“Shouldn’t we clarify what the cash prize is?” said Tobes. “Or are there two? Is this a new one?”
“Lesley Gavey would say…” Mum thought hard. “God, this is scary. Why do I feel like I know what twisted crap she’d come out with in every hypothetical situation? Did she say…that the girl who’d stopped her from swimming as long as she wanted to had lied to her by saying they never made exceptions when that wasn’t true, because the man who let Alastair indidmake exceptions?”
“Bang on.” Corinne laughed. “The manager had lost the will to live, understandably, and caved in completely. Lesley got a second apology letter, and even that wasn’t good enough for her. She discontinued her and Alastair’s membership and said the Gaveys would only rejoin if both those staff members were fired and the swimming slots system was completely abandoned. So now she has nowhere to swim, which she complains about bitterly to anyone who will listen.”
“Why doesn’t she join Quy Mill?” asked Toby.
“Because I work there.” Mum knew she was right about that one.
“Yup,” said Corinne. “You won’t catch Lesley Gavey giving a penny of her hard-earned money to a company that employs Sally Lambert, who once callously threw her out onto the street when she was at her lowest ebb. Though she’s happy to live opposite you, which makes no sense,” Corinne concluded with a shrug.
“There’s nothing happy about her,” said Toby. “No one who’s happy screams the way she does.”
“I didn’t throw her out,” Mum protested. “I told her I had a Zoom meeting that was about to start. There’s a difference.”
“Yes, I meant to ask,” said Corinne. “Tell me about Lesley screaming at her family, Toby.”
“It happens at least once a week,” he told her. “It’s the most insane thing you’ve ever heard. All I need to do is open my bedroom window and I can hear every word, and then Tess screaming back or Alastair mumbling sorry and crying in the background. I’ve recorded a couple of the most mental episodes. I’ll… Oh, I can’t. They’re on my phone at home. You can only ever hear Lesley when you play them back. She sounds like she’s about to kill someone.”
“What kind of thing does she say?” Corinne asked.
“There are a few recurring topics, aren’t there, Tobes?” said Dad. “Tidiness, money—”
Toby nodded. “Yeah, it’s either, like, ‘I break my fucking back trying to keep this house clean and tidy and then you both fucking leave your fucking shoes here instead of where shoes are meant to go in the fucking shoe cupboard, you fucking bastards—’”
“Tobes, stop swearing,” Mum said.
“I’m not swearing, Mum. I’m acting.”
“No, you’re reporting,” Corinne corrected him. “You’re being a citizen journalist.”
“Sometimes it’s ‘No, you can’t have twenty pounds for a taxi, you spoiled, entitled sponger who knows nothing about the value of money having never earned any in your life.’” Tobes was getting into his performance. “‘You’re so useless, it doesn’t occur to you to use your brain and build your own steam engine out of twigs to get you back home, and where are you even going when you don’t have any friends and no one likes you?’ That sort of thing, but with the kind of swearing Mum can’t handle.”
“He’s not exaggerating,” Mum told Corinne. “I mean, maybe not the steam engine bit, but the rest is pretty much word for word. Until yesterday, I’d have said, ‘Poor Tess,’ but now that she’s lied about Champ and put him in harm’s way…”
Evidently Mum and I ended up drawing different conclusions about who was worse, Lesley or Tess. Our later actions bore that out.
“Do you really think Tess’s bite is just makeup?” Mum asked Corinne, who, under her false Instagram name, had left a comment on Tess’s post saying, “‘Not a real wound, you lying little turd. Clearly eye shadow, lipstick, and mascara all mixed up together.’”
“Nope. The wound’s real,” Corinne said. “If you’re talking about what I said on Insta? I was engaging in some fairly run-of-the-mill psychological warfare. And if the Gaveys are willing to lie in one direction, they can’t object to me lying in the other. Tess must have a bona fide injury that she’ll have needed to show the police in order to swing them into action. But…not from Champ. Nothing to do with him.”
“Are we done bitching?” asked Dad. “Any chance we can talk about where we’re going and why, and what the broader plan is?”
He might not have enjoyed waiting to find out, but it was lucky Mum and Corinne had squashed his first attempt to shut them up. If he’d succeeded in turning the conversation to plans and practicalities any sooner, we’d all have missed a clue we had no idea we would soon need. At that point in our haphazard road trip, however, none of us knew how game-changing the story of Lesley Gavey versus the Field View Health Club and Spa would turn out to be.
21
Tuesday 18 June 2024
Sally
“All right, we’re sorted,” says Corinne, looking triumphant. The two helpers who made breakfast trail in behind her. They drift over to the table and, without making eye contact or any sound at all, start to clear away the plates as if they’re auditioning for dramatic roles as servants who later turn out to be ghosts.
Sally has eaten a few bits, as much as she could manage. Everyone else has finished what was on their plate. Champ is asleep in his Donut dog bed in the corner of the room, between the tall white dresser and the wine rack, his flamboyantly bushy tail sticking out at an odd angle. His unusual tail style—more like what you’d expect to see on a squirrel—was his groomer’s idea: “It’s not the standard Welshie look, but I thought it might be nice to make him look a bit different from Furbert. He’s such a playful little character that I decided a more frivolous tail would suit him, and it’s not as if you’re planning to enter him for Crufts or anything,” the groomer said. Sally agreed and left an extra-large tip; she is always ready tolove anybody who thinks about Champ or Furbert in more than a cursory way.
“So. Today we’re going to Norfolk,” Corinne announces quietly. It’s definitely an announcement, though, not a just-happening-to-say. “Start packing. Let’s aim to set off in half an hour.”
“What, really? Tobes and I wanted to watch more movies in the hot tub,” says Ree.
