‘So where is this place?’ Roe was refreshing her email, as she had been every ten minutes since her Zoom meeting with theNewsiesproducers had gone so well the day before.
Lindy fired off a quick message to Pierce and turned back to the other two. ‘So it’s somewhere on the far side of the compound but we get to it by the underground tunnels. I’ve messaged my life curator, Pierce, to bring us there.’
Ailbhe, despite her agitation, burst out laughing. ‘Amazing. Has Monteray Valley finally jumped the shark?’
Roe shook her head playfully. ‘It’s gone full Stepford! Lindy … are you a robot wife about to stab us down in the tunnels?’
Lindy grinned. Speaking of robots, she could see Pierce’s robotic little trot approaching. She waved and then frowned. He had someone with him.
‘Oh, crap, it’s Rachel,’ Roe hissed.
Ailbhe craned to see. ‘Oh, it is, I’d know those breasts anywhere.’ Roe whipped around to glare at Ailbhe, who in turn spun round to Lindy. ‘I’m sorry, Linds! I wish I didn’t.’
‘Monteranians! Hello!’ Pierce, as ever, was approaching the interaction with all the ease of an AI machine trying to emulate human gestures. ‘You all know each other, I presume.’ He waved vaguely between them and Rachel. ‘We’re actually just coming back from the MMP compound ourselves. Rachel and her husband are just some of the many Monteranians benefiting from the service, so no need to feel any shame or sense of failure, gang.’ He smiled kindly at each of them.
Rachel pursed her lips and gave a slight nod of her head. ‘It’s horrific over there.’ She scowled. ‘It’s like spring break. Wall to wall peen – the smell.’
‘I’m going down to try to get Tom,’ Ailbhe spoke up.
‘Yeah, I heard him,’ Rachel said delicately. ‘He’s really letting it all out. And I saw Eddie.’ She nodded at Roe. ‘Everyone’s totally messed up. It’s like there’s something in the water.’
Pierce snapped to attention. ‘I can categorically state that there is absolutely nothing in the water except the very low dose of escitalopram, which every resident signed off on prior to moving here. Monteray cannot assume responsibility for any marital dissatisfaction incurred on the facility. The Harmony Gauge can only do so much.’
‘Right.’ Rachel rolled her eyes at Lindy. ‘How’s things with you, Lindy? I was sorry to get your note about The Snag List. You’re not relocating over to the Pause, I hope. It’s the pits. The Monteray helpers are down there round the clock but they’re fighting fire. The amount of unsteeped cereal bowls …’ She shuddered.
Lindy toyed with putting on a good front for the sake of saving face in front of Rachel, but with everything she now knew about this woman, she wasn’t sure she cared any more. Fitzy was a headwreck; Rachel was a troll. It was a sad existence. Lindy had been thinking about it for days and found that she really didn’t bear ill will towards this woman any more. Lindy had never really understood the whole ‘blaming the other woman’ thing. Sure, it was a shit move, but Rachel hadn’t made a vow. She didn’t owe Lindy anything. She hadn’t broken a trust: Adam had.
‘Things with me are horrendous.’ Lindy laughed maniacally. ‘I’m trying to finish with Adam, which is proving extremely difficult because, while he doesn’t give a shit about losing me and our family, he is hell-bent on keeping Maxxed Out for another year and a half. That is what the man cares about because he’s been fucking our money out the airlock on goddam tech bro bullshit.’
‘Oh my God!’ Rachel’s expression was hard to read. Of course, Lindy didn’t know where Rachel and Adam were even at – still riding or awkward post-ride comedown?She might be worried that I know and am going to do something kamikaze, Lindy realised.As if I’d wreck her family just because my own is a dumpster fire.
‘Look, it’s really hard because I want Max out of this thing. And Adam is really digging in, threatening to take it before a judge in family court and in commercial court. Two courts, like! And every second we so much as breathe near our solicitors, it’s costing us more and more money. It’s really stressful …’ To her mortification, Lindy could hear her words wobbling as she lost her grip on the facade of detached control.
‘Lindy,’ Rachel looked stricken, ‘I am so sorry.’
Lindy shook her head, trying to shake off the tears. ‘I just …’ Lindy looked up to hold Rachel’s eye. She needed to subtly let her know that she wasn’t going to pull the Fitzsimons down with her. Poor Fielding had enough to be dealing with. ‘I wish there was a way to expose what a shitty person Adam is being but I would never do that to Max. Ever. I’ll just have to do it the old-fashioned way – slogging it out with custody agreements and solicitors.’
Rachel appeared to receive the information – Lindy definitely felt like an understanding had passed between them.
Pierce gave a dry little cough to indicate his eagerness to stop airing life mess on the flawless hallowed ground of Monteray crescent 2b.
‘We’d better push on, Rachel,’ Ailbhe cut in. ‘My own probs are even worse, if you can believe it.’ She gave a cheery little wave and linked arms with Pierce. ‘Let’s go. If this jaunt doesn’t involve crossing the River Styx, it’s gonna be a major letdown, Pierce.’
‘Rager!Raaagerrr!’ A sweaty, purple-faced Sports Casual Dad bashed his way past Roe roaring into the living room just off the hall where a posse of Sports Casuals were frolicking in foam emitting from a large machine to the dulcet tones of Sean Paul’s seminal work, ‘Just Gimme the Light’.
‘It’s like Ayia Napa in 2003,’ Ailbhe whimpered, trying to protect her bomber from the sweat that seemed to be pumping directly from the walls around them.
‘It feels like a window’s never been opened in here. Ever.’ Lindy grimaced. ‘This air has … like, a texture to it.’
‘Oh good Jesus, why do I feel like one of us is going to be masturbated at in here?’ Roe started to clink her way through the hall carpeted in artisanal IPA bottles. ‘Nobody ingestanything.’
The light throughout the ground floor was dingy. In the kitchen, so many filthy oven trays and barbecue racks were crowding every available countertop that someone had begun to stack them on the floor.
‘We should’ve got a pre-emptive tetanus shot,’ Ailbhe muttered just as Roe’s phone started buzzing. Roe looked down and her heart stuttered: an English number.
‘I have to get this – it’sNewsies!’ Lindy gave her a thumbs-up and Roe hurried through the kitchen to the back doors, instinctively keeping her head covered like a soldier in a war zone. ‘Hello?’ she answered as she slipped into the garden. The gently waning sunlight was a bizarre contrast to the wannabe rave inside, and the garden was surprisingly unscathed and tranquil. ‘Colin?’
‘Roe! So glad I caught you – I didn’t want to email.’
