Sweetpea

by C. J. Skuse

  ‘Lush, isn’t he?’ Anni smiled. ‘You have to admit.’

  ‘Yeah, he is cute.’ Cue the worried smile.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Just stuff,’ I said. ‘My piss pot of a life, you know, the usual.’

  ‘Anything I can help with?’

  ‘No.’ I stroked Sam’s little fist. ‘You’ve done your bit, haven’t you? You’ve reached the summit of Peak Human. Achieved the ultimate – kids. You’ve earned the right never to be asked what you want to achieve in your life ever again. And what have I ever done? Fuck all.’

  ‘Don’t say that, you’ve achieved loads. You met Ellen DeGeneres, you’ve been on Jeremy Kyle, you held will.i.am’s Olympic torch.’

  ‘Wow,’ I scoffed. ‘Be still my bubbling gusset.’

  ‘How’s Craig?’

  ‘Um, trying to impregnate me with one of these things actually.’

  ‘Oh, my God, that’s awesome, Rhee!’ she said through crumbs. She was on her fourth cookie. ‘You not happy about it?’

  ‘Well, I’m afraid he’ll leave me so I’m just kinda going along with it.’

  ‘Rhiannon, you shouldn’t force yourself to want a baby.’

  I looked down at Sam again. ‘I just don’t think we’re strong enough. I’ve…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘. . . found some pictures on his phone.’

  ‘Pictures of what?’ said Anni, breathless with anticipation, fifth cookie in.

  ‘Men. Naked. Naked men.’

  ‘Craig? Oh… my… God.’

  ‘At first I thought they were a joke. You know, some of the blokes at work having him on. But I’ve looked a couple of times now and there’s different pictures on there. Different angles. Different men. Different… spillages.’

  ‘Oh, God, Rhee. He’s on Grindr or something.’

  ‘What’s Grindr?’

  ‘You don’t know what Grindr is?’ Anni laughed.

  ‘No,’ I lied, trying to make my eyes look as baby deer-like as they could get.

  ‘It’s a gay social network app thing.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said.

  ‘Maybe he’s bisexual? Maybe it’s just a bit of harmless titillation with no strings attached. Just picture swapping.’

  Sam sighed in my arms.

  ‘I think he’s seeing someone though… the phone will go and there’s no answer. Or he’ll pop out somewhere in the evening using some crap excuse. And then there’s what I heard when I came home one lunchtime…’

  The sixth cookie hovered over Anni’s lips.

  ‘Sex noises, coming from our bedroom.’ She gasped. ‘I only peered through the crack in the door for a second but he was definitely… shagging someone.’

  Her face was an absolute picture. ‘What…up the…?’

  ‘Yeah. I didn’t see who it was, but well, put two and two together and what do you get?’

  ‘A cheating bastard.’

  ‘Please don’t tell anyone, will you?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Imelda would have a field day with this. I just wish he’d be honest with me, you know? Four years we’ve been together. I’m so confused. Does he want me and a baby or does he want anal sex with random men off the Internet?’

  ‘Sounds like he wants both. Has he ever asked you for a backstage pass?’

  I nodded. ‘All the time.’

  ‘Rhee, you need to talk to him. He’s obviously using this baby thing as some kind of palliative remedy for what is quite a serious cancer in your relationship.’

  I eyebrowsed her. ‘Been watching a lot of daytime TV while you’ve been in here, have you?’

  ‘You know what I mean. You can’t have a baby to mend a relationship. You have to be rock solid or it won’t work. I think you should have it out with him. He doesn’t treat you with the respect you deserve.’

  And with that, Sam farted in my hand. ‘No, no man ever does,’ I said and handed him over to her. I managed a little cry, we hugged, and then I left with my empty cookie box. She’d eaten all twelve.

  Got home to Craig making guilt dinner again. Tonight – pork ragu with parmesan and spaghetti.

  ‘I don’t think I’m gonna manage much of this,’ he said. ‘I had three bacon baps for lunch.’ He looked as proud as Mo Farah on a podium.

  ‘Where was that?’

  ‘That roadside burger van in the centre. We’re doing up that old bakery in the precinct, turning it into a hairdresser’s.’

  ‘Another hairdresser’s?’

  ‘Yep.’ He belched in my face. I caught it and rubbed it in his hair. ‘Oh, I need to pop round Nigel’s a bit later. He’s got some offcuts he wanted me taking to the tip.’

  ‘Why do you have to do it?’

  ‘I offered.’ He wouldn’t look at me, just kept tucking into the pasta he said he couldn’t manage. ‘I won’t be long though.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. I quite hate him today.

  Sunday, 31 March

  1.Kenny Spillane – the Person of Interest arrested in connection with Park Man. Bloody police have released him back to his Argos doorway. He couldn’t possibly be out on the night in question, could he? He had to be back in his bail hostel, signed in and shooting up. Bastard

  2.Craig

  3.The PICSOs – seriously, how many Facebook updates do we need of the same baby’s expression, the same wedding invite screenshot and the same beach holiday in Lanzarote?

  Sunday pork loin down on the coast at Jim and Elaine’s. Same old, same old. A walk along the sand, a game of Dodge the Mobility Scooter on the way back, eat, chat, tea, sleep, goodbye. I took Elaine a card and a pot of hyacinths for Mothering Sunday and she cried, then showed me her latest purchase from QVC – a brand-new state-of-the-art vacuum cleaner with about fifty different attachments.

  Seriously – she talked me through every single one.

  Later on, Craig and I attempted sex on their bed when they were both in the garden, until Jim called upstairs to ask us to help him get the ladder out of the garage. It was fun while it lasted though and Craig spunked on their duvet and full-on panicked while I located the antibax. We laughed a lot. I still hate him though.

  Two of my herbs are dead on the balcony but the water company’s roadworks outside have stopped so every cloud, I suppose. Still no Wesley Parsons on Facebook. Still no Derek Scudd anywhere. I think they’ve both emigrated.

  There was a message on the answerphone from Seren when we got back:

  Rhiannon. I was just wondering if there had been any more offers on the house lately. You gave the new estate agent my number, didn’t you? Or are they calling you first? Also I’ve sent you the link to a good house clearance firm in your area. Let me know what’s happening, please – Seren.

  I texted her Hi, No, Yes, Yes, and Thanks. Happy Mother’s Day. Hope your kids are spoiling you rotten. Rhee xx

  She texted back ages later:

  It’s not Mother’s Day in the USA.

  Twat.

  Talking of Mother’s Day, on Facebook an annoying self-aggrandising meme has cropped up. The PICSOs are all over it, predictably.

  Imelda’s status update was as follows:

  Thank you, Jackie, for nominating me as a Special Mummy you know. I was nominated to post a pic that makes me happy and proud to be a mum, so here’s Elijah, Hope and Molly on the swings at Thorpe Park last year. If I’ve tagged you, I think you’re a brilliant mum too so copy text and paste onto your wall and tag other lovely mums you know. How blessed we are!

  And what a blight on society us singletons with empty wombs and tight vadges are. I’m so blessed!

  I’ve never seen such a self-righteous bunch of ass-wipers in all my life. It’s not my fault I want to achieve something with my life, rather than knock out Little Me’s faster than pinballs to do it instead.

  Craig says I get so spiky about it because I’m not a mum myself yet. He says it’s my hormones and that I’ll calm down once I’m pregnant. I watched him while he was scoffing his p
ie and chips tonight. I watched every bite. Every slurp of gravy. Every lick of his lips. His sex selfie with Lana is still on my phone. I looked at it under the table, then I looked at him. I could kill him. I could do it. But I won’t. It’s too easy and he doesn’t deserve easy.

  Wednesday, 3 April

  1.Overachievers – you know the sort. That guy who does all the marathons. That woman who swam the Channel. All those people who do Iron Mans and go in for any sort of fitness competition

  2.Brainy children – you should not be composing symphonies or know how to spell antidisestablishmentarianism when you’re five years fucking old

  3.Mrs Whittaker – our bloody big saucepan has vanished and I wanted to make a stew

  Typed up my Pixar film review in time for the Easter holidays. I loved it about as much as I loved my last smear test.

  ‘That’s wonderfully droll, sweetpea.’ Claudia smiled when I caught her reading it on the printer tray.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, flicking Vs at her departing back. I know, I’m despicable, me.

  Daisy Chan is still convinced there’s a serial killer on the loose in our town and she’s just poised for the next one. They’re letting her go with her theory on this one, owing to the fact that no one can prove or disprove it. She’s even chosen a nickname for ‘him’. I saw the page she had started on her computer screen when she was away from her desk. There was also a printed out list of names on top of her keyboard

  The Night Stalker

  Random Stabber

  Joe the Stabber

  Jack the Stabber

  Stabby Stabberson

  The Stabman

  The Knifeman

  The Predator

  West Country Ripper

  West Country Knifeman (Possibly With Scissors Too)

  The Scissorman

  Rip van Winkle

  Night Attacker

  The Devil

  The Monster

  The Beast

  The Vanisher

  The Ghost

  The Phantom

  The Reaper

  I wonder which one she’ll go with if ‘he’ does decide to strike again. I don’t personally like any of them. I wonder briefly about sending a letter to them, dubbing myself something, like the Zodiac killer did. Son of Samantha, perhaps? Or Jill the Ripper? That’s quite good actually.

  Maybe I’ll just settle on Sweetpea. That seems to have stuck.

  Friday, 5 April

  1.Craig – for about a billion different tiny reasons, not least including…

  a.the bone-shaking fart first thing in the morning,

  b.the unswilled plates in the dishwasher,

  c.the pubes in his sponge that I have to look at when showering,

  d.his holey red Porsche towel hanging up in the bathroom, which I also have to look at when showering,

  e.all the messy gaming cables and accessories behind the TV,

  f.the phone-checking midway through reverse cowgirl sex,

  g.his Tinder app that he doesn’t think I know about,

  h.the pocket billiards INSIDE THE POCKET while cooking,

  i.the not-listening thing,

  j.the sport-watching thing,

  k.the eating-anything-he-wants-without-weight-changing-AT-ALL thing,

  l.the smell of his roll-ups,

  m.his friends,

  n.his parents,

  o.his penis,

  p.the way he eats chocolate digestives – around the edge first, then the biscuit, chocolate last… FREAK,

  q.his stupid sticky-up bit of hair at the front of his head,

  r.the stupid sticky-out bit at the back of his head that won’t grow,

  s.and, last but not least, his double-jointed thumbs. They just remind me of all those little pricks in school who had double-jointed limbs and who showed them off regularly when I had nothing at all to offer in return. Not even tongue-rolling.

  Daisy’s byline made today’s front page:

  QUARRY MURDER – IS THERE A SERIAL KILLER ON THE LOOSE?

  Exclusive report by Daisy Chan

  Police in the West Country are hunting a possible serial killer after a woman’s body found in Chipchase Quarry last month is believed to be linked to two other murders in the town since Christmas.

  Avon and Somerset police have confirmed they are investigating what they believe is the third murder by the same individual, committed during the past three months.

  In January, the Gazette exclusively reported on the grisly canal death of 32-year-old father of two Daniel Wells, and again in February when 46-year-old Yorkshire lorry driver Gavin White was brutally stabbed in Victory Park. And just a month ago, the body of 28-year-old mother of three Julia Kidner was discovered at the bottom of the quarry in the Blackmoor Hills.

  Detective Superintendent David Fry believes the three murders could be linked.

  ‘We’re not ruling anything out at this stage,’ he told the Gazette. ‘We have discovered evidence at three of the crime scenes which would seem to indicate an MO and a boot print belonging to the same individual so we are following all the necessary leads.

  ‘This is a comparatively small town and we are working with police forces in the surrounding areas to ensure all developments are shared and monitored.’

  Oh is that right, Detective Superintendent? I shall look forward to the knock on my door any day now then.

  *

  Well, who’d have thunk it? You wait ages for a tip-off about a man you want to kill and then TWO come along on the same day!

  OK, so I had an email first thing from Mary Tolmarsh, the mother of one of the two girls who were molested by Derek Scudd. She said a friend of hers told her Derek Scudd ‘had been skulking around the library in recent weeks’. He’s also tried to get himself a membership of the bowls club but they weren’t having any of it. So the library was a good lead.

  And I was Facebook-searching Wesley Parsonses again at lunchtime, and, bingo, I finally found the right one.

  In Birmingham, of all places. The city where yours truly is visiting for a Beyoncé concert very soon indeed.

  His hair’s no longer brown–it’s blond now and slightly longer and he’s stacked on some muscle, but it’s definitely him all right. It was the same face I’d stared at for three hours in that courtroom when he wept about murdering my best friend while jacked up on pills. So I now have almost two months to get him onside before mine and Craig’s little Birmingham sojourn. I sent him a Friend Request.

  After lunch, two cops came into the office to talk to Ron and Claudia about yet another rape by two men driving a definitely BLUE van, on the same stretch of country road. This latest woman had broken down and was waiting for Green Flag to come out and rescue her – IN THE SAME LAY-BY I HAD WAITED JUST THE OTHER NIGHT. I’d missed them by mere days. Same lay-by, same black guy-white guy double act, same time of day – between 11 p.m. and midnight. This time they rammed her car off the road altogether and jumped her. I could have been ready for that! I’d have known exactly what to do!

  I was actually allowed in on this latest meeting, but only because Ron wanted to give us all a lecture on night-time safety as lowly defenceless women on our own. Prick.

  ‘So, ladies,’ said Ron earnestly, looking directly at me, then Daisy, then Joy. ‘Please be careful when you’re out and about at night. Make sure someone is with you at all times. Don’t take any risks. Make sure your cars are in good working order. Get your husbands to check everything, tyres, fan belts…’

  ‘Oh, it’s so horrible,’ said Carol, wringing her hands. ‘I grew up in the countryside around where that last one was attacked.’

  ‘We should start a car pool,’ suggested Daisy. ‘Anyone female who works here, just until they’re caught.’

  ‘I’d give them what for if they tried anything with me, have no fear,’ said Joy.

  I know rapists aren’t exactly choosy but I’m fairly sure even the most desperate pervert would have to think twice about an elephant-legged troll with
a face on the wrong side of her head.

  ‘Don’t take any chances, ladies,’ said Ron. ‘From what the police tell us, these guys are very nasty pasties.’

  Nasty pasties? Was that really the best he could up with to describe two men who went out driving at night with the express purpose of pinning a woman down and violently attacking her? Twat.

  My heart was thumping so hard when he was telling us, I was expecting someone to comment on it. Like it would give me away. Like all of a sudden I would get the uncontrollable urge to stand up in the middle of the glass boardroom table and yell, DON’T WORRY EVERYONE, I’M GOING TO CATCH THESE BASTARDS. JUST GIVE ME TIME. I HAVE A PLAN. LET ME AT ’EM.

  See, I’m all Caps Lock now. I need to calm down. I need to breathe. I need to stop thinking like Scrappy Doo. It will soothe me no end if I can locate Scudd or those Blue Van Vagina Vandals. Scudd and Parsons are the golden pineapples but I’d happily make do with a few rotten coconuts if they fell in the meantime.

  I need something to happen soon. My boredom is off the charts. The Julia effect has lifted and now I’m hungry for more.

  After the meeting, Claudia Gulper sidled up to me. ‘Rhiannon, could I have a quick word please? In here.’

  She filtered us off into Conference Room B with the long glass table and pitcher of water in the middle which had a film of dust on the surface.

  She shut the door and didn’t mince her words. ‘Rhiannon, is there anything going on with you and my nephew?’

  ‘Um… he’s my friend but, no, nothing more than that. Why?’

  She sighed and gripped the back of the head chair. ‘He’s very smitten with you. He talks about you at home all the time.’

  I smiled. ‘That’s nice.’

  ‘I don’t want him to get false hope,’ she said. ‘He’s very young, very impressionable and it’s my job to look after him while he’s staying with me. I don’t want him… messing up his gap year. Getting distracted.’

  ‘I haven’t done anything to lead him on if that’s what you’re suggesting, Claudia.’

  ‘No, I’m not saying you have. I just… he’s mooning about at home all the time. He’s becoming lazy here and I think… I’d rather you and he remain just colleagues.’