‘She wouldn’t believe me,’ I ventured.
‘And he might hurt you,’ she continued, following the line of the shameful letter, ‘as he has already threatened to do? What is this man’s name, Jennifer?’
My lips were sealed; I had no idea.
‘You do realize, I hope, that this cohabitee of your mother’s is no more than a common criminal?’
‘I know,’ I said in a muffled whisper. I looked at the teacher’s cushiony chest and wished I could disappear in its folds.
‘And therefore the police will have to be told.’ I wanted to die. If my mother ever heard about this, she would freak out. She would collapse. In my eyes she was sexless. She would no more dream of living with a man than put unwashed milk bottles out on the step or leave her support stockings off on a sunny day.
‘Talk to me about this, Jennifer,’ said Mrs Valentine kindly, moving to sit beside me, taking one of my sticky hands in her cool one. ‘All I am trying to do is help. You know that, dear, don’t you?’
‘But…’
‘But what?’
‘But I don’t want anyone’s help.’
‘That’s not what it says in your note.’
How could I answer? The room was stifling. I craved a glass of water because my throat was so parched I could hardly swallow.
‘You’ve made all this up, haven’t you, Jennifer?’ This jerked me awake. The shock stopped my heart. ‘What d’you mean?’ I whispered.
‘This letter of yours’, and she held it out between finger and thumb as if disposing of a used condom, ‘is nothing but a crude device to attract attention.’
‘No… no…’ I was crying now.
‘Jennifer, I don’t want to bully you, but it really is time you told me the truth. Making accusations like this is a very serious matter. I don’t know whether your mother has a male friend living at home, but if she—’
‘She hasn’t, she hasn’t…’ I blurted out, searching for a tissue.
Mrs Valentine handed me one. There was a pile on the edge of her desk and I wondered how frequently she had to replace it.
‘Your mother does not live with a man. Is that what you are telling me now?’
I shook my head. ‘She’s not. She can’t. She wouldn’t – because of her legs.’
‘So nobody’s done anything to you?’
‘No. No.’ I wished to God they had. How I wished that everything I had written in that wicked note was true. How I hated my mother for being unsupportive.
‘Well then, Jennifer, in that case you may as well get on home.’
‘But you won’t tell her, will you?’ I pleaded.
‘My dear child.’ The headmistress fixed her eyes on my face. ‘Of course your mother will have to know.’
I hated the teacher and I wanted her dead. I had put so much into this attempt and what had it gained me? Nothing. Nothing but the increased spite of the girls who made me so frightened. I knew they would discover the truth. Somehow they would find out. And my mother would be hurt and disappointed that I could think up such sick accusations.
I should have learned then that letters, like stomach acid, have a habit of coming back and are therefore never the answer.
It would seem that I had learned nothing as I stepped out into that dewy night with a coat over my shoulders, as I tiptoed across the misty grass which was striped by shafts of moonlight, and stuck my precious letter to the handle of the dirty jeep.
At once I felt easier. My heart lightened as I crept back up the stairs and slid into bed beside Graham.
Martha would understand. Martha would forgive me. We could renew our close friendship, with this stain wiped out – forgotten. I would always love her, of course. I couldn’t lie and pretend that had changed, but I knew now my feelings were not about lust and nor was I gay. My love for Martha was purer than that, because, although I had enjoyed the closeness of our bedroom encounter, the thought that it would not happen again didn’t worry me unduly. Although I loved and worshipped Martha, I didn’t need her as a lover.
If only forgetting had been so simple.
TWELVE
Martha
IF ONLY FORGETTING HAD been so simple.
The phone woke us up at seven in a panic. The news left me bereft. Our wonderful, kindly, trustworthy, beloved babyminder, Hilda, was dead.
Just like that.
Our kids adored her. No-one else would do. She was like the Lord, she suffered little children.
‘I can’t tell you how sorry I am. Please let us know if we can help,’ I weakly told her daughter.
‘Damn,’ said Sam, when I put down the phone and wiped away the stinging tears. ‘That puts the cat among the pigeons.’
‘You really are a selfish bastard,’ I turned on him in fury. ‘And if I didn’t know your nasty ways were a cover-up for inadequacy, I’d have sodded off out of here before now. Scarlett and Poppy – how can we tell them? Where can we say Hilda’s gone? They love that woman more than us. My God. My God, how terrible.’
‘Tell them she’s playing pit-a-pat in the sky. Tell them she’s sprouted the same tinfoil wings she made for them last Christmas. But that settles it – you’ll just have to cancel the dentist, or get a bus. I’ll take the jeep this morning.’
My whole schedule was turned upside down. ‘Oh yes, sure, with both kids?’
‘Dump them on Jennie.’
I searched for a plausible excuse. ‘She’s very low at the moment…’
‘So when is she anything else?’
‘The dentist will think I’m chickening out the same as I did last time. He’ll charge me the full rate, of course.’
‘Sod the dentist. You don’t have toothache. It won’t hurt to leave it a week or two.’
Total despair set in. ‘How the hell are we going to cope without Hilda?’
‘Now who’s the selfish bastard? It’s me me me with you, isn’t it?’ he joked, picking up his portfolio. ‘The funeral should be a jazzy affair, well worth keeping a window open.’
‘Just go. Get out. She’s irreplaceable. We’re going to miss her so much. A really sweet, decent woman. How could I leave them with anyone else?’
‘Last night you were talking about adoption.’
‘Oh piss off, you arsehole, just shut up and go.’
I was quick to the phone. ‘Hello?’
‘It’s Jennie.’
I stiffened and my fingers flew to my hair when I attempted a casual ‘Hi, Jennie.’
‘I saw Sam take the jeep this morning.’ That tense tone of voice alerted me. So she still watched our every move. What new mischief was this?
Before she could start, I said, ‘Yes, he took it. Hilda’s dead.’
I didn’t expect the phone to go down with quite such a crash. OK, Jennie was fond of Hilda – we all were. But how typical of Jennie to take this tragedy and make it her own. How self-absorbed that woman was, even suffering gave her a buzz. Well, I wasn’t prepared to go over and comfort her, or to share her grief. She could play the bleeding Madonna as much as she liked, it no longer cut any ice with me.
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…
&
nbsp; 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.
THIRTEEN
Jennie
GOD, HOW I HATED her then.
Shame slammed at me in tidal waves. ‘Jennie,’ said Martha with frost in her voice. ‘Stop thes
e 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.
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