Lies Lies Lies - Adele Parks

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was six years old when he first tasted beer.

      He was bathed and ready for bed wearing soft pyjamas, even though it was light outside; still early. Other kids were in the street, playing on their bikes, kicking a football. He could hear them through the open window, although he couldn’t see them because the blinds were closed. His daddy didn’t like the evening light glaring on the TV screen, his mummy didn’t like the neighbours looking in; keeping the room dark was something they agreed on.

      His mummy didn’t like a lot of things: wasted food, messy bedrooms, Daddy driving too fast, his sister throwing a tantrum in public. Mummy liked ‘having standards’. He didn’t know what that meant, exactly. There was a standard-bearer at Cubs; he was a big boy and got to wave the flag at the front of the parade, but his mummy didn’t have a flag, so it was unclear. What was clear was that she didn’t like him to be in the street after six o’clock. She thought it was common. He wasn’t sure what common was either, something to do with having fun. She bathed him straight after tea and made him put on pyjamas, so that he couldn’t sneak outside.

      He didn’t know what his daddy didn’t like, just what he did like. His daddy was always thirsty and liked a drink. When he was thirsty he was grumpy and when he had a drink, he laughed a lot. His daddy was an accountant and like to count in lots of different ways: ‘a swift one’, ‘a cold one’, and ‘one more for the road’. Sometimes Simon though his daddy was lying when he said he was an accountant; most likely, he was a pirate or a wizard. He said to people, ‘Pick your poison’, which sounded like something pirates might say, and he liked to drink, ‘the hair of a dog’ in the morning at the weekends, which was definitely a spell. Simon asked his mummy about it once and she told him to stop being silly and never to say those silly things outside the house.

      He had been playing with his Etch A Sketch, which was only two months old and was a birthday present. Having seen it advertised on TV, Simon had begged for it, but it was disappointing. Just two silly knobs making lines that went up and down, side to side. Limited. Boring. He was bored. The furniture in the room was organised so all of it was pointing at the TV which was blaring but not interesting. The news. His parents liked watching the news, but he didn’t. His father was nursing a can of the grown ups’ pop that Simon was never allowed. The pop that smelt like nothing else, fruity and dark and tempting.

      ‘Can I have a sip?’ he asked.

      ‘Don’t be silly, Simon,’ his mother interjected. ‘You’re far too young. Beer is for daddies.’ He thought she said ‘daddies’, but she might have said ‘baddies’.

      His father put the can to his lips, glared at his mother, cold. A look that said, ‘Shut up woman, this is man’s business.’ His mother had blushed, looked away as though she couldn’t stand to watch, but she held her tongue. Perhaps she thought the bitterness wouldn’t be to his taste, that one sip would put him off. He didn’t like the taste. But he enjoyed the collusion. He didn’t know that word then, but he instinctively understood the thrill. He and his daddy drinking grown ups’ pop! His father had looked satisfied when he swallowed back the first mouthful, then pushed for a second. He looked almost proud. Simon tasted the aluminium can, the snappy biting bitter bubbles and it lit a fuse.

      After that, in the mornings, Simon would sometimes get up early, before Mummy or Daddy or his little sister, and he’d dash around the house before school, tidying up. He’d open the curtains, empty the ashtrays, clear away the discarded cans. Invariably his mother went to bed before his father. Perhaps she didn’t want to have to watch him drink himself into a stupor every night, perhaps she hoped denying him an audience might take away some of the fun for him, some of the need. She never saw just how bad the place looked by the time his father staggered upstairs to bed. Simon knew it was important that she didn’t see that particular brand of chaos.

      Occasionally there would be a small amount of beer left in one of the cans. Simon would slurp it back. He found he liked the flat, forbidden, taste just as much as the fizzy hit of fresh beer. He’d throw open a window, so the cigarette smoke and the secrets could drift away. When his mother came downstairs, she would smile at him and thank him for tidying up.

      ‘You’re a good boy, Simon,’ she’d say with some relief. And no idea.

      When there weren’t dregs to be slugged, he sometimes opened a new can. Threw half of it down his throat before eating his breakfast. His father never kept count.

      Some people say their favourite smell is freshly baked bread, others say coffee or a campfire. From a very young age, few scents could pop Simon’s nerve endings like the scent of beer.

      The promise of it.

2016

       Chapter 1, Daisy

       Thursday, 9th June 2016

      I don’t think it is a good idea to bring Millie here to the clinic. I’ve said as much to Simon on about half a dozen occasions. Besides the fact that she’s missing her after-school ballet class and she’ll be bored out of her mind, it isn’t the sort of place children should be. There’s the issue of being sensitive to the other patients for a start. It’s too easy to imagine that people who are trying for a child adore every kid they encounter; it’s not always the case, sometimes they outright dislike them, even adorable ones like Millie. It’s too painful. Millie’s tinkling chatter in the waiting room might inadvertently irritate, cause upset. It sounds extreme, but infertility is a raw and painful matter. Plus, I’m worried about what to do with her when we go into the consultancy room for a chat with the doctor. This is only a chat. That’s all I’ve agreed to. Yet, I can’t very well have her sit through a conversation about sperm and ovulation, the possibility (because it’s not a probability) of her having a sibling. But nor am I comfortable with the idea of leaving her with the receptionist; she’s just six.

      We hadn’t initially planned to bring her with us but at the last moment our childminding arrangements fell through, as child-minding arrangements are wont to do. We had little choice. I wanted to postpone the meeting. For ever, actually, but Simon was eager to get talking about the options and said postponing was out of the question. She would come with.

      ‘The sooner we know what’s wrong, the sooner we can get it fixed,’ he said optimistically, his face alive with a big, hopeful grin.

      ‘There’s nothing wrong, we’re just old,’ I pointed out.

      ‘Older. Not old. Not too old. Lots of women give birth at forty-five years of age,’ he insisted. ‘Some of those are first-time mothers. The fact that we’ve already had Millie means you’re in a better position than those women.’

      I think the fact that we already have Millie means we should leave the matter alone. Be content with one child. I think contentment is an extremely underrated life goal. Simon holds no truck with contentment. He likes to be deliriously happy or miserable. He’d never admit as much but we’ve been together seventeen years and I know him better than he knows himself. It seems to me that we have spent far too much of our married life in clinics such as this one. Places with beige walls and tempered expectations, places that take your cash and hope but can’t guarantee anything in return. When we had Millie – our miracle! – I thought all this aggravation, frustration and discontent was behind us for good. One is enough for me. I had thought, hoped, it would be enough for Simon.

      Millie is perfect.

      We shouldn’t push our luck. I’ve always been a ‘count your blessings’ sort of person. I don’t want an embarrassment of riches, I prefer to scrape under the radar with a sufficiency. Simon and I do not think alike on this. Obviously, he agrees Millie is perfect. For him, it’s her very perfection that’s driving him want to make more babies.

      For

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