“Oh, I see,” I said, losing interest.
“He meant our true self only appears when there is no one to perform to—no audience, no applause. No expectation to be met. Playing serves no practical purpose, I suppose, and requires no reward. It is its own reward.”
“I see.”
“Don’t write your story for an audience, Elliot. Write it for yourself.” Mariana gave me an encouraging look. “Write it for the kid.”
I smiled politely. “I’ll think about it.”
Before she left, Mariana suggested I might find it helpful to talk to her colleague, whom she had come here to visit. “You should say hello to him, at least. You’ll like him, I’m sure. He’s very easy to talk to. It might help.”
“Perhaps I will.” I smiled. “I could certainly use someone to talk to.”
“Good.” She looked pleased. “His name’s Theo.”
“Theo. Is he a therapist here?”
“No.” Mariana hesitated. For a split second, she looked embarrassed. “He’s an inmate, like you.”
* * *
As a writer, I am habitually prone to fleeing reality. To making things up and telling stories.
Mariana once asked me about this, in a therapy session. She asked why I spent my life making things up. Why write? Why be creative?
I felt surprised she needed to ask. To me, the answer was painfully obvious. I was creative because, when I was a child, I was dissatisfied with the reality I was forced to endure. So, in my imagination, I created a new one.
That’s where all creativity is born, I believe—in the desire to escape.
Bearing that in mind, I took Mariana’s advice. If I wrote my story down, it might set me free. As she advised, I didn’t write it for publication—or performance. I wrote it for myself.
Well, perhaps that’s not quite true.
You see, when I first sat down, at the narrow desk in my cell, to write, I felt a strange, dissociated anxiety. Once, I would have ignored it—lit a cigarette or had another coffee or a drink to distract myself.
But now, I knew it was the kid who was anxious, not me. His mind was racing; he was terrified of this document. Who might read it and discover the truth about him, and what would the consequences be? I told him not to worry—I wouldn’t abandon him. We were in it together, he and I, to the bitter end.
I took the kid and placed him gently on the single bed beside me. I told him to settle down—and I told him a bedtime story.
This is a story for anyone who has ever loved, I said.
It was a rather unusual bedtime story, perhaps—but full of incident and adventure, with goodies and baddies, heroines, and wicked witches.
I must say, I’m rather proud of it. It’s one of the best things I’ve written. It’s certainly the most honest.
And in the spirit of that honesty, allow me, before we part, to tell you one final story. About me, and Barbara West, and the night she died.
I think you’ll find it illuminating.
* * *
After Barbara fell down the stairs, I hurried down after her.
I examined the body on the floor, at the foot of the staircase. Once I had made sure she was dead, I went into her study. Before I called the ambulance, I wanted to make sure she hadn’t left anything incriminating behind. Perhaps she had written or photographic evidence of all those things she had accused me of? I wouldn’t put it past Barbara to keep a secret diary, detailing my misdemeanors.
I methodically went through her desk drawers—until finally, at the back of the bottom drawer, I found something unexpected. Seven thin notebooks, bound together with elastic.
A diary, I thought, as I opened them up. But I quickly realized what I held in my hands wasn’t a diary.
It was a handwritten play—by Barbara West.
It was about me and her, and our life together. It was the meanest, most devastating, most brilliant thing I’d ever read in my life.
So what did I do?
I tore off the title page and made it my own.
I’m not really a writer, you see. I have no real talent for anything; except lying. I’m certainly no good at writing stories.
Let’s face it—I couldn’t even plot a murder.
I’ve only ever had one story to tell. And now that I’ve told it, I can’t bring myself to destroy it. Instead, I’ll lock it away until I am dead. Then, if everything goes according to plan, this can be published, posthumously. The intrigue surrounding it should make it a bestseller—which will give me a great deal of satisfaction; even from beyond the grave.
Joking aside—if you’re reading this, then these are the words of a dead man. That’s the final twist. I didn’t get out alive, either. No one does, in the end.
But let’s not dwell on that.
Let us end, instead, as we began—with Lana.
She’s still here, you know. I haven’t entirely lost her. She lives on in my mind.
When I’m lonely, or afraid, or I miss her—which is all the time—all I have to do is close my eyes.
Then, I’m right back there—a little boy in the movie theater, in the fifteenth row.
And I gaze at her, smiling, in the dark.
Acknowledgments
It’s impossible for anyone to write a book like this without standing on the shoulders of giants who did it first and did it much better, so I feel I must begin by acknowledging the debt of gratitude I owe writers like Agatha Christie, Anthony Shaffer, Patricia Highsmith, and Ford Madox Ford, for inspiring me and The Fury. They say it takes a village—which was never more true than for this book. So many people helped me along the way. I had a lot of fun writing this story and exploring this world, but I got seriously lost in the woods a few times. My brilliant editors, Ryan Doherty at Celadon and Joel Richardson at Michael Joseph, and agent extraordinaire Sam Copeland always helped me find the path again. Thank you, my friends—you went above and beyond the call of duty.
I’d like to thank my U.S. and U.K. publishers for doing such an amazing job. Your tireless dedication and sheer talent bowls me over. At Celadon, I owe a huge thanks to Deb Futter, Jamie Raab, Rachel Chou, Christine Mykityshyn, and Anne Twomey. I’d also like to thank Jennifer Jackson, Jaime Noven, Sandra Moore, Rebecca Ritchey, Cecily van Buren-Freedman, Liza Buell, Randi Kramer, and Julia Sikora. Thank you, Will Staehle and Erin Cahill, for the fab cover. And in Production, thank you, Jeremy Pink, Vincent Stanley, Emily Walters, and Steve Boldt. And a big thank-you to the Macmillan sales team.
At Michael Joseph, I’d like to give massive thanks to Louise Moore, Maxine Hitchcock, Grace Long, and Sarah Bance. Also, Ellie Hughes, Sriya Varadharajan, Vicky Photiou, Hattie Evans, and Lee Motley.
At Rogers, Coleridge & White, I owe a big thank-you to Peter Straus, Honor Spreckley, David Dunn, Nelka Bell, and Chris Bentley-Smith. And extra-special thanks to the foreign rights agents, who simply are the best in the business—Tristan Kendrick, Katharina Volckmer, Stephen Edwards, and Sam Coates.
I would also like to thank Nedie Antoniades, for kicking the story around with me in its embryonic form, and for suggesting the character of Nikos. And for your incredibly helpful notes, which elevated the final drafts considerably, thank you to Sophie Hannah, Hannah Beckerman, Hal Jensen, David Fraser, Emily Holt, and Uma Thurman.
Thank you, Ivan Fernandez Soto, for your help and sound advice. Thanks, Katie Haines, for being such a star and always making everything so much fun. Thank you, Olga Mavropoulou, for lending me your wonderful name.
And finally, thank you to my parents, George and Christine Michaelides, and my sisters, Emily Holt and Vicky Holt, for all your support.