Liz Nugent - Lying in Wait

For a stupid moment, I allowed myself to think that perhaps Malcolm was right. Perhaps sharing the story of the accident would bring Laurence closer to me. It had been quite a while since he had talked to me so tenderly. Everyone had always insisted it wasn’t my fault, and Laurence loved me. Maybe his forgiveness was what I needed.

‘After Diana died, I was sent away to an aunt in the countryside. I didn’t know if I would ever be allowed to come home again. I was lonely and terrified. I’ve never been so frightened. Even now, when I go to the shops, I cannot wait to get home. The feeling of banishment was torture to me. It was only ten months, but to a child it was an eternity.’

‘Mum,’ Laurence exhaled, and a little light entered my soul. I could feel it. Forgiveness was coming. ‘Go on, you can tell me. I won’t judge you, I won’t interrupt.’

‘It was after Mummy left. She didn’t die when we were babies like I told you. It would have been better if she had. Daddy married beneath him. Mummy was not like any of our friends’ mothers. She was loud and brash and wore scarlet lipstick.’

I was transported backwards to a different time, in this house, in its glory days. In my head, I heard Mummy and Daddy bickering in the hall.

‘Daddy spent so much time trying to teach Mummy how to behave in society, but she would come to our school sports day and get drunk and flirt with the other fathers. She always let us down. Diana was ashamed of her, but I loved my mother. And then she ran away with a plumber and I never saw her again. She left us. But I still loved her, stupid me. I could never quite accept that she didn’t love us enough to stay. After she went, everything was just… harder. All the softness disappeared from the house. Diana said she was glad that Mummy was gone. Daddy and Diana were always together, and I was left out. For two years, everything was awful and I was so sad all the time, and then one day Daddy said we could have a party for our ninth birthday. We got new dresses made of peacock silk. Our maid, Hannah, and Tom, the handyman, decorated the garden. It looked so beautiful. The cherry trees were in full blossom. There was a banquet laid out, and bunting was strung from tree to tree. We were so excited, I’m sure we didn’t sleep a wink coming up to the day. Diana and I had invited all the girls from our class, but…’ I choked up at the memory, ‘only Amy Malone showed up. She told us that the others weren’t allowed to come because our mother was a tart.’

Laurence was staring intently. I couldn’t bear for that tenderness to disappear, so I tempered my story, just a little.

‘I didn’t understand what she meant, and Diana said that Mummy had ruined everything and that I was just like her, that I was common, just like Mummy. She called me a hussy and we fought. I pushed her into the water, and she… hit her head. I felt dreadful. I still do. Everyone said that I must forgive myself, but—’

Laurence looked confused. ‘In the bath?’

‘No, darling, in the pond.’

‘Where Dad buried Annie Doyle?’

I was momentarily distracted as I wrenched myself forward in decades. ‘Yes, it was the most suitable place I could think of at the time, we were in such a panic that night…’

Laurence’s eyes opened wide and he stared at me, and I realized what I had just said. I stopped, checked myself, turned to face the sink and the darkened garden beyond. But it was too late.

‘You chose to bury Annie Doyle right there?’ He pointed out of the window into the darkness. ‘You knew ?’

‘What? Sorry, I’m confused. We were talking about Diana…’

‘You just said that it was the most suitable place you could think of.’ Laurence leaped out of his chair. ‘You knew about it. Oh God!’

‘Laurence, you mustn’t…’

‘Did you kill her?’

‘No!’

‘You killed her and Dad covered it up? Is that what happened?’

‘Laurence, please calm down, you are being so melodramatic! I was talking about Diana and you confused me…’

He roared at me then: ‘Stop lying to me! Oh God, I can’t look at you.’

‘She deserved it! She was a thief and a liar. She betrayed us!’

He flew out of the room.

Daddy hadn’t been able to look at me after Mummy left, and after Diana died. I looked in the mirror above the kitchen table. I was still beautiful, I knew it, and yet nobody wanted to look at me. I heard Laurence throwing things around upstairs and then he ran downstairs with a suitcase in his hand and I met him in the hall.

‘Don’t go,’ I pleaded with him, ‘I’ll die.’

He stopped for a moment and I thought I had him, but his eyes filled with tears. He turned away and slammed the front door. I heard the car engine screeching into reverse. He drove away from me as if his life depended on it.

Being with Laurence was different to being with Dessie. Laurence made me feel like I was a person of my own, rather than Annie’s sister or someone’s property or baby maker. He didn’t expect me to be available when it suited him. He borrowed art books he thought that I might be interested in from the library. He drove me to the airport and wished me well when I went off on jobs, and greeted me with flowers on my return. I realized quickly that he was not as well off as I had supposed, but it had never been his wealth or class that I was interested in. He introduced me to his workmates, most of whom I’d met on those Friday pub nights when he was with Bridget. Some were OK with me and others were distinctly rude. ‘Some friend you turned out to be,’ said Evelyn on one of my first nights out with them as Laurence’s girlfriend, but I swore to her that I hadn’t ever wanted to hurt Bridget and that we hadn’t cheated on her.

Laurence defended me. ‘It’s nothing to do with Karen,’ he insisted. ‘I split up with Bridget for lots of reasons.’

The older guy, Dominic, said, ‘Jayzis, Lar, you’re punching above your weight there, you know what I mean? Weight, get it?’ and proceeded to tell me that Laurence used to be obese. I remembered Bridget saying the same thing. It didn’t matter to me. I had changed too. I used to be eaten up by thoughts of justice and revenge, but love had fixed me. I wouldn’t have thought it possible.

Laurence stayed over in my apartment some nights and was about to move into a cottage he inherited, but he told me about his mother’s fragile mental health and how attached to him she was. I insisted he should take his time moving out, and make sure that she was OK first. He was trying to ensure that his mother’s boyfriend Malcolm would be there for her when he left. And there was some legal wrangling over the cottage to do with his uncle, but Laurence insisted he was keeping it. We went to see it a few times. It was a beautiful whitewashed fairy-tale house, although the roof was slated rather than thatched. I looked forward to visiting him there, walking on the beach, cosying up by the fire and watching the sunset over the bay.

As I might have guessed, somebody in Laurence’s office told Bridget about us. I should have had the courage to tell her myself, but in the last conversation we had, she was sure that he was trying to get back with her, and I just took the coward’s way out and didn’t contact her. When she discovered the truth about us, she rang me and screamed and cried down the phone.

‘You were supposed to be my friend! I told you everything. I can’t believe you would do this to me!’

‘Bridget, I’m really sorry, we never planned it—’

‘Was this going on behind my back? You’re some bitch, after everything I did for you. You even came to my parents’ house, and all the time you were seeing him behind my—’