See How They Lie Read online

  Zach notices and pulls a What the hell’s she doing face. I give him a I know right shrug, but secretly I’m pleased that Ms Ray thinks I’m worth pushing.

  It’s humid today, but cooler in the Woodland Gardens. There’s an assault course up here, built in the clearing. It’s a neat hangout because the rope bridge can be used as a hammock, or you can swing from the top of the main frame into several trees.

  The grounds of the Creek have been a paradise for Drew and me since we were little. We’ve roamed every inch together. There were times when members of staff would be sent to round us up, on foot, or on a golf buggy. That was before we were given the watches with preset alarms. We made dens, played our own version of tennis, climbed trees and slithered on our stomachs while stalking the wildlife, as the Creek was built up around us, and then improved and upgraded. Sometimes we played with Greta and Zach, but mostly it was just us because they were too annoying.

  As Drew’s already unearthed our smoking gear, I walk straight to the third bench and turn off the path. The seventh tree I come to is big enough for us both to lean against and not be seen from the path, though Drew hears me coming.

  “Following the rules didn’t last long,” says Drew, sticking his head out.

  I sigh. The rules. I wish they were more … flexible. “I know I should have more self-control.”

  Drew holds his hands up, and a little piece of tobacco flies through the air. “Whoa. I’m not saying breaking rules is a bad thing, Mae.” He reaches for the lighter and, with some difficulty because it’s almost empty, lights a cigarette.

  “I want to get unrestricted access to the internet,” I say. “To find out more about Mom’s side of the family. I know it’s going against my dad, but I can’t stop thinking about it.” I roll a cigarette because I want to focus on something. I plan on merely holding it but when Drew leans forward for me to light it from his, I feel a strange sense of inevitability. As I draw the flame in, I see a tiny mark on his nose. A new freckle or a speck of dirt. “What’s this?” I say and reach out with my spare hand to touch it.

  He pulls away, and resettles himself between the tree roots.

  I push down the disappointment. “It’s gone,” I say. “Don’t worry.”

  “You want to track down mysterious Uncle Frank?”

  I nod. I feel drawn to Mom’s side of the family, intrigued by the possibility that I might have more in common with them than Dad’s family, who rarely show any interest in me. “I’m going to ask if I can have a trip to the mall with Mom. See if I can somehow get into the computer store.”

  Drew nods. We spent a glorious quarter of an hour at the computer store before Christmas because we had a grad student as our chaperone who didn’t know that we weren’t allowed to be there. The thin laptops and tablets were things of gleaming beauty. Everything – good, bad, ugly and life-changing – was contained inside them.

  “I have to come up with more keywords for the search,” I say. “Right now I only have the first names of my uncle and grandmother.”

  “Have you looked for official documents?” asks Drew. “Papers. You know, the sort of crap you need on the outside.”

  Of course. He’s right. I close my eyes. Picture myself sneaking round the apartment. We work in a climate of trust.

  “The guys are working on smuggling in a phone or an iPad,” says Drew. He means Will and the tight group of patients who operate the black market. “Getting one in via a parent’s car without the parent knowing is a possibility.” When parents or guardians come on their occasional visits, their cars are checked, but not as thoroughly as staff cars.

  “Imagine what it’s going to be worth,” muses Drew. His cigarette is down to its last millimetres. He inhales one last time and drops it into the powdery earth. Then he lingers on the words, “Because guess what,” before adding, “the guys know the wifi code.”

  I’m stunned. “How?”

  “Someone overheard Abigail tell the new receptionist.”

  The new receptionist is a man who arrives for his shifts in immaculate linen, expensive sunglasses and a mouth that never turns upwards.

  Drew’s still talking but I haven’t been listening properly. Something about all he’d do if he had access to a phone or an iPad. “And I’d download one of those apps for meeting girls,” he says.

  Girls? “But you couldn’t meet them,” I say. There’s a hollowing inside me, a making room for a strange sort of loneliness. “You wouldn’t be allowed.”

  “I know,” says Drew. He shrugs. “But it might help keep me sane until I get out of here.”

  SIX

  The needle hurts some days more than others. It depends which nurse is taking my blood. This week it’s Raoul, the head nurse. He finds a vein easily and he’s relatively gentle. Despite having my blood taken in the medical suite every other week of my life since I was six, I still have a sensation of otherness when I see the dark liquid drawn into the syringe.

  Raoul passes me a lump of cotton wool and I press it tight against the puncture mark in the crease of my elbow while he tears off a strip of surgical tape. Classical guitar music plays in the background, and I glance down at my watch to see that it’s part of the Creek’s latest playlist in the “Relaxing” category.

  This room is gleaming white and sterile apart from a few sleek black items of Italian furniture. Raoul’s I’ve been to Disney World mug and a wooden-framed photo of a boy in a grubby T-shirt with a cheeky grin and sticky-out ears, are the only personal possessions I’ve ever seen in here.

  “You happy, little lady?” asks Raoul, as he sticks the tape over the cotton wool.

  I nod. “Yes, sir,” I say, because that’s what I’ve been taught. Respect for medical staff above all others.

  “You stay happy. It’s the best way.” Raoul turns back to the counter to place a printed label on my vial of blood.

  “I’ll try,” I say. I’m suddenly overwhelmed with a longing to be seven or eight again, running around the grounds with Drew, not caring about anything other than being made to eat fish with bones in for dinner.

  “You have a very nice life. A life I would be very proud to give my children.”

  I look at the photo of the little boy. I’m not supposed to ask about the private life of members of staff, but I risk it. “Is that your son, Raoul?”

  Raoul shakes his head. “My little brother. He died. Poverty killed him. He got very sick and my family couldn’t pay to save his life. That can never happen to you. You are lucky.” He undoes my watch, and plugs it with a cable into the laptop. “And it will never happen to my children,” I hear him murmur.

  I sit up straighter in my chair. “Tell me about your brother,” I say. I sound like a therapist.

  “He’s part of my previous life,” says Raoul with his back to me. “Not part of this one.”

  I’ve overstepped the mark.

  Within a few seconds, there’s a ping, and Raoul reads out loud the words that appear on the screen: “Data received.” He hands back my watch, waits until I’ve strapped it on, then indicates that I should move from the chair. “Go on through to Dr Jesmond. And always be thankful that you have Dr Ballard as your father.” He winks at me. “You promise me?” He holds my gaze.

  “I promise, sir.”

  He nods. “Gratitude makes us beautiful.”

  Dr Jesmond, Greta and Zach’s dad, prefers me to call him Dr J or Karl. With his big head, floppy cheeks and short legs, he resembles an overweight dog in a cartoon on Creek TV.

  “Take a seat, Mae,” he says. He has a folder on his desk, and a blank sheet of paper on top of it. We go through the questions while he jots down the answers with his large black fountain pen. Its gold-rimmed lid rests next to a small clock. I have a pen like it in my collection. It’s worth a lot of tokens.

  The medical questionnaire is usually the same, but you have to listen out for changes. They can catch you off guard if you don’t concentrate.

  “All your answers must refer to
the period since I last saw you, yes?”

  I nod and resist rolling my eyes. Why does he have to say that every single time?

  “On a scale of very poor, poor, average, good and very good, how’ve you felt?”

  “Good.”

  “How would you rate your sleep?”

  “Good.”

  “Do you find it easy to fall asleep?”

  “Yes.”

  “How would you rate your energy levels?”

  “Average.”

  “Have you been taking your vitamins?”

  “Yes.”

  “Any flu-like symptoms?”

  “No.”

  “Problems with your eyes such as blurry vision?”

  “No.”

  “Muscle pains?”

  “No.” Not recently.

  “Headaches?”

  “No.”

  “Racing heartbeat?”

  “No.”

  “Any other unexplained aches or pains?”

  “Not really.”

  Dr Jesmond stops. “Explain.”

  “Pins and needles in my neck,” I say.

  “Hmmm,” says Dr Jesmond. “I’ll have a look.” He screws the lid on to his pen and washes his hands with the pink liquid soap in the dispenser above the sink.

  When he touches me, I flinch. His hands are cold. They squash and probe all the way round my neck, up to my jawline, and down to my collarbone.

  “How often has this happened?” he asks.

  “Only once,” I lie. I don’t want to be pummelled any more. “It was at night. I’d probably been lying in an awkward position.”

  “Ah, OK,” says Dr Jesmond. He returns to his desk and looks at something on his computer, but the screen is turned away from me. “That’s all for today, then, Mae.”

  As I stand to go, he says, “How’s the new teacher working out? Ms Ray, is it?”

  “She’s good,” I say.

  “Greta told me she’s very … enthusiastic.” He makes it sound like that’s a questionable quality in a teacher.

  I shrug. Greta needs to worry about her college course, not what happens in the schoolhouse. It sounds boastful, but I was always way ahead of Greta with lessons.

  “You’re a bright girl, Mae. As we’re all too aware here, bright students can often be pushed too hard. I’m sure you’ve seen the distressing symptoms. I’d like to remind you to keep everything in perspective.” He pushes his lips together in an approximation of a smile, one that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Your overall health is what’s important.”

  “OK,” I say, though I have no idea what the point of that little speech was.

  “See you in two weeks.”

  SEVEN

  Saturdays start like every other weekday – with an alarm. I jolt awake. My heart is racing, but I think that’s because I was in the middle of an action dream, running away from shadowy figures. It’s pitch-black because of the shutters, and as I wait the two minutes until the next alarm and the lights, my eyes adjust slightly and my heart calms.

  Getting out of bed is often the worst part of my day. But I’m Dr Ballard’s daughter. I can’t be lazy. This morning the first three things on my schedule are Exercise. Breakfast. Boot camp.

  Boot camp is run by Mick, a former bodyguard who’s been a fitness instructor at the Creek from the very beginning. It’s non-stop exercise torture for one-and-a-half hours, which he says is a tough-love approach that celebrities pay big bucks for.

  It takes place on the soccer pitch, in the far corner of the Creek. Mick cycles up there, and us staff kids take golf buggies. Drew and I take it in turns to pay the one token charge to release a buggy by inputting our account code, and we let Joanie hop in the back. The other boys usually go together, and somehow Zach always manages more driving time than the other two.

  Whenever Zach’s driving, Drew and I make sure to race him up to the soccer pitch, taking cross-country shortcuts whenever we can, even if it means running over the occasional flower bed.

  This morning Drew’s driving, swerving our buggy around because he wants to hear the whirring noise it makes when it’s under strain. Ben, red-faced with determination and his blond hair sticking up with sweat at one side, is at the wheel of the other buggy and they’re ahead. Zach leans out of the front passenger seat and yells at a group of patients who are running alongside the path. They’re concentrating on the run, breathing with little puffs, some in sportswear they brought from home, but most wearing items from the new collection that’s just become available online. “Pick up the pace, you losers.” The grad student at the front of the patients makes a waving motion to tell him to shut up.

  I notice the new patient, Noah, is lagging behind. I’m not surprised. It’s hard for new people to keep up with the fitness regime at first. If he had to do our boot camp today he’d die.

  Drew swerves so abruptly that my head slams sideways into the metal pole that holds up the roof, and I cry out in pain. He does an emergency brake and I’m flung forward. I yell, “Why did you do that?”

  Noah stops running. “Hey, are you all right?” he shouts.

  Joanie’s crying in the back, and Drew turns to tell her I’m fine.

  “How d’you know I’m fine?” I snap, as I rub my head.

  Noah is beside the buggy now. “Are you all right?” he says again.

  “I’m OK,” I say. “It was more the shock.”

  “See?” Drew says to Joanie.

  “That’s good,” says Noah. He places his hands on his waist and does an awkward bend from side to side, as if he’s remembered he’s supposed to be doing exercise. “It sounded like you’d really hurt yourself. I’ll catch you later.” He gives me a brief smile and jogs off slowly.

  “He’s one of the weirder ones,” says Drew, not quietly enough. He starts the buggy again.

  I give him a long hard stare which means when I look round to say thanks to Noah, the buggy has already whined past him and he’s not looking at us any more.

  “Clearly fancies you like craaazy,” Drew adds. “Did you notice that?”

  “What? How d’you know?” Is he being serious? Confused, I glance back at Joanie to see if she’s listening. She is. “Forget it, Drew. Just get us there in one piece.”

  While we line up on the soccer pitch and wait for Mick to bark his orders, I go over what Drew said. It worries me how little I understand about relationships.

  We begin with push-ups, jumping jacks and squats. We exercise in our own little worlds, dealing with the gruelling workout in our own ways. Mick shouts, swears and projects phlegm at me because I’m not fast enough. I run, I walk, I limp, and at one point I have to crouch because I feel so dizzy. But I don’t cry. Mick loves it when people cry.

  At the end of the session, I sit on a wooden bench to regain my breath and composure. It’s the same style of bench as the ones in the Woodland Gardens. There are twenty of them dotted around the grounds, each with a metal plaque screwed to the top slat, all engraved with the same words: “With thanks and gratitude to the Hummingbird Creek community from the Delaney family”. When I asked Dad who the Delaney family were, he said their son was a patient but he couldn’t remember the name of the kid or anything about him. Maybe he hadn’t been someone who’d stood out.

  Drew sags on to the bench next to me. I don’t say anything to him, but I like having him next to me, even if he hasn’t asked how my head is.

  I drive the buggy back, so slowly that Joanie whinges all the way, but I find myself thinking about what I want to study at college. It’s not just lack of knowledge about relationships that worries me; I don’t know which college I’d like to apply to, or what I want to do after college. I suppose I’ve never properly thought about it because I’ve been too busy living in the moment. We reach the curve in the path where we can see the back of the main building. It’s where Dad has his consulting room. There’s a new thought in my head as I park up the buggy and connect it to the locking system: Dad is a world-renowned
psychiatrist, yet neither he nor Mom have ever asked me what I want to study or do with my life at all.

  As I open the door to our apartment, I sense Mom is there even though she’s not scheduled to be. She plays tennis on Saturday mornings, and after we’ve had showers we eat lunch together on the terrace. This morning I see Mom’s tennis shoes discarded on the living-room floor, rather than placed together in the shoe closet. She’s abandoned her racquet on the sofa and the folding door to the terrace is closed.

  “Mom?” I call. There’s no reply. I’m stiff and my feet hurt, but I move quickly through the apartment. It’s unlike Mom to deviate from her schedule. I find her lying on my parents’ bed, on top of the white duvet cover, edged with apricot-coloured ribbon. She’s on her side, facing away from the door, towards the window.

  “Mom? What’s up?”

  She must have been dozing or lost in thought because she jumps. When she sees that it’s me, her shoulders relax and she wriggles up the bed, against two apricot-edged pillows.

  “Hi, honey.” Her voice is croaky, and her face is pale. The skin under her eyes is darker than usual.

  I sit on the edge of the bed. “Are you ill, Mom? D’you want to me to tell someone?”

  “I’m tired, that’s all,” she says. “And so achy. Don’t tell your father.”

  Napping during the day is laziness, and it breaks important routines. But she looks as if she has a temperature, so it’s probably OK.

  The room is airless. The only windows that open are the terrace doors because the apartment is temperature controlled. “Wouldn’t you prefer to lie on the sofa?” I ask. “I’ll open the doors and make a breeze for you.”

  She moves her head slowly, back and forth. “I can’t face moving. I’m OK here. Can you water my plants for me?”

  “Sure.”

  She attempts a smile. “When I feel up to it, I’ll ask if we can go to the plant nursery together.”

  The plant nursery is off the highway. It stretches on and on as far as the eye can see. Rows and rows of plants. The Creek grounds staff order plants from the nursery, and Mom visits twice a year. I was allowed to go with her once. I loved how animated and happy she was there. She wandered up and down the rows, and entered the greenhouses. She touched leaves, snapped dead flower heads off, and eagerly read the labels on the pallets in the loading bays.