The Stepmother (12 page)

L
et
us take a pause here in our story. Allow me to pose a question, if I may…

Why exactly do
you
think, dear readers, why do you think little Snow White’s stepmother struggled with her so?

Was it merely because the girl was younger – and youth is always to be coveted?

Was it because the girl was the queen’s daughter, who was first recipient of the king’s great love?

Was it, perhaps, because the king loved her – his little Snow White, firstborn – more than he could ever love the stepmother?

Or was it because Snow White was a spoilt, precocious little cow, used to getting her own way all the time?

W
hen I open
the bathroom door, the blood in the basin is very red against the white porcelain. So red it shocks me.

I look at it, and then I run the taps – and it washes clean away.

Scarlett shocked me too today. She’s friendly again, which is a huge relief. Well not even again – friendly for the first time.

I didn’t ask why she’d arrived in the middle of the night, but I got the feeling she’d had some kind of altercation at home. She’s got a new kitten apparently, a fluffy Burmese this time, called Bella, who is safely at Scarlett’s mother’s house – thank God!

At least,
I thought, somewhat bitterly, looking at the photo of the kitten on Scarlett’s iPhone,
if anything goes wrong, I can’t be blamed this time.

‘Sam Smith, the singer, loves these apparently,’ I said as we made smoothies together: peanut butter and jelly ones. I hoped Scarlett would appreciate my trivia knowledge.

‘I told my mum how pretty you are.’ Scarlett ignored the trivia, licking jammy fingers.

‘Oh.’ I was really surprised. ‘Gosh.’ I turned the whizzer on to hide my shock, the rush of sudden emotion.

‘She wants to meet you.’ She was intense suddenly.

‘That was very nice of you, to say that.’ I was flushing, I knew, but I was very touched. I didn’t know what had changed – but it was nice.

I caught our reflections in the window opposite as I whizzed up the mixture again. We would never pass for mother and daughter: she was all pale skin and dark hair like Matthew, with her mother’s blue eyes, I assumed. I was shorter, brown-eyed and – mousey? Dark blonde, my friend Jill used to tease. Mousey, I’d say.

And I didn’t want to talk about meeting Kaye now. ‘I think you’ll like this.’ I handed Scarlett a glass. ‘And it’s pretty healthy too. That’s a win-win in my book!’

I’d have been happy to meet up with Kaye in the beginning. I’d even suggested it after I’d read my book. But now it felt too late.

Scarlett and I watched
Celebrity Big Brother –
and I thought it was one of the most awful, dystopian things I’d ever seen, with people sniping and snarling at each other like animals. Then they talked about how ‘authentic’ they were, ‘
telling it how it is
’.

Where was the good in this cruel, selfish kind of honesty? It was boundary-less. Talk about survival of the fittest.

But Scarlett enjoyed it, and for the first time ever, I enjoyed my time with Scarlett.

Afterwards I felt we’d both actually relaxed for once. We’d even chatted a bit about boys and school, although she was quite reticent about the boy thing. ‘There’s someone I quite like,’ she said, painting her nails neon pink, ‘but I’m not sure he likes me.’

When Matthew popped his head round the door, back from a screening of
Star Wars
with Luke at the local Odeon, his own surprised smile reflected the happy situation.

Do I trust it though?
I asked myself as Matt brought us tea and kissed me. I snuggled into him, scolding myself for being cynical. Enjoy it, I told myself. It might not last.

I
try
to forget about the birds – but I keep seeing the holly stuck in their entrails.

Marlena texts to ask: am I okay? And I reply: yes.

I don’t bring it up again with Matthew, but I know they were there. The wretched birds, like a warning.

If I don’t come clean, it’ll be the end.

O
kay so the
dead bird thing did freak me a bit – but to be honest, I just thought it must have been the neighbour’s cat or something, and Jeanie was just tired and stressed about Matthew and overreacting.

And just when I was about to go up to Berkhamsted and stay for a night, I got another lead on Nasreen. A different type of lead that led me away from the fundamentalists. As I was still trying to clear my blotted copybook, I had no choice but to go with it. My career’s been in free fall for the past few years. You know why.

Oh. You don’t?

Look at the videos on YouTube.

It’s all there. Google Leveson; search for ‘iniquitous journalists’. You can see a clip of me, if it’s still online, after I turned myself in. I wore a skirt suit and everything: trying to clothe my remorse correctly.

I gave evidence at the enquiry, racked with guilt over a case where I’d listened to the mother of a dead boy howling down the phone to her husband, maddened by the depths of her grief. Something no one should hear unless they are part of the
equation.

Something no one should ever hear, in an ideal world, full stop.

So I ‘grew a pair’ – as Dave from the print room used to say – and came clean.

It took a week holed up in a Blackpool B&B, not sleeping, necking whisky, dipping into a bottle of diazepam – and, er, a gram or two of finest Peruvian. I played arcade games into the early hours like when I was a kid – but once I’d got the bender out of my system (never chopped a line since), I contacted the top bods at the Press Complaints Commission.

I asked for a meeting, and I struck a deal. Having done that, I told the truth about my misdemeanours over the past few years. A good few years.

It was hard. I had to take some of my mates down with me; I’d been taught by the best. The worst, if you like.

I avoided jail because I ‘snitched’. You can make your own mind up about whether that was fair or not. I never lied or coerced anyone into talking, I want to say that much. I only listened, sometimes inappropriately.

I think I’ve paid my dues – I’m still paying them actually.

I sold one flat and downsized, moving to get away from the haters. Thank God I’d already bought, because I lost most of my immediate income – and of course I had few savings. Colleagues spilled their vitriol down the line. I received threats and a promise from my big boss that I’d never get paid for another word I wrote (I’ll leave you to take a guess who that boss was. These days I never write
anything
down that might incriminate me).

I had the sneering public spitting in my face once or twice – and celebrities threatening to sue. The father of the boy came pretty close to thumping me outside the court when I tried to apologise; he’d have succeeded if a policewoman hadn’t restrained him.

I’d like to say he couldn’t have felt any worse than I did, but we all know that’s not true.

I was truly sorry. I didn’t sleep properly for months; I got thin, which was quite good, I felt shit, which wasn’t. I broke up with my then boyfriend – who I actually quite liked, for once.

What else can I say? I was young when I got my first job on the
Star
; my career was everything. I’d not gone to college – I’d begged a job on the local paper. I’d worked so hard. I’d worked and worked because I was addicted to it: the money, the buzz, the belonging to something.

It was a way out of the gutter. I loved it; I loved the thrill of the chase, of a good story.

But I proved I was no better than the guttersnipes I worked with.

The trouble with ‘fessing up’ was that, whilst I might have cleared my conscience an iota, I also became public enemy number fucking one – and then Fleet Street’s scapegoat on top of that. I was an easy target for all the wrongdoings of my profession. I could have everything laid at my door by unscrupulous editors trying to save their own skins. Even though the majority of the tabloid journalists had been at it, they certainly hadn’t all owned up.

I was deeply unhireable for a while. At one point I looked at going to America; the
National Enquirer
would probably have welcomed me with open arms.

But I couldn’t leave England in the end – I couldn’t leave my family. Even though I hardly saw them, I felt tied.

So when I got the magazine job and then the other gig, through a sympathetic former sub-editor of mine, lecturing on the pros and cons of social media and the digital age of journalism, both were no-brainers.

At the same time, my appetite was whetted by the need to do good. After I met a journalist called Laila Shah at a gender and race conference, I started working with her and then on my own when she went out to Lebanon. I began looking into young Muslim girls in suburban secondaries being groomed by radicals. It wasn’t scary – it was vital.

Except even that wasn’t as straightforward as it first seemed…

I
t’s cracking now
: for real, this time.

How naïve I’ve been – I’m so angry with myself for not seeing the truth. And for letting myself be caught out like this. I’ve been an idiot – an absolute and complete fool.

No surprise there
, I hear my mother’s voice saying.
You always were a bit wet, love.

Piss off, Mum
, I surprise myself by thinking.

Mothers and daughters. That’s nearly always a tricky one in my book.

I listened to a radio phone-in earlier on mother love.

Unconditional, a woman was saying; a parent’s love is unconditional, naturally.

The psychologist disagreed.

I disagreed too.
In your dreams, love
, I thought.

Some mothers can’t do it. Some just aren’t up to it. Many can’t see past their own needs; they use their children as validation of something. As a mirror for what they need.

And some are too frightened; some – like Marlena – are too damaged to trust themselves, so they get out before the harm’s done.

I
feel motivated
and energised this morning when I get up: I go for a run around the Common, and as I run, I realise exactly how excited I am about starting my new job.

But I get back from my run– proud that I’ve kept it up for a whole two months, practically a first for me – to find
that
white Range Rover in the drive, the noxious smell of
that
perfume in the hall – and the lounge door firmly shut.

Kaye, apparently: cosily ensconced with Matthew.

In the hall mirror, I see my hair is damp and plastered to my face, puce from the exertion and the cold, the top of my coral T-shirt ringed with sweat. Hardly the pretty woman Scarlett had promised her mother.

I creep towards the stairs – but too late. Matthew pokes his head round the door.

‘Come and meet Kaye, hon,’ he says. ‘She’s here to discuss the Easter holidays.’

I pull a face that says:
Really
?
Looking like this?
A face I think he’ll understand.

But he’s a man – and men, I must remember (I never remember) don’t do subtleties! I haven’t spelt it out for him.

‘Come on.’ He holds a hand out. ‘Don’t be shy. She’s going soon.’

I have no choice: I follow Matthew like an obedient child.

‘So here she is at last.’ Kaye lowers her coffee cup as I walk in, smiling to display impeccable white teeth. ‘How lovely to meet you.’

‘Hi!’ I say. She is drinking from some very expensive-looking china I didn’t even know we owned. ‘Good to meet you too.’

‘So you’re the lover of babes.’

I froze.

‘What?’ Matthew looks puzzled. ‘Hardly.’

‘Our babes, Matty! Just my little joke,’ Kaye says, but one look at that alabaster face tells me she is sizing up the competition – or maybe just sizing up her prey?

Matty.

Actually she isn’t as pretty as I’d feared. Her beaky nose is too big for her thin face, her pale blue eyes narrow and unflinching. Judging by her smooth forehead, she’s had Botox. Scarlett is much prettier than her mother.

But pretty or not, Kaye certainly looks spectacular in a fur gilet and tight leather trousers, immaculate blow-dry tumbling over her shoulders.

‘Pleased to meet you,’ I mumble. ‘Sorry about my appearance. I’ve been for a run. I’ll just dash and change…’

‘Oh please don’t on my account. I’m in my old things anyway.’ She stands languorously and offers me her hand. She is much taller than me, and I feel horribly dumpy: a clumsy little figure next to her blonde elegance. ‘It’s great to exercise when we’re not feeling our best, isn’t it?’

But Matthew always tells me he loves my body, I remind myself firmly. He likes my curves and my tummy.

‘Okay.’ I wish my hand didn’t look so red knuckled and rough skinned in her pretty white one, her nails perfectly shaped and polished pearly pink. ‘I like your outfit.’

‘So – the next Mrs King! Enjoying married life? The kids have told me all about you.’

‘Yes, thanks.’ I try to smile. ‘Good things, I hope.’

‘Wellll…’ She pauses. Her laugh is shrill when she clocks the expression I fail to hide. ‘Of
course
good things!’

‘Fancy a coffee, Jeanie, hon?’ Matthew seems exhilarated somehow. ‘I’ll grab another cup from the kitchen.’

‘Thanks,’ I say, but what I really mean of course is:
PLEASE don’t leave me with the predator.

‘I understand it’s a first for you – marriage?’ Her smile is tight. ‘The old wedding bells. Except you must have done it civilly, no?’

‘O-ho!’ Hand on the door, Matthew laughs. ‘Been doing your homework, Kaye?’

‘Naturally.’ Kaye’s smooth face attempts the stretch to a wider smile. ‘Obviously I wanted to know who
our
kids were hanging out with. Any mother would, wouldn’t they?’ She looks at me for agreement.

‘I guess so,’ I say carefully.

‘Cos we all know about wicked stepmothers, eh? Poor old Cinders and all that. You just can’t be too careful these days, can you?’ The door swings shut behind Matthew, and I am sure her eyes narrow further. ‘I mean you of all people should know that, shouldn’t you, Jeanie?’

Please don’t,
I think.
Please don’t.

But she does. I’ve known it was coming from the minute I stepped into the room. She is a big, sleek cat waiting for the kill.

‘So how did you two meet?’ She sips her coffee through perfectly glossed lips. Kaye
isn’t
perfect, I know that really, I know no one is – but she gives a good impression of being so. She has me over a barrel, and she is going to enjoy every last minute of it.

I can taste the salt of my own dried sweat on my lips. ‘At an office party,’ I say. I wonder what he’s told her.

‘It’s a shame you managed to poison my dog.’

Jesus!
As Marlena would say:
You can take the girl out of the estate, but you can’t take the…

‘Joke!’ Kaye guffaws.
Liar.
‘Your face!’

‘I didn’t poison your dog.’ I stand taller. ‘It was a horrible accident – and I’m very sorry he died.’

‘It’s hard to admit you were a bit – lax, I’m sure, when the kids were so gutted’—she pats my arm generously—‘but I believe you if you say it was accidental.’

‘Well it’s the truth.’ I meet her slit-eyed gaze. ‘It was nothing to do with me. It was just unfortunate.’

‘And you always tell the truth?’

‘Yes.’ We look at each other. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘I always Google new boyfriends. It pays to know who you’re shagging. Do you think my ex-husband would do the same?’

‘I don’t know…’

‘Men are such fools, aren’t they?’

‘Are they?’ I say with all the dignity I can manage. ‘I’ve never particularly found that.’

‘I find girls much easier than boys. Luke’s a pain.’

‘Oh he’s a sweet boy,’ I object. ‘Very well meaning and kind.’

‘And a tiny little bit of a – dud. Let’s be honest.’ She stares at me.

God! Her own son. I am sweating again.

‘I’m only joking, silly!’ But her laugh is flat and fake. ‘I’m glad you take step-parenting so seriously.’ She nods at my book on the coffee table. I feel the heat rising up my back in shame. My silly step-parenting manual.
Why
have I left it out for all to see?

Because I thought I was safe here, I suppose.

‘He’s nice. Luke. They’re both – nice kids,’ I bluster.

‘Oh I know, lovely. I know.’ Kaye pulls out a slim packet of expensive-looking cigarettes. ‘But kids are hard work, aren’t they? Even for kiddie fiddlers, I expect.’

Breezily she clamps a baby-pink cigarette between scarlet lips.

‘I’ve always enjoyed working with young people.’ I find myself very calm. ‘I like to think I’ve always taken my job very seriously.’

‘That’s good.’ Kaye digs around again, producing a gold lighter from her trouser pocket. ‘I suppose they always claim, “It’s not what it seems, officer.” But hey, we weren’t born yesterday, were we, Jeanie? Can I call you Jeanie?’

‘Sure.’ If Marlena were here, she’d give me a kick up the arse for being so feeble. Summoning all my courage, I say, ‘It’s no smoking in here actually.’

‘Oh?’ The lighter in Kaye’s manicured hand has an inscription on it; I can’t quite read it.

‘We don’t like it.’

‘
We
?’ Her thick dark brows – very Cara Delevingne – would have shot up her forehead – if it could actually move.

‘Yes – Matthew and I.
My
husband.’ I warm to my theme. ‘It kills, you know. Smoking. Very nasty.’

‘Oh how things change.’ But she drops her hand. Perhaps she doesn’t look quite as confident as a minute before. ‘Matthew was a twenty-a-day man. I must say, you don’t look like his usual type.’

‘And what’s that?’ Trembling, I plough on. ‘Tall blondes?’

‘Something like that. Skinny women usually. But then he’s had all sorts – hasn’t he said? Sounds like you two have got some catching up to do.’ She gathers her Mulberry bag. ‘That’s the best bit of a new relationship, isn’t it? Finding out stuff about each other. I’ll leave you to it.’

‘What does that mean – all sorts?’

‘Whatever you want it to.’ She yawns widely. ‘Just be cautious please. My daughter’s my best friend in the world. I’ll protect her against anything. You know how it is.’

‘Really?’ I meet her gaze. ‘Do you think that’s a good idea – being best friends, I mean?’ My voice has risen a little now, I realise too late. ‘Kids need boundaries, don’t they? Parents, not friends.’

‘The mouse roars, eh?’ She smirks.

I see the red blood in the white bathroom.

‘To know where they stand. Kaye…’

‘Sorry, ladies.’ Matthew reappears. ‘Got distracted by footie results.’ He hands me a mug. ‘I thought you might enjoy a chat.’

It is all I can do to not let my mouth drop open in disbelief.

‘Yeah, we caught up on the goss, didn’t we, Jeanie? I’d better get off.’ Kaye’s artful stretch reveals a well-toned brown midriff. ‘Appointment with the masseuse. Very stiff at the moment; so much stress.’ She rolls her head, demonstrating stress – probably at whether it was the Atkins or the 5:2 diet this week. ‘Yassine’s got the magic touch – but he’s working with Arsenal today.’

My arse
, I nearly say, grinning at the thought.

‘I’ll walk you out.’ Matthew shoots me an inscrutable look. ‘Finalise the holiday plans.’

‘God I can’t wait to get back to Barbados at Easter,’ Kaye is saying as they leave the room. ‘Daiquiris are calling! You remember Slow Joe’s place? We had fun, didn’t we, babes? Back in the day.’

Oh just fuck off
, I find myself thinking.

Alone, shaken, I pour some cold coffee into the old mug Matthew has brought in, the mug that says ‘World’s Best Washer-Upper’ on it. I wonder why I got this chipped old thing.

But it is obvious, I suppose – I get the homely mug because this is
my
home now. Kaye gets the best china to show off.

This warped civility confuses me. They didn’t do things like this down my way – a middle-class sharing of kids after marriages collapsed. Generally the mothers were left to cope alone. Calling Matthew and Kaye friends was stretching it – but they were friendly enough to chat about arrangements.

And yet God only knows what has gone on between them.

When my mum and dad split up, we almost literally never saw him again. Once, I think, when he was trying to soft-soap some landlord about back rent and tried to play happy families – and once when he fancied some woman who worked in the local nursery. Turned out she loathed kids.

My mum, when she could get out of bed, or wasn’t slumped in front of the old television, watching old Hollywood black and whites, brought home a string of miscreants and no-hopers, most of whom hated us, ignored us – or, on the odd occasion, liked us a little
too
much.

I shudder.

Marlena has espoused therapy during the last few years, several times – partly after her own spectacular misdemeanours and then again when I had my ‘incident’ – but the truth is I’d rather eat my own heart than pour it out to a therapist.

Through the window I watch Matthew open the car door for Kaye – and then lean forward towards her.

Oh God he’s going to kiss her, right in front of me.

Horrified, I can’t tear myself away.

But he doesn’t kiss her. He just peers into her eye as she blinks, looking up to heaven. She must have something in it.

I walk away and sit slowly on the sofa.

Kaye’s lighter is lying on the coffee table. I think about rushing out to return it, then think again. She deserves no favours from me.

Picking it up, I read the inscription.

I
t was from him
, from
my
husband. Matthew King.

Only ten months before I met him.

I shove it down the side of the sofa and wait for him to come back from bidding his ex-wife farewell.

This is it now. No more hiding.

There is no choice any more.