The Rise and Fall of a Domestic Diva. Sarah May

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      ‘I didn’t know there was a PRC meeting.’

      ‘Didn’t Harriet phone you?’

      Harriet hadn’t phoned for some time. In fact, Jessica hadn’t been to the last three PRC meetings. ‘No.’

      An awkward silence. Jessica was one of those people it was almost impossible to lie to. ‘Harriet’s probably just lost your number or something. You know what she’s like.’

      Jessica didn’t respond immediately. ‘Look, I’ll let you know—I’ll see how Ellie’s day’s been, and if she minds me leaving Arthur with her.’ She paused, looking suddenly pleased. ‘Are you sure?’

      ‘Course I’m sure. It’s an important one tonight—about the street party.’

      ‘What street party?’

      ‘The street party we’re having in June.’

      ‘Oh. Okay—well, I’ll call you.’

      Even though she was late, Jessica stayed on the pavement waving stupidly at the disappearing Audi before getting into her own car.

      Watching her in the rear-view mirror, Kate felt a stab of regret.

      What had incited her to invite Jessica to the PRC?

      Harriet had an almost pathological hatred of Jessica Palmer, whose misshapen life filled Harriet with horror. She treated her as though tragedy was contagious, because even dullwitted Harriet realised that the grief that comes with tragedy has the ability to shape lives in a way happiness never does.

      Sighing, Kate turned the corner onto Lordship Lane.

      Jessica sat for a while, listening to a dog barking somewhere close by, then turned the keys in the ignition.

      Twenty minutes later, she walked into the newly openplanned offices of Lennox Thompson.

      Most of the staff were out on viewings or valuations—apart from Elaine and the manager, Jake, who was almost ten years Jessica’s junior, on the Oxford Alumni, and seriously addicted to coke, which gave his skin a grey pallor that was only heightened by being perpetually offset against the white shirts he insisted on wearing.

      Jake thought Jessica and him had things in common—primarily their education—which led him to keep up a repartee with her that was at once fraternal and elegiac.

      Jessica knew it wasn’t Oxford they had in common—it was tragedy.

      In Jake’s case, the fatal error of perpetually trying to impress parents who had never learnt how to love their children—he once told her his father used to make him weed the borders naked, as a punishment.

      In Jessica’s, never having made any provision—emotional or material—for Peter’s untimely death.

      ‘Guess what?’ Jake said, looking up as Jessica walked into the office.

      ‘What?’

      ‘They’re opening a branch of Foxtons here.’

      ‘Foxtons?’

      He nodded, pulled at his nose and said, ‘With a promotional six-month zero per cent commission. It’s going to kill us,’ he added, starting to chew on his nails before shunting his chair backwards and disappearing, jerkily, towards the loos at the back of the office.

      Elaine looked across at her.

      Jessica was about to say something when her mobile started to ring.

      ‘Jess?’

      It was Lenny—her stepmother.

      She didn’t feel like speaking to Lenny right then and started to scratch nervously with a drawing pin at the edge of her desk.

      ‘I was just phoning to see if Arthur got into St Anthony’s.’

      ‘I don’t know—the post hadn’t arrived when I left this morning.’

      ‘Oh.’ Lenny paused at Jessica’s flat tone.

      Jessica let herself fall back in her chair, slouching uncomfortably as she started to swing it from side to side.

      ‘Well, give us a ring later.’

      ‘I will. How’s Dad?’ she said, with an effort.

      The line started to break up and Jessica, now swinging aggressively from side to side, hoped they’d lose the reception altogether, but Lenny was still there. It was something she’d been trying to come to terms with since she was fifteen—the fact that Lenny would still be there—always.

      ‘I said—how’s Dad?’

      ‘He’s fine—engrossed in some new cat-deterrent he got by mail order this morning.’

      At the beginning, because of what happened between Joe and Lenny, it had been more necessary for Lenny to get on with Jessica than it was for Jessica to get on with Lenny, and this early imbalance in their relationship had never really been redressed. Lenny had made huge efforts—Jessica could see that now, from the vantage point of being thirty-five—and not only out of necessity. Lenny had genuinely cared, but at the time Jessica felt she was owed too much to bother responding to overtures made by the woman her father had been having an affair with while her mother was still alive, who became the woman he moved in with after she died.

      ‘You keep cutting out—where are you?’

      ‘I don’t know—somewhere between Brighton and Birmingham; on a train. How’s work?’

      ‘Fine—yeah, it’s fine.’

      ‘Well, you know where we are if you need anything—why not bring the kids down and have a weekend to yourself?’

      ‘I don’t know—it’s busy at the moment.’

      ‘We haven’t seen them in ages, and Dad’s started on that tree house for Arthur.’

      Jessica tried to think of something to say to this, but couldn’t.

      ‘And I miss Ellie—I really do.’

      ‘I’ll call,’ Jessica said, as the line broke up for a third and final time.

      As she came off her mobile, the office phones started to ring. ‘Lennox Thompson sales department—how can I help you?’

      ‘I’d like to speak to someone about the Beulah Hill house you’ve got on the market.’

      ‘Well, you’re speaking to the right person.’

      ‘Wait a minute—is this Jessica?’

      ‘This is Jessica—Jessica Palmer.’

      ‘Jessica—it’s Ros.’

      ‘Ros?’

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