Copycat

by Gillian White

  Why me?

  Why did I have to see them?

  I felt as if I’d witnessed an accident. The ground shook, I couldn’t move.

  Tina and Sam – well, why not?

  Why hadn’t I recognized her when I’d seen her in the rain at the bus stop, getting out of Sam’s jeep, all that time ago? Her hood had hidden her then. And I’d been too flustered and wet to care. And Tina must have been using me to track Martha’s movements. I was better than any timetable. No wonder she called for coffee so often.

  I was haunted by the question. Should I leave well alone or make matters worse?

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Martha

  I WAS HAUNTED BY the question. Should I leave well alone or make matters worse?

  My ongoing worries about the kids – Poppy’s reliance on Scarlett and Josh’s bullying of Lawrence – would have to wait; I’d sort it out eventually. I had a damn sight more than that on my mind.

  This sordid little intrigue of Sam’s was dragging on too long for comfort – if I could believe what he’d sworn to me after the others, which supposedly lasted for no more than months. This was years. It was exhausting. And why would he lie after the event, after he’d been forgiven again? Maybe I should have confronted him with it – but I had no proof, nothing but instinct, nothing substantial enough to slap on the table. He was tired, worked too hard, and felt like a stranger, but how could I tear him apart over that? If I was right, he was dipping his wick and being mega-crafty about it this time. It began to look as if we might end up like those sad couples who lead separate lives, but stay together for the sake of the kids.

  I hoped to God I was wrong. What if I asked him and he said yes? What would my next question be?

  We’d lived here for too long. It was time for a change. There’d been trouble in the Close again and I couldn’t help thinking that if our life was more normal, we would have done more about moving on. It was nothing we couldn’t cope with, of course, but because of the characters involved, the results were unpleasant and unpredictable.

  The main problem was Jennie, needless to say. The other protagonists were Angie Ford and my now frighteningly grown-up eight-year-old daughter, Scarlett.

  When I was at work Jennie took charge: she had my house keys, she averted domestic dramas, she let in the plumber and the electrician; she took in parcels, she switched the lights on when it got dark early on winter afternoons. And she’d pop over and turn on the heating if it suddenly grew extra cold. She’d done this for years now, without complaint, ever since that appalling crisis when she’d ended up in a mental ward.

  If the kids were ill, it was Jennie who turned out to fetch them from school, took them to the doctor, tucked them in, kept them warm and medicated until I got home from work at six.

  Scarlett’s fall was her own silly fault. It was time that child calmed down. She broke all the rules. She shouldn’t have gone anywhere near the boiler house, let alone on the roof of the caretaker’s hut, and when she fell off and slid down the coke pile, breaking her leg in the process, it should have taught her a well-deserved lesson.

  The school had Jennie’s name and number for emergency contact, so how come Angie Ford was sent for?

  Nothing, it seemed, could right that wrong in Jennie’s thwarted eyes. And what was even worse was the fact that after Scarlett’s arrival home in Ken Ford’s battered builder’s van, Jennie was not even informed. Scarlett used her own key to get in.

  No amount of explaining would calm her – she had been personally affronted, ‘that woman’ had acted deliberately to spite her. And I had to admit I was surprised that the school had gone against my wishes. Why fill in forms if they’re going to be ignored? But to Jennie it was more than that; it was part of a campaign being waged against her.

  Poor Angie, on the other hand, was forced to spend a wasted day hanging around the casualty unit, queuing for hours amongst the ill and dying arrayed on stretchers knee-deep in the corridors, with a moaning Scarlett at her most dramatic. The school had been lucky to catch Angie at home – mostly she worked down at Ken’s yard – so on top of everything else, she missed a day’s work. I couldn’t apologize enough.

  But how had it happened?

  ‘God knows,’ said Angie, ‘but you could have knocked me down when that crazy Gordon woman came over here with her sleeves rolled up and accused me of muscling in on her act…’

  Poor Angie hadn’t had much option, she’d merely done what was asked of her. She’d picked up Scarlett and dragged the child from hospital department to department, from X-ray to bandaging, and from shop to canteen so that my daughter could stuff down Mars bars and Coke.

  ‘I’ve never been yelled at like that in my life,’ said Angie, ‘and it came completely out of the blue. I’ll tell you something for nothing, that nutter ought to be back in hospital where she belongs.’

  ‘She’s not so bad, but she does get these bees in her bonnet and she won’t stop to think before she explodes…’

  ‘That’s a bloody understatement! You didn’t hear what she said. She can keep her frigging pool and her obnoxiously designed garden, she can keep them and boil her head.’

  I had to find out what had gone so wrong. Why did the school contact Angie? ‘Did they say anything to you, Scarlett? Didn’t you tell them to call Jennie?’

  Scarlett shook her head guiltily.

  Oh no – was the child stupid? ‘You told them to call Angie? Is that what happened? Why? Why would you do that?’

  ‘Because I hate going to Jennie’s,’ Scarlett quietly admitted. ‘And because I didn’t want her fussing round me all day, flapping and being bossy. And she’d have taken Poppy from school to come with us and I didn’t want Poppy fighting over the comics and always needing the loo. Angie was much, much better. She gets things done, like you do. She’s sensible.’

  This put the cat among the pigeons.

  ‘It’s not my fault, Mum, and you can’t blame me. How was I to know Jennie would crack? Why does she get like this anyway? She’s always shouting or crying. You’d think she’d be pleased to get out of the drag of being bored and sweaty all day in that hospital.’

  ‘I know, Scarlett, and I do understand. It’s difficult for you and it’s not your fault.’

  So the gaffe was Scarlett’s doing.

  But what reasons could I give Jennie?

  ‘Scarlett felt she’d be putting on you too much,’ I said, confronted by Jennie’s mournful face.

  She stared, open-mouthed. ‘Putting on me? What does she mean? She knows she would never be putting on me.’

  ‘Oh Jennie,’ I said, trying to pass it off, ‘you know what kids can be like. They get these ideas in their heads.’

  She stood square on and accused me as if I’d been caught at some heinous crime. ‘It was you, wasn’t it, Martha? You must have altered the form. You changed it because you don’t trust me… You’ve been listening to what people round here are saying.’

  ‘Jennie, that’s stupid.’

  ‘Well, someone told the school to call Angie. Her name didn’t drop out of nowhere.’

  ‘Just listen to us both.’ I laughed – a brittle, nervous sound. ‘What the hell are we going on about? It’s so bloody trivial. Scarlett’s OK, so what happened is really no big deal.’

  ‘It might not be important to you,’ said Jennie at her most woeful, ‘but it is to me and you ought to know that.’

  She had such a capacity for making enemies. After the loud music incident Sadie loathed her. Jennie had frightened her out of her skin that day and Sadie knew she’d overreacted, but as she told me later, ‘You don’t know what that woman is capable of. And I’ve heard some pretty odd rumours.’ Even Hilary Wainwright, who had befriended Jennie and defended her, was stiff and offhand with her now, seeing her as a troublemaker and a loser.

  Dear God, I was glad to be out all day and away from this petty feuding. Men don’t seem to get caught up in these kinds of tangles: this spiteful, emotional stuff tha
t is usually best forgotten.

  But Jennie would not let things go. She kept on about Sadie’s opera, how loud and disturbing it had been, how thoughtless and selfish Sadie was… but she couldn’t hear herself ranting on, which to me was more aggravating than any loud music could be.

  And the business of Angie picking up Scarlett – on and on she went. ‘They knew I was responsible, they knew I had your key, they knew I had your work number…’

  ‘Jennie, please leave it,’ I begged. ‘It all happened so fast they didn’t have time to think straight and when Scarlett came out with Angie’s number…’

  But the damage was done. Jennie, mortally wounded and at her most volatile, had stormed over to Angie’s house and accused her of undermining her role and slandering her in public. And instead of merely shouting ‘sod off’, Angie, who was used to dealing with builders, counterattacked with a string of obscenities and told Jennie to get back to the bin.

  ‘I’ve never liked her,’ Angie said darkly. ‘There’s something about her I just can’t stand… “something of the night”, as that Widdecombe woman so rightly said.’

  Hopelessly, I tried to defend her. ‘She’s insecure, very low self-esteem…’

  ‘Balls, you should have seen her esteem when she came over here. Inflated, I’d call it. Near to bursting. Martha, you just can’t talk to people like that.’

  ‘She does tend to dramatize…’

  ‘Well, she’s no right to. Going round insulting people. You might let her get away with it, but not me. No way. And I thought there was some talk at one time of her messing around with Sam?’

  ‘That was a misunderstanding.’

  ‘And then she slagged you off in public.’

  ‘I said she could be difficult.’

  ‘And then she tries to top herself.’

  ‘She was desperately unhappy.’

  ‘Well,’ said Angie, unconvinced, ‘what I said still stands. She should go and get the appropriate treatment and stop flinging her weight about. Nobody round here can stand her.’

  And that, sadly, was true. Apart from Tina Gallagher, who Jennie had palled up with, at last. But the fact that she had managed to upset everyone else in the Close, when she so wanted to be liked and was so put out if she wasn’t, was tragic. She who had actually built a swimming pool in her garden to attract not just me but ‘friends’. Lately, the pool was hardly used; partly because of the wetter summers and partly because no-one wanted to sit in Jennie’s pristine, orderly garden, never knowing what her mood would be.

  ‘Stub out a fag in an ashtray and you’re made to feel like a rapist,’ Sadie said to me once. ‘Let alone if you forget and drop in on the grass. And they’re so fixated about cleanliness – that damn footwash… the shower if you’ve got a tad of oil on… You wonder if you ought to be swimming at all if you’re on, and I’m always terrified some poor kid is going to piss and be caught. Pissing in that pool would be a drawing and quartering offence.’

  Such a shame for Jennie, and all the more reason why she should get herself out and about. She went to her pottery once a week but that was hardly stretching herself, and she insisted on meeting me for lunch whenever I was free.

  What she did with the rest of her time was beyond me, and when I asked she passed it off with ‘I’ll get round to it when I’m ready. Give me time, don’t nag.’ I guessed she was frightened to take on anything too ambitious in case she failed, or was rejected. Anyway, I told myself as I wrestled with my guilt, how could I be expected to look after her when my own life was in such a sodding mess? How could I take on anything else? What was the point in looking for trouble?

  I just couldn’t stand the not knowing. Every time I sat alone, I wondered if I should come straight out and ask him, breaking a silence that was becoming intolerable. Sometimes I actually got as far as opening my mouth and forming the words, but then I clammed up and was left staring daftly. If Sam denied it I wouldn’t believe him, but if he admitted it – what then?

  After all the promises I’d made to myself. Convincing myself I was stronger now. That I didn’t need him any more.

  And I certainly could do without living with such humiliating insecurity. It was like being tortured, day after day.

  I was reaching the end of my tether.

  How long could I go around pretending that nothing was happening?

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Jennie

  HOW LONG COULD I go around pretending that nothing was happening?

  Another Christmas came and went. Scarlett was given the role of Mary in the school nativity play, while Poppy was relegated to shepherd and spent the whole time behind the manger. She had no lines. She brought no gifts. She appeared to be in charge of the lambs. At the Frazers’ traditional Christmas Eve party Graham was the life and soul, while I was virtually ostracized by three of the women of the Close.

  Graham said to take no notice. ‘If they don’t know any better, ignore them.’

  I made out I couldn’t care less, but inside I felt mangled up. This was so unjustified – how come I was always picked on? I made an effort to be warm towards them – Hilary, Sadie and Angie Ford – but they returned such a frosty politeness that I thought: let them go to hell.

  Martha and I were good friends again, so why should I care about three losers who were green because of our closeness? We had managed the almost impossible – years without major trauma. And most of those years I had spent on a high, assuming this bliss would go on for ever. But everyone noticed the change in Martha; everyone said how peaky Martha was looking compared with her usual bouncy self. Of course, I suspected this was Sam’s doing. I waited for her to confide in me, but was disappointed when she didn’t. I knew why, I understood her reasons: it would take time for her to trust me again after all the hassle I’d caused her. This hurt, but how could I blame her? I wasn’t sure if I trusted myself.

  I had seen Sam and Tina with my own eyes, I had the proof and I hadn’t gone seeking it. So why had nobody else got wise? Tina’s comings and goings had always been unpredictable because her work for the tourist board involved dashing about all over the county, but these days her Citroen was rarely in her drive.

  Did the philandering Carl suspect what was happening?

  Was he keeping quiet for his own protection?

  Tina’s calls to my house were regular, for a chat and coffee before she set off. She came to keep tabs on Martha, knowing that every move Martha made was known by me because of her children. It was me who collected them both from school and kept them at my house until Martha returned, and if either of them was too ill for school, she would hand them over the fence, still warm in their pyjamas.

  Oh yes, Tina was cunning. And cunning was something I knew all about.

  The time came when I had to speak out, but I was so anxious about making things worse. Would threatening Sam with exposure be enough to end this worrying affair? Indignant on Martha’s behalf, and resentful, I’d watched them both at the last Christmas party. They’d been bold enough to smooch together. There were even whispered conversations… a ploy to convince any doubters that this fooling around meant nothing. Just casual fun. What a nerve.

  That night Martha was abnormally quiet. Tired, she said, working too hard. And although she often went over the top with her make-up and outfits at parties, this time she’d outdone herself – she glittered like the Christmas tree. Brittle and bright, she flashed on and off as colourfully as the fairy lights, and I worried that she might snap at any moment and rush from the house in tears… But that was my behaviour, not hers.

  I heard Sam laugh. I saw him grinning impishly like a schoolboy. I wanted to reach out and slap his face, as he had once slapped mine. How could he torment Martha like this?

  Every time Tina came round for coffee and every time I failed to confront her, I felt an acute sense of failure, of weakness, and I became determined to face the truth – next time. I would hang back nervously, waiting for the next opportunity, but there were no rig
ht moments for such revelations. I’d kept quiet for too long, hoping, stupidly, that this dark cloud would blow over, or that any of the unlikely miracles I had been praying so desperately for would occur. Next time Tina called, I’d be ready.

  ‘You say you can’t trust Carl and I wondered, have you ever been unfaithful, Tina?’

  The merest flicker of shock gave her quick denial away. There was no change of expression when she said, ‘No, and I wouldn’t. The pain it causes…’

  I resisted the urge to leave it at that – for Martha’s sake I had to go on. My palms were sweating and my mouth was dry, but above all I wanted to hide in bed. ‘Tina, I’m sorry, but I know for a fact you are seeing Sam Frazer. And it’s been going on for some time.’

  Her eyes flicked to my face and away before she said, ‘That’s not true.’

  I moved from cooker to cupboard to bin and then round to the table, trying to carry out everyday tasks – preparing the supper, stirring the casserole. Half for us, half for the Frazers, and there might be enough left to freeze.

  She sat at the head of the table as usual, smug and in a wide-shouldered outfit I’d always disliked. The fact that it was scarlet I considered appropriate, and the trainers today were a shimmering pink. I couldn’t face her, I had to keep moving.

  ‘But I’ve seen you together,’ I said, squirming, peering into my bayleaf jar. ‘Twice, actually.’

  Suddenly we were enemies. ‘You don’t miss a bloody thing, do you, Jennie? Peering through those sodding nets.’ And I was surprised to hear such a firm voice from out of the mouth of the condemned.

  ‘You admit it, then?’

  ‘Admit? What does that mean? How do you see yourself, Jennie? Some arbiter of other people’s morals?’

  ‘I see myself as Martha’s friend,’ I said nobly.

  She shot me a sly look. ‘Friend? Oh, that’s an interesting one, not quite the word I would have chosen.’