In Bloom - C.J. Skuse

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      Then there’s the tedious one, Helen. Ginger hair, milk-white skin covered in fish food freckles, huge overstuffed bump. She is slightly cross-eyed and her chin zits look like spheres of chorizo, though of course it’s de trop to mention either.

      ‘Helen Rutherford,’ she said, all pinched and evil. ‘Nice to meet you.’

      ‘Likewise,’ I returned, more evil. She only joined in the conversation to correct some statistic or brag about how easy her last pregnancy was, how she ‘breastfed Myles until school’ and how tight she is cos she ‘kept up her exercises.’ She thinks anyone who doesn’t breastfeed or give birth ‘naturally’ is the Devil incarnate. Helen is my least favourite pudding. In fact I hate her already.

      A baby started screaming in its high chair on the next table and all of them looked at it with that same expression of ‘Ahh, bless.’ I was horrified. This was no place for the noise-sensitive.

      There was one Pudding who wasn’t as ball-achingly thick, arrogant or tedious as the others and this was Marnie Prendergast – twenty-eight, conker-brown eyes and a soft, Brontë-country accent. She’s due in September but has a tiny bump so her clothes still fit. Her parents are dead too – her mum after birthing her brother (a blood clot I think but the cakes were coming) and her dad had ‘some kidney thing’. Her brother lives abroad and they don’t speak.

      ‘Orphans Unite,’ she beamed, clinking her coffee with my water. ‘We’re like Annie and that little kid she sings to in the night, aren’t we?’

      ‘Molly?’ I said.

      ‘Yeah,’ she laughed. She laughed at many of my comic asides today. Nobody ever laughs at my comic asides. I liked Marnie immediately.

      I liked her outfit today too – a Frankie Says Relax t-shirt, black jacket and pedal pushers. She had on black and white Vans too – like the pair I wore until Craig got paint on them. We got onto the subject of Sylvanian Families – she adored them as a child. She even still had her Cottontail Rabbit family and Cosy Cottage Starter Home, though it was ‘still in the loft somewhere’. I can forgive her for that. But yeah, despite her incessant phone-checking and the Take That badge on her lapel. I’m pretty sure I’ve made a friend.

      I asked her where to buy cool maternity clothes, not Helen’s kind that looked like she’d crash landed on a chintz marquee.

      ‘If you want to trawl threads, I’m your gal,’ she said. ‘I love shopping.’

      ‘I hate it,’ I said. ‘But yeah we could go to the Mall or something.’

      ‘It’s a date. Let’s swap numbers and I’ll give you a buzz at the weekend.’

      This was the only nice conversation I had at Pudding Club – the rest involved either pre-eclampsia, nipple-hardening or pissing oneself. I strained to hear most of it over all the screaming and though I laughed along and enthused about joining their antenatal classes I wasn’t feeling it. I kept thinking, Is this my life now? Is this all there is? The one saving grace was that no one was bringing up the Craig thing.

      Until someone brought up the Craig thing.

      ‘So what’s happening with the trial, Rhiannon?’ asked Pin, chewing her apricot Danish. All heads except Marnie’s turned to me.

      ‘Uh, nothing at the moment. He’s due to plead in November and then I think the trial will be set for some time next year.’

      Nev was working her way through a vegan brownie. Her teeth were covered in brown clods. ‘What’s he going to plead?’

      I fiddled with my engagement ring. ‘Not guilty.’

      ‘But did he do it? Did he kill all those people?’

      I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It’s been a lot to process.’

      Marnie cleared her throat. ‘Rhiannon might not feel comfortable talking about this—’

      ‘Yeah do say if you’re not comfortable talking about it, Rhiannon,’ said Pin, at full volume. Pin used to be in the army so could easily project her voice like it was still fighting for attention with the landmines. Several eyes from the other tables turned to ours as she was talking. ‘But you must have known something, surely.’ The tiny tantrummer on the carpet started up again, furious at having her face wiped.

      I smiled meekly, my Just-Your-Average-Preggo smile. ‘I really didn’t know anything.’

      The others nodded along like they were stuck on a back windscreen.

      ‘I saw you on Up at the Crack a few months ago,’ said Scarlett.

      ‘Oh, for the Woman of the Century award?’ I said. ‘Yeah, that was fun.’

      Not.

      ‘Yeah you had a lovely top on. Sort of peach with frills?’

      ‘Miss Selfridge,’ I informed her.

      ‘Cool,’ she said, getting her phone out and Googling it.

      ‘Why aren’t you talking to the press?’ said Helen. ‘Bit of a wasted opportunity if you ask me.’

      Marnie sighed. ‘Helen, for goodness sake—’

      ‘No it’s fine,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t feel right. Feels like I’m selling him out.’

      ‘Why don’t you though?’ asked Helen, her fish-flake cheeks pounding down her banana bread. ‘He’s left you high and dry with a baby on the way. You need all the money you can get, surely.’ She was looking down at my engagement ring. ‘That must have cost a pretty penny too.’

      ‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘My sister Seren and I inherited our parents’ house—’

      ‘He is a murderer after all. Don’t you think the victims of those appalling attacks deserve some answers?’

      ‘What victims?’ scoffed Nev. ‘That guy in the canal had it coming by all accounts. And the dude in the park was a –’ pause to lower voice to a whisper ‘– sex offender – and that woman in the quarry—’

      ‘What?’ said Helen, all raised eyebrows and pass-ag. ‘The MOTHER in the quarry who was held for weeks and tortured, then raped and thrown into a pit? She had three children, Nevaeh. Thee!

      Nev shut up. Scarlett looked at Pin. Helen looked at Scarlett, snooty as a fox. My heartburn scorched my throat and my arse had begun to twitch. Pin called the waiter over for our bill. Marnie patted my forearm and mouthed ‘I’m so sorry.’ I think she meant it.

      I turned to Helen. ‘It hasn’t gone to trial yet.’

      ‘And you’re standing by him, are you, Rhiannon?’

      They looked at me. The waitresses looked at me. Tiny Tantrummer looked at me. Old Me would have said something meek and non-controversial but today, I just couldn’t be bothered. I could see the Pudding Club becoming like the PICSOs – bloody hard work. In a parallel universe, it might have been different. We’d have dinner parties, drink Prosecco into the small hours and bond over risqué conversation about fluffy handcuffs and fisting. Perhaps we’d have had barbecues and playdates and swapped ideas about nativity costumes in the schoolyard. But in this universe? No chance.

      ‘Yes Helen, I’m standing by my knife-wielding, rapey-lady, torture-happy, murderous asshole of a boyfriend. Now get me a doughnut before I pass the fuck out.’

       1. TV programmes about billionaires who spend millions on lampshades and ornaments and STILL find stuff to bitch about.

       2. TV programmes about benefit cheats who buy fags, tattoos and Heineken but have ‘nothing to feed their kids’. Cry me a river.

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