‘How will you stop yourself from lying?’
‘I think I know how not to lie if I don’t want to,’ I said, insulted. ‘It’s not as if I have a problem.’
‘What is it about the wrong-number guy that makes you tell the truth?’
‘Who?’
‘You know who. See, you’ve just done it again,’ he said, amused. ‘Your first reaction is to deny any knowledge of anything.’
I ignored his insight. ‘I told him not to call me any more.’
‘Why? Did you call and he was engaged?’
Though he was pleased with his joke, I ignored it. ‘Nah. It was just too weird.’
‘That’s a pity.’
‘Yeah,’ I said vaguely, not sure if it was pitiful. I held out my hand. ‘So have we got a deal? I don’t lie, you observe?’
He thought about it. ‘I want to add to it.’
I dropped my hand. ‘Of course you do.’
‘Every time you lie, I reveal a truth.’ He held out his hand. ‘Deal?’
I thought about it; I didn’t like it. I couldn’t truthfully promise that I would never lie again, all I could do was try, and I couldn’t trust him to reveal any amount of truth in my life, but if I agreed to the deal then at least it put the ball in my court and he wouldn’t be charging around my life like a bull in a china shop. ‘Fine. It’s a deal.’ We shook on it.
It was tense when I got back to the office. The others couldn’t figure out whether to be angry with me or not, just as they couldn’t figure out whether to be angry with Steve or not so we just worked in silence, no doubt putting aside any issues that needed discussion with one another in the newly created when everything gets back to normal tray beside the inbox and the outbox. Life faced me from the opposite desk, which was acceptable because I bet there wasn’t a soul in the room, apart from Edna, who could remember the name of the guy who worked there. He’d been knocked out in round one early last year when I had nothing to do with him from where I sat in the corner right beneath the air-conditioning vent and my sole task every day was to try keep warm and do everything to stop Graham from staring at my nipples. Needless to say, Augusto Fernández’s quite earnest promise that he would do all in his power to give Steve his job back was nonsense, and so Steve’s desk stood empty. If Life had chosen to sit at that desk, however, that would have caused a stir. It would have been too raw, too painful. Life looked through his computer all day, tap-tap-tapping and making notes, watching me, observing how I spoke to the others which was at an all-time low seeing as nobody was willing to communicate.
Then I started to think about what he’d said. About the wrong number, about Don Lockwood, about why I didn’t lie to him. I don’t know why I didn’t lie to him but the most obvious answer was because I didn’t know him, he was a complete stranger to me and the truth didn’t matter with him.
The truth didn’t matter. Why did it with everybody else?
I picked up my phone and went through my photos; I stopped at the one of his eyes, studied them, zoomed in and out of them one by one like an obsessive stalker, saw the flecks of aqua, almost green, in the blue, then I set it as my screen saver. It looked pretty impressive when I placed my phone on the desk and they were staring up at me.
‘What are you smiling at?’ Life asked me, and his sudden voice made me jump.
‘What? Jesus, you scared me. Don’t creep up on me like that.’
‘I was sitting right here, what were you doing?’
‘Oh,’ I was about to say nothing, when I looked down at the screen saver. I didn’t want to lie. ‘Just looking at photographs.’
Satisfied I was telling the truth, Life decided to take a break and headed off to the kitchen. Graham’s eyes followed him across the room; then he looked around at everyone else to make sure they were staying put at their desks, stood up and followed Life into the kitchen. I watched the door, waiting for one of them to come out but when five minutes had passed I began to worry. Life had been in the kitchen too long with Graham the Cock, I hoped he hadn’t fallen prey to one of his offers of a dalliance, a thought which I knew couldn’t be true but made me queasy. I stood at the filing cabinet which Louise had strategically placed by the kitchen door, opened a drawer and pretended to look for a file while eavesdropping.
‘So she lied about the Spanish,’ Graham said.
‘Yep,’ Life said, sounding like he was eating, and he was scraping something. A yoghurt pot, I deducted. That was Louise’s, she was on WeightWatchers and snacked all day on yoghurts which had more sugar in them than a doughnut.
‘Well, well, well. And she lied about smoking.’
‘Yep,’ he said again. Scrape, scrape, scrape.
‘You know that I smoke,’ Graham said.
‘No, I didn’t know that.’ And it sounded like he didn’t care much either.
‘We sometimes go out there together, me and Lucy, to the private place,’ Graham said, keeping his voice low, not because he was talking about the private smoking place but in that way that men did when they were talking about sexual things they had done, or more usually wished they’d done.
‘The fire escape,’ Life said, keeping his voice at normal level, which told anyone who wasn’t Graham that he didn’t want to lower his tone of voice or subject of conversation.
‘I was thinking that she might have a thing for me. That pretending to be a smoker was just a way to get close to me.’ Graham gave a naughty little chuckle, forgetting about the fact that it was always he who followed me.
‘You think?’ Scrape, scrape.
‘Well, it’s hard to get close in here, with this lot. What do you think? Has she ever mentioned anything to you about me? Or she wouldn’t have to say it, you’d just know, wouldn’t you? Go on, you can tell me.’
‘Yeah, I pretty much know everything,’ Life said and I was annoyed that Cock knew he was my life. It was enough that he tried to come on to me, never mind trying to sweet-talk my life as well.
‘So what do you think? Does she want some?’
‘Want some?’ The scraping stopped. The yoghurt had been demolished, the integrity insulted.
‘She’s turned me down a few times, I won’t lie to you, but the thing is I’m married and for a girl like Lucy, that’s not her thing. But I still feel there’s something … Has she told you anything about me?’
I heard a squeak – the bin lid rising; heard the plastic bag rustle as something was dumped – the yoghurt pot; heard a clink in the sink – the spoon. Then heard a long sigh – my life.
‘Graham, I can safely say that Lucy wants to like you and occasionally sees glimpses of a nice guy but deep down, deep, deep down she thinks you’re an absolute asshole.’
I smiled, closed the file drawer and swiftly returned to my desk. I knew then that though he’d stabbed me in the back just that morning, by the afternoon, he had my back. The office, namely Graham, was even quieter that afternoon and I wasn’t fired that day. Lying in bed that night I knew Life was awake because he wasn’t snoring. I was running through everything that had happened that day and all that had been said; between me, Life and everybody else stuck in between. I eventually came to one conclusion.
‘You planned all that, didn’t you?’ I asked to the dark empty room.
‘Planned what?’
‘You deliberately went in and told Edna the truth in a way that would make me come up with the idea to tell the truth myself.’
‘Sounds like you’re analysing everything too much, Lucy.’
‘Am I right?’
Silence.
‘Yes.’
‘What else are you planning?’
He never answered me. It was just as well.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I regretted arranging with Melanie to meet the following night. Not just because Life had kept me awake all night with his snoring but because the night out with her was one giant bullet that I had been trying to dodge for a long time. In order to make up for leaving dinner early the pre
vious week I’d promised I’d go to Melanie’s next set in Dublin. It happened to be Friday in the coolest club in the city, for that month at least. It was so cool it didn’t even have a name, which meant that everybody called it the Club on Henrietta Street with No Name, which was ironic. It was a private club, or at least it had been renovated and marketed with the intention of being a private club, but with its extortionate charges – most likely stemming from the bill for the hundreds of gas heaters placed outside to fool Irish people into thinking and feeling like they were not in inner-city Dublin but in fact West Hollywood – mixed with the times we were living in it meant that it was letting anybody in. Anybody they considered pretty and fabulous during the weekend, that was, and then mid-week just any ugly person at all to cover paying staff wages. Tonight was Friday, which meant they were going for pretty and fabulous which didn’t hold much luck for my life. I’d heard the grumbles that it wasn’t as busy as it used to be – one hundred fewer people on a Friday – which the grumblers surmised was a sign of the times. I thought that was ironic because it was more a sign of the times that a club with no name, situated in what used to be one of the worst slums in Europe – where people were housed in tenements in Georgian buildings that the rich had moved out of to live in the suburbs, where up to fifteen people shared one room, with up to one hundred people with all kinds of diseases living in one building with one toilet in the back garden where livestock lived – was more accurately the sign of the times.
I rang the buzzer on the large red door and waited for a small section of it to open and a dwarf to step outside. That didn’t happen. The entire door was opened by a bald man dressed in black who resembled a bowling ball, and treated entries as though he were Prince Charming and the female arrivals were simply for him alone to pluck his princess before his evil father married him off to an ogre. He might have been happy with my appearance but unfortunately he didn’t like the look of my life, which was ironic because that was the nature of club life; you weren’t supposed to bring your lives with you. You were supposed to leave them at home in the cluttered bathroom beside the hairspray and the fake tan and all the other condiments that went into making you feel like someone else.
The bowling ball stared at my life with a face like he’d just eaten shit. Life reached for his inside pocket again for the piece of paper that gave him access to all areas in my life.
‘Don’t,’ I said, holding my hand up to stop him.
‘Why not?’
‘Not here.’ I looked at the security guy. ‘Could you please get Melanie Sahakyan for us?’
‘Who?’
‘DJ Darkness. We’re guests of hers.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Lucy Silchester.’
‘And what’s his name?’
‘Cosmo Brown,’ Life said loudly and I didn’t need to turn around to know that he felt this was hilarious.
‘His name isn’t on the list. It should be a plus-one.’
‘It’s not a plus-one here.’ He spoke as if the clipboard alone revealed the mysteries of the world. I wondered what the clipboard would say about the Mayan 2012 beliefs, or if it wasn’t on the list it didn’t count. He studied my life. Life didn’t much care, he leaned on the glossy black railings where impoverished children with dirty faces had once climbed, and seemed to enjoy the spectacle that was taking place.
‘There must be a misunderstanding. Could you please get Melanie?’
‘I have to close the door. You can wait in here, he has to wait outside.’
I sighed. ‘I’ll wait here.’
On looks, I could get into the club. With my life, I couldn’t. It was a cruel, cruel world. As groups passed us by and I heard snippets of their conversations before they entered the club I wondered whether, if everyone was to be judged in that way, the club would be completely empty. And that would be a sign of the times. Five minutes later the door swung open and Melanie stood there in a black handkerchief dress with bangles all the way up her tanned arms to her elbows; her hair was swept back in a high pony-tail and her cheekbones were ebony and shiny as though she were an Egyptian princess.
‘Lucy!’ She held her arms open to hug me. I turned so that when we hugged she was facing sideways and not over my shoulder and staring at my life. ‘Who else is with you?’ I pushed past her into the entrance, revealing my life to her. Life followed me inside. Melanie gave him the quick once-over, so quick only I would notice her thick lashes move up and down. Life didn’t notice, he was busy taking off his crumpled suit jacket to hand to the woman at the cloakroom, which was a line of golden muscular arms sticking out of a wall. She hooked his coat over the protruding middle finger of the arm. What a statement. He rolled his sleeves up to his elbows and he looked much better but nothing like the golden muscular arms.
‘You’re a secretive little thing,’ Melanie said to me.
‘It’s not like that, really, at all,’ I shuddered.
‘Oh,’ she said, disappointed. ‘Hello, I’m Melanie,’ and she held out her bangled arm.
Life gave her a megawatt smile. ‘Hi, Melanie, nice to meet you in the flesh, I’ve heard so much about you. I’m Cosmo Brown.’
‘Cool name,’ she laughed. ‘Isn’t that …?’
‘Yes, from the film. He’s never been here before and he’s really excited so come on already, show us around!’ I pretended to be excited and Melanie got excited by my excitement and hotfooted it out of there. Everywhere we went all the men stopped and stared at Melanie, which was a shame for them because they were barking up the wrong tree. This had been a blessing for me because ever since she had come out at the age of sixteen and men discovered she wasn’t only not interested but not even open to negotiation, they turned to me, which I didn’t mind as I had a minimal amount of pride, and even less as a teen.
The club so far had been designed in the theme of the four elements of life; finally we reached a closed door, which had the number five on it. Life looked at me questioningly.
‘The fifth element,’ I explained.
‘Which is … love?’
‘Romantic,’ Melanie said. ‘But no.’ She pushed open the door and gave him a cheeky wink. ‘It’s alcohol.’ And in a giant champagne glass posed a burlesque dancer with nipple tassles and no other clothes that I could see, unless the fabric in question had disappeared into the cracks. I expected Melanie to start DJing immediately so that no more questions could be asked, or if they were it could be the usual mouthing and lip-read one-word answers to shoot-the-breeze questions, but it was early yet and her set didn’t begin until after twelve so we sat around a table and Melanie examined my life.
‘So how do you two know each other?’
‘We work together,’ I answered.
He looked at me and I could hear him say, Remember our deal.
‘Well, we kind of do.’
‘You work at Mantic?’ Melanie asked him.
‘Nope.’ He stared at me. You lie, I tell a truth.
‘No,’ I laughed. ‘He doesn’t work there. He … he’s eh, he’s … from out of town,’ I said, looking to Life for approval. Not technically a lie. I could see him mulling it over.
He gave me a nod of approval, but a you’re skating on thin ice look.
‘Groovy,’ Melanie said, looking at him for the answer. ‘But how do you two know each other?’
‘He’s my cousin,’ I blurted out. ‘He’s sick. Terminally ill. He’s spending the day with me to write an article on modern women. It’s his dying wish.’ I couldn’t help it.
‘You’re cousins?’ she said, surprised.
Life started laughing. ‘Of all of those things, the fact that we’re cousins surprises you?’
‘Well, I thought I’d met them all.’ Then she softened her tone. ‘So that’s sad news. You’re a journalist. Are you okay?’
Life and Melanie laughed.
‘Come on, I’ve been friends with Lucy all of my life, I know her well enough to know when she’s lying.’
/>
If only she knew.
‘You just can’t help yourself, can you?’ Life said to me. ‘Okay, now it’s my turn.’ He leaned in towards Melanie and I braced myself. She smiled and leaned in flirtatiously. ‘Lucy doesn’t like your music,’ he said and sat back.
Melanie’s smile faded, she sat back too. I buried my head in my hands.
Life looked at me. ‘I think I’ll get some drinks now. Lucy?’
‘Mojito,’ I said from behind my hands.
‘The same.’
‘Great.’
‘Tell them to put it on my tab,’ Melanie said, not looking at him.
‘It’s okay, I’ll claim it back on expenses,’ he said and wandered off.
‘Who is that horrible little man?’ she asked.
I cringed. I just simply couldn’t tell her now. ‘Melanie, I never said that I didn’t like your music. I said that I didn’t get your music, which is not the same as saying I don’t like it. It has beats, rhythmic kind of things that I just don’t recognise.’
She looked at me, blinked once and said as if I had never spoken at all, ‘Lucy, who is that man?’
I buried my face in my hands again. It was my new thing. If I couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see me. I came back up for air. Then I put my phone on the table and looked at Don’s eyes for back-up. ‘Okay fine, here’s the truth. That man is my life.’
Her eyes widened. ‘That is so romantic.’
‘No, I mean, he is my actual life. I received a letter to meet with him from the actual Life Agency a while ago and this is it. This is him.’
Melanie’s mouth hung open. ‘You are shitting me. That’s your life?’
We both turned to watch him. He was standing at the bar on tiptoe, trying to get served. I cringed again.
‘He’s … wow, well, he’s …’
‘Miserable,’ I finished for her. ‘You called my life a horrible little man.’
Her Bambi eyes were full of concern. ‘Are you miserable, Lucy?’ she asked.