Tell Me No Lies: A gripping psychological thriller with a twist you won't see coming

CHAPTER THREE

I make it to the school with seconds to spare, the walk taking me a little longer than I had anticipated. I should have driven, really, knowing that I was under pressure to get there on time, but the lure of fresh air and a brisk walk proved too much to be able to resist. This is my favourite time of the year, those few weeks between the start of a fresh new school year (odd how, even twenty years after leaving school, the first week of September still feels like a fresh start to me) and Christmas – all the giddy excitement of preparing for the festivities, made all the more fun since the arrival of Henry. The perfect time for us to re-evaluate things and make a go of our marriage after all that has happened, giving ourselves a clean slate and a chance to start over. It’s the best kind of day too – the kind that starts crispy and frosty, swirls of ice on the windowpanes and car windscreens, blades of grass turned white and crunchy with the frost. The kind of winter’s day where, even though there are bright-blue skies and sunshine overhead, the temperature doesn’t lift a degree or two above freezing, so all day long your breath puffs out in little dragon clouds as your boots slip and slide on the glittery, icy pavements. The best kind of day to pull me out of the thick, suffocating darkness that threatens to suck me under sometimes.

By the time I arrive at the school, the bell has rung and children are beginning to stream out of their classrooms, looking for their mothers waiting patiently in the playground. Half of the parents there don’t seem to pay any attention to the children pouring out of the school, not looking eagerly for their offspring, preferring instead to catch up with the school gossip with the other yummy mummies congregating in the playground. I stand to one side, away from the gossiping masses, my nose red from the cold, my cheeks flushed from the race to get there on time, and unzip my thick winter jacket as pregnancy and the brisk walk make me warmer than I should be. As I push my hat further back on my head I see Henry come out of his classroom, holding tight to his teacher’s hand. I feel my heart squeeze at the sight of his little face, a serious frown crossing his brow as the teacher leans down to speak to him. As she stands, she catches my eye and beckons me over with one finger. My heart sinks a little; today has obviously not been a good day for Henry. I make my way across the playground, dodging small children on scooters, their mothers still yakking away about nothing to their playground counterparts. I reach Henry and Miss Bramley, and lean down to give Henry a quick squeeze and a kiss on the cheek.

‘Is everything OK, Miss Bramley?’ I ask, knowing full well that something will have happened today at school. Henry is only in Year One, and this is only his first week in his new school, but he doesn’t seem to be settling in as well as they would like him to.

‘We just had a slight incident today with Henry, Mrs Gordon, nothing too serious, but I thought we should let you know.’

‘What is it? What happened? Henry, are you OK?’ He gives a small nod and a sniff, not raising his eyes to meet mine.

‘It seems Henry was pushed over by another child in the playground today, Mrs Gordon. It may have just been a little rough play that got out of hand, but I did think I should make you aware of it. Henry wasn’t hurt, just a scraped knee, and this is not the kind of behaviour we at the school condone, I assure you.’ Miss Bramley almost looks embarrassed at having to tell me my child has been hurt at school, her eyes looking everywhere but at me.

‘Henry, is that what happened? Was it just playing?’ Henry nods, a small, slight nod, and I look down at him helplessly. ‘OK. OK, fine. Thank you, Miss Bramley.’ I take Henry’s hand and lead him away towards the black railings at the far end of the playground, to collect his scooter and get us out of the gate before I can speak to him properly. Henry is a sensitive boy, much more like me than Mark. I think when he was born, Mark thought he would be getting a rough-and-tumble boy, one he could play football with in the garden and take to the green to play cricket in the summer. A boy who would appreciate vigorous play, wrestling on the living-room carpet with his dad, instead of one who preferred to sit quietly, drawing or painting. Since he started school and discovered the joys of reading, he has become a voracious reader, devouring all the picture books I collected and read to him when he was tiny and clamouring for more every time we venture into a bookshop.

As we begin the walk back down the hill towards home, he scoots a little ahead, using his school shoes as a brake – something that would normally infuriate me, but today I don’t mention it. We cross with the lollipop lady, a cheery soul who stands there morning and afternoon in sunshine and torrential rain, always with a smile on her face. She waves to Henry and hands him a lolly as he crosses, which brings the first smile to his face that I’ve seen today.

‘Henry, wait!’ I shout to him as he whizzes along the path, narrowly missing a lady walking a yappy Chihuahua that snaps at Henry’s legs as he passes. He slows and I catch up with him outside the small convenience store, panting slightly. ‘Leave the scooter there. We need milk. And some hot chocolate, if there are any good little boys about?’ I peer around and Henry giggles, his laughter tickling my skin like summer sunshine, pulling a smile onto my face. Henry chatters on as I fill my basket with milk and other little bits we’ve run out off. I am only half listening, concentrating on packing my shopping bag as the man behind the till scans the items.

‘Eight pounds forty, please.’

I smile at the man behind the counter and give him a ten-pound note. He hands me my change before reaching under the counter and popping a small purple packet into my hand.

‘Your change. And a treat for the young man.’ He winks at Henry, and I give him a small smile, nudging Henry into a ‘Thank you’ before adding the bag of chocolate buttons to the rest of my shopping.

A short while later, via a small diversion to the green, leafy park that we pass on the way home, we let ourselves in and Henry busies himself putting away his scooter and tugging off his school coat. I wait until he’s finished and then follow him through into the kitchen.

‘So then, hot chocolate?’ I ask, turning to the shopping bag and pulling out a large carton of milk.

‘Can we have marshmallows?’ he begs, his face lighting up. ‘And squirty cream?’

‘Well, of course,’ I reply. ‘Is there any other kind?’

He giggles and I pour the milk into a saucepan and set it on the hob to boil.

‘Is everything OK at school, kiddo?’ I ask him, watching his face carefully for any clues. He is just like me, so insular. Neither of us likes to open up unless we have to, both of us preferring to keep things bottled up and deal with them in our own way, something I’ve started to realise is not always healthy. I want to encourage him to start to be more open, to let him know that I’m his mum, that he can always tell me anything and I would never judge him. Something I didn’t have growing up, which I think has contributed to the way I deal with things. I have to encourage him, even though I know it means I’ll have to force myself to do the exact same thing.

‘Yeah. Mostly.’ He carries on scribbling away, colouring in a drawing of a tiger. I turn to the milk pan, catching it just before it boils over and splashes all over the hob. I wait a moment, leaving him a chance to expand, but he carries on colouring, taking painstaking care to make sure he doesn’t go over any of the lines. I pour the milk, whisking in the cocoa powder, topping them both off with squirty cream and marshmallows. It turns out that baby number two is far more partial to horrifically calorie-laden hot chocolate with all the trimmings than he or she is to coffee. Placing the mug in front of him, I try again.

‘Just mostly?’ I ask, nudging him gently. ‘Why just mostly? Is it something to do with what happened in the playground today?’

‘No.’ He grasps the hot chocolate in his hand and blows gently on the top, like I showed him. ‘That was just silly. Bradley doesn’t know how to behave himself. He always GOES TOO FAR, that’s what Miss Bramley says. He’s not my friend, anyway. I don’t care if he doesn’t want to play with me any more.’ Henry takes a sip of his hot chocolate, managing to slurp up several of the mini marshmallows dotted on the top at the same time. I give him a small smile and pat his hand, turning back towards the kitchen sink to blink away the tears that rush to my eyes.

Later that evening, once Henry is safely tucked up in bed, I tell Mark about Lila coming to visit.

‘She seems nice,’ I say, neglecting to tell him how my first instinct was to close the door in her face. ‘She said she had met you already.’

‘Hmmm?’ He looks up from his laptop, pushing his glasses back on top of his head. ‘Come here.’ He pats the sofa next to him and I slide along until our thighs are pressed together. ‘That’s good – you know, that you had tea with her and everything. It’ll be good for you to have a girlfriend; you don’t seem to have anyone close, not since Tessa left for New York.’ He puts his arm around my shoulder and pulls me towards him.

‘So, you never said you’d met Lila already.’ Although I know we said it’s a fresh start, I can’t help the spark of … what? Jealousy? Mistrust? I don’t even know what it is that flickers inside of me. Mark rubs his hand across his forehead, tiredly.

‘I didn’t really think about it, to be honest. She introduced herself and I told her about us, that we had a little boy and a baby on the way. Nothing exciting. Now come on, up to bed with you, you look exhausted. I’ll be up in a minute. I just need to send a couple of emails.’ He kisses my head and I shuffle off the couch to head upstairs.

While Mark is downstairs finishing off emails or whatever else it is he has to do on the rare occasions he gets home from work before midnight, I sit in bed and slide my hand between the bed frame and the mattress to pull out my diary. I used to keep a diary, years ago, when all the bad stuff happened, but once I sorted myself out and met Mark I let it lapse. Now, though, following on from everything that has happened between Mark and myself, including after Henry was born, and on the instruction of the counsellor Mark found, I’ve started to write in it again. The counsellor, Dr Bradshaw, recommended I document how I feel about certain things that happen, in an attempt to keep at bay the dark feelings that threaten to overwhelm me sometimes, so now I sit in my pyjamas and write about today. I write about how sad I feel for Henry, as he struggles to fit in at school with the other kids; I write about how I wonder what Mark is doing downstairs – he says he’s checking emails but how do I know that’s really what he’s doing? I write about Lila – about how she brought a little bit of sunshine into my day today with her bouncy demeanour and her vomit-inducing coffee cake, and about how, maybe, after so long avoiding making new connections and new friends, I should learn to trust other people again. Maybe I should make an effort to make a new friend. Maybe if I pretend for long enough that everything is going to be OK, it will be OK. In fact, I write, I think Lila might be good for me.

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