Carry Me Down (8 page)

I copy four more pages from
The Truth About Lie Detection
into my book and then I write a letter to the
Guinness Book
of Records:

When I’ve finished the letter, I daydream about being on television. I am being interviewed by Gay Byrne who hosts
The Late
,
Late Show
. In the daydream I am already famous and I am touring the world to talk about my gift. I tell him about the work I have been doing for the FBI, helping to catch spies in Russia. Gay Byrne shakes his head as he says, ‘Astonishing. Really very astonishing. Can we test your gift on a few members of the audience? May we conduct a live test? An experiment?’

I sit forward in my leather swivel chair and say, ‘Yes, of course.’

Gay Byrne calls for four volunteers and he asks each of them to tell me something. The first says, ‘My name is Bernadette and I have three daughters and a son and I live in Galway.’

I rub the side of my face before I answer. ‘That’s a lie,’ I say. ‘But not all of it. You were telling the truth until you said you
live in Galway.’ In the daydream I don’t feel sick, not even a little bit queasy, when I detect the lie.

Gay Byrne and the volunteer look at each other, delighted and amazed. ‘That’s right,’ says the woman. ‘I do have three daughters and a son but I don’t live in Galway. I live in Doolin.’

When I’m finished with the daydream I read about The Great Train Robbery. On the 8th August, 1963, between 3.10 am and 3.45 am, a General Post Office mail-train from Glasgow was ambushed by a gang of thieves who escaped with 120 postbags containing more than forty-two million pounds. One of the thieves has not yet been caught and his name is Ronald Biggs.

I wonder what it felt like to steal so much money. If I felt as though my heart was trying to escape through my ears when I stole ninety pounds from my grandmother’s purse, then Ronald Biggs must have felt like his arms and legs would fall off with all the thumping of frightened blood. Even when I look under my mattress, to see if the money I stole is still there, my hands shake for as much as an hour afterwards. And how did Ronald Biggs know what to do with the money when I cannot even decide what to do with my scrawny little pile of notes?

And then my father shouts my name and I know it’s time for the Hitchcock film.

For two days my classmates have teased me. Some have made a special effort to ambush me on my way into class. Yesterday, the redhead threw water at my feet while I sat at my desk, and whenever Miss Collins turns her back to the class the girl next to me says, ‘Wee, wee, wee, all the way home.’ And, with one exception, Brendan has not spoken to me since it happened.

It is half three. I sit at my desk and wait for everybody to leave before I go out to the corridor. Brendan is walking along by the coat rack. I don’t need to ask him why he is walking up and down the corridor like this. I know that he can’t find his anorak. He can’t find it because at lunchtime I took it off the hook and have it stuffed in the bottom of my schoolbag.

I ask him why he is still here.

‘I can’t find my anorak.’

‘I’ll help you look,’ I say.

I try to sound calm, but my hands are sweating in my pockets. We look for his anorak and, when we can’t find it, I suggest that we should walk home together. I give him my anorak to wear, and he doesn’t ask why I don’t need mine, or why I have worn two jumpers today.

At last we are alone together and I can tell him the story about why I wet my pants. I lie to him in order to keep him as my
friend and I don’t feel sick. I tell him it was a record-breaking attempt.

‘That’s a pretty stupid record,’ he says.

‘I nearly broke it. I held on for twenty-six hours.’

‘You held on for twenty-six hours!’

‘Twenty-five hours and fifty minutes.’

‘You should tell everybody that.’

‘Maybe,’ I say, ‘but they probably won’t believe me. The record is thirty hours. So I nearly broke it.’

He looks away.

‘Do you want me to come over on Sunday and play football or something?’ I ask.

Brendan coughs, like my father does when he’s not sure what to do. ‘I don’t know yet. I might have to go to a christening.’

‘OK,’ I say.

It’s Friday morning and, after breakfast, I wait until there is nobody in the kitchen so that I can call Brendan to tell him I want to carry out a special experiment.

‘Like the piss experiment?’

‘Completely different. Can you stay at my house tonight?’

‘I don’t think I’ll be allowed,’ he says.

‘It’s important.’

‘Maybe. I have to go now. My porridge is going cold.’

‘I’ll give you five quid,’ I say.

‘Liar.’

‘I’ll bring the money today and show you.’

‘How’d you get five quid?’

‘I saved it.’

‘Liar. That would take a hundred years.’

‘My granny won some at the races and gave me a bit. But you can’t tell anyone and if you do I’ll get the money back off you.’

‘OK.’

‘And bring your sleeping bag.’

‘Why?’

‘Because.’

I have told my mother that I am staying at Brendan’s house tonight and that I’m going there straight after school. She won’t check on me; she has no reason to.

It is half three. I tell Brendan to come to the shed. ‘Why? Aren’t we going to your house?’

‘Just follow me. You’ll see.’

We go to the shed. The caretaker is cleaning a desk with steel wool. ‘Hello,’ he says. ‘Any of this graffiti yours?’

‘Nope’ I say. ‘We need to have the keys to the shed for one night.’

The caretaker looks at the floor then slowly back up at me. ‘And if you’re caught you’ll say you stole the keys from the office?’

‘Definitely,’ I say.

‘And you’ll be using my shed to get up to no good?’

I look at the floor, then slowly back up, the way the caretaker did. Confident people seem able to handle silence and are good at pausing.

I’ve been thinking about how I should behave and I think I should have a confident way about me in time for my first meeting with the
Guinness Book
people. I’ll work first on my hands, then on my voice, and on my walk last of all.

‘Something like that,’ I say. ‘It’s a long story.’

‘Clean the toilets. When you come back the shed will be ready.’

The caretaker hands me the keys. I take note of the way he doesn’t have to use many words to tell you what he wants.

* * *

As we walk to the toilets, Brendan grabs my arm. ‘What’s going on? I thought we were going to your house?’

‘We need the shed for the night for my experiment. But I can’t tell you what it is yet.’

‘You have to tell me. I’m not staying unless you tell me.’

I open the door to the toilets. ‘All right. It’s a lie detection test. I’m going to prove that I’m a human lie detector.’

‘That’s stupid.’

‘How do you know it’s stupid? I haven’t shown you yet. It’s like I’m a polygraph, only I don’t need a machine.’

‘What’s a polygraph?’

‘It’s a machine that’s hooked up to criminals to see if they are lying, but I’m probably a better lie detector than any machine.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘The polygraph measures breathing and blood pressure and how much the suspect sweats. But some people don’t feel guilty when they lie and the needle of the polygraph doesn’t move. These people are super-liars. And some innocent suspects get so nervous that the polygraph thinks they’re guilty. But when I detect lies I see in a split-second what a machine can’t see, and I detect loads of signals and things called micro-expressions. And I feel sick and my ears burn, but not as much as in the beginning.’

His eyes are wide and his mouth is open. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘I have a gift for lie detection.’

‘You’re making it up.’

‘I’m not.’

‘You are.’

‘I’m not.’

‘So how did you learn how to do it? Who taught you?’

‘I didn’t learn. I found out that I could just do it. It’s just something I can do. But I’ve read all the books now and they help me
know what’s going on. The books tell me what my brain is doing when I spot a lie.’

‘Can’t we do the experiment at your house?’

I tell myself to use fewer words. ‘No privacy there,’ I say.

I turn away from him and use the mop and bucket to splash already dirty water on the floor. Brendan leans against the wall and watches me clean and does not offer to help. He has the upper hand now; but I’ll get it back soon enough.

‘How do you know when somebody’s lying then?’ he asks.

‘In the beginning I used to feel sick and vomit, but now I get hot ears and I can just tell by what happens to a person’s face and hands.’

‘That’s stupid.’

‘No, it’s not. Wait and see.’

‘Give me the money and then I’ll do it.’

I give him the five quid and he holds it up to the light, as though to check whether it’s counterfeit.

I laugh then because he laughs, even though I am having to pay him to do something he should want to do because he’s my friend.

On the way back to the shed we stop by the classroom and collect our sleeping bags, and the food I took this morning from the pantry at home: two pieces of chocolate cake, a chunk of ham and a loaf of bread. I have brought a spare blanket and pillows too.

It’s a foggy night and, as we walk to the shed, it covers our coats and makes them wet. When we get inside the shed, we lay our sleeping bags on the floor. I’m cold and have no idea how to light the stove. ‘We’re going to freeze to death,’ I say just for something to say.

‘Don’t be a molly,’ says Brendan. ‘I’ll get some wood and get the fire going.’

‘Good,’ I say.

The stove is lit and piled high with wood. The room is a little warmer now, and we are comfortable as we eat cake inside our sleeping bags. But I’m worried that if we don’t begin the experiment soon we might not start at all.

‘The caretaker’s left us a note,’ says Brendan.

Brendan looks for the new comics and my stomach drops; he is more interested in comics than my experiment.

‘But we don’t need any comics,’ I say. ‘We haven’t even started.’

‘Just looking,’ he says.

We flick through the caretaker’s books, and among the comics Brendan finds a sex magazine. It is not possible that Brendan knew it was there, but he says, ‘I had a feeling he’d put something weird here for us. I just knew it.’

Brendan climbs back into his sleeping bag and turns the pages of the magazine. He keeps saying ‘Cor blimey’ and ‘Wow!’ and ‘Look at the size of them!’ and he sounds stupid and fake. ‘Come and look at this!’ he shouts.

I pull my sleeping bag in closer to his and sit beside him to look at the pictures. Some have three or four people in them. They don’t make sense. I feel seasick. There’s pressure and spinning in my gut. I hope Brendan doesn’t look at me, but he’s too busy swearing and making noises with his throat. I won’t make any noise. All I feel is a heavy pressure on my bowels, a feeling like needing to shit.

Without any warning, Brendan pushes me hard in the arm, and shouts, ‘You don’t have to sit so close! You’re giving me the creeps.’

Before I have time to answer, he is out of his sleeping bag and putting the magazine back on the shelf. He stands for a while, looking down at me, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. ‘I’m going out to piss and then I’m going home,’ he says.

He doesn’t look at me, and I don’t look at him. He goes outside and I wait for ten minutes for him to come back. When he returns he says, ‘I’m going now.’

‘What about the experiment?’ I ask.

He shrugs. ‘We’ll just tell our mams we decided not to sleep over,’ he says.

I stand and we pack our things without speaking. I want us to speak. I want to know what Brendan thinks of the pictures. ‘But what about the experiment?’ I ask.

‘What about it?’ says Brendan.

‘Fine,’ I say. ‘Do what you want.’

I want more to happen tonight, but I don’t know what. The idea of him leaving makes me angry. I want something more to happen in the caretaker’s shed, tonight, between Brendan and me. I want something between us, in the dark, during the night. I don’t want us to part, not now, and not so suddenly.

‘Let’s stay and do the experiment,’ I say.

‘Just forget it,’ says Brendan. ‘It was a stupid idea anyway.’

‘Well you must be stupid, because you wanted to do it, too.’

‘So?’

And we stand and shout ‘so?’ at each other. Brendan is pretending to be angry but I know he is lonely and feels strange just as I do.

‘Let’s turn off the lights and sleep and not even talk,’ I say quietly, with what is left of my voice. ‘We’ll go home as soon as it’s morning.’

Brendan doesn’t answer.

‘Please,’ I say. ‘Just to sleep.’

Brendan switches off the light and we get into our sleeping
bags. When Brendan has settled down, when he has stopped moving, I move my sleeping bag closer to his so the bags are touching.

‘G’night,’ he says.

‘G’night, Brendan,’ I say.

I turn over into my usual sleeping position, my temple resting on my hand, but I can’t sleep. I turn over on the hard floor and feel the cold of the concrete under my arms and legs. I can’t stop thinking about how I want to touch Brendan, or be touched by him, and I want to see his body. I’ve never had thoughts like this before, have never felt anything like this. It’s not about liking Brendan; not in that way. I look over at him in his sleeping bag and want to wake him. No. I will only think about it.

I will only imagine waking him. I imagine this: I wake him and ask him to sleep by me and he says yes and we lie naked together and I see his body and he sees mine. But this is wrong; this is a sin. I sit up and shake my head. I open my eyes and the pictures go away. I lie awake for a long time, confused. The more time passes, the more I feel like a prisoner, trapped awake. I turn and turn again and more time passes, and more, slow time.

My head, as though filled with helium, has nothing in it to carry me down to rest, to dark, down to sleep. It is pitch-black and yet there is no darkness in my mind. There is a blinding bright day when it should be night. Thoughts I know are very bad won’t stop coming. They are very bad sins. This is why my mother doesn’t want me to lie down with her.

I want the thoughts to stop and yet I want to see what happens to the thoughts, to the stories about my body and Brendan’s body and all the other stories I am making up in my imagination.

I smack my hand into my head until it hurts. I punch myself in the chest and on the arm and then I smack myself in the face.

I will never think like this again.

I get up and turn on the lamp and sit in a chair under the window with my sleeping bag wrapped around me. I look at Brendan, who sleeps on his side, his mouth open and his tongue resting on his bottom teeth. I like that I can look at him like this and he cannot do anything to stop me. I stare at his nostrils twitching and for a moment I hope that he will wake and talk to me, keep me company, but if he wakes he might want to go home and, if he goes, I won’t be able to look at him.

I stop looking when I get bored and read a comic book, but nothing is funny. I kick my sleeping bag.
You are not a sleeping bag
.
You are a waking bag
.

After an hour or more of sitting up by the lamp, beneath the cold dark window, I decide to try for sleep again. I climb back down into my sleeping bag, at the foot of the chair.

It is colder now, much colder than before, and I can feel the concrete like ice beneath the bag. My arms and legs feel bruised.

And it is this way until the birds start to sing, and when they start to sing I become drowsy, at last, and I sleep, briefly, then wake.

The caretaker is standing in the doorway. ‘Get up,’ he says as though we are two strangers, ‘I need to use the shed.’