The Rise and Fall of the Queen of Suburbia: A Black-Hearted Soap Opera

Everybody had a glass. Everybody had to drink. Daphne had taken over.

Linda tried to catch Dominique’s eye, but Dominique wasn’t seeing straight. Why weren’t they sitting on the sofas in the lounge with their pre-dinner drinks like she’d planned? Why were they all crowded round the dining table instead with an empty crate of Belgian beer on it and Joe and the Niemans – all the Niemans – pressed up against the frosted glass that acted as a divider between the kitchen-diner and the hall.

‘You’ll stay and eat with us?’ Daphne asked Paul.

Paul shrugged.

‘He doesn’t have to if he doesn’t want to,’ Linda said. Repeating, ‘Really, he doesn’t have to.’ There was enough gazpacho for six people. There were six pieces of salmon and six dining-room chairs. Paul would make them seven, and she didn’t have the stamina to pull off the ‘fish and loaves on the shores of Galilee’ stunt tonight.

‘He’ll stay,’ Daphne said.

Linda stood smiling back at her. ‘So – will he eat fish fingers?’

Daphne laughed. In fact, she didn’t stop laughing for a long time after the fish-finger joke. Only Linda wasn’t joking. Fish fingers were the only thing she could think of to remedy the disaster of turning an evening for six into an evening for seven, and she was working on the premise that all children like fish fingers. Only Paul wasn’t a child. He was the tallest person in the room, and he was drinking beer. In fact, there were no children here tonight. Linda felt her hormones take a quick dive. She had to stop thinking about Paul Nieman.

‘I’ll get Jessica down,’ she said. Then, ‘Maybe she and Paul could eat before us?’

‘Yes, I’d like to meet Jessica,’ Winke said sadly.

‘Jessica,’ Joe yelled up the stairs.

‘Why don’t we just all eat together?’ Daphne asked.

‘I’ll get her, Joe.’ Linda went upstairs and knocked on Jessica’s door. When she went in, her daughter was sitting at her desk. ‘Jessica?’

‘I’m busy.’

‘What are you doing? Homework?’

‘No. Just something.’

‘I need you to come downstairs.’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘You have to come and have something to eat.’

‘I already ate. You told me to get something earlier.’

‘Well, now you have to eat something with us. Downstairs.’

‘I’m busy.’

There was an A4 pad on the desk with the words ‘Biological Hazards’ written across it. Then a list underneath: Anthrax/splenic fever/murrain/malignant – she couldn’t see the rest. ‘Paul Nieman’s here, that’s why I need you to come downstairs. You know Paul, don’t you?’

‘He’s in my physics class.’

‘Well, then – downstairs. Now.’

Jessica stood up. She had a pair of washed-out jeans on and an oversize black T-shirt with the word ‘Kontagion’ printed across it in white.

‘For God’s sake, Jessica. I told you to get changed.’

‘Well, I got changed.’

Linda grabbed hold of her daughter’s arm, and kept hold of it as she pushed her down the stairs in front of her.

The crockery didn’t match and nobody commented on the gazpacho. There wasn’t enough elbow space, and Paul and Jessica, who Linda had hoped to sit together, were on opposite sides of the table in deckchairs from the garage – ones she hadn’t been able to wash the mildew off. She hadn’t even got round to lighting the candles.

‘Computers’ll never take off,’ Joe said.

‘You’re not tempted to get one for the office?’

Joe shook his head and Winke put his reading glasses on.

‘In two years’ time you won’t be able to avoid them.’ Then, waving his spoon at Joe, ‘The school’s ordered thirty-five BBC computers.’

‘When?’

‘Last week.’

‘How d’you know?’

‘I ordered them.’

‘At the last Governors’ meeting, we appointed Winke Information Technology Liaison Officer.’

Linda started to clap then saw the look Jessica was giving her.

‘We were thinking of starting up a distribution company – when the time’s right,’ Daphne added.

‘As well as double glazing?’ Linda asked.

‘For a while.’ Winke turned to Jessica. ‘You’ll get to use them maybe … learn some basic programming skills.’

‘You’ve got daughters, haven’t you? You should bring them over,’ Daphne was saying to Dominique.

‘Steph’s too young and Delta’s looking after her.’

‘Delta – that’s a beautiful name.’

Linda stood up and started to clear away the gazpacho bowls so that she wouldn’t have to listen to the story of how Delta was conceived in Egypt at the mouth of the Nile when Mick and Dominique used to fly together.

‘I read in the FT that Laker Air’s in trouble,’ Winke said to Mick.

Linda looked at Dominique to see if this was something she knew about.

‘Difficulty. Not trouble,’ Mick said. Then, seeing Winke smile, he added, ‘It’s weathered worse.’

‘Do you miss flying?’ Daphne whispered to Dominique, who was sitting next to her.

Dominique stared at the Belgian woman whose hand was on her arm. ‘I don’t know – it was a long time ago – yes,’ she added unexpectedly.

The two women smiled at each other.

Something in the way Daphne was resting her hand on her arm made Dominique run on, way beyond the usual confines of her ‘Mick and I got it together at fifty thousand feet’ speech. ‘I mean, I miss the flying, but not the job. The trolley, the foreign hotels between coming and going – I don’t miss that, but the flying itself …’

‘Was it what you always wanted to do?’

‘I didn’t know what I wanted to do – the only O Level I passed was Home Economics. Then I got accepted on this training programme, and –’

‘Do you ever think about going back to it?’

‘I don’t know – no – I’ve changed so much.’ This sounded indefinite, more like she was looking for reassurance than making a statement. ‘I’ve changed so much,’ she said again. Then, turning to Winke, ‘What were you saying about Laker Air?’

‘That it’s in trouble,’ Winke said, pleased to repeat this.

‘It’s fine, Dom.’ Mick, who had overheard, watched his wife’s face as it turned towards him, settling fully on him and resting there.

‘I hope so.’ Winke started shaking his head, and he was still shaking it when conversation moved on, and Joe was telling everybody his favourite story.

‘Believe it or not, it was one of the first jobs I took on after starting up the company,’ Joe’s voice was saying, ‘and it came my way through one of the estate agents in town – can’t remember which one. They’d been renting out a house for some people who’d gone to America short term then decided to sell, as renting it out was too much hassle and the last tenants had disappeared without a trace. The agents reckoned they’d get a better price if they had the kitchen re-done. So … I went in on a Tuesday, I think it was, yeah, a Tuesday. One of the first things I did was turn the freezer off so that I could move it out the way, and – bloody hell …’ He turned to Mick. ‘I know you’ve heard it already – don’t you dare say anything.’

Linda wanted Joe to finish his story and start making an effort with Winke so that in, say, two weeks’ time, Joe could ring him to talk about the possibility of offering Nieman double glazing at a reduced price to people who were getting kitchens designed and fitted by Quantum. She also wanted to ask Daphne whether they’d considered getting their original Laing kitchen replaced? The Nassams at No. 6 and the Saunders all had Quantum kitchens.

Joe let his chair fall forward, forcing his belly into the edge of the table.

‘Guess what I found when I opened the freezer? The missing tenant. Well, one of them.’

‘Oh, come on,’ Daphne looked cross. ‘Not in the freezer, surely.’

‘Seriously – I’m not kidding you.’

‘He’s not,’ Mick added.

Here was Joe talking about dead people, Linda thought. Dead people here in Littlehaven, where the only thing people should have to worry about was whether they ought to take advantage of the new offer by Quantum Kitchens and have Nieman glazing – at a reduced price – put in at the same time. Why was Joe the one rocking back on his chair legs, laughing, when she was the one who got to open the letter from the bank telling them they’d missed a mortgage payment.

‘It was in the papers and everything,’ Joe carried on. ‘The head was in the bottom drawer and everything else was in those freezer bags with labels and dates written on them. Each bag had a different date on it – never worked that one out. Must have been something personal; a private joke or something between the killer and her victim.’

‘Wait,’ Daphne said, ‘it was the wife who killed the husband?’

‘Well – according to the estate agent it was a husband and wife who left without paying their last month’s rent, only, technically speaking, I suppose the husband never vacated the property after all because he was in the freezer the whole time.’

‘Why don’t you two go and watch some TV?’ Linda whispered to Jessica.

‘Who’s “you two”?’ Jessica asked, staring back at her.

‘You and Paul.’

‘I need to go and see if Ferdie’s okay.’

Linda saw this as her last opportunity to reclaim the evening for six people. She’d managed with the gazpacho, but she just didn’t know how to make six salmon steaks into eight.

‘Ferdie’s fine.’

‘Who’s Ferdie?’ Paul asked.

‘Ferdie’s our dog,’ Linda said, then to Jessica, ‘and Ferdie’s fine.’

‘How do you know – have you been upstairs?’

‘Jessica!’

‘I’m going.’ Jessica shunted her deckchair back into the breakfast bar.

‘So what is this Kontagion thing?’ Winke said, looking at her T-shirt as she stood up.

‘Last year’s Glastonbury T-shirt for Youth CND,’ she mumbled.

‘You went?’

Jessica looked at Linda. ‘I wasn’t allowed to go – a friend brought it back for me.’

‘I think Paul should go to Glastonbury,’ Winke said, his mind on neither Paul, who was sitting opposite him, nor Glastonbury.

‘That was very good gazpacho, Mrs Palmer,’ Paul said as Jessica left the room.

‘What the hell’s gazpacho?’ Joe asked Mick.

Linda wondered briefly if anyone was checking Paul’s alcohol intake. Then whether anybody needed to – how old was he, anyway? ‘Teenagers,’ she said nervously.

‘You’re okay, you escape all this with a boy,’ Dominique said to Daphne. Then, turning to Linda, ‘I mean, when did you last get to use your own phone?’

Linda gave what she hoped was a sympathetic shrug. Jessica didn’t seem to phone anybody, and nobody phoned Jessica – apart from Mr Browne, who lived at No. 14.

‘And all the cupboard space taken up with cheap makeup – Delta doesn’t seem to stick to one brand, she just gets bored and moves on to the next one.’

‘Tell me about it,’ Linda said, hoping Dominique would leave it at that.

‘And that’s just the ongoing stuff. This afternoon – while we were out – the girls nearly set fire to the house.’

Linda tried to look surprised.

‘Some accident with a crimper – you should see Steph’s hair.’

‘Will Jessica be going to university next year?’ Daphne asked, turning to Linda. ‘I mean, what’s the procedure for someone her age, in her position?’

Linda didn’t know. She hadn’t thought about anything much beyond the feature Trevor Jameson was going to run in the County Times, and now she came to think of it – what was going to happen with Jessica next year?

‘You should think about an American university for Jessica – maybe wait four years, let her mature … specialise … get her head round the direction she’d like her research to take. I’ve got a good friend at Berkeley you and Joe should speak to.’

‘Anyway, you got your picture in the paper, didn’t you?’ Mick was saying to Joe.

‘I did.’ Joe looked pleased. ‘Yeah, I did.’

Linda put the mandarin cheesecake on the table and tried not to look at Daphne’s face. She had a feeling that Daphne would have an opinion on frozen mandarin cheesecake.

‘Well, it’s not soufflé,’ she said, because nobody else was saying anything.

‘Since when has anyone here made soufflé?’ Dominique asked.

‘Oh, come on, Dom, I know you make soufflé …’

‘I’ve never made soufflé in my life before. Have I ever made soufflé before, Mick? Mick?’

Mick looked up. ‘What’s that?’

‘I said, have I ever made soufflé before?’

‘You and soufflé? Never. Dom doesn’t cook, she – well, she just doesn’t cook.’

‘So you’ve never made soufflé?’ Linda persisted, thinking of Delta in the kimono; Delta who had lied to her. Why?

‘Linda, I’m telling you …’

‘Well,’ Linda lifted up the cake slice, her stomach vibrating with nausea, ‘this is mandarin cheesecake.’

‘I love mandarin cheesecake,’ Paul said.

4

Taking one last look at herself in the mirror, Dominique turned off the light in the en suite and went through to the bedroom where Mick lay with his head propped in his hand and A History of Winemaking open on the pillow.

‘You’re tired,’ he said, looking up at her.

She nodded, still yawning. ‘I don’t know how you can read – aren’t you drunk?’

‘I’m not drunk.’

‘You looked drunk tonight.’

‘Just doing a good impression – to make it look as though I was enjoying myself. For your sake.’

‘You weren’t enjoying yourself, then?’

‘Come on, Dom.’ He paused. ‘We had mandarin cheesecake.’

‘You shouldn’t pretend for my sake.’

‘I should.’ He shut the book and sat up, pushing the dressing gown off her left shoulder.

‘I can’t sleep,’ Stephanie said, walking into the room and bringing the smell of burnt hair with her.

‘Steph –’ Mick fell back onto the bed.

‘Come on, baby, it’s sleep time. And you can’t sleep in this,’ Dominique said, lifting the yellow hard hat off her daughter’s head. Stephanie was dressed in the full emergency services outfit she’d insisted on wearing to bed earlier and in the end Dominique had given in.

‘What time is it?’ Steph pulled the hard hat sharply back down onto her head.

‘It’s after midnight.’

‘Then it’s tomorrow. That’s late.’

‘It is late and you should be in bed now.’

‘I want to see Dad.’

‘Dad’s trying to sleep.’

‘But he just waved at me.’

Dominique turned round to see Mick lying with the pillow over his head and his right hand in the air, waving.

Stephanie squealed and jumped onto the bed as Mick pulled the pillow off his head and threw it at her. ‘I made up some new jokes,’ she said, bouncing up and down.

‘Like …’

‘Like – what d’you call a one-legged horse?’

‘I don’t know, what d’you call a one-legged horse?’

‘A unicycle,’ Stephanie said, still bouncing. ‘And – what d’you call a one-legged cow?’

‘I don’t know, what d’you call a one-legged cow?’

‘A unicycle. And – what d’you call a one-legged pig?’

‘A unicycle?’

‘Noooo.’

‘Why not?’

‘Just because. I haven’t thought of a joke for a one-legged pig yet.’

‘But why can’t a one-legged pig just be a unicycle like a one-legged horse and a one-legged cow?’

‘Mick,’ Dominique interceded.

Stephanie jumped off the bed and went running back to her room.

Dominique followed her.

‘Don’t worry,’ her daughter said from under the duvet, ‘I’m asleep.’

A china toadstool with a china mouse family inside illuminated the room with a dull red light.

‘Steph – you can’t sleep in that hat.’ She paused. ‘We’ll get an appointment at the hairdresser’s tomorrow morning – first thing.’ Dominique waited a few minutes. ‘Night,’ she said from the doorway.

‘Ssh, I’m asleep.’

When she got back to the bedroom, Mick was lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling.

Taking her dressing gown off, she got into bed next to him.

‘What’s this?’ Dominique said, as something sharp dug into her left ear.

‘I was looking at it tonight.’

She picked up the wooden gazelle from the pillow and put it on her bedside table. ‘This is Linda’s, Mick.’

‘I got attached to it.’

‘You stole it?’

‘I put it in my pocket – they won’t notice.’

They lay there not talking and neither of them made a move to turn out the light.

‘I didn’t realise Laker was going bust,’ she said after a while.

Mick rolled over and looked at her, but didn’t say anything.

‘They’re going to make you redundant, aren’t they?’

‘Maybe – I’m over forty anyway, Dom.’

‘That’s what lunch was about.’

‘That’s not what lunch was about.’

‘How soon?’

‘I don’t know – nobody knows – I’ve probably got another month.’

‘Another month? When were you going to tell me?’

‘There’s nothing to worry about, Dom – the terms of the package we’re starting to discuss are very generous.’

‘You’re not going to look for another job as a pilot?’

‘We should go away,’ he said.

She didn’t say anything.

‘We should. We should go away.’

‘Where would we go?’

‘New Zealand.’

‘And what would we do in New Zealand?’

Mick raised himself up on his elbow. ‘We’d have a vineyard.’

‘A vineyard?’

‘I’d call it Dominique’s, and even though it would take a few years to set up and those first few years would be tight – difficult – after that we wouldn’t look back – award-winning wines – a huge export business – the girls helping – acres of land.’

‘My God, Mick.’

‘What?’

‘You’ve been thinking about this?’

‘I’ve been thinking.’

‘But – why? I mean, New Zealand – why?’

‘Space. You. The girls. You.’

‘But, New Zealand, Mick. D’you know what you’re talking about? Do you know what it is you’re actually saying?’

‘No. But think about it.’

‘It’s the other side of the world.’

‘So we’d take our world with us – Delta and Steph. What would be left behind?’

She shook her head hard. ‘But – you fly, Mick. That’s what you do. You fly.’

Mick stared hard at her then slumped back onto the pillow, deflated. ‘I fly.’

‘You love flying.’

‘I love flying.’

‘And you don’t know the first thing about growing grapes.’

Mick sat up again and smiled.

Why did he see this as a positive thing?

‘I know, but I’m learning. I bought shares in a vineyard.’

‘You did what?’ Dominique sat up now as well.

‘And I thought we could go and visit – maybe at Easter-time. We could rent a villa for a fortnight or something over Delta and Steph’s Easter holidays.’

‘You bought shares in a vineyard, Mick?’ Dominique was trying to think and not to think all at the same time.

He passed his hand lazily over her breasts as he sank back onto the pillow and fell quickly asleep, leaving her alone with the night, and the vineyard in New Zealand.

8

Above the sound of Pink Floyd, Linda heard the flush of the downstairs loo and stood watching herself in the mirror as she held her breath and waited to see if Joe was going to turn off the music and come upstairs to bed. She’d already been down to see him once and she didn’t want to have to go down again. The music carried on. She watched herself exhale then pick up a cleansing pad from the pack by the sink and start to wipe off her make-up, rubbing at her cheeks, eyes and mouth much harder than she needed to.

She spent a long time doing everything in the bathroom – even giving her nails a brush and polish before going through to the bedroom. Then she sat on the end of the bed and listened to Pink Floyd coming up through fitted carpet. Forty minutes must have passed since she’d been downstairs and asked Joe if he was coming up and he’d mouthed the words ‘five minutes’ at her.

She got up from the bed and went downstairs.

Joe was on the sofa, watching TV with the sound off. He didn’t look up.

‘What are you watching?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘How can you hear it?’

‘Subtitles.’

‘What?’ She moved closer to the TV.

He pointed to the screen where there was a band of black with words across it. ‘Subtitles.’

‘The people look Japanese. In the film. They look like Japs, Joe.’

‘Yeah.’

The fact that they were Japanese made her feel like she had a case – that and the fact that it was past midnight.

‘So – you’re coming to bed soon?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You are?’

‘No – I mean, I don’t know.’

‘Right.’ She stood there staring at the screen for another minute. ‘I’ll be upstairs.’ She stopped again by the lounge door, picking up the ends of her dressing-gown belt and letting them slip through her fingers. ‘I thought it went well tonight.’

‘Tonight?’ he said, thinking about this. Then, ‘Oh, tonight. Yeah.’

Back upstairs, she stood at the end of the bed, breathing hard, then took off her dressing gown and put a T-shirt on instead. She climbed onto the exercise bike and after a couple of minutes flicked straight to gradient. At some point the music went off and she thought she heard Joe climbing the stairs, but he didn’t come into the bedroom. She was so angry that she’d been cycling uphill for five minutes now without realising it, and her heart was starting to let out a strange metallic click.

Joe knocked three times then went in. At first he thought Jessica was asleep, but after a while she opened her eyes and took off the headphones.

‘I was nearly asleep.’

‘You should be. It’s one a.m.’

She leant over and turned off the stereo, trying not to disturb Ferdinand, who had his head on her stomach. ‘How was the film?’

‘I don’t know. Everyone died, apart from this one man at the end who was crawling around in the grass. Then he died too.’ He sighed and went over to pull the curtains shut.

‘They’re already shut, Dad.’

‘There was a gap.’

‘Does it matter? There’s nothing out there but fields and trees.’

‘Well, they’re shut now.’ He looked down at the desk. ‘Homework?’

‘No – just something I’m working on.’

‘Looks complicated.’

‘Not really.’

Joe switched the desk light on.

‘Dad, you don’t have to – you’re not interested.’

Joe looked more closely. ‘What is this, Jess?’ He read out, ‘“Botulism poisoning is very rare, but an ounce could kill close on forty-three million people. There is no immunity to it and no effective treatment.”’

Jessica rolled onto her side. ‘It’s part of a chapter on biological hazards.’

‘A chapter? What – you’re writing a book?’

‘On how to survive a nuclear attack.’

‘Since when?’

‘The summer holidays.’

Joe didn’t know what to say. He looked down and read again silently to himself the line he’d just read out loud. Then, glancing up at Jessica’s pinboard, he saw her aged four, sitting on top of his shoulders, and could almost feel the weight of her again. The castle in the photograph was Arundel. They’d walked – his parents and him and Jessica – along the river from Amberley to Arundel. That must have been before his dad got ill. Linda hadn’t come that day; he couldn’t remember why.

‘It’s more of a manual than a book, really.’ Jessica paused. ‘I’m writing it with Mr Browne – well, I’m doing the research anyway.’

‘And who’s Mr Browne?’

‘He lives at number fourteen – the end of the Close.’

‘The end of the Close? Our Close? What does he do?’

‘He was in the army.’

‘And why isn’t he in the army any more?’

‘He retired.’

‘How old is he?’

‘Thirty-seven, I think.’

‘He retired at thirty-seven?’

‘Or left, or something. I don’t know. It’s to do with his leg. Sometimes he uses a walking stick.’

‘How did you meet him?’

‘Youth CND – he came to give a talk.’

Joe sat down on the end of the bed, looking at the blue seashells on the duvet cover.