The Stepmother(41)
Are you judging me? Well judge away, mate.
We were lucky. We had our nan. In the end she came and got us. Before the social got involved she took us away, and she did the rest of the parenting. We saw our mum occasionally, when she was clean, which got more rare until eventually she died. There was the terrible methamphetamine phase when Nan went on holiday with Sheila from bingo for a bit of a rest. We spent much of that week hiding in the cupboard beneath the stairs.
After that we saw our mum a few times a year – and our nan, and Great Aunt Margaret, made sure we were washed and fed, loved and schooled.
So. We survived. Just about.
But it made us what we are today.
I survived, largely cos of Jeanie. Because before Nan stepped in, Jeanie made sure we got food and got to school on the worst days, the days when our mum was comatose or had cried into her pillow all night till she couldn’t see straight.
Now they’d call it ‘bipolar’ I guess or clinical depression or some such. There were reasons for her behaviour; she hadn’t had a good time either. There were doubtless reasons she turned to the drugs and drink. But no, I don’t want to go into all of that now.
Our dad? He was just a reprobate and a charming one at that. He took after my granddad, my nan’s late husband – a sailor in the Merchant Navy and never at home till he died early.
Our dad literally had a woman in every tower block this side of the Thames, and that side too, along with many a scheme to get rich quick. In the end he offed and didn’t get rich at all, as far as I know.
No. No idea – could be alive and kicking, could be six feet under. Do I care? Not really.
You don’t miss what you never had.
Do you?
So. Don’t look at us like that. We didn’t do so badly, I don’t think – but we didn’t do relationships well, either of us. We didn’t get it.
We couldn’t get it.
The only thing we did get that was positive, thank God, was a little ambition. Our nan drummed it into us. ‘Don’t rely on a man.’ Well there were none around to rely on anyway.
And we knew we wanted to get the hell out of Dodge.
And look at how that turned out for both of us in the end.
* * *
To return to the present, Jeanie did sound like shit on the phone that evening, after the whole Luke-in-hospital incident.
Sorry if that offends your sensibilities, but it’s not what you expect when your big sister’s apparently married the man of her dreams.
Except – as more than one bloody shrink’s told me – I have zero expectations of love for myself, so why would I have more for Jeanie?
Not that she doesn’t deserve love. Christ, if anyone does, if anyone deserves being adored, it’s Jeanie. But as usual she put herself last and everyone else first.
That’s just how she is… and now look what’s bloody happened.
Twenty-Five
Jeanie
23 February 2015
9 a.m.
* * *
I didn’t sleep well at all last night.
After I saw the birds, I pulled down all the blinds and tried both Matthew – whose phone went to voicemail – and then Frankie. He was still only near Birmingham, he said, waiting for a connection at the bus depot.
‘Call the police if you’re worried?’ he said, but I decided that would be ridiculous, so I went to bed instead.
My dreams were filled with skeletons and bird beaks and tiny beady eyes, and at some point Matthew crept into bed, terrifying me even more when I opened my eyes and found him beside me.
I curled into him desperately. At least I wasn’t alone in the house any more, though my dreams were still chequered.
In the sleety morning, all snow gone, I told him about the dead birds, but by the time he went to look, they’d gone.
‘The foxes must have taken them,’ I said, confused. But where were the cloches? ‘They were definitely right there last night – like they’d been laid out. A baby and a mother.’
‘There’s hardly any foxes here at this time of year.’
That was rubbish, and we both knew it.
‘I heard them, Matthew. Last night, I heard them. The foxes.’