The Alibi Girl. C.J. Skuse

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СКАЧАТЬ like her a few streets away,’ he says, frowning to inspect her labelless collar.

      ‘Really?’

      ‘Yeah. Little white patch here and everything,’ he says, stroking her chest.

      ‘Oh yeah, I saw that one,’ I lie. ‘That isn’t her. This is Tallulah von Puss.’

      ‘I think that one was called Pedro. Anyway, I best get going. See ya.’ He jogs up the front steps to the door. I wait for him to take a second look back at me, like men sometimes do in films when they’re secretly in love but they can only say it with their eyes. But he doesn’t.

      And Tessa Sharpe’s dead face comes screaming into my mind again.

      I hear the first notes of Emily’s cry inside so I gulp down my Nesquik, pick up my crumby plate and go to her.

      Me and her. Me changing her. Me cuddling her in the middle of the night when there’s nobody else to. It’s just us. It always would be just us, wouldn’t it? And in a heartbeat I’m annoyed, my head is full of thunder and lightning. I wish, for a second, that I was Tessa Sharpe.

      And then I feel awful, like my insides are rancid. How could I wish I were dead even for a second? After everything Scants has done to protect me? Because being dead means this all being over, that’s why. All this running and hiding and lying. I can just be Me. Ellis Who Died. Rather than Joanne Who Barely Existed. I don’t want to be the Me they tell me to be. The Me that Scants says I have to be. It doesn’t stick.

      Today I’ve told work I’m going to be late as I have to attend a funeral. And it’s true; I am going to a funeral. June Busby’s funeral. Whoever June Busby is. I heard them talking about it at Leonard Finch’s funeral last week and I asked the vicar about it. I wonder if they’ll have those mushroom vol-au-vents again after; they were delish.

      I’m not disrespectful when I attend these gatherings, far from it. And I’m rarely asked for identification. I like going because funerals are family occasions and I like being around families, even if they aren’t my own. People are usually so taken with peeking into the papoose to try and see Emily, they aren’t bothered that I’m neither family nor friend. I could be a neighbour, a work colleague, someone the deceased met down the park while feeding the ducks. Maybe I gave her a lift to aerobics. Maybe I walked his dog for him in his final weeks. They’ll never know.

      I haven’t brought Emily today. I wanted to go alone. I’m all in black as I walk funereally through the fog towards the big cemetery gates. I see the coffin in the hearse. Dark brown. Brass handles. Small floral arrangement on the top with a card. A large black car follows closely behind. They both stop at the doors.

      The family members get out of the car. A man with a ginger beard and blond hair. Black suit. People gravitate towards him, shaking his hand, a manly embrace. A We’ll get through this shoulder clasp. I’m handed an A5 white booklet.

       Celebrating the life of June Miranda Busby.

      The entrance music is listed as The Carpenters’ ‘Yesterday Once More’. I flick to the back page. The exit music is ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina’. Leonard Finch’s exit music was ‘Oklahoma!’ which everyone seemed to find amusing for some reason.

      There’s a Welcome and Introduction by the Celebrant – Miss Gloria Andrews, whoever she is and whatever a celebrant is. Posh word for a priest, I suppose.

      Then a hymn – ‘Make Me a Channel of Your Peace’. Loads of verses.

      Then a Eulogy and a family tribute, read by June’s son Philip. Then another hymn. Then the Committal. Which is the bit when the coffin goes behind the curtains and, presumably, gets burned.

      ‘You will come to the pub for a cuppa, won’t you?’ says the son, Philip, to the man standing next to me looking over the floral tributes.

      ‘Yes of course,’ says the man.

      ‘Yes of course,’ says I. And the son Philip looks at me and smiles graciously. He doesn’t need to know who I am – being there is enough for him to know his mother was cherished.

      I only started going to people’s funerals after my dad died. I couldn’t go to his – I was still in hospital and they said I wasn’t well enough. I’ve only ever visited his grave in Scarborough once, and Scants told me not to go back again. Never go back, it’s too dangerous. Keep going forwards. To where though? Where am I going?

      I’ve tried to get out and about and meet people like Scants keeps telling me to, but it’s not like it used to be as a kid. Back then you’d just say Hey, do you want to play Tig or Pokémon? and they would. Adults are full of suspicion and fear. Children themselves I find very easy to talk to. When I’m down at the pier or the beach or the arcades on my mornings or afternoons off, I can strike up conversations very quickly with kids. We have similar interests. Similar goals in life. Mainly, short term happiness. They don’t think about tomorrow. I daren’t.

      Scants finds this too weird. No more playing with other people’s kids, he says. It’s not friendship, it’s grooming. Join a club instead, do a course, get some hobbies. Meet people your own age.

      But adults are untrustworthy and devious. Adults do bad things.

      The only things I like doing besides eating and watching DVDs is going down the arcades and playing ‘Guitar Hero’ or bowling with Matthew or dressing up the cats. I don’t go scuba diving at weekends or play lacrosse on a Wednesday night or anything like that. I’m not sociable or vivacious enough to ‘join a club of likeminded people’. Who does that? What kind of Louisa May Alcott world does Scants live in where people just go out and, god forbid, introduce themselves to new people?

      I’m not one of life’s joiner-inners, I am one of life’s stay-at-homers.

      Except when I have to work. Or I need a doughnut.

      ‘Hey, Charlotte!’ comes the cheery greeting from inside the doughnut van as I’m walking along the front to work.

      ‘Hi Johnny,’ I say. ‘How are you?’

      ‘I saw you the other day. Had some doughnut holes for you. I called out.’

      ‘Oh. Sorry. I can’t have heard you.’

      ‘You seemed in a rush. Where’s your baby today?’

      ‘At the childminder’s. I had to go to a funeral this morning.’

      ‘Ah no. Anyone close?’

      ‘No, not close. Got a nice few hours to myself now to finish my novel. Thought I’d treat myself first.’

      ‘Ahhh good idea,’ he says, lowering the frying basket into the bubbling oil. ‘Give me three minutes, I’ll put a fresh batch on for you.’ He moves his batter mixing bowl to the back bench and I slip into Charlotte Mode – my spine instantly lengthening as I flick my scarf over my shoulder.

      ‘Thank you. I need all the sugar I can get today. Got a big rewrite underway.’

      ‘That’s not good,’ he says. ‘Your editor didn’t like what you’d done?’

      ‘No, I СКАЧАТЬ