Rise and Fall of a Domestic Diva (3 page)

Kate pulled up slowly in front of Village Montessori, checking to see if cars belonging to anybody she knew were parked in the nursery’s vicinity. Seeing Evie’s, she drove round the block slowly twice and after the second lap saw the tail end of the black Chrysler disappear into Hebron Road. It was safe.

Fading out Findlay’s monologue on the death of one of the nursery chickens, which were kept in a hut in the playgroundbird flu?she moved swiftly through the security gate with Flo on her and Findlay behind her towards the nursery entrance, past the Welcome to our Nursery sign in French, German, Spanish, Hebrew, Welsh, Gaelic, Arabic, Chinese, and Urdu. On the wall next to this was a montage of photographs taken by Sebastian Salgado of child labourers in South American mines that parents were beginning to complain to the Management Committee about.

‘Red rooster’s eyes went yellow and mushy when she died, like inside a wasp when you squish it, and Sandy who does music and movement said it wasn’t a fox,’ Findlay carried on as he hung up his coat, then added, ‘Martina’s grandma
did
make a football out of a pig’s head and it’s true. I’ve seen the film.’

Kate, who’d been on the verge of pushing him gently into the Butterfly Room, stopped. ‘Film?’

‘She’s got a film of it on her phone. Arthur,’ he yelled, then, turning back to Kate said, ‘is Arthur going to my new school?’

‘We don’t know what school Arthur’s going towhy don’t you ask him?’

Findlay ran over to the Home Corner where Arthur was kneeling in front of the oven, removing a large green casserole pot that he’d put a Baby Annabel doll in earlier.

‘What school are you going to?’

Kate waited.

Arthur was about to respond when one of the nursery staff went up to Findlay and said loudly, ‘Shall we give this to Mummy?’ tugging pointedly at the mask on his head.

Sighing, Findlay pulled it off and pushed it into Kate’s hand, turning his attention back to Arthur.

‘We need knives and forks,’ Arthur was saying, efficiently.

‘We have a no-masks policy at nursery,’ the woman said.

‘I forgot,’ Kate quickly apologised before virtually running along the corridor with Flo towards the Caterpillar Room, where she handed her over to her primary carer, Mary.

She got back to the car without running into anybody else she knew, and checked her phone. There was an ecstatic message from Evie telling her that Aggie was ‘in’, an almost identical one from Ros re. Toby Granger, and a message from Harriet telling her in a strangely officious manner that Casper had won a placewon?and reminding her to bring a food contribution to that night’s PRC meeting. Kate hadn’t even given it a thought.

She drove the car round the corner to Beulah Hill and parked outside the property Jessica had told her about. The house had nets up at windows painted peach, and a dead laurel in the front garden. She got the letter out of her breast
pocket and read it again, just to see if anything had changed since she put it in there. She reached the
Yours sincerely, Jade JacksonHead of Admissions
at the end. Nothing had changed. She felt, irrationally, that Findlay not being offered a place at St Anthony’s had something to do with Jade Jackson being Jamaican.

We are writing to inform you of the outcome of your application for a Southwark primary school. Your child has been offered a place at Brunton Park. The school will be contacting you with further information shortly….

She watched a pit-bull urinate against the tree on the other side of the window, then tried phoning the Admissions line, knowing how hopeless it would be trying to get through on the day all the offers had gone out. She listened to the engaged tone until she was automatically disconnected, then tried phoning St Anthony’s instead, eventually getting through to a woman who told her the school was once again oversubscribed and how this year more than twenty-five places had gone to siblings.

The woman cut her off before Kate even got round to telling her that they attended St Anthony’s Church every Sunday
every
Sundayor asking whether the school had definitely received the Reverend Walker’s letter confirming this.

She pushed her head back roughly against the car seat and tried phoning Robert, who didn’t answer, so sat contemplating No. 8 Beulah Hill instead. She was going to be late for her first appointment, and didn’t care.

At No. 22 Prendergast Road, Margery stood listening to Martina clean the bathrooms, then went back into the kitchen, humming a Max Bygraves song to herself as she started on the pastry for the corned beef and onion pie she’d decided to make for Robert’s tea that night. She watched her fingers lightly pull the mixture together in the way she’d been taught as a girl by her grandmother, who went mad playing the organ, and thought of all the different kitchens she’d watched her fingers do this in over the years, and how the fingers had changedgrown lines, knobbles, arthritic twists and turns and finally gone all loose; so loose that the few rings she had would probably have already fallen off if they hadn’t got caught in the loose folds of skin round the knuckles.

The litany of industrious sounds coming from upstairs comforted Margery as she rolled the pastry and lined the pie tinCommunists certainly knew how to clean. When she went to wash her hands, she saw the envelope Kate had left for Martina on the surface by the sink. She went into the hallway and listened. Martina had just started hoovering. Margery went into the lounge and took another envelope
out of Robert’s desk drawerit wasn’t actually Robert’s desk, it was Kate’s, but Margery always referred to it as Robert’sand went back into the kitchen.

She quickly tore open Martina’s pay packet and pulled out a twenty-pound note. She stood there for a moment, brushing flour off her nostrils with the crisp new note and knew that, according to her calculations, there was no way Kate and Robert could stretch to eighty pounds a month on a cleaner. Margery knew the Hunters’ finances as well as any accountant because she’d spent the better part of yesterday morning going through their two fiscal files. The Hunters were, in her opinion, in dire straitsshe didn’t know how they kept the show up and running or why they weren’t collapsing under the strain of their imminent financial ruin. She could only surmise that Robert was keeping it from Kate and bearing the burden alone. She didn’t understand her son’s marriage. It seemed unnatural to her; more important still, it was unsustainable. What was it Robert said to her all those years ago: ‘Wait till you meet her, Mumshe’s going to change the worldnot just mine; everyone’s. Kofi Annan beware.’

Well, personal finances were clearly below the likes of Kofi Annan, but Margery knew bailiffshad had experience of bailiffs throughout her childhood, and she could smell them in the air now. Kofi Annan or not, when it was time they came for you and nothing could keep them from the door. They went where they were sent and didn’t discriminate. Margery stuffed the twenty-pound note into the new envelope as the hoover cut out upstairs, put it back on the bench by the cooker and opened two cans of corned beef that she’d bought with her from East Leeke. When she turned round, Ivan the cat was standing motionless on the kitchen floor, watching her, its back arched. She felt immediately nauseous; cats always made her feel nauseous. They brought her underarms out in a rash and gave her vertigo.

Then the phone started to ring in the lounge and she wasn’t sure what to do about it because Ivan showed no sign of moving, was in fact now sending out a hissing spit in her general direction. Even without Ivan, the phone alarmed her with its flashing lights and antennae.

‘You want me to get?’ Martina called out from the upstairs landing.

At the sound of Martina’s voice, Ivan relaxed and strolled past Margery towards his bowl, brushing her ankles.

Margery jogged quickly into the lounge and started to wrestle with the still ringing phone, eventually pressing the right buttonbecause it might be Robert; it might always be Robert…

It was Beatrice, Kate’s mother.

‘Margeryhow are you? I had no idea you were in town.’

Town? What town? ‘The cleaner’s here,’ Margery said, for no particular reason.

‘That’s nice,’ Beatrice said after a while.

So the cleaner was news to Beatrice as well. Margery relaxed a little. ‘She’s from Czechoslovakia,’ she explained.

On the other end of the phone Beatrice, unsure why they were talking about the cleaner, said briskly, ‘There’s no such place.’

Margery baulked. ‘What?’

‘There’s the Czech Republic and Slovakia, but no Czechoslovakia.’

‘Martina never said,’ Margery carried on, more to herself than Beatrice, ‘but they were Communists?’

‘While the Soviet Union was still in poweryes.’

‘I was going to ask her if she had any KGB stories.’

‘KGB?’

‘You knowthe KGBthe secret police.’ Margery had withdrawn an abundance of material on the Gestapo and KGB from East Leeke Library’s well-stocked history section.

‘You must of heard about the KGB, Beatricehow they used to come in the night while you were asleep,’ Margery carried on, breathless. ‘The footsteps on the stairs, down the hallway…knocking on doors, doors opening…people disappearing.’ She paused. ‘They came in the night,’ she said again, insisting on this.

After a while, Beatrice said lightly, ‘So does Freddie Kruger.’

‘He sounds Germanwas Czechoslovakia covered by the Stasi?’ Margery asked, interested.

‘Margery,’ Beatrice reined her in. ‘How long are you staying for?’

This brought Margery up short. Always sensitive to any hint of expulsion or the fact that she was outstaying her welcome, she said quickly, ‘Not longit’s just while I’ve got the decorators in.’

‘What colour?’ Beatrice asked. She’d been to Margery’s East Leeke bungalow oncewhen Kate and Robert got marriedand the only place she’d ever been to before that bore even the slightest semblance to the bungalow in terms of décor and overall atmosphere was a euthanasia clinic on Denmark’s Jutland coast.

‘What colourwhat?’

‘What colour are you having the walls painted?’

Beatrice was shoutingMargery was sure Beatrice was shouting at her, and there was no need to do that; there was nothing partial about her hearing.

‘Magnolia,’ she said, surprised Beatrice had even asked.

‘What colour was it before?’

‘Magnolia.’

A pause. ‘Margeryis Kate there?’

‘She went out,’ Margery said, making it sound like she’d gone shopping and not to work as a clinical psychologist.

‘I was just phoning to see if Finn got into St Anthony’sKate said they were meant to hear by today.’

Finnwas Robert Rob or Robbie? ‘The letter came.’

‘And?’

Margery paused; suddenly thrilled by the notion that she had a small piece of the Hunter family’s future in her hands that Beatrice wasn’t yet aware of. ‘Well…’ she trailed off, provocatively. She could get Edith to the point sometimes where she was begging, her cheap dentures sliding around inside her mouth across saliva-ridden gums.

‘Did he get in?’

‘The letter said he did.’ What did that mean? Margery wasn’t sure, but she felt herself scanning the lounge to see if Kate had left the letter anywhere. She wouldn’t mind a look at that letter.

‘Thank God,’ Beatrice breathed down the phone. ‘Kate was talking about home schooling if Finn didn’t get in…leaving Londonthe works,’ she carried on.

‘Leaving London?’

‘Well, now she won’t need to bother.’

‘Leaving London for where?’

‘I don’t know, Margery, you know those twoKate was going on about America, and Rob…’

She called him Rob.

‘…was talking about New Zealand. They talked themselves into a taste for bigger things; who knows, maybe they’ll end up going anyway,’ Beatrice concluded cheerfully.

Margery was shocked. New Zealand? Robert never said anything to her about New Zealand.

‘I’ll try and catch Kate before she starts workand you must come down here to see usget a blast of fresh air.’ She paused. ‘Come on your own, if you like, I mean if you get sick of family life. I can always come and get youjust give us a bell.’

Margery didn’t respond to this; still hadn’t responded by the time Beatrice rang off. New Zealand. She tried phoning Edith, but Edith didn’t answer.

Martina appeared in the lounge doorway.

Margery stared helplessly at her before blurting out, ‘New Zealand’s on the other side of the world.’

Martina smiled and moved cautiously into the room with the hoover, watched by Margery. After a while she put the hoover away and disappeared into the kitchen. Margery remained in the lounge, staring at the phone.

‘I go now,’ Martina called out.

‘Already?’ Margery responded, involuntarily, walking slowly into the hallway.

Martina was at the front door, the white envelope in her hand. ‘Now I have much ironing to do for Mr Catano.’

‘Catano?’

‘A bit Korean, I think.’

‘Korean?’ Margery said as Martina opened the front door, thinking briefly of cousin Tom.

Martina pushed her bike past sunflowers that Kate had let Findlay plant and that Margery thought would look ridiculous by July when they reached shoulder-height.

‘I see you again next week.’

‘Maybe,’ Margery called out, unable to think about next week when she could barely keep her mind fixed on what was happening the rest of todayespecially after hearing about New Zealand.

‘And pleaseI fed the cat.’

Margery was about to say something about the cat when she heard the door to No. 20the Jamaican’s doorstart to open. She went quickly back inside, slamming the door to No. 22 shut and going into the lounge where she watched carefully, through slatted blinds Martina hadn’t forgotten to dust, as Mr Hamilton moved slowly over to his recycling bin and put an empty milk carton in it.

The sun glanced off his gold wristwatch as he turned
round, shaking his head at a private thought before looking up suddenly, straight at her, smiling.

Scowling, Margery backed away from the window, almost running into the hallway where she slid the chain across the front door as quietly as she could, then waited. No sound of movement on the other side. Then, after another minute, the front door to No. 20 was shut.

Scared as well as preoccupied, Margery went into the kitchen to pick up where she’d left off with the corned beef pie. She sliced an onion over the pastry base and went to get the corned beef out the cupboard before remembering that she’d already done that. There it was on the bench. Only the tins were empty. When had she done that? She looked from the empty tins to the empty pie case.

Where was the corned beef?

Slowly her eyes took a downward turn to Ivan’s bowl, which was full.