Chapter 9
I should explain about Mum’s thirty-seven grand and also about why she chose Avril for the role of village-based helper—an ill-advised and apparently irrational choice, though it makes sense once you understand.
First, though, I need to work out if avoiding an encounter with the Gaveys, as Mum successfully did on the village green that day, is something readers of this account will also wish to do.
In other words—and although I can’t imagine why any self-respecting, sentient person would feel this way—perhaps you would like to meet Alastair (dad), Lesley (mum), and Tess (rancid, monstrous daughter) Gavey?
Hear what they sound like, in their own words?
Maybe it’s not fair for only the Lamberts to have a voice in this… whatever I’m writing.
*Shudders forever*
No. Bad Idea. I know this because I’ve made myself feel sick simply by contemplating it.
To include any kind of Gavey contribution would be as intolerable as it is impossible.
This is my book, I’m a Lambert, and I wouldn’t pollute my own creation with even one short Gavey-written sentence.
Anyone who wants to experience the Gaveys via their own voices can look online and find heaps: Alastair’s self-promoting sermons on LinkedIn about how he optimized this, revolutionized that, and revitalized the other; Lesley’s fraudulent “doting mother with perfect daughter” Facebook posts (yeah, you’re never going to fool your immediate neighbors, who are sick of being woken in the middle of the night by the sound of the two of you screaming that you wish each other would “die in a fire”); Tess’s horrifying Instagram grid—endless close-ups of her face, the face of an amoral, heartless monster.
But… And…
There is something I can do to balance things out a bit, and I will.
I think it’s a good compromise, because we do need some objectivity; that’s only fair.
Anyone who reads this deserves to hear at least a little about the Gaveys from someone who doesn’t loathe them with a seething, pulsating hatred.
So I’m going to include—now, before we go any further—the words and accounts of three people who aren’t Lamberts.
What follows are those witnesses’ own, unaltered words and come from the interviews they gave to detectives during the wrapping up of things later on.
(If Cambridgeshire Police knew I had access to any of this stuff, their brains would probably explode out of their skulls and land in Suffolk.
Oh, wait, I forgot: Not all of them have brains.
Maybe, like five between all of them, and Detective Connor Chantree was only allocated half a cell, and even that probably got confiscated long before he turned up on our doorstep.)
It’s fine: You don’t need to know what’s coming in order to “meet” the Gaveys in these three people’s descriptions of them.
All the statement-givers you’re about to hear from are people who live in Swaffham Tilney.
I’ve deliberately chosen three of the very loveliest residents, also for the sake of balance.
Since I’m determined to devote extra page space to some of the worst people ever to walk the earth, let’s bring in as much goodness as possible at the same time to cancel out the otherwise potentially noxious effects.
Statement 1: This is from Judith Whiteley, landlady of the Rebel of the Reeds. She arranges an Easter egg hunt for the children of Swaffham Tilney every year and dresses up as the Easter Bunny for it! You’d want her to be your grandma if possible.
It was just the one conversation I overheard, between Lesley and Tess, and I found it more disturbing than anything else I’ve ever seen or heard in this village, and I’ve lived here for thirty-seven years.
I honestly had to stop myself from going over and…
It sounds silly to talk about intervening, because it genuinely wasn’t a fight or anything like that.
It didn’t sound like one, anyway. They were speaking in such a normal tone of voice to each other.
It was like they thought they were having an ordinary, everyday chat over dinner.
And at various points, they both laughed.
Never at the same time, though. I mean, they took turns to laugh.
It was a Monday night, early evening, and they were practically the only people in the pub.
There was no music on for some reason—there’s almost always something playing—and I was able to hear every word they said while they ate their meal.
And they must’ve known I could hear them, which made it even odder that they didn’t stop.
On the contrary, they went on and on. Eventually I decided they obviously wanted me to hear or didn’t care enough to stop me from hearing.
When they first came in, they were talking about something that had happened at Tess’s college, I think.
She’d been in some kind of trouble and she was grandstanding about how she hadn’t backed down.
Properly full of herself, she was; she’d really showed that teacher.
And at first Lesley seemed to approve of her swagger.
There were about ten minutes, maybe a bit longer, where they were ripping into the poor teacher together.
Not my idea of fun, but they were obviously enjoying themselves and in agreement about the rights and wrongs of it all. Then I was in the kitchen for a bit.
When I brought their meals out, I could tell that the subject had moved on.
Lesley was saying to Tess, “But you’re not kind like her, and you hate animals, and they mostly seem to feel that way about you too.
” I thought, “What’s this, now? She can’t be telling Tess that animals hate her.
” But she was! She said, “Remember when we went to Nanna’s and her cat wouldn’t stay in the room with you?
Every time you walked into a room, she walked out.
” And then she laughed. As if she found it amusing that she was saying it to her own daughter.
She said, “And you’ve never been popular, not in any of your schools, so I doubt you will be, ever.
It would have happened by now if it was going to happen.
You’ve never really had friends, have you, Tess. ”
The way she said her name like that… It was horrible—but she just said it in this matter-of-fact, almost lighthearted way.
I fully expected Tess to burst into tears and run out of the pub.
That’s what I’d have done if my mum had said anything like that to me when I was seventeen, or at any age, to be honest with you.
Anyway, it soon became clear what it was all about: Lesley had found out that Tess had been talking to a boy online in some kind of chat place that she’d used the name “Elphie” to join—and you know who Elphie is, don’t you?
No? Oh, well, she’s the heroine from Wicked the musical.
From what Lesley said, it was clear she thought Tess idolized Elphie, and that’s why she’d chosen to call herself that.
I don’t know whether that’s true or not, but I do know Lesley spent about twenty minutes telling Tess all the ways she was a more worthless and less appealing human than Elphie from Wicked.
She said, “Elphie’s got a strong sense of honor and moral integrity, and there’s nothing honorable or ethical about you, Tess.
” Then she listed a few unethical things Tess had done, one of which was trying to nick another girl’s boyfriend, another was spray-painting the Gledhills’ gate.
And then it was Tess’s turn. Cool as a cucumber, she said, “Like mother, like daughter, I guess. Where was your integrity and honor the other day, when you were telling Kellie all about how you’d have loved to have another baby after me?
That whole sob story about how you tried for years and it never worked, and poor you, all those babies you lost…
” I swear to you, Detective Inspector, Tess was sniggering as she said all this…
and I couldn’t believe my eyes, but Lesley was smiling as she listened to it.
That was when I thought to myself, “Maybe I should go over there and try to step in somehow.” I probably should’ve done, but I didn’t, coward that I am, so on it went.
“You didn’t lose the last one, though, did you?
” Tess said. “You got rid of that one by choice. Why not be honest about it, hey, Mother? Why didn’t you tell Kellie that you got rid of it because it was making you fat and bloated and you thought Dad didn’t fancy you anymore and was going to leave you if you got even bigger.
The dumbest thing of all was that you actually believed he might fancy you again if you ended the pregnancy, but he didn’t, did he?
He still shagged around after you had the abortion, so it was all for nothing.
And it wasn’t fair to me—not that you cared about what I wanted.
I’d have a brother or sister now, if you hadn’t killed it. ”
“Yes, and I’d have a more lovable child than you, wouldn’t I?
” Lesley smirked like she’d made some kind of cheeky joke.
“And I’d have loved it more—making you even less popular than you already are.
” On and on it went, as if it was just cheerful chitchat, with each of them taking turns to giggle after they landed a blow.
I debated if it would be reasonable to ask them to leave and decided it wouldn’t be.
They were the only ones in, and if they didn’t mind it…
But I did. I really minded. But then it stopped as suddenly as it had started.
One moment Tess was calling Lesley a liar for passing off a termination as a tragic baby-loss she couldn’t have prevented, of which she was the victim, and the next it was all plans for the following weekend, and please could Lesley buy Tess the bracelet she’d seen on Etsy that she really loved, the one with the moonstone and the leather bit?