Going Loco Read Online Free PDF

for us too? She doesn’t work for you every God’s hour, I think?’
    It was the most innocent of questions. But had they heard a suicidal gunshot from the downstairs cloakroom the effect could not have been more Ibsenesque. Viv stood up and knocked over her chair; Jago shot her a meaningful glance; Viv’s eyes widened in anger as she turned to face Belinda.
    ‘If you do that,’ she said, ‘I warn you, I’ll never speak to you again.’
    Belinda laughed. They all did. Maggie even clapped. But Viv was serious. ‘Take my cleaning lady, you ungrateful bitch—’
    ‘Viv, we’re only talking about a cleaning lady! This is ridiculous.’
    Jago chipped in. ‘I know it sounds crazy. Linda’s more than a cleaning lady, that’s all. She has a way of making herself indispensable. And let’s just say—’
    ‘That’s enough, Jago.’
    Belinda fell back in her chair, exhausted. ‘I don’t get it,’ she confessed. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t get it.’
    ‘Coffee?’ said Viv.
    ‘I’ll help,’ offered Dermot.
    Belinda and Stefan pulled faces at one another.
    At the other side of the table, Leon presented Maggie with a perfect, tiny origami racing car, folded out of a napkin. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Tell me what’s anal about that.’
    Belinda woke up suddenly. How long she’d been nodding at the table she didn’t know. Noticing Viv was missing from her side, however, she stood up to find her but lurched unexpectedly and almost sat down again. She must be drunk. Jago was now telling Leon a familiar joke about a Jewish widow addressing her husband’s ashes in her hand. ‘“Remember the blow-job you always wanted, Solly?”’
    Trying for a second time, she got up successfully and propelled herself towards the door – at which point, she heard Viv on a darkened landing, whispering angrily to Dermot.
    ‘I wouldn’t mind but she owes everything to me,’ Viv was saying.
    ‘Belinda’s a real nobody,’ Dermot agreed. ‘A nothing of a nobody.’
    Belinda leaned against a wall and listened.
    ‘I introduced her to Stefan. It was all me. But she’s never content.’
    ‘Some people suck the blood out of you. They’re vampires. I see it every day, people taking the credit when everything they do is my idea. You have to tell them how great they are all the time. Belinda just takes and takes.’
    ‘You’re right. People only ever want to talk about themselves. We’re just mirrors they see themselves in. Mirrors in which they flatter themselves.’
    Dermot’s voice became tender. ‘You shouldn’t be bothering with vampires, Viv. You should think only of your lovely, lovely self. I know I shouldn’t say it, but Viv, I mean this, you’re such a good person.’
    Belinda held her breath and grimaced. Dermot clearly didn’t understand that flattering Viv made her vicious – sometimes to the point of violence. But something else happened. Because Viv evidently caught a sight of herself in Dermot’s flattering mirror.
    ‘Am I?’ said Viv.
    ‘You’re so good, so fine. In fact, I admire you very much.’
    ‘You do?’
    ‘I’ve got no reason to say this, incidentally.’
    ‘I know.’
    There was a pause while the loathsome Dermot thought of some more sugary things to say. Belinda was astonished.
    ‘You’re fantastic,’ he continued.
    ‘Thank you.’
    ‘And, you know, I love just talking about you freely like this, without you feeling you have to say anything reciprocal about me.’
    ‘Wow.’
    Belinda backed away to the kitchen, fearful of overhearing the inevitable culminating squelch of a kiss in the dark. Her emotions were mixed, and her demeanour unsteady, but herintention was perfectly clear. As she made her way to the kitchen, she had one single thought. She would hire Linda. Ungrateful vampire bitch that she was, she was determined to take, take, take. Petulance was an emotion that held no fears for Belinda. If Viv thought so badly of her already, then stealing her cleaning lady was