The Lying Game

It is not what I was expecting him to say, and the wind is taken out of my sails, so that my speech about keeping the hell away from me falters and I’m not sure what to say.

‘The drink – I know, it’s pointless, but I – it was a peace offering. I’m sorry. I won’t bother you again.’

He turns to go, something rises up inside me, a kind of desperation, and to my own astonishment I find myself blurting out, ‘Wait.’

He turns back, his expression guarded. He’s refusing to catch my eye, but there’s something there … a sort of hope?

‘You – you shouldn’t have taken Freya,’ I say at last. ‘But I accept your apology.’

He stands there, mutely, towering over the table and then he ducks his head in awkward acknowledgement and our eyes meet. Perhaps it’s his uncertainty, the way he’s standing with his shoulders hunched, like a child who has outgrown their own height. Or perhaps it’s his eyes, the way they hold mine with a kind of painful vulnerability, but for a minute he looks so like his fifteen-year-old self that my heart seems to catch and skip.

I swallow against the pain in my throat, the pain that is always there, lately – my old symptom of stress and anxiety.

I think of Owen and his accusations, of the act he already thinks I’ve committed … and I feel a recklessness take hold.

‘Luc, I – do you want to sit down?’

He doesn’t speak. For a minute I think he’s going to pretend he didn’t hear me, turn away.

But then he swallows himself, the muscles moving in his throat.

‘Are you sure?’ he asks.

I nod, and he pulls back a chair, and sits, holding his pint in one hand, staring down into the deep amber liquid.

There is a long silence, and the men at the bar turn away, as if Luc’s presence is some sort of shield against their curiosity. I feel Freya’s strong suck, her hands flexing against me. Luc sits, not looking at the two of us, his eyes averted.

‘Did you … did you hear the news?’ he asks at last.

‘About the –’ I stop. I want to say about the bones, but somehow I can’t make myself say the words. He nods.

‘They’ve identified the body. It’s Ambrose.’

‘I heard.’ I swallow again. ‘Luc, I’m so, so sorry.’

‘Thanks,’ he says. His French accent is stronger, as it often was at moments of stress. He shakes his head, as if trying to push away unwanted thoughts. ‘I was … surprised how much it hurt.’

My breath catches in my throat, and I realise afresh what we did – the life sentence that we inflicted not just on ourselves, but on Luc.

‘Have … have you told your mother?’ I manage.

‘No. She wouldn’t care any more. And she doesn’t deserve that name,’ Luc says very quietly.

I take a gulp of wine, trying to calm my heart, which is hammering, and soothe the pain in my throat.

‘She … she was an addict, right?’

‘Yes. Heroin. And later méthadone.’

He pronounces the word the French way, may-tadon, and for a moment I don’t understand, then I realise and I bite my lip, wishing I had never brought up the subject. Luc is silent, staring down at his pint, and I don’t know what to say, how to retrieve this. He came here to try to make things right between us, and all I’ve done is remind him of everything he lost.

I’m saved from speaking by the arrival of a young girl with a plate of steaming fish pie. She puts it down in front of me without preamble, and says, ‘Sauces?’

‘No,’ I say, with difficulty. ‘No, thanks. I’m fine.’

I put a spoonful of pie to my mouth. It’s rich and creamy and the cheese on top is golden and bubbled, but it tastes of sawdust. The soft flakes in my mouth crumble, and I feel the scratch of a bone at the back of my throat as I force down the mouthful.

Luc says nothing, he just sits, in quiet thought. His big hands rest on the table, his fingers curled loosely, and I remember that morning in the post office, his contained fury, the cuts on his knuckles and the sense of fear I had at his presence. I think about the sheep, and about the blood on his hands … and I wonder.

Luc is angry, I know that. But if I were him, I would be angry too.

It is much later. Freya is asleep, sprawled against my chest, and Luc and I have fallen silent after hours of talking. Now we are just sitting, side by side, watching her breathe, thinking our own thoughts.

When the bell goes for last orders I can’t quite believe it, and have to get out my phone to check that yes, it really is ten to eleven.

‘Thank you,’ I say to Luc, as he stands and stretches, and he looks surprised.

‘What for?’

‘For tonight. I – I needed to get out, to forget everything for a little bit.’ I realise, as I say the words, that I have not thought of Owen for hours, nor Kate. I rub my face, loosen my cramped limbs.

‘It was nothing.’ He bends, and then takes Freya from me, very gently, so that I can squeeze out from behind the little table. I watch as he cradles her inexpertly against his chest, and find myself smiling as she gives a little sigh and snuggles into his warmth.

‘You’re a natural. Do you want kids?’

‘I won’t have children.’ He says it matter-of-factly, and I look up in surprise.

‘Really? Why not? Don’t you like them?’

‘It’s not that. I didn’t have the best childhood. You get fucked up, you’re liable to pass that on.’

‘Bullshit.’ I take Freya from him as he holds her out, and put her tenderly into her pram, resting my hand gently on her chest as her eyelids flutter open and then close again in capitulation. ‘If that were true, none of us would every reproduce. We’ve all got baggage. What about all the good qualities you’ve got to pass on?’

‘There’s nothing about me any child should have,’ he says, and for a minute I think he’s joking, but he’s not, his face is serious, and sad. ‘And I won’t risk giving another kid an upbringing like mine.’

‘Luc … That – that’s so sad. I’m sure you wouldn’t be anything like your mother.’

‘You can’t know that.’

‘No, but no one knows for sure what kind of parent they’ll be. Crap people have babies every day – but the difference is they don’t care. You do.’

He shrugs, puts his arms into his jacket, and then helps me into mine.

‘It doesn’t matter. I’m not having children. I don’t want to bring a child into a world like this.’

Out in the car park Luc pushes his hands in his pockets, hunches his shoulders.

‘Can I walk you home?’

‘It’s miles out of your way.’

But I realise as soon as I’ve said it, that I have no idea where he lives. Still, the Mill can’t possibly be on the way anywhere, can it?

‘Not really out of my way,’ he says. ‘My rooms are on the coast road, out towards the school. The quickest way is across the marsh.’

Oh. It explains a lot. Not least, why he was passing the Mill the night we went to the alumnae ball. I feel a faint twinge of guilt at disbelieving his story.

I don’t know what to say.

Do I trust Luc? No, is the answer. But since my conversation with Kate this morning, the way she ran rather than answer my questions … I’m no longer sure if I trust anyone in this place.

I didn’t bring a torch, and with the cloud cover the night is very dark. We walk slowly, me pushing the pram, Luc picking our route, both of us talking quietly. A truck passes in the darkness, its headlamps throwing our shadows long and black on the road ahead, and Luc raises a hand in greeting as it passes and disappears into the darkness.

‘… night, Luc …’ comes faintly from one of the windows, and it strikes me that, in a way, Luc has succeeded where Kate has not. He has made a life for himself here, become part of the community, while she is still an outsider, just as Mary said.

We are at the bridge over the Reach when I find I have a stone in my shoe and we pause for me to get it out. While I hop on one leg and then wriggle the shoe back on my bare foot, Luc leans his elbows on the railings, looking out over the estuary towards the sea. The fog has lifted, but with the clouds so low and thick, the Reach is shrouded in darkness and there is nothing to see, not even the faint glimmer of lights from the Mill. His face is unreadable, but I am thinking of the little white tent, hidden in the darkness, and I wonder if he is too.