Lie For Me
1. Chapter 1
Lucy erupted out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam, towel on her head, toothbrush in hand. Wafting steam away from her face, she hummed ‘9 to 5’ by Dolly Parton as she ploughed across the bedroom towards the wardrobe.
The wardrobe, with bare hangers and sparsely filled shelves, looked as if someone had recently looted it. Her eyes alighted on the towering pile of ironing teetering on the chair beside her. She glanced at the clock and realised that this was not the day to start taking pride in her appearance. Sighing, she picked through the ironing stack, hoping some of the items at the bottom of the pile had been squashed crease-free and would now be passable.
Pulling out a faded red T-shirt and jeans, Lucy shoved the toothbrush into her mouth and shook the towel off her head.
Every evening, Lucy set her alarm to give her enough time to get ready without rushing, and every morning she snoozed it until she had to get ready in a hot panic. Dragging a brush through her damp hair, Lucy pinned it messily on top of her head with whatever pins she could find within reach and flicked wayward strands out of her face before vigorously rubbing moisturiser into her skin.
After yanking her jeans on, she clattered down the stairs of the old cottage, slowing her pace as she hit the flagstones at the bottom. As with every morning, she skidded into the kitchen and hit the button on the kettle. No matter what, she had to make coffee before she left the house.
As the kettle purred to life, Lucy patted down the creases in her T-shirt and dug through the fruit bowl. A somewhat blackened but passable banana lurked underneath a wrinkled apple and some wizened grapes. She dropped the banana into her bag for later.
The kettle clicked off, and the low rumble of the boiling water faded into silence as Lucy heaped coffee grounds into the cafetiere then splashed in the boiling water. She plucked at the past-their-best grapes as she waited for the coffee to brew, fingers deftly searching through the wrinkled berries for any still plump and firm.
Glancing across the room, her eyes fell on the cream envelope propped against the butter dish on the kitchen table. She burst a grape in her mouth, crossed her arms, and contemplated the letter. Outside, the early morning Yorkshire mist was lifting. Sunlight streamed through the old casement window, casting everything in the room in a soft, beatific glow, and the cream envelope glowed yellow in the sunshine. It had been resident in the kitchen for months, occasionally migrating from the table to the dresser then back again. Lucy had done a marvellous job of ignoring it. A suspicious stain marked one corner after the envelope got in the way during a night of fajitas and margaritas. Every time she saw it, she promised herself, I’ll deal with that tomorrow.
Only now, she was running out of tomorrows. She picked it up and turned it over in her hands, an idle thought from a few days earlier slowly shaping into an idea. Whether it was a good idea, it was too early to tell.
The rich and bitter smell of hot coffee snapped Lucy back to the moment. She glanced up at the kitchen clock.
‘Fuck,’ she swore loudly.
Grabbing the cafetiere, she hastily filled her travel mug to the brim. Lucy stared down at the mug, black coffee lapping at the rim.
‘Bollocks.’
She lurched to the sink and splashed some of the coffee down the drain, little droplets jumping up and splatting on her T-shirt. She hopped onto one foot and lunged at the fridge, grabbing the milk and trying to get the lid off while still holding the travel mug. Lucy sloshed milk into the mug and then took three attempts to get the screw lid on straight.
‘For fuck’s sake,’ she muttered, screwing it on tightly.
Snatching her bag from the back of a chair, she grabbed the envelope from its perching place, dropped it into her bag on top of the banana and skated out of the kitchen, squelching a stray grape on the flagstones underfoot as she went.
At the front door, Lucy dug through a basket full of shoes for her black flats. She grabbed a stray lace attached to one black shoe, and a flip-flop sprang from the basket. She jabbed her foot into the shoe and dove back into the basket.
‘Oof!’ Lucy huffed as she rooted about.
She pulled out red heels, a pair of boots, one wellington, and an old slipper, but no left-foot shoe. She blew her hair away from her face and glanced at the living room clock.
‘Fuck-a-doodle-do,’ she muttered, gritting her teeth.
Lucy didn’t have time for this. She kicked the shoe off, and it flew under the coffee table. Making a mental note to retrieve it from there later, she shoved her feet into her trainers and heaved open the heavy old door.
The sun was already burning off the cool of the early morning and heralding another hot day as Lucy slung her bag onto the passenger seat and slid behind the wheel of her old Volvo.
Five minutes later, coaxed, Lucy felt sure, by ample swearing and one sharp slap on the dashboard, the elderly car grunted to life. The car cranked and lurched as she shifted gears along the Yorkshire lanes, belting out tunelessly but enthusiastically to Whitney’s ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody.’ Rabbits darted back into the verges, ears down, and birds made for the skies as the travelling sound bomb rolled past. A bolt of noise into the countryside and then gone.
Rounding another corner, Lucy bellowed cheerfully, squalling as she tried to join in with Whitney on the high notes.
Green hedges and hills rolled out before her, and Lucy drank in the lush sights of rural Yorkshire in August.
Soul food.
On this summer’s day, the trees were in full leaf, casting dappled shade along the lanes. Wild basil and pink corn-cockle flowers swayed in the verges, and ox-eye daisies and sleepy soapwort flowers bobbed their heads in green fields.
Her drive to work––through some of the most stunning views in the country––never ceased to tug at her heartstrings. While others were stressed and swearing in traffic jams or jammed nose-to-armpit on the tube, Lucy’s job required her to take the scenic drive five days a week.
With one hand on the steering wheel on an open stretch of road, she reached for the old radio console and twisted the knob to shush Bryan Adams.
She liked quiet on the approach so she could take in the scene. The lanes narrowed, the tree line parted, and the black, wrought iron gates came into view. Huge stone pillars joined at the top by a curved iron arch. Written out in huge black iron script was one word.
Dulcetcoombe.
Lucy eased the Volvo through the open gates and onto the long, tree-lined driveway. She drove at a crawl down the gravel track, cattle sunning themselves in the fields on either side of her. She passed the Welcome to Dulcetcoombe sign and the map showing the way to Visitors Parking, Ticket Office, and Café.
She drove slowly past the No Public Access sign, and as the rolling parkland gave way to clipped lawns, the house itself came into view. It had been nearly six years since she started working there, but Lucy still caught her breath every day when she saw it.
The huge gothic building glowed in the morning sunlight, a creamy, buttery colour, benign and serene. Lucy grinned at it. The house was a living, breathing thing. It looked and felt different every day, depending on the weather and the time of year, and how the changing light coloured the weathered Yorkshire stone.
She had seen it in the spring, surrounded by daffodils, in the drab days of January when it squatted in the winter-bare landscape like it too was hibernating. On dark autumn nights when it fell into eerie shadows and looked as if Dracula himself might slide out of the door. They kept the horror-film-like photos out of the events brochures. The house behaved differently throughout the year, too. The doors that swelled and stuck in the damp winter air, moved freely in summer, and the whistles of the autumn wind through tiny holes in the window frames were quiet at the moment. No matter how the house felt, it was her home from home.
Lucy edged the car around the side of the building and into the staff car park at the rear, rolling to a stop in her regular spot. She grabbed her bag from the passenger seat and shoved at the door with her knee. The car door opened stiffly with a groan. Lucy caught a stray crisp packet that blew out and shoved it back into the driver’s door holder, alongside chocolate wrappers, crumpled tissues, empty paracetamol packets and a rolled-up crossword puzzle book with a lot of completed but incorrect puzzle answers. She jumped out then lunged back into the car to retrieve her travel mug, which had somehow leaked lukewarm, milky coffee onto the passenger seat. She cursed at the mug under her breath, perched it on the roof of the car and rooted in her bag for a clean tissue to mop up the mess. Two minutes later she elbowed the car door shut, smoothed down her T-shirt and made for the staff entrance.
Dulcetcoombe was a stately home in trust. The family was long gone, the upkeep of an estate like this far beyond their failing fortunes. Unable to find a buyer for such a big estate and flailing under the costs of maintenance, heating bills, and taxes, the family gifted the estate to the local authority. The council, galled at the prospect of the unexpected bequest but unable to say so publicly, promptly divested themselves of it and found a charity to take on the romantic but frankly daunting task of maintaining an old and decaying building.
The volunteers of the Friends of Dulcetcoombe had been restoring Moneypit, as they affectionately called the place, to her former glory for the past twelve years without relenting. Funding had gradually allowed for a manager and later a fundraiser, and the staff team had grown to support the house. Six years ago, after careful restoration works, the house opened to the public. And that was where Lucy came in.
As Events and Volunteers Manager, it was up to Lucy to train and manage the many volunteers who welcomed the visitors, sold the tickets, ran the tours, and helped in the kitchen gardens. It fell to Lucy to develop and run the events programme that helped keep visitors returning to Dulcetcoombe and generate much-needed income for its never-ending repairs and upkeep. With the help of the volunteers, Lucy ran the annual Easter egg hunt and summer Discovery Trails and welcomed thousands of local school children every year. But her favourite of all was Christmas.
At Christmastime, Dulcetcoombe was transformed into a wonder of Christmases past, with enormous trees in every room, smothered in red, gold, and silver glass baubles, huge ribbons tied in bows, and decked in warm, twinkling lights. Vast wreaths of greenery ran along the bannisters, and choirs sang carols every day. Outside, carriage rides took people on tours around the wintry grounds as they sipped mulled wine and hot ginger ale, and the gift shop did a roaring trade in anything labelled vintage, Victorian, or traditional.
The Christmas Fayre was a Herculean effort that involved most of the staff and volunteers, and the house was closed entirely for two weeks to allow for all the preparations. It ran for several weeks every year from late November, culminating on Christmas Eve.
Each January, as soon as the decorations were down, Lucy had to begin planning for the next Christmas. So, while most people in January focused on dropping the extra ten pounds they’d added during festivities and assessing the damage to their credit card, Lucy was already thinking about colour schemes, baubles, and Father Christmas. And now, in summer, preparations went up a notch. Lucy had to get the copy for the Christmas brochure to the printers by the end of the week.
Lucy took the stairs to the old servants’ quarters that now housed the staff offices two at a time, the leaky travel mug dribbling coffee over her hand. She stuck her head in to say hi to Sue, Dulcetcoombe’s unflappable manager, and grinned a good morning at Eric, their finance officer, before reaching her shared office at the end of the narrow attic corridor.
As she pushed open the door, she saw Cassie squinting at her computer screen and jabbing numbers into a calculator.
Lucy dug in her bag, slapped the cream-embossed envelope down on Cassie’s desk, and asked, ‘How big a lie is too big a lie?’