by Jane Renshaw
Jed’s effing and blinding, shuffling back in the house.
‘Sorry hen,’ I goes, and I pull Bekki into my chebs. ‘Poor wee Dave, eh? But it would’ve been quick right enough. He winnae have suffered.’
‘How do you know?’ she’s gasping.
‘Aye,’ goes Corrigan, coming out the pool and getting a good deek at the late lamented Dave. ‘He was maybe going “Fuck’s sake” when Granda’s size ten was coming down on his heid, and then he’s like that: “Where’s my fucking brains?”’
‘That’s what you say every day, isn’t it, Corrigan?’ Bekki’s back at him. She’s pulling away from me, standing there with the manky dead hamster in her hand, chin up like the wee fighter she is. ‘You know you were wanting a tattoo? How about that right across your forehead? Where’s my fucking brains?’
Ryan and Connor and Mandy are pissing themselves.
‘Da!’ Corrigan goes to Travis. ‘She cannae say that, eh? That’s a fucking hate crime! I’m fucking dyslexic!’
‘Aye son.’ Travis is giving Bekki evils but he cannae think of a comeback, so he cannae.
‘If it was a crime to hate you, Corrigan,’ goes Bekki, ‘they’d need to build like a hundred new jails because everyone who’s met you would need locking up.’
‘Belter,’ goes Ryan.
‘Shut it yous!’ I goes. ‘We’re leaving in five, right, so get your shit together and let’s get to that fucking beach.’
‘I’m not coming,’ goes Bekki.
‘Aw Madison-hen, but you’re gonnae like this wee place, right, there’s a barry wee café serves Coke floats like me and Mands had when we was bairns, and there’s a wee harbour and that.’
‘I’m not coming.’
And she’s running back in the house.
I give her ten and then I go to her room. She’s got Dave’s remains in a cardboard box that had biscuits in it, and she’s got a wee pink scarf tucked round him.
‘Aw, that’s nice, eh?’ I goes. ‘Wannae have a wee funeral and bury him in the garden?’
She’s no saying nothing.
‘I’m sorry, doll. Jed’s a f… a mentalist, eh? But he’s no gonnae do nothing like that again, I can promise you that.’
‘I want Mum.’
I puff. ‘Bekki darlin’, Flora’s no your mum. She’s just a fucking random, and if she finds out where you are, I’m no gonnae lie to you, hen, she’s gonnae try and kill you an’ all.’ I’m in her face. ‘So shut it about that bitch. We’re your family that loves you to bits, and we’re all you’ve got, so you’d better start fucking appreciating us and what all we’ve done for you, right? We’ve put it on the line for you, Bekki, we’ve had our lives turned upside down by that bitch but we’d do it all again for you in a heartbeat because we fucking love you, right? Now get your flip-flops and get your arse in that fucking people carrier.’
She stood, just for a moment, in the shadow of the harbour wall, in the tepid few centimetres of water lapping at the sand, and looked out to the horizon where a cruise ship was slowly crossing from right to left. Her first holiday with Alec had been to the Lake District, and they had stood like this looking out over Windermere as Alec had burbled on about how the lake had been formed by glaciers.
She had pretended to be interested. ‘The glacier kind of scooped it out?’
And he’d opened his mouth and shut it again, and smiled at her, and said, ‘Pretty much.’
She’d learned later that his mother had told him not to ‘pontificate at the poor girl’.
She closed her eyes.
Beckie’s voice said, ‘Boats have barnacles. Maybe there’s some on that one… Yes, look! Connor, come and see! If you lie here you can see them, you can see their tentacle things. They aren’t actually tentacles, they’re legs, but they don’t need legs to walk so evolution has made them into swishers to swish the food into their mouths. See!’
‘Aye, mad. Check that one, swishing like a bastard.’
‘And they’ve got the longest – you-know-whats of any creature compared with the size of their body, so they can reach other barnacles and – you know.’
She couldn’t breathe.
She wasn’t imagining this. That really was Beckie’s voice. And that must be Connor Johnson. The voices were coming from the other side of the harbour wall.
‘Ex-rated, eh, Beckie?’
A silence. Then:
‘I hate your dad, Connor.’
‘Aye, well, join the club. Hey, Beckie. Hey, it’s okay hen.’
And now Flora was running up the sand, running round the end of the wall and into the harbour and Beckie, it really was Beckie, lying on her stomach on the stone quay with her face pressed against her bare arm.
Connor Johnson was patting her back.
How had her legs got so long?
And her hair was cropped short like a boy’s. And her ears – what had happened to her ears? They weren’t pixie any more. They didn’t stick out from her head at all.
It was Beckie?
Then the boy looked up and said, ‘Aw Jesus’ and the girl looked up and –
‘Mum?’
And Flora was running along the quay towards them, saying ‘Beckie!’ over and over again, and Beckie’s face was alight and she was scrambling to her feet, but then the smile was gone and she was backing away.
She was actually backing away.
And the joy in her face had been replaced by –
Oh God.
Flora stopped dead. ‘Beckie, darling! Listen – I don’t know what they’ve been telling you, I don’t know what lies they’ve told you about me but –’
‘You killed Dad.’ Her voice was carefully controlled.
‘Oh Beckie, no! Of course not! That was Ryan Johnson. The police know that now. When they catch him, he’s going to prison for what he did.’
‘You told me you killed him. So don’t lie.’
‘I never told you that! You know I didn’t. How could you think I would kill Dad?’ She took a step towards her.
Beckie took another step back. ‘You wrote me a letter and you said you never wanted me to contact you again and you killed Dad –’
‘Oh, no, darling. No. I never wrote a letter saying that. Lorraine must have faked it.’
Beckie was still backing up, tears coursing down her cheeks. ‘Don’t lie!’
The boy suddenly spoke. ‘She’s no lying, Becks.’ He was a tall young man, in a blue T-shirt and dark jeans, with a gentle face. ‘That was Maw. That was Maw wrote that letter, right enough, making out she was your maw. She telt you, Beckie, that your maw didnae want nothing to do with you, and she telt your maw the same thing about you, but it wasnae true. I’m sorry, hen. I’m that sorry, eh?’ His face had gone bright red.
Beckie was crying.
And Beckie never cried.
She was crying and staring at Flora.
‘So do you – do you – do you still want me really?’
‘Oh darling!’ And in three strides Beckie was in her arms and Flora was saying, ‘My darling, my darling, I don’t want anything else in the whole wide world.’
But now someone was shouting, footsteps pounded on the stone quay and the boy was saying ‘Aw Christ’ and ‘Let them be, Maw’ and then she felt herself pulled back by the shoulders and oh God, how stupid she’d been, how stupid not to call the police, not to call Victor and his brother straight away, and then Caroline’s face was filling her vision, Caroline’s voice was saying ‘Hiya Flora’ and then she was being flung backwards, stumbling, and hard fingers closed round her arms and the stale stench of cigarettes and BO engulfed her as she twisted to come face to face with Jed Johnson.
He grinned at her.
‘Mum!’
Caroline had Beckie trapped in her arms. A new Caroline, a flabby Caroline with dirty blonde streaks in her hair.
Lorraine Johnson.
‘She’s no your Mum, hen!’
Flora kicked back against Jed’s legs and he grunted, and she man
aged to get her hand into her pocket, to close her fingers around her mobile phone, to pull it out –
It was snatched from her hand by soft white fingers.
A hugely fat woman was standing between her and Beckie and Caroline, smiling at her. ‘Oops.’ Without looking, the woman flicked her bloated fingers to toss the phone neatly into the water.
And the last piece of the puzzle fell into place.
It was the ‘Lorraine Johnson’ who’d come to the door at Gardens Terrace.
The family resemblance was striking.
‘Please,’ said Flora. ‘Please, just let Beckie go.’
‘Please!’ mimicked Jed in her ear.
‘Mands, get the weans in that wee café, aye, while we have ourselves a wee chat with this bitch? Connor son, get on the blower to that fuckwit Travis, tell him to get that fucking people carrier back here pronto cos we’ve got ourselves a wee situation, aye? Fucking mad bitch has only been and attacked Beckie.’
‘She didn’t!’ Beckie wailed. ‘You’re just pretending! You’re just pretending Mum is a bad person to make me stay with you but she isn’t!’
With all the strength of her new prison gym-toned body, Flora stamped down on Jed’s foot and drove her elbow back into his body.
‘Fuckin’ –’
And she thrust her hand back into the pocket of her jeans to pull out the flick-knife. She depressed the button and the wicked five-inch blade shot out of the casing and she lunged at Jed’s tattooed naked torso.
The next thing she knew she was slamming into the stone surface of the quay, all the breath thumped out of her lungs, and the knife was bouncing away from her towards Caroline’s foot. And a hard body smacked down on top of her, Jed’s hands in her hair, pulling her head up as she gasped for the air she couldn’t suck into her lungs.
Caroline looked down at her. ‘Like Mands said: Oops. See that, Beckie-hen? That’s a flick-knife and they’re fucking illegal, but when you’re a fucking serial killer that’s no gonnae give you many sleepless nights, eh? What were you gonnae do with that, Flora? Stick it in Beckie?’
Flora gasped, desperately appealing to Beckie with her eyes: Don’t believe her, don’t believe her!
‘What’s a… a flick-knife?’ Beckie sounded so scared.
‘It’s a fucking murder weapon, hen. See the blade on that?’ Caroline nudged it with the toe of her flip-flop. ‘Flora, Flora, what next, eh?’
And suddenly the weight on her back was gone. She rolled over to see the boy, Connor, wrestling with Jed. And a darting movement from Beckie, and then Beckie was standing with the flick-knife pointed, wobbling, at Caroline.
The wee diddy! He’s rolling on Jed and Jed’s like that: ‘Fucking wee wanker!’ and Bekki’s pulling away and squatting and Jesus Chutney, she’s only got the fucking chib, and that bitch Flora is getting up and I’m like that:
‘Bekki-hen, come here to me hen, I’ll no let her hurt you’ and wee Bekki’s looking at the bitch and then she’s looking at me and she’s got the chib in her hand and she’s all, ‘You’re a fucking liar’ and I’m ‘Naw hen’ and she’s ‘Mum would never hurt me. You wrote that letter and you said really horrible things’ and I’m ‘Naw hen’ and she’s ‘You said Mum told me she killed Dad but how could you know that because I never told you what was in the letter and you couldn’t have read it because I tore it up and put the bits in the bin’ and right enough, she’s one smart cookie so she is, and I’m ‘Aye, maybe there was a wee bit deception there but it was for your own good, aye? It’s all for your own good, Bekki, it’s all for you, my wee darlin’, it’s all of it been for you.’
And then the bitch is ‘Come here, Bekki!’ and Jed’s roaring at Connor and I’m snatching at the wean and the chib, it’s like it’s in slow motion, eh, the chib’s coming at me and it’s in my fucking neck.
‘I hate you!’ Bekki’s greeting, and I cannae speak, eh, and I’m on the deck and Connor’s like that: ‘Maw!’ and the wee diddy’s taken the chib out my neck and the blood’s pouring out me and I get my fingers in the hole and I’m ‘It’s okay hen, it’s okay.’ There’s grey circles in my eyes but I manage to say it:
‘A wee accident, eh?’
Fuck it, but.
39
Five Years Later
I touch each of the bonsais for luck – Pinkie, Perkie and little Podgie, who’s the least valuable because he’s got a funny bushy shape but he’s the cutest. Then I put my finger on the glass over a bit of Mimi. ‘See you guys later.’
They’re on the windowsill with the best view. Both the windows on this side of my room look over the trees and two of our fields – I can see Marvin’s big arse, he’s chomping away on the grass as usual – and after the fields there’s the dunes, and then there’s the lovely blue of the Tasman Sea and I’m already thinking about tomorrow morning when Mum and Connor and Erin and I are going hacking to the beach on Brodie and Sam and Turpin and either Bindie or Marvin, depending on whether Bindie’s leg is still giving her a problem, but Erin really loves Bindie so I’m hoping it’ll be possible for her to ride her and Marvin’s such an old slowcoach, he’s not ideal for a hack.
Our house is a big old farmhouse up on a little hill, what they call a ‘colonial homestead’, and it’s really desirable because there are hardly any old houses here, most of the houses are newish bungalows like the one Connor and Erin and Carly and Willow live in in Westport, which is still really nice but not as nice? Our house was built in 1896 and has massive gorgeous big rooms. My room is like something from a magazine, with sloping bits of wall and a fireplace where you can have real fires in the winter, if it’s like really cold, and wooden walls that I painted myself in this colour called Mizzle. It’s a kind of a pale greeny-blue?
Down from the window I can see the roof of the veranda where the two rurus were last night. They’re way cuter than British owls. I was in bed and I heard them doing their ruuuu-ru call, like really close, so close I thought Are they inside the room?! and I tippy-toed out of bed to the window and there they were! Two of the little guys just sitting there side by side on the veranda roof right under my window! I could see their big golden eyes in the dark. They were the cutest! No sign of them now, but maybe they’ll be back tonight.
Dad would have so loved it here.
Every time I look at Pinkie and Perkie and Podgie and Mimi I think about Dad but also that man Brian who rescued them from my room in that house because he knew they were special, after Bitch left them to die after she told me she was getting them posted to Spain.
Such a fucking liar.
What’s really unbelievable, when I think about it, is I thought Connor and Carly would totally hate me after I killed their ‘Maw’ but they don’t. Right enough, they think I didn’t mean to kill her. They think I was so scared I didn’t know what I was doing and I was just trying to keep her away from me. And I’ve pretended to be all guilty and everything and all sad that the ambulance got there too late.
Mum and I had gone by then so I didn’t see Bitch actually die. Connor told us to just go, to run – he said he’d tell the police, and Mandy as well, that me and Mum had run off and then Jed had stabbed Bitch. And then Mum could call the police and make out like We’ve just escaped from the Johnsons – Help! as if she didn’t know the stabbing had even happened.
So that’s what we did.
And now Jed and Ryan are both in prison.
Result!
I get my bag from where I dumped it on the chair and run downstairs.
Mum’s clearing the table. She’s all ‘My little girl’s first date’ and I’m ‘Mu-uuum.’ I’m not a little girl, I’m like fifteen?
‘You look beautiful!’
I so don’t. I’m just in old jeans and a shirt and no make-up, or hardly any, because it’s no big deal.
Then she starts, ‘Now, don’t feel pressured to do anything you don’t feel comfortable with’ and I’m ‘Mu-uuum!’ and then I’m ‘Relax, I’m not going to have sex or anything’
and she’s ‘Well, that’s a relief!’ and I can tell she’s trying not to laugh.
But sex is so gross. I’m not having it till I’m like twenty at least. Connor says he was twenty-one when he first had it. I know it’s not cool to think sex is gross but it so is? Mibs, my best friend, she agrees. But I’m pretty sure Andrew doesn’t, so I’ve laid down some ground rules, just to make sure everything’s clear from the start, and now I’m telling Mum:
‘He knows there’s going to be no physical contact until the third date. Then holding hands and maybe kissing but that’s it. He’s cool with that.’
‘I should hope so!’
‘He’s not a jock or anything, he’s pretty much king of the super-nerds, and he’s not good-looking so it’s kind of I’ll take what I can get, you know?’
‘Beckie!’
Now we can hear an engine on the track and we go out onto the veranda to wave at Connor’s car. He’s driving me to Andrew’s house and then he’s driving us both to the NBS Theatre in Westport, where Pippa works, to see the Star Wars film which is going to be mobbed by kids and nerds and Pippa will like probably sit with us, and Connor’s picking us up right after the film, so even if I wanted to have sex how could I?
It’s really nice and warm but not too hot on the veranda and there’s a lovely breeze, and we sit on the swing seat and swing ourselves and breathe in the lovely piney smell of the trees.
‘So what is it you see in this Andrew, then?’
‘He’s really funny? And super-smart. Bit like me.’
Mum laughs. ‘And is he as modest as you are?’
‘He’s modest about some stuff and not modest about other stuff.’ I grin. ‘He’s… He’s a bit like, you know, Dad in that way? And maybe in other ways as well.’
And there’s a bit of a silence, not exactly awkward, more like we’re both thinking stuff and it’s kind of sad and kind of happy.
‘Like, I know he’s going to be telling me all about game theory and evolutionarily stable strategies. It’s his new thing. He thinks game theory can be used to solve pretty much all the problems in the world.’