by Caron Allan
Mon 24 June—2.20pm
Thirty-three today. And I thought thirty-two felt old! Have received some lovely cards and presents from a few people—Jess and Murdo, obviously, even Mother and The Muppet managed to send an eCard with a cuckoo-clock on the front, and a card from the Hopkins’s, very sweet of them to remember. And a small package from Matt that I guessed even before I opened it was a new journal.
But in spite of all this kindness, I’m still a bit blue today.
I looked back to the very first page of this journal, to that lovely little note from Thomas. And now the page is blurry from splashes of tears. His lovely neat, loopy script, in its purple ink from a ‘proper’ pen, it’s a bit blotchy now. But still comforting, still familiar.
I can recall last year’s birthday so clearly—the excitement of waking up and remembering it was my birthday. I was like a child! And Thomas, laughing, the little crows-feet in the corners of his eyes crinkling as he laughed, the white even teeth, the sound of his laugh in my ear—a sudden, loud bark of laughter. The two of us had made plans which Clarice then proceeded to destroy.
But Thomas is gone and now my life is shared with this bunch of eccentric people, and this baby who is growing day by day inside me. Oh dear, birthdays make one so introspective! Will wander back down to the kitchen and see if I can scrounge a cup of tea.
Matt has been odd today, very weird and smug. He keeps doing his ‘Alright Darlin’’ smirk at me—he really thinks he is God’s gift to us poor womenfolk. I haven’t had a chance to talk to him about his little boy in London, or to thank him for his other little ‘surprise gift’. Still no news as yet on that front, but fingers crossed, it’s still early days. Mainly because he’s being too annoying. How on earth am I going to get him to toe the line?
I suppose he’ll think he has the right to sleep with me soon, as he is now more or less my partner.
At least, I hope he’ll think he has the right to sleep with me. He keeps smirking at me, as if he’s got an exciting secret only he knows about. I’ve read that men feel more potent when they become—or are about to become—fathers, due to the baby being evidence of their virility. Essentially I am now a referee as to his manliness—all his future conquests will be referred to me for confirmation that he is a fully-functional male.
Feel bad-tempered now. Hope that’s just a symptom of being pregnant and not just me being my normal grouchy self.
Lill is sweetness itself though, treating me like a queen. She is decorating a little cake for me.
Sid is all sentimental too, and typically male, he is trying to act as if nothing has changed but all the while he looks as though he would like to high-five his son and shout ‘Yes!’ Anyone would think Matt had scored a winning goal for England.
Ooh phone call for me.
Same day: 4.15pm
OMG!!!! OMG!!!! OMG!!!!
That was Nadina. She had the most amazing news. I’m so excited. It’s all true!
Apparently late last night, Monica ‘fell’ down her stairs and died.
Of course I had to pretend to be distraught and numb with grief and shock, but as soon as I’d said goodbye, I did a little dance around the sitting room. It’s too wonderful, I can hardly believe it. I must find Matt and thank him properly. Nadina says Monica had been drunk—well, no surprise there! She was found this morning by her cleaning lady who called the emergency services but it was all too late.
Wow.
It’s really over. Must take a moment to let that sink in.
Can’t write any more—I really must go and find Matt. What a lovely, adorable and clever man he is. To kill my best pal for me.
The End
Read on for a short extract from book 2 of the trilogy, Cross Check:
Tuesday 24 June
Here you are Gorgeous, Happy Birthday! I know it’s not as fancy as the one your husband gave you last year, but hopefully you’ll still like it—there should be enough room to do all your plotting!
Love ya, Matt. XXXX
Wednesday 25 June—4.30pm
A simply wonderful birthday yesterday! Felt a bit teary first thing, I kept thinking about last year, and how Thomas was still here and we were happy. And I was thinking about what we did, how he looked, what he said, everything. So had a little weep, wishing I could go back and change just a few simple things which would mean he would still be here with me.
But then I remembered my baby and my baby’s father, and this new journal and everything it represented, so had another little weep all over again. Feeling very silly, but can’t stop the blubbing either, must be my hormones.
We can’t go back, can we? We can’t change things. Felt so guilty and muddled and happy and sad as I thought about how my life has worked out. But there’s not much point in pining for a past I can’t regain. Poor darling Thomas. If only he were here. But then I wouldn’t be with Matt—OMG my head is swimming, and it’s just one of those useless, circular arguments you torment yourself with. What might have been. Must try to stop crying. It’s all over now, I can’t go back. And Matt. He’s so sweet and pretty and I adore him. What a mess. Lord, what fools we mortals are.
Also—interestingly—felt a teeny bit queasy this morning. Lill made me some toast then forced me to drink bucketfuls of apple juice and immediately I felt a lot better; but my tummy’s so tender I can’t bear to wear any tight trousers. I really am pregnant! Yay! So I will have to schlep around in jive pants or yoga pants or something equally hideous and unflattering for the next eight months. So unglamorous. And just a teensy bit working class.
OMG! Have just realised. This means I will be spending the next six or seven months dressed like a woman from a council estate. I will end up buying groceries from a budget supermarket, will probably take up smoking right at the crucial time when I should be taking care of my health and I’ll probably buy gin in plastic bottles and drink it in the park or will sit eating pasties out of paper bags on a bus. OMG I will be huge! And everyone knows the extra hormones from all the fat make you grow chin hairs. Eek—I’m going to become one of those fat, hairy-faced women who live in jeggings or jog bottoms with the go-faster stripes down the side, only they never do (go faster). I see them on Jeremy Kyle all the time.
By the time I’m four months pregnant I’ll be like a beached whale. My life is over. And Matt, who quite clearly is the guilty party here, which I hardly need point out, Matt will look at me with that same curled lip of disgust his singlet-wearing father Sid does when served pasta with julienned vegetables instead of four-cheese sauce and minced beef. Oh—My—God! I am doomed to become grotesque. And walrus-like. And I’m only thirty-three! Help, I need a tissue, have a nose-bubble. Where are those effing tissues?
Half an hour later
Okay. Feeling slightly better. Had a massive blub, what is wrong with me? Oh yes, I am knocked up. I imagine this is what they mean in the books when they vaguely waffle on about hormones. Really would it kill them to be a bit more specific? If you’re going to turn into a weepy hairy blob they should say so, then you know you’re normal. Ish. But I weighed myself and felt heaps better when I found I’d only put on a pound—if it stays like that, things won’t be too bad. Even I should be able to shed one solitary pound.
My tummy hurts, though. I can’t sit around in jeans with the zip undone. Will have a rummage through my wardrobes and see if I’ve got any slightly more-forgiving waistlines, you never know. If not there’s every chance I will need to go shopping. Ooh goody. There’s my silver lining. But right now, obviously, before I do anything else, I need to have a rest. Mustn’t overdo things.
But I can’t help thinking of all the things that have changed since this time last year. EVERYTHING is different.
To begin with, obviously there’s the fact that my poor Darling Thomas was murdered by my best friend Monica Pearson-Jones, in retaliation for me killing her philandering husband Huw, and his girlfriend Manddi. But in my defence, I only killed them because I thought Monica wanted me t
o. She had allowed me to think it was her who killed my mother-in-law Clarice, who was making my life a living hell. So I thought I had to do something equally helpful for her.
But then, after I’d reciprocated by killing Huw and Manddi, not only was Monica consumed with rage and threatening to kill me, but also she revealed she had been there the night Clarice died, and had seen my own Thomas at the house, which was a terrible shock to me. When I asked him, he admitted everything. It wasn’t Monica at all, she had tricked me.
After Thomas’s death, I was plunged into the deepest misery, and only the kindness of my housekeeper/cook and her husband, Lill and Sid, got me back on an even keel. Out of gratitude to them, I allowed them to bring their convict son Matt, to live with us when he came out of prison, discovered he was actually rather dishy and I am now in the family way, as they say, by him. And due to Monica’s rage slash hate and all the tragic memories of Thomas in the house, I upped sticks and now here we are in leafy Gloucestershire. It’s been a whirlwind year. Then yesterday I got the happy news I’d been waiting for. Matt has killed Monica for me. Such a brilliant birthday prezzie—and he sent me a text just like the one Monica sent me when she’d killed Thomas: ‘criss cross’ (from that Hitchcock film Strangers on a Train)—at first it gave me something of a fright but then I realised it was Matt trying to be clever. I’d told him all about Monica and my need to kill her—and so he sorted that little problem out for me.
This evening we’ve got a dinner party planned—new friends in our new village, Madison Maxwell-Billings and her hubby Sacha (odd name, don’t you think?), and the vicar and his wife, can’t remember her name, begins with a B I’m almost certain. And Irish I think—Bridget? No, but something like that. Bronia? Anyway, I thought it would be nice to have a few people round, become part of the community.
Ooh phone!
Another half an hour later
How exciting! That was Nadina. Do I want to go to Monica’s memorial service? Of course I do, I said, I loved her, I said, she was my bestest pal, I said. Plus I want to make sure she really is dead, after the last time when I put stuff in her sangria and then she didn’t drink it, not that I said that to Nadina, the tragic event only took place yesterday and Nadina is so upset. I’m not a monster, after all. I do have some consideration for other people’s feelings, even if it is only that whiny little drip Nadina.
Anyway, she told me the funeral is arranged for tomorrow week but will be in Lancashire of all places, and close family only so hence the memorial thingy, which will be on the 1st July, next Tuesday, at nine-thirty at the church, she’s sending me the link, then afterwards a buffet brunch at Monica’s house. Which will be a bit weird as she is the only one who won’t be there. Bit tasteless actually. And who will have the key to let us all in. Presumably the memorial will be presided over by some relative or another but I forgot to ask. Besides couldn’t risk asking too many questions, as afraid Nadina would break out blubbing yet again. Honestly, where is her backbone?
It seems the post-mortem is set for tomorrow but obviously no one else is expecting any nasty surprises hence the arrangements already going ahead. Thank God. Clearly the fact that my Newly Beloved had to go over there and personally shove her down her own stairs means that all my hard work insinuating ethylene glycol into her OJ and Sangria and whatnot was a total waste of time. But it’s still a bit of a worry. I’m hoping the post-mortem results will be squeaky clean and nothing dodgy shows up.
I can’t believe she didn’t eat or drink either of the things in her fridge that I contaminated with the anti-freeze. It’s so galling. And after all the effort I went to.
Ooh! Have just realised I referred to Matt as my Beloved. (She said, drawing little hearts and writing his name in the margin like a twelve-year-old.) I mean, I knew I fancied him—obviously, as I’m pregnant (hate that word preggers, it makes me feel sick) so telling, aren’t they, these little slips? Clearly my subconscious is hard at work. To be confronted with one’s own inner feelings just out of nowhere like that…it must be my hormones. I have a feeling that particular phrase is going to crop up quite a bit over the next few months.
Oh yes, so, Madison and Sacha, Rev Steve plus one, myself obviously. I don’t know what to do about Matt. I mean, it is a bit odd to be pregnant by a man one still treats as the odd-job chappie, but not really sure he will want to socialise like this and I don’t think he has even met any of these people yet, so I’m finding it difficult to find the right pigeonhole for him.
GOD! I know nothing about this man! How am I...?
OMG look at the time!!!
Same day: 11.30pm
What a nice evening. I had worried it would be a bit awkward—one never knows what to say to new friends and there’s always a concern that the conversation might dry up and everyone sit there fiddling with their napkins and willing the clock to speed up a bit.
Matt did join us. He looked very nice in a posh shirt and clean jeans, with his stupid trendy hair looking rather good too, what with the gel in it and the little squiffy bit at the front sticking up ever so slightly, and his hair is such a nice colour anyway. And I was so relieved to have an ally as it were, someone by my side, when entertaining for the first time in my new village, and he was so easy-going and sweet and chatty, he just made the whole evening go with a swing. He charmed everyone. All our guests seemed to like him, and for some reason they seemed to like me too, thank God. Just as well, really, as we will probably have to socialise with them quite a bit due to the complete lack of anyone else in the way of nice or interesting people in this tiny, tiny place. I suspect our dinner parties here will become a bit incestuous.
Madison and Sacha were a bit intrigued, I could tell, as I simply introduced him as ‘my friend Matt’ to begin with, believing quite rightly that they were unlikely to recognise him as the chauffeur who drove me home from theirs the other night. But when I ended up confessing I was pregnant, due to some stupid slip-up in the conversation, it was immediately clear that he was more than a mere friend, unless they think I’m a slut that is, and I suppose that’s vaguely possible as they don’t yet know me very well. Anyway, everyone toasted the baby-to-come and I was, as always just lately, a bit teary. Then I looked across the table and saw Matt had that soppy besotted look that made me want to slap him, and all the others thought we were so sweet together. It’s thoroughly sickening.
Rev Steve’s wife is Vanessa, horrid name, and nothing like Bridget, can’t think where I got that from. Or Bronia. She’s all right I suppose, a bit earnest and inclined to pick over one’s sentence with the tenacity of a Marxist-feminist literary critic. So I found I had to think about everything I was about to say, scanning it for lack of precision or ungrammaticality or ideological shilly-shallying, which made me nervous as hell and horribly stilted. What a pain in the arse! But I suppose she was all right. I mean, it’s not the kind of thing you can kill someone for, is it? I’m not putting her on my list, let’s put it that way.
Rev Steve is nothing to look at, poor fellow, medium hair, medium height, medium skin, eyes a kind of browny colour. He’s a bit ordinary and a bit inclined to be long-winded and bookish. I bet he collects things. I bet it’s something ridiculous like chalk-heath moths or some such. Or maybe he collects 19th century hassocks. He’s a bit dull, to put it mildly, but again, hardly a hanging offence. And it’s not Rev Steve, it has to be Stephen, or The Reverend Stephen Monk. My little pun about his name fell on the introductions like a pall. Must remember to be solemn and bookish too, next time they come. I don’t want them to think I’m a brainless idiot. But must remember to glug some sherry or vodka or something too, before they get here next time. That might make the whole experience a lot less painful. Though obviously cannot be completely blitzed in case of possible faux pas. Also am pregnant so consumption of alcohol strictly on a life-dependent basis. Matt will see to that.
Madison’s husband Sacha was rather dull too. Beginning to think it’s living in a village that has dimmed their co
nversation skills and blunted their wit. Sacha just seemed to enjoy listening to everyone else—he hardly ever ventured his own opinions. But somehow I don’t think he’s really on the same social par as Madison, she’s quite the bright little chatterbox, although not very interesting as she says a great deal and at the same time, rather like Nadina, she says nothing, so I don’t know, maybe they are well-suited after all. I get the impression he’s still a bit surprised that he managed to snag her to begin with. He looks like he’s still trying to take it all in, even though she said they’ve been married for nearly seven years (oh-oh the dodgy seven year mark!).
And then, there were a couple of old biddies I hadn’t met before—Madison had brought them along hoping it would be all right, which of course it was, Mrs H - I mean Lill—always does simply masses of food.
When one of the old girls, Mavis, said she plays the organ at the church and also does the flowers, I began to feel I’d strayed into the middle of an Agatha Christie story. Fortunately no one suggested playing bridge or charades.
Mavis’ pal was her next-door neighbour, Henrietta—never shortened! Mavis has the look of a terrified mouse on the run from an angry bear. Henrietta looks like a school governess from the 1930s, long, hard-wearing and sensible skirt-and-blouse combo, iron-grey hair carefully curled, reading-glasses on a beaded thingy round her neck, you know the type.
But from the little snippets they shared and the few comments they made, I’d love to get to know them better—they sound like they were a devastating duo back in the day. So many stories to tell. I bet they laid the male population to waste for miles around during the war.
And so to bed.
Poor old Matt was giving me what he clearly thought were seductive glances all evening. But I have hardened my heart and he is now reposing in his bachelor pad down the hall. He can damned well wait until I’m ready.