The Stepmother(94)

 

‘Jeanie. You need to look at this website.’ Marlena is terse, and I feel terrified as she tells me what to look up. ‘Try to stay calm.’

 

I do as I’m told, my fingers clumsy on the keyboard.

 

I hear Marlena talking to someone, giving her address. A cab perhaps.

 

On my screen a news site opens.

 

The front page: a story about a boat sinking in the Aegean, drowning thirty-six refugees.

 

‘What am I looking at?’ I ask, feeling a warped type of relief. I mean I feel terrible for them – but it’s not what I was expecting. ‘Is that what you’ve been working on?’

 

‘No. I mean, yes, something like that – but that’s not what I mean. Type Matthew’s name in the search section at the top.’

 

A chill envelops me. ‘Why?’

 

‘Just do it, Jean.’ Her voice is tight, clipped, matter of fact. I know it well enough to know it means bad news. ‘I am sorry, hon, but just do it.’

 

Hon. The name Matthew always called me.

 

I type in his name next to the icon of the magnifying glass, misspelling it twice. Third time lucky.

 

A photo of Matthew comes up. A very serious face that says ‘trust me’: a publicity shot from his work, I think, judging from the dark suit and the corporate logo behind his head.

 

I read the text underneath the photo.

 

‘Oh my God!’ My own voice shocks me – an ugly ricochet in the warm summer evening. ‘Oh no, Marlena.’

 

‘My God indeed.’ Marlena’s voice is grim.

 

‘It can’t be true,’ I whisper.

 

‘Can’t it?’ she says. ‘Well you might know. I bloody hope not, for his sake. For your sake I mean.’

 

I read it again, the type swirling in my panic.

 

Matthew King, 51, business analyst and a partner at Challenger Holdings, has been arrested today. No official comment has been made yet by either the Met Police or any representative for King, but the allegations are believed to involve the mistreatment of a minor. A source suggests that the minor is someone well known to King.

 

We reiterate that these are only allegations at this stage, and there is no substantiated evidence.

 

 

 

 

 

It feels unbearable.

 

‘And it was her you know,’ Marlena says. ‘I only just found out, but it wasn’t Frankie sending the emails.’

 

Thank God. My brain’s not computing properly though.

 

‘Jeanie? Did you hear me? Those emails came from Scarlett.’

 

 

 

 

 

Sixty-One

 

 

 

 

 

Jeanie

 

 

 

 

 

14 June 2015

 

 

 

 

 

Only ever half the story: that’s what we get. Half the story. Half a picture. Half an idea of what, say, a marriage is actually like behind closed doors.

 

Half a picture of any relationship. We jump to our judgements and conclusions from what we see; we think we know best from what we only have glimpses of.

 

Of this I am well aware.

 

This is the second time I’ve got my affairs of the heart so very wrong – and I’m still paying for the first time of course.

 

I already know he’s found me. He found me at the start of last year.

 

After Otto.

 

I was a sitting duck. Easy prey. But of course he knew that about me already. He knew too much; he knew everything.

 

And now Matthew too. I’m so horrified I find I don’t even want to ask him his side. I don’t want to hear his story; I don’t want to talk to him at all.

 

Marlena has tried to emphasise that there’s no proof of anything yet, that these are only allegations at this stage.

 

But my despair is huge and absolute. It engulfs me. Shame rages through me to such a degree I don’t know what to do.

 

I let Scarlett down; she was a kid who needed help, just like I was once a kid who needed help – and I left her in the lion’s mouth.

 

I ignored the signs. I thought they were the signs of a loving father. I didn’t know; I had no benchmark, and I suppose, looking back, I chose not to believe he could be capable of such an atrocity.

 

How can I live with myself now?

 

All the horrors are being reopened, relived.

 

Since I read this news story last night, I just want to sleep. It’s Sunday, so I don’t have to go into school.