FIBS OR FICTION

Freda cringed inwardly as she remembered the shame. If she closed
her eyes she could feel the roughness of the playground wall through
her thin summer dress. Her hands were splayed out at either side of
her, pressing back against the wall and she felt the sun warmth of it.
She smelt the playground smell of sweaty children, the savoury odour of
numerous packets of crisps and the sweet sharpness of an apple someone
was eating near her.

There were kids surrounding her. They were jeering, taunting, moving
towards her threateningly.

'Fibber, fibber, you're a great big fibber . . . '

She could feel it as if it was happening now.

She opened her eyes and looked round at the familiar bedroom. She had
slept here all her life and now was about to leave it. It was no wonder
that her thoughts were retrospective.

The trauma in the playground had been her own fault. There was no doubt
of that. Thinking further back to when she was quite small, she could
remember her mother standing with her arms folded and a stern
expression on her face.

'Don't fib, Freda. It's the worst possible sin. Do you want to go
straight to Hell?'

Small Freda had been impressed with the seriousness of lying. She had
not been convinced of the need to condemn it quite so ferociously
though, and persisted in answering 'No' to a question that involved her
in any wrongdoing.

'Did you break this, Freda?' 'No'

'Did you move this, Freda?' 'No'

'Did you eat all the sweets, Freda?' 'No'

Usually it was so obvious that she was lying, that she uttered the 'No'
and immediately braced herself for the lecture, and sometimes having
caused such exasperation, the slap as well.

By the time she was of school age, she was what her mother called an
'inveterate liar'. Her father was more laid back about it and admired
her 'active imagination', though not in front of her. Her mother would
never have forgiven him.

Freda was marched to church by her mother twice on Sundays, but it
didn't stop her lying, even after the sermon on 'Truth'. She sat in the
beautiful old church every Sunday and watched the sunlight through the
stained glass windows making patterns on the walls and was in her own
world.

Once when the sermon was on 'Seeing the Light', she accosted the
preacher at the end and told him seriously that she had seen the light.
He was impressed with such a small convert, until she remarked that of
course she couldn't see the light when it was dark outside and the
church lights were on. Once she had come out on a cold wintry day, she
confided, and had seen such a pattern of colours on the snow that she
couldn't move for several seconds. The colours weren't as strong as
with sunlight, but still pretty on the snow. The preacher gave a
strangled sound and turned away. Her mother had walked her home quicker
than usual.

Freda still enjoyed going to church after that, but never again spoke
to the preacher. Her mother saw to that. She liked the antiquity of it
all, and the slightly musty smell. She enjoyed the hugeness of the
sound of the organ filling the space between the ancient walls. She
spent the time inventing stories about the rest of the congregation,
mostly old women with a few men. Their faces told her they had a past,
so she just took it from there.

One day, when she was about ten, her mother told her that her
grandmother was coming to stay. Freda knew of this person only because
of the photo on the wall, a rather sweet-face young woman standing on a
beach with the wind swirling her dress around her. Freda had already
decided she was a glamorous figure, probably a film star. She knew she
would be older now, after all her mother was very old now and she was
her mother.

Freda's imagination went into overdrive. She must have had lots of
husbands by now and be very rich. Freda got a banker's draft from
America every Christmas, which she got to look at before her mother
banked it. Her grandmother would still be glamorous, of course, with
furs and perhaps a couple of little dogs. Probably she would come with
some trusted servants to look after the fur coats and the dogs. Where
would they all sleep?

Now that she was definitely coming, Freda could tell everyone about her
glamorous grandmother. She made up such stories that it was a wonder
the local press didn't become interested, but all those she told had
been sworn to secrecy.

Freda asked her mother why she hadn't seen her before.

'She doesn't like cold wet weather. That's why she went to California
in the first place. That and her ideas.'

'Why haven't we been to visit her?'

'Why should I go there? Heathen place. You can go when you're old
enough. It might suit you.'

Freda ignored the dig. She was excited. No doubt her grandmother had
now retired from films, and in between rich husbands was taking a break
to look up her family. Freda knew that Americans always did this. By
the time her arrival was due, most of the town was agog with
curiosity.

Freda was horrified when she saw her grandmother for the first time.
This old woman couldn't be her glamorous grandmother, her face more
yellow than tanned, skin stretched so taught that Freda was sure she
couldn't change her expression if she tried. The hair was dyed a ginger
colour. The neck looked like a tortoise's, with networks of lines. Her
mother said with a certain satisfaction to Freda'

'Look what happens with too much sunshine and too many face
lifts.'

Freda tried to persuade her to stay indoors. ('It's so cold for you
here, Grandma, best to stay in the warm.') But, no, her little
doddering pathetic grandmother insisted on being seen everywhere with
Freda.

'So this is your little old school? How quaint. And do you really play
on those antique swings?'

Freda tried to pretend she wasn't with her, but her grandmother held
her hand in an iron grip. 'I don't want to get lost, Freddie
dear.'

Freda despaired. It was the Monday after her grandmother's arrival that
the taunts had started. They continued from then on. Even when her
grandmother went back to California, it continued almost gaining
momentum with each day's passing.

It took a long time to 'blow over', as her mother said it would, in
between lecturing her on 'the wages of sin'. Eventually it all died
down, although Freda was always 'Freda the Fibber'.

A few years after this, when Freda was fourteen, they heard that her
grandmother had died. Freda was astonished to read a small obituary in
a national paper. Apparently her grandmother had been a famous
Hollywood scriptwriter. She had never been married, but lived in a
beach house that had been frequented by all the firm stars of the past.
When the details of the will reached them, she discovered that all her
quite considerable wealth had been left to Freda.

Now she was on her way to America. Perhaps there was money in 'fibbing'
after all.