Lies Like Love

SEPTEMBER: AUDREY

The quiet in the flat that evening was thick, sort of humming and spooky, and even though Mum kept the radio on as she cleared up after tea, filling the cupboards and whistling along, I sat on the sofa with my hands over my ears and nearly didn’t hear the banging that sent Peter charging to open the door.

By the time I caught up with him, a woman was standing in the hallway and smiling at my brother. She was tanned, like she spent her whole life in the sun. Her skin was a bit like leather, all wrinkles round her eyes. She looked comfy. Soft round the middle, her arms strong.

‘Hello,’ she said, spotting me, raising an eyebrow. ‘Sorry to drop by unannounced, we’re your neighbours. I live across the field. I heard on the grapevine there was a new family in the Grange so I wanted to come over and give you this. Housewarming.’ She proffered a basket.

‘Thanks.’ I took it and my arm dropped with the weight and a delicious smell drifted into the flat. Mum appeared then, touching her hair, straightening her top, and I passed it to her.

‘Hello,’ the woman said again, looking at Mum this time. ‘Sue Bright. I’m your nearest neighbour, I was just explaining to your daughter here.’

‘Oh. Hello. Yes, I’m Lorraine,’ Mum said. ‘And this is Audrey.’

And then another figure appeared and I turned fire red, my cheeks blaring like the sirens on the top of police cars that used to race round our old estate.

‘This is Leo,’ the Sue woman said, ‘my nephew.’ They didn’t look a bit alike. For a start, this woman wasn’t Chinese or even half-Chinese. And Leo definitely was. And he was slouching outside my door. And I was in my horrible jeans and ratty T-shirt and Mum had ketchup on her chin and Peter was pulling on my arm and Sue was pulling Leo inside.

‘My brother’s son. He’s living with me for a while, we’re at the farm, just over the fields,’ Sue explained again. She rooted in her bag, producing a pack of Smarties and holding them out to Peter.

‘Oh, lovely,’ Mum said, and I knew she was being polite. She’s big on manners; not so much on neighbours.

‘So, if there’s anything you need, just ask.’ Sue was still smiling but it was getting awkward now.

‘Do you want to come in?’ I said in a rush because I couldn’t help it. These people looked nice, like they weren’t afraid of anything. The more people in the flat, the better it would be.

‘Oh, well, if you’re not busy, just for a minute.’ She took a step forward, and started admiring the décor, commenting on everything, exclaiming at the renovations.

‘You know this place was half falling down,’ I heard her say as they headed down the hallway. Leo followed and I didn’t look, kept my eyes trained straight ahead, on Sue’s back. Mum was giving her a potted history.

‘We’ve moved down here from up north. I got a job at Pond Street. You know, the kids’ hospice? I’m a nurse, Sue, so it’s not too hard to find work, and back home, well, there were other reasons, family reasons, for us to make a fresh start.’ There was a long gap and Sue didn’t ask and for once Mum didn’t elaborate. She’d be saving it up for the next time, building up the tension. My mum knows how to tell a good story.

They drifted off into the kitchen. Water splashed and ran, the kettle began to boil. Peter sidled round the back of the sofa with his Smarties, shy again.

The boy, Leo or whatever his name was, had to have noticed I looked rank. No make-up. Greasy hair. And he was in a duffle coat and dark green wellington boots, like he’d stepped straight out of one of those horsey magazines there were piles of at the GP surgery here. Plus he wasn’t actually a boy at all. He was practically a grown-up and he didn’t belong in this flat, with its dark smell and horrible bare walls and all Mum’s stuff scattered about. I sat on the sofa and that left him the chair – nasty grey velour, sat on for years and saggy in the middle. I should have offered to take his coat. Got him a drink. But I didn’t want to get up now so I put a cushion on my knee and hid behind it, remembering my arms too late – he’d already seen.