BEETROOT
by Melissa Mann
The Range Rover bucks towards the junction sloshing hot coffee down the driver’s towelling dressing gown. Marlene licks her sleeve, dribbling more coffee from the mug in her hand. The car brakes abruptly and she looks down to see her other hand moving the gear lever. The hand is dry and rough, chipped red nail varnish like shards of coloured glass embedded in her fingernails. Marlene attaches eyes gritty with lost sleep to the opposite side of the road then slams her mule slipper on the accelerator. The clamp holding a coil of bleached hair takes a bite of her skull as it rams against the head rest.
A taxi horn blares. Marlene’s hammer toes scramble over the edge of her mule feeling for the brake pedal. Clinking sounds – mug against windscreen, tiny glass bottles bumping each other in the foot well. Marlene twists a tendril of mutinous hair in her fingers then feels around for an ear to tuck it behind. The taxi driver is all fists and teeth and muted expletives. Mug raised, Marlene bows her head then guides the car across the carriageway. On the CD player, Judy Garland is singing about rainbows and dreams and lullabies. Marlene turns to the girl in the passenger seat.
“Wake up Lambsie, third,” she shouts over the sound of Judy singing her heart out. The girl’s blazered sleeve flinches from Marlene’s elbow, the wool bristling like skin. Ella’s fingers tortoise from the cuff of her school shirt and reach for the gear stick.
They are climbing the hill now, trees lining the road either side of them. Nose pressed to glass, Ella watches the thick muscular torsos oiled with rain, watching her as she drives past. She can see the road streaking away behind her and she is jealous, jealous of the road for being outside and able to get away. Ella breathes on the window. The trees fade to ghosts.
Breathing turns to yawning. It’s warm in the car, close, the air whisked to stiff peaks by the climate control system. Ella shifts uncomfortably on the heated seat. Out the corner of her eye she sees her mother opening the neck of her dressing gown. Her breasts strain through the lace nightdress beneath like grapefruit in a string bag. Ella turns away sharply, seat belt catching on the badges pinned to her blazer. She is a walking notice board: ‘today was a complete waste of make-up’, ‘happy’ and a grinning tooth saying ‘well done for staying calm.’ The leather seat squeaks as she turns and looks through the gap to the back seat. On the floor, organic vegetables dying in a cardboard box, a champagne glass wrapped in pages torn from a glossy women’s magazine. Her father is hanging from the hook above the side window. His wooden shoulders knock repeatedly against the glass in a weary shimmy, a red stain soiling the collar of his dress shirt. Ella reaches for his arm and strokes her cheek with the cuff.
“Fourth Lambsie, come along!” shouts her mother, the mug dithering between steering wheel and mouth. Ella’s gear-changing hand rejoins the other hand in her lap. They are pale and smooth, the back of her right one scribbled with biro. She plays absently with the pleats of her school skirt. Near the kilt pin, a dirty mark. Marlene resumes her duet with Judy, taking a swig of coffee whenever there’s a high note she can’t hit. Ella’s pink fingernails, frosty like jelly tots, pick nervously at the dirty mark. Then, in a voice that has to be coaxed from her throat like a cat from a tree, she says, “c-can I just say something… my skirt hasn’t been washed for like three weeks.” Ella is staring fixedly through the sweating glass of the side window.
Her mother snorts into the coffee mug, knocking it against the wheel as she fumbles to put it down on the dashboard. “Oh what joy! It speaks!” she says, peering at the car clock through a mess of hair. “I make that one hour and fourteen minutes, Lambsie since the last time you spoke to me. Excellent darling, well done. Definitely one of your more enduring silences.”
Ella blinks rapidly, looking down at the knot of knuckles pressed to her thighs. “And… and you forgot… I mean there wasn’t anything for breakfast again this morning.” She unclenches her fists and starts to draw on the window: a circle, two dots, a small arc.
“And still the words come. Two whole sentences, Lambsie, what can I say, marvellous! I think we should celebrate, don’t you. Definitely a Fabulous Grouse moment I’d say. Glove compartment Lambsie, quick-ly.”
They are climbing the hill now, trees lining the road either side of them. Nose pressed to glass, Ella watches the thick muscular torsos oiled with rain, watching her as she drives past. She sees the road streaking away behind her and she is jealous, jealous of the road for being outside and able to get away. Ella breathes on the window. The trees fade to ghosts. Ella has been here before. Twice upon a time. Another circle, two dots, a wavy line.
“Oh for God’s sake Ella!” Wrestling with the seat belt, Marlene reaches for the glove compartment. The Range Rover responds by mounting the kerb, stumbling over uneven flagstones and then comes to an abrupt stop beside a litter bin. Knees now pinned to her chest by the seat belt, Ella watches her mother scrabbling around inside the glove compartment. Tiny bottles of whisky tinkle giddily like icicles on a washing line swaying in the wind.
“Was it really too much to ask?” Marlene says, holding up a bottle of whisky. She sighs, reaches in again and plucks out another. Ella strokes her chin with the brush of her plait, eyes fixed on the bottles. Marlene holds them up to her earlobes like drop earrings, grins then seeing the look on Ella’s face, pouts with her head on one side.
Ella coughs then says, “can I just… I mean, you won’t forget to take Dad’s shirt to the cleaner’s will you cos he… you forgot yesterday and…” Her voice trails off. Ella puts her feet on the floor, pulling up her tights through her school skirt.
“Yes, what a terrible wife I am, Lambsie, eh? Really terrible, awful… and quite the most useless mother,” says Marlene breaking the neck of a whisky bottle. She throws the screw top at Ella’s feet, fumbles for the coffee mug on the dashboard and empties the bottle. “What a bore it must be for you both having such a useless… I mean, how do you cope the pair of you? Hmm? Really, how do you cope, with such a liability?” Marlene licks the top of the bottle, presses the button to open the side window then drops it out onto the road. Silently it falls until eventually it splashes glassily on the pavement. She unscrews the second bottle with her back teeth, wedging the mug between wodges of silk thigh. The whisky spatters her nightdress as she pours it in.
“So, are you going to trade me in as well, Lambsie?” she says, draining the last bit into her mouth before tossing the bottle out the window again. “Hmm? Got a new mother lurking in the wings have you? Do tell.” Marlene takes a swig from the mug. Ella unfastens the seatbelt and loosens the knot of her school tie. She is sweating, her dark fringe making hairline fractures in her forehead. “Or will I have to wait to smell her on you too?” says Marlene, resting the mug against her cheek. “I wonder what she’ll smell like Lambsie, your new improved mother.” Ella fiddles with a badge on her school blazer. “Something musky perhaps? Is that what betrayal smells like? Yes, something earthy, something… rotting away.”
The painful silence in the car is pebble-dashed by the sound of heavy work shoes crunching on glass gravel.
“So, is this like yo ve-hicle Madam?” The head of a large Indian man posts itself through Marlene’s side window, rain dripping from his cap. “Of course it’s yo ve-hicle Missus cos you is sittin’ in the driver’s seat, isn’ it.”
The young traffic warden pushes his hat to the back of his head then pulls the peak rakishly to one side. From behind his ear he plucks a chewed biro and does an inventory of the front seat, starting with Marlene’s cleavage.
“So whad it is, yeah, strictly speakin’ I ain’t on duty yet Missus but, well, I couldn’t help like noticin’ yo ve-hicle drivin’ on the pavement, isn’ it. And we both know, Madam that ain’t right now, doesn’ it.”
Marlene nods, frowns then shakes her head before opening her mouth to try and explain. The traffic warden holds his hand up in front of her face. A soapy residue caught in the lines of his dark palms has crocheted a delicate lace glove on his hand.
“And then I am sayin’ to myself, Sanj, I’m saying, that driver is not in control of ho ve-hicle. And you know why, Missus? Can you tell me why you wasn’ in control of yo ve-hicle?”
“Well, officer,” says Marlene, taking another slug from her coffee mug. She turns to face him, mouth open ready to speak.
“You was not in control of yo ve-hicle, Madam,” he says, hand in front of her face again, “cos you was drinkin’ and drivin’… like doin’ both together, yeah, at the same time, isn’ it.” He pulls on a waxed prong of fringe. “You was havin’ like yo mornin’ cup o’tea, yeah. Drinkin’ yo cup o’ cha whilst in the act of drivin’ yo ve-hicle, Madam. And between you and me, right, that ain’t right, yeah, ‘specially when you is, like in charge of a minor, isn’ it,” he says, pointing the Elastoplast-end of his biro at the passenger seat. Ella keeps her eyes fixed on the tiny holes she’s pricking in the leather seat with her kilt pin.
Marlene drains the coffee mug and wedges it between her thighs again. “Well officer… should I call you officer?” She frisks his face. “I mean what does one call a traffic warden? Sir? Your worshipful…ness? Mein Fuhrer?” She smirks then covers her mouth with a hand dipped in appalled.
The traffic warden leans further towards Marlene, sniffing the air sharply. “Is you like drinkin’ drinkin’ Missus?” he says, wrinkling his nose. “Whoa, this is like worse than I thought, yeah. Way worse. We is like strayin’ into PC Plod terri-tree here, yeah. Inspector Morse an’all that business, isn’ it.” Nervously he rips the Velcro on various pockets of his coat.
“I can assure you not a drop of alcohol passed my lips ‘til I came to a complete stop,” Marlene says, blinking up at him.
The traffic warden takes off his hat then leans further in through the window. “Tell me Madam, is you now arrived at yo destination?” He smoothes a hand through the air above his waxed hair. “Cos between you and me, yeah, you ain’t fit to drive.”
“That’s right, we is… we have indeed arrived at our destination.” Suddenly exhausted, Marlene leans back against the headrest, stares at the sun roof then slowly rolls her head to look at the traffic warden again. “Is that all Mr…erm,” she squints at his name badge, “…Mr Bahl? If so, let me thank you for your diligence. Highly commendable. In fact, above and beyond the call of traffic duty.” She looks at the coffee mug. “Now, if it’s all right with you, I’d just like to sit here, finish my naughty breakfast and contemplate the error of my ways… in peace if you don’t mind.”
“But you… you’re supposed to be taking me to school,” Ella interrupts, looking from her mother to the traffic warden. He frowns, scraping his nails through the blackheads sown on his nose. “We’re not even half-way there yet,” Ella continues.
Slowly Marlene rolls her head round to look at Ella, her eyes cruel and tender. “Oh do run along Lambsie, don’t be a bore. You can take the tube from here.”
“But you… I mean, I’m not allowed… you don’t let me…” says Ella, shaking her head. The traffic warden looks at the two of them like he’s playing the memory game, pouring over the tray of expressions before him trying to work out what’s missing. “Please Mum,” says Ella, reaching a hand towards Marlene. “I don’t want to go on my own. I… ”
“Yes, well, I’d rather not feel old before my time, Lambsie but we don’t always get what we want in life I’m afraid,” Marlene says, smoothing the skin at her throat. “The sooner you learn that, the better. Come on now, chop chop, there’s a good girl. Marlene has important things to do, lots of errors to contemplate.”
Seeing her mother’s eyes drilling through the door of the glove compartment, Ella snatches up her satchel from the floor by her feet. It’s scurvy with age, her father’s initials in gold letters flaking from the front flap like regal eczema. Fumbling, she opens the glove compartment then starts to tip the bottles into her satchel.
“Well, thank you once again, Mr Bahl,” says Marlene, voice raised above the torrent of falling bottles. A hit and run smile passes across her face. “My congratulations to you on a near faultless citizen’s arrest,” she adds, reaching for a button by her seat. The traffic warden stumbles backwards, scrabbling for his cap as the side window tries to slice a rasher from his face. Pulling the peak rakishly to one side again, he looms towards the closed window shaking his finger.
“I is watching you Missus, yeah. I’s got my eye on you, isn’ it,” he says mutedly.
Marlene turns to look at Ella, who is struggling to close her satchel. “Oh really, don’t be ridiculous Lambsie, put them back.” Ella opens the door of the Range Rover and jumps down. “Get back in, silly. We’ll wait till he’s gone then I’ll take you to school.”
Ella looks at Marlene, satchel pressed to her chest, rain pouring down her face. “I-I’ve changed my mind,” she says, looking uncertainly left and right along the pavement. “I’ll… I’d rather go on the tube.” Her hair and cheeks have started to liquefy. “Can I… I mean, while you’re waiting and everything, you might want to… you know, maybe you should think about what you need to do today. Like… like go to the supermarket and… sort out the beetroot mark on Dad’s shirt and…” Seeing the look on Marlene’s face, Ella slams the door and heads for the tube station, leaning into the weather like she’s hauling the Range Rover behind her along the street.
Marlene fumbles with the switches by her seat trying to open the side window. “Come on come on open what the bloody hell’s wrong with the bloody thing?!” Her finger is a fag end stubbing itself out on the bank of switches. Above her head, the sunroof ebbs its way backwards like an electronic tide.
Ella feels the sound of Marlene screaming her name. It’s like iced water leaking down her collar. Shoulders hunched, she turns round and sees the dressing-gowned torso of Marlene squeezed through the sunroof.
“Fuck the bloody beetroot, Lambsie!” Marlene shouts then backhands the aerial in front of her. The traffic warden across the road shakes his head and starts talking into his shoulder. “Do you hear me Lambsie?” screams Marlene. “Fuck the bloody beetroot!”