Lies Like Love (8 page)

Lizzy was waiting for him again. Ever since the fair she’d started appearing in the corridor just outside whichever room he happened to be vacating, falling into step beside him and making small talk. Small being the operative word. What did he think about the latest crap TV show she’d been watching, did he want to maybe listen to her new boy-band album, why hadn’t he found her on Facebook, why didn’t he come out with them on Friday night?

‘Hey,’ she said, falling into step with him again, just before lunchtime. Leo was on his way to the art block. Finding Audrey there yesterday had been a bonus and he thought he might be lucky again.

‘Hi.’ Leo’s plan was to keep looking straight ahead. To walk fast, like he had a purpose. Which he did.

‘So, you want to know what I heard?’ Lizzy took a run of little steps to catch him, tugged the sleeve of his jacket.

‘Um, I don’t know. Do I?’ He hazarded a quick glance her way, didn’t like the look in her eyes and focused again on the main doors. In under a minute he’d be out of here. If he ran it would be just seconds.

‘I think you might be interested,’ Lizzy teased.

‘Well, what’s it about?’ Her hand on his sleeve was a drag.

‘That girl, the new girl.’

‘You mean Audrey.’ He couldn’t help it; he looked at
Lizzy. There was a sly cast to her expression, a twist to her smile. ‘I’m not interested in rumours, Lizzy, or in bitchiness. OK?’

‘No, this isn’t that. It’s worse.’

‘What? What are you talking about?’

‘Just that, well, you know how she’s weird, right? Well, I heard from my mum that’s she’s definitely mental. So my mum knows her mum and she says she’s been in homes. Like properly locked up and stuff. Apparently she’s really violent. I don’t think they should let people like that in schools though, do you? Not with us normal kids. I mean, you don’t know what she might do.’ Lizzy’s eyes goggled at him. She licked her lips, her tongue darting, excited.

Leo tensed. He stopped walking and took Lizzy’s arm, pulled her to one side, looking at her hard. She took a step back.

‘Lizzy, you know what? I think these rumours you’re spreading are horrible.’

‘They’re not rumours. They’re true.’ Her eyes beat out at him, hot with outrage.

‘Well, I don’t care. I don’t want to hear it. The only person who looks bad here is you, you see, because Audrey’s my friend. I actually like her. So, please, just leave it, all right? Stop talking shit. And grow up.’

She stared, her face heating to a beetroot glow, the blush spreading up her ears into her scalp. Leo let go of her arm and tried to smile once, just very briefly.

‘OK,’ he said.

‘OK,’ she answered, quieter, and he turned round and walked away.

I’d nearly managed a whole half-term in school. That was something, I thought, as I went to the nurse’s office at lunchtime and took my pill, like Mum had arranged. There were only two days left until the holidays and that was a relief, because I was sleeping too much and then feeling sick, dizzy, almost upside down. Mum said it was a side effect, worth it if I got better and could be brave and strong like other girls. I wanted to be like Jen – Jen would never be scared of the Thing – so I swallowed my pills and tried to smile at the school nurse, calling a cheery goodbye. On my way to registration, I pushed through the heavy doors into the next corridor, thinking about how I might take Peter to our den after school; it was brightening up outside. We’d filled half of the notebook with drawings and I wanted to collect leaves to stick in, acorns, maybe look for animal markings in the damp rich earth. Peter could copy and label them and start to keep a record. But first I had to sit through afternoon lessons. More French. More Science.
Stay awake now, Aud, try your best
. But I took a wrong turn, bewildered by the meandering corridors, not certain where I was or where I ought to go. So I didn’t see Lizzy until it was too late. She stopped me and barred the door.

‘So, you seeing him, then?’ I didn’t like her hand on my
shoulder. I shifted and tried to shake it off; I had to act hard.

‘Seeing who?’

‘The Chinaman.’ Her mates laughed. One of them popped bubblegum near my ear. I turned and tried to dodge past them.

‘What?’

‘You know who I mean. Leo.’ She drew the word out, her mouth twisting as if she were going to be sick.

‘Mind your own business,’ I said. Where was Jen? I needed her at my side, a silent back-up.

Lizzy took a step forward.

‘He wouldn’t want to get with a little skank like you, anyway. Who would? Who knows what you’ve got?’

‘Oh, shut up.’ I edged away, trying to make my way without touching any of them, but a hand on my back sent me sprawling, my glasses flying. The shock jarred my arms as I landed, but I didn’t make a sound, reached for my specs and shoved them in my pocket. If I waited on the floor, didn’t move, didn’t cry, it’d be fine. They’d go away and leave me alone. But Lizzy had a better idea.

‘Get up, come on.’ A pair of hands grabbed me, pulling me to my feet.

‘You know what you are, don’t you?’ Lizzy said, smiling, straightening my jumper, her fingers like little pincers. She didn’t expect an answer. I zipped my mouth shut.

‘You’re a schizo bitch, aren’t you?’

I still didn’t answer. Better not to. Better to pretend they weren’t real, just ghosts flitting in and out of my
mind. They would die soon; we’d all die soon. They just didn’t know it yet.

‘We all know. That you’re sick in the head. That you cut yourself up like a dirty, skanky bitch.’ She grabbed my arm and wrenched back my sleeve, then held the evidence in front of the others. Her fingers manacled my wrist and the scars glowed. ‘Tried to top yourself, once, didn’t you? What went wrong? You screw up, Mental?’

Her spit hit my face. I closed my eyes. I felt sick. How did she know? I pretended I was deaf and dumb. Played stupid, the fool.

‘We don’t want you here,’ Lizzy said. ‘You should fuck off. Tell you what, we’ll help you.’

And then she was dragging me towards the girls’ loos and there were arms round my neck, round my shoulders and waist and I couldn’t escape them, not by pulling or twisting or screaming or fighting back. Lizzy’s hand covered my mouth and I tried to bite her. She squeezed my face, tightening her grip.

They slammed the door. Someone stood against it. I yelled out for them to stop.

‘Let’s make her shut up, yeah?’ Lizzy said, and they dragged me into a cubicle and shoved me to my knees, pushing my head into the filthy toilet bowl. My stomach heaved as water flooded my mouth and eyes and nose and ears. Twisting and writhing, like a thrashing animal hooked and caught, I lurched and pulled. But they held me there; someone flushed and flooded my face and I saw the blackness of the moat, felt the panic of drowning, the
horror of knowing I couldn’t save myself, the thud of it coming.

When they let go I slumped to the floor. Gasping, I lay there, a puddle of victim.

‘Hey,’ Lizzy said, and I raised my eyes. She had her phone and was filming.

‘Say hi,’ she said, grabbing my hair and pulling back my head. ‘Say hello to the camera.’

I had to stop her. I had no choice: she was hurting me and it was cruel and I didn’t want to be the one they laughed at any more. I lunged forward, with my fists, my feet, my teeth and caught a little of her, knocking the phone out of her hands and into the toilet bowl. She screamed and I fought her, scraping my nails down one cheek, snagging her shin with my shoe as I got to my feet, kicking and pushing and punching my way out of there. I heard myself scream,
I hate you, I hate you
, and then I fled, my hair hanging down my back in a heavy filthy mess.
It doesn’t matter
, I muttered, under my breath,
it doesn’t matter
. But something burned and I felt the heat and scratch of it in my throat and coughed out the first sob, swiped at the tear. No one saw me when I left the school, slipping out through the gap in the fence at the edge of the field. I didn’t feel the chill in the air, or the wind on my shoulders through my soaking shirt. I didn’t notice the long walk towards the Grange, I just concentrated on moving, on putting one foot before another and getting away. My head thumped, the drumbeat, the sign. The Thing whispered that I was useless. The Thing told me not to hope. That
there would be nothing good for me ever, that I deserved what I got. Lizzy was right, it said. I was nothing. But I didn’t know what I had done wrong.

I wished I could go home. Every ten paces I stopped, dizzy, and I made my way as if walking up and down see-saws, balancing on the shifting planes of the earth. If my head would just clear, if my thoughts would untangle, if I could just see myself as others did. Make my life make some sort of sense.

I made it to the woods. The smell of the dank soil rose up like a mist and I walked into it, breathing the rich sour odour of decay. The sun caught a cobweb, set it alight, birds rattled the branches overhead. My breathing slowed, I was safe here in the clearing at least. Our den was still there, just, Peter’s and mine, ragged now, almost entirely collapsed, but I crawled inside what was left of the shelter, imagined the leaves folding over me, the soil opening, accepting, digesting, and that it was warm in the belly of the earth.

The rumour spread along the corridors fast. In and out of classrooms it skittered: Lizzy Carr had been attacked. Lizzy Carr was with the nurse, rushed to hospital, might lose an eye. And Audrey was to blame. She’d gone nuts, they said, spazzed out; attacked Lizzy and smashed up her phone and run off somewhere, no one knew where. Leo closed his ears to the words, bandied about, careless. He decided they were more lies, but when Audrey didn’t appear on the last day before the half-term holiday he wondered if she really had been excluded. He heard the kids say ‘schizo’ again, ‘nutter’, ‘mental’, and his stomach turned. Whatever might have gone on, he was sure it couldn’t all be her fault.

It was Saturday night and he was supposed to be going to Joel Blake’s Halloween thing, but he wanted to go for a run, nevertheless, before he left to catch the bus. Late October and the evenings getting shorter and shorter; there was just enough time before the night dipped into darkness. Graham was right: it was addictive. His breath made big clouds as he paused, hands on hips, and stood and stared up at the Grange. He ran his eyes over the walls, the blank windows, vacant yet glaring.
NO TRESPASSERS
read a new sign that had been hurriedly rammed into the ground near the gates. He ignored it and ran up
the drive, refusing to be afraid of mere bricks and mortar. And then there was a movement at the window he’d decided was Audrey’s. Just a shadow, a flitting, fleeting thing, butterfly light. It was worth a try. He could get the full story, try and help maybe.

‘Hey,’ he yelled, cupping his hands round his mouth. ‘Audrey,’ his voice boomed, and carried, bouncing off the walls and the water in an echo that chased itself round and round.
Audrey, Audrey, Audrey
, he heard, the voices singing back at him as if they laughed, and for a second it looked like nothing was going to happen. But then the movement was back and this time it was clearer; the shadow took shape. A figure was standing at the window, struggling with the latch, wrenching open the casing.

‘Hi,’ she called back, her voice dipping on the wind. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Out for a run. I thought I saw you, so I called. You OK?’

‘Yeah. Not doing much.’

‘Can you come out?’ he shouted. ‘Or shall I come up?’

But she didn’t answer; she’d disappeared already and the next moment she was charging out of the front door, running towards him, gravel flying under her bare feet, her hair streaming pale and long behind her.

‘What’s up?’

‘Nothing.’ The way she’d run, like there’d been something chasing her, Leo wanted to put out his arms and steady her. Be something solid and strong for Audrey to hold on to.

‘What are they saying?’ she said, and Leo didn’t know
how to answer. Her eyes blinked behind her glasses and her cheeks burst red; she held her arms across her chest, defending herself. There was no way he could make this worse and tell her the truth, so he smiled, pretending he didn’t know what she meant. It felt like smiles were all he had to give Audrey and that made him angry.

‘Look, why don’t you come out with me tonight? There’s a party.’

‘I can’t. I have to babysit. Mum’s at work.’

‘OK. Do you want me to stay with you?’

She took a step back, her face closing.

‘Right, well, never mind. But listen, Audrey, don’t worry. It doesn’t matter, this thing with Lizzy; people will forget about it. Everyone knows what she’s like. Just don’t get down, OK?’ God, he was useless. This wasn’t what he wanted to say at all. He wanted to invite himself inside, sit down and really talk to her, find out what the hell was going on and who she really was. Right now he didn’t have a clue.

‘I’m OK. You enjoy yourself, anyway. Have a good one,’ Audrey said, and he nodded and waited until she was inside before he ran down the drive and across the fields to the farm.

The party sucked and Leo wasn’t in the mood. Some idiot had thought it was funny to come dressed in a white coat spattered with fake blood, axe in hand, long blond wig, glasses, eyes wide and staring and, just in case the ever-so-subtle message hadn’t hit home, the words
MAD AUDREY
painted in red on the back of his lab coat. Leo curled his lip. His fists clenched. He walked in the other direction and there was Lizzy laughing her ass off, barely
a scratch on her. She saw him and shifted in her seat to stare at him full on before she grinned and raised her eyebrows – an invitation.
My God
, he thought,
Lizzy is actually deluded
. He spun round on his heel, walked back to the guy who thought he was funny and shoved him hard.

‘Hey!’ The lad turned round. Leo recognized Mark Brooks from his tutor group. They’d never spoken.

‘Don’t you think this is pretty pathetic?’ Leo gestured at Mark’s costume. Thought about tearing off his wig. Landing a hard punch in his face. ‘Taking the piss out of a girl who’s not here to defend herself?’

‘It’s only a laugh. What do you care?’ Mark said, holding up his hands as if to say calm down, and Leo could tell he really didn’t get it.

‘Well. You’re not funny. Think about it, right?’

Leo walked into the kitchen. Grabbed a beer and drank, his lip still curling. Jen came over.

‘All right?’ she said, and he shrugged.

‘I’m pretty knackered actually. I might just bail.’

‘Sure, sorry about Mark and that stupid costume.’

‘Not your fault.’

‘Is it true though?’ Jen asked him. ‘Is Audrey … well, is she a bit, you know …’

She didn’t know how to say it, especially not to him. Leo had thought Jen was better than that, he thought she was Audrey’s friend, and he gritted his teeth.

‘I don’t know, Jen. If you mean has Audrey got mental-health problems, well, I haven’t a clue. We barely know each other. But what I do know, I like. I know where she’s coming from. I’ve been there.’

‘Yeah?’ Jen sat up on the kitchen worktop, kicked her legs back and forth, picking at her black nail varnish. She was dressed up as a vampire – Dracula’s bride – and pulled out her fake teeth, so she could talk. ‘The thing is, Lizzy’s totally got it in for Audrey. And you know Lizzy. She’s such a nightmare.’

‘Well, maybe someone should have a word.’
Like me
, Leo thought.
I could go up to her now, tell her to shut her evil mouth. Make her actually hear it this time. That would really finish this party off
. Jen jumped down, held his sleeve.

‘That would make her worse, I reckon – you know she does it for attention. She’d be accusing you of all sorts if you did that. You’d have her mum round yours, like she came down the school, mouthing off.’

‘I guess so.’

‘Well, maybe Lizzy’ll leave Aud alone now she knows she’ll get it back.’

‘I hope so. It’s really shit, Jen. She was trying to fit in, trying to have a fresh start.’

‘I know. But it’s not always as easy as that, is it?’