Amanda Brittany - Her Last Lie

Isla stared at her own reflection, breathing deeply, before unzipping her make-up bag and pulling out her mascara.

‘So you’re meeting up with old uni mates?’ Millie said, clearly trying for a change of subject, and putting on a bright voice.

‘Yes … sort of.’ She was distracted. Certain someone had been looking up at her. Someone in the shadows, watching like Carl Jeffery had. Was he free? She pinged the rubber band again, making her wrist sting. Maybe she shouldn’t go to Cambridge. But then if she didn’t, she would be letting him win. She was being ridiculous. Whoever it was was probably waiting for someone, and just happened to glance up at the moment Isla looked out. Or maybe they were searching for someone in another apartment, like the person in the sports car. After all, there were six flats in the converted house.

‘Isla?’ Millie snapped her from her thoughts.

‘What?’ She pulled the mascara brush from the tube, leant towards the mirror, and flicked the brush over her fair lashes.

‘Tell me about these uni friends you’re meeting,’ Millie said, as the cat leapt back onto her lap and curled up.

‘Oh, OK, yes, well, Ben and Veronica studied English lit with me, and Sara studied chemistry. Just people I once knew. I wasn’t that close with any of them, well, apart from Trevor Cooper.’

‘Trevor Cooper? The bloke you went out with?’

‘God, do you remember that?’

‘Of course. You were with him for ages. Didn’t he get a bit clingy?’

Isla shrugged. ‘I suppose so, but it was mainly that I wasn’t ready for a serious relationship. I wanted to travel.’

‘Didn’t he turn a bit weird when you dumped him?’ Her eyes were wide.

Isla pushed her mascara brush back in its tube. ‘He was upset that’s all.’

‘But he followed you home, didn’t he?’

‘God, what is this, the Trevor Cooper Inquisition?’ She sighed. ‘He was a mess, Millie. The way I broke up with him was unkind. I regret that.’

‘Oh God, that’s right – you got Roxanne to dump him for you.’

‘I couldn’t face it. I gave him enough hints, but he didn’t listen.’ She rubbed her temples, a headache coming on. ‘And later he wanted to talk it through, but I didn’t have the bottle. I feel guilty even now.’

‘No, Isla, you were young, and didn’t know how to deal with it.’

‘Do we ever know how to handle breakups?’ She sighed deeply.

‘Perhaps you shouldn’t go tonight.’

Isla shrugged. She was beginning to doubt whether she should. She pulled out her blusher brush, and flicked it across each cheek in turn, before pulling out her lip gloss.

‘Is Jack going?’ Millie asked.

Isla shook her head. There’d been no talk of partners on the event invitation. ‘He wouldn’t enjoy it,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t involve sci-fi or fantasy.’

Millie laughed. ‘It’s about time you got engaged, isn’t it? You’re almost thirty. Your body clock is ticking.’

The front door swung open, as Millie added, ‘Jack’s such a great bloke. You could do a hell of a lot worse.’

‘Did I hear my name?’ Jack said, as the cat jumped from Millie’s lap, and raced towards him, twirling her body round his jean-clad legs. He put a brown paper bag on the breakfast bar, and the waft of Chinese food filled the air. He bent to pick the cat up and lifted her to his face. She looked tiny in his arms.

‘I was only saying good things about you, Jack,’ Millie said, getting up, and brushing biscuit crumbs from her lap. She looked at Isla. ‘You should tell Jack what you saw …’

‘Saw?’ Jack said.

‘It was nothing.’ Her mind whirred, as they stared her way. ‘Just a cute cat earlier, which looked a bit like Luna.’

‘Well there’s only one Luna,’ he said, with a smile, plonking a kiss on the cat’s head.

Millie looked at Isla, but Isla couldn’t read her expression. ‘I’d better get back,’ she said mildly. ‘Or they’ll send out a search party.’

Millie left, and Isla finished getting ready.

‘Are you sure you don’t want some Chinese?’ Jack said, sitting at the breakfast bar and spooning chow mein from a foil container onto a plate. He’d texted her earlier to ask if she fancied her favourite chicken in black bean sauce, but she’d declined, far too nervous to eat.

‘I’m not really hungry,’ she said. ‘But thanks.’

‘Do you want a lift to the station? It looks like rain.’

Isla glanced through the window. ‘I’ll be fine. It’s only a ten-minute walk, and I need the air.’ She pulled on her boots then leant across the worktop to kiss him. ‘I feel a bit weird actually, meeting up with people I haven’t seen for years.’

‘I’m sure you’ll have a great time.’ He smiled. ‘Go wow them, and call me if you need picking up.’

‘Yes, thanks, I will.’ She’d barely got the words out when his phone rang. ‘Can’t you change that daft ringtone?’

‘ Spider-Man is not daft,’ he said, fake indignant, grabbing the phone and looking at the screen. He rejected the call.

‘Your mum?’

He nodded. ‘You look great, by the way,’ he said, biting into a prawn cracker.

‘Thanks,’ she said, but felt he was just being kind. She knew she looked as if she was about to go for a job interview. She’d dug out a brown skirt suit from the back of her wardrobe that she’d only ever worn once, hoping, for some bizarre reason, that a professional look might make a good impression on Ben Martin.

‘Right, I’m off,’ she said, kissing Jack, and grabbing her coat and bag. ‘See you later,’ she called before closing the door behind her.

Isla had forgotten her high-heeled boots rubbed. She rarely wore them, preferring flats. By the time she got to the station, although the rain had held off, her ankles throbbed, and she wished she’d taken Jack up on his offer of a lift.

The train appeared within moments, and she headed down the almost empty carriage. Just a woman wearing earphones, her head down, engrossed in her laptop, at the far end. Mizzling rain splattered the window, as the train rattled along the track, and as though the movement had loosened her memories, thoughts of Carl Jeffery invaded.

Six years ago

‘I’m taking off,’ Bronwyn said.

Isla smiled and turned from where she’d just snapped a photo of a kookaburra perched high in a tree near the hostel.

‘Now?’ she said, greeted by her friend’s freckled face beaming at her from under a cap, the midday sun burning down on her from a clear blue sky. Bronwyn was wearing denim shorts and a T-shirt with the peace sign that matched the small tattoo on her arm, and her thin but sturdy legs led down to battered walking boots.

‘Uh-huh.’ Bronwyn hitched up her backpack, which was almost as big as she was. ‘Got that wanderlust feeling again. Need to carry on.’

‘I’ll miss you, Bron,’ Isla said, a pang of sadness rising. This was what she hated about travelling. You got so close to people, and then they’d leave, morphing into a profile picture on Facebook or MySpace. Or, if you were lucky, you’d receive a text every so often. Despite only knowing Bronwyn for a short while, Isla would miss her. In fact, home had crept into her thoughts more than ever lately. After Canada she would head back to the UK. ‘So what’s your plan?’