The Stepmother(76)
Matthew frowns, as if he doesn’t believe me, but he leaves it. ‘Where’s Scarlett?’ he asks. ‘Is she here?’
‘She’s in the living room. It’s nice to see her – she seemed fine with me,’ I reassure him – but he’s not listening.
‘Scarlett?’ He crosses the hall and pushes open the door, and I follow him.
The television is blaring, Hollyoaks or some teenage nonsense. Someone’s shouting that they love someone else, but they know they shouldn’t, and Scarlett’s not there. Matthew turns it off – and the DVD player comes on.
Images of Scarlett and her mother fill the screen, on some open-air ice rink, Alpine perhaps: Kaye clad in beige cashmere and fur, skating well as she flashes smiles for the camera.
But it’s Scarlett I’m more interested in. I stare at the expression on the girl’s face. I realise what it was that I found so odd before.
‘Scarlett?’ Matthew says again. ‘She’s obsessed by these old home movies.’
‘She’s probably upstairs,’ I suggest, my eye caught by a vivid blur outside the patio doors.
A big healthy fox runs across the terrace, something in its mouth. It’s a muscular creature, and Matthew hates them with a passion.
‘Bloody things,’ he swears. ‘One’s just killed all Sylvia’s chickens you know.’
Good, I think. Good. I have nothing against chickens, but I don’t like Sylvia one tiny bit.
Matthew slides the patio doors open to chase the animal off, and I go to call Scarlett.
Above me I hear giggling and a burst of music as a door opens and shuts. Frankie’s rusty little car is parked haphazardly on the drive, in front of Matthew’s big black beast.
Frank must have come home whilst I was sleeping.
I call them again – and then suddenly Matthew’s inside, face like he’s about to kill someone, and he’s pushing past me on the stairs.
‘Get the hell off her,’ he’s yelling, taking the stairs two at a time. He’s headed for Frank’s room. ‘I can see you, you little f*cker.’
‘Matthew, wait!’ I cry, following behind him.
I reach the bedroom seconds after him.
He’s got my son by the neck, against the wall, and he’s shouting in his face, that vein throbbing in his forehead again, and Frankie’s spluttering and trying to speak over the garage music that thumps out, and Scarlett’s crying and pulling at her dad’s arm, saying something that Matthew won’t listen to.
‘Get off him!’ I shout. ‘Matthew, let him go!’
‘She’s only fifteen,’ he keeps blustering, and Frankie’s going red now, struggling to breathe where Matthew’s hands are around his neck. With the most tremendous effort, I manage to pull my husband off my son, and I stand between them.
‘What’s going on?’ I literally can’t hear myself think. ‘Turn the music off please, Frankie.’
He does so with ill-temper, rubbing his sore red neck, the fingerprints visible, glaring at Matthew. ‘That really bloody hurt,’ he mutters.
My heart contracts. This man I love has left marks on my son. I move nearer Frankie. ‘Matthew, this is unacceptable.’
‘I could see him from the garden; I saw you pawing her,’ Matthew says, and he’s so angry, he’s shaking visibly.
‘I’m sure he wasn’t—’ I interject, but Frankie’s angry now.
‘She said she had something in her eye,’ Frank protests. ‘I was just having a look because she asked me to.’
That old trick. Like mother, like daughter, I think.
‘Likely story,’ Matthew jeers – and Frank explodes.
‘I’m not interested in her, for God’s sake, if that’s what you think. She’s a kid, and I’ve got a girlfriend.’
‘I’m not a kid,’ Scarlett interjects. ‘I’m fifteen.’
‘You’re a bloody child – and you expect me to believe that?’ Matthew switches his attention to Frank.
‘Matthew, look…’ I say, but he grabs his daughter by the arm and drags her out of the room.
Scarlett wails, ‘Stop it, Dad!’ He ignores her, whisking her away from us.
We hear a door slam – and then silence falls.
Speechless, Frankie and I look at each other.
‘Mum?’ he says, and he sounds like a little boy. I’d better not cry; he hates it when I cry – he always has. Like Marlena, it panics him.
‘I’m okay,’ I lie. ‘Let him calm down. I’ll talk to him later.’