The Vanishing Point

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?’

I took a big drink. I had a feeling it was going to take a fair bit of pina colada, even at Scarlett’s industrial strength, to make this sound like a good idea. ‘And she’s up for this?’

‘I haven’t exactly gone into the details. I didn’t want her blabbing to her Irish mates. All I said was that there might be a job for her on my staff.’ She poured herself a drink and chinked her glass against mine. ‘Here’s to my body double.’

I snorted. ‘Your staff? What have you told her?’

Scarlett looked offended. ‘There’s Marina. And there’s Georgie.’

Somehow, I didn’t think that was how George pictured him-self. But I let it go. ‘You really think you need a body double?’

She sighed, deep and heartfelt. ‘I need something. I feel haunted by those fucking jackals at the gate. Every place I go, they’re on my shoulder. Unless you’ve been there, you’ve got no idea how stressful it is. Sometimes the thought of going outside the gates makes me feel ill. Like I’m going to throw up. I realise people think it’s cheeky to complain when publicity’s what I live by. I mean, I know it’s getting my face all over the papers that pays the bills. But surely that doesn’t mean I’ve got no right to a private life? What about Jimmy? Does he not have a right to grow up without some fucking hack on his tail? I tell you, Steph, it’s dragging me down. And I thought maybe Leanne could take the heat off a bit.’

I could see her point. And my heart did go out to her. Even the most avid publicity hound needed to pull the drawbridge up sometimes. ‘Could Leanne hold her nerve? Has she got the bottle?’

Scarlett nodded. ‘I think so. The thing is, Steph, I need to keep my profile nice and high. I’ve been offered a TV series. It’s daytime, but it’s a chance at something with a bit more oomph to it. It’s going to be a kind of chat show – sort of, Where are they now? Every week we’ll be looking at a couple of reality TV show stars and seeing what’s happened to them. Some that’ve gone on to make something of themselves, some that have ended up on their beam ends.’

‘Sort of, triumph or tragedy,’ I muttered.

Scarlett, with no sense of irony, pounced on my words. ‘That’s not a bad title,’ she said. ‘Triumph or tragedy. I’ll run it past the producer.’

‘And you’re thinking Leanne can be Scarlett by night and you can be Scarlett by day? Are you sure you can trust her not to drop you in it?’

Scarlett sipped her drink and considered. ‘She’s always been loyal, our Leanne. She’s a year younger than me. Always looked up to me. I don’t think she’d grass me up, not even if there was an earner in it.’

‘An earner in what?’ Leanne walked back into the kitchen. With her hair swathed in a towel, the resemblance was quite unsettling. She sat down at the breakfast bar and Scarlett fixed her a drink.

‘Just a little something I’ve got in mind.’

Leanne made a dent in her drink and smacked her lips. ‘Ooh, that’s bloody lovely, our Scarlett. Nice room, too. I’ve never had an en suite before, except in a bed and breakfast. I could get used to this.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. I could get used to having you around.’

‘So what’s this job you’ve been hinting at? You know I’ve got no secretarial skills or owt. All I’ve ever done is work in the nail bar. And you don’t need to bring me over from Dublin just to keep your manicure up to scratch.’

Scarlett flashed me a quick look. ‘You know how people used to mistake us for each other when we were kids?’

Leanne giggled. It was identical to Scarlett’s irritating cackle. ‘Eeeh, do you remember when Miss Evans thought I was you and dragged me along to the head for your bollocking?’

Scarlett gave me an ‘I told you so’ smile. ‘I reckon if you dyed your hair, we could still get away with it. What do you think?’

Leanne eyed her critically. ‘I’d need to do my eyebrows a bit different. But if it wasn’t your nearest and dearest, I reckon I could pull it off. Why? Are you making some porno flick where you don’t want to show your scar?’

‘Fuck off. Of course I’m not doing porn. I might be a slapper but I’ve got standards, Leanne Higgins.’ Scarlett dug me in the ribs. ‘You tell her.’

‘Me? Why me?’

‘Because that’s what you’re good at. Explaining stuff so it sounds normal.’

It was, I suppose, one way of describing my job. So I outlined Scarlett’s suggestion to Leanne, emphasising the secrecy of the project at every stage. At first, she looked sceptical. But as I outlined what Scarlett wanted, she started to look more interested. By the end, she was grinning.

‘And that’s all you want me to do? Go out on the razz three or four times a week and pretend I’m you? You want to hire me to do your bad behaviour for you? That’s mental, that is,’ Leanne said, shaking her head and chuckling.

‘That’s all there is to it. You’d be staying here. Obviously you couldn’t go out when I’m out. I can’t be in two places at once. But it’s not like you’d be a prisoner here. You can go out shopping and shit when I’m home with Jimmy.’

Leanne drained her drink and waved the glass at her cousin. ‘Gimme another one of them. If I’m going to pretend to be you, I need to get into training. And what about Joshu? What does he think about all this?’

‘He doesn’t know about it yet.’

Now Leanne looked anxious. ‘But he is going to know about it, right? Because there’s limits to how far I’m prepared to go with this. And sleeping with him is definitely off limits. I mean, what you do is your business, but I wouldn’t sleep with a Paki.’

‘Jesus, Leanne, you can’t go round saying shit like that. That’s how I got in trouble in the first place.’

Leanne shrugged. ‘I’m not going round saying it, am I? This is just us, in your kitchen. I’m not stupid. I wouldn’t say that where anybody else could hear me. But it’s true, all the same. I’m not shagging him.’

Exasperated, Scarlett slammed her glass down on the counter. ‘Of course you’re not bloody sleeping with him. He’s my husband. I love him. I don’t want him catching something off the likes of you.’

I thought war was going to break out. But I clearly understood nothing of the history between these two women. Instead of a catfight, they burst out laughing and playfully punched each other’s shoulders. ‘What are you like,’ Scarlett said.

‘Mental,’ Leanne replied immediately, as if it was their own personal comedy routine rather than a straight lift from a Catherine Tate Show sketch. ‘What are you like?’

‘Mental.’

And that was that. The whole arrangement had taken about twenty minutes to set up. A smarter woman than me would have picked up the clue phone and learned something about Scarlett that afternoon. But I was slow, and it took me a lot longer.