by Nicola Gill
Greta took Laura’s hands in hers. ‘Om.’
‘Om,’ Laura mumbled. She opened her eyes. Greta was beaming at her. Egg-sandwich man was gone, thank goodness, and even though Laura knew that Evan was going to be considerably harder to shift, it didn’t feel entirely bad to have acknowledged that she’d like him to go.
Chapter Ninety-Five
Jon was telling Laura why it was so much better to be a dead celebrity’s lookalike. ‘Otherwise you run the risk of ending up like poor old Martin, who has just had his whole livelihood wiped out. He’s a tribute artist for Garry Nunn. Or rather, he was a tribute artist for Garry Nunn.’
Garry Nunn was an ageing rockstar who had been splashed all over the papers for the last few days because he’d allegedly been having sex with underage boys. ‘Yes, I can see bookings for a lookalike Garry would rather have plummeted.’
Jon laughed. ‘Yeah. And even when it’s not that dramatic, you can still never be sure what your celeb is going to do next. Janice hasn’t had a single booking since Licia Lucas sent that tasteless tweet. Not so much as a sniff of a Bar Mitzvah or a ribbon cutting.’
Laura laughed. ‘Want some more pasta?’
‘Yes, please.’
She hadn’t planned on cooking Jon dinner tonight. But after bringing Billy back, he’d ended up staying to give him his bath and his story. It had broken Laura’s heart a little to see how pleased Billy was when she’d gone in to kiss him goodnight. ‘All four of us together.’
‘Four?’
‘You, me, Daddy and Buzz.’
After Billy had gone to bed, Laura and Jon had started talking about the whole bullying thing and how things seemed – fingers crossed – to be better. ‘Apparently Caitlyn even sat next to him at circle time yesterday.’
They carried on chatting and, after a while, she offered him a drink and then, when she started to get hungry and he was showing no signs of going, she offered to make them both something to eat.
‘This is delicious,’ he said, tucking into his second helping of spaghetti carbonara.
Could have done with a bit more pepper, Evan said, popping up in Laura’s mind. Oh shut up, Evan. ‘Thanks.’
‘So much better than my mum’s food,’ Jon said. ‘It’s meat and two veg night after night. Like we’re stuck in the nineteen fifties. My goodness, my mum can murder a vegetable too. I think she boils the green beans for about three and half hours.’
Laura laughed. ‘How are you finding it living with them again?’
‘Tricky. They still treat me like a kid.’
Laura pushed away the desire to say: well, if the boot fits …
‘They expect me to tell them exactly what time I’ll be home. Also, you know they’re a bit weird about booze. Mum was horrified the other day when I came back from the supermarket with a six-pack of beers. She asked if I was really going to drink alcohol at home. And on my own. I think she’s a heartbeat away from signing me up for AA.’
‘Did you tell them that rock stars have to drink? That it goes with the territory?’
Jon laughed. ‘They don’t really understand the lookalike work. I think they think I just put on the Elvis outfit for kicks.’
‘I mean, you never seem in a hurry to get out of it!’ Laura tried to imagine what it would be like to live with her parents now. She reckoned she and Evie would have lasted about four and half minutes without wanting to batter each other to death with the frying pan. As for her dad, she didn’t know really. She’d been a little girl when he died. How would they have got on now she was a (sort of) grown-up? She’d like to think well, but it was easy to idolize people once they were dead. They’d talked about it at grief group. ‘Oh yes,’ Rob had said. ‘I want to laugh in people’s faces when they talk about Lynn like she was some kind of saint. It was her wicked side that attracted me to her.’
‘That’s pretty,’ Jon said, gesturing towards the Kintsugi-ed dish.
‘Jess got it for me. Well, actually I got it for Mum years ago and then I broke it and Jess got it fixed for me using Kints—’ She laughed. ‘It’s complicated.’
‘You seem to be seeing a lot of Jess.’
Her shoulders stiffened. She knew what he wanted from her here. She was supposed to roll her eyes and say ‘Yeah, too much’ and then he’d go on about just how boring Jess and Ben were. But Laura wasn’t playing. ‘Want another beer? While your mum isn’t looking.’
‘Yes, please,’ Jon said, laughing.
Laura handed him a beer. ‘How is your novel going?’ she said, not sure if she really wanted to hear the answer.
‘Really well, actually.’
Maybe Laura had been unfair?
‘I’ve finished the first two chapters.’
Nope, she hadn’t been unfair.
‘I know that’s not loads,’ Jon said. ‘But it’s important to get it right, isn’t it?’
Laura didn’t trust herself to answer. If Jon came out with the ‘No one said to Michelangelo …’ line again, she’d be forced to whack him repeatedly over the head with Billy’s lightsaber.
Jon took a sip of his beer. ‘No one said to Michelangelo, “Look, mate, you’re taking quite a long time on one ceiling.”’
Breathe, Laura, breathe.
Jon laughed at his own wit. ‘How is work going for you?’
‘Same old, same old, really. Dani keeps dumping too much work on me. Dressing it up as flattery. “If I give a job to you, I know it’ll be done right”, “You’re my best editor, Laura.” Shame she doesn’t remember that one when it comes round to pay rise time.’
They sat at the rickety table and carried on chatting for ages. And it was nice; familiar and comfortable. They both avoided any conversational landmines like regular child support (now he was working he gave her money, but not a set amount, and not at a set time).
Suddenly it was eleven o’clock and Laura said she’d better get to bed.
‘I’ll help you clear up.’
‘Well, that’s a first!’
He laughed and slapped her on the bum. ‘Not true.’
Was it weird he’d slapped her on the bum? In their time, they’d explored every inch of each other’s bodies, every mole, tickly bit or curve. But now …
She washed and he dried. ‘Y’know,’ she told him. ‘So the dishes will actually be clean.’
He was jubilant when she handed him a pasta bowl that still had a tiny bit of pancetta clinging to it. ‘Err what were you saying about things actually being clean?’
In the hallway, he put on his blue suede shoes (which he’d bought for work but, apparently, decided could be worn off duty too), thanked her for a nice evening, and leaned in to kiss her. And it was slightly awkward because she thought he was going to kiss her on the mouth and for a nanosecond – just a nanosecond – she wanted him to. The sex between them had always been good, long after other things weren’t. And when he wasn’t in a white, rhinestone-studded suit, he was still pretty handsome.
‘It’s going to take ages to get all the way back to Edgware now.’
Laura pretended not to get the hint.
Chapter Ninety-Six
Laura was deeply regretting not letting Jon stay over and not because she wished they’d spent the night having incredible sex (although …). Billy had woken up at 4 a.m., having been sick all over his bed, which meant that as Laura was comforting him and cleaning everything up, she was also struggling with every working mum’s worst nightmare: what do I do about childcare if my child can’t go to school?
Jess was in Liverpool for the day doing some project with another influencer, Jon would be fast asleep in Edgware with his phone switched off, and Amy not only worked full-time herself but was also being really frosty with Laura since she’d said no to having Josh last Sunday. Laura supposed there were a couple of school mums she could ask, but it seemed like a big favour and she didn’t feel she was exactly flavour of the month since having a go at ‘poor grieving widow’ Tanya Webb in the playground.
&n
bsp; Laura got back into her own bed, her heart thumping. It was fine; she would just tell Dani she was going to work from home. Dani would be okay with that, even though her only ‘babies’ were her cats and to say she was a little irritated by having to make allowances for mothers was something of an understatement. Amy had once pretended she had to go to the STD clinic rather than admit Josh was running a temperature again.
Lots of people had mums who could step in at a time like this, of course. Hot tears of self-pity filled Laura’s eyes, and she wasn’t sure if it was because she didn’t have a mum, because her mum wouldn’t have been the sort to help out anyway (once, when Billy was a toddler, Evie had told her simply that she ‘didn’t like vomit’), or both.
Two hours later, Billy marched into her bedroom. When Laura asked him how he felt, he seemed almost surprised. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘But I’d like some Ribena and some breakfast.’
‘Oh,’ Laura said, getting out of bed. Would it be really evil to send him to school if he was okay now? She knew you weren’t supposed to; that the school had a strict policy of not letting any child back until it had been at least twenty-four hours since they’d vomited. Of course they didn’t want people spreading bugs. But Billy probably didn’t even have a bug. Jon had let him eat loads of chocolate the night before so it was probably just that.
Could she? Should she?
She made up a glass of weak Ribena and handed it to Billy, who drank it in one greedy gulp.
This wasn’t a child with a bug. He could go to school; she could go to work.
Billy’s face suddenly paled and he threw up all over the kitchen floor.
‘Oh, sweetheart,’ Laura said, trying to cuddle him without stepping barefoot in the bright purple vomit.
After Laura got Billy back into bed and the kitchen cleaned up, she stroked his hot little head with one hand while calling Dani with the other. She must not feel nervous, or think about the fact it was still so awkward with Dani since the reply-all email. ‘Hi Dani,’ she said trying to sound breezy. ‘I thought I might work from home today. I’ve got loads to get through and I could really do with just getting my head down. Plus, I’m interviewing the woman whose false nails saved her from tragedy at 8.30 and I reckon I’ll get much more out of her if I don’t have those noisy sales boys in the background.’
Dani sounded a bit displeased but said that was fine. As long as Laura’s eight pages were ready by print day tomorrow, she didn’t care where she was.
Laura hung up the phone feeling relieved. She fetched a sick bucket for Billy and told him she was going to be in the sitting room doing her work and she would keep coming to check on him but, in the meantime, to shout if he needed her. She was going to be on the phone but he could interrupt her if he needed to.
‘Even if there’s no blood?’ Billy said seriously.
Laura nodded. She didn’t always love it when she heard her own words coming back at her.
She glanced at her watch and saw it was nearly half past eight already. She’d have liked to have chucked a coffee down her throat before the interview but there wasn’t time. In fact, there wasn’t even time to clean her teeth and get dressed. Thank God it wasn’t a Skype interview. Laura found Sandra’s number, put the call on speaker phone and took a deep breath.
‘Hi Sandra. It’s Laura from Natter magazine. How are you this morning?’ (If you’re not covered in splats of purple vomit, then you’re doing better than me.) ‘Thanks so much for agreeing to share your wonderful story with us.’
Sandra said that was fine. It was a story people should know. She started to tell Laura about how she always has acrylic nails. They make her feel glam and ‘finished’. She used to be a nail-biter, would Laura believe? Anyway, she always has her acrylics. The girls in the office call them her ‘talons’.
Laura heard Billy get out of bed and her stomach clenched. Please, she thought, don’t throw up again for another twenty minutes.
Sandra said she’d been coming home from a night out; a friend’s birthday. It was dark when she left and she didn’t see the man lurking in the shadows. Before she realized, he had grabbed her.
Billy appeared in front of Laura looking sweaty and agitated. Laura pressed the mute button so Sandra wouldn’t hear her or Billy. ‘Do you feel sick again?’
Billy shook his head. ‘Buzz has escaped.’
Dear God. ‘We’ll find him as soon as Mummy is off the phone.’
Billy’s eyes filled with tears.
‘Okay, okay,’ Laura said, getting up from the kitchen table, grabbing her dictaphone and following Billy into his bedroom. ‘But you have to be quiet.’
Billy put a finger to his lips to indicate he was a man of the world and knew how to handle such situations.
Sandra was still talking. Terrifying, it was. She saw her life flash before her.
Laura unmuted her side of the call. ‘Awful,’ she said robotically as she got down on all fours and looked under Billy’s bed.
‘And then,’ Sandra said, portentously, ‘instinct took over.’
‘Right,’ Laura said, looking under Billy’s chest of drawers and trying not to notice how tearful he looked.
‘I just gouged my nails into his eyes,’ Sandra said. ‘And he was so shocked.’
‘Well, yes,’ Laura said.
‘Mummy,’ Billy shouted.
Laura put her finger to her lips. ‘Sorry,’ she said to Sandra. ‘Noisy office.’
She went over to the spot where Billy was hopping up and down and saw that the guinea pig was cowering in a corner underneath the wardrobe. Billy pointed at him theatrically and Laura nodded.
‘I just ran and ran,’ Sandra said.
‘Amazing,’ Laura said.
Sandra said it was amazing; that she could hardly believe it now she thought back to it. Her ‘talons’ had saved her from goodness knows what. The police had told her afterwards that her attacker was known to them and he was a nasty piece of work. There was no knowing what he might have done to her.
Billy was practically exploding with the agony of the rescue mission being delayed. Laura tried to get Sandra off the phone but she was too busy telling her what her friends Jane and Linda had said about the whole night. Also, when was the photo shoot going to be? It couldn’t be on a Tuesday or a Thursday evening because that’s when she went to Zumba. Oh, and Wednesday she had her mammogram. What did Laura think she should wear for the photos? Sandra had thought her favourite red top but her daughter said that made her look a bit ‘loose’. Was black okay or would that look too wintery for May?
Eventually, Laura managed to get Sandra off the phone, coax the guinea pig out with a bit of carrot and get Billy back into bed with her iPad.
She sank down into a chair at the kitchen table, utterly exhausted. She didn’t need Evan to tell her that hadn’t been her best interview. Then she realized she’d forgotten to switch on her dictaphone. She groaned and let her head sink into her hands. It was every journalist’s worst nightmare.
But it was okay; she’d be able to remember what Sandra had said. She just had to get it down quickly while it was still fresh in (what was left of) her mind.
This day really had not started well. And she still hadn’t cleaned her teeth, had a coffee or checked her emails.
Christ, her emails! She better look at those before writing up the story, just in case there were any from Dani. God help you if you were working from home and then unresponsive.
Laura opened her inbox, skimmed them and was relieved to see there was nothing from Dani. Such was her relief, she decided to treat herself to a quick peek at her personal emails, and could hardly believe her eyes when she came across an email from Inlustris inviting her in for an interview.
She was a proper journalist, after all! (Apart from this morning.)
She mustn’t get ahead of herself though. She thought about the last interview she’d been to about a year or so before. It was at a magazine called Put Your Feet Up. The woman interviewing her, although
young, had the weary demeanour of someone who thought life to be a perpetual series of disappointments. She asked questions in a way that suggested she already knew, and thought poorly of, the answers. At the end of the interview she told Laura she wasn’t sure she was ‘digital enough’. I’m not a fucking computer, Laura had thought.
She wouldn’t get this job.
Shut up, Evan!
She reread the email, unable to believe it.
Chapter Ninety-Seven
You imagine a person’s ashes would come in a fancy urn, right? But Laura’s mother was in an unprepossessing looking box, which was in a hessian bag for life (bag for death?). It was sitting on Jess’ kitchen worktop, right next to the Alessi fruit bowl full of lemons.
‘I guess she’d want us to scatter them with Dad’s ashes?’ Laura said.
Jess shook her head. ‘I asked her about that and she said she didn’t want to end up in the outer Hebrides. She said it was a bloody miserable place where it never stops raining, and to scatter her ashes in a place she liked instead.’
‘What? Like that Turkish restaurant on Lavender Hill? Or the beauty department of Selfridges?’
Jess laughed. ‘You’re evil!’ She pushed her hair back off her face. ‘It’s weird to think that’s Mum in there, isn’t it?’
Laura nodded. Heard Evie’s voice telling her that at least they could have got a proper urn.
