Copycat (33 page)

‘Nice?’ boomed Hogg, overhearing. ‘No art should be nice.’

‘Well, pretty then,’ Poppy insisted, reverently touching the arm of one of my favourites and maybe the darkest – ‘Battles with Shadows’ – and I noticed her dreadfully bitten nails. ‘How can you describe a thing like this?’

‘Frightening,’ said Hogg emphatically, ‘wonderfully eccentric and menacing.’

I would have liked to ask Martha what I should wear.

I didn’t look much like an artist.

These London people gushed words like fountains – heavenly, marvellous, gorgeous, magnificent. For them it seemed a constant struggle to find a new way of lavishing praise. It was hard to take them seriously. If I believed one word they said, I’d soon be bloated by self-esteem and lose all sight of reality. But although I knew this, I couldn’t help it – I relished their sugar-sweet praise, wallowing in the warmth of it, savouring every second of it. These were people from glamorous worlds so far removed from mine. This might never happen to me again.

We went off to enjoy a sumptuous lunch, wine, more praise, simmering excitement, and I was heady with all of it, keyed up and dreading going back to the Close and losing this feeling of being wildly alive. Even Poppy looked happier now – she’d been given a catalogue to take to school and she underlined my name on the front. ‘They’ll all want to be friends with me now.’

Not only this, but if Hogg’s estimates on the likely sales resulting from this one exhibition were anywhere near correct, we’d be able to afford the very best private schools in the area, the ones I’d dreamed of sending the children to.

I had done to Poppy the very thing I’d sworn never to do. She had been through hell because of me. It was only right I should help to put her back together.

Poppy might not be first in class, but even Mrs Forest admitted that my daughter was far from stupid. ‘You will see,’ she’d told me when we’d discussed Poppy’s future, ‘that although this might seem like a nightmare for her now – being moved away from her friends and classmates – in the long run Poppy will benefit. She’ll learn to use her own brain again and discover a truer identity.’

This was hard for her to accept. She was truly, utterly miserable as the final term drew to an end, and her hatred of Scarlett knew no bounds. ‘I wouldn’t help her if she was dying, and when we get rich I’m having a pony and then she’ll be sorry, you watch.’

‘That’s not the attitude…’

‘It is, and I’m taking it,’ she said, wriggling away unhappily and going to sit on her own in front of the silent TV. ‘Why are they being so unkind? Why don’t they speak to you any more? Why does that cow Hilary Wainwright turn away when she sees you coming?’

What could I say that would sound convincing? How could Poppy, aged ten, understand when I hardly understood this myself? But I made an effort because I was forced to. ‘Sometimes people don’t like hearing the truth.’

‘What truth? Did you say something horrid to Martha?’

‘Yes, Poppy. Yes, I did.’

‘What was it?’

‘That’s between Martha and me.’

Suddenly she raged at me, her mood-swings as rapid and rabid as mine. ‘No, it’s not just to do with you.
It was you who made all this happen. We were happy here until you went and spoilt it. You have ruined my life for ever and I really really hate you…
’

‘That’s not fair, you were having problems at school long before I fell out with Martha.’ I tried to cuddle Poppy close, and before she pushed away I could feel the tremors in her breathing. There was so much of myself in this unhappy child, the same insecurities and self-doubts that I had passed down like a ghastly legacy. I had failed in my determination to make her childhood a happy one. My heart broke for her; I knew what she was suffering and ten years old was too young. I wished that I felt less for her. How could I ever forgive Martha for causing my children to be so hurt?

‘You always wanted me and Josh to be exactly like Scarlett and Lawrence and we never could be,’ Poppy sobbed. ‘And you wanted to be like Martha because she was strong and she made you feel good. She made you feel important. Well, Scarlett made me feel that way too and now I don’t know what to wear in the mornings and I hate you more than anyone else in the world.’

Remorse struck like an electric shock. Horror and shame. Had my behaviour been so transparent that even my children had watched and mocked me? I confessed, ‘Well, maybe it is my fault.’

She was so anguished that she begged, ‘Please go round and make it up with her.
Make friends with Martha, make Scarlett like me
…’

Dear God, if only I could. ‘It’s not as easy as that, I’m afraid.’ And I thought of the time I had dosed this child with Benylin, rubbed her head with sandpaper and pretended she had fallen out of her high chair, just to grab Martha’s attention.

Any justification of this would be sick.

Poppy went on. ‘And Scarlett says I’m common. She calls you a witch, all the kids do. And now we are running away and going to live somewhere else because nobody likes us, even Daddy…’ Looking more vulnerable than ever before, Poppy collapsed into spasms of crying.

And then, dear God, not content with wounding my child, I had tried to take my own life with no thought for Graham, Poppy or Josh. How could I call myself a mother?

Pity for Poppy made me cross. ‘Those stories you made up about Scarlett and Harriet, they weren’t very nice, were they? It wasn’t all my fault, you see…’ I tried to reason gently. I tried to apportion the blame.

But Poppy saw right through me. ‘Don’t try and blame me, it was you,
it was you.
You made a stupid fuss over Sadie’s music, Hilary tried to be friends with you but you just told her to sod off, and then you wonder why everyone hates us. You told silly tales to Martha – yes –
yes, we all know about that.
You told her you’d been to bed with Sam when that was a lie – it never happened!
Did it? Well, did it?
It was you who turned Scarlett against me and everyone else against poor Dad and Josh.’

I turned away. To the window. My only view was of Martha’s house, a dead spot in my memories. I rode a colossal wave of despair that curved and foamed but refused to break.

‘Don’t you ever let me hear you speaking to Mummy like that again.’ Graham turned up just in time to save me, as he usually did.

Snow powdered the mulberry tree.

We were the only ones in the Close not to be asked to the Frazers’ party.

We stayed and played Scrabble round the fire, trying not to listen as cars arrived and left. We closed the curtains against the merriment of headlights.

Poor Josh, he was more introspective than Poppy, and boys don’t tend to form such intense and dependent friendships. Josh could protect himself if it came to a scrap, but he was overweight – down to me – and so I had caused all of his problems. Had I overfed him to compensate for something… not being able to love him enough, trying to make it up to him because my child could not be like Lawrence no matter how hard he tried?

If we managed to buy the new house, if our finances stretched to that, I would work all hours in the studio-barn to make sure he, too, got the best education, the best second chance I could give him. And I’d do my utmost to help him lose the two stone he could do without.

I owed them all so much.

Especially Graham, who never reproached me, who remained indignant on my behalf, and at a loss to understand exactly why everyone had suddenly turned on us with such fanatical fervour.

‘One of these days, Martha’s going to find out that what you told her was perfectly true. Are you sure it was true – Sam and Tina –
are you certain?’

‘I saw them together, I saw them quite clearly, and Tina admitted the truth to me. But it is possible Martha will never find out.’

Graham said, ‘For your sake, I hope that she does.’

‘For my sake?’ I couldn’t help it, my voice faltered.

‘I know how much her friendship means…’

‘Not half as much as yours.’

‘You’d never lose that,’ said Graham, ‘unless you decided to leave me. And there’ll be plenty of opportunities now, once your new career takes off – you’ll have the whole world at your feet.’

But why would I want the world? The world was something I’d rather run from. ‘I need you more than the whole world,’ I told him. And that was true. I wasn’t lying. It was just that Martha…

I turned and drew him gently towards me.

I
TURNED AND DREW
him gently towards me.

This was the first time I had seen Sam cry, properly, genuinely. He needed all the comfort I could give him. He needed me – he needed me now.

After so much work on building it up, UK Marketing Ltd was on the rocks: eleven people thrown out of work and the bank was refusing to give Sam a break. Advertising was notorious for its risks. Sam had never once breathed a word about the difficulties he had been facing for the last six months – he’d believed he could pull off the impossible, but late payers and two big customers going bust had combined to strangle the firm to death.

Within one week of me finding out, UK Marketing Ltd, Sam’s pride and joy, Sam’s reason for living, went into the hands of the receivers.

Maybe more warning would have softened the blow? Perhaps we could have pulled in our horns that much earlier, taken out some suitable insurance or even moved to a smaller house, I don’t know. But here we were with a mortgage that took more than half of Sam’s annual income – my wages on a weekly rag hardly counted for much – and up till now we had lived very well. A privileged existence, you could have called it.

It had taken the Gordons a while to sell theirs, so how quickly would our house go? Sam said, ‘Their buyers haven’t signed the contract yet. We could try and lure them over here for a few grand less.’

He couldn’t be serious. ‘Stop it, Sam, we might be in a sodding mess but we’re not going to stoop to that sort of level.’

He wasn’t joking.
I couldn’t believe it when he edged over to our neighbours’ would-be purchasers as they got out of their car the following day, with their surveyor in tow.

Jennie must have seen them chatting mysteriously out on the road and I cringed in shame. But I felt even worse when Sam crawled back, tail between his legs, to tell me the guy was after a pool. ‘I told them that one leaked,’ Sam said, ‘but I doubt if they believed me. I could tell they were pretty pissed off when they heard my alternative proposition.’

‘
Are you surprised?
Christ, how could you? I can’t believe you stooped so low. What if they had taken the bait and the Gordons had lost their sale?’

‘Sod the Gordons,’ said Sam defiantly.

In so many ways we seemed to be losing our grip. What was happening to us lately?

The Close had become a stagnant pond; hatred caused that rotten smell, that green slime of shame that seemed to cling to every single thing we did. For the first time our Christmas Eve party was not a success. Quite frankly, it was a bore. We’d overdone tradition and it felt like a meaningless ritual where once it had been such fun. I was painfully aware of the lights across in the Gordons’ house, and of the feelings of those two kids, of their bewildered faces, and how essentially wicked we were to exclude them in this hurtful way, especially at Christmas.

I’d been surprised when the invitation arrived for Jennie’s London exhibition. I stuck it on the mantelpiece where all invitations went, but Sam chucked it on the fire. I shivered as I watched him do it. So mean. So vicious. ‘That was rather unnecessary. We could have refused. There was no need for that.’

Corrosive as rust, this communal vengeance had seeped into all of us with a violence hardly merited. Still our conversations focused on what the Gordons were doing: if they’d chosen a new house yet, if they’d decided on which private schools to send the children to, and which, in their right mind, would take daft Poppy? We voiced our concerns about their potential new neighbours and hoped they would be strong enough to withstand Jennie’s scheming – as if we honestly gave a toss. For God’s sake, when they’d gone they’d be gone, but who would the rest of us talk about then?

I despised the way our active dislike had infected our children and wondered over Scarlett’s seemingly natural vindictiveness, although I did take Sam’s point that she, of all people, had suffered from Poppy for far too long. Personally, I would be relieved when the Gordons’ contract was signed and sealed, when the removal van was packed and gone.

There would be such an odd emptiness… such a vast space to be filled.

For so many months they had entertained us.

Tina Gallagher had no such qualms. ‘Don’t go soft on us now, you’re forgetting how bad it was.’

‘But, Tina, when you stand back and look at everything that has happened, when you think of what we’ve done…’

‘Think of what that woman has done to us,’ Tina retorted, ‘and you of all people should find that a cinch.’

I still tried to reason, ‘But there is a limit. Good grief, don’t you think the time has come when we could bend a little and wish them good luck? They have been our neighbours for over ten years…’

‘
And have them change their minds?
Not likely,’ sneered Tina, and I sensed that they were all watching me in case I betrayed them and gave Jennie a smile or asked the kids over to play. Oh yes, Jennie’s lie about Tina and Sam had been absolutely outrageous, but no harm had come of it, and it wasn’t her fault – she was sick, her illness had a name I’d forgotten, and instead of retribution my neighbour needed counselling.

For our behaviour there were no excuses.

And interestingly, that good Samaritan, Hilary Wainwright, with her meals on wheels and her Christian duties, was the meanest of all.

Look at the Blitz and the sense of togetherness, united against a common foe; then look at us – this little vendetta was so unhealthy, it sapped us and made fools of us all. I ached for the Gordons when they got in their car with their heads held high, eyes straight ahead, and I ached again when I noticed the kids only looked round when they’d left the Close.