The Stepmother (16 page)

A
strange text
from Matthew wakes me.

it says. That’s it – no kiss, no ‘how are you?’ etc. Just a bald question.

No reply.

I ring him. The phone goes straight to voicemail. I feel extremely uneasy. What does he mean?

The only person who’s been here at all is Yassine. Is that what he means? I try and call again to explain.

Still no answer.

I go downstairs, past the locked spare room. Then I walk back, and I try the handle.

Nearby Matthew’s laptop is there, like a reproving silver toad.

I grab it before I can change my mind.

Downstairs, I open it and sit, looking at the black screen – and then I lean over and switch it on.

It needs a password to get in. I try our names, the address. I try his birthday, my birthday. Then I try the twins’ birthday: it works.

Feeling curiously proud of myself as I watch the twirling icon on the wakening screen, I think
, I’m in
!

Then I remember
why
I’m trying to get in, and I feel less proud.

I am only looking for one email, I remind myself: I’m not looking at all of his correspondence. That’s his business, not mine.

I skim through the inbox. I see a few from Kaye; I don’t read them. I see a few from Scarlett, but I don’t read them either, though I can’t help seeing the header:
BIG BIRTHDAY KISSES.

Resolutely I keep going until I get to the one that says:
JEANIE RANDALL – BEWARE!!!

Beware
. Like I’m a contagious disease or something.

Feeling sick, I look at the address. It’s from
[email protected].

I open it. It’s just what I might have expected. A single line:

And a link to the article.

Helpful? Malicious, more like. I am flushed, my cheeks burning with anger.

Who the hell is ‘
Helpful2001xav
’, and why are they making it their business to alert my husband to my misdemeanours?

As I go to shut the computer down, the cursor passes over a minimised document:
KING FAMILY, BELGIUM TRIP
. I click on it.

There are four passport numbers.

T
here
, in black and white in front of me, is a passport number that I’m pretty sure isn’t mine. Mine ends in twenty-six; I always remember, because it’s the same as my birthday.

So whose is the number?

Kaye? I think. Is Kaye in Belgium with the twins – and my husband?

I am going to get ready to leave in a minute, to catch the train up to town to meet Marlena. But I can’t move for a moment.

For some reason the nursery-rhyme picture I saw in the attic springs into my head: ‘Sing a Song of Sixpence’. It keeps going round and round:

When I finally force myself from my seat, I have another thought.

I go to the key drawer, and I search through it, turning everything out on the floor.

Nothing new that I can see.

I am going to go up and get dressed in a minute.

In a minute, I will.

I
need help – badly
.

I am used to acrimony after the Seaborne affair, but I’m not used to this.

I’m frightened. I have a feeling someone nearby really wants to damage me, and they are becoming more insidious. Relentless, even.

Or am I just like Bertha Mason in
Jane Eyre
– a madwoman?

At least Marlena answers me promptly now; her text suggests a new bakery place on Charlotte Street.

I thread through the back streets from Euston to a café that sells gluten-free cake and smoothies made of something called maca, where everyone looks studiously cool: the girls all with shaggy, two-tiered coloured hair, the young men all with self-conscious beards.

Marlena’s on the phone; she raises a hand in greeting. ‘Yeah, cool, got it. I don’t like this bloke at all. I think he’s lying, but the police don’t seem bothered.’ She agrees to talk later before hanging up.

‘Hi, you.’ She grins at me, and I think how glad I always am to see my little sister, pain in the arse that she is sometimes.

Marlena eschews the good stuff, of course, when we order; her one concession to the ‘clean eating’ fad the wholemeal bagel she chooses, along with black coffee. I plump for scrambled egg.

‘So. What’s up?’ She pours sugar in her coffee. Real sugar from sachets in her bag, not the agave syrup they’ve put hopefully on the tables. ‘Sleeping okay now?’

I stir my almond and kumquat drink dubiously and glance at her.

‘Bit better, yes. It’s just – I don’t seem to fully relax on my own in that big house.’

‘Why are you on your own?’ She frowns. ‘I thought there were bloody loads of you there? It’s like Snow White and the seven dwarves, you and your entourage.’

‘Hardly.’ I am struggling to admit my perfect marriage is less than that. I have a big fear that she’ll just say,
I told you so
. ‘Matthew’s away for a few days…’

‘Where’s he gone?’

I feel like a soldier dodging incoming flak as she fires questions at me. ‘He’s taken the kids away for Easter,’ I say, and my voice changes, I know it does – despite my best attempt at control.

‘Oh.’ She frowns. ‘Didn’t you want to go?’

‘No, it’s not that exactly…’ I hesitate. Shall I mention my suspicions about Kaye being in Belgium too?

‘What then?’

I feel the tears spring now, much to my annoyance. It’ll only wind Marlena up; crying’s a sign of weakness in her book. ‘He thought they needed some time alone. Since Scarlett found about – you know what.’

‘About you, you mean?’

‘Yeah. About me.’

‘So you
have
told him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, Jean.’ And she reaches over, placing her hand on mine in such a rare act of warmth that I’m shocked. Her nails are black and glittery and chewed to the quick as usual. They remind me of Scarlett’s. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I’m sure it’ll be okay,’ I say bravely – but I wish I
was
sure.

‘Well stepfamilies are never straightforward. We both knew that, didn’t we?’

‘Yeah, I suppose.’ I sigh. ‘It’s definitely tougher than I’d anticipated.’ What an idiot, I want to say, what an
idiot
I was. I believed I could bring it all together neatly – and just look what’s happened. It’s everything but neat. The Brady Bunch? Ha. It’s a complete and utter bloody mess, and if I think about it too hard, it makes me want to howl.

‘How are you anyway?’ I change the subject. ‘You look tired too.’

She still looks good though. My little sister – the newshound.

‘Still atoning for professional misconduct,’ she says tersely. ‘It’s taking a while. A lifetime maybe.’

‘Well…’ I try to summon a platitude.

‘I really fucked it up. Big style.’

‘Yeah,’ I agree, ‘you did.’

‘Yeah, I did. Cheers for that.’ She toasts me with a rueful coffee cup. The pouty French waitress slops down my scrambled eggs and kale, more interested in making eyes at the cool cats on the table behind, and Marlena and I grin at each other. ‘Silly cow,’ Marlena mouths.

We are different, Marlena and I, poles apart – but we both get it. We came from the same place, one few others will ever understand. Only Frankie maybe – though I’ve tried to protect him. We are different to the circles we move in; we’ve done well – and then we’ve both fallen from great heights. Now we are attempting to climb up again.

‘I guess phone hacking was never gonna pay the rent, was it?’ I say, peering dubiously at the undercooked egg. Give me a greasy spoon any day of the week. I don’t belong in London any more. I am the wrong side of cool, the wrong side of forty. And I’m looking over my shoulder every second now.

I think of Samuel Johnson: ‘When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.’ I am tired actually. Very bloody tired.

‘It was paying the rent very nicely, thank you.’ Marlena is tart. ‘It was just my conscience I couldn’t live with any more. Look, why are you really here, Jeanie? Do you need help again?’

‘No.’ I push my egg around. ‘I just want your solidarity.’

‘Really?’

Ever the cynic, my little sister. I suppose she has plenty of reason to be. And who am I kidding? Not her apparently. We both know what Marlena did for me last year when all the crap hit the papers. ‘Well there might be one thing actually…’

‘I knew it!’ she crows. She hates being wrong. ‘So. Spill.’

‘It’s just… Someone sent Matt an email – and they sent one to the college that offered me a job too. With a link to – the thing.’

‘Fucking hell, Jeanie,’ she exhales loudly. ‘I warned you. I knew that would happen if you didn’t tell him yourself.’

‘Please, Marlena. No told-you-sos…’

She pulls a face. ‘Okay. So?’

‘Some idiot sent him a link to the first article about a week ago. The one from the
Sun
on Sunday
.’

‘And the job? You hadn’t told them either? That you were cleared?’

‘What do you reckon?’ I look at her squarely. ‘And now I’m more concerned with who’s going around talking about me and saying they’re a “well-wisher”.’

‘Have you got the email?’

I pass her over the printed email. She reads it.

‘And I’m guessing Matthew didn’t recognise the sender either?’

‘He says not. But actually…’ I feel uncomfortable again.

‘Actually what?’

‘He didn’t want to say who’d sent it. I had to – look.’ I feel overwhelmed and really, really sad. I haven’t even begun on my other worries. ‘But he said he doesn’t know them.’

‘It’s going to be all right, Jean.’ Marlena pats my hand again – like when we were kids. ‘I know it is.’

‘Is it?’

‘Course. And have you got any idea at all
who
might’ve sent it?’

‘I suppose I thought it could be – you know, Otto’s mum.’

‘Hmmm.’ She stands suddenly, sending the chair skidding across the tiles. ‘Can we go outside? I’m dying for a fag.’

‘ “Dying” being the operative word…’

‘Our vices make life’s crap bearable.’

I can’t really argue with that.

Outside we huddle together under the awning. It is drizzling and grey – and generally depressing.

‘Have you contacted her?’ She lights up. ‘Old Ma Lundy?’

‘No way.’ I shake my head. ‘I don’t ever want to see that woman again.’

That woman
had been my biggest detractor for six months; she’d made it her own personal quest to take me down, even when both her own son and I had denied every charge; despite the fact there had been no evidence, nothing really to say we were guilty –nothing apart from that bloody, bloody photograph.

Marlena helped me then.

I knew for a fact the Lundys weren’t good parents, and the only reason Otto and I had become close was because he was so overlooked at home.

I hesitate to say he was neglected, but it wasn’t far off.

Marlena checked the parents out in the way that only a ruthless journalist would know how to do. Their own past wasn’t pretty, and when they were threatened with disclosure about some of their own misdemeanours, they slunk off, tails between their legs – but it wasn’t long before they threatened pressing their own charges, civilly. Thank God that never happened.

‘I’ll check it out,’ Marlena offers now.

‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘I’d appreciate it.’ I watch her blow her smoke up into the city sky, and I feel like I can’t catch a breath myself.

I have this feeling, all the time, that I’m paying for my brief happiness with Matthew, that I don’t deserve it and never did – and so it’s over, and I must pay the debt now.

‘And if it’s
not
her?’ I say. ‘What then?’

‘You’ve really got no other ideas who it could be?’

Of course I do. But I shrug, non-committal. ‘Someone who doesn’t like me.’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Marlena promises, flinging her cigarette into the gutter. Then, weirdly, she kisses me. She smells of fags and Chanel. ‘Nice to see you, J, but I need to crack on.’

I sink my face into her shoulder till she struggles, muttering, ‘Yeah, all right. Don’t go all Jean Harlow on me.’

Jeanie with an ‘ie’ for the original blonde bombshell Jean Harlow: dead with suspect kidney failure by the age of twenty-six.

Marlena for Dietrich, only with an ‘a’ instead of the ‘e’ – because our mother was half-cut the day she registered her newborn.

Our names: constant reminders of our failure to attain their dizzy heights.

‘I’m not,’ I mumble – but I really don’t want to let go of Marlena, and I don’t want to go home to that big, empty house where things keep going wrong.

Where the husband I live with seems ever more like a stranger.

I walk back to Euston checking my phone, hoping for messages from him, but there are none.

There’s one from Frankie saying he’ll see me later. Something good, at least.

I catch the train.

I
t is even worse
than I expected.

Apparently Matthew had only just pulled into the drive when Sylvia Jones accosted him.

I wasn’t back. My own train had been delayed, thanks to emergency engineering works, and I’d missed the connecting bus between stations – by which time I was freezing. I rang Frankie for a lift and took him for coffee and a chat on the high street.

If only I’d gone straight home, I’d have been able to defend myself immediately, before the thought was planted in Matthew’s head – but I was listening to Frankie rabbit on about Jenna, watching him discover love for the first time with some wonderment. I felt really happy for him, but I was conscious I still hadn’t heard from Matthew since those strange texts first thing.

The phone finally rang as Frank drove us home.

‘Hi, darlin’.’ I felt a flood of relief when I saw Matthew’s name. ‘Are you back? I’m looking—’

‘Yes, I’m at Malum.’ Matthew was curt. ‘Where are you?’

‘We’re just round the corner.’

His tone wasn’t right.

‘Well get a move on.’ He hung up.

‘What?’ Frankie clocked my face. ‘
More
trouble?’

‘I’m not sure.’ I stared at the road before us.

Oh God, I prayed not.

When Frank pulled up outside the house, I couldn’t bear to look at him.

‘Give us a minute, would you, lovey? I just – I need to talk to him…’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah – and I don’t want you to worry, so just let me do it on my own.’

‘Fine.’ He shrugged. ‘I’ll go round to George’s.’

‘You don’t need to go…’

But he said he’d prefer to.

Thank God Frankie’s made friends quicker than I have
, I thought, watching his tail lights disappear round the corner.

As quickly, apparently, as I had made enemies.

I didn’t bother with any ‘Hi, honey, I’m home’ jokes. I was the joke now I feared. ‘Matt?’ I called gingerly.

‘In here.’

How much had changed in four months. Ruefully I followed the voice.

‘Have you been going through my emails?’ Matthew asked as soon as I walked into the kitchen. No ‘hello’, no greeting at all – he barely even looked up.

‘Oh!’ Should I lie? But what was the point? I’d left the laptop in the kitchen, where it glared balefully from the table, its owner looking no less malevolent. ‘Well not going through them exactly – I just…’

‘What?’

‘I just wanted to know who sent you that – thing – about me.’ I moved towards Matthew hopefully.

He was unshaven, in jeans and a T-shirt, not quite as svelte as when we’d married, his stubble blue-black, his face dark with anger. ‘
Not
going through them?’

‘I just wanted to see if I recognised the email address.’

‘But I told you that I didn’t.’

‘I just thought that
I
might though. I am sorry – but that’s all it was really.’

‘All?’ He put great weight on the word. ‘That’s
all
?’

‘Yes. I mean I didn’t look at anything else…’ But that
was
a lie. ‘Why are you so angry? What’s happened now?’