incident with a client, I tell him a bit about the conversation with April. It’s always difficult to know, in a situation like this, how much I ought to be saying. Does April expect me to keep all our conversations private, or does she also chat to Leo about me over a glass of wine?

  We’re sitting outside on my small patio. My house is across the road from a park, so you can imagine that you’re in the country, the sun setting over the trees. It’s my favourite thing about my home. We’re sitting across from each other at the table – big enough for about six people to eat at. We have a glass of white wine each, with ice, and I’ve put out a small bowl of crisps. I have lasagne for Django and me keeping warm in the oven; when Joshua leaves, Django and I will eat out here too. The cat is stretched out, warming himself on the bricks, catching the last rays of the Johannesburg winter sun.

  I start by telling him that April and I had an interesting chat about whether fighting was part of caring enough about another person to bother. Of course, I’m interested in how he will react to this, given that we’ve never had a fight.

  Being Joshua, he goes straight there.

  ‘But we’ve never fought,’ he says.

  ‘Well,’ I say carefully, ‘we haven’t been together that long. We’re still in the polite phase.’

  Joshua looks at me. ‘So there are things that you’re biting your tongue about that you’ll tell me when this polite phase is over?’ I can’t tell if his tone is amused or curious or annoyed.

  I think. ‘No, not really,’ I say, truthfully. ‘But I’m sure that we will fight more, later on.’

  ‘Something to look forward to, then,’ he says. Now it’s clear. He’s annoyed.

  ‘It’s just that it isn’t realistic to never fight,’ I say. ‘Fighting is part of relationships.’

  ‘You really believe this?’ says Joshua. He’s shifting in his chair now. ‘You really think that if I care about you, I’m going to criticise you more?’

  ‘When you say it like that, it sounds mad,’ I say. ‘Obviously I don’t want you to criticise me. Or me to criticise you.’

  ‘Yet you and April seem to think that’s an important facet of showing love,’ says Joshua. His voice is slightly louder now, and I can’t help flinching. It’s been a while since a man shouted at me in my own home, but it feels frighteningly familiar. But Joshua isn’t Travis, and I hold my ground.

  ‘Couples bicker,’ I say. ‘It’s a fact. April was all worked up over some stupid thing that Leo said the other day at Linda’s, and it’s not like he’s a horrible man.’

  ‘He’s not,’ says Joshua. ‘But I don’t really care about April and Leo. What I’m worried about is that you seem to expect that as your boyfriend, I must be mean to you to show you that I care.’

  ‘I never said that.’

  ‘No, that’s exactly what you said. You want me to criticise you to prove I care.’

  We’re both silent. I can feel myself pulling myself inward, away from the conflict. It’s a reaction I know and it makes me feel ill.

  Joshua looks at me. ‘Mary,’ he says, ‘we’re having a very mild argument and you already seem to be cowering away from me. And you want us to fight more?’

  ‘I don’t want us to fight.’ I can hear the fear in my voice. It’s ridiculous.

  Joshua takes a deep breath. He reaches across to take my hands, but I have my arms wrapped around myself and I’m not letting go.

  ‘Mary,’ he says, his hands lying on the table like lost gloves. ‘I know I said I wouldn’t push about this, but I think we need to talk about your relationship with Travis.’

  I glance at the door to make sure that Django isn’t hearing this, but he isn’t even in sight. He must be in his room, playing with his iPad, or reading a book, or staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars that I stuck on his ceiling when he was a toddler.

  ‘This isn’t about Travis,’ I say.

  Joshua doesn’t answer; he just looks at me, his eyebrows raised.

  ‘Travis is dead,’ I say. ‘Nothing is about Travis.’

  ‘Travis is why it took you eight years to date again,’ says Joshua. The annoyance is gone. He’s leaning forward, trying to reach me where I am clenched in my chair. ‘Travis is why you keep a piece of yourself closed off, all the time. And Travis is why you would agree with April about this ridiculous idea that fighting is some sort of proof of love.’ He pauses. ‘I know that you and Travis didn’t have the greatest marriage. And I’ve been happy to leave it at that. But I feel like maybe it was more than that; like maybe I need to know.’

  ‘And what if I don’t want to tell you?’ I ask, suddenly angry. ‘What if it’s got nothing to do with you? What if I buried all that when I buried Travis?’

  ‘Then we have to find a way to move pas
t that, Mary,’ says Joshua. ‘I’m in love with you. But I can’t be in a relationship where I have to act like an arse to prove myself. I’ve done one bad marriage. I’m not looking for another one.’ He stands up, like the energy in him won’t let him be still.

  I’m staring, open-mouthed. Did he just say that he’s in love with me, and refer to marriage, or did I imagine that? I replay the words in my head. Nope. He definitely said it.

  ‘I’m in love with you too,’ I say.

  There’s a moment when the air is stretched tight like a punch between us, and then suddenly, we’re both laughing, and my stomach has unclenched, and I can stand up, and we’re laughing and hugging and kissing.

  At that moment Django comes strolling through the doors. He looks at us. ‘Gross,’ he says, but he’s smiling.

  ‘Gross indeed,’ says Joshua. ‘Mary, would I be spoiling your supper plans if I took you and Django out for steak tonight? I feel like we should be celebrating, somehow.’

  I think about the lasagne, and whether I can reheat it tomorrow. I guess I can. And it’s not like I have a choice – Django was won at the word ‘steak’, as Joshua well knew he would be.

  I smile. ‘That sounds lovely,’ I say. ‘Let me just freshen up.’ I’m still smiling as I walk to my room – but as I put on perfume, lipstick and a slightly nicer top, I realise that Joshua and I haven’t actually resolved anything at all. He still doesn’t know much about Travis; he still doesn’t know why I think that fighting is normal. Although, on the plus side, he does care enough to fight with me about not wanting to fight with me. So that has to count for something.

  I need to acknowledge to myself how much Travis has damaged me. But I need to leave that in the past.

  I put on a jacket and check my reflection again. I look fine. Good enough for the local steakhouse.

  The thing is, I think, as I join Django and Joshua, and we lock up and get into Joshua’s car. The thing is, maybe I believe conflict is a sign of love because of Travis; but why does April? Leo isn’t the least bit like Travis.

  Or is he?