The Stepmother (31 page)

Come on, come on. My mother was lying surrounded by shards of glass—

I hadn't even realized she'd come out again, and I jumped. Amber stood in front of the bonnet of the car, glowing in the headlights, staring wild-eyed at me through the windscreen. I got out of the car and hurried to her. There was something unnerving about the way she was holding herself.

“What is it, Amber?”

“Mummy's dead,” she said.

I
OPENED MY EYES AND A SHARD OF PURE WHITE LIGHT RIPPED THROUGH
my retinas. I closed them again. Pain etched my head. It felt as if someone had embedded an ax in my skull. Everything around me was very soft. I was being swallowed whole by a bed of sponge. I couldn't smell anything familiar. I forced an eye open.

Wild roses slowly came into focus, clambering all over the walls. A small dormer window had its magnifying glass trained on the sun. I closed my eye again, shifted out of its sight line, and was left with meteors of orange blazing across the blackout blind of my eyelid. Where the hell was I?

I eased myself up off the squishy mattress and looked around. A quaint and dainty bedroom that I had never seen before emerged slowly through my blurred vision. I peeled off the covers. A sheet, an old-fashioned blanket, and a pink satin eiderdown. I had woken in the 1950s. I looked down at my glutinous body. No. My bra and knickers were still very much The Gap, circa 1998. The only other thing I recognized was the tang in my mouth. There's no mistaking the aftertaste of stomach acid.

I padded across the thick wool carpet and drew the curtains. Green rolled away from me as far as the eye could see. It was not countryside I knew. There was a pair of loose flannel pajamas on an antique button-back nursing chair, and a threadbare ribbed dressing gown hanging on the back of a white wood-paneled door. Since there was no sign of my own clothes, I put them on and ventured out of the room.

The smell of toast wafted up the stairs to me. A B&B? A hotel? A home?

Slowly, I took the thickly carpeted stairs one by one. The walls were covered with photos in cheap frames, of people I didn't recognize. I was beginning to get angry. Clearly, I had been taken somewhere against my will, since I had no idea where I was or why I was there. Three doors led off the hall. One was slightly open, and I could see worn hexagonal terra-cotta tiles on the floor. The smell of toast was coming from there. The kitchen.

I pushed the door farther open. A woman sat with her back to me at the table. Her hair was in a bun. I cleared my throat. Suddenly, my footing didn't seem so robust and I found I couldn't muster the energy to be indignant. The woman turned. “Hi, Mum,” she said. She looked so old. So tired.

“Amber? What are you doing here?”

It was obviously not the right question to ask: she turned away from me.

“I mean, um, I didn't think you'd be here.”

“You have no idea where we are, so please, stop it.”

“I don't think that's any way—”

She stood up. Her chin was wobbling. “I mean it, Mummy. Stop it.”

I couldn't bear to see my children cry. It had hurt since they were toddlers and split their little lips learning how to walk. Knowing, as my soul knew now, that physical pain was not the cause of the tears Amber was fighting wounded me to the core. What did I do? Should I get down on bended knee and beg forgiveness? No.

I felt a fresh wave of anger flood through me. Anger that wanted to find something to blame. My eye was drawn to a glass-fronted cupboard. A bottle of Teacher's. A little leveler wouldn't go amiss.

“I could do with a cup of coffee,” I said, buying time. Amber turned
away from me and put the kettle on. She seemed weirdly at home. I glanced at the cupboard again. Now I needed a moment alone. “Do you know where my clothes are?”

“Drying. They're not ready yet.”

Damn it. “So, where are we?” I asked.

“Mr. and Mrs. King's house. It's outside Oxford.”

King? Was that a school friend? I frowned but it hurt my head.

“Tessa's mother and father.”

I looked at Amber.

“Yes, that's right. Daddy's Tessa.”

My God. The venom in my daughter's voice made me sit down. It wasn't directed at Tessa. It was directed at me. Incredible how I still tried to hold on to some sort of high ground. When you're drowning, you'll cling to anything, even if it means bringing your saving grace down with you.

“You don't remember. Do you? Mummy?”

“You'd better take that tone out of your voice, young lady—” I was interrupted by the noise of tires on gravel. Amber glanced out of the window, then ran from the room.

I stood up to see what had made her move so swiftly. My daughters were belted into the back of a dark blue car. A silver-haired woman was in the front seat. She was wearing movie-star shades. The driver got out. My anger evaporated. The last person in the world I wanted to see now was Tessa King. I wanted to run, but my hands would not unclasp the side of the sink.

My gorgeous little girls were out of the car. I could see Maddy's mouth moving ten to the dozen as usual, and smiled. It hurt to smile. The ax was grinding. Tessa was supposed to have sole charge of my children for the weekend, so what was I doing here?

Lulu opened the door for the silver-haired film star, and I saw Tessa go to the boot. Maddy emerged with a plastic bag; Amber joined Tessa and collected two more shopping bags. They looked good together. I gripped the sink even harder.

Tessa went around to help the woman out. Maddy had still not stopped talking. She held on to the woman's hand and guided her up the path. The woman suddenly appeared to have a walking stick in her
hand. She was leaning on it quite heavily. She didn't look old enough to have a stick, and where had it come from? Tessa walked behind them, holding another walking stick. I could see her over Maddy's chattering head. She was keeping an eagle eye on the woman I presumed to be Mrs. King, and then, as if sensing me, she looked through the kitchen window and straight at me. Our eyes locked.

I had imagined our eventual meeting a thousand times. The dry one-liners, the children flocking to my side, me thin and funny, of course, Jimmy standing close by with a torn look on his face…It was not to be. Here she was. In the flesh. My nemesis. The glimpse I had caught of her emerging from the car all those weeks ago had not done her justice. She was prettier than I remembered, and taller, as I had feared. Athletic-looking and leggy, too, damn her. Bloody blonde. If you wanted to find the perfect opposite of me, you couldn't do better than Tessa King. Jimmy had made himself clear. The man wanted nothing to do with me.

I pushed myself away from the sink and fled. I couldn't meet her like this. Not her, of all people. I was back among the wild roses by the time I heard them come through the door, but I was not alone.

There was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” I said, as confidently as I could, given the circumstances. I sat up in bed, like an ailing aunt. Tessa walked in with a tray. I took a quick look. There, in front of me, I was pleased to see, she looked older than I'd thought. Tired. I stared at the eiderdown, listening to my heart pounding in my chest, and prayed I wouldn't have another panic attack.

“I've brought you some tea,” she said. I noticed she had some for herself, but I was not so deluded as to think this would be a cozy chat. She handed me a mug, then sat on the nursing chair and stared out of the window.

Well, I wasn't going to be the one who broke the silence. Silence suited me just fine. Finally, she looked at me. She had the same bone structure as her mother. I had to admit, she was a handsome girl.

“I didn't think we'd be meeting like this,” she said.

I forced the tea down my throat and, with it, any contrition I might have felt.

“You're probably wondering what you're doing here,” she said.

“I would have left, but you've taken my clothes.” Go in hard and go in fast. Jab, jab, jab, bring them down. I saw Tessa wobble. But there was an inner steel I hadn't anticipated.

“You were lying in a pile of your own vomit, Bea. I thought it best to wash them before you saw the girls. They'll be dry soon.”

I raised my chin. “I went out with friends to an Indian last night and had a prawn curry. I thought it tasted funny.”

Tessa regarded me steadily for a moment. Then she leaned forward and peered right through me. It did not feel nice. “Your daughter thought you were dead, and my mother lost her eyesight last night. I haven't slept. Do you think we could cut the crap?”

“I'm very sorry about your mother, but you really have no reason to talk to me like that. I ate some bad food.”

“You tend to be conscious when you vomit from food poisoning.”

“I was tired,” I insisted. “I must have fallen asleep.”

“On the kitchen floor?” Her voice was rising. Her cheeks were flushed.

“No. Obviously…” inspiration came to me, “at the kitchen table. I was reading, I—” was getting myself into a terrible mess. What could I tell this woman? Not the truth. I couldn't remember it, even if I wanted to. Which I didn't. Of all people, why did it have to be her? God, the humiliation. If she'd just leave the room, I could have a quick drink, sort my head out, get my story straight. Plausible, at least.

Tessa clutched her head with the hand that wasn't holding the tea. “Okay. It was bad prawns, and we have nothing to talk about.” She stood up, and I wondered why I didn't feel a victorious sense of relief. Ha! Got away with it again! But even I, under that pink eiderdown, in my polluted state, knew I hadn't. You can't kid a kidder, until the kidder's drunk, that is, and I wasn't drunk enough.

Tessa turned at the door and I saw the steel again. It flashed in her eyes. It was then that I remembered she was a lawyer at a record company, not some ditzy assistant who liked the idea of free CDs, as I had preferred to think. “What had you eaten when you ripped Amber's blue dress off her and called her a slut? More bad shellfish?”

“Excuse me?”

“What exotic food made you pass out so Amber had to carry you upstairs to bed, undress you, clean you up, tuck you in?”

“How dare you put ideas like that in her head? Are you trying to turn my child against me?”

“You're doing a pretty good job of that all by yourself.”

“I think you'd better go.”

“Who's been getting Lulu and Maddy up for school every morning?”

“I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“No. You wouldn't. You'd passed out. Lucky old Amber gets those memories all for herself.” She pulled the door behind her with a defiant click.

She thought she was so smart, leaving me with a cliff-hanger like that, but she'd miscalculated. I didn't need to remember what had happened to know that it had. Clarity provided the excuse I needed. I pulled the bottle of Teacher's from under the eiderdown, this was the company I was keeping these days, unscrewed the top, and, with cherished defiance and self-pity, finished it off.

 

W
HEN
I
WOKE, MY TEA
had gone cold and the day was a long way nearer dusk than dawn. Everything felt fuzzy, and I wasn't sure what had happened, what I had dreamed or perhaps hallucinated. Had I really called my daughter a slut? I loved her. I wouldn't have done that. The house was quiet. My clothes were folded on the nursing chair. Unsteadily, I crossed the room and put them on. My skin smelled acrid. My lower lip had cracked. I had to go home, sort myself out.

“Hello?”

The voice was responding to a creak on the staircase. I wondered where my children were. Damn it, I'd hoped I was alone. My plan was to call a cab and have it waiting when the prison warden returned with the girls. Once they had run into my arms, we would be on our way.

“Bea? Come on in. Tessa's taken the children to see a film.”

I walked toward the voice. Mrs. King was sitting in an armchair in front of a fire. It was unlit. She had a blanket over her knees. I wondered why, if she was cold, it wasn't burning. Despite the dark glasses, I doubted she was blind.

“Tessa wouldn't leave me with a lighted fire. Told me it was dangerous if I couldn't see the sparks.”

I was taken aback by her perceptiveness. How did she know what I'd been thinking? I responded by attacking her. I was feeling mean.

“And you're supposed to be babysitting me?”

“Tessa thought the Teacher's would keep you down longer than it did.”

I had to do a double take. The owl-like black glasses were fixed on me. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“She said you'd say that.”

“She's a know-it-all.”

Tessa's all-seeing mother laughed. “Actually, you're right about that. I put it down to her being an only child.” She motioned to the sofa. “Why don't you sit down? Better still, you could make yourself useful and get us a drink.”

I looked up hopefully.

“Not that kind of drink. Amber and Tessa poured it all away.”

I examined her again, but she was looking in the direction of the far wall. So, the Kings didn't mince their words. Like mother, like daughter. Well, two could play at that game. “How can you lose your eyesight overnight?” I asked.

I didn't enjoy the silence that followed. I wanted desperately to apologize, but the words stuck like thorns in my throat. I didn't know where the meanness was coming from.

“Multiple sclerosis.” The woman straightened her blanket. “I've had a relapse. First in a long time.” I felt small and cowardly. “There's quite a severe lesion in my brain. The inflammation surrounding it is affecting my optic nerve. If I'm lucky, and we got to it quickly enough, the steroids they injected me with this morning will reduce the swelling and the damage won't be permanent. If not…” She pulled the glasses off her face and folded them neatly in her lap. Her eyeballs roamed furiously, randomly, in their sockets, searching for all that unseen light. “My name's Liz, by the way.”

“Bea,” I said pointlessly.

“Sit down, Bea,” said Liz and, for some reason, I did. Liz put the dark glasses back on.

We didn't talk. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked loudly. Occasionally, a gust of wind found its way down the chimney and whipped around my ankles. The silence between us didn't feel uncomfortable. In fact, it felt necessary. The sky darkened. So did the room. Behind her large shades, my hostess was none the wiser. But I saw her shudder.