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

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      There was the doorbell.

      ‘Excuse me.’ She went into the hallway. ‘Joe! Winke needs his whisky. Joe?’

      She opened the front door. Mick kissed her first, then Dominique.

      ‘Where d’you want us?’ Mick asked, tripping up over the step.

      The hallway smelt suddenly of alcohol.

      ‘In there.’ She tried to guide them into the lounge, but Daphne was waving at them from a bar stool in the kitchen, food in her mouth.

      Linda moved over to the breakfast bar. What was Daphne eating? How could Daphne be eating when nothing had been served yet?

      Joe and Mick nodded at each other.

      There were about five canapés left on the serving dish and a pile of pineapple on the paper napkin she’d lined the plate with. She watched Daphne take the fifth remaining canapé, pick the pineapple off and push the cracker into her mouth.

      ‘So – you found the canapés,’ Linda said.

      ‘You know Joe,’ Mick said, ‘you’ve got to lock him up.’ He stretched past Daphne and grabbed remaining canapés numbers four and three. There were two left. Linda tried to laugh, but couldn’t.

      ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I’m allergic to pineapple,’ Daphne said.

      ‘Maybe somebody wants to offer Dominique a canapé,’ Linda said, looking at Joe. ‘And Winke’s still waiting for his whisky.’

      ‘Poor Winke,’ Daphne said, smiling and watching Joe pour the whisky.

      ‘What can I get you two?’ Joe asked the Saunders.

      ‘No more wine,’ Dominique said.

      ‘Two glasses of red wine it is then,’ Mick said, pulling the other bar stool up next to Daphne.

      ‘We’ve been talking about beer,’ Joe told them.

      ‘Belgian beer,’ Daphne said proudly. ‘I’m going to send Winke home to fetch some Belgian beer.’

      ‘Please. Don’t. Really. You don’t have to,’ Linda pleaded.

      ‘Joe must taste some Belgian beer,’ Daphne said, banging her hand down on the breakfast bar with each word.

      Linda handed Mick and Dominique their wine then went to take Winke his whisky.

      Winke was kneeling in front of the fish tank with his reading glasses on and his face pressed up against the Perspex.

      ‘Your whisky.’

      ‘It is very strange, but I smell something like vomit here – and your fish is definitely dead,’ he said, shaking his head.

      ‘Maybe,’ Linda conceded.

      ‘Maybe? Definitely.’

      ‘Winke,’ Daphne said from the doorway. ‘Winke, I want you to go home and fetch some Belgian beer.’

      Winke got slowly to his feet, his eyes still on the tank.

      ‘Don’t worry,’ he said to Linda, ‘we’ll sort this out when I get back.’

      Linda, who was still holding his whisky, tried to nod as mournfully as she could, and sighed.

      The front door shut and Daphne disappeared back into the kitchen, her tribal jewellery clinking as she moved.

      Linda put the whisky down on the coffee table and stared into the tank. The fish was lying on its side just by the diver’s feet. It made the diver look guilty.

      She turned the dimmer switch by the door so that the lighting level in the room went down, and hoped that a combination of flashing tree lights, low overhead lighting and algae would make it difficult for Winke to pick up where he left off.

      Five minutes later the doorbell rang and she went to answer it. The porch light illuminated Winke, a crate of Belgian beer, and a younger, slimmer, taller version of Winke with blond blow-dried hair.

      ‘Paul carried the beer for me,’ he said, stepping back into the house and leaving his son and the beer on the doorstep.

      ‘Everyone’s in the kitchen,’ Linda said. ‘Straight ahead. Just there.’ She put her hands on Winke’s back and pushed him in the direction of the kitchen.

      Paul was stamping his feet loudly on the doormat. ‘Mind if I come in?’

      ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

      She stood to one side and watched as the Niemans’ son carried the beer into the kitchen, treading snow laced with mud from the soles of his shoes into the hallway carpet, which was beige. Resisting the urge to get down on her hands and knees and start removing the stains, she followed Paul into the kitchen.

      The crate, which had been put on the dining-room table, was being unpacked by Daphne. The cutlery and fantailed napkins were pushed to one side, and two of the candles had fallen over.

      ‘Linda – we need glasses here,’ Daphne called out.

      Linda squeezed past Mick, who was staring at the wooden gazelle he’d just picked up from the sideboard, and got to the cupboard where she kept her glasses. She made a show of moving around some tumblers and a couple of Jessica’s old baby beakers. ‘No beer glasses,’ she said, hoping it sounded as though they’d once had some.

      ‘Any cognac glasses?’ Daphne persisted.

      ‘I’ve got these.’ Linda held up a couple of tumblers.

      ‘Make it wine glasses. The bigger the better.’

      ‘Joe,’ Linda said, ‘we need glasses from the drinks cabinet.’

      Joe unlocked the door in the sideboard behind him.

      ‘These’ll do,’ Daphne said, pushing past Mick who was still contemplating the gazelle, and taking the glasses out of Joe’s hands.

      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 СКАЧАТЬ