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‘Two weeks, five days ago.’
‘Blimey.’
‘He thought all this was for him.’ Les smoothed her palms down her body. ‘It wasn’t, it was for me and it was long overdue.’
Mid-life crisis, it had to be, thought Shay. Or early menopause. It was a well-known fact it made some people have epiphanies – and breakdowns.
‘I’m gobsmacked,’ said Shay. ‘Where are you staying?’
‘I’m renting somewhere at the moment. It’s fully furnished so that’s good.’
‘What about your job?’
‘I walked out of that as well. I didn’t want Morton turning up and causing a scene. I know how he operates so I needed to disappear totally.’
‘Just like that?’
‘Just like’ – Lesley clicked her fingers – ‘that.’
Shay blinked her eyes in disbelief. Lesley had worked as a legal secretary for the same firm since she’d left college.
‘What are you living on?’ Shay was starting to get a little worried now. This surely hadn’t been thought through if she’d acted so impulsively. ‘Are you okay for money, Les? I can help you out if—’
‘Don’t worry, I’ve been saving for this for years. I’ll figure it out as I go on,’ came the reply.
‘What’s Little Mort said?’ asked Shay.
‘Mort’s a grown man now, it’s none of his business.’ There was a slight snap in Lesley’s voice. ‘I wish people would stop calling him Little Mort. He’s six foot six for a start and living his own life… and it’s high time for me to live mine.’
Lesley didn’t even sound like Lesley, never mind look like her. But then she had always been the hardest one out of the three of them. The one who kept her cards closest to her chest. Still waters.
The waiter arrived with their food. Shay’s looked enormous compared to Les’s salad.
‘Do you think that Li… Mort leaving home might have had something to do with you—’flipping ‘—leaving too?’
‘Why should it?’
‘I mean if you missed him and it altered the dynamic in the house.’
‘I didn’t miss him. I was glad when he went. Surely you’re glad that yours have sodded off.’
‘No, I miss them terribly.’
‘They haven’t exactly emigrated to Australia, have they, Shay? You can still see them, you just don’t have to do their washing any more. What’s Sunny up to these days?’
‘He’s still selling insurance.’
‘I see all that money was well spent at university then,’ Les said with a single note of hollow laughter.
‘I’m hoping it’s only temporary.’ Shay gave a strained smile. ‘I hardly hear from him. I’ve only seen him a couple of times since he moved in with Karoline,’ she said.
Les looked surprised enough by that to try and raise her perfectly threaded eyebrows, even though the Botox opposed the attempt.
‘When Mort left, he rang every couple of days, if not every day, to check in. I had to tell him not to. The apron strings are cut as far as I’m concerned and I don’t want them retying.’
Lesley plunged her fork into the salad as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
‘Does he know about you leaving?’
