If I Never Met You(63)

‘Ah God. I’m not sure I could ask you to do that? I’m more setting out the problem. To a smart and sensitive person, who might know what to say to them.’

Laurie was touched.

‘If you want me to go, that’s cool,’ Laurie said, evenly. ‘But do you want me to? If you find this too weird then I don’t mind figuring something else out.’

Jamie raised his eyebrows, face suffused with surprise.

‘I’d love you to go, Laurie, and I’d be forever grateful. But are you sure? My parents, a whole weekend? A sixty-fifth birthday, with sausage rolls and “Come On Eileen”?’

‘I like sausage rolls and coming on Eileen,’ Laurie said, and she hadn’t meant to be bawdy but accepted Jamie’s laughter as if she had intended it.

‘This is so kind. I’d be forever in your debt, to be honest,’ Jamie said.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Laurie said. ‘… If they’ve seen photos, they know I’m black? They’re fine with that?’

Jamie did a small double-take. ‘Yeah. They’re not racist?’

‘Sorry, not saying they are, but still worth checking. I’ve had some funny moments in job interviews and meeting friends’ parents in my time. “But your name sounds English,” and so on.’

‘God,’ Jamie said. ‘No, it’s fine. Obviously.’

Laurie nodded. He meant well, but it wasn’t an ‘obviously’: she had learned not to take acceptance for granted, but now wasn’t the time to get into that.

‘And … they’re not going to let us stay at a hotel,’ Jamie said. ‘But, what I could do is sleep on the floor? The spare room is big enough.’

Laurie hooted. ‘Oh God, I’d not thought of that! Yeah, sure.’

Jamie looked many degrees less anxious than when they’d met. ‘Thanks, Laurie. Really.’

She liked being this unflappable Laurie again. Go with the flow and handle it, Laurie. Not the stifling presence, who made life feel like a tunnel. She might have stumbled into a moment of liking herself.

‘No worries,’ Laurie adjusted her bag on her shoulder. ‘Friday to Sunday?’

‘Yeah. I’ll get the train tickets and text you the time, say seven ish, we can meet at Piccadilly?’

‘See you then. I’m going in for a coffee, want one?’

‘I’m already awash with adrenaline, going to leave the caffeine alone.’

She nodded.

‘Oh, Jamie?’

He abruptly turned on his heel. Laurie’s heart gave a little squeeze that she could see he looked less stricken, and a weight – if not the greater one – had clearly been lifted. Why had he been so worried about asking her? Perhaps he had a slightly skewed version of Laurie, as she’d had of him: angry ballbuster who in the face of his anguish, would still say aw hell no.

‘Duh, just thought! Where do they live?’

‘Oh! Lincoln. I’m from Lincoln. It’s a wild west kind of a town, brace yourself.’ He grinned that heartbreaker’s grin.

Laurie nodded and held a palm up as farewell.

Inside the shop, Laurie felt pensive, and the feel-good factor of helping Jamie faded further as she walked back to the office, gripping the paper cup.

It was one thing to pantomime a relationship to the audience of Salter & Rowson solicitors. They were now going to pretend to be a couple in front of his dying father, and soon-to-be-widowed mother?

What if they found out that she’d lied to them, and in effect made a mockery of their kindness, hospitality and interest in her? What if they couldn’t stand her and she let Jamie down, and he wished he’d never asked her? What if they fell for her so hard, they expected to see her throughout Jamie’s father’s illness? Once you started a charade, it was tricky to work out the optimum time to end it.

It had felt so rewarding to say hey, I’d love to, to Jamie, but she now felt the size of what she’d promised. However, Laurie reasoned with herself, you didn’t have a choice. If you’d made up an excuse, they’d have invited you the following weekend. She had to do it; this was the least worst option.

You’ve told lies. The law of unintended consequences.

Laurie wheeled her trolley case across the concourse at Piccadilly in early evening and immediately spotted Jamie amid the crowd, his expression mirroring her own suppressed discomfort.

Going away for the weekend together, sharing sleeping arrangements – it was a huge gear shift up from steak dinners and silly photo ops, occasions when they amicably parted ways at quarter past nine. Laurie was about to intrude on a family in a key moment of crisis, under false pretences. A trespasser, pranking them. She couldn’t think of it without her stomach somersaulting, so if she could help it, she would try not to think about it.

Damn Emily for being so right, to the point of being a prophet (of doom). Intensely intelligent people were expected to wear it heavily, to present as polysyllabic, and with a bibliography. Emily was every bit as sharp in her understanding of human nature, but because she knew her way round MAC, you weren’t primed to expect it in the same way.

Jamie, off duty, was a different kind of showy: a dark pea coat with the collar turned up (Laurie could not have done that without feeling a fool), a cable sweater and dark jeans, and lace up, artfully scuffed chestnut brown shoes which had definitely been sold-as-scuffed by a fashionable brand. Laurie was in her duffle jacket and opaque navy tights, and felt her inadequacy as companion to this off-duty member of Take That, with the chiselled jaw.