58 pages • 1 hour read
Ruth WareThe Lying Game
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 42-50Chapter Summaries & Analyses
“Rule Four: Never Lie to Each Other”
Chapter 42 Summary
This chapter begins section four of the novel, “Rule Four: Never Lie to Each Other.” Owen is glad to see Isa and Freya, though he is surprised they are back so soon. Owen’s questioning frustrates Isa. Isa wants to tell Owen the truth but does not want to betray her friends. Meanwhile, police positively identify Ambrose’s body. Isa buys a pack of cigarettes and smokes one, then feels dirty and showers before feeding Freya. Isa lies to Owen and says she threw away the package. Isa receives a bouquet of red roses from Luc with a note apologizing for his behavior. Later, Isa gives Owen a watered-down explanation about a misunderstanding over Freya, then says she does not want to talk about it. Isa throws away the roses.
Chapter 43 Summary
Isa has difficulty sleeping. She believes that she must constantly stay alert and protect Freya. As she lays in bed beside Owen and Freya, she thinks about Luc. Isa remembers that Luc was “beautiful enough to break your heart” (232). She recalls how much she desired Luc and admits that Luc was her first crush. She fantasizes about Luc lying on the jetty in the moonlight, and about reaching out her hand to touch him. In her fantasy, Luc opens his eyes. She kisses him, and, unlike years ago, he returns her kiss. Isa represses these images and scolds herself, saying she is a grown woman, not a schoolgirl anymore.
Chapter 44 Summary
Isa sets up a meeting with Thea and Fatima to make sure they are alright, to tell them about Luc’s roses, and to ensure they are sticking to their story. Isa worries that one of them will crack. Isa tells Owen she is meeting people from her birthing class. Isa knows that Owen wonders about the roses. At bedtime, Owen and Isa are intimate. Owen thinks Isa has been acting strangely since visiting Kate, but Isa does not want to talk about it. They fight over sharing care for Freya. Isa is angry and does not want to deal with relationship issues.
Chapter 45 Summary
Isa receives an envelope with a Salten postmark filled with several photocopies of Ambrose’s drawings of her. She feels as though she is having a heart attack upon viewing them. She shoves the pictures back in the envelope, knowing it is now even more important to talk to Thea and Fatima. Owen and Freya wave to her as she leaves for her meeting. To explain the time she lingered in the hallway over the envelope, Isa lies and says she was checking train times.
Chapter 46 Summary
Fatima and Thea also receive an envelope of drawings. The women think the pictures must be from the school, or that Kate lied when she said she destroyed them. They wonder if Kate could be blackmailing them. Fatima knows the school would not send the pictures, because they point to an abuse situation, which the school would be in trouble for covering up. By drawing them naked, Ambrose abused his position as a teacher. Fatima argues that the public would see the pictures as a motive for the girls to murder Ambrose: victims striking back. The girls wonder if Luc or Mary Wren could be responsible. They also realize that the if school did not receive the drawings until after Ambrose died, then either someone was blackmailing him and he killed himself before the situation exploded, or someone murdered him.
Chapter 47 Summary
Isa tries to work through the timeline again and considers possible murder suspects. Luc would not kill Ambrose because he suffered the most loss from Ambrose’s death. The villagers may have blackmailed him but not killed him. Later, Thea reluctantly shares a conversation she had with Ambrose in which he was talking about a decision he needed to make because what was happening was “all wrong” (251). Thea believes he was planning to send Kate away. Isa remembers Ambrose as a non-judgmental, supportive, loving counselor who would never subject Kate or the other girls to any public humiliation. His love for Kate was boundless. Isa wonders what Kate did to make Ambrose want to send her away—or what Ambrose might have done.
Chapter 48 Summary
Isa remembers bits of Ambrose’s suicide note that talked about love, protection, and sacrifice (254). Isa knows that Ambrose was happy, loved his family, loved his art, and did not care about his reputation. As a parent, Isa feels she would not willingly leave Freya, and believes Ambrose would not have killed himself and left Kate. Meanwhile, Isa gets into a fight with Owen about Freya. Owen comments that he was “led to believe” (256) Freya is his child, too. Isa interprets his remark as a suggestion that Freya has a different father, which is not what Owen meant. Instead, he feels excluded from caring for her. Isa knows she is in the wrong but continues to spar back at him, then walks away. Isa fears talking to Owen because she might tell the “truth” (257).
Chapter 49 Summary
Isa pledges to let Owen take a larger role in caring for Freya, and Owen treats Isa to a spa-day off. When she gets home, she finds Owen waiting with her hidden cigarettes and the envelope of pictures. Owen asks about the pictures, and if she is having an affair with Luc. When Isa lies about the pictures, Owen calls her a liar. He leaves, and is gone all night. Isa is angry at herself and Owen. Owen returns, and Isa sees that if she offers an explanation, Owen will accept it. While she tries to come up with “the right words” (266), Kate calls asking Isa to return to Salten. Isa agrees. Owen furiously asks whether Isa cares about him or their relationship. Isa says that Kate needs her. Shen then tells him goodbye, packs up Freya, and leaves.
Chapter 50 Summary
Isa wonders if she has left Owen for good. She feels that Owen’s accusations of infidelity are unfair. Granted, she is lying to him, and has been keeping secrets since “the day they met” (271), but the idea of having a passionate liaison with someone is ludicrous. Isa wants to tell Owen the truth but is glad that she cannot because it isn’t wholly her secret to share. Plus, she does not want him to know the truth—she thinks he might not love her. Additionally, she does not want to damage Owen’s career in the Home Office. Kate meets Isa at Salten, and they return to the Tide Mill. It is after midnight, and Kate tells Isa they will talk in the morning.
Chapters 42-50 Analysis
Ware introduces two new plot twists: the possibility that someone murdered Ambrose, and the personal threats against each woman in the form of the compromising drawings. Both new developments raise the individual stakes for the friends. Now, they could face murder charges, if, as Fatima theorizes, the drawings become public and police suspect they were abuse victims out for revenge. They also face an unknown adversary who is toying with them: to punish them, to blackmail them, or both.
Several red herrings also appear. Thea interprets her oblique conversation with Ambrose to mean that he was going to send Kate away, although Ambrose does not specifically name Kate. Learning about this conversation makes the women suspicious of Kate. Compounding this doubt, the women also know that Kate lied about destroying the drawings, breaking a cardinal rule in the Game and damaging their trust. Isa also entertains the possibility that there may be some truth to the village rumors about sexual abuse, and Ambrose could have done something to Kate.
All these developments magnify Isa’s feelings of fear and guilt. Isa does not sleep well; grinding her teeth and having nightmares when she does rest. Again, Ware invites comparison to Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth, and its theme of guilt. The character of Macbeth, who, after killing Duncan, thinks he hears a voice cry, “‘Sleep no more! / Macbeth does murder sleep’—the innocent sleep, / Sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care,” (Macbeth 2.2.47-49). Guilt prevents Macbeth, and Isa, from sleeping. Isa also experiences more sensations of choking. Like Macbeth, who is unable to utter “Amen” (Macbeth 2.2.44), Isa has trouble swallowing and getting words out; the words stick in her throat.
Isa is aware of her culpability. She is not innocent. She gets bloodstains on the white baby clothes, and disposes of them, thinking, “the perfect, innocent little things, are ruined and soiled, and I will never feel the same way about them again” (230). Like Lady Macbeth, Isa feels her hands are forever stained; that she is corrupted.
Isa’s guilt also leads to irrational thought, more lies, and hypocrisy as her psychological state becomes more fragile. Freya is one of Isa’s coping mechanisms. Isa comments that Freya is “the only thing keeping me sane right now” (259). Isa projects her fears and anxiety onto the infant. Isa incorrectly believes she alone is responsible for Freya’s well-being. She calls Freya “mine” and selfishly ensures that her bond with the baby is dominant by preventing Owen from participating fully in Freya’s care. Isa’s fears for the child—the reason Isa says she cannot sleep—are also irrational. For instance, Isa entertains the implausible idea that “a fox could slink into the open bathroom window and maul her” (231). Not a reasonable belief, it is Isa’s guilty thinking.
Isa admits that she has been keeping secrets from Owen her whole life, but now she is “outright lying” to him (271)—and to herself. She rationalizes that telling him the truth is impossible, but Isa’s lies are destroying their relationship.
Owen becomes a potential threat to her lies—someone to be deceived and held at arm’s length. When Owen asks if Isa cares about them, she admits, “I do. Of course I do. But […]” (268). She repeats her assertion as if to convince herself, then negates the sentiment with the “but.” Most of Isa’s accusations against Owen are things she is lying about to cover herself. Isa declares that she has no libido and that the idea of having an affair is ludicrous, yet she fantasizes about Luc while lying next to Owen. Isa also lies about Ambrose’s picture. Isa does value Kate above Owen. Isa also hypocritically does exactly what she self-righteously accuses Owen of doing: walking out on her partner without hearing him out. Additionally, Isa takes “her” baby from him.
Isa works to persuade herself that she is not at fault for their fight, and that she is trying to “save” the relationship (270). Yet Isa shows that when the truth threatens and her lies get exposed, she attacks, faulting Owen for her choices to lie and leave.
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By Ruth Ware
