Rise and Fall of a Domestic Diva (23 page)

He brushed his hand gently over his son’s head and went upstairs.

Martina was going hometwo months earlier than originally intended. Joel could hear her on the other side of the bedroom wall, packing her things with Aggie, who was devastated.

He and Evie had sat up waiting for her the night Martin had called round. When she’d finally appeared, around midnight, Evie had been far more sympathetic than she’d anticipated, and Joel far more angry than he’d anticipated. This wasn’t something they had since talked about, but both of them were aware of it.

Martina had cried that nighta lotand Evie had held her, and the two women had sat there holding each other on the sofa, locked in a female complicity that Joel just hadn’t been able to fathom. Since that night of tears, hugs and retribution, Martina had gained a strange ascendancy over him. He often caught Evie and her laughing together in a way they never had before, and couldn’t shake the feelingevery time he heard themthat they were laughing about him.

Martina had confessed to Evie that she was scared of Martin, who she’d been trying to leave anyway because she
thought he was becoming obsessive. Evie had become very hung up on this notion of Martin being obsessive, and of helping Martina to escape. Evie’s mother, Cassandra, had been brought down from St Helen’s where she was enjoying the early throes of a second marriage, in order to drive Martina to the airport while the street party was in full swing. Joel couldn’t quite see the point in all this secrecyit was hardly like they’d had to take out a restraining order on Martin or anything.

At least Martina’s departure back to her boringly stable post-communist home town meant he could start sourcing the kind of au pairas it became clear speaking to his agent, Toryyou were meant to have: Kurdish, Chinese (so your children would become fluent in time for the Chinese world takeover), or at the very least Chechen.

Martinalike the Barcelona chair he’d bought a couple of years ago that they were now filling hotel lobbies withhad been a dead-end acquisition. There was something pitiful about having a Slovak au paireven a Slovak who was having an affair.

His career was flat at the moment, so he had time to think about these things. Tory was dragging her expensive heels over the retrospective of his work he’d been talking up for the past year, and now it looked as though it might not happen at all. He’d been harder hit by this piece of news than he’d ever anticipated. In fact, a mighty worm had set up camp inside him, and it was of the mighty worm’s increasing opinion that if he hadn’t put so much energy into Evie and Evie’s career over the past three years, maybe his own energy reserves would be more intact. Resentment wasn’t something Joel had ever really felt before, so he was having trouble even putting a name to it.

He finished getting dressed and was about to go downstairs
when the door to their bedroom opened and Aggie walked in, holding Martina’s phone.

‘Watch this.’

‘What is it?’

Aggie giggled and sat down on the bed. ‘It’s the pig filmMartina said I could have the pig film.’

Martina appeared briefly in the bedroom doorway. ‘Maybe you want to make a copy for Aggieput it on your computer.’

‘Put it on your computer,’ Aggie said.

‘But what is it?’

‘It’s starting nowwatch,’ Aggie commanded, excited.

‘This is the pig film?’

On the tiny screen, he watched a boy of about ten in a red hat push his face up close, grinning. In the background there was a loud cheering. The boy turned round, away from the camera. He ran jerkily away from it across a yard covered in partially melted snow towards an indistinct group of people who had a cement wall and drainpipe behind them.

The boy came grinning back across the yard, followed by similarly dressed childrenan old woman in the background gesticulating and waving something in the air that was, Joel soon realised, a knife. Then all the people were left behind and the only thing on screen was two gloved hands holdingbrieflya bloodied pig’s head with its eyes shut, before the head was dropped into the snow and what looked like a game of football started. The film ended.

A vague sense of outrage started to creep over him at the thought of their non-Kurdish au pair showing Aggie homemade films of her relatives playing football with a freshly sawn-off pig’s head.

Then he had an idea.
The
idea.

‘You want me to make a copy of this so you can watch it on the computer?’

Aggie nodded, and skipped back into Martina’s room.

Joel started to download the clip then sent it to Tory. As he unplugged the lead from Martina’s phone, a message came up: five missed calls. Half curious, he took a closer look. They were all from Martin. He’d phoned her five times in the past hour.

Through the open window, he could hear the diesel engine of a taxi making its way up Prendergast Road. Martina’s phone started suddenly ringing. Startled, Joel nearly dropped it as Martina appeared again in the bedroom door.

‘It’s Martin,’ he said blankly, handing her the phone.

He watched her check the screen then switch it off.

The next minute his phone started to ring. Martina gave him a quick look. They were both having the same thoughtMartin.

‘Hello?’

‘Joel?’ Tory barked. ‘I need to talk businessthat film you just sent.’

‘Film?’ Joel tried to concentrate.

‘The pig filmjust nowI was online.’

‘The…. Oh, yeah.’ Joel turned his back on Martina.

‘Joel, are you with me?’

‘Yeah, I’m with you…I didn’t think you’d get it till Monday. So, what d’you think?’

‘Well…I more than liked it, Joel.’

‘You did?’

Tory hadn’t more than liked anything he’d done in years.

‘It was just so…so fucking eloquent,’ she carried on.

Now she had his full attention. Fucking eloquenthe’d thought so.

‘Where did you film it?’

Joel had given this some thought. ‘The Balkans.’

‘When were you in the Balkans?’

‘I was there in Nineteen ninety-eightremember?’

Tory didn’t. ‘Of course. Of course,’ she said again. ‘Have you got a title for it?’

‘No.’

‘Well, you need to think of a title. We’ll talk. If we get this right, Joel, I’m seriously thinking about the Turner Prize. I mean, what you’ve done here, it turns its back on gimmickryit’s just so raw. I’m shutting up now. We’ll talk…’

He was rawhe was turning his back on gimmickrythe Turner Prize…

Margery was back at No. 22 following Leicestershire Council’s decision to remove her bungalow’s old windows and replace them with uPVC double glazing, rendering her home temporarily uninhabitable. This was how she put it to Robert, knowing it would provokeas it promptly didan invitation to come and stay with them. Which was why, on the morning of the 12 June, she came to be standing at the bay window looking through Kate and Robert’s single glazing at Kate as she turned into the gate at No. 22 with two Tesco carrier bags.

It didn’t occur to Margery to go and open the door. She stayed where she was, listening to her daughter-in-law turn the key in the lock, and only turned round when Kate poked her head into the room to see how Flo and Findlay were doing.

Both her and Margery watched Flo try to pick up a plastic cube that rattled, her hands wide open, distended as she tried to grasp the object, concentrating so hard she was letting out a succession of rasping sounds. ‘She’ll be crawling soon,’ Margery observed. ‘You’ll have to get a playpen.’

‘Where’s Findlay?’ Kate asked, ignoring this.

‘Upstairs.’ Margery couldn’t be any more specific than this because she hadn’t actually been upstairs. She’d been too busy down here watching Kate’s friend Evie and her husband start to construct the stalls.

‘Isn’t Robert up yet?’ Kate said.

‘Haven’t heard a peep from himmust be fast asleep still.’

Kate stared at her then backed out of the room with the shopping.

A few seconds later, Margery heard her banging about in the kitchen. ‘When’s your mother getting here?’ she called out.

‘In about twenty minutesshe just rang. Listen, it’s a help-yourself breakfast this morning. I’ve got to get out and start on the stalls.’

Margery smiled flatly at her reflection in the window. Since when wasn’t it a help-yourself breakfast in this house?

She went through to the kitchen, walking through the shafts of dust that the sunlight illuminated.

Kate was in the study, irritably folding away the sofa bed.

‘I was getting to that,’ Margery said defensively.

‘Margery, it’s fine.’ With a grunt, Kate let go of the handle and the bed base dropped into place inside the sofa. ‘It’s Robert’s job.’

Without commenting on this, Margery started to pick up her stray belongingsthe nightdress case Robert had made her in home economics, the pink plastic hairbrush. Wincing with the effort, Margery knelt down and pushed the small suitcase she’d bought in the ASDA luggage sale under the armchair. ‘There,’ she said, getting unsteadily to her feet again. ‘Tidy enough for you now?’

‘Margery…’

‘I would of done the bed if you’d given me a chance.’

‘It’s not your job, it’s Robert’s,’ Kate said again, trying not to lose patience.

The next minute she was banging around in the kitchen in an attempt to wake up Robert. Margery knew exactly what she was doingKate was far more spiteful than she gave herself credit for.

Margery remained poised in the study doorway, feeling stranded. She often felt stranded at No. 22 Prendergast Road, and as a consequence spent a lot of time hovering in doorways. Something Kate had commented on to Robert, saying that all his mother did was hang constantly in doorways. Most people moved between rooms in a house, but not Margery. Margery moved between doorways.

She held onto the doorframe as the bout of vertigo passed. These were now happening on a regular basis and were probablyEdith pointed outthe precursor to a stroke. A fortnight ago it had happened after her weekly ASDA trip as she was getting off the mobility bus with her shopping at the end of the estate. The bus doors had opened onto a thick black roadside puddle, the sun had been shining, and in the distance she’d heard the sounds of horses making their way from the stables up the road towards the fields near the bypass. She’d looked up at the sound, then the next minute felt herself falling. She’d come to almost instantlyas two of the passengers and the driver got to her.

She could smell mud from the verge she was lying face down across, the bottom half of her legs were wet, she hurt everywhere, one of the bags her shopping had been in was flapping near her face and the vacuum-pack bag of carrot batons had exploded when she’d landed on top of it. The bus driver was saying to her, ‘Come on love, let’s get you onto your feet.’ There were hands all over herall of them olda face she recognised came briefly into view, but she couldn’t move. She just lay there sobbing, her mouth full of grass and mud.

‘D’you mind?’

Margery opened her eyes, trying to get her bearings. She couldn’t have blacked out because she was still standing upright, but she couldn’t for the life of her remember where she was. The walls around her were painted a funny colour, there was a sweet sickly smell in the air, and a rack opposite full of coats that she had no memory of ever having worn.

‘Margery?’

She concentrated hard on the face in front of her. It was Kate. Kate was married to Robert. Robert lived in a house in London.

‘D’you mind giving this to Flo?’

Margery stared blankly at the puddle of baby rice in the Peter Rabbit bowl and carried on staring at it as the bowl was transferred from Kate’s hands to hers. ‘Where are you going?’ she said, hoping she didn’t sound helpless.

‘Upstairsto check on Findlay and wake up Robert.’

‘It’s Saturday,’ Margery protested.

Ignoring this, Kate jogged upstairs, leaving Margery stranded in the study doorway, staring at the bowl of baby rice.

One teaspoon to be taken at bedtime
. Margery’s mind automatically read out the words painted round the side of the dish then she went off in search of Flo. Where was Flo? She turned round and checked the study, but there was no sign of her there. Next, she went into the kitchenthen the lounge.

She perched slowly on the edge of the sofa and leant forward with the spoon, but Flo just turned her head away. Margery managed to get the next mouthful in, but that was dribbled back out and, as she leant forward to scoop it off the carpet, she felt another rush of vertigo. Afraid, she sat still, waiting for it to pass, then started to slowly, methodically eat Flo’s baby rice.

I’m going to have a stroke, she thought, sucking the red plastic spoon. I’m going to die.

She looked up, the spoon in her mouth, as a car pulled up outside.

Kate’s mother, Beatrice, had arrived.

‘Look,’ Findlay said as Kate went into his roompointing to his radiator, which was crawling with Lego men.

He’d Sellotaped the green magnetic strips from his Geomag kit to the back of all his Lego people and stuck them to the radiator, turning it into an overcrowded rock-face that was being erroneously scaled on Findlay’s orders. In the past fortnight, Findlay had become obsessed with all things magnetic.

‘That’s fantastic, Finn.’

Crouched in front of the radiator, he rubbed his chin on his knee. ‘You don’t mean it.’

‘Finn, I do,’ she insisted. ‘I think what you’ve done with your Lego people is fantastic.’

‘I know,’ he agreed, semi-appeased, then pulled a Lego fireman off the radiator and started to fly him through the air.

Kate went into their room. ‘Robert?’

A sigh and the sound of the bed sheets moving as the body under them turned.

She moved slowly over to the bed, the room bright with the broken bars of sunlight making their way through the blinds.

‘I’ve got a migraine.’

Robert looked awful, but then he looked awful all the time at the moment.

‘Well, do you think you can get up?’

Next door, in the throes of a game with his newly magnetic Lego men, Findlay let out the sort of triumphant shout that signified a cruel triumph.

‘I don’t knoware people with migraine meant to get up?’

That was unpleasantly said, but then most of their attempts at communication latelyverbal, non-verbal and even the silenceshad become unpleasant. She felt that every time he opened his mouth or touched her at the moment, it was to inflict pain.

Then it came to her, driving through sunlight and slow traffic one afternoon that, without either of them being aware of it, their marriage had been up against some huge, lumbering adversary for some time now; one they were meant to join forces against and fight together. She wasn’t entirely sure what the adversary wasit was too endless and indistinct to identify. It could be their children, their mortgage lender, the education system, their parents, their friends, TV, London, the twenty-first century…or a combination of all these things. It wasn’t clear. What was clear was that they’d subconsciously decided to face the adversary alonenot togetherand that Kate had won her fight, without meaning to, while Robert had lost his, also without meaning to.

Was one survivor in a marriage enough to keep a marriage going?

Ros would have said ‘yes’, but Kate never thought to ask her. Firstly, because she presumed this wasn’t something the Grangers had any experience of and, secondly, because Ros and she weren’t really on speaking terms since Ros had put in her offer on the Beulah Hill house. Despite the fact that Mr Jackson had since decided to take the house off the market….

Harriet would have given a despotically optimistic ‘yes’despite what Kate had witnessed in their kitchen on the night of the last PRC meeting.

But then, Staying Married was all part of Harriet’s Plan, and if Staying Married was an Applied Art, she intended to excel in it.

Robert was staring at a corner of radiator where rust was bleeding through the chipped paintwork. Kate thought about sitting down on the edge of the bed, but knew she couldn’t bear to be that close to him. There was an overwhelming smell of unwashed bed linen, unwashed hair and bad dreams in the room.

Kate stayed where she was and looked out of the window instead.

Outside, on the street, Evie and Joel and Ros were starting to set up the stalls. Soon she’d have to go down there and help them.

‘You’ve got to resolve this Jerome thing,’ she said absently.

Robert laughed. ‘What?’

‘I said, you’ve got to resolve this Jerome thing.’

He laughed again. ‘KateI’ve got migraine.’

‘I know.’ She stayed by the window with her back to him. ‘You said you were going to speak to the head.’

‘I spoke to the head,’ he said after a while.

Kate turned round. ‘Why didn’t you say?’

‘She told me to pray for Jerome.’

The blinds started to rattle lightly and Kate lifted her head instinctively to catch the morning breeze coming through the open window.

‘Les told me that the LA are currently investigating her for fraudulent activity.’

‘What sort of fraudulent activity?’ Kate asked, semi-interested.

‘Using school funds to launch her career as a prophetessthere are posters of her on the sides of buses. Have you got any idea how much an advertising campaign like that costs? Simba, who’d eat glue if she told him to, reckons she’s got enough followers to fill a small arena. The prophetess has got a disciplinary hearing and is threatening to sue the LA.’

‘For what?’

‘I don’t knowbusiness damages? Ellington’s on the verge of special measures and they want her to go quietly. So she’s putting together a package that includes a six-figure sum and full pension benefits.’

Robert didn’t sound like a man with a migraine as he said this.

‘You’ve got to get out,’ Kate said, more harshly than she’d intended. When he didn’t respond to this, she added, ‘And right now you’ve got to get upyou’ve got to, Robert. I can’t do today on my ownyour mum’s downstairs, my mum’s on her way and we’ve got this street party.’

Robert groaned and pulled the duvet up over his head.

‘And we’ve got to talk about the house.’

‘Shitplease don’t bring up the house thing now,’ Robert mumbled from beneath the duvet.

‘Well, there’s never a right time to bring up the house thing.’

A car pulled up on the street outside and, downstairs, Margery was yelling something.

Kate left the bedroom and went out into the hallway. ‘What’s that?’

‘I said, your mum’s here.’

Kate went downstairs past Margery, who was hovering in the lounge doorway with the red plastic spoon in her hand, and got to the front door just as Beatrice was about to ring it.

‘Good God,’ Beatrice said, her eyes running all over her daughter. ‘What have they been doing to you?’

‘I knowI know,’ Kate said, resisting the urge to burst into tears.

Mother and daughter hugged.

‘Margery,’ Beatrice said, in her usual irately enthusiastic way.

Margery and Beatrice didn’t hugprimarily because Margery, who tended to only hug people she actually liked, was too busy eyeing her suspiciously to even contemplate moving from the lounge doorway. She was fairly certain Beatrice had had liposuction done in the past six months.

Beatrice pushed past hernoting the red teaspoon in Margery’s handin search of Flo and, with a cry of delight, found her poised, juddering on her limbs, on the rug in the lounge. ‘Oh, Kateshe’s trying to crawlyou never said.’

Kate smiled, uninterested, as Flo was scooped up by Beatrice and placed professionally on her hip.

‘She’s been doing that for weeks now,’ Margery put in.

‘Where’s Finn?’ Beatrice asked.

‘Upstairs. How was the journey?’ Kate asked her.

‘Traffic wasn’t too bad. How’s it all goingwith the house?’

‘No one’s put an offer in yet.’

‘They will.’

‘I told them they don’t want anyone putting an offer in till they’ve found somewhere to go.’

‘I thought you had.’ Beatrice turned to her daughter.

‘It fell through. The vendor took it off the market.’

‘Well, this is London,’ Beatrice said expansively, rubbing noses with Flo. ‘Plenty of housing stock. And I suppose you could always take a short-term let or something if somebody wanted this and you had to move out.’

‘They can’t rent,’ Margery cried out, ‘it’ll cost a fortune. There’s four of them,’ she added, pointlessly. ‘And what about all their furniture?’

‘Storage,’ Beatrice said. ‘Margerythere’s no need to panic.’

‘But storage costs a fortune. And Robert’s got enough on his plate without worrying about where you’re all going to be living.’