Nicholas Searle: The Good Liar

pearls. She will not opt for more – or less – sensible shoes. She will not require a final emboldening cup of coffee.

Betty does not consider herself to be a flutterer. She is calm; real-istic too, she likes to think. Once justifiably described as beautiful, she accepts with, she hopes, good grace the effects of time. She

prefers to think of them as mere effects, not ravages. Though she

retains a certain radiance, she is no longer beautiful. She cannot pretend to be despite the glossies’ determined attempts to create and

capture a new silver market. Perhaps she is something different,

nameless and ageless.

She clicks the top back on the tube of lipstick, rolls her lips

together to ensure the correct coverage, fingers the necklace, gently touches her hair and gives herself one final look. She is ready.

She glances at her watch: five minutes ahead of time. Stephen greets her with a delicate and decorous embrace when she enters the

lounge.

‘You look fabulous,’ he says, and she thinks he means it.

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3

Stephen drives more sedately in the rain than he might other-

wise. Even more sedately, that is, since at the best of times he is not a confident driver. He drives slowly for himself, to steady his nerves, and not for her benefit. She is a resilient person, clearly much more resilient than he is despite their respective ages. She

has lived a life rather than simply studying how others have lived

theirs. A feisty old bird, some might say, but not he. He could

not imagine anything less fitting. He would not use such lan-

guage and anyway it would be inaccurate. She is fragile, though

not sparrow- like, with features of porcelain and proportions of

fine slenderness. It is her constitution that is strong. Unbreakable, he’d say.

They set off early to avoid any risk of lateness. He noses achingly slowly out of junctions, keeps studiously ten miles an hour below

the speed limit and observes the strictures of traffic signs with an exaggerated obeisance. This is an important day, for her, for him.

‘You’re not at all nervous?’ he asks.

‘A little,’ she replies. ‘Not really, though. But it’s easier for me, isn’t it?’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Because I’m doing it. Not waiting. Watching. I’ll be there. You’ll be outside in the car. Helpless.’

‘But you’ll be in there. With him. Who knows what he’ll be like?

What it’ll be like for you?’ He smiles.

‘That’s precisely it. It makes things easier. Truly. You don’t see, do you? How could you? I’m past the age when anything really matters, least of all what I say or do. I can be as outrageous as I want with impunity. I’m a dangerous quantity. I’m beyond embarrassment. If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out. I’ll live to fight another day.’

‘You’re remarkable,’ he says. ‘Brave.’

‘Not really. What can happen? A drink and a bite with no doubt

the perfect gentleman in a busy country pub. With my knight in

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shining armour waiting outside gripping his mobile phone. What

can possibly happen?’

He smiles and turns off the motorway on to the slip road.

4

‘Estelle,’ she says, extending her hand, and her eyes twinkle as she smiles.

‘Brian,’ he replies. ‘Delighted.’

She has found him. An appropriate ten minutes after the

appointed time, owing to some judicious circling of the neighbour-

hood by Stephen, accompanied by glances at the building, newly

constructed to look old, lit brightly in the March midday gloom.

To Roy, she is instantly recognizable. Of medium height, slight,

young for her age, something of the gamine about her, an amused,

delighted expression and those engaging eyes. Lovely hair. A stun-

ning dress that shows off her figure. A real head- turner in her time no doubt. The photograph on the website did not lie. His slight

annoyance that she was not there before him evaporates. He

approves. Oh yes. Very much so.

‘Now, what can I get you to drink?’ he asks.

‘I’d love a . . . vodka martini,’ she says.

She does not know why; the notion has just slipped into her head.

Such impetuousness will not do for the next hour or two. Control

and discipline.

‘Shaken or stirred?’ he says with a smile and a raise of the eye-

brow. Rather different from the customary sad small sherry, he

thinks.

‘Ha ha,’ she says.

He orders her drink, suggests they sit and carries their glasses to table number 16.

‘How did you recognize me?’ he asks.

‘I came in, looked around and there you were, standing at the

bar. Tall, distinguished, smart, just as you described. Your photo-

graph is very much like you.’

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This is not so very far from the truth, she reasons. In fact in a sea of – seemingly – sixteen- year- old thrusting sales executives he was not difficult to pick out.

‘Wizzywig,’ he says.

‘Pardon?’

‘What you see is what you get. I do exactly what it says on the tin.’

‘Oh,’ she says, ‘how very disappointing.’ She smiles as if to

reassure him that she is flirting.

‘Ho ho ho,’ he booms after a short pause, his shoulders heaving.

‘Very good. I can see you’re trouble. We’re going to get on fam-

ously.’ He appraises her frankly. ‘Oh yes.’

They order their food, she a vegetarian pasta, he steak, egg and

chips. Between mouthfuls of plastic conchigliette smeared with

processed baby- food vegetables and a stringy cheese sauce she considers him more fully. He is indeed tall and broad- shouldered, with a shock of white hair swept back from a florid face on which the

tributaries of blood vessels map a complex topography. The hair is

tamed with hair cream and plastered down neatly behind the ears.

His eyes are striking, alarming almost, the light blue of the irises set in their ovoid milky frames against the sea of reddening skin, watch-ful, darting even as they focus on her face. Were it not for the watery, diluted quality of age she might be afraid of him; indeed she is a

little afraid.

At one point he was a commanding presence, she thinks: tall and

authoritative. He still holds himself that way, but at the same time there is an undisguisable physical slump. The shoulders are rounded and the eyes contain a recognition that he cannot, after all, deny

mortality. The evidence is now all too compelling and carries

disappointment as the decay of physical and mental function accel-

erates. She knows something of how he must feel, though she

has never been imposing: vivacious perhaps, but not infused with

that peculiarly masculine vanity whose futility is cruelly exposed

in the inevitable waning of virile power. She feels sorry for him, in a way.

The conversation flows easily.

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‘This is nice,’ she says untruthfully, looking up from the mess on

her plate.

‘Oh yes,’ he says. ‘You can rely on them here.’

‘How is your steak?’

‘Splendid. Another drink?’

‘Why, yes, Brian. I won’t say no.’

‘Not driving then?’

‘No. My grandson drove me here.’

‘Your grandson?’

‘Yes. Stephen. He’s waiting outside in the car. Immersed in a

book no doubt.’

‘Close to family, then?’

‘Yes,’ she says decisively. ‘There aren’t many of us. But we’re very close.’