Sweetpea: The most unique and gripping thriller of 2017. C.J. Skuse
figure he’s mentally rerunning an old episode of Game of Thrones. I can’t talk to Seren, of course. She hasn’t been back to England since Dad’s funeral and, every time we talk on the phone, I get the impression she can’t wait to hang up.
And as for the PICSOs, when I want derogatory comments about my lack of kids or non-selling novel or my low-grade job, maybe their opinions will matter.
I don’t know what Mum or Dad would tell me to do if they were still around.
I didn’t grieve for them like an ordinary person would. Seren said it was ‘very unsettling’ seeing the way I grieved about Dad. She said it was like ‘looking through a window when it’s raining’ – the rain trickling down it and cold as ice. I didn’t know how to feel. I was just numb. I googled it once – WebMD said ‘bereavement numbness for the first few days is very common as your brain tries to process what has happened’. I couldn’t find anything about numbness that went on for years. Apparently, that wasn’t a thing.
The two seniors, Claudia and Linus, came back from court at lunch, to say that the paedophile Derek Scudd, sixty-eight, had got off with a three-year suspended sentence, a two-month rehab order and a place on the Sex Offenders’ Register. We’ve all been following the case for over a year. Un-fucking-believable! The man needs to be skinned alive and fried while he was still screaming.
1. Mrs Whittaker – neighbour, elderly, kleptomaniac
2. ‘Dillon’ on the checkout in Lidl – he overcharged me for Craig’s paper
3. The suited man in the blue Qashqai who roars out of Sowerberry Road every morning – grey suit, aviator shades, Donald Trump tan
4. Derek Scudd
5. Wesley Parsons
The camellias are flowing in the front garden at Mum and Dad’s house. They look gorgeous. My mum planted them. I saw them when I took some more stuff round before work. Julia did some more begging. She’d made another attempt to smash the window.
‘DON’T YOU DARE SMASH A WINDOW!’ I yelled at her, yanking her head back hard until she crumpled to the carpet. ‘You carry on like that I’ll cut your other thumb off.’
I reminded her about ‘my friend who is watching her kids’. She shut up after that. I wanted to kill her today – it’s getting terribly tedious driving over there and feeding her and having to repeat the same threats over and over. It’s like looking after a very annoying horse. And I still can’t get the stains out of the carpet.
But it’s not the right time. Once it’s done, it’s done and I want to make sure it’s done right.
The police have released more information about Daniel Wells, the electrician whose life (and schlong) was brutally cut short by yours truly – he was indeed found with no attachment. The office was full of jokes about Dickless Dan all day. They’ve somehow ruled out terrorism. Apparently, he was involved in a bar fight on New Year’s Eve, so they’re following up that blind alley. That would explain the cut on his eyebrow, now I think of it.
Another salad for lunch. God damn you, Cucumber.
AJ has started flirting with Lana. He’s all ‘Hey, L, how you going?’ when he first gets in, and offers to make her peanut butter and banana on toast like he has in the morning. I’ve noticed, too, that he brings her chai latte before he brings over my cappuccino, and he chats to her longer. They both like swimming, both their dads ran out on their mums when they were kids and they both had cockatoos. Claudia’s clocked it and I do believe she is trying to keep him busy. She had him on filing duties upstairs for the best part of the afternoon.
I wonder how Lana screams. I wonder if her death scream will be the same as her sex scream.
Jeff and I had one of our debates over our 3 p.m. tea break. Today, it involved turning the historic almshouses in the town centre into a bail hostel. I said it was a good idea, owing to the amount of homeless in the town; Jeff said what about history? We didn’t reach an agreement but we clinked cups when we’d finished so I think we’re still friends.
Tonight, a planned protest in the town centre about Council Tax rises turned into a full-blown riot that spilled over into the retail park at the end of our road. There was looting, home-made missiles and unleaded Molotovs causing spontaneous fires. I’ve just got back. Took some great pictures – one of them, I think, is going to knock their socks off tomorrow and, I don’t mind telling you, I think it has a good chance of being next week’s front page. Maybe I can impress Claudia and Linus with them tomorrow and finally get where I’m meant to be in life – on the front page. A front page with my name on it would make it all worthwhile.
I didn’t run into any opportunistic rapists down any side streets on the way home. It’s always the same when you’re prepared for it. Like bloody buses.
Did some writing in bed. It’s not going well. My stomach was rumbling throughout, owing to no tea (Craig had made full-fat lasagne and garlic bread), and once you’ve likened a hot guy’s teeth to ‘a graveyard of white surfboards in his mouth’ you know you’re in the shit. Had another rejection letter today, this time from one of the big guns: The Garside Agency. They said my work ‘lacked emotional depth’. Just like me, I suppose. Thirty-seven agents I’ve sent it too now. They can’t all be wrong. Think it’s time to dismantle The Alibi Clock. Who wants fiction anyway when you’ve got good old fact to have fun with?
1. Woman with the two brown spaniels who always attack Tink and are never on leads – today, she was wearing Crocs
2. Derek Scudd
3. Wesley Parsons
4. Jonah Hill
5. People who cast Jonah Hill in films
Some moron on Twitter is trying to galvanise the local community into a ‘Bring Your Own Broom’ party to clear up after the riot. Bloody millennials.
My car wouldn’t start this morning so I had to bus it and run it to work. Two of the usual routes in were cordoned off while the police cleared away burnt-out cars and broken glass from last night. I don’t know why they’re calling it a riot. It had all been done and dusted by 10 o’clock. People are so lazy when it comes to public protest. It’s like, ‘Yeah, let’s throw a few bottles, scrawl on a few bits of old cardboard, swear at some police, then be home in time for Game of Thrones.’ Amateurs.
The office was bustling when I walked in, sweating like a priest at a pre-school pool party. Printers whirred. Steaming cups of coffee were being handed out. The subeditors were tapping away, ensconced behind their tessellated desks. Claudia was marching around, putting important A4 sheets of paper on in-trays and generally looking harassed. The new boy, AJ, was stapling papers beside her desk, on the floor, like the office puppy (who could also do stapling). Ron was in his office on a headset phone call. Linus Sixgill was at his desk, ending a call. There were three espresso cups around his monitor and on his screen in all his technicolour glory was a picture of Daniel Wells – aka Dan Dan, the Dickless Man.
‘Hi,’ I said, making my mealy-mouthed presence known. Neither of them looked up. ‘So I took a great picture last night in the riot.’
Linus turned round. ‘Did you, Reepicheep? And what were you doing out in a riot, pray tell?’
He never called me by my actual name – just versions of it. Lovely Rita, Meter Maid was an early favourite. Reepicheep was a regular, as was Rita Ora. Reet Petite, normally on a Friday afternoon. All I could do was stand there and giggle politely like the work-suck