The Stepmother(66)

 

Marlena helped me then.

 

I knew for a fact the Lundys weren’t good parents, and the only reason Otto and I had become close was because he was so overlooked at home.

 

I hesitate to say he was neglected, but it wasn’t far off.

 

Marlena checked the parents out in the way that only a ruthless journalist would know how to do. Their own past wasn’t pretty, and when they were threatened with disclosure about some of their own misdemeanours, they slunk off, tails between their legs – but it wasn’t long before they threatened pressing their own charges, civilly. Thank God that never happened.

 

‘I’ll check it out,’ Marlena offers now.

 

‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘I’d appreciate it.’ I watch her blow her smoke up into the city sky, and I feel like I can’t catch a breath myself.

 

I have this feeling, all the time, that I’m paying for my brief happiness with Matthew, that I don’t deserve it and never did – and so it’s over, and I must pay the debt now.

 

‘And if it’s not her?’ I say. ‘What then?’

 

‘You’ve really got no other ideas who it could be?’

 

Of course I do. But I shrug, non-committal. ‘Someone who doesn’t like me.’

 

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Marlena promises, flinging her cigarette into the gutter. Then, weirdly, she kisses me. She smells of fags and Chanel. ‘Nice to see you, J, but I need to crack on.’

 

I sink my face into her shoulder till she struggles, muttering, ‘Yeah, all right. Don’t go all Jean Harlow on me.’

 

Jeanie with an ‘ie’ for the original blonde bombshell Jean Harlow: dead with suspect kidney failure by the age of twenty-six.

 

Marlena for Dietrich, only with an ‘a’ instead of the ‘e’ – because our mother was half-cut the day she registered her newborn.

 

Our names: constant reminders of our failure to attain their dizzy heights.

 

‘I’m not,’ I mumble – but I really don’t want to let go of Marlena, and I don’t want to go home to that big, empty house where things keep going wrong.

 

Where the husband I live with seems ever more like a stranger.

 

I walk back to Euston checking my phone, hoping for messages from him, but there are none.

 

There’s one from Frankie saying he’ll see me later. Something good, at least.

 

I catch the train.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

7 p.m.

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

It is even worse than I expected.

 

Apparently Matthew had only just pulled into the drive when Sylvia Jones accosted him.

 

I wasn’t back. My own train had been delayed, thanks to emergency engineering works, and I’d missed the connecting bus between stations – by which time I was freezing. I rang Frankie for a lift and took him for coffee and a chat on the high street.

 

If only I’d gone straight home, I’d have been able to defend myself immediately, before the thought was planted in Matthew’s head – but I was listening to Frankie rabbit on about Jenna, watching him discover love for the first time with some wonderment. I felt really happy for him, but I was conscious I still hadn’t heard from Matthew since those strange texts first thing.

 

The phone finally rang as Frank drove us home.

 

‘Hi, darlin’.’ I felt a flood of relief when I saw Matthew’s name. ‘Are you back? I’m looking—’

 

‘Yes, I’m at Malum.’ Matthew was curt. ‘Where are you?’

 

‘We’re just round the corner.’

 

His tone wasn’t right.

 

‘Well get a move on.’ He hung up.

 

‘What?’ Frankie clocked my face. ‘More trouble?’

 

‘I’m not sure.’ I stared at the road before us.

 

Oh God, I prayed not.

 

When Frank pulled up outside the house, I couldn’t bear to look at him.

 

‘Give us a minute, would you, lovey? I just – I need to talk to him…’

 

‘Really?’

 

‘Yeah – and I don’t want you to worry, so just let me do it on my own.’

 

‘Fine.’ He shrugged. ‘I’ll go round to George’s.’

 

‘You don’t need to go…’

 

But he said he’d prefer to.

 

Thank God Frankie’s made friends quicker than I have, I thought, watching his tail lights disappear round the corner.