In Bloom

by C. J. Skuse

  ‘Eh?’

  I afforded him a bored eyebrow. ‘You might want to rein your cock in a bit seeing as she can’t even hold her head up right now.’

  ‘Oh piss off, Buzzkill.’

  Marnie was asleep on his shoulder. He continued licking her neck.

  ‘Marn, are you coming back to the hotel? Marnie?’ I flicked her ear.

  ‘Bug-off,’ she slurred. ‘Fun here.’

  ‘See?’ said Troy. ‘She’s having fun. Off you fuck then, Buzzkill.’

  His piercing blue eyes lasered me. The point of my knife through each pupil – what a sight that would be.

  I left them to it and stormed out slamming the door – well, as much as I could slam the door when it got caught on the high pink furry shag pile.

  I was in the packed corridor, inhaling vodka vomit and getting brain ache from the house music, looking for the lifts to anywhere when I heard the voice.

  Don’t leave her with him.

  ‘I’m not staying here a second longer. I hate clubs.’

  She doesn’t know what she’s doing. She’s been drinking all day.

  ‘My feet are killing me, I’ve got a headache, it stinks in here and all I can think about are those two Scottish shortbread biscuits in the mini bar.’

  She needs you. She’s the Mole out in the snowstorm and you are the Rat. You have to find her.

  ‘Why should I?’

  Because she’s your friend. Remember when Joe Leech died? How bad you felt because you weren’t with him?

  ‘What am I meant to do exactly?’

  You’ve still got the steak knife from the restaurant.

  ‘Woah, you’ve changed your tune.’

  Look, they’re leaving.

  I hid myself behind a group of women wearing little more than bras, pants and red feather boas, and watched as Troy led Marnie out of the Pink Panther room, along the corridor and back through the club, holding onto her waist. She was giggling and stumbling, her dress caught in her knickers. I lost sight of them at the cloakrooms where I picked up her coat.

  Outside, the dark doorsteps of every pub and club clustered with smokers and little evil faces guffawing and hee-heeing over nothing. I put on my coat and watched as Marnie and Troy headed into the night. A woman in a silver lamé dress was slumped against a lamppost, throwing up. Her friend stood behind her shouting abuse at a taxi driver for being late.

  A group of guys in dresses wearing silk ‘Chaz’s Stag’ sashes smoked in the entrance of Lloyds Bank. Another group of students were lined up along the windows of a Polish supermarket, shagging like they were in a time trial.

  Nobody noticed me. I was a creature of the night, picking my way through clumps of wind-blown litter and shining black puddles, not taking my eyes from my friend and her date. I pulled up the hood.

  A guy lying on the pavement with his trousers round his ankles was crying into an empty burger box. A homeless guy and his Staffy were sitting in the doorway of Monsoon, eating a burger. I opened Marnie’s purse and gave the homeless guy the three remaining £10 notes. It was starting to rain.

  ‘You sure about this? You’re not going to press your eject button?’

  She’s in trouble. You’re all she’s got.

  I walked past people sprawled on the pavements, rolling in the middle of the road, shouting, fighting, a guy in a rugby the there shirt surfing on a pile of stuffed bin bags, a hen crying because she’d lost her balloon. Two police cars raced by, sirens blaring. Hi-vis jackets milled among the crowds, ‘having a word’ with two women in yellow ‘getting lippy’.

  I walked on, as though through a forest of trees rather than the open world, restricting my view of it as best I could within the hood’s frame. I could smell Marnie’s perfume all around me.

  Keeping my eyes on Marnie and Troy as they shambled along the street, laughing and feeling each other up, I waited far enough back so as not to be seen. He took her away from the melee, down a quiet side street called Wharton Place, in the other direction of where the police had been. Troy looked around – looking up – no CCTV. I ducked into a hairdresser’s doorway and heard him – ‘Come on, we’re nearly back at your hotel, look.’

  We were nowhere near our hotel. Our hotel was in the other direction.

  There was a road off the side street – Baker’s Row – comprised of back entrances and bins. Troy manoeuvred Marnie into a cobbled alley just off it.

  I took the steak knife out of my bag and poked it up inside my sleeve. I hung my bag on an outside tap.

  ‘Are we going to do this?’ I whispered, barely catching my breath.

  You’ve got no choice.

  I heard Marnie murmuring. ‘Sick.’ And then an urge and then a splash.

  ‘Ahh, shit – you’ve got it on my kicks, man.’

  ‘Ohhh… all better,’ she lazy-laughed, hair in her face, eyes, mouth.

  Do it. Do it now!

  ‘Come here now. Stand up. No, you’re not going anywhere, love.’

  He’s going to rape her – you have to, Mummy, go!

  I moved closer, ducking down behind a wheelie bin.

  More murmuring. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Can’t.’

  ‘Let’s get these knickers off.’

  What are you waiting for? KILL HIM!

  I moved two more steps closer. Troy had her pinned to the concrete wall by his chest, his face on her bare breast, sucking it hard. Biting it. Big tanned hands grabbing at the sides of her thighs, yanking down her knickers. Her eyes were closed. ‘No. I can’t, I can’t.’ Batting his hands away.

  I couldn’t catch my breath. The rain beat down. ‘What if I miss?’

  You never miss. Get him in the neck before he knows what’s hit him. Otherwise he could hit you. And if he hits you he’ll hit me. Protect her, protect me. KILL HIM NOW.

  Marnie’s knickers were around her feet – one of her shoes was off. Troy unzipped his fly. He pushed her against the wall, forcing her legs around him.

  Shank him. Hard.

  I came up behind him, stealthy as a lioness raised the knife and stabbed down into the right of his neck – carotid artery – the bit that pulses. His knees buckled. He grabbed out. Marnie sank down, groaning.

  ‘What?’ she murmured.

  The blade was lodged deep in Troy’s windpipe – I figured once the vocal cords had been severed there’d be no noise. At least, no screaming.

  HARDER.

  There was breathing in my ears – mine. Deep. So deep. Like the air was raking me clean from top to toe. Cleansing breaths.

  He grabbed at the knife handle, his fingers bloody and slippery and pulled it out, and went down like a hot rock, onto his knees.

  ‘Ahh fuck man fuck… ’

  Finish him.

  He was pumping out and the blood was trickling to the ground, meandering through the cracks in the cobblestones. I straddled his abdomen – feeling his writhing body between my thighs was like coming home. I wrenched the knife out of his grasp and stabbed it down into his stomach, again and again – I kept going. In. In. In. In. In. In. In.

  He gasped. I gasped.

  Okay enough now.

  In. In. In. In. In until I felt bone beneath blade and his breaths grew fewer, his muscles weakened where blood wasn’t pumping to them.

  He felt so good, squirming beneath me. Body to body. Life to death. I felt myself cum in my leggings – thank god I double-gusset now. A full body shiver with the rain on my face and my hands on the knife.

  ENOUGH NOW!

  I pulled out the knife and wiped the blade clean on his shirt. He lay there gargling – eyes wide, looking straight at me. The urge to hold him as he lay dying was horrendous but I controlled myself admirably. I rinsed my hands under the tap. Then came back to him to witness his dying breaths.

  I bent over, his blood cough spraying my face. ‘Sorry to kill your buzz, babe.’

  It was as I stood up that I felt the nausea rise. I swallowed it down.

  Troy gargled, a sink draining of wa
ter. The vocal chords should have been severed – stupid Google – I hadn’t gone deep enough. He obviously worked out so he was fit and could fight it.

  You need to get out of here.

  He sat up, but I pushed him back down, held the clean knife point directly above his windpipe and pushed down.

  Eyes still searching, mouth gaping, blood flicking out in spurts. AJ’s face on his. AJ’s head falling away from his neck.

  Nausea rising, I stood up and threw myself at the wheelie bin where my stomach turned out everything it had digested that day.

  LEAVE. NOW.

  ‘Is that you? Is that you making me sick?’

  Marnie stirred beside the bin. I wrang out her rain-soaked knickers and put them in my pocket, easing her to her feet.

  ‘Wha—?’

  ‘It’s all right, it’s me. We’re going home now. It’s okay. It’s all okay.’

  Sunday, 11th November – 27 weeks exactly

  1. Hotel bathroom signs that bang on about re-using towels to save the environment – I don’t give a rat’s ass about the environment. I’ll leave lights on, taps on. If I’m paying £100 a night to sleep, I’ll shit the bed to get my money’s worth.

  The elation went as quickly as it arrived. I know it’s not me – I know it’s Her – the Swede. I can’t enjoy killing when I’m pregnant, that’s a fact now. It’s become like eating meat – abhorrent. I should feel like dancing. Adrenalized in every limb, reeling with pleasure. But I’m empty.

  You killed my daddy that way. Remember his face in the bath as you cut off his arms?

  I threw up again in the bush outside the hotel. We had looks from the receptionist when I stumbled through the lobby with Marnie after midnight, both soaked and dragging ourselves along like we’d just spent a heavy night on the lash – the very image I was trying to cultivate.

  Daddy’s blood dripping down the bathtub. Pooling in the sink. Bones cracking under your hammer blows.

  I changed Marnie out of her wet clothes and hung them on the towel rail in the bathroom. I wrapped her in a hotel dressing gown and tucked her into her bed, making sure to prop a pillow against her back to keep her on her side in case she puked.

  Which she did around three o’clock, in the bin, before slumping back into bed. I slept for about an hour in all, and had a succession of terrible dreams. AJ in his bath of blood. A baby roasting on a spit in a castle kitchen. Wild dogs tearing a child to pieces. I had a shower at four when I couldn’t stand Marnie’s snoring any longer.

  All seemed to be well in the Land of the Uterus, amazingly – no pains, no bleeding and the Doppler gave me a strong heartbeat when I checked. There was nothing to worry about, but there was still background nausea all the time. And the strong feeling of knowing what I had done last night was wrong.

  I haven’t even started on the paranoia. I’d gone too public with this one. Worse than Birmingham. What if there was CCTV? What about clothing fibres? My vomit in that wheelie bin? Maybe the rain would wash any trace of myself from his body. Rain was my friend. It was still raining as I dried my hair, looking down from the hotel window on to the empty streets below.

  Marnie was quiet first thing. Apart from my ‘Do you want to use my conditioner?’ and ‘Black coffee?’ questions, both of which were answered with a shake of her head, she barely said two words. I went down to breakfast on my own – none of the other WOMBATs appeared to be speaking to me. Big Headed Edna threw me a look which I couldn’t decipher – it either meant I’m angry you snubbed Chicago or There’s no room at our table.

  Either way I sat at a table on my own.

  Tight Bun Doreen eventually came over and spoke to me when I was halfway through my fruit salad. The second she opened her mouth I wanted to punch it.

  ‘Rhiannon, some WOMBATs have complained about yours and your friend’s behaviour yesterday.’ She blinked rapidly and her wattles quivered as she spoke. ‘And with you not coming to Chicago, I’m not sure it’s wise to come on any more outings.’

  ‘Figures,’ I said, spooning in some melon and flicking over the pages of a Sunday Telegraph left by the previous table occupant.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Well, none of you have been comfortable with me or Elaine being in your group from the start, have you?’

  Edna scuttled over to stand by Doreen. ‘That’s not true, Rhiannon.’

  ‘It is true. Elaine’s only a member because she sits in sack cloth and ashes while you lot pile on the guilt. I won’t do that and that frustrates you.’

  ‘Well honestly, I ask you!’ Edna gasped.

  ‘I’ve seen the sly looks, heard you all talking in corners, the whispers about Elaine’s “beast of a son” and “the beast’s pregnant girlfriend”. I guess forgiveness only applies if you’re over sixty.’

  ‘Now that’s not fair,’ said Doreen. ‘You and Elaine have been welcome at WOMBAT from the start.’ Wheelchair Mary zoomed across to join in.

  ‘Tolerated, I’d say. Especially by you two.’ Some people just have that face don’t they? A face that draws fists. It’s probably not their fault on some level, but on some other level, it entirely is.

  ‘Murder is a sin,’ Mary chimed in. ‘I don’t think you should be allowed in this group, either of you. The man is a monster. It’s bad enough that his parents have to live in the town without you infiltrating us as well.’

  Doreen tried to quell the situation, as did Black Nancy who came over with a plate of fruit and yoghurt from the buffet.

  Edna took no notice. ‘If you’re a family that supports murder, regardless of who did it, then shame on you.’

  ‘God murdered people,’ I said, to an audible gasp from all three of them. ‘Loads of ’em. Old Testament’s full of murder. God was killing people left, right, centre and back. You all seem to sanction that.’

  ‘That’s blasphemous!’ Wheelchair Mary chided. ‘Totally blasphemous.’

  ‘No it’s not, it’s a fact. I underlined some passages in my Bible, look,’ I said, fumbling for it in my bag. ‘Sodom and Gomorrah – thousands dead… shedloads of Israelites, all the first borns of Judah – ordered BY GOD.’

  Doreen crossed herself. Edna’s wattles flapped in the breeze.

  ‘Kings,’ I said. ‘The Lord sends two she-bears out of the woods to tear forty-two small boys to pieces because they laughed at a bald guy… Samuel Six verses nineteen to twenty – the Lord strikes some men of Bethshemesh because they looked at the Ark. Then there’s Lot’s wife, and don’t get me started on Exodus.’

  ‘You’re underlining passages about murder?’ said Doreen.

  ‘Yeah. It interests me. Ezekiel. “I will fill your mountains with the dead. Your hills and your valleys and your streams filled with people slaughtered by the sword. I will make you desolate forever. Then you will know I am God.” And you’re having a go at Craig because he offed five sex offenders?’ I shook my head. ‘God works in hella mysterious ways.’

  *

  Marnie properly woke up when we were halfway home on the train, and while her sickness had gone, her guilt had returned.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ she said, over and over again. ‘Why are we on a train?’

  Up until that point she’d been going through the motions unquestioning. ‘Oh yeah we’ve been kicked out of WOMBAT. I forgot to say.’

  ‘But we paid for those coach tickets.’

  I grabbed her hand, opened it, and placed a crisp £20 on her palm. ‘Courtesy of Big Headed Edna. I got you a cereal bar and a black coffee from the trolley guy.’ I pushed them across the table towards her.

  ‘All because we didn’t go to Chicago?’

  I rifled through my handbag for some Polos or gum or something – the hotel breakfast was sticking to my tongue. ‘Not just because of that, no. Our behaviour at the castle yesterday. Our language. What I said at breakfast. What I did at breakfast. Mint?’

  She shook her head. ‘What did you do at breakfast?’

  ‘Poured yoghurt over White Nancy
. Pushed Wheelchair Mary into the pyramid of jams. Called Edna a name.’

  ‘What name?’

  ‘A bad name.’

  She exhaled long and slow. ‘What the hell is Tim going to say? I can’t lie to him. He’ll find out that we didn’t go to the show.’

  ‘How? He doesn’t know anyone at WOMBAT, does he?’

  ‘He’ll know if I’m lying. What am I going to say to him?’

  ‘You’ll say “Heil Honey, I’m home. Here’s your rainbow-coloured pencil from Cardiff Castle. We had a lovely lunch yesterday, saw a terrific performance of Chicago – that X Factor reject isn’t auto tuned after all – and a great night’s sleep at the hotel.” That’s what you’ll say.’

  ‘I can’t say all that. I’ll forget.’

  I shoved the mints back in my bag. ‘So you’re going to tell him about Fuckboy Troy and the half a haircut then, are you?’

  ‘I was drunk most of the day, I didn’t know what I was doing. See this is why I was so afraid of letting go. I don’t know when to stop.’

  ‘Birds born in cages think flying is an illness.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s a quote I saw online. I was looking for information on battered wives and Google threw that up.’

  ‘I am NOT a battered wife.’

  ‘That’s what you did last night, Marnie. You flew.’

  She frowned but it wasn’t at me – she was looking at my handbag as I was doing it up. The tip of the steak knife had caught in the zip.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Fruit knife.’

  ‘It’s big for a fruit knife.’

  ‘I like big fruits.’ I pushed it in, zipped up the bag and posted it under our table. ‘So anyway, back to the matter at hand and your obvious disgrace.’

  ‘Oh god what else did I do last night, Rhee, please tell me?’

  ‘What do you remember?’

  ‘The club. Lots of pink everywhere. Being sick. My foot was cold – I lost my shoe. The music. My head was banging. I stubbed my toe on a door. And you and me in a lift. You were laughing. And I remember waking up. And all my money’s gone. I didn’t spend it all, did I?’

  ‘You drank the place dry.’