Page 85 of A Game of Lies

‘For God’s sake, Henry!’

Heath Hill is a state school, but it offers boarding to girls who live too far away to travel in each day. Pam often chats with those who are struggling to settle into dorm life.

‘It’s Camilla,’ they’ll say (or India, or Verity, or Lily). ‘She does the most annoying thing.’ They’ll go on to describe how poor Camilla (or India, or Verity, or Lily) breathes the wrong way, or gets into bed in an irritating fashion, and Pam will explain how they all need to live peaceably together. Pam didn’t go to a boarding school herself, and, although she lives in the confines of Heath Hill School, she does not of course sleep in a dormitory. She retires to a lovely three-bedroomed house with a private garden, disturbed only by her emails and phone, and occasionally by the jangle of the iron bell above the door.

Living with the otherExposurecontestants has given Pam a newfound respect for her boarders. Aliyah sobs gently at night, pressing her tears against the pillow. On the first night, this was understandable. When it happened the second night, Pam dutifully trotted over to the younger woman’s bed to stroke her hair and tell her it would all be alright, even though Pam had just that second been about to drop off. Last night, Pam rolled over when she heard the muffled sobs and pulled her pillow over her ears. If Aliyah bawls tonight, Pam is contemplating smothering her. Crying isn’t going to help anyone, and the rest of them would quite like to get some sleep, thank you very much.

The more time Pam spends with her fellow contestants, the less she likes them, despite – or perhaps because of – their attempts to ingratiate themselves. Earlier, Aliyah slipped Pam half a chocolate bar, one finger to her lips to keep the secret.

‘Where did you get that from?’ Pam whispered. No one has told them how many cameras and microphones there are, and paranoia is rife. Chocolate, though! The contestants weren’t allowed to bring snacks in with them and although their tasks have won them treats, there hasn’t been any chocolate.

‘Don’t worry about that.’ Aliyah winked. ‘Just enjoy it.’

This was contraband, Pam realised. Aliyah was cheating, and Pam absolutely did not approve. She did, however, eat the evidence. Waste not, want not.

Henry is still clattering the dishes against the metal sink.

‘Could you do that any louder?’ Pam snaps. ‘I don’t think they can hear you in Outer Mongolia.’

‘Would you prefer me to leave it for you?’ Henry says archly.

‘Now, now!’ Lucas moves to sit next to Pam. ‘You seem very tense today, Pam. Is there something on your mind?’

Only the impending collapse of my career, and the tarnished reputation of the school I love, Pam thinks. She doesn’t say it, because she knows it would give the others ammunition for an exposure attempt. It’s terrifying how easily things slip out, and how much you can glean from various asides. Aliyah’s secret, for example, is about sex, something Pam established very quickly from Aliyah’s wails aboutshame,the only choice I had, andI’ve already lost a boyfriend over it. Pam worries Aliyah is giving too much away – she’s seen the sharp looks from some of the others, each time Aliyah lets slip another slice of her secret.

‘I’m not tense,’ Pam tells Lucas, somewhat tensely.

‘Would you like me to pray with you?’ Lucas has a kind, open face, rather soft around the edges. Pam feels a sudden urge to slap it.

‘No, I bloody well would not.’ She stands. ‘And, since you brought it up, is it really necessary to pray before every sodding meal?’ Pam sailed through the menopause without a single symptom (there’s no space for middle age mood swings in a school full of adolescent girls) yet now she is teetering on a knife-edge, flying into a rage if someone even looks at her the wrong way.

‘It’s a quick Grace, just to give thanks to—’

‘Give thanks?’ Pam snorts. ‘For subjecting us to this hideous social experiment?’

‘I think you’re confusing God with Miles,’ Ceri says. She considers this. ‘Which, to be fair, he seems to be doing himself, so as you were.’

‘Prayer has brought me great comfort since we found ourselves in this horrendous situation.’ Lucas stands. ‘If anyone would like to join me in asking the Almighty for forgiveness, I’ll be in the chill-out tent.’

Aliyah goes with him. Pam does not. Even if Pam were a believer, she wouldn’t be asking for forgiveness. She hasn’t done anything wrong. The uber-rich parents who throw money at her to secure their daughters’ places in the school won’t miss the cash, and the working-class girls Pam helps as a result are appreciative and relieved. Miles won’t be thinking about them, of course. He won’t even have considered that, by exposing Pam’s secret, he’ll be stopping bright, ambitious girls from achieving their potential. It’s ironic, really, given that Miles is clearly exceptionally bright and ambitious himself – he has to be, to have conceivedExposure. A show designed to ruin lives. Someone needs to ruin Miles’s, just to show him.

Pam finds the thought soothing. She pictures a broken Miles, standing amid the wreckage of his career. She’s a little hazy on the finer details of modern television production, and so her fantasy-Miles is surrounded by thousands of metres of unspooled cine film.

Ceri has wandered off – she’s either seeking God’s forgiveness with Lucas and Aliyah or she’s gone to the loo. Henry is washing up with a slowness that can only be deliberate, and Pam can’t bear the clattering any more. She crosses to the sink and picks up a tea-towel. Anything to make it finish more quickly.

Henry turns on her. ‘What are you doing?’ he shouts. ‘Put that down!’

‘I’m helping,’ Pam says indignantly.

Henry’s angry face crumples. ‘Sorry. God, I don’t know what’s happening to me. I feel like all my nerve-endings are exposed.’

‘That’s what he wants.’ Pam narrows her eyes at the cameras, high up in the trees. ‘It’s like when they play white noise at hostages, or stop them sleeping. He wants us weak.’

‘Well, it’s working.’ Henry leans on the sink.

‘Come on, now.’ Pam has a burst of head-teacherly stoicism. ‘Don’t let him win.’ It is easier, she finds, to bolster someone else’s morale than it is to boost your own.

Henry turns to her as though she’s said something profound. ‘You’re right. We need to beat him at his own game.’ Something sparks in his eyes. ‘What if we teamed up?’

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