In Bloom

by C. J. Skuse

  There was a gnawing in the middle of my body – I initially thought it was the return of the bad heartburn from the first trimester but it wasn’t that. It was knowing that in that parallel universe I’m always thinking about, this was my life. These were my parents-in-law for real, that this was a Christmas trim-up like any other, that any minute now Craig would come in and pick up Tink and hold her up and tickle her ribs like she loved him doing. And then he’d come over to me and rub the bump and we’d all cuddle in and sit down to watch Jingle All the Way or some such other piece of shit Christmas movie that everyone pretends isn’t completely and utterly awful.

  Fake. That’s what this scene is. Fake. Plastic. Bullshit.

  It wears me out thinking about the parallel universe thing all the time because I know it’s a billion miles away from this reality.

  The Overfriendly Troll Erica popped round briefly while we were mid-trim to thank me for all my advice with Pip the Glow Worm and to tell me rather excitedly and with far too much touching of my right forearm that she was ‘poised to sign with a publisher’.

  I remained remarkably composed and said all the right things – all the Well dones and the So happy for yous, as my brain sizzled like it was on a hot brick. I had a string of tinsel in my hands and by the time we’d said our goodbyes it was quite bald.

  I watched Erica walk back down the garden path, noticing DI Géricault sitting on the sea wall, watching me. She was wearing the same skirt she’d had on the last time she visited but this time, her handbag was different. Dark green and bedecked in little padlocks. I don’t know if that’s important but the only information I could read about her was from what she was wearing. She gave me nothing else. I pulled the door to.

  ‘You’re back again?’ I asked as I crossed the road. ‘This is becoming infatuation, Detective Inspector.’

  ‘I won’t keep you long.’

  ‘Fine, but can we keep walking?’ I said. ‘My mother-in-law is more than likely watching us through the bay window and I don’t want to be responsible for another meltdown this close to Christmas.’

  ‘Of course,’ she replied, walking in step. ‘I thought you’d like to know – I’ve been taken off your case for the time being. A complaint has been made and it’s being followed up.’

  ‘Who complained?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  I fought to breathe against the strong wind that had whipped up around us. ‘You came all the way here to tell me this?’

  She stopped walking and leant against the wall, looking out to sea. It was a languid pose – normally she was so upright and uptight. It didn’t suit her. ‘I hold all killers in the lowest possible esteem, Rhiannon. Whatever reasons they give for what they do. They’re not the ones who have to tell the mothers, husbands, children of their victims that their loved one isn’t coming home. They bestow that hideous responsibility on me.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I will be back on this case after Christmas and I will prove Craig Wilkins’ innocence.’ She stood up straight and dead-eyed me. ‘I know you have friends in high places but nothing stays buried forever. Sooner or later, something will start to stink.’

  ‘You’re not supposed to talk to me then, presumably?’ I said, turning to face her. ‘If you’ve been taken off the case?’

  ‘I wanted you to hear it from my mouth that we – you and me – are not over.’

  ‘You could have called.’

  She shook her head and a strange smile appeared. ‘I know what you are. And if it takes me the rest of my natural life, I will prove it.’

  ‘Presumably you’d get into a lot of trouble if anyone knew you were down here threatening me like this? Threatening a heavily pregnant woman, with a hitherto unblemished record?’

  ‘I’m not threatening you, Rhiannon. I’m promising you.’

  ‘Promising me what?’

  ‘That I will be there when that cell door closes on you. I will hear that click if it’s the last thing I ever hear.’

  I stood up straight and dead-eyed her back. ‘No, you won’t. The last thing you’ll ever hear will be my voice. Laughing.’

  ‘I’ll get you like they got your dad.’

  ‘My family are waiting to start our Christmas now,’ I said, turning and walking back in the direction of Jim and Elaine’s. ‘I’m sure yours are too?’

  She smiled that strange smile again. ‘Make the most of it, Rhiannon.’

  ‘You too, Detective.’ I called back. ‘Merry Christmas.’

  Sunday, 23rd December – 33 weeks exactly

  1.Woman in red Honda at the crossing who, apropos of nothing, swore out of her window at me. She clearly has a huge problem with braking. And Chihuahuas. And people who cross roads.

  2.Men who cat-call women from cars – why don’t you annunciate? Do I have a ‘nice dog’, a ‘nice bra’, or a ‘nice ass’? I need to know before I can continue my life.

  3.People who bring their babies to Christingle services, stand in the pew in front of me and allow them to stare at me over their shoulder throughout.

  You know that bit in that film Nine Months when Hugh Grant finally realises he’s been a colossal wang and starts taking care of Julianne Moore and his unborn child? And she sees the nursery he’s decorated and it’s all pristine and stuffed with cuddly toys and there’s this magical twinkly music playing and she’s all teary-eyed and love-struck and thankful? Jim and Elaine unveiled my baby’s nursery today. And it wasn’t like that at all.

  They’d gone for lemon and white as a theme. All the Elaine-approved cuddly toys lined the Elaine-approved cot under the Elaine-approved mobile. The window was festooned with ruched lemon curtains and Elaine-approved safety cord, and in the corner was a lemon and white Gingham rocking chair for me to nurse. It was all very nice, don’t get me wrong – Jim had made a bespoke chest of drawers and a changing unit under the window, and all the stuff me and Elaine had bought at Baby World had been sorted into neat units and boxes and labelled by her using her QVC-bought label maker.

  It didn’t feel like mine.

  And I knew there never would be a baby in there.

  I forced my face into elation and managed a tear or two when I hugged them, which they seemed to accept in payment. I put the pink flopsy bunny rabbit with the rattle in its foot in the cot but Elaine didn’t think it matched.

  ‘Keep that one in her pram perhaps,’ she said, handing it back to me.

  My stomach turned over.

  Guilt, that’s what you’re feeling. They’ve been good to you and you’re going to hurt them in the worst way.

  I resolved to put the Well House listing live on Airbnb that afternoon. There were two booking enquiries within the first twenty minutes – one for the end of January and one for next Easter. Some people would jump in your damn grave as quick.

  *

  Me and Jim and Tink went to the WOMBAT Christingle service around tea time. It was pay on the door, so WOMBAT couldn’t stop me from going, but Elaine couldn’t face them yet so she stayed home and made shortbread tree decorations. Everyone was handed a homemade Christingle orange with a lit candle in it, and I made a beeline for the end of the pew nearest the organ so I could linger near Big Headed Edna and give her evils every time she turned the page on her libretto. I made sure my voice was the one she could hear above all the rest.

  Marnie and Tim and Raph were there. I waved to her when Tim was bending over to adjust his kneeler, but predictably, I got blanked. She pretended she was looking around for someone else. I still don’t hate her for it though, strangely. If anyone else was doing this to me I’d be mentally slicing off some limb or baking them in a pie, but with Marnie that feeling wasn’t there. She looked smaller this evening.

  The sermon was all about how the Christingle orange represents the world, the red ribbon around the middle being Jesus’s blood, sweets on the cocktail sticks representing the fruits of the earth and the lit candle being Christ the light himself.

  ‘Christ is symbo
lising the hope of light in the darkness,’ said the vicar. I evilled Edna who was suddenly quite taken with a stain in her skirt.

  Kids from a local primary school sang ‘Away in a Manger’ and the vicar talked about ‘the true meaning of Christmas’. Then after the longest version of ‘Silent Night’ ever, everyone filed out along the central aisle, allowing the light of the Christingles to ‘travel out into the world’.

  We said The Lord’s Prayer. We thanked the vicar for a wonderful service. We filed out, absolved of all sin.

  Outside the church, Jim met up with some guy called Len from the bowling club who he hadn’t seen since his knee operation, so I was left standing alone like a spare one, until from nowhere someone gripped my elbow and pulled me into the shadows behind the church.

  It was Marnie.

  ‘Oh you’re talking to me now?’ I said, stumbling after her in the grass towards a dark corner. We came to a stop behind a large headstone dedicated to an old rector of the parish called Erasmus Percival Blenkinsop.

  ‘I only have a moment. He’s talking to someone from football.’ She gave me a wrapped gift tied with ribbon. ‘Don’t open it now, wait ’til the day.’

  ‘I didn’t get you anything. I didn’t think we were friends anymore.’

  She shook her head. ‘It’s okay, I didn’t expect anything back. I wanted you to have this. And I wanted you to know… ’

  She stopped talking. Her face was barely lit by the candles meandering all around the churchyard. She breathed softly, stutteringly like she was crying. Then pulled me into the strongest hug I’d ever received.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I know what you did. In Cardiff. And I know about Craig. I know it wasn’t him who did all those things.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You like doing it, don’t you?’

  I nodded.

  ‘You like doing it to bad people.’

  I nodded again.

  ‘But what gives you the right to decide who lives and who dies?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘It’s just who I am. I’d never have hurt you though.’

  She pulled back from me. Studied me. Her chin was wobbling. ‘When I saw Tim choking you in our kitchen, I saw him through your eyes. You stood up to him when I couldn’t.’

  ‘You can stand up to him too, Marnie.’

  She shook her head, hesitating for a second before pulling me close and hugging me completely and totally. And somehow I knew it was for the last time. We held each other until the voice called out in the night. She stiffened and moved away.

  ‘Are you going to the police?’ I asked.

  She shook her head, her conker-brown eyes watery. ‘Maybe the world needs you, maybe it doesn’t. I don’t know. But there’s more to you than what you’ve done.’ She looked down briefly at my bump then stepped away. ‘I need to go now.’

  ‘Where?’

  She backed away from me, dissolving into the churchyard air like she’d never existed at all.

  *

  When me and Jim got home, Elaine was in a state. Craig had called.

  ‘I called and called both your mobiles but neither of you answered! I left so many messages. Why didn’t you answer? Where were you?’

  ‘We were at the Christingle, love, like we said. Remember? You said you wanted to finish icing your Madeira,’ said Jim, holding her elbows in an attempt to stop her flailing her arms around like a windmill. I picked up Tink and cuddled her in. She was out of sorts too – Elaine had clearly had one of her head fits and frightened her. She shook in my arms.

  ‘We told you where we were going, Elaine,’ I said.

  ‘He called here. I heard him.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  I could barely understand her through her sobs but the basic upshot was that no cats had been let out of any bags, that he missed his mum and Jim, and that he wished them a merry Christmas.

  ‘He wanted to speak to you, Rhiannon.’ She sniffed as Jim settled her in front of Celebrity Blind Date with her tea and pills.

  ‘Oh, did he?’ I said.

  ‘He’s going to call again.’

  Jim rubbed Elaine’s back as he sat beside her on the armrest. It was the first time she’d spoken to him since his arrest. ‘What did you feel like, talking to him, E?’

  She shook her head. ‘His voice! I’ve missed him so much!’

  So while she was continuing to have a breakdown in the lounge and Jim was doing the elbow-holding and Tink was chewing her bull’s cock on the kitchen lino, I went upstairs and awaited the second coming of Craig on the landline. I waited around half an hour. I didn’t think he’d have the balls to speak to me. But then he rang.

  ‘Craig?’

  ‘Are Mum and Dad in the room?’

  ‘No, I’m upstairs. What do you want?’

  ‘Did you kill Lana?’

  ‘She committed suicide, Craig. Couldn’t handle her scandal.’

  I had to wait an age for him to regain his composure. I got into my PJs while he was sobbing. ‘Was there anything else?’

  ‘Did you… ’ His voice hushed down. ‘Plant the jars?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘But you said—’

  ‘Why would a “psycho bunny boiler” do you any favours?’

  I heard a thumping thump, possibly a fist against a wall. Lots of breaths. ‘I’ve told the police it was her. Like you said. What do I do now?’

  ‘Rot?’ I shrugged.

  ‘If I mean anything to you as the father of your child, you’ll do the right thing. Go to the police. Please. I beg you. Tell them everything. Get me out. Otherwise, I’m going to do something.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Top myself.’

  ‘Oh, stop. You’ll be out by the New Year.’

  ‘Rhiannon, I’m not joking.’

  ‘Neither am I. I will tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God.’

  Silence. ‘I’m not falling for it.’

  ‘Have you suffered in there, Craig?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Yes or no, Craig? Have you suffered?’

  ‘Of course I’ve suffered. I’m in Hell, you bitch.’

  ‘Say “Yes, Rhiannon, I’ve suffered.”’

  I heard the sigh. ‘Yes, Rhiannon, I’ve fucking suffered.’

  ‘Say “Yes, Rhiannon, I trust you.”’

  ‘Yes, Rhiannon, I trust you.’

  ‘Say “I will leave it to you to get me out of here, Rhiannon cos I know my parents are in trouble if I don’t.”’

  ‘I will leave it to you to get me out of here, Rhiannon, cos I know my parents are in trouble if I don’t.’

  ‘Say “The baby isn’t mine.”’

  Silence. ‘What?’

  ‘“The baby isn’t mine.” Say it.’

  ‘But it is.’

  ‘No, it isn’t yours. Say it.’

  ‘The baby… isn’t mine?’

  ‘“But my parents are still in trouble so I’ll be a good boy.”’

  ‘My parents… still in trouble… a good boy.’

  ‘Now hang up the phone.’

  Monday, 24th December – 33 weeks, 2 days

  1.People who send Christmas cards to people who live in the same house (e.g. Elaine).

  2.People who send Christmas cards To the Bump, From the Dog or To the Postman (e.g. Elaine).

  3.People who tell their kids Santa doesn’t exist (Helen posted rant on Facebook today) – just let them believe in the shiny stuff for a bit longer.

  The more I try not to think about Marnie, the more I do. If she didn’t have Tim, I could imagine us setting up home in the Well House together, like Doris Day and that maid in Calamity Jane. Bringing up our kids together. Cleaning the house together. In a parallel universe, perhaps we are.

  Santa Claus came early this morning – an A4 white envelope landed on the mat. The writing on the envelope was indecipherable. After much thinning of eyes and mouthing the words – Fr
og Rainbows, Foot Bananas, Flat Lebanon – I deduced that it read ‘FAO Rhiannon’ and opened it up.

  Keston had come through for me. I had all my new documents – my new passport, banking details, spare photos of me in my Sally Bowes wig, plus the details of an account where I was to deposit the forger’s fee. I’d also been given my new name which I didn’t like but I guess killing off Rhiannon Lewis is the main thing. I had to keep telling myself that anyway.

  ‘What’s that you’ve had?’ asked Elaine, coming down the stairs.

  ‘Just a Christmas card from my sister,’ I said, filing it back inside the envelope. ‘I’m going to nip into town in a minute, get some last minute bits and pieces. Do you want anything?’

  Elaine gave me a list as long as her arm of her last minute bits and pieces – all the veg for tomorrow, plus condiments, potato salad, coleslaw, eggs and ‘four pints of milk to see us through’ like we were going down into a bunker or something. I insisted I didn’t need any help carrying it all back.

  So I waddled into town – waddle waddle scratch scratch waddle waddle – and did my last bit of Christmas preparation before everything closed. I stopped at the Post Office to post my last two parcels – one for Seren’s kids, the other for Freddie.

  ‘I’m afraid you’ve missed the Christmas post, my love,’ said the old lady behind the desk. ‘These won’t arrive ’til the New Year now.’

  ‘Perfect,’ I said.

  On the way home I hit the travel agent’s as planned, and it took less time than I thought to make all the arrangements. I walked back with a cinnamon spiced latte from Costa and a renewed spring in my step. Coffee tastes good again. Making plans feels good again. There’s still a Marnie-shaped hole in everything but maybe I can work around it. I’m good at that.

  Talking of whom, I got back and was barely through the front gate when I had the coffee ripped out of my hands by an extremely irate Nazi.

  ‘WHERE IS SHE?’ Tim yelled at me, pulling me through the gate and sending me crashing forwards onto the front lawn.

  ‘What the fuh?’ I said, dazed, as he pulled me to my feet in one single movement and grabbed hold of my coat lapels and shook them as though by some miracle his answer would come trickling out of me.