Page 50 of Lie For Me

Lucy’s voice faltered, and she felt tears prick her eyes. She could feel her face was hot, and her neck was flushed.

‘I’m always your punchbag, and I’ve had enough.’

Lucy was angry and could feel resolve strengthening within her.

Her gaze flicked towards the bar, and she locked eyes with Jack, who was looking at her questioningly.

‘Oh, Lucy,’ Heather said smoothly, a sudden horrifyingly cool and calm counterpoint to Lucy’s increasingly heightened reaction. ‘I’m not taking anything out on you. No one expects anything from you. That’s why I didn’t ask you. I knew you wouldn’t necessarily know what needed doing or,’ she lowered her voice imperceptibly, ‘be able to afford to contribute. It’s enough that you’ve managed to get here.’ She looked at Lucy. ‘With Jack.’

She gave a tiny smile as she sipped her drink.

Lucy’s brain dissolved into a red mist as she stared at her older sister.

In the blink of an eye, she felt fourteen years old again. Fourteen years old, when she attended another ceremony celebrating her sister, this one where her sister was awarded the school certificate for Outstanding Achievement in Academia, her grades topping everyone else’s in the year. All Heather’s friends cheered her, the boys coveting her long legs and thick glossy hair (which she spent more time grooming than she ever let on), and competitive parents jealously eyeballing Valerie and James. Lucy stood beside her parents for what felt like hours as other parents came up to gush. She listened to endless chants of, ‘You must be so proud.’ And jokey comments like, ‘I bet it’s you she takes after Valerie,’ at which her mother shook her own glossy locks, gave a strange bell-like laugh and preened.

Somewhere in the queue of parents lined up to pass on best wishes and ensure Heather was definitely attending their child’s birthday party/beach day/weekend away, one parent noticed Lucy standing there quietly, shifting her weight from foot to foot.

She bent down and said, ‘And who’s this? Do you think you’ll follow in your big sister’s footsteps one day?’

Lucy gave a shy smile and opened her mouth to reply when her mother spoke up for her.

‘Oh gosh no,’ Valerie laughed, ‘Lucy is arty.’ Valerie almost whispered arty. ‘I don’t imagine we’ll see her up there. But Ollie, well, he does excel at rugby and his academic scores…’ Valerie drifted off, leaving Lucy standing in the midst of the melee, the top of her head barely at shoulder height of most of the parents as they hurried about, hustling children out to cars.

Now, Lucy glared at her sister, her still-glossy-hair slicked back, a self-satisfied smirk on her face.

‘Well, I am sorry if I don’t fit into your idea of how I should be. If somehow I am different to you. If money and material success and…and what other people think of me isn’t important to me. I don’t want to work sixty hours a week and have a heart attack at fifty.’

Heather looked shocked. Standing up for herself was not Lucy’s forte. She usually did the proper British thing—she let people say whatever they wanted without arguing back, then quietly stewed on it in the middle of the night every night for a week, thinking of all the wonderful things she should have said at the time if only she had been brave enough and her brain hadn’t frozen over faster than a puddle in a January blizzard.

And now here she was—at the end of her tether and ready to say whatever words found their way out of the semi-frozen fog of her brain. Words tumbled out of her mouth faster than she could recognise them and her tongue was in danger of not keeping up. She took a breath and jumped right in.

‘This,’ Lucy pressed a hand to her chest, ‘is not your life. I don’t want your life. And you have made it very clear, at every opportunity, that you disapprove of me and my choices. And I—’ She hesitated. ‘I don’t care.’

As she spoke she felt two things to be true at once; she was tired of caring what her sister thought about her and her choices—but she still wished Heather cared enough to try to understand her and what was important to her.

Lucy struggled to compose herself as she shakily pushed her chair back and got to her feet on unsteady legs. She kept one hand on the table for support. The tears welling up in her eyes belied her words, but she kept her back ramrod straight.

‘And I am sorry,’ she swallowed hard, pushing down the lump in her throat, ‘if I am a disappointment. That I don’t have a corporate job, and I don’t play tennis or compete in—’ She paused as she tried to think of the word. ‘Triathlons or whatever. But maybe,’ she felt herself veer onto dangerous ground but didn’t hold herself back, ‘maybe if you were happier with your own life, you wouldn’t be so interested in mine.’

As the words left her mouth, she regretted them. Heather, who had been working to compose herself and give the impression of disinterested amusement, now went puce, her neck flushing with anger, her neatly manicured fingers gripping the edges of the table.

Valerie suddenly appeared at Lucy’s elbow. She smiled at them both, but her eyes were cold, and her voice was like thunder.

‘For goodness sake girls, what is going on here? People are staring, you’re showing me up.’

Heather sniffed and dabbed at her eyes.

Valerie turned to Lucy, hand on hip. ‘Lucy, what have you said to upset your sister?’

Lucy staggered and grasped at the chair.

‘What have I...? I haven’t done anything. I am simply standing up for myself.’

‘Please,’ Valerie’s lip curled in distaste. ‘Stop making a scene. This is hardly the time. We have guests.’

‘Oh, don’t bother, Mum,’ Heather said with a heavy sigh. ‘You know how she is.’

‘Heather, I am not sure this is helpful,’ Valerie murmured, as she pursed her lips and rested a hand on Heather’s shoulder.

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