Free The Liar's Chair by Rebecca Whitney Page A

up what is essentially a grown man’s den.
    My coat hangs on a hook in front of the glass panel on the back door, blocking out the daylight and throwing a shadow over the table. The fabric was smoky from the pub and I’d dropped it
on the floor, so Will must have hung it up this morning. On top of the table, folded in a pile for each of us, are the rest of our clothes. Last night they’d been scattered in a line towards
the bedroom, like Hansel and Gretel breadcrumbs.
    After sex, Will had buried his face in my hair. ‘We could go away, you and me,’ he’d said. ‘I could arrange a boat, no one would know, we could disappear.’ I lay on
his stripy nylon sheets and stared at the ceiling, tracing the damp spots in the plaster above my head and joining up the dots, thinking how true it is that without women most men fall apart; they
eat crap, they die young – there’s no one to tell them to go to the doctor’s. And so I stroked his head, kissed him, told him I’d consider it, slipping into role and making
myself real to him because it felt good to be needed, all the while resisting the realization that he mattered to me. With the worst of what I throw at him, Will keeps letting me back; he remains
consistent, his feelings unconditional. The sense that I don’t deserve his attention overrides the strong temptation to jump in, and of course there is always the background hum of David, my
loyalty to him more of an addiction. After all these years of being guided through my life, without him I would be rudderless.
    In the kitchen, a mug of hot tea is plonked on the table in front of me. Spills lap over the sides and Will mops them up immediately then returns to his washing-up. He wears tracksuit bottoms
covered in splashes of paint, and on his feet are a trodden-down pair of slippers. The radio plays music. He turns it up, swaying his hips to an old Smiths song, then turns to face me with a soapy
washing-up brush in one rubber-gloved hand and a cigarette in the other, smiling his huge smile. He sings along to the track.
    The butt end of his fag is soggy. He drags sharply on it then raises his hands in the air as if this is a connecting moment for us, hauling us back to some utopian youth where the world was at
our feet. His youth may have been like that, but mine passed me by.
    The kitchen clock reads 9.30. Through the window, thick clouds steal up the last of the blue sky, and the sun dims like a switch. Will turns on the kitchen light. The unshaded bulb has little
effect.
    ‘D’you remember this one?’ he says, taking a swig of his tea, still swaying to the music. Even at uni I’d never really liked The Smiths – all that sleeve-wearing
emotion – and I pretend I don’t know the song. Will laughs and sings, muffled with the cigarette still in his mouth. ‘I used to play this one with the band.’
    He turns his back to resume his sink duties, dancing at the worktop, the baggy movement of his muscles pressing through the fabric of his trousers, and I question why it is that I like him. With
David there was no choice; it never felt like a romance, more a togetherness with no question of it being other; we were a given, he made me his. With Will, I shouldn’t keep coming back
– there’s no practical future here, and it would be dangerous for both of us if David found out – but each time I see Will the sensation of
us
grows stronger. It comes from
nowhere I know how to control. I gulp down my tea, and with it any desire to make this a reality. As the liquid hits the dregs of last night’s spirits in my stomach, nausea rises up.
    A text-ping comes from inside my coat. I stand, giddy for a moment, the alcohol still thick in my blood, and walk to the door to fish my mobile from the pocket. Scrolling through the messages I
notice missed calls as well, all from David. The texts start with a brusque, ‘Where are you?’ at midnight, and end with the most recent, ‘I will find you both.’
    His