A Hopeless Romantic
A Hopeless Romantic
Harriet Evans
The warm and enchanting novel from the bestselling author of ‘Going Home’.Laura Foster is a hopeless romantic. It is her most endearing characteristic, yet consistently leads her into trouble. Friends and family look on with amused tolerance – until Laura’s inability to tell reality from romantic dreams causes betrayal and a broken heart.Taking refuge in Norfolk, Laura is bitterly aware that her rose-tinted glasses have to go. She swears off men, and all things romantic, for good – until she meets Nick, the estate manager of a huge stately home. But Nick has a secret too. And it’s one that Laura, however much she tries, can’t get past her prejudice about.Just as she was stubbornly a die-hard romantic, so Laura is stubborn about there being no future for her and Nick. But will he manage to change her mind?
A Hopeless Romantic
Harriet Evans
Copyright (#ulink_57d327cc-7df3-5b10-a2c4-c7cce6865f1e)
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
HarperFiction
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/)
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2006
Copyright © Harriet Evans 2006
Harriet Evans asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Extract from The Sound of Music © 1965 Twentieth Century Fox. Screenplay by Ernest Lehman. All rights reserved.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780007198467
Ebook Edition © JUNE 2011 ISBN: 9780007369270
Version: 2016-09-09
For the magnificent specimen, my mother Linda.With all my love.
How to understand it all! How to understand the deceptions she had been thus practising on herself, and living under! – The blunders, the blindness of her own head and heart! – she sat still, she walked about, she tried her own room, she tried the shrubbery – in every place, every posture, she perceived that she had acted most weakly.
Jane Austen, Emma
Maria: I don’t remember any more.
Brigitta: Your face is all red.
Maria: Is it? I don’t suppose I’m used to dancing.
The Sound of Music, screenplay by Ernest Lehman
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#u8abbbc90-02d5-595b-b2d6-3ebdd2c45d3e)
Title Page (#ucfec1a01-fb9f-5208-bbb5-414ff05fcb29)
Copyright (#u59980f66-25c7-5b83-94b2-d4eacf6048ee)
Dedication (#u73c156bd-d9a3-523e-86bf-df51044911b7)
Epigraph (#u2052997a-3ac8-5111-8cf6-a6c18a5f8e9a)
PART ONE (#u413aa9c2-ea11-51c8-878f-8e4019526e1f)
CHAPTER ONE (#u3cb62562-76b5-5ee2-95ef-81ce62b9560d)
CHAPTER TWO (#ucf0882dc-6655-5736-b160-eaf9056d7659)
CHAPTER THREE (#ubc2d4ad6-9079-5937-84ac-2df965a130a1)
CHAPTER FOUR (#u93adf84d-bccd-5c53-878e-90d16ca63c7a)
CHAPTER FIVE (#u254d9bae-2b74-5c22-b0b9-b492895b713e)
CHAPTER SIX (#ud4472b7a-7f90-513f-9fbd-821cd9bfde20)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#uaf83e3a1-d827-5ea9-a7a8-b1ee93a8ff88)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#ub974d6fa-e3c1-5b9e-9d13-ddcd0dc60d5a)
CHAPTER NINE (#u98e5f9ee-0f92-5593-a100-b6dc2a1a6dff)
CHAPTER TEN (#u845b693e-25b4-5e98-bca9-ed7e9983ff64)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#u9b62a4bd-d337-57e3-baca-0e268d0d3346)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#u08c02c6c-c760-5684-a78e-237d209f7af3)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#uac69ce56-340f-53a8-8c7f-3744460a8004)
PART TWO (#u9d226d07-471e-59fe-931f-aa93ff425b51)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#u9b2cfcb0-dc8a-5f7b-8215-019f1607fafc)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#u73494b4c-c4bc-5c15-ab55-5a8e6b83da9f)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#u66910d5f-a965-5729-8375-1a6d96e09577)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#uc43843dc-bcf6-52d9-bd2b-dec4637995ca)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#u9c98a9ba-8994-5664-a4ec-05f043b18cd4)
CHAPTER NINETEEN (#udb465a81-537a-56dd-9968-ee96fa51d1a2)
CHAPTER TWENTY (#u287af255-dbd0-57b7-b7c8-9f4816e37a86)
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (#u2861a97c-c5da-5f78-a480-baf0ec883386)
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (#ub16ea637-aca9-5f4b-9e32-14c406ad3b0e)
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE (#u64a28f62-05b3-5eca-b8d2-ec27ef5a625e)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR (#u72057ca9-ab8d-56b1-a63d-4413e591b129)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE (#ub1889dd5-5954-5fc3-9b7f-71e5eccf402a)
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX (#u11958a5a-e692-5c96-8bc4-35d4390638ed)
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN (#ua744c0d0-9aba-53c7-b198-fe2a422f9b9a)
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT (#u447b5ac4-0037-5fbf-9ce7-3a7dcc06e07c)
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE (#u1756a0e1-9c8f-5303-a9a2-b4460f1a95e5)
CHAPTER THIRTY (#u9f8f9100-c639-54b9-8a49-29aa9b2c965b)
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE (#u41b25f3f-4ba3-5751-b37e-8e69ca3e87d6)
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO (#u261a14ef-9705-5311-be6a-04622e5fa9af)
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE (#uab809c1e-854d-593e-88fb-04575c100932)
PART THREE (#ud6a81a5c-74ce-5f24-9243-135b7eef5c45)
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR (#u830f3737-6265-570a-b12f-aa76ac9aab72)
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE (#u2425ee6f-c16c-5411-b479-1319c1767213)
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX (#ub1970906-00f5-5156-a827-eceb0c8cca30)
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN (#u94d868b8-4224-5f29-9ab1-6bea50acc44a)
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT (#u474b32a6-af6e-55af-a013-f1d0ed932d75)
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE (#u8f0bfabb-77ac-54e4-a620-879ca7394b7b)
CHAPTER FORTY (#u95643547-5741-5d17-bcab-fb2479cc5612)
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE (#u3ecbe57d-6900-55ac-967c-0ac065c49720)
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO (#u013e67b2-9774-59df-8657-bb4c74d734f6)
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE (#ue43b3221-dbf7-5fca-8ab3-e07917db4887)
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR (#u4af95e48-50ed-5c46-86a9-beb04b41c74c)
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE (#ube0aa76b-a28f-53a9-9e38-b161c23b25a8)
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX (#u2c68f5ff-7e07-5110-be42-c09cbcc1e492)
PART FOUR (#u7a83a765-92e9-5601-a37a-f08c18a00c88)
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN (#uf15e5847-5394-5d30-88c0-527569b2c004)
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT (#u71099618-f8f1-5d26-9eba-60b0113f4459)
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE (#u40c1b840-3dc4-5e9f-9d33-5ca2ea58ae0e)
CHAPTER FIFTY (#u0c528ac8-59b7-5433-bfef-8fc101377286)
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE (#u5b0cbc0e-c0b3-57ee-adbe-a2cd72d6692f)
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO (#uf3497a31-0a7e-5b52-8107-1ea3083bfbd4)
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE (#u78773328-edd1-5e8a-b7bf-501eab42d9a9)
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR (#u68ac78bc-96f5-5d78-9afa-a499022e12f2)
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE (#u1fae842e-cce8-5c82-8f20-b49e491269fb)
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX (#u15e25235-79b4-540a-a06b-8726289a6a8e)
Keep Reading (#u36fd0c36-d6a6-5865-8d9c-f3f9a493b1aa)
Acknowledgements (#u13f89378-7c4e-5c5d-a5ed-4ad40c975da9)
By the same author (#ue440f0fc-48cd-5b5c-a2f7-17a6ec13682c)
About the Publisher (#u2ce6d1bc-2a9d-51e6-8c07-86fd03989de6)
PART ONE (#ulink_16ad4546-16e8-5837-921a-8d3c0bd9cc91)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_f608e040-d657-533c-8f10-aecca39976fc)
Laura Foster was a hopeless romantic. Her best friend Jo said it was her greatest flaw, and at the same time her most endearing trait, because it was the thing that most frequently got her into trouble, and yet falling in love was like a drug to her. Having a crush, daydreaming about someone, feeling her heart race faster when she saw a certain man walk towards her – she thrived on all of it, and was disastrously, helplessly, hopelessly incapable of seeing when it was wrong. Everyone has a blind spot. With Laura, it was as if she had a blind heart.
Anyone with a less romantic upbringing would be hard to find. She wasn’t a runaway nun, or the daughter of an Italian count, or a mysterious orphan. She was the daughter of George and Angela Foster, of Harrow, in the suburbs of London. She had one younger brother, Simon, who was perfectly normal, not a secret duke, nor a spy, nor a soldier. George was a computer engineer, and Angela was a part-time translator. As Jo once said to her, about a year after they met at university, ‘Laura, why do you go around pretending to be Julie Andrews, when you’re actually Hyacinth Bucket?’
But Laura never stopped reality getting in the way of fantasy. By the time she was eighteen she had fallen for: a runny-nosed, milk-bottle-glasses-wearing primary-school outcast called Kevin (in her mind Indiana Jones, with specs); her oboe teacher Mr Wallace, a thin, spotty youth, over whom she developed a raging obsession and calluses on her oboe-playing fingers, so ferociously did she practise (she would stand outside his flat in Camden in the hope she might see him; she wore a locket which contained a bus ticket he’d dropped around her neck); and about fifteen different boys at the boys’ school around the corner from hers in Harrow.
When she went to university, the scope was even greater, the potential for romance limitless. She wasn’t interested in a random pull at a club. No, Laura wanted someone to stand underneath her window and recite poetry to her. She was almost always disappointed. There was Gideon, the budding theatre director who hadn’t quite come out of the closet. Juan, the Colombian student who spoke no English. Or the rowing captain who was much more obsessed with the tracking machine at the gym than her. Her dentist, who charged her far too much and then made her pay for dinner. And the lecturer in her humanities seminar who she never spoke to, and who didn’t know her name, who she wasted two terms staring at in a heartfelt manner.
For all of these Laura followed the same pattern. She went off her food; she mooned around; she was acutely conscious of where they were in any room, thought she saw them around every corner – was that the back of his curly head going into the newsagent’s? She became a big, dumb idiot whenever any of them spoke to her, so fairly often they walked away, bemused that this nice girl with dark blonde hair, a sweet smile and a dirty laugh who seemed to like them was suddenly behaving like a nun in a shopping centre, eyes downcast, mute. Or they’d ask her out – and then Laura, for her part, usually came tumbling down to earth with a bang when she realised they weren’t perfect, weren’t this demigod she’d turned them into in her mind. It wasn’t that she was particularly picky – she was just a really bad picker.
She believed in The One. And every man she met, for the first five minutes, two weeks, four months, had the potential in her eyes to be The One – until she reluctantly realised they were gay (Gideon from the Drama Society), psychopathic (Adam, her boyfriend for several months, who eventually jacked in his MA on the Romantic Poets and joined the SAS to become a killing machine), against the law (Juan, the illegal immigrant from Colombia), or Josh (her most recent boyfriend, whom she’d met at a volunteer reading programme seminar at work, decided was The One after five minutes, dated for over a year, before realising, really, all they had in common was a love of local council literacy initiatives).
It’s fine for girls to grow up believing in something like The One, but the generally received wisdom by the time Laura was out of university, as she moved into her mid-twenties, as her friends started to settle down, was that he didn’t really exist – well, he did, but with variations. Not for Laura. She was going to wait till she found him. To her other best friend Paddy’s complaints that he was sick of sharing their flat with a lovesick teenager all the time, as well as a succession of totally disparate, odd men, Laura said firmly that he was being mean and judgemental. James Patrick – Paddy to his friends – was a dating disaster, what would he know? To Jo’s pragmatic suggestions that she should join a dating agency, or simply ask out that bloke over there, Laura said no. It would happen the way she wanted it to happen, she would say. You couldn’t force it. And that would be it, until five minutes later when a waiter in a restaurant would smile at her, and Laura would gaze happily up at him, imagining herself and him moving back to Italy, opening a small café in a market square, having lots of beautiful babies called Francesca and Giacomo. Jo could only shake her head at this, as Laura laughed with her, aware of how hopeless she was compared to her level-headed, realistic best friend.
Until one evening, about eighteen months ago, Jo came round to supper at Paddy and Laura’s flat. She was very quiet; Laura often worried Jo worked too hard. As Laura was attempting to digest a mouthful of chickpeas that Paddy had marvellously undercooked, and as she was trying not to choke on them, Jo wiped her mouth with a piece of paper towel and looked up.
‘Um…Hey.’
Laura looked at her suspiciously. Jo’s eyes were sparkling, her heart-shaped little face was flushed, and she leant across the table and said,
‘I’ve met someone.’
‘Where?’ Paddy had asked stupidly. But Laura understood what that statement meant, of course she did, and she said,
‘Who is he?’
‘He’s called Chris,’ Jo replied, and she smiled, rather girlishly, which was even more unusual for her. ‘I met him at work.’ Jo was a conveyancing solicitor. ‘He was buying a house. He yelled at me.’
And then – and this was when Laura realised it was serious
– Jo twisted a tendril of her hair and put it in her mouth. Since this was a breach of social behaviour in Jo’s eyes tantamount to not sending a thank-you card after a dinner party, Laura put her hand out across the table and said,
‘Wow! How exciting.’
‘I know,’ said Jo, unable to stop herself smiling. ‘I know!’
Laura knew, as she looked at Jo, she just knew, she didn’t know why. Here was someone in love, who had found The One, and that was all there was to it.
Chris and Jo moved into the house she’d helped him buy after six months; four months after that, he proposed. They started planning a December wedding, a couple of weeks before Christmas, in a London hotel. Jo eschewed grown-up bridesmaids, saying they were deeply, humiliatingly naff, much to Laura’s disappointment – she was rather looking forward to donning a nice dress and sharing with her best friend on this, the happiest day of her life. Instead, she was going to be best woman, and Paddy was an usher.
It seemed as if Jo and Chris had been together forever, and Laura could barely remember when he hadn’t been on the scene. He slotted right in, with his North London pub ways, his personality so laidback and friendly, compared to Jo’s sometimes controlled outlook on life. He had friends who lived nearby – some lovely friends. They were all a gang now, him and Jo, his friends, Paddy and Laura, sometimes Laura’s brother Simon, when he wasn’t off somewhere being worthy and making girls swoon (where Laura was always falling in love, Simon was usually falling into bed with a complete stranger, usually by dint of lulling them into a false sense of security by telling them he worked for a charity). And there was Hilary too, also from university and christened Scary Hilary – because she was – and her brother Hamish, their other friends from work or university, and so on. And so Laura’s easy, uncomplicated life went on its way. She had a brief, intense affair with a playwright she thought was very possibly the new John Osborne, until Paddy pointed out he was, in fact, just a prat who liked shouting a lot. Paddy grew a moustache for the autumn. Laura got a pay rise at work. They bought a Playstation to celebrate – games for him, karaoke for her. Yes, everything was well within its usual frame, except Laura began to feel, more and more, as she looked at Jo and Chris so in love, and as she looked at the landscape of her own dull life, that she was taking the path of least resistance, that her world was small and pathetic compared to Jo’s. That she was missing out on what she most wanted.
Under these circumstances, it’s hardly surprising that the next time Laura fell, she fell badly. Because one day, quite without meaning to, she woke up, got dressed and went to work, and everything was normal, and by the next day she had fallen in love again. But this time she knew it was for real. And that’s when everything started to go wrong.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_5a0037ea-816f-5666-9df7-a55c9b5f7fec)
Chris the groom coughed and stood up, looking rather nervous. Laura smiled at him, pretending to listen. She should have been paying attention but she was daydreaming, in a reverie of her own. She was thinking about her grandmother, Mary Fielding. Laura’s grandmother was the person Laura loved most in the world (apart from whoever it was she was in love with at that moment), even more so perhaps than her parents, than her brother.
Mary was a widow. She had lost her husband, Guy, eight years before, and she lived on her own in a small but perfectly formed flat in Marylebone. There were various reasons why Laura idolised Mary, wanted to be just like her, found her much more seductive than her own parents. Mary was stylish – even at eighty-four she was always the best-dressed person in a room. Mary was funny – her face lit up when she was telling a joke, and she could make anyone roar with laughter, young or old. But the main reason Laura adored her grandmother was that Mary had found true love. Her husband, Guy, was the love of her life, to an extent Laura had never seen with anyone else. They had met when each was widowed, in Cairo after the Second World War. Mary already had a daughter, Angela, Laura’s mother. Guy also had a daughter, Annabel, whom Laura and Simon called aunt, even though she wasn’t really related to them.
Because of her mother’s natural reserve, it was Mary whom Laura told about her love life, her latest disasters, the person she was currently in love with. Because she lived in central London, and so not that far from Laura’s work, it was Mary whom Laura called in to see, to talk to, to listen to. And it was Mary that Laura learnt from, when it came to true love, in large part. She did not learn it from her own unemotional parents. No, she learnt that true love was epic stuff.
One of Laura’s favourite stories was how Mary and Guy had realised they were in love on a trip out to the pyramids to see the sun rise. It had been pitch black as they rode out, crammed in a Jeep with the other members of their club in Cairo. And as the sun rose, Guy had turned to Mary, and said, ‘You know I can’t live without you, don’t you?’ And Mary had replied, ‘I know.’
And that was that. They were married six months later.
George and Angela, by contrast, had met at a choral society function off the Tottenham Court Road, when they were both at university. Somehow, Laura felt this wasn’t quite the same.
‘You are the love of my life,’ she heard a voice say. ‘The woman I want to grow old with. I love you.’
He was staring at her intensely, his eyes boring into hers. Laura raised her hand to his chest, and said, breathlessly, ‘I love you too.’
Beyond them the sun was rising, flooding the vast desert landscape with pink and orange colour. Sand whipped in her face, the silk of her headscarf caught in the breeze. She could feel the cold smoothness of the material of his dinner jacket against her skin, as he caught her and pulled her towards him.
‘Tell me again,’ Laura whispered in his ear. ‘Tell me again that you love me.’
And then, suddenly, a microphone crackled loudly, jerking Laura back to reality, as someone cleared their throat and said,
‘To my beautiful wife, Jo!’
‘Aah,’ the wedding guests murmured in approval, as Laura came back down to earth with a bump. There was some sniffing, especially from Jo’s mother up on the top table, as Chris raised a glass to his new bride, kissed her, and then sat down to a welter of applause and chair-shuffling.
‘Aah,’ Laura whispered to herself, leaving her daydream behind with a sigh. She looked at Jo, her best friend, so beautiful and happy-looking, and found tears were brimming in her eyes. She turned to her flatmate Paddy, sitting next to her, and sniffed loudly.
‘Look at her,’ she said. ‘Can you believe it?’
‘No,’ said Paddy, raising an eye at Chris’s cousin Mia. Paddy had recently begun to teach himself how to raise one eyebrow, in a ‘come to me, pretty laydee’ way. This involved several hours of grimacing into Laura’s hand-mirror in the sitting room of their flat, whilst Laura was trying to watch TV. She got very irritated with her flatmate when he did this, and was frequently telling him that being able to raise one eyebrow was not the key to scoring big with the ladies. Wearing matching socks was. As was having a tidy room. And not acting like a crazy stalker when some girl said no after you asked her out. These were the things that Laura frequently told Paddy he should be concentrating on, and yet, much to her deep chagrin, he ignored her every time. For Paddy’s retort would always be that what Laura knew about dating was worthless.
What a perfect, happy day, Laura thought, as she gazed around the room, clapping now the speeches were over. She was gripping her glass, searching for someone. Suddenly her eye fell on Jo and she watched her for a moment, truly radiant, happy and serene in an antique lace silk dress, her hand resting lightly on her new husband’s as they sat at the top table. Laura couldn’t help but feel a tiny pang of something sad. It wasn’t just any bride sitting there in the white dress, with the flowers and the black suits around her. It was Jo – Jo whom she had danced with all night in various Greek nightclubs, with whom she had spent hours in Topshop changing rooms, whom she had stayed up all night with whilst she sobbed her heart out after her last boyfriend Vic dumped her. It was her best friend, and it was weird.
She blinked and caught Jo’s eye, suddenly overcome with emotion. Jo smiled at her, winked, and mouthed something. Laura couldn’t tell what it was, but by the jerking of her head towards the best man, Chris’s newly single brother Jason, Laura thought she could guess what Jo was on about. Laura followed her gaze, shaking herself out of her mood. Jason was nice, yes. Definitely. But he wasn’t…dammit, where was he?
‘Who are you looking for?’ said Paddy suspiciously, as Laura cast her eyes around the room.
‘Me?’
‘Yes, you. Who is it? You keep looking round like you’re expecting to see someone.’
‘No one,’ said Laura, rather huffily. ‘Just looking, that’s all.’
‘There’s Dan,’ said Paddy.
‘Who?’ asked Laura.
‘Dan. Dan Floyd. He’s raising his glass. He’s talking to Chris.’
‘Right,’ said Laura calmly. ‘Ah, there’s Hilary. And her mum. I should go and say –’
‘Laura!’ said Jo, coming up behind her, dragging someone by the hand. ‘Don’t go! Here’s Jason! Jason, you remember Laura?’
‘Hey. Of course,’ said Jason, who was an elongated, blonder version of Chris. ‘Hi, Laura.’
‘Er,’ said Laura. ‘Hi, Jason, how are you?’
There is nothing more likely to induce embarrassment in a single girl than the obvious set-up at the wedding in front of friends. Laura smiled at Jason, and once more cast a fleeting glance around the room. Where was he?
‘Good, thanks, good,’ said Jason, as Jo nudged Paddy and grinned, much to Laura’s annoyance.
‘See the match on Wednesday?’ Paddy asked Jason, in an attempt at blokeish comradeship.
‘What match?’ said Jason.
‘Oh…’ Paddy said vaguely. ‘You know. The match. The big game.’
‘What, mate?’ Jason repeated, scratching his head.
‘Anyway, great to see you, mate,’ said Paddy, changing tack and banging Jason hard on the shoulder, so that he nearly doubled up. ‘So, Laura was just saying – Laura? Help me out here.’
Jason gazed at Paddy, perplexed. Laura looked wildly around her, searching for an escape, and then someone over Jason’s shoulder caught her eye.
‘Jason split up from Cath two months ago,’ Jo hissed in her ear, in a totally unconvincing stage whisper, as Laura gazed into the distance. It was him, of course it was him, she would know him anywhere. ‘You know, he’s living in Highbury now? Laura, you should –’
But Laura was no longer standing next to her, she had turned around to say hello to their friend Dan, who had appeared by her side. Vaguely she heard Jo’s tutting, vaguely she was aware that she should be making an effort.
For Jo hadn’t seen the look on Laura’s face after she was tapped on the shoulder by Dan. In fact, Jo and Paddy hadn’t been seeing quite a lot of things lately, and if they had, they would have been worried. Especially knowing Laura like they did.
‘You had a good evening, then?’ Dan was saying to Laura, smiling wickedly at her.
‘Yes, thanks,’ she replied, looking up at him, into his eyes. ‘Good speeches.’
‘Great,’ he said, shifting his weight so that he was fully facing her. It was a tiny movement, almost imperceptible to Jo, Paddy, or any of the other hundred and fifty people in that room, but it enclosed the two of them in together as tightly as if they were in a phone box.
Dan smiled at her again, as Laura pulled her shawl over her shoulder and she smiled back helplessly, feeling her stomach turn over at his sheer perfectness. His dark blond hair, the boyish curling crop which curled over his collar. His tanned, strong face, wide cheekbones, blue eyes, lazy smile. He reminded her of a cowboy, a farmhand from the Wild West. He was so relaxed, so easy to be with, so easy to be happy with, and Laura glowed as she gazed up at him, simply exhilarated at the prospect of a whole evening in his company – a whole evening, where anything could happen. Suddenly she could barely remember whose wedding it was.
He was here. She was here with Dan, and he was hers for the rest of the evening, and for those hours only she could indulge herself with the secret fantasy that they were a couple who’d been going out for years. Perhaps they were married already. Perhaps Jo and Chris had been the only witnesses at their beach wedding in Barbados two years ago. Dan in a sarong – he would suit a sarong, unlike most men. Her in a silk sundress, raspberry pink, her dark blonde hair falling loose behind her back. Some spontaneous locals and other couples gathered at the seashore, crying with joy at how perfect, how in love they obviously were, totally pole-axed by the strength of emotion, the purity of their love. Laura and Dan, Dan and Laura. Perhaps…
‘Laura!’ a voice said sharply. ‘Listen!’
Laura realised she was being prodded in the ribs. The lovely bubble of daydream in her head burst, and she tore herself away from Dan, and looked around to see Paddy glaring at her.
‘I was talking to you!’ he said, affronted. ‘I asked you a question four times!’
‘I’ll see you later,’ Dan murmured, shifting away from her. ‘Come and find me, yeah?’ and he very lightly ran his hand over her bare arm, a tiny gesture, but Laura shuddered, looked up at him fleetingly, even more sure than ever, then turned back to Paddy. As Dan moved off, he raised his glass to her, and smiled a regretful smile. Laura screamed inwardly, and turned away from him towards Paddy.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘What was it?’
‘Is this fob watch too much?’ said Paddy, fingering the watch hanging from his waistcoat. ‘I think it is. I’m not sure, but perhaps it overloads the outfit. What do you think?’
‘Ladies ’n’ gennlemen,’ came a bored-sounding voice from the back of the room. ‘Please make your way back into the Ballroom. Mr and Mrs Johnson are about to perform their first dance. Ah-thann yew, verrimuch.’
Laura looked wildly around her, as if trying to prioritise the many tasks on her mind. She glared at Paddy, who was still obviously waiting for an answer.
‘Yes, it is,’ said Laura wildly. ‘Far too much. I totally agree. In fact, it’s hideous,’ she said crossly. ‘You’d better take it off and throw it away. I’m going to the loo – see you in a minute,’ she finished, and hurried away.
Dan, Dan, Dan. Dan Floyd. Even saying his name made her feel funny. She muttered it on her way to the loo, feeling sick with nerves, but totally exhilarated. Laura had got it bad. She knew it was bad, and she knew if any of her friends found out they’d tell her it was futile, she should get over it, but she couldn’t help it. It was meant to be. She was powerless in the face of it, much as she’d tried not to be. Dan Floyd, looking like a ranger or an extra from Oklahoma!, calm, funny, and so sexy she couldn’t imagine ever finding any other man remotely attractive. Laura wanted him, plain and simple.
She had constructed a whole imaginary life for them, based around (because of the Oklahoma! theme) a small house in the Wild West with a porch, a rocking chair – for Laura’s granny Mary – corn growing as high as an elephant’s eye in the fields, and a golden-pink sunset every night. Mary would drink gins on the porch and dispense wise advice, and would sit there looking elegant. Dan would farm, obviously, but he would also do the sports PR job thing that he did. Perhaps by computer. Laura would – well, she hadn’t thought that far. How could she do her job in the prairie? Perhaps there were some dyslexic farmhands who’d never learnt to read properly. Yes.
Her friend Hilary was in the loos when she got there, washing her hands. ‘Oi,’ she said. ‘Hi.’
Laura jumped. ‘Oh. Hi!’ she said brightly. ‘Hey. Great speech, wasn’t it?’
‘Not bad,’ said Hilary, who didn’t much like public displays of affection, verbal or physical. She ran her hands through her hair. ‘That idiot Jason’s there, did you see?’
‘Yeah,’ said Laura. ‘He’s quite nice, isn’t he?’
‘Well,’ said Hilary, in a flat tone. ‘He’s OK. If you like that kind of thing.’
‘He’s split up from Cath,’ Laura said encouragingly.
‘Yeah, I know,’ Hilary replied coolly. ‘Hm. I might go and find him.’
‘OK. See you later,’ said Laura, and shut the door of the cubicle. She rested her pounding head against the cool of the white tiles. She was stressing out, and she couldn’t help it. It was the first time she’d seen Dan since they’d kissed, so fair enough. But she didn’t know what to do. Dan had got to her. The worst bit of all was, she didn’t just fancy him something rotten. She really liked him, too.
She liked the way he was always first to buy a round, that the corners of his blue eyes crinkled when he laughed, the rangy, almost bowlegged way he walked, his strong hands. She liked the way he rolled his eyes with gentle amusement when Paddy said something particularly Paddy-ish. She liked him. She couldn’t help it, she did. And she knew he liked her, that was the funny thing. She just knew, in the way you know. She had also come to know, in the last couple of months, that there was something going on between her and Dan. She just didn’t know what it was. But somehow, she knew tonight was the night.
Dan was a friend of Chris’s from university. He’d moved about five minutes away from Laura about six months ago, round the corner from Jo and Chris towards Highbury – and she’d known of him vaguely since Jo and Chris had got together. In July, Dan had started a new job, and more often than not Laura found herself on the tube platform with him in the morning. The first couple of times it was mere coincidence. Now, at the end of summer, it was almost a routine. They would buy a coffee from the stall on the platform and sit together in the second-to-last carriage, deserted in the dusty dog days of August, and go down the Northern line together until they got to Bank. And they would read Metro together and chat, and it was all perfectly innocent.
‘Dan? Oh yeah, we’re tube buddies,’ Laura would say nonchalantly, her heart thumping in her chest.
‘They’re transport pals,’ Chris and Jo would joke at lunch on Sundays. ‘Like an old married couple on the seafront at Clacton.’
‘Ha, ha, ha,’ Laura would mutter, and then she would blush furiously, biting her lip and shaking her hair forward over her face, burying herself in a newspaper. Not that they ever noticed – it’s extraordinary what people don’t notice right under their noses.
But to Laura it was obvious, straightforward. From the first time she’d recognised him on the tube platform, that sunny July day, and he had smiled at her, his face genuinely lighting up with pleasure – ‘Laura!’ he’d said, warmth in his voice. ‘What a nice surprise. Come and sit next to me.’ Through the sun and rain of August, September and October she would run down the steps to the tube platform, hoping he’d be there, not knowing what was going on between them. They had built up a whole lexicon of information. Just little things that you tell the people you see each day. She knew when his watch was being mended, what big meeting he had that day; and he knew when Rachel, her boss, was being annoying, and asked how her grandmother had been the previous day. Out of these little things, woven over each other, grew a web of knowledge, of intimacy, and one day Laura had woken up and known, known with a clarity that was shocking, that this was not just another one of her crushes, or another failed relationship that she couldn’t understand. She and Dan had something. And she was in love with him.
Oh, the level of denial about the whole thing was extraordinary, because you could explain it away in a heartbeat if you had to. ‘We go to work together, because we live round the corner from each other. It’s great – nice start to the day, you know.’ Whereas the truth was a little more complicated. The truth was both of them had started getting to the station earlier and earlier, so they could sit on the bench together with their coffees and chat for ten minutes before they got on the tube. And that was weird. Laura knew that. Yes, she was in denial about the whole thing. She knew that, too. It had got to the stage where something had to give – and she couldn’t wait.
Laura collected herself, breathed deeply, smoothed the material of her dress down, and came out of the loo to put on more lip gloss. She realised as she looked in the mirror that she was already wearing enough lip gloss to cause an oil slick – it was a nervous reflex of hers, to apply more and more when in doubt. She blotted some on the back of her hand, and strolled out of the door nonchalantly, looking for Paddy or Hilary, someone to chat to. It was strange, wasn’t it, she mused, that at her best friend’s wedding, knowing virtually everyone in the room, she could feel so exposed, so alone. That on such a happy day she could feel so sad. She shook her head, feeling silly. Look over there, she told herself, as Jo and Chris walked through the tables of the big ballroom, hand in hand, smiling at each other, at their friends and family. It was lovely. It was a privilege to see. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Hilary pinning Jason against a wall, yelling at him about something, her long, elegant hands waving in the air. Jason looked scared, but transfixed. Another man scared into snogging Hil, she thought. Well done, girl.
Someone handed her a glass of champagne. She accepted it gratefully and turned to see who it was.
‘Sorry,’ whispered Dan casually, though he didn’t bend towards her. He said it softly, intimately, and clinked his glass with hers. ‘I thought I’d better leave you to deal with Paddy’s sartorial crisis by yourself. Where did you go?’
‘Loo,’ said Laura, trying to stay calm, but it came out, much to her and Dan’s surprise, as a low, oddly pitched growl. He smiled. Laura smiled back, and ran her hand through her hair in a casual, groomed manner, but forgot the lipstick mark of gloss still adhering to the back of her hand. Her hair stuck to the gloss, and her hand became caught up in her hair as she flailed wildly around with her hand in the air, covered in hair.
‘Arrgh,’ said Laura, despair washing over her as she stood in front of Dan. Her hand was stuck. Dan took the champagne out of her other hand, put it on a table, held her wrist and slid her fingers slowly out of her hair. He smoothed it down, swiftly dropped a kiss on the crown of her head in a sweet, intimate gesture, and put his palm on the small of her back as he guided her through the room onto the terrace.
‘Thanks,’ whispered Laura, trying to walk upright and not cower with embarrassment. ‘I should go back out, to see the first dance, look…’
‘No problem,’ said Dan calmly. ‘In a minute. I just want to do this.’ And he slid his hand round her waist, drew him towards her, and kissed her. No one else was watching, they were all turned towards the dance floor where Mr and Mrs Johnson were dancing. They were alone on the terrace, just the two of them.
Dan pulled her towards him, his hands pressing on her spine, his lips gentle but firm on hers. He made a strange, sad sound in his throat, somewhere between a cry of something and a moan. Laura slid one arm around his neck and drew him further towards her. The other arm was by her side, she was still holding the champagne glass. It tilted, the champagne spilt, and neither of them noticed.
After a short while, they broke apart slowly, and said nothing. There was nothing to say, really. Laura drained the meagre contents of her glass and leant into Dan. They stood there together as the music died away and applause rippled out towards them, aware of nothing else but themselves, alone in their bubble.
‘Well,’ Dan said eventually. ‘I didn’t know that was going to happen tonight,’ and he put his arm around her.
Laura twisted round, looked up at him. ‘Oh yes you did,’ she said, smiling into his eyes. ‘Of course you did.’
That was Laura’s second glass of champagne, and she found Paddy and Hilary on another terrace having a cigarette so she joined them. After her third glass, thirty minutes later, she was a bit tired. After her fourth, she felt better again – and she’d eaten from the buffet as well. After her fifth and sixth, she danced for an hour with Jo and Chris and their other friends. And after her seventh glass, she didn’t know how it happened, but she found herself in one of the free taxis going home with Dan Floyd, and they were kissing so hard that her lips were bruised the next day. And that’s when it really started, and Laura went from knowing lots of things about Dan and how she felt about him and her place in the world in general to knowing nothing. At all.
At one point during the night, she propped herself up on her elbow and leant over him, and kissed him again, and he kissed her back and they rolled over together, and Laura pulled back and said, ‘So…what does this mean, then?’ It just came out.
And Dan’s face clouded over and he said, ‘Oh gorgeous, let’s not do this now, not when I want you so much,’ and he carried on kissing her. Something should have made Laura pull away and say, No, actually, what does this mean? Are you going to tell your girlfriend? When will you leave your girlfriend? Do you like me? Are we together? But of course she didn’t…
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_4836df69-d99f-5c78-8e5f-b95402670c43)
Yes, Dan had a girlfriend, Amy. Just a tiny detail, nothing much. They were as good as living together, too – although she still had her own place. Another detail Laura tried to forget about. She had almost managed to convince herself that if she didn’t tell anyone about her – well, what was it? A ‘thing’? A ‘fling’? A fully formed relationship just waiting to move into the sunlight of acceptance? – her liaison with Dan, then perhaps the outside world didn’t matter so much. And it didn’t, when she was with him. Because he was The One, she was sure of it. So it became surprisingly easy for Laura, who was basically a good girl, who never ever thought she could do something like this, to turn into a person who was sleeping with someone else’s boyfriend.
She had tried, after Jo and Chris’s wedding. She told herself – and Dan – that it wasn’t going to happen again. She bit her nails to the quick about it because, much as Laura might be clueless about some things, she was clear about other things, and one of those was: don’t sleep with someone who has a girlfriend. She’d already tried going cold turkey from him, as autumn gave way to winter, and as she realised she was falling for him, badly. She tried avoiding him at the tube station – but she couldn’t. She tried to forget him – but she couldn’t. When she thought about him, it was as if he was talking to her, pleading with her, communicating with her directly. Laura, it’s you I want, not Amy. Laura, please let me see you, his eyes and his voice would say in her head, until the noise got so loud it was all she could hear. Every time was the last time. Every time was the first time.
Laura knew it was wrong to be thinking like this. But she assuaged that secret guilt in her head with the knowledge that Dan and Amy weren’t getting on well. Dan himself had told her it wasn’t working out. Well, he had in so many words, with a sigh and a shake of the head, in the early days of their coffee mornings together on the tube platform. And she knew from Jo that Dan was going out with Chris and his other mates more, playing more football, watching more football, in the pub more, working harder. Added to which, no one in their group ever really saw Amy. They were together, but they were never actually together. She was completely offstage, like a mystery character in a soap opera whom people refer to but who never appears. You know when a couple are happy together – mainly because you don’t see either of them as much, and when you do they’re either together, or they talk about each other. Or they’re just happy. You know. Laura knew – as did everyone else – Dan wasn’t happy with Amy. Dan wanted out, he just didn’t know how to get out.
And, actually, Amy wasn’t really her friend. They occasionally all went out for drinks, Jo and Chris, Dan and Amy, Hilary, Paddy and Laura and so on, especially now Chris and Dan had moved nearby. But Amy rarely came along, and in any case, Laura had long ago realised she couldn’t stand her. Never had been able to, in fact. Because not only was Amy a quasi-friend of hers, they had also been at school together, many moons ago, and there is no more mutually suspicious relationship than that of two ex-schoolmates who are thrown together several years later. Added to which, Amy had been one of the mean girls who had teased Laura relentlessly about her love for Mr Wallace the oboe teacher, and had spread the subsequent rumours surrounding Laura giving up the oboe. She’d even told Laura’s mother Angela about it, at a school concert, all wide-eyed concern. Angela Foster had got the wrong end of the stick, and assumed Laura was being pestered by Mr Wallace. She’d complained. He’d nearly been fired. The whole thing was deeply embarrassing. So Laura’s dislike of Amy was genuinely historical, rather than based upon the fact that Amy was with the man Laura felt quite sure she loved. This made her feel better, in some obscure way.
Amy ate nothing, exercised obsessively, talked about shoes and handbags the entire time (like, the entire time) and she played with her beautiful red hair. Non-stop. It was her thing. She always had, even when she and Laura had been eight-year-olds in plaits and virgin socks at school. Twenty years later, the same white hand would smooth down the crown of its owner’s hair as Amy softened her voice to tell a sad story – about a friend’s mother’s death, or something bad in the news. Or said something deeply meaningful at the pub, which made Laura want to gag childishly on her drink.
The thing was, Laura knew Amy was the kind of girl men fell for, even though she led them a merry dance. Laura wasn’t. She was nice, she was funny, but she knew she was ordinary, nothing special. Why would anyone, especially Dan, choose her when they could be with Amy? Why was it he got her so well, laughed at her jokes? What amazing thing had led him to think of her as this perfect person for him, just as she knew that he was her Mr Right? It perplexed her, as much as it exhilarated her. It was extraordinary, it was magical, and so even though it was underhand and stressful, she carried on doing it.
‘So, then she said I should know why she was pissed off. And I’m thinking, well god, woman, you’re pissed off the entire time, how the hell am I supposed to tell the difference between you being annoyed because I was late back from football or annoyed because I didn’t notice your new haircut? Is that for me? Hey, thanks so much. Toast, too. Wow.’
Laura set down the tray on her bed. She peered out of the window. It was two months after Jo and Chris’s wedding, a cold, grey Saturday morning in February. Dan shifted up in bed, crossed his legs, and pulled the tray towards him.
‘This is great,’ he said, pouring some tea. ‘Come on, get back into bed.’
Laura hopped in beside him. He handed her a cup of tea and kissed her. ‘Mm. Thank you,’ she said.
Dan and Amy had had another huge row the night before and Amy had stormed back to her own flat. Laura cleared her throat.
‘So, what did she say next?’ she asked, desperate for more details, but not wanting them too, fearing what he might say or not say.
Dan frowned momentarily, as if thinking something through. He put his mug back down on the tray and took her hand, looking serious. ‘Forget about it,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’ He looked down. ‘It’s crap of me. I’m so crap, boring you with all this stuff. It’s…I’ve got to sort it out.’
‘Yes,’ said Laura, her heart beating fast.
‘Not just for me,’ said Dan, looking intently at her. ‘For…for Amy as well, you know?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Laura said, less urgently. ‘Amy.’ She picked up a slice of toast and bit into it. ‘Mm.’
Dan smiled, and picked up another piece. ‘So, I’m pretty much free today now. Do you want to…you know. Spend the day together? I know it’s last-minute, but we might as well make the most of it.’ He leant forward and kissed her.
‘Er…’ Laura said, swallowing fast. She had lunch with Paddy and Simon, but she supposed she could cancel. And instead she and Dan could go to Kenwood House. Muffled up in scarves and hats. Drink hot chocolate and walk through the grounds hand in hand. Kiss in the lanes of yew trees that led away to the Heath. Her eyes sparkled. She’d cancel Paddy and Simon – they were boys, they didn’t mind about that sort of thing. Although – gah. Simon, more a graduate of the love ’em and leave ’em school, was always taking the piss out of her about her love life. Saying she was a romance addict, that she’d ditch her own brother at the last minute if there was a chance of a red rose heading her way. And she’d done it a couple of weeks ago to him as well…the cinema, shit. She bit her lip. He was going away soon. She was a bad sister.
‘Don’t cancel anything special for me,’ Dan said, as if reading her mind. ‘It was just a suggestion.’ He stroked her knee. ‘God, it’s so nice to be here, sweetheart.’
‘I think I was supposed to be having lunch, but it’s quite a vague thing,’ said Laura, trying not to choke on her toast. ‘I’d…of course I’d prefer it if…’ His hand was lying on the duvet. She hooked her little finger around his, and said, ‘Yes, I’d love to spend the day with you. We should talk, anyway.’
Laura was always trying to do this, stage moments where she and Dan ‘talked’. But it never seemed to work. She desperately wanted there to be some kind of agenda to their relationship, instead of Dan turning up when he could, secretive texting or emailing, hurried, passionate, mind-blowing sex at one in the morning when he would drop by unannounced on the way back from the pub, wake her up, shag her senseless and then go back home – to what, Laura didn’t know. Every time they tried to talk, something else would get in the way. Dan would tell her a funny story, or kiss her neck, or have to leave because Amy was calling. They’d tried not seeing each other, but the truth was it was so easy to have this relationship, it was so full of pleasure and excitement that, two months after they’d first got together, nothing had really changed. Dan was still with Amy, trying to sort it out or break it off gently. And Laura – Laura was so wildly happy with the whole thing she would no more have irrevocably ended it than she would have moved south of the river.
When she looked at the facts of the relationship, the bare facts, only then did she get depressed. He was still with his girlfriend. And whilst he and Laura got on really well, she also had to admit that what they spent most of their time doing was not having a laugh and enjoying each other’s company but – having sex. And god, the sex was great, that was part of the problem – it had obscured the actual facts of the relationship, or whatever it was, for some time now.
On New Year’s Eve, Laura and Paddy had gone round to the newly married couple’s house for a party, along with lots of other people, but Dan wasn’t there. He was on holiday with Amy, in Prague. Laura had stood on Jo and Chris’s balcony along with Paddy and watched the fireworks over London. It was a clear night, sharp and cold, and for once the fireworks from the Thames were visible. They fizzed in the distance, tiny and indistinct, and around them, across the rest of London, streets and parks and houses were lit up by similar flashes and bangs, stretching as far as they could see. Simon had been there next to her, and as he hugged her tightly, he asked,
‘So, sis. What’s your New Year’s resolution, then? Tell me.’
‘Ha,’ said Laura despairingly. She gave him a squeeze back. ‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.’
‘Oh, really,’ said Simon, not actually listening as his eye had fallen upon an attractive brunette in the corner of the room. ‘Love life?’
‘Yes,’ said Laura honestly.
Simon looked at her briefly. ‘Who is it this time, then?’ he asked.
Laura resented the tone in his voice. ‘It’s – not like that.’
‘Oh,’ said Simon, not believing her for a second. ‘Right,’ he added vaguely. ‘You should do something about it.’
‘Thanks,’ said Laura. ‘I am.’
Simon smiled, ‘Really?’
She nodded.
‘Well, good luck then,’ he said. ‘Who is it this time? Someone at work? Ken Livingstone?’
‘Go away,’ said Laura. ‘You’re no help.’
‘Well, don’t just stand there,’ Simon said. ‘I mean it. Do something about it,’ and he shrugged his shoulders apologetically, as if admitting this wasn’t helpful, and moved across the room in search of his prey.
Laura watched him go. He was right, though, wasn’t he? She’d been searching for true love for as long as she could remember. This year, it was going to happen. She just had to make it happen.
So, shivering on that cold balcony on New Year’s Eve, as Jo and Chris kissed each other, and Paddy danced crazily and inappropriately with a scared-looking cousin of Chris’s, and Simon charmed the pants – literally – off the brunette, Laura clenched her fist, and went to bed that night with a new iron resolve. Three weeks after her ‘thing’ with Dan had begun, but months after she had realised that he was the one for her, she had to do something about it. Even now, nearly two months later, she remembered it clearly. It kept coming back into her head like a drumbeat.
She had to know, she had to sort this thing out, because somewhere in her lovesick, crazy brain was a small voice telling her that this wasn’t how normal people behaved, fell in love and that small voice had been getting louder and louder since before Christmas until now, two months afterwards, it was like a foghorn in her ear. She and Dan had to take the next step. Well, Dan had to take the next step and finish with Amy, then Laura and Dan had to take the step after that, which was to work out if they could be together.
So they would go to Kenwood House on this cold February Saturday, with the hot chocolate/gloves/yew trees, and during that time they would talk, and Laura would explain, calmly and clearly, that Dan had to sort his situation out, otherwise they couldn’t be together any more.
‘Talk,’ Dan said. ‘Yes, talk.’ He looked at her, their fingers still entwined. Laura smiled at him, took the toast out of his mouth, put the tray down on the floor, reached for him, and they crawled back under the duvet, muffling their laughter, and then, a while later, their moans as they came together again and any further discussion was put aside for the moment.
An hour later, Laura emerged from her room, carrying the teapot, and padded into the kitchen in her bare feet. Paddy was sitting at the little table by the French window, gazing out at the view. Their flat was in a slightly cramped, dodgy Victorian mansion block, and had interesting design features – the French window, for example, opened not onto a charming balcony with pots of geraniums and basil, but a sheer drop down four floors. The boiler was in Paddy’s bedroom, and the sitting room had three electricity sockets, but all right next to each other, by the door, nowhere helpful like underneath the bay window where the television was. It was Paddy’s flat, bought for him with some help from his elderly parents, since he was a teacher at a school nearby and earned in a year what most bankers earn in a month. He and Laura were very happy there, though the water frequently turned itself off, the windows rattled, and the lino was curling because they had laid it themselves. Added to which Paddy had a mania for collecting interesting things from around the world, and so the flat was stuffed with a) painted gypsy floral watering cans, buckets, etc., b) elephants made of wicker he’d picked up travelling through Africa, and c) comic books.
Paddy didn’t look up as Laura came into the kitchen, humming to herself. ‘Morning,’ she said brightly. ‘How are you today, love?’
‘Fine,’ muttered Paddy bitterly. ‘Oh, just fine.’
‘Oh, right,’ said Laura, nonplussed. ‘Er, are you, though?’
‘Oh, don’t worry about me,’ Paddy told her. ‘I’ll survive,’ he spluttered into his tea. He stared moodily out of the window. Since he spent quite a lot of his leisure time doing this, Laura ignored him and put the mugs down on the counter.
‘What are you eating?’ she asked curiously.
‘I made scrambled eggs with tomatoes,’ said Paddy shortly. He gestured to the plate, which looked like pink brains. Paddy was an enthusiastic but disconcerting chef.
‘Oh,’ Laura lied. ‘It looks nice.’
She ran the mugs under the tap.
‘It’s not enough that Mia hasn’t answered any of my texts,’ Paddy said, picking up the thread after a few moments’ silence. Laura obediently swivelled round to listen. ‘I’ve texted her four times, why hasn’t she replied? Oh no. I have to sit in solitary silence, with CD:UK my only companion, and listen to my flatmate – who I’ve known since she was five – screaming with pleasure as some git rogers her senseless at eleven a.m. for about the fifteenth time that morning.’
Laura bit her lip to stop herself grinning. ‘Sorry.’ She went over and patted him on the shoulder. ‘I’ll make you some tea. Why don’t we all go into the sitting room and have some tea?’
‘No, thanks a bundle,’ said Paddy, pulling his tattered paisley dressing gown about him with an attempt at dignity. ‘I prefer to watch Saturday Kitchen on my own, thanks very much, not squashed up on the sofa with you and Mr Playaway whilst he tries to molest you under my very nose.’
‘OK, OK,’ said Laura. This was going to be tricky. Of course, no one knew about her and Dan – not yet anyway. She hadn’t even told Jo. But she’d had to tell Paddy because Dan always came to her place. She hated making him party to it and thereby making him lie. It wasn’t for long, and so far he’d been great, but…She filled the kettle and affected a tone of nonchalance. ‘Er…any plans for today?’
Paddy looked up suspiciously. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You know I have. We’re going out to lunch with Simon.’
‘Simon?’ Laura said in a tone of blankness. She pulled a mug off one of the hooks above the sink and examined it. ‘Urgh, this is dirty.’
‘Your brother Simon, who’s about to go to Peru for four months.’
Laura winced. Simon worked for a charity. He was taking time off from work to travel to Peru, volunteering for another charity.
Paddy went on, ‘And then you know perfectly well we’re going round to Jo’s because Chris is away and she wants a hand with painting the kitchen.’ He glared at her. ‘Oh my god, you’re piking. I can’t believe it.’
‘What?’ said Laura. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘You lying bitch,’ said Paddy. ‘Go back in that bedroom, ease those chafed thighs onto the bed and tell Dan you’re not spending the day with him or whatever it is he’s suggested you do. You’re coming out to lunch.’
‘Honestly, Paddy, I had no idea,’ Laura pleaded with him, aware how weak she sounded. ‘Sure, Jo mentioned going round, but it was ages ago – I didn’t think it was a proper plan…no one emailed me about it this week – I thought it was a casual arrangement.’
‘Casual arrangement?’ Paddy repeated.
‘Yep,’ Laura said. ‘And lunch – hey, you’ll have a much better time without me there. You never see Simon on his own, you can really catch up. And stuff.’
Paddy looked at her, and Laura realised the atmosphere in the kitchen was no longer one of grumpy, amused sniping.
‘No, Laura,’ he said quietly. ‘That – that thing you’ve got next door with Dan. That’s a casual arrangement.’
‘No it’s not,’ said Laura in a small voice.
‘Oh god, you stupid girl,’ Paddy slapped his hand to his cheek. ‘I don’t care. Just don’t try and lie to me. It’s not a big deal, Laura, honestly. But –’ he held up his hand as Laura made to speak ‘– don’t lie to me. You know it was arranged ages ago. You, of all people.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Laura, feeling her chest tighten.
‘I mean, I’ve always thought you were a good person, someone I could trust, someone I could rely on. Thick and thin, and all that.’
‘Oh for god’s sake, Paddy,’ Laura said, her face reddening, feeling cross all of a sudden. ‘That’s such crap. It’s only lunch, get over it! I am – I am a good person. Dan – I – you know how I feel about him, don’t do this.’ The kitchen tap was encrusted with limescale and she wrenched it round to turn it on, running her finger around one of the mugs as she thought of what to say next.
Paddy turned his back on her and looked out of the window, as if he was counting to five. Then he turned around again.
‘Hey, love,’ he said in a gentle voice. ‘I know how you feel about him. But it’s never going to happen. He’s never going to leave Amy. Can’t you see that? He’s a wanker, and he’s using you.’
‘How dare you say that,’ Laura retorted, her voice rising. She turned the tap off. ‘How dare you! That’s bullshit. He’s not like that, it’s not like that. It’s just…complicated. He can’t just dump her, I don’t want him to do that. We have to wait before we can be together…we…oh.’
She slumped down into a chair, tears in her eyes. The lino squeaked under her feet. ‘It sounds so fucking clichéd,’ she whispered. ‘I’m so stupid.’
‘You’re really not, darling,’ Paddy said, patting her hand across the table. ‘You’re just mad about him, and what’s wrong with that, eh? You’ve got to…you’ve got to sort it out, that’s all. You know what you’re like.’
Laura stood up again and went over to make the tea. ‘I have to, I know,’ she said. ‘It’s just. It’s just – I can’t think of anyone I’m ever going to like more than I like him.’ Hot tears ran down her cheeks and she rubbed her eyes, feeling like a little girl in the playground.
It was true, that was the awful thing. She knew all this, she thought she was a sensible girl. But some kind of love had taken hold of her and refused to let her go, and it wasn’t a happy, easy, joyful thing, it had her in a vice-like grip.
She looked up at Paddy and smiled, trying to be brave. His face contorted with sympathy, and he walked over to where she stood and gave her a big hug. ‘Do something about it, darling,’ he said, his voice muffled against Laura’s shoulder. ‘Give him an ultimatum. Or give yourself an ultimatum. Get pregnant. No –’ He stood back and shook her. ‘Forget I said that. Really, don’t get pregnant.’
‘I won’t,’ Laura said, touched, for Paddy really did look alarmed. ‘Don’t be stupid.’ She picked up the mugs. ‘I’ll do something about it, honestly.’
‘Deadline. You need a deadline,’ Paddy said, sitting back down and picking up the newspaper, which was lying on the table. ‘Ooh, travel. Book a holiday,’ he said casually, throwing the travel section at her. It flapped through the air and Laura caught it, scrunching it in her hand, and wedging it under her arm. ‘Book a holiday to somewhere fantastic and then you have to go,’ Paddy suggested. ‘You know, in a few months’ time, when everything’s sorted out. God, I’m brilliant. As you once were, young woman. Go off and shag that worthless young man in there. I’ll make your excuses to Jo, but she’s not going to be happy. You know she’s not, you blew her out last week.’
It was true. Laura had arranged to go to Borough Market with Jo, but something else had come up, a Dan-shaped something else.
‘It’s her birthday in a couple of weeks. I’ll make it up to her then,’ Laura said gratefully.
‘Honestly. The things I do,’ Paddy murmured.
‘Thanks, Paddy,’ Laura said. She paused, as if she might say something else, gazing at the back of his head as Paddy picked up his tea and turned a page of the newspaper. ‘Thanks a lot.
I…well.’
A watery ray of pale sunshine was shining weakly in through the window. Laura turned and left, her head bowed in thought.
‘I’ve cancelled lunch,’ she announced as she came back into her room.
Dan sat up in bed and spread his arms wide. ‘Great, great news, my gorgeous darling girl,’ he said. His hands slid inside her ratty old dressing gown, slipped open the tie, and he pulled her towards him. Laura laughed.
‘Let me put the pot down,’ she said, as he started kissing her. She crouched down, put the paper and the teapot on the floor, stood up again, and said, as Dan flung the duvet to one side, ‘So, what do you want to do today?’
‘You,’ Dan said, jumping on her with the kind of alacrity usually reserved for sailors on shore-leave. ‘God, I could be with you all day, you are so fucking gorgeous. Mm.’
‘No,’ Laura said, laughing, as he pulled off her dressing gown. ‘I mean later. I’ve cancelled lunch. We could go out, you know. Maybe…er, Kenwood House for…er, hot chocolate.’
Dan didn’t answer, but carried on doing what he was doing. Laura sighed, and pushed him away. ‘Dan, listen.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Dan said. ‘Hot chocolate.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I mean we go out to get hot chocolate, at Kenwood.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Dan asked, looking down at her. ‘Why do you want to go and get hot chocolate at Kenwood? Is there a festival there or something?’
‘No,’ Laura explained. ‘I mean – what shall we do today, then? We should do something. Go out, you know, make the most of it. The sun’s just come out.’
Dan cupped her breast in his hand and bent over to kiss her again. ‘I can’t, darling,’ he said. ‘We can’t. Someone might see us. Imagine if they did.’ He looked up, his expression anguished. ‘I’m sorry. This is crap.’
‘But,’ Laura said, trying to be patient, ‘who are we going to bump into amongst the yew trees at Kenwood?’
‘The what?’ Dan asked. Laura watched him intently. ‘No, we just can’t. We should…we have to stay here. Not for much longer, I promise. But things might be tricky for the next couple of months.’
‘Why?’ said Laura, not understanding, and reluctantly waving goodbye to her winter wonderland dream of laughing and joking in a Missoni print cape as she and Dan carelessly drank hot chocolate and held hands amidst the frosty trees.
‘I mean,’ said Dan, ‘if I’m going to split up with Amy, you and I won’t be able to see each other whilst it’s going on. I mean on our own, not the usual in the pub with everyone else there. Right?’
‘Oh right,’ said Laura, not daring to hope he was saying what he was saying. ‘So…’
‘So,’ said Dan, bending over her nipple and kissing it gently, ‘this might be the last time we get to do this for a long time. So – we should – make the most of it…’
‘Yes,’ gasped Laura suddenly, understanding him, and pulling him down. ‘Yes…I see…’
As Dan moved down her body, Laura closed her eyes, and the last thing she saw was the crumpled cover of the Guardian’s travel section. ‘Road Trip: Florida’s Hidden Treasures’, the front page declaimed. A road trip, she thought, and abandoned herself to something more immediate.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_ab443ef3-e96a-5e7f-8858-9b4d0f10ee5a)
Laura worked for an inner-city London council, as a schools and business co-ordinator. She loved her job, contacting local businesses, trying to get them to support their nearby schools, arranging volunteer reading programmes or school sponsorships – where companies or individuals could sponsor a school, donate money, and feel good about themselves. She loved it because she could see how it made a tangible difference, how much disillusioned company secretaries enjoyed reading with a six-year-old once a week, or how much it benefited a school to have a thousand pounds for new computers that some corporation or anonymous donor could easily spare. She had been there for nearly four years now, and the previous year had been put in charge of their new fundraising scheme, and the reading volunteer programme, which meant a lot more work, but she loved it. At least, she used to love it. Like everything these days, it seemed to have lost a little of its allure.
If Laura had stepped back from her situation, chances are she would have seen that she was behaving badly. The trouble was, her lack of perspective meant she couldn’t see the main reason why she was in thrall to Dan: he made her feel gorgeous. He made her feel devastatingly attractive, that she was so powerful to him he had to have her, he couldn’t control it. It made her feel just marvellous, and a little bit dirty too. It was dangerous, because Dan was like all the others, in that Laura had fallen for him hook, line and sinker, without really stopping to think about it. Only this time it was harder and deeper than ever before – and with no control over the situation she’d got herself in, and no endgame in sight. Having always thought of herself in the bottom half of the class in terms of looks, attractiveness and intelligence – not to mention sporting prowess – Laura couldn’t quite believe the effect she had on Dan.
Laura knew she wasn’t working as hard as she should; she knew her boss Rachel was on her case about things. She knew she hadn’t been a good friend, or daughter, or sister, since Dan came along. She forgot birthdays, she was late for work, her mind wandered. But she consoled herself with the knowledge this was a temporary situation, and in a few short months – by the summer – they would have sorted it out and could be together. And then she would make everything all right.
Dan just needed a push, that was all. Just a little something to let him know she wasn’t going to wait around forever, that she had deadlines of her own, too. She had another life apart from him and she was neglecting it, he had to see that.
The following Wednesday afternoon, Laura was in the office when the phone rang. It was pelting with rain, which rattled on the windows of the shabby, draughty Victorian building in Holborn. It was an old school, and hadn’t been redecorated since the pupils had been moved into the big glass comprehensive south of the river, close to London Bridge, in 1972. In summer Laura would wander up to Lamb’s Conduit Street and around the Inns of Court. On days like today she and her four other colleagues stayed inside, reheated soup in the ancient, sticky microwave and huddled around the fan heater which guzzled electricity and dispensed minimal heat.
Laura looked up wearily from her emails and glanced suspiciously at the caller display panel. A teacher from St Catherine’s primary school nearby had said she would be calling to discuss a problem with the latest batch of teaching volunteers, who’d just started at the school once a week, helping individual children with their reading. This was a pretty big firm of financial advisers called Linley Munroe, and it was something of a coup to have them onboard – perhaps they might be induced to get involved in other ways. Laura didn’t particularly like Mrs McGregor, though she could see how devoted she was to the school and the children. She knew from experience that Mrs McGregor was the kind of person who had her own world view and couldn’t be persuaded that anyone else’s was admissible. In her own way, she was pretty hard-line, especially since her arrest during the demo she’d organised the previous spring at the NUT conference. This had renewed her zeal in a way that made her even harder to deal with, and Laura knew why she was ringing – she made the same complaint, along different lines, every year. Laura picked up the phone with a heavy heart.
‘Hello?’ she said tentatively.
‘Laura? Laura Foster?’ came a slightly husky voice down the phone.
‘Yes,’ said Laura, resigned.
‘Oh Laura, I really must talk to you. I’m afraid this is a very bad situation, very bad indeed. Something’s going to have to be done, it’s a disaster. A catastrophe.’
‘Yes, hello, Mrs McGregor,’ said Laura.
‘Well, Laura,’ the voice was saying five minutes later. ‘I’ve told him. You may think you can come here and believe you’re doing something marvellous, helping these kids, so you can sleep easy at night in your big banker’s flat. Well, you can’t behave like that and get away with it. I’m not putting up with it any more, really I’m not.’
‘I explained the guidelines to him and all his colleagues, back in October,’ Laura repeated. ‘I’m sure this Marcus bloke’s just got his wires crossed. As I said, you know we’ve never had any problems with Linley Munroe so far, Mrs McGregor.’
She gazed at her in-box and looked flatly round the office. In Rachel’s absence, Shana was on another call, Tim was out on a visit and Nasrin was clearly reading Pick Me Up and not doing any work at all.
‘I don’t care,’ Mrs McGregor said quickly. ‘Laura, I’m afraid who they are isn’t relevant here, not for my kids, anyway. That Marcus – he’s a big thug. I know those kids aren’t perfect, but…’
‘Look,’ Laura cut in, wanting to avoid another ten minutes of Mrs McGregor. ‘I’ll talk to Clare at Linley Munroe, tell her to have a gentle word with Marcus. But I really don’t think he should be banned, Mrs McGregor. He’s obviously enjoying it, and – well, let’s face it – all he did was tell this boy to shut it – it could have been worse, couldn’t it? They call each other the most horrific things in the playground, don’t they?’
Her email beeped and her eyes flicked instantly to the screen. She opened the message and read, her heart pounding.
‘Do they?’ Mrs McGregor said. ‘Not in my experience, Laura. Sure, there are rude words, but…’
Laura wanted to reread and reply to the email. She said shortly, ‘Oh come on, Mrs McGregor. You know what I mean. Fuck, bum, willy, vag—And…’ she paused, realising what she’d just said, ‘er. Well, we used to, anyway. That sort of thing.’
Mrs McGregor was silent. Then she said, ‘Well, I must say. Honestly, Laura.’
‘It’s an illustration,’ said Laura briskly, marshalling all her inner resources and kicking herself ferociously on the ankle, whilst Nasrin and Shana gaped open-mouthed at her and started laughing. Laura flapped her arms at them to shut them up, and said, with what she hoped was an air of finality in her voice, ‘I’m sure if Marcus Sussman used inappropriate language he was doing so to try and communicate with them. But I totally understand what you mean and I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.’
Mrs McGregor droned on in the background, but Laura didn’t listen, only vaguely registering that she had to get rid of her in order to reply to this email.
‘…have to speak to Rachel about this, Laura, yes, I will. Nasty man. Smooth young prat with cufflinks who thinks he can treat these kids like dirt because he went to university and they didn’t. It’s vile. And I’m surprised at you for not seeing it.’
‘They’re ten, Mrs McGregor,’ Laura said, finally losing her patience. ‘Of course they haven’t been to university, don’t be stupid. Fine. Talk to Rachel, but I’m surprised you’re being so blinkered. I always knew you were an inverted snob but I didn’t think you’d let it derail the volunteer programme like this.’
‘Oh!’ Mrs McGregor inhaled sharply. ‘Laura Foster. You’ll regret this, I promise you. Yes you will,’ and she slammed the phone down.
‘Laura!’ said Shana, her eyes sparkling with the unexpected office excitement. ‘Fuck, bum, willy, vag? What the hell…?’
Laura put her head in her hands and moaned softly to herself.
‘It was brilliant,’ said Shana joyfully. ‘Best thing I’ve heard in ages.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Laura, finally looking up at Nasrin, who put the magazine down and gazed at her. ‘St Catherine’s again. Mrs McGregor. Stupid old bitch, I hate her,’ she said defiantly. ‘I’m going to get in trouble, aren’t I?’
‘She always makes a fuss, every year,’ Nasrin said placidly, picking up Pick Me Up again. ‘Rachel knows that, don’t worry. She’s just a sad old rebel without a cause.’
Laura turned back to her email again. Now she was free to read it properly, she didn’t want to. Mrs McGregor had spoilt her afternoon.
A holiday is a great idea. You and me, nothing else. Imagine what we could do all week. Why don’t you start thinkingabout where to go. July is best for me, by then everything’ll be sorted. We can celebrate properly. I want you.
Dxx
Laura blushed with pleasure. The email, the email she’d been waiting on for over two days since she’d tentatively emailed him on Monday to ask if he thought they should go away. And here it was. He wanted to go away with her, everything would be sorted by then – so when was he going to talk to Amy? And then they’d be together. He was serious about her, she knew he was. Going on holiday, that was a big step, but they were ready for it. They’d spent so much time together they knew each other better than most other couples, and they certainly got on better than most other couples – look at Dan and Amy, she thought, and then realised they weren’t the best couple to compare Dan and herself to. Laura rolled her eyes at her own stupidity, but her heart was singing, and the rest of the day passed more pleasantly than she’d expected.
The next day it was still raining, and Mrs McGregor wrote a letter of complaint to the local education authority about Laura. She faxed it to Laura’s boss Rachel, who gave Laura a formal warning. She had no choice, she said, looking firmly at Laura as she twiddled a pencil between her fingers. Laura watched the pencil, sliding in and out and around, and wondered what all the fuss was about. Mrs McGregor was wrong, she was a horrible woman and she was wrong. Marcus Sussman was a bit hearty but he seemed to be a nice man: all he’d done was to tell a kid who called him ‘a fucking cunt’ to shut the fuck up – well, was that so bad? No, not in her book. Who cares, she thought, mentally shutting down and blocking out the memory of Mrs McGregor’s droning voice.
‘I won’t say I’m not disappointed,’ said Rachel, leaning over her desk towards Laura. ‘I thought that was one of your strengths, people management. You’ve always been so good at it, Laura. They love you at St Catherine’s, too. What happened?’
Laura looked at her and felt tears start in her eyes. She was being stupid, she knew it, behaving so irresponsibly, but she didn’t know how to start to explain. So she just said, ‘Oh, you know. I just – she really was so vile. I just couldn’t take it any more. I’m really sorry, Rachel. You know it won’t happen again. Can I ring Mrs McGregor and apologise?’
Rachel smiled at her, slightly more warmly than before. ‘Of course. Thanks a lot. You know how it is, Laura. We have to follow procedures. You know that. Just don’t let it happen again. And watch that Marcus Sussman. You’re sure he’s OK?’
‘Absolutely,’ Laura said. ‘I promise she’s making it into something from nothing. This is the last time, I won’t let you down.’
‘So, darling,’ said Angela Foster that evening, smoothing the sofa cushion over with her hand. ‘How’s work?’
She glanced around the sitting room, as if she expected a troupe of tiny tap-dancing mice to can-can out from a hole in the skirting board and pirouette off with her handbag.
‘Fine, fine,’ Laura said hastily. ‘Today was…er, fine. Thanks so much for these, they’ll look great.’ She gestured to the pastelspotted blinds her mother had bought her from John Lewis as a belated birthday present. ‘It’s so nice of you to bring them round, Mum, you shouldn’t have.’
‘Not at all, darling,’ said Angela. ‘And I wanted to see my girl. We haven’t seen you for such a long time, you know. You’re so busy these days.’
Laura changed the subject hastily. ‘So, Mum. Have you got time for a cup of tea or do you have to go?’
Angela looked at her. ‘I can see you’re longing for me to stay,’ she said dryly.
‘No, of course I am,’ Laura replied hastily. ‘Of course. Do stay. I’ve got some biscuits, too. Sit down, Mum. I’ll put the kettle on. Sit down, make yourself at home.’
‘I’ll try,’ said Angela, lowering herself gingerly onto the blue sofa with its tea-stained arms and cigarette holes in the cushions. She moved aside Paddy’s copy of Maxim with her heel and sat with her ankles neatly crossed. She smiled up at Laura.
Laura sighed and hurried into the kitchen, glancing anxiously at her watch. Dan had said he’d come round later, and she didn’t want the two to collide. Not that it was likely they would – he only ever turned up after the pubs shut, whereas her mum was usually in bed and fast asleep by that time. She hunted desperately in the cupboards as she waited for the kettle to boil, searching for biscuits of some description, but of course could find none, and then one of the kitchen unit doors finally gave up the ghost and pitched itself sideways, the MDF cracking and ripping as the door fell flat on the floor. ‘Shit,’ Laura said, picking it up and wedging it back into place again. She had heard similar sounds the previous night, very late, after Paddy had got back from a marathon drinking session, and suspected he might have done exactly the same thing himself, leaving it as a nasty surprise for her the next day. No biscuits, then. Laura grabbed some slightly soggy Carr’s water biscuits and took them back into the sitting room with the tea instead.
‘How nice,’ said Angela, taking one. ‘Hm.’
‘I couldn’t find any biccies,’ said Laura. ‘So sshh, just enjoy them.’
‘The flat’s looking nice,’ Angela said, obediently changing the subject. Laura gritted her teeth. Her mother was a Grand Master of the art of faking it. Laura knew she didn’t do it on purpose, but her superbly repressed nature meant that whenever an unkind or negative thought crossed her mother’s mind, she obviously felt she had to atone for it by saying the opposite of what she thought. It was quite a good barometer, actually. ‘What a lovely short skirt, darling!’ meant ‘I am embarrassed to go with you dressed like that to the Hunts’ wedding anniversary party, you look like a common prostitute.’ Or ‘Your friend Hilary is very lively, isn’t she? Dad loved talking to her,’ meant ‘Your friend Hilary drinks more than is socially acceptable at a barbecue buffet lunch in Harrow and is nothing more than a jail-bait husband-stealer.’
‘Thanks, Mum. It’s a bit of a tip at the moment. Paddy’s been on half-term and he just lazes round reading newspapers all day in his dressing gown.’
‘Ahh,’ said Angela fondly. She had more than a soft spot for Paddy. ‘How is James?’
It was strange, Laura thought, musing over this, that James Patrick could read mothers – and his female friends – like open books, and yet be so disastrously out of sync with the opposite sex for the rest of the time. Half-term had been notable for Paddy’s attempts to catch the attention of the girl in the flat downstairs, which involved hanging around the stairwell and by the pigeonholes for half the day, and smiling mysteriously, raising the eyebrow he’d now learnt to raise, and generally looking like an unemployed spy. The girl in the flat downstairs – whom Laura had met, she was called Becky and seemed really nice – simply cast him looks of something amounting to concern for his mental state every time she saw him. He was despondent about it, because he really liked her. And before he’d decided he fancied her, and had started acting like a lunatic, they’d actually got on quite well, during the few times they’d chatted. Added to which, Mr Kenzo from the flat opposite now thought Paddy was clearly a delinquent or else some kind of dodgy sex practitioner, and spent a lot of time watching him watching Becky, which all contributed to the atmosphere of light comedy pervading the stairwell of the block of flats.
‘He’s fine. Bit gloomy at the moment.’
‘Any girls on the horizon?’ said Angela hopefully.
Laura didn’t want to get into Paddy’s love life with her mother. She cast around for something else to say about him. ‘He’s giving me a hard time –’ Laura stopped, cursed herself and then went on, ‘– for not tidying up more,’ she finished, inwardly hugging herself for her own ingenuity.
‘Well, I’m sure he’s right,’ said Angela. ‘You are a bit messy. Still, it’s nice to live with someone who is too, isn’t it? You’re only young once, it does no one any harm to leave the Sunday papers strewn about once in a while.’
‘True, very true, Mum,’ Laura agreed with a grin. Angela sipped her tea and smiled back at her over her mug, a lovely smile with her eyes, and Laura thought how pretty her mum would be if she’d only do that more.
‘How’s Aunt Annabel?’ Laura said after a pause. Annabel had a beefy-faced husband and was the mother of the dreaded Lulu and Fran. A long time had passed since Laura and Simon happily played with Lulu and Fran on the beach in Norfolk as children. Now they were all grown-up, Lulu was a trust-fund skeleton who hung around with posh Eurotrash, and Fran was a porky, demented sports physio, with a loud, bellowing voice. Simon and Laura spent every family gathering trying to avoid them.
Angela swallowed her tea daintily and said brightly, ‘Oh, she’s fine, I hear. Granny saw her a couple of weeks ago. Lulu’s got a wonderful new job reviewing restaurants and cafés for some magazine in Notting Hill. Isn’t that great?’
Angela said this rather mechanically. Laura said incredulously, ‘How can Lulu have a job reviewing restaurants? She hasn’t eaten anything since 1991.’
‘Darling,’ said Angela. ‘Don’t be mean.’
‘Oh come on, Mum,’ Laura said. ‘She’s anorexic. It’s not right to be that thin.’
‘I know.’
‘Why doesn’t Aunt Annabel do something about it? She could run the UN if she wanted to.’
‘They look at things in a different way from us, dear,’ Angela said vaguely. ‘They’re different. Thank god.’
Laura was taken aback. Any criticism of their relatives coming from the mouth of her usually perfectly correct mother spoke volumes. But she said nothing, and instead pushed the IKEA catalogue on the coffee table towards her mother. ‘So, Mum,’ she said. ‘Show me the new sofa you like? And look – here’s the lamp I thought looked nice.’
Angela grabbed the catalogue almost gratefully, and opened it. ‘The lamp with the blue shade, that’s the one you want?’
Laura nodded. Angela looked genuinely excited, as she always did when a conversation about reasonably priced furnishings was in the offing. ‘And once you’ve put these blinds up – ooh, it’ll look really lovely, especially with spring coming,’ she said, drinking her cup of tea. ‘I should be on my way soon, you know. Dad’s back from Norway tonight and I ought to have something ready for him, poor thing.’
Since Laura’s father George was an engineer, something slightly strange in IT development systems, neither Laura nor her brother ever fully understood what it was that he did. It seemed to involve lots of flying about on business, anyway. He was a manically overenthusiastic cook when at home, though, who loved everything from barbecuing to casseroling, and was more than happy to do the lion’s share of the catering in the Foster household. It had become borne in upon Laura over the years, however, that it was her mother who had always got stuck with the really mundane tasks, like the packed-lunch preparation or the spag bol on a Wednesday evening after work.
‘Ooh, what are you making?’ Laura asked.
‘Lasagne,’ said Angela firmly. ‘You know your father. He’ll be full of the joys of rollmops and herrings and smorgasbords. Well, I’m not having it, I’m really not. He can wait till summer’s here for that kind of thing.’ She drained the last of her tea and stood up. ‘Right, darling, I’ll be off.’
‘Oh, OK,’ said Laura. ‘Thanks so much for the blinds, Mum. They’re great. I love them.’
‘I’m glad, darling,’ said Angela, kissing her on the cheek. ‘Your Granny picked them out with me. She said they were very You. And – oh my goodness, that reminds me. I nearly forgot. Honestly, where am I these days?’
‘What?’ said Laura, handing her mother her coat.
‘Granny. You know it’s her eighty-fifth birthday in July? Well, we want to have a little party for her at Seavale then.’ Seavale was Mary’s house by the sea in Norfolk. ‘With Aunt Annabel and Robert, and Lulu and Fran.’ Laura groaned, but Angela ignored her and carried on. ‘I think Simon will still be away travelling, so it’s even more important you’re there. I just wanted to check – you’re around in July, aren’t you, darling? No holiday plans or anything?’
‘Well…’ Laura said. ‘Er.’
Angela looked at her. ‘Er?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Laura.
‘The whole of July? You’re not sure?’ said Angela disbelievingly.
‘Well,’ said Laura, collecting herself. Good god, she was being stupid. ‘Any time’s good. I was thinking…thinking I might be on holiday in July sometime, but I’ll wait till you tell me a date and then plan it round that. Of course I’ll be there. And do tell Granny thanks for the blinds, too. I love them.’
‘You could ring her up and tell her, she’d be over the moon. She’d love to hear from you. Maybe you could meet for lunch, she was saying she hadn’t seen you for a while.’ Angela wrapped her scarf carefully around her neck.
It was true. Mary was not usually offstage. She was normally someone Laura saw once every other week, even if it was just to pop in for a drink after work, or to meet for a coffee. But Laura hadn’t seen her for a while. She pushed the thought from her head, and the associated guilt, and said,
‘Yes, I must call her. I must. Just been quite busy. Now, safe journey,’ she added. ‘Paddy will be disappointed he missed you, you know how much he loves you.’
Angela blushed. ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Thanks for the tea, darling. And call Granny. I’ll let you know when we decide for the party.’
‘Yep,’ said Laura, standing at the doorway. She waved as her mother disappeared down the curving staircase, and wandered back into the flat, kicking a stray football out of the way. As she stood in the hallway she realised it had been Christmas when she’d last seen her grandmother. That was ridiculous. It wasn’t as if she could say she lived in the middle of nowhere, either. Mary lived behind Baker Street – ‘within walking distance of Selfridges, good for the soul, my dear’ – in Crecy Court, a Thirties apartment block that Laura absolutely loved. It was like a step back in time, a veritable Who’s Who. She shared the block with Cedric Forsythe, an old Rank actor from the Fifties, who’d starred opposite Margaret Leighton and Celia Johnson; Jasper Davidson, a painter who’d lived in St Ives until he’d broken his hip three years ago; and Dilys Darcy, a long-forgotten Fifties crooner who’d been best mates with Alma Cogan and whose memory was sharper than a tack.
She went to pick up her mobile, to get her grandmother’s number off it. There was a text from Dan.
Can I come over? Have told Amy I’ll be late tonight. I really need to see you and I want you. I miss you so much, beautiful girl. Please say yes. D
As Laura stood holding the phone, the doorbell rang. She started, dropped the phone, and went over to the intercom.
‘Hello?’ she said.
‘Did you get my text?’ said the voice. ‘Is Paddy there? Can I come up?’
‘Dan?’ Laura said shakily.
‘Yes, it’s Dan,’ the voice said, amused. ‘Who else sends you text messages saying they want to come over and give you a good seeing-to? Am I one in a long line, should I join a queue?’
‘Aaagh,’ said Laura. ‘I was just confused. I was about to call someone and I was just conf—oh, come up, sorry, I’m just being thick.’
‘Are you sure?’ said Dan. He lowered his voice. ‘I can’t stay long, I just wanted to see you.’
Laura’s legs wobbled a bit and she smiled into the intercom. And then, out of nowhere, she found herself saying, ‘I’d love you to come up. But not if you can’t stay. Oh Dan, I’m sorry.’
‘What?’ said Dan.
‘I mean,’ said Laura, ‘you’re not just coming up for a quick fuck and then scooting off again. Not that that wouldn’t be nice. It would –’ and she almost wavered, then checked herself. ‘Hm. I want you too, but no, that’s not going to happen. I’m really sorry. Night, darling.’
‘OK,’ said Dan. He paused. ‘I’m sorry,’ he went on. ‘You’re right. Shit, oh well. I deserve it. Soon, soon, you know? Can you do me a favour?’
‘Depends,’ Laura said cautiously, dreading him asking her to come outside and do it on the porch.
‘Can you look out of the window and wave, just so I can see you tonight? Right, I’m off then. Bye my darling. I wish…’
‘Bye Dan,’ Laura said softly. ‘I love you.’
The line went dead as she stuffed her fist into her mouth. I love you? Why? Why had she said that? Damn. She ran over to the window, and gazed out across the quiet suburban North London street. The rain had stopped and the night was clear, and on the street below she could see a tall figure staring up at her. She opened the window and looked down, and there he was, a small figure below her, his gorgeous face turned up towards her.
‘I love you too,’ he shouted, and his voice echoed in the silence of the street. ‘I love you.’
Laura stood there, her eyes filled with tears. And then she blew him a kiss and shut the window.
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Harriet Evans
The warm and enchanting novel from the bestselling author of ‘Going Home’.Laura Foster is a hopeless romantic. It is her most endearing characteristic, yet consistently leads her into trouble. Friends and family look on with amused tolerance – until Laura’s inability to tell reality from romantic dreams causes betrayal and a broken heart.Taking refuge in Norfolk, Laura is bitterly aware that her rose-tinted glasses have to go. She swears off men, and all things romantic, for good – until she meets Nick, the estate manager of a huge stately home. But Nick has a secret too. And it’s one that Laura, however much she tries, can’t get past her prejudice about.Just as she was stubbornly a die-hard romantic, so Laura is stubborn about there being no future for her and Nick. But will he manage to change her mind?
A Hopeless Romantic
Harriet Evans
Copyright (#ulink_57d327cc-7df3-5b10-a2c4-c7cce6865f1e)
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
HarperFiction
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/)
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2006
Copyright © Harriet Evans 2006
Harriet Evans asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Extract from The Sound of Music © 1965 Twentieth Century Fox. Screenplay by Ernest Lehman. All rights reserved.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9780007198467
Ebook Edition © JUNE 2011 ISBN: 9780007369270
Version: 2016-09-09
For the magnificent specimen, my mother Linda.With all my love.
How to understand it all! How to understand the deceptions she had been thus practising on herself, and living under! – The blunders, the blindness of her own head and heart! – she sat still, she walked about, she tried her own room, she tried the shrubbery – in every place, every posture, she perceived that she had acted most weakly.
Jane Austen, Emma
Maria: I don’t remember any more.
Brigitta: Your face is all red.
Maria: Is it? I don’t suppose I’m used to dancing.
The Sound of Music, screenplay by Ernest Lehman
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#u8abbbc90-02d5-595b-b2d6-3ebdd2c45d3e)
Title Page (#ucfec1a01-fb9f-5208-bbb5-414ff05fcb29)
Copyright (#u59980f66-25c7-5b83-94b2-d4eacf6048ee)
Dedication (#u73c156bd-d9a3-523e-86bf-df51044911b7)
Epigraph (#u2052997a-3ac8-5111-8cf6-a6c18a5f8e9a)
PART ONE (#u413aa9c2-ea11-51c8-878f-8e4019526e1f)
CHAPTER ONE (#u3cb62562-76b5-5ee2-95ef-81ce62b9560d)
CHAPTER TWO (#ucf0882dc-6655-5736-b160-eaf9056d7659)
CHAPTER THREE (#ubc2d4ad6-9079-5937-84ac-2df965a130a1)
CHAPTER FOUR (#u93adf84d-bccd-5c53-878e-90d16ca63c7a)
CHAPTER FIVE (#u254d9bae-2b74-5c22-b0b9-b492895b713e)
CHAPTER SIX (#ud4472b7a-7f90-513f-9fbd-821cd9bfde20)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#uaf83e3a1-d827-5ea9-a7a8-b1ee93a8ff88)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#ub974d6fa-e3c1-5b9e-9d13-ddcd0dc60d5a)
CHAPTER NINE (#u98e5f9ee-0f92-5593-a100-b6dc2a1a6dff)
CHAPTER TEN (#u845b693e-25b4-5e98-bca9-ed7e9983ff64)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#u9b62a4bd-d337-57e3-baca-0e268d0d3346)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#u08c02c6c-c760-5684-a78e-237d209f7af3)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#uac69ce56-340f-53a8-8c7f-3744460a8004)
PART TWO (#u9d226d07-471e-59fe-931f-aa93ff425b51)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#u9b2cfcb0-dc8a-5f7b-8215-019f1607fafc)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#u73494b4c-c4bc-5c15-ab55-5a8e6b83da9f)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#u66910d5f-a965-5729-8375-1a6d96e09577)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#uc43843dc-bcf6-52d9-bd2b-dec4637995ca)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#u9c98a9ba-8994-5664-a4ec-05f043b18cd4)
CHAPTER NINETEEN (#udb465a81-537a-56dd-9968-ee96fa51d1a2)
CHAPTER TWENTY (#u287af255-dbd0-57b7-b7c8-9f4816e37a86)
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (#u2861a97c-c5da-5f78-a480-baf0ec883386)
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (#ub16ea637-aca9-5f4b-9e32-14c406ad3b0e)
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE (#u64a28f62-05b3-5eca-b8d2-ec27ef5a625e)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR (#u72057ca9-ab8d-56b1-a63d-4413e591b129)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE (#ub1889dd5-5954-5fc3-9b7f-71e5eccf402a)
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX (#u11958a5a-e692-5c96-8bc4-35d4390638ed)
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN (#ua744c0d0-9aba-53c7-b198-fe2a422f9b9a)
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT (#u447b5ac4-0037-5fbf-9ce7-3a7dcc06e07c)
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE (#u1756a0e1-9c8f-5303-a9a2-b4460f1a95e5)
CHAPTER THIRTY (#u9f8f9100-c639-54b9-8a49-29aa9b2c965b)
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE (#u41b25f3f-4ba3-5751-b37e-8e69ca3e87d6)
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO (#u261a14ef-9705-5311-be6a-04622e5fa9af)
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE (#uab809c1e-854d-593e-88fb-04575c100932)
PART THREE (#ud6a81a5c-74ce-5f24-9243-135b7eef5c45)
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR (#u830f3737-6265-570a-b12f-aa76ac9aab72)
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE (#u2425ee6f-c16c-5411-b479-1319c1767213)
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX (#ub1970906-00f5-5156-a827-eceb0c8cca30)
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN (#u94d868b8-4224-5f29-9ab1-6bea50acc44a)
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT (#u474b32a6-af6e-55af-a013-f1d0ed932d75)
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE (#u8f0bfabb-77ac-54e4-a620-879ca7394b7b)
CHAPTER FORTY (#u95643547-5741-5d17-bcab-fb2479cc5612)
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE (#u3ecbe57d-6900-55ac-967c-0ac065c49720)
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO (#u013e67b2-9774-59df-8657-bb4c74d734f6)
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE (#ue43b3221-dbf7-5fca-8ab3-e07917db4887)
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR (#u4af95e48-50ed-5c46-86a9-beb04b41c74c)
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE (#ube0aa76b-a28f-53a9-9e38-b161c23b25a8)
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX (#u2c68f5ff-7e07-5110-be42-c09cbcc1e492)
PART FOUR (#u7a83a765-92e9-5601-a37a-f08c18a00c88)
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN (#uf15e5847-5394-5d30-88c0-527569b2c004)
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT (#u71099618-f8f1-5d26-9eba-60b0113f4459)
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE (#u40c1b840-3dc4-5e9f-9d33-5ca2ea58ae0e)
CHAPTER FIFTY (#u0c528ac8-59b7-5433-bfef-8fc101377286)
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE (#u5b0cbc0e-c0b3-57ee-adbe-a2cd72d6692f)
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO (#uf3497a31-0a7e-5b52-8107-1ea3083bfbd4)
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE (#u78773328-edd1-5e8a-b7bf-501eab42d9a9)
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR (#u68ac78bc-96f5-5d78-9afa-a499022e12f2)
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE (#u1fae842e-cce8-5c82-8f20-b49e491269fb)
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX (#u15e25235-79b4-540a-a06b-8726289a6a8e)
Keep Reading (#u36fd0c36-d6a6-5865-8d9c-f3f9a493b1aa)
Acknowledgements (#u13f89378-7c4e-5c5d-a5ed-4ad40c975da9)
By the same author (#ue440f0fc-48cd-5b5c-a2f7-17a6ec13682c)
About the Publisher (#u2ce6d1bc-2a9d-51e6-8c07-86fd03989de6)
PART ONE (#ulink_16ad4546-16e8-5837-921a-8d3c0bd9cc91)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_f608e040-d657-533c-8f10-aecca39976fc)
Laura Foster was a hopeless romantic. Her best friend Jo said it was her greatest flaw, and at the same time her most endearing trait, because it was the thing that most frequently got her into trouble, and yet falling in love was like a drug to her. Having a crush, daydreaming about someone, feeling her heart race faster when she saw a certain man walk towards her – she thrived on all of it, and was disastrously, helplessly, hopelessly incapable of seeing when it was wrong. Everyone has a blind spot. With Laura, it was as if she had a blind heart.
Anyone with a less romantic upbringing would be hard to find. She wasn’t a runaway nun, or the daughter of an Italian count, or a mysterious orphan. She was the daughter of George and Angela Foster, of Harrow, in the suburbs of London. She had one younger brother, Simon, who was perfectly normal, not a secret duke, nor a spy, nor a soldier. George was a computer engineer, and Angela was a part-time translator. As Jo once said to her, about a year after they met at university, ‘Laura, why do you go around pretending to be Julie Andrews, when you’re actually Hyacinth Bucket?’
But Laura never stopped reality getting in the way of fantasy. By the time she was eighteen she had fallen for: a runny-nosed, milk-bottle-glasses-wearing primary-school outcast called Kevin (in her mind Indiana Jones, with specs); her oboe teacher Mr Wallace, a thin, spotty youth, over whom she developed a raging obsession and calluses on her oboe-playing fingers, so ferociously did she practise (she would stand outside his flat in Camden in the hope she might see him; she wore a locket which contained a bus ticket he’d dropped around her neck); and about fifteen different boys at the boys’ school around the corner from hers in Harrow.
When she went to university, the scope was even greater, the potential for romance limitless. She wasn’t interested in a random pull at a club. No, Laura wanted someone to stand underneath her window and recite poetry to her. She was almost always disappointed. There was Gideon, the budding theatre director who hadn’t quite come out of the closet. Juan, the Colombian student who spoke no English. Or the rowing captain who was much more obsessed with the tracking machine at the gym than her. Her dentist, who charged her far too much and then made her pay for dinner. And the lecturer in her humanities seminar who she never spoke to, and who didn’t know her name, who she wasted two terms staring at in a heartfelt manner.
For all of these Laura followed the same pattern. She went off her food; she mooned around; she was acutely conscious of where they were in any room, thought she saw them around every corner – was that the back of his curly head going into the newsagent’s? She became a big, dumb idiot whenever any of them spoke to her, so fairly often they walked away, bemused that this nice girl with dark blonde hair, a sweet smile and a dirty laugh who seemed to like them was suddenly behaving like a nun in a shopping centre, eyes downcast, mute. Or they’d ask her out – and then Laura, for her part, usually came tumbling down to earth with a bang when she realised they weren’t perfect, weren’t this demigod she’d turned them into in her mind. It wasn’t that she was particularly picky – she was just a really bad picker.
She believed in The One. And every man she met, for the first five minutes, two weeks, four months, had the potential in her eyes to be The One – until she reluctantly realised they were gay (Gideon from the Drama Society), psychopathic (Adam, her boyfriend for several months, who eventually jacked in his MA on the Romantic Poets and joined the SAS to become a killing machine), against the law (Juan, the illegal immigrant from Colombia), or Josh (her most recent boyfriend, whom she’d met at a volunteer reading programme seminar at work, decided was The One after five minutes, dated for over a year, before realising, really, all they had in common was a love of local council literacy initiatives).
It’s fine for girls to grow up believing in something like The One, but the generally received wisdom by the time Laura was out of university, as she moved into her mid-twenties, as her friends started to settle down, was that he didn’t really exist – well, he did, but with variations. Not for Laura. She was going to wait till she found him. To her other best friend Paddy’s complaints that he was sick of sharing their flat with a lovesick teenager all the time, as well as a succession of totally disparate, odd men, Laura said firmly that he was being mean and judgemental. James Patrick – Paddy to his friends – was a dating disaster, what would he know? To Jo’s pragmatic suggestions that she should join a dating agency, or simply ask out that bloke over there, Laura said no. It would happen the way she wanted it to happen, she would say. You couldn’t force it. And that would be it, until five minutes later when a waiter in a restaurant would smile at her, and Laura would gaze happily up at him, imagining herself and him moving back to Italy, opening a small café in a market square, having lots of beautiful babies called Francesca and Giacomo. Jo could only shake her head at this, as Laura laughed with her, aware of how hopeless she was compared to her level-headed, realistic best friend.
Until one evening, about eighteen months ago, Jo came round to supper at Paddy and Laura’s flat. She was very quiet; Laura often worried Jo worked too hard. As Laura was attempting to digest a mouthful of chickpeas that Paddy had marvellously undercooked, and as she was trying not to choke on them, Jo wiped her mouth with a piece of paper towel and looked up.
‘Um…Hey.’
Laura looked at her suspiciously. Jo’s eyes were sparkling, her heart-shaped little face was flushed, and she leant across the table and said,
‘I’ve met someone.’
‘Where?’ Paddy had asked stupidly. But Laura understood what that statement meant, of course she did, and she said,
‘Who is he?’
‘He’s called Chris,’ Jo replied, and she smiled, rather girlishly, which was even more unusual for her. ‘I met him at work.’ Jo was a conveyancing solicitor. ‘He was buying a house. He yelled at me.’
And then – and this was when Laura realised it was serious
– Jo twisted a tendril of her hair and put it in her mouth. Since this was a breach of social behaviour in Jo’s eyes tantamount to not sending a thank-you card after a dinner party, Laura put her hand out across the table and said,
‘Wow! How exciting.’
‘I know,’ said Jo, unable to stop herself smiling. ‘I know!’
Laura knew, as she looked at Jo, she just knew, she didn’t know why. Here was someone in love, who had found The One, and that was all there was to it.
Chris and Jo moved into the house she’d helped him buy after six months; four months after that, he proposed. They started planning a December wedding, a couple of weeks before Christmas, in a London hotel. Jo eschewed grown-up bridesmaids, saying they were deeply, humiliatingly naff, much to Laura’s disappointment – she was rather looking forward to donning a nice dress and sharing with her best friend on this, the happiest day of her life. Instead, she was going to be best woman, and Paddy was an usher.
It seemed as if Jo and Chris had been together forever, and Laura could barely remember when he hadn’t been on the scene. He slotted right in, with his North London pub ways, his personality so laidback and friendly, compared to Jo’s sometimes controlled outlook on life. He had friends who lived nearby – some lovely friends. They were all a gang now, him and Jo, his friends, Paddy and Laura, sometimes Laura’s brother Simon, when he wasn’t off somewhere being worthy and making girls swoon (where Laura was always falling in love, Simon was usually falling into bed with a complete stranger, usually by dint of lulling them into a false sense of security by telling them he worked for a charity). And there was Hilary too, also from university and christened Scary Hilary – because she was – and her brother Hamish, their other friends from work or university, and so on. And so Laura’s easy, uncomplicated life went on its way. She had a brief, intense affair with a playwright she thought was very possibly the new John Osborne, until Paddy pointed out he was, in fact, just a prat who liked shouting a lot. Paddy grew a moustache for the autumn. Laura got a pay rise at work. They bought a Playstation to celebrate – games for him, karaoke for her. Yes, everything was well within its usual frame, except Laura began to feel, more and more, as she looked at Jo and Chris so in love, and as she looked at the landscape of her own dull life, that she was taking the path of least resistance, that her world was small and pathetic compared to Jo’s. That she was missing out on what she most wanted.
Under these circumstances, it’s hardly surprising that the next time Laura fell, she fell badly. Because one day, quite without meaning to, she woke up, got dressed and went to work, and everything was normal, and by the next day she had fallen in love again. But this time she knew it was for real. And that’s when everything started to go wrong.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_5a0037ea-816f-5666-9df7-a55c9b5f7fec)
Chris the groom coughed and stood up, looking rather nervous. Laura smiled at him, pretending to listen. She should have been paying attention but she was daydreaming, in a reverie of her own. She was thinking about her grandmother, Mary Fielding. Laura’s grandmother was the person Laura loved most in the world (apart from whoever it was she was in love with at that moment), even more so perhaps than her parents, than her brother.
Mary was a widow. She had lost her husband, Guy, eight years before, and she lived on her own in a small but perfectly formed flat in Marylebone. There were various reasons why Laura idolised Mary, wanted to be just like her, found her much more seductive than her own parents. Mary was stylish – even at eighty-four she was always the best-dressed person in a room. Mary was funny – her face lit up when she was telling a joke, and she could make anyone roar with laughter, young or old. But the main reason Laura adored her grandmother was that Mary had found true love. Her husband, Guy, was the love of her life, to an extent Laura had never seen with anyone else. They had met when each was widowed, in Cairo after the Second World War. Mary already had a daughter, Angela, Laura’s mother. Guy also had a daughter, Annabel, whom Laura and Simon called aunt, even though she wasn’t really related to them.
Because of her mother’s natural reserve, it was Mary whom Laura told about her love life, her latest disasters, the person she was currently in love with. Because she lived in central London, and so not that far from Laura’s work, it was Mary whom Laura called in to see, to talk to, to listen to. And it was Mary that Laura learnt from, when it came to true love, in large part. She did not learn it from her own unemotional parents. No, she learnt that true love was epic stuff.
One of Laura’s favourite stories was how Mary and Guy had realised they were in love on a trip out to the pyramids to see the sun rise. It had been pitch black as they rode out, crammed in a Jeep with the other members of their club in Cairo. And as the sun rose, Guy had turned to Mary, and said, ‘You know I can’t live without you, don’t you?’ And Mary had replied, ‘I know.’
And that was that. They were married six months later.
George and Angela, by contrast, had met at a choral society function off the Tottenham Court Road, when they were both at university. Somehow, Laura felt this wasn’t quite the same.
‘You are the love of my life,’ she heard a voice say. ‘The woman I want to grow old with. I love you.’
He was staring at her intensely, his eyes boring into hers. Laura raised her hand to his chest, and said, breathlessly, ‘I love you too.’
Beyond them the sun was rising, flooding the vast desert landscape with pink and orange colour. Sand whipped in her face, the silk of her headscarf caught in the breeze. She could feel the cold smoothness of the material of his dinner jacket against her skin, as he caught her and pulled her towards him.
‘Tell me again,’ Laura whispered in his ear. ‘Tell me again that you love me.’
And then, suddenly, a microphone crackled loudly, jerking Laura back to reality, as someone cleared their throat and said,
‘To my beautiful wife, Jo!’
‘Aah,’ the wedding guests murmured in approval, as Laura came back down to earth with a bump. There was some sniffing, especially from Jo’s mother up on the top table, as Chris raised a glass to his new bride, kissed her, and then sat down to a welter of applause and chair-shuffling.
‘Aah,’ Laura whispered to herself, leaving her daydream behind with a sigh. She looked at Jo, her best friend, so beautiful and happy-looking, and found tears were brimming in her eyes. She turned to her flatmate Paddy, sitting next to her, and sniffed loudly.
‘Look at her,’ she said. ‘Can you believe it?’
‘No,’ said Paddy, raising an eye at Chris’s cousin Mia. Paddy had recently begun to teach himself how to raise one eyebrow, in a ‘come to me, pretty laydee’ way. This involved several hours of grimacing into Laura’s hand-mirror in the sitting room of their flat, whilst Laura was trying to watch TV. She got very irritated with her flatmate when he did this, and was frequently telling him that being able to raise one eyebrow was not the key to scoring big with the ladies. Wearing matching socks was. As was having a tidy room. And not acting like a crazy stalker when some girl said no after you asked her out. These were the things that Laura frequently told Paddy he should be concentrating on, and yet, much to her deep chagrin, he ignored her every time. For Paddy’s retort would always be that what Laura knew about dating was worthless.
What a perfect, happy day, Laura thought, as she gazed around the room, clapping now the speeches were over. She was gripping her glass, searching for someone. Suddenly her eye fell on Jo and she watched her for a moment, truly radiant, happy and serene in an antique lace silk dress, her hand resting lightly on her new husband’s as they sat at the top table. Laura couldn’t help but feel a tiny pang of something sad. It wasn’t just any bride sitting there in the white dress, with the flowers and the black suits around her. It was Jo – Jo whom she had danced with all night in various Greek nightclubs, with whom she had spent hours in Topshop changing rooms, whom she had stayed up all night with whilst she sobbed her heart out after her last boyfriend Vic dumped her. It was her best friend, and it was weird.
She blinked and caught Jo’s eye, suddenly overcome with emotion. Jo smiled at her, winked, and mouthed something. Laura couldn’t tell what it was, but by the jerking of her head towards the best man, Chris’s newly single brother Jason, Laura thought she could guess what Jo was on about. Laura followed her gaze, shaking herself out of her mood. Jason was nice, yes. Definitely. But he wasn’t…dammit, where was he?
‘Who are you looking for?’ said Paddy suspiciously, as Laura cast her eyes around the room.
‘Me?’
‘Yes, you. Who is it? You keep looking round like you’re expecting to see someone.’
‘No one,’ said Laura, rather huffily. ‘Just looking, that’s all.’
‘There’s Dan,’ said Paddy.
‘Who?’ asked Laura.
‘Dan. Dan Floyd. He’s raising his glass. He’s talking to Chris.’
‘Right,’ said Laura calmly. ‘Ah, there’s Hilary. And her mum. I should go and say –’
‘Laura!’ said Jo, coming up behind her, dragging someone by the hand. ‘Don’t go! Here’s Jason! Jason, you remember Laura?’
‘Hey. Of course,’ said Jason, who was an elongated, blonder version of Chris. ‘Hi, Laura.’
‘Er,’ said Laura. ‘Hi, Jason, how are you?’
There is nothing more likely to induce embarrassment in a single girl than the obvious set-up at the wedding in front of friends. Laura smiled at Jason, and once more cast a fleeting glance around the room. Where was he?
‘Good, thanks, good,’ said Jason, as Jo nudged Paddy and grinned, much to Laura’s annoyance.
‘See the match on Wednesday?’ Paddy asked Jason, in an attempt at blokeish comradeship.
‘What match?’ said Jason.
‘Oh…’ Paddy said vaguely. ‘You know. The match. The big game.’
‘What, mate?’ Jason repeated, scratching his head.
‘Anyway, great to see you, mate,’ said Paddy, changing tack and banging Jason hard on the shoulder, so that he nearly doubled up. ‘So, Laura was just saying – Laura? Help me out here.’
Jason gazed at Paddy, perplexed. Laura looked wildly around her, searching for an escape, and then someone over Jason’s shoulder caught her eye.
‘Jason split up from Cath two months ago,’ Jo hissed in her ear, in a totally unconvincing stage whisper, as Laura gazed into the distance. It was him, of course it was him, she would know him anywhere. ‘You know, he’s living in Highbury now? Laura, you should –’
But Laura was no longer standing next to her, she had turned around to say hello to their friend Dan, who had appeared by her side. Vaguely she heard Jo’s tutting, vaguely she was aware that she should be making an effort.
For Jo hadn’t seen the look on Laura’s face after she was tapped on the shoulder by Dan. In fact, Jo and Paddy hadn’t been seeing quite a lot of things lately, and if they had, they would have been worried. Especially knowing Laura like they did.
‘You had a good evening, then?’ Dan was saying to Laura, smiling wickedly at her.
‘Yes, thanks,’ she replied, looking up at him, into his eyes. ‘Good speeches.’
‘Great,’ he said, shifting his weight so that he was fully facing her. It was a tiny movement, almost imperceptible to Jo, Paddy, or any of the other hundred and fifty people in that room, but it enclosed the two of them in together as tightly as if they were in a phone box.
Dan smiled at her again, as Laura pulled her shawl over her shoulder and she smiled back helplessly, feeling her stomach turn over at his sheer perfectness. His dark blond hair, the boyish curling crop which curled over his collar. His tanned, strong face, wide cheekbones, blue eyes, lazy smile. He reminded her of a cowboy, a farmhand from the Wild West. He was so relaxed, so easy to be with, so easy to be happy with, and Laura glowed as she gazed up at him, simply exhilarated at the prospect of a whole evening in his company – a whole evening, where anything could happen. Suddenly she could barely remember whose wedding it was.
He was here. She was here with Dan, and he was hers for the rest of the evening, and for those hours only she could indulge herself with the secret fantasy that they were a couple who’d been going out for years. Perhaps they were married already. Perhaps Jo and Chris had been the only witnesses at their beach wedding in Barbados two years ago. Dan in a sarong – he would suit a sarong, unlike most men. Her in a silk sundress, raspberry pink, her dark blonde hair falling loose behind her back. Some spontaneous locals and other couples gathered at the seashore, crying with joy at how perfect, how in love they obviously were, totally pole-axed by the strength of emotion, the purity of their love. Laura and Dan, Dan and Laura. Perhaps…
‘Laura!’ a voice said sharply. ‘Listen!’
Laura realised she was being prodded in the ribs. The lovely bubble of daydream in her head burst, and she tore herself away from Dan, and looked around to see Paddy glaring at her.
‘I was talking to you!’ he said, affronted. ‘I asked you a question four times!’
‘I’ll see you later,’ Dan murmured, shifting away from her. ‘Come and find me, yeah?’ and he very lightly ran his hand over her bare arm, a tiny gesture, but Laura shuddered, looked up at him fleetingly, even more sure than ever, then turned back to Paddy. As Dan moved off, he raised his glass to her, and smiled a regretful smile. Laura screamed inwardly, and turned away from him towards Paddy.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘What was it?’
‘Is this fob watch too much?’ said Paddy, fingering the watch hanging from his waistcoat. ‘I think it is. I’m not sure, but perhaps it overloads the outfit. What do you think?’
‘Ladies ’n’ gennlemen,’ came a bored-sounding voice from the back of the room. ‘Please make your way back into the Ballroom. Mr and Mrs Johnson are about to perform their first dance. Ah-thann yew, verrimuch.’
Laura looked wildly around her, as if trying to prioritise the many tasks on her mind. She glared at Paddy, who was still obviously waiting for an answer.
‘Yes, it is,’ said Laura wildly. ‘Far too much. I totally agree. In fact, it’s hideous,’ she said crossly. ‘You’d better take it off and throw it away. I’m going to the loo – see you in a minute,’ she finished, and hurried away.
Dan, Dan, Dan. Dan Floyd. Even saying his name made her feel funny. She muttered it on her way to the loo, feeling sick with nerves, but totally exhilarated. Laura had got it bad. She knew it was bad, and she knew if any of her friends found out they’d tell her it was futile, she should get over it, but she couldn’t help it. It was meant to be. She was powerless in the face of it, much as she’d tried not to be. Dan Floyd, looking like a ranger or an extra from Oklahoma!, calm, funny, and so sexy she couldn’t imagine ever finding any other man remotely attractive. Laura wanted him, plain and simple.
She had constructed a whole imaginary life for them, based around (because of the Oklahoma! theme) a small house in the Wild West with a porch, a rocking chair – for Laura’s granny Mary – corn growing as high as an elephant’s eye in the fields, and a golden-pink sunset every night. Mary would drink gins on the porch and dispense wise advice, and would sit there looking elegant. Dan would farm, obviously, but he would also do the sports PR job thing that he did. Perhaps by computer. Laura would – well, she hadn’t thought that far. How could she do her job in the prairie? Perhaps there were some dyslexic farmhands who’d never learnt to read properly. Yes.
Her friend Hilary was in the loos when she got there, washing her hands. ‘Oi,’ she said. ‘Hi.’
Laura jumped. ‘Oh. Hi!’ she said brightly. ‘Hey. Great speech, wasn’t it?’
‘Not bad,’ said Hilary, who didn’t much like public displays of affection, verbal or physical. She ran her hands through her hair. ‘That idiot Jason’s there, did you see?’
‘Yeah,’ said Laura. ‘He’s quite nice, isn’t he?’
‘Well,’ said Hilary, in a flat tone. ‘He’s OK. If you like that kind of thing.’
‘He’s split up from Cath,’ Laura said encouragingly.
‘Yeah, I know,’ Hilary replied coolly. ‘Hm. I might go and find him.’
‘OK. See you later,’ said Laura, and shut the door of the cubicle. She rested her pounding head against the cool of the white tiles. She was stressing out, and she couldn’t help it. It was the first time she’d seen Dan since they’d kissed, so fair enough. But she didn’t know what to do. Dan had got to her. The worst bit of all was, she didn’t just fancy him something rotten. She really liked him, too.
She liked the way he was always first to buy a round, that the corners of his blue eyes crinkled when he laughed, the rangy, almost bowlegged way he walked, his strong hands. She liked the way he rolled his eyes with gentle amusement when Paddy said something particularly Paddy-ish. She liked him. She couldn’t help it, she did. And she knew he liked her, that was the funny thing. She just knew, in the way you know. She had also come to know, in the last couple of months, that there was something going on between her and Dan. She just didn’t know what it was. But somehow, she knew tonight was the night.
Dan was a friend of Chris’s from university. He’d moved about five minutes away from Laura about six months ago, round the corner from Jo and Chris towards Highbury – and she’d known of him vaguely since Jo and Chris had got together. In July, Dan had started a new job, and more often than not Laura found herself on the tube platform with him in the morning. The first couple of times it was mere coincidence. Now, at the end of summer, it was almost a routine. They would buy a coffee from the stall on the platform and sit together in the second-to-last carriage, deserted in the dusty dog days of August, and go down the Northern line together until they got to Bank. And they would read Metro together and chat, and it was all perfectly innocent.
‘Dan? Oh yeah, we’re tube buddies,’ Laura would say nonchalantly, her heart thumping in her chest.
‘They’re transport pals,’ Chris and Jo would joke at lunch on Sundays. ‘Like an old married couple on the seafront at Clacton.’
‘Ha, ha, ha,’ Laura would mutter, and then she would blush furiously, biting her lip and shaking her hair forward over her face, burying herself in a newspaper. Not that they ever noticed – it’s extraordinary what people don’t notice right under their noses.
But to Laura it was obvious, straightforward. From the first time she’d recognised him on the tube platform, that sunny July day, and he had smiled at her, his face genuinely lighting up with pleasure – ‘Laura!’ he’d said, warmth in his voice. ‘What a nice surprise. Come and sit next to me.’ Through the sun and rain of August, September and October she would run down the steps to the tube platform, hoping he’d be there, not knowing what was going on between them. They had built up a whole lexicon of information. Just little things that you tell the people you see each day. She knew when his watch was being mended, what big meeting he had that day; and he knew when Rachel, her boss, was being annoying, and asked how her grandmother had been the previous day. Out of these little things, woven over each other, grew a web of knowledge, of intimacy, and one day Laura had woken up and known, known with a clarity that was shocking, that this was not just another one of her crushes, or another failed relationship that she couldn’t understand. She and Dan had something. And she was in love with him.
Oh, the level of denial about the whole thing was extraordinary, because you could explain it away in a heartbeat if you had to. ‘We go to work together, because we live round the corner from each other. It’s great – nice start to the day, you know.’ Whereas the truth was a little more complicated. The truth was both of them had started getting to the station earlier and earlier, so they could sit on the bench together with their coffees and chat for ten minutes before they got on the tube. And that was weird. Laura knew that. Yes, she was in denial about the whole thing. She knew that, too. It had got to the stage where something had to give – and she couldn’t wait.
Laura collected herself, breathed deeply, smoothed the material of her dress down, and came out of the loo to put on more lip gloss. She realised as she looked in the mirror that she was already wearing enough lip gloss to cause an oil slick – it was a nervous reflex of hers, to apply more and more when in doubt. She blotted some on the back of her hand, and strolled out of the door nonchalantly, looking for Paddy or Hilary, someone to chat to. It was strange, wasn’t it, she mused, that at her best friend’s wedding, knowing virtually everyone in the room, she could feel so exposed, so alone. That on such a happy day she could feel so sad. She shook her head, feeling silly. Look over there, she told herself, as Jo and Chris walked through the tables of the big ballroom, hand in hand, smiling at each other, at their friends and family. It was lovely. It was a privilege to see. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Hilary pinning Jason against a wall, yelling at him about something, her long, elegant hands waving in the air. Jason looked scared, but transfixed. Another man scared into snogging Hil, she thought. Well done, girl.
Someone handed her a glass of champagne. She accepted it gratefully and turned to see who it was.
‘Sorry,’ whispered Dan casually, though he didn’t bend towards her. He said it softly, intimately, and clinked his glass with hers. ‘I thought I’d better leave you to deal with Paddy’s sartorial crisis by yourself. Where did you go?’
‘Loo,’ said Laura, trying to stay calm, but it came out, much to her and Dan’s surprise, as a low, oddly pitched growl. He smiled. Laura smiled back, and ran her hand through her hair in a casual, groomed manner, but forgot the lipstick mark of gloss still adhering to the back of her hand. Her hair stuck to the gloss, and her hand became caught up in her hair as she flailed wildly around with her hand in the air, covered in hair.
‘Arrgh,’ said Laura, despair washing over her as she stood in front of Dan. Her hand was stuck. Dan took the champagne out of her other hand, put it on a table, held her wrist and slid her fingers slowly out of her hair. He smoothed it down, swiftly dropped a kiss on the crown of her head in a sweet, intimate gesture, and put his palm on the small of her back as he guided her through the room onto the terrace.
‘Thanks,’ whispered Laura, trying to walk upright and not cower with embarrassment. ‘I should go back out, to see the first dance, look…’
‘No problem,’ said Dan calmly. ‘In a minute. I just want to do this.’ And he slid his hand round her waist, drew him towards her, and kissed her. No one else was watching, they were all turned towards the dance floor where Mr and Mrs Johnson were dancing. They were alone on the terrace, just the two of them.
Dan pulled her towards him, his hands pressing on her spine, his lips gentle but firm on hers. He made a strange, sad sound in his throat, somewhere between a cry of something and a moan. Laura slid one arm around his neck and drew him further towards her. The other arm was by her side, she was still holding the champagne glass. It tilted, the champagne spilt, and neither of them noticed.
After a short while, they broke apart slowly, and said nothing. There was nothing to say, really. Laura drained the meagre contents of her glass and leant into Dan. They stood there together as the music died away and applause rippled out towards them, aware of nothing else but themselves, alone in their bubble.
‘Well,’ Dan said eventually. ‘I didn’t know that was going to happen tonight,’ and he put his arm around her.
Laura twisted round, looked up at him. ‘Oh yes you did,’ she said, smiling into his eyes. ‘Of course you did.’
That was Laura’s second glass of champagne, and she found Paddy and Hilary on another terrace having a cigarette so she joined them. After her third glass, thirty minutes later, she was a bit tired. After her fourth, she felt better again – and she’d eaten from the buffet as well. After her fifth and sixth, she danced for an hour with Jo and Chris and their other friends. And after her seventh glass, she didn’t know how it happened, but she found herself in one of the free taxis going home with Dan Floyd, and they were kissing so hard that her lips were bruised the next day. And that’s when it really started, and Laura went from knowing lots of things about Dan and how she felt about him and her place in the world in general to knowing nothing. At all.
At one point during the night, she propped herself up on her elbow and leant over him, and kissed him again, and he kissed her back and they rolled over together, and Laura pulled back and said, ‘So…what does this mean, then?’ It just came out.
And Dan’s face clouded over and he said, ‘Oh gorgeous, let’s not do this now, not when I want you so much,’ and he carried on kissing her. Something should have made Laura pull away and say, No, actually, what does this mean? Are you going to tell your girlfriend? When will you leave your girlfriend? Do you like me? Are we together? But of course she didn’t…
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_4836df69-d99f-5c78-8e5f-b95402670c43)
Yes, Dan had a girlfriend, Amy. Just a tiny detail, nothing much. They were as good as living together, too – although she still had her own place. Another detail Laura tried to forget about. She had almost managed to convince herself that if she didn’t tell anyone about her – well, what was it? A ‘thing’? A ‘fling’? A fully formed relationship just waiting to move into the sunlight of acceptance? – her liaison with Dan, then perhaps the outside world didn’t matter so much. And it didn’t, when she was with him. Because he was The One, she was sure of it. So it became surprisingly easy for Laura, who was basically a good girl, who never ever thought she could do something like this, to turn into a person who was sleeping with someone else’s boyfriend.
She had tried, after Jo and Chris’s wedding. She told herself – and Dan – that it wasn’t going to happen again. She bit her nails to the quick about it because, much as Laura might be clueless about some things, she was clear about other things, and one of those was: don’t sleep with someone who has a girlfriend. She’d already tried going cold turkey from him, as autumn gave way to winter, and as she realised she was falling for him, badly. She tried avoiding him at the tube station – but she couldn’t. She tried to forget him – but she couldn’t. When she thought about him, it was as if he was talking to her, pleading with her, communicating with her directly. Laura, it’s you I want, not Amy. Laura, please let me see you, his eyes and his voice would say in her head, until the noise got so loud it was all she could hear. Every time was the last time. Every time was the first time.
Laura knew it was wrong to be thinking like this. But she assuaged that secret guilt in her head with the knowledge that Dan and Amy weren’t getting on well. Dan himself had told her it wasn’t working out. Well, he had in so many words, with a sigh and a shake of the head, in the early days of their coffee mornings together on the tube platform. And she knew from Jo that Dan was going out with Chris and his other mates more, playing more football, watching more football, in the pub more, working harder. Added to which, no one in their group ever really saw Amy. They were together, but they were never actually together. She was completely offstage, like a mystery character in a soap opera whom people refer to but who never appears. You know when a couple are happy together – mainly because you don’t see either of them as much, and when you do they’re either together, or they talk about each other. Or they’re just happy. You know. Laura knew – as did everyone else – Dan wasn’t happy with Amy. Dan wanted out, he just didn’t know how to get out.
And, actually, Amy wasn’t really her friend. They occasionally all went out for drinks, Jo and Chris, Dan and Amy, Hilary, Paddy and Laura and so on, especially now Chris and Dan had moved nearby. But Amy rarely came along, and in any case, Laura had long ago realised she couldn’t stand her. Never had been able to, in fact. Because not only was Amy a quasi-friend of hers, they had also been at school together, many moons ago, and there is no more mutually suspicious relationship than that of two ex-schoolmates who are thrown together several years later. Added to which, Amy had been one of the mean girls who had teased Laura relentlessly about her love for Mr Wallace the oboe teacher, and had spread the subsequent rumours surrounding Laura giving up the oboe. She’d even told Laura’s mother Angela about it, at a school concert, all wide-eyed concern. Angela Foster had got the wrong end of the stick, and assumed Laura was being pestered by Mr Wallace. She’d complained. He’d nearly been fired. The whole thing was deeply embarrassing. So Laura’s dislike of Amy was genuinely historical, rather than based upon the fact that Amy was with the man Laura felt quite sure she loved. This made her feel better, in some obscure way.
Amy ate nothing, exercised obsessively, talked about shoes and handbags the entire time (like, the entire time) and she played with her beautiful red hair. Non-stop. It was her thing. She always had, even when she and Laura had been eight-year-olds in plaits and virgin socks at school. Twenty years later, the same white hand would smooth down the crown of its owner’s hair as Amy softened her voice to tell a sad story – about a friend’s mother’s death, or something bad in the news. Or said something deeply meaningful at the pub, which made Laura want to gag childishly on her drink.
The thing was, Laura knew Amy was the kind of girl men fell for, even though she led them a merry dance. Laura wasn’t. She was nice, she was funny, but she knew she was ordinary, nothing special. Why would anyone, especially Dan, choose her when they could be with Amy? Why was it he got her so well, laughed at her jokes? What amazing thing had led him to think of her as this perfect person for him, just as she knew that he was her Mr Right? It perplexed her, as much as it exhilarated her. It was extraordinary, it was magical, and so even though it was underhand and stressful, she carried on doing it.
‘So, then she said I should know why she was pissed off. And I’m thinking, well god, woman, you’re pissed off the entire time, how the hell am I supposed to tell the difference between you being annoyed because I was late back from football or annoyed because I didn’t notice your new haircut? Is that for me? Hey, thanks so much. Toast, too. Wow.’
Laura set down the tray on her bed. She peered out of the window. It was two months after Jo and Chris’s wedding, a cold, grey Saturday morning in February. Dan shifted up in bed, crossed his legs, and pulled the tray towards him.
‘This is great,’ he said, pouring some tea. ‘Come on, get back into bed.’
Laura hopped in beside him. He handed her a cup of tea and kissed her. ‘Mm. Thank you,’ she said.
Dan and Amy had had another huge row the night before and Amy had stormed back to her own flat. Laura cleared her throat.
‘So, what did she say next?’ she asked, desperate for more details, but not wanting them too, fearing what he might say or not say.
Dan frowned momentarily, as if thinking something through. He put his mug back down on the tray and took her hand, looking serious. ‘Forget about it,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’ He looked down. ‘It’s crap of me. I’m so crap, boring you with all this stuff. It’s…I’ve got to sort it out.’
‘Yes,’ said Laura, her heart beating fast.
‘Not just for me,’ said Dan, looking intently at her. ‘For…for Amy as well, you know?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Laura said, less urgently. ‘Amy.’ She picked up a slice of toast and bit into it. ‘Mm.’
Dan smiled, and picked up another piece. ‘So, I’m pretty much free today now. Do you want to…you know. Spend the day together? I know it’s last-minute, but we might as well make the most of it.’ He leant forward and kissed her.
‘Er…’ Laura said, swallowing fast. She had lunch with Paddy and Simon, but she supposed she could cancel. And instead she and Dan could go to Kenwood House. Muffled up in scarves and hats. Drink hot chocolate and walk through the grounds hand in hand. Kiss in the lanes of yew trees that led away to the Heath. Her eyes sparkled. She’d cancel Paddy and Simon – they were boys, they didn’t mind about that sort of thing. Although – gah. Simon, more a graduate of the love ’em and leave ’em school, was always taking the piss out of her about her love life. Saying she was a romance addict, that she’d ditch her own brother at the last minute if there was a chance of a red rose heading her way. And she’d done it a couple of weeks ago to him as well…the cinema, shit. She bit her lip. He was going away soon. She was a bad sister.
‘Don’t cancel anything special for me,’ Dan said, as if reading her mind. ‘It was just a suggestion.’ He stroked her knee. ‘God, it’s so nice to be here, sweetheart.’
‘I think I was supposed to be having lunch, but it’s quite a vague thing,’ said Laura, trying not to choke on her toast. ‘I’d…of course I’d prefer it if…’ His hand was lying on the duvet. She hooked her little finger around his, and said, ‘Yes, I’d love to spend the day with you. We should talk, anyway.’
Laura was always trying to do this, stage moments where she and Dan ‘talked’. But it never seemed to work. She desperately wanted there to be some kind of agenda to their relationship, instead of Dan turning up when he could, secretive texting or emailing, hurried, passionate, mind-blowing sex at one in the morning when he would drop by unannounced on the way back from the pub, wake her up, shag her senseless and then go back home – to what, Laura didn’t know. Every time they tried to talk, something else would get in the way. Dan would tell her a funny story, or kiss her neck, or have to leave because Amy was calling. They’d tried not seeing each other, but the truth was it was so easy to have this relationship, it was so full of pleasure and excitement that, two months after they’d first got together, nothing had really changed. Dan was still with Amy, trying to sort it out or break it off gently. And Laura – Laura was so wildly happy with the whole thing she would no more have irrevocably ended it than she would have moved south of the river.
When she looked at the facts of the relationship, the bare facts, only then did she get depressed. He was still with his girlfriend. And whilst he and Laura got on really well, she also had to admit that what they spent most of their time doing was not having a laugh and enjoying each other’s company but – having sex. And god, the sex was great, that was part of the problem – it had obscured the actual facts of the relationship, or whatever it was, for some time now.
On New Year’s Eve, Laura and Paddy had gone round to the newly married couple’s house for a party, along with lots of other people, but Dan wasn’t there. He was on holiday with Amy, in Prague. Laura had stood on Jo and Chris’s balcony along with Paddy and watched the fireworks over London. It was a clear night, sharp and cold, and for once the fireworks from the Thames were visible. They fizzed in the distance, tiny and indistinct, and around them, across the rest of London, streets and parks and houses were lit up by similar flashes and bangs, stretching as far as they could see. Simon had been there next to her, and as he hugged her tightly, he asked,
‘So, sis. What’s your New Year’s resolution, then? Tell me.’
‘Ha,’ said Laura despairingly. She gave him a squeeze back. ‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.’
‘Oh, really,’ said Simon, not actually listening as his eye had fallen upon an attractive brunette in the corner of the room. ‘Love life?’
‘Yes,’ said Laura honestly.
Simon looked at her briefly. ‘Who is it this time, then?’ he asked.
Laura resented the tone in his voice. ‘It’s – not like that.’
‘Oh,’ said Simon, not believing her for a second. ‘Right,’ he added vaguely. ‘You should do something about it.’
‘Thanks,’ said Laura. ‘I am.’
Simon smiled, ‘Really?’
She nodded.
‘Well, good luck then,’ he said. ‘Who is it this time? Someone at work? Ken Livingstone?’
‘Go away,’ said Laura. ‘You’re no help.’
‘Well, don’t just stand there,’ Simon said. ‘I mean it. Do something about it,’ and he shrugged his shoulders apologetically, as if admitting this wasn’t helpful, and moved across the room in search of his prey.
Laura watched him go. He was right, though, wasn’t he? She’d been searching for true love for as long as she could remember. This year, it was going to happen. She just had to make it happen.
So, shivering on that cold balcony on New Year’s Eve, as Jo and Chris kissed each other, and Paddy danced crazily and inappropriately with a scared-looking cousin of Chris’s, and Simon charmed the pants – literally – off the brunette, Laura clenched her fist, and went to bed that night with a new iron resolve. Three weeks after her ‘thing’ with Dan had begun, but months after she had realised that he was the one for her, she had to do something about it. Even now, nearly two months later, she remembered it clearly. It kept coming back into her head like a drumbeat.
She had to know, she had to sort this thing out, because somewhere in her lovesick, crazy brain was a small voice telling her that this wasn’t how normal people behaved, fell in love and that small voice had been getting louder and louder since before Christmas until now, two months afterwards, it was like a foghorn in her ear. She and Dan had to take the next step. Well, Dan had to take the next step and finish with Amy, then Laura and Dan had to take the step after that, which was to work out if they could be together.
So they would go to Kenwood House on this cold February Saturday, with the hot chocolate/gloves/yew trees, and during that time they would talk, and Laura would explain, calmly and clearly, that Dan had to sort his situation out, otherwise they couldn’t be together any more.
‘Talk,’ Dan said. ‘Yes, talk.’ He looked at her, their fingers still entwined. Laura smiled at him, took the toast out of his mouth, put the tray down on the floor, reached for him, and they crawled back under the duvet, muffling their laughter, and then, a while later, their moans as they came together again and any further discussion was put aside for the moment.
An hour later, Laura emerged from her room, carrying the teapot, and padded into the kitchen in her bare feet. Paddy was sitting at the little table by the French window, gazing out at the view. Their flat was in a slightly cramped, dodgy Victorian mansion block, and had interesting design features – the French window, for example, opened not onto a charming balcony with pots of geraniums and basil, but a sheer drop down four floors. The boiler was in Paddy’s bedroom, and the sitting room had three electricity sockets, but all right next to each other, by the door, nowhere helpful like underneath the bay window where the television was. It was Paddy’s flat, bought for him with some help from his elderly parents, since he was a teacher at a school nearby and earned in a year what most bankers earn in a month. He and Laura were very happy there, though the water frequently turned itself off, the windows rattled, and the lino was curling because they had laid it themselves. Added to which Paddy had a mania for collecting interesting things from around the world, and so the flat was stuffed with a) painted gypsy floral watering cans, buckets, etc., b) elephants made of wicker he’d picked up travelling through Africa, and c) comic books.
Paddy didn’t look up as Laura came into the kitchen, humming to herself. ‘Morning,’ she said brightly. ‘How are you today, love?’
‘Fine,’ muttered Paddy bitterly. ‘Oh, just fine.’
‘Oh, right,’ said Laura, nonplussed. ‘Er, are you, though?’
‘Oh, don’t worry about me,’ Paddy told her. ‘I’ll survive,’ he spluttered into his tea. He stared moodily out of the window. Since he spent quite a lot of his leisure time doing this, Laura ignored him and put the mugs down on the counter.
‘What are you eating?’ she asked curiously.
‘I made scrambled eggs with tomatoes,’ said Paddy shortly. He gestured to the plate, which looked like pink brains. Paddy was an enthusiastic but disconcerting chef.
‘Oh,’ Laura lied. ‘It looks nice.’
She ran the mugs under the tap.
‘It’s not enough that Mia hasn’t answered any of my texts,’ Paddy said, picking up the thread after a few moments’ silence. Laura obediently swivelled round to listen. ‘I’ve texted her four times, why hasn’t she replied? Oh no. I have to sit in solitary silence, with CD:UK my only companion, and listen to my flatmate – who I’ve known since she was five – screaming with pleasure as some git rogers her senseless at eleven a.m. for about the fifteenth time that morning.’
Laura bit her lip to stop herself grinning. ‘Sorry.’ She went over and patted him on the shoulder. ‘I’ll make you some tea. Why don’t we all go into the sitting room and have some tea?’
‘No, thanks a bundle,’ said Paddy, pulling his tattered paisley dressing gown about him with an attempt at dignity. ‘I prefer to watch Saturday Kitchen on my own, thanks very much, not squashed up on the sofa with you and Mr Playaway whilst he tries to molest you under my very nose.’
‘OK, OK,’ said Laura. This was going to be tricky. Of course, no one knew about her and Dan – not yet anyway. She hadn’t even told Jo. But she’d had to tell Paddy because Dan always came to her place. She hated making him party to it and thereby making him lie. It wasn’t for long, and so far he’d been great, but…She filled the kettle and affected a tone of nonchalance. ‘Er…any plans for today?’
Paddy looked up suspiciously. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You know I have. We’re going out to lunch with Simon.’
‘Simon?’ Laura said in a tone of blankness. She pulled a mug off one of the hooks above the sink and examined it. ‘Urgh, this is dirty.’
‘Your brother Simon, who’s about to go to Peru for four months.’
Laura winced. Simon worked for a charity. He was taking time off from work to travel to Peru, volunteering for another charity.
Paddy went on, ‘And then you know perfectly well we’re going round to Jo’s because Chris is away and she wants a hand with painting the kitchen.’ He glared at her. ‘Oh my god, you’re piking. I can’t believe it.’
‘What?’ said Laura. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘You lying bitch,’ said Paddy. ‘Go back in that bedroom, ease those chafed thighs onto the bed and tell Dan you’re not spending the day with him or whatever it is he’s suggested you do. You’re coming out to lunch.’
‘Honestly, Paddy, I had no idea,’ Laura pleaded with him, aware how weak she sounded. ‘Sure, Jo mentioned going round, but it was ages ago – I didn’t think it was a proper plan…no one emailed me about it this week – I thought it was a casual arrangement.’
‘Casual arrangement?’ Paddy repeated.
‘Yep,’ Laura said. ‘And lunch – hey, you’ll have a much better time without me there. You never see Simon on his own, you can really catch up. And stuff.’
Paddy looked at her, and Laura realised the atmosphere in the kitchen was no longer one of grumpy, amused sniping.
‘No, Laura,’ he said quietly. ‘That – that thing you’ve got next door with Dan. That’s a casual arrangement.’
‘No it’s not,’ said Laura in a small voice.
‘Oh god, you stupid girl,’ Paddy slapped his hand to his cheek. ‘I don’t care. Just don’t try and lie to me. It’s not a big deal, Laura, honestly. But –’ he held up his hand as Laura made to speak ‘– don’t lie to me. You know it was arranged ages ago. You, of all people.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Laura, feeling her chest tighten.
‘I mean, I’ve always thought you were a good person, someone I could trust, someone I could rely on. Thick and thin, and all that.’
‘Oh for god’s sake, Paddy,’ Laura said, her face reddening, feeling cross all of a sudden. ‘That’s such crap. It’s only lunch, get over it! I am – I am a good person. Dan – I – you know how I feel about him, don’t do this.’ The kitchen tap was encrusted with limescale and she wrenched it round to turn it on, running her finger around one of the mugs as she thought of what to say next.
Paddy turned his back on her and looked out of the window, as if he was counting to five. Then he turned around again.
‘Hey, love,’ he said in a gentle voice. ‘I know how you feel about him. But it’s never going to happen. He’s never going to leave Amy. Can’t you see that? He’s a wanker, and he’s using you.’
‘How dare you say that,’ Laura retorted, her voice rising. She turned the tap off. ‘How dare you! That’s bullshit. He’s not like that, it’s not like that. It’s just…complicated. He can’t just dump her, I don’t want him to do that. We have to wait before we can be together…we…oh.’
She slumped down into a chair, tears in her eyes. The lino squeaked under her feet. ‘It sounds so fucking clichéd,’ she whispered. ‘I’m so stupid.’
‘You’re really not, darling,’ Paddy said, patting her hand across the table. ‘You’re just mad about him, and what’s wrong with that, eh? You’ve got to…you’ve got to sort it out, that’s all. You know what you’re like.’
Laura stood up again and went over to make the tea. ‘I have to, I know,’ she said. ‘It’s just. It’s just – I can’t think of anyone I’m ever going to like more than I like him.’ Hot tears ran down her cheeks and she rubbed her eyes, feeling like a little girl in the playground.
It was true, that was the awful thing. She knew all this, she thought she was a sensible girl. But some kind of love had taken hold of her and refused to let her go, and it wasn’t a happy, easy, joyful thing, it had her in a vice-like grip.
She looked up at Paddy and smiled, trying to be brave. His face contorted with sympathy, and he walked over to where she stood and gave her a big hug. ‘Do something about it, darling,’ he said, his voice muffled against Laura’s shoulder. ‘Give him an ultimatum. Or give yourself an ultimatum. Get pregnant. No –’ He stood back and shook her. ‘Forget I said that. Really, don’t get pregnant.’
‘I won’t,’ Laura said, touched, for Paddy really did look alarmed. ‘Don’t be stupid.’ She picked up the mugs. ‘I’ll do something about it, honestly.’
‘Deadline. You need a deadline,’ Paddy said, sitting back down and picking up the newspaper, which was lying on the table. ‘Ooh, travel. Book a holiday,’ he said casually, throwing the travel section at her. It flapped through the air and Laura caught it, scrunching it in her hand, and wedging it under her arm. ‘Book a holiday to somewhere fantastic and then you have to go,’ Paddy suggested. ‘You know, in a few months’ time, when everything’s sorted out. God, I’m brilliant. As you once were, young woman. Go off and shag that worthless young man in there. I’ll make your excuses to Jo, but she’s not going to be happy. You know she’s not, you blew her out last week.’
It was true. Laura had arranged to go to Borough Market with Jo, but something else had come up, a Dan-shaped something else.
‘It’s her birthday in a couple of weeks. I’ll make it up to her then,’ Laura said gratefully.
‘Honestly. The things I do,’ Paddy murmured.
‘Thanks, Paddy,’ Laura said. She paused, as if she might say something else, gazing at the back of his head as Paddy picked up his tea and turned a page of the newspaper. ‘Thanks a lot.
I…well.’
A watery ray of pale sunshine was shining weakly in through the window. Laura turned and left, her head bowed in thought.
‘I’ve cancelled lunch,’ she announced as she came back into her room.
Dan sat up in bed and spread his arms wide. ‘Great, great news, my gorgeous darling girl,’ he said. His hands slid inside her ratty old dressing gown, slipped open the tie, and he pulled her towards him. Laura laughed.
‘Let me put the pot down,’ she said, as he started kissing her. She crouched down, put the paper and the teapot on the floor, stood up again, and said, as Dan flung the duvet to one side, ‘So, what do you want to do today?’
‘You,’ Dan said, jumping on her with the kind of alacrity usually reserved for sailors on shore-leave. ‘God, I could be with you all day, you are so fucking gorgeous. Mm.’
‘No,’ Laura said, laughing, as he pulled off her dressing gown. ‘I mean later. I’ve cancelled lunch. We could go out, you know. Maybe…er, Kenwood House for…er, hot chocolate.’
Dan didn’t answer, but carried on doing what he was doing. Laura sighed, and pushed him away. ‘Dan, listen.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Dan said. ‘Hot chocolate.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I mean we go out to get hot chocolate, at Kenwood.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Dan asked, looking down at her. ‘Why do you want to go and get hot chocolate at Kenwood? Is there a festival there or something?’
‘No,’ Laura explained. ‘I mean – what shall we do today, then? We should do something. Go out, you know, make the most of it. The sun’s just come out.’
Dan cupped her breast in his hand and bent over to kiss her again. ‘I can’t, darling,’ he said. ‘We can’t. Someone might see us. Imagine if they did.’ He looked up, his expression anguished. ‘I’m sorry. This is crap.’
‘But,’ Laura said, trying to be patient, ‘who are we going to bump into amongst the yew trees at Kenwood?’
‘The what?’ Dan asked. Laura watched him intently. ‘No, we just can’t. We should…we have to stay here. Not for much longer, I promise. But things might be tricky for the next couple of months.’
‘Why?’ said Laura, not understanding, and reluctantly waving goodbye to her winter wonderland dream of laughing and joking in a Missoni print cape as she and Dan carelessly drank hot chocolate and held hands amidst the frosty trees.
‘I mean,’ said Dan, ‘if I’m going to split up with Amy, you and I won’t be able to see each other whilst it’s going on. I mean on our own, not the usual in the pub with everyone else there. Right?’
‘Oh right,’ said Laura, not daring to hope he was saying what he was saying. ‘So…’
‘So,’ said Dan, bending over her nipple and kissing it gently, ‘this might be the last time we get to do this for a long time. So – we should – make the most of it…’
‘Yes,’ gasped Laura suddenly, understanding him, and pulling him down. ‘Yes…I see…’
As Dan moved down her body, Laura closed her eyes, and the last thing she saw was the crumpled cover of the Guardian’s travel section. ‘Road Trip: Florida’s Hidden Treasures’, the front page declaimed. A road trip, she thought, and abandoned herself to something more immediate.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_ab443ef3-e96a-5e7f-8858-9b4d0f10ee5a)
Laura worked for an inner-city London council, as a schools and business co-ordinator. She loved her job, contacting local businesses, trying to get them to support their nearby schools, arranging volunteer reading programmes or school sponsorships – where companies or individuals could sponsor a school, donate money, and feel good about themselves. She loved it because she could see how it made a tangible difference, how much disillusioned company secretaries enjoyed reading with a six-year-old once a week, or how much it benefited a school to have a thousand pounds for new computers that some corporation or anonymous donor could easily spare. She had been there for nearly four years now, and the previous year had been put in charge of their new fundraising scheme, and the reading volunteer programme, which meant a lot more work, but she loved it. At least, she used to love it. Like everything these days, it seemed to have lost a little of its allure.
If Laura had stepped back from her situation, chances are she would have seen that she was behaving badly. The trouble was, her lack of perspective meant she couldn’t see the main reason why she was in thrall to Dan: he made her feel gorgeous. He made her feel devastatingly attractive, that she was so powerful to him he had to have her, he couldn’t control it. It made her feel just marvellous, and a little bit dirty too. It was dangerous, because Dan was like all the others, in that Laura had fallen for him hook, line and sinker, without really stopping to think about it. Only this time it was harder and deeper than ever before – and with no control over the situation she’d got herself in, and no endgame in sight. Having always thought of herself in the bottom half of the class in terms of looks, attractiveness and intelligence – not to mention sporting prowess – Laura couldn’t quite believe the effect she had on Dan.
Laura knew she wasn’t working as hard as she should; she knew her boss Rachel was on her case about things. She knew she hadn’t been a good friend, or daughter, or sister, since Dan came along. She forgot birthdays, she was late for work, her mind wandered. But she consoled herself with the knowledge this was a temporary situation, and in a few short months – by the summer – they would have sorted it out and could be together. And then she would make everything all right.
Dan just needed a push, that was all. Just a little something to let him know she wasn’t going to wait around forever, that she had deadlines of her own, too. She had another life apart from him and she was neglecting it, he had to see that.
The following Wednesday afternoon, Laura was in the office when the phone rang. It was pelting with rain, which rattled on the windows of the shabby, draughty Victorian building in Holborn. It was an old school, and hadn’t been redecorated since the pupils had been moved into the big glass comprehensive south of the river, close to London Bridge, in 1972. In summer Laura would wander up to Lamb’s Conduit Street and around the Inns of Court. On days like today she and her four other colleagues stayed inside, reheated soup in the ancient, sticky microwave and huddled around the fan heater which guzzled electricity and dispensed minimal heat.
Laura looked up wearily from her emails and glanced suspiciously at the caller display panel. A teacher from St Catherine’s primary school nearby had said she would be calling to discuss a problem with the latest batch of teaching volunteers, who’d just started at the school once a week, helping individual children with their reading. This was a pretty big firm of financial advisers called Linley Munroe, and it was something of a coup to have them onboard – perhaps they might be induced to get involved in other ways. Laura didn’t particularly like Mrs McGregor, though she could see how devoted she was to the school and the children. She knew from experience that Mrs McGregor was the kind of person who had her own world view and couldn’t be persuaded that anyone else’s was admissible. In her own way, she was pretty hard-line, especially since her arrest during the demo she’d organised the previous spring at the NUT conference. This had renewed her zeal in a way that made her even harder to deal with, and Laura knew why she was ringing – she made the same complaint, along different lines, every year. Laura picked up the phone with a heavy heart.
‘Hello?’ she said tentatively.
‘Laura? Laura Foster?’ came a slightly husky voice down the phone.
‘Yes,’ said Laura, resigned.
‘Oh Laura, I really must talk to you. I’m afraid this is a very bad situation, very bad indeed. Something’s going to have to be done, it’s a disaster. A catastrophe.’
‘Yes, hello, Mrs McGregor,’ said Laura.
‘Well, Laura,’ the voice was saying five minutes later. ‘I’ve told him. You may think you can come here and believe you’re doing something marvellous, helping these kids, so you can sleep easy at night in your big banker’s flat. Well, you can’t behave like that and get away with it. I’m not putting up with it any more, really I’m not.’
‘I explained the guidelines to him and all his colleagues, back in October,’ Laura repeated. ‘I’m sure this Marcus bloke’s just got his wires crossed. As I said, you know we’ve never had any problems with Linley Munroe so far, Mrs McGregor.’
She gazed at her in-box and looked flatly round the office. In Rachel’s absence, Shana was on another call, Tim was out on a visit and Nasrin was clearly reading Pick Me Up and not doing any work at all.
‘I don’t care,’ Mrs McGregor said quickly. ‘Laura, I’m afraid who they are isn’t relevant here, not for my kids, anyway. That Marcus – he’s a big thug. I know those kids aren’t perfect, but…’
‘Look,’ Laura cut in, wanting to avoid another ten minutes of Mrs McGregor. ‘I’ll talk to Clare at Linley Munroe, tell her to have a gentle word with Marcus. But I really don’t think he should be banned, Mrs McGregor. He’s obviously enjoying it, and – well, let’s face it – all he did was tell this boy to shut it – it could have been worse, couldn’t it? They call each other the most horrific things in the playground, don’t they?’
Her email beeped and her eyes flicked instantly to the screen. She opened the message and read, her heart pounding.
‘Do they?’ Mrs McGregor said. ‘Not in my experience, Laura. Sure, there are rude words, but…’
Laura wanted to reread and reply to the email. She said shortly, ‘Oh come on, Mrs McGregor. You know what I mean. Fuck, bum, willy, vag—And…’ she paused, realising what she’d just said, ‘er. Well, we used to, anyway. That sort of thing.’
Mrs McGregor was silent. Then she said, ‘Well, I must say. Honestly, Laura.’
‘It’s an illustration,’ said Laura briskly, marshalling all her inner resources and kicking herself ferociously on the ankle, whilst Nasrin and Shana gaped open-mouthed at her and started laughing. Laura flapped her arms at them to shut them up, and said, with what she hoped was an air of finality in her voice, ‘I’m sure if Marcus Sussman used inappropriate language he was doing so to try and communicate with them. But I totally understand what you mean and I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.’
Mrs McGregor droned on in the background, but Laura didn’t listen, only vaguely registering that she had to get rid of her in order to reply to this email.
‘…have to speak to Rachel about this, Laura, yes, I will. Nasty man. Smooth young prat with cufflinks who thinks he can treat these kids like dirt because he went to university and they didn’t. It’s vile. And I’m surprised at you for not seeing it.’
‘They’re ten, Mrs McGregor,’ Laura said, finally losing her patience. ‘Of course they haven’t been to university, don’t be stupid. Fine. Talk to Rachel, but I’m surprised you’re being so blinkered. I always knew you were an inverted snob but I didn’t think you’d let it derail the volunteer programme like this.’
‘Oh!’ Mrs McGregor inhaled sharply. ‘Laura Foster. You’ll regret this, I promise you. Yes you will,’ and she slammed the phone down.
‘Laura!’ said Shana, her eyes sparkling with the unexpected office excitement. ‘Fuck, bum, willy, vag? What the hell…?’
Laura put her head in her hands and moaned softly to herself.
‘It was brilliant,’ said Shana joyfully. ‘Best thing I’ve heard in ages.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Laura, finally looking up at Nasrin, who put the magazine down and gazed at her. ‘St Catherine’s again. Mrs McGregor. Stupid old bitch, I hate her,’ she said defiantly. ‘I’m going to get in trouble, aren’t I?’
‘She always makes a fuss, every year,’ Nasrin said placidly, picking up Pick Me Up again. ‘Rachel knows that, don’t worry. She’s just a sad old rebel without a cause.’
Laura turned back to her email again. Now she was free to read it properly, she didn’t want to. Mrs McGregor had spoilt her afternoon.
A holiday is a great idea. You and me, nothing else. Imagine what we could do all week. Why don’t you start thinkingabout where to go. July is best for me, by then everything’ll be sorted. We can celebrate properly. I want you.
Dxx
Laura blushed with pleasure. The email, the email she’d been waiting on for over two days since she’d tentatively emailed him on Monday to ask if he thought they should go away. And here it was. He wanted to go away with her, everything would be sorted by then – so when was he going to talk to Amy? And then they’d be together. He was serious about her, she knew he was. Going on holiday, that was a big step, but they were ready for it. They’d spent so much time together they knew each other better than most other couples, and they certainly got on better than most other couples – look at Dan and Amy, she thought, and then realised they weren’t the best couple to compare Dan and herself to. Laura rolled her eyes at her own stupidity, but her heart was singing, and the rest of the day passed more pleasantly than she’d expected.
The next day it was still raining, and Mrs McGregor wrote a letter of complaint to the local education authority about Laura. She faxed it to Laura’s boss Rachel, who gave Laura a formal warning. She had no choice, she said, looking firmly at Laura as she twiddled a pencil between her fingers. Laura watched the pencil, sliding in and out and around, and wondered what all the fuss was about. Mrs McGregor was wrong, she was a horrible woman and she was wrong. Marcus Sussman was a bit hearty but he seemed to be a nice man: all he’d done was to tell a kid who called him ‘a fucking cunt’ to shut the fuck up – well, was that so bad? No, not in her book. Who cares, she thought, mentally shutting down and blocking out the memory of Mrs McGregor’s droning voice.
‘I won’t say I’m not disappointed,’ said Rachel, leaning over her desk towards Laura. ‘I thought that was one of your strengths, people management. You’ve always been so good at it, Laura. They love you at St Catherine’s, too. What happened?’
Laura looked at her and felt tears start in her eyes. She was being stupid, she knew it, behaving so irresponsibly, but she didn’t know how to start to explain. So she just said, ‘Oh, you know. I just – she really was so vile. I just couldn’t take it any more. I’m really sorry, Rachel. You know it won’t happen again. Can I ring Mrs McGregor and apologise?’
Rachel smiled at her, slightly more warmly than before. ‘Of course. Thanks a lot. You know how it is, Laura. We have to follow procedures. You know that. Just don’t let it happen again. And watch that Marcus Sussman. You’re sure he’s OK?’
‘Absolutely,’ Laura said. ‘I promise she’s making it into something from nothing. This is the last time, I won’t let you down.’
‘So, darling,’ said Angela Foster that evening, smoothing the sofa cushion over with her hand. ‘How’s work?’
She glanced around the sitting room, as if she expected a troupe of tiny tap-dancing mice to can-can out from a hole in the skirting board and pirouette off with her handbag.
‘Fine, fine,’ Laura said hastily. ‘Today was…er, fine. Thanks so much for these, they’ll look great.’ She gestured to the pastelspotted blinds her mother had bought her from John Lewis as a belated birthday present. ‘It’s so nice of you to bring them round, Mum, you shouldn’t have.’
‘Not at all, darling,’ said Angela. ‘And I wanted to see my girl. We haven’t seen you for such a long time, you know. You’re so busy these days.’
Laura changed the subject hastily. ‘So, Mum. Have you got time for a cup of tea or do you have to go?’
Angela looked at her. ‘I can see you’re longing for me to stay,’ she said dryly.
‘No, of course I am,’ Laura replied hastily. ‘Of course. Do stay. I’ve got some biscuits, too. Sit down, Mum. I’ll put the kettle on. Sit down, make yourself at home.’
‘I’ll try,’ said Angela, lowering herself gingerly onto the blue sofa with its tea-stained arms and cigarette holes in the cushions. She moved aside Paddy’s copy of Maxim with her heel and sat with her ankles neatly crossed. She smiled up at Laura.
Laura sighed and hurried into the kitchen, glancing anxiously at her watch. Dan had said he’d come round later, and she didn’t want the two to collide. Not that it was likely they would – he only ever turned up after the pubs shut, whereas her mum was usually in bed and fast asleep by that time. She hunted desperately in the cupboards as she waited for the kettle to boil, searching for biscuits of some description, but of course could find none, and then one of the kitchen unit doors finally gave up the ghost and pitched itself sideways, the MDF cracking and ripping as the door fell flat on the floor. ‘Shit,’ Laura said, picking it up and wedging it back into place again. She had heard similar sounds the previous night, very late, after Paddy had got back from a marathon drinking session, and suspected he might have done exactly the same thing himself, leaving it as a nasty surprise for her the next day. No biscuits, then. Laura grabbed some slightly soggy Carr’s water biscuits and took them back into the sitting room with the tea instead.
‘How nice,’ said Angela, taking one. ‘Hm.’
‘I couldn’t find any biccies,’ said Laura. ‘So sshh, just enjoy them.’
‘The flat’s looking nice,’ Angela said, obediently changing the subject. Laura gritted her teeth. Her mother was a Grand Master of the art of faking it. Laura knew she didn’t do it on purpose, but her superbly repressed nature meant that whenever an unkind or negative thought crossed her mother’s mind, she obviously felt she had to atone for it by saying the opposite of what she thought. It was quite a good barometer, actually. ‘What a lovely short skirt, darling!’ meant ‘I am embarrassed to go with you dressed like that to the Hunts’ wedding anniversary party, you look like a common prostitute.’ Or ‘Your friend Hilary is very lively, isn’t she? Dad loved talking to her,’ meant ‘Your friend Hilary drinks more than is socially acceptable at a barbecue buffet lunch in Harrow and is nothing more than a jail-bait husband-stealer.’
‘Thanks, Mum. It’s a bit of a tip at the moment. Paddy’s been on half-term and he just lazes round reading newspapers all day in his dressing gown.’
‘Ahh,’ said Angela fondly. She had more than a soft spot for Paddy. ‘How is James?’
It was strange, Laura thought, musing over this, that James Patrick could read mothers – and his female friends – like open books, and yet be so disastrously out of sync with the opposite sex for the rest of the time. Half-term had been notable for Paddy’s attempts to catch the attention of the girl in the flat downstairs, which involved hanging around the stairwell and by the pigeonholes for half the day, and smiling mysteriously, raising the eyebrow he’d now learnt to raise, and generally looking like an unemployed spy. The girl in the flat downstairs – whom Laura had met, she was called Becky and seemed really nice – simply cast him looks of something amounting to concern for his mental state every time she saw him. He was despondent about it, because he really liked her. And before he’d decided he fancied her, and had started acting like a lunatic, they’d actually got on quite well, during the few times they’d chatted. Added to which, Mr Kenzo from the flat opposite now thought Paddy was clearly a delinquent or else some kind of dodgy sex practitioner, and spent a lot of time watching him watching Becky, which all contributed to the atmosphere of light comedy pervading the stairwell of the block of flats.
‘He’s fine. Bit gloomy at the moment.’
‘Any girls on the horizon?’ said Angela hopefully.
Laura didn’t want to get into Paddy’s love life with her mother. She cast around for something else to say about him. ‘He’s giving me a hard time –’ Laura stopped, cursed herself and then went on, ‘– for not tidying up more,’ she finished, inwardly hugging herself for her own ingenuity.
‘Well, I’m sure he’s right,’ said Angela. ‘You are a bit messy. Still, it’s nice to live with someone who is too, isn’t it? You’re only young once, it does no one any harm to leave the Sunday papers strewn about once in a while.’
‘True, very true, Mum,’ Laura agreed with a grin. Angela sipped her tea and smiled back at her over her mug, a lovely smile with her eyes, and Laura thought how pretty her mum would be if she’d only do that more.
‘How’s Aunt Annabel?’ Laura said after a pause. Annabel had a beefy-faced husband and was the mother of the dreaded Lulu and Fran. A long time had passed since Laura and Simon happily played with Lulu and Fran on the beach in Norfolk as children. Now they were all grown-up, Lulu was a trust-fund skeleton who hung around with posh Eurotrash, and Fran was a porky, demented sports physio, with a loud, bellowing voice. Simon and Laura spent every family gathering trying to avoid them.
Angela swallowed her tea daintily and said brightly, ‘Oh, she’s fine, I hear. Granny saw her a couple of weeks ago. Lulu’s got a wonderful new job reviewing restaurants and cafés for some magazine in Notting Hill. Isn’t that great?’
Angela said this rather mechanically. Laura said incredulously, ‘How can Lulu have a job reviewing restaurants? She hasn’t eaten anything since 1991.’
‘Darling,’ said Angela. ‘Don’t be mean.’
‘Oh come on, Mum,’ Laura said. ‘She’s anorexic. It’s not right to be that thin.’
‘I know.’
‘Why doesn’t Aunt Annabel do something about it? She could run the UN if she wanted to.’
‘They look at things in a different way from us, dear,’ Angela said vaguely. ‘They’re different. Thank god.’
Laura was taken aback. Any criticism of their relatives coming from the mouth of her usually perfectly correct mother spoke volumes. But she said nothing, and instead pushed the IKEA catalogue on the coffee table towards her mother. ‘So, Mum,’ she said. ‘Show me the new sofa you like? And look – here’s the lamp I thought looked nice.’
Angela grabbed the catalogue almost gratefully, and opened it. ‘The lamp with the blue shade, that’s the one you want?’
Laura nodded. Angela looked genuinely excited, as she always did when a conversation about reasonably priced furnishings was in the offing. ‘And once you’ve put these blinds up – ooh, it’ll look really lovely, especially with spring coming,’ she said, drinking her cup of tea. ‘I should be on my way soon, you know. Dad’s back from Norway tonight and I ought to have something ready for him, poor thing.’
Since Laura’s father George was an engineer, something slightly strange in IT development systems, neither Laura nor her brother ever fully understood what it was that he did. It seemed to involve lots of flying about on business, anyway. He was a manically overenthusiastic cook when at home, though, who loved everything from barbecuing to casseroling, and was more than happy to do the lion’s share of the catering in the Foster household. It had become borne in upon Laura over the years, however, that it was her mother who had always got stuck with the really mundane tasks, like the packed-lunch preparation or the spag bol on a Wednesday evening after work.
‘Ooh, what are you making?’ Laura asked.
‘Lasagne,’ said Angela firmly. ‘You know your father. He’ll be full of the joys of rollmops and herrings and smorgasbords. Well, I’m not having it, I’m really not. He can wait till summer’s here for that kind of thing.’ She drained the last of her tea and stood up. ‘Right, darling, I’ll be off.’
‘Oh, OK,’ said Laura. ‘Thanks so much for the blinds, Mum. They’re great. I love them.’
‘I’m glad, darling,’ said Angela, kissing her on the cheek. ‘Your Granny picked them out with me. She said they were very You. And – oh my goodness, that reminds me. I nearly forgot. Honestly, where am I these days?’
‘What?’ said Laura, handing her mother her coat.
‘Granny. You know it’s her eighty-fifth birthday in July? Well, we want to have a little party for her at Seavale then.’ Seavale was Mary’s house by the sea in Norfolk. ‘With Aunt Annabel and Robert, and Lulu and Fran.’ Laura groaned, but Angela ignored her and carried on. ‘I think Simon will still be away travelling, so it’s even more important you’re there. I just wanted to check – you’re around in July, aren’t you, darling? No holiday plans or anything?’
‘Well…’ Laura said. ‘Er.’
Angela looked at her. ‘Er?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Laura.
‘The whole of July? You’re not sure?’ said Angela disbelievingly.
‘Well,’ said Laura, collecting herself. Good god, she was being stupid. ‘Any time’s good. I was thinking…thinking I might be on holiday in July sometime, but I’ll wait till you tell me a date and then plan it round that. Of course I’ll be there. And do tell Granny thanks for the blinds, too. I love them.’
‘You could ring her up and tell her, she’d be over the moon. She’d love to hear from you. Maybe you could meet for lunch, she was saying she hadn’t seen you for a while.’ Angela wrapped her scarf carefully around her neck.
It was true. Mary was not usually offstage. She was normally someone Laura saw once every other week, even if it was just to pop in for a drink after work, or to meet for a coffee. But Laura hadn’t seen her for a while. She pushed the thought from her head, and the associated guilt, and said,
‘Yes, I must call her. I must. Just been quite busy. Now, safe journey,’ she added. ‘Paddy will be disappointed he missed you, you know how much he loves you.’
Angela blushed. ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Thanks for the tea, darling. And call Granny. I’ll let you know when we decide for the party.’
‘Yep,’ said Laura, standing at the doorway. She waved as her mother disappeared down the curving staircase, and wandered back into the flat, kicking a stray football out of the way. As she stood in the hallway she realised it had been Christmas when she’d last seen her grandmother. That was ridiculous. It wasn’t as if she could say she lived in the middle of nowhere, either. Mary lived behind Baker Street – ‘within walking distance of Selfridges, good for the soul, my dear’ – in Crecy Court, a Thirties apartment block that Laura absolutely loved. It was like a step back in time, a veritable Who’s Who. She shared the block with Cedric Forsythe, an old Rank actor from the Fifties, who’d starred opposite Margaret Leighton and Celia Johnson; Jasper Davidson, a painter who’d lived in St Ives until he’d broken his hip three years ago; and Dilys Darcy, a long-forgotten Fifties crooner who’d been best mates with Alma Cogan and whose memory was sharper than a tack.
She went to pick up her mobile, to get her grandmother’s number off it. There was a text from Dan.
Can I come over? Have told Amy I’ll be late tonight. I really need to see you and I want you. I miss you so much, beautiful girl. Please say yes. D
As Laura stood holding the phone, the doorbell rang. She started, dropped the phone, and went over to the intercom.
‘Hello?’ she said.
‘Did you get my text?’ said the voice. ‘Is Paddy there? Can I come up?’
‘Dan?’ Laura said shakily.
‘Yes, it’s Dan,’ the voice said, amused. ‘Who else sends you text messages saying they want to come over and give you a good seeing-to? Am I one in a long line, should I join a queue?’
‘Aaagh,’ said Laura. ‘I was just confused. I was about to call someone and I was just conf—oh, come up, sorry, I’m just being thick.’
‘Are you sure?’ said Dan. He lowered his voice. ‘I can’t stay long, I just wanted to see you.’
Laura’s legs wobbled a bit and she smiled into the intercom. And then, out of nowhere, she found herself saying, ‘I’d love you to come up. But not if you can’t stay. Oh Dan, I’m sorry.’
‘What?’ said Dan.
‘I mean,’ said Laura, ‘you’re not just coming up for a quick fuck and then scooting off again. Not that that wouldn’t be nice. It would –’ and she almost wavered, then checked herself. ‘Hm. I want you too, but no, that’s not going to happen. I’m really sorry. Night, darling.’
‘OK,’ said Dan. He paused. ‘I’m sorry,’ he went on. ‘You’re right. Shit, oh well. I deserve it. Soon, soon, you know? Can you do me a favour?’
‘Depends,’ Laura said cautiously, dreading him asking her to come outside and do it on the porch.
‘Can you look out of the window and wave, just so I can see you tonight? Right, I’m off then. Bye my darling. I wish…’
‘Bye Dan,’ Laura said softly. ‘I love you.’
The line went dead as she stuffed her fist into her mouth. I love you? Why? Why had she said that? Damn. She ran over to the window, and gazed out across the quiet suburban North London street. The rain had stopped and the night was clear, and on the street below she could see a tall figure staring up at her. She opened the window and looked down, and there he was, a small figure below her, his gorgeous face turned up towards her.
‘I love you too,’ he shouted, and his voice echoed in the silence of the street. ‘I love you.’
Laura stood there, her eyes filled with tears. And then she blew him a kiss and shut the window.
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Harriet Evans
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: The warm and enchanting novel from the bestselling author of ‘Going Home’.Laura Foster is a hopeless romantic. It is her most endearing characteristic, yet consistently leads her into trouble. Friends and family look on with amused tolerance – until Laura’s inability to tell reality from romantic dreams causes betrayal and a broken heart.Taking refuge in Norfolk, Laura is bitterly aware that her rose-tinted glasses have to go. She swears off men, and all things romantic, for good – until she meets Nick, the estate manager of a huge stately home. But Nick has a secret too. And it’s one that Laura, however much she tries, can’t get past her prejudice about.Just as she was stubbornly a die-hard romantic, so Laura is stubborn about there being no future for her and Nick. But will he manage to change her mind?