The Stepmother(45)

 

And I didn’t want to talk about meeting Kaye now. ‘I think you’ll like this.’ I handed Scarlett a glass. ‘And it’s pretty healthy too. That’s a win-win in my book!’

 

I’d have been happy to meet up with Kaye in the beginning. I’d even suggested it after I’d read my book. But now it felt too late.

 

Scarlett and I watched Celebrity Big Brother – and I thought it was one of the most awful, dystopian things I’d ever seen, with people sniping and snarling at each other like animals. Then they talked about how ‘authentic’ they were, ‘telling it how it is’.

 

Where was the good in this cruel, selfish kind of honesty? It was boundary-less. Talk about survival of the fittest.

 

But Scarlett enjoyed it, and for the first time ever, I enjoyed my time with Scarlett.

 

Afterwards I felt we’d both actually relaxed for once. We’d even chatted a bit about boys and school, although she was quite reticent about the boy thing. ‘There’s someone I quite like,’ she said, painting her nails neon pink, ‘but I’m not sure he likes me.’

 

When Matthew popped his head round the door, back from a screening of Star Wars with Luke at the local Odeon, his own surprised smile reflected the happy situation.

 

Do I trust it though? I asked myself as Matt brought us tea and kissed me. I snuggled into him, scolding myself for being cynical. Enjoy it, I told myself. It might not last.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

I try to forget about the birds – but I keep seeing the holly stuck in their entrails.

 

Marlena texts to ask: am I okay? And I reply: yes.

 

I don’t bring it up again with Matthew, but I know they were there. The wretched birds, like a warning.

 

If I don’t come clean, it’ll be the end.

 

 

 

 

 

Thirty

 

 

 

 

 

Marlena

 

 

 

 

 

Okay so the dead bird thing did freak me a bit – but to be honest, I just thought it must have been the neighbour’s cat or something, and Jeanie was just tired and stressed about Matthew and overreacting.

 

And just when I was about to go up to Berkhamsted and stay for a night, I got another lead on Nasreen. A different type of lead that led me away from the fundamentalists. As I was still trying to clear my blotted copybook, I had no choice but to go with it. My career’s been in free fall for the past few years. You know why.

 

Oh. You don’t?

 

Look at the videos on YouTube.

 

It’s all there. Google Leveson; search for ‘iniquitous journalists’. You can see a clip of me, if it’s still online, after I turned myself in. I wore a skirt suit and everything: trying to clothe my remorse correctly.

 

I gave evidence at the enquiry, racked with guilt over a case where I’d listened to the mother of a dead boy howling down the phone to her husband, maddened by the depths of her grief. Something no one should hear unless they are part of the equation.

 

Something no one should ever hear, in an ideal world, full stop.

 

So I ‘grew a pair’ – as Dave from the print room used to say – and came clean.

 

It took a week holed up in a Blackpool B&B, not sleeping, necking whisky, dipping into a bottle of diazepam – and, er, a gram or two of finest Peruvian. I played arcade games into the early hours like when I was a kid – but once I’d got the bender out of my system (never chopped a line since), I contacted the top bods at the Press Complaints Commission.

 

I asked for a meeting, and I struck a deal. Having done that, I told the truth about my misdemeanours over the past few years. A good few years.

 

It was hard. I had to take some of my mates down with me; I’d been taught by the best. The worst, if you like.

 

I avoided jail because I ‘snitched’. You can make your own mind up about whether that was fair or not. I never lied or coerced anyone into talking, I want to say that much. I only listened, sometimes inappropriately.

 

I think I’ve paid my dues – I’m still paying them actually.

 

I sold one flat and downsized, moving to get away from the haters. Thank God I’d already bought, because I lost most of my immediate income – and of course I had few savings. Colleagues spilled their vitriol down the line. I received threats and a promise from my big boss that I’d never get paid for another word I wrote (I’ll leave you to take a guess who that boss was. These days I never write anything down that might incriminate me).

 

I had the sneering public spitting in my face once or twice – and celebrities threatening to sue. The father of the boy came pretty close to thumping me outside the court when I tried to apologise; he’d have succeeded if a policewoman hadn’t restrained him.