My Lies, Your Lies - Susan Lewis Page 0,5

the others notice? They’re dancing, eyes fixed on him, but not on me. I don’t dance, I just watch him turning away, his movements seeming to happen in a strange slow motion.

When the song finishes everyone’s waiting to hear what he has to say about a man trying to resist his love for a much younger girl.

He doesn’t say anything. He simply applauds, and his eyes are laughing as if admitting that he’s got the joke, but he’s not going to be baited, and now it’s time for someone else to share a record choice.

Tricia Hill steps forward with a Turtles EP she’s borrowed from her older sister. I don’t take much notice of it, I’m too distracted by the way Sir looked at me, during ‘Young Girl’. I can’t seem to shake myself free of it. He’s moved on, he’s talking about The Turtles, and making everyone laugh when he tries to play one of the tracks on the piano and gets it wrong. He does that sometimes, and we know the mistakes are on purpose. It’s his way of trying to change the mood if things have become too chaotic or flirtatious or intense.

It usually works and it does today. He can play us as smoothly as he strums his guitar or as skilfully as he masters the flute. We are innocent, uncomplicated notes on an elementary score; his humour and charm provide the sophistication we believe to be ours. We think ourselves clever and irresistible, but I sense that for him we’re merely girls with crazy hormones and dangerous dreams. He talks and sings and laughs, holding us all in his thrall. He doesn’t look at me again, not even when I ask if he can talk to us some more about the Moody Blues album Days of Future Passed. I know he’s fascinated by some of Justin Hayward’s work, the bringing together of orchestral compositions and modern rock, and I can sound reasonably intelligent about it, because my parents are big fans too. They discuss it a lot and I take it all in.

Sir is happy to change the subject, but he still doesn’t look my way so I sit feeling crushed and confused and even slightly angry. I’d felt us connect over Gary Puckett’s song, and I know he felt it too, but now he’s pretending it didn’t happen.

I was too young then to realize what his studied lack of attention meant, but I did find out. I can feel myself smiling now as I recall those times. The early memories are the most beautiful, the most thrilling; the sweet percussive notes of a love song before the rest of the orchestra is brought in to provide the darkness and tumult of the drama to come.

CHAPTER TWO

Joely was on a train heading away from London still not sure what to expect when she arrived at her final destination. She was trying not to think about it too much, although creating scenarios for what lay in store was infinitely better – and probably healthier – than tormenting herself with what she’d left behind. Better still, at least for the moment, might be to create a little fantasy around the attractive bloke sitting opposite her.

It was a good try, but it took next to no time for her mind to circle back to Callum, her husband, who’d left her two weeks ago.

He’d actually left her.

She’d never imagined he would, had always believed in their marriage so completely that she still couldn’t make herself accept it had happened.

She wasn’t sure he’d accepted it either.

‘So what’s this assignment you won’t tell anyone about?’ he’d asked when he’d called by the house only yesterday, using his key to come in as if he still lived there. His deep brown eyes had shown only amusement, a gentle tease; an invitation to trust him to keep the secret if she was willing to share. If he’d felt anything deeper she hadn’t been able to detect it, but in spite of everything she was sure that he did. Why else was he finding it so hard to stay away?

She knew he was put out that she’d declined to share the details of her new assignment. Nowhere near as put out as she was that he was now living with another woman. It was all wrong, and she couldn’t believe that he didn’t think so too. Even if he did, it remained a reality. He’d actually given up the beloved home they’d created in