Week Five | 1,538 words
(This week was tough, so, as I am butting up against the deadline, I have decided to post a part one and finish this puppy another day. I am trying to reassure myself that it's better to write something rather than fail altogether, but I'm a bit annoyed that this one didn't sort itself out earlier. Oh well. I will try to get a headstart on next week.)
I had to check that she was breathing; thank God a tiny bird
fluttered in her chest. I dragged her back into the caravan as quickly as I could
and she let out a tiny groaning sigh. The cold sweat that had erupted as I’d
watched her pulled down started to shift into sizzling rage. I lifted her to
the sofa and tucked a cushion under her head. Her eyes closed, her face set
into a deep frown, she looked as though she was in the midst of a puzzling dream
instead of trapped in a shabby caravan in a remote and barely populated holiday
park.
To stop myself from shouting at her I went to the tiny
kitchenette and ran a tea towel under the cold tap. I twisted it, folded it up,
and trotted back to lay it on her forehead. Her fingers twitched. I felt for
her pulse again and the tiny bird was beating its wings in a firmer rhythm. I
stroked her cheek and she hummed, shuddered, and then sobbed herself awake.
She pushed herself to sit up and pulled the tea towel away.
With an angry shout she flung it across the room and then put her head in her
hands.
“Didn’t you believe me?” the sizzling rage wanted to know.
“I cannot stay in here!” she shrieked back, and swayed in
her seat. She wanted to go to the window and check outside, whilst at the same
time fear and deep caution kept dragging her back to her seat.
I went to look. I twitched the net curtains and glanced at
the patchy lawn that surrounded us, the neighbouring dilapidated caravans, and
the bleak grey skies above. It didn’t look menacing. It looked dull. Just as it
had done when we’d arrived.
Living with a mystery shopper has its perks. Occasionally
Lisa is asked to secretly review hotels and restaurants, and I get to tag along
for a free holiday or meal, and participate in the discreet appraisal process.
But there are downsides too. Being invited to the middle of nowhere for a
weekend in a caravan park at the arse end of November is not my idea of a good
time. But you have to take the ups with the downs, and not every retailer
visited by Lisa is selling something I’m excited to try.
And so I wasn’t buzzing with excitement when we drove up the
twisting road to Flynnwell Caravan Park, and my mood didn’t improve as we
pulled up by the reception lodge to check in. Lisa was on cloud nine. The worse
the experience is, the more fun she has. I often tell her that it’s just as
well I’m with her on most of these Mystery Shopping outings. Without me her
feedback would be entirely negative. I don’t relish nitpicking quite to the
same degree.
There was a skinny unwashed woman of indeterminate age at
the reception desk. She gave us a bleak look and handed keys over without
having to check a thing on her ancient computer. Clearly we were the only
people turning up today and, from the way she dropped the keys into Lisa’s
hand, we were nothing but an inconvenience.
“Thanks”, Lisa said with a grin, and the woman just stared
harder. I had a feeling the nerves that connected her brain to her mouth had
disintegrated from lack of use and all that was left was this blank expression.
We moved back to the car and Lisa jingled the keyring at me.
“Number 23. No directions. Let’s see if we can find this
sucker.”
“I can’t believe this dump has 23 caravans,” I said.
“The numbers probably start at 13.”
I pulled the park’s flyer from the glove compartment and
re-read it. The company that Lisa worked for had sent it along with their bible
of questions. The facilities listed were few and laden with exclamation marks. The
upside was an “entertainment centre” that served food and drink, the downside
was that entertainment was “limited” from October through to March, and closing
time was nine thirty p.m.
Lisa had pulled away and was slowly weaving down the park’s
narrow road peering at caravan numbers.
“What a dive…” she muttered. She was right. The caravans
were old and dirty. Paint was peeling. Rust was visible on the corners of the
roofs, and the windows were all grimy. The roof felting had come free on one,
and was flapping against the sides in the breeze, making sharp slaps in the
cold silence.
ally we came to number 23, nestled closely between 21 and 25. 25 was at a tilt, and was the last van on the park. After that there was a low fence and brown fields as far as the eye could see.
“Well the neighbours look simply darling!” Lisa cried as she
pulled to a stop. We got out of the car and walked up to the door of 23. There
was a dent in the lower half and the number 23 in large brush strokes painted
on the top half. I put my foot against the dent and it fit almost perfectly.
Lisa and I shared a glance.
“I wonder where they stashed the bodies?” she whispered. I
rolled my eyes at her and she opened the door. I ambled in to take a slow look
round, while Lisa flew into action with her pen, notebook and camera. The caravan
was actually nicer on the inside than I had thought it would be. There was
definitely a little too much beige for my liking, but otherwise it all seemed
clean and functional.
“Aha!” Lisa shouted.
“Whatcha got?” I asked, and found her in the second bedroom,
kneeling on the unmade bed, a plastic parcel of sheets pushed to the floor.
“A toe nail!” she said happily, and gave a little bounce of
joy.
“Ick.”
“Ah, don’t worry, our bed is spotless. But if we have a
domestic you’re sleeping in here. With the remains.”
Lisa’s sense of humour is not to everyone’s taste, but I
quite like the odd reference to the macabre, and she enjoys the fact that I don’t
balk with disapproval at everything she says. Contrary to what some of her
friends and family think, she doesn’t do it for attention.
I went and put the kettle on whilst she finished her
investigations, and found an agenda for November on the coffee table. This week
Flynnwell was playing host to “Jimmy Fairweather” a comedian still listing a
talent contest win of 2001 as his recommendation, “The Blue Scoots”, a country,
western and blues band, and “Bingo!” which, the flyer informed me, was “£3 a
round, pens extra”.
Lisa wandered back in looking a little dissatisfied.
“Toenail your only find?”
“I haven’t checked under the caravan yet,” she said, and I
wasn’t sure whether she was joking.
“Well we can check out the entertainment centre in a bit,” I
said, “try the local cuisine and watch a country, western and blues band.”
“One band? Three styles?”
“They are that
talented,” I told her, and finished making the tea.
The entertainment centre was almost empty, but it was
reassuring to see that the park had some other guests at this time of year. It
was a large room with a short bar at one end and a narrow stage at the other. Between
these two things there was a sad looking little dance floor, and then a
scattering of tables and chairs squeezed into what space was left. At one table sat an elderly couple, the man
all decked out in walking gear whilst his wife sat in a wheelchair, knitting. The
man had slung a pair of binoculars over the back of his chair, so I guessed he
might be up here for bird watching reasons.
The other table was taken by two adults and a young boy. The
woman was wearing a fixed smile of “I am enjoying myself”, whilst the man was
giving of heavy vibes of “I paid for this, so you WILL enjoy yourself”. The kid
just looked bored.
Lisa snagged a couple of menus from the bar, and we found a table equidistant from the room's other occupants while they watched us carefully through sidelong glances.
“Shall we freak them out?” Lisa whispered, “you sit right
next to Mr and Mrs Tweed, and I’ll cuddle up to angry Step-dad.”
“Don’t rouse the natives, darling,” I told her, and she
stifled sniggers and turned to her menu. The options were limited unless you
liked omelette.
Two soggy omelettes and a great deal of beer later, we were crying with laughter behind our hands as “The Blue Scoots” finished their set with a cover of Etta James’ “I Just Want To Make Love To You” played on a fiddle, a guitar and a synthesiser so old it only had one drum sound.
The barman had started giving us the evil eye during Jimmy
Fairweather’s gloomy little set; Thirty minutes of jokes that alternated from being
so racist they made us bark shocked laughter, to rambling observations of local
life that meant nothing to us and never ended in a punchline.
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