If I Never Met You(30)

‘You in a rush?’ Jamie said, eventually.

‘No … not really,’ Laurie said, feeling her lack of vibrant social life when stood opposite the Captain of Friday Night Plans. ‘You?’

‘Yep.’ Jamie looked at an expensively solid silver watch again. ‘What’s he doing?’ He pressed the buzzer again. ‘Hi. Still here.’

‘I just said hold on!’

‘I don’t know if time’s moving differently down there but up here it’s been ten minutes?’

Moments ago, Laurie had resented Jamie’s intrusion, now she felt quite fortunate to be able to delegate this problem to the most entitled and pushy of the firm’s advocates.

‘Yeah, well, get used to more of that.’ Mick said.

‘What?’ Jamie’s brow furrowed as he leaned on his forearm and jabbed the intercom again. ‘Speak to us, Mick.’

‘Right … the maintenance company say it’s going to be an hour. Hang tight.’

Jamie’s brow furrowed further and Laurie gasped.

‘Sorry, that sounded like you said an HOUR?’ Jamie said.

Pause. Crackle. ‘At least. Sorry. How many of you are there?’

‘Two of us. Myself and …’ Jamie looked over.

Laurie couldn’t help but grin as a stricken blankness spread across his face.

‘Laura?!’ he said triumphantly, palms up, a how did I do? to play up the fact he hadn’t been sure.

‘Laurie,’ Laurie corrected, with a smile.

‘Laurie. I knew that! Sorry. Long week.’

‘Do a crossword together,’ Mick said, audibly chortling.

‘Ha fuckin har,’ Jamie said, after letting the button go. ‘An hour?!’

He looked at his watch. ‘Fuck’s sake. Gone seven?’ Jamie fiddled with his phone. ‘No coverage at all?! Fucking HELL.’

This aspect of captivity was obviously a major sting for Jamie Carter, whereas Laurie wouldn’t have thought about whether she could get online or call anyone for another five minutes at least. Maybe Dan was right, maybe she had become insular and boring. Should she be trying to Snapchat with dog-ears filters, from inside this Faraday cage?

Jamie yanked his coat sleeve up, checked the time again – although in the last minute, Laurie was guessing it had only moved forward by a minute – and jabbed at his phone again and then waggled it. ‘What about you?’

Laurie rifled her own iPhone out of her bag and peered at the screen. It was covered in spidery cracks and fractures. It looked like she felt. She shook her head.

‘Absolutely wonderful,’ Jamie said, looking at his phone again, in disgust. He threw his umbrella and briefcase down and pressed the button.

‘Hi, Mick. Would you do me a favour, would you call my date for tonight and tell her I’m trapped in a lift?’

Laurie laughed out loud, a real belly laugh.

‘What?’ Mick barked.

‘Call her. And say I’m trapped in a lift, put our date back an hour.’

Wait, he was serious?

‘OK, here’s her number …’ Jamie read it from his iPhone. ‘O – 7 – 9 – 1 …’

Jamie took his coat off as he did so, shucking it over his shoulders in a manner that somehow felt showy even though he was simply taking a coat off.

‘What?’ he said, glancing over, unbuttoning a cuff and rolling a sleeve up.

‘He’s got a job to do, he’s not your PA!’

Jamie rolled his eyes and ignored her.

‘No one is answering that number,’ Mick said over the intercom, moments later.

‘I bet she thinks an unrecognised Manc landline is PPI,’ Jamie sighed. ‘Thanks for trying, Mick.’ He rolled up his other sleeve, and sat down, sighing heavily.

Laurie realised there was no longer any reason for her to be standing up either, and followed suit.

‘Are you claustrophobic?’ Jamie said.

Laurie shook her head, self-conscious that the wave of panic she’d just felt was obviously visible.

She was telling the truth; she wasn’t, to her knowledge, claustrophobic. But right now she’d been unexpectedly reacquainted with sensation of breaking her arm as a kid, having a heavy plaster cast on it, and waking up in the dead of night freaking out: ‘Get it off me, get it off me!’ She’d been fine in this lift, until that very second, when the four walls pressed in and with no hope of escape, her chest tightened, and her fists clenched, nails digging into her palms.

‘Breathe,’ Jamie said, watching Laurie. ‘Concentrate on breathing. We’ll be out of here before you know it.’

Despite what she said, he was smart enough to spot she wasn’t coping. Typical lawyers, she thought. We read people constantly. We don’t necessarily care about what we discover, but we read them.

She breathed, and calmed.

Laurie and Jamie had exhausted polite, banal chat about Salter & Rowson’s internal politics, and the gnarly attitudes of certain magistrates, and the clock had barely shifted. Twelve minutes had passed since Laurie last looked.

Out there, 6.25 p.m. would’ve arrived without noticing, it would’ve been an eye blink, a long stride in the short distance to the tram. In here, it was an eternity.

Jamie saw Laurie clicking her phone agitatedly to check the time and she remembered he knew she couldn’t be picking up messages, and stopped.