Copycat (37 page)

‘It does to me.’ It was then I first noticed how drained and weary she looked under that clever make-up.

‘Yes, at that time it was true. He was seeing Tina, I saw them together. Twice. Quite apart from the fact that Tina admitted it herself. But now I haven’t a clue if it’s finished or still going on. Maybe the fact that I told you stopped them in their tracks. They would have been pushing it after that, if they’d gone blithely on. You ought to know, would Sam be so stupid?’ Had she taken this message on board, or was she still in denial? Would she answer me, or turn round and stalk off? I held my breath and waited.

‘No,’ said Martha, ‘I don’t think he would.’

‘You still adore him, don’t you? It doesn’t matter to you what he does.’

It took her a while to answer. It wasn’t like Martha to be so hesitant. ‘It’s not the same any more, Jennie. It hasn’t been for a while now. Most of the viciousness heaped on you came from Sam and I believed he was genuinely furious because you’d set him up so unjustly. But now I’m wondering if it was guilt… and sheer rage… which drove him.’

‘It doesn’t take much to work out that answer.’

Martha toyed with a marinated prawn – again, nothing like her greedy self. ‘But that’s not the worst part of what’s going on, the mess I told you about isn’t that.’ She held her fork to her mouth and stared at me. I had to wonder what was coming.
‘It’s money,’
Martha confessed in a whisper. ‘Or the lack of it. All this is killing Sam, and it looks as if when everything’s over we’re going to end up homeless.’

‘Money?’
Stupid as ever, I still couldn’t get my head round why she was talking to me about this.

Money? Is it really one of the most important things in life, important in the simplest sense? I don’t think so. I think it is only important as a lie, the biggest lie that civilization has ever told mankind. I think it’s the giant token for all the rubbish in the world and a false one at that, like a one-armed bandit paying out tokens that you can’t cash anywhere else but in the pub where you’re playing it. A promise of power that produces paralysis; a promise of happiness that leads you into the uneasy world of the opium-eaters, the false friends, the false lovers – that false and exquisite environment; a magic talisman in a world of unreality:

The chink of gold. The rustle of notes. And money had handed Martha to me.

‘Nobody is prepared to help us,’ Martha went on pathetically. ‘We’ve tried everybody we know, every loan company – but Sam’s a bankrupt and they won’t touch him.’ There were brilliant tears behind Martha’s eyes. ‘It would mean so much to us if somebody trusted Sam now – of course he would repay any loan with interest, given the time to get back on his feet. He’s an enterprising person, you know that, Jennie. He’s full of energy and ideas, he works himself into the ground. It wasn’t his fault that the company failed…’

‘Where’s all this leading, Martha?’

‘This is so degrading,’ she said. ‘I told Sam I wouldn’t do it, but to see him so destroyed, so despairing and getting worse, is more than I can stand…’

‘You want my money?
Is that why you’re here
?’ Why did she think I would sympathize with Sam after the years I had spent with begging bowl in hand, not hoping for money but for Martha’s attention, drip by drip. And who had cut off the source of my sanity? Sam Frazer, with no compunction. He’d been to blame for every bad thing that had happened to me and my children. But Martha was ahead of me.

‘I understand that you’ll find it hard to forgive Sam for what he’s done. But don’t forget, Jennie, for years Sam and I put up with one hell of a lot from you. Not your fault.’ She held up her hands as if to provide a buffer for any angry denial. ‘Not your fault,
I know that;
we both understood that you couldn’t help what was going on inside your head. We were as patient as we could be, not just me but Sam too, particularly when Stella died. We did what we could to help you, Jennie. We tolerated all kinds of shit from one year to the next…’

I said, ‘You were very kind.’

‘I couldn’t love you back, Jennie, which is what you really wanted. I had other commitments – the kids, Sam, my work – and I hadn’t the energy or the will to give you everything you demanded. You can’t call me unreasonable, I forgave you so many times.’

‘No-one can love me like I want them to,’ I said with a sudden, deep sadness. ‘I make sure I choose people who can’t. Who else would give all their love to their next-door neighbour – a woman, at that?’

Martha smiled wryly. ‘I did give you something unique and important. I gave you the anguish you needed for your work.’

She had obviously read the article when I’d gone on about pain being a spur. She had known and understood at once what I was referring to.

‘You gave me that,’ I had to agree. ‘But I might have been happier without my work, just being normal, at home with my children.’

‘Being normal and at home with your kids was the reason you had all that spare passion.’ She sounded annoyed that I still hadn’t sussed it. ‘More on your mind and you might have stayed sane. You mustn’t blame me for your inhibitions, or for their painful release.’

‘Anyone but you and I would have been fine. Any other neighbour and I might have lived a contented life. I would have enjoyed being a good wife and mother and been satisfied with my lot. But you came along and the madness took over. You were everything I wanted to be, I envied you, I admired you, I needed you…’

‘Not any more,’ said Martha firmly. ‘You’re assured, poised, assertive, confident.’

‘But, Martha, you gave me all that.’

‘No. No.’ She slumped in her chair and it looked as if I had depleted her with my relentless assertions. It looked as if I had sucked her dry like bats suck from the legs of donkeys, like spiderlings feed on the entrails of their mother.

‘We did have some laughs, though. We had some fun, didn’t we? There was that, too?’ I could tell by her eyes that she hadn’t laughed much lately. ‘How’s the job?’ I had gone too far, I had to bring some light to this meeting.

‘Boring,’ she said. ‘Pitiful pay. Our debts are incredible, they go up daily.’ Flames flickered over brass and glass and the shire horse table-mats. Martha sounded like me, not her. Negative vibes, totally hopeless. I had fed off her for so long, now she needed a food source, too. For the first time Martha needed me.

‘You are asking me for money.’

‘I don’t know, Jennie. I was going to, that’s why I came today. But I see now that it’s impossible. It was Sam’s idea, by the way, not mine. He’s drinking a helluva lot at the moment.’ Her face tightened up with the kind of quiet anger I had seen directed at me in the past, particularly the time I spread the rumour that her drinking habits were out of control. She went on tiredly, ‘Sam convinced me that you owed us something after that wicked he about him and Tina.’

I pitied her then, really pitied her, and I hated this new experience. This was Martha sitting dejectedly in front of me, Martha demeaning herself – Martha who for so long had been the one solid feature in my tortured mind.

‘Jennie, you should turn to religion,’ she finally announced as if reading my mind. Were my feelings so transparent? And then she refilled her glass once again. ‘Let’s face it, it’s a God you’re after, not some feeble human relationship. Jesus wouldn’t hurt you. Jesus wouldn’t walk away.’

‘Jesus was weak. They crucified Jesus.’

‘But God’s not. God’s a bastard. He fixed that crucifixion himself.’

‘But now you’re trying to foist him on me?’

Neither of us smiled. ‘Worship somebody from afar, that way you won’t be fucked up by their foibles. Some celebrity, some footballer or pop-star, and yes, I would foist them on you if it meant the traumas between us would end.’

Her own life wasn’t such a success when you thought about Sam’s treachery and now this lamentable poverty threat. Her own love life wasn’t so enviable, so what made hers more valid than mine? Just because it was less outlandish.

‘But you are dealing with the stuff of pain. You design your requirements with that aim in mind.’ The way she said pain made it sound like a dart with the tip soaked in a deadly poison. ‘And if you need to release the creative, the pain level has to rise even higher. Yours isn’t a pleasant passion, Jennie, and it has a repellent effect on others.’

One minute she was after my money, the next she was on the attack. I had to admit, ‘I don’t choose to be like this.’

‘At some subliminal level you do,’ Martha answered hotly. ‘You go for it in the same way junkies go for their fix. Your drug is unrequited love, and it’s sick. It’s a killer, it’s as bad as heroin.’

‘What do you want?’ I asked her.
‘How much?’
We might as well reduce this to the basics. I might as well admit that her reasons for wanting to see me again were no more personal than going to the hole in the wall for some cash.

‘It might sound a lot…’ she started, fiddling with her glass once more.

‘How much?’
With every question, I reduced her. With every question, our roles were reversed.

‘Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds. To be paid into a Guernsey account, under a name to be decided. Don’t worry, I won’t let Sam touch it. To be kept completely separate, to be managed by me for personal expenses… a home, for a start, food for the kids, some kind of old car… to be paid back over twenty-five years at an interest rate to be agreed on…’

Jesus Christ.
But my latest work, which excited Hogg, was going to the US and with a price label not far off that amount. I knew that Graham wouldn’t care – what I did with my money was my affair. And he would understand if any decision of mine concerned Martha. We had our house, no mortgage needed. Our investments would keep us comfortably off, and our pension and insurance plans were sufficient for anyone’s needs. Even if my block came back, even if I stopped working today, Graham and I were secure… he wanted to keep his job anyway… and wasn’t this all thanks to Martha? Didn’t I owe her this much?

Who has the last word? This is my story after all. Shouldn’t I have the last word?

W
HO HAS THE LAST
word? This is my story after all. Shouldn’t I have the last word?

So here I was in Piglets Patch, the house Sam and I had originally wanted before the deal fell through and we decided to move to Mulberry Close. And here I was playing personal assistant to the famous sculptress, Jennie Gordon. I didn’t get paid much, but the rent, council tax, water rates and the use of a new Vauxhall Corsa were thrown in to compensate for that.

This was the turning point in my life when I stopped stepping out of the vicious circle. The pull of the vortex had beaten me. ‘Here we go round the mulberry bush’… and all that stuff.

When I got home after lunching with Jennie, I found Sam had packed his bags in my absence, sodded off and left me with his iMac and a box of CDs. A note said he could no longer tolerate living under the same roof as a dyke, and other malicious insinuations.

I think he knew the truth would come out.

This was so sudden, so jarring, just as unexpected as the firm going bust; and I must have been going around with my head in the sand because, once again, he gave me no clues. And according to Carl Gallagher, who seemed quite excited by the whole idea, Sam and Tina had a flat in Glasgow. They’d arranged this escape for months. Glasgow – of all places?

‘But Tina’s an Essex…’

‘Yes, she is,’ said Carl, ‘no call for niceties now. But she’s got her own income, she works from home, and it’s never mattered to Tina where she lived. Flats in Glasgow are probably cheap.’

Carl was wearing that pleased silly look – cat got the cream – and it was obvious why. All Tina’s fears had been justified; he’d been screwing some other woman for years, and she wasn’t slow in moving in, either.

But me, poor me. What was I going to do now? Talk about getting out while the going was good, dumping your garbage on the mat with your front door keys and a pile of bills.

‘Where’s Daddy?’

‘Daddy’s gone to live in Scotland, Scarlett.’

‘For ever?’

‘Darling, I just don’t know yet.’

‘He’s left you, hasn’t he?’

‘Yes, he has.’

‘But he hasn’t left us,’ she told me triumphantly. ‘We had a talk about divorce at school. Daddies who leave still love their children and want to keep in touch, it’s just the mummies they can’t stand.’

‘Well, that’s good, so long as you understand that, Scarlett. And please make sure that Lawrence does too.’

But when I tried to tackle Lawrence, he was too engrossed in Tomb Raider Four and groaned, ‘Hang on, I’ll be there in a minute.’

‘It’s about Daddy, Lawrence,’ I said in a meaningful tone, the same one I’d used for the facts of life and why head lice only choose clean hair.

‘Oh God,’ he said, ‘I know all about that. I’m nearly there, Mum, I’ve reached level five.’

So against all the expert advice, I left him.

The owners of Piglets Patch had gone to build a dam in Peru, leaving the cottage with an agency for a three-year contract. Jennie dug out this marvellous information after I rang her to confirm the loan and admitted that I was leaving the Close and looking for somewhere to rent. ‘It’s no good,’ I told her. ‘They want me out. They want me out now. And anyway, I can’t afford it. I’m handing in my keys and going.’

‘Hang on,’ she said, ‘don’t do anything, let me check with Hogg. He has a list of places for clients who come to the UK on courses or sabbaticals. Let me check this out and I’ll ring you back.’

She did more than that, she was amazing: she organized everything, paid the deposit, removals, the lot; and said I could stay here rent-free provided I did some work for her. ‘Higher rewards than a small-time hack.’ Blackmail, no other word for it. But who was I to argue?

In other circumstances I’d have laughed at her, scorning this manipulative streak – now more forceful than ever – as she used me in her weird games like some disposable lighter.

And as if she expected some argument, she was quick to defuse it with a positive approach. ‘Think of the fun, like the best of the old times. I need a PA, you need a home and space to find your feet again. This is a professional arrangement, signed and sealed, legal. Straight. And, Martha, you need me now Sam has gone.’