Looking Good Dead

understand the significance of the slogans, sat on the chair beside his son’s bed in the little room with its bright yellow wallpaper. He was reading aloud, making his way through the books for the second time, while Max, curled up in his bed, his head poking out of his Harry Potter duvet, blond hair tousled, his large eyes open, absorbed everything.
    Jessica, four, had toothache and had gone into a sudden strop, and was not interested in a story. Her bawling, coming through the bedroom wall, seemed impervious to Kellie’s efforts at calming her down.
    Tom finished the chapter, kissed his son goodnight, picked a Hogwarts Express carriage off the floor and put it on a shelf next to a PlayStation. Then he turned off the light, blowing Max another kissfrom the door. He went into Jessica’s pink room, a shrine to Barbie World, saw her scrunched-up face, puce and sodden with tears, and received a helpless shrug from Kellie, who was trying to read her The Gruffalo . He attempted to calm his daughter himself for a couple of minutes, to no avail. Kellie told him Jessica had an emergency appointment with the dentist in the morning.
    He retreated downstairs, treading a careful path between two Barbie dolls and a Lego crane, into the kitchen where there was a good smell of cooking, and then almost tripped over Jessica’s miniature tricycle. Lady, in her basket, gnawing tendrils from a bone the size of a dinosaur’s leg, again looked up at him hopefully and her tail gave a sloppy wag. Then she jumped out of her basket, walked across the room and rolled onto her back, tits in the air.
    Giving them a rub with his foot whilst her head lolled back with a goofy smile, her tongue falling out between her teeth, he said, ‘Later, you old tart, I promise. Walkies later. OK. Deal?’
    It had been this kitchen that had sold Kellie on the house. The previous owners had spent a fortune on it, all marble and brushed steel, and Kellie had subsequently added just about every gadget a creaking credit limit could buy.
    Through the window he could see the sprinkler whirring in the centre of the small, rectangular garden, and a blackbird on the lawn standing under the falling water, raising a wing and rubbing itself with its beak. Tiny, brightly coloured clothes hung on the washing line. Beneath them a plastic scooter lay on the grass. In the little greenhouse at the end, tomatoes, raspberries, strawberries and courgettes he was nurturing himself were coming along.
    It was the first year he had ever tried to grow anything and he felt inordinately proud of his endeavours – so far. Above the fence he could see the Giraffe’s long, mournful face bobbing along. His neighbour was out there at all hours, clipping, pruning, weeding, raking, watering, up and down, up and down, his frame angled and bent like a tired old crane.
    Then he glanced at the watercolour and crayon drawings and paintings almost entirely covering one wall – efforts from both Max and Jessica – checking for anything new. Apart from Harry Potter, Max was car mad and much of his art had wheels on. Jessica’s hadweird-looking people and even weirder animals, and she always drew the sun shining brightly somewhere in every picture. She was normally a cheery girl, and it upset him to see her crying tonight. There was no new artwork for him to admire today.
    He mixed himself a stiff Polstar vodka and cranberry juice, grinding in crushed ice from the dispenser on their swanky American fridge – another one of Kellie’s ‘bargains’ – with a television screen built into the door, then carried his glass into the living room. He debated whether to go through into the little conservatory, which had the sun on it now, or even go and sit out on the bench in the garden, but decided to watch television for a few minutes instead.
    He picked up the remote and settled down in his sumptuous recliner armchair – an internet bargain he had actually bought for himself – in front of Kellie’s most recent extravagant e-purchase, a huge flat-screen Toshiba television. This took up half the wall, not to mention half his income when the payment instalments ‘holiday’ expired in a year’s time – although he had to admit it was great to watch sport on. As usual, the QVC Shopping Channel was on the screen, with Kellie’s keyboard plugged in and lying on the sofa.
    He flicked through some channels, then found The Simpsons and watched that for a little while. He always liked this show.