If I Never Met You(104)

‘The truth wasn’t what was needed, here, or what was going to help.’ He clenched his jaw and jutted his chin slightly and they were clearly skirting the territory of their first big fight. Or, the last one?

‘Jamie, the truth is sometimes of value in itself. Not working out what it’ll get you.’

‘Oh Laurie, of all the times to go all “inspirational meme over a sunset” on me.’ Jamie smiled, weakly, and it felt so much like Dan’s brush-offs that her hair stood on end.

‘Of all the times for you to go lying triangulating lawyer bastard on me!’ she snapped.

‘This is the way the world IS, Laurie!’ Jamie’s temper broke. ‘I know you’re honest and decent and I love you for it, but this is how it actually works. It’s shit and cruel and unjust and you do what you need to do to survive. I learned that young. So did you.’

‘Don’t do that, don’t try to make me feel bad for being upset about this.’

‘What exactly are you angry with me for, here, please? Not standing there pledging my undying devotion to you, to someone who’d sack us both for it?’

‘Ah …’ Laurie turned her eyes to the sky. ‘Right now? Everything. For not telling me about Eve, so this ambushed me.’

‘Yeah, sorry.’ Jamie adjusted the weight of his briefcase. ‘I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to. There it is.’

She didn’t feel much apology coming from him, however.

‘How will you get another job in Manchester? With the rules on practising elsewhere?’ Laurie said.

‘I don’t know, I might have to look at other cities.’

‘London?’ Laurie said. Jamie did a double-take. ‘Uhm yeah maybe, I don’t know? There are a lot of law firms there. Give me a second, given I got my P45, five minutes ago?’

‘That’s us done then, isn’t it?’

‘Is it? There’s this thing called a train …’

‘Remember what Michael and Dan said? That you’d lie to me, that you’d leave my professional standing in tatters when you moved on to pastures new? No part of that prediction was in fact wrong, was it?’

‘What? You’re agreeing with their view of me? That’s pretty disloyal and weak.’

He glowered in disgust, nose wrinkled. She’d never felt this defensive hostility from him before. She had to come out fighting, to stop it frightening her. Attack as a form of defence.

‘I’ve been disloyal and weak?! You manipulating another woman has brought the whole house of cards crashing down on both of us, but I’m supposed to carry on thinking you won’t treat me badly, because you’ve changed, or it’s different with me? All those lines that have been used by bad men since the dawn of time.’

‘“Bad man”! Stop acting like this was all my idea, something I’ve tricked you into for my nefarious ends. We both did it because we both wanted something from it. Sorry it went wrong, but then I’m the one who lost my job.’

‘It was your idea.’

Jamie rolled his eyes in genuine contempt. ‘Nice. So under pressure, I tried to think about what’s best for both of us. You revert to shit old stereotypes of me, start insinuating I’m using you. This is how deep it runs, your good opinion of me.’

‘Did you sleep with Eve?’

‘You honestly have to ask me that, when I just said I didn’t?’

‘Yes. It’s the one thing you’ve been accused of that isn’t true, according to you. It’s something of an anomaly.’

‘It doesn’t sound like you’re going to believe me, whatever I say.’

Laurie’s chest hurt. It was one of those rare times when you can feel something being torn down, the something intangible that exists between you.

A moment whistled between them, in the frostbitten Manchester wind. It was one of those moments that decided how everything was going to be afterwards.

‘I’m not sure I know who you are,’ Laurie said, simply. Persuade me, she thought. Talk me round. Please. She didn’t want to push this hard but she had to, or she wouldn’t trust him from now on.

‘In that case, you’re not who I thought you were either,’ Jamie said.

Chattering people spilled out of the doors behind them and Jamie gave her a weary, hard glance, adjusted his briefcase again, and turned, walked off. Laurie sucked in air and let it out and said ‘oh,’ to herself. She thought he’d fight harder. Apparently not.

As she trod back up the stairs, empty as a husk, Michael was stood at the top, jangling change in his pocket.

‘I did try to warn you. We tried to protect you from him, but you wouldn’t have it.’

‘Get bent, Michael,’ she said.

‘Let me guess, he’s announced that you’re not together as of round about now? Given that he has no need for you anymore?’

‘Incorrect, sorry.’

He’d hear eventually, but no way was she adding to his jubilation this afternoon.

‘Oh, right. I look forward to the announcement of your wedding, at which point I will bike naked around Piccadilly Gardens singing “Life Is a Rollercoaster”.’

‘Get yourself some saddle rub in then.’

‘Haha! Good one. Don’t cry over him darling, he’s not, and has never been, worth it.’