In Bloom

by C. J. Skuse

  So I’m sitting there at Clit-Lickers Monthly and we have to go around the circle and say happy things. I’m with Erica, Tight Bun Doreen, Debbie Does Donkeys, One Armed Joyce and Rita Who Sits By the Heater. Erica’s rattling through a long list of contentments, which surprises me as she has a face that would make a blind child cry. Then it’s my turn.

  ‘Uh, I have nothing,’ I said.

  ‘Come on,’ said Debbie Does Donkeys. ‘There must be something.’

  ‘It’s a bit hard to think of anything right now. There’s a lot of bad happening in the world.’

  ‘Yes but we choose love,’ said Rita. ‘We might have to look a bit harder to find it but it is always there. Happy thoughts, you must have some.’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ I say. ‘I don’t have any. I’m not a happy-go-lucky person.’

  Tight Bun Doreen pipes up. ‘Well perhaps if you were you’d find it easier to come up with something?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I said, heartburn biting. Inside my head she is flat on her back beneath a hydraulic drill press. My finger’s on the button.

  Doreen’s lips pursed. ‘Maybe you need to change your world view?’

  ‘Maybe I do,’ I said.

  ‘So? Do you have a happy thought now?’ she asked.

  ‘What, because you tell me I have to have one? Yes, all right then, I do.’

  Doreen frowned and waited. ‘Well? What is it?’

  I continued to stare at her, smiling. ‘Can’t say else it won’t come true.’

  Later, Debbie Does Donkeys read the lesson – a passage from Luke about Jesus anointing a sinful woman – the lesson being that one who has sinned deserves a second chance because ‘she has faith in the Lord’.

  You can tell an evening has been a washout when the best part is being given a Bible. I was given my own Good News Bible.

  I don’t think they like me at WOMBAT. I heard a few whisperings about Elaine’s ‘beast of a son’ and there were some sly looks, mostly from Edna and Doreen. Irritating people is the nearest I can get to fun these days so I’m going to go to next month’s meeting. In fact, I’m going to read my Bible too.

  Let’s see what God has to say about the kind of sinful woman I am.

  Wednesday, 25th July – 11 weeks, 3 days

  1.Sandra Huggins.

  2.People who use the hashtag #familyiseverything.

  3.People who brag about stealing stuff from Buckingham Palace – what do you want, a medal? Though you’re probably in the right place if you did.

  4.Helen at Pudding Club who wants to ban fireworks, the works of Charles Dickens and clown gifs on Twitter. Apparently they’re all ‘triggering’.

  5.Peter Andre.

  I’m bed-bound and teetering on the lip of insanity. I’ve watched back to back eps of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares even though I’ve seen them all before. I get up only to drink, piss, or puke and even then I’m dizzy. I’m lying here, falling down endless internet rabbit holes. I could read one of the preg books Elaine got from the library – What to Expect When You’re Gestating or Mummy to Be: A Day to Day Guide to the Most Magical Time in your Life but I don’t like library books in my bed. You never know what’s been done to them. Or in them.

  So I stick to online stuff, mostly Buzzfeed, Bustle and Jezebel. And you know how you look up one thing and it links you to another and before you know it you’re reading whole articles about Jeffrey Dahmer or water polo or coping with psoriasis, even though you don’t have it? I somehow got on to watching the Murder Made Me Famous docu on YouTube.

  The Miracle of Priory Gardens.

  I watch it every time I want to see my dad. He and my mum are interviewed throughout, sitting on the wicker sofa in the conservatory at our old house, clutching each other’s hands like they’re about to take a death leap.

  All the parents relived the moment they were told their son or daughter was dead. Then Dad relived the moment he was told I was the only survivor. Mum grips his hand tighter. Dad looks down, his hand wipes his eyes.

  I couldn’t take it in. I was sure she was dead. She’s our miracle.

  My big tough boxer dad, crying his eyes red.

  Someone up there helped us out that day, that’s for sure.

  My mum says little in the docu – she just echoes Dad, maintaining her rabbit-in-the-headlights stare. There’s footage of her giving me a hug outside the hospital when I was released. I missed her hugs as I got older.

  There was some home movie footage of the kids who died – two-year-old Jack blowing out his candles. Kimmy in her dad’s arms in the maternity unit. Ashlea in red boots in the snow. The twins eating ice cream. Their mum did Britain’s Got Talent last year but a sob story only takes you so far if you can’t sing for shit.

  There’s old news footage from before the presenters went grey – footage of people laying flowers outside Number 12. The sounds of wailing parents as they fight to get through the police cordon. The glistening doormat. Three little stretchers. And then the money shot – me all limp, wrapped inside the blood-stained Peter Rabbit blanket.

  Then there are the photo-calls of me coming out of hospital in my wheelchair, weeks later, bandage wrapped tightly around my bald head.

  Me in my beanie hat being given the huge teddy bear on This Morning.

  My first day at school, Dad wheeling me into the front office and us stopping so the press could take our photos.

  Giving the thumbs up on my first day of secondary school.

  Thumbs up again after my GCSE results.

  The ‘Hasn’t She Done Well?’ front page of the Daily Mirror, with me starting my A Levels and talking about wanting to be a writer.

  There was an interview with the shrink – Dr Philip Morrison – who had treated the murderer, Antony Blackstone, for his psychotic rages.

  You had one job, Phil.

  ‘He was a ticking bomb,’ said Phil. ‘Allison’s family knew the marriage was not a happy one – there were signs that he was controlling and abusive. He’d call her incessantly. Track her movements. Even monitored what she was eating so she didn’t put on weight. Her sister had begged her to leave him and one day Allison found the courage. It appeared – at first – to be a mutual arrangement which Blackstone accepted. But it lit the spark in the powder keg.’

  Phil was the one who diagnosed me with PTSD after Priory Gardens, even though Mum swore it was ‘growing pains’ and, as I got older, ‘hormones’. He always gave me a Scooby Doo sticker after a session. It’s one of the more depressing parts of growing up – we don’t get stickers anymore.

  There’s a playground where the house used to stand now and a plaque on a sundial beside the slide bearing the names of all the kids. Mrs Kingwell’s name too. My name isn’t there of course, being the lucky one.

  When Dad talks about it, I can feel his sadness. Otherwise, I don’t feel anything. I can’t even hate Blackstone, cos he’s dead.

  The closing footage on the documentary is me and Seren playing with the Sylvanians in the rehab centre. The boxes are dotted all around, wrapped in big bows. I’m lying in my bed and watching her, moving the figures about on my tummy and Seren is telling me some story about mice. It strikes me hard how she’s the only person I have left in this world – the only person who knows the real me. Even though she despises me these days, I do miss her.

  Priory Gardens was the spark in my powder keg. The reason Mum got sick. The reason Dad gave up. The reason I have little emotional reaction to anything except Death. I can’t feel unless I’m killing. Then I feel everything.

  We’ve had another note. This time I caught sight of the person who posted it as he was loping off up the seafront – a big guy in blue jeans, hoody. No other wording – just the same again. ‘To my Sweet Messy House’. And a number.

  ‘I don’t want to fucking talk to you!’ I screamed through the letterbox, screwing up the note and scuffing back into the lounge. Gordon Ramsay had started on one of the high channels – he was counselling a crying chef who’d lost
all his microwaves.

  *

  Jim’s been in – the estate agent says two couples are interested in Craig’s flat. The forensics have finished, so he’s released it for sale to start paying the lawyers. One of the couples is expecting. I imagine them walking around, hand in hand, looking in our wardrobes, talking about the ‘nice views from the balcony’. Looking inside the cupboards that I watched Craig build, that autumn we first met. We got Tink from the RSPCA that autumn, a little warm ball of toffee ice cream who licked my cheek and stopped shaking the moment I held her. It’s all I can do to prise her away from Jim these days.

  Saturday, 28th July – 11 weeks, 6 days

  1.Cafés that pre-butter toast or toasted tea cakes.

  2.The guy that keeps posting illegible notes through our front door.

  3.Weathermen who stand in hurricanes strong enough to blow cataracts from their eyes and ‘can’t believe how strong the wind is’.

  My Bible doesn’t seem to be able to offer me any guidance on feeling less tilted than I do at the moment, aside from ‘Offer yourself up to the Lord’ or ‘God’s mighty hand will lift you up if you just believe.’ Not a bad read though. That Delilah was a bit of a head case.

  Marnie texted – Fancy a trip to the Mall to find your maternity clothes? I can chauffeur – Marn x

  I was still annoyed by the fact it had taken her so long to ask but she was offering to drive, so gift horses and all that.

  The traffic was bad on the way up but Marnie was in a good mood and when you’ve got stuff to chat about, it doesn’t feel like you’ve been stuck in a car for hours. We talked about our respective families and how dead they all are, how I barely speak to Seren in Seattle and how she barely speaks to her brother Sandro who lives in Italy and runs residential art classes.

  ‘How come you don’t speak to him?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh you know how it is, you grow apart as you get older, don’t you?’ she said and left it at that. ‘Isn’t that what it’s like with you and Seren?’

  ‘No, Seren says I’m a psychopath like our dad.’

  Marnie glanced away from the traffic. ‘Are you?’

  I shrugged. ‘Bit.’

  She laughed. Probably thought I was joking, I don’t know. We played the number plate game and she had cola bottles and sour cherries in her glovebox and Beyoncé on the Bluetooth so I was happy.

  ‘Tim doesn’t like me eating sweets at home,’ she said, then bit down on her lip like she shouldn’t have said it. ‘He’s got me into blueberries so I eat those instead. They’re incredibly good for you.’

  ‘Yeah I’ve had the blueberry lecture from Elaine. She makes these vile blueberry granola bars for me to peck at if I’m hungry. They taste like old teabags and feet. Why doesn’t Tim let you have sweets?’

  ‘He worries about diabetes and things.’

  ‘Halo’ came on and much to my intense delight, Marnie turned it up to full vol. ‘This is my favourite.’

  ‘Mine too,’ I lied. Mine was actually ‘6 Inch’ from the Lemonade album but I didn’t want to break the moment.

  Before too long we were singing. Unashamedly. Not even holding back on the big notes. It was so easy, so immediate. Like we’d been friends for years. All thanks to Queen Bey herself. We made it to the end of the song—

  Then her phone rang.

  It rang twice, both times Tim, first asking where she was and who she was with (I had to say ‘Hello’) and the second time to ask if they had any ant powder. Marnie did most of the talking and I noticed she kept asking if things were all right. ‘Chicken Kievs for tea if that’s all right?’ and ‘Back about six if that’s all right?’ His voice reminded me of Grandad’s.

  ‘My grandad never let my nanny have any freedom either,’ I said when she had ended the call.

  ‘No, it’s not like that,’ she said, for once without a little smile or a giggle at the end of her sentence. ‘He just worries about me, especially now.’

  ‘My nan blamed me for my grandad’s death. She said I’d killed him.’

  Marnie glanced over, briefly, as she indicated to come off the motorway. We came to a halt at the traffic lights. ‘Why did she say that?’

  ‘Cos I was there when it happened. He had a heart attack while he was swimming. He liked wild swimming. I was on the bank, watching him and I didn’t do anything. He drowned.’

  ‘Oh my god,’ she said, as the lights went green. ‘How old were you?’

  ‘Eleven.’

  ‘Well of course you couldn’t have done anything, you were only a child. That’s a terrible thing for an adult to put on such a young person.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess. She’d taken me to meet Mr Blobby that summer too. Proper sadist, my nanny.’

  She didn’t laugh but patted my knee. I was going to tell her. The words were locked and loaded and ready to come out – I was going to tell her how I’d watched my grandad hit Seren that morning for not bringing in the eggs and how much I wanted to kill him. To push him down the stairs or into the slurry or to drive an axe right down deep into the back of his neck while he was stacking the logs. But I didn’t say a word. I didn’t tell her that watching my grandad drown had been an exquisite pleasure. I kept that to myself because Marnie had patted my knee and seemed to care that I was the innocent one. And I liked the feeling. I wanted to hold onto it.

  The Mall was heaving with people and though Marnie was more than happy to mooch about trying things on, I couldn’t find a single atom of my body that cared about maternity clothes. She didn’t buy a thing, even stuff she said she loved. Dresses she’d point out as ‘stunning’ or ‘exquisite’ she would hold up against herself then return them to the peg. When I called her on it she said, ‘Oh I’ll probably never wear it again anyway. It’s a waste of money.’

  ‘Bet he gives you an allowance every week, doesn’t he?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘This is my money.’

  ‘My nanny used to get an allowance and she’d never spend it either. She used to squirrel it away. I never found out why.’

  We hit the John Lewis café for lunch. I got a lemon and vanilla ice cream crepe, Marnie got a salad.

  ‘Get some carbs down you for god’s sake,’ I said as we stood in the line waiting for the assistant to scoop my vanilla. ‘You’re drooling over mine.’

  ‘I shouldn’t,’ she said, biting her lip.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Slippery slope, isn’t it?’

  Marnie’s phone was out next to her plate the moment we sat down.

  ‘So tell me more about Tim then,’ I said. ‘What’s he like?’

  Again, her manner changed, her voice lowered. ‘He’s Area Manager for that plastic shelving place on the ring road. Quite long hours but he loves it.’

  ‘What did you do before you went on maternity?’

  ‘Admin, council refuse department. Only for the last seven months though. Before that I was a dancer.’

  ‘What kind of dancer?’

  ‘Ballet and tap. I taught classes.’

  ‘Why did you stop?’

  ‘Well, we moved down here for Tim’s job and then I got pregnant.’

  ‘But you could go back to it someday?’

  ‘Doubt it. The money’s better at the council anyway. I did love it though.’

  Her phone rang. ‘Sorry, hang on… Hiya… Yep… that’ll be nice… sounds good… Yeah, Rhiannon’s still with me. Need me to pick anything up?… Okay… Love you.’ She put the phone down.

  ‘Tim?’ I said, chewing my crepe.

  ‘Yeah,’ she smiled, theatrically rolling her eyes. ‘He’s booking the hotel for next weekend. Our sixth anniversary. Bit of a babymoon.’

  ‘Six years,’ I said. ‘That’s wood, isn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

  ‘A wooden garden ornament or something?’

  ‘He’s not into ornaments. I inherited a load of china ones from my mum but I’m not allowed to display them.’

  ‘Not allowed?
’

  ‘Well, it’s only a few ballerinas with their buns broken off. I used to play with them as a kid. My mum bought me one each time I passed an exam.’

  I pride myself on a few things: my ability to defend the defenceless, to maintain The Act that I am a normal human being in polite society, and to trace vulnerability in people. I can sniff it out as easily as curry plant in a garden full of roses. And it was coming off Marnie in waves.

  ‘Are you sure it wasn’t Tim who made you give up dancing?’

  She frown-laughed. ‘No, my choice. He was right though; the pay was crap.’ She stroked her bump. ‘No regrets. I have everything I want. A great house and steady job and a healthy baby boy coming soon—’

  Grandad used to fill Honey Cottage with his stuffed animals. Weasels and stoats and tiny birds that he’d shot out of trees with a pellet gun. Nanny never liked them. She said they looked like they were in eternal pain. Nanny liked Capo di Monte teapots and cherubs and porcelain roses, but she kept them in bubble wrap in boxes because ‘they keep getting smashed’.

  ‘I think you should put the ballerinas on display,’ I told Marnie, mopping up my vanilla puddle with my crepe.

  ‘It’s no big deal,’ she said, tucking into her salad again.

  I was going to ask what she meant but she jumped into another conversation as she stabbed her lettuce. ‘So will you stay on with your in-laws when the baby comes?’

  Before I’d even opened my mouth, her phone rang again.

  ‘Hiya, Hun… uh yeah I can pick some up… okay… yeah, still with Rhiannon. Oh great. Yep, I will. Thanks, love, see you later. Love you… Bye.’

  My eyebrows rose.

  ‘We need potatoes. Where were we?’

  ‘We were talking then the guy you live with called twice about nothing.’

  She carried on crunching her lettuce. We sat in silence, watching mums struggling with pushchairs, kids skipping along beside them, old friends meeting and hugging. On the next table a dad was talking his two-year-old daughter through the menu choices, like he was teaching her to read. Their meals arrived – he cut up her chips and taught her to blow on them. The child wanted him to feed her instead of doing it for herself so he was eating his meal with one hand, feeding her with the other.