If I Never Met You

by Mhairi McFarlane

  “OK well, pick something Dan made difficult, and do it. Or get it.”

  “I’m not sure I want a dog; I’m not ready. Maybe a cat. But then I’m the single-cat-woman cliché.”

  “Plants and flowers it is then. Aim for ‘Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Elton John!’ kind of levels of foliage.”

  Inside they got a shallow trolley and Laurie filled it with bright flowers in pots and kitchen garden herbs.

  “This is very therapeutic actually,” she said. “Can we look at the Farrow and Ball tester pots now? I love them.”

  “Knew it. You are a natural homemaker. I am a natural home-wrecker.”

  This was the perfect conversational opening to outline the Jamie Carter Indecent Proposal to Emily. When Jamie said “one person” was always the leak, he surely didn’t mean loyal female best friends unconnected to their workplace. But no need to spook him by querying it.

  Laurie paused, expectant for the delighted cackle.

  “You’re not going to do it, are you?” Emily said, pulling them to a halt in the Paints and Painting Accessories aisle.

  Laurie did a small reel back.

  “What? I thought you would be SO into this. It’s like a public relations campaign on steroids. As a life experiment.”

  “That’s why you should take me seriously when I say don’t do it.”

  Laurie was so startled she could only blurt:

  “Why not?”

  “Because, for one, it’s lying. I know that sounds quite superstitious and I can’t be more specific. But it’s lying, and lying goes wrong. Lying is just bad karma.”

  “Em, you old hippie! Can Mrs. I won’t travel anywhere where I get fewer than three bars on my phone or fewer than four stars on my hotel be talking like this?!” Laurie was a mixture of amusement, incredulity, and slight worry at this unexpected take. She took Emily’s advice seriously. Apart from the stuff about hench dipshits.

  “I know, I know,” Emily said. “But I’ve got rid of anyone who’s ever worked for me who has lied, immediately, and I’ve never regretted it. You’re not a liar, which is why you shouldn’t get involved with a big bout of lying. It’s not you.”

  She hit on something that bothered Laurie from the start of hatching the Jamie plan and still niggled her now. That everyone saw her as utterly status quo, conventional. It had never mattered before, this straitlaced identity, because she was that, and she was content. To discover no one would accept her as anything else? Unwelcome. Emily was paying her a compliment, and yet it was the first time she had made her feel worse.

  “That’s what appeals to me. Being like me doesn’t feel good right now.”

  Laurie fiddled with a tiny tin of Mole’s Breath and put it back again. Maybe she should repaint the whole house from top to bottom. “As for being fired, I can’t be fired for pretending to date a colleague. I mean, how could they ever prove I wasn’t dating him? The bosses have no say in what I do out of hours, if it’s not illegal.”

  “Hmmm. Then, what if, when you’re feeling vulnerable, and this player is pretending to be into you, you start falling for him for real? A romance that is like a sugary high from cake icing calories and stardust and make believe is going to screw with you. If he doesn’t.”

  A harried-looking couple joined them and Emily and Laurie moved away, a tacit agreement to save the rest of the conversation for the journey home, and went to pay for Laurie’s greenery.

  Outside, Emily blipped the alarm on her Mini with the key fob, and threw the tiny boot open.

  “All I’m saying, Loz, is I don’t think some man pretending to feel things he doesn’t feel and you pretending to feel those things back sounds like what you need right now. Are you sure he isn’t into you, and this isn’t some completely meta way of pulling you?”

  Laurie hooted with laughter and Emily huffed, “Oh yes, that’s ridiculous, and what you’re suggesting is completely sane. I mean, of course.”

  “It would be funny if you knew him. He’s practically fending them off with a poison-tipped umbrella, he’s no need for long game scams with sad older women. Meanwhile I’m about ten years away from being able to look at another man. And if I was ready, Jamie Carter would not be that man. He’s one of those preening egotists that only a twenty-four-year-old would crush on and think she’s going to marry. Which is probably why he dates twenty-four-year-olds.”

  “Is being his date going to bother Dan that much, if he’s such a womanizing fool? I mean, maybe it would upset Dan if you picked up with his best friend, but not this guy? I am not suggesting you do that either.”

  Emily had taken against this project wholly, instantly, and instinctively, and it seemed nothing was going to change her mind. But then, it was ridiculous, Emily was right. Launching a fictitious relationship for Dan’s benefit was nothing like healthy moving on. It had “end in tears” all over it. The thing was, it was starting in tears. Laurie was 98 percent tears. She suspected she’d always be part tears now. She had nothing to lose.

  Laurie shrugged, as she fitted the penultimate plant into the boot. She’d have to hold the fern on her lap.

  “I don’t know if Dan being bothered is achievable,” Laurie said, feeling drained and empty as she spoke. Jamie had been sure, but he hadn’t been through what Laurie had. “I don’t know if he cares enough anymore. But if anyone’s going to bother him, it’s Jamie Carter. Great nobsman of our age, and a professional competitor. Dan already can’t stand him because they all think he’s pushy at work; it’s perfect. If Jamie gets his promotion, he’ll be Dan’s boss. Oh God, now I think about it, please let him get the promotion. This is a single goal win for Jamie Carter and a double win for me.”

  Laurie felt a little grimy at saying this and yet, she could hear a little more of her old self returning too. She could be irreverent, confident, and funny. Not simply some wet blanket who had smothered Dan.

  “Mmm,” Emily said, mouth twisting at the word “win.” “Is he online? Show me a picture of this vainglorious idiot.”

  Laurie pulled a glove off and swiped at her phone, stabbing at the Facebook app, searching through her friends. Jamie had added her after the lift night. It was to help the deception, though she suspected he’d smoothly send a request to any woman he’d marked interesting/useful. The twenty-first-century equivalent of flipping your business card into her hand.

  “Here.”

  Laurie proffered her iPhone, waited for the hmmm, I don’t see why he thinks he’s so special sniff, disclaimer. No one could survive this buildup, especially with a cynical woman in protective mode.

  Emily was silent for a second, swiping. She turned Laurie’s phone on its side, landscape mode, chewed her lip. “Oh. Oh.”

  She handed the phone back.

  “OK. Yes. You’ve convinced me. Do it.”

  Laurie was momentarily stunned. “Are you joking?”

  “No. No offense, but I didn’t think what passed for fit at Salters & Rowson would mean someone that fit. He’s got that sulky mouth, stubble, square-jaw thing I love. Brrrr.”

  “He’s clean-shaven at work. He’s also got glasses that appear and disappear, now I think about it. He’s a Talented Mr. Ripley schmuck, isn’t he. He was probably known by another name, with a long story about being an orphan, at his last firm.”

  “I dunno about that, but he looks like a GQ cover. He should be on a speedboat in Rimini. And, good God, he knows it. But then, would it be possible to not know it? We shouldn’t place unreasonable expectations on him.”

  “I won’t ask what we should place on him.”

  Emily pulled a one-eye-shut, tongue-loll face. Laurie started gurgling with laughter, drawing looks from a family nearby trying to cram panels of wooden trellises into the rear of a tiny car.

  “Dan will be in a tatty heap,” Emily said—God, Laurie realized, the 180-degree swing was genuine, the Jamie Carter Effect was real—“I couldn’t pass that up. I can’t in all conscience tell you to pass it up. Have fun. Don’t fall for ide
as of fixing any lost boy fuck boys, though. Don’t start to believe the love of the right woman could cure him. It’s bound to cross your mind at some point.”

  Laurie blanched, but was very pleased to have Emily back on board.

  After they got into the car and belted up, Emily said: “You know when you’re sick, if you get up, shower, dress, put your makeup on, and act human, you can feel much better?”

  “Yes?”

  “It has an impact on how you feel. If you playact being loved up with this man, you may well get happier. But sooner or later you’re going to get mixed up in it. You’re going to start wondering if you’ve started to mean it, or whether he has. I don’t want it to make you anxious, for you to get hurt.”

  “I’m not some suggestible fifteen-year-old! Seriously! You think we’ll hold hands for two minutes and I’ll start humming Taylor Swift songs and browsing Elle Wedding? Looolll.”

  “You may laugh at me, Watkinson, you often do. Doesn’t make me wrong.”

  “Also, this man is a take-no-prisoners nihilist. It’s not a case of his heart needing to be in it. I don’t think he has one.”

  “How will it work, the relationship?”

  Laurie went over the MO again and Emily said: “You should be done up to the nines for the first date.”

  “Oh thanks, instead of frumpy old Mrs. Miggins here shambling up.”

  “No, you’re beautiful as you are but if this is Operation Mindfuck for Dan, no stops should be left unpulled out. You don’t show off, and this calls for showing off. I’ll get you a hair appointment at the salon I’ve started going to in town.”

  “Does it cater for hair like mine?”

  “Yes, I’m going to send you to my hairdresser; she’s done loads of courses in Afro hair and would love to get her hands on you.”

  “You’re sure?” Laurie said, feeling apprehensive at being gotten. “White-people salons don’t often know what they’re doing. And even if she’s keen, I don’t really want to be her guinea pig.”

  “Honestly, it’s her passion. She’s shown me photos of lots of her clients with hair like yours. Trust.”

  Laurie didn’t trust, if she was honest, but she also wouldn’t have known where to start glamazoning without Emily’s help—she still used a hairdresser in Hebden who came to her mum’s house whenever she was back.

  Laurie forced herself to relax into listening to Emily’s excited burblings about what she should wear with cheerful indifference. If only there was a way the Issa rack at Selfridges could similarly transform her ripped-up insides.

  Plants deposited, front room looking pleasingly jungly, Laurie waved Emily off outside. After she started the engine, she gestured to Laurie she wanted to say something, lowering the window.

  “Loz, if you do do this showmance. One thing. Consequences. The law of unintended consequences.”

  Laurie frowned. “Uh?”

  “This screams ‘consequences’ all over it. You won’t know what they are now but I promise you, they’ll arise. Be prepared for that.”

  “Oh. Yes. You’re probably right. But I can’t think what they’d be.”

  “No. They’ll happen though.”

  “How do I prepare for the unknown?”

  “You can’t. That’s my point.”

  This seemed excessive caution to Laurie, and she was the queen of caution.

  On paper, the crime was perfect.

  16

  Outwardly, Laurie went to work, she was in reasonable spirits, she was as efficient as ever. In her private life, she looked busy enough to be respectable. Not falling apart.

  Laurie was coping, only in ways that made other people feel comfortable. It was a performance, going through the motions. She was as empty and as fragile as an Easter egg. The truth lay in moments like the Thursday evening where she found the box of photo albums under the bed in the spare room. She leafed through a packet of photos from 2005 and ended up crouching, sobbing, feeling as if she’d been stabbed.

  She’d never grieved for anyone close to her, but she guessed this must be similar: times when the tide went out and she felt almost normal, and times when it came rushing in and she felt like she was drowning.

  It dawned on Laurie—other than the pictures he had on his phone, Dan had taken nothing of sentimental value with him. Only a few short months ago, she’d have thought that spelled intention to return. Ha. Nope. The hard copy visual record of their nearly two decades together, casually discarded.

  She knew if she challenged Dan he’d weakly insist he had every intention of sorting through and asking for duplicates, but it wasn’t the time / didn’t want to upset her / couldn’t complicate the painful business of his going by divvying up their mementoes. HAH. As if starting a family with another woman wasn’t the mother lode, no pun, of painful complications. What if wanting to take photos might’ve given Laurie some comfort that he still cared, and that might’ve mattered, and he should’ve taken them for that reason alone.

  Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look, she instructed herself, as she took the lid off. She’d glance and look away, she told herself. She opened the envelope packet on top. An Ark of the Covenant for her emotions. Laurie was probably going to do the skin-melting, screaming-CGI-skeleton thing, as unleashing the evil spirits of the past overcame her.

  The first pack was pretty much the most poignant she could’ve encountered. Thanks, random chance, you bitch.

  Their impromptu staycation at the Midland.

  They’d been getting their kitchen done, and it had taken forever thanks to inadvertently hiring the greatest cowboys in the northwest to install it. Their story ended in the small claims court, because don’t fuck with two lawyers at once. Laurie had almost lost her mind after nineteen days with a room that resembled a war zone, with bags of crisps for dinner and being fed a daily diet of lies.

  While she curled fetal, Dan had gone off, made a call, and surprised her by saying, “Pack a bag for two nights away,” before bundling her into a taxi.

  They’d pulled up minutes later outside the imposing entrance of Manchester’s fanciest, Grade II listed grand hotel. Laurie had always hankered after a night there.

  Dan had explained the circumstances when booking, so they were upgraded to a suite, the floor space as large as a penthouse flat.

  “Can we afford this?” Laurie said, bedazzled, as Dan handed her a glass from the complimentary bottle of cava.

  “Yeah, ish,” Dan said. “Worth it for the look on your face alone.”

  It was an amazing forty-eight hours, after the chaos and despair of Sorry, love, we didn’t know that was a supporting wall because you didn’t warn us, and being coated in brick dust.

  Sitting in a palatial king-size bed, eating room service chips, and giggling like a pair of kids at a sleepover. It was Dan at his best: spontaneous, generous, and caring.

  Laurie held one of the floppy rectangles depicting the episode, Dan pointing to the toilet in their colossal hotel bathroom, pulling a “what the hell” face. They took a series of photos like this of the lavish fixtures and fittings, in poses usually seen in local papers by people upset about potholes, which seemed hilarious when half drunk.

  The last in the set was Dan and Laurie checking out, standing by the ball-of-lilies flower display in the lobby, Dan holding the camera above their heads, hugging Laurie to him tightly. A team. A duo. Best friends. Turning adversity into an adventure. Dan looked so pleased with himself and Laurie looked so happy.

  She limped downstairs and lay on the sofa and let the sadness and desolation wash over her for the thousandth time.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her phone screen ripple with a message. More cascaded down, blip—blip—blip. It was a WhatsApp group she was in, titled “Claire’s Baby Shower” for its original purpose, though that baby was now two.

  Claire and Phil were successful Chorlton friends, along with Ed and Erica, and Tom and Preethi, the people they socialized with most as a couple. Laurie had expe
cted more messages of condolences from them; she knew they knew as Dan had bumped into Tom, told him, and told Laurie he’d told him. And she’d had the creep DMs from Adrian: news traveled invisibly and fast.

  She only got a text from Claire saying awful for her and was she OK and the usual things, and Laurie replied she was gutted but coping, thank you, and Claire didn’t reply to that one.

  Laurie didn’t entirely mind, but registered it was slightly dismissive.

  The messages carried on pinging at hectic speed and Laurie roused herself to pick her handset up. She lurched at the sight of her own name. It took a fraction of a second to tell it was being typed in a tone and manner that clearly wasn’t meant to be seen by her, the owner of the name.

  Claire

  It’s a funny one, at first I said to Phil I didn’t believe it as they seemed so solid but the more I think about it, the more I see it. Laurie’s so smart but her sense of humor can be quite cutting! Dan was always more laid-back, somehow? Laurie’s sharp in a way that is good in court and maybe not so great in a marriage

  Pri

  Yeah, I said the same to Tom. I think L was very driven and Dan felt neglected a lot of the time. She must be devastated though, starting a family straightaway with the other woman! ☹

  Erica

  I think he’s been a shit to Laurie. If she wouldn’t commit to having kids, you don’t have an affair, do you? I am sure he has his side to it, but it’s awful for her

  Pri

  Did she not want kids? I thought she was open-minded but not in a hurry

  Claire

  If she did, she’s never shown much interest. You know, Dan’s a good-looking man with a good job, you can’t take his sort for granted these days, in the baby-making years, that’s the simple truth

  Ugh. Baby-making years. Laurie felt grimly vindicated in her previous low level grumbling dislike of Claire. She was a Stepford Wife, basically, but coated it in lots of twenty-first-century, faux-feminist, socially-acceptable concern trolling. So, instead of “Why aren’t you home to make Dan’s dinner?” it was “It must be hard on you working those hours, do you do Sunday batch cooking? I have a great dhal recipe,” looking only at Laurie.