The Vanishing Point (26 page)

‘What? Even you, Steph? With your lovely life?’

I stuck my tongue out at her. ‘Even me. It’s not all loveliness. Remember all that hassle with Pete?’

‘Yeah, but that’s history now.’

I thought back to Joshu’s funeral. ‘I think so. I hope so. And business? How’s that working out?’

Her smile was so open I couldn’t believe it was anything other than the whole truth. ‘Pretty good, actually. I’m starting to build up a nice little clientele. There wasn’t any real competition. Before I set up, you had to go down Fuengirola or Benalmadena to get your nails done by somebody English. And let’s face it, they all prefer somebody English. Bunch of racists, most of them. They act like the Spanish are trained monkeys.’ She chuckled. ‘Mind you, there’s a lot of the Spanish play up to that. They’ve got the Manuel act off to a T.’

I was glad to see Leanne back at the hacienda. She had a sense of fun and she lightened the atmosphere. And if I’m honest, I was glad to have someone to share Scarlett’s final journey with. It would have been a heavy burden to carry alone.

Leanne wasn’t the only one picking up a share of the weight. The only doctor Scarlett wanted near her was Simon Graham. She trusted him, she said. And she needed someone medical that she could trust now the end was getting near. She insisted he take a leave of absence from the clinic, and he more or less went along with her demands. He generally went in to the clinic for a couple of hours in the late morning two or three times a week. But other than that, he was at the hacienda. He moved a single bed into her dressing room and spent the nights there, in case she needed help. She didn’t want a stranger nursing her either. So Marina added nurse to her list of household jobs whenever Simon needed a hand.

Simon and Marina became part of the late-night kitchen set. It was an odd group, brought together for the saddest of reasons. We started playing poker to pass the time and often we’d play for hours, trying to take our minds off the dying woman and the sleeping child upstairs. Simon bought a set of proper poker chips and we sat around the table trying to figure each other out. I’d learned to play poker with Pete and his musician buddies, and I’d found it an interesting way to gain an insight into people’s personalities. Simon always took his time, weighing the odds (he claimed), before finally betting conservatively. Of all of us, he made the best decisions about when to fold. A man who would always cut his losses and come out even.

Leanne was more reckless, often playing no-hope hands down to the bitter end because she couldn’t bear to be too far from the action. I could generally tell when she had something worth betting because she would shut up and follow the field. When she went out on a limb, I knew she had nothing worth a damn.

Marina was hardest to read. There was no tell when she looked at her cards. She always hung back on the first round but then there was no pattern to how she bet. As a result, she generally managed to out-bluff the rest of us. If we’d been playing for money instead of ceramic chips, she’d have fleeced us all.

Me, I bet my hand. I always bet my hand and I suspect that makes me pretty easy to read. I don’t think my face gives me away; it’s my inability to bet counter to the cards I’m looking at in my hand and on the table. I’m not good at bluffing – or lying, as I like to think of it.

Most mornings, I spent an hour or two with Scarlett in her bedroom that smelled of Scarlett Smile and antiseptic. Those were the gentlest interviews I’ve ever done. I’d suggest an avenue to explore and she’d talk for as long as she had strength. We covered all sorts of things – motherhood from both sides, coping with losing a parent, the double grief of her marriage ending followed by Joshu’s death, putting her house in order for her own death. She shied away from nothing, openly talking of mistakes, regrets and missed opportunities. She did tire easily but she wasn’t losing weight so rapidly now and she assured me that Simon was keeping her pain-free. ‘It’s bloody lovely, that bit of it,’ she said. ‘Morphine just makes me float. Only drug I ever took to.’

One morning, as I settled myself in the chair and laid out my recorder and notebook, she pointed to the machine. ‘Leave that off a minute,’ she said. ‘I need to talk to you woman to woman. Not for publication.’

Wondering what was coming, I nodded. ‘No problem. What’s on your mind?’

She went straight to the point. Now she knew she was dying, there was no time wasted with small talk. ‘You weren’t keen on being Jimmy’s godmother, I know that.’

I had a cold, sinking feeling in my stomach. I knew what was coming and I didn’t know how to resist. ‘You know I never wanted kids,’ I reminded her. I had a horrible feeling I was wasting my breath.

‘I know. But you’ve done a great job. You’ve got to know him, you’ve played with him and read to him and taken him out for the day. You buy thoughtful presents for him and you don’t overindulge him. I couldn’t have asked for a better godmother.’

‘Thanks.’ I gave a half-shrug. ‘I tried to do what was best for him.’

‘Exactly. When we talked about this before, neither of us really believed push would come to shove. I was convinced deep down I was going to beat this fucking disease. And I think you were too. So it wasn’t real, what we agreed.’

For one wonderful moment I thought I was going to get a reprieve. Scarlett had finally come to her senses and she was going to leave Jimmy in Leanne’s care. Keep it in the family. But no such luck. ‘This time it is real,’ she said. ‘We both know I’m dying. So I’m going to say again what I said the last time. You’re the person I want to take care of Jimmy. It’s in the will.’ She managed the ghost of a smile. ‘You can’t get out of it, Steph. I need to know that he’s in safe hands, and that’s you.’

‘Leanne would be—’

‘A disaster,’ she said, slapping her hand softly on the duvet to make her point. ‘You know that. I’ve not got the strength to argue with you, Steph. I need to know my boy’s sorted. Promise me you’ll look after him.’

What else could I say? ‘I promise. I’ll take as much care of him as I would if he was my own.’

And that was that. My life transformed in the space of quarter of an hour. Of course, I assumed there would be an inheritance for Jimmy. Not that I was in it for the money. Oddly enough, I was thinking of Jimmy. Thinking that he deserved as little disruption as possible, so I’d have to sell or rent my house in Brighton and move into the hacienda. Jimmy might have lost the people he loved most, but at least he’d be in familiar surroundings, which had to help. Hopefully there would be a bit of money to make it possible for us to carry on living here. And maybe enough left over to do something about the woeful décor. It never crossed my mind that she wouldn’t leave her beloved boy a penny.

43

A
fter three weeks of living under siege in the hacienda, I needed to go back to Brighton for a couple of days. I told the kitchen poker school I needed to pick up my mail and pay my bills. The truth was I was desperate for a few hours on my own, in my own space. I was looking at a future that held precious little prospect of that, with a child to raise. I thought I was entitled to a last sliver of me time.

I savoured every moment of those three days. Two nights in my own bed. Comfort food in my own kitchen. Early morning walks along the promenade. A pub quiz night. The sound of my own music on speakers rather than earbuds. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t begrudge Scarlett my time and energy. I just needed to recharge my batteries.
Reculer pour mieux sauter
, as they say on the other side of the churning grey waves I walked beside.

When I got back, the landscape had changed. Simon was sitting in the kitchen on his own, reading a professional journal. No Marina, no Leanne. He tossed his magazine on the table and jumped up to greet me with air kisses on either cheek. He was wearing a ratty Boston Red Sox replica shirt and black cargoes that showed off slim, shapely calves. He had better legs than me, I noted, a tad bitterly. I let him mix me a gin and tonic to match his. ‘Where is everybody?’ I asked.

He pushed his hair back from his forehead and gave me the pained, boyish smile. ‘Marina’s sitting with Scarlett. They’re watching some romcom. I bowed out on the basis that my genitals are on the outside of my body. And Leanne is, I believe, in Spain.’

‘In Spain? Why? What happened?’

‘They had a major bust-up. Leanne decided she needed to have a come-to-Jesus talk with Scarlett about the importance of family as far as bringing up Jimmy is concerned. Scarlett told her that it was already arranged and you are taking care of the kid. There was a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, then Leanne accused you of being a gold-digger. That you’ve only ever been interested in what you could make out of Scarlett and you only agreed to take the kid on because of his inheritance.’

‘Ouch. Cheeky bitch. I hope Scarlett didn’t fall for that.’ I was genuinely outraged.

Simon smiled and patted my hand. ‘Not for a nanosecond. She told Leanne not to judge other people by her own shitty motives. That she knew Leanne would stop at nothing to get what she wanted and she, Scarlett, had made bloody sure that she wouldn’t get her clutches on Jimmy. Because if anybody was looking at Jimmy as a meal ticket, it’s Leanne. And why didn’t Leanne fuck off back to Spain instead of hanging round like a fucking vulture?’

‘Ah. Not a friendly parting then?’

‘Anything but. Leanne flounced out and got straight online.

I took her up to Stansted yesterday morning. She was still sulking. She gave me hell for not weighing in on her side.’ He looked plaintive. ‘When I told her I thought Scarlett had made the right choice, she looked like she wanted to stab me. She had a few choice words for me, too. I tried to explain that it was not actually helping my career for me to take a leave of absence to care for Scarlett, but she kept on about me wanting to become the doctor to the stars.’

I gave a bitter laugh. ‘She really has no idea how the world works.’

‘None whatsoever. Me, I’d pay money not to become doctor to the stars. Scarlett’s the exception. Mostly they are egocentric monsters. Anyway, Leanne has revealed her true colours. So the poker school is down to three.’

Which was fine by me, now that I knew what Leanne really thought of me. So the world had contracted to four of us revolving like satellites round Scarlett. Jimmy was the bewildered one, not really understanding what was going on and why Mummy was spending most of her time in bed. Scarlett tried to conserve energy for him every day, but the nearer she came to death, the harder it became. In the final few days, it was all she could manage to snuggle with him while he watched cartoons in bed with her.

When he wasn’t at nursery, one of us would take charge of him. We’d play in the pool, kick a ball round the garden, watch videos or build rambling Lego structures across his bedroom floor. I used to sit on the window seat with him and work my way through his collection of picture books. I think he found me quite comforting to be with. When I look back on those few weeks, it’s with a mixture of sadness and contentment; I think I did him a bit of good and built a bridge into our future.

The only interruption to our routine came when the team from
Yes!
magazine turned up for the final photo shoot, complete with stylist and make-up artist. I know there were people who thought it was pretty sick, but Scarlett wanted the world to see what a woman dying of cancer looked like. ‘We shut sick people away so we don’t have to confront the fact that we’re all going to die,’ she said. ‘I want to show them that I’m still a human being, still the woman I always was.’ Then that achingly sad smile. ‘And it’s a few extra quid in the coffers,’ she added.

When the end came, it was very peaceful. We were all in the room when Simon loaded up the last bolus of saline and refilled the morphine pump. Jimmy kissed Scarlett and gave her a last cuddle. I held her in my arms for the last time, unstoppable tears running down my face. Her courage in the face of impending death had been remarkable. The final act of a remarkable woman. I walked Jimmy out of the room and took him to bed.

I was still sitting in his room, watching him sleep, when Simon came through to tell me it was all over. I stood up and wrapped my arms round him as he shook with the force of his tears. ‘I’m sorry,’ he kept saying. ‘If only I could have saved her . . . I’m sorry.’

‘You did your best. Nobody could have given her better care.’

‘She was special,’ he gulped. He drew away from me, folding his arms over his chest, hands on his shaking shoulders. Somehow, he pulled himself together. ‘I need to call the funeral director,’ he said. ‘They’ll take her away and prepare her. And I need to sign the death certificate.’ He bit his lip. ‘I’ve lost my share of patients, Stephanie,’ he said, ‘but I don’t think I ever minded more.’

44

T
he funeral was a circus. A perfectly orchestrated circus, but a circus nevertheless. Scarlett had left detailed instructions which it fell to George and me to carry out. And carry them out we did, even though our teeth were gritted for most of the time.

The media were frustrated by the lack of a grieving relict. We knew they would dog our every step until they got something for the front page, so we arranged for them to have a single pool photographer take a series of shots of Jimmy carrying a posy of flowers into the funeral parlour where his mother was laid out. In his second black suit of the year, he walked in with bowed head, not quite five and already apparently master of his own public image.

Once the media had the pics they wanted, they decamped from the hacienda. There was nothing to see now Scarlett was gone, after all. Their place by the side of the country lane was swiftly taken by the tributes left by Scarlett’s army of fans. Bunches of flowers, cards and soft toys soon covered the verges and we all prayed that the rain would stay away. Banks of sodden tributes would be an eyesore that would provoke complaints to the council from the other residents of the lane, who had never approved of Scarlett or what she brought in her wake. It would be one more hassle we could do without.

The grown-ups went for a viewing before they closed the coffin. I barely glanced at her; I’ve never understood the need to mourn with the dead in your eyeline. From what I saw, they’d done a good job on her. She looked less gaunt than I expected, and Marina had chosen one of her signature hats to cover her baldness, the deep watermelon shade giving a welcome splash of colour to the interior of the woven willow coffin. ‘It looks like we’re sending her off in a giant picnic basket,’ George said.

‘It’s what she wanted,’ Simon said. ‘She cared about the planet. Even if she wasn’t going to be here, Jimmy’s got to grow up in this world.’

George sighed. ‘I know, I know. It just looks . . . odd, that’s all. I’m accustomed to a more traditional look.’

On the day of the funeral, George arranged for a driver to collect Scarlett’s mother and sister from King’s Cross Station. To her final days Scarlett had been adamant that she didn’t want Chrissie and Jade at her bedside. She didn’t want them to so much as set foot in her house. The instructions were to provide them with first-class return tickets from Leeds and a hotel room if they needed to stay overnight. George had booked them into a decent hotel near King’s Cross. In an act that would have made Scarlett smile, he’d chosen one that had no bar or restaurant.

Marina, Jimmy and I were taken from the hacienda to the nearby funeral home by 1940s black Rolls Royce. I couldn’t help feeling that Leanne should have been with us, but she hadn’t turned up. The day after Scarlett’s death, Simon said he’d called to try and persuade her to put the rift behind her and pay her last respects with the rest of us. But Leanne had been adamant that Scarlett hadn’t wanted her there, so she would stay away. She wasn’t going to be two-faced about it. It seemed a sad end to what had been one of the few important relationships in Scarlett’s life.

There were two other vintage Rollers in the cortège, one carrying Simon and George, plus the two assistants from the agency who had worked most closely with Scarlett. The third was occupied by the team from Scarlett’s TV chat show – her co-host, the producer, her stylist and a couple of others I hadn’t met before. Chrissie and Jade were in a black BMW bringing up the tail.

The hearse itself was a horse-drawn carriage, all four bay horses with black plumes on their headbands. They were preceded by two professional mourners, their silk top hats beribboned and their black Crombie coats perfectly fitting their burly frames. You could hardly see the coffin for the floral tributes. MUMMY from Jimmy, of course. SCARLETT along one side from the TV channel and SMILE in the style of the logo from the perfume company. I hadn’t seen a cortège that over the top since a fellow ghost writer had persuaded me to come with him to a Kray family funeral.

There must have been thousands of fans lining the half-mile route from the funeral home to the crematorium. They wept, they cheered. They threw flowers and, bizarrely, confetti at the hearse. Once we had passed, they abandoned the pavements and fell into step behind the cortège. The police, there to prevent any public order offences, were hopelessly outnumbered. They looked completely bewildered, taken aback by this outpouring of public sorrow for a Northern underclass underdog who had somehow won people’s hearts.

The Prime Minister himself had jumped on the bandwagon. The local MP had got to his feet in the House of Commons and asked if the PM had plans to extend breast screening to younger women in the light of Scarlett’s tragic death. The PM had put his serious face on and said, ‘I was saddened to hear of the death of Scarlett Higgins, a brave young woman who demonstrated how it’s possible in today’s Britain to triumph over adversity and build a successful career. She brought delight to us all and she will be sorely missed. I will ask the Health Secretary to write to the Honourable Member in response to his question.’ I hoped he was watching the live coverage on the satellite news channels, so he could see what popularity looked like.

When we reached the crematorium the funeral director emerged with a large wicker basket. As the pall bearers slid the coffin out and on to their shoulders, he opened the basket and released a dozen white doves into the blue sky in a flurry of feathers. The crowd gasped at the sight. A moment of pure theatre. I was making mental notes every step of the way; this would be the final chapter of the final Scarlett book, after all.

Outside the crematorium, there were giant screens relaying the service so the punters could share the grief. Inside, we followed the coffin down the aisle. Jimmy’s hand gripped mine so tightly I knew I’d have tiny half-moon bruises across my palm from his fingernails. He was my responsibility now, and it weighed heavily on me. Again, I wished Leanne was here to share it with me. Marina was all very well, but she wasn’t family. And besides, she would be leaving soon to take up the job Scarlett had promised her in Romania. I couldn’t afford the cousin she’d offered Scarlett, nor did I have room in my small house for live-in help. I was going to have to get used to doing this by myself.

Inside, there were more flowers everywhere and the air was filled with the fragrance of Scarlett Smile. I was rapidly reaching the point where I never wanted to smell that bloody perfume again. The crematorium was crammed with faces from the pages of the red-tops and the slag mags. It was a paparazzo’s C-list
collezione
. I hoped Maggie wasn’t going to work the room at the wake. I’d had enough celebrity biography to last me a lifetime. Over the past couple of weeks, I’d come to a firm decision about my future. No more books with people who were only famous for being famous. From now on, there would have to be genuine achievement on the table to garner my interest.

The service managed to deliver more dignity than I would have expected. Liam Burke, whose rich Irish brogue delivered the pronouncements of Big Fish to the
Goldfish Bowl
contenders, read Christina Rossetti; the producer of
Real Life TV
spoke movingly about working with Scarlett – her creativity, her sense of what would please the viewers, her willingness to work hard, her sense of humour; George spoke about her rise from humble beginnings and the pleasure she’d given to everyone who knew her (an exaggeration that nobody was going to quarrel with that day); and the lead singer of a boy band she’d interviewed on her first show sang ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’. And yes, I cried.

Jimmy clung to me throughout the service, his little body trembling with an overdose of emotion. In the end, I scooped him up into my lap and he threw his arms round my neck as if he would never let me go. I rubbed his back and made soothing noises. I didn’t know what else to do.

Once the service was over, George whisked us all back to the waiting cars. ‘I’m not doing a bloody receiving line,’ he said firmly. ‘If we do, we’ll have to include Jade and Chrissie and I am not having that.’

From a distance, they didn’t look too bad. I said as much to George. ‘I sent one of my girls up to Leeds to dress them and travel with them. So they’re relatively sober and relatively straight. I have no confidence that state will survive the wake, however. We need to keep the bloody media away from them in case it all gets grisly.’

‘What about Jimmy? Does he have to meet them?’

We’d reached the cars now. George looked around, uncharacteristically indecisive. ‘I’ll travel with you,’ he said, getting in alongside Marina and me. Jimmy was still attached to me like a baby monkey. ‘I’d like to keep him away from them if we can. My girlie said they’re making noises about claiming Jimmy.’ His mouth curled as if he’d encountered a bad smell. ‘They see him as a meal ticket, of course.’

‘I’ll take him home,’ Marina said. ‘I don’t need to be at the party.’ She shrugged one shoulder. ‘I don’t know anyone and it’s not necessary for me to remember Scarlett that way. Me and Jimmy, we’ll go back to the house and take off our funeral clothes and have ourselves some fun.’

‘You’re sure you don’t mind?’ George said.

‘I went to Joshu’s memorial and I hated it,’ Marina said. ‘It’s no loss to me. And better for Jimmy to go home and not be paraded like a prize pig.’

That wasn’t quite how I would have put it, but I saw her point. And it was a relief, I had to admit. The last thing I wanted was a public tug of war over Scarlett’s son. As it turned out, we couldn’t have played it better. I was barely in the door of the hotel ballroom where the wake was being held when Chrissie and Jade Higgins swaggered up to me, drinks in hand. A space cleared around us as if by magic. One thing about slebs – they can sense handbags at dawn at fifty paces and they always like to give the antagonists plenty of room to make a show of themselves.

‘Where’s my grandson?’ Chrissie wasn’t about to bother with details like introductions. Up close, I could see the damage that distance had obscured. Her skin was rough, broken veins imperfectly covered by foundation. Too much mascara and shadow wasn’t enough of a distraction from the yellow tinge to the whites of her eyes or the pouchy bags beneath them. Her teeth were yellow and chipped, and the closer she got, the more her rank breath sickened me. Her arms and legs were skinny, but her torso was round and hard, like a little barrel. If you’d been looking for Scarlett’s mother, you wouldn’t have picked her out of a line-up.

‘You must be Mrs Higgins,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry we’re meeting in such sad circumstances.’

She looked baffled by my politeness, like a bulldog confronted with a kid blowing bubbles. Not so Jade, who was hovering at her mother’s shoulder, stick-thin and pale, junkie chic from head to toe. The sort who always looks grubby, even straight from the shower. ‘Don’t come the toff with us, you posh bitch,’ she snarled. ‘Where’s our lad? What have you done with our Jimmy?’

Luckily for me, George was at my shoulder, the perfect mixture of urbanity and steel. ‘In no sense is Jimmy yours,’ he said. ‘Scarlett made her intentions perfectly clear. If you are unhappy about that, I suggest you employ a lawyer.’

‘A fucking lawyer? You think I need a fucking lawyer to tell me who my own family are? That boy’s my grandson.’ Chrissie pointed at me dramatically. I could hear cameras clicking all around me. ‘She’s got no claim on him. She’s only after our Scarlett’s money.’

‘Greedy bitch,’ Jade echoed.

I knew I was lost if I engaged with them. I’d be dragged down to their level and frankly they had more experience at the scummy end of the argument. But it was tempting. As if sensing this, George put a hand on my arm. ‘I doubt you could even tell me the boy’s birthday,’ he said dismissively.

‘Shut your yap, arsehole.’ This from Jade. ‘It’s not you we’re talking to. It’s the scheming conniving bitch here that needs to answer to Jimmy’s family.’

George shook his head. ‘You’re wasting your time. If you’re trying to screw some hard-done-by deal out of a tabloid, let me say loud and clear, Scarlett put a roof over your heads and paid your bills for the last six years. In exchange, all she wanted was for you to stay away from her. The boy is nothing to do with you. Now either you behave like civilised people or I will have you thrown out of here.’

Chrissie threw herself at him, fists flailing. Before she could make contact, Simon grabbed her from behind, pinning her arms to her side with the ease of practice. ‘Time to walk away, Chrissie,’ he said, backing her away from George. ‘Come on, let’s have a drink and a little talk about Scarlett.’

She gave in ungracefully. But as Simon started to turn her away from us, she hawked up a gob of smoker’s phlegm and spat it full force towards George. Startled, he stepped back just in time and it splatted on the wooden boards centimetres from his shiny black lace-ups. He looked at the disgusting gobbet then stared at Chrissie and Jade in retreat. ‘Excellent,’ he said softly to me. ‘Spitting is not a good look for the tabloids. Dear Chrissie’s blown her chance of getting one of them in her corner. They know that moment’s going to be all over YouTube by bedtime.’

‘Do you think they will try to get custody of Jimmy?’

‘They don’t have a leg to stand on, which any lawyer worth their salt will tell them.’ He sighed. ‘Christ, I need a drink. This is like one of Dante’s circles of hell.’

Nothing I could argue with there. Nor could I see much point in us being there. I was with Marina. I didn’t need this in order to mourn Scarlett. It was an ordeal that had to be endured. And always at the back of my mind as I scanned the room and made Scarlett small talk with people I barely knew was the fear that Pete would use this event the same way he’d used Joshu’s memorial – to get his claws back into me.

So I was only half-listening when one of the hacks button-holed me and started in on how wonderful it was of me to take Jimmy on. ‘He’s my godson,’ I said. ‘I was there when he was born and I’ve been part of his life ever since. I’m the lucky one here.’