by C. J. Skuse
‘Stop them, please. Stop them, I’m begging you.’
Go home then, Mummy.
‘I’m going, I’m going.’
Tuesday, 27th November – 29 weeks, 2 days
Ugh.
Thursday, 29th November – 29 weeks, 4 days
1.The programmers of afternoon TV – how many times has A View to a Kill been on this year exactly?
2.People who have wide asses and block whole aisles in the supermarket so you can’t get through and see which mayonnaise you want.
3.People who leave piss drips on toilet seats.
Today I awoke with leaking breasts and constipation. So while my tits are running amok, in my backend it’s gridlock. And then Elaine sat me down at the dining table and assaulted me in my dressing gown.
Well, not assaulted, per se. Assaulted my eyes with a chunk of tedious forms to fill out.
‘What’s this?’ I said, still bleary-eyed from a crap night’s sleep and yet another avalanche of vivid dreams about roasting my baby on a spit.
‘This is your birth plan. What the midwife gave you at your last appointment. I thought we should fill it out. Come on.’
‘This was in my rucksack.’
‘Yes but you haven’t looked at it. I think we should.’
‘You went into my rucksack?’
‘Yes, I didn’t root about, don’t worry. Now—’
If she had rooted about, she’d have found my diary. And my knife. And probably a small flashing sign that read A serial killer owns this bag. Best not tell her you went through it uninvited.
‘Page One, where to give birth. Where would you like to—’
‘Hospital.’
‘Right, or there’s the choice of home birth or water—’
‘Hospital, bed, doctors, nurses, drugs.’
‘Okay. How about birth partners.’
‘None.’
‘Are you sure, love? Me and Jim could—’
‘No birth partners. Next question.’
‘What about positions during labour?’
‘Positions?’ I said. ‘The normal position – flat on my back with my legs in the air in screaming agony please.’
‘Or it says you can squat or stand.’
‘Can I cross that bridge when I need to, do you think?’
‘Okay.’ She ticked some box then flipped over the page. ‘Pain relief.’
‘Yes.’
‘It says you can try breathing, massage, acupuncture… ’
‘Drugs.’
‘Entonox, pethidine, epidural.’
‘Yes.’
‘Which ones?’
‘Every ones.’
‘Skin to skin contact – do you want to hold the baby after it’s born?’ I didn’t know how to answer that. Luckily I didn’t have to; Elaine made up her own mind. ‘Yes of course you do. Have you thought about what you want to do with the placenta? Some mothers choose to keep it attached and do what they call a lotus birth.’
‘Ugh, no way. Burn the bloody thing.’
‘Rhiannon, language, love.’
‘I don’t want to eat it, cook it or wear it as some bang on trend beret. I don’t want to upcycle my umbilical cord as a bicycle pump or blend my amniotic fluid with chia seeds to make a tasty smoothie. And I am not wheeling around a buggy with a giant splat of pulsing raw meat inside it. Get rid of it. All of it.’
‘Okay.’ She ticked another box. ‘Now episiotomies. That’s when they have to cut your vagina—’
At this point, I left the room. She hasn’t mentioned the forms since.
Later on, the cot she made me order from Baby World arrived and Jim started putting it together. They’ve made a start on the nursery – the room I was using as a dressing room. They’re even talking of ‘knocking through so the baby’s only ever a couple of steps away from you’. So that’ll be joyful.
*
Elaine doesn’t want me in the house while they’re painting – even though it’s fumeless paint she ‘can’t take the risk ’– so I’ve been sent to walk Tink along the seafront.
I try and try but try as I might, I can’t see the baby in that room. I can’t imagine her ever coming out of me. I can’t imagine me holding her skin-to-skin. I can’t imagine her lying in that cot, kicking out, balling her fists into knots, sucking her knuckles, looking around. I don’t want her in the cot. I don’t want her in that room. I don’t want her to be outside of me where everyone can get to her. Where Sandra Huggins can get to her. Where men like Patrick Edward Fenton can get to her. In me, she’s safe.
Am I though? It’s pretty dicey in here, Mummy, I have to say.
My phone is going. It’s Seren. Hmmm, what’s this about? I wonder.
‘Hey, Rhee.’
‘Oh hi, how are you?’
‘Good thanks. I called to say Happy Thanksgiving.’
Oh right. Thanksgiving. Her husband Cody makes her call me at least once a year on this day because ‘deep down, you’re glad you have a sister’. ‘Same to you. How’s things? How’s your new place?’
She sounded upbeat for once. ‘Can you believe I’m actually only five hours behind you now? We’re so much happier here, I can’t tell you.’
‘It must be early there, Seren. It’s eleven a.m. here.’
‘Yeah, I’ve been up since three getting everything ready. Can’t sleep at all! The kids took ages to get off last night too.’
‘Nice,’ I said, letting Tink off the lead as we ascended the beach steps. ‘What do you have to get ready?’
‘All the food. We’ve got three sets of friends coming over tonight, sleeping over, and they’ve all got kids so me and Cody are doing a bit of a banquet and the kids are going to have a sleepover in the den.’
It all sounds so Meg Ryany and nice doesn’t it? I looked out across the sea, wondering how cold the water was.
‘… you know the usual turkey and trimmings and I’m doing a monkey bread stuffing and a sweet potato salad, pumpkin pie with cookie crust and the kids are doing a treasure hunt in the garden. They’ve made a ton of friends real quick at their school. We’re all so much happier here.’
‘Yeah, you said. Happy. Got it.’
‘It’s in no small part down to you, Rhiannon.’
‘Me?’
‘Yeah. I know I bit your ass a little about selling Mom and Dad’s place but now that we have, we’ve been able to move here much quicker than we thought. It’s our dream house.’
‘I’m glad it’s all fallen into place for you,’ I said, lobbing Tink a stick she didn’t run after. ‘Whereabouts is it?’
‘We’re in Weston in Windsor County. There’s not much to do here but the climate’s better and it’s so beautiful. The locals have been so welcoming.’
‘I’m pleased for you.’
‘Thanks. So, you okay?’
What do you care? ‘Yeah I’m fine.’
‘Are you on maternity leave now?’
‘Yeah. Craig’s decorating the baby’s room today so he’s sent me out of the house so I don’t breathe in any fumes. He’s paranoid, bless.’
‘Aww that’s so sweet. So he’s okay? And the baby’s all good?’
‘Yeah, we’re all fine. Couldn’t be happier. Craig’s so excited about becoming a daddy. And I’ve got a great antenatal group – we all meet up regularly for a cuppa and a natter, you know the kind of thing. A few of them are coming over later actually. We’re having a girly night with ice cream and mud packs – some Meg Ryan DVDs I think.’
‘You sure you’re okay, Rhiannon?’
‘Yes I’m fine.’
‘You don’t usually enjoy stuff like that. You know, fun. And friends.’
‘Maybe motherhood’s changing me.’
‘Good,’ she said. ‘I’m so glad.’
I heard another voice in the background at her end. ‘What was that?’
‘Cody said he’s looking forward to meeting you and Craig in the New Year. The kids want to as well. He’s got some time off in Feb
ruary – we could come over when the baby’s due and help out?’
‘They want to meet me? Your “mentally deranged” sister?’ I watched Tink sniffing in a clump of seaweed. ‘Haven’t they seen those Aileen Wournos documentaries on Netflix? Don’t they know what I’m like?’
‘Don’t, Rhiannon, okay? I’m trying to mend our bridges here.’
‘I never burned them, Seren.’ It went all quiet at her end. Removing all traces of snark from my voice I said ‘I’m just surprised, that’s all. You’ve never wanted to introduce them to me before.’
‘They ask about you all the time. You’re the only aunt who actually remembers their birthdays.’
‘You do get my cards then?’ I looked out to sea. I wondered how deep the water was.
‘Or you could come here when the baby’s born and see our new place. You would absolutely love it here, it’s like Honey Cottage but so much bigger. We’ve got six bedrooms. You and Craig can have your own bathroom too. You get so much more for your money out here.’
‘How is it like Honey Cottage?’ I asked.
‘Well there’s log fires, wooden eaves, vegetable garden, a pumpkin patch, chicken coops. Big but cosy. We love it here.’
‘Yeah, you already said that.’
‘So how come you and Craig are still in the flat? You could buy a house with your share of the money from Mom and Dad’s place, couldn’t you?’
‘Yeah. But we like it here. And it means we don’t have to work as hard. We can just – be together. Enjoy life.’
‘Good for you.’
‘Yeah. Do you ever think about Honey Cottage?’
‘Sometimes,’ she said. So many things here remind me of it. In one of the bedrooms it has the exact same wallpaper as Nanny’s room. And the oak beams and the horse-riding trail going through the back field. I think about the bad stuff too.’
‘Seeing those men pull Grandad out of the river?’ I said.
‘Yeah.’
‘I remind you of the bad stuff, don’t I?’ I looked out to sea, wondering where my body would wash up if I drowned today.
‘Don’t. We’re having a nice conversation here. Don’t dredge up the past.’
‘The past has a habit of dredging up all by itself.’
I stroked my bump. A swift kick batted my hand away. Even Tink had gone off into the dunes with some Jack Russell, the floozy. Seren was so in love with her rich bitch American Pie life she hadn’t thought to check the British news recently. Craig’s little spell at HMP Bristol had completely escaped her notice. I enjoyed my little bit of power over her.
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her but I didn’t. I just sucked on it like a particularly fizzy lemon sherbet.
Saturday, 1st December – 29 weeks, 6 days
1. The guy who presents Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. Lucky bastard.
I don’t know why that phone call to Seren has depressed me so much. I think it was hearing her talk about Cody and the kids and their Thanksgiving dinner and all their friends coming round. It made me realise that I could have had a life like that, instead of this one. I can never have that. If I was torturing Sandra Huggins right now, I wouldn’t even think about it. In a parallel universe, maybe I am like that. Maybe I can enjoy the simple things like hosting dinner parties and making gorilla soufflé or whatever the hell it is.
The new stuff’s been arriving at the Well House – just the new sofa to come. It’s like nothing ever happened there. No tantrum. No mess. No inadvertent stabbing of my pregnant stomach. No Patrick. The chemical dry cleaner’s smell lingers but I don’t think you would notice it was covering a worse odour. It’s clearly not the first time Kes has done this.
I was rearranging my Sylvanians canal boat this morning and setting up the candy shop next door along the tow path when Elaine came in ‘to get some washing for a full load’.
‘What’s happened to this one?’ she asked, pointing to the headless cat sister on the carpet.
‘She died,’ I said. ‘I’m going to bury her next to her parents.’
‘Do Sylvanians make graveyards?’
‘No, but there’s a wedding chapel for sale on eBay that I’ve been thinking of getting. It’s got a little wedding car with ribbons on it and a bride and groom. I can make gravestones out of cardboard. I’ll bin the bride and groom.’
She picked up the little cat head. I looked up at her. She was staring inside the house at the trashed living room – the knocked over Christmas tree, the broken window. ‘Did Tink do this?’
‘No,’ I said, taking it from her and putting it back where it was. ‘They had a burglary on Christmas Eve and the cat mum was murdered’.
‘Oh right,’ she said. I heard a crackling behind me – she’d found the Penguin wrappers under my pillow.
‘It’s not fair on the baby if you eat too many sweet things,’ she said, scrunching them up and taking them and my pile of clothes out with her.
Fair? She wants to give me a lecture on what’s fair? If this was a fair world we’d have a few more Bowies and a few less Kardashians. We’d still have Victoria Wood and Rik Mayall and Prince, and cancer would hit all terrorists right in the bollocks. Everyone on Ex on the Beach and Love Island would walk straight back into that fucking sea and never come out. That would be fair.
If this was a fair world, people like me wouldn’t be able to have babies. I’d be as barren as the Gobi Desert. But I’m not, am I? Everything I do for this baby is wrong. I’m not exercising enough, I’m not eating properly, I’m not planning for its future enough. I’m eating too many Penguins. According to Elaine, my kid should already have a nursery place, a full Jojo Maman Bebe wardrobe and an ISA.
I didn’t say all this of course. I try not to say too much around Elaine anymore if I can help it. A) she doesn’t listen and B) she bores the electrolytes out of me.
I’m now being sent Braxton Hicks even when I’m thinking about Sandra Huggins so, little by little, I’m learning to live with the fact I can’t go near her, however much I want to.
Ow.
*
Did Tesco. Pretty uneventful except for the fact I couldn’t stop farting. Something I’ve eaten despises me. I dropped one by the Lurpak, did a complete circuit, went back to get milk and it was still there in the air, lingering like a Dementor.
*
So Géricault turned up at the house this afternoon with my old mate DI Tubby Guy from Grease. Things escalated quickly.
‘I’d like you to come with me and my colleague to the station. We need to clarify a few things.’
‘What things?‘
‘Details about the ongoing investigation into Craig’s alleged crimes.’
She hung on that word ‘alleged’ like it was a precipice. ‘We need you to provide an official witness statement, that’s all.’
‘I can’t do it here?’
‘We’d like to get everything on tape, if that’s all right with you.’ It wasn’t a question. ‘And we know how stressful our visits can be to Mrs Wilkins. Perhaps you’d like to spare her the anxiety today and come with us instead?’
Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Hang on, see what they’ve got first.
Elaine called out from the kitchen. ‘Who is it, Rhiannon?’
‘Jehovahs,’ I called back, turning to Géricault and friend again. ‘If I’m under arrest she will need to know. And I’ll need a legal.’
‘You’re not, Rhiannon. And you won’t.’
I span Elaine a yarn about a Pudding Club meeting I’d forgotten all about and left with the cops.
Three hours it took to get to Bristol in Saturday traffic. Neither of them spoke to me the entire journey. Tubby Guy offered me a mint but that was all. They didn’t even have the radio on.
When we arrived, I was plonked in a grey interview room for another two hours where I had to go over all the same crap I’d told them before – names of Craig’s closest friends, how long he had known my dad, what sort of relationship they had. How many times I had gone
to see Lana. They played CCTV footage of me, clear as glass, walking through the town on my way to her flat – Tupperware box of Rice Krispie cakes under one arm, flowers in the other.
‘What’s in the box?’ asked Tubbs, sucking on a mint.
‘Cakes. I made her some cakes.’
‘What sort of cakes?’
‘Rice Krispie cakes. Lana’s favourite.’
‘Why would you do that?’ asked Géricault, tearing the wrapper on a packet of Extra Strong Mints and posting one silently through her lips. She didn’t offer me one.
‘I was trying to be nice,’ I said.
‘What’s in the cakes?’ asked Tubbs.
‘Rice Krispies and melted chocolate. They’re fairly easy to make. I can write down the recipe if you need it.’
Tubbs leant forward as Géricault leant back. ‘What else?’
‘Nothing. Sometimes I put baby marshmallows in them or raisins, but most people only want the Rice Krispies and the chocolate. Why gild the lily?’
Géricault’s mint clicked off her teeth. ‘When I came to your house the other week, Rhiannon, I used the bathroom. These were in the cabinet.’
She slid a colour photocopy across the table. ‘For the benefit of the tape I am showing Miss Lewis a photo of a bottle of Tramadol, prescribed to Mrs Elaine Wilkins of Yellow House, The Esplanade, Monks Bay. Jim Wilkins informed me that Elaine had been prescribed them for anxiety but she was on a low dose. We have spoken to two people who saw Lana between the dates you visited her—’ she checked her notes ‘—first week of August, first week of October, again with cakes and flowers and again the eighteenth of October, when this CCTV footage is from.’
‘Which people?’
‘A hairdresser and the man who runs her corner shop. They both say her personality deteriorated over this time. She became jittery, confused and on one occasion, extremely paranoid with “pin-prick pupils”. All are side effects of abuse of this drug, which she wasn’t prescribed.’
‘And?’
‘Why did you go and see her for a third time?’
‘She asked me to.’
‘Why?’