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

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СКАЧАТЬ got more to do … some kind of hamster gym. He’ll throw in the exercise ball for free.’

      ‘Hamsters need exercise?’

      ‘That’s what he said.’

      ‘Well, if we’re buying the hamsters we should buy whatever goes with them, you know, whatever makes them happy.’ She watched him run his finger along the edge of the desk. ‘What about the Sindy House?’

      ‘We’d better keep it – she might change her mind again. We could just give her both anyway.’

      ‘The Sindy House and the hamsters? I don’t know, Mick.’

      She looked at him standing there in his uniform. How did he do it? How did he walk off a plane and into No. 4 Pollards Close and just pick up all the threads like that as soon as he crossed the threshold? She couldn’t have done that. He’d just landed a plane that had been in the air for over eleven hours and here he was talking about hamsters and Sindy Houses like he’d never been anywhere but here all the time. Maybe that’s why she stopped flying when she had Delta. Why they both decided she should stop when Delta arrived, because they both knew that if she carried on, one day she’d get onto a plane and never come back. Whereas Mick never had to come back because he’d never left in the first place.

      ‘Stephanie wants pancakes for breakfast,’ she said, as the phone started ringing again.

      ‘Hello?’ Mick sank onto the corner of the desk, his hand resting in his groin while staring at Dominique. ‘Hello? Monica? No – I just got back from Florida. Didn’t hear about any tornadoes – what? She’s just here,’ he said, passing the receiver over.

      ‘Stephanie wants pancakes,’ Dominique whispered, in a sudden panic.

      ‘You said.’

      ‘Don’t make Scotch ones, I want normal ones – lemon – sugar.’

      ‘Don’t worry, I’ll sort it out.’ Mick blew her a kiss then left the room.

      Sitting down at the desk, Dominique watched the door shut behind him. She was alone in the study with her mother.

      ‘Dominique?’ The voice was impatient, almost angry.

      The first of her mother’s boyfriends she remembered was Clive, a child-development researcher, who specialised in Early Years. His arrival in their lives coincided with her own early attempts at speech, and on his advice the ‘mumumuh’ she was beginning to stutter was encouraged to become ‘Monica’ rather than ‘mummy’ because Clive believed that the great universals ‘mother’ and ‘father’ should be unleashed from their biological fetters and given spiritual status instead. They even managed to get the Danish au pair to go along with this. Clive stayed in their lives for only nine joss-stick-filled months, but two of his legacies remained (because they suited Monica): a belief that yoga was necessary to civilisation, and that Dominique should never have recourse to use the word ‘mother’ or any of its diminutives.

      When she’d had Delta, she’d asked Monica if her daughter could call her ‘grandma’, but Monica said there was no way she could do ‘grandmother’ when she hadn’t even done ‘mother’.

      ‘Dominique?’

      ‘Sorry, sorry – we just got back from the airport. Where are you, anyway? Minnesota?’

      ‘Minnesota? Who told you I was in Minnesota?’

      ‘Mick did, I think. Anyway – I thought you were in Minnesota.’

      ‘I was in Montréal. Montréal’s got nothing to do with Minnesota. Are you sure he said Minnesota?’

      Dominique wasn’t sure any more.

      ‘You probably heard him wrong.’

      ‘Probably. I don’t remember.’

      ‘That’s your problem, Dominique, there’s very little you do remember.’

      ‘I remember things,’ Dominique said slowly.

      ‘What would I be doing in Minnesota anyway?’ Monica cut in.

      ‘I don’t know, but weren’t you meant to be spending Christmas there?’

      ‘Where?’

      ‘Minnesota.’

      ‘I wasn’t in Minnesota,’ Monica exploded, ‘I was in Montréal. Montréal, Canada.’

      ‘Sorry,’ Dominique said. Then again, ‘Sorry.’

      ‘And no, I wasn’t meant to be spending Christmas in Montréal – I was running tests on healthy animals with the help of some people there so that we can get this new red food dye approved.’

      ‘So …’ Dominique said, unwilling to follow any of this. ‘Where are you now?’

      ‘Gatwick.’

      ‘Gatwick?’ Dominique sat up and looked out the study window at the side passage where there was mint growing between the paving slabs and the fence. ‘We were just at Gatwick.’

      ‘I’ve got some other people to see at Ciba Pharmaceuticals about the new dye, which is why I flew back.’

      ‘Ciba? How long are you at Ciba for?’

      ‘Oh – just a few days.’

      ‘But it’s Christmas Eve tomorrow.’

      ‘Yes.’ Monica paused. ‘So – how are all of you?’

      ‘We’re all fine – Stephanie’s excited. About Christmas. Stephanie’s excited about Christmas.’

      ‘And is Mick off flying again soon?’

      ‘Mick never flies over Christmas.’

      ‘Right. So. You’re all pretty busy then.’

      ‘Not really. Just getting ready for Christmas.’ She wished she could stop saying the word ‘Christmas’.

      Monica paused again. ‘I did phone last week – I spoke to Mick.’

      ‘Mick? He didn’t say.’

      ‘I phoned right after I heard about the Harrods bomb. I was in Canada and I saw it on the TV, and I had this sudden feeling you might be up in London shopping, so I rang …’

      ‘When was the bomb?’

      ‘The seventeenth.’

      She could hear Monica trying not to become angry with her again for not knowing the date of the Harrods bomb when it only happened six days ago. ‘I wasn’t up in London then.’

      ‘I know – Mick said.’ Monica paused. ‘I was thinking …’

      ‘What?’ Dominique laughed nervously. ‘You want to spend Christmas here?’

      Monica СКАЧАТЬ