by Chloe Turner
Piñata
Ten minutes before the first guest is due, Marlie Harris is drawing. The birthday girl’s trainers dangle over the sofa edge, their sequinned sides pulsing with the rotation of the glitter ball. She’s got a sketchbook on her lap, but with a pink triangle of tongue pressed between thin lips, she’s tracing an outline across the inside of the left-hand armrest instead. Penis and scrotal sack, in black marker pen, disquieting against the crinkled cream leather.
The drawing is careful and, for an eight-year-old, admirably correct in its anatomy. It’ll be something she’s recalled from the inside covers of her cousin Kieron’s school books. Marlie is always keen to demonstrate what she’s learnt from Kieron. Last time he visited from Dublin, he mocked her rainbow doodles. (And for owning a doll at eight years old… Astrid was buried the next day, with little ceremony, at the cat-shit end of the sandpit.)
A refined nose might pick up a hint of juniper in the air. Marlie’s mother, Lou, is in the kitchen, pouring a generous Bombay Sapphire: several hours before her usual tipple, and light on the tonic. But aside from the gin’s astringent ping, the overriding odour is of candy floss. Hot pink candy. The atmosphere is thickening with the sweet stink of it.
‘Christ, Stu, how much did you put in that thing? It reeks.’ Clacking through to the lounge in heels she’s already regretting, Lou glares at the machine on the sideboard. A gleaming apparatus of industrial proportions, the machine whickers flesh coloured sugar grains into soft, pink clouds. Lou slops gin onto polished maple in her haste to access the off switch. She can’t find it; twists a dial which eases the machine’s speed instead, then crouches to gather up the pink fluff which has fallen.
‘Oof,’ she says, then remembers Stu pursing his lips, saying that noise makes her sound like some knackered old bag. Her heels buckle outwards as she heaves herself back upright, grabbing the sofa back for support. Who’s he to talk? He’s got grey curls in his chest hair, and a sag around his jaw. Lou throws the handful of candy floss back into the metal pan, feels the tacky sugar residue in her palm.
Terri-Ann Davies came up with the candy floss maker, from the sweet shop where she works. It’s the only reason her daughter Joanne will attend the party today. The urge to avoid—exclude—Joanne, with her ratty plait and her charity shop Disney dresses, is one of a bare handful of sentiments that mother and daughter share, though for different reasons. Lou doesn’t feel good about it, but candy floss makers don’t come cheap, and Marlie Harris is in the habit of drawing up a long list of birthday demands.
‘Marlie, tell me next time, yeah? If it’s overflowing,’ Lou says, careful to keep it light. ‘Now, where are those skewers I bought?’
Marlie doesn’t reply, just eases a scatter cushion from under her side so that the marker pen outline is better concealed under its purple silk piping. It’ll stay covered for a while yet.
Even with the dial turned down, the sideboard is rocking with the vigour of the candy-floss maker’s spin. With each fresh batch of spun sugar, the aluminium box judders forward a centimetre or two. But Lou has already moved on to the lid of the underused piano. She rearranges the food that she set up earlier, shifting paper plates of cocktail sausages and crisps. Looks behind the pot of hummus that her sister, Han, recommended as a token gesture, and under the tray of crudités she knows will be ignored.
‘What’s this, what’s this? Did I hear there was candy floss in the house? As if by magic?’ Marlie’s father, Stuart, is halfway down the stairs. His whole body swings one way and then the other with each step, a mobile swagger which he’s adopted to fit the lower centre of gravity of middle age. He’s slicked back his hair today because he likes to think he’s still got it.
‘It’s not magic, Dad. It’s a metal thing that whizzes round.
And you bought the sugar, anyway, so you know that.’
Marlie may be rolling her eyes, but she still jumps up and runs to hug her father, catching him at the foot of the stairs. She fans newly polished rainbow fingernails over the midnight blue polyester of his Everton shirt.
‘You got me, baby girl. Now, is my princess all ready for her special day?’
Marlie steps back, gathering up the flounced red tulle of her pageant dress, and curtsies for her Daddy. The hairdresser wired her ponytails earlier, so they stick out at right angles above her ears. It doesn’t look as elegant as she’d hoped. When Stuart grins so that his two front teeth hug his lower lip, Lou hears her sister, Han’s, voice, begging her to drag him to the dentist. But if Han knew him better, she’d know that his paralysing fear of the drill trumps his vanity; he’d have done it long ago if he could.
‘Wait a minute. Which wicked witch has put a blemish on my beautiful princess? I must break this spell at once.’
‘What is it, Dad?’
When Marlie sat back earlier to admire the detail of her drawing, she caught the apple of her right cheek with the pen, and it’s this streak that Stuart has spotted. He licks the pad of his thumb, smooths it across the mark. Then, frowning, rubs harder.
‘What you got here, love? It won’t come off.’
Lou’s shaking her head. ‘Five minutes to go. Could we please…?’ She promised herself she wouldn’t lose it.
‘Keep your hair on, Lou-Lou. Just give us some of that stuff you use. If there’s any left, the way you slap it on.’
Lou’s shoulders stiffen, but she’s turned for the stairs when the doorbell goes. Happy Birthday! Stu likes her to change the chime each week between the six available. Her preference, though she couldn’t name it, is Beethoven’s Fifth. Increasingly, she hates them all. Today’s was a given.
Marlie’s crying now, snorting like a piglet at the trough. It’s not just the pen mark. The glitter she glued to her forehead has begun to irritate her skin, turning it patchy and red, exaggerating the pink of her eyes.
‘Tell them to go, Dad.’
‘Baby girl, it’s just a tiny dot. I should’ve never mentioned it.’
The doorbell chimes on, and shapes shift in the frosted glass of the frame. It looks like a crowd. And there’s a yellow blob above them, squeaking against the glass.
Lou comes back down the stairs with a concealer tube, and Stuart glances over. She can’t meet his eye, adjusting the green rayon ruffles around her neckline. He hates the top, she knows it. She wasn’t sure, but Han sent the link to the online store. Those stuck-up bitches from the Edge End Estate won’t be able to touch you in this. The elastic’s already pinching at her waist where it meets the soft skin of her stomach, probably leaving a mark all round. She must remember not to lift her arms above her head.
The yellow shape squeaks again, and a small hand hammers the glass. It’ll be those stuck-up bitches now. She wishes Han wasn’t on the other side of the Irish Sea. Just like them to be early for a nosey. And bringing their own balloon, for Christ’s sake, as if she might not provide enough.
Stuart snatches the concealer, dabs an untidy blob of mismatched colour onto his daughter’s cheek. That done, he reaches to stroke a plait, then thinks better of it.
‘Come on, love, you look like a proper princess. And all your princes are hammering that door down, wanting to treat you like a lady.’
‘Everything’s ruined. I won’t be pretty. Mum can’t even make candy floss properly. And I hate the piñata. It doesn’t look like Elsa’s dress. It looks like a big, blue poo.’
Stuart raises an eyebrow at Lou. ‘I did say get the one in Asda.’
‘It was supposed to be a treat, making it together. I…’ Stuart snorts, and she gives up.
‘Certainly took long enough. Next time let’s just get the proper one, yeah, and miss out the weeks of glue and shit all over the living room,’ he says.
Lou stares at him until he lifts his shoulders in a shrug. ‘Get the door, would you?’
She doesn’t, retreating to the kitchen instead. The gin is waiting for her. In its pretty pale blue bottle, it reminds her of sea glass on a beach; of steeply banked sand
down to white ribbon waves. She pours another two fingers into a tall glass.
Back in the lounge, Marlie’s still crying, but she’s spotted her reflection in the mirror on the far wall. She pouts with each sob until gradually she is just pouting.
‘Right, baby girl. You all set? Are we letting these reprob… retrobate… whatever, in, or what? You know I’ll send them all home if you want me to, but they might have presents…’
Stu reaches for Marlie’s armpit. She squirms away from the tickle, feigning irritation, but he’s worked his magic.
‘Okay, then,’ she says, heavy emphasis on the ‘kay’.
There’s a moment of silence between the doorbell’s final peal and Stuart turning the latch. Then—freeze-frame—the children are revealed, stoppered into the doorway in their desperation to be first. The three women behind lean inwards: one with a package in rose-gold tissue, one in a cloud of Chanel Cristalle, one on a mobile phone.
It’s Robbie Wainwright who breaks the seal, elbowing his way into the hall, his bowtie elastic already stretched so that it sags below his collar. Tegan and Mitzy are close behind, mobbing Marlie in a screaming, whirling confusion of ripped gilt wrap and flammable fabrics. Stuart steps aside, arms lifted theatrically, the grin of a clown, as the rest of the kids surge in. There’s a shout from the gate as he’s leaning back to close the door.
‘Sorry, mate.’ Stu’s friend Andy with his daughter Georgia. They cross the threshold just as Lou returns, smile painted on and a mouthful of botanicals. By the standards of Stuart’s football mates, Andy is as well-behaved as he is well-groomed. Today, his hair is so thickly waxed that light rain has settled along the spikes in perfect droplets, and he’s wearing a collared shirt like the one Stuart refused. She’s oblivious to the obscene tattoo which sits just under its collar.
‘Know what it’s like if that’s any consolation,’ Andy goes on, his voice so low, it’s a growl. ‘These parties, wild! They did over our place last week—she was gutted Marlie was sick, Georgia was—but truth be known I was grateful to have one less.’
‘Don’t worry, mate. The wife told me. Got your brother in redecorating the staircase, she said, where the little fuckers took the plaster out.’
A passing child hears the profanity, giggles. Lou winces as the two men congratulate each other with back slaps and a half hug. At least the three wise women won’t have heard; they’re too busy casing the room. Divided for better coverage, they’re poking manicured fingernails, taking in the Primark prints and Stu’s vast telly, and the six-inch plastic flamenco dancer he brought her back from Marbella that time, which Lou’s forgotten to hide.
She glances over at the new sofa, hoping they notice that, at least. It cost enough. It was that or an extension to the side return, and she took a chance that the sofa would get more attention. Worth it, surely, even if Stuart’s still whingeing about worktop space for his deep fat fryer. But the women show no interest in the sofa, and even though Lou left a line of shoes in the porch as a hint, Robbie’s already planted his size three Nike Airs on the middle cushion. For a moment it looks like he might kick the scatter cushion off the drawing, but then he’s over the end and down, knocking Mitzy sideways. The candy floss machine shudders another millimetre towards the edge.
The children have proliferated to every corner now, squeezing under furniture on some impromptu treasure hunt. Tegan, the smart alec whose mother, Veronica, runs an insurance company, is unwinding a cloud of candy floss, looping it across her shoulders like a sugary boa. Lou retrieves a plate of sausages from the floor, leaving the chipolata that’s the smeared casualty of someone’s heel, and looks away from the spilt squash over the piano lid. She forces a smile, so at least Stuart can’t complain she’s got that ugly fussing look on, and takes a long draught of Sapphire. The tang of the tonic bubbles sears up through her adenoids.
Happy Birthday! The doorbell starts up again. More children, and behind them comes the entertainer, drab and underwhelming in a tatty velvet smock and jester’s hat. This was Veronica’s recommendation, and Lou wonders if she’s been set up. The woman backs herself into a corner, blocking off children with the vast disco speakers Stu borrowed from a man down The Bull and Bear, and starts filling modelling balloons. Every time she twists the rubber, it squeaks like nails on a blackboard, and Lou’s grateful when someone turns the music on full blast.
Katy Perry’s ‘Roar’. The girls take their squealing up another notch, and Robbie grinds his pelvis to the beat. His mother juts out her lower lip as the other mothers point but still takes a photo on her phone. On the far side of the room, Stuart starts to copy the boy. It’s repellent, but at least three of the mothers clap along. By the time he’s moved on to Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake It Off’, no one’s watching Robbie anymore, so the boy starts to kick the piano leg. Veronica is miming a passable striptease, and Stu’s miming to Andy that he should film her doing it.
Happy Birthday! The chimes clash with Swift, and this time it’s Joanne, standing alone on the path. As Louise walks towards her, Terri-Ann waves from the car window beyond the gate, then her knackered old Punto is away. Louise grits her teeth. It’s a worse dress than last year: orange skirt with black spiders, one legless. The whole ensemble clearly meant for Hallowe’en, but it’s June. The girl’s hair’s not been brushed. The gift she’s carrying looks thin and small.
But then, like a slug in the gut, Lou remembers Terri-Ann back at school.
All those times, they come rushing back as one. Being ushered into the classroom that first day, the ranks of alien, suspicious faces, the sweet relief of Terri’s grin from the far side, pointing to the spare seat beside her. That night on the common in year nine, when those boys wouldn’t let them go home: pushing them on the swings—gently first, then much too high—twisting the cables so they were trapped in the swing seats. Boys’ hands everywhere, and Lou’d gone mute, so it was left to Terri to scream for help from the man in the ice-cream van. And then Terri’s face, tight from the effort of not crying, when Stuart finally blurted out that he’d been seeing someone else, and that someone was Lou.
She takes the gift from the girl now, slips it into her pocket—best Marlie and the rest don’t have the chance to rip the wrapper off. It occurs to Lou she could sneak Joanne round the back now. Make an excuse, get her into something from Marlie’s packed rails. She takes the girl’s hand, but Stuart’s on the step: ‘Ah…’ rolling his eyes, ‘again.’
It’s too late, and anyway, the urge has gone. Joanne will be alright. These kids aren’t like those kids, and it was all a long time ago. She lets go of Joanne’s hand, but the girl doesn’t move, paralysed by the wall of sound. Lou has to usher her in with her palm against the prickly fabric of the dress.
Inside, someone has pulled back the curtains and the glitter ball’s manic: light beads duck and dive over the Artex. The girls are wrestling on the sofa, shifting the scatter cushion so that one half of a ball sack has slipped into view, though no one’s noticed it yet. Robbie’s skidding on the rug. Stuart’s in the middle of it all, with a bottle of Rioja in one hand and his novelty opener in the other. Mitzy’s mother, Emmie, has got her hand round Sir Perky’s appendage and she’s giggling, her lower lip coral pink and loose. When Stu gives her the glass, she takes the first sip without taking her eyes off him. Louise wonders how it would be not to care.
There’s a shriek then. Georgia’s collided with Emmie’s yellow heel, and red wine is sloshed across the faux ash linoleum. The girl’s alright, but Emmie’s sleeveless top is a Rioja leopard print.
‘I’ll go,’ says Stu, and Emmie goes after him, exhaling through her nose in little gasps as she pats uselessly at the white silk of her vest. They don’t come back. Lou gets on her knees, uses a tissue that someone hands her to mop up the worst of it. Closes her eyes and thinks of that beach. Of chalky, smooth pebbles that she could hurl into the waves.
‘What the…?’ she hears, as she stands up at last, white stars in the corners of her vision li
ke when she stands too quickly in the bath. Veronica’s got the cushion in her hand. A new network of tight lines has appeared between the edge of her nostrils and her upper lip as if the puppet master is pulling tendons from within. It’s not her house, who gives her the right?
‘It was Joanne,’ says the first child, before Veronica’s even got her Rouge Essentiel nail extended towards the life-sized cock on the sofa arm. Louise almost laughs. The drawing’s no worse than she could have done herself.
‘I saw her,’ says Robbie’s mum, though she’s barely lifted her eyes from her phone since she’s arrived.
Georgia’s recovered from her collision long enough to get hold of Joanne, and she shoves her forward. Other voices chime in. Robbie sticks his foot out automatically, but Joanne steps over it, eyes down. At least one woman mutters something about ‘dirty’ and ‘Hallowe’en’. Lou feels as if her feet are not on stable ground.
Someone’s turned the music off, so everyone hears the laugh from the kitchen. Lou knows Joanne didn’t draw on the sofa arm. Even if Marlie didn’t have that face on—her mouth is turned down in a full arc of defiance and one eyebrow ever so slightly lifted—she’d know who the culprit was. One day she will confront the fact that she doesn’t really like her daughter, but today is not the day.
