‘The receptionist said no to Lewis’s day-membership scheme, even after he told her in great detail about various hotels in the UK that allow people to do precisely what he was proposing.’ I laugh at the memory. ‘What does a Corfu hotel receptionist care if the Quy Mill Hotel in Stow-cum-Quy, Cambridgeshire, lets anyone buy a day membership for a tenner? She just kept saying, “My boss not allow, my boss not allow”. It looked as if Lewis was defeated for once – Dad was helpfully pointing that out, saying, “Come on, Lewis, you’ve tried your best. Isn’t it time to give up now?”’
‘Ha! Dad always thinks it’s time to give up. Like, even before you’ve started trying.’
‘True. But in this case he was right, or at least we all thought he was. Lewis had other plans, however.’
‘What did he do?’
‘Asked if there were rooms available at the hotel. “You seem pretty empty,” he said, stressing the last word.’
‘As if the receptionist cares,’ Zannah mutters scornfully. ‘It’s not her hotel. She’s not going to get a share of the profits even if it’s full.’
‘I guess. She looked very confused and said, “You want to stay here?” Lewis said no, he didn’t, he had no intention of staying there, but since the only way he was going to be able to use the pool was to book a room, then that was what he’d have to do – that was what the receptionist was forcing him to do. He tried to book two rooms, there and then: one for him and Flora and one for me and Dad. We said not to book one for us, we were quite happy with the beach, but Lewis wouldn’t listen. Trouble was, they didn’t have two double or twin rooms in the hotel. They weren’t empty, whatever Lewis thought, and all they could offer us was some kind of self-catering villa in the grounds that slept six people and was part of the hotel but also self-contained. Thankfully, it counted, for pool-using purposes. Dad and I were begging Lewis to see sense and be happy with the beach, not waste his money, but he was a man on a mission. He booked the villa – “the most expensive changing room I’ve ever used”, he called it later. Two grand, it cost – in 1997. The craziest thing was, none of us slept a single night there, even though it was much plusher than our beach apartment. Again, Dad and I tried our best to make Lewis see sense – since we’d got it now, we might as well use it, we said – but he was adamant. He said, “I want that receptionist to see that she’s made me spend two thousand of my hard-earned pounds on a villa that we’re going to use for maximum half an hour a day, and for nothing apart from changing into and out of our swimming costumes.”’
‘Okay, I have a theory and a question.’ Zannah sits up. ‘You said before, “Flora was warning him to stop” – in the hotel restaurant. Warning who? Lewis, to stop making a fuss about the pool, or Dad to stop taking the piss out of Lewis?’
‘Dad. Flora has always been a peace-maker. A soother-over of potentially troublesome things.’
‘That’s what I thought you meant. Was she scared Lewis would hit Dad or something, if he didn’t stop teasing him?’
‘I think she might have been, yes. It’s hard to explain when you don’t know Lewis, but he could get into these weird states, almost like a maniac, and he’d be so full of passionate determination … It didn’t happen often, but when it did, he could be scary.’
‘Did he ever hit Dad?’
‘No. Of course not.’
‘Why “of course”? People hit people all the time. How did you get to be friends with a maniac? Unwise life choice.’
‘Flora was my best friend at university. She was younger than me, but we met through rowing and clicked straight away. Lewis was her boyfriend, and I just accepted him, like she accepted Dad. We became a foursome.’
‘You rowed?’ Zannah looks horrified. ‘In a boat? On a cold, wet river?’
‘Yeah, for my college.’
‘Oxbridge shit is so weird. I’m not going there.’
‘What, you mean because you’re never going to do any revision?’
‘Straight savage there from Mum. Nice one, Mum. You really got the crowd roaring with that one.’
‘Wanna know something I haven’t even told Dad yet?’