The Stepmother (20 page)

I
’m
on my own at Marlena’s in London.

She’s away on an assignment she won’t speak about – but I gather involves dinghies full of migrants, the unstable little boats that head constantly over deadly oceans these troubled days.

I feel rather like a migrant myself right now: homeless and unwanted.

And I’m remembering the reasons I left the city years ago. It’s so noisy, so hectic. The sirens wail endlessly; the people are a flood. The only benefit is the frenetic energy that at least galvanises me.

In Marlena’s studio flat in Farringdon – once a tobacco warehouse, now all stripped-back beams and wooden floors – I phone anyone I can think of about work, emailing any acquaintance who might possibly help.

I need a job. I need the income, and it’s the only thing to distract me from the disaster of Matthew.

I’m just glad Frankie’s safely out of the way.

Sometimes I go to the cinema alone. If I can find them, I watch old Hollywood films; films I watched with my mother when she was home and could concentrate. She loved those films so much; they brought her solace, belief in another life beyond her own.

I try not to think too much of Matthew, although he’s on my mind most of the time.

It’s starting to dawn on me though that maybe it isn’t
just
me.

Matthew was a man at a crossroads when we met. He was vulnerable and, despite his outer shell of strength, had actually been deeply wounded. He was looking to be saved – he saw me as his salvation.

And then I disappointed him, because I was me – just me, just plain Jeanie Randall – and not salvation at all.

So far I’ve managed not to contact him. I go to the cinema, and I switch my phone off – I hate it anyway – and I sit in the dark watching the screen’s greatest lovers argue – and then invariably kiss and make up again.

I know, deep down, I’m hoping we might do the same.

G
ood news at last
! My old friend and colleague Jon Hunter got my email and rang me this morning. He’s about to go to Tanzania doing the VSO thing, volunteering in an orphanage, and he wondered if I’d be interested in covering his job for a few months. He teaches at a small college just outside Derby.

‘Nice folk,’ he says, ‘if a bit unambitious. Good place to lick wounds though.’

Jon sends me a photo of his small cottage on the outskirts of a small town called Ashbourne in the Peak District. Ashbourne looks quaintly attractive, perched in the dip of two dales, surrounded by fields and woods.

‘It’s like
The Good Life
; minus Tom, of course, but you can be Barbara,’ he jokes, offering it to me for a peppercorn rent. ‘If you’ve got some dungarees.’

I feel enthused for the first time in months.

And it’s strange – I’m starting to feel a bit less gutted about Matthew. I’m sad, yes, really sad – but lighter, somehow, too.

Perhaps I am starting to come back to myself a little.

M
atthew has begun
to ring me in the last few days. He misses me, he says. He’s really sorry about how everything went, and he wonders if we can meet soon.

Yes, I say, we should meet – but I feel very wary. I don’t know how much more hurt I can take. I remember how long it took me to get over Simon, and I think now this may be my chance to move on more swiftly than the last time.

I want Matthew back on the one hand, but on the other, I have to admit I’m not sure it will ever – can ever – work.

I mention in a text that I might be going up north for a bit.

I
drive
up the M1 to see Jon. We meet at a café in the old part of Derby, near the cathedral. This end of the small city is cobbled and picturesque.

Jon arrives on his pushbike as I sit outside in the spring sunshine. He’s fit and tanned, looking infinitely better than when I last saw him in Sussex. Then he was drinking too much: puffy faced and overweight, in the throes of a bitter, acrimonious divorce.

‘You look so well,’ I marvel. ‘You’re like an advert for the countryside.’

‘It’s all the fresh air.’ He grins. ‘It’s good to see you, Jeanie.’

He doesn’t say I look well, and I know that’s because I don’t. I’m too thin – which is rare for me – but I’ve lost my appetite, and I’m not enjoying my weight loss as I might. My sleep patterns are shot again. But I am doing all right really. All things considered.

We drink cappuccino outside the café. White and pink tulips like cupped hands bob around us in the gentle breeze.

When I fill Jon in briefly, he reaches over and pats my arm.

‘I’m sorry it went wrong,’ he says sincerely. ‘Personally I’m giving up on love. Had enough bullshit.’ I have a memory of muted telephone arguments in the staffroom to his wife Lynne, vitriolic and tense. ‘Hence the VSO.’

He’s enthusiastic about the school; he is form tutor to what’s described as a special-needs class, who he’s grown quite attached to.

‘They’re more open up here, the admin. I know it’s been tough for you since the Lundy thing.’ He drops his voice slightly – in embarrassment I wonder? ‘I don’t know what I’d do if it happened to me.’

I think of that terrible day, the day Otto’s arch-enemy posted
that
photo on social media. It went viral within hours – until the whole school was buzzing with it and soon after that, what felt like the whole town too.

It had been late afternoon, and I’d already got home when the bursar rang and said urgently, ‘You’d better get back to school now.’

It had all been caused by a sad, embittered boy who, riven with jealousy at Otto’s popularity, had tried to ruin Otto’s life – and had partly ruined mine into the bargain.

The experience will shadow me forever – I know that now. There’s no safe place from the memory of the scandal.

‘But it’s over,’ I say now to Jon, shaking my head. ‘It happened, and I have to be more transparent in the future. I tried to hide it last time I went for a job – and it backfired badly.’

‘Well I can see why you wouldn’t want to tell all.’

‘But if they find out of their own accord – well I’m kind of doubly buggered.’

‘Come on.’ Jon looks for the waitress. ‘Let’s drown our sorrows in carrot cake.’

The college where I’ll be interviewed tomorrow morning already knows about my past. I sent them a link to the report that thoroughly exonerated me – and Jon has spoken to the head too.

I owe Jon a lot right now.

A
fter putting
his bike in the back of my car, Jon and I drive through the green hills to the winding roads that lead to Ashbourne.

Home for Jon is a pretty little honey-coloured stone cottage, halfway up a gentle hill at the back of the small town. He shows me around and then leaves me to ‘chill out’, as he puts it.

I stand in the window of the top bedroom and look out. I can imagine living here a while. Whilst I try to decide what’s next.

Later, over a glass of wine and home-made rabbit stew – delicious, despite my slight squeamishness about Beatrix Potter bunnies – we reminisce about Seaborne – about the good things. There were lots of good things, before it went so bad.

Neither of us talks about our marriages – and we don’t mention for a second time the scandal that saw me leave, tail firmly between my legs. Jon’s a nice man, I think; his wounds rather more healed than mine.

My wounds are scabby and recent.

I fall asleep listening to the owl that I saw earlier, sweeping like a ghost across the fields behind the cottage. Utterly free.

I
can’t think
where I am when I wake.

All I can hear is the cooing of a wood pigeon or two, and I lie there as it slowly comes back to me.

When I switch my phone on, there’s a voicemail message.

I can’t make it out at first – but then I realise it’s from Scarlett.

‘Why did you just go like that?’ she is saying furiously. I’m baffled. ‘Why did you run away too?’ There’s a pause – someone calling in the background. Then she hisses, ‘Why do you all go?’

All?

When I call her back, it goes straight to answerphone. I leave a message apologising, saying I’ll see her soon I hope.

But I don’t think I’ll see her soon. I think our relationship is over. She got what she wanted in the end.

M
arlena arrives back
in London just as I’m making my final preparations to move up to Derbyshire. They’ve offered me the job, and frankly I can’t wait. I feel a rare sense of purpose again.

We are like ships that pass in the night, my sister and I. She’s keeping strange hours, and I heard her on a very odd Skype call near dawn yesterday, something about love for Allah – but this morning she’d left a note for me on the kitchen table that I read when I got up:

‘Important’ is underlined three times.

I know my sister; I take it seriously when she says ‘important’. I catch the bus to Tottenham Court Road, making my way through crowds already pushing their insistent way forward, despite the earliness of the hour.

I can’t believe how many people throng the busy shopping streets here; everyone with somewhere vital to go apparently – more vital than anywhere you or I might need to be. No one so much as looks at one another as they duck and weave across dirty pavements, surging on and on and on. Drills vibrate the air; yellow- and orange- jacketed workers jostle in the building site that’s currently the underground station. Infernal, eternal sirens pierce the air whilst enraged drivers jam their hands on horns.

It feels like Armageddon; I’m glad to get into the coffee shop.

Marlena’s already in the corner, wedged in by a young mother and a toddler gearing up for a tantrum.

As usual Marlena’s tapping and flicking on her phone. She doesn’t see me at first, but when I call her name from the queue, I can tell straightaway from her face something’s wrong.

I don’t bother getting coffee.

‘What is it?’ I ask urgently as I reach her.

‘Sit down, Jeanie,’ she says.

The small child glowers at me as I do what I’m told.

Something in Marlena’s bearing reminds me of the day she had to tell me our mother was dead. I feel a wave of nausea. ‘What is it?’ I repeat.

‘I’m sorry, Jeanie. I know it’s been a while, but I’ve been so preoccupied with trying to find Nasreen and now all this stuff in Greece…’

‘It’s okay.’ I’m used to Marlena being busy. It’s how she gets through life without being forced to think about herself too often.

‘It’s just…’ She seems reluctant to go on, but she does. ‘You know that email you asked me about?’

‘Yes.’

‘My mate Robo traced the IP address. Handy-to-know cyber dude, Robo.’

‘And?’ I’m impatient. ‘What did he find?’

‘It came from a machine that’s…’ Her phone pings; she looks down. ‘This is weird, Jeanie. I’m sorry – but it’s a bit – worrying.’

‘Oh God.’ My heart flips. It had been dawning on me as I walked to meet her. ‘It’s one of the kids, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah, ’fraid so…’

‘Is it Scarlett?’ My stomach plunges. ‘It is, isn’t it?’

‘No.’ She looks me straight in the eye. ‘It’s Frank. The email address is registered to Frankie.’

‘What?’ I stare at her. ‘Frankie? It can’t be. Don’t be daft.’

‘I’m not. Sorry, but it’s true. Frankie Randall – in black and white. Robo managed to trace the IP address the email account was set up from. It’s not hard, apparently, if you know how.’

I realise I’m gaping like a goldfish. ‘But
why
would Frankie send that email to Matthew? Or to the college? It doesn’t make any sense.’

‘Maybe he hasn’t forgiven you. Maybe he…’ She trails off, looking really uncomfortable. Picks up her coffee cup, bangs it down again. ‘Maybe he was jealous of you and Matthew. He could be. He was so used to having you to himself.’

I think of my son; my beautiful boy. I think of how happy he seemed when I started seeing Matthew properly – and how he gave me his blessing. Sure, he didn’t want to leave Sussex particularly, but he was so grown-up about the whole thing, and I’d been really proud of the way he behaved. And he knew, I guess, that he was going to be leaving soon himself, so he took it on the chin. He was scared I’d be alone when he went – so it worked for him.

‘I don’t believe it,’ I say stubbornly. ‘Forgiven me for what?’

‘For – choosing someone else over him.’

‘I didn’t. I just…’ I hesitate to say
fell in love
. It sounds so chocolate-boxy, especially given everything that’s happened since.

Could all the horror
really
have been partly of Frankie’s making?

I don’t want to think about how he and Matthew never really bonded – and how it got worse and worse until it imploded.

Did I push him to that point?

‘I don’t believe it,’ I repeat.

‘Well you’re going to have to believe it.’ Marlena’s curt. She checks the time on her phone. ‘It’s there in black and white – it’s indisputable. You need to speak to Frank as soon as possible. Sort this shit out, Jeanie. You don’t want Frank getting into something bad like this.’ She stands, dragging her leopard-skin jacket off the back of the chair. ‘You need to sort it out now.’

I
try
to call Frankie in France, but his phone goes straight to voicemail. There’s no denying I feel sick about what Marlena’s just disclosed – but I also feel uncertain. How can it actually be correct?

Yet there’s a part of me that thinks,
Well yes – Frank might just have been so pissed off with me that he did send those emails
.

And if that’s true – then I deserved it.

W
hen Frankie calls
me back that evening, he denies it all. He’s horrified that I’d even consider such a thing to be true. ‘Why would I do that, Mum? Do you really honestly think I would?’

And I say, ‘No, not really.’ I’m just so glad to hear his voice, and hearing it reassures me. I try to remind myself I’m bound to believe him, because I
want
to think he’s innocent of the charge – but the truth is I can’t help it. I do believe him.

I remember Simon accusing him of breaking something in the Brighton flat. I remember defending Frankie to the hilt. I remember what happened next. I will always defend my son. Always.

Except: Marlena had evidence. She showed it to me.

I tell him so.

‘Well look at my computer if you don’t believe it.’ Frank sounds stressed. ‘I don’t want you to think it was me, Mum.’

It’s in storage though, his old PC, waiting for me to decide my next move after Derbyshire. He begs me to search his history – and I remember all the arguments we’ve ever had about computers, which have long been a source of disagreement between us – his inability to switch off lights, TVs, computer screens.

‘It’s your generation who’ll have to pay when the planet frizzles up,’ I’d plead, and he’d laugh.

‘Because your lot messed it up, right?’

If I go through his computer now, it’ll be like searching Matthew’s all over again – and Matthew’s fury is hard to forget. I hate bloody computers at the best of times, the way they trap us savagely in the technological jaws of our age.

Especially since what happened with Otto.

I decide to believe Frank – and I’ll leave it at that for now.

We swap news. He tells me about the vineyard and the smelly caravan he’s sleeping in; I tell him about the job in the Peak District. He’s happy for me. ‘As long as
you’re
happy, Mum.’

Jenna’s going to visit him soon, he says proudly. He doesn’t ask about Matthew – but he does say that Scarlett called him once.

It’s not until later that I think,
I never did ask how she got his number.

‘I swear it wasn’t me, Mum,’ he insists as we say our goodbyes. ‘I wouldn’t do that to you. You can’t even think that.’

But if it wasn’t Frank, who was it?