In Bloom. C.J. Skuse
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and when you’ve got stuff to chat about, it doesn’t feel like you’ve been stuck in a car for hours. We talked about our respective families and how dead they all are, how I barely speak to Seren in Seattle and how she barely speaks to her brother Sandro who lives in Italy and runs residential art classes.
‘How come you don’t speak to him?’ I asked.
‘Oh you know how it is, you grow apart as you get older, don’t you?’ she said and left it at that. ‘Isn’t that what it’s like with you and Seren?’
‘No, Seren says I’m a psychopath like our dad.’
Marnie glanced away from the traffic. ‘Are you?’
I shrugged. ‘Bit.’
She laughed. Probably thought I was joking, I don’t know. We played the number plate game and she had cola bottles and sour cherries in her glovebox and Beyoncé on the Bluetooth so I was happy.
‘Tim doesn’t like me eating sweets at home,’ she said, then bit down on her lip like she shouldn’t have said it. ‘He’s got me into blueberries so I eat those instead. They’re incredibly good for you.’
‘Yeah I’ve had the blueberry lecture from Elaine. She makes these vile blueberry granola bars for me to peck at if I’m hungry. They taste like old teabags and feet. Why doesn’t Tim let you have sweets?’
‘He worries about diabetes and things.’
‘Halo’ came on and much to my intense delight, Marnie turned it up to full vol. ‘This is my favourite.’
‘Mine too,’ I lied. Mine was actually ‘6 Inch’ from the Lemonade album but I didn’t want to break the moment.
Before too long we were singing. Unashamedly. Not even holding back on the big notes. It was so easy, so immediate. Like we’d been friends for years. All thanks to Queen Bey herself. We made it to the end of the song—
Then her phone rang.
It rang twice, both times Tim, first asking where she was and who she was with (I had to say ‘Hello’) and the second time to ask if they had any ant powder. Marnie did most of the talking and I noticed she kept asking if things were all right. ‘Chicken Kievs for tea if that’s all right?’ and ‘Back about six if that’s all right?’ His voice reminded me of Grandad’s.
‘My grandad never let my nanny have any freedom either,’ I said when she had ended the call.
‘No, it’s not like that,’ she said, for once without a little smile or a giggle at the end of her sentence. ‘He just worries about me, especially now.’
‘My nan blamed me for my grandad’s death. She said I’d killed him.’
Marnie glanced over, briefly, as she indicated to come off the motorway. We came to a halt at the traffic lights. ‘Why did she say that?’
‘Cos I was there when it happened. He had a heart attack while he was swimming. He liked wild swimming. I was on the bank, watching him and I didn’t do anything. He drowned.’
‘Oh my god,’ she said, as the lights went green. ‘How old were you?’
‘Eleven.’
‘Well of course you couldn’t have done anything, you were only a child. That’s a terrible thing for an adult to put on such a young person.’
‘Yeah, I guess. She’d taken me to meet Mr Blobby that summer too. Proper sadist, my nanny.’
She didn’t laugh but patted my knee. I was going to tell her. The words were locked and loaded and ready to come out – I was going to tell her how I’d watched my grandad hit Seren that morning for not bringing in the eggs and how much I wanted to kill him. To push him down the stairs or into the slurry or to drive an axe right down deep into the back of his neck while he was stacking the logs. But I didn’t say a word. I didn’t tell her that watching my grandad drown had been an exquisite pleasure. I kept that to myself because Marnie had patted my knee and seemed to care that I was the innocent one. And I liked the feeling. I wanted to hold onto it.
The Mall was heaving with people and though Marnie was more than happy to mooch about trying things on, I couldn’t find a single atom of my body that cared about maternity clothes. She didn’t buy a thing, even stuff she said she loved. Dresses she’d point out as ‘stunning’ or ‘exquisite’ she would hold up against herself then return them to the peg. When I called her on it she said, ‘Oh I’ll probably never wear it again anyway. It’s a waste of money.’
‘Bet he gives you an allowance every week, doesn’t he?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘This is my money.’
‘My nanny used to get an allowance and she’d never spend it either. She used to squirrel it away. I never found out why.’
We hit the John Lewis café for lunch. I got a lemon and vanilla ice cream crepe, Marnie got a salad.
‘Get some carbs down you for god’s sake,’ I said as we stood in the line waiting for the assistant to scoop my vanilla. ‘You’re drooling over mine.’
‘I shouldn’t,’ she said, biting her lip.
‘Why not?’
‘Slippery slope, isn’t it?’
Marnie’s phone was out next to her plate the moment we sat down.
‘So tell me more about Tim then,’ I said. ‘What’s he like?’
Again, her manner changed, her voice lowered. ‘He’s Area Manager for that plastic shelving place on the ring road. Quite long hours but he loves it.’
‘What did you do before you went on maternity?’
‘Admin, council refuse department. Only for the last seven months though. Before that I was a dancer.’
‘What kind of dancer?’
‘Ballet and tap. I taught classes.’
‘Why did you stop?’
‘Well, we moved down here for Tim’s job and then I got pregnant.’
‘But you could go back to it someday?’
‘Doubt it. The money’s better at the council anyway. I did love it though.’
Her phone rang. ‘Sorry, hang on… Hiya… Yep… that’ll be nice… sounds good… Yeah, Rhiannon’s still with me. Need me to pick anything up?… Okay… Love you.’ She put the phone down.
‘Tim?’ I said, chewing my crepe.
‘Yeah,’ she smiled, theatrically rolling her eyes. ‘He’s booking the hotel for next weekend. Our sixth anniversary. Bit of a babymoon.’
‘Six years,’ I said. ‘That’s wood, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said.
‘A wooden garden ornament or something?’
‘He’s not into ornaments. I inherited a load of china ones from my mum but I’m not allowed to display them.’
‘Not allowed?’
‘Well, it’s only a few ballerinas with their buns broken off. I used to play with them as a kid. My mum bought me one each time I passed an exam.’
I pride myself on a few things: my ability to defend the defenceless, to maintain The Act that I am a normal human being in polite society, and to trace vulnerability in people. I can sniff it out as easily as curry plant in a garden full of roses. And it was coming off Marnie in waves.
‘Are you sure it wasn’t Tim who made you give up dancing?’
She frown-laughed. ‘No, my choice. He was right though; the pay was crap.’ She stroked her bump. ‘No regrets. I have