If I Never Met You

by Mhairi McFarlane

  Laurie shook her head, thinking, I should’ve thought that was obvious. Who’d date this gibbering wreck? She can’t get a date with her own dad.

  “I’d not say what I just did to her, if I was, would I?” Jamie looked perplexed, even faintly annoyed, and Laurie couldn’t entirely read why.

  “Sweetheart!”

  They both turned at the male voice behind them.

  Worse than her dad not turning up was her dad turning up now. So of course that’s what he’d done.

  “We did say half two, didn’t we? Hello there, Jamie, was it?”

  Slovenly. That’s what her father was. It was an odd word nowadays, you only ever heard it when detective sergeants read from their notebooks in court to describe the defendant.

  Not in appearance, quite the opposite: another immaculate checked shirt, a bauble of a watch and spotless bomber jacket. Austin Watkinson was slovenly in his habits, in his attitude, his care for others. Slapdash. Blew one way and then the other.

  “No. We said half twelve.”

  “Oh.”

  Her dad looked at Jamie, who was staring at him.

  “Shall we go in?” he said.

  “We can’t. Our reservation was for half twelve until half two. They’ve thrown me out after I sat waiting for you for the entire time,” Laurie said.

  “Oh. Right. Whoops. Sorry, love. Let’s think about where else we can go, then. It’s on me!”

  Her dad rummaged in his coat pocket, produced a pack of Marlboro Lights. He tapped one out and lit it behind a cupped hand. After he blew the smoke out sideways, he said, “Why are you both so glum and why are you looking at me like that?” He addressed Jamie, then Laurie. “Why is he looking at me like that?”

  “Because you’re two hours late and short of one decent excuse?” Jamie was perfectly direct and steady and Laurie was quite impressed at him deciding to stay put, and stay in character.

  “Oh dear!” Her dad clapped Jamie’s shoulder in a faux-matey manner. “Very chivalrous defense, young man. You have my approval.”

  Jamie looked at Laurie in disbelief and Laurie almost winced at how cheap and glib her father was. When she was younger, she briefly thought the devil-may-care routine was impressive. It had aged badly.

  “Do you think after I’ve sat staring into a beer for two hours, without you having had the basic courtesy to use your phone, I want to go to lunch like nothing happened?” Laurie said.

  “I’m sorry! I wasn’t sure what time we said and then Linus called me and we were on the blower for an age and when I got off I thought it made more sense to race here than . . .”

  “Translation, you didn’t give enough of a shit to check, or it didn’t suit you to be here at half twelve and you thought messing me around was a price worth paying for that convenience.”

  “Oh, it was hardly that considered, it’s an honest mistake. Do we have to do this in front of him? I feel like I’m going to be finishing this conversation being tape-recorded in the nick. What is your problem?” He half laughed at Jamie. He didn’t like Laurie having support, she could tell, probably used to Dan smoothing over any gaps in realities in the past. And his manipulation had always worked better on her alone; he didn’t like a witness.

  “My problem is wondering what you did to deserve a daughter like this, when you treat her like this,” Jamie said simply.

  “Christ alive, I think you might be extrapolating hard based on one cock-up, don’t you? Hello, I’m Austin, we met a minute ago. Let’s start again, shall we?”

  “We met at the wedding reception,” Jamie said.

  “Oh? Look, that was a busy room, I met a lot of people. Bet you liked the free bar, though.”

  Laurie took a deep breath. Somehow, she’d known this was coming, if maybe not this soon. She couldn’t face the Pete memory and not know this would be the consequence. “I don’t want to go for lunch with you.”

  “Suit yourself. Let’s do this when you’ve calmed down. I’m in town for a couple of days next month, I think.”

  “I don’t want to do it ever. What’s the point of pretending, when this sort of selfish bullshit is the total of our relationship? Let’s let this go. I don’t know what you get out of it—I certainly don’t get anything but humiliation and disappointment.”

  Around them, happy carefree dressy people streamed past and into Albert’s Schloss to eat sausages and get ratted, in a hedonistic millennial version of the Sabbath.

  Meanwhile, Laurie was terminating her relationship with her father, standing next to the man she was only pretending to be romantically entangled with, in order to hurt the man who had hurt her. Hashtag blissville.

  Her dad finished his cigarette, threw the stub on the pavement, and ground it underfoot. “This wild overreaction based on one foot wrong is strongly reminiscent of your mother in her heyday, I’m sorry to say.”

  Invoking her mum, thinking Laurie would hate the comparison with a woman he’d rejected. What an utter arsehole.

  Those who said family mattered above all else were wrong. People you love, who love you back, matter above all. Crap people you happen to be related to: you need to stop thinking you owe them a limitless number of chances to hurt you.

  Laurie inhaled deeply, tasting the freedom from expectation like the first tang of salt air at the seaside.

  “I was a mistake, I know that. You didn’t want me. When I was a baby, you walked away and left Mum to deal with everything alone. Well, now I’m the one calling you a mistake, and walking away.”

  Her dad said nothing for a moment, his eyes flicking from Laurie to Jamie and back again.

  “Jeez Louise. OK. I’m going to have a pint in there.” He jerked his head toward BrewDog. “When you’ve calmed down, feel free to join me. If and when you and laughing boy detach yourselves from each other.”

  Laurie belatedly noticed Jamie had his arm around her waist. It made her straighten her back.

  Her dad thrust his hands in his jeans pockets and slouched off to the pub, with very much a careworn air of the things I have to put up with.

  Jamie turned around and hugged Laurie to him. It felt like he absorbed her anxiety, defused it.

  “That can’t have been easy. But I think you did the right thing,” he said, while Laurie breathed hotly into his jumper.

  She got herself back under control as quickly as possible, not wanting to be street theater for Jamie’s gang. She’d stopped looking to see if they were looking.

  “Do you want me to stay with you? That lot will understand. Or they’ll be told to understand it,” Jamie said with a winning smile. Those smiles were hitting Laurie harder lately.

  “Ah. No,” Laurie said, fully disentangling, wiping her eyes. “Thanks but no, I’m fine. Walk home will do me good.”

  “OK.”

  Jamie leaned down and kissed her on her cheek, gave her shoulder a supportive squeeze, turned, and went into the restaurant.

  Laurie walked down the road, past BrewDog where her dad was sinking Estrella, past the Midland where she and Dan once spent a hedonistic forty-eight hours, and drew her coat together against the cold. Why had she been in denial about her dad for so long, and accommodated so much? It was strange, but she realized, partly because Dan would’ve disapproved of her getting shot. Whenever her dad took the bare piss, Dan made the case for Not Making a Scene or Not Blowing It Up into Something or You Know What He’s Like, Though.

  If he’d been here this time, he would’ve undercut Laurie, said: Not here, not now, let it go. Let’s have a pint. Come on, you two hardly ever see each other. Her dad would’ve divided and conquered.

  Afterward whenever Laurie fumed, But, Dan, he deserved it, he’d have said, Oh true. But the moment had always gone.

  Dan came from his lovely, safe middle-class parents, and Laurie’s dad was the rogue who’d offered Dan lines in the toilet the first time they met. Dan couldn’t take him seriously, in every sense.

  When they still spoke in theory of a wedding, Laurie al
ways said to Dan, “I’m not having my dad give me away, nope, no way.”

  And Dan always protested, quite vociferously. “Come on, Lolly” (she was only ever babied as Lolly when he wanted to shut down a debate). “He’s your dad. Your dad gives you away. It wouldn’t be a day for grudges.”

  No matter how many times she explained it, Dan didn’t get it.

  Jamie got it. She could hear his voice in her head now, clear as a bell. Fuck him, why should he, why couldn’t it be your mum? She raised you. If it’s for any parent to “give you away,” it’s her. His lack of sentimentality about tradition had its uses. She smiled at the thought.

  When this was over, she wanted to stay friends with Jamie. She’d been wrong about him—she suspected in part because Jamie had been wrong about himself. They might be chalk and cheese but he was a whole person, a grown-up, the real deal. She valued him, his perspective on things. She felt like he valued her.

  Laurie felt her phone go brrrrp in her pocket and yanked it out. It’d be her dad saying: Where have you got to? Come on, let’s make up. Got some champagne in here and a pint for your fella.

  The way he spent money was to guilt you, to indebt you, to bewitch and befuddle you. Only later you’d realize you’d been bought.

  Jamie

  If you’re a mistake you’re the greatest one ever made. I’m really proud to know you. xx

  Laurie’s eyes pricked with tears and her heart soared and she remonstrated with herself, as cartoon stars started to dance around her head: this is a warm friendship. He cares. And you’re vulnerable, and cider isn’t meant to be hot.

  He got two kisses after her thank-you, though.

  A small voice inside her head whispered to her, and she hissed at it to shut up. The voice insisted: Jamie was there on purpose, to see you. He wanted to be there. He knew you were going for Sunday lunch. You said Sunday. Definitely.

  Oh, shut up, Laurie nearly said out loud.

  I’m not wrong, said the voice.

  38

  There was a certain type of celebration thrown by people who didn’t do parties and they were significantly worse than those organized by people who liked parties.

  The difficulty with Salter & Rowson’s annual Christmas bash was it was conceived by two men in their sixties who never socialized beyond their golf clubs, trying to imagine what people in their thirties might do for a knees-up. It resulted in Greek restaurants with traditional dancing and taramasalata the color of bubble gum and baskets of dry pita corners. Or deafening-volume wine bars trying to moonlight as mass caterers, serving forty-five turkey risottos with a cranberry jus and parsnip tuiles.

  This year was at the university; and with its wood paneling and organ and chandeliers, it looked pleasingly like the Hogwarts great hall. The plus, no karaoke. The drawback was that in order to make it profitable, it accommodated multiple companies and hundreds of people at the same time.

  For all the elegance of the surroundings, it would’ve been tons nicer to have a lesser place to themselves. Heigh-ho. Or HO HO HO, as the giant illuminated letters on stage had it.

  However, it wouldn’t have mattered if they threw tonight’s shebang in the Palace of Versailles, it only mattered to Laurie that Dan was taking Megan. This was confirmed by a message shortly after the company email, asking if it was OK. Wanker. Bastard. One of the worst things about you, Laurie decided, is I thought I was a good judge of character.

  But Laurie, so soon after announcing them free agents, could hardly object, and it was face loss to care, anyway. The chutzpah of this woman too; Laurie couldn’t make the imaginative leap where she thought it was acceptable, let alone desirable, to sit at a table in the same room as Laurie.

  “She’ll have rationalized: we didn’t do anything until they were over; if they were right they wouldn’t be over; and I’m the one with the baby, which is a complete and final answer to what matters here, so stand aside,” Emily said. “None of which makes her any less of a bitch.”

  “Telling me.”

  Laurie spent a small fortune on a fire-engine red, one-shouldered dress that pulled in tight at the waist and had a chiffon skirt that flared out in soft folds in a Strictly Come Dancing sort of way. Laurie felt as if she should be raised overhead in it by a ripped Eastern European hunk, to a big band reinterpretation of a Lady Gaga song. She wore her hair out and big, having gone for a blow-dry. And utilized the siren-red lipstick that Emily got her. The look was almost comically “Thank U, Next” defiant to an ex, and yet Laurie had no qualms about making an effort, not like her apprehension before the Ivy. Anything less than a pyrotechnical show of strength, when faced with your ex and his pregnant mistress, was unconscionable.

  When she removed her outerwear at the coat check, Jamie said: “You look utterly, completely hot,” and seemed to mean it. Laurie could only give him a tense smile.

  Jamie was in a black suit, white shirt, black tie. (“I look like a waiter or a Reservoir Dog but I’m not wearing a tuxedo. Unless you get one made, they never fit, and I’m not wearing a baggy hired one and feeling like I’m in Boyz II Men.”)

  “It’s going to be OK,” he said quietly, taking her hand, as they entered the main hall.

  “But we split up after tonight!” Laurie hissed at him with a smile. They’d reaffirmed that post-Christmas do, it was time to draw things to a close.

  “True. This is so meta,” Jamie said.

  They studied the seating plan and located their table, seeing they’d been put directly next to Michael and his date for the night, a nervy vape smoker called Sam.

  Given the bile that Michael had sprayed at Jamie previously, Jamie was extremely gracious and solicitous to both him and Sam, while Michael looked stormy and murderous throughout.

  Sam took to Jamie, the way most women did. Laurie noted that as soon as it was in danger of becoming obvious, Jamie found a way to refer back to Laurie and bring her into the conversation, so there was no danger of Michael claiming Jamie had flirted. Except Laurie was sure that Michael would claim that anyway. Once you despised someone with that sort of Old Testament fervor, you could always find the material.

  They were cheek by jowl with lads from Experian, and a six-foot-something giant in a kilt called Angus insisted that, as he and Laurie were back to back, they had to introduce themselves to each other. She shook his hand and felt glad of the merry goodwill all around. However tempting, it would’ve been so wrong to stay away tonight.

  Angus angled his chair toward Laurie and made conversation with her until the salmon mousse appeared.

  As the starters were being swept away and the right combination of people were out of their seats at the same time to provide a direct line of sight, Laurie saw them.

  Dan was in an old suit she remembered helping him choose, Megan, a small but prominent bump visible, was in a pale blue strappy dress, a shiny curtain of poker-straight red hair tucked behind her ears. Laurie gazed at the bump. Now it was in front of her, as simple fact, its power was considerably dispelled. It was nothing to do with her.

  Megan didn’t appear to be interacting much with anyone, inclining her head to say something to Dan every so often. Then someone spoke to them, and she saw Megan place her hand on Dan’s knee in a proprietorial fashion. Laurie flinched, but after a moment’s analysis, realized it was a flinch at the strangeness of seeing this, not Megan’s rights over Dan. It felt disorientating and peculiar, like selling a piece of family furniture and seeing it in someone else’s house. But you knew it didn’t fit in your place anymore.

  Megan leaned in, doing a cutesome and stagy head tilt, as if someone was taking a photograph of them, before bursting into peals of girlish giggles and petting at his face. Dan received this with tolerance but slight embarrassment, Laurie detected.

  And in another moment of observation, Laurie got it—she finally figured it out. The clear difference that Megan offered, compared to her: uncomplicated adoration. Dan was running the show and being made to feel in charge and manly.
<
br />   She recalled that moment in the spare room, Dan saying resentfully: “You’re so bloody clever, you are.”

  Laurie had thought she and Dan being a match was a good thing, that she kept him on his toes. They sparred. But a woman had come along offering to playact the supplicant, do the You Tarzan, Me Jane, and he couldn’t resist. He’d started to find Laurie wearing, by comparison.

  She never thought she’d have an explanation, or closure, and now she did. Huh. It felt relieving and slightly flat, like finding out whodunit in a murder mystery and realizing the question was more intriguing than the answer. Megan looked over at Laurie, and Laurie fought her inclination to glance away and returned Megan’s gaze steadily. After a long moment, Megan dropped her eyes and fussed with the napkin on her lap.

  “Yep,” Laurie said, to no one but herself, picking up a bottle of wine and refilling herself.

  “You OK?” Jamie asked again, in her ear, arm around the back of her banqueting chair with the broad festive red and green sash ribbon around it.

  “Yes,” Laurie said. “I’m more OK than I’ve been in a long while, and I have no idea how or why.”

  “I do,” Jamie said with a smile.

  “Oh?”

  “I told you when you started to believe in yourself, you’d be unstoppable.”

  Jamie Carter, what an unlikely hero. In that second, she wondered if she loved him.

  39

  “The Idiocy Hours are well under way.”

  Laurie and Bharat were leaning against the bar on a leg stretch, and Bharat was looking around the room with a curl to his lip. The dance floor had appeared after a third of the tables were whisked out of sight, replaced by stretch of parquet floor, scattered with disco-ball fragments of light. “This’ll be a scene of horrifying carnage pretty soon. A few will have to be medevaced out by helicopter.”

  Laurie laughed. Bharat strongly believed that anything that happened after 9:30 p.m. at the Christmas do was best heard about rather than participated in, and was preparing to make good his departure.