Tabitha Read online

  ‘How’s it going?’ she asked Mog, who was slinking into the hallway from his sleeping spot on the couch. He sat down by the stairs and studied her with grumpy green eyes. Meowed at her. ‘Fine, you can have the bag,’ she said, unbuttoning her jacket. ‘Just let me get the stuff out first. Oh, and I lost my job today.’ She sighed and hung up her jacket, and plodded through the shady old living room to the bright cheap kitchen. She’d have to tell her mum about her job at some point. She really wasn’t looking forward to that. Probably best to get it out of the way though.

  ‘Why? What did you do?’ said the mobile phone on her bed.

  ‘I didn’t do anything Mum, they just made me redundant,’ Tabitha replied.

  ‘You don’t need to shout.’

  ‘Sorry Mum. I’ve got you on loudspeaker, while I’m getting changed.’

  ‘What?’ said the phone. Tabitha picked it up.

  ‘I had you on loudspeaker, I’m getting changed.’

  ‘Oh right,’ her mum replied, only half understanding. ‘Well… you can always come back home if you need to, love.’

  ‘I know. Thanks Mum.’

  ‘Did they say why?’

  ‘They’re laying off a few people, supposedly. They’re not doing well with the business.’

  ‘Did you ask them why you had to go though?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘There wasn’t much point, Mum. They’d already decided to let me go.’

  ‘Well I would’ve been giving them what for, if I were you.’

  ‘I know, but you’re better with people than me Mum.’ Tabitha heard her mum sigh.

  ‘You’ll have to start speaking your mind, love,’ her mum replied. ‘There’s a lot of people in the world who’ll get the better of you if you don’t.’

  ‘I know,’ Tabitha replied sadly. Numb to the advice. ‘I’m going to go now Mum, I’ve got stuff to do.’

  ‘Alright love. You’ll find somewhere better than that place. Bye love.’

  ‘Thanks Mum. See you soon.’

  ‘Oh, have you heard from John yet?’

  ‘No. I don’t want to.’

  ‘I don’t blame you love. He’ll look back one day, and he’ll be sorry that he ever left you.’

  ‘I don’t really want to talk about it Mum.’

  ‘Alright, sorry love. Remember, time’s a healer.’

  ‘I know,’ Tabitha said impatiently. ‘See you soon.’

  ‘Bye love. Oh, are we still going shopping tomorrow?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Alright then. Bye love.’

  ‘Bye Mum. Bye.’ Tabitha wrestled her damp sweaty socks off and sat down on the bed. She dug her toes into the carpet fibres, and thought about moving away from this town. Another country maybe. Somewhere she could learn to be shouty and passionate, and use her hands when she spoke. Somewhere that fruit grew larger, fresher, and wine cost normal prices. She looked up and dreamt of taking a plane up into the blue, far beyond her room’s white ceiling. There was still a dead fly smear up there. John, her ex, had always left dead flies right where he killed them. No attempt to clean them up. It was disrespectful to the fly’s memory, if nothing else. With any luck John was batting flies away right now, thought Tabitha. Sat on a street somewhere. Homeless and penniless because he couldn’t afford to keep Izzy in designer shoes. Tabitha smiled at the thought.

  ‘Seriously though, I wish both of you the very best,’ she lied, telling it to the empty room where she and John used to sleep. Now it was her nerd nest, filled with her favourite clutter to hide the memories of him. Movie posters covered the walls, brash and beautiful. Books were piled high on every flat surface, collecting dust and dead midges. Her space-robot speakers blared crunchy electronica. Crisp molten beats under folding pixel soundwaves. Tabitha felt tears coming at the thought of giving up her house. With no job though, she couldn’t pay the rent. Decent jobs weren’t easy to come by around here. She shook the thoughts out of her head, grabbed her glass of wine, and went downstairs to put her film on. Her pizza would be ready soon. A steaming floppy slab of deliciousness. A doughy plaster for the soul. Mog would be waking up too, cleaning and preparing before his afternoon snooze. At least she still had her cat, Tabitha told herself. He was one good thing to come out of that job. She’d bought him with her first wages, a dopey black kitten with lazy blue eyes. She liked cats. No questions, no walks, very little clean-up. Just badly timed demands for food and affection.

  Tabitha felt Mog’s purrs vibrate his warm body, curled up in her lap while she sat on the couch. Her new film was loud, explosive. Mog snoozed through it. His soft black fur had that strange cat smell, faint and oily-sweet. His fur tickled Tabitha’s nose as she smelled him. She felt his ear flick against her wrist as she stroked his head. An Olympic purrer. Tabitha sipped her dizzy wine, chewed her steamy pizza, and watched movie stars save the world. The wine went down easy, and didn’t help a bit. She couldn’t drink herself back into a job, or back into happiness. Much as she wanted to.

  2

  Saturday was bright and hot. Tabitha bit into sweet squishy plum flesh. She hid her mouth away from passers-by in town as the juice rolled down her chin. What a slob, she told herself. Nobody seemed to notice though. She chewed the cool flesh slowly, smushing the taste into her tongue.

  ‘I’ll get you some hair clips,’ her mum fretted, reaching for Tabitha’s tangle of hair. It was the opposite of her mother’s short, grey, sensible mum-do. Tabitha ducked her head away from the imminent mothering, and went for another bite of her plum. A wasp had installed itself in the juicy bite mark. Tabitha dropped the plum like it was ablaze, and danced away up the high street as the wasp harassed her.

  ‘Stop moving around,’ her mum called up the street. A couple grinned at Tabitha flailing as they walked past. Tabitha was too frantic to feel embarrassed. That would come later. Why wouldn’t the wasp just leave her alone? Didn’t it know that she had enough problems?

  ‘I think it’s gone now,’ said a cheery man coming out of the pound shop. Tabitha looked at him with embarrassment, looked down at the ground, and walked off back to her mum. Still on edge, she dodged a butterfly on her way back.

  ‘Let’s go to the cafe now,’ said Tabitha, taking the carrier bag off her mum. She imagined everyone on the street watching her. She looked down, away from staring eyes that weren’t really there. She studied the chewing gum circle-splats on the pavement. Some old and black; some fresh and white and sticky. Tabitha breathed deep and straightened out her new green dress, her summery pride and joy. Her mum was browsing a shop window.

  ‘Mum? Shall we go to the cafe?’ she said, itching to get out of the street where she’d embarrassed herself.

  ‘In a minute love. There’s only a few things left on my list.’ Her mum always had a few things left on her list.

  ‘…Ok.’ Tabitha replied, despite how much she wanted to disappear to the coffee shop. She’d just have to avoid people’s stares, that was all. And it was probably best to leave the plums in the carrier bag until she got home. Too risky.

  ‘Who is it we’re waiting for?’ said her mum. She angled her face up to peer at Tabitha through her glasses. Tabitha wasn’t listening; preoccupied with how busy it was in the cafe. It smelled like cake in here, and strong exotic coffee right out of an advert. It was noisy though. Alive with a crowd of multi-tone voices that shrieked and laughed too much. Their loud cluttered chatter spattered the creamy brown walls, and Tabitha didn’t like it. It made her edgy, so much commotion over nothing.

  ‘Tabitha?’ said her mum.

  ‘Hm?’

  ‘Who is it we’re waiting for?’

  ‘Just Emma and Jen,’ Tabitha replied, slurping quietly at her latte. She checked her phone. No text; no call.

  ‘Has Emma still got that funny hairdo?’ said her mum, right on cue.

  ‘She does, yeah,’ Tabitha said with a smile. She liked Emma’s hairdo. It was a brash personal statement. Everything
about Emma was a brash personal statement. She did everything loud, fast, and all of it with a series of comedy faces. One of those force-of-nature types.

  ‘Are you alright love?’ her mum piped up. ‘You’re very quiet today.’

  ‘Yeah, just thinking,’ Tabitha replied. Truth was, she just couldn’t relax in here. The noise was too much. The bee wrestling with the inside of the window made things even worse. Tabitha glanced over to make sure it hadn’t come nearer.

  ‘I’ve not seen a hairdo like Emma’s before,’ said her mum. ‘And that waiter too, he’s got funny hair.’ Her mum nodded at the smiling barista serving the customers.

  ‘Mum, keep your voice down,’ Tabitha said quietly.

  ‘Well he does have funny hair. And those glasses are too big for him.’

  ‘Mum.’

  ‘Hi!’ came a loud voice across the cafe. Tabitha looked over and smiled at Emma and Jen, hauling their shopping bags through the door. ‘Scuse me, thanks!’ said Emma, bustling through, her volume turning a couple of heads. She was loud as ever, as if she didn’t care what anyone in there thought of her. She’d never cared in school, either. Tabitha couldn’t imagine being like that. Her mum looked over at them, smiled, and looked Emma’s white-blonde hairstyle up and down.

  ‘I’m so sorry about your job,’ said Emma, dropping her bags under their table to give Tabitha a hefty hug. She stood back and coughed her smoker’s cough, and struck up a noisy conversation with Tabitha’s mum. Jen stepped in and hugged Tabitha lightly by contrast, slender and graceful. Emma’s polar opposite. Neither of them had really changed since school. Jen drew a few glances, willowy and pretty, especially in her white summery dress. Tabitha noticed her glance around and smooth her curly hair down against her ear. They’d tried to convince Jen for years now that people were staring because of her looks, not the burn scars around her ear. Jen had never really believed them though.

  ‘How are you doing, apart from the job?’ Emma asked Tabitha. ‘I like that dress, where’s that from? What are you drinking?’

  ‘Too many questions,’ Jen chipped in, smiling.

  ‘Sorry,’ Emma laughed. ‘Who wants a drink?’

  ‘Pour vous, and… pour vous,’ said Emma, setting their coffees down on the table.

  ‘Oh god, what happened to your hand?’ said Tabitha, nodding at the gouge beside Emma’s thumb.

  ‘Yeah, that was Archie,’ Emma chuckled. ‘He’s one of our new polecats. He’s a nibbler.’

  ‘A nibbler? He’s taken a piece out of you,’ Tabitha replied, examining the wound. Emma always had cuts and scrapes on her hands from the animal sanctuary. Every once in a while though she’d come back with a big fresh scar.

  ‘Is a polecat like a ferret?’ said Tabitha’s mum. ‘I thought they didn’t let go when they bit you.’

  ‘They don’t,’ Emma replied, with a proud grin. I had to give him a couple of hard smacks.’

  ‘Emma, you work in an animal sanctuary,’ said Jen in disbelief.

  ‘Yeah, so?’ she replied. ‘If it’s taking my hand off I’ll kill the little bastard first.’

  ‘Please tell me you didn’t kill him,’ said Tabitha.

  ‘No, course not,’ Emma replied. ‘He won’t do it again though. Anyway, what about your job?’

  ‘Well no one ever tried to bite me, they just laid me off,’ Tabitha said with a grin. Jen giggled. Tabitha hesitated as Emma expected to hear more. What was there to say about being laid off, really?

  ‘I always said she was too good for that job,’ Tabitha’s mum chipped in, and the great debate began. Tabitha could only watch from the side lines for the rest of the conversation, drowned out by louder voices than her own. She studied the dry latte froth that ringed her cup, and tried to get a word in edgeways. She hadn’t changed since school either.

  ‘Come out tonight,’ Emma commanded, looking at Tabitha. Their conversation stopped. Suddenly Tabitha had all their eyes on her, and she shifted around in her seat. She’d wanted a quiet night tonight. Just her and Mog, enjoying the last few days in their house.

  ‘Please come out,’ Jen added, between polite hay-fever sneezes.

  ‘Go on,’ her mum chipped in. ‘It’ll do you good to get out.’ Tabitha looked around at their expectant faces. They really wanted her to come out.

  ‘…Ok,’ she told them, hesitant, already worrying about how much she was likely to drink.

  Emma, Jen and Tabitha headed out into town later under a balmy evening sky. A bat flitted overhead. They could have been somewhere in Spain, Tabitha thought, it felt so warm tonight. Apart from the grey buildings, typically British. And the grease smell of chippies, and the lager-drunk shouting coming from every pub they passed. Bad music filled the air.

  ‘How about the cinema?’ Jen suggested. Tabitha’s magic word.

  ‘We’re on a night out,’ Emma protested.

  ‘Cinema sounds good,’ Tabitha replied happily. Jen sneezed and sniffled into a tissue.

  ‘Yeah but she’ll want to go and see that aliens one,’ Emma piped up. ‘It looks rubbish.’

  ‘But if you’ve never seen it, you don’t know,’ said Tabitha. ‘You might like it.’

  ‘It’s always just loads of fighting and stuff,’ Emma sulked.

  ‘I like fighting and stuff,’ Tabitha replied.

  ‘Well, it’s Tabitha’s call tonight,’ Jen said brightly, smoothing her hair down over her ear as people passed by. ‘It’s National Tabitha Night.’

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t realise,’ said Emma sarcastically. ‘Fine. Boring alien film first. Then can we go and have a proper night out?’

  Popcorn at the ready, Tabitha watched the movie with baited breath. A lightshow danced over a sea of faces in the dark cinema. A wall of sound hit her, drowned out her thoughts. Roaring aliens; yelling heroes. Laser blasts and unlikely explosions. A different world. Tabitha’s life outside disappeared now. She drank in the effects, devoured the plot. Fell in love with everything not-normal-life about it. How could Emma prefer TV soaps to this? Why would anyone want to watch some gritty drama that they could see for real in the street? Tabitha tangled herself up in the film, lost to the world. Revelling in it. It was a far cry from the new romcom Jen had suggested; a heartwarming tale of blah blah blah. What was the use in a film set that didn’t flood, collapse, explode? What was the point in a character who wasn’t overly gritty, overly virtuous, or wasn’t dressed in a skintight outfit? Emma had long since divided her attention between the film and her phone, and had more interest in the small screen in her hands. Jen was watching though. It wasn’t her thing, but she was good at humouring people. Tabitha got her movie fix though, and that was all she really cared about just now. She munched her popcorn, slurped her cola, and let the hellish fury of million-dollar lights and sounds beat her brain around the galaxy.

  It was a loud night out. The club smelled vaguely of sweat and strong spirits. The music was even louder than the movie. A dark sonic world of crashing bass and machine-gun drums, at war with silence and daylight. Tabitha felt careless and confident, shouting conversation to Emma and Jen through the music. She even got up to dance, so she’d definitely had too much to drink. She never danced without a prior skinful, and now the club spun hectic when she left the table. Emma and Jen were smiling in the dark; twisting shapes in front of her on the dancefloor. Tabitha saw the way men were looking at Jen; sneaky glances and drunken stares. She felt a vague nausea creeping over her; probably the shots they’d done. It was only early, too. Why did she always have to drink so much? Emma and Jen had been buying her shots constantly, as if that could change anything about her situation. But she’d hardly refused them. She drained her drink and looked around her; at the sweaty faces swimming in the loud brash gloom.

  Tabitha staggered out of the taxi and made her unsteady way back to her front door. She waved to Emma and Jen in the car and half stumbled, half fell when she turned the key in the lock. The taxi had already pulled away when she turned to close the door. She slamm
ed it shut without meaning to and sat down on the floor in the hallway, watching the murky drunken dark spin around her head. She couldn’t even hold herself up straight. Her neck and shoulders moved of their own accord. She propped herself up with her hands, swayed, then slowly sank to the carpet. She stroked Mog when he came up to see her, and lay down when he wandered off. It was just easier to stay horizontal when she got this drunk. Luckily the room didn’t spin for long before she started snoring.

  Sunday was a grim grey zombie hangover day, and never really happened as far as Tabitha was concerned. The highlights were headaches, crying and watching a box set with Mog. And rain.

  On Monday Tabitha woke up early. No job to go to; the king of all lie-ins. The warm sun glowed through the curtains, and half blinded her when she pulled them open. Dust tumbled in the air, drifting down in the morning light. Mog wandered in and jumped up on the bed.

  ‘Morning you,’ Tabitha said softly, stroking his head. Mog was having none of it, and decided he was in a biting mood today. Tabitha slipped her hand under the bedcover, and moved it around like a mouse for him to chase. He hunted the rippling shape frantically, tail whipping as he clawed the covers. Playful and murderous. Tabitha lifted the sheet up and pounced on him with it, covering him over.

  ‘Got you,’ she told him, as he sat still in the duvet cave. ‘You lose. You have to do the washing up now,’ she told him, lifting the bedcovers back. Mog studied the moving covers expectantly, hoping for another round. Tabitha watched him and smiled. She couldn’t refuse her cat.

  Tabitha decided to start a blog today; an old some-day fantasy to launch her to fame and fortune. She read lots of other bloggers who’d done it; self-made experts in whatever subject they liked. She could be a movie blogger; maybe even the biggest in Wales. Certainly the only one in this town, so that was a start. She pictured having free movies to review; paid ads on her website. She’d never need a day job again. She had it all planned out; all she had to do now was work her arse off. So there she sat by her computer, by the whistling window of her top-floor study, overlooking the grey summer sea. She sipped her tea. Scalded her tongue. She'd given up smoking, but still held her pen like a cigarette. She caught herself, then placed the surrogate cigarette back on the desk. A nicotine-starved synapse made her eyelid shudder. Mog leapt up and strutted across the keyboard. He walked past her to sit on the far side of the desk, and licked his paws with noisy rasps. Tabitha stared at Mog’s writing on the screen: