Copycat (18 page)

I dragged the boxful of Stella’s things from the bottom of the wardrobe.

I reread her pitiful letter, the one begging Stan to come back.

I wished my father’s name wasn’t Stan.

I read his reply – just three lines on cheap notepaper – dated six months later, with no forwarding address.

I tried to imagine her frantic wait, all alone with a baby. And it was even worse than I’d originally thought – he hadn’t hung around for two years, he had taken off the week I was born. And she, stuck in that basement flat surrounded by strangers, miles from her native Wales and prevented by shame from returning.

I reread the cruellest letter of all, the one I had learned by heart, the one in the thin, cheap envelope addressed in small, mean writing, the one whose lines were so coldly pious.

‘No, Stella, you have made your bed and you must lie in it. Do not come home again.’
Then there were the God bits… some God, to insist that a mother shun her daughter when she’d got herself in the family way and without a man to support her. It was horrendous, quite horrendous. And although I had never been there, it didn’t take much to imagine that little grey village set round the chapel, where everyone knew everyone else, women peering under their head-scarves. They called it the Swinging Sixties, but in that dour little place it was still the Dark Ages.

No wonder Stella was bitter, no wonder she resented me when she’d given up so much that I might live. I never failed to ask during our lonely Christmases with the plastic tree and the telly on – where was the rest of our family? Why didn’t we have the joyful times, the get-togethers we were so busy watching?

‘Some people have no-one at all,’ she would say. ‘Be grateful. Don’t always think of yourself.’

And I thanked God now, that while she lived Graham and I had never failed to invite her.

There were three photos of my father Stan. One at the register office which showed his face most clearly, and two on the steps of some caravan, wearing dirty jeans and a T-shirt, holding a fish in his hand. Not even a fish to be proud of: a tiddler which anyone else would have thrown back in the water. This must have been taken by Stella herself. Not much of a pictorial history – not a lot of fun. There was a temporary air about him. How long had they known each other before the dreadful deed was done? Was I really this man’s child?

No wonder my life was one terrible debt of commitments that I had not sought. How I wished my mother and I had been able to talk about things like this.

A soft knock on my bedroom door.

‘Yes?’

‘There’s someone downstairs to see you,’ said Graham.

Martha? Could it really be her? Could such a miracle happen?

‘Hilary Wainwright.’

No no no. My heart plummeted like a shot bird. Hilary Wainwright from number four; a smart, cultured woman. God. I hardly knew her from Adam.

‘Why is she here?’ I whispered.

‘
Ssh. She’ll hear you.
She says she wants to talk to you.’ Graham sounded as puzzled as me.

I shoved Stella’s box back under the bed. I needed to wash my face, somehow I must compose myself before I faced this stranger, the counterpane was crumpled, my hair was greasy… Too late, the woman was at the door.

‘Jennie,’ she said quickly, before her nerve failed her. ‘I won’t stay if you’d rather I went, but I just wanted to say that I feel dreadful about what happened and I should have spoken up at the time. You must be feeling so rotten, but some of us do understand, you know…’ She paused to catch her breath. She smiled shyly. ‘Some of us have been there. I just wanted you to know that. And now I’ve said that, I’ll go.’

How could I let her leave, after she’d been so kind? I moved my blouse from the bedroom chair and smoothed the seat for her, a courtier to a queen.

I didn’t know what to say.

She played with her hands, as nervous as I was. ‘I’m not trying to say our experiences are similar but two years ago I had a breakdown, so I know about feelings of desperation…’

I was astonished. This cool person in soft beige Jaeger, with a Moschino belt clasped round her waist, was she really saying she’d lost it? ‘Really? Did you? Nobody knew. Martha never said.’

Hilary said, ‘She never knew.’

‘But Martha and Sam are friends of yours’ – I had suffered such pangs of jealousy – ‘they’re always round at your house for supper.’ So many times I had watched them arrive and cheered if they left before midnight.

‘Nobody knew how ill I was,’ said my neighbour of the stiff upper lip. ‘Or how tempted I sometimes was to strip stark naked and scream in public. So if there is anything I can do for you, Jennie, you have only to let me know.’

Hilary’s kindness, though genuine, was badly misdirected. And now I felt such shame at the times I had scoffed at the Wainwrights, at their oilskin macs and their Timberland boots, at their two smart sons at public school and their compulsory Volvo. Even now she was dressed for sailing. Her shirt was silk and the scarf round her neck had yachts printed on it.

They had never invited us for supper.

But we hadn’t asked them either. We never asked anyone.

It was only since the swimming-pool project that the Wainwrights had deigned to visit our garden, in shorts and immaculate deck shoes. Slumming it, I told Graham.

Maybe Martha had seen her come over?

I must keep her here, perhaps start Martha wondering.

‘I’m getting more frightened’ – this was the truth – ‘less able to keep control, and sometimes the pressure round my head makes it feel like a tin exploding in a pan.’

Hilary’s look said she knew what I meant. ‘But is there a reason?’

I nodded. I felt as drained as I looked.

‘Well, that’s a start,’ she told me in her school-marmy fashion. She taught at the tech and I wondered which subject. Elocution? Navigation? Her silky smile went with her outfit. ‘You can’t call your behaviour irrational when there’s some logic behind it.’

‘To me it feels like madness,’ I said. Now that the ice was broken, it was easier to talk. I needed her detachment and I appreciated her cool control. I struggled against a violent urge to throw myself at her feet and confess, to bring it all up like vomit, to clear my system of acute distress. ‘And my outbursts upset the children.’

But would she understand if I told her the way, when I was tired and things went wrong, I would stand and scream at myself, at God, at fate, at the red handkerchief that had run and ruined my load of white washing, at anything and everything that conspired to hold me in this trap from which there seemed to be no escape? If Martha gave way to hysterical shrieking, nobody would have turned a hair. Letting go of her feelings was just part of her nature… I had seen her smash plates and rip towels in half – and after raising their eyes, people laughed. So did she. It released her tensions. It made her feel better. But I wasn’t Martha. My screams of anguish looked like total collapse and I knew how they terrified Poppy and Scarlett.

‘Yes. I started to panic in certain places,’ Hilary confided in me, as I sat on the edge of my crumpled bed and stared at her sleek, beige hair. ‘I couldn’t breathe, I was fighting for life. Post office queues were endless, traffic lights stayed red till my eyes were bulging. Panic attacks’, she said, ‘are very common.’

Enlightenment slowly dawned. Hilary thought her symptoms were the same as mine. She was going to tell me the heartening story of how she had beaten her demons, but my madness was nothing like hers. I decided, then, that I would be called sane if I’d fixated on God instead of Martha, if I’d taken the veil, been made holy. Become a true bride of Christ. Or if I was obsessed by a man, I would be sad, yes, but understood. History is littered with women who have idolized men; and Victorian women actually died under their aspidistras, sprawled on then-velvet
chaises-longues,
the cause being unfulfilled love. So maybe, unlike Hilary’s, mine was not strictly a mental illness. All I had done was make someone unsuitable the pivot of my life.

Devious with my fixation, I spotted an opening, another chance. If I admitted to Hilary’s illness, if I called myself mad instead of bad, I might escape the penalty of death and be accepted in the Close once again. If Hilary could sympathize with that, then so would everyone else. I clutched at this new reasoning as a drowning man grabs hold of a floating log.

‘I feel exactly the same,’ I told her. ‘Panicked. Breathless. That’s what happened this afternoon. I lost control. I thought I was dying. But look at you now.
How did you do it?
’

‘Tranks,’ she said. ‘Can’t beat them. Therapy sessions, self-help groups.’

‘And they worked?’ I asked in a troubled voice, appalled by the thought.

‘It took time, it took patience, but in the end they did the trick.’

Martha would be encouraged to think that I was seeking the help she’d always said I needed. I would deserve all the support I could get. And how would it look if she turned her back and refused to aid my attempts at recovery?

My tears were genuine tears of relief, but Hilary – as I had intended – interpreted them as despair. ‘I don’t know what to do about Martha,’ I sobbed, and Hilary laid a cool hand on mine. ‘My best friend – you heard what I said – you all heard how I screamed at her…’

‘Oh, I’m sure Martha will understand.’

‘No,’ I said quickly, ‘that’s just it.’ My interruption was feverish but my voice came soft as a whisper. ‘She won’t understand. How can she? I’ve used Martha through all this: she’s had to endure my moods, my rages, my hysteria… She’s been such a brick, you’ll never know, but this last episode was too much for anyone.’

Hilary’s hand was stroking mine now. I had her total attention. People like it when fellow sufferers follow their advice. ‘Would you like me to talk to Martha?’

‘Oh, I don’t like to involve…’

‘Really, Jennie, I don’t mind. Anything that might help. You’re going to need your friends more than ever if you’re really going to conquer this.’

‘What will you say?’
I averted my eyes.

‘Well, I’ll tell her how very sorry you are and how you’re going to seek help for your illness. I’ll say that, because you are ill, you can’t be held responsible for your outbursts…’

‘But Martha won’t want me to babysit Scarlett or Lawrence again. She’ll think I’m not fit…’

‘Well, it might be wiser to give that a break, create more time for yourself.’

I shook my head and hugged myself. What must I do to convince my kind neighbour that this was desperately important to me? ‘If Martha decided she no longer trusted me to look after her children, well, I think that would finish me.’ I went on sobbing quietly. ‘That’s the one thing I know that would undermine me completely.’

Sensibly, Hilary said, ‘All I can do is see what she says and whatever’s decided I’ll let you know. But don’t take Martha’s attitude to heart. Martha’s a wonderful person and very fond of you, I know, and I’m sure she is not as upset as you think. It’s a great shame you feel you can’t speak to her yourself.’

‘Martha wouldn’t like that.’

‘Why are you so sure?’

‘I just am. We’ve done so much talking lately and it hasn’t got us anywhere.’

Graham came in with two cups of tea.

‘Oh no, I won’t stay, if you don’t mind,’ said Hilary. ‘You two sit and drink it together, and I’m sure if you mull over what we’ve said, Jennie, you will see that the answer lies in your own hands.’

I smiled sadly at her. ‘You’re right, Hilary. I’m going to take your advice. I’m so grateful you came, it’s made such a difference. I’m going to make an appointment tomorrow.’

She gave a pleased nod, smiled brightly at Graham and said, ‘I’ll let myself out. And stop worrying.’

‘Better?’ Graham came to sit beside me.

I gripped his hand. ‘I’m so sorry…’

‘You’ve been so unhappy lately,’ he said.

So I told him what I intended to do and he was relieved to hear it. ‘And Hilary’s going to talk to Martha.’

Graham’s smile was uncertain.
‘Why Martha?’

‘I was so horrid.’

‘It’s Martha Martha Martha, that’s all I seem to hear from you. And I can’t help thinking your friendship with Martha is part of the problem.’

‘But, Graham,
I have to have a friend.
’

‘I know that. Of course I know that. But this friendship is so intense. Either you’ve upset her or she’s upset you, and I can’t understand what pleasure you get from such an uneasy relationship.’

‘I need Martha,’ I told him flatly, alarmed that he’d come so near the truth. I removed my hand from his, feeling unjustly attacked.

Graham sighed glumly. I knew he needed no-one but me and I’d felt the same until I met Martha. How would I have reacted, I wondered, if he had found the alternative companion and was spending all his spare time with him, preferring his company to mine? And I also know that Graham wasn’t overkeen to spend every holiday with the Frazers, especially with me and my moods.

‘The children are asleep,’ he said.

All that concerned him was my happiness.

All I could think of was Monday.

A
LL I COULD THINK
of was Monday.

‘Absolutely no way is that freak having our kids.’ That was Sam at his most dominant.

Scarlett went to sleep at last, still worrying about Poppy next door, and leaving images in our heads of social workers and tragic cases, and parents blind to their children’s suffering. But although I agreed with Sam completely, I was left wondering how much of his agitation was aimed at getting me to stop work. And this was so unfair. I never could manage an ordered household, but his meal was invariably warm in the Aga when he came home, his shirts were cleaned and pressed, and his special chair was kept clear of cats. Mostly.

He need not have worried. With Jennie out of action, I would have been far happier, anyway, to find a childminder for Lawrence, and Scarlett could go to nursery for two or three full days a week. I would have my freedom at last. Sam would moan on about the money, but I’d be earning enough to pay – so sod him.