Sweetpea

by C. J. Skuse

  Mmm, don’t think I did, I thought, but continued stirring my coffee. ‘I don’t actually want this,’ I said, pushing my mug away.

  ‘OK, well, I still want to see you. No strings, if you like.’

  ‘Just sex?’

  ‘Just sex.’ He smiled. ‘Please. I’m begging you. I need to see you.’

  I couldn’t help but smile. It was nice to be wanted. He seemed desperate. It’s very attractive, being thought of as attractive, isn’t it? I liked that he wanted me so badly. I had the strongest urge to say No to him, to make him suffer in his longing, but there was something I wanted even more than that. I said, ‘OK. On one condition.’

  ‘Name it.’

  ‘I want to try something different.’

  ‘Anything. Name your price.’

  I turned to him and said, ‘I want us to do it outside somewhere. And I want you to pretend… that you’re dead.’

  His face fell. ‘Dead?’

  ‘Yeah. Pretend you’ve died. And I’m fucking your corpse.’

  He didn’t say anything for a long time. He checked the door, like he’d heard someone come in, but no one was there. ‘That’s pretty sick stuff.’ He laughed. It was a nervous laugh but there were ribbons around it.

  ‘We all have our little kinks.’

  ‘Do you, like, watch porn about dead things too?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘I won’t be stiff though. Dead things are stiff, aren’t they?’

  ‘Not immediately. And not for long.’

  ‘OK,’ he said, not smiling. ‘I can do that.’

  After work, I drove us out to the country to the woods at the back of Mum and Dad’s. The day was still hot and hotter inside the forest, stifled as we were by the closely grouped trees. I found the spot where me and Dad buried Pete’s body and we lay the picnic blanket down there on top the pine needles and soft brown earth. AJ did his best pretend-corpse impression but he was too alive; too heartbeat and warm. Thankfully, I didn’t need much foreplay though – just the thought of what lay buried beneath us was enough to get me wet. I have dry leaves and pine needles in all the orifices right now, but I have to admit, it was good today.

  ’Tis turning out to be a fine romance.

  *

  Had another dizzy spell cooking tea tonight and I couldn’t eat anything. Craig’s worried about me, the nob. It’s been very hot today and I haven’t drunk anything but a half-bottle of water left in my car for the past three months. He said I should be taking better care of my body to prepare it for our little Criannon. I said he should check if gravity still works by jumping off the balcony.

  I’ve eaten my way through the entire day, like The Very Hungry Caterpillar’s Even Hungrier Larvae. I’ve had…

  1.A bowl of muesli with full fat milk and two pieces of buttery toast

  2.1 x banana dipped in Nutella

  3.A Rhubarb and Custard Naked bar and a full fat hot chocolate

  4.Sausage baguette and a Twix

  5.A doughnut (Krystle in Sales’ birthday)

  6.A Flake

  7.A (giant) handful of peanuts

  8.A(nother) banana, dipped in Nutella

  9.2 x toast and jam when I got in from work

  10.Spaghetti Bolognese (from scratch, with balcony oregano), cheesy garlic bread

  11.Banana and custard

  Preggo? Nah. I’m not falling for that one again. I’m just greedy, that’s all. The worst part about it is I’m STILL hungry. Maybe I’m just thirsty. I’ll have a Capri Sun and see if that does the trick.

  *

  The Capri Sun didn’t do the trick. Am still famished. Going to order a pizza before my chrysalis starts to form.

  Wednesday, 29 May

  1.Maths teachers – specifically all the maths teachers I’ve had

  2.Sandra Huggins

  3.Wesley Parsons

  4.Vets – Tink’s annual quickest injection ever has cost me over £50. The actual factual FUCK can you justify that?

  5.Michael Jackson – OK was he or wasn’t he because I’ve been wanting to listen to ‘Thriller’ for the past year now and I still don’t feel like I can

  You would think I had backstage passes to meet Queen Bey herself today, the mood I’ve been in. Absolutely buzzing. We dropped off Tink with Jim and Elaine first thing – they had her bowls of water and food all ready and had made up a brand-new dog bed beside theirs in their room. They were talking about ‘taking her to the park to feed the ducks’ and the possibility of a day at the beach. They’re so desperate for a decent grandchild, it’s pathetic. The one they have, Mason, from Craig’s errant sister Kirsty is, by Jim’s admission, ‘a shit’ who plays on his phone at the dinner table, steals from Elaine’s purse and most shocking of all, helps himself to Jim’s digestives without being invited. Since Mason hit the teen years, they hardly see him at all.

  Craig drove up to Birmingham, on the condition that I drive back. Stopped at Michaelwood services so I could empty my bursting bladder and we also crammed in a McDonald’s. I was still ravenously hungry after, so I got a takeaway hot chocolate and a lemon-and-poppy-seed muffin in Starbucks while he ‘went outside for a vape’. I followed him, pretending to stop and smell the bucket flowers outside Marks and Spencer. He was talking on the phone. To her. I saw him mouth the words ‘I love you too’.

  I can’t exactly be jealous any more though, can I? Not when I’ve been re-enacting the Kama Sutra with AJ on the days of the week that have a Y in them.

  We got to the hotel by lunchtime. Once we’d parked up, I was harangued for twenty-six minutes about the hotel I’d booked because we ‘didn’t need to be in the city centre’. According to Craig’s map app, the Crowne Plaza was right by the venue and he suggested we ‘cancelled our booking at the posh place and go there instead’.

  No, I said. We had to stay in the city centre because I wanted to go shopping tomorrow morning ‘for Mel and Jack’s wedding present’ and some ‘nice chocolates for Jim and Elaine to thank them for having Tink’. He eventually relented, grumbling all the while.

  Yay yay, I get my way.

  We walked past The Glass Tree pub on the way to the train station, once we’d dumped our bags with the concierge. It was an all-day palace and there were mostly families in there eating pies with gravy drips down the sides. I only peeked inside but there was no sign of Parsons. He would be on the night shift, of course. Like me.

  Kicked around town for a bit killing time and picked up a Subway and a colossal bag of pick ’n’ mix from a Tesco Metro we passed as we headed to the train.

  ‘Are you still in a mush?’ I asked him, once we were seated and I’d begun on the strawberry bonbon layer of the pick ’n’ mix.

  ‘No,’ he sulked, studying a pizza flyer he’d been handed at the station.

  ‘You are,’ I crooned in his ear, giving it a little bite. ‘Come on, we’ve got a nice king-size bed, power shower, Gideon Bible in the drawer and everything.’

  ‘Still don’t see why we have to stay in one of the most expensive hotels in Birmingham, nowhere near the gig. Crowne Plaza’s right next door.’

  I got right up into his face, smelling my own sickly strawberry breath ricocheting back off his cheek. ‘You’re not taking me on holiday because of your stupid football fortnight, so I’m having one night in a posh hotel. All right?’

  He shrugged and stared out the window.

  ‘Anyway, look on the bright side, we could make our baby in that king-size bed tonight, couldn’t we?’

  ‘Woah,’ he said, a smile slowly creeping back onto his face. ‘You sure know how to put the wind back in a man’s sails, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I laughed.

  He laughed too, fumbling in the pick ’n’ mix bag for a shrimp. ‘You’re so horny lately. I read something online about women being easier to get in the mood when they’re pregnant. Or trying to get pregnant.’

  ‘Well there you go then.’ He reached for a sour-apple MAOAM and unpeeled it, holding
it out for me to take. I shook my head. ‘No thanks. I’ve gone right off them.’

  ‘I only got them for you.’

  I rifled around in the bag for another bonbon.

  ‘When did you last do a test?’

  ‘Few weeks ago?’ I reached into the bag for a gummy bear. ‘I won’t be pregnant, Craig, it’s a waste of money.’

  ‘You do seem… different lately.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Well, you’ve whacked on a bit of weight, haven’t you?’

  ‘Stops me getting kidnapped.’

  ‘You’re off coffee, and now MAOAMs. They’re your favourites.’

  ‘Pull the other one,’ I said.

  He was right. I’d had two dizzy spells in the past week alone. Coffee and sour-apple MAOAMs were my two favourite things but I couldn’t go near either of them any more without gagging. And then there was my food intake in general – I was troughing like Henry VIII. My stomach was noticeably rounder – like period bloat that hadn’t shifted. Lucille and Cleo hadn’t been able to take their eyes off it when I’d been trying on the prozzie outfits in town. Did they all know something I didn’t?

  No, no, no, it couldn’t be. The Pill would see to that.

  ‘If you are,’ he said, ‘do you want to get hitched? Maybe now’s the right time.’

  ‘Married? Seriously? Why now?’ I asked.

  ‘Dunno. Just seems right, if you are. You’re always saying weddings are a waste of money and that your side of the church would be half empty so I’ve never forced it. But if we had a baby on the way, maybe we could.’

  ‘Do you want to?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘It would force us to grow up, wouldn’t it?’ Force him to stop shagging Lana Rowntree, he meant. This proposal was guilt-edged. ‘Let’s do it anyway. Let’s do it, fuck thinking about it. What do you reckon? Do you wanna?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I do.’ Bluff called.

  He beamed widely. ‘So are we engaged then?’

  ‘I think we might be,’ I giggled and he leaned in and kissed me softly, cupping the back of my head in his big rough palm. ‘So where’s my engagement ring then?’

  ‘Oh, you want one of them as and all, do you? I don’t know, so demanding…’ He fiddled about in the pick ’n’ mix bag and pulled out a red jelly ring with a yellow diamond on top.

  ‘Gis your hand.’

  I held it out. He rubbed the ring along my fourth finger.

  ‘There. We’ll go round the jewellery quarter tomorrow for a proper one, shall we? Mrs Wilkins?’

  ‘Uh, I ain’t Mrs Wilkins yet, pal. I don’t remember Marilyn singing “Haribos are a Girl’s Best Friend”.’ We kissed to seal the deal.

  I wished so much, right then, that this was all real. That this wasn’t a sticking plaster. That I hadn’t heard him say he loved Lana on the phone. That this meant he was mine for ever.

  I ate the Haribo ring while he was in the toilet.

  At the arena, the lines were enormous. A lot of fans had camped out overnight to get to the front. I wasn’t good with killing time – killing men, yes, killing women, no problem but killing time? Hideous. The gig itself – once Her Majesty had finally seen fit to show herself just after 8.30 p.m. – was pretty spectacular. She did all the hits, plus a few new ones, changed her outfit twelve times (Craig kept count), blinded us with glitter and pyrotechnics and got a bit of audience participation going. We were repeatedly asked:

  ‘If you’re proud of who you are and where you’re from, say, “I slay!”’

  I got some fiendish glee shouting that out to almost sixteen thousand people, none of whom meant it as literally as I did. It was a pretty glorious feeling. The woman is a goddess sent to earth to show us all what we could have been if we weren’t so scared – one moment she’s a soulful crooner with a voice that can hit any note a song throws at her, the next minute, a ferocious stick of dynamite tearing up the stage like a panther. I got quite emosh several times.

  Do you cry to Beyoncé? was not a question that had appeared in the BuzzFeed psychopath quiz but, if it had, my result might not have been quite so perplexing.

  We took an AGE to get back to the station – just shuffling for most of it and travelling for almost as long as the gig. We didn’t get back into town until midnight. Craig always insists on leaving when the performer says ‘This is the last song’, but tonight I wanted to drink it all up and be full to the brim with it and her before we even thought about leaving.

  In town, The Glass Tree pub was heaving. There were clusters of men and women out the front smoking under the street lights and a guy being sick in the gutter as his mate laughed and rubbed his back. I stopped outside.

  ‘Go in for last orders, shall we?’ I suggested. ‘I’m pretty parched.’

  ‘You had a Coke coming back.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I’m still thirsty. Come on, just one, eh? Nice cool lager…’

  ‘I’m pretty tired, babe. Come on. There’s water in the room.’

  ‘I want an alcoholic drink and I need the toilet.’

  ‘Again?’

  ‘Yes, again. Come on.’ He did one of his extra-long sighs but I got my way and we went in.

  In the centre of the bar was an enormous glass tree, made up of crystal leaves dipping down from a trunk and branches made entirely from clear wine bottles – it was quite a sight. All around were booths and little tables made from beer barrels. All walks of life chatted and laughed and the noise was tremendous in my already-ringing ears. The restaurant next door was just as packed and the maître d’ had sweat patches the size of two pancakes under his arms. Ugh.

  ‘We’re never gonna get served,’ said Craig, fumbling in his wallet for a note. ‘Do you know what you want?’

  And then I saw him. Wesley Parsons – walking through the throng of people as though his bollocks were too big for his underpants. He plonked some empty glasses, down on the end of the counter and took his place behind one of the pumps.

  ‘Did you hear me?’ said Craig. ‘We’re never gonna get served here. Let’s go back and see what’s in the minibar.’

  ‘You go and find us a table. I’ll go find the loo and get the drinks. What do you want?’

  ‘Draft lager. Budweiser or Stella if they’ve got it,’ he said.

  It’s remarkable how much something doesn’t matter if you know there’s something good at the end of it. Like those kids outside the venue tonight – some of those girls had been camped out for three days to get the best view of their queen. And they were happy and joking and playing games on their phones, not even bothered by the wait they had endured. They knew their moment would come – and when it did, it would be worth it.

  And so did I.

  I had waited a long time to talk to Wesley Parsons, my best friend’s killer. And, yes, he had ‘paid his dues’ to society. And, yes, he was ‘dreadfully sorry for the pain he had caused’. And, yes, I should leave him to get on with his life now. But we don’t always do what we should, do we? We do what we want.

  And I wanted to kill him. Tonight.

  When I eventually got to the bar, after a ten-minute queue for the toilets, it was covered in spilled liquid and the lights reflected back at me in the puddles.

  ‘Yes, love?’

  I saw myself in the mirror behind him. Him and me. Together.

  ‘Vodka and lemonade, please,’ I said, marvelling at how close he was. ‘And whatever lager you’ve got on draught.’

  ‘Stella?’

  ‘Yeah.’ I rooted around in my purse.

  He didn’t chit-chat or flirt like I’d expected him to. He didn’t even recognise me. He pulled Craig’s pint and made my V&L. Asked if I wanted ice. That was it.

  ‘Nine sixty, please, love.’

  I saw us both in the mirror again – my face and the back of his head. Wesley Parsons’ head. The one I’d been searching for. Waiting for. Building up to.

  ‘Can I have a cocktail stirrer, please?’ I asked him, prolonging the m
oment.

  He handed me a stick and I handed him a tenner and our fingers grazed in the exchange. He didn’t make eye contact, or say anything else. When I didn’t take the drinks, he finally looked up at me.

  I grabbed the drinks. A guy to my right was hollering at him and waving a £20 note in his face.

  I took one last look at him and turned my back, negotiating my way through the throng to find Craig.

  I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t fucking do it. All this time I’d been dreaming about it, planning it, gazing at his Facebook photos like some love-struck fan, on fire with desire for the moment I would shove my knife into his ribcage and twist it ninety degrees to the left. Then right. Then back again. But I’d froze.

  Craig was doing tricks with beer mats at our barrel near the back of the pub, ensconced between a table full of students who looked like rejects from the Hitler Youth and a gaggle of girls covered in L-plates and feather boas.

  ‘You all right?’ he shouted over the din.

  ‘Couldn’t you have wiped this?’ I said irritably at the puddles of liquid on our barrel top. ‘It’s all over the floor underneath as well. Ugh.’

  ‘I waited ages for this one and had to grab it when it was free. Haven’t had chance to get my mop and bucket out yet.’

  We sipped our drinks as the conversations of the hens and the Hitler Youth infiltrated our consciousness.

  ‘D’you get me any nuts?’

  ‘You didn’t ask for nuts,’ I said.

  ‘They’re on the bar, free.’

  ‘Oh.’

  I’d already crumbled Elaine’s sleeping pills up into Craig’s pint by this point, thinking I had twenty minutes to coax Parsons outside to a back alley under the guise of my Facebook-couched pseudonym. But my heart had totally gone out of it. I couldn’t do it. I’d allowed too many other thoughts to barge in and take over. That’s why queuing and long train journeys are bad for me – I think too much. I had thought so much, I’d begun to unpick my reasoning.

  I’d killed Dan Wells because he’d propositioned me.

  I’d killed Gavin White because he’d attacked me.

  I’d killed Julia because she’d attacked eleven-year-old me.