‘You show them,’ I said. ‘Plus, it’s for a good cause. If they try to make you look bad, they’ll end up looking pretty shabby.’
‘True. Oh, and another thing about Romania. When Jimmy starts school, I’m going to pack Marina off back to Romania to be my eyes and ears out at Timonescu.’
I admit, I didn’t see that one coming. ‘Does she want to go back to Romania?’
Scarlett nodded. ‘She talked to me about going home before I had my diagnosis.’ This was how Scarlett divided her life these days. ‘Before I had my diagnosis’ and ‘after I had my diagnosis’. She didn’t speak of cancer in relation to herself. ‘She misses her family and she feels homesick,’ she went on. ‘I persuaded her to stay on the promise that she could go back with a job once she’s seen Jimmy off to school. She’s going to work alongside the head of the orphanage and administer our funding. She’ll be well paid and she’ll have a job that’s worth doing. I mean, face it, Steph, she’s got skills and talents way above what she does for me.’
I couldn’t help laughing. ‘No kidding. She could run the bloody country. I hope you know what you’re doing to Romania, letting her go back.’
Scarlett laughed too. ‘She’ll do a fantastic job for those kids.’
‘But can you manage without her?’
‘Of course not. It would be a bloody nightmare. My domestic skills are non-existent. But Marina’s promised to send me a replacement. The daughter of one of her cousins, apparently. Marina says she’s like a mini-me of her. So I’ll be sorted and she’ll be sorted and Jimmy will have somebody who knows how to make his favourite Romanian meatballs according to Marina’s granny’s traditional recipe.’
We both giggled. I’d picked up the frozen Swedish meatballs from Ikea often enough to get the joke.
We arranged for the shop to deliver the rug to my house later and walked down to the pier. She bought ice creams for us both and we walked along licking our cornets. ‘I love being by the seaside,’ Scarlett said. ‘We never went on holidays when I was a kid, but somebody always took us to the seaside for a day out. Scarborough. Brid. Whitby, if we were lucky. Coming to see you now makes me feel like I’m going back in time to one of the few good bits of my childhood. I love the smell of fish and chips and candy floss. I love the neon and the old-fashioned signs on the rides and the bingo. I love the slot machines and the crappy grab-a-toy games that never let you win. And I love the way that even when it rains, people still walk along the prom and make the most of it. It’s very British, isn’t it?’
‘I wonder if the next generation of kids will feel the same. Brought up on Benidorm and Disneyland. Will they love this—’ I waved my hand expansively, ‘—or will they see it as cut-price self-storage for pensioners?’
‘God, what a depressing thought,’ Scarlett said. ‘I’m not giving thoughts like that house room any more. I am Miss Positive from now on. So much of the cancer stuff I read talked about mental attitude and the cancer personality. Like, storing up bitterness in your heart somehow turns into cancer in your body.’ She held up a hand to stop me before I spoke. ‘I know, it’s probably all bollocks, but it gives me an excuse to make myself think positive and dump all the negativity.’
‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘I’m all for clearing the bitterness out of life.’ We leaned on the railing and looked out across the glittering green and grey of the English Channel.
‘Speaking of which,’ she said, ‘Leanne’s off to Spain.’
That was the second bolt from the blue. First Marina, now Leanne. It was all change at the hacienda. ‘That’s a bit of a surprise,’ I said.
‘Why? I talked to you about it ages ago. Before I had my diagnosis.’
‘You did. But she was such a support when you were having your treatment. And she had her hair cut, and people accepted her as your cousin. I thought you’d changed your mind.’
She gave me a look. Sorrowful. Almost pitying. ‘You only ever saw Leanne’s good side, didn’t you?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’ And I didn’t. I really didn’t.
‘Leanne only let you see the smiley, helpful, good side. Even when she ratted Joshu out, she made out that she was devastated, that she couldn’t keep it to herself because she couldn’t bear the thought of him doing the dirty on me. Am I right?’
‘Yes. She was upset on your account.’ I cast my mind back to that momentous night. I couldn’t recall any reason to doubt the way Leanne had presented things to me. ‘She wasn’t sure what to do for the best, but she thought she owed it to you to let you know.’
Scarlett sighed and stared out across the sea. ‘She was dying to tell me,’ she said. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think she said anything that wasn’t true. She didn’t lie about Joshu, though I wouldn’t put it past her to make up a steaming great pile of shit about him if there hadn’t been a truth to dish up. But she enjoyed every minute of seeing me hurt and humiliated.’
I was genuinely shocked by Scarlett’s words. ‘You think? I didn’t see that at all. I saw her upset and worried. Scared and nervous about telling you.’
‘You saw what she let you see.’ Scarlett gave her ice cream one last lick then threw it out over the water, watching as the gulls squabbled over the disintegrating cornet. ‘She knew what she was doing, Steph. I never had illusions about Joshu. I always knew he’d take it where he could get it if he thought he could get away with it. Although we never laid it out for each other in those terms, we both knew that was what the deal was. As long as he didn’t rub my nose in it, as long as he never humiliated me, I never would have called him on it. Because I knew that deep down, he loved me. Leanne, she came from the same world as me. She knew the score.’
I was beginning to see an ugly picture I hadn’t suspected existed. I didn’t know what pissed me off more – the truth behind the game that had been played out with me as a piece on the board, or that I, who prided myself on being able to read people, had been so thoroughly taken in. ‘Leanne knew that if she told you and made me part of spilling the beans that you couldn’t ignore it. That you’d have to confront Joshu.’
Scarlett nodded. ‘Nail on the head, Steph. I don’t think she thought I would take it as far as I did. But I couldn’t see any other way forward. Once he knew that I actually knew, there would be no need for him to keep the lid on his harem. I’d be humiliated at every turn. I had to throw him out.’ She slid her big sunglasses down from her hat and covered her eyes. ‘Me and Leanne, there’s always been a bit of love/hate going on. Competition for lads’ attention when we were kids. Which I usually won because I was older and smarter. She knows enough to make me look bad if she wanted to be spiteful. That’s the real reason I wanted to keep her out of the first book. I knew I was taking a chance, bringing her into my life. But I thought it would be OK. And it was, for a while.’ She sighed. ‘Then she grassed Joshu up and I knew there was a message there.’
‘What message?’
‘She was reminding me that she knew a secret about me. Not in so many words, obviously. But the message was there. That’s when I knew it was time she went to Spain. We both understood the terms of the deal. She stays in line and she gets the lifestyle she’s always craved.’
‘M-A-D,’ I said. Scarlett gave me a puzzled, offended look. ‘Mutually Assured Destruction,’ I explained. ‘It’s what they used to say about the USA and the USSR during the cold war. Their nuclear weapons meant that if one of them started it, they’d both be finished.’ I patted her arm. ‘I wasn’t suggesting you were mad.’
Scarlett looked relieved, then giggled. I realised she absolutely didn’t want to have a reason to fall out with me. With Leanne gone and Marina going, she’d be very short on people she could trust without me. ‘I never heard that before. I thought you were making out I was daft. See, I’ve still got a lot to learn before I can go head to head with the likes of you, Steph.’ She gave me a sideways shoulder nudge.
‘You do all right.’ I licked the last of my ice cream off the cornet and flicked it into the air, watching it glide in lazy circles till the wind snatched it under the pier.
‘Anyway, I realised the time had come for her to sling her hook when she said that thing at our celebration dinner.’
I didn’t have to be reminded of Leanne’s tasteless remark. ‘She was pissed.’
‘She was. And she gets pissed fairly regularly. Like most of the useless women in our family. And I don’t want that loose mouth around me now. Like I said, I’m going for a positive outlook on life. I don’t want her bringing me down. And Jimmy’s getting to an age where he’s like a sponge. I don’t want him hearing shit like that about his dad. Plus, you never know. I might find another bloke one of these days, and the last thing I need is Leanne waiting in the wings to put the poison in.’
I couldn’t argue with that. ‘So she’s off to do people’s nails in Spain?’
‘That’s right.’
‘How did she react when you told her it was time?’
