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

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      ‘What’s meant to be happening?’

      ‘I’m meant to have some sort of feeling – definitive feeling – about the fact that I’ve just flown a plane for the last time. I don’t seem to be having that feeling.’ He paused. ‘I called you from …’ another plane went over ‘… Florida,’ he shouted. Adding, ‘Don’t worry – everything’s fine.’

      ‘It’s probably the jetlag.’

      ‘The jetlag. Probably. It always makes me maudlin.’

      ‘Well don’t be maudlin – when you’re maudlin you make other people sad,’ Dominique said.

      ‘So.’ Mick smiled then grabbed hold of her hand, pulling him towards her. ‘Come here.’

      ‘I am here.’

      ‘No. Come here.’ He kissed her. ‘I missed you.’

      ‘I missed you.’

      ‘I mean I really missed you.’

      Dominique laughed. ‘There’s a lot of kissing going on here.’

      ‘I kissed you once.’ Mick put his arms round her, picking his cap up from the wall.

      ‘Why aren’t you wearing that?’ she asked.

      ‘No idea.’ He kissed her again, on the forehead this time. ‘Come on, let’s go home.’

      They left the observation deck and got into the lift, walking out a minute later into high-voltage airport lighting. They were holding hands and the world around them was moving rapidly.

      The green Triumph made its way down the layers of multi-storey, through the barrier at the bottom and out into the morning.

      Mick spoke to the woman in the car-park kiosk, calling her Barbara and asking her when her shift ended. Dominique knew that if she asked him in an hour or even three hours’ time when Barbara’s shift ended, he would be able to say three o’clock without any hesitation. Mick wasn’t just talk, he took people to heart. He listened to them, and they trusted him. Dominique didn’t ask – because the subject bored her – but she was pretty certain Mick had all the data on Barbara: husbands, lovers, children, other jobs. Mick would have the whole Barbara panorama at his fingertips because Mick understood that although Barbara’s life and death meant nothing to him personally, there were a lot of other people to whom it did. This was a leap of faith she herself had never been able to make. She didn’t give a shit about Barbara or how long her shift was, but Mick did.

      For a while the road followed a metal fence with runway the other side, then turned off at right angles. She stared at the web of runway and lights and couldn’t ever imagine knowing what they meant.

      ‘I missed you,’ Mick said, turning to look at her.

      ‘You said. I missed you too. I think I already said that as well.’

      ‘One hundred and forty-four hours is a lot of hours to spend away from you.’

      ‘You were counting?’

      ‘I always count.’

      She smiled and rested her head on the seatbelt. ‘You’ll never have to count again.’

      By the time they parked the car outside No. 4, dawn was at last streaking highlights through the remains of night, diluting it with an early-morning grey. Stephanie answered the door in her gymnastics leotard, preoccupied.

      ‘Hi, Dad – can you make pancakes?’ she said to Mick. Then, turning to Dominique, ‘And can I take the mirror off the wall in the downstairs toilet?’

      ‘If you want –’

      As they walked into the house the phone started to ring. ‘I’ll get that.’ Mick disappeared into the study and Dominique wandered into the kitchen where Delta was sitting drawing at the table.

      ‘Where’s Dad?’ she said.

      ‘On the phone.’

      ‘Somebody called for him a few minutes ago.’

      ‘Who was it?’

      ‘I don’t know – they wouldn’t leave their name. How is Dad?’

      ‘Jetlagged.’

      ‘No – I mean, how is he?’ Delta lowered her voice, anticipating a searing insight into the state of her father’s mind.

      ‘I don’t know.’

      ‘It must be weird,’ she persisted, ‘to suddenly stop doing something like that – after all these years – especially something like flying.’

      She was floundering. They’d told her, but not Steph, that Mick had been made redundant. They’d told her that Florida would be his last flight, but they hadn’t told her what to think about this. Whether it was a good or a bad thing; whether it was something they were meant to be celebrating or not talking about. She’d been given facts without guidelines and wasn’t that interested anyway, so she was floundering.

      ‘Yes, it must be,’ Dominique trailed off.

      She opened the fridge then shut it, staring at the magnetic letters on the door’s white surface for a while, trying to make out a pattern. Then, yawning, she went over to the kitchen table and sat down.

      ‘What are you doing?’ she said, watching her older daughter.

      ‘A sketch for a mural.’ Delta turned the sketch pad round and carried on adding details with a pencil.

      ‘What is it?’

      ‘A matador delivering the coup de grâce. I thought I could paint it on the wall opposite my bookshelves.’

      ‘Well, I don’t mind you painting there, but …’

      Delta wasn’t listening. She turned the sketch pad back round to face her.

      ‘Won’t it give you nightmares?’

      Dominique sat staring at the Great Wall of China, which was December’s picture on the calendar they got free every year from Mr Li’s Chinese takeaway. Then she went to find Mick in the study.

      ‘That was Station Pets,’ he said when she went in, signalling to her to shut the door. ‘They’ve got two hamsters left: a boy and a girl.’

      ‘Well, we only want one.’

      ‘Why don’t we just buy them both – she won’t be expecting two.’

      ‘But they’ll breed, Mick.’

      ‘So they’ll breed … we’ll buy a bigger cage or sell them or drown them or something.’

      ‘Don’t hamsters eat their young?’

      ‘Not these СКАЧАТЬ