Copycat

by Gillian White

  And who would believe my pitiful excuse? ‘I never dreamed it would go that far. She got into bed for a cuddle.’ Yes, a cuddle that quickly got out of hand.

  I loathed myself for my weakness. I was withered up like a dead leaf.

  I started in the simplest way. ‘You’re not going to believe this, Tina.’

  ‘You’ve got me wrong, sweetheart,’ she said. ‘I believe anything.’

  ‘Can I ask you a personal question?’

  ‘Go on,’ she said, but she looked jittery.

  ‘Have you ever been to bed with a woman?’

  She began to crow with relieved laughter. ‘My God, Martha, is that all? What d’you want me to say – how could you?’

  ‘It’s not funny. It’s a long way from funny…’ And I picked myself up with some semblance of dignity. I pulled up my socks for a start.

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ said Tina, ‘let me guess. Jennie. I knew it. I suspected she had lesbian tendencies.’

  My eyes might have turned in Tina’s direction, but I concentrated firmly on the wall behind her. This was such personal stuff. ‘Jesus, I’m shaking. I’m still in shock. And Jennie, God knows what she’s thinking now.’

  ‘But what were you doing down there on the floor?’

  ‘I reached this far, but my legs gave way.’

  ‘So what was it like?’ Tina reached for the bottle, the half-empty bottle of wine on the bar.

  I refused the glass she offered. ‘No more, never, I’m now teetotal.’

  ‘Was she good with her hands?’

  This wasn’t a joke. ‘This is serious, Tina, if only you knew…’

  ‘But I don’t, so why don’t you tell me?’

  ‘Jennie’s at home now, hugging herself, thinking her love is reciprocated. She’s probably convinced herself she’s a dyke, but this is something far deeper than that…’

  ‘If Jennie thinks you enjoyed yourself, you must have given her that impression.’

  I perched on a stool at the breakfast bar, running my hands through my crazy hair and wishing like hell I could take back time. In one way I was grateful for Tina’s light-hearted reaction, but she’d got it so wrong it worried me sick. It wasn’t simply the fact of what had happened, it was the future implications.

  Christ, this was hard to talk about. I moved across to the sink and splashed cold water on my face. That was better. Tina sat waiting at the bar, her chin propped up on the wine bottle.

  ‘We were fed up. We turned on the music, downed a few drinks, made the most of our freedom – you know what it’s like when the kids aren’t around?’ But Tina was childless, so she couldn’t imagine. ‘We were being silly – dancing, shouting, flinging ourselves around the room…’

  ‘God, I can’t see Jennie Gordon…’

  ‘You don’t know Jennie Gordon,’ I reminded her tartly. ‘And suddenly I felt exhausted, what with Lawrence’s teeth and his rash. I was desperate to go and lie down. So I left Jennie down here, went upstairs, tore off my clothes and got under the sheets just as I was. It was gorgeous, just giving in, bed in the afternoon. How degenerate…’ At this point my voice trailed away, as I remembered with shame what happened next.

  Could I trust Tina?

  Could I trust anyone?

  Why worry about that now? But this was a serious humiliation. When Tina yawned her skin didn’t crack and her make-up, I noticed, was perfect. But she showed no shock, so I carried on regardless.

  ‘Well, she didn’t go any further than touching, but I did nothing to stop her, did I? Shit, shit.’

  ‘Martha, you enjoyed it. Admit it.’

  ‘Did I? Really?’ I tried to think back. Salty bodies and damp hair, weird in an afternoon. The curtains had thrown sunny shadows and made all movement seem dreamlike, and yet when the ashtray fell off the bed and Jennie said she’d fetch a dustpan, I giggled; I couldn’t stop laughing, even when I was naked against her. I told Tina, ‘You’ve seen the video, well now I’ve got the T-shirt.’

  Tina whistled. ‘How fascinating. How very grown up. But it sounds to me like you can’t blame Jennie.’

  ‘When did I say I blamed her?’ I snapped. ‘Haven’t you heard a thing I’ve been saying? It was my fault for not stopping her and that’s the whole trouble, that’s where it gets dangerous.’ That white world of sheets against Jennie’s green eyes. I had itched to thump her away, but I hadn’t. All I had really craved for was sleep.

  ‘Well.’ Tina considered my dilemma, staring at me through her wine glass. ‘You’ve broken the rules, but nobody’s hurt. So apart from it being unexpected and unlikely to be repeated, I don’t really see your problem.’

  So then I had to say more about Jennie and her manic possession.

  Tina said she wasn’t surprised. ‘Quiet types, they’re always the worst.’

  ‘You’re missing the point. Jennie’s at home thinking all sorts of unlikely thoughts…’

  ‘You’re going to have to put her right. You’re going to have to explain and be honest.’

  ‘If you only knew how sick of all this I am. The responsibility for her mental condition. The way this obsession is crushing my life. It’s Jennie, Jennie, always Jennie – trying to avoid saying the wrong thing and causing more scenes, more dramas and more of her sodding suicide threats. I’ve suggested giving our friendship a rest, but no, she won’t have that. And now, dammit, this happens.’

  ‘It certainly takes the biscuit,’ said Tina.

  ‘A more enlightened response would be helpful,’ I told her. ‘And if Sam should hear about any of this, there is no doubt he’d divorce me,’ I warned her.

  ‘What a powerful position I’m in.’ And she gave her languid, most feline smile.

  ‘He would most probably never believe you.’

  ‘Don’t worry. Trust me, sweetie, I am as discreet as that proverbial clam.’ And that was true: Tina might jest but I knew I could trust her.

  How had it ended?

  I must have slipped into a drunken stupor because when I woke up Jennie was gone.

  I dragged myself downstairs, trying to remember precisely what had happened and what part I had played in the action.

  With that thoughtless and primitive response of mine, I had failed myself and Jennie.

  It was time we had a serious talk.

  If I could take time back and start all over again, I would.

  ELEVEN

  Jennie

  IF I COULD TAKE time back and start all over again, I would.

  That cunning Gallagher woman stuck to Martha like a mussel to a rock. Easy. She and Carl had no children, she was a materialistic go-getter, and because she worked from home on her state-of-the-art computer, updating holiday brochures for the English Tourist Board, her time was her own.

  At first, flying high on the thought that she loved me back, this didn’t worry me too much. She loved me – she loved me. OK, her response hadn’t been passionate, but she hadn’t kicked me out in disgust. Mine was a total, ecstatic joy. I made frantic plans in my head: one day we would sail away together and live on some sun-soaked Greek island, run a beach bar, teach English to students, or even get work as couriers if all else failed.

  Martha had let me touch her in a way you only allow those you love best.

  Her lack of response meant little. It was what lay behind it that counted.

  This was a pure and perfect love, not some freaky manifestation.

  I was strong with a boundless energy, like some arthritic on steroids, but no longer would I waste my efforts on scrubbing my house, my kids, my body. There were no bears beneath pavement cracks, nothing was going to leap out and devour me if there was fluff on my carpet, egg on my teaspoons, or butter in the marmalade. My powerful obsession crushed all these others.

  Even my urge to see her diminished because of her reciprocal love. I went through the hours in a dream world, sucking up strands of spaghetti with my eyes tightly closed, fantasizing through my Arctic Roll; Martha and I shared this special secret
which bound her to me the way nothing else could.

  So when she said, ‘Jennie, we’ve got to talk,’ it flayed me to hear her say that the closeness we had shared must not be repeated, that she was appalled by what we had done and if I’d thought it meant something, well, I was wrong, the messages were not intended. She was too confused to analyse her motives, but if I wanted to keep her friendship, she didn’t want that afternoon referred to ever again.

  Calamity. I said, ‘Is it Sam?’

  She fixed a firm frown to her face. ‘It’s nothing to do with him. This is between you and me. I was tipsy, tired, depressed. Maybe I wanted comfort…’

  Hardly able to cope with the nausea, and trembling from head to toe, I started, ‘I suppose you are saying I took advantage…’

  Her interruption was brisk, sharp. ‘Don’t you dare start on that self-pitying crap. I’m not blaming you. I could have stopped you but I didn’t. Now it’s over, finished with, and if I misled you I’m sorry. If you use this against me, I will never forgive you.’

  I sat at her table, a dejected heap. ‘It sounds like I’m your enemy.’

  ‘You’re dead right, you are. You’re a threat.’

  I winced. ‘I never wanted to be.’

  ‘I daresay not,’ Martha said, with a hostility that frightened me. ‘But that’s how it is. I never know when you’re going to blow. I’m sick of drama, hysterics and tears between declarations of undying devotion. Of making excuses for your rudeness. I don’t want these things in my life any more. I want it to stop – right now!’

  ‘But how can I stop?’ I wailed, despairing.

  ‘Jennie, you can, you must. For God’s sake, don’t you think it’s time that somebody round here started behaving bloody normally?’

  How could I eat? How could I sleep?

  I couldn’t confide in Graham, but my world was crashing around me.

  ‘I’ve fallen out with Martha,’ I told him. I had to give some reason for my swollen eyes, my lack of appetite.

  ‘What’s new?’ And he turned over to Newsnight.

  I pretended to read as I sat beside him, but my head was spinning in turmoil. The printed words were like soldier ants devouring the page before my eyes – and they came through to my brain with no meaning. I stared at him over the top of the book and, in spite of my own pain, my heart melted. How could I hurt him? Graham, so steadfast, such a sensible man and so contented, wouldn’t have the vaguest understanding of my relationship with Martha. It dismayed me to think about his lot, one relentlessly boring routine as the web of responsibility held him: up early for work, midday sandwich, home at six thirty, sex on a Friday, squash on Saturday, golf on Sunday. Life’s loathsome confining walls. But, for an agonizing while, my passion had carried me over on wings…

  It was anguish to sit there quietly all evening, pretending all was well, fighting the urge to rage, pace the floor, ring Martha, dash over and plead for forgiveness.

  I hadn’t meant to go so far when I got into Martha’s bed. If I was queer, I was not a freak. If I enjoyed what I did, I was natural. Maybe not quite as natural as a heterosexual, but acceptable all the same. I pushed away the destructive thoughts that told me it hadn’t felt right and I reassured myself that although I had needed to do what I’d done, just like Martha, I felt no desire to repeat it.

  All it suggested was that Martha loved me in some kind of sexual way.

  A mistake.

  I lay next to Graham, wide awake, listening to his contented snores while I curled and uncurled in my misery, in that hot, lumpy bed. I wrote letter after begging letter in my head – it’s so much simpler to say it in writing, and in the night when defences are low. It was useless to stay there and hope for sleep, so I crept downstairs to the kitchen and sat there with a mug of tea, warming my now frozen hands, as I composed my hundredth letter.

  I spread my photographs over the table: Martha stuffing her face at a barbecue but still looking amazing as the camera caught her laughing eyes; Martha and me on our last London trip when we lost the pushchair in the Natural History Museum; Martha struggling in the snow with her bald old Christmas tree, two fingers in the air and her red scarf blowing.

  I traced her profile with my finger.

  She couldn’t have made her feelings clearer, but still the idea that my burning emotions were only a bore and a cause of distress refused to take hold in my head.

  I transferred my intense thoughts onto paper.

  I wanted her to read this NOW, or, at the very latest, first thing in the morning.

  I knew her routine as well as my own. Tomorrow she was going to the dentist. She would take Scarlett and Lawrence to the minder’s, drive Sam to work and then bring the jeep home.

  I could stick my note onto the jeep.

  The need for instant relief made me reckless; passion drove me to act. I gave no thought to the risks involved: what if somebody saw me creeping across my garden into next door’s drive; what if the wind got up in the night and blew my letter away; what if Martha, furious, tore it up without reading it?

  Why did it never occur to me that Sam might find it first?

  The begging letter. A sympathy bid.

  I was making myself ridiculous again.

  I had used this same device at school in an effort to make myself popular when everything turned so black and it felt as if the world was against me.

  I took it to Barbara Middleton, the worst of my tormentors, when I caught her alone in the loos drying her hands.

  She gave me a questioning glance. ‘What’s this?’ She put my letter in her satchel.

  ‘Don’t show it to anyone else,’ I stammered, before rushing off.

  I arranged my books with elaborate care, passing time. I sat in that muggy classroom all that endless afternoon, listening to the classroom clock and the window blinds as they clacked in the heat. I screwed and unscrewed the top of my pen with wet hands. I shut my eyes and prayed for a miracle. But what had I done – trusting someone as spiteful as her, giving her the ammunition she needed to destroy me? I remembered the words of that letter by heart; it had taken me more than a week to compose.

  Dear Barbara

  I want to say how unhappy I am and to ask you to help me. My mother has a boyfriend and he has begun to abuse me and I don’t know anyone who can help. He said he would kill me if I told on him and I think that, if she had to choose, my mother would choose him, not me. I hope you will understand. I need someone to talk to about it.

  Love

  Jennifer Young

  While Miss Ridley had her back to the class pinning up a map of Africa, I saw Barbara’s hand move down towards her satchel which was on the floor beside her.

  It was like waiting for death.

  Shaking with anticipation, I watched her remove the envelope and stealthily pull it open. Judith Mort, in the desk beside her, stretched across to see what it was, but Barbara jabbed her with her elbow.

  I must have bitten my lip in half. By now I knew my face would be scarlet.

  She read the note quickly, glanced round and turned to the front again.

  The next words cut my senses like knives. ‘Bring that paper to me, please, Barbara.’

  ‘Oh, miss…’

  ‘Don’t argue. Bring that paper to me now and put it on my desk.’

  Huffing and puffing and with a brief glance towards me, Barbara handed in my note and the lesson went on without further interruption. But all my concentration was focused on the centre of misery – which spread through my whole body, burning it up. The shame. The humiliation.

  What had I done?

  Would my mother find out?

  The rest is sadly predictable. Barbara Middleton spent the next break whispering behind her hand to her friends. Eyes were turned in my direction. I saw no sympathy in them but a kind of malevolent glee.

  ‘Jennifer Young,’ said Miss Ridley, as she went on her way round the class, ‘I’d like you to stay behind for a minute after four o’clock.’

>   My knees went weak. Half paralysed with shame, I could hardly walk. I stood beside the teacher’s desk while she flattened that damn piece of paper and looked at me for an explanation.

  When I stayed silent, she asked, ‘Is this true?’

  Too embarrassed to admit the lie, I nodded and whispered, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Would you like to talk to someone about it?’

  ‘No,’ I said quickly, ‘no, not really.’

  ‘Well, Jennifer, we can’t leave it here, dear. Come with me now and we’ll find Mrs Valentine.’ And she smiled in an understanding way, revealing oddly pink plastic gums.

  It was better to play along with this than admit the pitiful truth.

  That walk – I will never forget it. That walk along the corridors side by side with Miss Ridley was endless. Squeak squeak we went on the polished lino, as it pulled at the soles of her open-toed sandals. Through the windows I saw a group of girls. The one doing the talking was vicious Barbara Middleton.

  I waited outside the headmistress’s office for what felt like a lifetime. Being such a desperately middling child I had never had the summons before.

  Mrs Valentine opened the door. She was a sweet woman with a bun of white hair, an icon like a crucifix who we turned towards in prayers every morning.

  ‘Sit down, dear.’

  I obeyed like a robot. Her lips gave out a lilac aroma.

  ‘Miss Ridley has shown me this note which one of her girls was reading during geography this afternoon.’ She paused to take a look at me over the top of her half-glasses. ‘I presume it’s yours, you wrote it?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Valentine.’

  ‘And your mother knows nothing of this?’

  I hung my head. No answer.

  ‘Tell me, Jennifer, how long has this been going on?’

  I ran my foot in a tight little circle round the pattern on the carpet.

  ‘Don’t you think, dear, that it might be better if your mother was told?’

  I managed a squeaky ‘No, Mrs Valentine.’

  ‘And why do you say that, I wonder?’ I heard her sit back and smelt her body as it shifted in the still air of the room. Her voice was as sweet as the inside of soft orange chocolate. When I stayed silent she asked, ‘Are you frightened that if she knew, your mother might go off and leave you?’