Page 48 of Twisted Lies

‘Okay,’ he said, shifting from one foot to the other despite her assurances. His right hand started fiddling with the knot in his tie.

‘You two had a bit of trouble?’

‘He hit me,’ Robbie said, putting his hands in his pockets.

‘Why’d he hit you, Robbie?’ Kim asked, feeling that unprovoked violence was out of character for the quiet, secretive boy.

‘Dunno,’ he said, staring at the ground.

‘Robbie, look at—’

‘It’s okay,’ Kim said, cutting off the teacher’s words. She didn’t care where he looked as long as he told her the truth.

‘Do you hit people for no reason?’

He shook his head.

‘But Tommy does?’

He shrugged.

‘Does Tommy have many friends?’

‘Nah, he’s too quiet.’

‘Does he bully other kids?’ Kim asked, thinking it unlikely, but Robbie didn’t seem to want to share the cause of their skirmish.

‘Robbie, for what it’s worth, I don’t think Tommy is coming back to this school, so you can tell me the truth.’

‘He hit me cos I made fun of him.’

‘Why?’

‘We were working on a joint science project, and we had to sign our work. I laughed at him cos he signed the name Ryan. I laughed cos he didn’t know his own name. He belted me and said he’d beat me up if I told anyone.’

Kim’s mind started turning as she thanked both Robbie and Liam and walked away.

The boy hadn’t been writing his own name repeatedly for fun or because he was bored. He’d been practising to get it right.

Thirty-Six

I watch her take a seat on the bench. Every day she comes, and every day I watch.

What is she thinking? How is she feeling? What is she trying to recapture when she sits in that same spot every single day?

I can see the entrance to the park clearly from the studio flat, which is nothing more than a decent-sized room with everything fitted in. There has been an attempt at demarcation of the individual areas. A two-metre square of cool linoleum is fitted beneath the sink, two-ring cooker and storage cupboard. The dishwasher is a bowl in the sink.

A metal strip denotes the transition from lino to carpet, which covers the rest of the room. It is functional, biscuit-coloured and rough on my feet, but it is clean and intact. A single bed and chest of drawers occupy the far corner, and two chairs sit in front of the window. One faces outside and the other looks towards the small television mounted on the wall to the right of the bathroom door.

I understand that some might find it stark, but to me it’s liberating. It holds nothing of my past and the person I was before I had to disappear. There are no memories of what I lost or was forced to leave behind.

My old life is lost to me. My family and friends are gone. I had no choice but to give them up, and yet I still wake each morning with the hope that can only come with a fresh, new day.

The thing I miss most is speaking. I say hello to the elderly lady who lives in the room below. She looks me up and down and greets me with kindness in her eyes. We comment on the weather, in passing, and I ache to say more: to chat, to pass the time of day, but I dare not. I am terrified of what I might give away.

The man who lives above sometimes helps me with my rubbish on a Friday morning. I think he waits to hear my door open and magically appears, whisking the bin liner from my hand.

‘Give it ’ere – I’ll take it,’ he says.