M x
Tulloch had taken eight days to reply to this one. Simon wondered if that was because he’d been too tempted by the money to shut down the possibility with a swift ‘No’. He’d said no eventually, however, and deprived himself of twenty thousand pounds by doing so:
From: [email protected]
21 September 2023
Dear Marianne,
Jemma’s not your daughter, she’s your stepdaughter. Please don’t write to me again. I’ve said no already and I won’t change my mind. You must think I’m stupid. Jemma obviously didn’t write this diary entry you say you found on her laptop. The dates are written differently for a start. In all of them, the month comes first, in capitals, then we have the day – just the number – then a comma and then the year. In the handwritten diary pages from 2006, the dates are in a different format: first the number of the day with ‘st’ or ‘nd’ after it (as in 1st, 2nd, etc.), then the month and year with no commas anywhere.
Also, in the handwritten ones from 2006, the first line of each entry is indented, but in the typed 2023 ones, everything is left-justified. Then there’s the fact that no one writes a diary on their computer. It just doesn’t happen. And Ollie’s name is spelled wrong in the laptop diary. Remember, I’ve known Jemma since school. I dug out a couple of emails from her from 2005 where’s she’s raving about her amazing new boyfriend: Ollie with an ‘ie’. Did she forget how to spell his name between then and this year? Unlikely. We both know how important he was toher. It’s pathetic, frankly, that you’d stoop so low as to impersonate her and write all this weird shit just to try and make her seem scarier than she is and manipulate me into doing your bidding.
She hasn’t been in touch with me for weeks, anyway, and I predict she won’t be. Even if she did get in touch, I’d steer clear. This whole thing’s too messy and complicated for me, so I’m out, and I won’t be replying to any more emails from you.
Cheers.
Tom
Simon moved the email to the back of the pile. He needed to see this famous diary on Jemma Stelling’s laptop with his own eyes. She’d been keeping one – that wasn’t in doubt. Since July, wasn’t it? So Tulloch was wrong to say that no one writes a diary on their computer, but were these printed pages Simon was looking at now genuine extracts from that diary, or fakes created by Marianne?
There was only one way to find out.
10th July 2006
Had a bit of a revelation this morning. Instead of pretending Paddy is a hundred per cent the one I want, as I’ve been doing so far, what if I decide instead to start believing that’s the actual truth? Less than ten seconds after putting this hypothetical proposition to myself, I had a massive ‘eureka’ moment. Two important things occurred to me, one after the other. The first was to do with driving and speed cameras, and the second was going to the doctor.
Someone once told me (I’ve no idea if it’s true) that there’s a machine you can buy and put in your car that tells you when speed cameras are coming up. This enables you to slow down to whatever the speed limit is before you get snapped going too fast by the camera. The fact that such machines exist tells us something: that there are lots of people out there who want to avoid getting fines and points for speeding, but who haven’t considered the obvious, brilliant solution of … just not speeding! The customers of the company that makes those machines are asking themselves, ‘How can I carry on speeding but not get in trouble for it?’ And maybe this clever machine can make that work pretty well for you most of the time, but would anything work quite as well as deciding never to drive above the speed limit again, and then sticking to that decision? I doubt it.
It’s the same as going to the doctor for a health check-up. Howoften have you heard people say, ‘I’m not eating chocolate/cakes/smoking cigarettes at the moment – I’ve got a doctor’s appointment next week for a health check-up and I want my weight/blood sugar/blood pressure/cholesterol to be down, not up, so that I get praised instead of ticked off by the doctor’? And what do those who say that, or think that, secretly plan to do, immediately after the doctor praises them for their efforts and great results? They’re obviously going to be straight back on the burgers, booze and fags, aren’t they? Feeling all smug about the pat on the back they’ve just earned, they trot off to carry on with their usual hedonistic, health-disregarding habits until they’re summoned for their next health check-up – but they’ll worry about that then.
Instead, they could give up fried, fatty foods and alcohol for ever. They could change their habits permanently, and know that from that point forward, they could get their check-up summons on any day and not worry about it. There would be no need for panicked, last-minute crash diets. They could live longer and feel the glow of true, meaningful achievement rather than a sense of ‘Phew! I got away with it, and the doctor will never know I’m planning to clog up my arteries again as soon as I get out of her office.’
I’ve just read back what I’ve written, and I sound like a pompous prig. I promise you, I’m not speaking from a position of superiority – I’m describing my own tendency to come up with brilliant plans that don’t actually solve the problem. That’s what I do – it’s what we all do – when there’s a massive advantage to be gained by letting the problem linger in our lives. (Eating sugary carbs is fun! Driving fast is fun! Resenting Paddy isn’t fun, but continuing, secretly, to prefer Ollie definitely is, and I can’t pretend I don’t enjoy, on some level, having a big secret in my life. It makes everything so much more interesting.)
But what if both are possible? What if I can prefer Ollie and at the same time genuinely believe Paddy wasn’t the wrong choice?What if Paddy is still, despite my preference against him, the perfect boyfriend?
This was the question I asked myself, and immediately afterwards I had this rush of ‘Oh my God, it’s true. It’s really true.’ I didn’t even have to convince myself. Of course Paddy is perfect – because Ollie would have been TOO GOOD.
I need to think about this more and make sure I understand the implications, but I know I’m on to something. I can feel it.
Here’s what I’ve realised: you can have everything you want in life, as long as you’re willing, when necessary, to want the thing that’s been forced on you and is beyond your control. If you can make that work, no one will ever be able to win against you.
This is everything. This is going to be my salvation.
21
Wednesday 1 November 2023, 12.30 p.m.
JEMMA
Iopen the front door and find DC Simon Waterhouse on the other side of it. He looks so odd, so very urban amid the greenery that surrounds him on all sides – like something that’s landed in the wrong place after being blown in from a nearby, down-at heel city.
Paddy and I did the opposite of what Dad and Marianne did when they bought Devey House. Marianne fell in love with the house and grounds, and didn’t much care where it was. If the location happened to be a featureless Fenland village, so be it. I love my house because it’s home, and I love it even more because it’s Lottie’s home, and the home I share with her, but I’d be the first to admit there’s nothing pretty or special about it as a building. It’s a low, red-brick cheat of a bungalow with just one tiny staircase and a triangular white-painted wooden ‘dormer’ section sticking out at the top, boasting three horrible PVC windows that we haven’t yet got round to replacing with wooden ones.
It was this location I knew I had to have as soon as I saw it, not the house. You can’t see a single other building, though there are plenty in Little Holling down the road, and the viewof trees, fields and hills from the front door and from every window, even the ugly plastic ones, would make anyone want to drop everything and take up landscape painting. On a day like today, with bright, clear skies, it’s exceptionally beautiful.
