The Lie

“Enter spam into the contact form on our website. What’s the point? It’s not like I’m going to click on their stupid impotence pill links, or whatever. I mean, look, this one’s just ridiculous; it doesn’t even make sense. ‘Daisy’s not dead.’What does that even mean? Is that an animal? Wasn’t there a ferret called Daisy?”

The Tupperware box clatters to the floor as I stand up. I cross the room as though in a dream and peer over Sheila’s shoulder at the computer. The email software is open.

“See?” She points at the screen. “There it is. ‘Daisy’s not dead.’ That’s all it says. Weird, isn’t it?

“Jane? Where are you going? What’s wrong?” Her voice follows me as I run from the room and head for the toilet, one hand clutched to my throat, the other pressed to my spasming stomach. “Jane?”

Chapter 8 (#ulink_918cc824-9a8e-5884-bde3-1a4516d989dd)

Five Years Earlier

“You should have seen him!” Daisy gets up from her chair and mimes running alongside a car, her coat caught in a closed door. “His stubby little legs pounding the pavement, his fat face bright red, and Emma hanging out of the window screaming, ‘Stop the car! Stop!’”

She finishes her story with a flourish and there’s a beat – a split-second pause as Al and Leanne glance over at me – and then the silence is destroyed by an explosion of laughter.

Daisy continues to scream “Stop, stop!” at the top of her voice while she jumps up and down, her wedge sandals thumping the patio, a near-empty bottle of red wine in one hand, a full glass slopping around in the other.

I take a sip of my own wine and stare into the firepit as it pops and crackles, watching sparks leap into the air. It’s our second night in Pokhara, and we’re sitting on the patio in our swimsuits. Damp towels lie at our feet like sleeping dogs, the sky is a black blanket speckled with holes, and the night is alive with the sound of motorbikes, car horns and cicadas. This was supposed to be a treat – a couple of nights’ luxury in a hilltop Pokhara hotel – before we hike up the Annapurna range to Ekanta Yatra tomorrow. I don’t know if it’s the humidity, the really shitty email Geoff sent me the day before the holiday, questioning my ability to do my job, or the fact that Daisy’s spent three days getting laughs at my expense, but I’m finding it hard to join in with the frivolity. Back home, I could retreat to my flat in North London when things got a bit overwhelming, but the four of us haven’t spent a second apart since we got here.

“Oh, come on, Emma!” Daisy shouts. “Cheer up!”

“I’m not miserable.”

“Have you told your face that?”

She laughs and glances at Al as if to say, “Right?” but Al doesn’t respond. If anything, her smile slips, just the tiniest bit. This is the drunkest any of us have seen Daisy in a while.

“I’m fine, Daisy,” I say. “I’ve just heard that story before, that’s all.”

“Ooh.” She raises her eyebrows and widens her eyes. “Sorry if I’m boring you, Miss Emma Woolfe. Are my storytelling skills lacking? I do apologise.”

“Well, I think you’re funny,” Leanne says. She’s sitting cross-legged on her chair, her bony knees poking over the arms, a thin grey cardigan wrapped around her shoulders.

“Thank you, darling.” Daisy takes a little bow then totters over to me. “What’s up with you, misery guts?”

“Nothing. Forget it.” I reach for my wine glass and stand up. “I’m going for a walk round the grounds. I’ll see you guys in a bit.”

I slip away quickly, Daisy’s mocking voice following me out into the darkness of the garden. She’s doing her “northern voice”, a cross between Yorkshire and Geordie. I’m not even a northerner – I’m from Leicester – but “everyone who lives north of Watford is a northerner”, according to Daisy. Daisy and Al both claim to be from London, but Al’s actually from East Croydon, while Daisy’s from Elmbridge in Surrey – “the Beverley Hills of Britain”, apparently, not that Daisy spends much time there. She went straight from Cheltenham Ladies College to university in Newcastle. Apparently, she was being groomed to go to Oxford or Cambridge, but she was more interested in shagging boys in the grounds after dark than studying for her A-levels, and only scraped three Cs. And then after uni we all moved to London.

“Daisy, you’re hilarious!” Leanne laughs at Daisy’s impression of me like it’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard. It’s been seven years since she first did it at uni, and apparently the joke still hasn’t worn thin.

I make my way slowly around the swimming pool, checking the wet tiles for snakes, lizards and frogs, then follow the winding steps down into the gardens. It’s darker here, away from the glare of the hotel lights and the glow of the fire, but the moon is full and bright and I head for the crest of the hill and perch on the edge of a wooden bench there. We’ve only been in Nepal for a couple of days and I still feel as though I’ve been transported onto another planet. Forty-eight hours ago, we were in Kathmandu, with its roaring, beeping, haphazard traffic, men on bicycles piled up with treacherous, wobbling loads and monkeys jumping from building to building, their young clinging to their chests. Now, in Pokhara, the Annapurna range looms like a dark dragon in the distance, while the lake below, black against the glittering lights of the city, glistens in the moonlight. London couldn’t feel further away than it does right now.

I take a sip of wine then place the glass on the ground. It wobbles precariously but doesn’t tip over. I’m drunker than I thought. The sound of someone shouting along to Madonna’s “Holiday” drifts across the night air towards me. There’s a pause, a loud splash from the swimming pool, and then the singing continues. It’s Al. The laughter is all part of the act that she’s okay, just like the ceremonial burning of Simone’s photo in the firepit earlier and the solemn promise to “never, ever, get involved with a baby dyke again”. Two thousand miles away and a bottle of red wine in her hand, and she’s over the love of her life. If only it were that easy.

Leanne joins in the singing, her thin reedy tones picking out the words “holiday” and “celebrate” then falling silent for the rest of the song because she doesn’t know the words. Al laughs and Leanne laughs, Al dances and Leanne dances, Al sings and Leanne sings. Leanne does exactly the same with Daisy – it’s her M.O. She reminds me of one of those birds who jump from one rhino’s back to another, hitching a ride, pecking for food and enjoying the protection of the bigger animal.

Movement from the bushes to my right makes me glance round. The leaves at the base rustle ever so slightly as a gecko creeps out. Its padded fingers grip the ground and its bulbous eyes swivel from side to side. I stare at it, transfixed. I’ve only ever seen a gecko in the zoo before. It’s strangely beautiful and almost other-worldly with its black, unblinking eyes.

“Here you are!” Daisy comes crashing down the steps towards me, a fresh bottle of wine in one hand, a glass in the other, a blanket thrown over her arm.

“Don’t hate me, Ems!” She throws herself onto the bench beside me and wraps her right arm around my neck, pulling me into her. Red wine sloshes out of the bottle and drips down the front of my swimsuit. “I was only having a laugh.”

“I know.” I peel the bottle from her fingers and place it on the floor then untangle myself from her arm, but she continues to push the blanket into my face in a clumsy attempt to mop up the wine. “But I wish you’d stop doing it at my expense.”

“Stop being so sensitive. It’s just a bit of fun.”

“Yeah, because I loved being the punchline of my family’s jokes as a kid.” I can hear the whiny, self-pitying tone in my voice but I can’t stop myself. Daisy’s an aggressive drunk; I’m a maudlin one.

“Oh, for God’s sake.” She lets out an exaggerated sigh. “Sometimes I think Leanne’s right.”

“What about?”

“You.”

I inch away from her. “Go on.”

“No.” She peers at me. She took her contacts out earlier because they were gritty at the end of the day, and she’s too vain to wear glasses. “You’ll get pissed off.”

“Tell me.”

“No.” A smile plays on her lips as she shakes her head. She’s so drunk this conversation has become a game. She knows it’s dangerous but she can’t stop herself from playing it.

“Just tell me, Daisy.”

“Okay, okay. Fine. She thinks you can be a bit of a misery guts, sometimes. You say stuff that lowers the mood. Your parents are doctors, they’re still together, your brothers and sister are successful and you’ve got a job that pays okay even if your boss is an arsehole. Compared to what Leanne’s been through, what the rest of us have been through, you haven’t really got that much to moan about. That’s all.”

“And you agree with Leanne, do you?”

“Sometimes.”

I stare at her in bewilderment. Seven years, Daisy and I have been best friends, and this is the first time she’s said anything about me being a drama queen. Leanne’s been trying to drive a wedge between us for years, ever since we met at uni. “The three amigos”, that’s how Leanne referred to herself, Daisy and Al when they stayed up in Newcastle for the first Christmas holidays because none of them wanted to go back to their families. I wanted to stay up with them too, but Mum pulled a guilt trip on me. She told me Granny wasn’t very well and how would I feel if I missed her last Christmas because I chose to get drunk with my friends instead (Granny’s still alive and well). Leanne went out of her way to exclude me when I came back in the New Year. She invited Al and Daisy to the cinema, to club nights and to dinner parties at their halls of residence, all the while telling Daisy that she’d invited me but I’d made excuses about revision and said no. I know Leanne and Daisy have been spending more time together in London than usual because they both work flexible hours, Daisy in the pub and Leanne in the salon, and consequently they’ve been “babysitting” Al in the run-up to the holiday, but I never once thought they’d spend their time slagging me off.

“Thanks, Daisy.” I stand up. “I try and talk to you about you taking the piss out of me and you use it as an excuse to have a dig at me.”

“Stop being so bloody sensitive.” She stands up too. “And anyway, that story wasn’t about you. It was about that tosser you pulled. That’s who I was taking the piss out of. It was funny.”

“It wasn’t funny. Elliot could have been run over.”

“Elliot, was it? And there was me thinking he was some random guy who was just after a shag. He was rude and he deserved to be kicked out of the taxi. I did you a favour, Emma.”

“No, you didn’t. You kicked him out because he called you a drunken bitch. Daisy, you threatened to find out where he worked and hunt him down if he shagged me and didn’t call afterwards.”

“And?”

Her eyes glitter. There’s no reasoning with her, not when she’s like this. The evening can only go one of two ways now – she’ll either have a raging argument, or she’ll pass out. And, if I keep quiet, hopefully it’ll be the latter.

No such luck. Daisy’s on a roll now and won’t shut up. “Because he tried to snog me, you know, Emma – lovely Elliot, who you’re so keen on defending. He was all over me while you were in the toilet at Love Lies. That’s the real reason I kicked him out of the taxi, not because he called me a drunken bitch but because he was a shit and he didn’t deserve you.”