Sweetpea

by C. J. Skuse

  I laughed. ‘You’re in fairyland, boy. I can’t just bugger off on a whim. I have priorities. Can’t you just be satisfied with fucking me?’

  ‘Well, yeah, of course, but what happens when I leave?’

  I drew a blank. ‘The fucking has to stop, I suppose.’

  ‘But won’t you miss me?’

  Thankfully, I didn’t have to answer because at that second both of us stopped and looked into each other’s eyes. We’d heard it at the same time – the snap of a twig, somewhere in the forest around us.

  ‘Come on,’ I said and we grabbed our clothes out of the knot in the tree and started getting dressed, hurrying back to the car. We were both unnerved by it, or them, whatever thing had made the twig snap, and, due to the echo, we couldn’t be sure of the direction it had come.

  On the way back, AJ pulled a leaf out of the back of my hair. He said, ‘Do you think someone was watching us?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I hope so.’

  Wednesday, 5 June

  1.Newsreaders who stutter – put your goddamn teeth in and start again

  2.Old people in doctors’ waiting rooms – I don’t know what that woman with the leg thing was in for but, my God, did she take an age. And she was about ninety. What’s the point?

  3.Children in doctors’ waiting rooms – OK, you have a cough, I get that, stay home, eat Calpol and apply for a new set of lungs. Stop snotting over the Hello! magazines so I can’t read them

  Police in Birmingham haven’t got anyone for the Dean Bishopston murder. Last I heard they were interviewing two prostitutes and a witness has come forward to say they saw ‘a blonde woman in the area – black hoody, black boots, running away from the scene’. The wife has made a tearful public appeal. She looked awful. Obligatory cardigan, Primark hair scrunchie, unnamed relative clutching her tissue-less hand. Way too washed out a complexion for black hair and eyebrows.

  I’m going to dye my hair, I’ve decided. Back to my roots, I think, but I’m not going back to the Cumberbitch. I’m going to do it myself at home. As the saying goes, blondes might have more fun but brunettes know how to hide the bodies better.

  My doctor’s appointment was, well, enlightening. He said I’d need something called a medical abortion. No tubes or vaginal rinses – it was ‘nice and early’ so I’d just take two sets of pills. For some reason, I started to panic.

  ‘What happens then?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, after the two visits, the pregnancy will pass.’

  I got all short of breath, like I was panicking. ‘Pass?’

  ‘You won’t be pregnant any more.’

  ‘And that’ll be it? So I’ll have, like, a period and then no more baby?’

  ‘Indeed,’ said the doctor, checking his computer. ‘One of the tablets will cause the detachment of the pregnancy from the womb lining and the second tablet will expel it, as it would during menstruation.’

  I realised by this point that I was panicking. ‘It’s very tiny right now, isn’t it? So it’s not like an actual baby?’

  ‘It’s about the size of a poppy seed.’

  Oh, why did he have to say that? Why did he have to use those words?

  ‘Sorry, could I have a glass of water, please?’ I asked. He went over to his sink and tore through a plastic tube of paper cups, filled one with water. He handed it to me. My hand was shaking.

  ‘Perhaps you need some more time to process this, Rhiannon. Think about if it’s really something you want.’

  ‘No, no, I don’t want it, I don’t want it,’ I said, sipping. ‘This wasn’t planned. Well, I didn’t plan it.’

  ‘But Craig did plan it?’

  ‘Yeah, he wanted it. I didn’t.’

  He swallowed and looked down at his notes. ‘Rhiannon, there are people you can talk to about this, professionals who can guide you through the procedures. If this child is a product of forced sexual contact…’

  ‘You mean rape?’

  He nodded once, not breaking eye contact.

  ‘No, no, it’s not like that. I just wasn’t all that fussed about having a baby, that was all. Will it hurt, when I take the pills?’

  ‘You might experience some cramping but you can take painkillers.’

  ‘Right,’ I said, draining the cup but my mouth was still giving it the full Sahara. ‘Poppy seed. Yeah. OK. Sorry, could I have another drink, please?’

  ‘Do you want me to go ahead and book your appointment?’ he asked, filling the cup again before getting his calendar up on his computer screen.

  ‘No,’ I said. I hadn’t planned to say no. I just couldn’t bring myself to say yes.

  ‘No?’ he said.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t want the abortion. I don’t know what I want really but I know I really don’t want to do that. No, no, no.’

  ‘All right, it’s OK, take it easy.’

  And I immediately started to calm down. My butterflies began to fly away and I could finally taste the bleachy water I’d been glugging and the relief that washed over me was tremendous. ‘I’m sorry for wasting your time.’

  It was the cold way he’d said it – Detachment will occur. It will be expelled. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t see myself with a kid either but I definitely couldn’t see myself killing one, however amorphous or poppy-seed-sized it was right now.

  My poppy seed.

  Jesus, what was wrong with me?! I’d bottled out of killing Wesley Parsons and now I’d bottled out of this. It was when he’d said ‘poppy seed’. I just knew. I was awash with it. I walked out of there into the sunlight. Shock. Fear. Feelings; so many feeeeeelings! A ‘mass of cells’, he’d said. No, it wasn’t just a mass of cells. It was my mass of cells. My poppy seed.

  My family.

  I cried like a little bitch, the whole way down the street. I had no tissues so I had to put up with snot trails up and down my sleeve until I got to my car and found my Kleenex.

  I am the dumbest creature to have ever walked the earth. I’m like a T-Rex. Great bite on it but what the fuck is going on with the stupid tiny hands? How could I have thought the Pill was infallible? How could I think it would be so easy to get rid of a human growing inside me? I had taken sundry lives with a cold detachment but I could no more expel this baby than I could cut off my own head. He or she has bested me. He or she has moved in and clung on and said, ‘I’m here now, Mum, and there’s nothing you can do about it.’

  Mummy – why did you cut off that man’s penis?

  Mummy – why do you take that big knife when you and Tink go walkies??

  Mummy – what’s that lady’s head doing in our freezer?

  Oh, God, how can this be happening??? How can someone like me be responsible for a baby? What if I hate it? What if I find myself leaving the window cord dangling too low, or keeping all the plug sockets unprotected or feeding it whole grapes in Pizza Hut just to see it choking? I’ll be like Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest. All ‘Scrub, Christina, scrub!!’ and ‘NO WIRE HANGERS!!!!’ Or worse, my kid will turn out to be a maniac and I’ll turn into my mum and just check out completely.

  For Christ’s sake, what am I saying? It’s not even a child yet – it’s just a full stop stuck to my womb lining.

  No, I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt Sam or Imelda’s twins or Lucille’s two youngest, whose names I can never remember.

  I don’t know what this feeling is but if it’s love, I can see why I’ve kept it at bay for so long. It hurts like a motherfucking dog.

  Thursday, 6 June

  We’re in a heatwave, the weather-woman-who-can’t-pronounce-isobars says. The Spanish Plume has moved from its Iberian plateau leading to sudden high temperatures. All the fans are on in the office and people have taken to sweating on cue, coming back from lunch with ice creams and having no pride in their own personal appearance whatsoever. Vests and flip-flops are now required attire. Atrocities.

  I fell asleep at my desk this morning. First time ever. And my God have I
been tempted to before. AJ nudged me, thankfully, before anyone else saw. He also pointed towards the puddle of dribble I’d left on my mouse mat.

  I made a conscious decision to try to be happy today, for the sake of the Poppy Seed. I could have done a Kill List but I chose not to. I mean, there was the woman who stepped on my foot at the bus stop but she didn’t realise so I let her off. Then there was Creepy Ed Sheeran, hanging around the bench opposite the HSBC, where I was getting my cash out. He was probably trying to shag it, like I’d seen him doing before, but each to their own, I thought. If he gets his kicks from benches and jumping out of bushes at lone women shopping in Lidl, well, Vive la France.

  Me and Craig have a joint week off together next week, before he follows the England team around Holland for the championships and I go on the Weekend That Must Not Be Named. That’s why I had to get cash out. And why I walked into town at lunch and raided Superdrug’s mini toiletries aisle. I’m excited. I’m happy.

  It’s all very odd.

  Even work was enjoyable (when I was conscious enough to enjoy it). Claudia is away – an all-girls holiday in Croatia with two friends – so me and AJ went back to hers at lunch and he cooked me scrambled eggs and asked if we could try out this position he’d seen in a porn film. It basically involved me doing a headstand and him coming at me and in me from above. I toppled over countless times and my neck had a crick in it all afternoon.

  I didn’t tell him about the Poppy Seed, though I did throw up in his bathroom. I blamed it on his scrambled eggs.

  Craig’s desperate to tell everyone about the Poppy Seed but I’ve said we mustn’t until twelve weeks when it’s more likely to go full term. Even I have downloaded that bloody pregnancy app now. Even I am speaking to my own stomach and giving it little nudges and taps and asking if I’m doing the right thing buying McAfee virus scan instead of Norton. I’ve also not felt any of my usual urges lately. I haven’t been in the chat rooms and I haven’t walked Tink at night either – Craig has been doing it, without me even asking. Poppy Seed will save the world at this rate.

  Lana was puffy-eyed and quiet all day and so obviously avoiding walking past my desk. I heard Craig talking to her on his phone on the balcony after dinner – the dyeing part of my hair didn’t take as long as I’d thought. I didn’t catch the whole conversation – just a few ‘I’m so sorry’s and ‘We both knew it was coming’ and ‘I have to do what’s best for my family’.

  I stood in the doorway as he ended the call.

  ‘What do you think?’ I said, swishing my brown hair like Lana does.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ he said. ‘You look… amazing. What did you do that for?’

  I shrugged. ‘Just fancied a change.’ His face was somewhere else. If I didn’t know better, I’d have said he looked worried. It was the same face he made when his mum rang up that time and said she was going to jump off the roof of Morrison’s ’cos she couldn’t find Jim and the top wouldn’t come off the Branston. ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘Yeah, I do, I do like it. Come here.’ He pulled me into a hug and smelled the top of my head, then stood me away from him at arm’s length to look at me.

  ‘You’re shaking,’ I said.

  ‘It’s getting chilly out here, shall we go in?’

  ‘You’re sweating too. Who was on the phone?’

  ‘Work,’ he said. ‘That guest bathroom I put in that woman’s house has sprung a leak. I said I’d go over and fix it. Shouldn’t take long.’

  Hmmm, I thought. Maybe a booty call. Maybe a cry for help. I couldn’t be sure and my inner jury was on a tea break.

  ‘Are you worried about it?’

  ‘What? Well I don’t want to get sued if they flood, do I?’ He was all breathless. His top lip was sweating.

  ‘You won’t get sued. You’ll sort it out, you always do.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll go now.’ He grabbed his keys from the coffee table.

  ‘Craig?’ I said, his hand on the front door. He turned to me. ‘It’s only a tap.’

  He nodded. ‘Yeah, I know. See you in a bit.’ He smiled, jogged back towards me and kissed my forehead. ‘Love you. Both of you.’

  I smiled. But a little bird was going round and round and round my head saying, Why fuck Lana, why fuck Lana, if you love me so much then why fuck Lana?

  Friday, 14 June

  Tonight I said goodbye to Craig for two weeks. I’ve been looking forward to having the flat to myself for a long time, but after spending the last week together, I think I’m going to miss him. I’m fairly certain that it’s over with Lana. It’s just a guess but he’s been different lately. More attentive, fewer disappearing acts. So I’ve decided to bury it. Scrub the whole thing from my mind. Him and Lana didn’t happen. He only belongs to me. End of. Brand-new baby, brand-new us.

  We’ve done proper coupley things this week; things we haven’t done for ages, and I know I haven’t updated you once, Dear Diary, but I guess I only need you when I’m sad. When Happy comes along, I’ve got to hold on to it with both hands.

  On Monday, we met Jim and Elaine and drove out to a country pub they both like, then trotted round a National Trust castle that smelled of damp and had about one stick of furniture and some sort of douche canoe that may have once been worn by Mary of Teck. History’s never really interested me, beyond the Egyptians and their whole pull-the-brains-out-through-the-nostrils-thing but Craig held my hand throughout our tour. Tink had a run around the gardens with Jim as she wasn’t allowed inside the house. Also, I saw an old man fall over and I rushed – yes rushed – to help him up. I didn’t even laugh.

  Had one text from Daisy – she said Linus is back with an eyepatch, Mike Heath has adopted a kitten, Claudia’s back with a tan, AJ is pining for me and getting all the coffee orders wrong and Lana Rowntree from Sales has been in hospital but ‘nobody knows why’. I kind of hope it’s terminal.

  On Tuesday, me and Craig had an outdoor lunch at Cote de Sirène on the harbour side. Went for a boat trip afterwards and took Tink for a run on the beach. The man in the boat gave her a tiny dog life jacket and I started crying – I just thought it was cute. We walked hand in hand again, talking about how things are going to change once Poppy Seed arrives; how he’s going to manage work, what names he likes – Jackson for a boy, Jodie for a girl. Jesus, we’re starting to look like a building society commercial.

  On Wednesday, we drove to the retail park and chose paint for the spare room – B&Q had a sale on and Nigel’s already reserved our spare bed for his teenage step-son. Or stepdaughter is it? Can’t remember now – someone his ex-wife wants rid of anyway. We even went to IKEA to look at changing tables but Craig came away thinking he would build one from ‘proper wood’ (as opposed to the imaginary wood you get in IKEA).

  On Thursday, we drove over to Wales. I’d told Craig about Honey Cottage and the garden ‘big enough for a swing set’ and the stables and the nearby primary school and needle after needle had finally pricked the surface of his interest. He didn’t say yes but he didn’t say no either. So we went and had a look at it, ‘out of curiosity’s sake’. I think he was a bit surprised to see the estate agent, Bronwen, on the doorstep when we arrived but once he’d got past that, we went in and had a look round. I started crying the moment I stepped over the threshold.

  ‘Oh, are you OK? Did you catch your head on the beam?’ came her light Welsh burr.

  ‘No, no.’ I smiled. ‘I’m just happy to be here,’ I said, wiping my cheek as Craig inspected the lintel over the doorway leading into the utility. ‘I grew up here.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ She smiled, adjusting her glasses. ‘How wonderful!’

  The paint was peeling badly on all the doors.

  ‘Yeah, my grandparents lived here. It’s got the same smell.’

  ‘It’s quiet round here, innit?’ Craig called out.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘There’s a bit of noise from the stables along the lane sometimes but that’s about it.’

  We moved into the loung
e. The inglenook hearth was exactly as I remembered it, except it was cold and empty and there were no logs piled up.

  Craig ducked under the low beam. ‘Does that river ever flood?’

  ‘No,’ said Bronwen. ‘Well, there’s nothing on the sheet about flooding.’

  ‘Never flooded in my day,’ I said, stroking the windowsill where I used to sit and watch the horses trot down the lane. The wood was cracked in one corner.

  ‘When’s your baby due?’ she asked, her face pinballing from me to Craig.

  ‘Not until next February,’ I said.

  Craig looked agog. ‘We’re not supposed to be telling anyone yet, it’s too early.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I’m excited, aren’t I?’ That seemed to shut him up and he walked to me and enveloped me in a bear hug.

  ‘That’s all right then, I suppose.’ He smiled, wandering off to check beams and knock on walls.

  ‘It’s a proper family home, as you’ll already know,’ said Bronwen. ‘The nearest primary school is in walking distance, just down the lane. You said you’re a writer too?’

  ‘From time to time,’ I said.

  ‘There’s a bedroom upstairs that has been recently converted into a study. Good electrical points. They’ve finally got superfast broadband round here as well so that’ll be a boon. The previous occupant was a writer as well and it’s about the only room that doesn’t need too much work on it.’

  ‘That’s great,’ I said. ‘Yes, I can see myself writing here. I can imagine having nice Christmases here.’

  ‘Oh, yes, you could have gorgeous Christmases here. Roaring log fire, crisp walks in the countryside.’

  ‘Bliss,’ I said.

  For a second, I saw Granddad’s coffin in front of the fireplace. End to end. Hands crossed. Black suit. Make-up smudge on the lapel. Stitched-up eyes. But when I blinked, the coffin had gone. It was just the cold empty fireplace again.