I didn’t feel the need and I didn’t have any of Tink’s poo bags on me anyway.
Julia was only at my secondary school for a year, but in that year she’d done her level best to ruin what Priory Gardens had left of me. The morning I saw her in the precinct before Christmas, taking her kids to school as I walked towards work, I froze. I got that same feeling I had as an eleven-year-old every morning, when she’d walk into assembly and make a beeline for the chair next to me – the chair I HAD to save. I followed her home. I saw her junkyard of a front garden. Smelled her cigarette smoke wafting over her fence. Heard her shouting down the phone to someone.
One morning, I followed her again, this time prepared. I did the old ‘Hey, is that you, Julia? It’s me, Rhiannon!’ routine. I drove her out to the house and we’d had a nice chat over some tea and a Lyons Victoria Sponge. She worked as a hairdresser; her partner, Terry, was a removals man.
Then I beat her unconscious and tied her up using climbing ropes from Mountain Warehouse and some strong steel eyes from Dad’s toolbox, screwed and bolted into the back bedroom wall.
I only saw Dad do it once, get rid of a body. I hope it’s not too difficult when the time comes. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried. Maybe it’s because she’s a woman. Or because she has kids – fairly ugly kids as kids go, but still kids and, therefore, innocents. They all have their mother’s genes though – her freckles, her twisted teeth. They’re better off without her. She’s holding them back. Like she once held me back. Julia the Puppet Master.
Julia the Sly who’d pinch me when the teacher wasn’t looking because I hadn’t answered her question ‘Am I your best friend?’
Julia the Scribbler who’d written ‘Rhiannon Fatty Fat Face’ in the front of my Bible and scrawled ‘Mary Sucks Cocks’ over eight pages of my New Testament.
Julia the Beater who’d failed her English test and taken out her frustration on me – a selective mute with brain damage.
Julia the Firestarter who’d burnt a hole in my tunic with the Bunsen burner.
Julia the Killer who’d stamped on the frog I’d befriended beside the pond because I hadn’t said, ‘You’re my best friend.’
Julia the Demanding who would stare at me with her evil eyes and stab my hand with her fountain pen in French if I didn’t help her with her verbs.
Julia the Cutter who would sneak scissors from the Art cupboard and cut off pieces of my hair.
Julia the Rapist who’d pinned me down behind the school science lab and tried to rape me with a stick because I hadn’t said, ‘You’re my best friend.’
I prayed for her death every night. But every morning, my heart would sink as the big fat-footed girl with the ginger hair, wonky parting and the trash-can breath appeared in the doorway of the assembly hall.
I used to dream about life without Julia – a full night’s sleep, no more racing heartbeat, sitting beside whoever I wanted in class, playing with who I wanted at break-time. Getting better grades and delivering more than just a piss-poor performance as Wing Attack to impress the teachers. No more bruises. When she left, it got better. My grades went up, my voice came back stronger. I even made some friends for a while. But the hate inside me had already started to multiply. Priory Gardens had turned on the tap but Julia kept it running.
No one ever helped me. To the other kids, Rhiannon and Julia were BFFs and no one was going to come between them, as much as I would silently scream for them to do so. I was a prisoner in Julia’s fist and it was reducing me to dust.
So yeah, BuzzFeed, I was always in trouble at school and I was a bully do not apply to this psychopath. In fact, I was a model pupil – silent, studious, obliging. Allowing any bitch to slap me or spit in my face cos she thought it was funny.
But now that bitch was my prisoner. My dust.
1. Woman sitting next to me on the train who has no concept of personal space (cue elbow digs), coughs without putting her hand over her mouth and has just eaten an egg-andmayonnaise sandwich. If I’d had a gun, I’d have shot that fucking sandwich right out of her hands
2. Plug hogs on trains. Woman next to me is also one of these
3. Pass ag ticket inspector who huffed when I showed him my seat reservation instead of my ticket, then lingered, making small talk with the nineteen-year-old blonde student nurse behind me
4. Man in Lycra shorts who barged past me to the last seat on the Tube
5. Everyone who lives or works in London
Had my usual Dad dream. Woke up with the shakes. I told Craig I was just cold. Am on the train now, travelling to London for tomorrow’s Up At the Crack interview. The OK! magazine I bought at the station is a veritable cavalcade of fake-titted reality stars and women too fat or too thin, according to what’s in fashion, so I’ve given up. I’m now enjoying watching the people who get on board whenever the train stops at a station. I like how they look around when they alight, sizing up the competition.
Hmm, who is the least threatening person to sit next to, they think.
Will it be the group of young men sitting around the table covered with empty beer bottles at 9.29 a.m.? No, definitely not.
How about the oily old gent with the carrier bag on his lap who looks like Robin Williams in One Hour Photo? Not, not him either.
How about the four ginger kids whose tablets are all on full volume? Or the two old women incessantly nattering – one who looks like Helen Mirren, the other like Helen Mirren’s less successful brunette sister who works in Aldi?
No. They all make a beeline for me, of course. Because I’m the woman alone. Sweet and unthreatening. Friendly faced. Quiet.
Craig had suggested a B&B for me a couple of streets away from the TV studios, one he’d stayed in when him and Stuart went up to watch QPR play Middlesbrough and his train home was cancelled. He said the fry-up was ‘beyond the beyond’.
A man rubbed up against me on the Tube out of Paddington. He must have been thirty-something. Bit of a quiff going on, highly polished shoes, iPhone clutched in one hand, latte in the other, cock against my arse. The train wasn’t that packed. He could have moved away but he chose not to. I don’t mean just brushed against me either – this isn’t me getting all hoity-toity-Calm-Down-Dear about it. He was dry-humping me. I was in a good mood so I handled it as calmly as I could. I turned to him, so we were cock to front on and I said veeeery quietly in a voice only he could hear
‘You carry on doing that, I will slit your fucking throat.’
And I gave him a flash of my knife. And it stopped. Instantly. And the next time the train reached a station, he got off.
I got off and pootled around Covent Garden for a bit to waste some time before I could check in. I got some more money out of Julia’s bank account and bought some warm cookies in a little French bakery just off the main square. Found a kitchen shop which had the most astonishing array of Sabatier knives in the window, the display created to look like a starburst of weapons. I stared at them for ages, imagining which handle would look best with my fingers around it. They were all better than my crappy little steak knife. Might go back there tomorrow. We need a new tin opener as well. Mrs Whittaker has nicked ours.
I couldn’t live in London but I like to inject myself with it every now and then. It’s quite nice when it’s not raining or being bombed.
*
Just logged back in to report that the B&B is a shithole and my mattress is covered in piss patches. I’m sleeping on my bath towel tonight.
In other news, I’m getting