The Stepmother(10)

One’s from the bank. One’s from the TV-licensing people. One’s a mail-order catalogue for clothes I’d never wear.

 

And then, in a rush, I tear the last one open.

 

It’s even worse than I feared.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

7 p.m.

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

From the percussive thump, thump through the floor, it is apparent that the countdown to the party has officially begun.

 

I need to hurry, or I’ll be late for our guests – but I’m dawdling. I can’t bear to leave the sanctuary of the room.

 

I’m terrified that Matthew’s friends will see I’m not worthy of him, that I’m not what I purported to be. Terrified of people seeing through me, thinking I’m not good enough. Terrified that I don’t match up to the great Kaye, she of the long legs and tumbling blonde mane and the hard body, honed whilst her husband was away making money – money she was very good at spending.

 

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.