Rise and Fall of a Domestic Diva (9 page)

He was staring wildly at her, thinking anywhere…anywhere other than here. ‘Botswana?’

‘You’ve already mentioned Botswana. I don’t want to go to Botswana.’

‘Sierra Leone?’

‘Let’s just leave Africa out of it.’

Then Margery’s voice croaked up the stairs, ‘You’re not talking about New Zealand are you?’

Kate and Robert pushed their heads in unison round the turn in the stairs and saw Margery standing at the bottom of them, her hand on the banister. The hair on the left-hand side of her head was flat from where she’d been sleeping on it and there was a red patch on her face where she’d dribbled over the sofa and the wet fabric had irritated her skin.

‘She’s awake,’ Kate hissed at Robert. ‘How long has she been awake for?’

Robert shrugged. ‘What’s that, Mum?’

‘You’re home,’ she said, then carried on with, ‘When I was talking to Beatrice earlier, she said you were thinking about going to New Zealand.’

‘There was never any talk of New Zealand, Mum.’

‘Well Beatrice said there was.’

‘In passing, maybe…nothing more.’

‘New Zealand’s on the other side of the world.’

‘Mum!’ Robert said more forcefully than he’d meant to, ‘nobody’s going to New Zealandnobody.’

He turned desperately back to Kate, his eyes sliding down her throat, whose veins were still shaking, and felt an almost uncontrollable wave of desire.

‘Beatrice really upset me,’ Margery persisted.

Robert reeled towards Kate, wanting to make love to her here on the stairs, regardless of Margery standing at the bottom of them.

‘She really did.’

Kate was watching him, afraid.

Robert paused, saw her face, then pulled himself aggressively away and went heavily downstairs.

Kate stayed where she was, staring at the sets of handprints big and small on the grey wall. She heard Margery say, ‘I’ll make some tea.’ Then her phone started ringing again and this time she carried on upstairs into their bedroom and retrieved it from her handbag.

It was HSBCshe’d spoken to them earlier about increasing their overdraft limitphoning again. There were four other missed callsone from an unknown number and three from Jessica. Three?

Then she remembered.

‘Where’s Findlay?’ she yelled, running downstairs and into the kitchen.

Robert, who was emptying the teapot into the sink, turned slowly round. ‘What?’

‘I saidwhere’s Findlay?’

‘Findlay?’

‘Yes, Findlaywhere’s Findlay? He’s meant to be hereyou were meant to be picking him and Arthur up from Swim Club.’

‘Swim Club?’

‘Shit, Robertwhat’s the time now?’

‘Twenty past six,’ Margery’s voice called out from the lounge.

‘Shit!’

Kate was aware of a mauve and green blur suddenly surrounding Robert as she screamed, ‘You forgot to pick up the boys!’

Robert continued to stare blankly at her. ‘So I’ll go now.’

‘You can’t goyou’re drunk.’

‘Drunk?’ Margery said, outraged at the accusation.

‘Tell her you went to the pub after school,’ Kate demanded.

‘I went to the pub after school.’

‘And that you’re drunk.’

‘And that I’m drunk.’

‘You’re not drunk,’ Margery said, ignoring the confession.

‘RobertI don’t have time for this. I’m-going-to-get-our-son-Findlay.’ And with that, Kate hauled Flo, now screaming, out of her bouncy chair and into her car seat.

‘You can leave Flo herewith me,’ Robert said.

‘You’re drunk,’ Kate hissed. ‘I’m not leaving her with you.’ Grunting, she swung the car seat up into the crook of her arm.

‘I’m here,’ Margery said from the kitchen doorway.

Kate stared at her, then, without another word, walked out of the house, slamming the front door shut.

Robert and Margery stood in the kitchen listening to the footsteps disappear, the screech of the un-oiled gate and a car engine starting up soon drowned by the sound of other traffic on the road. Robert drifted through to the lounge and Margery, with a contented sigh, got the tea tray ready.

‘Come on, love,’ she said a few minutes later, walking through to the lounge and putting the tray down on the coffee table. ‘We won’t be having supper till late, so I thought I’d put us some bits out.’ Her eyes scanned the plates full of Battenburg cake, Mr Kipling’s Bakewell tart and Nice biscuits. ‘You don’t mind supper late?’

When Robert didn’t respond to this, Margery said, ‘Don’t beat yourself up about the boysyou’ve been at work all day.’

‘I completely forgot.’

‘Did Kate even tell you?’

‘Last week.’

‘But did she remind you this morning about picking the boys upor phone you?’

‘Mum, that’s not the point.’

Unsure what the point was, Margery started to make her way contentedly through a slice of Battenburg. ‘Her saying you’re drunk.’ She shook her head.

‘What’s that?’

‘Kate…saying you’re drunk.’

‘Maybe I am.’

‘You’re not drunk.’

‘I did go to the pub after school.’

‘Well, you’re entitled to itand you’re home now. She needs to calm down,’ Margery added, trying to keep the bits of Battenburg in her mouth. Another minute passed with Robert slumped inert, making no effort to help himself to the contents of the tea tray. Suddenly irritated, Margery said, ‘Beatrice really did upset mesaying what she did earlier about New Zealand.’

Robert stood up suddenly and left the room.

‘Where are you going? Margery shouted, her mouth full again. ‘Your tea’s all pouredwe’ve got biscuits.’

‘I don’t want tea,’ Robert said, blinking into the light of the fridge while banging his head repeatedly against the door.

‘What’s that?’

‘Nothing,’ he yelled back, louder than he’d meant to.

The smell of chlorine filled the stairwell leading up to Jessica’s maisonette at No. 283 Prendergast Roadchlorine and onions frying. Kate climbed the stairs, banging Flo’s car seat off walls covered in intricate biro drawings of spidersa legacy from the previous owner’s children. The door at the top of the stairs was open and she could hear Arthur and Findlay yelling at each other as she walked up the last few steps and into the Palmers’ maisonette.

Jessica appeared in the kitchen doorway, still dressed in her suit and drying her hands on a tea towel.

‘Jessica, I’m soso sorry. Robert got held up at work and—’

Jessica cut in with, ‘I didn’t know what was going on when the leisure centre rang. They said nobody had come to collect the boys and they couldn’t get hold of you. Then I tried to get hold of you and couldn’t—’

‘It was Robert, he—’

‘So I thought I’d better go and collect them myself and…’

For a moment Kate thought Jessica was going to cry, but she held tightly onto the side of the kitchen bench and the moment passed.

‘Jessica, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say.’

‘I had to get Jake to cover my two valuations.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Jessica sighed. ‘Come inI’m making hot dogs.’

Unable to bear the way Jessica was looking at her any longershe didn’t think she’d ever seen Jessica angry beforeKate went through to the lounge where Findlay and Arthur were practising karate on the patch of carpet not taken up by Arthur’s Transformers collection. The maisonette always felt messyno, disorganised was a better word. Arthur’s eyes briefly scanned her from behind a pair of science goggles then switched back to Findlay.

Findlay looked up, saw his mother, then shot his left foot out, catching Arthur just below the knee. ‘Why didn’t Dad come?’ he asked. Then, before she had time to answer. ‘Where’s Flo?’

‘Flo? She’s here with me.’

Findlay relaxed and gave Arthur another kick.

Kate put the car seat down by the dining tablestill obscured by breakfast cereals and a copy of
A Choice of Ethical Careers
.

Arthur dropped onto the floor, panting, staring with bloodshot chlorine eyes at the gas-effect fire, which was on.

‘Thinking of a change in career?’ Kate called out, wanting to smooth things over.

Jessica reappeared in the kitchen doorway, the water from a pack of Hertz frankfurters she was holding leaking over her suit jacket.

Kate held up
A Choice of Ethical Careers
, which Jessica peered at while sucking her fingers.

‘Oh, that’s Ellie’s,’ she said coldly.

Kate was about to put the book back on the dining table when she saw the St Anthony’s letter, covered in a trail of milk. She scanned through it twice. ‘Oh, my GodJessica!’

Getting her foot caught round one of the table legs, she tripped then made her way over to the kitchen. ‘Jessica…’

Jessica, who was dropping frankfurters into a pan of water, didn’t turn round. ‘What?’

‘Arthur got in.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I saw the letter just now on the table. ARTHUR GOT IN.’

‘Ohyeah.’

Jessica was staring strangely at her. Kate let out a solitary, hysterical laugh. ‘You must be
so
pleased.’

‘YeahI didn’t think he’d get in. At least him and Findlay will be together,’ Jessica said, smiling for the first time since Kate’s arrival.

Kate continued to stare stupidly at her, trying to think of something to say.

‘This is fucking hopeless,’ Jessica muttered, trying to scoop the frankfurters out of the pan. ‘It was Peter who used to do all the cooking. God, I miss borscht,’ she sighed.

Kate smiled awkwardly. She’d never heard Jessica refer to Peter before.

‘Does Findlay want one before he goes?’ Jessica said, dropping them into hot-dog rolls, which became immediately saturated with the boiling water still running off the frankfurters.

‘No, it’s fine,’ Kate said quickly. ‘We’ve got to get going.’

The smell of burnt onions was rapidly filling not only the kitchen but the entire maisonette, and somewhere in the background a baby started crying just as the burnt onions finally got round to triggering the maisonette’s decades-old, fugged-up smoke alarm.

‘Fuck,’ Jessica said, taking the pan off the heat and opening the kitchen window.

Findlay and Arthur appeared in the doorway, the skin around their eyes puffed up from overexposure to chlorineand excitement at the smoke alarm.

Jessica took a swipe at the alarm with the tea towel until it stopped ringing and was left hanging from the ceiling by two wires.

‘Mum—’ Findlay started.

Then Jessica cut in with, ‘D’you want me to get her?’

‘Who?’

‘Well, Flo, she’s…’

‘Oh.’ Now the smoke alarm had stopped, Kate became aware that her daughter was cryingscreaming in fact.

‘I’ll get her,’ Jessica said when Kate showed no sign of movement.

She reappeared a minute later holding Flo against her chest. ‘You’re sure you don’t want to stay for tea?’

‘Sorrywe’ve got to run.’

‘Maybe another time,’ Jessica said, suddenly desperate. Then, ‘She’s gorgeous, Kate,’ staring down at Flo and running her forefinger down the length of the tiny nose.

Without responding to this, Kate yelled, ‘Findlaywe need to get home.’

Findlay appeared in the doorway, pushing his damp fringe off his face as he started to slowly pull on his shoes.

Flo immediately started to cry again as soon as Kate took her from Jessica, who followed them downstairs.

Findlay was singing loudly, ‘Who let the dogs out? Whowhowho…?’

Kate thought she was going to explode.

At last, Findlay was buckled in and Flo was staring with fretful, wet-eyed wonder at the felt carousel dangling about twenty centimetres directly above her that Kate now activated to calm herself, before getting into the driver’s seat to the chiming melody of ‘
Au Clair de la Lune
’.

Jessica tapped on the window. ‘Are you still on for the PRC tonight?’

‘Are you coming?’

‘Probably. I’ve spoken to Ellie.’

‘See you around eight.’

Before Jessica had time to say anything else, Kate gave a wave and the car slid out from under the streetlight, executing a fraught U-turn before driving at high speed back down to the lower end of Prendergast Road.

Jessica watched the Audi until it disappeared downhill by the Pentecostal church where some information about Christ’s Second Coming was written in black marker penin such large letters she could read it from where she was standing on the pavement. When Kate’s car had gone, she looked up at the windows of the maisonette she’d bought six months agothat she was going to have to put a lot of effort into calling homeand instinctively sniffed her hands, which smelt of Flo. Her insides lurched as they had done when she’d first picked up Flo. Up until then she had never thought of wanting more children.

Ellie appeared like a ghost at an upstairs window.

Jessica waved, but Ellie didn’t wave back.

Ellie shut the curtains.

Looking up the street in either direction as if waiting for somebody long overdue, Jessica sighed and went back indoors, walking over some stray rose stalks and chrysanthemum leaves that must have blown under the florist’s door into her hallway. After six months, she was almost impervious to the scent of the flowersall except the lilies, which gave off a carnivorously humid smell that unsettled her.

The maisonette needed painting but paint charts didn’t feature large in the life of the Palmers. Paint chartslike a lot of thingswere for other people.

Pushing hair that hadn’t been cut for over a year out of her eyesand catching the smell of Flo on her hands againJessica looked down the street one last time, watched two cars pass the junction with Harlow Road, then shut the door.

Upstairs, Arthur was on the sofa watching TV, his hair damp with sweat.

She gave him two wet hot dogs smeared in ketchup, which he accepted with the comment, ‘One in every four people on the planet’s Chinese.’

‘I’ll be back in five minutes,’ Jessica said to him in response to this. ‘I’m just going to check on Ellie.’

Checking on Ellie was something Arthur was so used to her doing that he barely noticed as she left the room and headed towards Ellie’s bedroom with a second plate of wet hot dogs smeared in ketchup.

Ellie was sitting at her desk and the computer was on. The only part of her daughter that Jessica could see from behind the huge Mastermind chair was her crepuscular left hand, moving the mouse backwards and forwards.

Ellie’s room was immaculate, the tidiest in the houseas if she was biding her time until a better alternative came along and keeping the room tidy so as not to leave any traces behind when she’d gone.

‘What are you doing?’ Jessica asked

‘What does it look like?’

She walked over and stared at Ellie’s hair; so fine it was bristling in the screen light. She had to put a lot of energy into overcoming the urge to put her hands on her daughter’s shoulders and say, ‘Ellie, you do love me, don’t you?’

‘Looks violent,’ she said, casually balancing the plate of hot dogs on the edge of the desk.

Ellie looked sharply at them. ‘What’s that?’

‘Tea,’ Jessica ventured. Then, to change the subject, nodded at the screen. ‘And what’s that?’

‘That?’ Ellie turned back to the screen. ‘That’s Baghdad after the American ceasefire.’

‘But they’re still fighting,’ Jessica said, making a show of peering at the screen while trying not to actually look.

Ellie groaned. ‘That’s the point.’

‘What’s the point?’

‘There
was
no ceasefire. This is footage from unembedded
Al-Jazeera
reporters.’

Jessica tried to think of something to say to this that wouldn’t irritate Ellie. ‘How was school today?’

‘Shit, actually. Apart from Mr Hunter. I thought he wasn’t in today because he wasn’t there at the beginning of the lesson and I hadn’t seen him around school. Then he did come in and everything…’ Ellie stopped, suddenly aware of Jessica standing there. ‘We learnt how to make a nuclear bomb in chemistry.’

‘You did?’ Jessica tried not to sound distractedsounding distracted when you talked to Ellie was something that triggered her anger.

Ellie nodded, not noting the distraction. ‘According to Mr Edmonds, it’s not nuclear bombs we should be worried about, it’s plutonium; plutonium in the hands of the wrong peoplesay an amateur terrorist. Getting your hands on Grade A plutonium is far easier than getting your hands on a nuclear bomb.’ Ellie paused.

Nervous, Jessica picked up one of the china fairies from the collection on Ellie’s desk; she had had them since she was five years old.

‘He mentioned your book
How To Survive A Nuclear War
.’

‘He did? I thought it was out of print.’

‘God, you’re so negative. Anyway…he called it a
post-Apocalyptic etiquette guide.’ Ellie chuckled. ‘I thought that was pretty good.’

Unable to decide whether Ellie was being cruel or not, Jessica pulled Ellie’s copy of
How To Survive A Nuclear War
towards her. The copy was well read and had a stamp inside from London Borough of Hackney Libraries: withdrawn for sale.

‘Put it down,’ Ellie said, fractious.

Ignoring her, Jessica flicked through the book until she got to the author’s photograph on the back flap. She’d forgotten about the photograph.

There she wasthe same age as Ellie nowstanding beneath a cherry tree in a suburban back garden with coauthor, Lieutenant Browne and Peter’s mother, Mrs Kluszynski, flanking her on either side. ‘That’s me,’ she said, sounding shy and unsure, inadvertently holding it out to Ellie for verification.

‘You look happyin the picture,’ Ellie observed, hoping it sounded like an accusation rather than a compliment.

‘I do, don’t I?’

‘That’s Grandma…’

‘D’you remember her?’

‘Not really. I waswhatfour or something when she died?’ Ellie paused, looking more closely at the photograph. ‘I remember going to Poland to visit her that time, thoughjust before she died. There were all those ski lifts running up through the meadows past her house. They scared me for some reason. I don’t know why. I didn’t mind them in the daytime when they were working and people used them to take picnics and stuff up the mountain, but I hated it when they shut the machinery off at night and the lifts just used to hang there, swaying. They made this awful squealing noise.’ Ellie shuddered.

‘It was a big deal for Grandma, going back to Poland when
the wall came down. She left there when she was only your age. The house she bought right on the edge of town belonged to a cousin she’d kept in touch with. I think she was happyin the end. Second time round she got to do Poland on her terms.’ Jessica paused. ‘It’s funny, that time you remember going over to visit her: we were half thinking of moving there ourselves.’

‘Whatyou and Dad? To Poland?’

‘All of usyes.’

‘Whose idea was that?’

‘I don’t know, it was just this idea we had at the timemoving to Poland.’

‘So why didn’t you?’

‘I think we got overwhelmed by the idea of learning Polish.’

‘Didn’t Dad speak Polish?’

‘Some…badly.’

Jessica put the book down, aware that Ellie was watching her hands as they attempted to restore it to its original position on the deskits exact original position. Ellie was very particular about things like that.

In the silence that followed, Jessica heard herself saying, ‘Just imagine…if that had happened. If we’d all moved to Poland. Everything would have been different.’ She realised, too late, what she’d just said.

‘Yeah, we’d all be speaking Polish.’ Ellie paused. ‘And Dad would still be here.’

Now Ellie was being cruel, and cruelty towards Jessicasince Peter’s deathwas something they had both subconsciously decided was permissible. But this was too much. She stared at her daughter, rendered suddenly helpless by a memory of Peter turning to look at her in the car as they were driving. ‘Ellie…’

Ellie swung away from her, back to face the screen.

‘What you saidthat wasn’t fair,’ Jessica said.

‘Well, maybe if you’d loved him more, it would never have happened anyway.’

‘If I’d loved him more? I loved him—’

‘But not enough. If you’d loved him enough—’

‘Stop it! Stop it, Ellieyou don’t know what you’re saying.’

Ellie spun round suddenly and they stared at each other. ‘I do know what I’m saying, and I know love.’

‘You don’t know love.’

‘I doI do know love.’

Relieved, Jessica heard Arthur’s bare feet slapping at high speed up the stairs.

‘Mum,’ he said from the bedroom doorway, breathless, his eyes wide open. ‘There’s some naked animals downstairs and they’re doing stuff to each other.’

‘Downstairs?’ Jessica looked quickly at Elliewho was looking at Arthur as if she was trying to weigh up the collateral damage her five-year-old brother was likely to cause with access to Grade A plutoniumthen back to Arthur.

‘On the TV,’ he added, worried that he was responsible for the weird looks on his mum and sister’s faces and the fact that they’d been shouting. He wasn’t allowed to do or say anything that made weird looks happen to his sister’s face.

‘OkayI’ll be down in a second,’ Jessica said.

Arthur, reassured, went back downstairs.

‘I’ve got nothing more to say to you,’ Ellie announced.

‘But you can’t just say things like that. There isn’t the space in our life together for you to say those things.’

‘What life?’

‘It’s never going to workif you harbour those sorts of thoughts towards me.’

‘I’m not harbouring them, I’m saying them, and now I’ve got nothing more to say.’

It’s true, Jessica thought, staring at her daughter in horror. The things we give birth to have the power to annihilate us. ‘Ellie—’

‘And you can take that with you,’ Ellie said, elbowing the plate with the hot dogs on it that Jessica had put down on the edge of the desk.

‘I’ll leave it up here in case you change your mind and want them later.’

‘I won’t want them later.’

‘You might.’

‘I won’t,’ Ellie snapped.

‘Okay…okay,’ Jessica heard herself saying, as if a long way away, helpless, suddenly exhausted and close to tears. ‘Okay,’ she said again, picking up the plate.

She went downstairs and watched from the lounge doorway as two polar bears finished mating to David Attenborough’s voice-over. ‘Don’t worrythey’re just loving each other,’ she said to Arthur, who still had Ellie’s old science goggles on.

Arthur stared blankly at her then back at the screen. ‘That’s love?’