Sweetpea

by C. J. Skuse

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  Now this seems like a touching scene – a recently bereaved mother passing on her congratulations to a recently announced mum-to-be. But it’s not. Because Pidge has now taken it upon herself to follow me around like a frigging shadow, making sure I’m never on my own lest I fall over, run into any perverts or, God forbid, the camp mascot Toppy the Toucan, who I’ve repeatedly announced I’m going to stab in the face if he does his ‘Toptastic Tango’ near me again.

  *

  The bouncy castle’s been cordoned off until further notice – someone’s puked on it. Bev says it wasn’t her but I could smell it on her breath at lunch when she was reaching for a menu.

  And it’s been decided that I don’t have to wear my prostitute outfit this evening. Apparently it’s ‘not right for an expectant mummy’ so I’m wearing my red summer vest, white pedal pushers and black wedges instead. Everybody else looks like extras from Chicago and I look like I’m going to a barbecue at my gran’s house. I feel even more excluded than ever. Pidge has gone to the loo so I’m going for a walk along the seafront while the bitch is occupied.

  *

  There was a fortune-teller on the seafront, past all the arcades and ice-cream parlours, in a little shopfront on her own. The shop was festooned with the usual crap – purple gypsy-chic shawls, incense sticks and scarves with marijuana leaves on them. The place wreaked of joss sticks, BO and, let’s face it, desperation. A middle-aged red-haired woman with chronic emphysema, smoker’s mouth creases and the most alarmingly drawn-on eyebrows sat in the back of the shop at a small round table. In the middle was the obligatory crystal ball on a claw-footed stand.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ she said, clearly putting on a Grand High Witch accent as she put out her fag on a foil ashtray. ‘I’m Madame Gwendoline. How are you today?’

  ‘I’m all right, thanks,’ I replied. ‘How much is it?’

  ‘For Tarot reading? Or do you wish to have your aura read or your palm?’ The accent was slipping – now she sounded like Manuel from Fawlty Towers.

  ‘Uh, just Tarot, please.’

  ‘Fifteen pounds.’ She held out her hand. ‘Cross my palm with ssssilver.’

  ‘Yeah yeah.’

  I gave her my last £20 and she presented me with my fiver change and gestured for me to sit down opposite as she collected up the stack of large, dog-eared cards and handed them to me. ‘You must shuffle these.’

  ‘Why do I have to do it?’

  ‘Because it’s your life we’re dealing with.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ I shuffled them the way my dad always used to when we played rummy, cutting them in the middle, then flicking up the edges so the two stacks sliced into each another. She watched me throughout.

  ‘I want you to select five cards and hand them to me but don’t look at them.’

  I did as she said and she fanned out the five cards in a rainbow. I made a mental note not to give away any tells at all, then accidentally pulled my top free of my stomach. She smiled at me and turned over the first.

  ‘Ah, yes, this card comes up a lot.’

  ‘A hanged man,’ I said. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means you are at a crossroads. You don’t know which way to turn. Lots of people who come to visssssssit me are at a crossroads; in their work or their relationships. You are bored at work, I thiiiiiiink.’

  ‘Well, yeah. But most people are, aren’t they?’

  ‘You are looking for change, actively seeking out excitement.’

  ‘Yeah, but most people are,’ I repeated.

  ‘Maybe you are looking for excitement in the wrong places.’ Her head tilted slowly up at me and she stared into my eyes for the longest time. ‘This card is telling me it’s at home as well. You are looking for something different there. You are trying to mooooove on. Making plans, yes?’

  ‘Okaaaay,’ I said. A black cat sauntered in and started meowing at my feet. I reached down and it licked my fingers with its rough little tongue. I missed Tink.

  ‘Love is tricky for you. You are in a long-term relationship, yesssss?’

  ‘Yesssss.’

  ‘And there is another?’

  She meant AJ. ‘Um, well, there was.’

  ‘No, not a lover. Another person in this relationship. Part of you.’

  ‘Oh.’ Shit, I thought. How could she possibly know about that? My tummy’s not that big yet.

  She looked at my stomach. ‘A child, yes?’

  Now she had my full attention. ‘Yes.’

  ‘He is happy about this now. But he will come to be unhappy.’

  ‘Probably ’cos it’s not his kid,’ I blurted. Fuck, dead giveaway. God, she was good.

  She turned over the next card. It was a man with curly hair blowing a horn.

  ‘Judgement,’ she announced. ‘You are sometimes quick to judge people. Some want to like you, even love you, but you won’t let them. It’s impossible for you. This could be a chance for an awakening. Allow people in. Open yourself up more.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ I said. If opening myself up to the PICSOs meant getting my tits out or licking squirty cream off some hairy 23-stone welder called Keith then I’ll remain stiff and uptight, thanks.

  She stared at me again before turning over card three.

  ‘Ahh… The Devil,’ she announced.

  ‘Fuck!’

  ‘Now don’t be frightened of this one. This might look scary but actually the Devil card can promote positivity. This card tells me you are somehow in bondage but you are not as rrrrrestrained as you believe.’

  ‘Okaaaaay.’ The black cat jumped up onto the table and Gwen shooed it away.

  ‘You are the mistress of your own freedom. You don’t have to be kept down as you are being kept down rrrright now.’

  ‘So this could relate to the job? Or the relationship?’

  ‘It cooooould, yeeeeees,’ she said. ‘If you despise your working environment, or your partner, this card is telling you that you do not have to stay for financial security. There is another way.’

  ‘Mum and Dad’s house,’ I said, speaking again before my brain silenced me.

  She frowned, looking down at the three cards together. ‘There is something going on here, I can’t see what it is, but something is toxic. Something troubling in this card. It’s an unhealthiness. Some vice that is not doing you the good you think it’s doing. Sugar? Drugs? Drink?’

  ‘I used to like MAOAMs, before I got sperminated.’

  ‘Whatever it is, you are bound to it,’ she said. ‘Addicted. I’m not judging you on this, my dear, this is just what ze card is telling me, but something you are doing is definitely not going to lead to ze happiness you think it will. It is torturing you, and it will torture others too. Do you know what else it could be?’

  ‘Erm… nope.’ I shrugged, jutting out my bottom lip to make even more of an Honest, Gwen, I’m as pure as the driven snow face. She turned over Card Four. It was a picture of a stern-faced angel with a huge sword in one hand and a severed head dangling in the other. ‘Aha, ze Ace of Swords.’

  ‘Nasty.’

  ‘Again, not necessarily,’ she replied, ‘but all ze cards you’ve selected so far do seem to indicate new beginnings. Big changes on ze horizon. You are ready for new ventures, new jobs, new loves. Your truths will come out soon.’

  ‘Will they?’

  ‘Most certainly. I think you want to be free of something. There is a burden and the Ace of Swords is telling you zat you will soon not have that burden any more.’

  I’d have put good money on the final card being the Death card. Any money at all in fact.

  But when she turned it over, it was not the skeletal Grim Reaper I’d been expecting. It was a picture of an old wizard dude.

  ‘Is that Dumbledore?’ I asked her.

  ‘No, it’s Ze Hermit card,’ she said, a little note of surprise in her voice.

  ‘Oh. What does he mean?’

  ‘Well actually, ze Hermit
card doesn’t come up often for me so it’s unusual. It says you may benefit from time on your own.’

  ‘So it’s telling me to live like a hermit?’

  ‘I think it means zat you don’t work well with others. You need to have… no one.’ Her eyes drifted across the table to the crystal ball and she rubbed it lightly with her right hand, then pulled her hand away as though the ball had become hot.

  She became slightly breathless and reached for the stack of cards and began tidying them all away.

  ‘My apologies. I get a little breath short. It is… ze cat hair.’ She pulled a blue inhaler from her cardigan pocket and took two puffs on it.

  ‘Sorry, go back to what you were saying about the Hermit card. I won’t be on my own. Will I? I’ll have the baby.’

  ‘No,’ she said, then remained tight-lipped.

  ‘No what? No, I won’t be on my own? Or no I won’t have the baby?’

  ‘It’s not for me to say.’

  ‘Well, it is for you to say because I’ve paid you to say it. You said I’ll be on my own. And then you saw something in that ball. Was it the Grain of… the baby?’

  She took another hit of her inhaler.

  ‘Does my baby die?’

  ‘I did see the baby. But I do not know…’

  ‘What was wrong with it? What did you see?’

  ‘I’m afraid we are out of time,’ she said, putting her cards back in their paisley-patterned wooden box and moving them aside.

  ‘No, what are you saying? Is my baby safe? What happens to it? You said I was going to be on my own. Please, I need to know.’

  ‘I’m sure all will be fine.’ The black cat appeared and started meowing at her feet and curling round her legs. She had got up from her seat shooed it away, guiding me back through the hanging shawls and tassels and out onto the pavement.

  ‘I’ll pay more,’ I said. ‘Give me another reading. Show me what’s in the ball.’

  ‘I can’t. The cards and the ball have given you the information you need, my dear,’ she said. ‘Now I have an appointment I must get to. Good day.’

  The sign outside said she was open till 9 p.m. in summer but she virtually pushed me out of the shop over an hour early and closed the door, flipping over the CLOSED sign and turning the key.

  Fucking. Lying. Bitch.

  *

  It’s just gone 8.45 p.m. I’ve stepped outside. All I can hear are the shagging moans of promiscuous Toppan’s residents and the thumping music coming from the Club Hub. I’m in a bad mood, thanks to Madame Gwen.

  I’ve been grinded, squeezed, stroked, manhandled and rubbed by everything from men dressed as Ghostbusters to Severus Snape to some barman called Richard whose front teeth had been knocked out in a rugby tournament. He asked me outright for full sex, in my chalet, ‘with my mates watching’. I just asked him for ice.

  Alfie – a cute, twenty-something student from Manchester – polite, tractable and thick as pig shit, had taken it upon himself to shag as many women as possible in one night. Apparently, I’m going to be Lucky Number 13. Lucky old me. I made a quick exit while he was buying me a vodka and lime that I had no intention of drinking.

  I keep looking down at the tiny mound where Grain of Rice is growing. I don’t want it to die. I don’t know if I’ll be a good mum but I know I don’t want it to die. I don’t know what to do. My phone’s ringing…

  *

  I’ve just got off the phone with Craig. He had some pretty major news for me.

  I was outside the Club Hub, music pulsing.

  ‘It’s about time, where the hell have you been? I’ve been checking my phone all the time.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Where are you? Have they let you out?’

  ‘No. I’m still in prison. Rhiannon, listen – I wanted you to hear this from me, not them. Something’s happened.’

  Midges kept flying into my mouth. ‘What?’

  ‘Dutch police took my DNA when they arrested me and it’s shown up on some database in England. And, I don’t know how or why or anything but… my brief says English police are on their way over to interview me. About the murders.’

  ‘What? That’s ridiculous. You only threw a bottle, for God’s sake.’

  ‘No. It’s nothing to do with the bottle. I don’t understand it myself. They think I’ve done all this stuff and I haven’t, I swear…’

  Oh, shit.

  ‘What stuff?’

  ‘Those people in the paper. The bloke in the canal with no dick. The bloke in the park and that woman in the quarry… they think I’m The Reaper. Fuck knows how but they’ve got evidence, Rhee. DNA. They’ve got my fucking DNA.’

  ‘Is this a joke? Are you back at your hotel and doing a prank with Nigel or something?’

  ‘I’m not joking, Rhiannon.’ His voice had dropped to a whisper. He was crying. ‘I’m not fucking joking.’

  ‘I don’t understand what you’re saying.’

  He sniffed and took a deep, raggedy breath. ‘My DNA has shown up at two murder scenes. The guy who went in the canal…’ He started rambling and I could barely understand him. ‘I don’t even— Rhee, I did not do this. I don’t know how my stuff got there, I don’t know how that bloke’s cock ended up in my van…’

  ‘Craig, I missed that, please tell me you’ve eaten coq au vin?’

  He had to go and get his damn DNA taken, didn’t he? He had to end up on that sodding police database. He had to go and RUIN EVERYTHING. I had to roll with it now. Roll all the way back to Plan A – making him pay.

  ‘They found that canal bloke’s penis in my van. In a bag. In my fucking toolbox. The one I don’t even use any more since I inherited your dad’s. I’m being framed. You do believe me, don’t you? I. Did. Not. Do. This. I couldn’t.’

  ‘That’s disgusting,’ I said, trying to catch my breath. ‘Why would someone sever a… penis? What DNA are you talking about? Hairs? Skin?’

  ‘Semen.’

  ‘Semen?’ I said. ‘That woman in the quarry… was raped.’

  ‘I’ve never met the woman! I never touched her. Rhiannon, don’t do this to me, baby, you’re all I’ve got. You have to believe me, please please please…’

  He sounded like a child. I’d never heard him cry so much.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘OK. Say someone is fitting you up for all this. Say someone did put that thing in your van and… who? Why?’

  I could hear him breathing. ‘This is gonna sound proper bad okay but it’s… a few months ago, I downloaded this app. I used it to chat. To people.’

  ‘Women?’

  ‘Yeah. All over the age of consent, I swear. I checked. And I know it’s gonna make me look like a perv but loads of lads do it. Nigel does it. So does Steve. We just get… pictures and stuff. It’s just a bit of fun. But somehow it’s been hacked into and they’ve got chat logs of conversations I’m supposed to have had with all these blokes. Arranging hook-ups at hotels… exchanging photos…’

  ‘Oh, Jesus.’

  ‘Photos I sent to women but it’s been made to look like I’ve got this secret gay life where I’d go out and… kill blokes and… wank over their corpses. I swear to you. I swear on my parents’ lives. On our baby’s life, I’m not, Rhee, I’m not gay. And I absolutely swear, I did not… ’

  ‘All right, all right, calm down. So you’ve been meeting these guys and one of them set you up?’

  ‘No, I didn’t meet anyone! I never met anyone from online. And I’m not gay. I only ever chatted to women. But someone’s made it look like I have. Someone who had access to my… stuff.’

  ‘I hope you’re not accusing me of anything here.’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Silence. And then he just admitted it. ‘Lana.’

  ‘Lana Rowntree? From my office?’

  ‘I was seeing her, for a while after Christmas. I dumped her as soon as I found out about the baby, honest. I wanted to tell you but I was afraid. She got nasty when I cooled things off. She started threatening to kill h
erself or worse. Hurting you.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘The other week, when I said I had to go and see to that woman’s leaky tap, it was Lana, threatening to slash her wrists. She’s done it before – she’s got these scars. She’s fucking flipped, man, she’s crazy.’

  ‘Yeah, women tend to do that if someone chews their heart up and shits it out.’

  ‘She didn’t love me. It was a fling, that was all.’

  ‘Did you cum inside her?’

  The line went silent.

  ‘Did you cum inside her?’ I repeated.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘How many times?’

  ‘A few.’

  ‘So you’re telling me that a vulnerable woman who you were having an affair with cut off some random bloke’s penis and hid it in your van, then scraped your semen out of her vagina, stored it, killed a woman and another man and left your semen at the crime scenes? Just to stop you from dumping her?’

  ‘I know it sounds far-fetched but…’

  ‘Just a tad.’

  ‘It’s the only way this could have happened. She hates me. Really hates me. I think she killed those people and she’s framing me. Baby, I know I’ve hurt you but I swear I didn’t kill anyone. You have to talk to her, Rhee. Get her to tell the police what she’s done. Clear my name. I can’t imagine how far this is gonna go but I don’t wanna be in here. I can’t do time. I need your help.’

  ‘I know Lana, Craig. She wouldn’t do this. It’s your DNA at those crime scenes, not hers. Isn’t it?’

  ‘NO! Rhiannon, no! Don’t be thinking that.’ His voice had gone all squeaky. ‘I’m not a murderer. I know I’ve been an asshole and a shit boyfriend but I ain’t no murderer, darling.’

  ‘Are they going to charge you?’

  ‘I dunno. I called my dad. He said if they do, he’s gonna get me a really good lawyer, one at that firm in town where he got his compensation for his back. I’ve thought it through – I’ll sell the flat to pay for any costs and we’ll move in with Mum and Dad till it’s sorted. Dad said it’ll be fine. They’re planning to bring me back next week for a hearing. He hasn’t told Mum yet. She won’t be able to handle this, no way.’

  That was the moment what was left of my world came crashing down around my feet. ‘Hang on, what do you mean sell the flat? What about moving to Wales? What about Honey Cottage?’