yelp, trying not to breathe the stench in.
The dachshund jumped off the sofa and went over to the vomit, nosing his way round it.
‘FERDIE, OUT!’ Linda grabbed hold of his blue-studded collar, dragging him through the carpet and the open patio doors. ‘OUT, YOU FUCK.’ She slammed them shut before he managed to get fully outside and his tail, which was trapped inside, went stiff. Ferdinand screamed.
She slid the door open then shut it on the dog’s tail again.
‘You fuck, Ferdie, you fucking, fucking dog.’
Ferdinand was trying to turn round and reach the part of him that hurt, but his head kept smashing into glass. Linda didn’t hear the front door open. ‘Those were centre-spread gateaux, you fucking, fucking fuck of a fucking –’
‘Mum!’
‘What?’
Jessica came running into the lounge, covered in snow, her school bag still over her shoulder and her keys in her hand.
‘Mum – what’s going on?’
Linda turned round, but could hardly make out her daughter standing there. ‘What?’
‘Let Ferdie go.’
‘Why should I?’
The dog started to howl.
‘Let him go,’ Jessica shouted, trying to pull Linda’s arm off the door. ‘Come on, Mum.’
Ferdinand pulled himself suddenly out from between door and doorframe and shot across the garden leaving a thin trail of blood specks across the snow.
‘He’s bleeding. You made Ferdie bleed.’
Linda slammed the door shut and tried to regulate her breathing just like she’d tried to regulate it on the bike that morning and then at class, but failed because she was so wound up about the Niemans coming.
‘He ate the gateaux. Both gateaux,’ she said.
‘What gateaux?’
‘The centre-spread gateaux. The gateaux for tonight.’
‘He wasn’t to know.’
Linda surfaced from her rage, gasping for air. ‘And Mrs Klushky rang me today,’ she said, trying not to let the fact that Jessica hadn’t taken her shoes off in the hallway bother her.
‘Klusczynski,’ Jessica corrected her.
‘Klushwhatever. She gave you a detention.’
‘Did she tell you why?’
‘She told me, and we need to talk about this.’
‘I don’t want to talk about it, and anyway the teacher who was meant to be giving it never showed.’
‘But it’s five o’clock now – what have you been doing?’
Jessica was watching Ferdinand in the garden. ‘I was with Peter Klusczynski. He was in detention as well. He had a fit during period two and Miss Witt sent him to special needs.’
‘You were in special needs?’
‘It’s where detentions are held.’
‘With Peter Klush …?’ Linda didn’t want to think of her daughter holed up for an hour alone with Peter Klushky. It would be just like her to fall for an epileptic. ‘But what did you do?’
‘We talked,’ Jessica said, staring through the patio doors. ‘It doesn’t matter – I think Ferdie needs to see a vet.’
‘It does matter. I need to phone the school about this.’
‘Since when have you ever phoned the school?’ Jessica said, rounding on her.
‘Jessica …’
‘I don’t want to talk about it, Mum.’
‘Well, we are going to talk about it. Maybe not tonight, but we are going to talk, and now I need you to clear that up,’ she said, pointing to the vomit underneath the coffee table. ‘There’s a blue jug under the sink, and some carpet shampoo. Use the floral bouquet room spray when you’ve finished. Leave no trace.’
‘Where are you going?’ Jessica asked.
‘Out.’
‘Out where?’
‘To find dessert. We have no dessert. I need to find dessert.’
Jessica let her miner’s bag, which had badges pinned all over it, slip off her shoulder onto the carpet. ‘But what about Ferdie? Ferdie’s bleeding, Mum.’
Linda ignored her. ‘When I get back we need to sort out the canapés. And,’ she stared past her daughter, suddenly realising that the blinds at the front window were still open, ‘shut those bloody blinds.’
She put the fake fur coat back on over her sweatshirt and jogged through the blizzard across the road to the Saunders’. Stephanie, who was six, answered the door dressed in a fluorescent emergency services outfit. Her feet, in rollerboots, were moving backwards and forwards across the parquet in the Saunders’ hallway.
‘Hi.’
Stephanie took an orange ice-pop out of her mouth and stared at Linda’s Wellingtons. ‘Hi.’ She put the ice-pop back in.
‘Is your mum in?’
Stephanie shook her head then took the ice-pop out of her mouth again. ‘My sister’s been crimping my hair. She’s going to do my whole head.’
‘Who’s there, Steph?’
‘Delta? Are you in there?’ Linda called out.
‘Who is that?’
Stephanie skated off down the hallway.
Linda hadn’t slept for a week when Dominique told her she was having her fitted carpets ripped up and parquet flooring laid down. Then Dominique told her how much it was costing – and she let Stephanie skate indoors? On the parquet flooring? She’d tried telling Joe at the time that Dominique would never get the asking price if they sold the house without fitted carpets, and Joe had said, ‘not these days’. ‘Not these days’? Joe wasn’t a cryptic man – she was used to understanding him. So what did he mean by that? She felt she was missing something that Joe was on to – that everybody but her was on to.
Delta appeared in a kimono that belonged to Dominique. Linda recognised it immediately. It was the one Mick had brought back with him from a trip to Kyoto, and she was struck – as she always was – by how much more attractive Delta was than her own daughter. Especially in Dominique’s kimono. She couldn’t imagine Jessica wearing any of her clothes.
‘How are you, Linda?’
Delta always called her Linda – never Mrs Palmer – and even though the smile was frank, for the second time that day Linda got the feeling she was being laughed at. ‘I don’t suppose your mum’s in, is she?’
‘Nope.’ Delta shook her head, then trod in the puddle of melted orange pop. ‘Shit – what’s this?’
‘I think it might be Stephanie’s ice-pop.’
Delta looked down. ‘Shit.’ She hooked her feet up one after the other and wiped them on the end of the kimono.
‘So – your mum’s not in?’
‘Sandra dropped Steph off after school – Mum and Dad were having lunch or something.’
‘Lunch? It’s nearly five p.m.’
‘Shit,’ Delta said again, still trying to wipe her feet.
A bedroom window opened and Stephanie hung her head out. ‘Delta, you promised you’d do my whole head.’
‘Just coming,