In Bloom. C.J. Skuse
think of helping was to go straight round to that plastics factory and anally violate the gutless little piss-tray with some sort of pointy thing.
She started down the escalator.
‘Uh, what am I supposed to do, get the bus home?’ I called out.
She waited at the bottom. I went down and stood beside her in silence.
‘He doesn’t hurt me. I promise. He needs me. But I don’t want to talk about this anymore, okay? I’m asking you, please.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Just be a friend today.’
For some reason that word ‘friend’ changed my outlook. I didn’t want her to leave and I didn’t want her anger. I wanted to stay being her friend.
‘Let’s go somewhere else, yeah? How about the museum?’
‘Why the museum?’
‘I used to go there all the time when I was a kid with my friend. Shall we do that?’ She checked her phone. ‘Oh sorry. What time does Goebbels want you back in the Stalag?’
She laughed at that. I didn’t think she would. ‘Six.’
‘Bags of time,’ I said. ‘Come on. It’s not far.’
We drove across town without another word about He Who Must Not Be Named and I gave Marnie a potted tour of Bristol and the harbour side. We took a slow walk up Park Street, tried on hats in a hat shop, shoes in a shoe shop and finally we went to my favourite place: the museum. I showed her all the best bits first – the gift shop, the Egyptian mummies, the rocks and gemstones, the amethyst the size of my head and the stalactite that looked like a willy. Then the stuffed animals gathering dust in their enormous glass cases – The Dead Zoo, as me and Joe called it. I could smell the Dead Zoo before we got to it – musty and pungent with age – and I was drawn to it like a moth. We found Alfred the gorilla, arguably Bristol’s most famous son.
‘Me and Joe used to imagine we were in the jungle and these were all our animals,’ I told her. ‘We lived in the gypsy caravan and at night, the mummies would come alive and we had to hide in case they got us. Alfred would roar and beat his chest and all the mummies would run away. This is Alfred. You have to say Hi when you come here. It’s like a Bristol law.’
‘Hello Alfred,’ she said, waving at him. ‘Who’s Joe?’
‘Joe Leech. He was my best friend when I was a kid. I only knew him for a couple of summers. He was killed. Got knocked down.’
‘Oh that’s awful. I’m sorry.’
‘Apparently when he was in the zoo, Alfred used to throw poo at people and piss on them as they passed underneath his cage. And he hated men with beards. I don’t like men with beards either. Don’t trust them.’
Marnie laughed.
‘Does Tim have a beard at the moment?’
She thinned her eyes. ‘No he doesn’t.’
‘Just checking. We used to spend hours up here, me and Joe.’
‘Smells a bit strange. Some of them look so sad.’
‘Yeah but look at the ones who are grinning. They look insane.’
‘True.’
‘Don’t you find it fascinating? I find death fascinating.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I find it quite creepy actually.’ She moved around the glass cases with caution as though any moment the ocelot or Sumatran tiger or glassy-eyed rhino might crash through the glass and flatten her.
‘There’s a dodo somewhere,’ I said. ‘That was Joe’s favourite.’
‘You look genuinely happy to be here,’ she remarked.
‘Yeah, I think I am. I was happy as a kid. Before Priory Gardens. And when I was with Joe. And Craig. Not so much since.’
This remark seemed to trouble Marnie all afternoon. She brought it up several times as we were wandering round but put it down to the whole Craig-being-in-prison and not-having-a-baby-daddy-around thing.
After the gift shop – where Marnie again noted several things she liked but wouldn’t buy – we went over the road to Rocotillos where me and Joe Leech ate short stack pancakes and shakes for breakfast, and dared each other to blow cold cherries at the waiters. We sat on stools overlooking the street outside. Marnie said she wasn’t hungry but I ordered her chocolate brownie freak shake with whipped cream and salted caramel sauce, same as me, and she ate every bite. The sky darkened and rain began spattering the window.
She sucked her straw in ecstasy. ‘Mmm, I’d forgotten what chocolate tastes like. It’s not good for you, too many sweets.’
‘Is Tim afraid you’ll get fat?’
She nodded, seemingly forgetting herself as she chewed the tip of her straw. ‘He’s worried about diabetes, that’s all. He doesn’t think it’s good for me to gain too much fat.’
‘No, I suppose it absorbs the punches too well.’
Marnie rolled her eyes like she’d known me for years and this was something ‘typically Rhee’. ‘Things change after you have a baby. Men can… stray. That’s what I’m most afraid of I guess. I couldn’t handle that. My dad cheated on my mum and it broke her heart and mine.’
‘So if he cheated on you, you might find the strength to leave him?’ A little thought owl flew into my mind.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ she said firmly. ‘I’d never forgive you.’
My thought owl flew out again. ‘I’d like to meet Tim.’
‘Why?’
I spooned some cream from my shake. ‘Just to be sociable.’
‘You’re not sociable though,’ she chuckled.
‘I’m out with you, aren’t I? What more do you want?’
She looked out of the window but I knew she didn’t want to look at me. ‘He’ll be coming to Pin’s cheese and wine. And she’s planning a big fireworks party in November for her birthday as well. No expense spared.’
‘Oh Christ,’ I groaned. ‘She’s not going to invite me to those, is she?’
‘Of course she is,’ said Marnie. ‘You’re one of the gang now.’
‘Ugh. I need that like a hole in the womb.’
‘Pin’s house is amazing. They’re millionaires.’
‘Whoopee shit.’ I blew a cold cherry at a passing waitress. It missed.
Outside it was raining hard. People rushed past the window with briefcases on their heads and newspapers folded over like makeshift hats. ‘What do you want to talk about then?’ I asked. ‘You choose. Ask me anything. Any question you’ve always wanted the answer to. Priory Gardens, Craig, you name it. Open season.’
Marnie stared at the window and took two bites before answering. ‘If you counted every raindrop as it fell, how many raindrops would there be?’
‘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?’