The Big Lie Read Free Page A

standards as the boys, when they didn’t conversely have to worry about perfecting their crocheting or learning how to do laundry?) But now all this marching and shooting wasn’t good enough for Frau Hart? What on earth did she actually want?
    The way the Harts had made their entrance that afternoon had not escaped the attention of my mother – how they’d gone through a showy display of greeting everyone, then stepped straight up onto their soapbox in praise of Herr Dean without expressing the proper amount of grief for the death of Herr Erlichmann. How they’d not bothered to say hello to their hosts. How they’d just abandoned their gift of cherry wine on a nearby table.
    Mum made her way to our side of the patio and thrust a platter of her famous mushroom pastry parcels into the middle of the Harts’ conversation.
    ‘Hi, Jocelyn,’ Mum said, all smiles. A turn of the head and then, ‘Hi, Simon.’
    It was nothing really, but, oh, the steel fist! All conversations stopped. Mum looked from Frau Hart to Herr Hart, waiting for a greeting in return, waiting for them to take her food.
    ‘Guten Tag, Miriam,’ said Frau Hart.
    ‘Guten Tag, Miriam,’ said Herr Hart.
    They picked up a mushroom pastry parcel each. Mum watched, waiting for them to take a bite. Everyone watched, waiting for them to take a bite. And once they had, still we waited.
    ‘Mmm,’ said Frau Hart, eventually understanding what was expected of her.
    Those mushroom pastry parcels were well renowned among the residents of the County Roads Estate. Mum was generous with the recipe, but no one could get them to come out exactly like hers. I think this was because, when Mum copied out the ingredients, she always left out something small but really quite crucial.
    ‘Yum! Das ist lecker, Miriam!’ said Herr Hart.
    Mum nodded, satisfied. Then she went on her way.
    Sometimes, when I think back to that moment, I hear my mother whispering, ‘Be careful,’ at the Harts as she headed off, but I wonder if I have added that in afterwards from my own imagination. Still, I had much to learn from my mother. A steady flow of little knocks and taps, that is how you make a person know who’s in charge. Softly, softly catchee monkey.
    When Clementine finally arrived at the garden party (‘How was your homework?’ I asked. ‘Wasn’t doing any,’ she said) we shook off Ruby Heigl and Erica Warner at the juice table and disappeared down to the end of the garden. We didn’t feel too old to climb up onto the log swing tied to the tallest elm, so we took it in turns, kicking off in the dust, hanging backwards, watching the clouds slide behind the branches, letting our hair collect leaves from the garden floor.
    That summer, Clementine was also at her peak. She had all of a sudden grown up – a ghost girl no more. I began to feel something very strongly for her. Envy. That’s what I thought it was.
    I watched as she threw herself back on the swing, her T-shirt riding up, her flat, white belly exposed to the air. She stuck one pointed bare foot out to get more height. She made these little grunts of effort that stirred something strange inside me.
    I was devastated that Clementine wasn’t going to be at the BDM meetings any more. If it was no longer compulsory, she wouldn’t go. I knew that. She wouldn’t be there on the camping trips, the hostel evenings, the rallies at Crystal Palace – all those moments in life when you feel the world is so good your heart might burst, she wouldn’t be there … And I couldn’t talk to her about it, mostly because Clem was now as outspoken as her mother. She would want to tell me how happy she was to be free of it all. I couldn’t bear that. So I let her babble away about other things. I loved to listen. Her voice had grown up too. She drawled a little, like she was half asleep, but with an end-of-sentence lilt that grabbed you by the collar and pulled you close.
    ‘Soooo, they take this banana, right,’ she was