Rise and Fall of a Domestic Diva Read Online Free PDF

efficiently.
    ‘We have a no-masks policy at nursery,’ the woman said.
    ‘I forgot,’ Kate quickly apologised before virtually running along the corridor with Flo towards the Caterpillar Room, where she handed her over to her primary carer, Mary.
    She got back to the car without running into anybody else she knew, and checked her phone. There was an ecstatic message from Evie telling her that Aggie was ‘in’, an almost identical one from Ros re. Toby Granger, and a message from Harriet telling her in a strangely officious manner that Casper had won a placewon?and reminding her to bring a food contribution to that night’s PRC meeting. Kate hadn’t even given it a thought.
    She drove the car round the corner to Beulah Hill and parked outside the property Jessica had told her about. The house had nets up at windows painted peach, and a dead laurel in the front garden. She got the letter out of her breastpocket and read it again, just to see if anything had changed since she put it in there. She reached the Yours sincerely, Jade JacksonHead of Admissions at the end. Nothing had changed. She felt, irrationally, that Findlay not being offered a place at St Anthony’s had something to do with Jade Jackson being Jamaican.
    We are writing to inform you of the outcome of your application for a Southwark primary school. Your child has been offered a place at Brunton Park. The school will be contacting you with further information shortly….
    She watched a pit-bull urinate against the tree on the other side of the window, then tried phoning the Admissions line, knowing how hopeless it would be trying to get through on the day all the offers had gone out. She listened to the engaged tone until she was automatically disconnected, then tried phoning St Anthony’s instead, eventually getting through to a woman who told her the school was once again oversubscribed and how this year more than twenty-five places had gone to siblings.
    The woman cut her off before Kate even got round to telling her that they attended St Anthony’s Church every Sunday every Sundayor asking whether the school had definitely received the Reverend Walker’s letter confirming this.
    She pushed her head back roughly against the car seat and tried phoning Robert, who didn’t answer, so sat contemplating No. 8 Beulah Hill instead. She was going to be late for her first appointment, and didn’t care.

Chapter 4
    At No. 22 Prendergast Road, Margery stood listening to Martina clean the bathrooms, then went back into the kitchen, humming a Max Bygraves song to herself as she started on the pastry for the corned beef and onion pie she’d decided to make for Robert’s tea that night. She watched her fingers lightly pull the mixture together in the way she’d been taught as a girl by her grandmother, who went mad playing the organ, and thought of all the different kitchens she’d watched her fingers do this in over the years, and how the fingers had changedgrown lines, knobbles, arthritic twists and turns and finally gone all loose; so loose that the few rings she had would probably have already fallen off if they hadn’t got caught in the loose folds of skin round the knuckles.
    The litany of industrious sounds coming from upstairs comforted Margery as she rolled the pastry and lined the pie tinCommunists certainly knew how to clean. When she went to wash her hands, she saw the envelope Kate had left for Martina on the surface by the sink. She went into the hallway and listened. Martina had just started hoovering. Margery went into the lounge and took another envelopeout of Robert’s desk drawerit wasn’t actually Robert’s desk, it was Kate’s, but Margery always referred to it as Robert’sand went back into the kitchen.
    She quickly tore open Martina’s pay packet and pulled out a twenty-pound note. She stood there for a moment, brushing flour off her nostrils with the crisp new note and knew that, according to her calculations, there was no way