Sweet

by Julie Burchill

‘Can you accompany us to the police station, please, Miss Sweet,’ said Dad pleasantly, stepping forward in case I wasn’t quite sure if I fancied it.

  Sod it! Aggy, Baggy and Squealer Trulocke! I’d been having such a blast that I’d forgotten all about them. Still, better go quietly; if I bolted, that’d be as good as signing a form saying, ‘YES, I DID IT, AND I’M GLAD, YOU HEAR! GLAD, GLAD, GLAD!’ Tell you what, I may have always thought that making an entrance was my speciality, but I think I may well be extraordinarily talented at making exits too. You could have heard a pill drop as I left the building, every inch the wasted star, with my police guard.

  You’ve got to hand it to me – whatever the weather, I’m always up for fun. I just can’t help it; as PC Sexy opened the door of the police car, I looked up at him from under my eyelashes and murmured, ‘What – no handcuffs?’ I couldn’t swear to it, but I’m sure I saw some slight disorder in the bottom half of the law.

  21

  What do you know, I was home in a couple of hours! – and to rub it in, I pretended I was scared of being attacked by a perve and persuaded PC Hotty to drive me right up to my block. In Ravendene, that’s like getting a scholarship to Oxbridge or Camford or wherever, and I was pleased to hear a little chick no older than nine say enviously to her mate, ‘All the best shit happens to Maria Sweet!’ She thought I’d been arrested, bless!

  Hadn’t been, though – just routine questioning as an ex-employee. Seems that B&A reported my little hissy when it dawned that it could glean them some good publicity, but too late for the police to get much evidence – style over substance once more, typical! They couldn’t prove it so they had to let me walk – or rather, ride, with my very own uniformed chauffeur. And of course Bags and Ags had their own secrets they’d rather keep away from sunlight streaming through a courtroom window, if you wanna get poetic about it.

  But it did have one not altogether unwelcome knock-on effect – I got the sack from Stanwick. According to Katie, who filled me in by text a bit later, someone at the cop shop told someone in Security that I was ‘bad news’ – well, if no news is good news that suits me fine, cos I don’t wanna be no news. The way I saw it, things were getting icky with Asif and the boredom quotient was going right through the roof with even my former playmates the Dracules becoming solid citizens. Upwards and onwards!

  I couldn’t be arsed to be angry – this was the second job I’d lost through no fault of my own; this trying-to-be-a-sensible-girl thing wasn’t working out so well, was it! I was more than tempted to sign on and goof off but I needed the readies for alcopops and Topshop. I spent a few days lolling about in bed, yelling at daytime TV and wondering whether to bother calling Cameron to finish what we started. In the end I decided to let it go – he was fit and everything, but I’d only just put one lovesick puppy behind me and I didn’t have the patience to train another one. Eventually I had to admit it was time to get my sweet butt down to the jobcentre.

  It was pretty grim being back there again, like the playlist of my life had got stuck on one song that just kept starting over and over and it was one of the crap ones they put on there for free that you never get round to wiping. Except this time I made sure I walked into that place with rock-bottom expectations. I even laughed when I realized the face behind the desk was my number one fan, the mustachioed monster who’d first sent me up the hill to the little house of the fairies. ‘How ever-so-terribly lovely to see you again,’ I chirped in my best prissy-missy Kim voice. I could tell by the dead-eye glare she threw back that she hadn’t forgotten me – natch. Then this mad gleam came into her eye and she shuffled through her cards with barely suppressed glee.

  ‘Miss Sweet! – back so soon! Let’s see what we have here that might be suitable, shall we? Which of the many gold-plated career paths open to you it might be wise to follow!’

  ‘What about lap dancing?’ I suggested – not that I was desperate to show my gorgeous bits ’n’ booty to a bunch of unappetizing perves but, let’s face it, I’d earn more in one night there than I would in one week, fortnight or month in any number of ‘respectable’ jobs. By the savagely smug look on her face I just KNEW that the words ‘bucket’ and ‘mop’ were gonna figure in my new job description, and I wanted to get in there first with ‘tassel’ and ‘thong’. ‘Top Totty? Pussycat Club?’

  She made this disgusted face like you’d have thought I’d inquired about the possibility of becoming a crack-smoking cannibal infant-school teacher. ‘Really, Miss Sweet! – isn’t that rather degrading? Surely we can aim a little higher than that—’

  ‘If by aiming higher you mean on my knees scrubbing, no cheers – not again! And personally, I don’t see what’s so degrading about taking a ton tip off of some old pervert. Cleaning the toilet him and people like him piss all over, on purpose I bet, for fifty pence an hour at Stanwick – that’s degrading! The other’s just wealth redistribution.’

  ‘Anyway, Miss Sweet, it’s all beside the point. You’re only seventeen.’

  ‘So what? Isn’t it better to do it now, rather than when I’ve got so much cellulite you could play draughts on my ass?’

  She shuddered, cheeky cow! Whoa, I bet you could play Twister on her ass – in her dreams! – there was so much of it. ‘It would be illegal, not to say immoral, for us to send a seventeen-year-old, however worldly, to an interview for a job in the sex industry.’

  ‘It’s not sex – it’s entertainment! Least it would be the way I’d do it,’ I sniggered.

  She looked at me with narrowed eyes. ‘The entertainment industry, you say?’ She scrabbled away in her box – ewww! – before waving a scrap of paper excitedly before my eyes as if it was him out of Hard-Fi’s phone number. ‘Chilly!’

  My first reaction was to look down at my chest. ‘No, I’m fine thanks. They’re always this perky.’

  ‘No. Miss Sweet – C-H-I-L-L-I not Y.’

  ‘Why what?’ The old bag had flipped.

  ‘Chilli, as in “peppers”, and no, I don’t mean the band.’ She paused then and looked all smug; I actually think she was waiting for me to congratulate her on being so damn cool and down with the kids. S-A-D. When I didn’t speak her face went back to its death-mask stare. ‘Here – Chillis@Chasmeister, taking part in this year’s Festival of Fiery Foods at the Marina. And they’re looking for a “creative, energetic person” to represent them. Singing and dancing a plus.’

  You know what – I’m so mindlessly optimistic that just for a millisecond I thought she was gonna cut me a break and send me to be one of them tequila-shooting cuties you get in clubs; not exactly a one-way route to the stars, I know, but plenty of free booze and easy targets. But then I clocked she’d said ‘food festival’ and remembered the look on her face when she’d said it and I just knew what was coming.

  And that’s how I came to be standing on the waterfront at Brighton Marina dressed as a giant chilli, on the hottest day of the year. Like I think I might’ve said before, even dressed in Dawn French’s cast-offs I’d still tighten trousers at ten paces, but trust me, there’s no way to sex-up six feet of morbid-maroon, curve-covering chilli couture. Funny, when you think about it, chillis are famous for making things hotter, but in this case, they were doing the total opposite.

  It was my job to hand out flyers to the fiery-food crowd and invite them over to the stall where Chasmeister was doling out Hellish Relish, Four Bean Fire and other taste sensations to tempt would-be punters. Course, in my natural state I’d’ve had ’em queuing back to Hove, but dressed like an embarrassed carrot I was hardly fighting ’em off. I’d tried explaining this to Chas himself, but he’d just let out this big belly laugh and said, ‘Honey, there’s nothing hotter than my peppers!’ Actually Chas was kind of all right, offering me food and drink every five seconds, and laughing at just about everything anyone said. But the job still sucked. Standing there being ignored by sadults, laughed at by the odd passing teen (like, if you’re so cool what the fuck are you doing at food-fest? Loser.) and brea
thing in the ripening smell of whoever had worn the sad suit before me. I entertained myself for a bit by making kids cry (apparently the sight of six-foot foodstuff can be quite scary when you’re little) but it was too easy and I soon got bored.

  Chas came over and whispered in my ear, ‘Show ’em your talent, Sugar!’

  ‘What – get my tits out?! But there’s kiddies!’

  ‘No – the song!’

  ‘Please, Chas – not the song!’

  ‘Come on, Sugar! – then you can go and have a fag break.’

  Screw it; might as well give it some welly. I stepped away from the stall, flung my arms out and sang:

  ‘I’m a little chilli, red and long

  Listen to my chilli song!

  If you get your mouth round me

  Not so chilly will you be!

  I can make the Mitchell brothers’ hair curl

  I can melt a frozen turkey’s heart

  Put colour in the cheeks of any Goth girl

  And bring a zing to every other part!

  I’m a little chilli, red and long

  None too sweet but oh so strong

  If you get your mouth round me

  There’ll be tears, you wait and see!

  Hotter than Saudi in July

  Hotter than Angelina’s guy

  Hotter than a scalded rat –’

  ‘CAT!’ yelled Chas.

  ‘Hotter than a hot potat

  (O).’

  ‘That’s shit!’ someone yelled. Well, it’s one thing for me to critique myself, but I’m damned if I’ll let a giant ear of corn diss me. It was that jealous giant ear of corn from the Foxy Furnace comestibles stall! – I’d clocked those useless bitches earlier, the twin bosses all done out in basques that were ten years and two sizes too small for them, smirking at every male in sight. And even dumber were their tame veg – an ear of corn, an onion and a gherkin, all pretending that they were hot stuff while shooting me evils. They knew I was the real deal, and they were determined to hate on me for it.

  ‘Oi – corn-features – hate the game, not the playa!’ I called good-naturedly across to her.

  ‘What! – you, a playa! Looked in the mirror recently?’ yelled back her onion sidekick, walking out from behind the Foxy Furnace stall to stand shoulder to shoulder with her yellow pal.

  ‘Yeah, I tried but I couldn’t see nothing cos your fat white arse was blocking the view!’ Not being funny, but old onion-head was easily as wide as she was tall.

  ‘Excuse me, bitch, but are you picking on my friends?’ queried the gherkin, stepping forward to show solidarity with her minging fridge-mates. She had a loud, bossy voice – Roedean, I guessed. I eyed her warily – don’t care what people say about Ravendene girls, those Rodders chicks have got a rep as the nastiest fighters in town.

  ‘You’re not in some sodding posh cocktail now,’ I warned. A crowd of about twenty had gathered, at least half of them kiddies, and I wasn’t about to go down in front of an audience, even if it was one against three. I could even see little Rajinder there, my sisters’ Swearers Three sidekick, holding tight to her dad’s hand and looking wide-eyed and upset! – great, it’d be all over the estate within the hour. I had to front it out here. ‘You’re back in reality, sweetheart. You wanna mess with the bull, you’re gonna get the horns!’

  ‘Oh really?’ gherkin-face sneered. ‘Well, bring it on! Cos at the moment, all I’m gettin’ is bullSHIT!’

  All the crowd sniggered at this; I felt my face going red, to match the rest of my ridiculous outfit. I couldn’t let some posh cow and her vile veg mates get the better of me! – I had an image round my hood, and it wasn’t as a defeated vegetable either. And they were mob-handed – I could be forgiven for fighting dirty.

  I began to back away towards Chas’s stall; the rotten roots thought I was chicken, and nudged each other, smirking.

  ‘Not such hot stuff now, are you!’ the gherkin crowed – then shrieked in pain as the huge handful of chilli powder I threw in the direction of her posh old face hit the target.

  Well, it was a bit of a blur after that – probably cos of all the chilli powder flying around, not to mention jars of pickled onion, gherkin and corn. It was like a riot! – wrecked stalls, missiles flying, people running screaming for cover like somebody had let off tear gas! A couple of innocent bystanders even fell into the water, though thankfully no kiddies. And wouldn’t you know some killjoy had to go and call the cops! Lucky I was already in disguise; I hot-footed it out of there before the first rozzer was out of his car – a fugitive pepper on the run!

  Climbing the hill to Ravendene – I seemed to spend my life slogging uphill these days; Kim would probably have called it a metaphor – I had to admit it was pretty unlikely Chasmeister would want me back again for round two. It was so unfair – quelle surprise ! I mean, I’d just given a brilliant example of the kind of work performance that Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie would be proud of in The Simple Life – except of course when they pissed about, jeopardising someone else’s livelihood and getting sacked within the first hour, it was all one big reality TV money-spinning joke for them. For Sugar it meant another trawl through the job pages or a trip back down to Job Central; Mrs Moustache was gonna start thinking I fancied her.

  I put my key in the door and immediately I knew something was going on. I could hear this sort of cooing noise, like a pair of pigeons being patronizing. And another sound that immediately unsettled me – like someone trying to talk – but too . . . young . . .

  I walked into the living room and stopped still. Susie was sitting on the sofa, as usual. But there were another two people there – both of whom I’d met, but neither of them I could say I really knew. One of them was Catherine Wood, my husband’s mother.

  And the other was my daughter.

  22

  I stared at her, sitting there on the floor – a beautiful baby girl of eighteen months, with big brown eyes, caramel skin and straight, shiny hair; the darkest that brown hair can be without being black.

  She stared at me – a giant red chilli pepper with blood and mascara staining its face in equal measure.

  And she screamed, very loudly, and stood up on her lovely little legs and wobbled over to the sofa, burying her face in Catherine’s lap and howling, ‘Go ’way – GO ’WAY! NO, DAPPY – PANDA OFF! BUBBA CWY!’

  Mum and Cathy stared at me indignantly.

  ‘What?’ I exclaimed. I edged towards my baby. ‘Hello . . . Ren.’ I held out my arms. ‘Got a hug for . . . Mummy?’

  She looked up, took in the giant bloodied vegetable looming over her and screamed at the top of her voice ‘GO ’WAY, BAD PANDA!’

  ‘She’s scared of pandas,’ Cathy explained.

  ‘Do I look like an effing panda!’ I spat, which of course started her off again.

  ‘I’ll take her outside for a bit,’ Cathy said, scooping the screaming tot up. ‘Show her the view from the balcony.’

  ‘Leave the door on the latch, Cath,’ Mum called. Then she turned to me. ‘Well! Isn’t this nice!’

  ‘You’re calling her Cath already!’ I said accusingly. ‘Since when were you so matey with my bastard ex’s mum?! How long has this been going on?!’

  At least she had the grace to look slightly ashamed of herself. ‘We’ve been chatting on the phone for a couple of weeks. A month maybe. At the most.’

  I just couldn’t take it in; I lit a fag. To my amazement Mum grabbed it from my hand and chucked it out the window! ‘What the fuck—’

  ‘Language!’ she tutted. ‘There’ll be no more of that, for a start. That and smoking. And . . . dressing up like a panda and frightening Ren.’

  I tried to keep calm. ‘Mum. I’m a fucking chilli pepper.’

  ‘Well, she thinks you’re a panda.’

  ‘Whatever. The point is, she’s got to get used to it.’ I sat down wearily. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Mark’s been chucked in jail. In Saudi Arabia. Apparently he was handing out Bibles
like they were sweets.’

  I couldn’t help laughing. You had to hand it to the boy I married, he was certainly something different. Couldn’t go to jail for GBH like a normal person, no! ‘And what am I supposed to do about it? You saw what she was like – she fucking hates me!’

  ‘Well, you do look a bit frightening right now,’ Susie conceded. ‘But it’s nothing that a bath and a bit of blusher won’t put right. And if you’re not a panda—’

  ‘For crying out loud – I’m a chilli! They’re nothing like!’

  ‘Ren was scared by a panda on the telly recently, Cathy says – she calls everything she doesn’t like “panda”.’

  Just as Susie spoke the last word, Cathy put her head round the door, Ren calmer in her arms. All it took was that one word – PANDA – and she was off again, screeching like a police siren.

  ‘I think we’ll be off now,’ Cathy yelled over the racket, ‘and try to make a fresh start tomorrow!’

  ‘I DON’T S’POSE MARK MENTIONED MY IPOD, DID HE?’ I yelled back. ‘ONLY I’VE REALLY MISSED IT!’

  ‘OK, Cath!’ Mum yelled back. ‘Come by around twelve and we’ll go out and leave them to it!’

  The door slammed and I stared at Susie in absolute astonishment. ‘Please tell me I was hearing things then. TOMORROW?!’

  ‘They’re staying at a B & B. To give you two time to . . . bond. Reconnect. Have some one-on-one family time.’

  ‘You’ve been watching too much Trisha, Mum.’ I stood up. ‘And from what I’ve just seen, it’d take a truckful of superglue to bond her with me!’ I stomped out, slamming the door. Well, one of us had to be the grown-up, and Susie was obviously living in never-never land!

  I woke up early next morning with a weird sort of Christmassy feeling; when I realized I was excited about seeing Ren, I was so freaked out I couldn’t get back to sleep. I went into the kitchen; She-Ra, Evil-Lyn and even JJ, which made me feel annoyingly tearsome, were sitting at the table making these really crap cards with TOO OUR NEECE written on.

  ‘You’ve spelled that wrong, for a start,’ I commented over JJ’s shoulder. ‘It should be A-R-E – OUR.’ The clown only rubbed it out and started again! I turned to Susie. ‘D’you think Ren’s gonna get the Sweet brains, poor little cow? Not that the Wood ones are anything to write home about, judging from the situation Mark’s landed himself in. Bibles in Saudi! – the pigs don’t even allow the letter X there, cos it’s too much like the cross.’