Home By Tea-Time by Louisa Adjoa Parker

Published in Issue 1 | May 2017 | Illustrations by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan 

The party Suzanne is throwing for her Jase is in full swing – balloons with 40 printed on them are tied to the front door. People are laughing in the kitchen and on the patio. Ten bottles of champers are in the bath, which is filled with ice. The chocolate cake has been bought from Tesco, and hidden in their wardrobe so no one can sit on it. The house has been cleaned to within an inch of its life. Not that there was much point – by the end of the night the balloons will have been burst by someone who thinks it’s hilarious, and will sit in corners, pink and wrinkled like old men’s foreskins. The cake will have been eaten at four a.m., when everyone suddenly gets the munchies. Someone will have been sick. Someone else will have half-heartedly tried to clear it up, and left bits – a piece of fruit, perhaps – for Suzanne to find later. And she, Suzanne, will have crawled into a corner or possibly made it to her own bed. By then, she will be far from caring what the house looks like. But it’s nice to start the night off well. 

She calls it a party but really it’s a night like many others – the usual crew with a few tag-alongs invited. Some of the other mums from the PTA are here, with their scrubbed faces and shiny hair, laughing, and talking about God knows what, house prices probably, or sailing. Suzanne hopes they’ll leave before things get messy. Her step-dad, Tom, is chatting with Jase’s mum and dad, great brown-haired bears like their son. Jase’s useless brother, John, who, it has often been said (most often by him) knows how to make people disappear, is sat at the kitchen table rolling joints, in spite of the fact Suzanne has asked him repeatedly not to do this in front of the kids. Jase’s best mate Dave is here with his latest girlfriend Shannon, who annoyingly, has the sexiest figure Suzanne has ever seen – killer curves in all the right places. 

Suzanne catches sight of her reflection in the mirror in the hall, and sees that a piece of her freshly highlighted hair is sticking up. It looks ridiculous; she runs upstairs to try and flatten it. Jase is coming out of the bathroom, zipping his flies up. There’s a trace of white powder under his nose. His eyes are bloodshot. He has the beginnings of a beard, which makes him look older and more like his dad. 

‘Jase!’ Suzanne hisses, ‘can’t you wait till the kids are in bed before you start powdering your nose? Wipe it, for God’s sake.’ 

He smiles, passing his paw of a hand over his mouth, then pulls her into one of his bear hugs. ‘It’s my party and I’ll get high if I want to, high if I want to…’ he sings. ‘It’s all good in the hood, man. I know how to be discreet, my Suzey-wuzy.’ 

Suzanne sighs, wondering if he had bothered to lock the door. What if one of the PTA possy had caught him? She’d never be asked to a meeting again. 

‘D’you think maybe you should have a little line?’ he says, ‘might stop you being so, you know, uptight.’ 

‘I am not fucking uptight,’ she says, ‘you know I’m up for partying as much as the next man. I just like to keep my drugs and my kids separate.’ 

‘This is who we are, Suze,’ he says, simply. ‘We’re still good parents, aren’t we? They don’t go without. We can’t hide it from them forever.’ 

But they’re so little, Suzanne thinks as Jase lumbers off downstairs and is greeted by a cheer when he gets there. All he has to do is walk into a room. Maybe she’d better have a quick half-bottle, to chill her out. She does get uptight, Jase is right. It’s the constant flow of people, the mess, the later and later nights. The hangovers that seem to be lasting longer and longer these days until they all blur into one. It was fine when it was just the two of them, but it’s much harder now there are four. Suzanne feels like a hamster in a wheel trying to keep up with it all. 

She straightens her hair and the disobedient section stays flat. Downstairs she grabs a bottle of red and pours half of it into an enormous wine glass. She hasn’t seen the kids for a while, she realises, wondering if someone’s watching them. 

‘The kids are outside, keeping us entertained,’ Shannon says, coming into the kitchen, as if reading her mind. ‘Bless.’ She says bless a lot. She has jet-black hair and is always perfectly made-up, lipstick the colour of blood on her cupid-shaped lips. She’s always smiling and simpering and is permanently attached to Dave’s side these days. 

‘Oh, cheers, Shannon. Need a top-up?’ Suzanne asks, nodding at the glass in Shannon’s hand. 

‘No, better not. I’m watching my figure,’ she says with a smile so sickly Suzanne wants to punch her. ‘I think I heard the door. Shall I get it for you?’

‘No, it’s alright thanks, darling, I can go.’

Lisa is at the door – the friend she deliberately hadn’t invited. Jase isn’t keen, always says she looks as though she’s trying to make lemon juice with her arsehole. Suzanne wonders how she heard about it, if she’ll be all pissy that she wasn’t invited. 

‘Leese!’ she says brightly, ‘what are you doing here? Thought I wasn’t seeing you till yoga next week?’ 

‘I need to talk to you, Suzanne,’ Lisa says, her usually placid voice edged with something dark. Her left hand is opening and closing in the air. She clutches a splayed bunch of keys in the other, as though she might need to attack someone with them. She seems shaken. Her green eyes look darker, like the sky just before a storm. 

‘It’s not a good time for me right now, lovely,’ Suzanne says, a smile pinned to her face. ‘Shall I give you a bell in a day or two, and arrange for us to have a catch up?’ 

‘Is it your precious Jase’s birthday? Well, we wouldn’t want to disturb that, now would we?’ 

‘Has something happened, Lisa?’ she says. ‘Are the kids OK?’ 

‘My daughter…’ 

‘What’s happened?’ 

‘… has been found with cocaine on her at school. And I’m pretty fucking certain I know where it came from.’ 

Suzanne can see where this is going, and needs to nip it in the bud right now. 

‘Look,’ she says coldly, stepping back as though she is about to close the door. ‘I’m sorry if your kid’s been doing drugs. They do that. We did, for Christ’s sake, when we were that age. We do it now, just a few weeks ago you and me … But this, it’s got nothing to do with us.’ 

The woman looks a bit nuts. Suzanne wonders why she hadn’t clocked it straight away. She’s normally spot-on when it comes to sussing people, reading their moods. Lisa is flushed and her hair looks wild, as if she’s just got out of bed after a hard-core sex session. 

‘Nothing to do with you?’ she asks, incredulous, her voice getting louder and shriller. ‘I think you’ll find it’s got everything to do with your husband or whatever he is. And everyone in this town knows he’s a dealer.’ She spits the word out. ‘And why are you calling her “my kid”? You’ve known Jade for years!’ 

Suzanne could really do without this. Still, she better get the woman inside before the whole street hears her. 

‘You’d better come in,’ she says, glancing up and down the road to make sure Doris or Mr Greenleigh aren’t watering their plants. ‘Would you like a drink?’ 

‘No I do not want a fucking drink. That’s your answer to everything, isn’t it? I’m driving. And some of us don’t think mixing the two is a great idea.’ 

‘Oh, one won’t hurt,’ she says, her mantra, waving her hand dismissively. Inside, Suzanne pours a large slug of gin into a glass, tops it up with a splash of lemonade. She hands it to her friend. ‘Here. We better go into the dining room. As you can see, it’s a madhouse in here.’

‘Thanks,’ Lisa says, and slumps as if all the fight has suddenly left her body.

‘I just don’t know what to do about all this. I’m so upset, and I’ve got no-one.’

‘So why don’t you tell me what actually happened?’

They sit down at the dining table. Suzanne closes the door but the noise seeps in underneath – laughter, glasses clinking, Jase’s booming laugh. She wishes she weren’t stuck in here with Lisa, locked out of her own party. 

‘I’m sorry for spoiling your…’ 

‘It’s not spoiled. I just think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick. My Jase would never sell to kids. Not in a million years.’ 

‘I knew what he did,’ Lisa is saying, ‘and I didn’t judge him for it. Didn’t even question it, I mean, how could I? I’ve had a few wild nights round your place. But when it’s your little girl, it hits home, I mean, really hits home, do you know what I mean?’ 

Suzanne doesn’t, as her children are two and four and she worries about them eating too many sweets, but she nods. ‘How did you find out Jade had taken anything?’ 

Lisa laughs. ‘I’m so thick I wouldn’t have noticed if it wasn’t for the school. You think, because you’ve done drugs yourself, that you’d see all the signs. But you don’t. She was getting changed for P.E and a couple of wraps fell out of her pocket in front of the teacher. She’s in so much shit.’ 

‘She was taking coke at school?’ 

‘No, it must have been for the party that night.’ 

‘Hmm. There’s a few new faces on the block, like that skinny runt from London who thinks he’s all that. Sam, Tom? He probably sells to kids. But not my Jase.’ 

Lisa knocks the rest of her drink back quickly. Anger flashes in her eyes. She’s normally the quiet one; the one who’s only up for a laugh when Suzanne’s managed to get a load of booze down her neck. She’s always going on about getting healthy, stopping drinking, giving up caffeine. Sometimes she can be so fucking boring. 

‘She’s only fourteen. I don’t want this … lifestyle for my children. It’s disgusting. I feel sick. I shouldn’t have come here, I should have known you’d deny it. Like you denied giving her cigarettes that time. But she told me where it came from and my daughter doesn’t lie.’

Suzanne had indeed denied giving Jade cigarettes when she received the snotty text from Lisa. But that was her default setting, to deny she’d done things, something she’d done all her life. As a kid it saved her from a few beatings. The truth was she’d been too pissed to remember her own name let alone whether or not she’d handed some spotty kid a roll-up. She wondered how the two of them had ever become friends. She supposed it was during one of her self-improvement phases, when she’d taken up yoga, or stopped drinking for a week. Lisa seemed, in a way, the sort of woman Suzanne vaguely hoped she might turn into one day, flexible and healthy. But really, they were like chalk and cheese. ‘Why do you even hang out with her?’ Jase often asked, ‘she’s too fucking straight, man. We need to be careful about who we let into the inner circle.’ But why shouldn’t she have a straight friend? It was a good example for little Aisha and Josh.

She realises Lisa is crying, quietly, tears leaking all over her face. Poor cow, Suzanne thinks, it can’t be easy being a single mum. It’s hard enough for her and she has Jase, for what it’s worth.

‘Oh, don’t upset yourself, lovely. Shall I get you another drink?’

‘No thank you. A tissue would be good, though.’

Suzanne leaves the room and a blast of warm, boozy air hits her face. Jase is holding court outside, people hanging off his every word; his tall frame leant against the wall, elbow rising up and down as he sips his can. The kids are on the trampoline, legs and arms flying in the air. This is their life now, this beautiful house, their cars, this brand-new shiny kitchen with cupboards filled with food, and a fridge filled with drink. They don’t have to worry about money like before, when they lived in that shitty council flat. When Suzanne couldn’t bear being at home with the babies and walked all day, every day, even in the rain, pushing that heavy buggy until her arms felt like they were going to fall off. No, those days were long gone. Jase had worked hard to build up his contacts and not tread on anyone’s toes. He was good at what he did. Punters loved him. Friends and family loved him. Life was good. 

‘Jase, can I borrow you for a second,’ she says, pulling his arm. They go into the downstairs toilet, the only room unoccupied. 

‘Fucking Lisa is here. Her kid got caught with drugs and she thinks it’s your fault.’ 

He shrugs. ‘I’m not the only dealer in the West Country. The kid could have got it off anyone.’ 

‘Yes but … is there any chance you could have sold to one of her older mates, anything like that? I just need to be sure she’s talking crap and then hopefully she’ll fuck off.’ 

‘Jesus, Suzanne, d’you expect me to keep a fucking record? Invoices and shit? I don’t think so, man.’ He laughs. 

‘Well just help me get rid of her. It’s bad for business if people hear her waffling on.’ 

‘I’m sure you can sort it. One of us has to be a good host tonight.’

‘Cheers for your support,’ she says. ‘Should have known I could rely on you.’

‘Just chill, mate,’ Jase says. ‘It’s my fucking birthday.’ He walks off, swaying slightly. His jeans have fallen down and Suzanne can see his crack, and the plump, pale curves of his buttocks, covered with black hairs. 

Suzanne goes back into the room and hands Lisa a tissue. 

‘Thanks,’ she says, blowing her nose. ‘I’ll leave you in peace then, I suppose, if you’re not going to admit it.’

‘There’s nothing to admit. I’m sorry though,’ she adds, ‘hope everything works out OK with Jade.’ Compassion rushes through her, flares brightly, and then fades. Lisa opens their front door and steps outside. ‘Take care, mate.’

Lisa doesn’t look back, but mumbles, ‘thanks,’ and hangs her head. Then she says some even quieter words but Suzanne can’t make them out. Blood money, is what she thinks she heard.

*

The party whirls on, brightly, until the early hours of the morning. Once the kids are safely asleep, piled onto cushions in one of their rooms, all sticky faces and sugary breath, Suzanne relaxes and gets into the swing of it. She enjoys the sharp chemical taste of the coke dripping down her throat, the rush through her blood. The feeling that she is the funniest, coolest person in a room filled with cool people. Everything is bright and good. 

Leanne, Suzanne’s mate, jumps onto the dining table at about three a.m. and performs a dance, amid many cheers. For her finale she whips off her skimpy top, exposing pert breasts and rose-coloured nipples. Suzanne feels a mixture of envy at her friend’s skinny frame, arousal (not that she’s that way inclined but there’s something exciting about seeing her friend’s bare body, the secret parts of her, and knowing the men are turned on), and disgust. The girl has no morals, doesn’t have the boundaries most people have. She feels sorry for the kid, Stacey, Leanne’s five-year-old daughter with stringy brown hair and a nose to match. She is always whining, and Leanne is always shoving sweets in her hand and telling anyone who will listen that her daughter is being a little cunt. 

By five a.m. Suzanne is knackered, and wants to sleep, but doesn’t know if she’ll be able to with a house full of fuck-wits. Why does she even like these people? Suddenly, they don’t seem so cool. 

‘Think I’ll call it a night,’ she says, as she wanders around picking up cans and food that has been squashed into floors, yawning and hoping they will get the hint. 

‘You go up if you want, darling,’ Jase says. His eyes are wild and glittery. He looks as though he’s coming up on something, again. He won’t be sleeping for a while. He turns the stereo up. The sound of Public Enemy fills the room. 

‘Look at the state of this place,’ Suzanne says, ‘you better help me sort it out.’ 

‘Course I will, babe,’ he says, and leans in to kiss her. ‘You fuck off to bed.’ 

*

A loud banging on the door wakes Suzanne. Whoever it is won’t go away; it feels as though they are inside her skull, banging to be let out. She staggers out of bed and towards the stairs. She catches sight of herself in a mirror – her hair is in tufts, her face leached of colour. Last night’s make-up has smudged into bruises under each eye. ‘Jesus,’ she says to herself.

‘Jase!’ she yells down the stairs but there’s no reply. The house is silent apart from the sound of cartoons in the living room. She walks down the stairs slowly, clutching the bannister with one hand and her throbbing head with the other. 

She pokes her head around the sitting room door. The kids are curled up on cushions on the floor eating crisps from a multi-pack. There is a pink pool of liquid on the floor next to the TV. 

‘Alright, little ones?’ she says. Aisha and Josh nod, eyes glued to the telly. They don’t jump up to hug her, which makes her feel sad. 

‘You look hungover, Suzanne,’ Stacey says wearily, a blue sticky ring around her mouth. ‘Can you answer your door? I would but Leanne always tells me never to answer doors. It could be a debt collector or a paedophile coming to…’ 

‘OK, OK, that’s enough,’ Suzanne snaps, not wanting this child-adult to tarnish her babies. ‘That’s a bad word.’

‘Debt collector?’ Stacey asks. ‘Is it really?’

In the hall she can see two tall, dark shapes through the frosted glass in the front door. Police, she thinks, but finds her hand reaching out to open the door as though it has a mind of its own.

After that it’s all a blur – police swarming through their house like flies, knocking things over, shouting, kids crying and clinging to her leggings. And then Jase, looking in an even worse state than she is, grey-skinned with lack of sleep and too many drugs, wearing a dirty vest and boxers, hands handcuffed behind his back, being dragged out of their front door like an animal. She opens her mouth but no sound comes out. Later she will think: why didn’t I say anything? Why didn’t I try to stop them? 

She is in a puddled heap on the floor, fag butts sticking to her feet, with Leanne on one side of her and Shannon on the other. They are trying to lift her up. The kids – hers and Leanne’s – are sobbing in a row, but she can’t comfort them. She can’t get off the floor. 

‘Come on, hun,’ Shannon is saying, ‘keep it together for the little ones’ sake.’ 

‘I’ll make you a nice cup of fucking tea,’ Leanne says, and Suzanne can smell the stale alcohol on her breath and from her pores. They help her off the floor and she collapses into a chair. ‘I’m OK,’ she tells the children, smiling, and the sobbing subsides. 

‘What…’ she says. 

‘You’ve been raided, hun,’ Shannon says, tilting her head to one side as though she thinks this is what people do to portray sympathy. Suzanne detects a hint of a smile in her eyes. She can imagine Shannon telling friends over dinner, portraying herself as a saviour. ‘I had to calm poor Suzanne down; she was in a terrible state, poor thing! And those kiddies, sobbing their hearts out. Bless.’ 

‘Fucking pigs,’ says Leanne, rooting around in the ashtray for dog ends, ripping them up and rolling a joint with dry tobacco. ‘Do you think someone’s grassed you up?’

‘They won’t have found anything,’ Suzanne says, finally able to speak. ‘He’s too careful to get caught. There won’t be anything here.’

Leanne and Shannon exchange knowing looks. ‘But you didn’t see the state he was in,’ Shannon says, ‘he went out and got … there were drugs flying all over the place. Literally flying. I tidied things up this morning so the little ones wouldn’t get hold of anything, but I didn’t know where he keeps his stash. I just put it on the bookshelf.’

Suzanne looks at Leanne. ‘Why are you smoking that?’

‘Thought everyone had run out of baccy,’ Leanne says.

‘Run out?’ Suzanne says. ‘There’s two hundred packets of it under our bed.’ She laughs hysterically. Her mobile beeps loudly. She can’t remember where it is, and looks blankly around the room. Shannon gets up and comes back a minute later, hands her the phone. 

There are twenty texts and ten missed calls from Lisa.

‘Shit,’ Suzanne says, her heart sinking. ‘I think I might know who grassed.’

She reads the first text. If u don’t call me strait away im goin 2 have to tell the police.

‘Oh, Jesus, Lisa,’ Suzanne says. ‘What the hell have you done?’

She dials her number. Lisa picks up straight away. 

‘I’m sorry, Suzanne,’ she says. She sounds nervous but there is a hint of determination in her voice. ‘My Jade over-dosed last night, she nearly died. I spent the whole night in the hospital. I had to tell them it was him.’

‘But you don’t know that you stupid bitch!’ Suzanne screams, not thinking about the kids hearing. ‘What have you done? What have you done? You’ve taken my kid’s father away from them!’ 

‘Oh, please,’ she says, ‘he’ll probably get a tap on the wrist and be home by tea-time. I had to make a stand. My daughter…’ 

‘I don’t give a shit about your stupid ugly daughter! After everything I’ve done for you, you friendless loser.’ 

‘I made sure you’re kept out of it, don’t worry, I told them it was just him and you had no idea. How can you not care about…’ 

‘Oh that was big of you! I’m going to come over there right now and batter you…’ 

Shannon takes the phone gently from Suzanne’s hand. She can hear Lisa’s voice screaming down the phone before Shannon hangs up. 

‘You’re not thinking straight, hun,’ she says. ‘We need to calm you down and get you ready to go down the station and find out what’s happening with your Jase. You can’t hit Lisa, you’ll get nicked too.’ 

‘Yeh, mate,’ Leanne says, stroking Suzanne’s hair, apparently enjoying her role as carer, rather than her usual one of care-ee. ‘You get in the shower and me and Shan’ll find some clean clothes for you. Then she can drive you and I’ll watch the kiddies.’ 

Suzanne nods, too weak to argue about leaving Leanne in charge of her children. ‘OK,’ she says. ‘Thank you.’ 

* 

For some reason Suzanne believed what Lisa said, and the words go round and round her head for weeks. He’ll be home by tea-time. They go round as they drive to the police station and she is told nothing and has to wait for hours, then while the police are questioning her, when she denies all knowledge of anything and somehow convinces them it’s true. They go round as they drive back to their house, having been told he was being remanded. At night when she tries to sleep, alone in their king-sized bed with its thick duvet and faux fur bedspreads, the words are there. During the day, when she is struggling to look after her kids in a house that suddenly seems empty, when she snaps at them and gives them bowls of sweets instead of chopped up fruit, the words are there. Even on the day of his court case, when his sentence is announced in that wooden old-fashioned room, with its wooden old-fashioned people wearing yellowing wigs, the words are there, floating around her. She hangs on to them, lets herself believe them. Whispers them before she goes to sleep (when she can sleep) and when she wakes on those heartsick, grey days. Even though the bitch that put him in prison had uttered them, the words mean something, somehow. Yet they don’t. They can’t protect him, bring him home. 

She deletes Lisa’s number and buys a new phone to get rid of any temptation to contact her. There are abusive posts on Facebook from the few mates Lisa does have, calling her Jase scum and one suggesting he is a paedo. She has to delete her account. But she never stops thinking about Lisa, hoping she’s scared when she drives around in her crappy car at night, or drinks her herbal tea. Hopes she is looking over her shoulder as soon as the sun sets. A nasty voice in her head says it hopes Jade overdoses again, with Jase inside, and dies this time. 

Shannon, surprisingly, has been a great support; constantly ringing to see how Suzanne is, offering to have the kids. ‘You bearing up, hun?’ she asks. ‘I’m here for you.’ She turns up uninvited, carrying flowers or chocolates. Even Leanne has been kind, in her own way, bringing round bottles of the ‘posh’ wine Suzanne likes. But she can’t face drinking. 

Every time the children ask when Daddy is coming home, it feels as though her heart is made of glass and is shattering into pieces. ‘Soon, baby,’ she will say, ‘soon.’ She doesn’t take them to visit him; can’t bear the thought of them being tarnished by the prison smells of smoke, sweat and despair. Can’t bear the thought of them seeing their dad shuffling along with the other men, like chained bears in low-slung tracksuit bottoms. 

* 

Two weeks after he’s sentenced Suzanne decides to take the kids to the beach. It will do them all good to get some fresh air. But when they arrive, she’s there, the bitch, standing outside the pub with her hand on her forehead like she’s some heroine in a film, staring out at the sea. Of her daughter, the over-dosing, lying little cow, there is no sign. 

Their eyes meet and the colour drains from Lisa’s face. She opens her mouth, and then closes it again. She has lost weight. Although Suzanne had decided she wouldn’t speak to Lisa if she saw her, she finds the words are raging inside her, looking for a way out. 

She walks in Lisa’s direction; notices with pleasure that Lisa looks terrified. She wants to hurt her, to smash that face with its healthy-living, yoga-skin, pull that organically shampooed hair from its roots and throw it to the ground. She wants to drag her to the sea and hold her head under the water. But her babies are with her, and she’d promised Shannon. 

‘He wasn’t home,’ she wants to say, ‘he wasn’t home by tea-time, you grassing little bitch.’ But the words she’s thought a thousand times won’t come out. Instead she says, ‘five years, he got five years because of you,’ and walks onto the beach, where her children are trying to build sandcastles from the dry, pale sand.