Copycat (17 page)

‘Oh, no…’ Jennie started to say, but then went on, ‘well, if you really don’t mind, Scarlett, that’s very very kind.’

Scarlett adored Poppy and Jennie.

And later in the beach cafe: ‘I don’t want chicken nuggets, I want what Scarlett’s got.’

‘But you don’t like spaghetti bolognaise, Poppy. You said you wanted nuggets. Come on, darling, eat up.’

‘Let’s share.’ These little scenes made Scarlett uneasy. They dragged on and tainted the atmosphere. ‘You put some of yours on my plate and you can have some of mine.’

And if – on those warm Welsh evenings dogged by midges – Scarlett was settled on Mark’s knee, Poppy would fidget and whine until Mark was forced to scoop her up, too. Then Scarlett would climb down to find somewhere more comfortable. But Poppy wouldn’t stop at that. She would follow, whatever Jennie said.

This behaviour, though irritating, was no big deal, but it made me sad when Poppy asked Jennie pathetically, ‘Why does everyone like Scarlett better than me?’

Cut to the quick, Jennie replied, ‘Darling, whatever makes you think that?’

But if other kids with their buckets and spades came to play in the same rock pool as ours, if any little naked strangers arrived to watch, as toddlers do, Poppy immediately stalked away and sulked on Jennie’s knee. Instead of sending her daughter packing, Jennie would say consolingly, ‘Don’t worry, darling, they’ll be gone in a minute.’ And then she’d wonder why Poppy was finding it hard to make friends.

Back in the Close, there was that time when I’d found learning-to-read flash cards stuck to every piece of furniture in Jennie’s house and I’d asked, ‘Aren’t you taking all this too seriously?’

‘Poppy’s terribly bright, Martha,’ said Jennie, ‘so she needs the stimulation. And it’s so much better if they get a good grounding before they go to nursery school.’

So naturally I was concerned about Jennie’s children. And to an extent I blamed myself, wondering guiltily if Jennie’s over-compensatory mothering might be a symptom of her relationship with me.

Home again. One more crisis over and I screwed my courage to the sticking post and told Jennie matter-of-factly that Scarlett was going to nursery school for two mornings a week in September. This would give me extra time to do more hours at work.

‘How could you? She’s far too young,’
Jennie said disapprovingly. ‘I’ll have her, if you really feel you have to do this.’

‘I don’t have to do it, Jennie, it’s what I want to do. And I’d rather she went to nursery than stayed at home with you – for the social experience.’

I’d known Jennie would offer to have her, but Scarlett needed diversity. A show-off like her would love a nursery; she would be in her element.

‘But that means Poppy will have to go.’

‘Rubbish,’ I said. ‘Of course she doesn’t have to. But it wouldn’t hurt her to do a few hours, maybe on the days Scarlett wasn’t there?’

Jennie looked shocked. ‘Why would I send her on those days? She’d want to be with Scarlett. How can we split them when they’re so close?’

‘I know, I know.’ I proceeded with caution. I’d seen the look on Jennie’s face. ‘But wouldn’t it be more fun for them to have a change now and then?’

Jennie said, ‘I don’t see why. Unless you don’t like Poppy’s influence!’

‘Oh come on, Jennie, that’s absurd. Of course, if you really feel they would be happier together, send Poppy along as well. I only thought…’

‘What are you trying to do to me, Martha,
alienate me altogether
?’

The anguished look on her face made me say, ‘That’s not true. You know I’m very fond of you, Jennie.’

‘But how can I know that when you’re so cold? You’re so offhand with me sometimes. And in Wales…’

‘In Wales I was livid with you.
What reaction did you expect?
You’d gone around slandering my bloody husband, not to mention saying that I’m a lush… OK, you say you’ve put it right now, but there’s no smoke without fire.’

‘But I need you, Martha.’

‘I know, I know…’

‘And I get so hurt…’

‘Yes, I know that, too, but I don’t go around being deliberately unkind.’

‘If only you needed me, too.’

‘I do need you, Jennie. What would I do on Mondays and Thursdays?’

‘I don’t mean like that.’

‘Then how?’ God, how I loathed this soul-searching. If I didn’t sidestep most of it, I’d be wallowing around in Jennie’s trough most of the time we spent together. This was the type of discussion she enjoyed best of all and she could often get her way no matter how hard I resisted.

Jennie mused as I waited. ‘I suppose… I suppose what I really honestly want is for you to feel the same way as me.’

I tried to joke. ‘My God, what sort of state would we both be in then? Both of us wandering around lovelorn and lost.’

‘I’m so unhappy,’ moaned Jennie. ‘How I wish this obsession would stop. I am so sick and tired of it all, of the stuff it makes me do.’

‘So am I, Jennie,’ I said.
‘Believe me, so am I.’

She liked to harp on about how lucky she was to have met Graham. ‘When you think about his parents and my mother, and I was his first girlfriend and he was my first boyfriend, too.’

They met at the bank where she worked. Graham went in for some travellers’ cheques and that’s how it started. So I was vaguely surprised when she told Angie Ford that they had met at a party.

But I let it go.

It was unimportant.

Maybe it made Jennie feel more exciting.

It was the following summer. We were a small and lazy group, sitting in Jennie’s garden one hot weekend, drinking home-made lemonade and being sexist, watching the men do their time on the swimming-pool project. The hole had been dug. The pipes were going in. The mess had mostly been cleared away now, to Jennie’s great relief. We were almost at the exciting stage of attempting to fit the liner.

All the materials for the venture were paid for by the Gordons, but the work had been done by the rest of us. As soon as the liner was fitted, we would fill it and pray for an Indian summer.

‘Ruth and Howard resented me on sight,’ said Jennie. ‘They told their son he could do much better, and Stella was downright rude when she realized Graham and I were an item. She called him “nothing much” to his face, but, of course, Stella never did like men.’

When I raised an eyebrow she added, ‘Because my dad left her when I was two.’

‘The little I saw of Stella certainly didn’t make me warm towards her.’

‘My childhood was very unhappy,’ said Jennie, going off at a tangent she thoroughly enjoyed. ‘That’s partly why I’m so determined to make it better for Poppy and Josh. That’s why I refuse to go to work. I was a latchkey kid. The children suffer, there’s no doubt about that. What’s more, the statistics prove it.’

‘So Martha’s a bad mother for a start,’ Angie pointed out wryly.

‘I wasn’t referring to her,’ said Jennie too defensively.

I smiled. I knew she was. ‘I’d be worse if I stayed trapped at home,’ I said, refusing to rise to her bait.

And then out of the blue she said, ‘Scarlett has had to harden up very quickly.’

‘Sorry?’
I couldn’t have heard right.

Jennie repeated her quiet statement. And then she added, ‘I’ve watched it happen. I notice it more than you, Martha, being the one who looks after her…’

‘You’ve never mentioned this before, and anyway, what d’you mean –
harden up
?’

‘I have seen that child being hurt and you taking no notice,’ accused Jennie.

‘She’ll be phoning the social services next,’ said Angie, trying to lighten the tension.

I just couldn’t help retaliating. I’d had enough. ‘Well, perhaps I don’t notice every time, but mine could be a more natural response than taking on your child’s every slight and making it your own.’

‘You really hate me, don’t you?’
screamed Jennie, so loudly and so startlingly that everything stopped and everyone turned incredulously in our direction.

‘OK, come on, let’s leave it alone.’ Angie tried to intervene, but she sat up so quickly her sunglasses flopped back foolishly onto the end of her nose. ‘It’s too sodding hot for this…’

‘Shut up, Angie,’
screamed Jennie, in that same harsh, lunatic voice.
‘What d’you know about anything? She’s always trying to put me down and make me feel stupid, just because I’m a mother and I happen to care about
—’

I said, ‘Stop it, Jennie, you know that’s untrue.’

‘You can’t get at me,’
she roared,
‘so you try and attack me through the children.’

Shocked and embarrassed, I rose to leave.

‘That’s right, that’s right, just turn your back on me, pretend the problem doesn’t exist.’

There was no point in reasoning. It was too late to be rational. In a minute she’d let out her shameful secret and she would regret that far more than me.

Graham came hurrying out through the French windows. ‘Jennie? What’s this? What the hell’s happening?’

Sam pocketed his spanner and muttered, ‘Let’s go.’

Everyone else trailed out of the garden, toes curled to be witnessing such a bizarre scene. I wondered how many of them already regretted their involvement in the swimming-pool project. And, no doubt, were blaming me for promoting it.

‘Martha, can I come with you?’ Poppy pleaded, all twisted and frightened and backing away from Jennie.

‘Oh no you don’t,’
shrieked Jennie, more hysterical than ever.
‘Oh no, you damn well don’t take my kids away from me!’

‘Be a good girl and stay here, Poppy.’ I bent down to comfort the sobbing child. ‘Mummy will be OK in a minute.’

Graham quickly picked her up. ‘I’m so sorry, Martha,’ he began, shock and bewilderment creasing his face.

‘It’s OK, Graham, it’s quite OK.’ I hurried to reassure him.

‘I really don’t know
…
’

But we were gone like everyone else, over the grass and through the door to the safe harbour of our cosy kitchen.

‘Shit,’ said Sam.

‘What’s the matter with Jennie, Mummy?’

Every nerve in my body was jumping, so I plunged into the old washing-up. ‘Jennie’s not very well just now.’

‘But you have to go and get Poppy,’ Scarlett demanded nervously.

‘Don’t worry, Poppy will be perfectly OK.’ I crashed around with a burnt pan and a scrap of filthy scourer.

Scarlett refused to leave it alone. She started on Sam, tugging at his trousers. ‘Go now, Daddy, and bring Poppy here.’

‘I can’t, sweetheart, she’s in her own house.’

‘But it’s so horrible there.’

I turned. I knelt down. I felt like that ghastly freak in the Fairy Liquid ad, but I wasn’t bothered by bubbles or hands. ‘But you like going to Jennie’s while I’m at work. You’re happy there, aren’t you, Scarlett?’

‘Not when Jennie gets like this.’

I tried not to show too much concern. ‘And does she often get like this?’

‘Sometimes,’ Scarlett sobbed.

I had to ask. ‘Does she shout at you?’

‘Not at me – at the telly and the cooker and the washing machine. And sometimes she breaks plates…’

I looked up at Sam over the top of our daughter’s head. He raised his eyebrows. Careful to be casual, he asked her, ‘So what do you do when Jennie shouts?’

She was getting bored with the subject; we’d been dwelling on it too long. She was trying to climb onto the chair to reach the soaking dishes. ‘We pretend it’s all right and go on playing, but sometimes we hide under the stairs.’

Sam paused for thought. And then he turned to ask gently, ‘Would you rather not go there any more when Mummy goes to work, Scarlett?’

She sniffed and rubbed her nose. ‘I have to go. To be with Poppy.’

‘So where the hell does this leave us?’ Sam demanded, hands on hips.

‘Dear God, I just don’t know.’ I passed Scarlett a plate to wipe. ‘And I’m too messed up to discuss it right now. We’ll talk tonight when her ladyship’s in bed.’

‘She’s as mad as a fucking hatter,’ said Sam.

‘Please don’t use that word when Scarlett’s around,’ I reminded him angrily. ‘Or “mad”, for that matter. It really doesn’t help.’

But was it true? Was she insane?

W
AS IT TRUE? WAS
I insane?

I know that I ought to have been on my knees. Martha had been more patient with me than I had any right to expect. If the children weren’t involved, she’d doubtless have cut me off months ago, and this last fiasco – my moment of spontaneous combustion – could well mark the point of no return.

I’d finally flipped. Such raw, grotesque and naked emotions in full public view. My mask had split and left me exposed, and all my neighbours had seen and heard my preposterous outburst. They’d be whispering behind closed doors. How was I going to face them?
We would have to move.

‘Don’t be silly, Jennie.’ Graham pointed out that by the time the house was sold and we’d gone, the worst of my purgatory would be over. ‘Everyone has their breaking point,’ he said kindly, attempting to pull a blind over the wretchedness of my situation. ‘You just cracked, that’s all, and no wonder – your mother’s death could have triggered it off, and on top of that you’ve only recently had a baby…’

‘Last year,’ I bleated weakly.

‘These things take time.’

This conviction of his could well be more for his own protection than mine. But his blind devotion shamed me. When would he learn how unworthy I was? What if he knew the truth?

And I worried about what alternative plans Martha would make for Mondays and Thursdays. Could I approach her even now? Was there anything that might make things right?

No, not this time.
How could there be?

I wallowed in self-pity yet I knew I’d brought this on myself; or rather, it was the creature that raged inside me, the alien being that stoked my obsession.

Was I schizophrenic? Would I hear voices next?

With a broken heart, leaving Graham in charge, I hobbled bleakly to my bedroom, unable to face anyone, not even my caring husband. This was the end of any scheme to start a swimming club in my garden next month, because none of my neighbours would risk involvement with a neurotic hell-hag like me. And anyway, it wouldn’t work. I hated having people round. I’d spend my whole life hiding – waiting for them to dry off and go. Oh God…