The Stepmother (28 page)

‘It was a joke,’ the boy repeats pathetically.

‘Like killing your own dog was?’ I hazard a guess.

‘Oh God! I thought you’d stopped murdering animals, Lukie.’ Kaye’s sigh is as dramatic as her statement. ‘We’re going to have to go back to the psychotherapist I realise.’

‘Murdering?’

‘I didn’t mean to,’ Luke mutters. ‘They were accidents…’

‘Oh, Luke.’ Matthew sits heavily. ‘What did you do?’

‘Made Jeanie think she was mad, mainly, I think,’ I say. ‘How did you manage it, Luke? All the whispering walls? The flickering lights.’

He shrugs. ‘S’not hard.’ And I’m amazed. He’s fessing up; rolling over apparently. ‘I just rigged up the Sonos system.’

Of course he did. The sound system in every room; the sound system that Frankie had been so impressed with; the horrible jazz rattling to its end now here and in the kitchen.

‘And the porn on Frank’s computer? That disgusting porn?’

Luke just stares at the floor.

‘And the emails from ‘Helpful’?’

‘I found the stuff in Scarlett’s room. An article about what Jeanie did with that boy.’ For the first time, Luke looks more impassioned. It’s all coming out like a release. ‘I just wrote it down and sent it to Dad.’

‘And the school where she’d got a job? Very clever. Know a thing or two about computers do you, Luke?’

‘He’s very good with programming actually.’ For a moment Matthew almost looks proud. ‘Natural aptitude.’ Then he remembers himself.

‘He made it look like the emails were from Frankie, and then when Frankie denied it, he must have changed the address. You made them look like they were from your own sister, Luke! But they weren’t, were they?’ I demand.

The teenager shakes his head, lower lip jutting.

‘Oh sweetheart.’ His mother goes to him. ‘I know you wanted to do it for me, but it’s been very cruel to Jeanie. I just wanted you to make her welcome.’

‘Really?’ I hear my own disbelief echo in the air. ‘I’d say you’re a liar – just like your son.’

She was in
The Bill, I hear those girls from yesterday say. A born actress.

‘But you cried on their wedding day,’ Luke speaks to his mother, angry now. ‘I didn’t get why. I didn’t get why – and I just wanted to make you happy, Mum. You left Dad, and then you were meant to be happy, but you weren’t nice.’

‘It wasn’t me.’ Kaye’s voice has sharpened. Knife sharp. ‘I didn’t tell him to.’ She looks at both Matthew and me now. ‘You have to believe me.’

‘Do I?’ She’d sell her own son down the river for a song. ‘You didn’t coerce your son into making Jeanie’s life a misery then?’

‘You said it’d be funny, Mum,’ Luke whines. ‘You said imagine if she thought that old ghost was around again…’

‘Oh for fuck’s sake, Kaye.’ Matthew stands. ‘You child.’

The cards, the emails, the nooses around Jeanie’s neck, the photocopies of articles. The dead blackbirds:
the maid was in the garden
. Jeanie – the hired help.

This boy wasn’t up to all that – not alone, I don’t think.

But I’ve heard enough; I’m itching to leave.

‘I hope you’re really proud,’ I say. ‘How did you do the bird thing incidentally?’

‘What bird thing?’ Matthew looks confused. ‘The blackbirds Jeanie said she saw.’

‘She
did
see them.’ I want to slap him. ‘He knows, don’t you, Luke?’

The boy is shrinking further and further into himself.

‘Luke?’ his father demands.

‘I kept them in the attic in a cage. It was just a laugh.’

‘Killing birds?’ I pull a face. ‘A laugh?’

‘He thought he was protecting me…’ Kaye is half crying now – or trying to. Attempting to squeeze out a tear or two. ‘It’s just a son’s love for his mother. It’s natural. Stepfamilies are hard work.’

‘It’s a completely fucked-up love. Jesus – let them free, if you love them, you stupid woman. Don’t use them for your own ends.’ I look at Matthew. ‘You better get your son some help. Before it’s too late.’

K
aye and Luke
are huddled together in the corner, and I’m ignoring them, as I tell Matthew I want to take the last of Jeanie’s things with me today. I just want to get the hell out of here before I get sucked into their shit any further. I want to get back to Jeanie’s bedside, to meet Frankie, ready for when she wakes up. If she wakes up.

Striding to the door, I say, ‘I’ll bring my car into the drive, if you can get Jeanie’s other boxes.’

‘You don’t need to take it now,’ he’s trying to say. ‘I’d like to see her, for her to know she’s got a home here.’

‘A home?’ I’d laugh if it wasn’t so utterly unfunny. ‘God, when has anyone ever been made less welcome? Why would she want to come back here?’

If she ever wakes up.

‘Marlena, please…’

‘I hope you’re all ashamed of yourselves,’ I snap. ‘You’re monsters, the lot of you.’ Braver than I feel, I walk out to fetch the car.

But I’m speaking to myself too.

I am ashamed. I didn’t realise how close to the edge Jeanie really was. And I didn’t realise the extent of the toxicity here.

W
hen I’ve smoked a cigarette
, rung the hospital yet again and checked my emails on my phone, I’m a tiny bit calmer, and I drive the hire car up to the house.

Matthew’s opened the garage, looking even more rattled than earlier.

‘What’s up?’

‘The keys are missing,’ he says. ‘To the gun cabinet.’

‘Can’t help you there.’ I take a box of Jeanie’s old vinyl from him.

He walks back towards the garden. ‘I’ll fetch the mirror. I know she loved it – I want her to have it…’

‘I don’t think so,’ I say – but he’s gone.

Kaye appears out on the patio and lights a cigarette, wiping tears away like a scaly old crocodile – purely for my benefit, I’m sure.
Save them, lady
, I don’t bother saying. I feel nothing but contempt. I check my phone for messages for the hundredth time this hour. I just want to get on the road up north now.

Matthew and Luke reappear, carrying a hideous big mirror between them, all curly gilt frame.

‘I’m pretty sure that’s not Jeanie’s,’ I say.

Kaye’s about to object I can see – when suddenly Luke swears loudly. ‘Fucking hell!’

I turn at the same time as Kaye.

The girl I know to be Scarlett is standing in the garden, by the back doors. She’s wearing a pair of very short shorts, with bare legs and clumpy black ankle boots. Her baggy T-shirt screams
Smells Like Teen Spirit
in neon pink.

And in her hands she holds a long metallic shotgun.

‘Scarlett.’ Her mother laughs rather hysterically. ‘Don’t be silly! Put that gun down now!’

‘You, mummy dearest,’ Scarlett, teeth gritted, speaks loudly. ‘You can shut the fuck up right now.’ And calmly she levels the gun at Kaye.

‘Scarlett!’ Kaye says, but she does indeed shut up – thank God. Her voice is nasal and whiny.

Luke is transfixed, staring open-mouthed at his twin.

‘I was wondering where that key went,’ says Matthew.

‘You fool,’ Kaye hisses at Matthew now. ‘You fucking idiot. You left the gun cabinet key where the kids could get it? Seriously?’

‘Oh shut up, Kaye,’ he says tiredly. ‘I don’t think you’re in any position to blame others. Put the gun down, Scarlett.’

‘Yeah, shut up, Mum,’ Scarlett jeers.

The family is imploding cataclysmically right in front of me. If it wasn’t rather frightening, if Jeanie wasn’t lying inert in that hospital bed, it might almost be exciting. The web of loyalties is getting more complex with every second, and the journalist in me thinks of the story; echoes of Columbine—

But as it is, it’s pure alarm I feel as my brain races, trying to work out
who
exactly Scarlett has it in for and what she is planning.

If she really hates Jeanie, then I guess I’m the next best thing…

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Kaye move towards Matthew, desperately whispering to him to call the police – and I realise something.

She’s scared of her daughter.

Or of the Beretta – or both, I’m not sure. But I thought they were so close…

‘Shop your little girl?’ Scarlett levels the barrels at her mother’s smooth, tangerine-vested chest. ‘That’s not very nice, Mummy.’

‘Scarlett, baby,’ her mother pleads, and I have a horrible premonition of Kaye’s perfect, fake bosom exploding, blood and guts spattering everywhere. ‘Please, what are you doing, darling?’

‘Scar,’ Luke says now, rather desperately, ‘I really don’t think this is a good idea you know.’

‘What do you know about good ideas, Lucas?’ Scarlett is both withering and tearful now. ‘You’re the one who fucked it up again.’

‘I – I didn’t mean to,’ he splutters. ‘I was just messing around, that’s all—’

‘I warned you, Luke. I said you were doing more harm than good.’ Scarlett levels the shotgun again. ‘He likes to rampage through your personal life, doesn’t he, Daddy? And I mean it’s not like he hasn’t done it before, is it? Didn’t you notice? The second time he’s started a war of attrition, yeah?’

This girl is bright. She has a great future ahead of her – if she doesn’t blow us all to smithereens. My palms are sweating now, my own T-shirt drenched.

‘I was only messing around,’ he repeats. ‘Mum told me it’d be funny…’

‘And you do everything Mum says, yeah?’

I look at Scarlett’s clever, pretty face and then at Luke. It must have been hard for this plain, less-talented boy. Living in his sister’s shadow, trying to win his mother’s love.

‘I liked Jeanie,’ Scarlett says. The gun is trained, not at her twin, but at her mother. ‘Jeanie was nice to me…’

‘I’m nice to you.’ Her mother sounds pathetic. ‘Aren’t I, love?’

‘Don’t make me laugh.’ Scarlett does laugh, and it’s a hollow, emotionless echo. ‘You just control me. That’s all.’

It’s starting to make more sense now.

‘And you must be Marlena?’ Scarlett says to me, but she’s still staring at her mother with eyes of steel. ‘Sorry I stood you up.’

‘No worries.’ I feel surprisingly calm, considering the size of the Beretta in the teenager’s grasp.

‘I was gonna come, but then my mum texted me,’ Scarlett says. ‘She likes to know where I am, don’t you, Mum? At all times. Never a minute’s rest, being Mummy’s best mate, is there, Mum?’

‘Scarlett,’ Kaye is pleading, her eyes welling up. ‘You’re really freaking me out.’

‘Not as much as you freaked us out, Mum. You couldn’t fucking bear it, could you? You couldn’t bear it that Dad had moved on, so you had to mess everything up for everyone.’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Kaye says weakly, but her lies are transparent now.

‘You wanted us to hate our dad so much.’ Scarlett’s own steely resolve is fading a little; I can see the emotion taking over. ‘But that was the last straw.’

‘What?’ Matthew’s sweating too. ‘Come on, Scarlett, hon…’

‘You made me hate my dad, you made Luke your little puppet – so desperate to please you, Mummy, he’d do anything. And yet you’ve always been horrible to him, poor Lukie… no wonder you’re a fuck-up.’ She actually shoots her brother a look of love now, and I feel some sense of relief. Perhaps she
won’t
actually kill us all.

‘And then you had the fucking nerve to get back with him. You tried to make me hate my dad, you tried to make me ruin him – and you lied. And then you got back with him.’

‘I’m not back with him,’ Kaye cries.

‘Luke says you are.’ Scarlett’s eyes narrow. ‘He saw you last night, kissing. Don’t fucking lie.’

‘Kissing?’ Matthew says. ‘When? We weren’t kissing, Luke…’

‘I’m not back with him, I swear…’ Kaye pleads.

‘Not for want of trying though.’ Matthew’s voice is harsh. ‘But we weren’t kissing. She hugged me. I was so relieved the allegations were being withdrawn. But she wanted to take it further…’ He looks at Kaye as if he’s had a sudden revelation. ‘God. Scarlett’s right, isn’t she?’ he says very slowly. ‘They’re both right. I didn’t see it…’

‘I hate you.’ Scarlett suddenly starts to cry, and the gun wavers in her hands for the first time. ‘I really, really hate you, Mum.’ Snot runs down her face, snot and kohl, and she looks like the frightened little girl she is. ‘You were meant to look after us – but you broke it all apart. And then you tried to ruin Dad’s and my relationship – you lied…’

Kaye keens. ‘I was just looking out for you…’

‘You wanted me to hate Jeanie; you tried to make me hate her too – but she was always really nice to me.’

Jeanie; lovely Jeanie. What cesspit did you walk into unwittingly?

‘It wasn’t till I spoke to Alison properly that I understood.’ For the first time the gun looks like it’s too heavy in Scarlett’s skinny arms.

‘Alison?’ Kaye expostulates. ‘That dried-up bitch…’

‘For God’s sake,’ Matthew snaps. ‘She’s your oldest friend.’

‘You’re so fucking jealous, aren’t you?’ Scarlett takes a step closer to her mother. ‘Of other women. You couldn’t bear Dad having any girlfriend or us liking them, so you tried to stop each one…’

‘It’s not true.’ Kaye’s sobbing too. ‘Please, baby. I’m sorry. I can make it all right…’

Jesus, bring out the violins.

I’d really like to go now. Scarlett’s little speech has answered most of my unanswered questions. I’m dying for a fag, I need to start heading north – and I’m fairly sure Scarlett’s not going to fire the gun.

But what do I know?

She pulls the safety catch back; the click echoes round the summer garden.

‘Scarlett!’ I croak, and my throat’s all dry – there’s no saliva at all in my mouth, and I feel like I’m on CSI or some shit. ‘Don’t ruin your whole bloody life, love, for God’s sake – it’s not worth it. Prison’s shit, I know from experience…’

‘Listen to her, hon,’ Matthew says urgently. Luke’s slumped in his seat, not looking at anyone, and Kaye’s sobbing hysterically now.

Kaye’s a horrible woman, of that I have no doubt; can’t see past her own nose, it’s all about her, not her kids – but still, I’d rather not see her pulped to bits.

But…

Scarlett ignores us. Her sharp sapphire eyes sweep the patio as she turns. We hear a second click.