In Bloom

by C. J. Skuse

  ‘I can’t handle it when you cry either.’

  ‘I think she’s hungry,’ said the midwife, bustling over in her white plastic apron and clumpy platforms. ‘Why don’t you try feeding her now? I can take her off again if you’re in the least bit unsure?’

  ‘I don’t want to,’ I said, getting up, putting as much space as I could between me and the noise. I wiped my eyes and pocketed the bunny in my jogging bottoms. Ivy screamed louder. ‘I don’t want her anywhere near me.’

  LUNCHTIME – 1.00 p.m. – 6 hours ’til DEPARTURE

  Heather and I had finished going through the forms. I was getting changed back into my freshly-laundered clothes, courtesy of the NHS – when Claudia walked back in, fresh from lunch and seeing Ivy.

  ‘Oh Rhiannon, she’s gorgeous. I couldn’t stop looking at her. Ivy is the perfect name, too – I love it. She looks so much like her daddy, it’s uncanny – not discharging you already, are they?’

  ‘This is Heather Wherryman. She’s a family law solicitor.’

  They shook hands. Claudia looked at me. ‘What do you need your solicitor here for?’

  ‘She’s going to help you.’

  ‘Help me do what?’ It was then that she clocked the fact my shoes were on. And I was putting on my coat too. ‘Are you discharging yourself? What’s going on?’

  ‘I need to leave, Claudia. I can’t take Ivy with me. Heather’s prepared all the forms I need to make it all official.’

  ‘What?’ Claudia looked from me to Heather in quick succession. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Ivy’s your baby now,’ I said, putting my arms through my coat sleeves and buttoning the front. ‘I’ve set up an account for her. Heather will explain everything else.’

  ‘Rhiannon, what on earth? Make what official?’

  ‘Do you want a baby or not, Claudia?’

  ‘What? Wha— but… ’ She stepped forward, her eyes full of tears. She cupped my cheek and put her face next to mine. ‘Don’t leave her, Rhiannon.’

  ‘I have to go.’

  ‘She’ll be out of here in a week and then we can take her home, you and me together, you don’t have to leave her.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You can both live with me, it’ll be fine. Don’t do this. Your body’s still in shock from the birth. We can raise her together, you and me. You and Ivy can have your own rooms.’

  ‘No,’ I said, squeezing past her towards the door.

  ‘You can’t just go,’ she cried, pulling on my arm. ‘She needs you as well. She needs her mum, Rhiannon.’

  I pulled my arm away from her. ‘I’m sorry. She needs a better mum than me. She needs you.’

  EVENING – 5.05 p.m. – 2 hrs ’til DEPARTURE

  No little voice.

  No one stopping me.

  Eyes wet.

  Arse sore.

  Tits leaking.

  Chaining paracetamol.

  Nothing to lose now. Nothing standing in my way.

  Did a couple of BuzzFeed quizzes in the car outside the Farm Shop. I discovered which Spongebob Squarepants character I am most like (Mr Krabs), which member of Little Mix should be my best friend (Jesy), and that I’d definitely be first to be eliminated on RuPaul’s Drag Race. As I suspected.

  Events happened quicker than I could process them after that.

  Five to five, I could see Sandra moving about inside the shop. Turning off lights. Turning over the sign. Loping back to the cloakroom.

  I got out of the car, striding towards the front door. My rules had all gone out the window – I didn’t care who saw, I didn’t care about covering my tracks, I didn’t care that the place was monitored by CCTV, or that my trainers had Velcro on them. They would link this irrevocably to me and for the first time in my life, I didn’t give one shit.

  Stopping at the log pile. Pulling the axe from the stack. I tried the door handle. In I went.

  Mariah Carey was blasting from the speakers. She’d been having a little dance around while she was locking up.

  ‘Sorry, love, we’re closing,’ came the voice as the music lowered slightly. I didn’t see her at first. Then there she was, behind the till, in the near-darkness. Clicks as she turned off the Christmas lights displays – one after the other – until just the background music and the glaring light of a neon Father Christmas illuminating her tired, hangdog face remained.

  All.

  I.

  Want.

  For.

  Christmas.

  Is.

  You.

  Sandra slung her handbag over her shoulder – the red handbag with the saggy mouth.

  ‘Hey Sandra,’ I said, sliding the bolt across.

  She looked over at me. ‘Sorry you’ve got the wrong person.’ She looked away. Tidied a display of Lindt reindeer that didn’t need tidying. ‘We’re closing up now.’

  ‘We?’ I said. ‘You’re on your own.’

  ‘No I’m not. Colin’s in the back, I can get him for you.’

  ‘Colin leaves at four-thirty p.m. On the dot. Every single day. I’ve been watching you for some time.’

  I must have looked quite the scary sight, looming towards her in the darkness with only Mariah Carey at her shrillest to lighten the effect. ‘It’s just you, me and Mariah. I’ve locked the door.’

  I walked towards her, twirling my axe like a sadistic majorette. I had her cornered behind the till. ‘Got your kids back from social services yet?’

  ‘No, get back, get back,’ she said, grabbing a can of fake snow from the cash register and aiming it at me.

  ‘What are you going to do with that, pray tell?’ I laughed.

  She gasped for breath, crouching down. ‘Please no, please, no, help me! God help me!’

  ‘God won’t save you. He’s working for me now. Mmm, now what was it the judge said in that court report? You told the seven-year-old boy to get on his knees and… help me out here, Sandra, my memory is shot.’

  ‘No, please. Get away, AWAY from me!’

  ‘Get on your knees and… open your mouth, that was it, wasn’t it?’

  ‘No, no, I’ll do anything, please, take the money… ’

  ‘I don’t want money.’

  ‘What do you want? Why are you doing this?’

  ‘It’s what I do. I kill paedophiles. I kill people like you.’

  She cowered lower, trying to make herself small enough so I couldn’t see her. Fat chance. She sank against the wall. Knocked the Christmas rota off the board. It fluttered to the straw-strewn floor. ‘It wasn’t me, it was them!’

  ‘They told you to do it. You took those photos.’

  ‘Yes but… ’

  ‘You had a choice. You chose to take those photos. Those children screamed and cried and you. Took. Photos.’

  ‘I’ll do anything. Take anything you want, please.’

  ‘Anything?’

  ‘Yes, yes.’

  ‘Anything at all?’

  ‘Yes please. Here.’ She fumbled open the till and threw ten pound note after twenty pound note straight at me. They each fell to the floor and skittered away. ‘Take it.’

  ‘I said I don’t want it, Sandra. Now get on your fucking knees.’

  *

  Think of the happiest you’ve ever been. Might have been during that childhood game of Tig. Or your wedding day. Maybe the time you first locked eyes on your newborn or injected heroin. That moment – times it by a thousand and wrap it in the best chocolate you ever ate and put it on the fastest rollercoaster and you’re still nowhere near as happy as I felt leaving that shop, having hacked Sandra Huggins to pieces.

  And I do mean pieces.

  I don’t know how long it took the axe to tear her up but it wasn’t long. Wet slap after whoomping crack after squelching hack, I kept going and going until the screams stopped and there was nothing left of the woman who had once been Sandra Huggins. Looking at the landscape of blood when I had finished, a strange sort of warmth flooded my body from my heart outw
ards. This was it. This was bliss.

  And I felt the click in my mind.

  The sight of it – the diabolical red poetry before me – brought tears. Exquisite, ecstatic tears. In my feverish trance, the sight of the sugarplum and gingerbread displays dripping with her innards was just so damn funny.

  Deck the Halls with Sandra’s insides, Fa la la la la la la la la.

  One part of her was still throbbing.

  Every every ache disappeared. Nothing else mattered. Just me and the axe in that beautiful moment that I had given birth to.

  The only thing I left intact was her head. I carried it around the store– showing it around like it was new in town. Holding it up for the CCTV. Swinging it around by the hair left on it. I removed the neon Santa head and replaced it with Huggins’s own.

  Sandra Claus is coming to town…

  I laughed all the way home – my car seat is soaked. I just left it.

  The house phone was ringing when I got in. I went straight upstairs for a shower. I put my contacts in and didn’t bother to dry my hair, I tucked it wet underneath my wig. The phone rang again as I was leaving.

  ‘Rhiannon? Thank god.’ A man’s voice. The line was distant. Scratchy.

  ‘Keston?’ He was on a car phone.

  ‘Rhee, have you seen the news?’

  ‘No, why?’ They can’t have found Sandra already.

  ‘I’m on my way to pick you up, allright? I’m two hours away but I’m gunning it so sit tight, all right? I’m coming.’

  ‘What news, Keston?’

  ‘There’s been a new development. The house – your mum and dad’s. They’ve found bones in the woods.’

  ‘What bones?’

  ‘Whose bones do you think? Pete McMahon’s. The white tent’s right over the spot where we put him.’

  ‘How would they know he is buried in those woods, Keston?’

  ‘I don’t know. They haven’t identified him yet but this is why we need to get you out of here now—’

  ‘There are only three people in this world who knew that body was there. Me, you and Dad. And Dad’s dead.’

  ‘Rhiannon, I swear I never told anyone. I’d be in the shit as much as you would. You know I wouldn’t do that to Tommy.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Of course. Why would I be busting my balls to get down there and get you as far away from Géricault as possible? Huh? Talk sense, Rhiannon.’ His voice was breaking up. I could hear rain against the car windows. ‘This ricochets off me as well as you. They start looking into those woods they’re gonna find more than McMahon. Just be ready, I’m going as fast as I can.’

  I picked up my bag and Jim’s car keys. Checked my tickets and passport were in my coat pocket. And I left the house.

  It was quiet on the roads. It wasn’t until I was on the clattering blue and white Park and Ride bus heading to the main terminal that I realised my mistake. It wasn’t Keston who’d told Géricault what was buried in those woods – I had omitted to remember the other person who knew what had happened that night. Who knew what I’d done. Who’d seen me and Dad walking back across the lawn afterwards with our shovels. It wasn’t just the Man in the Moon who’d witnessed our dastardly deeds from after.

  Seren had too.

  The sister I’d killed for twice – one being our own grandfather. Two being Pete McMahon himself – the yellow-toothed trickster who hadn’t taken no for an answer, whose naked back was riddled with red slits when I’d finished with him.

  The sister who had watched the Perseid meteor showers with me as we lay on hay bales in the fields.

  The sister who’d helped me walk again, talk again, use my fine motor skills, played Sylvanians with me, taught me how to roller skate and pirouette and lace my shoes, how to roll my tongue and cartwheel and spell Inconsequential, and French plait my hair, who’d spent hours designing outfits for me on the Fashion Wheel she’d got me for Christmas.

  The sister who’d helped me bury the toys in the garden to save them from the charity shop.

  The sister who’d sobered up in time to see me and Dad coming through the kitchen door, his khaki trousers covered in bloodstains, my hands covered in mud. This kind of burial was where she drew the line.

  Seren had not just thrown me under the bus – she’d put the bus in reverse and run over my fucking head. Twice.

  My own sister. My own Judas.

  *

  I was one of the last twenty passengers to board. I’d left it to the last hour to check in. The guy checking my documents and passport said I was ‘very wise to leave it until the end of the day’, because of the long queues that had built up that morning. I passed through the X-ray and got my bags scanned, and then my bigger bags went off with a porter to my cabin. The security wasn’t as stringent as it is at the airport, though there were some raised eyebrows about the pink rabbit in my coat pocket and the knapsack of Sylvanians – I chose to ignore them. New me and all that.

  I didn’t miss Ivy until I saw the couple with the baby. Cooing over it in the pushchair. Mum feeding her raisins. Dad making faces. I felt the pull but I pushed it away. Might as well get in the habit now.

  Had an interminable conversation with Gloria and Ken from Yorkshire in the queue behind me – this is their tenth cruise. He collects antique vacuum cleaners – she does sugar craft and has had four new hips. Ken talked me through the different excursions and what food to avoid on the buffet. Gloria had a squeaky, doll-like voice and she was already in holiday mode with the fake tan, white pedal pushers, strappy gold sandals and firebox red toenails even though the boat hadn’t left dock yet.

  ‘Is there much to do on board?’ I asked them.

  They both laughed. ‘Do?’ Ken chuckled and he began counting them all off on his fingers. ‘They got cabaret every night, live music, comedy shows, casinos, picture house—’

  ‘And beauty salons and keep fit classes and loads of shops,’ squeaked Gloria. ‘You won’t be bored on here, no danger.’

  ‘Any gardening facilities?’ I asked. They both looked at me blankly.

  ‘There might be a flower arranging group you could join, if that floats your boat,’ Ken laughed. ‘You’ve no need to be lonely at any rate, my love. You can pal around with us if you want to. We can show you what’s what.’

  ‘Yeah, course you can, babe!’ said Gloria. ‘Just until you meet your husband in the next port.’

  ‘That’s so kind of you, thanks ever so,’ I said, smiling sweetly, like a sweet pea would.

  I had to spin them a yarn of course, because people travelling alone always seem to garner questions. New me, new act.

  I was then directed to a huge carpeted lobby with roped-off lines, and my line was the shortest – it being for occupants of executive class cabins. That impressed the hell out of Ken and Gloria. I got given my boarding card-cum-room key plus a map of the ship —

  The Flor de la Mer.

  It was bloody enormous – like a huge towering white shopping mall but with Christmas lights and bunting draped around the upper decks and water lapping the sides. I had to stop and pose for a picture beside the life ring on the springy metal gangway – I gave it the full peace sign and kicked up heel which seemed to tickle Gloria’s fancy. When in Rome…

  Inside the sleek and sparkly main atrium, passengers filed into lifts and swarmed staircases – some people already dressed for dinner. Buffet tables with complimentary snacks and drinks had been laid out in the glitzy gold and cream dining room, but because I was so late boarding, most of the good stuff had gone. I took a highly-polished green apple from a fruit basket and a few cereal bars. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten.

  The ship was about to leave dock and all the passengers gathered on the top deck to wave off their families and friends below. There was quite a big turnout. People with happy, smiling faces, some crying, waving, balloons buffeting in the cold evening breeze. Somewhere behind me a speaker was trilling out a pan pipes version of ‘Across the Universe’.<
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  I’d already eaten half the apple when I saw the middle was brown with rot. I slung it overboard, waiting for the pleasing splash but it didn’t come. There was too much other noise.

  The sea breeze lifted the fringe of my wig as I stared out to sea, feeling the ship move beneath my feet. My t-shirt felt cold where my tits had started leaking again. I pulled my coat tighter around me.

  Craig would be back home by the end of January – a free man.

  Jim and Elaine would get their son back. And their car.

  Tink would get her daddy back. She’s missed him.

  Claudia would know what I was sorry for. And why AJ wasn’t calling.

  DI Géricault would be fuming that she’d had me so close before I’d slipped through the few remaining fingers she had.

  Ivy would have a warm, safe home, and a bed, and someone who loved her more than anything else in the universe.

  And in the New Year, Freddie would receive the parcel containing my full confession. And then the whole world would know about Sweetpea.

  The ship’s horn boomed one long blast as the humungous vessel eased out of dock. People cheered below and on deck. Gold balloons floated up into the starry black. Then three more blasts as it hit the open sea. Rhiannon Lewis was dead. I had to be someone else now. Died and rose again. Died and rose again. Died and rose again. And rose again.

  I stayed on deck, staring – an abyss horizon with an abyss tomorrow on my mind. I didn’t want to go down to my cabin yet. It felt too small in there. Like a prison cell. Somewhere on the ship, party poppers snapped.

  A couple in evening wear walked past me, hand in hand.

  Grey-haired ladies in sequins and block heels clomped along smoking cigarettes and chattering in foreign accents.

  Groups of men in dinner suits sauntered past with glasses of wine.

  I was on my own and the endless cold night hung over me like a shroud. The world looked huge from the middle of the sea. I inhaled until my lungs were sore. I bit my nails down until they throbbed. The taste of blood lingered in my mouth – I didn’t know whose. Somewhere on board a child wailed. My empty belly throbbed. I felt the wetness of my t-shirt. She was still with me in some ways, her tendrils had got in and clung to me tightly. I cried my own sea on that deck.