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.
“How is it only twenty-five past six?” she said mournfully.
“Yeah, this feels like the film Interstellar,” Jamie said. “If Matthew McConaughey came back to Earth and his daughter’s an old woman, my date’s probably married with three kids by now.”
“Has this taken a real crap on your plans, then?” Laurie said. “Was it a first date?” she said, in a “I’m not just an uptight workaholic!” way, she hoped.
“Yeah it was. And Gina, twenty-nine, from Sale, is not likely to be impressed at being stood up. We met on Tinder, actually, so she’ll be on to five other standbys after half an hour. Gina twenty-nine from Sale waits for no man.”
Laurie laughed: this sounded less like dating, more like studying a menu in a specialist sauna. She wasn’t made for being single in this time. A sad weight pressed on her ribs.
Tinder. Or Deliveroo for dick, as Emily called it. Laurie inwardly shuddered.
The intercom buzzed. “Hello?”
Jamie was on his feet in one bounce, in a feat of agility: “Mick! Hello!”
“Hello. There’s good news and bad news.”
Jamie sagged. “The bad first?”
“It’s going to be another hour. Sorry.”
“Oh, for fu— And the GOOD?”
“They’re certain it’ll only be an hour from now.”
“Mick, that’s all bad news!”
“Sorry.”
Jamie turned back and slithered down the wall.
“Permission to cry, Laura?”
“Laurie!”
“Haha, oh God, sorry. I’ve got a blind spot where I’m determined to call you Laura. I’m turning into my dad. LOOK IT UP, MARJORIE!”
Laurie laughed again and decided to enjoy Jamie, when he was the only pleasure to be had.
“It’s a very cool name. Is it after anyone or anything?” he added.
“Laurie Lee, who wrote Cider with Rosie.”
Jamie squinted. “Wasn’t he a man?”
“Very good!” Laurie said. “Five points to Slytherin.”
“Oh wow, presumed ignorant. And I’m in Slytherin, am I?” Jamie said. Laurie grinned.
Resigned to their fate, they crossed an imaginary boundary—she felt herself relax—where making the best of limited resources for entertainment felt oddly nice. Like the final days before Christmas, where you can’t wait to break out on holiday, but no one’s doing any work and are pelting each other with Quality Street candy. Sometimes it’s more enjoyable than the holiday itself. Must be something to do with relief of having choices removed and expectations very low. Laurie wondered if she was a chronic overanalyzer.
“Cider with Rosie was a set text for my English Lit GCSE so I won’t pretend to be better read than I am,” Jamie said.
“And you got the Harry Potter reference too—don’t be hard on yourself,” Laurie said with a smile. “My mum didn’t know Laurie Lee was a man, she just liked it. It’s very much like my mum to trot off to register the name without even checking she had the gender right.”
Jamie smiled back.
“I wish I had a quirky story about my name, but nah.”
Silence fell again. Jamie hung his glossily curly head, temporarily out of conversation.
They had another hour to kill. Laurie decided to chance her luck.
“It didn’t work out with Eve, then?”
“Eve?” Jamie looked up and his forehead creased in what seemed genuine rather than feigned confusion. She was probably a few conquests ago, to be fair, Laurie thought.
“Niece of Mr. Salter? Long hair? I saw the two of you in the Refuge back in the summer, remember?”
“Ohhhh, Eve!” Jamie said in a possibly faked moment of comprehension. “Nah. Went out for dinner and career advice chat, but that was it. More than my life’s worth anyway, what with the family connections here. Like messing with a mafioso’s wife. And she’s very young.”
There was a pause as Laurie intuited Jamie was doing some internal sums, in light of Laurie’s knowledge.
“You didn’t say anything to anyone else here about seeing us, did you?”
“Nope. Why would I? You asked me not to, if I recall right.” Although if you didn’t do anything, why so edgy? Laurie thought.
“Well, thanks,” Jamie said. “There’s lots of people here who’d have it on a global email before they’d knocked the lid off their macchiato.”
“It’s a very gossipy place,” Laurie said.
“You’re telling me. I owe you one.”
“You don’t owe me, don’t worry,” Laurie said, trying not to snort at what sort of “one” Jamie might owe her. “I can’t stand the way people here feel entitled to know others’ business.”
“Hah. Agreed.”
Another silence descended and Laurie knew it was because Jamie was in a quandary: the only other possible topic was her ex, and yet that fell under category heading: other peoples’ business.
“You’re, er . . . separated from Dan Price in civil, is that right?”
He risked it. Probably for the same reasons Laurie mentioned Eve. If Mick had given them a time frame of fifteen minutes, there was little chance that these hot potatoes would be gaily lobbed about the place.
“Oh yeah. As separated as you can be,” Laurie said, and tried for a satirical smirk that came off as strained.
“I don’t know him that well,” Jamie said, and trailed off, obviously struggling to judge what was appropriate.
“I feel like if I say anything polite about him, it’ll stick in my throat, and if I say anything negative, it’ll make me look bitter,” Laurie said. “Safe to say working together is fucking awful.”
Laurie thought again about the day to come, when Dan dashed out because Megan was in labor. Having to hear about it on the office grapevine, the glances, the whispers, Who’s gonna tell her. She’d be expected to put her anger aside and wish him well. A baby carries all before it—how could Laurie’s feelings matter more?
How Dan would be in a floating state, partly due to sleeplessness, and briefly imagine the hatchet could be buried in the wash of love and wonder he felt. She could imagine the horrifically misjudged Laurie, meet my son/daughter xx text and photo already. The retraction later, which would come via mutual friends: He feels so stupid about that, he’d been up for twenty-seven hours straight. It was a difficult birth in the end—ventouse, I think—and you’re still very much a part of him/on his mind.
Then they’d think they could tell Laurie he’d taken naturally to fatherhood, as if that wasn’t akin to driving hot nails into her hands and expecting her to say: Oh, that’s nice. It’s an ill wind that blows no one any good: from the ashes of us comes the miracle of new life. It’s an ill fucking wind all right and I’ll give him a ventouse.
She’d be furious and scorched by this until the end of her days. She felt delirious thinking about it.
“I bet it’s a nightmare,” Jamie said. “I actually left the last firm I was at in Liverpool over a similar, uh, complication. Not anything like as serious a relationship. But we didn’t function well as colleagues, after.”
Laurie suppressed a smile and nodded. No shit, Jamie Carter had left an angry trail of women in his wake. However, he’d inadvertently hit on a rich seam of conversation—Liverpool. He and Laurie discussed the city she knew from her university years versus the one he knew from his twenties, and that launched them into student times, and the pressures of their early lawyering. Laurie was starting to feel light pressure from her bladder too. She had visions of having to squat in the corner while Jamie Carter turned his back and whistled a Maroon 5 tune.
Eventually, like the Voice of God, Mick interrupted on th
e intercom and said, “We’re getting you moving! Only a couple of minutes,” and both of them whooped their relief.
The lift jolted into life and Laurie would: (1) never take its movement for granted again and (2) be getting the stairs from now on anyway.
Mick was waiting for them on the ground floor, looking delighted.
“Were you about to start drinking your urine?”
“I’m certainly going to drink some imported Czech urine now,” Jamie said.
“Hell yes,” Laurie said, and wondered if she and Jamie Carter would ever speak again, outside shoptalk. Sharing this ordeal was worth a “hi” in the corridor and a head nod if their eyes met in departmental meetings. Maybe not much more.
They said their hearty good-nights to Mick, and thanked their savior, the man in the boilersuit with the monkey wrench.
As Jamie held the front door for Laurie, he said: “Hey. You might very much want to get straight off, and please say so if you do. But given we’ve both had our Friday nights trashed, fancy a quick drink? Drown our sorrows?”
“Oh . . . ? Sure.”
Laurie surprised herself by not only accepting but wanting to. She was secretly gratified that after an hour and a half of confinement together, he didn’t want to get away from her as fast as possible. And she didn’t think for a second Jamie was trying it on either. She understood what he meant, she felt it too: going home now to dinner for one was pure surrender. They couldn’t let the lift win.
“Nice one,” Jamie said with a dazzling smile, and she momentarily saw a flash of the powers that inflamed bosses’ nieces.
13
They went to Trof, an artfully scruffy bar for hipster youth and middle youth in the Northern Quarter, barmen in beanies with beards, on the basis the usual pub nearby would be overrun with their own.
What if anyone saw them? Laurie wasn’t worried, despite being recently uncoupled. When she asked herself why, it was because the idea she and Jamie Carter would have a dalliance was such a leap, the speculation wouldn’t get off the starting blocks. She’d explain and guffaw and everyone would concede, Yeah, we were reaching, there. Laurie didn’t know whether to feel reassured or saddened by this.
In some sort of devilishly brilliant coincidence, “You’re So Vain” was playing at volume as they entered, as if they knew Jamie Carter walked into bars like he was walking onto a yacht.
Laurie loved the interior’s golden glow and heaving warmth, compared to the violet-black cold of Manchester outside. She did like being around people, she realized, just not people she knew and was required to talk to.
“What’re you having?”
“Big red wine please,” Laurie said.
“Right you are.”
What was his accent? It wasn’t straight-up northern but it definitely wasn’t southern either.
Jamie pushed his way into the scrum at the bar. He had a sort of natural swagger she’d admittedly probably loathe in a member of her own sex. Watching women watch Jamie, Laurie allowed herself a split second of feeling relevant and hip by being with him, even though she wasn’t with him. She threw her scarf down and hummed along:
You gave away the things you loved
And one of them was me
Laurie wondered if this song was in fact about Dan, and her dreams had been clouds in her coffee. Dan would’ve been jealous of her being out with some handsome interloper, once upon a time. You’re where? What about your dinner? Why’s he asked you out, might I ask?
She’d lost Dan’s interest, she didn’t know when. She needed to identify the week, the day, the moment. The habits she’d gotten into that must’ve snuffed out his interest bit by bit.
Now, Dan neither knew nor cared where she was. It was funny being in a raucous barn like this, not psychically tethered to him. Her soul concaved and she forced herself not to think about him, or his evening dispensing foot rubs and leafing through the JoJo Maman Bébé catalogue.
“Has Gina been in touch?” Laurie said, after Jamie returned with the drinks, and she saw him surreptitiously glance at his iPhone.
“Yeah, I explained my predicament and she thinks I’m making it up, so that’s that. To be fair, it does sound a bit made up. What about you? Not ‘back out there’ yet?”
“Ah. No. I’m scheduled to get ‘back out there’ in about 2030, I think.”
“Quitters’ talk! Was it a bad breakup?” He put his lips to his pint. “Don’t tell me if you don’t want to.”
“You didn’t hear?”
“No. People don’t tell me much and I don’t really ask. Only he’s with someone else and no one saw it coming. Typical of our place that they’d expect to— What’s it got to do with them?”
Laurie gave Jamie a précis. She shared more than she intended. Once she’d started speaking to a neutral party, it was like staring into the unjudgmental face of a counselor.
Except he did judge it. At least Jamie Carter, man of the world, doing an authentic jaw drop at these details confirmed it was a shocking ordeal, even to a soulless womanizer.
“Fuck! Knocked up already? Oh, Laurie. That sounds torrid. Having to still share an office, beyond grim. Can’t you make him find another job?”
She knew sympathy and liberal use of her name was part of Jamie Carter’s repertoire, his deliberate charm, but she let herself be charmed by it anyway. Also, he was probably emphasizing he knew her name now.
“Nope. He’s got a kid to support soon.” Laurie said these words quickly, before she could care about them. “I can’t imagine he’ll be willing to move. She’s got a good job here. And I don’t want to lose my house; my mortgage has gotten much bigger. I don’t want to commute. I won’t let him make me leave. I’m trapped!”
Jamie shook his head.
Laurie concluded, “I’m probably going to spend the rest of my life figuring out what the hell happened.”
“He’s not worth that much of your time,” Jamie said, knocking his glass to hers, and Laurie appreciated it, while thinking, from the man who’d never give anyone much of his.
“Another?” she said, making to get up, as they’d drained the first round fast. Laurie was liking being out and hoped when he said one drink he’d meant three to four, as was British tradition.
“No,” Jamie said, and Laurie concealed her pang of dismay. He gestured at Laurie rising in her seat, to sit down.
“I mean yes, but let me. You deserve table service, and I want some peanuts. Or wasabi cashews or whatever it’ll be here.”
Laurie beamed.
With the second round, and then a third, Laurie must’ve had pretty much a bottle of red wine on an empty stomach and she was being a level of candid with Jamie she was going to regret in the morning. Yet she couldn’t stop herself.
“I’ve never been a vengeful person, but I have fantasies of bringing Dan to his knees. I want him sobbing and begging for me to take him back, even though I know it’ll never happen. It runs through my veins like lava—I can physically feel it.”
“Yeah, I get that. I’ve been that angry at the world in my time. How would you do it?”
She shrugged, grinned. “Haven’t figured that out yet, have I?”
“It’ll come to you. You’ve got a look in your eye that clearly states you’re not to be fucked with.”
Laurie nodded, pleased. If there was one thing she’d learned tonight, Jamie was easy company. She wouldn’t trust him as far as she could throw him, but he was a good crack. Craic, whatever. Ooh, inebriation felt nice. An escape from herself. Laurie rolled a beer mat on its edge, caught it in her other hand.
“Can I ask you something? Was the rumor true that Salter told you not to touch his niece? What did he say? I can’t imagine how he phrased it.”
Jamie laughed. “Oh, that did the rounds, did it? I swear Kerry listens at the door—I can’t believe he’s stupid enough to tell her as much she knows.”
“I’m sure she does. Or she’s bugged the room. She’s our own WikiLeaks.”
&nb
sp; “It’s both true and not the whole truth. Am I speaking in confidence here?”
Laurie held up her hand and did a Scout’s honor sign. “I’ve been relying on that since halfway through my first wine, to be honest.”
“It was warning me off Eve, but more than that, a whole ‘get your life together if you want to get on’ gruff paternal lecture.”
“Wow, seriously? Bit much?”
“I’ve applied to be made partner.”
Laurie did a double take. “Like, third wheel? Aren’t you . . . quite young for that?”
“I went to see them both and said I am young, but I’m completely committed and definitely ready.”
Here was the white-hot ambition that put backs up and noses out of joint.
“Yeah. I want to take on tons more work for a stake. I pretty much pitched them my vision for the future of the firm, for half an hour. They said they’d think about it.”
Laurie swirled her wine in her glass.
“What was the life coaching about?”
“When Eve arrived, Salter had me in to say, she is off-limits, but also a major sticking point in promoting me is my”—Jamie made air quotes—“‘lifestyle.’ ‘You’re someone we can’t trust around the wives and girlfriends at the Christmas party.’” He did a baritone imitation voice: “‘That matters, young man, whether you like it or not.’”
“Hahaha. Bloody hell.”
“Yeah, I mean, they’re old-fashioned and conventional, aren’t they. They only understand long-term partners, marriage. Two by two onto the Ark.”
“It’s a bit much to say they can’t promote a single person! Jesus Christ, is it 1950?” Laurie would’ve thought this unfair anyway, but in her current predicament she wondered if a spinster would also be ruled out, and her blood heated.
“It’s not single per se, it’s my kind of single. Being seen out with someone different every weekend. Playing the field. It could, and I quote this word for word, ‘leave the company vulnerable to blackmail.’ No, I have no idea what that means either.”
“Oh no,” Laurie said. Then, indiscreet in drink: “Dick pics. They mean dick pics and revenge porn and sex tapes, surely?”
If I Never Met You Page 10
