“It’s not funny.” It was, though.
“The point is, Denise and I will always have our differences. It’s not just that I’m a Tesco girl and she’s an Asda slag. I’m Wickwar Estate through to me bones. That means something. And she’s a horse-faced trollop from the Scriggins Estate who can’t stop pinching other people’s husbands. Or their sons, to be fair. We’re never going to see eye to eye.”
Does everyone’s mother like to dress up old beef as round-the-houses storytelling, or just Stacey Miller?
“But I’ll tell you this for free, Sunshine. That Christmas, when I walked up to her in the Bells and said, ‘Denise, we need to put this behind us, because I know you’ve got points on your Tesco Clubcard you ain’t used, and I’ve run out of the Kiss Salon French Acrylics from the Asda beauty aisle,’ it was one of the smartest things I ever did. My conscience was finally clear. We let bygones be bygones once and for all.”
“You called her a horse-faced trollop a second ago.”
“Yeah, but not to her face.”
It was time to wind things up. We said our goodbyes, I went for a pee, and I thought about what to do about Ludo Boche. Then I crawled back into bed with two Tesco brand Nurofen and Berocca and opened GayHoller. I scrolled through the pick-and-mix selection of bare torsos and hopeful faces and the “guess which one of the three of us in this photo is me, yes that’s right, I’m the minger” profile pics. Eventually, I opened the app’s settings and clicked on my blocked accounts. Cabbage98 was at the top of the list. Possibly the stupidest profile name in the history of GayHoller. I clicked on it, almost without thinking. I just wanted to look at his pictures again. I’d never really looked at them properly. I’d only had glimpses when VladPop held them up for me to see. I wanted to study Ludo’s face while I thought about how to clean up the mess I’d made. And maybe get another look at that arse in ballet tights?
GayHoller had other ideas.
GayHoller HQ:To view this profile you need to unblock this user.
It had two buttons: Unblock User or Cancel. I hit Cancel, closed the app, and threw my phone onto the duvet. If I unblocked him, Ludo would know I was thinking about him. That felt like giving up power, like admitting defeat. But Ireallywanted to look at his pics. I slunk down into the bed, put my hands to my face, and rolled some sleep out of my eye. Then I reached for my phone, reopened GayHoller, and unblocked Ludo’s account.
Chapter12
Ludo
Isat on the bench outside Miss Tuppence’s Ballet School, teaching done for the day. My sunglasses were firmly on. In one hand I held a hair-of-the-dog glass of champagne, in the other, my phone. I flicked through GayHoller. It had been a deathly long morning. There had been some pursed lips and hushed comments of disapproval from parents of kids in every age group, from the tots to the teens.
“You’re hung-over, Mr Boche,” one mother said, holding her hands over her daughter’s ears.
“And yet, here I am. Looking fabulous and giving a BAFTA-worthy performance as an upstanding dance educator.”
“These children are seven years old.”
“And as long as they’re not hung-over, I don’t see the problem.”
In truth, I had done everything I could tonotbe hung-over. When I got home at two, I’d consumed enough electrolytes to reboot a dead Romanian powerlifter. The problem was I’d had a terrible sleep. Try as I might, I had been unable to get my argument with Sunny Miller out of my mind. I still couldn’t. As I sat in the meek April sunshine, saccharine fizz tickling my nose, I kept going over and over everything Sunny had said, everything I’d said, trying to play it differently. In some versions, I put the boot in harder, giving him a good verbal kicking. In others, I avoided the fight altogether. I kept my mouth shut. Or I took a different tone, tried a more reasoned argument, talked through the issues like an adult. But I kept landing back at angry, so I resolved to have nothing whatsoever to do with him. I quaffed my bubbles and returned my attention to my phone. That’s when I noticed Sunny Miller had unblocked me on GayHoller.
“Well, that’s confusing,” I muttered.
Chapter13
Sunny
The government had stumped up taxpayers’ cash to pay for a charter plane to get the press pack up to Shetland for the week. There were plenty of commercial flights available. Whatever Environment Minister Jemima Carstairs was announcing, she wanted to make sure the media all got there, and she wanted us controlled. I made a note to dig into the expenses for this trip later.
It was a small jet with maybe a dozen reporters on board, including one photographer and one cameraman, who were entrusted with taking photographs and footage for all the different outlets. It’s quite common practice to “pool,” as it’s called, in the media these days. It saves on resources, and most newsrooms are as cash-strapped as a formerBig Brothercontestant who failed to save during the good times and refuses to admit those good times are over. That’s not even an analogy. That’s literally what has happened to newspapers all over the world.
I was sitting by a window towards the back of the plane, desperately hoping the seat beside me would remain empty. I knew most of the press pack on the plane. I was on friendly terms with them all, but I had some documents I wanted to read without anyone looking over my shoulder. The one person I didn’t see on board was Carstairs. But wandering up and down the aisle of the plane like a lost runway model was Torsten Beaumont-Flattery, the minister’s special adviser. He’s about a hundred and twenty kilos of pure British beef, and like any sane person, if I were ever called upon to give my life in service of my country, I would gladly volunteer to be crushed between Torsten’s thighs.
Torsten’s enormous bulk appeared in the aisle by my seat, hand thrusting a folder of papers in my direction. “Miller, have you got a press pack yet?” he asked, in that doesn’t-everything-I-say-sound-frightfully-reasonable accent that, where I came from, earned you a brick to the teeth.
I took the papers from his hands. “It’s got the whole programme for the week, your accommodation info, everyone’s contact details, and a few embargoed media releases with the early announcements, so you can get a head start. There’ll be more to follow, of course, during the week, as we make more announcements.”
Over the PA the woman who was our lone cabin crew member declared the doors were about to close and anyone not coming with us should leave the plane now. Torsten called over to her and asked her to tell the pilot we were still waiting for one more passenger. I looked around and counted only two empty seats—one up the front with Torsten’s suit jacket over the back, and the one next to me. Carstairs wasn’t on board.
“Is the minister running late?” I asked.
“No, she’s had a few important matters come up that she has to attend to in London. She’ll come up tomorrow on another flight.”
“Are these newsworthy important matters?” I asked, nudging him in hopes of an exclusive.
