I settled on a bench in the park, bathed in the pale rays of the early morning sun, and hungrily bit into the hot pasty I’d bought from the newsagents. I hadn’t wanted to eat at Mr Him’s flat. I’d seen the state of the so-called food in his fridge; I suspected even a dog would rather chew off its own leg than eat Mr Him’s food.
I pulled the newspaper out of the bag and laughed when I read the front page headline of the “Eastcove Local”.
“Murdered Parrot Found in Police Cell
The body of a woman discovered in a police cell has been identified. Catherine Parrot’s body was found in a cell in the middle of Eastcove Police Station.
Even more astonishing is the fact the murderer was also in the cell at the same time. A reliable source, who can’t be named, told us:
“I was going about my usual business when I wondered why cell 12’s door was partly open. I wish I’d never went in there! Her body was sprawled across the floor and she was soaked in blood. There was something wrong with one of her hands too but I couldn’t see what. It was then I realised there was someone else in the cell with the dead body. I saw the knife in the hand of this other person and I’ve never run so fast in all my life!”
Unfortunately we are not allowed to name the suspect at this time, or say how Catherine met her end, but as soon as we find out we will let YOU know.
For now, we can only hope Catherine Parrot can finally fly free.”
After reading the article I didn’t want to eat. I rubbed my bare arms to warm them and hastily stuffed the newspaper back in the bag before hurrying in the direction of home.
***
Wednesday, 14th February 2001
21:35
“Viola’s” was heaving, as was to be expected on Valentine’s evening. All of the tables were occupied and several waitresses, none of whom I recognised, bustled around. Behind the bar, Smith spoke into the landline phone but from where I watched I couldn’t make out his words. His hair had grown longer and curled over his shirt collar. I smiled to myself; it suited him. He put the phone down and reached for his favourite liqueur. After pouring a glassful, he strode from the bar and paused, glass in hand. For a moment I thought he looked straight at me but I realised he probably couldn’t see outside with the glare of the lights from inside reflecting on the dark glass. He didn’t smile and one of those cracks appeared in my heart again. Even after a year and a half I still loved him. Still missed him. I was a puzzle with a missing piece shaped exactly like Smith.
22:15
I’d locked my front door when a thought struck, sickening me. It couldn’t be. I hurried to the bathroom and rifled through the cabinet. I tore off the wrapping and impatiently timed three minutes.
22:18
An unearthly wail filled my ears and I wondered if something was being killed. I clamped my lips tight shut and glared at the small white stick, shaking it to make sure I was reading it correctly.
Yep, definitely pregnant. Again. This time Mr Him had every right to be excited but at that moment the only man I could think about was Smith.
It would always be Smith.
He would always be the only man who ever truly had that part of my heart but now I had something to give the other piece of my heart to, didn’t I? Or rather, someone.
A child. My child.
I wondered if it would be a girl.
***
What Happened Next –
Thursday, 14th February 2013
Saze, that’s me!
If I impaled spark plugs into Mr Him’s brain would it jump-start our limp sex-life or turbo-boost him out of here? I may as well be the only one in the damn relationship. When was the last time Mr Him lifted a single nicotine-stained digit to hoover up? I can’t even remember and I’ve been with him for what seems like a life sentence. I’ve had his child, cleaned his stinky-walk-on-their-own-crusty-socks, endured his proclamations of insincere love, and tolerated his over-the-top affection to his “co-workers” (female of course) but where had I disappeared to?
Was I searching for something that didn’t exist? Yearning for appreciation where none was due?
I’ve moved up from a handwritten diary to this blog. It will be my diary, my venting platform, my own little secret—hell, even as I typed, Mr Him shouted up saying he wanted his blue shirt ironed. Had to stop typing as would’ve been a shame to tear Mr Him from whatever he was doing, like plucking his eyebrows or wearing himself out channel-hopping.
Posted: 19:02 0 Sazements
***
Dressed to Impress?
‘Do you like my dress?’ I completed what I hoped was a sexy twirl in front of the television.
Mr Him waved his pint glass at me. ‘Move out of the way, I want to make sure there isn’t a recording clash when we go out.’
‘You don’t think I look fat?’ I nervously ran a hand over my midriff. It certainly wasn’t what it had been before arrival of Daughter.
‘No,’ Mr Him answered automatically, without removing his brown-eyed stare from the screen. ‘The shoes don’t make you look as short as normal. Are you going to straighten your hair or leave it natural?’ His thin top lip curled at the word natural.
‘I like it like this.’ I shook my golden brown hair, enjoying the weight of my curls on my back.
‘Hmmm.’
I resisted kicking off a shoe and lobbing it in Mr Him’s direction, fearing it would bounce straight off his head without inflicting the slightest dent and instead end up stuck heel first in the wall. ‘Is my make-up okay? I’ve tried a new eye shadow and liquid liner.’
White sock clad, Mr Him padded over to me. ‘It makes your eyes look funny.’ He screwed up his round nose. ‘Are you wearing contacts?’
I huffed. ‘It’s the make-up. It’s supposed to bring out the green of my eyes. Do you think it looks awful?’ I started to panic. There wasn’t time to re-do the make-up and there was no way I’d go out without any on at all.
‘I don’t like it and I’ve changed my mind about the shoes. They’re way too high. You’re nearly as tall as me in them.’
‘So, you’d prefer me to wear flats?’
Mr Him shrugged. ‘No, some which won’t make me look such a short arse. How high are the heels, five inches?’
‘Six, actually. They’re platforms. You’re still a few inches taller than me and I’m not changing them. I bought them for this evening. I like them so you’ll have to put up with it. I can’t help it if you have a complex about your lack of height.’
‘Well, don’t ask me questions if you don’t want the answer.’ Mr Him scratched his shaven head and sloped off to the bathroom.
Why couldn’t I ask my significant other for his advice? He always asked me things: where was his blue shirt; where had his socks disappeared to; if I’d been shopping; if I minded him going out. Of course the last question was completely rhetorical, no matter my response the outcome would always be the same. It’d be me tucked up on the sofa with a cup of green tea, waiting for his lordly return and once he did he always smelt of stale cigarettes tinged with perfume. Maybe I imagined the perfume tinge, wanting it to be there as an excuse for a cross-examination. Hell, a juicy argument could spawn from a perceived whiff of betrayal. Had I spent so long wondering that my wonderings had manifested?
Mr Him spent the following hour and a half preening. Eventually he emerged, dressed in the aforementioned blue shirt, rolled up to the elbows to showcase his recent half-sleeve tattoo, and slathered in enough fake tan he resembled a life sized mahogany statue.
Mr Him tapped his watch. ‘They’ll be waiting for us. I can’t believe you take so long to get ready. It’s not like you have to impress anyone.’
‘I take ages?’ I echoed. ‘I’ve been waiting for you. I don’t know why we couldn’t spend the evening together.’ I looked at him pointedly. ‘Alone. It is Valentine’s after all.’
Mr Him merely raised a borderline over-plucked eyebrow that must’ve contributed to his primping time and marched in
the direction of the flat door.
‘Aren’t we taking a taxi? I don’t want to walk!’ I wailed, looking at my gorgeous new shoes as Mr Him hurried me from the flat to outside. Although the shoes were really very lovely they were bound to sprout blisters.
‘Stop your moaning. You don’t have to bloody well walk. A mate’s giving us a lift.’
I frowned. ‘I thought the lads had been out drinking since seven?’
‘Yeah, they have.’ Mr Him nodded and pointed across the road. ‘There she is!’ He waved frantically.
‘She’s picking us up?’ I asked suspiciously. I’d always thought of her as Ms Cat, on the prowl and ready to pounce. Her golden hair shone under the reflected light of the street lamp as she lifted a thin hand in response to Mr Him’s waving. ‘You told me she was spending the evening with her fiancé.’ I didn’t know why I was so irked, yet I was.
Mr Him shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. ‘He’s being a prat. She phoned earlier and said she’ll pick me up.’
‘Wonderful,’ I snarled. ‘This is looking to be an amazing evening. Did you even tell her I was coming with you?’
He didn’t answer but sauntered over the road with his hands in his pockets and a grin on his tangerine face.
***
When we arrived the club was bustling and loud. Mr Him slapped a drink into my hand and promptly wandered off. For the next hour I idly chatted with his colleagues, until, tired, I slipped away. The staircase to the next floor was narrow and jammed with entwined bodies. Shoving my way upwards my elbow accidentally hit the back of a man.
‘Sorry,’ I mumbled.
The man, preoccupied with the woman in his arms, ignored me.
I ascended a few more steps before my brain clicked into action. What the hell, it was Mr Him I’d elbowed! I stomped back down and jabbed him hard, this time on purpose. ‘I’m leaving!’ I shouted.
‘What?’ Mr Him turned around and swayed drunkenly forward. ‘Why?’
I pointed at the slinky-eyed feline felon. I swear if she’d had cream on her top lip she’d have licked it appreciatively. Was Mr Him thick? Was I making a fur-ball out of a single hair? Had my lazy eyes deceived me? Had I really seen my Mr Him with his arms wrapped around Ms Cat? I merely pointed at Ms Cat again, well it was either that or resort to language she would know and scratch her eyes out. Of course I couldn’t do that. I walked away and stumbled into the night air with the sea breeze gusting chillingly across the road, and waited. I waited for Mr Him to follow, to apologise and to tell me I was wrong. I waited until even my goose pimples had goose pimples upon goose pimples. I read and reread a poster appealing for information about a missing girl until I felt her name would be forever scorched into my memory. The lone walk back to the flat had never felt so long. Especially in the patent leather torture traps which had earlier masqueraded as shoes.
With blisters as large as balloons on the heels of both feet, I poured a huge glass of sparkling wine and gulped it straight down before pouring another. Taking the bottle to the bedroom I sliced the crotch of Mr Him’s favourite pair of jeans with a kitchen knife.
Happy Valentine’s Day.
Posted: 23:56 2 Sazements
Anonymous: U sound really bitter, U need sum professenal help. Why would anyone wanna read ‘bout your yawn of a life?
SxyGrrl: Go on cut up some more clothes, the prick deserves it!
***
Friday, 15th February 2013
What’s Cat?
03:00
I’d returned the jeans to the wardrobe and was watching television in the lounge when Mr Him sloped through the door. He stank of the obligatory cigarettes and alcohol yet beneath hung the smack of perfume. I could feel the anger rising inside of me and squeezed the neck of the almost empty wine bottle until my knuckles went white.
‘Have you calmed down now, Saaayze?’ Mr Him kicked his shoes off and flung his wallet on the coffee table.
I bit my tongue at the stress emphasis he placed upon my name, something he always did when he was angry with me but wanted to turn things onto me. ‘How’s your girlfriend?’
‘Don’t be a bitch,’ Mr Him retaliated.
‘You were practically sucking her face off. What would you’ve done if it’d been the other way around?’ I knocked back the last of the wine, barely tasting it. ‘If that’s not cheating on me then I don’t know what is. What if it’d been me with my arms around some other man, my lips close to his, his arms around me, his hands in the back pockets of my jeans?’
A dark look crossed Mr Him’s face. He spoke through clenched teeth and wizened lips, ‘I’d knock out any bloke who came near you and you fucking well know it.’
‘Talk about double standards.’
Mr Him glared at me. His fists were clenched and I could tell he was on the boil. ‘It’s different. You can trust me.’ He staggered into the kitchen and poured half a tumbler of neat whiskey.
‘Meaning?’ I filled the kettle and turned it on, desperately wanting to appear more in control than Mr Him. With a shaking hand, I ladled a huge teaspoon of coffee into a mug.
‘I can’t trust you.’ Mr Him gulped his drink. His eyes were slits of angry accusations.
‘What?’ In turn, anger choked me. Had I heard right?
Mr Him slugged the remainder of his drink and winded me with the empty glass as he slammed it into my chest. ‘Stick some ice in there and pour me another drink. I need a piss.’
‘I’m not your servant!’
‘No,’ Mr Him returned. ‘You’re my fiancée so start acting like it and do something for me. It’s not I asked you to cook me a bloody three course meal.’
I squeezed the glass in my hand and envisaged slinging it at his worthless-egotistical-head but instead filled it to the brim with the cheap whiskey, deliberately leaving out the ice.
Mr Him staggered back into the kitchen, sloshed half of the whiskey over the kitchen counter, filled the glass back up again and had a mouthful of it before he asked, ‘Why are you picking on her? She’s my mate. Every time we go out you do something like this. You’re always trying to make things out to be my fault. You’re always after an argument.’
‘You were all over her,’ I cried. ‘I can’t trust you when you behave like that.’
‘You can always trust me. I’ve never cheated on you. I’m always the one to be—’
‘What were you doing with her?’ I interrupted his fictional tirade before he made up some story about past girlfriends cheating on him. I knew he would as he’d said such things before and the stories always changed so I doubted there was even a nugget of truth within them.
‘Her fiancé had phoned saying he’d changed his mind about getting married so she came to me, ‘cos I’m her mate.’ Mr Him stared at me. ‘What can I say? I’m a good mate.’
‘A mate she has sex with?’ It came out before I could stop it.
Mr Him slammed his, once again, empty glass on the kitchen side. ‘Saaayze, you have such a jealousy problem. It does my head in!’
‘Are you sleeping with her?’ I couldn’t stop asking, even if I’d wanted to. It was out now, the question, it couldn’t be unsaid.
Mr Him’s eyes blazed with anger. His thin top lip curled and I could tell he wanted to punch something, probably me, but he reached for the glass instead.
With an odd look on his face, he glanced at me before hurling the glass in the sink, shattering it upon impact with the steel. ‘Why are you even asking me? You’re not right in the head!’ He stormed out of the kitchen and into the bedroom, leaving me to clear up the mess.
Posted: 03:45 5 Sazements:
Anonymous: U’r a rite bitch & a control freeek.
SxyGrrl: Can’t believe your fella! Totally understand what you’re going through. I was dating this fella and I gave him a key to my flat. One evening my girly night out ended early and I came home to find my fella in my bed with another woman! He had the cheek to tell me I was overreacting!
Saze
Monnivan: “SxyGrrl”, thanks for your comments! OMG, did you know the other woman? *on edge of chair*
SxyGrrl: My sister! Check out my blog: “Sister, Sister Kissed me Mister”.
Saze Monnivan: “SxyGrrl”, OMG, going to read it now!
***
Allotment Girl, Any Information?
The local free paper arrived early so I was able to read some of it before leaving to drop Daughter at Holiday School Club before heading to work. Smiling from the front page was the face of the girl from the “missing” poster which had been outside the club. Her body had been found in an allotment by a couple of children. Do you live in Eastcove? Does anyone have any more information?
Posted: 09:35 11 Sazements
KentNP: Heard the body was dumped in a pile of tomato plants. I know someone who lives behind the allotments and they saw Police cordoning the plot off. I don’t think they’ve moved the body. Did you know the paper has a blog site? It doesn’t say much more than the actual paper but news is posted faster.
Anonymous: Why should anyone tell u wot’s going on? U looking for tips on how to do U-self in?
Saze Monnivan: There’s a murderer in Eastcove? This place has always been quiet. I remember being out on my bike, on my own, by the age of ten. My daughter’s eleven but I wouldn’t let her out on her own, she seems too small.
SxyGrrl: Definitely sounds like murder to me.
KentNP: Re: “Definitely sounds like murder to me” – How can you be so sure? Who are you?
Lies Love Tells (Eastcove Lies Book 1) Page 3
