In Bloom - C.J. Skuse

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Edna and Doreen. Irritating people is the nearest I can get to fun these days so I’m going to go to next month’s meeting. In fact, I’m going to read my Bible too.

      Let’s see what God has to say about the kind of sinful woman I am.

       1. Sandra Huggins.

       2. People who use the hashtag #familyiseverything.

       3. People who brag about stealing stuff from Buckingham Palace – what do you want, a medal? Though you’re probably in the right place if you did.

       4. Helen at Pudding Club who wants to ban fireworks, the works of Charles Dickens and clown gifs on Twitter. Apparently they’re all ‘triggering’.

       5. Peter Andre.

      I’m bed-bound and teetering on the lip of insanity. I’ve watched back to back eps of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares even though I’ve seen them all before. I get up only to drink, piss, or puke and even then I’m dizzy. I’m lying here, falling down endless internet rabbit holes. I could read one of the preg books Elaine got from the library – What to Expect When You’re Gestating or Mummy to Be: A Day to Day Guide to the Most Magical Time in your Life but I don’t like library books in my bed. You never know what’s been done to them. Or in them.

      So I stick to online stuff, mostly Buzzfeed, Bustle and Jezebel. And you know how you look up one thing and it links you to another and before you know it you’re reading whole articles about Jeffrey Dahmer or water polo or coping with psoriasis, even though you don’t have it? I somehow got on to watching the Murder Made Me Famous docu on YouTube.

      The Miracle of Priory Gardens.

      I watch it every time I want to see my dad. He and my mum are interviewed throughout, sitting on the wicker sofa in the conservatory at our old house, clutching each other’s hands like they’re about to take a death leap.

      All the parents relived the moment they were told their son or daughter was dead. Then Dad relived the moment he was told I was the only survivor. Mum grips his hand tighter. Dad looks down, his hand wipes his eyes.

      I couldn’t take it in. I was sure she was dead. She’s our miracle.

      My big tough boxer dad, crying his eyes red.

      Someone up there helped us out that day, that’s for sure.

      My mum says little in the docu – she just echoes Dad, maintaining her rabbit-in-the-headlights stare. There’s footage of her giving me a hug outside the hospital when I was released. I missed her hugs as I got older.

      There was some home movie footage of the kids who died – two-year-old Jack blowing out his candles. Kimmy in her dad’s arms in the maternity unit. Ashlea in red boots in the snow. The twins eating ice cream. Their mum did Britain’s Got Talent last year but a sob story only takes you so far if you can’t sing for shit.

      There’s old news footage from before the presenters went grey – footage of people laying flowers outside Number 12. The sounds of wailing parents as they fight to get through the police cordon. The glistening doormat. Three little stretchers. And then the money shot – me all limp, wrapped inside the blood-stained Peter Rabbit blanket.

      Then there are the photo-calls of me coming out of hospital in my wheelchair, weeks later, bandage wrapped tightly around my bald head.

      Me in my beanie hat being given the huge teddy bear on This Morning.

      My first day at school, Dad wheeling me into the front office and us stopping so the press could take our photos.

      Giving the thumbs up on my first day of secondary school.

      Thumbs up again after my GCSE results.

      The ‘Hasn’t She Done Well?’ front page of the Daily Mirror, with me starting my A Levels and talking about wanting to be a writer.

      There was an interview with the shrink – Dr Philip Morrison – who had treated the murderer, Antony Blackstone, for his psychotic rages.

      You had one job, Phil.

      ‘He was a ticking bomb,’ said Phil. ‘Allison’s family knew the marriage was not a happy one – there were signs that he was controlling and abusive. He’d call her incessantly. Track her movements. Even monitored what she was eating so she didn’t put on weight. Her sister had begged her to leave him and one day Allison found the courage. It appeared – at first – to be a mutual arrangement which Blackstone accepted. But it lit the spark in the powder keg.’

      Phil was the one who diagnosed me with PTSD after Priory Gardens, even though Mum swore it was ‘growing pains’ and, as I got older, ‘hormones’. He always gave me a Scooby Doo sticker after a session. It’s one of the more depressing parts of growing up – we don’t get stickers anymore.

      There’s a playground where the house used to stand now and a plaque on a sundial beside the slide bearing the names of all the kids. Mrs Kingwell’s name too. My name isn’t there of course, being the lucky one.

      When Dad talks about it, I can feel his sadness. Otherwise, I don’t feel anything. I can’t even hate Blackstone, cos he’s dead.

      The closing footage on the documentary is me and Seren playing with the Sylvanians in the rehab centre. The boxes are dotted all around, wrapped in big bows. I’m lying in my bed and watching her, moving the figures about on my tummy and Seren is telling me some story about mice. It strikes me hard how she’s the only person I have left in this world – the only person who knows the real me. Even though she despises me these days, I do miss her.

      Priory Gardens was the spark in my powder keg. The reason Mum got sick. The reason Dad gave up. The reason I have little emotional reaction to anything except Death. I can’t feel unless I’m killing. Then I feel everything.

      We’ve had another note. This time I caught sight of the person who posted it as he was loping off up the seafront – a big guy in blue jeans, hoody. No other wording – just the same again. ‘To my Sweet Messy House’. And a number.

      ‘I don’t want to fucking talk to you!’ I screamed through the letterbox, screwing up the note and scuffing back into the lounge. Gordon Ramsay had started on one of the high channels – he was counselling a crying chef who’d lost all his microwaves.

      *

      Jim’s been in – the estate agent says two couples are interested in Craig’s flat. The forensics have finished, so he’s released it for sale to start paying the lawyers. One of the couples is expecting. I imagine them walking around, hand in hand, looking in our wardrobes, talking about the ‘nice views from the balcony’. Looking inside the cupboards that I watched Craig build, that autumn we first met. We got Tink from the RSPCA that autumn, a little warm ball of toffee ice cream who licked my cheek and stopped shaking the moment I held her. It’s all I can do to prise her away from Jim these days.

       1. Cafés that pre-butter toast or toasted tea cakes.

       2. The guy that keeps posting illegible notes through our front door.

       3. Weathermen who stand in hurricanes strong enough to blow cataracts from their eyes and ‘can’t believe how strong the wind is’.

      My Bible doesn’t seem to be able to offer me any guidance on feeling less tilted than I do at the moment, aside from ‘Offer yourself up to the Lord’ or ‘God’s mighty hand will lift you up if you just believe.’ Not a bad read though. That Delilah was a bit of a head case.

      Marnie

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