Sarah May - The Rise and Fall of a Domestic Diva

On the pavement outside No. 8, she shook hands with the young couple as a fleet of motorised scooters raced up the road behind them.

‘I’ll be in touch,’ she called out enthusiastically, watching the couple get into their car and start to argue.

No. 8 Beulah Hill was a bargain—if she had the money, she would have bought it herself. All it needed was thirty to fifty thousand pounds of work done on it and it would be worth over six hundred and fifty, but nobody seemed to have the imagination to see beyond Mr Jackson and the Jackson décor. People these days wanted to walk into readymade lives. Her phone started ringing again.

It was Kate.

‘Still there?’

‘Still here.’

‘Great—I’m just round the corner. Oh, and Jessica, I meant to say—you’re the only person I’ve told about the whole downscaling/second property in France thing, so…’

‘Don’t worry, I won’t say anything.’

‘To anyone.’

‘To anyone.’

‘Great.’ A pause. Then again, ‘Great.’

By the time she came off the phone, the silver BMW containing the young couple had slid away. She turned and knocked on the door of No. 8 again—to see if it was okay to do the viewing with Kate now.

After a while, she rang a second time, and Mr Jackson appeared in the door, the blue carrier bag still in his hand, staring blankly at her. He looked as though he’d been crying.

‘Mr Jackson? It’s Jessica, Mr Jackson—Jessica from Lennox Thompson Estate Agents?’

He nodded patiently at her—without any apparent recollection.

She turned and pointed to the Lennox Thompson For Sale sign attached to his gatepost.

‘It’s Jessica, Mr Jackson,’ she said again, glancing at him standing in his doorway staring at the Lennox Thompson For Sale sign as though he’d never seen it in his life before. ‘I’ve got someone who wants to see the property.’

‘The property,’ he repeated, grinning to himself.

‘Yes, the property—your house—now. If that’s okay with you?’

‘They want to see it now?’

‘They want to see it now—is that okay?’

Mr Jackson sighed, shaking his head and disappeared back inside without shutting the front door.

‘Mr Jackson?’ Jessica called out.

Then the Hunters’ Audi estate pulled up and Kate got out panting, as though she’d been running, not driving.

‘Jessica—thanks so much.’

‘Are you serious about this?’

‘I just want to take a look,’ Kate said, her eyes once more skimming the peach-coloured window frames and impenetrable layers of net hanging at the windows.

‘It needs work doing to it—about thirty grand’s worth. Nothing structural—mostly cosmetic. Sorry, we’re going to have to be quick, I’m meant to be somewhere else.’

Jessica gave Kate the tour.

Mr Jackson remained motionless on the sofa watching a Gospel channel.

‘I’ll be in touch,’ Jessica called out to him as they left the house.

There was no reply from Mr Jackson.

‘Well, I’m definitely interested,’ Kate said on the pavement outside No. 8.

‘Have a think about it.’

‘I’m definitely interested,’ she said again.

‘Well, talk to Robert -.’

‘I’m going to.’ She nodded to herself then swung back to Jessica. ‘What are you doing tonight?’

‘Tonight? Nothing.’

‘Why don’t you come to the PRC meeting?’

‘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.