After the Lie: A gripping novel about love, loss and family secrets by Kerry Fisher Page A

after sixteen years of strict adherence to rational, hands-to-yourself-whatever-the-provocation parenting. Unable to find a small explanation that didn’t drag in a huge one, I’d gone on the attack.
    Mark had stayed calm as I’d become more hysterical. ‘I’m worried about you. You’ve been so bad-tempered and snappy lately. Do you think you need to go and see someone?’
    I’d considered telling him the truth. But the truth was so unwieldy now, a great avalanche of omissions ready to thunder through so many people’s lives, sweeping away everything we took for granted. How could I explain now that the slapping scene over the broken iPad was just the tip of an ancient iceberg blundering through the family sea? I couldn’t find the words to start that discussion.
    I took my coffee from Sean.
    He sat. I sipped. A toddler running away from his mother stuck his tongue out at me. I pulled a face back, delaying the moment, now it was here. Sean was still good-looking. Still assumed he was top of the tree and everyone else was blessed to bask in his shade. He bent over to bring out a folder from his briefcase. I liked folders. Papers. Plans. Organising. Certainty.
    When he looked up again, I spoke, my voice coming out in a funny squeak. ‘Do you know who I am?’
    He stirred his coffee and laughed. ‘Off with his head! Of course I know who you are. I knew as soon as I saw you. Like the blonde. Wasn’t convinced you’d want me greeting you like a long-lost friend the other day, though.’
    I really thought I might slap him. He looked delighted to see me as though I was some classmate he hadn’t seen for an age and we were about to embark on a ‘Do you remember?’ session about rosy times past. I swallowed.
    ‘So, Sal, how did it all pan out for you in the end? Rumour has it you’ve done pretty well for yourself, with the event business and all that. Melanie was filling me in.’
    ‘Don’t call me Sally. Sally doesn’t exist anymore.’ I hoped he hadn’t been filling in Melanie, in return.
    ‘Bit extreme, wasn’t it? Changing your name and moving away? I mean, I know it all got a bit out of hand but I didn’t realise you were going to do a Lord Lucan.’
    ‘Sean. It didn’t get “out of hand”. My dad went to prison. He was never able to teach again. You know, the job that was his whole life? He ended up working as a gardener while my mother got a job as a bookkeeper to keep us afloat.’
    I shook my head to dislodge the image of my dad sitting blankfaced in his armchair in the weeks after he came out of prison. My mother urging him to change out of his pyjamas, go for a walk, play golf. Cajoling, coaxing and then shouting. Shouting so loud that I’d hide in my room, my ear pressed against the radio on full volume, trying to drown out her voice.
    I could have sworn one of Sean’s shoulders raised a couple of centimetres in a shrug.
    ‘It was a bit of a mess, wasn’t it? To be fair though, a bloke with an unpredictable temper like that shouldn’t really be teaching kids, should he?’
    His words acted as a screwdriver jabbed into an already seeping, weeping wound. I breathed out slowly. ‘My dad wouldn’t hurt a fly and you know it. He had never behaved like that before or since.’
    Some of the bravado slipped. ‘Yeah. I know. I liked your dad. I did feel bad about what happened.’
    ‘Bad’ didn’t even begin to cover it. ‘Nice of you to press charges.’ I never knew bitterness had a taste before. I could feel it, souring my saliva, scorching down my oesophagus.
    ‘Come on. You know my dad. He was a tough old boy, brought up to protect his own. He didn’t care much for school, anyway. He always liked a pop at authority. I was just a kid. I didn’t know which way was up, back then. Thought the old man had all the answers. And your dad did crack one of my ribs and break my nose.’ He fingered the slight bump.
    I couldn’t shake off the feeling that Sean was still viewing it as a prank