The Stepmother(28)

 

Tomorrow we need to drag it all out in the open, every last bit of it – and then we will be all right.

 

I get up and sit on the side of the bath in our en suite. I text Marlena, but she doesn’t answer. Eventually I rummage round the medicine cabinet, take a headache pill and go back to bed.

 

Finally I sleep.

 

 

 

 

 

Twelve

 

 

 

 

 

Marlena

 

 

 

 

 

Really, Jeanie?

 

This is starting to alarm me a little now.

 

 

 

 

 

Thirteen

 

 

 

 

 

Jeanie

 

 

 

 

 

1 February 2015

 

 

 

 

 

8.30 a.m.

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Matthew brings me tea in bed this morning. I overslept and was woken by my phone pinging.

 

Marlena:

 

You were up late. Or should I say early? What gives?

 

 

 

 

 

I call her.

 

‘So are you coming to stay? I’ve got a lovely spare room with its own bathroom and all.’ I stretch luxuriously, but I don’t feel very luxurious actually. I’m starting to hate this house; the whispering walls feel less than benign now. I don’t belong. I am an impostor – as that word might have said.

 

Might.

 

Yesterday I was sure I heard voices on the stairs again – a sort of muttering in the ether. I tore open the small door and shone the light up there – but the staircase was empty. Of course it was. But I didn’t relax for the rest of the day.

 

‘And everything’s okay, is it?’ Marlena asks suspiciously.

 

‘Yeah of course, it’s great.’ Why do I feel like I’m lying?

 

‘I mean – you’ve told him?’

 

I don’t speak.

 

‘Jean! For Christ’s sake – what are you on?’

 

‘Okay, okay! Look – if you come up one of next few weekends, I swear it’ll all be sorted by then.’

 

‘Okay – deal. I could do with twenty-four hours in the country. It’s mental in London right now,’ Marlena says, followed by a snappy: ‘Watch out mate!’ I hear the frantic beeping of traffic around her. ‘Gotta go. Gotta see a man about a dog. Get on with it, Jeanie. I’ll text you a date.’

 

Matt comes in as I hang up. He’s been working out downstairs, and looking at his tousled hair and his muscular arms in his white V-neck, I feel the familiar, addictive wash of emotion – a surge of what Marlena would no doubt call lust.

 

Last night’s demons disintegrate in the weak morning light.

 

‘Is it okay if my sister comes to stay?’ I ask as he goes to take a shower – now all fixed. He frowns.

 

‘You don’t need to ask. This is your home too.’

 

I don’t say I’ve already semi-arranged it, because frankly Marlena is less than reliable with social arrangements. I’m so pleased she’s finally agreed to come: I want Matthew to meet her properly, to get to know her like I do.

 

They’ve only met a few times, briefly; she took us out for lunch in London the week after the wedding she missed. She drank quite a lot and was funny and bitchy about celebrities. I wasn’t sure what Matthew made of her, but he laughed at all her jokes.

 

I’m sure they’ll get on famously when she comes to stay.

 

 

 

 

 

Fourteen

 

 

 

 

 

Marlena

 

 

 

 

 

No comment.

 

 

 

 

 

Fifteen

 

 

 

 

 

Jeanie

 

 

 

 

 

1 February 2015

 

 

 

 

 

10 a.m.