The Stepmother(33)

 

Scarlett is inconsolable, throwing herself into her father’s arms, sobbing in his lap until I have to go and sit upstairs, I feel so awful.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Matthew drives the twins home. Kaye is coming back early, apparently, from wherever she was spending the weekend. Luke comes to say a muted goodbye, but Scarlett won’t talk to me at all, even though I try to apologise. She won’t even look at me, stomping out to the car, tears wet on her flushed cheeks.

 

I go upstairs to busy myself doing nothing, feeling wretched. Maybe I’ll change the beds, I think, even though Matthew’s cleaner normally does it – which makes me uncomfortable anyway.

 

Fetching sheets, I glance out of the landing window by the airing cupboard and see a man in the back garden, mowing the lawn.

 

I move slowly out of the window’s sight line and peer down. He has his back to me as he cuts a straight line up the lawn – all dirty blonde hair, khaki trousers, headphones on. He reminds me of someone.

 

I’m too tired to do the sheets now; I decide I’ll do it later.

 

I lie on our bed until Matthew gets back.

 

 

 

 

 

Seventeen

 

 

 

 

 

Marlena

 

 

 

 

 

Jeanie hates strangers; she always did when we were kids. I was the boringly extrovert one; she was the one who watched those Government warnings: don’t talk to strangers; don’t get in strangers’ cars.

 

Even if the old woman in the corner shop offered us a free lolly, Jeanie wouldn’t take it. Boringly paranoid, my sister. Or careful, my Nan would have said. Sensible. Unlike me.

 

Me? I’ll take anything for nothing.

 

As I’ve since paid the price for.

 

But Jeanie was the one who fell in love: so hard, too fast, no sense of judgement. It was after Frankie was born – he was about seven or eight at the time.

 

That bastard. He nearly brought her down for good.

 

 

 

 

 

Eighteen

 

 

 

 

 

Jeanie

 

 

 

 

 

2 February 2015

 

 

 

 

 

3.30 p.m.

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

I dream of the devil. I am running, and he is after me and I reach a door in the wall, but the door won’t open, and I fumble with the catch, and when I get through it, the devil is on my heels, the heat of his stinking breath on the back of my neck. Sobbing, I can’t shut the door after me, though I desperately try. Desperately I try.

 

When Matt wakes me, I realise I must have fallen asleep, and I’m not sure if it’s because I’m so groggy that he seems a little… frosty.

 

‘All right?’ he says. ‘You sounded like you were having a bad dream.’

 

‘I’m okay,’ I say, but my heart is racing still.

 

‘Have you seen my grey tracksuit?’ He’s pulling stuff out of drawers like a child.

 

‘Second drawer down?’ When he turns back, I try to focus on his handsome face. ‘Surely, Matt, you don’t think it was my fault?’

 

‘No.’ He rubs his eyes tiredly.

 

I haul myself up to sit. ‘I mean how was I meant to know about his vaccinations? I don’t know the first thing about dog care.’ I sound a bit like a teenager myself. ‘Their mother should have made sure they knew the facts if he wasn’t meant to go out.’

 

It’s the first time I’ve ever criticised Kaye, I think later.

 

‘No, I don’t think it’s your fault,’ he sighs, but he seems remote: blank somehow. ‘Not really.’

 

‘Not really?’ I feel a bubble of anger in my stomach. ‘What do you mean – not really?’

 

‘Look I just don’t want to give Kaye any ammunition against me, that’s all.’ He pulls blue shorts on, changes his top. ‘We’ve got the solicitors’ meeting coming up…’

 

‘What meeting?’ I wish he’d confide in me more. What a bittersweet irony that wish is.

 

‘To resettle the alimony payments. I don’t want to wind her up.’ He drops a kiss on the top of my head. ‘Go back to sleep. I’m going to play squash with Sean. I’ll eat at the club.’