Monday, 25th June – 7 weeks, 1 day
1. People in washing powder adverts who are surprised when the washing powder gets the clothes clean, i.e. does its fucking job.
2. The first man who got the first woman pregnant. And the first woman who thought that was a good idea.
3. People who buy fake flowers.
4. People who make fake flowers.
5. Tourists in open-toe sandals – now that it’s summer there are suddenly yellowing, gnarly trotters everywhere. Now I know how the Nazis felt when the Ark of the Covenant opened.
6. Johnny Depp.
For just a moment the other day, I thought I was running out of items for my Kill Lists. But then lo, a new morning breaks and with it arrives a whole new bunch of thorns in my raw little side.
I gave Jim the Gazette’s switchboard number and left him to explain why I was off sick. I can take as long as I need. Bet they’re loving this. Nothing as newsworthy as this has ever happened in that town. I can see Linus Sixgill now, creaming his genius over his by-line:
PRIORY GARDENS SURVIVOR IN SEX SLAYER SHOCK SHE USED TO MAKE OUR COFFEE!
or
GAZETTE GIRL’S BOYFRIEND IS GAY SEX SLAYER! WE ALWAYS THOUGHT HER COFFEE TASTED FUNNY!
or perhaps
GAZETTE JUNIOR LIVES WITH SICKO SEX FIEND: Did she make his coffee too?
I’ve felt sick all day. And thirsty. And dizzy, like I’ve been stuck in a revolving door for a decade. I’m also shivery, which Elaine says is ‘either a chill or pneumonia’. She is making me endless cups of tea and checking my temperature on the hour.
Either Jim or Elaine have come into my bedroom unannounced twelve times since I woke up with the doorbell at 9.58 a.m. Tink scampers in too. She hops up on my bed and makes a beeline for my face, licking it all over. She seems to love me again, even though Jim has taken over her care now.
God I feel awful. Perhaps I’m dying. Wouldn’t that be ironic? What if Elaine’s right and this is what pneumonia feels like? How the hell is a thing the size of a chickpea causing me so much discomfort?
You overdid it yesterday. You need to rest. I need to grow in peace.
FFS. It’s talking to me all the time now. Like Jiminy Cricket but without the musical interludes.
Elaine’s been in to change my sick bucket and bring in a two-litre bottle of water and a piece of dry toast. I wonder if this lot will stay down. Got no appetite at all. I don’t have a hunger for anything. It’s like Heil Foetus has invaded Womblandia and drenched that fire in amniotic fluid.
Ugh. I feel sick again. Every time I close my eyes, I keep seeing his thigh meat all over my hands.
Thursday, 28th June – 7 weeks, 4 day
1. People who share Facebook posts like ‘Hey, put a star on your wall to support brain cancer’ or ‘Post this as your status if you have the best hubby/wife/dad/hamster ever.’ Stop with the whole global community thing. It ain’t gonna happen, not with me in the community anyway.
2. Tourists with their faces in their Greggs nosebags, who walk in human chains along pavements.
3. People who say ‘There are no words’ when there’s been some tragedy. There are always words. You’re just too lazy to form them into complete sentences.
Tink’s barking woke me up. Jim always answers the door to spare me and Elaine and today I heard a snippet – national press. How they found out I’m living here I don’t know, but one peek out of Jim and Elaine’s bedroom window shows they’re camped out for the duration.
I think about going all Tudor on their asses and tipping a bucket of piss over them but I guess I need them on my side, which is a shame because I have rather a lot of piss in me right now. And wind. And vomit.
Jim only announces callers when it’s a flower delivery – and we’ve had many. Sixteen in all. Jim will bring them in, vased, say who they’re from – their friends, the Gazette, one of the PICSOs (my old ‘friends’, the people I couldn’t scrape off), some random school friends – and set them down on my nightstand so I can see them as I’m drifting back to sleep. Then Elaine will come in, take my temperature, set down a plate of chopped banana and dry crackers and take the flowers out because ‘plants sap all the oxygen out of the room’. I don’t know where they go after that.
I managed one trip downstairs today to get a biscuit mid-afternoon. Saw a pile of business cards and scraps of paper on the dresser. Notes from reporters, asking for ‘my side of the story.’ My life with Craig Wilkins – the most vicious serial killer the West Country’s ever seen. We only want the truth.
If only they knew the real truth. It should be my face on those front pages. My headlines. I did those things, not him. I want to stand on that doorstep and scream it: IT WAS ME. ME. ME. ME. FUCKING ME!
But then another tsunami of nausea sweeps my way, crashing out every other thought in my head other than ‘Get to the toilet, quick.’
Not today, Mummy. Back to bed.
I’m throwing up water now. Elaine says it ‘must be something in the bottles’. She’s read how pregnant women drinking from plastic bottles can pass on abnormalities.
‘One baby in India came out with two heads and they said that was because of bottled water.’
I don’t want to split my hoo-ha so I guess I’ll have to make the switch to filtered.
Sunday, 1st July – 8 weeks exactly
Ugh.
Monday, 2nd July – 8 weeks, 1 day
Double ugh. I opened the fridge to get some chilled water and screamed – on the bottom shelf was a dead baby tied up in a see-through bag. Turns out, Elaine had just bought a chicken for tea. Once seen, not forgotten.
I crawled back upstairs and into bed like the girl out of The Grudge.
My head is swimming and I can’t see the point of doing anything. Though one of the journalists on the doorstep did wink at me when I went out to bring the milk in. I must look like 180 pounds of shit in a ten-pound bag but still, it was a brief boost.
Wednesday, 4th July – 8 weeks, 3 days
1. Elaine – the way she loads the dishwasher
