Sweetpea

by C. J. Skuse

  Tink was trying to climb up my leg for a pick-up, so I took her in my arms and she began frantically licking my face, shivering so violently I nearly dropped her. Still breathless, still watching him, I held out my bloody hand for her to lick. We stood over the man, watching his gargles and spits of bloody pain into the night air. I watched the last of his breaths cloud above him, his dick still erect in undone jeans.

  Jesus Christ was I turned on.

  I didn’t cut off the penis this time. It’s not a trophy thing with me. That would be stupid, like the burglars who always leave the taps on in Home Alone. Besides, where would I put them all? We’ve only got a two-bed flat. It was hard enough deciding where to put the dehumidifier.

  I don’t even remember walking back to the flats because I was on such a high, nothing else mattered. I don’t remember getting in the car, or the entire drive to Mum and Dad’s house.

  Julia called out to me. I unlocked the door to the back bedroom and flicked on the light, standing in the doorway and allowing the full horror of how I looked to dawn on her face. First she winced with the brightness. Then she screamed when she saw the blood.

  ‘I need a shower,’ I announced. ‘If you don’t stop fucking screaming, I will do the same to you. And feed you to my chihuahua.’

  *

  I’m at home now. Balanced. Restored. Clean. Craig and the lads had done their usual thing of going down Wetherspoon’s for last orders and a ‘cheeky kebab on the way home’ so undoubtedly the flat will stink of his lamby farts tomorrow morning. I don’t even care tonight. Seriously, the power trip you get when you take a life – you just feel better. All the other shit washes away. Tink’s sitting on the end of my bed now, looking at me with her ears down. She’s still damp from our shower at Mum and Dad’s. She just keeps looking at me. I wish I knew what she was thinking.

  Tuesday, 13 February

  1.Man with hipster beard and pierced eyebrow, who pushed in front of me in Starbucks and asked for a gingerbread latte and a babyccino

  2.Woman who bumped into me in Lidl and told me to say sorry

  3.Dillon on the checkout in Lidl, who today said, ‘Cheer up, might never happen.’ I could have shanked his ribs

  No nightmare tonight. A dreamless sleep and a refreshing cup of coffee by my head when I woke up. Craig even made me a smoked salmon bagel without being asked and, when I was in the shower, screaming along to Beyoncé, he came in and we had stand-up sex against the tiles which was uncharacteristically hot for us. I was still buzzing from the park attack so I could easily close my eyes and imagine I was still there, being grabbed. I came quickly, for once, still panting along to ‘Beautiful Liar’.

  Then came work and it sucked major cheesy balls. My usual car park was full up so I had to park a mile away and, when I finally got in, I found the entire office gathered around in a semicircle, welcoming the new girl.

  The new junior reporter.

  Even Jeff was applauding her.

  They’d given the job to a wet – fresh out of journalism school – who’d applied for the job before Christmas. Daisy Chan – quite the thinnest woman I’ve ever seen. She’s neat, recherché, speaks six languages, got twelve GCSEs and has already won a junior reporting award at Valley News. I was too busy seething to listen to Ron’s welcome speech or her thank you speech. It was all the same platitudes anyway. All ‘so grateful’ and ‘amazing’ and ‘overwhelmed to be part of the family’ blah blah blah de fapping blah.

  Of course I had to say something and, when they’d all finished giving her a clit-licking, I knocked on Ron’s door and didn’t wait for the Come In.

  ‘Ah, Rhianna, I was going to call you in, my dear.’

  No, that’s not a typo. Three years I’ve been here and he still calls me Rhianna. I shut the door and sat down, my rage bubbling close to the edge of my human cauldron but I was in no mood to turn down the burner.

  ‘I understand this might be difficult for you but I feel firmly that Daisy is the best person for the job. She has her qualification now and she’s had two years’ experience on the big stories at Valley News.’

  ‘Valley News!’ I spat. ‘It’s hardly the Telegraph.’

  ‘When you’re more experienced and you’ve done your diploma then you can think about more regular features. I know you were a bit sore about the Riot Lovers piece…’

  ‘Yeah, because Linus stole my byline.’

  Ron closed his eyes and sat back in his chair, only opening them again when his mouth had cracked into a smile. ‘It was his byline. He wrote the piece.’

  ‘Yes, using my photo.’

  ‘Even so…’

  ‘EVEN SO NOTHING,’ I shouted. Ron looked around his windows to see if anyone outside had heard. Nobody was even looking up from their computers. I tried deep breathing but all I could think was grabbing his silver letter opener and leaping across his desk to manically stab him all over. ‘That was my scoop, Ron… Mr Ron… Mr Pondicherry. I took that photo. I’m the one who sits in on all the court hearings, I type up all the golden weddings, I’m the one who had to run alongside Will.I.Am when he turned up to do the half-marathon for the hospital scanner. Me, not Linus or Claudia or Daisy. Me.’

  ‘I understand,’ he said again.

  ‘No you don’t,’ I interrupted, hand steadying myself on the door for fear of falling over with all the rage bubbling up like violently shaken lemonade.

  ‘The riot story is a hot potato at the moment,’ Ron explained. ‘It needs solid, unbiased coverage. With all respect, I can’t just give it to the editorial assistant. It’s too much responsibility. I’d be letting you down, wouldn’t I?’

  I felt like a toddler who’d had her lolly taken away because it would spoil her appetite. I folded my arms.

  ‘Let’s make a deal,’ said Ron. ‘I’ll give you your own column on the entertainment page where we have the cinema listings and the gig guide. You can have your own name on it. And in that column you can talk about whatever it is you want, aimed directly at teenagers. We’ll call it… “Teen Talk”. Or “The Buzz”. How about “The Buzz on the Street”?’

  ‘Children’s film reviews? You’re giving me children’s film reviews?’

  ‘What do you want from me, Rhianna? Do you want me to make you a senior reporter because you’ve typed up a few cricket scores and reviewed a vegan restaurant? You’re going to have to learn your craft, dear. Climb the ladder. Pay your dues. You can’t jump straight in with the big guns like Linus and Claudia. They’ve put in the time, the years, risen through the ranks and so will you.’

  ‘What about next year? Might you sponsor me next year instead?’

  Ron sighed. If he’d been a dragon, I’d have been a burn mark on the carpet. ‘If you want to cultivate a career here, you’re going to have to do things our way. That means Linus and Claudia and the seniors tell you to jump, you ask how high. They ask you to get their sandwiches, you ask what fillings. They tell you to watch every Kate Hudson movie ever made and review it for your film page, you do that.’

  ‘Now you’re pushing it.’

  He smiled. ‘Are we singing from the same hymn sheet here?’

  I nodded, breathing out long and slow. It was time for The Act to begin. I’d harnessed my rage and stroked its neck and given it a raw parsnip to gnaw on. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just I care so much.’

  ‘That’s good,’ he said, getting up, fists raised. ‘Passion. Fight. That’s what I like to see. You’ll make a great reporter someday. But for now…’

  ‘Pay my dues.’

  He nodded and held the door open for me. ‘And coffee two sugars when you’re ready, thanks, Rhianna.’

  Slam! He was never ever going to fund my diploma, was he? Never going to make me a junior reporter. I knew then that it didn’t matter how assiduous my work ethic, how often I stayed late, what I did to impress them. My face just didn’t fit. My sartorial choices would always be Primark in the shadow of their Armani. I would forever be ‘just the receptionist’.
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br />   So, basically, work and everyone there can go fuck themselves into a coma. At lunchtime, I spent twenty minutes in the toilets gouging a hole in the wall behind the cistern because

  I fucking fucking fucking HATE THEM.

  Daisy Chan is off doing stories about murders and drugs busts while I’m stuck with the WI meetings, pothole protests and flashers while chugging Gaviscon like wedding champagne. Oh, sorry, I forgot, I’m now doing the children’s film reviews too, aren’t I? First up: some dystopian nightmare featuring a girl in too-tight clothes who saves the world from a man in too-tight clothes so she can shag a boy in too-tight clothes. I want to put bombs under all their desks.

  Daisy brought in doughnuts after lunch and smiled just as sweetly as she passed them around. I declined, politely. It took all my willpower not to spit on the tray and tell her to go outside and fuck a bollard.

  A bit later on there was a flurry of excitement over the body found in Victory Park. The police have cordoned off the area and are looking for a murder weapon. That would be the murder weapon Craig’s taken to work today to cut wallpaper.

  Wednesday, 14 February

  Craig doesn’t do flowers on Valentine’s Day. He says we were ‘above all that shit’. I gave him a card and some of his Valentino Intense aftershave, just for appearances sake. He annoyed me this morning. I was in the kitchen making pancakes and I was just hitting the high note of Tina Turner’s ‘We Don’t Need Another Hero’ and he came in and pinched my ass and asked me where his brown belt was. I was so cross I could have set him alight and ripped his card up.

  All day, AJ was flitting about the office with bunches of roses that someone’s beloved had delivered to the Gazette front desk. Lynette Plunket from the Accounts department, whom I affectionately call Inept from the Cunts department because she is always getting our wages wrong, came in with an enormous armful of pinks ‘from her beloved’. She usually only came downstairs to hand out our payslips but today was an unexpected non-pleasure as she paraded them around so we could all marvel. She probably forced the poor sod to send them at gunpoint.

  When she wasn’t bragging, Inept would sit on the ends of desks, slurping tea (which is right up there with pen-tapping as a killable offence in my eyes) and moaning how she never had enough time to do anything, yet plenty of time to talk about her dull life on her canal boat with her husband and their two schnauzers, Pedro and Susie. Middle age hit that woman’s body like a truck. She’s in her fifties but she looks seventy. She also has the boomiest voice so you can hear her even if she’s on the other side of the office. If I hear that story about her dog’s hip operation and the vet bill once more, I shall visit that barge in the dead of night and drag her feet first into that fucking canal.

  The Community events write-up this week comprised a Beaks and Squeaks weekend at the animal sanctuary, an evening of clairvoyance and An Audience with Some Tosspot Who’d Spent His Entire Life Growing Radishes. I now know more about radishes than I ever wanted to, thanks to that plague sore. Did you know that dreaming about radishes denotes someone close will betray you and that the Ancient Egyptians were paid in radishes to build the great pyramid of Giza? Well now you do.

  I wanted to put the copy about the Parkinson’s Support Group and a new Zumba class on one page and call it ‘Movers and Shakers’ but Jeff intercepted the copy and advised against it. Said Claudia’s dad or granddad or some other family member had Parkinson’s and it ‘wasn’t looking too good’.

  Lightweights.

  Thursday, 15 February

  1.Everyone at work, including Jeff – he brought Daisy a Kinder egg today

  2.People who leave doors slightly ajar so they bang incessantly

  3.Eric the handyman who wouldn’t let me park in the staff car park because there are ‘only six spaces and they’re all reserved for the seniors’

  4.Derek Scudd – international Man of Mystery

  Caught a bit of Up At the Crack this morning. It could be the HD but I think old Donkey Dick Tompkinson’s had a penis enlargement. It practically filled the screen. Carolyn looked even more orange too. They were chatting to the resident doctor about Tinnitus Awareness Week and joining Scottie Callender in the kitchen for National Haggis Day. #UpAtTheCock is all but forgotten. And so am I.

  It was Jeff’s birthday at work – I made him a Bundt cake, his favourite and he gave me a kiss on the cheek. We’re friends again, despite the fact he talks to Daisy now much more than me. Their desks are closer, that’s all it is.

  Me and AJ had lunch in the park – full-fat lattes and cheese toasties. I mentioned that I normally went for skinny lattes and he looked aghast.

  ‘You’re not fat,’ he said. ‘God, why do women always do this to themselves? You’re gorgeous as you are.’

  ‘Really?’ I said and he blushed deep purple. ‘That’s a nice thing to say, AJ.’

  ‘Well, it’s true.’

  ‘Do you want to come to the Odeon with me later to see this shit dystopia I have to review for my column? I have a spare ticket.’

  ‘Are you asking me on a date?’

  ‘No, I’m asking you if you want a free ticket to the Odeon to see this shit dystopia I have to review for my column.’

  ‘Sure,’ he chuckled. ‘I’d love to.’

  So we did. And it was shit. But we did enjoy seeing how many popcorn puffs we could wedge into this woman’s perm in front of us until she noticed.

  Imelda texted me to see if I wanted to come veil shopping with her – nobody else could make it. I text back ‘so sorry, Craig in hospital with appendicitis – nightmare!’ Cue teary-eyed emoji.

  Craig said I’ve used that lie on them before but that time it had been a kidney transplant. They still believed it.

  ‘Oh, God so sorry!’ she texted back. I expected her to ask if he’d still be able to come to the wedding or could she cancel one of the melon boats, but she didn’t.

  Also, I’m officially a serial killer now, according to Google: ‘a person who murders three or more people with the murders taking place over a period of time with an extended cooling off period’. I fit the bill almost perfectly.

  Finally, I’ve accomplished something. Finally, I have a reason to go to school reunions.

  ‘Yah, I work in the City now, turning over multi-multi-multimillion-pound deals on a daily basis, yah. Five kids. My husband is a multi-multi-multi-billionaire oil tycoon. Got the president on speed dial. What do you do?’

  ‘Oh, I’m an Internet billionaire. I have eight husbands, twenty kids and I drive a Ferrari. Two Ferraris actually, simultaneously. How about you?’

  ‘Oh, I live with Calvin Harris on his yacht in the south of France most of the year, and shag my way around the Polo sets. Married twice. Divorced thrice. Twelve kids. Prince Harry? Oh, yah, all the time. Just last week in fact. Did it on the throne and everything. How about you, Rhiannon? What are you doing now?’

  ‘Me?’ Pause for hair flick. ‘I’m a serial killer. Yah, I take human heads to work in my lunchbox. I keep my mother’s skull as a bedpost and use my father’s nipples as light pulls. Oh, yah, that is a human thigh bone I have propping up the trellis in my garden, you’re so sweet to notice!’

  ‘Yes, but are you married yet, Rhiannon? And have you got any children?’

  ‘No. I haven’t.’

  And one by one they all turn away.

  God, I can’t even brag in my own fantasies, what hope is there for me in real life?!

  I’d planned to go fishing again tonight but I can’t really be bothered. There’s an awful lot of planning involved in going out and killing someone. You have to really think things through, plan your routes, wear the right clothes. Think I’m going to rearrange my Sylvanians’ fridge instead and watch a bit of Grand Designs.

  Tink still won’t do Shake a Paw. And she’s forgotten Roll Over now as well. I’m wondering if she’s got chihuahua Alzheimer’s.

  Friday, 16 February

  Got on the scales first thing – still not lost t
he Christmas poundage. Googled ‘West Country Liposuction’. Can’t afford it. Had an eclair.

  Prepared my truly excoriating review for last night’s film – it’s a belter.

  Big news – man in the blue Qashqai has a new car! A silver Honda. He’s not such a knob behind the wheel now, strangely. He even allowed me and Tink to cross the road this morning. He revved his engine a bit, but apart from the pass-ag smile, I think we have made progress. Maybe the human race is worth saving after all?

  Linus attended the police press conference about my freshest cut – Park Man – and all the details were served back to the others in the editorial meeting which, of course, I wasn’t invited to attend. I found out all the main points though as I was pretending to look for news cuttings in the files when he relayed it back to Jeff.

  The ‘victim’s’ name was Gavin ‘Chalky’ White, a 46-year-old father of four and long-distance lorry driver from Chapeltown, Leeds. Loving, loved, missed dreadfully. Another apparent paragon of virtue. Good Old Chalk. Chalky Boy. Everybody’s mate. Top bloke. No one with a bad word to say about him. Linus left after the meeting to catch a train to Leeds – he was attempting to interview the hopelessly devoted wife. Isn’t it funny how people have to die before anyone lets them know what they mean to them? Well, not funny. Just stupid. I mean, they can’t hear you now, can they?

  Oh, and they’ve ruled out terrorism, again. How do they do that, I wonder. I mean, I could be a terrorist for all they know, couldn’t I? I’m not affiliated to anyone but I could be a lone wolf, quite easily. They could do with me, ISIS. I’m pretty gifted at this.