Copycat (21 page)

Martha was only human.

I must dig for the flaws that might relieve me.

How could I spend the rest of my life obsessed by an ordinary person?

How could I spend the rest of my life being thought of as pathetic?

H
OW COULD SHE SPEND
the rest of her life being thought of as pathetic?

‘Poor Jennie.’

Incredibly, this came from Sam. But if Jennie had smashed our house up in our absence, to me that would have been less sinister.

Instead, the house was one big public convenience, undiluted pine from the kids’ bedrooms to the downstairs loo, from bathroom to utility room, and every drawer had been tidied so fastidiously it looked like a Benetton window display. Every item had been washed, ironed and pressed.

I noticed with awe that she’d dusted the light bulbs. The hundred-watt bulbs shone eye-achingly and even the sixties gave a garish glare. There were no familiar fingerprints left round the switches, no dull sheen to the pictures, and even the cat tray sparkled with a kind of grey sterility.

The curtains had been washed and rehung, the wooden floors resealed to a glow. The sofa covers had a brand-new look and a fluffy conditioner smell about them. You name it, it had been through the washing machine, Jiffed or Pledged. But my house was not my house. I felt like I’d been invaded.

Jennie’s act of penance: the stifling constraints of duty again, those little tasks that Jennie, with her lack of self-esteem, excelled at. And there on the cooker, all prepared and ready for heating up, sat a delicious-smelling, home-made asparagus soup.

‘They didn’t help her then,’ I said distractedly. ‘So it looks like there isn’t a cure.’

But Sam was impressed. He had never imagined our house could approach these heights of perfection and neither had I. ‘I think she’s entitled to a little compassion. The poor sod’s trying to make amends and this is the only way she knows how.’

My laugh was a short sharp bark. ‘Sam!
What are you saying?
You’ve been doing nothing but slagging her off for the last few weeks…’

‘But remember the article Alice found. If that was right Jennie can’t help what she’s doing, and it has got a name even if it is too long to remember.’

In Dorset I had jumped at the chance of confiding in Mum, someone detached from this crazy mess, a stranger to the goings-on in the Close.

Alice remembered an article she’d read in the
Observer:
a terrible story about a woman who made a spectacle of herself obsessing over her evening-class art teacher – stalking him, pestering him, lying in wait to see him. He took out an injunction in the end, so the article said, and I thought, how cruel to do that no matter how dreadful she’d been. And it went on to say how her life had disintegrated from happily married with kids to abandoned and poverty-stricken, washing up in a transport cafe. There was a picture of her, too, Alice said, like a hag, and it was obvious that she’d been to hell and back.

I wanted to find out more, but apart from the fact that this syndrome had only recently been discovered and that there was no easy cure, Alice couldn’t remember its name.

‘She’s not doing this from choice,’ said Alice. ‘She is ensnared in this ghastly phenomenon. They thought it was some kind of transference.’ She seemed concerned and disappointed at my lack of sensitivity, and particularly with my sneering attitude towards Jennie’s suicide attempt. ‘You, with your intelligence, Martha, you ought to be able to rise above this.’

‘You haven’t lived with it, Alice,’ said Sam. ‘You can’t begin to imagine how stressed out Martha has been.’

Being back in Dorset for just a fortnight had been more refreshing than going to the Seychelles. I adored going home, sleeping in my own bedroom again, although I’d never quite come to terms with making love in my room overlooked by my childhood pictures and shone on by the innocent light of my Eeyore bedside lamp. The smell of gym shoes and ironed cotton still hung around in there, along with my precious sticker al
bums. The only downside was my mother’s refusal to let me smoke in the house.

How different my childhood had been from Jennie’s. And what an important role in development I was certain surroundings could have. Look at all this space and countryside, a parkland of woods, meadows and streams before whose beauty I had stood in awed silence, even as a small child. Here was peace. Here, even the fronds of bracken held sunlight in their hands.

Sam spent his time sailing with Dad.

My parents were close, thrilled to have us but very far from needy – so unlike poor Stella. One day, I supposed, this might be different, when one of them died, or grew senile or ill. But what was the point of worrying – those thoughts were cold and frightening.

This was the nostalgic influence that had drawn Sam and me to the cottage in Hertfordshire, the one we’d originally wanted to buy before we moved to the Close. Since then we’d reconsidered. Country life was not the same… no work, communities broken; leaving pretty pickings, such as old chapels and schools for the rich, retired or elderly, who fought like dogs on committees to preserve the stagnant picturesque, something to hang on their walls and stare at, while the dying went on all around them.

‘Perhaps we ought to move,’ I told Sam.

He thought I’d gone mad. ‘Where to?’

‘Just anywhere… for a change.’

‘But what for?’

‘Because of Jennie, of course.’

‘I’m not being sodding well driven out of my house for anyone,’ Sam said.

‘Just listen to me for a moment. If what Alice has read is true and there’s no easy cure for this fixation, then how long are we going to be stuck with it?’

‘That’s their problem. Let them move.’

‘They’d never go.’

‘Well then, maybe we’ve got to learn to be tolerant.’

‘Hah!’ I was staggered.
‘Listen to who’s talking!’

But I understood his new attitude. From the woods and hedgerows of Dorset our problems at home felt unreal.

That was until we set foot inside our spanking clean house. Then we were back on dangerous ground.

‘It’s like it’s all brand new again,’ shouted an excited Scarlett, exploring her neat-as-a-pin toy cupboard and finding things she’d forgotten she had. But I couldn’t help feeling unaccountably disturbed to see that even the paintboxes had been cleaned. None of the colours ran any more.

It was just as if nobody lived here.

‘What are we going to do, Sam? I think we need a new strategy.’

‘What we need is a drink,’ he said, but he paused for a moment over my question. He was still amazed by the transformation and kept wandering round the kitchen, opening cupboards and peering into the fridge where even the clogged-up light worked again. ‘We could do one of three things,’ he announced. ‘We could try to start from the beginning and pretend that nothing was wrong.’

‘If Jennie would let us.’

‘Or… we could ignore her completely. Gut her off. Send her to Coventry.’

‘Out of the question, she’s too near. I couldn’t live like that, and what about the kids?’

‘Or,’ he turned and smiled at me, ‘we could give her a job as our char.’

‘And that’, I said, smacking him on the head, ‘would be pandering to her masochistic desires, compounding her low self-esteem, and I’m not going along with that.’

But I couldn’t help my growing unease. Even the way she had made our bed was disturbing. No place for cosy love-making, it was more suited to deathly repose.

Before we knew it, we were on normal terms. I use the word ‘normal’ loosely, but we did seem to have found a way to rub along together.

There wasn’t much choice – we lived next door and our little girls were closer than sisters.

‘And we won’t discuss what has happened,’ I told her, ticking off what felt like an errant child.

‘But I can’t pretend I’ve stopped loving you…’

‘No, I know that. But I don’t want to hear about it and I won’t have any more histrionics.’ I shook my head disbelievingly, knowing I sounded like a tight-arsed headmistress. ‘For the kids’ sake, Jennie, you must see that. They’re older now, they’re aware of atmospheres and they sense if there’s antagonism. So let’s agree, I’m aware of your feelings and will try not to make matters harder, but, in return, don’t burden me with them. If you feel yourself cracking, go home, shut the door, put the music on and scream, dance, shout, punch the cushions, whatever you need to do until the urge subsides.’

Jennie nodded obediently, and I thought Alice would be proud of her daughter’s command of the situation.

Now that I’d started, I might as well finish. ‘And I’m telling you right away that Scarlett is going to the nursery for five days a week next month, and Mrs Cruikshank will have Lawrence so I can work full time. I won’t be around in the week, Jennie, and there’s nothing you can do, so don’t try…’

‘No, Martha, I won’t.’ And she stared abjectly down at her feet.

‘
Come off it!
Don’t start on that fawning respect crap. Haven’t you heard a word I’ve been saying?
Games!
You’re so bloody transparent, it’s pitiful. If you want us to be friends again, you’re going to have to pack that in. I just can’t take it, Jennie, I don’t know how to react to that shit.’

‘I didn’t mean to,
I’m sorry I’m sorry.
’ She looked up and smiled at me normally. ‘I swear this is going to be different.’

‘Good, I’m glad that’s out of the way.’ And then I tried out my only idea. ‘Why don’t you go back to school, get some qualifications, get a life, get some courage? That’d stop you wallowing in self-pity.’

She shocked me rigid by staying calm. ‘You’re right, and I’ll do it tomorrow.’

‘You will find out about courses?’

‘I promise.’ She looked pleased and this odd pleasure came from her obedience to me. I was still delicately balanced on that pinnacle of power. So I turned away, defeated.

But Jennie was as good as her word.

And incredibly it appeared to be working. We spent time together – whole families, whole weekends – and it was fine, really fine. We had good times again. We laughed and I was beginning to trust her, just as I had once before. She could be sweet, very lovable and hilariously funny. Graham was relieved just to see Jennie happy and enthusiastic about the timetable they were working out for her at the tech. Back To Work was the course, specially designed for women who had missed out first time round and needed to find new confidence. Jennie showed me the prospectus, which looked perfect in every way.

‘You’re not alone,’ I reminded her. ‘See how many other poor sods are desperate to climb out of the trap. You’re going to feel so different, your life is going to take off from now.’

‘Do you honestly think so?’

I wasn’t going to let her turn morbid. ‘I know so, Jennie. If you stick with it, you’re going to get there.’

‘But only with your help,’
she said shyly.

Damn her. ‘You’ve got it,’ I said.

And she did have my help.

Almost undivided.

She still kept her house as antiseptic as a hospital, while mine was like a council tip. Her kids left home with a proper breakfast, while mine left chewing floppy toast. Every morning we delivered the kids, first the babies to Mrs Cruikshank, and then we rattled on to the nursery where Poppy was as keen as Scarlett. Then it was on to the town centre, where the technical college was a five-minute walk from the offices of the
Express.

Mostly we had lunch together. If I had somebody with me, Jennie stayed well behaved, normal if a little reserved. But then she always found it hard with strangers – you could never call Jennie a social animal.

‘If I’m not at the pub by one, then I’m on a job,’ I told her, ‘so there’s no point being wounded and saying I didn’t explain. My mobile won’t be on, so there’s no way to warn you.’

She accepted this, she seemed contented.

I kept hoping she’d bring a friend of her own.

Hilary Wainwright still called on Jennie on a regular, thoughtful basis like a prison visitor; and so did Angie, the builder’s wife. But as far as I was aware Jennie wasn’t telling fantastic tales or putting untruths about.

The outside world was absorbing her more than her old life in the Close and this had to be healthier. If either Hilary or Angie still questioned my cold reaction to Jennie’s lethal cry for help, then I was too busy to notice. The support I was giving her now was far more useful than sympathy and tea – both as dangerous as Twiglets and booze – and that self-indulgent twaddle, stirring up the wriggly pond life it was better to be ignorant of.

Naturally, I stayed cautious.

One day at a time, I told myself, let’s not run before we can walk.

O
NE DAY AT A
time, I told myself, let’s not run before we can walk.

This was the person I wanted to be: I went to Martha’s hairdresser, Snips, and they chopped off my childlike shoulder-length bob. I had it highlighted in rich rusts, and cropped, and I was transformed into a Dickensian urchin, so thin by now that I looked anorexic. I didn’t know what to do with it.

‘Just let it stick up,’ said Martha, laughing. ‘That’s how it’s meant to be.’

Secretly I was thrilled with the look, just so long as I didn’t appear to be mutton dressing as lamb, or slightly clownish. That winter I went into stylish rags as befitted my student status, wearing long, shapeless skirts, clumping boots and skimpy tops which made me look thinner and, I suspected, more interesting. I lined my eyes as Martha directed; I didn’t need shadows, they were already there.

Every day I walked my tightrope, knowing that one stupid mistake would launch me into a chasm of despair from which there would be no reprieve.

How I scorned the small concerns of my schoolgirlie colleagues, my fellow students, some of whose computer classes we mature women joined, sticking out of the crowd with our bigness. I hadn’t noticed before how long it took teenage girls to grow to full adult size. As the smallest and boniest of my group, I felt I almost fitted.