by C. J. Skuse
Don’t you hate that? When people introduce you to perfect strangers and then disappear, leaving you squirming for conversation? This has happened so many times now that I resolutely refuse to make the effort.
Turns out I didn’t need to.
‘Read about your bloke in the paper,’ said Tim. ‘Christ what a weirdo.’
‘Yeah, isn’t he just?’ I said, as we gravitated back over to the buffet.
‘And Priory Gardens. Saw you on the news. I remembered your face.’
‘Yep, sole survivor of a massacre and a murderer. Want an autograph?’
He laughed, swigging his bottle with one hand and rocking the pram with the other. Whatta man.
‘So you lived with him for four years? And you didn’t have a clue about any of it? The gay stuff and what he was doing and that?’
‘Uh no, no I didn’t,’ I said, reaching past him for the halloumi bites.
‘You going to testify when it comes to trial?’
‘Looks like I’ll have to, yes.’
‘And with the baby too – how are you going to cope on your own?’
‘I’ll manage,’ I sighed. ‘I’m like a lioness. Did you see that documentary? Fascinating.’
‘Was that true what your friends said, him beating you up and that?’
His breath carried notes of garlic and it was making my stomach or my baby – I couldn’t work out which – do flips. Luckily, Marnie returned with two empty buffet plates and handed one to Tim. ‘You getting to know one another?’ she asked, the way parents do when they want stepsiblings to get along.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘He was asking me all about Craig’s dirty little secrets.’
‘Oh Tim, you didn’t! I said not to mention it.’
‘I just asked about how she’s going to cope if he’s banged up for life.’
Tim looked at me as Marnie leaned over the buffet for a samosa. His eyes were on my feet, my legs, travelling up to my bump and finally my face. It was quite unabashed. Actual eye-fucking me.
Not every guy who looks at you wants you. FFS.
‘Did you tell Tim all about Cardiff, Marn?’
She stuffed a samosa in her mouth and chewed slowly. ‘Yeah, it was good, wasn’t it? We should take the baby when he’s older.’
‘Did you enjoy the show?’ said Tim as Raph grizzled in the pram.
‘Yeah, a real toe-tapper, wasn’t it, Marn?’ She chewed and nodded.
‘She doesn’t think she wants to join WOMBAT full time,’ said Tim, loading his plate with crisps.
‘Oh? Why ever not, Marn? Didn’t you enjoy yourself?’
Marnie eye-pleaded me not to carry on talking. ‘Yeah, of course I had a great time. I missed Tim and Raph, that’s all.’
‘Of course you did,’ I said, crunching down.
Raph started crying. A waft of crap rose up from the pram opening.
‘He’s shat,’ said Tim, pulling a bag from the under-carriage.
‘Oh, I’ll do it,’ said Marnie, going to take Raph from him.
‘I’m all right, I’ll go and do it in the car, spare everyone else the stink.’
With Tim gone, Marnie found herself stuck facing her latest fear – me.
‘Are you all right?’ I whispered.
‘Don’t touch me,’ she said, moving away and walking up the garden.
I followed her. ‘What’s the matter with you?’
She was tensed up like a jagged stone was stuck in her neck. ‘I’ve spent all week acting my arse off, pretending nothing’s wrong. Trying to scrub it from my skin. I’m good at pretending. But I can’t pretend around you.’
‘Pretend what?’
‘Pretend it’s okay. Because it’s not. I can’t even look at you.’
‘Uh I’ve clearly missed an instalment here, Marnie, care to fill me in?’
She pulled her phone from her jacket pocket and handed it to me. The screen was open on a news article – last Tuesday’s date.
A YOUNG man has been found stabbed to death in a Cardiff street.
The victim, in his twenties, was found at 3.30 a.m. in the morning, a spokesperson from South Wales Police said. The body was inside an alleyway in Bakers Row, off Wharton Street in the city centre. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
A police cordon is in place at the junction with Wharton Street. Detectives are carrying out a number of inquiries this morning including looking at CCTV footage and a forensic examination of the scene.
Anyone who has information which may assist detectives investigating this matter is asked to contact South Wales Police on 101 or anonymously via Crimestoppers on 0800 555111, quoting case reference number 66721/44.
‘Gosh,’ I said. ‘That’s so sad. Poor individual.’
Marnie snatched the phone back. ‘It’s him, isn’t it?’
‘Him? Him who?’
‘Don’t lie to me, Rhiannon. It’s Troy. You did that?’
‘Moi?’
She shook her head as the tears came. ‘Oh my god. You stabbed him?’
‘You’d rather have been raped? It was Hobson’s Choice.’
‘What?’
‘You don’t remember anything, do you? The club? Walking along the main street? Him in the alley? You falling onto the cobbles.’
‘I knew I was on the ground. I said I remembered that.’
‘Yeah well I saved you from him. He was going to rape you. So I did what I had to do. I protected you. You’re welcome.’
It took her a few moments to get the words out. ‘You had a knife. No, I saw it in your handbag on the train. You said it was a fruit knife. I knew it wasn’t.’
‘You need to calm down, right now. Go and knock back some of Pin’s punch or something before Mein Fuhrer reappears.’
‘You don’t care. You don’t care at all, do you?’ She shook off my arm.
‘Okay okay, here I am not touching you, Elle Sensititivo.’
She shook her head. ‘Did you kill the others? The ones… did you frame your boyfriend… oh, Jesus.’
‘It’s not as black and white as all that, I can explain.’
‘No, you don’t have to. Stay away from me, Rhiannon, okay? Please.’
‘Fine. But we’re still friends, aren’t we?’
She shook her head and her cheeks puffed out like she was going to be sick. ‘I don’t know what you are.’
That cut me. Somewhere deep inside my chest a fissure opened up and it wouldn’t close. I tried to tell myself it didn’t matter, that I’d lost friends before, that she didn’t mean anything to me.
The only trouble was – she did.
Tim had left Marnie alone for all of five minutes before he was back, wanting to know what we were talking about. I could feel my sword hand beginning to sing so I exited stage left to find the loo. And it was while I was sitting on the toilet, still trying to work out how saving someone from certain rape had lost me my only friend, when there came a blood-freezing scream from outside.
Nobody knew what was going on until Pin came sprinting up the garden with Mulberry, face red all over. I thought she’d gone a bit heavy-handed with the face paints. But I soon realised it wasn’t paint but blood.
‘What’s happened?’ asked Nev, leading the herd behind Pin.
‘She’s been kicked in the face,’ Pin heaved, sitting Mulberry on the breakfast bar.
I stayed in the hallway, watching the dramatic events unfold.
‘Is she all right?’ asked Nev.
‘No, she’s not. Your daughter kicked her in the face.’
Mulberry snorted bubbles of blood. ‘She called me a mudder fudder.’
‘Sssh, baby, sssh now, don’t repeat that word,’ cooed Pin, cradling one side of her face and applying wads of damp tissue to her nose.
Nev baulked away. ‘Jadis did this? No, she can’t have.’
‘No! Not Jadis! Alannah!’
‘Alannah?’ Nev laughed. ‘Don’t be silly. Alannah wouldn’t hurt a—’
‘She did! She did!�
�� Mulberry screamed. ‘And she told her to.’
Mulberry pointed at me. I walked back into the kitchen. Outside, faces looking at me. Inside, faces looking at me. Parents held children away from me. It was a Home Alone moment – Look whatcha did, you little jerk.
Except I didn’t feel embarrassed. I felt rather excited. The attention was invigorating. Champagne corks popped in my tummy.
‘Everything bleeds more from the head,’ I said. ‘Looks worse than it is.’
Pin turned to me. ‘You told Alannah to kick my daughter in the face? Did you teach her that word, too? WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?’
Jadis appeared by Nev’s side and cuddled against her thigh. ‘Mulberry’s always picking on Alannah, Mummy.’
‘I told Alannah to fight back. And it looks like she has.’
Alannah was outside, sobbing against the shoulder of her other mummy, Deb. Mulberry was still ambulancing it at the breakfast bar.
A low muttering from the patio – So irresponsible. Who tells a child to do that? Has she not heard of the naughty step? These were echoed by Pin.
‘I feel sorry for that baby of yours, Rhiannon, if this is your parenting style. And thanks to you there are two children crying their eyes out on what was supposed to be a happy occasion. Thank you very much.’
Silence. More stares of disapproval. A clearing of throats. A scraping of plates. Rhiannon, you’re such a disease. Some of the children went back outside, all on fire to get back to it.
‘I take it the party’s over then,’ I said, setting down my glass and looking around. ‘I was looking forward to the fireworks.’
I could see their lips moving – Tim was conversing with one of the dads, cuddling baby Raph. I looked over at Marnie for some back up. She looked away.
Wednesday, 21st November – 28 weeks, 3 days
I’m still pissed off about the barbecue.
I feel sorry for that baby of yours, Rhiannon, if this is your parenting style.
I’m not pissed off because of what she said or how she said it but because I didn’t have a rebarbative bon mot at the ready. I can normally take someone down like a lumberjack but on this occasion, she hit a nerve.
Because Pin’s right. I do have a terrible parenting style already and my kid’s not even born yet. I teach children swear words. I teach them to kick other kids in the face. I baulk when babies cry. I am going to be a terrible mother. I was always going to be. I’m a taker of life, not a nurturer of it.
Ordered the replacement stuff for the Well House today – exact replica crockery, cushions, sofa and one armchair. Cost me an arm and two legs because most of it was only available on eBay but what’s done is done and cannot be undone. It’s all being delivered there. I’ve just got to find the impetus to go up and clear the mess before it arrives. Soon.
Marnie’s not answering texts. Or my WhatsApps. Or my tweets. Is she going to tell the police on me? Who knows? Maybe she should.
Elaine has left WOMBAT. Doreen and Edna had a ‘quiet word’ (ambushed her) at Monday night’s meeting. She sulked in her room most of yesterday and this morning. Hasn’t said two words to me or Jim since.
She did say one thing to me this morning at breakfast. ‘I read an article about pregnant women and the bugs they can pick up in soil, Rhiannon. Probably better if you stay out of the garden altogether.’
Yet another barricade in the road. No high-altitude sports, scuba diving or sheep worrying for me either. I hate being pregnant. Did I mention that?
I can still read my Bible though, that particular avenue of pleasure is still open to me. I’m not giving it back to WOMBAT, even if they ask for it. I read it all the time, usually before bed. Probably why I’m not sleeping at the moment. Me and the Bible see eye to eye on a few things. Murder, yes. But with regards to revenge it gets a little cloudy.
Like, in Peter 1 verses 3–9 it says ‘Do not repay evil with evil. The face of the Lord is against those who do evil.’ But in Thessalonians 15 it says ‘Always seek to do good to one another and to everyone.’
So how can removing something which has caused such pain to humans, like a paedophile or a rapist, not be doing good to mankind? You’ve got to be cruel to be kind, haven’t you?
And in Romans – ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay’ says the Lord. But even the Lord needs a day off doesn’t he? I’m just easing his workload. A bit like when I worked at the Gazette, though instead of making the coffee, opening post and doing the flower show write-ups nobody else wants to do, I’m killing those people God doesn’t have time to. I don’t get why it’s so wrong.
I want to kill again, in my head. But my body is betraying me on that score. Killing Troy was not satisfying. While this baby is baking inside me, I know killing won’t fulfil me like it used to. Maybe it never will again, I don’t know. I never expected to feel this way. Tilted. Off-kilter. Wrong.
I don’t get why Marnie isn’t talking to me. I don’t get why she blanked me in town this morning when I went over to her. She’s supposed to be my friend, my best friend. Maybe she is and that’s why the police haven’t been over here already. She’s keeping my secret like a true friend would.
I feel grim. My Saturday night high has faded and in its place sits this gelatinous murky splat – a great big Jabba the Hutt-sized lump of poison in my chest. I want my friend back. I want to hear my baby again and not just through the Doppler. I keep tapping the bump—
Tap tap tap. Knock knock. Who’s there? Foetus. Foetus who?
But I get nothing back. Everybody leaves me. I have a friend in Jesus, I keep being told, but where’s he when he’s at home? Where is my sign that He is with me, watching over me, like the Man in the Moon? Do I just have to believe? I don’t know if I can do that.
It’s all bullshit, isn’t it? Yet again. I’m drowning in it.
I walked up to the Well House to begin work on my mess – I couldn’t leave it any longer. I stayed in the garden for a while and lay on AJ’s grave. Everything’s colder and the garden has died back to prepare for the winter frosts. It didn’t make me feel any better. I let myself in through the back door preparing to face the onslaught—
—but it had all gone. Every last bit of it. Every broken shard of china or clump of stuffing from the sofa had vanished, like it was never there. And there was a new smell about the place too – like a dry cleaner’s smell. I could still get the whiff of rotting human beneath it but someone had definitely cleaned up. Mary Poppins had magicked that shit away. The torn up sofa, the torn up curtains, the broken plates. All gone.
In the lounge, the only stick of furniture was the armchair.
And today someone was sitting in it. Alive and smiling.
And, unless I was mistaken, wearing the smug smile and raincoat combo synonymous with a police detective.
‘Hello, Rhiannon,’ he said. ‘I wondered when you’d come back.’
*
I can’t record what happened during the following thirty seconds because I blacked out. There must have been a rush of blood to my head as I saw him sitting there – big bulky guy, lying back all relaxed and triumphant like Diddy at the Met Gala – and I went down like a brick on the living room carpet.
When I came round, I was lying on the floor with my feet up on two cushions. He was sitting in the armchair.
‘Hey, you’re awake,’ he said. North London accent.
‘Who the hell are you?’ I said, backing into the wall. My bump had tightened like a basketball and my head thumped. I couldn’t get to the kitchen – couldn’t get to my knives. One stride and he’d have me.
He stared, taking me in, a strange little smile forming.
‘Who. Are. You?’ I repeated. ‘Are you with Géricault?’
‘It’s Kes, Rhiannon,’ he said, grinning as though that were the answer to all the questions swarming in my head. ‘I ain’t changed that much in two years, have I? Bit greyer about the gills, I s’pose. You got my notes, didn’t you?’
My heart thundered. Flight or fi
ght, fight or flight, fight or flight. Well I was in no fit state for either. He’d got me – a fish in a barrel, flapping violently.
‘What notes?’
‘I put at least five through your door. You’re staying with your in-laws on the seafront, yeah? It’s Kes, Rhiannon. KES.’
My brain wouldn’t function. His face kept swimming in and out of my vision. There was nowhere I could run except thirty metres or so straight out the front door and over the clifftop. It was dead end time.
‘DS Hoyle then? Keston Hoyle? Sorry, ex Detective Sergeant – I retired almost a year ago.’ He rubbed at the grey patches to his temples which I thought was strange because he didn’t look that old.
I got up, steadying myself on the wall. He didn’t move from the armchair. It was then the confusion-fug and panic cleared. I recognised him.
‘The notes? To My Sweet Messy House?’
He frown-laughed. ‘My notes said “Tommy’s Mate, Keston Hoyle” and my phone number. I tried calling – a man kept telling me to bugger off.’
‘We thought it was the press. You could have pretended to be a friend from school or something.’
‘Didn’t think.’
‘Your handwriting’s terrible. We thought you were some nutter.’
He opened his hands out. ‘My mistake. Should have gone all caps.’
I went to sit down but seeing no other seats, Keston got up from the armchair and offered me his. ‘You used to spar with Dad down the gym.’
‘Yeah, used to go down there quite a bit before my knee op.’
I laughed, out of relief I guess. It grew clearer the more I looked at him. The twinkly smile, eyes shining, large rough hands like maple leaves. Where before I’d just seen ‘police’ now I saw him the other side of a punch bag, smashing the crap out of it as Dad held it. Laughing with Dad in the café after his session. Sitting on a chair in our kitchen, Mum making tea, Dad standing against the counter. Helping Dad and me bury Pete McMahon that night in the woods. Warming my frozen hands between his. He was a good friend. One of the best, I could hear Dad saying.
A tile fell into place in my Keston Tetris. ‘You came to the funeral. You and your wife brought a wreath – Arsenal colours. Asiatic lilies, red roses, chrysanths.’
