Hamish, with his gaudy silk waistcoats, ran a London art studio with his great friend Tomikins.
I instantly panicked – evenings were out and so, just lately, was every weekend. And if anything ugly did happen, I’d hate to have to explain our position to an almost total stranger. ‘It’s tricky just now, I’m not too well…’
‘I wouldn’t bore you with this, my darling, but it’s all rather exciting at this end. Demetrius Hogg? Name ring a bell? Big in the trade in the USA, wants to meet with a view to buying for an important client from Baltimore. Catch my drift? Not one to turn down…’
‘Who did you say?’
‘Demetrius Hogg.’
I’d heard of him. Who hadn’t?
‘I presume you’ve got something to show him?’
‘There’s quite a bit of stuff hanging around. I’ve been working hard just recently…’
‘Splendid. Say no more. Why don’t we make it Wednesday. I’ll run the guy down and we’ll have some lunch after he’s taken a gander. What d’you say?’
‘Wednesday sounds fine.’ What else could I say, faced with an opportunity like that?
‘Lovely, darling, must go. Chin chin.’
I put the phone down slowly. It was a voice from another world and sometimes it was hard to imagine that there still was such a place. The Close was all-encompassing when you rarely left it, like me. Even the children: I’d allowed the Close and its people to become all-important in their lives. We were trapped here, flies in a web.
I was never more sure that we must escape.
If only I could live without Martha.
I abhorred myself, loathed and disgusted myself, for even thinking that way.
I had to get shot of that woman.
THIRTY
Martha
I HAD TO GET shot of that woman.
But was this the way? Was this cold-shouldering fair or acceptable? Sam told me to leave it alone; my judgement had been warped for so long when it came to that scheming woman, it was time I shut up and toed the line. Group pressure would force the Gordons out and that was the unanimous aim.
‘But the kids? They can’t be included in this.’ I can honestly say I had no idea at this stage of the level of cruelty towards the Gordons. I would not have tolerated it for a moment.
‘Children survive, they’re hardy animals,’ Angie Ford assured me – she who knew nothing about them, because she didn’t have any. ‘Face it, Martha, if the Gordon kids stay around here they’ll suffer much more in the end. Nobody genuinely likes them, they’ve been mollycoddled for far too long.’
‘But I like them. I’m very fond of them.’
‘They wouldn’t thank you in the long run for keeping up this pretence. Let them make their own friends for a change, let them be themselves instead of just shadows of others.’
So I was being thoughtless by worrying too much. But I couldn’t stop aching for poor little Poppy, although I’d never forget the way she’d performed at school, dropping Scarlett in it like that for something she’d never done. It was just the fact that my kids were being used that I couldn’t stomach. Anyway, Jennie’s kids were OK, no pressure would be put on them, my neighbours weren’t that sort of people.
We’d tried discussing this rationally at first. Anthony Wainwright had talked to Graham and suggested it would be best if they moved, but Graham, apparently, wasn’t convinced. Everyone in the Close had their reasons for wanting the Gordons out, on top of the general agreement that Jennie was a scandal-monger, unbalanced, volatile, and a snake in the grass. She’d fallen out with everyone, causing all kinds of unpleasant repercussions. She’d lied about bedding Sam years back, and now she was after splitting the Gallaghers, not just me and Sam. And I understood it was generally known that Jennie was infatuated with me. Tina, no doubt, with her big mouth at its busiest.
To her shame Scarlett coped well without Poppy, but then she’d been trying to distance herself for so long that her freedom came as a blessed release. Lawrence, of course, never turned a hair. ‘Just so long as there’s no unkindness,’ I stressed. ‘Staying at arm’s length from the Gordons does not mean teasing. It does not mean tormenting them.’ But surely Scarlett knew better than that; she was not an insensitive child.
‘Some people are being horrid,’ said Lawrence.
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Scarlett quickly shut him up.
‘I hope that’s not true. Scarlett? Is it?’
‘Lawrence is just goading you. Nobody’s bothering much at all.’
‘Because I couldn’t stand that kind of wicked behaviour.’
‘But you do it,’ accused my daughter. ‘You’re not speaking to Jennie.’
‘That’s different. You know why I won’t speak to Jennie, and that’s because she sometimes twists things that people say and causes all sorts of misunderstandings.’ I’d explained this to Scarlett already. I’d told her the adults were dealing with this, that the youngsters must keep out of it. ‘But I’d never be deliberately cruel and I know you wouldn’t be either.’
Sam was too outspoken. I worried about his attitude. Listening children take things at face value, and he didn’t bother to curb his anger. ‘They’ve been telling malicious tales… from the moment we met that sodding family they’ve hung on to us like leeches – bloodsucking, draining energy… and those bloody kids are no better.’
‘Graham’s OK,’ Lawrence put in mildly.
‘Graham’s as bad as the rest of them. It’s time that wanker put his foot down and realized just what a cow he married. They’re losers, the lot of them, they deserve all they get.’
Scarlett’s eyes gleamed in bright fascination. Neither of them had heard Sam or me raving in this hostile way before. This was an eye-opener for them both, and for me, too, to be honest.
It was weird how this unhappy campaign began to take over our lives. Soon our main topic of conversation was the goings-on with the Gordons and we’d gossip over fences like gnarled fishwives; we’d sneer down the phone, reviving old rumours, mulling them over and pulling the Gordons to pieces. It was appalling how it became so absorbing.
It verged on the thrilling. There were enemies in our midst.
Collective hatred was so easily fuelled. I worried the children would be infected.
Sometimes at work I’d look forward to six, so I could get home to hear the latest. It was more intriguing than EastEnders. And when the FOR SALE sign went up next door, it left us feeling thwarted rather than triumphant.
We had achieved our aim so simply.
What about Jennie’s violent love… did this mean it had left her? Could a miracle have occurred overnight? She must be resigned to living without me.
‘That place won’t sell in a million years,’ said Hilary Wainwright unkindly. ‘Not now they’ve put up interest rates as well as stamp duty on these types of houses.’
There was a perverse sense of relief; we were reluctant to be deprived of our prey.
Sadie summed up the communal feeling. ‘For all their airs and graces, what are they? One old slapper and a dirty old sod.’
No, no, this was crass, I couldn’t accept this level of spite. ‘That happened a very long time ago and it was told to me in absolute confidence.’
‘Martha – she lied!’ sneered Sam. ‘Just another bid for attention. What a squalid imagination that woman’s got – did she ever speak the truth, one wonders? She’s even gone as far as to throw red paint in her own swimming pool to exact some mean revenge, that new copper told me. Jesus Christ, Martha – get wise. She’s going around slandering us as we speak. They’ve got to go to stop any real damage.’
By the way everyone looked at me I could see they thought I was spoiling their fun – one good word for Jennie put a dampener on the proceedings. In my neighbours’ eyes, I was the victim of a vicious and mean-minded attack.
A delicious community fear was born, which left us all imagining that Jennie, in her madness, possessed special powers
to hear and see through walls, to cast spells. Everyone loved to speculate on what her next evil deed would be, which one of us would be ill-wished, when would the next wicked spell be cast? Improbable, I realize that, but that was what happened.
‘How pretentious she is, turning that garage into a workshop,’ sneered Tina. ‘And what she does in there is rubbish. I mean, has anyone seen it? It’s so spooky. God knows what sickos are buying it, if what we hear is true. No, the real truth is that Jennie’s using that garage to spy on us. There’ll be complaints about the youngsters soon. We’ll hear what scandalous acts they’ve been up to. She’s so transparent, the woman’s pathetic.’
‘She can’t see out, there’s no window,’ I mentioned.
‘That woman has ways of seeing through stone.’
What started as a mild idea to suggest to the Gordons that they weren’t welcome fed off itself over the weeks and turned into a witch hunt, the kind of hatred that leads to tragedy, when emotions are encouraged to run too high. I was afraid it would end with someone blabbing to Graham about Jennie’s fatal attraction and then we’d see, and presumably enjoy, the explosive flak from all that. And as her passion for me was the underlying cause of this chaos, and as everyone but Graham now seemed to know, it was obvious that that particular secret was out.
‘She’s a dyke and that’s all there is to it,’ said Sam.
Always a threat to the male of the species. An ingenious way of involving the men.
If only she hadn’t confided in me.
‘Nobody likes Poppy at school,’ said Scarlett, pretending to sound concerned for my sake. ‘She’s thick. She came last in the maths test. Thirty-two out of thirty-two.’
‘Well, that’s not your fault, Scarlett,’ I said. This was the very reaction she had wanted and my daughter purred like a cat. It did sound quite sensible the way I put it. ‘Poppy’s teachers need to know exactly what standard she’s at, for her sake. Nobody wants her to go up to the comp in September and find herself out of her depth. That’s how some children slip through the system and end up illiterate and innumerate.’
‘She’s been bragging about going private.’
I smiled sadly. ‘Maybe that’s her way of defending herself. It might be the best solution for her. It might mean she’ll get special help.’
‘Is Poppy special needs, Mummy?’
‘Of course not, don’t be silly.’
But when Lawrence came home from school with a bloody great bruise on the back of his head, it was almost a matter for rejoicing because it was Josh who had thrown the stone and that justified our position. This incident was added to the list of transgressions that we could gang up together to chew over.
‘Josh has an aggressive streak. He never could play properly,’ said Sam with a fair amount of triumph. These were my own words of years ago, now turned into weapons. My betrayal of Jennie was absolute. ‘Always determined to be the best and the strongest,’ said Sam. ‘Temper tantrums if he didn’t come first.’ Sam would never have noticed these flaws if I hadn’t pointed them out.
‘What were you doing to make him do that?’ I had to ask my wounded son.
‘We were all throwing stones,’ he said innocently, blind to his encouraging audience.
‘Did Josh get hit?’ I asked him, knowing he would tell the truth.
‘No, Josh was behind the boiler-room door.’
‘Well, that’s a blessed relief,’ sniffed Tina, ‘else we would have had the police round by now.’
Yes, it was so easy it was frightening – so simple to turn and destroy a person we had known for so long, especially when it came to protecting our own in the noble cause of righteousness.
I had liked to imagine I would stand alone against the abomination of victimization, or the singling out for suffering of any one person by any group, guilty or not. But Jennie’s barefaced gall, how she sat and told lies about Sam and Tina at my own familiar kitchen table where I had welcomed her so often, changed me. It brought out all those destructive feelings and turned me into a stranger. I had never known so much rage was lying dormant inside me.
She had deliberately attempted to wreck my marriage.
Not only that, but her sly approach to Mrs Forest, trying to blacken Scarlett’s name behind my back, as if she had forgotten how much I cared for her children, hurt me and repulsed me.
I saw that as unforgivable.
And after all we’d endured together, all those scenes and trauma sessions, the explanations, the forgivenesses, the passions and the truths and the lies, the laughter and the tears… Who would have thought it would come to this?
It wasn’t my fault, it was Jennie’s. If only she’d taken my advice and gone on to get a degree that might have led to a job she enjoyed… If she’d done that she could have saved herself – she was just too feeble, or too bloody stubborn.
But even bearing all this in mind, the group offensive would not have happened but for the personalities involved.
Sam, for a start, could never relate to such a withdrawn person as Jennie. Sadie was trouble – bored and unhappy – with no other interests save the shop and her opera; and Tina thrived on the pickings of gossip. At home all day on her PC or driving long distances, she had too much time to dwell on trivia.
Hilary Wainwright, with her part-time career, was far more interested in playing the good fairy, and like so many people with wings on their backs, the misfortunes of others gave her propulsion. Maybe I was being unkind, but her vehement dislike of Jennie had started when her goodness was thrown back in her face.
Angie’s dislike was more reasonable. Jennie was unforgivably rude after the incident of Scarlett’s leg and it was Jennie who’d kept that pot boiling in her worst high-handed manner.
And me?
Well, I was riddled with guilt.
So eager to pander to Sam.
To show him whose side I was on and to demonstrate in the strongest way my belief in him, and my fury at Jennie.
‘She thought I was turning you against her,’ said Sam. ‘That’s why she made up that hideous lie.’
I still found this hard to understand. ‘But she must have known that I wouldn’t believe her.’
‘Why?’ Sam asked mildly. ‘You’ve believed her before. She’s told more extraordinary porkies than that.’
‘That’s true.’
‘So you’ve finally got to admit it,’ he insisted. ‘You were duped by that freak, you were her puppet for ten years, and the irony was, you believed she was the needy one.’
After all that, it was me who was weak, not Jennie, and I was taken by my new image – an unworldly, brainless, credulous fool. It was nice to be called ‘child’ again, it relieved me of so much responsibility. I enjoyed the new coddling, the tutting and shrugging; I was no longer a knowing old bag. No-one could say of me, ‘No flies on that one.’
Sam said, ‘Tina’s not my type. Give me some credit – an Essex girl, common as muck. And she’s so busy chasing after Carl, when would she have the time for any extra nooky?’
I longed to ask: Who was it then, Sam? I knew for sure there’d been somebody. I wasn’t such a cretin as that, whatever he might like to think. But I guessed that all I needed to do was wait until he made his confession. He always did. A creature of habit. Baring his soul was part of the thrill.
It was me who brought home the scoop of the week.
I brandished a copy of the paper like a flag. ‘You’re not going to believe this.’ And I read aloud to a startled Sam: ‘ “LOCAL POTTER’S WHEEL OF FORTUNE! An obscure local potter, working from her garage at home, hit the big time this week when she accepted an important commission from US dealer and art connoisseur, Demetrius Hogg. This means a whole change of fortune for housewife and mother, Jennie Gordon of Mulberry Close…” ’
I read on quickly, tumbling over the words in my pleasure at seeing the amazement spread over Sam’s face. “Of course I couldn’t believe it at first,’ said Mrs Gordon, thirty-four, mother of two.
But teacher and author Mrs Josie Magee, who taught Mrs Gordon for two years, said, ‘I knew that if Jennie kept going, one day she would make it big. She’s a one and only. The magic touch. For her this is just the start.’
‘ “Mr Hogg, with connections to the world’s most prestigious auction houses and whose clients include wealthy collectors, studios and stores, told the Express, ‘I am delighted to have discovered such excellence. Jennie’s beautifully formed and textured sculptures make an important contribution to the ancient craft of creating with clay and must be exploited fully. Only then can they be properly admired by those who appreciate such unique talent.’
‘ “It is understood that Mr Hogg has purchased several of Mrs Gordon’s pieces and these include works entitled ‘Sky through the Eyes of God’, ‘The Wings of the Wind’ and ‘Hound Howlings’. When asked where her inspiration came from, Mrs Gordon said, ‘It comes from anguish.’
‘ “There will be an exhibition of Jennie Gordon’s work at the Hamish Lisle Gallery at the end of this month.” ’
‘Read that again,’ said Sam, so I did. ‘It’s no good. I can’t take it in.’ Neither could I. Wait till the neighbours heard. At last Jennie had somewhere to put her passion.
So why did I feel so sad?
THIRTY-ONE
Jennie
SO WHY DID I feel so sad?
Look at me now, I was successful, with appointments in my diary other than dentist and smear.
I felt so sad because it had required an almost intolerable level of misery for me to discover my art, to stumble on this magic talent never awakened before. I had to reach rock bottom to find it. The passion that drove me to work every morning was due to a total collapse of the spirit and I could only vaguely recognize the acclaim my work received. Graham was prouder of me than I was and made sure I saw the articles and write-ups that catapulted me to fame. It was my anguished sculptures that made it, not my humble everyday pots.
I prayed for the equanimity that would let me get back to my pots again.
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