The Truth Club (50 page)

‘That’s what I said.’

‘No, you said International Mouldings.’

‘Oh, feck.’

‘It’s OK, most people wouldn’t notice.’

‘I don’t know what’s wrong with the stapler. There’s another one in the stationery cupboard.’ I’m getting used to this now. Erika sounds groggy and a great deal less patient than usual.

‘How are you, Sally? Are you feeling any better?’

‘I don’t know. I rang to find out about you,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry. I
hardly let you say a word last night.’

‘Right and proper, too,’ she says. ‘I’m furious with Mouse Boy
for being so horrible to you. You needed to let it all out.’

‘
Please don’t call him Mouse Boy.’

‘But it suits him.’

‘No, it doesn’t.’

‘You should be more angry with him.’

‘I am angry with him,’ I say. ‘But I’ve been angry with him for
months; it’s a normal feeling for me now. I want to talk about you. How are you?’

‘I wish I didn’t have to waste my time at this stupid job,’ Erika
sighs. ‘It’s outrageous. Life is far too short for this sort of
rubbish.’

I know exactly how she feels.

‘We should be swimming with dolphins, Sally. We should be
sitting under olive trees in the sunshine, eating figs.’

I agree with her entirely.

‘Let’s get a camper van and just run away.’

I’m not so sure about that one.

‘How’s Lionel?’ I ask casually.

‘Same as ever.’ Erika sighs. ‘He made a pig’s arse out of
pretending to be my boyfriend, didn’t he? I wanted Alex to think I’d found someone who adores me. I wanted to… to regain some
dignity. I even hoped he might be jealous.’

‘I… I thought his hand lingered on your elbow with genuine feeling,’ I say.

‘But you missed the rest of it when you went to the café.’ Erika
sighs reproachfully. When Lionel was supposed to be pretending
to be Erika’s boyfriend, I darted into the small café beside the stables to get some sugar sachets for Blossom.

‘What happened?’ I ask. She didn’t feel capable of talking about it last night. It was all too raw and disappointing and ridiculous, and she wanted me to talk about my raw and disappointing and ridiculous marriage instead.

‘I wanted him to kiss me,’ Erika says. ‘Yes, I know it says it’s
out of paper, but it isn’t. Just turn it off and turn it on again.’ This is clearly the highly advanced photocopier, which sometimes gets
a bit confused. ‘I said, “Lionel, when Alex and his wife appear, you must kiss me on the lips with great feeling.” I told him to pretend he was in a play.’

‘Yes, I saw you discussing something rather earnestly. What
happened?’ I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t run into the café at the
crucial moment, but Blossom was looking at me so hopefully. I suspected she shared my sweet tooth. I really loved her for a while. That’s the kind of woman I am now: I fall in love with a horse at the slightest encouragement. My next significant other may quite possibly be a gerbil.

‘It was awful,’ Erika moans. ‘Alex and… and that woman turned up, and I kept waiting for Lionel to do something, but he just stood there looking like a mortified marmoset.’

I’m not sure what marmosets look like, but I’m pretty sure Lionel does not resemble one. In fact, he cut quite a dashing figure as he waited for Erika outside the paddock. His long legs
looked most attractive in his fashionably faded jeans, and he was
wearing a light-brown woollen jumper that was clearly expensive
and might have been made in Italy. He looked rather Italian, actually, with his olive skin and brown eyes. His dark hair was
short and stylishly unkempt, and his face had a soulful look about
it. He was handsome enough to appear in a coffee advertisement.
I don’t know why Erika doesn’t seem to notice his charms.

‘So – so I had to sort of grab hold of him,’ Erika continues.
‘Only he started to back away from me, so I grabbed his jumper
and plonked my lips on his. And then he opened his mouth and
our teeth bashed together, and I yelped and stumbled and landed
on my bum in a pile of horse shit.’

‘Oh, no.’

‘It was dry horse shit,’ Erika says bravely. ‘I could brush it off
fairly easily.’

‘I was wondering what that pong was in the car. I thought it was Milly.’

‘I must have looked desperate – and Alex must have seen the whole thing.’

‘Lionel opened his mouth when you were kissing?’ This seems
like an important detail.

‘Yes, and then when he’d helped me up he ran off. For a man
with tight ankles he can move pretty fast. He mumbled something
about needing to go to the toilet and just disappeared. It was ridiculous.’

‘But he
did
go to the toilet,’ I remind her. ‘It’s a pity he didn’t
add that he was going to have a short walk and then sit in the saddle room and have a cigarette, but at least we found him.’

‘After twenty minutes of shouting, “Lionel!” as though he was
a German shepherd,’ Erika snaps. ‘We should have just left him.
What on earth can Alex have thought?’

Alex threw us an extremely quizzical glance before driving off w
ith his wife in their flashy jeep. I bet they don’t really need a jeep. Why do so many city types want to look like they live up some long dirt track?

‘Lionel’s just a boy, basically,’ Erika continues. ‘He’s five years
younger than me and very immature for his age. I’ve been trying to train him into adulthood, but I think I’m going to have to drop
him, even though he’s sold seven of my cats so far. At least it will let me off the refugee thing.’ Her voice lowers to a whisper. ‘He’s
coming over. I have to go.’ Her voice returns to its normal level.
‘No, Lionel, I don’t want your bloody organic stem ginger
biscuits.’ The line goes dead.

What a pity
,
I think. Lionel seemed very sweet, if extremely
bashful, and he looked at Erika with such longing. He just needs
a little coaching – and there will be plenty of women willing to coach Lionel. I sincerely hope he doesn’t bump into Fabrice.

Fabrice.
The word lands in my brain with a thump. Aggie’s still
going on about Fabrice and her travels and her views on world peace.

I creep, bow-legged, upstairs. It is clearly time to have a long soak in the bath, because I’m walking like some gunslinger in a Western. As I sink into the warm water, I think about my
conversation with my parents last night. I decided to phone them
from Erika’s, after my first glass of wildflower liqueur; I needed
company and Dutch courage. They were aghast and disappointed
to hear that my marriage is over, but they weren’t as surprised
as I expected. I am no longer their ‘good’ daughter. In fact,
the main thing I am to them at the moment is a puzzle. I am a puzzle to myself, too. I thought I could train myself to live a
conventional life, marry a conventional man, have a conventional
– if stylish – house and make conventional chicken casseroles. I
should have known from the casseroles that I wasn’t up to it; I don’t know what I did to them, but they tasted like oregano-flavoured mud pies.

‘Take it easy, now,’ Mum said softly. ‘Be kind to yourself. Do
you want to come over for lunch? I’ll make your favourite
chicken casserole.’ I almost cried at the word ‘casserole’, but I managed to smile bravely. I said I would love to come over for lunch, but not just yet; I would phone very soon. Then I got off
the phone quickly, before she suggested I take up tennis. Mum has
been wanting me to take up tennis for the last fifteen years. She loves tennis herself. There is a whole tennis world out there,
apparently, and she thinks it would make me happier. I have never
told her that, any time I’ve attempted to play tennis, it has taken
me ages to actually hit the ball, and when I do, I send it over walls
and hedges and wire fencing. On one occasion it ended up in the
middle of a dual carriageway.

I suspect that she and Dad were relieved that it was Diarmuid
who finally called an end to our marriage. This way I can seem like the wronged party, and it will sound so much better when they have to explain it all at Marie’s gathering.

‘Poor Sally, do you think she’ll ever find someone?’ The
overheard conversations between my parents and Marie return to
me while I soak in my lavender-scented bath.

‘I wonder if I’ll ever have grandchildren. Neither April nor Sally seems to have any intention of getting married.’

‘She keeps meeting these awful men who leave her.’

‘She leaves some of them, too.’

‘Yes, but with good reason. None of them really seem to want
to make a commitment to her.’

‘What do you think she’s doing wrong? Should we talk to her
about it?’

‘When she meets the right person it will be different.’

‘
But she isn’t getting any younger.’

Of course, I shouldn’t have listened outside the kitchen door; I
should have just marched in and made myself a cup of tea like I wanted to. Why did I care what they said? Why did I believe it?

People make up stories about other people, and those become their truth. And if you don’t watch out you may start believing
their version of you. You forget how to be anchored in your own
life; you become the product of other people’s fears and hopes
and weaknesses. But we are more than our stories. We are more
than our past and our mistakes. I knew that when I was riding Blossom, and when I found Aggie. DeeDee knew it, too. She
refused to believe in the limits that were being set for her. I hope
she became an actress even though they thought she wasn’t that
type of person. If only she had returned to challenge the family’s
view of her. She let Joseph off far too easily. She should have returned with his baby and forced them all to face the truth.

Suddenly I long with all my heart for Nathaniel. I wish I could
tell him what has happened. We fit, somehow. I don’t have to struggle to make him understand me. He doesn’t make me feel alone. That’s the worst kind of loneliness: feeling alone when you’re with people who are supposed to know and love you.

‘My beautiful stranger…’ I say the words out loud, just to hear
them. He really would make the most wonderful biscuit.

I get out of the bath and dress quickly. I need, urgently, to eat
something. I go downstairs and make some toast and another cup
of tea. Then I go to the sitting room and turn on the computer, and start to write.