Kaye and Luke are huddled together in the corner, and I’m ignoring them, as I tell Matthew I want to take the last of Jeanie’s things with me today. I just want to get the hell out of here before I get sucked into their shit any further. I want to get back to Jeanie’s bedside, to meet Frankie, ready for when she wakes up. If she wakes up.
Striding to the door, I say, ‘I’ll bring my car into the drive, if you can get Jeanie’s other boxes.’
‘You don’t need to take it now,’ he’s trying to say. ‘I’d like to see her, for her to know she’s got a home here.’
‘A home?’ I’d laugh if it wasn’t so utterly unfunny. ‘God, when has anyone ever been made less welcome? Why would she want to come back here?’
If she ever wakes up.
‘Marlena, please…’
‘I hope you’re all ashamed of yourselves,’ I snap. ‘You’re monsters, the lot of you.’ Braver than I feel, I walk out to fetch the car.
But I’m speaking to myself too.
I am ashamed. I didn’t realise how close to the edge Jeanie really was. And I didn’t realise the extent of the toxicity here.
* * *
When I’ve smoked a cigarette, rung the hospital yet again and checked my emails on my phone, I’m a tiny bit calmer, and I drive the hire car up to the house.
Matthew’s opened the garage, looking even more rattled than earlier.
‘What’s up?’
‘The keys are missing,’ he says. ‘To the gun cabinet.’
‘Can’t help you there.’ I take a box of Jeanie’s old vinyl from him.
He walks back towards the garden. ‘I’ll fetch the mirror. I know she loved it – I want her to have it…’
‘I don’t think so,’ I say – but he’s gone.
Kaye appears out on the patio and lights a cigarette, wiping tears away like a scaly old crocodile – purely for my benefit, I’m sure. Save them, lady, I don’t bother saying. I feel nothing but contempt. I check my phone for messages for the hundredth time this hour. I just want to get on the road up north now.
Matthew and Luke reappear, carrying a hideous big mirror between them, all curly gilt frame.
‘I’m pretty sure that’s not Jeanie’s,’ I say.
Kaye’s about to object I can see – when suddenly Luke swears loudly. ‘Fucking hell!’
I turn at the same time as Kaye.
The girl I know to be Scarlett is standing in the garden, by the back doors. She’s wearing a pair of very short shorts, with bare legs and clumpy black ankle boots. Her baggy T-shirt screams Smells Like Teen Spirit in neon pink.
And in her hands she holds a long metallic shotgun.
‘Scarlett.’ Her mother laughs rather hysterically. ‘Don’t be silly! Put that gun down now!’
‘You, mummy dearest,’ Scarlett, teeth gritted, speaks loudly. ‘You can shut the fuck up right now.’ And calmly she levels the gun at Kaye.
‘Scarlett!’ Kaye says, but she does indeed shut up – thank God. Her voice is nasal and whiny.
Luke is transfixed, staring open-mouthed at his twin.
‘I was wondering where that key went,’ says Matthew.
‘You fool,’ Kaye hisses at Matthew now. ‘You fucking idiot. You left the gun cabinet key where the kids could get it? Seriously?’
‘Oh shut up, Kaye,’ he says tiredly. ‘I don’t think you’re in any position to blame others. Put the gun down, Scarlett.’
‘Yeah, shut up, Mum,’ Scarlett jeers.
The family is imploding cataclysmically right in front of me. If it wasn’t rather frightening, if Jeanie wasn’t lying inert in that hospital bed, it might almost be exciting. The web of loyalties is getting more complex with every second, and the journalist in me thinks of the story; echoes of Columbine—
But as it is, it’s pure alarm I feel as my brain races, trying to work out who exactly Scarlett has it in for and what she is planning.
If she really hates Jeanie, then I guess I’m the next best thing…
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Kaye move towards Matthew, desperately whispering to him to call the police – and I realise something.
She’s scared of her daughter.
Or of the Beretta – or both, I’m not sure. But I thought they were so close…
‘Shop your little girl?’ Scarlett levels the barrels at her mother’s smooth, tangerine-vested chest. ‘That’s not very nice, Mummy.’
‘Scarlett, baby,’ her mother pleads, and I have a horrible premonition of Kaye’s perfect, fake bosom exploding, blood and guts spattering everywhere. ‘Please, what are you doing, darling?’
‘Scar,’ Luke says now, rather desperately, ‘I really don’t think this is a good idea you know.’
‘What do you know about good ideas, Lucas?’ Scarlett is both withering and tearful now. ‘You’re the one who fucked it up again.’