The Stepmother(95)

 

I can’t sleep though, not yet. I’m waiting.

 

When I crawled into bed last night, I thought I heard a light knock at the door, and I wondered if it was my neighbour Ruth. I pulled the covers higher, and I didn’t hear it again.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

There is a skinned rabbit slung over the cottage fence when I walk back up from the shop with milk and bread.

 

I’m not even surprised.

 

Daddy’s gone a hunting

 

 

 

 

 

reads the note around its poor neck. There are numbers on the back – coordinates. I take it all down before the neighbours can see.

 

I wonder how much time I’ve got. Not much, I reckon.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

In the early evening I walk into the back garden and through the little gate and across the field. The moon is etched on the blue sky like it’s been drawn in chalk.

 

By the far hedgerow I see what I imagine is a hare, running free, long back legs powering him along, and I think of the freedom of the wild. He reminds me of my favourite book as a kid, a little girl looking out of the window at the moon. We didn’t have many books in our house, not many at all. It must have been the school’s.

 

‘What’s in the moon?’ I asked my nan when she came to see us, and she told me it was cheese.

 

I loved that book; I used to think that little girl was me, staring up at the moon so wistfully.

 

I can’t reach the moon though. It’s too late.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

When Matthew was trying to hurt me a while back, when he announced it was over – for now – he also said I was a blank.

 

‘You’re like – you’re not there, Jeanie, a no one. I thought I could really love you, and you could help me with my future, but you’re blank.’

 

He couldn’t read me, he said, because there was nothing to me: I hardly existed.

 

Or maybe I said the last part.

 

And now I think, Perhaps it’s true. Perhaps I don’t really exist. I never have, not since – I’m not even sure since when. Since my dad walked out the door when I was small and didn’t come back.

 

Since no one believed in us, no one except our nan. She was our saving grace at least. She stopped us from falling totally between the cracks.

 

But I’m not a blank. I have feelings and emotions – and I’m not sure what to do with any of them now. It’s like I’ve gone into free fall.

 

I thank God that Scarlett is at least safe with her mother. And Frankie’s happy in France, and he has Jenna now and Marlena too, of course. Marlena will always be there for him, and she won’t ever leave him, I’m sure of that.

 

It was always borrowed time for me. I’ve always known the clock was counting down.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

6.30 p.m.

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

My phone rings as I tramp back up the field.

 

I avoid Ruth’s friendly wave, bouncing spaniel at her feet, as I reach the cottage. I don’t like to be rude, but I am beyond caring now, as I go not home but to the place I’ve been lent.

 

I drink the end of the bottle of cider Matthew bought, and I text both Scarlett and Frankie.

 

I tell Frankie how much I love him and to take care and to not drink too much wine in the vineyard.

 

I tell Scarlett I’m sorry I wasn’t more help, and I hope she’s all right – and that she’s left her copy of Rebecca here.

 

Then I get in the car, and I put my glasses on to read the coordinates I was left, and I type them into my phone.

 

I drive out, towards Dovedale.

 

I might not have time to drink the whisky I’ve put in my bag, the half bottle Jon left in the cupboard, but at least I might have the option. It’s some sort of pathetic reassurance.

 

I’m so tired – so tired of it all.

 

All I want is for this nightmare to be over.

 

Lying in bed last night, I heard the owl again. It was a strange, sad noise – but I find it oddly comforting to think of the owl out there now, his great wingspan pale against the night sky as I drive out of Ashbourne and into the wilds, towards the beautiful desolate peaks that I don’t belong in either.

 

It really hurt when he said I was a blank, you know. It really hurt me.