The Stepmother(119)

 

I understood from Matthew that he’d got his police inspector mate, Kipper, to put the fear of God into Scarlett over the gun incident. Kipper ‘arrested’ her, locking her up in the local police station for a few hours. Then he interviewed her about the shooting. She understood she was on a ‘caution’, though I don’t think it was ever an official one. After all she hadn’t actually committed a crime.

 

But she knew that if she ever did something like that again, it would be far more serious.

 

I wanted the best for her. I felt sorry for her, and I’d grown quite fond of her – but I couldn’t see how our relationship could pan out.

 

We didn’t talk about her mother really that day – she wasn’t seeing Kaye much yet – but looking at her shovelling her fries in with alacrity, I remembered what it was I’d seen in those home movies that had bugged me.

 

Initially I’d read it as admiration for Kaye – but when I’d looked again, I’d seen it wasn’t.

 

It was a look of fear on her face when she looked at her mother: fear and hostility.

 

I realised that Scarlett’s act of violence came from her rage at not being heard. At having her voice and her feelings stifled by the woman who was meant to love her above all else.

 

I felt sorry for the girl – for both the kids. They had everything they wanted materially, and their lives were still a mess. I hoped that Matthew would be able to be a better father if women were out of the way – for the time being, anyway. There was no doubt he loved his children dearly; they had that security.

 

‘I know you’ve been cutting yourself,’ I said quietly as we waited for our pudding, and Scarlett flushed like her name. ‘You can’t deny it this time. I saw the blood in Ashbourne, on the carpet. I saw it in Malum House too that time.’

 

I’m pretty sure she wanted me to see it – in Ashbourne at least. It’s usually a cry for help in my experience, leaving a clue.

 

I’d told Matthew at the time in Malum House, and he’d ignored it; I’d told Kaye before. If I’d not moved out, maybe I could have done something directly, but now I made sure I told Matthew again, told him he needed to watch out for his daughter’s mental health. It was his responsibility.

 

Frankie was mine.

 

Over chocolate cake and ice cream, I told Scarlett I was learning tai chi and karate, and she grinned.

 

‘You gonna be a superhero then?’

 

‘Hardly. Just keeping fit and learning to defend myself,’ I said primly. ‘You never know who might be round the next corner.’

 

I didn’t tell her I’d also signed up to a ‘self-assertion’ course – to learn to speak my mind in the correct way.

 

It had taken me a long time to learn I had the right to speak. It was something that Scarlett would have to learn too.

 

It had taken me a lifetime to know it was all right to assert my needs.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Before Frankie returns to France to continue his job for a short while, we go to Brighton for a night.

 

I want to see the sea; he wants to visit his best mates.

 

After I drop Frank by the Pier, I drive past Seaborne on the way to Lewes for a drink with some old colleagues.

 

And I think I see Otto, in his green parka, cycling along the Downs.

 

My heart is in my mouth – but I don’t stop.

 

I always think I see Otto. Maybe it’s because I want to see him so much. He has such a pure soul, that boy – despite his dreadful parents and too much skunk. He needed a friend, and in the end that wasn’t me. I was his teacher, not a lover, not a mother, and I told him so. I sent him on his way – as you can see in the photograph. I’m sending him on his way.

 

Ah. You want to know what really happened, when the camera wasn’t on?

 

It was a mistake that could have happened, but I didn’t let it. And it was no one’s business – no one’s apart from Otto’s and mine.

 

We understood each other. He needed sanctuary; I took him in one night. He slept on the sofa. Two lonely souls.

 

He was so lost. But I didn’t see him like the papers said. I saw him like another child. Another lost boy.

 

I saw something in him I recognised. Because Marlena and I, we were the proverbial lost girls ourselves.

 

I saw myself.

 

 

 

 

 

Sixty-Six

 

 

 

 

 

Marlena

 

 

 

 

 

I’m striding down Chalk Farm Road, away from Camden, late (as usual), on my way to a gig, when my phone rings.