The Stepmother(73)

 

And then I think, Do I even want this marriage? Do I want to be married to a man who has been lying to me?

 

Who might love someone else still?

 

Even if I’m not losing it, I know I’m on borrowed time now.

 

 

 

 

 

Forty-Six

 

 

 

 

 

Jeanie

 

 

 

 

 

9 April 2015

 

 

 

 

 

I can’t help myself. It is wrong, but I do it anyway.

 

Around five, I get up. I scrub the work surfaces and the kitchen floor. My compulsion to tidy is getting worse; the CBT last spring stopped it for a bit, but it’s definitely rearing its head again. I know now that it’s about creating order when I feel I’ve lost control, but even that knowledge is not helping.

 

Once the surfaces shine, I get dressed, make a thermos of coffee and two ham, lettuce and mustard sandwiches – one for Frank, one for Matthew’s tea when he gets home.

 

I wrap Matthew’s very carefully. Inside the wrapping, on which I write ‘M’, I slip a little note. It just says,

 

Forever.

 

 

 

 

 

Afterwards I’ll remember the word I chose.

 

I’ll remember the desperation with which I wrote it.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

I drive south, back to where I came from, skirting London, out into the brown and green fields.

 

Somewhere along the way I get a text. I hope it is Matt, but it isn’t.

 

Hope you’re feeling better, Kaye xx

 

 

 

 

 

I am driving too fast to text her back.

 

Nearing the coast, I wind my window down, thinking I can smell the sea.

 

I miss the sea. For all its danger, it’s more benign than the scary old house I live in.

 

I loop my way up over the hills, through the lamb-filled pastures, and the sun comes out at one point, fingers of light dancing over the sea, and I think, Maybe it will be all right. Maybe.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

I know where they live from before.

 

Their small terraced house is what they called ‘bohemian’, and what I’d just call a mess. Broken window boxes full of weeds; half a rusty bike, missing a wheel; and, plonked in the middle of the front garden, the pièce de résistance: a ridiculous pink and orange sculpture with a sagging middle, courtesy of the woman Frank called Mrs Twit or Ma Lundy. It is entitled, according to the hand-painted sign, ‘Birth’. Not like any birth I’ve ever witnessed. And it only costs ￡235, if you care to ask.

 

I take a deep breath and knock.

 

In the grand scheme of things, I’m glad it is Pa who is in and not Ma. He is definitely the more sympathetic of the two – which isn’t saying much.

 

‘What the hell do you want?’ He is bleak, though he seems unsurprised to see me. He really is the most unprepossessing man: dirty fingernails on the door catch, lank hair pulled into a ponytail, old food down his fleece. He looks like he smells; I try not to get too near.

 

‘You’re not meant to be anywhere near here.’

 

How such a man managed to father such a beautiful child I’ll never know.

 

‘Have you been telling people about me?’ I say quickly, before he shuts the door in my face.

 

Pa Lundy looks at me like I am quite mad, a running theme of my life recently. ‘What?’

 

‘Have you been emailing people? About – what happened?’ I feel dizzy. Have I eaten today?

 

‘No, we bloody haven’t.’ He is ferocious. ‘Why would we?’

 

‘For the same reason you thought I had an affair with your son?’

 

There’s a nick on his cheek where he’s cut himself shaving; dark blood has bobbled up there. ‘But you know exactly why we thought that.’

 

I feel so deflated I could just crumple up right there.

 

‘You should go, before Sue gets back. She’ll give you far shorter shrift than me.’

 

That I don’t doubt – and Sue weighs at least three stone more than he does. I realise, too late, that even if they had sent the emails, there’s no way on God’s earth they’ll ever admit it.

 

A mangy ginger cat winds its way round my ankles. Pa Lundy looks at it like it’s some kind of traitor. ‘Come here, puss.’