The Lying Game

Heads turn, but the music doesn’t cease, and as I push my way into the overheated room, I see Mary Wren perched on the edge of a stool at the bar, watching the players and tapping her foot in time to the jig. She notices me as I stand uncertainly at the threshold, and nods and winks. I smile back, listen for a moment, and then head for the back bar, noticing, as if for the first time, the wooden panels that line the walls. My stomach shifts, thinking of Kate’s note, thinking how easy it would be for anyone here to casually pull up a stool near the loose panel, or slip a hand in as they walked to the loos … even easier if you owned the place.

I remember Mary’s casual comment about the brewery wanting to sell the place to make flats for second-home owners, and as I look around the walls, noticing the peeling paint and the fraying carpets and chairs, I think about what that would mean to Jerry. He’s worked here all his life – this pub is his livelihood, his social life, and his retirement plan. What else could he do? I’m not sure whether it’s the eyes upon me, the heat and noise, or the realisation that Kate’s blackmailer could be standing just the other side of the bar, but I feel a sudden wave of claustrophobia and paranoia. All these locals, the grinning old men with their knowing looks, and the tight-mouthed bar maid with her arms folded, they know who I am, I’m sure of it.

I shove through the crowds towards the toilets and drag Freya’s pram inside, and I let the door swing shut, my back against it, feeling the cool and silence wash over me. I shut my eyes and I tell myself you can do this. Don’t let them get to you.

It’s only when I open my eyes that I see the words written in faint, blurred Sharpie on the door, reflected in the dirty mirror.

Mark Wren is a sex offender!!!!

I feel the blood rush to my cheeks, a scalding wash of shame. The letters are old and hard to make out, but not illegible. And someone else, more recently, has scratched out the Mark and written over the top in biro the word Sergeant.

Why didn’t I realise? Why didn’t I realise that a lie can outlast any truth, and that in this place people remember. It is not like London, where the past is written over again and again until nothing is left. Here, nothing is forgotten, and the ghost of my mistake will haunt Mark Wren forever. And it will haunt me.

I go to the sink and splash water on my face, while Freya watches me curiously, and then I straighten, looking at myself in the mirror, facing up to my reflection. Yes, this is my fault. I know that. But it’s not only my fault. And if I can face up to myself, I can face them.

I open the door to the pub, and push Freya’s pram determinedly towards the bar.

‘Isa Wilde!’ comes a voice as I pass the taps, slightly slurred. ‘Well, I thought as you’d left Salten for another ten years. What’ll it be?’

I turn and see Jerry himself grinning at me from behind the bar, his gold tooth winking in the light from the fire. He is polishing a glass on a cloth that has seen better days.

‘Hello, Jerry,’ I say. Freya is kicking and fretting, too warm now that we’re out of the cool bathroom. She manages to unpop the rain cover with one particularly bad-tempered shove, and gives a little squeal of triumph, and I pick her up, shushing her against my shoulder. ‘You don’t mind babies in the bar, do you?’

‘Not so long as they drink beer,’ Jerry says, and he grins his whiskery, gap-toothed grin. ‘What can I get you?’

‘Are you serving food?’

‘Not until six but it’s …’ He glances up at the clock above the bar. ‘Well, it’s all but now – here’s the menu.’

He pushes a grubby piece of dog-eared paper across the bar and I study it. Sandwiches … fish pie … dressed crab … burger and chips …

‘I’ll have the fish pie,’ I say at last. ‘And … and maybe a glass of white wine.’

Well, why not? It is almost six.

‘Want to start a tab?’

‘Sure. Do you want a card?’ I’m feeling in my handbag but he laughs and shakes his head.

‘I knows where to find you.’

I’m not sure how, but he manages to make the well-worn phrase sound faintly threatening, but I smile, and nod towards the back room, which is quieter, with a couple of free tables.

‘I’ll sit through there, if that’s OK?’

‘You do that, I’ll bring the drink across meself. You won’t want to be carrying it with the little ’un.’

I nod, and make my way through the back room. One of the free tables is by the door and strewn with greasy pint glasses. Someone has knocked out their pipe on the wood and left the contents there. The other, in the corner, isn’t much better. There is a wasp buzzing in a puddle of spilled beer, trapped beneath an upturned glass, and the blistered faux-leather seat is covered in dog hair, but it has space for Freya’s pram, so I clear the debris to the other table, give the surface a cursory wipe with a beer mat and settle us both down, wedging the pram in the gap. Freya is squirming in my arms and headbutting my chest, and I can see I’m not going to be able to stretch her feed until I get back; she has decided it’s time, and is about to kick off any minute. It’s not where I’d choose to feed her – I’ve fed in pubs before, often, but almost always with Owen present, and to be honest in London no one would care if you breastfed a cat. Here, by myself, it feels very different and I’m not sure how Jerry and his regulars will react, but I don’t really have a choice unless I want Freya exploding. I unbutton my coat and rearrange my layers for maximum modesty, then clamp her on as quickly as I can and let my coat fall to shield us both.

A few heads turn as she latches on, and one old man with a white beard stares with frank curiosity. I’m just thinking, with a little shift in my stomach, what Kate said about the salacious old men gossiping in the Salten Arms, when Jerry comes up with a glass of white on a tray and a knife and fork wrapped in a paper napkin.

‘We ought to charge corkage on that,’ he says with a grin and a nod at my chest, and I feel the colour rise in my cheeks. I manage a slightly thin laugh.

‘Sorry, she was hungry. You don’t mind, do you?’

‘Not I. And I’m sure the rest of ’em won’t mind an eyeful neither.’ He cackles fruitily, a noise that’s picked up like a wheezing echo by his cronies at the bar, and I feel my face begin to burn. More heads are turning, and the white-haired old man gives me a bleary wink and then guffaws, scratching at his crotch as he whispers something to his friend, nodding towards where I sit.

I am seriously considering telling Jerry to cancel the fish pie and walking out, when he slides the glass across the table and then nods back towards the bar. ‘Drink’s on your friend, by the way.’

My friend? I look up, and my eyes meet … Luc Rochefort’s.

He is sitting by the bar, and as I watch, he raises his glass to me, his expression a little … rueful? I’m not sure.

I think of Owen. Of that email he sent me. Of what he would say if he walked into the bar right now, and I feel again that unsettling shift in my stomach, but before I can think what to say, Jerry has gone, and I realise that Luc is standing up, walking towards me.

There’s no escape. I’m penned in by the pram to my left and a group of people’s chairs to my right, and I’m handicapped by Freya clamped to my bare breast beneath my coat. There’s no way I can get out before he makes it across. I can’t even rise to meet him without something going astray and Freya kicking off.

I think about the bloodied sheep.

I think about Freya in his arms, wailing.

I think about the drawings, about Owen’s suspicions, and my cheeks flame, and I can’t tell whether it’s with anger or … something else.

‘Look,’ I say as he comes closer, his pint in his hand. I want to be brave, confrontational, but I’m shrinking back against the padded bench almost in spite of myself. ‘Look, Luc –’

‘I’m sorry,’ he says abruptly, cutting across me. ‘About what happened. With your baby.’ His face is set, his eyes dark in the dim light of the back room. ‘I was trying to help, but it was a stupid thing to do, I realise that now.’