My Lies, Your Lies - Susan Lewis Page 0,106

to the memoir she’d assisted in was affecting her more deeply than she could ever have imagined.

‘They’re in date order,’ Marianne said, her voice conveying how precious the letters were to her. ‘If you don’t mind, Freda, I’d like Joely to read them first. When you’ve finished one, darling, you can pass it to Freda.’ As Freda made to object, Marianne stopped her with a look. They were going to do this her way now, not Freda’s. She handed the small bundle over to Joely and picked up her laptop to take out a number of typed pages. ‘You can began with these,’ she said, passing them to Joely too. ‘I shall work at the dining table,’ and walking around the sofa she pulled out one of the high back chairs and sat down.

As Marianne started to type, Joely did as asked and turned to the typed pages first. Her mother was right, they weren’t an easy read, the devastation of a young girl’s world, the betrayal and cruel rejection she’d suffered at the hands of a man she’d trusted and loved. Her dreams had been completely shattered that day when he’d told her about his girlfriend, and in what seemed a bizarre attempt to comfort her, to say a fond farewell to her, he’d tried to force himself on her. However, he’d stopped when he’d realized what was happening, and had only continued when Marianne had refused to let him go.

The lines were so blurred around whether or not it really was rape that Joely hardly knew what to think. Surely it would depend on whether or not penetration had taken place before he’d stopped.

As she read on she realized it must have, for why else would he have accepted his guilt so readily? It might have hardened her heart against him had she not then learned that in order to spare Marianne the ordeal of a trial he’d gone against all the advice to defend himself and pled guilty. Of course, he’d have gone to prison anyway because of her being underage, but how could she, Joely, not feel moved by his decision to protect the girl some would say he’d corrupted, but who he’d clearly loved. And how could she remain unaffected by her mother’s regret for the part she’d played in him being locked up for a crime she didn’t even feel sure he’d committed?

As she put the pages aside Joely looked at Freda sitting aloof and distracted, as if her thoughts were no longer in the room but in some place distant, too superior for anyone else to join her. At her home in North Devon? Or somewhere so far in the past that today had ceased to exist. How had she reacted, Joely wondered, to the fact that her brother had not been the victim of a teenage girl’s vindictive and mendacious revenge? Had she believed it? It was easy to imagine that she hadn’t when her whole reason for the memoir, and for being here had been to force Marianne to admit that she’d lied.

Joely took the first letter, crumpled and flimsy like old-fashioned airmail paper, and saw a photograph was next on the pile. She picked it up – and her heart gave an unexpected contraction of emotion. There he was, Sir, David, the man who’d only lived in her imagination until now. He was young and fair-haired, handsome for sure, though not remarkably so, but there was something about him that made her want to carry on looking at him. He was laughing and she could see why Freda had said at the beginning of the memoir that when he laughed it made others want to join in. The enjoyment of it was infectious even through a photograph; even after all these years. He seemed so alive, so present that it would have been easy to believe the shot had been taken only yesterday.

Joely stared at it, realizing she was feeling jealous in a way and protective of her father in case it had hurt him to know about this man. She’d loved her father so much that she couldn’t bear to think of anything hurting him, especially not her mother whom he’d adored. But this had happened before he’d come into Marianne’s life, and her mother had already said that he knew everything about David. He’d even read these letters, and Joely couldn’t remember ever detecting insecurity or strain in her parents’ relationship. Her father had been a very special