In Bloom

‘Huh?’

She laughed. ‘I like those kinds of unfathomable questions, don’t you? Makes me feel so small in the world. Like, how long would it take for you to count every single grain of sand on Monks Bay beach?’

‘You must be the only person in the country at a private audience with me who doesn’t want to ask me questions about Craig.’

‘It’s none of my business, is it?’

‘No, it’s not.’

‘I’ve got another one,’ she said, the light flicking on behind her eyes. ‘How do you know you’re a real person and not in someone else’s dream?’

‘Isn’t that a Take That lyric?’

Below the bench we were both swinging our legs beneath the counter, like we were children again. I wished we were.

I don’t know how long we sat there – enough to share a cherry Bakewell freak shake between us and two slices of blueberry pie – and our questions kept on coming.

‘Why is the sea salty?’

‘Who picks up a blind person’s guide dog poo?’

‘Can you remember when you stopped being a child?’

‘What was the first word ever said?’

‘Do you ever hear your baby talk to you?’

Of course I said ‘No’ to that one. It wasn’t time to play the ‘mad’ card.

‘What’s the best advice you could pass onto your child?’ Marnie asked.

‘I dunno,’ I said. ‘Mind’s gone blank.’

‘I like “Find your bliss”,’ said Marnie. ‘I heard someone say that once and it stuck with me. What’s your bliss?’

‘Don’t know. Haven’t found it yet.’

‘You said in the museum you weren’t as happy now as you were when you were a kid. Maybe it’s having kids? Maybe that will make you happy?’

‘Mmm. Life’s full of maybes, isn’t it? You never know for sure.’

‘Maybes and babies,’ she smiled.

‘I still feel like a kid myself.’

‘You’ll be okay, Rhiannon. It’ll all fall into place. It’ll click, all of a sudden. And then you’ll know who you are for sure.’

I smiled like my face meant it. Would have been much easier if it did.

Tuesday, 31st July – 12 weeks, 2 days

1. Grown adults who are afraid of dogs. Strap on a pair, FFS.

2. Pop up advertisers. In fact anything that ‘pops’ at all.

3. Woody Allen.

‘I can’t understand it,’ said Jim, crunching through his All Bran. ‘No bookings at all?’

‘Sorry.’ I packed my face with as much humility as it could muster.

‘No it’s not your fault, love. If you ask me the tourism board has a lot to answer for. This isn’t a destination area anymore. Nothing for the kiddies. The funicular hasn’t had a lick of paint for decades. Council keep putting up the rates so the little independent shops can’t afford to stay put, and that new leisure centre’s still not finished. Six years they’ve been promising that.’

Note: I don’t get an iota of blame. Note: he doesn’t check Airbnb himself. Trust, you see. Complete and total trust. I can’t help finding Jim almost unbearably sexy sometimes.

Another dizzy spell on my way back upstairs – it’s altitude that seems to affect it. I had one yesterday on my way up to the Well House. I lay on AJ’s grave for a full half-hour until it passed. Something to do with my blood pressure. I’m going to have to start carrying around emergency chocolate with me like a St Bernard.

I checked out Tim Prendergast’s social media to get the measure of the man. His avatar is a pic of himself in one of those seaside cut-outs – a fat man in a stripy bathing suit wearing a Kiss-Me-Quick hat.

What a wit.

His eyes are blue with ice splinters in them. I don’t even have to meet him to know he’s a fungus-addled prick of the highest proportions. And for a self-confessed ‘outdoorsman’ who loves hill walking, he doesn’t half spend a lot of time tweet-stalking celebrities. You know the type of thing – RTing how good their books/films/TV shows are. Incessantly @ing them in, saying Good job on The One Show tonight… or Loved your movie – what a talent you are! We’re lucky to have you, and asking them for shout outs and free tickets. The worst part about it is he gets replies. He trades on that tried and tested logic – people will believe anything if it’s a compliment. And it works.

I honestly don’t know what Marnie sees in him.

Talking of her, I haven’t heard anything since Saturday. Two texts so far have gone unanswered. I wonder if he’s throttled her. I wonder if I should go round there. I know where she lives – in one of the new houses in Michaelmas Court. She mentioned it at Pudding Club as the number was the same as their anniversary – the fifteenth.

The Plymouth Star guy was back on the doorstep today, along with several others from the tabloids. He is such a snack, honestly, and it thrills me to wind him up – to play the part of forbidden fruit now I know he wants to eat my ass so badly. I felt quite sorry for him, jostling to be the first to hound me as I sashayed down the front path in my heels and swishy top, like I was at Paris Fashion Week.

‘You brought my doughnuts yet?’ I called out to him.

‘You were serious about that?’

‘Of course,’ I smiled, gliding through the garden gate. Oh boy was I working it today. On the other side I turned back to him and he smiled like we were sharing a secret.

Gusset dryness = history.

Wednesday, 1st August – 12 weeks, 3 days

Drove myself back to the flat to pick up the last of my stuff – only had to stop once on the motorway to vom at the roadside. Otherwise, uneventful.

The flat is all but empty – most of Craig’s stuff has gone into storage. AJ’s blood dot remains – barely visible to the human eye, but to the psychopath’s eye, there’s no mistaking it. Looks more brown than red now.

Mrs Whittaker’s moved out – gone to live in Margate with her sister Betty. She ‘can’t be trusted to live on her own anymore’, so Leafblower Ron informed me in the lift, as he coiled his extension lead around his elbow.

‘Has anyone else moved in there then?’ I asked.

‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘But the cleaners went in yesterday so I suppose the agent’s found someone.’

‘It’s probably for the best,’ I said, trying not to think about the night I cut him up in that bathtub. The foetus doesn’t like it.

I like thinking about my daddy being alive, not cut into six pieces on an old woman’s lino.

Afterwards, I bought some Rice Krispie cakes and a bunch of pink gerberas and roses and went round to Lana’s flat. I took a chance that she still lived in the one above the charity shop in the precinct and lo and behold, when I rang the bell at the side entrance, she came to the door. She nearly slammed it in my face but I put my hand out at the last moment.

‘Please, Lana, please let me in. I’ve come to apologise.’

She pulled the door back slightly so that I saw for the first time the extent of my handiwork. She was purple from her forehead to her chin – I almost laughed but stopped myself in time.

‘I can’t believe you didn’t press charges,’ I said. ‘You should have.’

‘Yeah, well,’ she said. ‘I figured I owed you that at least.’

‘Thank you. I truly am desperately sorry. I brought cakes.’

She opened the door wider and I followed her up the narrow staircase – think Anne Frank’s house with junk mail and stair rods.

I passed her bedroom – the door was ajar, the duvet unmade, clumps of clothes dotted around the floor – knickers, socks, some hideous pyjama bottoms covered in Minions, a dressing gown draped across the bed. The bed where she’d moaned in my boyfriend’s hot ear and bitten his lobe as her vagina gripped his penis and he slid into her so many times…

‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ she said, ushering me through to the lounge. Each of the worktops in the poky beige kitchen was covered in debris – side plates with hardened puddles of butter, smudged glasses, sticky cutlery, greasy frying pans, and saucepans ingrained with old scrambled egg.

‘How are things at the Gazette?’ I asked when she brought a mug of tea in. There was a purple fleece throw on the sofa, all rumpled into a nest where she’d been sitting watching Bargain Hunt. I sat in the armchair.

‘They’ve put me on gardening leave,’ she said, sitting down and wrapping herself in the blanket. ‘Got someone in to replace me already.’

‘I know the feeling,’ I said.

‘Katie Drucker?’ she said. ‘Yeah she’s, well, malleable. You know Linus is back after his eye operation? Daren’t be off sick for any length of time in that place. Someone will jump in your grave. Do you think you’ll go back?’

‘No, don’t think so. I feel quite free actually.’

‘I miss it,’ she said.

‘So shall we talk about the elephant in the room or shall we let it quietly shit itself in the corner?’

Lana took a breath and put her mug down on the table. ‘I can’t believe Craig’s capable of doing those things.’

‘I don’t know anymore,’ I said, putting my mug down too. ‘I don’t want to believe it but the evidence, Lana.’

‘But on New Year’s Eve at least, he was definitely with me.’

‘All night?’

‘Well no, but—’

‘Where were you, here?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what time did he leave?’

‘After the bongs, about twelve-fifteen?’

‘The police said Daniel Wells was killed between midnight and four. I didn’t hear him come in.’

‘What about the other two?’

‘He said he was out with the boys on February twelfth. Gavin White was killed in the park around ten p.m. The boys said he nipped outside for a fag around that time. It’s possible is all I’m saying.’

‘Oh god. But that woman in the quarry. That wasn’t him, was it?’

‘I don’t know. They found evidence all over the scene.’

‘But he was in London, he couldn’t have killed her.’

‘I’m as stumped as you are,’ I said, catching sight of my lying face in her glass cabinet. ‘All I know is that I’m afraid. I’m afraid if they let him out, he will come after me for not giving him an alibi. He went a tiny bit Scarface because I said I wouldn’t lie for him.’

‘He’s asked me too.’

‘There you go,’ I said.

‘But I was with him on New Year’s. For a bit.’

‘You’ve got to let your conscience be your guide, Lana. I’ve got the baby to think about. What if he’s released and he hurts us?’

‘Don’t say that.’

‘If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay well away from him.’

‘I haven’t seen him for weeks. I wouldn’t, not now.’

‘But you’re going to give him an alibi for New Year’s Eve?’

‘It’s not an alibi, it’s the truth.’

‘You were with him right up until he killed that man and severed his penis. What are the police going to make of that?’

She wringed her hands. ‘I can’t lie to the police.’

‘I’m not saying you should lie. You should think carefully before claiming he was with you all night. Because if he’s going down, he will bring you down too. That’s the kind of guy he is. I know it’s shocking but we have to protect ourselves. Craig’s capable of anything.’

*

I nipped into town after Lana’s to pick up some pregnancy vitamins and Gaviscon from Boots. Saw Claudia at the perfume counter. She didn’t see me.

My auntie Claudia!

I don’t miss the Gazette at all. Why would I? Why would I miss Claudia’s patronising orders and Ron’s letching, and downing tools every hour to make coffee for people too educationally far above me to make their own? Why would I miss the Cuntasaurus Rex Linus Sixgill and his excruciating attempts to be funny? And, for the record, I don’t give a shit that he wears an eye patch now – cancer doesn’t suddenly make an arsehole clean.

I miss the gonk from the top of my computer screen. That’s all I miss.

My daddy gave you that.

I also saw one of the PICSOs, Anni, pushing a buggy out of Debenhams. Anni and Pidge turned out to be quite good friends in the end – both of them went to the police separately to air their suspicions that Craig had been abusive – they’d seen bruises on me, told them of my evasive behaviour when asked about him. But of course, I had The Act to keep up – poor, manipulated, brainwashed girlfriend. Innocent victim. Deny, deny, deny. Pretty soon even they washed their hands of me. People I Can’t Scrape Off were officially – Scraped.

Anyway I managed to avoid both Anni and Claudia and I was so busy avoiding people I knew that I ran straight into someone I didn’t want to know.

Heather – aka the woman with the yellow scarf who I’d mistakenly rescued the night I killed two rapists in a quarry. Today the scarf was mauve. She caught up with me near the floral gardens.

‘Rhiannon?’ she said, eyes wide. Breathless. Hopeful? ‘Oh my gosh!’

‘No,’ I said feebly, switching direction from where I intended to go – the Cookie Cart – to the car park at the back of the big church and the relative safety of my car. She blocked my escape.

‘I’ve been hoping every day I might bump into you. Can we talk?’

I switched to the river path. She followed me, kept trying to converse.

‘I’ve been coming to the Gazette offices for weeks, hoping to catch you—’

‘I don’t work there anymore.’

‘I want to talk. Please, give me five minutes.’

‘No. I bloody knew I couldn’t trust you. Bugger off.’

She didn’t get the hint. Her foamy soles stalked me like the opening chords of ‘Billie Jean’. ‘Hear me out. I promise it won’t take long.’

I had visions of her mounting my bonnet, such was the fervour in her voice, so eventually we sat on a bench in the floral gardens, looking for all the world like two colleagues having a dainty, cross-footed lunch on a summer’s day. Rather than what we were – rape victim and her heroic serial killer liberator, reminiscing about the night one lost her shit and killed two men to protect the other’s sorry ass.

‘I’ve been thinking about you constantly since that night.’

‘You make it sound like we had an affair.’ I looked around to see if anyone was listening in. The water cascaded over the little weir. Two pigeons were pecking at a discarded sausage roll under the opposite bench.

‘My husband thought I had.’

I afforded her a raise of eyebrow.

‘I was all fidgety and checking my phone for news updates in the days after. I was terrified someone had seen my car or seen us walking back from the quarry.’

‘Keep. Your. Voice. Down.’

‘I was in chaos, Rhiannon. I’d have these night terrors and relive the whole thing, waking up in a cold sweat. It affected my work, it was awful. Anyway Ben – my husband – confronted me about it and I told him.’

‘Oh great—’

‘No no, he was so grateful. He’s not going near the police, I promise. Why would he? He doesn’t owe those men justice. As far as he’s concerned, they got it. Police think those men are responsible for seven rapes along that same road where they took me. That night could have ended differently for me if you hadn’t been there. What I don’t understand is why you were there at all. Why your car was parked up. And how even in the pitch dark you knew your way across those fields.’

‘I grew up around there.’

‘Were you waiting for them?’

‘Yes,’ I said, without the slightest intonation. ‘You got in the way.’

The chestnut tree in the centre of the park had been hacked away by the council. I used to sit underneath it eating my lunch sometimes. It would shelter you from a sudden downpour or the hot sun. Now it looked like a huge hand reaching up to the sky with all its fingers sliced back to stumps.

Heather eyeballed me. ‘You enjoyed it, didn’t you? Killing them?’

I stared at the pulse in her neck, thumping away.

Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Did you kill the others as well? The ones your boyfriend—’

‘I don’t have to listen to this,’ I said, standing up.

‘No please don’t go,’ she said, standing up as well. ‘I’m sorry. Those others – from what I read they were bad people.’

It was my turn to eyeball her. She was wearing a mauve BodyCon dress and while she wasn’t fat, it was still far too tight for her. I could see her belly button. I could see the mole in her belly button. That’s just ridic.

‘What do you want? Money? Tough shit.’

‘I don’t want anything.’

‘You want to threaten me?’

‘Rhiannon I’ve represented rape victims for twenty years. I’ve seen the full impact rape has on a human being, both women and men. And their families. It’s worse still when they have to relive it in court. That could have been me and it wasn’t, thanks to you.’

‘What do you mean, “represented” them?’

‘I’m a solicitor. Ben is too. We practice—’

‘Yeah yeah, I don’t want your life story, thanks.’

‘I wanted to give you this and to say again, thank you. Even if you didn’t mean to, even if you enjoyed it – thank you.’ She handed me a business card with W&A embossed on one side, and a phone number and a tiny etching of a golden gondola on the other.

‘Wherryman and Armfield,’ I said.

‘Armfield passed away some years back so it’s just us Wherrymans now. We’re based in Bristol and Ben and I live locally with our boys. Sorry, I know you don’t want my life story. Call me, if you need anything. Anything at all. If I can’t help I can probably find someone who can.’

She got up and started walking away from me without another glance. Then without warning she stopped and turned around to face me. ‘I knew you’d done this before. I knew it that night.’

She looked like she was about to say something else but her mouth kept closing like a fish’s – scared to bring the words forth. And then they came.

‘Patrick Edward Fenton.’

‘Who?’ I said.

She started walking away, her scarf fluttering up on the breeze. ‘Last I heard, he was working in Sportz Madness in Torquay.’

‘Why would I care about this?’

‘He’s my one that got away.’

When she’d gone, I stared at the card. Keeping it was a link – to her, to that night, to the two dead men. I was about to post it into the bin at the side of the bench when a thought struck. Gift horses and all that.

Saturday, 4th August – 12 weeks, 6 days

1. The person who tries to draw a swastika on the fence outside the hospital but keeps getting the prongs the wrong way up.

2. Quorn manufacturers. Stop kidding yourself. It tastes nothing like it.

3. Sandra Huggins.

Had one of my dreams again – this time about the baby. I’m in a garden and in the centre is a deep pit and the baby’s at the bottom, naked and kicking and crying. I climb down inside but when I get to the bottom it’s gone, though I can still hear it crying. And I look up and standing at the edge of the pit is a woman holding a bundle. I can’t get out. And the shaft of light above me gets smaller and smaller. And I can’t scream because my mouth won’t open. What in the name of cock does that mean?

Jim and Elaine were out early at the hospital for Jim’s checkup, leaving me to feed Tink, a loud sing-a-long to Nicki Minaj in the shower, and a damn good wank. There being no decent dicks on the horizon, this is about as good as my sex life gets these days. There are three remote possibilities – a bin man who bears a passing resemblance to Ryan Reynolds, the blond guy in the dry cleaners who wears Iron Man socks, and what Elaine calls ‘The Element’, who sits on the war memorial in piss-stained joggers, drinking Diamond White and telling passers-by how Frank Sinatra stole his medals.

But for now, to the Masturbation Chamber it is.

It’s so much better when the olds are out. You try fudding yourself off with a silent vibe when your bedroom wall is cracker-thin and your mother-in-law’s practising her descant for ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ in the next room. Now that my sickness seems to have subsided, my other symptoms have come screaming into view. Horniness is one of them. Another is mood swings. Yeah, I know, I’m a psychopath, mood swings come with the territory, but these are more frequent – like Quasimodo on a bell rope.

Any given day I’ll start off Angry (e.g. gameshows), then veer into Sad (e.g. woman on TV with kid born without eyes) then I’m awash with Guilt (e.g. shouting at old man crossing the road/anxiety dream about AJ) then euphorically Happy (e.g. being in the garden or watching documentaries with Tink and Jim). This rotation sometimes only takes about twenty minutes.

Hungry for some junk, I took a little trip to the mini mart and then walked with Tink up to the Well House.

A tranquil, former fisherman’s cottage built in the 1700s and burnt down in the 1750s, it’s newly-thatched and white-washed, a little gravel path winds through the trees to the front door – painted blue with a brass knocker shaped like a knot of rope. Through the back garden gate there’s a patio right in the sun spot, with two chairs and a glass-topped table. The walls are thick granite and the ceilings are low and uneven. The floors are all worn flagstone downstairs and hardwood above and in the living room is an inglenook hearth with wood burner and a log basket. You can burn allsorts in there.

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