In Bloom. C.J. Skuse
‘Elaine mentioned you’d had a set-to about your doll’s house.’
I sat down on the lower rock next to Jim. ‘My deluxe country hotel, yes.’
‘Bit OTT wasn’t it?’
‘No.’
‘She was only cleaning it, Rhiannon.’
‘I DON’T WANT IT CLEANED.’
‘All right, all right. Cor dear, those hormones are playing up today, aren’t they?’ He laughed. He actually laughed.
I glared at him. ‘You don’t get it.’
‘Get what?’
‘After Priory Gardens, I went into a children’s rehab facility in Gloucester. It was horrible. It stank of cauliflower and farts. I was lonely. One morning, my dad and my sister went on breakfast TV to talk about it and how I was doing. Seren mentioned I liked Sylvanian Families. And I got sent so many. All the shops, all the animals. Seren would bring them in for me to play with. The toys the centre provided were either chewed or dirty but these were new and mine. I learned to talk again using my Sylvanians. I learned to hold things again, grip things. They helped me more than anyone will ever know—’
‘You don’t have to say anything else—’
‘—nobody else was allowed to touch them except Seren and she knew she could only play with them when I was playing as well. I used to rub the rabbits’ ears on my top lip and suck the clothes. No idea why, just liked it. Mum was always complaining about it – she said it made them stink. She said it was childish. I was still playing with them when I was twelve. Then one day, I came home from school and they’d all disappeared.’
‘Disappeared where?’
‘Mum had got rid of them. My post office, my supermarket, my country hotel. All the animals, all the little bits had vanished. She’d sent the lot to a charity shop. I screamed. Threw things at her. Bottles. Remote controls. Shoes. But she shut the door on me, refused to talk about it.’
Jim blew out a breath as Tink scurried over to him and begged for a pick up. Dogs always know. ‘That’s sad, Rhiannon.’
‘Seren had managed to save some of them of them for me before they went – Richard E. Grunt, a few rabbits, couple of the little books and the bathroom set. We sneaked out and buried them in the garden one night when Mum was asleep. The Man in the Moon was our only witness.’
‘Rhiannon, you don’t have to explain—’
‘That’s when I started saving up. Every bit of spare money I got, I’d spend on buying every last Sylvanian back. Piece by piece. I saved up all my pocket money, got a newspaper round, washed cars, mowed lawns. That’s the only thing I like about being a grown up. I can fight the battles I lost as a kid.’
‘I do understand,’ he said, stroking Tink’s silky apple head. ‘Our Craig used to say about your brain injury and how you liked things just so. I’ll have a word with Elaine, don’t worry.’
‘I miss Seren,’ I said, only then realising I had said it out loud. Jim seemed to be waiting for me to say more but I didn’t.
‘Of course you do. She’s your big sister.’
‘She’s half who I am,’ I said. ‘She taught me lots of stuff. Good stuff. French plaits and tying shoelaces and how to wrap presents so the corners were all tucked in. She’s practical like that. She’s a good mum.’
‘I expect she looked after you too when you were younger?’
‘Sometimes,’ I said, the night of Pete McMahon’s death flashing into my mind. His body on top of hers. Her drunken mumblings. The knife cutting through his ribs like a spoon through jelly. ‘Sometimes I looked after her.’
A silence fell between us. Without a word, we both got up and continued our walk. Tink trotted along between us. I placed my feet in footprints other people had left behind. It’s funny how you can’t walk in someone else’s footsteps, isn’t it? It doesn’t work. You end up taking too-long strides or placing your feet unnaturally to where you’d choose to put them.
We’d gone about ten minutes before Jim stopped and pulled a piece of paper from his back pocket. ‘This came today.’
I knew what it was from the postmark – a letter from Craig. I’d been expecting it after Elaine intercepted the last one and set fire to it on the hob.
Jim rubbed his mouth. ‘Can’t ignore him forever. This is the fourth one.’
I scanned it through. His writing had got better. I’d only ever seen his scrawls on builder’s invoices or scrappily-written shopping lists. Clearly he’d taken some sort of calligraphy class while he’d been on remand. ‘I can’t see the point of visiting. It would only be more lies.’
He shook his head. ‘I know the evidence speaks for itself but it doesn’t answer everything. It doesn’t explain that on the night that woman’s body was dumped in the quarry, he was nowhere near. He’s on CCTV at Wembley, clear as day.’
‘What about the others?’ I said. ‘The man in the park? The semen all over that woman’s body? The… severed penis in his van?’
I refrained from saying ‘cock au van’. This wasn’t the time for that joke. It was never the time for that joke but it was still a good joke.
‘He’s still saying he’s being framed,’ said Jim. ‘That Lana sort he was seeing. He’s still my son, Rhiannon. I can’t give up on him.’
‘He’s Elaine’s son too. She’s given up on him.’
‘She’ll come round. We’re not going to leave him in there to rot, not when there’s a chance someone else is to blame.’
Tink nuzzled into the crook of Jim’s arm. Jim turned to look at me, his eyes filling with water. ‘I was the first person in this world to hold him. Before the doctors. Before Elaine. I won’t leave him when he needs me the most.’
Jim had brought back boxes of our stuff from the flat; his clothes, vinyl, the dehumidifier, all his old football programmes. The remnants of sawdust on his jeans. I cried when I opened the boxes. I found a bottle of his aftershave – Valentino Intense. I’d stitched the guy up like a quilt and now I’m crying about it. Pregnancy screws you right up, I’m telling you.
‘I’ll go with you,’ I said. ‘To see him. I’ll go. Not yet, but I’ll go.’
Jim put his arm around me, eyes all glassy. We watched Tink run after a Jack Russell, chasing it round in circles like a furry whirlwind. And we laughed. It was funny. But both laughs were too forced.
Friday, 20th July – 10 weeks, 5 days
1. Seagulls – this town is building-shaped croutons in a seagull-shit soup.
2. Man in the mobility scooter who tutted that I was taking up too much of his greeting cards aisle at the garden centre.
3. Sandra Huggins.
One of the side effects of being pregnant is vivid dreams. I often wake up in a cold sweat, my heart racing, having spent most of the night before screaming at my mother or watching my sister Seren get attacked by birds or wolves or some strange man in a hood – those dreams seem to be on a loop in my head. Last night there was a new showing – the fortune teller from the hen weekend. It was an almost exact re-run of what actually happened.
Me walking into her shop on the seafront. The red-haired woman with smoker’s mouth-creases and bad eyebrows. The crystal ball on its claw-footed stand. The Tarot cards spread out – The Hanged Man, Judgement, The Hermit, The Ace of Swords, The Devil himself.
You