Scarlett’s attitude didn’t help Joshu’s relationship with his son either. He ascribed the change in Scarlett’s behaviour to motherhood, not understanding that motherhood was her excuse to cover the fact that she was finally behaving as the woman she was, not the woman he believed her to be. I can see how it must have been confusing for him; emotional intelligence wasn’t his strong suit. Not that he was any better when it came to the other varieties.
And even if he’d had the nous to suspect the truth, it wouldn’t have been that easy to figure it out. Because the public Scarlett was still very much in evidence. And I have to take my share of responsibility for that. I was the only writer she could trust, so I was the one who got all the assignments from the slag mags and the red-tops.
Despite George having made it clear that the only authorised interviews would be written by me, and the only photographs would be supplied by a snapper employed by his agency, the media camp at the gates never seemed to diminish. There was a hardcore of half a dozen who were there every day. Scarlett couldn’t take the baby out for a walk; the long lenses could pick her up two fields away.
Out of sheer frustration – and, probably, a nagging picture desk – one of the notorious paps, a favourite of the red-tops, actually climbed over the wall and got inside the compound. Scarlett raised her head at the end of a length of the pool to see him banging off a clutch of shots through the window. She had the good sense not to attack him, calling the local police instead, followed in short order by a local contractor who spent the next week coating the top of the perimeter wall with glass shards.
Maggie was in seventh heaven. Nothing sells on the news-stands like a cute baby and a celebrity mum, especially with a bit of aggravation on the side. Me and Scarlett, we ran the gamut from A is for antenatal to Z is for Z’baby designer clothes. The popular version of Scarlett was constantly reinforced by endless photo spreads bolstered up by my image-making. I look back at it now, and I’m not proud of myself.
However much I might wish otherwise, there’s no denying that I played a role in how things went so very badly wrong.
18
The afternoon Leanne turned up, Scarlett and I were supposed to be working on a feature about getting back into exercise after a C-section. It was early summer and she’d sent Marina off with Jimmy for a walk in the woods. ‘He needs fresh air,’ she’d insisted in the teeth of Marina’s mutinous glare. ‘If you walk through the woods for about twenty minutes, there’s a pond with ducks. Take some bread, feed the ducks.’
‘He is seven months old,’ Marina said. ‘He’s not interested in ducks.’
‘Of course he is. All babies like feeding the ducks. Go on, off you go.’
About ten minutes after they’d left, I understood why Scarlett had been so eager to get rid of Marina. I was in the kitchen brewing up when I saw a taxi pull up at the gate. The intercom buzzed and I picked it up. ‘Yes?’ I said, glancing at the video screen.
I nearly dropped the handset. I could have sworn it was a brunette version of Scarlett squinting up at the camera from the back of the cab. ‘Is that you, Scarlett?’ she said, northern vowels flat as a toasted teacake.
‘Who is this?’
‘Tell her it’s Leanne. Her cousin Leanne. She’s expecting me.’
‘Hang on a minute.’
I put the handset down and shouted down the hallway. ‘Scarlett? There’s someone at the gate says she’s your cousin.’
She ran down the hallway, a wicked grin on her face. ‘This is going to crack you up, Steph. Swear to God, crack you up.’
She grabbed the handset and howled gleefully. ‘Leanne, you bugger! Get your arse in here.’ And buzzed her in.
‘You never mentioned a cousin,’ I said, following Scarlett back down the hall to the front door. ‘I wanted to talk to family for the book, you know that. You said they were all wasters and wankers.’
She gave a wicked grin. ‘You’ve seen Chrissie and Jade. You can’t argue with that.’
‘So who’s this Leanne?’
She stopped and looked me square in the face. ‘Maybe I just wanted to keep control, Steph.’ She carried on walking, talking over her shoulder. ‘Leanne grew up on the same estate as me. Our dads were brothers but her mum’s Irish. After she split up with Leanne’s dad, she moved back to Dublin with Leanne. When we were kids, everybody said we were like sisters. I wanted to see if it was still true.’ Scarlett opened the door as the cab drew up. She turned and winked at me. ‘I have got such an evil plan, Steph.’
Looking at them side by side as they played catch-up in the kitchen, I could see the differences between them. Leanne’s face was longer, her nose a little more snub. Her ears were quite different in shape, but if her hair had been blonde and hanging loose, the resemblance would have been quite eerie. Her voice was different too – a little higher in pitch, a bit less Northern in its inflexions. I was beginning to have some very uncomfortable suspicions.
After they’d got up to speed with each other’s gossip, and Leanne had made the appropriate noises over the latest photos of Jimmy, Scarlett took her off to one of the guest rooms down by the pool to unpack and have a shower.
‘You’re up to something,’ I said as soon as Scarlett returned.
She grinned. ‘And how. There was this totally weird old movie on the other night, Dead Ringers it was called. It was about these twins—’
‘I’ve seen it,’ I said hastily. One of my pet hates is when people try to explain the plot of something they’ve seen or read. I suppose it’s because they’re never succinct or clear, and I get enough of that at work.
‘Right. So you see where I’m going with this?’
‘You’re going to pimp your cousin to Joshu?’
As I saw the look of shock and hurt on her face, I realised I’d underestimated Scarlett yet again. ‘I’m joking,’ I said hastily, trying to cover myself.
She looked uncertain for a moment, but went with it. ‘You have a weird sense of humour sometimes, Steph. I love him, you know that. Even if he is neither use nor ornament most of the time. No, what I’m thinking is Leanne could be, like, my body double. Like they have in the movies.’ She opened the cupboard and took out a tall glass pitcher. ‘You remember when Brad Pitt made that movie, Troy?’
Wondering where this was going, I nodded. ‘Bloody awful film.’
‘Never mind the film. He worked out like crazy to bulk up for it, but he ended up all out of proportion. Great shoulders and chest and six pack, but he still had skinny legs. So he had a leg double.’ Scarlett emptied a tray of ice cubes into the jug and added a terrifying slug of Bacardi.
‘Are you kidding?’
‘No, I’m dead serious. The reason I know is that they used a lad who was a student at Leeds Uni. He was Brad Pitt’s leg double. And see, I thought Leanne could be my clubbing double. Have you seen the pina colada mix?’
Luckily, her head was in the fridge so she couldn’t see my face. Words failed me. I simply stared, incredulous.
‘Think about it, Steph.’ She emerged from the fridge, waving the plastic bottle of cocktail mix. ‘Got it. Here’s the thing. Most people who see me out and about in the clubs, they don’t know me. They’ve only ever seen me on the TV. And everybody knows people look kind of different in real life.’ Scarlett poured the ready-made mixture over the rum and ice, then stirred it with a wooden spoon. ‘And Leanne sounds more like me than me. She’s totally into all that Yes! magazine crap. She walks the walk and talks the talk. She could be me for public consumption, out on the razz, giving the gossip columns and the paps all they need to keep them happy. That way, Joshu gets somebody to play with and show off out on the town, and I get to not go out clubbing.’ She plonked a glass of pina colada in front of me and looked pensive. ‘And if we’re not fighting all the time about me not wanting to go out, maybe I’ll feel more like shagging him. Which is worth a try, right?’