Break-Up Club: A smart, funny novel about love and friendship. Lorelei Mathias
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And don’t think I’m not hugely, massively grateful, ’cause I really SO am! Don’t worry about the job stuff – I’ll help you come up with some ideas for shows. But I also just think it’s really important to spend money on something that might potentially help both our careers?’
‘I’m sorry, I just don’t think it will. Surely we’ve both got more chance of improving our careers if we actually use the time to make a film, rather than schmoozing about drinking champagne and watching other people’s work?’ The knot was growing in size. Now she was wondering if this whole thing wasn’t a huge mistake.
Lawrence opened his mouth to protest, but Cheryl came back to the counter. She tapped some buttons and stared at the screen. ‘Oh. Computer’s frozen. I was just about to confirm your seats. Hang on, let me just reboot.’
Holly could feel the Gobi desert relocating to her throat. Was it unfeasibly hot in here suddenly? Was this I.T. fail some kind of sign not to book the tickets? No… signs were nonsense. They’d been dreaming about this holiday since forever! Well, since their first date at a bar in Waterloo called Cubana, where they had danced salsa and smoked cigars until 3 a.m. As first dates went, it was up there with the best of them. It had started out with them watching a play at the Old Vic. Afterwards, they’d strolled along the Thames looking for somewhere to drink, completed the obligatory circuit as every bar was closing up, before heading back to the Cubana Bar with its reassuringly late license. They’d been the last to leave, but not before promising the Cuban musicians they’d all go and stay with their relatives in Havana one day. Which is how they came to be sat here now, in Tooting Bec Discount Travel Centre.
‘Holly,’ Lawrence interrupted her reverie.
‘Yes?’
‘Did you hear any of what I just said?’
‘What? Yes. Sure.’
‘So you don’t mind lending me the money? Oh, you’re the best girlfriend ever!’
‘For the Cuba flights, sure. I already said I’d put that on my credit card. So long as you’ll pay me back when you can…’
Lawrence looked down at his dilapidated trainers. ‘No, I was just saying that if I don’t get the flights to Paris now, they’ll be astronomical next month. So, if you lend me the money for that now, I’ll then have more money to pay you back for the Cuba money next month when I’ve been paid for that corporate filming job I did? Basically, it just makes good financial sense to get them now before they double in price?’
The knot in her belly, previously conker-sized, was now more iceberg in scale.
‘Holly?’ Lawrence took her hand. ‘You’d just be helping me out so much. Remember last year, when that rep from Red Green films was so positive about my work? I think if I can just get talking to them again this year then I might honestly have a shot at being taken on.’ He stared at Holly with his ‘look, I’m a reasonable man’ face on. ‘Folly, it’s only £50. If I had it and you needed it I wouldn’t think twice! You know, when I’ve made it, you won’t know what’s hit you, you’ll be sooooo spoiled!’
How did he do that? Not only manipulate her into lending him money, but also insult her by simultaneously insinuating that she was mean with her money? There was no winning.
‘Besides, you can just use Lawrence Logic and pretend the Cuba flights were £25 extra each. I know, I’ve got it! You’re always saying you’d go to the cinema more if only you had the time, aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well… our plane will have in-flight entertainment on it, won’t it, Cheryl?’
Cheryl nodded. ‘Yes, it should have a full programme of the latest movies.’ She turned to stare at Lawrence, as though intrigued as to where he was going with this.
‘Well, an eight-hour flight is like going to the movies at least three or four times. So, at standard central London prices, you’re looking at £10 times four, plus if you indulge in popcorn once or twice, well, you’re already way over the £50 mark already!’
Cheryl looked impressed at Lawrence Vorderman. ‘That’s a funny way of looking at things. I might start doing that…’
Holly nodded weakly. ‘Yes it is. He’s a bit special, this one.’ She turned to Lawrence. ‘Have you checked there’ll be popcorn on the plane then?’
‘Ha-ha. You get the point, don’t you?’
Cheryl was smiling at them, clearly having fallen for Lawrence’s Odd-box charms.
Lawrence looked at Holly, hope flashing in his blinking, puppy-dog eyes.
‘Please, Fol? You know I’ll pay you back.’
Holly sighed.
‘OK. Sorry, Cheryl, can we just get another flight on there too? One return to Paris?’
‘Just the one?’ said Cheryl, looking to Holly in surprise.
‘Yes. I’m not going, I can’t afford it.’
As Lawrence went through the finer details, Holly picked up her other credit card and handed it to Cheryl. ‘Whack the whole sorry lot on there please.’
Lawrence grinned his schoolboy smile as Cheryl totted up the bill. Holly was practically shaking as she typed in her PIN and the receipt whirred and printed the four-figure amount that was pushing one month’s salary. It’s just pretend money, she told herself. And it’ll be a great chance for us to put the spark back. And he’ll definitely pay me back before my contract finishes, so it’s basically all good. Plus one day, Lawrence actually will be a red carpet sensation able to treat us and I’ll feel much less like a gargantuan mug, so thinking about it, we’re totally fine and dandy here aren’t we, she decided, just as Lawrence leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.
‘Thank you so, so much. Right, I’m taking you home for a mojito to say thank you!’
‘Oh, thanks.’
‘And Hol?’
‘What?’
‘You’re sure you won’t come with me to Paris?’
‘ARRRRGH. NO!’ she squawked. ‘My love,’ she added, seeing the hurt in his eyes.
As they walked up the road towards Lawrence’s flat, Holly’s phone beeped with a text message: ‘You are cordially invited to an “Eff-Off Valentine’s Day party”. Next Saturday at Flat A, 249 Fortess Road, Tufnell. Bring booze, snacks and your sexy (ideally single) selves, 7 p.m. onwards. Love B xx.’
‘Oh right? I think I’ve just been invited to a party at my own house. How very Bella!’ Holly said as they walked through Lawrence’s cluttered but high-ceilinged hallway. Once again, as she walked into the tiny bedroom she’d dubbed The Lawrence Pit, she had to restrain herself from calling 999 to inform the police of a burglary. It looked like someone had taken a machine gun, pointed it at the room and splattered it with jumble-sale bullets. In the far corner of The Lawrence Pit was a not-quite-double bed. Next to that, a desk bowed inwards with the weight of the enormous monitor, currently doubling as TV and computer. Next to that stood the leaning tower of Ikea – a cream canvas wardrobe that was perpetually lopsided: having begun life as a temporary storage solution, it had become permanent as time went on. It was empty bar a few discarded items; among them a suit jacket that hadn’t seen daylight since 1997. The rest of his clothes were hung neatly… on the floor. Holly tried not to let any of this bother her as they kissed, fell into bed in a mojito-fuelled slumber.
The next morning, Holly was playing one of her favourite weekend games: setting her alarm at least an hour before she needed to get up, then pressing snooze every nine minutes and drifting back into legalised, blissful oblivion. On this particular Saturday, things were getting a little out of hand. She’d been snoozing for almost 90 minutes when Lawrence interrupted her by planting a kiss on her nose.
She opened her eyes one