C.J. Skuse - The Alibi Girl

Steffi sweeps the cape around my body, rendering everything but my head invisible. I used to like wearing a cape. Or an oversized bath towel. There’s nothing quite like that feeling of getting out of a hot bath, wrapping the big bath towel around you and pretending to fly up the corridor with the towel flapping along behind. Me and my cousin Foy used to do that all the time after our baths. Or was it only once?

‘How are you coping with the little one?’ Steffi asks.

‘Fine, thanks. She’s our fifth, so we’re used to being tired all the time. You know what it’s like, I’m sure!’

‘Oh yeah,’ she says, face brightening. ‘We’ve got four and it’s chaos. We love it though. Love the chaos!’ We share the laugh only parents can share as she begins pasting on my colour. ‘Have you got anything planned for the rest of the day?’ I get the impression she’s asked this question 11,000 times. There’s no inflection. No real note of interest. I still answer.

‘Not really. A bit of shopping. Pick the kids up. I’m still on maternity leave from my practice so it’s nice not to have such a rigid timetable.’

‘What sort of practice?’

‘I’m a doctor. A GP.’

‘Oh right. Where are they all today then? At a friend’s house?’

I’m momentarily confused. ‘My children? They’re all at school.’

‘They not on half term?’

‘They’re all at private school,’ I say. ‘Their half term was last week.’

‘Oh,’ she says, with more than a hint of lemon juice about it. ‘You’ve got four of them at private school?’

‘Yeah,’ I tell her proudly, rocking the buggy. ‘Apples of their daddy’s eye. We’re stopping at five though. I’m having my tubes tied in January, I’ve told him already. He’d have a football team, given half the chance.’

‘Yeah, I think mine would!’

‘It’s our anniversary today so my mum and dad are going to have the kids tonight so we can go out for a meal.’

‘Ooh, where are you going? Anywhere nice?’

What a stupid question that is. No, we’re off to a complete dive with a one-star hygiene rating and a chef who wipes his bum on the lettuce . ‘The China Garden. The one with the gold dragon hanging from the ceiling? His treat.’

‘What does he do then, your bloke?’

I ignite when she says ‘Your bloke’. It’s lovely to have a bloke who belongs to me. ‘He’s a personal trainer.’

‘Nice. I wish my old man would take me out. Do you know I don’t think we’ve had a night out since our Livvy was born. And she’s starting Reception next month.’

‘Oh really?’

‘Yeah. We can’t afford it anyway. Rich’s been laid off from the airport.’

‘Oh right,’ I say, with the hint of gloom she seems to expect. ‘What did he—’

‘—baggage handler at John Lennon. Twenty years he gave them. Went in on his days off when they were striking and everything. And he caught a terrorist.’

‘Oh gosh.’ Cockroach Game Show Host scuttles back along the skirting board. I pretend to have a coughing fit and Steffi asks if I’d like some water, which is when she’s reminded about the tea she hasn’t made me yet and scurries off to see ‘where it’s got to’ like tea has a mind of its own.

I’m finally brought my tea and two Custard Creams – one with a corner snapped off. I remove the top of one biscuit and scrape out the cream with my bottom teeth. I put the two sides back together and munch it until it makes a neat circle of spitty biscuit between my thumbs, then I put it in my mouth ’til it dissolves. I don’t realise until I swallow that Steffi has been watching me. My cheeks flame as red as my roots.

But then my phone pings in my handbag and I rifle around to find it. ‘Probably Daddy, checking in on his girls.’

‘Ahhh,’ says Steffi, all misty-eyed.

It isn’t Daddy. It’s an email from eBay, letting me know about their half term sale on personalised school stationery.

‘Was it him?’ says Steffi, combing my colour through.

‘Yeah. He’s asking if I want anything brought in. Bless him.’

‘He sounds like a keeper.’ I hold up my iPhone screen to show her his photo. She takes it off me and squints. ‘Blimey, he’s gorgeous.’

I know what she’s thinking – that a woman like me couldn’t have possibly ‘got’ a guy like him. ‘I’m very lucky.’ She returns me the phone and I put him away safely in my bag. ‘We were childhood sweethearts.’

‘You started early then. I thought you looked young to have five kids.’

‘I had the first one at fourteen.’

‘Blimey.’

‘Then the twins, then Harry. Wasn’t easy with the medical degree, but we managed. Then this little surprise came along.’

‘I met my Rich on a hen weekend.’

I hadn’t asked and it’s not interesting to me but I pretend it’s the most interesting thing because for some reason I’m happy in her company. Two married mums together. ‘I love a good knees-up.’

‘Yeah it did get a bit rowdy,’ she laughs. ‘He did karaoke to “Once, Twice, Three Times a Lady” and pointed at me when he was singing. I knew then he was The One .’

I smile at the mirror. ‘The One. It’s a nice feeling, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, don’t get me wrong, we have our moments. He woke up yesterday with a cold, right? And his breathing has become all like that Darth Wossit. And I said to him “Rich, I swear to God, if you breathe like that anymore, I’m gonna ram your head in the bacon slicer.” He was winding me up that much.’

I don’t get that. Why stay with a person whose breathing makes you want to commit actual murder on their head? So I ask her.

‘So you don’t love him anymore?’

‘Oh, course I do,’ she laughs. ‘I were only joking. Just wish he worked on an oil rig or summut, so he’d leave the bloody house once in a while, you know?’

I don’t get that either but, before I can ask, she hands me the same magazine I read six times in the waiting room and I’m treated to another glimpse of hairy Brooklyn and interviews with Liam Payne’s mother and the Britain’s Got Talent failure who’s had twenty facelifts and still hates himself.

We used to play Britain’s Got Talent at the pub. It would be after the kitchen had closed for the evening. Auntie Chelle would be helping Uncle Stu in the bar and the boys would be upstairs and me and Foy would sneak down for midnight feasts of still-warm chips from the fryers and leftover baguette ends dipped in salad cream. We’d take it in turns to come through from the utility room, telling a sob story to the panel of stuffed toys on the breakfast bar then screech ‘Flying Without Wings’ into a vinegar bottle. Miss Whiskers and Thread Bear always put us through to Bootcamp.

After half an hour, Steffi returns. ‘Let’s get you washed. Leave her with Jodie.’

The one called Jodie, with the shoulder tattoo of moons and stars and the white DMs, appears beside the buggy, all smiley and young. ‘Yeah, I’ll watch her for ya.’

‘Don’t let her out of your sight, will you?’ I say.

‘No probs. Can I have a little hold if she wakes up?’

‘No, I’d rather you didn’t. Thanks. She’s better left to her own devices.’

Steffi leads me back across the glittery floor to the sinks. I must get some glitter. I don’t know what for yet but I don’t use nearly enough of it. It’ll be November soon so I could get a head start on decorating for Christmas. Steffi’s pressing buttons and running water before I’ve even sat down. As I do, a bizarre kneading sensation begins in my lower back, rising up my spine and into my shoulder blades.

‘Oh my god!’ I jerk forwards and I realise it’s one of those massage chairs.