Copycat

by Gillian White

  Now even Tina told me, ‘If you were less of a doormat he might respect you more.’ But Carl’s roving eye was worse than Sam’s, so I don’t know how she formed this opinion, or how she had the nerve to advise me. Jennie called me ‘the doting wife’ and said I was worth a hundred of him.

  Over the years, my intense, mad passion had turned into something more mellow. But even so, underneath, that first enchantment was still there and the thought of living without him filled me with desolation.

  Sex was part of his magic.

  The bastard was led by his prick.

  In bed, he took women to ecstasy and I’m sure that’s why they clung on so desperately when the sod finally dumped them.

  He swamped every fibre of their being.

  But who was the bitch this time? If I knew who she was, I would tear out her eyes.

  Probably some whore at work. I kept my eyes peeled at the firm’s Christmas party, but there were so many lusty young women and Sam gave nothing away. He was more attentive and loving than ever.

  It was hopeless. Was it some bitch he’d picked up in a pub?

  So yes, I did understand about Jennie’s yearnings, but just as mine turned into a gentler fire, so I believed her ardour would cool to something more manageable over the years. And let’s face it, there’s so much to do, one has to keep going.

  ‘Pottery,’ said Jennie.

  ‘Is that Singh’s idea? You sound like a nutter.’

  ‘Pottery was the only subject I excelled at at school. And I’m going to learn to do it properly.’

  ‘Swear not to give your offerings as Christmas presents.’

  ‘You can scoff,’ she said. ‘One day you’ll be glad to give a year’s wages for one piece of work by Jennie Gordon.’

  ‘I hope you’re right,’ I said, and meant it. But I couldn’t see how watching a wheel go round or slapping about with wet clay could soak up such hopeless passion.

  If that worked, then I would enrol.

  Time went faster. It sometimes seemed a waste of time to put the Christmas decorations away.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Jennie

  TIME WENT FASTER. IT sometimes seemed a waste of time to put the Christmas decorations away.

  In Mulberry Close we bucked the trend. The place turned into a time warp, with the same six families settled so long and nobody moving away. True, the school was good, most people had well-paid jobs and high mortgages, but the main reason for our permanence was the escalating notoriety of the nearby estate. While equivalent houses, not that far away, saw their prices soar, ours tumbled dramatically. We’d been warned this might happen when we bought the house. To move would be a backward step. The council promised to take action: evict some of those neighbours from hell, appoint wardens, improve public services, tackle crime and drugs. So we marked time until they obliged, thanking God all the while that our school catchment area was different.

  The Wainwrights had a FOR SALE sign up for weeks, but they took it down when no-one showed any interest. I also gathered that some money Anthony Wainwright was expecting had failed to arrive. The saintly Hilary was Anthony’s third wife, and not only were there two other families for him to support, but their own lifestyle was expensive and their two young sons went to private schools. Oddly, the swanky Wainwrights seemed to have more money worries than the rest of us.

  ‘The Child Support Agency have milked the man dry,’ said Angie Ford, who knew these things. ‘They’re even talking about selling their boat.’

  ‘Quite right too,’ said Tina Gallagher, giving lanky Carl a sideways look. ‘Men must be made responsible.’

  I was so lucky. No money worries. No straying husband.

  Pottery? Why not.

  I wasn’t going to be made a fool of by being turned down for a university place. Martha seemed convinced they would take me, but I knew damn well they wouldn’t. I would fail every test they gave me, and when she found out I was thick she’d despise me.

  I couldn’t go wrong doing pottery.

  I might talk intelligently about current affairs, but this was a deliberately acquired skill. I gleaned it all from the newspapers and the telly in order to impress. Unlike Martha and her cronies, I didn’t care about the world around me. I had no interest in governments, despots, refugees, plagues or pestilence. I wasn’t proud of my petty-mindedness, it was just that there was no space for anything else in my head except Martha and my devious schemings. Inside, I burned up every day with a yearning I couldn’t control, and I’d long since given up on the idea of a cure. For now, I just had to live with it.

  I invented little tasks for myself so I could forget Martha, lose sight of her for a few moments – let her slip away, find some relief. But whatever I tried didn’t work.

  She gave me life; she was the source of my animation.

  My mentor and saviour, Hilary, was wounded by my renewed friendship with Martha, who had abandoned me in my time of trouble. I grabbed every chance to be near her; and as summers came and went, we spent more holidays together, the children lived in each other’s houses, and we sat for hours in our gardens drinking wine, swimming and laughing.

  The swimming pool was a triumph. The project proved a terrific success. If some of the neighbours treated me carefully, I just didn’t notice – not then. The weekly rota meant that everyone shared the maintenance work; there were strict rules about running and diving and bringing your own towels and drinks; and because everyone loved the water and wanted to be in it, there wasn’t much awkward social stuff which I would have found hard to cope with. It was difficult to get jealous over games with a beach ball, or water polo with table-tennis bats. After half past eight at night it was ours, and those late summer evenings, when Martha stayed and we talked about nothing, were quite unforgettable.

  But Hilary Wainwright was feeling left out. My crime was my ingratitude. All the kindnesses shown to me, all those confidences, grapes and hospital visits should have been rewarded with more than occasional smiles and trays of Jammie Dodgers. In spite of her style and charm, in spite of her part-time teaching job, Hilary, I realized, was lonely.

  I firmly believed that everyone I knew was determined to get close to Martha. I went round thinking they envied me and my special relationship with the Frazers. So if anyone showed an interest in me I suspected their motives at once – they wanted a channel to get through to Martha.

  ‘These days that woman is never at home,’ Tina Gallagher moaned. Her coffee-time calls were becoming a nuisance, but I put up with her visits as long as she indulged me and got onto the subject of Martha. I wondered why Tina made such an effort over her appearance, in her hard, glossy, shell-suited way, with make-up immaculate and accessories perfect. After all, she worked from home on a computer and wasn’t planning to see anyone. And then I realized that, after me, she felt Martha’s absence most. She said, ‘I wonder that Sam puts up with it.’

  ‘Puts up with it?’ I didn’t agree. ‘It makes not the slightest difference to him if she’s there or not, so long as his needs are pandered to.’

  ‘But I get the impression that Sam’s not too happy.’

  ‘Oh?’ I must be discreet. ‘I wouldn’t know. But he’s moody, he’s always been moody.’

  ‘You’re very fond of her, aren’t you, Jennie?’ Her voice was too casual and I guessed she knew something about my abnormal obsession. Had Martha told her or had she guessed? Or had my behaviour been so transparent that it was the talk of the Close? ‘The Frazers don’t seem the sort to hang around here indefinitely, particularly Sam. He’s so ambitious, the itchy type who needs to move on. I’m surprised they’ve been here so long, to be honest.’

  The reasons were clear to me – why not to her? The kids enjoyed school; Josh and Lawrence, five years old, were full time at the infants’ now. Martha loved her work, so did Sam, and then there was the estate problem and the house price dilemma. ‘It’s disruptive to move unless you have to.’

  ‘Would that worry Sam?’
>
  ‘It might worry Martha.’

  ‘D’you think they’ll last?’

  Her question came as a surprise, although I’d wondered the same myself.

  ‘Who can tell these days?’

  ‘I dunno about us,’ Tina confessed, ‘what with Carl’s smutty habits. I don’t know how long I’m going to be able to stick it. That rabid sod should have his balls severed.’

  ‘But you’re OK at the moment?’

  She made a face. ‘I never know, Jennie, quite honestly.’ And those maudlin thoughts seemed to carry her off.

  I got up to make more coffee. I stared out of the window across to Martha’s empty house. I looked at my watch: five hours to go until she came home, and how could I fill them? I asked Tina, ‘Would you want to be told if Carl was having it off with someone?’

  ‘Why? You haven’t…?’

  I spun round to reassure her. ‘No, no.’ A pause would have been too cruel. I’d been a fool, I ought to have realized that was how she’d take such an odd question. ‘I wouldn’t have asked you if I had. Of course not. But seriously, how would you feel if a friend kept that information from you?’

  ‘Livid,’ she said firmly.

  ‘You’d rather know?’

  Her lip curled. ‘Only a woman who hasn’t lived through it would think otherwise,’ she said with contempt. She agitated her teaspoon, ramming it into the sugar lump. ‘I might not like it but I’d not blame the messenger, if that’s what you’re suggesting. If I heard that a friend of mine knew what was happening but kept her mouth shut, I’d never be able to trust her again.’

  ‘What if she’d been mistaken? What if it had been harmless?’

  ‘It’s never harmless’ Tina snapped.

  ‘Maybe if you’d had children…?’

  ‘That’s rather an unkind remark.’

  ‘No, no, I didn’t mean it to sound like that.’

  ‘Carl can’t,’ she said bleakly. ‘That’s why he scatters his seed indiscriminately, trying to prove everyone wrong.’ She shrugged and stirred a fresh cup of coffee. ‘I’d miss the Frazers if they left.’

  ‘Oh, so would I,’ I said.

  I fell out with the Harcourts at lodge number six over operatic arias.

  Arty-farty, Graham called them. They ran an antique shop in the arcade in town and specialized in old books. I thought they acted superior. I’d never been inside their house. Martha had – she called it refined. With their two serious teenage daughters they came swimming, dried themselves and left; I always felt Sadie Harcourt was nervous of me, but Martha said I was being neurotic.

  Some people can tolerate noise. I can’t. And because I was at home all day I was the one who suffered most. Tina said the row never bothered her. The closer you lived to the source, I thought, the worse the awful distortion. And the Harcourts’ house was the last one in the circle, opposite ours which was the first.

  The Harcourts, friends of the Gallaghers, used the swimming pool least of all and were self-contained, almost distant – although not with Martha, of course. I tried to be reasonable. I bore it for weeks, closing my windows and doors to warbling, incomprehensible Italian – not pleasant in that warm weather. There were times when I put the sunbeds away and moved in from beside the pool, but it went on and on and on…

  ‘The last thing I want is to make a fuss,’ I told Graham. ‘I don’t want to fall out with anyone, but…’

  ‘Say something, Jennie, if it’s really that bad. You don’t have to be rude. If she knows she’s disturbing you, she’ll probably feel worse than you. She seems a friendly sort, even if she is a bit quiet.’

  ‘She probably just doesn’t realize,’ I said. ‘And in the evenings the family come home, so it’s her only chance to listen properly.’ I knew that problem. I loved to listen to loud, mad music and lose myself… I was making excuses for her, anything rather than go and complain. I’m a coward.

  And Martha wouldn’t be there to support me.

  What would Martha do?

  Well, after shouting and swearing, she’d stump over there with her fag dangling from her lip and her newly dyed hair under towels, and shout, ‘Shut up, for Christ’s sake, you’re driving me mental.’

  And she’d end up sharing a glass of something.

  Martha had the knack of complaining to anyone – British Telecom, post office staff, traffic wardens. She did it and got away with it. She could tame the most officious official and get everyone wanting to please her. But me…?

  That afternoon I was trying to read, difficult for me at the best of times because it was so hard to concentrate, and unless the author was terrifically strong the mantras in my own head took over. Sadie’s music was the throb of a headache, the pressure before the thunder came, the sucking gust of an oncoming train. I could counter-attack by playing my own music, by squeezing out every decibel, but it was peace and quiet I was after, and why should I have to make noise to drown out hers?

  The main thing was to keep calm.

  Holding my breath, I went over.

  I rang her doorbell. No response, and no wonder.

  I walked round the side of the house and saw her through her sitting-room window engaged in some ungodly ritual, kneeling in a faded nightdress, both arms raised to heaven. And swaying.

  I had stumbled upon some shameful secret.

  I knocked on the glass, puce-faced.

  Sadie either heard me or caught my reflection in the window because she leapt like a rocket into the air and rushed to turn off the sound.

  Now, the silence was deafening.

  She came to the window and opened it.

  ‘I’m really sorry…’ I started.

  ‘What the hell are you doing in my garden?’ she asked coldly. Her face was white, dull like her nightie.

  ‘I tried the door but you couldn’t hear…’

  ‘But why are you here, of all people, hanging around private property?’

  ‘I’m sorry, it’s just that the noise…’

  ‘Spying on me.’

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  ‘Oh?’

  She sounded more like Poppy than a sensible married woman. I must act grown up, act natural like Martha.

  ‘I don’t mean to say you shouldn’t play it, but if you wouldn’t mind turning it down?’ I couldn’t have been more polite.

  ‘Jennie. If you don’t leave immediately I’m going to ring the police, right now.’ She was frightened. Her shoulders were shaking. She kept checking the door as if she might make a run for it and her eyes were wide and starey.

  She was scared of me! She was terrified. What did she think I was going to do? Did she think I made a habit of sneaking round gardens and knocking on windows? What had she heard? What had Tina told her? What sort of things had these two talked about when I was in the hospital?

  I burned with embarrassment as I backed away, shaking my head at my distraught neighbour and trying to smile reassuringly. I heard her shouting something about ‘head cases creeping about’, and my eyes stung with shame when I let myself back into my house. It was horrible, really horrible. If only I’d put up with the noise.

  I told Graham when he came home.

  ‘Embarrassed to be caught performing… wouldn’t you be?’ he asked.

  ‘I suppose so.’ Had it been like that?

  ‘And you must have given her quite a fright. That always makes people furious.’

  ‘I don’t know what to do now. Maybe I ought to go over…?’

  ‘Leave it alone,’ said Graham. ‘It’s really not that important. And if she keeps her music down, so what if you’ve upset her?’

  But I didn’t want enemies.

  It preyed on my mind.

  I had to do something to make it right, I couldn’t leave it alone. What had Sadie been so afraid of?

  When the kids were in bed I went to see Hilary. ‘Please tell Sadie that I didn’t mean to disturb her. It was just that her music was so loud.’

  She didn’t invite me in f
or coffee. She just asked me, ‘Why didn’t you ring?’

  This was silly. ‘I don’t have the Harcourts’ number, going over was quicker.’

  ‘Sadie can be a funny girl, you never know quite where you are with her. But she’s genuine, she’s good fun, I like her.’

  ‘But why was she so nervous to see me?’

  Hilary paused and then said, ‘Don’t take it personally. You gave her a fright, that’s all.’

  ‘Will you tell her from me that I’m sorry?’

  Hilary turned frosty. ‘Listen, Jennie, it’s no big deal. Don’t make such an issue of it.’

  ‘Hilary,’ I pleaded, ‘that woman thinks I am dangerous.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ Hilary said, eager to withdraw, and I could smell roasting chicken behind her. ‘You’re too wrapped up in yourself, too busy imagining things. It really is time that you tried to pull yourself together.’

  Hilary used to be my friend. ‘So you won’t speak to Sadie for me?’

  ‘I won’t get involved – you’ll only cause trouble. Jennie, please, just leave well alone.’

  A troublemaker as well as a nutcase? Oh yes, I see. So that’s what they were saying. A whispering campaign. All against me. If I’d wanted to keep Hilary’s friendship, I shouldn’t have gone back to Martha. Hilary was over her breakdown and she thought it was time I recovered from mine.

  I was coming out of Safeways, loading the car on the following Friday, when they stay open till nine.

  A path runs alongside the car park. It is fenced off, strewn with Safeway carriers, paper bags and cartons. When it gets past Safeways the path becomes more appealing, with seats and picnic tables set up by the prettiest bits of the river.

  I had loaded the car and was wondering if I’d remembered the Edam. I turned on the headlights and the beam lit them up – arm in arm, cheek to cheek, hip to hip, enlarged like lovers on a cinema screen.

  If I’d blinked I would have missed them, because one second later they were out of the spotlight and I’d never have known who they were. Only lovers would use the path at this darkening time of night, under such a leaden, lifeless sky.