The Stepmother (3 page)

I haven’t met Kaye yet, but I know what she looks like.

Forget that now.

I take a huge breath down into my diaphragm, and I check my reflection in the mirror one final, anxious time, my clammy hands smoothing the sparkly skirts of my dress.

The mirror says I look nothing like normal. I look odd, outlandish even, my feathery headdress so tall I have to bend to see the top of it.

Do I dare walk out of this room? What if they laugh?

Worse,
the gremlin taunts,
what if someone recognises you? There’s always a chance…

They won’t laugh surely? Luke helped me choose the costume last weekend. He was looking for his own on a fancy-dress website, and when I saw the dress, he positively encouraged me – unlike his sister, who didn’t want to look at all.

I imagine she’ll be in her usual denim hot pants and holey tights.

Just
get on with it, Jeanie
.

I remember Matthew’s assurances, murmured into my hair early today – before he slipped out of our rumpled bed to play a round of golf. My fears were forgotten; always forgotten during the times I am in his arms, when I’m warm and sated.

Still, the thing lurks in the corners of my mind, that squat little beast called memory, its sticky fingers covering everything with a thin layer of slime.

And it seems strange I’ve been found out so soon, doesn’t it?

After I opened Miss Turnbull’s bundle earlier and pulled out the contents of that first envelope, hands trembling and head spinning, I studied the front as I had on the other envelope in the hairdresser’s.

My ‘old’ name typed above the address; postmark London, Central.

Why now? I thought.

But I know really.

Looking around the room now, I feel that I always knew it wasn’t right anyway. We don’t belong here, Frankie and I: we are proper misfits.

We belong in our old rented place, with damp patches and mould and mismatched furniture; gaudy cheap curtains and plastic bath suites; Elsie knocking on the wall when Frankie played his music too loud. Not here, in this opulence. It’s all pretend.

I ought to go back before I’m found out…

It’s been so stupid to have not told Matthew, extremely stupid – a far bigger risk than I’d normally ever take doing anything.

I fear I’m going to pay the price.

But – I do have some hope still. No man has ever made me feel like he does. Not even the devil. So my hope resides there: in our feelings for each other, our new passion, that might make it all right.

Please. Let it be all right.

Banging dance music fills Matthew’s house again, the floors shaking with the huge bass beat. I imagine the old house’s disdain at the intrusion, the things it has seen. Now the invaders are all too evident, it sighs…

The knock at the door makes me jump.

‘Are you ready, hon?’

I glance at the dresser drawer where I shoved the envelope when Matthew arrived back with the kids – one of whom was loudly truculent and rude.

‘Just coming.’ I lock the drawer, hide the tiny key in my make-up bag, and open the door. All the little things I’ve been worrying about – the glitter with which I’ve liberally powdered my cleavage, the brilliant shade of my emerald eyeshadow – are forgotten again in the light of my recent fears.

But, stepping out to be judged, the way Matt looks at me calms me.

‘Wow, Jeanie! You look beautiful,’ he says wonderingly.

It’s like warm water washing over me, like sinking into a bath that’s the perfect temperature. A soup of love, almost.

‘Come on, hon.’ Matt holds out a hand, and the expression on his face is one I can’t read. No, maybe I can. It’s one of pride, I think.

Cheeks flaming, I’m proud to inspire this reaction. ‘You…’ I look down at myself shyly. ‘You don’t think it’s too much?’

‘You’re beautiful,’ he murmurs. ‘Lovely girl.’

‘God, Mum!’ Frankie bounds up the stairs. ‘Are you wearing
that
? You look—’

‘What?’ I’m nervous all over again. ‘Ridiculous?’

‘Like you’re about twenty-five!’ His freckly face breaks into a grin.

‘Ah, get away with you,’ I scoff, sounding like my Great Aunt Margaret from Enniskerry – but inside I’m glowing. How could this not be addictive – approbation from my two favourite people in the world?

‘Yeah, right.’

Another imaginary whisper?

Halfway down the attic stairs stands Scarlett, wearing the tiniest dress I think I’ve ever seen: yellow shiny skirt just skimming her thighs, sequined blue bodice glittering in the low lights, long slim legs in fishnets, chunky silver and black heels higher than my headdress.

My stupid awkward headdress that hit the top of the bedroom door as I came out to be ‘observed’.

And who on earth am I kidding? Mutton dressed as lamb.

‘Blimey,’ Frankie mutters, the air between Scarlett and him crackling uncomfortably. Slowly she blinks.

‘You look very pretty.’ I smile at her, feeling the heat creep up my chest. I’ll be all blotchy within the minute.

‘You look very – silver.’ Scarlett is blithe. ‘Like a big piece of tinfoil.’

‘Scarlett Bianca King!’ Her father’s solidarity warms me. ‘That’s
bloody
short.’

I realise the reprimand is for the outfit, not for the way she spoke to me.

‘It’s a fairy-tale dress, Daddy,’ she pouts, giving a twirl. ‘Just like you ordered.’

The look on Frank’s face is one I recognise from days gone by: days of forcing him to eat his greens. It is almost mutinous.

‘Really?’ Matthew’s sigh is hearty.

‘I’m Snow White, Dad. You can hardly object. It’s your theme – fairy tales.’ The whine creeps into Scarlett’s voice. ‘You
said
…’

I hear Marlena:
I’ll give you tinker, you little
…

I glance at Frankie. I wouldn’t like to guess what’s going through his head right now.

‘Oh, but I
can
object.’ Matthew really frowns now. ‘And I do. Go and put a proper dress on immediately. People are about to arrive.’

Scarlett flicks me a look. One chance…

‘Leave her.’ I put my hand on his arm. ‘She looks gorgeous. And it’s a special occasion.’

She steps towards us, and I see our reflections in the great gilt mirror. Scarlett and I held together like a photograph in the curling frame.

Who is the fairest of them
all?
I think wryly.

Of course it’s Scarlett, without any doubt. She does look gorgeous – and far, far older than her fourteen years. Matthew’s right – it’s entirely inappropriate. The whole look is almost pornographic: shiny red lips glistening above a low-cut Snow White bodice, laced to within an inch of its life; face young and wide-eyed as a fawn’s; a creamy cleavage most would die for.

She’s about as innocent as Hannah Montana in her reincarnation as Miley Cyrus.

Before anyone can move, Luke canters down the stairs, almost shoving his twin sister over as he skids to a halt.

‘I can’t get my stupid quiver to stay on.’ He leans over his shoulder awkwardly. ‘It keeps slipping down.’

‘Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen!’ Frankie winks at the boy.

Luke. Slightly overweight and solid where his sister is svelte, not so handsome – but amiable where she is spiky. Always worried whether everyone is all right, used to soothing the neuroses of the female egos around him, I’d imagine.

‘Here.’ Frank adjusts the strap for him. ‘There you go, Mr Hood. Nice costume, mate. Very cool!’

Luke beams. I think he rather reveres Frankie. ‘Thanks a lot.’ No edge to him. ‘I like your costume, Jeanie!’

‘Thank you.’ I smile at the boy fast becoming my favourite stepchild, and he tips his pointy green hat to me. A most gallant Robin Hood.

It goes without saying that Frankie hasn’t bothered with a costume, but he’s scrubbed up well, my boy, in a white shirt, his freckly face open beneath artfully tousled hair. But he’s less than friendly again now, still mutinous, refusing to look at Scarlett at all.

‘Dancing Queen’ suddenly belts out of the conservatory.

‘Jesus! Abba? I told George not to let anyone tinker with the system!’ Frankie is incensed. ‘For God’s sake…’ He thunders down the stairs. ‘ “Royal Blood” is our first track.’

Scarlett tries to slink down after him as the doorbell rings.

‘Hey!’ Matthew barks at her. ‘You’re not going anywhere.’

‘
Please
, Daddy.’ She drops her head, lower lip trembling. ‘I’ll make it up to you…’

‘Matthew,’ I say, gently.

For a moment Matthew looks at me as if he doesn’t know me – and then he smiles, the kind of smile that still makes my tummy flutter.

‘Ah, Jeanie, all right, you win,’ he sighs. ‘You’ve got your stepmum to thank, Scarlett. Just
don’t
tuck into the mulled wine, okay?’

‘Course not.’ She smiles prettily, tugging her skirt over her neat little bottom. ‘Thanks, Daddy. Thanks, Jeanie.’

But I’m sure the look I catch in the mirror as her father guides her downstairs isn’t gratitude.

Plodding behind them, Luke’s look of sympathy doesn’t entirely placate me either.

‘Is Mum coming?’ is the last thing I hear from Scarlett as they disappear round the staircase’s bend.

Mum
? Oh God. I really, really hope not.

A
lone on the landing
, outside the room that’s always locked, I hoick my corset up in the ostentatious mirror. My cleavage certainly doesn’t look so eye-catching now I’ve seen Scarlett’s.

But is anything ever what it seems at first sight? Isn’t there always more beneath the surface than we are capable of first imagining?

The big mirror is out of place here, fitting so badly with Matthew’s minimalist style I don’t know why Kaye didn’t take it – especially as she seems to have fought for so much else.

Perhaps it didn’t match her new décor.

Décor that’s cost Matthew at least one limb, in a two-floor penthouse apartment in a gated estate on the other side of town.

But we don’t dwell on the past much, he and I. Matthew is all about fresh starts. Which has suited me, of course – up to a point. Sometimes though it’s bewildering to live with someone I know so little about. I’m learning on the job.

A new wave of fear washes over me, and I struggle against it. I’ll sort this all out in the next twenty-four hours – then we’ll be safe again.

Still, I wish passionately that Marlena was coming tonight. But why would my little sister, no doubt seeing the New Year in with the great and good – or, more likely, the malign and glamorous – eschew swigging Cristal in the capital’s most fashionable haunts to drag herself out to the sticks for curling canapés – even if they are made by a top-notch firm called Classy Catering (yes, really).

No, I realise Marlena won’t abandon the bright lights to dance with a sweaty accountant who’ll get too close after one glass too many; to sing a tuneless ‘Auld Lang Syne’ at midnight with a load of drunk suburbanites she’ll never see again.

And if Marlena
isn’t
in high society tonight, she’ll be on the trail of someone from low society, pursuing her next story.

Perhaps I could have been more honest about why I need her now…

‘Jeanie!’

I jump again.

Matthew’s waiting at the foot of the stairs. Quickly I switch on my smile and walk down to meet him.

‘Come on,
Mrs
King.’ He holds a hand out.

I greet the first arrivals awkwardly in the doorway: the Thompsons from number 52 whom I met over Christmas drinks – he a jovial solicitor, she a dowdy housewife. They hover in their coats, uncomfortable with their gaudy costumes – too early, they’ve just realised, too late.

Are they comparing me to Kaye?

Don’t be such a drip, Jean,
Marlena’s voice resonates in my head
.

I am a drip though. The good girl: always the staid, boring one, that’s me.

This is your home now! Don’t be scared, for Christ’s sake.

I draw myself up to my inconsiderable height, push my shoulders back and slip my hand into my new husband’s.

‘Hello.’ I smile at Anne Thompson. ‘Can I take your coat? Oh you
do
look nice.’ She looks entirely ridiculous as a crêpe-chested Cinderella in pink satin, wearing so much foundation it’s collected in her wrinkles. But I see trepidation in her eyes, and I feel sorry for her. ‘That colour of pink really suits you. And where did you get your lovely cape?’

O
kay
, so I know what you’re thinking – but come on!

I already said I wasn’t going. And, I mean, would you have gone, in my position?

Sure, I love Jeanie, like I love no one else really – but trawling out there? That would be one step too far. New Year’s Eve in the home counties, all Crimplene and fake Barbour – or, even worse, flouncy WAG hairdos and spray tans. Most fun to be had: warm Chardonnay, sweaty husbands and a spot of fantasising about swapping wives for the night? No ta.

To be honest, I had better things to do on New Year’s Eve 2014. Biggest night of the year: bigger fish to fry, I could say.

There was Levi, first off. He’s cute – like properly cute. He’s what the kids call ‘buff’. Body like Brad Pitt’s back in the day, pretty face to match. All smooth caramel-coloured skin and muscles where they’re meant to be, you know, where you want to stroke ’em. And whilst we’re not official – I don’t do official, you know – I suppose I kind of like him. We are more ‘Netflix and chilling’, as Sharon on reception likes to say when she’s swiping left on her Tinder. Horrible expression maybe, but it suits me just fine right now. I don’t need complication in my life.

And then once that was done, once I’d seen Levi, and the single malt was drunk, and the itch was scratched, there was the small case of the girl named Nasreen.

Nasreen, who I’d met at her sixth-form college just a month ago when I’d given a talk on the pros and cons of digital journalism; Nasreen who had upped and disappeared from her home in Hounslow, just before Christmas. Done her Christmas shopping, left it all neatly wrapped in the wardrobe she shared with her little sister, under her winter jumpers – and then just vanished, without a whisper to her distraught family. No note. Oh yes, sorry – a text. One text to her sister, saying:

And that was it.

I felt it was my duty – very much my duty, all things considered – to find out what had happened.

So please don’t blame me for not noticing right there and then that Jeanie needed me.

And anyway, at that point, I’m not sure Jeanie even did.

At that point, NYE 2014, she was still basking in the warm glow of new love and lots of sex. You know what it’s like, that first year: can’t get out of bed, can’t get them out of your head – like Kylie said. Okay, well, the first six months at least. That’s the longest I’ve ever managed without getting bored. Without having to run.

At that point, it hadn’t all hit the fan. Not yet anyway.

So. Don’t look at me like that. Please.

Cos what I’d also say is this: family – they’ll either make you, or they’ll break you.

As an adult, of course, you get to walk away – if you have the courage. As a child, you have little choice. Generally you’re stuck right there.

So. You can have that nugget of wisdom for free – Marlena Randall, 2016.

And here’s one more:
keep your best friends close; keep your enemies closer
. Now I didn’t make
that
one up: some old Chinese general did – according to Wiki anyway. Wise words, my friends, wise words. That’s what I told Jeanie when she was worrying about Scarlett.

Keep her close.

Because how do you know
who
has it in for you? How do any of us really know?