Sweetpea: The most unique and gripping thriller of 2017. C.J. Skuse

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СКАЧАТЬ All quiet on the Western Front. Still can’t get the stains out of the bedroom carpet. Craig is still buying all my lies about ‘going to Cleo’s aerobics class’ and ‘working late; so I can go over there. It’s almost too easy.

      Gave Tink a bath in the kitchen sink. She doesn’t like it but puts up with it because she always gets chicken bits afterwards. As I was trying to towel her off, she legged it round the flat like she had rabies. Craig laughed too, which broke the ice. Then he said he was ‘going over Homebase’ to get me the other paint. He said he needed some new wallpaper scissors for work as well.

      I said, ‘Why don’t you just have my dad’s old wallpaper scissors from his toolkit? I was going over there tomorrow to sort out Mum’s filing cabinet. I can get them then.’

      He said that meant a lot to him, like Dad was giving him his blessing from beyond the grave. The hallowed Tommy Lewis toolkit that Dad carried with him like an extra limb and Craig was never allowed to touch. I thought he was going to cry.

      ‘They’re just wallpaper scissors, Craig,’ I said. ‘It’s not an engagement ring.’

      He nodded and left the room with a distinct clear of throat. I’m terrible with crying people. How do you make them stop? I deliberately caught the wrong bus once because a woman was blubbing in the bus shelter. Didn’t know what else to do.

      Do I love him? I haven’t known what love is in a long time. He says he loves me but isn’t that just something that gets said? He told me on Christmas Eve that, coupled with the hand jobs and my excellent trifle, I’m almost the perfect girlfriend. I don’t nag him as much as his mates’ wives nag them either. I asked him what would make me perfect.

      ‘Anal,’ he said, no hesitation. ‘What would make me perfect?’ he asked.

      Well, it’d be a start if you stopped shagging Lana Rowntree behind my back, I thought. Instead, I opted for the safer:

      ‘You can’t improve on perfection itself, can you, darling?’

      He laughed and I flicked him a V sign behind the Radio Times.

Wednesday, 3 January

      Hi ho, hi ho, it’s back to my shitty job I go. Actually, there is a dwarf where I work – he’s upstairs in the Accounts department. He’s the reason we had all our light switches moved to three feet above the ground. Madness.

      Today went as all days at the Gazette go – long, coffee-stained and dull. The first half was me telling anyone who asked what a good Christmas I had and some dull-as-ditch tasks of inputting local schools’ thank-you letters to Santa, updating the website and making coffee in the new £5,000 (yes, that’s £5,000!) coffee machine. There were four new mugs in the staffroom – Christmas presents no one wanted at home but which everyone wants at work because they’re clean. I nabbed one with dinosaurs on and the words TEA-REX. Hardy har.

      The usual New Year signs have gone up everywhere, unstained and laminated. Signs telling professional adults helpful things like IF YOU’RE LAST OUT OF AN EVENING, PLEASE TURN OFF ALL THE LIGHTS and PLEASE WASH YOUR OWN CROCKERY. The toilets are full of them: PLEASE ONLY FLUSH TOILET TISSUE DOWN THE TOILET. PLEASE REPLACE TOILET PAPER IF YOU USE THE LAST PIECE. PLEASE TURN OFF THE TAPS AFTER USE. There’s even one as you leave, saying, PLEASE LEAVE THESE FACILITIES AS YOU FIND THEM – THANK YOU.

      I’d like to suggest some new signs for the office, specifically for my benefit and/or amusement:

      PLEASE REMEMBER TO WIPE YOUR ASS AFTERWARDS FOR THE GOOD OF YOUR GUSSET.

      PLEASE CLOSE ALL DOORS QUIETLY, STAY HOME IF YOU ARE SICK, OR AT LEAST TRY TO DIMINISH YOUR SNEEZES – NOISE-SENSITIVE PSYCHOPATH IN THE BUILDING.

      PLEASE DO NOT WEAR CROCS TO WORK – THEY ARE AN INSULT TO FOOTWEAR (MIKE HEATH –T HIS MEANS YOU).

      DON’T DRINK SO MUCH OF THE OFFICE MILK – MIKE HEATH THE MILK THIEF THIS MEANS YOU TOO, WHAT WITH YOUR DAILY OVERFLOWING BOWLS OF CEREAL AND SIX CAPPUCCINOS.

      PLEASE DON’T EAT CHEESY NACHOS OR FRIED BREAKFASTS AT YOUR DESK – THE SMELL MAKES US ALL WANT TO VOM.

      PLEASE DON’T TELL RHIANNON LEWIS WHAT YOU DID AT THE WEEKEND – SHE WAS ONLY BEING POLITE.

      The Gulp Monster – aka, Claudia Gulper, our desk editor – is responsible for the signs. She puts pass ag labels on her food in the staff-room fridge with the same marker. I stayed late tonight to help her with her article on the mismanagement of power-station funds, which she hopes is going to win her some big journalism prize (it won’t). I asked her to look at my unsolicited article about the rise of drug-related crime and we talked about my theory that the ladies’ dress shop Paint the Town Red was the hub of distribution. I thought it could earn me some extra Brownie points.

      More fool I.

      I’d liked Claudia for about five minutes when I’d first started at the Gazette as a receptionist but, nowadays, she treats me like some kind of home help. She insisted on giving me endless boring ‘News in Brief’ snippets to type up or deaf Golden Wedding couples to interview, and once shouted at me in front of everyone for missing three semi-colons in the Fun Run results – not to mention a billion other reasons for me to want to jump through the fucking window. I long ago decided she was just a pubic louse on the vaginal wall of the cunt witch from Hell. I’m glad her third round of IVF failed and her husband left her. No spawn deserves that for a mother.

      Craig was cooking when I got home (guilt food, obvs). Pasta from scratch with home-made pesto. Since I only had an apple and a black coffee for breakfast and just a salad for lunch, I allowed myself a troughing.

      It’s safer to have than to have not, isn’t it? Even if the Have is crap. And if you’re not with someone, you get questions about it, All. The. Time. When you’re hooked up, that all stops. You feel embraced in the safety of having someone. And other people are contented because they don’t have to worry about setting you up on blind dates or going out in couples with a walking gooseberry bush.

      What I should do is leave him. I should make him a dog-shit sandwich or cut all the crotches out of his Levis and hit the road. But it’s complicated. Craig worked for my dad and took over his building firm when he died. I like having that link. And it’s his flat and he pays most of the bills. And he puts up with all my kinks – my need to not have sudden, repetitive or loud noises, my need for quiet periods of time alone and for no one to touch my doll’s house. What other guy would put up with me?

      Regarding the sex, there were ‘mixed reviews’.

      When it’s good, it’s OK. No intense orgasms but nothing to complain about. And when it’s bad it’s brief. He comes, he goes to sleep. We’ve tried kinky stuff (he’s worn my knickers, gone down on me on a night bus, and I keep nakes of him in my phone) and sometimes if we’re at his mum and dad’s and they’re asleep in front of Antiques Roadshow, we’ll creep upstairs and do it on their bed. Then it’s not bad at all because there’s an element of risk, I suppose. But his general repertoire in the sack had become as predictable as EastEnders. I know where his tongue’s going next, when he wants me on top, how many thrusts it’s going to take. It’s all become a bit yadda yadda. I’ve tried introducing different positions to the event but, you try turning tricks like Simone Biles when you’ve only got an average of four minutes thirty-seven СКАЧАТЬ