The Stepmother(79)

 

 

 

 

 

Forty-Seven

 

 

 

 

 

Jeanie

 

 

 

 

 

2 May 2015

 

 

 

 

 

10.30 a.m.

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

‘Another one bites the dust.’ As I put a box in the boot, Miss Turnbull is at the gate, bundled into her tweed coat, despite the warm day.

 

‘You don’t need to take everything,’ Matthew had said awkwardly a few days previously. We agreed I’d leave some stuff in the garage whilst I worked out what exactly would happen next. I didn’t have much to take anyway; I never have had. I’m not a hoarder; I’ve never had enough belongings to hoard.

 

‘Perhaps we just need some time,’ he’d said, but we both saw the smashed door every time we passed, and we knew the reality.

 

No time would heal this I fear. All the trust is gone.

 

Frankie moved out first.

 

I insisted on driving him to Dover to catch the ferry. Despite my worry, he was determined to hitch the rest of the way to his job in a vineyard at the foot of the Pyrenees, but he promised to take care.

 

‘I’ll be fine. But will you be okay, Mum?’ He’d hugged me tight. ‘On your own?’

 

‘Yes, of course.’ I’d been as bright as I could manage. ‘It’s for the best. Things just don’t always work out, do they?’

 

Waving him into the ferry terminal, I’d felt so proud of Frankie. I hadn’t done a bad job there at least. Something I’d got right.

 

‘What do you mean?’ I ask the old lady now, wearily, wedging the last box in and shutting the boot. ‘Another one? After Kaye you mean?’

 

‘He’s getting through you like hot dinners.’ She nods with an emotion hard to read. I could ask her to qualify that – but she’s just a lonely old lady with nothing better to do than watch.

 

‘You’re probably better off gone anyway,’ she mutters as she turns away. ‘Get out while you still can.’

 

‘Miss Turnbull…’ I raise my voice to call her back, but she’s rounded the corner already, nifty for one so elderly.

 

I don’t have the energy to follow.

 

I take a final look at the old house. It belongs in a fairy tale, this place – or maybe a horror film I’ve thought more recently. The roses that run across the grey stone, curling round the windows, meshed into the ivy, are starting to bloom.

 

It never felt like home; I won’t miss it. But I will miss my husband.

 

As I back out of the drive the tears start.

 

Sylvia Jones is walking up the road in high heels and a skirt. She’s carrying a dish under a cloth, as if it were a glass slipper on a royal cushion.

 

I’d laugh if my heart wasn’t breaking.

 

As I pull out of the avenue, I think I see a figure emerge from the shadows, watching my car. But maybe I am imagining it.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

12 p.m.

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

I’ve just sat in a lay-by off the dual carriageway, howling, for about half an hour.

 

Now I’m going to Marlena’s to regroup. I can’t stay around here in Hertfordshire. It’s twee and bland, and I crave a real landscape again – the sea or the wild peaks of the North: Bront? land maybe.

 

As I drive out of the town, I think of little Jane Eyre, stumbling heartbroken and lost on the moors, homeless when she leaves the great Thornfield, leaves the man she loved.

 

But I’m not Jane Eyre.

 

I’m more like the mad woman in the attic – and my friend Judy’s ramblings don’t seem so crazy any more.

 

And maybe, I think, maybe the mad woman wasn’t quite so mad after all.

 

 

 

 

 

Forty-Eight

 

 

 

 

 

Marlena

 

 

 

 

 

Right, so at this point all I want to say is as follows.

 

You might think you’ve got Jeanie’s number – but she’s a master of chameleon deception, my big sister.