My Lies, Your Lies - Susan Lewis Page 0,90

Opening it, she clicked to a fresh screen and said, ‘You want the truth, you’ll have it.’

Joely was staring at her undies drip-drying over a lukewarm radiator. Dealing with the discomfort of being in the same clothes for so long had provided a bizarre distraction from the last assault of music, but at least it had reminded her that the normal, rational part of her mind was still functioning.

She’d washed herself and her underwear while trying to sing along with ‘Young Girl’ and hoping she never heard it again in her life. Worse, always worse, was the passionate, heart-wrenching soprano that had turned to screams in her ears.

Everything about her situation was driving her closer to the brink.

She had decided that the best way down would be to climb the wisteria around the tower until she was over the tiled roof of the kitchen patio. It would still be a long way down, but at least if she fell there it wouldn’t be onto rocks.

She’d wait until the next assault of music was over, dress and pray to God that the wind didn’t pick up. And that the wisteria would hold her weight.

*

As Marianne’s fingers flew over the computer keyboard she was trying not to engage with the words. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, think about how deeply the memories were affecting her; the private lessons, the uncle’s cottage and those wonderful, unforgettable days in Paris. She could see his eyes more clearly than the page in front of her. She’d loved him so much …

She imagined him telling Freda about their affair – it was the only way she could have known so many details – and was able to hear his voice, soft and melodic, wry and endlessly sad that everything had ended the way it had. Her son reminded her of him in so many ways that at times it had been almost painful to look at him. She’d learned to live with it, and Lionel, her husband, had shown far more patience and understanding than she’d deserved. He’d been such a wonderful father to Jamie, the only one Jamie had known, or wanted to know. As a child he’d never asked about the man who’d come before his daddy, although in later years he’d been interested to know that he was the son of a gifted musician. Jamie loved music too, but he wasn’t as passionate about it as David had been.

Joely knew Jamie was a half-brother, of course she did, but she’d shown no more interest in it than Jamie had. As far as she was concerned they were a family, and her father was Jamie’s every bit as much as he was hers.

Marianne wrote none of this in the ‘confession’ Freda was demanding. She kept her regrets, longings, guilt and pain closely locked inside, although aware of it tightening and tormenting her heart as each new memory unfolded. He was there at the centre of it all and feeling so real that he could almost have been guiding her fingers over the computer keys, as he once had over the piano. She felt fifteen again and wanted to rest her head against him, inhale the familiar scent of him, and feel the warmth of his skin in the places that it touched hers. If only she’d been able to talk to him; if her parents, his family and the lawyers hadn’t kept them apart at the time of his arrest and sentencing …

Eventually her hands left the keyboard. She had no more to say, it was all there for Freda to read, exactly how it had happened, and struggling to hold herself together she passed the laptop over.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

We’re at his Uncle’s house and I want to leave. As soon as he tells me about Dinah I’m desperate to go home to my parents. I feel betrayed and angry and filled with hate towards him and towards her, even though I’ve never met her. He’s lied to me all along, tricked me into believing things that were never going to come true. It was all pretence and now everything’s spoiled.

‘Don’t go like this,’ he begs me, catching hold of my hand.

I try to break free, but I can’t. I’m sobbing so hard I can hardly breathe. He pulls me in even closer, pinning my arms to my sides and me to him. I can smell him and it’s the worst and most wonderful smell in the world.

‘Let me go,’ I cry, struggling to break free. ‘I