My Lies, Your Lies - Susan Lewis Page 0,64

close. He didn’t have to try to do that, it just happened. He shaped my young life …’ Her breath caught in her throat. ‘Sometimes I wonder if I loved him even more than I loved my husband, if perhaps it was because of him and what happened to him that I’m who I am now.’ She seemed to consider this for a moment, though Joely suspected it was a question she’d asked herself many times before. ‘Losing Sir, and in the way I lost him …’ Her words were swallowed by a swell of emotion. ‘He didn’t deserve what happened to him,’ she said softly, ‘and nor did I.’

Joely was in her room sitting cross-legged on the bed as she thought back over what Freda had told her, still unsure of what she was supposed to have taken away from it all other than the warning about the damage betrayal could do to the rest of the family. And the disclosure that Sir, David Michaels, was not David Donahoe.

After, when they’d settled down to dinner Freda hadn’t wanted to talk any more about her own family, or Joely’s, instead she’d wanted to listen to the music Joely had written into the memoir’s most recent pages. Moonlight Sonata, ‘She Loves You’, a selection of American Jazz, an aria from Handel’s Messiah; ‘Then He Kissed Me’ by The Crystals.

Before they’d gone their separate ways to bed Freda had said, ‘You’re doing a reasonable job with the story so far, but your coyness isn’t serving reality. If we were writing about a young nymphomaniac I’d understand your reticence, since it’s an illness that requires sensitive treatment not salacious exploitation. The child we’re writing about,’ she put a hand to her chest, ‘the one who acquired more decorum and morals later in life, was little more than a very beautiful, self-absorbed slut at fifteen.’

Startled by the harshness, Joely countered, ‘But one who was capable of love. You said yourself that you loved him.’

‘Yes, yes, I did, but I believe at this point in the relationship the physicality of it was the most important part of it, so I think it should be written that way. Use words that shock you, disgust you even, they will bring you closer to the truth.’

‘The truth,’ Joely murmured to herself as she slid under the duvet, abandoning all plans to chance calling her mother from the balcony tonight when the rain was coming down in torrents. What was the truth? She guessed she’d find out when Freda was ready to tell it, however, she was still determined that Freda herself would have to provide the more sensational aspects of the memoir. She, Joely, was a ghostwriter not a purveyor of porn even if that was how young Freda and Sir had conducted themselves. Who didn’t in the privacy of the bedroom? (She hoped not Callum and Martha, though knowing some of his more exotic tastes … No, she couldn’t go there.)

Anyway, she could tell that on some level – perhaps many levels – she was being manipulated by Freda and not always in a way to serve the memoir. It seemed more to serve Freda’s own sense of … what? Power? Control? Perhaps they were one and the same thing. She was such a peculiar woman it was hard to work out what was really going on, and right now Joely was too tired to try. She was simply going to close her eyes and fall asleep doing exactly what Freda had warned her against, trying to guess what had happened to Sir and young Freda that they hadn’t deserved.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

‘My nephew is coming today,’ Freda announced as Joely joined her for breakfast the following morning. The kitchen was bright with sunlight, the meadow outside a carpet of wildly glittering frost.

Immediately interested, Joely said, ‘Is that a surprise, or were you expecting him?’

‘Here we are,’ Brenda announced, passing Freda a plate of scrambled eggs sprinkled with freshly cut chives and grilled tomatoes.

Thanking her, Freda reached for the salt and pepper mills and said, ‘He rang last night.’ Her voice took on a droll lilt as she said, ‘He didn’t say as much, but he’s coming to find out how we’re getting along with the memoir.’

He rang last night. Joely hadn’t got past that yet. ‘Does your mobile work in the house?’ she asked. ‘I can’t ever get a reception …’

‘He called on the landline,’ Freda informed her. ‘There’s a telephone there,’ she pointed to an antiquated piece