The Stepmother (5 page)

‘Oh – why?’ I can’t help myself.

She looks up at me again. ‘I just do.’ We stare at each other for a moment until she begins to pout. ‘To come and tuck me in of course.’

Really?
Then I think,
She’s just being silly. Childish. She
is
a child.

‘All right.’ I back away. ‘I’ll tell him. And I’ll… I’ll say goodnight myself then.’

‘Night.’ She is fixated on her phone again. I am sure I’ve glimpsed a packet of Silk Cut in her dressing-gown pocket – but I leave it. Enough for one night.

On the way back downstairs, feeling rattled, I catch my reflection in the horrible gilt mirror.

Don’t be ridiculous.
She’s just a little girl, Jeanie,
I tell myself.
She’s not a threat
.

Still, I don’t dare rock the boat any more tonight. I am tired and a bit drunk; she is suddenly cross about something. Or rather
more
cross
.

I don’t tell Matthew about the cigarettes – or the tucking up, because when I get downstairs, Frankie is looking for me.

‘You missed the fireworks,’ he says, and he is frowning, ‘and there’s something odd about one of them.’

‘What?’ I feel exhausted, my feet aching in the rarely worn high heels.

He walks into the kitchen. People are starting to leave, which relieves me, because I’ve had enough excitement for one day, enough smiling at strangers. I don’t really like parties.

‘This one.’ Frankie kneels by a box. ‘It’s called a time bomb apparently.’

‘Oh yes?’ I plonk myself down on a stool and ease my heels off. He shoves the box towards me. Amongst sawdust nestles what looks like old-fashioned sticks of dynamite with a handwritten tag attached.

‘Yeah.’ Frankie pulls it out. ‘Only it’s not a firework at all. I think it’s real.’

‘Real?’ I am confused. ‘Real fireworks?’

‘No, real dynamite.’ He looks worried. ‘And it’s addressed to you, Mum. The box has got your name on. Look.’

I do. It’s the box the courier brought, and it says my name,
Jeanie Randall
, and in smaller letters after it:

A
whole new year
! A new start. I look out at the bare apple tree nearest the window, at the miserable wet day, and I huddle closer to a gently snoring Matt.

If it’s all a fresh new start, why is my stomach rolling with anxiety?

I turn my head from the mail locked in the dresser and from Miss Turnbull’s, ‘
I thought I recognised your name
’ of yesterday. It’s only a matter of time. I’ve got to tell Matt before someone else does, but…

I can’t bear to shatter the illusion. I can’t bear to knock the light out of his eyes when he looks at me.

As if he’s sensed me watching him sleep, Matthew opens his eyes and pulls me closer.

‘Come here, you,’ he says, kissing my neck, and I shiver and snuggle into him, thinking, I
will
deal with this – only not just now…

H
alf an hour
later I leave Matt sleeping again and slide out of bed. It is miserable and grey, and I am definitely a little hungover – unusual for me. One glass too many last night.

George has stayed, as well as Luke’s friend Joe, and I thought Matthew might have put one of them in the spare room – but they are on the sofa bed in the living room.

‘Still haven’t found the key,’ Matt had said absently when I’d talked of making up fresh beds yesterday, and I’d had another look through the key drawer in the kitchen with no luck. ‘It’ll turn up’, he added. ‘Or we’ll have to change the lock. Use the sofa bed for now, in the study.’

The key had been lost by one of Matthew’s sister’s kids, visiting from America in the summer. They’d lost it playing hide and seek apparently. When I asked Matthew what was in the room, he laughed and said it was the second spare room, full of junk, and I was welcome to look if I could just find the key.

But I can’t. I’ve searched everywhere for that key since I moved in: everywhere. The locked door unnerves me every time I pass it.

Downstairs is deserted, although the cornflakes are out on the side, and the TV is chatting away to itself.

A huge cooked breakfast would be perfect now, a nice way to ease everyone into January. Then perhaps a walk, or a film in front of the fire –
The Sound of Music
perhaps, or
The Wizard of Oz
– something cosy and family oriented, in honour of last night.

The news comes on. Debt, death, the Pakistani media accused of pandering to extremists, followed by someone from the Metropolitan Police talking about the schoolgirl who vanished on Christmas Eve. She’d taken only her passport and one small bag of clothes and was last seen on CCTV catching the Heathrow Express. The fear is that she was headed to Syria; they think she might have been enticed out there to marry a Daesh jihadi. A few photos are shown of a pretty, head-scarfed girl and then one of her with her English boyfriend, laughing on a fairground ride. The police spokesman goes on to say that this relationship had possibly been a decoy, planned to throw her family off the scent. Her older sister makes a plea for information and then starts to cry.

Poor family
, I think, imagining my own sixth-formers. They were such babies: not ready for the world, let alone war.

It is too early in the day – in the year – for such bad news. I turn it off, clutching my tea for warmth.

The house is strangely silent, considering all the people sleeping in it, and I have that sense again that the old walls are whispering.

Whilst I’m looking for the eggs, something creaks nearby.

Then I hear it – I definitely hear muttering, coming from outside.

‘Frank?’ I call. No answer. ‘Scarlett? Luke? Is that you?’

Nothing.

I’m just not used to old houses that creak with age – that’s the truth. I’m used to newbuilds and council flats.

I’ve cracked the eggs into a basin and begun to whisk them when I hear footsteps running somewhere above me and whispering.

In my fright, I slop the batter everywhere. Whisk in hand, I stare at the ceiling – and then there is another noise. The crash of breaking glass.

‘Matthew? Frank?’

For God’s sake, why does no one answer? My fear is making me feel irritated. With an action braver than I feel, I pull open the lopsided door at the back of the kitchen that leads to the rickety stairwell.

‘Hello?’ I call up the dark little stairs. ‘Who is it?’

There is no answer. I turn the light on – and something explodes. My own cry resonates in my ears.

The light bulb has blown.

Don’t be daft, Jeanie
! Old houses, old electrics…

I go back into the kitchen and switch on my phone’s torch.

Gingerly I walk up the first few stairs until I see something in the shadows: a picture, I think, lying smashed halfway up the staircase.

Shaking the broken shards of glass away, I hurry back downstairs with it.

It is our wedding photograph, I realise in the daylight, my heart sinking. Only a month old, in an elegant silver frame that the children had bought us – and it is completely smashed.

I look down at my stupidly smiling face, gazing at the camera with all the hope in the world, Matthew’s arms around me on the happiest day of my life.

The last time I saw this photograph – last night probably, before the party – it had been safely on the dressing table in our bedroom.

Hands trembling, I clean up the glass on the stairs as quickly as I can. Then I drink a pint of water with a couple of aspirin, hoping I’ll feel more human soon, and realise from a single drop of ruby blood on the white worktop that I’ve cut my finger on a shard of glass.

Sucking the blood away, it strikes me once again this marriage might not be as welcome to all as it was to me.

A
s I am flipping
the first batch of pancakes about ten minutes later, Scarlett appears. In her baby blue tracksuit and matching beanie, mascara smudged below her eyes, she looks her real age again. It is odd how that happens, the years fading away – and I find her rudeness more forgivable when I remember she’s only a child. A rather lost one, at that.

‘Morning!’ I don’t want to show anyone I am rattled. ‘Sleep well? How do you want your eggs?’

‘I hate eggs.’ She swipes her phone. ‘Disgusting chicken mess.’

‘Oh.’ I keep smiling. ‘Well there’s pancakes, American style. Do you like them? Frankie says maple syrup and bacon’s the best; I like blueberries. What do you reckon?’ Nothing. ‘You could flip some if you fancy?’

‘I don’t want anything,’ she says dully. ‘Mum’s picking me up now.’

I feel it viscerally.

‘She’s not actually.’ Matthew comes in, yawning, looking slightly the worse for wear. ‘She just messaged to say her car’s got a flat. I’ll give you a lift in a minute.’

‘I want to go now. Where’s Luke?’

‘Gone to play football with Michael and Joe.’ Matthew sifts through the fridge, gulping orange juice straight from the carton.

‘Matt!’ I reprove with a smile. ‘Do you want a glass?’

‘Too much cheap champagne.’ He winks at me. ‘And not enough sleep, eh, honey?’

I blush, thinking of last night, after everyone had gone and he’d taken me to bed.

‘Can we go now?’ Scarlett mutters, texting again, and I wait for him to say,
Yes, after breakfast
, but he doesn’t.

He says, ‘Have you seen my car keys, love?’ as he rifles through stuff on the side.

I look at all the food, the piping coffee, the stack of pancakes glistening with syrup, and for the first time since I’ve lived here, since I’ve been confronted with Scarlett’s obvious hostility, I feel a small flame of anger.

I bite my lip.
Good girl, Jean.
‘By the recipe books?’ I suggest. ‘In the Piglet bowl?’

‘Aha!’ He holds up his keys triumphantly. ‘Come on, tiger.’ He ruffles Scarlett’s hair. ‘Stick mine in the oven, would you, Jeanie? Won’t be long.’

‘Sure.’ I smile brightly. ‘No problem. Bye, Scarlett! Have a good day.’

Scarlett doesn’t look back as she leaves the room; she doesn’t say goodbye, still glued to her phone.

‘Matt,’ I say quietly, as he waits for her to get her bag. ‘Our wedding photo – the one in the bedroom…’

‘What about it?’

‘Did you move it?’ I can’t remember if I saw it there yesterday, during all the party hullabaloo. ‘It seems to have got broken…’ I couldn’t say,
Someone seems to have thrown it down the stairs,
could I?

‘Oh, hon! It’s fine if you broke it, really! We can get the glass replaced, no sweat.’

‘No, but I didn’t—’

‘Dad!’ Scarlett commands from the front door.

‘Coming!’ he practically salutes.

When I put the pancakes in the oven to keep them warm, I bang the door very, very hard a few times, so that Frankie, sloping in wearing last night’s clothes, holds his head dramatically.

‘Blimey, Mum. Hold it down, would you?’

It couldn’t be helped, I suppose, as I think about Matthew driving over to Kaye’s new place. The amazing Kaye. Matthew has to put his children first – that is the right thing to do, I know. But the thought of Kaye galls me this morning.

About a month before I moved in, before I brought Frankie here to live – when I was unsettled still, trying to get my bearings – when Matthew was out one morning, I took the opportunity to seek out his past a bit.

The truth was I needed to know what my predecessor looked like. The not knowing was torturing me. And so I discovered the framed photos of her in Scarlett and Luke’s rooms. Well why wouldn’t there be? I picked each one up and stared for a while, trying to imagine what it was like to be this immaculate woman. Then I replaced them exactly where I found them and shut the doors behind me.

So I’m aware not only that Kaye looks amazing but that she also seems to have been extraordinarily good at spending Matthew’s money to achieve that look. Still
is
good at it, judging from the mentions Matthew’s made of the hefty maintenance he pays.

But it’s all part of a healthy divorce apparently, these photos: keeping the other partner present in the child’s life. My parenting book is explicit: after a split, allow the other parent to still exist. It shows the children’s welfare is more important than your own.

That same day I found the photographs, I’d also contemplated climbing into the attic that ran the length of the roof, suddenly paranoid, anxious I might have missed something vital – but Matthew came back just as I was about to attempt it.

I shoved the ladder back up and rushed back downstairs again, feeling guilty and sordid for my intentions. It
was
paranoia.

But in all honesty, I tried
all
the doors that day. I told myself I wasn’t prying; I was just sizing things up before I moved in. I’m not naturally nosey, or even particularly curious – unlike my little sister, who makes a living delving into the lives of others. I just wanted to understand my surroundings and what I was coming to. It was so alien to my old life.

The only room I couldn’t look into was the locked one on the first floor. Unsurprising, though, that a key is missing in a house with two spare rooms, four used bedrooms, a study, a utility room and a tiny gym – weights, running machine – behind a partition in the double garage.

I live in a place the likes of which I’d barely imagined.

S
ome time
during New Year’s Day, as the rain lashes the windows and we turn the designer fire up, I remember to ask Matt what has been niggling me since last night.

‘Who’s Daisy?’ I ask, and he looks surprised.

‘Why do you ask?’

‘Alison. She asked Scarlett how she was.’

‘Oh I see.’ He moves a cushion irritably. ‘Daisy was Scarlett’s dog.’

‘I thought so!’ I grin sheepishly, feeling guilty I’d thought anything else. ‘Is that the puppy old Miss Trunchbull reported?’

‘Think so…’ Matthew moves again and then winces. ‘Can’t get comfy. Think I sprained my wrist slightly at squash the other day.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘Do you want me to look at it?’

‘No, it’s fine, hon.’ He smiles as the phone rings; I leave it for him to answer. No one really has my number here yet.

‘Hello? Hello?’ He frowns. ‘Can you hear me?’

I look up. ‘Who is it?’ I mouth.

‘Hello?’ he repeats and then tosses the receiver aside. ‘Bloody cold callers.’

‘They’re a pain, aren’t they?’ I look for the remote to turn the sound back up.

‘Especially when they just heavy breathe down the phone.’

I glance at Matthew again, unsure whether he is joking. But he is laughing at Jimmy Carr now, and I leave it alone. I don’t mention our wedding picture again either, because I know Matthew thinks it was me, covering my misdemeanour up.

But cold callers on New Year’s night? Seems unlikely somehow.