My mother finishes and, as she leaves the bathroom, she forgets to hand me my blue toothbrush.
‘Can I’ve a word with you?’ I ask.
‘A word?’ she says, as she smiles; some warmth at last.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Right now.’
We go to my bedroom. I get in under the covers, and so does she. We lie on our backs, up close. Her arm is soft against mine, and before long we breathe together. Her long hair tickles my shoulder and her hand touches my thigh. I want to turn around to her, to have her face closer, but first I have to tell her.
‘Granny lied too.’
She rests her head on her hand, and turns to face me.
‘That’s a very serious thing to say,’ she says.
‘Mammy, I know when people are lying. I feel sick and I know it.’ She looks hard at me for a good while and I try not to blink.
‘What lie did Granny tell?’
I explain about the money, but I don’t say that I took any of it for myself. She sits up now, and doesn’t touch me any more. I close my eyes and wait for her to speak.
‘Did you take any money from Granny’s purse?’
‘No, Mammy. Of course not.’
I stop breathing. My heart thumps so hard I can feel it in my ears. Even though I’m nervous I must pay careful attention to how I feel. It will be important for me to know what lying feels like and to record exactly what it does to my body. I don’t want to lie but if we talk about the money then we won’t talk about my gift. If I tell one truth then more important truths won’t come out.
‘Are you sure?’ she asks.
‘Of course I’m sure.’
I can’t look at her when I tell this lie and I frown to make myself look bothered and a bit cross.
‘That’s good to hear,’ she says.
Good to hear. That’s the same as saying that you know somebody is lying but you like to hear the lie because it makes you feel better than hearing the truth.
‘Good,’ I say.
‘What happens when somebody tells a lie?’ she asks.
‘I feel sick and my ears and neck burn and I notice every single thing that’s happening.’
She stares at the carpet for a while. ‘I want you to promise you won’t say a word to your da or to Granny about this lying business.’
Although she hasn’t told a lie, I know she doesn’t believe me and she’s mostly worried I’ll embarrass myself. She hasn’t asked enough questions and, if she believed me, she would be more curious. She’s normally a person who asks questions, one after another, and I always answer her questions.
‘OK,’ I say. ‘It’ll be our secret.’
‘Let’s not call it a secret. Let’s just … let’s call it our sleeping dog.’
‘What kind of dog?’
‘A red-snorer with long hairy legs that twitch while he’s sleeping.’
She lies down again. We smile but I want more: I want her to hug me. I lift my arm and put it over her shoulder. She puts her arm around my waist. This hasn’t happened for quite a long time.
‘Close your eyes,’ she says. Once I have closed my eyes, she kisses me on the lips.
‘Keep your eyes closed,’ she says.
‘OK,’ I say.
She runs her hand along my side, and feels my hip, but she stops suddenly, pats me twice, takes her hand back to herself. And then she is up, too fast, out of my warm bed.
‘Goodnight,’ she says.
‘But …’
‘Goodnight.’
I sit up till late reading the library book, The Truth about Lie Detection, and with a new pen and a new exercise book I start writing about lies and the way people behave when they lie. I call the book The Gol of Seil and I write about my father’s lie and about my grandmother’s lie and then about my mother’s strange reaction to the truth.
I wonder what will happen when people find out that I have this rare ability? Or when people realise they can’t deceive me? I’ll need to be careful. I’ll need to be very careful.
5
I get up early and climb the narrow stairs to my parents’ bedroom. My grandfather built this loft because he wanted a room away from the rest of the cottage where he could repair jewellery. It has two big windows and a low ceiling. Granny is the only one who doesn’t have to stoop when she goes through the door.
The door is open just enough for me to see inside. My mother is asleep on her side with her foot poking out from under the eiderdown.
My father is not in the bed. He is sleeping on a mattress on the floor under a brown blanket. He is awake, staring up at the ceiling, or perhaps he is asleep with his eyes open. I’m not sure which.
I stand on my toes and stare for too long and he sees me. He must see me, his eyes meet my eyes, but no other part of his face moves. He does not speak or look like he wants to speak. He stares at me, a long and empty stare, and I still do not know if he is awake or asleep.
‘Why are you on the floor?’ I want to ask, and I would have asked this question last week, but now, somehow, I have lost my nerve, the way I do at school, and I walk backwards, feeling along the wall with my hands until I am out of his sight.
The stairs are narrow and I go down sideways, holding tight to the rail.
I make more noise in the kitchen than usual, and hope that my grandmother will hear me from her bedroom at the other end of the cottage. Before long, she comes in.
‘John!’ she says. ‘It’s half six in the morning.’
‘I was hungry.’
‘You little devil. I thought there was a bandit in the house. Come over here.’
‘Sorry,’ I say, but I don’t go to her.
‘Well, I’m awake now. How about you bring me some tea and sit with me a while?’
I make toast and tea and bring it in to her bedroom.
‘If you’re cold,’ she says, ‘you can pop under the covers.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘I’m not cold.’
I sit on the end of her bed and she eats her toast with her mouth wide open, the way she eats everything, as though she has the flu and cannot breathe through her nose.
‘Isn’t it funny,’ I say, ‘how when you have the flu you don’t have a flue to breathe through.’
She pulls her chin in.
‘Like a flue in a chimney …’
‘Oh. I get it now. You’d need to be up nice and early to keep up with you.’
‘But,’ I say, ‘it is early!’
She smiles but the smile fades quickly and her ugly mouth turns down again. ‘You like living here with me, don’t you?’ she asks.
‘Of course,’ I say. ‘It’s much better than before. I can walk on the path I’ve made through the fields to school and I don’t have to catch the bus.’
‘That’s grand,’ she says.
We sit and eat our toast and do not speak.
I finish my toast and she finishes hers. ‘Some more tea would be lovely now,’ she says.
I fetch the tea and, when I bring it in, I leave the tray on her bed and remain standing.
‘Never stand when you can sit,’ she says.
I sit.
‘Where’s your cup?’
‘I’m not having any.’
I sit and watch.
She slurps her tea and smiles at me. She sticks her tongue out to greet the cup before each sip and, after she sips the tea, she smiles at me.
There is only her slurping, and so much silence between us that, when a lorry passes, I am grateful for the noise and the distraction. I look out the window and watch the lorry as it makes its way slowly down the small road that runs alongside the cottage.
My grandmother drains her second cup and an embarrassing whiff of silage floats through the room.
‘What did you see when you went upstairs before?’ she asks.
‘I didn’t see anything.’
‘Did you see your parents in the bed?’