The Stepmother (19 page)

‘Matthew, wait!’ I cry, following behind him.

I reach the bedroom seconds after him.

He’s got my son by the neck, against the wall, and he’s shouting in his face, that vein throbbing in his forehead again, and Frankie’s spluttering and trying to speak over the garage music that thumps out, and Scarlett’s crying and pulling at her dad’s arm, saying something that Matthew won’t listen to.

‘Get off him!’ I shout. ‘Matthew, let him go!’

‘She’s only fifteen,’ he keeps blustering, and Frankie’s going red now, struggling to breathe where Matthew’s hands are around his neck. With the most tremendous effort, I manage to pull my husband off my son, and I stand between them.

‘What’s going on?’ I literally can’t hear myself think. ‘Turn the music off please, Frankie.’

He does so with ill-temper, rubbing his sore red neck, the fingerprints visible, glaring at Matthew. ‘That really bloody hurt,’ he mutters.

My heart contracts. This man I love has left marks on my son. I move nearer Frankie. ‘Matthew, this is unacceptable.’

‘I could see him from the garden; I saw you pawing her,’ Matthew says, and he’s so angry, he’s shaking visibly.

‘I’m sure he wasn’t—’ I interject, but Frankie’s angry now.

‘She said she had something in her eye,’ Frank protests. ‘I was just having a look because she asked me to.’

That old trick.
Like mother, like daughter,
I think.

‘Likely story,’ Matthew jeers – and Frank explodes.

‘I’m not interested in her, for God’s sake, if that’s what you think. She’s a kid, and I’ve got a girlfriend.’

‘I’m not a kid,’ Scarlett interjects. ‘I’m fifteen.’

‘You’re a bloody child – and you expect me to believe that?’ Matthew switches his attention to Frank.

‘Matthew, look…’ I say, but he grabs his daughter by the arm and drags her out of the room.

Scarlett wails, ‘Stop it, Dad!’ He ignores her, whisking her away from us.

We hear a door slam – and then silence falls.

Speechless, Frankie and I look at each other.

‘Mum?’ he says, and he sounds like a little boy. I’d better not cry; he hates it when I cry – he always has. Like Marlena, it panics him.

‘I’m okay,’ I lie. ‘Let him calm down. I’ll talk to him later.’

But later I will think:
This was the moment I felt defeat.

We are not going to get through this now, Matthew and I. We can’t make a family. We can’t force it.

You can’t take two halves of two different things and try to make a whole. It just won’t work.

God knows I’ve tried.

I
sit
with Frankie in his room for a while, but he’s so angry, he won’t calm down. And I don’t blame him, not really. Poor lad.
I’ve let him down,
I think.

‘Why would he do that? Why would he not believe me?’

‘I’ll talk to him, Frankie, I promise, lovey,’ I say. ‘I’ll sort it out.’

‘He didn’t believe me. He didn’t want to believe me, more to the point. God…’

He clenches his fists, and I feel a surge of panic. He’s getting angry again, and I don’t want that – I don’t want them to fight again. I feel the tension in the house; it’s palpable.

‘It’s her, Mum. Not me. She’s the one coming on to me.’

And this, I think, might be the whole problem. Matthew can’t cope with his daughter growing up, with her being sexually attracted to a boy. No parent can cope with any inconvenient truth. Otto’s couldn’t either…

‘Let me talk to him on his own,’ I plead, ‘and we’ll sort it out properly, okay?’ I grab Frankie’s hand and hold it tight. ‘Okay?’

Frankie stares at me unseeing. I remember playground tussles when he was very small: brave little soldier, teased for having no dad. I can’t bear the idea of him fighting now. ‘Frank, okay? I don’t want you to do anything stupid.’

‘No, okay, Mum.’ He shakes me off irritably. ‘I won’t.’

I feel the energy drain out of me as he agrees, my shoulders literally slumping where I stand.

‘Mum?’ Frank’s worried, I realise, and I feel a wave of love for him, a great tidal wave of it.

‘I’m fine, Frankie, really. I don’t know why, I’m just really tired today. I got up too early.’

‘If you’re all right,’ he says, ‘I’m going to see Jenna now.’

‘Great stuff.’ I feel fresh relief he’s found someone good. ‘Off you go then.’

I walk down the landing to mine and Matthew’s room – except Matthew’s hardly slept here this past week.

The bed is big and empty.

F
ive minutes
later Matthew and Scarlett pass the door. Matthew’s taking Scarlett home apparently and is telling her to get her things when the doorbell rings.

It’s Kaye. I listen from the landing.

‘You didn’t say you were coming here,’ Kaye’s scolding Scarlett, who’s still sniffing as she gathers her things. ‘I’m fed up with this running around.’

‘Ah, leave her be.’ Matthew sounds exhausted.

‘Where’s Jeanie?’ I hear Kaye ask.

Matthew says, ‘Not feeling too good. Having a lie-down.’

‘Still not well? Poor woman,’ Kaye says. ‘Is she often ill then?’

I stay safely upstairs; I don’t want to see that woman now, her perfection in my face. And I don’t want her near my son; I don’t want any more blame on us.

Matthew leaves soon after.

I’m so tired: bone weary suddenly. I’ve been fighting all my life, and this was meant to be the good bit – but it’s not. It’s stressful and fraught and full of emotions that fracture us and swarm the sky unspoken, and I can’t take much more.

I force myself off the bed. I wash my face and go downstairs and into the garden. I walk down to the woodpile, and I pick up the axe.

W
hen Matthew returns
an hour or two later, I am calm again.

But one look at his face tells me he isn’t.

‘So you bothered to get up again,’ he says. ‘I wouldn’t want to tire you out.’

‘Sorry,’ I say quietly. ‘I do feel particularly exhausted today. I’m not sure why.’

‘No, I’m not sure either when you just sit on your backside all day.’

His words don’t even shock me any more. ‘But you know I’ve been looking for a job. I think I might have—’

‘I wouldn’t bother. I mean with your past, it’s hardly surprising you’ve not found one, is it?’ He slams the kettle on. Then he changes his mind and opens the fridge, pulling a bottle of beer out and slamming the door so hard everything rattles. ‘You’re almost as bad as Kaye.’

‘That’s not fair,’ I protest, reeling slightly from the savagery of his attack. Kaye had never worked properly from what I understood – or at least I vaguely recalled there was a brief stint as some kind of TV extra or catalogue modelling: something like that. But really she just produced children and shopping and went to the gym.

‘Fair? Fair?’ Matthew’s going puce again. ‘Whoever said life was fair?’

‘Matthew,’ I say quietly, ‘I’m not one of the twins. Please don’t speak to me like that.’

‘I don’t actually.’ He glares at me. ‘I wouldn’t talk to my kids like that, because they don’t need it. And you…’ I sense him deciding whether to say it.

‘What?’

‘I don’t think you should be
near
my kids at the moment.’

As soon as it’s out, he looks abashed – but he obviously needed to say it.

‘Is that
really
what you think?’ I’m wounded, but I’m also not thinking straight. I’m not sure what to say.

‘I don’t know what I think any more.’ He’s quieter now, and he looks terrible suddenly. ‘I’m sorry, Jeanie. It just feels – horrible.’

‘I want to ask two things, if I may, Matt.’ I place my hands flat on the table to steady myself. ‘One – why keep Kaye’s room like that? And two – who is Lisa Bedford?’ I look at him squarely.

‘Who?’

‘Lisa
Daisy
Bedford.’

Unusually for him, colour stains his face. ‘Daisy?’

‘Yes,
Daisy
. You let me think she was a pet dog.’

He looks embarrassed. ‘Well – it – was just easier.’

‘Why?’

‘I just – I didn’t need any more complications.’

‘So who is she?’

‘She’s a – family friend. She looked after the kids for a bit when Kaye and I first split. I mean I employed her.’

‘I see.’ I try to absorb this. ‘Was she good with the kids?’

‘Yeah, she was absolutely great. They loved her – she was a natural – unlike some…’

‘Please, Matt, don’t say anything you’ll regret.’

‘Who are you, fucking Oprah Winfrey?’ he yells at me. ‘Don’t be so paranoid. And fuck knows if I mean it. I don’t know what I mean any more…’

‘Well don’t say it then.’ I do sound like a teacher. Like the teacher I am. Or was anyway.

‘Oh why don’t you just
fuck off
!’ Without warning he lobs the beer bottle; it smashes on the wall behind me. Beer froths and trickles down the tiles, drip-drip-dripping onto the floor.

I’ve been holding on so hard for these past few weeks, but it’s like our marriage has a life of its own now; a horrible being in its own right – an ugly little beast, scuttling around, scratching at everything, not satisfied by anything…

The truth is I’m not sure I even want to hold on to it right now.

‘Sorry.’ Matthew stares at the mess. ‘That was daft. But I just – I don’t know
what
I think right now.’ The earlier colour has drained from his face, leaving him pale. ‘You’ve got to admit this is pretty crap.’

‘Yeah.’ I stare blindly at the wet wall. ‘It’s pretty crap.’

He rummages in the cupboard for a dustpan and brush, and I get up and step over the mess and walk out of the room.

‘Jeanie,’ he says. But he doesn’t try to stop me going.

A
while later I
hear him come up the stairs – and then I hear his bellow of rage.

‘Jeanie! What the hell have you done now? Jeanie!’

I took the axe to the pain.

And I felt a little better afterwards, a little calmer for a while.

Now I’ve locked myself away from him – for the first time ever I’ve locked the door.

I don’t come out until he leaves for work the following morning.

‘
A
nother one bites the dust
.’ As I put a box in the boot, Miss Turnbull is at the gate, bundled into her tweed coat, despite the warm day.

‘You don’t need to take everything,’ Matthew had said awkwardly a few days previously. We agreed I’d leave some stuff in the garage whilst I worked out what
exactly would happen next. I didn’t have much to take anyway; I never have had. I’m not a hoarder; I’ve never had enough belongings to hoard.

‘Perhaps we just need some time,’ he’d said, but we both saw the smashed door every time we passed, and we knew the reality.

No time would heal this I fear. All the trust is gone.

Frankie moved out first.

I insisted on driving him to Dover to catch the ferry. Despite my worry, he was determined to hitch the rest of the way to his job in a vineyard at the foot of the Pyrenees, but he promised to take care.

‘I’ll be fine. But will
you
be okay, Mum?’ He’d hugged me tight. ‘On your own?’

‘Yes, of course.’ I’d been as bright as I could manage. ‘It’s for the best. Things just don’t always work out, do they?’

Waving him into the ferry terminal, I’d felt so proud of Frankie. I hadn’t done a bad job there at least. Something I’d got right.

‘What do you mean?’ I ask the old lady now, wearily, wedging the last box in and shutting the boot. ‘Another one? After Kaye you mean?’

‘He’s getting through you like hot dinners.’ She nods with an emotion hard to read. I could ask her to qualify that – but she’s just a lonely old lady with nothing better to do than watch.

‘You’re probably better off gone anyway,’ she mutters as she turns away. ‘Get out while you still can.’

‘Miss Turnbull…’ I raise my voice to call her back, but she’s rounded the corner already, nifty for one so elderly.

I don’t have the energy to follow.

I take a final look at the old house. It belongs in a fairy tale, this place – or maybe a horror film I’ve thought more recently. The roses that run across the grey stone, curling round the windows, meshed into the ivy, are starting to bloom.

It never felt like home; I won’t miss it. But I
will
miss my husband.

As I back out of the drive the tears start.

Sylvia Jones is walking up the road in high heels and a skirt. She’s carrying a dish under a cloth, as if it were a glass slipper on a royal cushion.

I’d laugh if my heart wasn’t breaking.

As I pull out of the avenue, I think I see a figure emerge from the shadows, watching my car. But maybe I am imagining it.

I
’ve just sat
in a lay-by off the dual carriageway, howling, for about half an hour.

Now I’m going to Marlena’s to regroup. I can’t stay around here in Hertfordshire. It’s twee and bland, and I crave a real landscape again – the sea or the wild peaks of the North: Brontë land maybe.

As I drive out of the town, I think of little Jane Eyre, stumbling heartbroken and lost on the moors, homeless when she leaves the great Thornfield, leaves the man she loved.

But I’m not Jane Eyre.

I’m more like the mad woman in the attic – and my friend Judy’s ramblings don’t seem so crazy any more.

And maybe, I think, maybe the mad woman wasn’t quite so mad after all.

R
ight
, so at this point all I want to say is as follows.

You might think you’ve got Jeanie’s number – but she’s a master of chameleon deception, my big sister.

Not in a malicious or malevolent way, but in this way: she learnt to keep quiet when danger abounded at a very early age.

More cleverly, perhaps, she learnt to change to suit.

And she learnt to keep the hurt in. Unlike me, from whom it exploded like a shell from a shotgun.

Jeanie stored it up and stored it up.

Only it still has to come out somewhere.