Copycat (13 page)

I sat and debated what to do, then I fed Lawrence, dressed Scarlett and read the paper, expecting Jennie to come over here. I was surprised when she didn’t arrive and I hoped that my strict talk with her had hit home at last.

What an absurd situation. If it wasn’t so crazy it might be funny, and if I’d been working I could have laughed and put the whole incident down to one of those cringing blunders of life that are never easy to rise above. Tina’s worldly attitude had been refreshing, although she missed the point entirely. No-one could really know the ferocity of Jennie’s twisted passion. The swimming-pool project was about to start and I prayed this would distract her. There was nothing more I could do to help her.

Sod’s Law.

In the post that same morning came my first invitation for an interview, after months of faithful form-filling, CVs and crawling letters. I’d just about given up, but not quite…

Shit,
not much time,
they expected me to be there the next day. I panicked – the kids! The first thing they’d want was a reassurance that my child-care arrangements were foolproof. Now there was no Hilda,
where else could I turn?
After what had just happened, to involve Jennie would be playing into her hands again. It would give out the wrong signals. I needed to distance myself from her: to ask her help would be to draw closer. She’d fall over herself to help me, I knew. There was nobody else in the Close I could use, no-one
that
desperate for funds. One’s own kids were daunting enough, let alone somebody else’s.

My passport to sanity beckoned.

But now, what the hell should I do?

I paced up and down, planning what to wear, what to say, figuring out what sort of person they’d want me to be.

I ought to forget it, Sam would say. To him, this would be no more important than cancelling the blasted dentist.

The thought of turning down this chance I so longed for – to be part of the real world again, to leave behind these breeding years, to mix with sane people, to have conversations that didn’t include shit and bile – the thought of turning my back on all this was enough to make me feel suicidal.

How long had I waited for this very moment?

My brain was so addled I couldn’t remember.

The walls of my house closed in on me and the children’s cries were steel bands round my head.

But faced with dependency on Jennie after the awkwardness between us, I knew very well what I ought to do – I should turn down this job. Right now.

And apart from that, was I seriously considering leaving my darlings with a nutter?

At last Lawrence went for his morning sleep.

To try and soften my crashing dreams I got out my oils and a canvas – it was the only therapy that might lift me out of this well of depression. I covered every inch of the kitchen with old newspapers so that Scarlett could join me in my madness. Once, before I got hitched, I had been considered quite an artist and most of our walls were splodged with what Sam called my primitive efforts. But deep emotions are hard to express with a three-year-old at your elbow, let alone that inane, encouraging chatter.

‘Who’s that, Scarlett? Oooh yes, a house, a dog and a pear tree…’ My daughter was brilliant and I beamed at her proudly; she was advanced for her age, a likely genius.
Noddy
was on the telly and we sang the well-known songs together, shivering at the spooky goblins, eating biscuits and drinking milk, and making the sort of unholy mess Jennie would weep at if she saw.

I decided to ring the
Express
and cancel my interview.

I punched in the number and covered one ear to block out the sound of Noddy’s damn bell.

‘Hold on, I’ll just put you through.’

I waited. The tears didn’t show, they were deep inside me.

‘Look, Mummy…’

‘That’s excellent, Scarlett. Do some more while Mummy—’

But Scarlett needed the potty, so I left the phone and scuttled to fetch it. I undid her dungarees and picked up the phone again. ‘Hello,’ I cried desperately, in case someone important was there. I positioned Scarlett on the pot, handed her her lop-eared teddy and glanced at the mirror over the phone, and gawped to see the state of me: saggy-eyed, dishevelled and vacant, with green smears of war paint over my nose and dried milk streaked round my lips.

‘Mrs Frazer?’ came a calm voice from some distant planet.

‘Oh yes, hello, is that Peter Taylor?’

‘So good of you to apply. We’ve whittled down the applications. Hundreds applied. They think they’re qualified to do this job with just a Bic and a spiral pad. I’m looking forward to meeting you. Sally Ince says she worked with you once…’

‘Oh, how is Sally?’ I’d forgotten my buck-toothed old mate existed.

For a quarter of an hour we chatted like this and finally the editor said, ‘How would it be if we ducked the interview and met for lunch at a pub instead?’

I’d got the job! I knew it!
I knew it!

I heard myself saying a casual ‘Fine.’ If I caught the twelve o’clock bus, I might just make it.

I put down the phone in a euphoric trance.

Someone out there was truthfully looking forward to meeting me in person!

Someone had said I was good at the job!

Somebody wanted to pay me!

And just two days a week – it was perfect!

Lawrence woke up and wanted his bottle. Scarlett was painting the floor with her pee. Big Ears was saying something banal, and I had to ring the plumber because the loo was blocked.

Half an hour later, in a moment of calm, when I’d satisfied every demand on me, I got on the phone to Jennie.

‘I’ll come over,’ she said with alacrity. She seemed to be coping with poor Hilda’s death.

‘Of course I’ll do it,’ she said, ‘if you really are determined to go.’

‘I’ll pay you, of course.’

She adopted her most wounded expression. ‘You know there’s no need for that. Please don’t drive me any further away.’ She was more muted than usual and I noticed she watched me expectantly as I charged round the house searching for clothes, ironing, washing my hair, cursing the muddied state of my only decent pair of shoes. Jennie was at her most downcast, but I was so thrilled and excited that I put her depression down to the fact I had found a job at last.

The door of the doll’s-house prison was opening. I could see light.
Just one extra shove…

Scarlett, Poppy and I experimented with the scrappy contents of my make-up bag. It had hardly been used since I’d become a mother – no free ten minutes by the mirror each morning – and, as I wasn’t going anywhere anyway, why take the trouble? Jennie watched us tensely.

‘What d’you think?’ I turned to face her, smacking my lips over pale pink gloss.

‘That’s nice,’ she said, uninterested.

‘Hair up – or down?’

‘Whatever.’

I refused to take this boring bait. She was upset by my rejection and the thought of another intense discussion wallowing in her murky mire was more than I could endure. I tried to humour her out of the sulks. ‘Two days a week, for God’s sake. It’s hardly emigrating to Australia.’

No doubt she wanted to discuss our improbable sexual encounter. She carried the weight of the world on her shoulders and this morning there was a veil, a kind of thin blue sickness, over her duller than usual eyes. Was she ill? Was she in mourning? Whatever – I did not want to know.

The lunch went well. I knew I had landed the job. I was elated when I got home and spent the afternoon making plans, tearing round the house looking for suitable clothes, and compiling lists. All being well, I could start work in two weeks’ time. I’d convince Sam somehow that this was something I had to do.

I heard the jeep. Sam was home early. But why was he striding towards next door? Graham wouldn’t be home yet and Graham was the only reason why Sam would go next door – to discuss the wretched swimming-pool plans.

I was quite unprepared for what happened next. My hackles rose when I heard the screaming. I flew to the door, cold with fear when I saw Sam striding down Jennie’s path pursued by a screaming, weeping woman trying to clutch at his feet.

‘Sam?’
I tore out to meet him.
‘My God, what’s happened, what have you done?’

Jennie kept after him, panting and sobbing, until she reached our front door. ‘But you must let me see her, you must.’ She flung herself down on the mat, buried her head in her hands and gave way to a torrent of tears, a penitent in terrible remorse. ‘I love Martha, I love her so much.’ And when she looked up, she was crying so hard it looked as if she had no eyes left.

Oh. Dear. God. So Sam had found out about us. Somehow.

God, how I hated her then.

G
OD, HOW I HATED
her then.

Shame slammed at me in tidal waves. ‘Jennie,’ said Martha with frost in her voice. ‘Stop these dramatics and get back to your house. You silly bitch –
are you satisfied now?
Go on, go on, destroy me completely. Happy now, are you, damn you?’

Sam stood beside her in stony silence, and oh the guilt and the racking anguish over something impulsively done that could not be undone.

Inside me day turned to night… all over… nothing left but a shell. And deep, deep within, I was screaming; I writhed in agony.

Neither one put out a hand to help me.

He’d appeared on my doorstep quite out of the blue, standing there, tyrannical, as if he had rights. ‘You’re going to tell me, ’cos I know Martha won’t.’ He thrust the note under my nose. ‘This letter’ – he shook it, his disdain pouring out – ‘it’s absolutely pathetic. What are you, for God’s sake, some closet dyke?’

His sneering sarcasm burned me, but over all that was the awful knowledge that Martha’s friendship with me was over. Sam’s intolerance of minority groups, particularly of the sexual kind, was the one which he harped on most often. All day I had been waiting for something, from that first dreadful moment when I saw him drive off to work in the jeep. I’d expected him to attack Martha; I hadn’t reckoned I’d be the first victim.

His face was a grimace, his arms were crossed tight, and dislike filled his half-closed eyes. Thank God he spoke quietly because of the neighbours, but I wished he would come inside. The terrified Poppy was trying to push past me and I didn’t want her to hear his tone. But he said, ‘What the fuck have you been doing to my wife?’

‘I didn’t mean…’

But he didn’t wait for any excuses. ‘Come on, what happened? Something did.’

I longed to reach up and shut his mouth. If only I could wipe that half-smile from his face.

‘It happened – once – it was my fault. Martha…’

‘Oh? And what did Martha do while you were busy satisfying her perverted desire? Scream for help? Fight you off? Tell you to stop being so fucking obscene? What did Martha do then, Jennie?’ His eyes stared intently. Sharp as pins, they missed nothing.

I stayed silent. At a loss. He gave another of his ice-cold smiles.

‘And do you make a habit of sneaking to the nearest house and having it off with whoever’s around? Aren’t you getting enough from Graham, is that it? You can only stand him one night a week.’

I stiffened with pain and cried, ‘Did she tell you that?’

I forgot how to stop crying. A proper smile broke out on his face. His next few words came with amusement. ‘Oh yes, Martha told me everything. She is my wife, in case you’d forgotten. Husbands and wives do tend to share secrets, although you probably wouldn’t know about that.’

I needed to cling to him, to convince him, but his brain was closed to reason. ‘It happened once and Martha’s been sick ever since. It never would have happened again – she didn’t want to, I didn’t want to…’

‘
Oh, I see, I see.
So my wife’s charms didn’t impress you. She failed to live up to your expectations. Tits too big, I suppose?’

Poppy was whining behind the door and I was afraid to move.

‘You know what you’ve done, Jennie, don’t you?’

‘No!’ I cried out through my tears.

‘You’ve really messed up with your sly perversions…’

‘But I love her!’
Was that my voice, so strong, so clear, that shriek from out of nowhere?

‘I am so sorry for you. I really, honestly am. So you love her, well, do you really. Let’s see how Martha feels about that.’

And with that he walked away down the path with my letter in his hand like a flag, and me behind him, crying and begging. A child again and powerless.

Those words were meant for Martha’s eyes only. But now they were cheap and crass. I cringed when I remembered them. A flood of outgoing love when I wrote them, they were now no more than self-abuse.

Dearest Martha

To write to you is such a relief.

Please don’t let what happened between us make you give up on the rest of it. I know what I did was out of line and although I know that it was wrong, I can’t forget how happy and natural I felt with you in my arms. Strong and good. I think about you all through my days and my nights are full of fantasy. Even writing to you, like I am now, gives me such a rush of elation, knowing you’re going to read what I’m saying. If I thought that, after what happened yesterday, you would want to end our friendship, I don’t think I could stand the pain of it. I will do anything, go anywhere, be anyone you want me to be, just as long as you stay near me and care.

All my love

Jennie

I spoiled it all. Ruined everything.

Everything whirled in a scarlet blur, so I couldn’t know who else in the Close had observed the confrontation, or who kept watching as I crawled back to the hole which was my house. I wouldn’t have noticed a multi-car pile-up inches from my nose.

‘It’s OK, Poppy, it’s OK.’ My eyes gazed at my daughter, unseeing. ‘Sam and Mummy are only playing a silly game. Daddy will be home at five, so let’s see if we can finish our soldiers.’

Yes, Daddy was coming home.

I had the rest of the afternoon to teach my grief-stricken face how to smile. To somehow swap this unbearable misery for the trivia of everyday life. I could say I had a headache and head for a darkened room; I could pack a bag and run away, a quiet walk to the station… going back to Mother, they call it. But thousands of women go missing each year and are never heard of again. They drift into rivers, they fall off bridges, they disappear down cold country roads. Or I could adopt a disguise and spend the rest of my life stalking Martha and making silent phone calls.