A Hopeless Romantic. Harriet Evans
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the teenage Laura, her overactive imagination permanently on the go, it was the very idea of sophistication, and going back to dreary, dank Harrow afterwards, with its identical houses, its small-town morals and ideas, was always horribly depressing. To this day, her grandmother’s flat was still a magical place for her, stuffed with silk kimonos, old sequinned evening capes, oil paintings and blurred black-and-white photos showing the bygone days of a Colonial age. And Harrow was…well, boring street after boring street, where the neighbours knew all the latest details of your job and your flat, and secretly hoped you weren’t doing as well as their own daughter of the same age.
Laura had never loved Harrow much, especially compared to Mary and Guy’s house in Oxford, or Seavale in Norfolk, but she’d never really thought about it. Now, it came to represent everything that was hollow and dreary in her life. When Easter came and went with no change in her own situation, and she found herself spending an especially miserable bank holiday at home with her parents, watching her father’s new DVD of Morecambe and Wise, she found herself loathing Harrow, loathing pretty much everything, even Morecambe and Wise. Normally Laura loved Morecambe and Wise, they made her snort with laughter, but sitting on the sofa in between her mum and dad, whilst they chuckled along merrily to the ‘There is Nothing Like a Dame’ sketch and tried to identify the Seventies TV presenters – ‘Oh look, Angela, is that old Reggie Bosanquet?’ – was almost painful.
Also painful was her brother’s absence. Simon had been in Peru for a few weeks now, and Laura found her thoughts drifting to him, resentment at his freedom mingling with missing him. He should be on the sofa in suburbia, enjoying salmon en croute and the bank holiday crossword in The Times, not her. She should be in Tuscany, walking hand in hand with Dan through an ancient piazza, stopping for an espresso at a café in the shade of a cathedral, laughing at each other in the bright spring sunlight. Laura in big shades and a headscarf, a stone lighter, dressed in Missoni, or a cheap version of Missoni; Dan handsome and tall in chinos and a polo shirt. But no.
Her father dropped her at the station on bank holiday Monday, since it was on his way to the garage to get some replacement wiper blades. As Laura waved him off he said, ‘Great to see you, Laura love. Thanks for coming over. It’s been really good, hasn’t it?’
No, Laura wanted to say, it has been wrong. It has been very wrong. You have made me listen to your Seekers albums three times. You and Mum spent Sunday afternoon rearranging the pot plants on the patio in height-ascending order, and laughing about it like it was actually funny. Parents. She would never understand them for as long as she lived. She leant into the car and smiled at her dad. George coughed, and said, ‘We’ve loved having you over, Laura, you know. You know, love, you can always come and stay, it’s not that far, is it.’
Laura was taken aback; she raised her hand to her cheek, suddenly moved, despite herself, and felt awful for having had such impure thoughts.
‘Ta Dad,’ she said, slinging her bag over her shoulder. ‘See you soon.’
‘See you soon, my love. Have a great week. Call your grandmother!’
Paddy was out when Laura got back. Dan was away for the weekend, she knew it. She thought he was with Amy – she hadn’t asked, she didn’t want to seem clingy, she loathed girls like that. Ho hum. She went into the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea, feeling rather low after a weekend with people, and realised that the evening stretched ahead of her, nothing to do. She tried her grandmother, but the crisp message on Mary’s phone said clearly yet elliptically, ‘I am not here, please try later,’ and in the background could clearly be heard the sound of Jasper or Cedric – one of the old roués who lived in her block of flats – saying loudly, ‘Come on, Mary, we’ll miss the train, old girl!’ and another voice, also either Jasper or Cedric, saying, ‘Have you got the cocktail shaker?’ Since Mary had apparently told George and Angela the reason she was unable to spend the Easter weekend with them was that she was staying with a sick old friend in a nursing home near Oxford, Laura heard this message with something amounting to rage, and not a little admiration, too.
Jo, she thought with a start. I’ll ring Jo, of course, haven’t seen her for ages and ages – perhaps I could pop over there tonight and have a catch-up. She still hadn’t seen the final photos from the wedding – gosh. That was a big deal with Jo, whose desire to record every moment of her life on film was only matched by Chris’s. Paddy had predicted their first child would be called Pixel.
Laura sat down on the sofa with a cup of tea and dialled Jo’s mobile.
It rang for a while, the ringtone rather strange, and then Jo’s voice answered, muffled.
‘Hello?’
‘Jo?’ said Laura, discomfited.
‘Hello?’
‘Jo, it’s me,’ said Laura. ‘Hello?’
Jo’s voice said brightly, ‘Laura! Hello. What’s up?’
‘Well –’ said Laura. ‘I was just ringing to say hi.’
‘Hi! Look, I can’t talk for long, Laura. We’re just on our way into the souk.’
‘The what?’ Laura asked, confused. She stood up and looked out of the window.
‘The souk!’ said Jo. She raised her voice suddenly. ‘Chris, wait for me! Don’t go in without me! And don’t give that man money!’ Her voice lowered again. ‘We’re in Marrakesh, aren’t we.’
‘You’re where?’ Laura said.
‘Marrakesh! For ten days! Oh, it’s so cool here, Laura, you’d love it.’
‘I didn’t know you were going to Morocco,’ said Laura.
‘No,’ said Jo. ‘I haven’t seen you for ages, have I? You’ve been invisible lately, Laura. I emailed you last week but you didn’t reply.’
Laura vaguely remembered some email from Jo, but she paid little attention to emails these days, unless they were marked URGENT or were from ‘Floyd, Dan’. The crackle on the line meant it was hard to work out whether Jo was pissed off or not, but Laura couldn’t help feeling she was the one who should be cross, not Jo. Jo should have told her. She should have been in touch more. It wasn’t Laura’s fault Jo was out of circulation now, with her husband and her nice house. Lucky Jo, with her beautiful brown eyes, her pale heart-shaped face, her tiny frame, her sensible, neat ways, with a great job and an adoring husband. It wasn’t fair.
Even thinking ‘it wasn’t fair’ made Laura feel pathetically childish, but a small voice inside her was saying she had a right to be. It wasn’t fair. But then, she thought, it was no more than she deserved.
She sighed, and leant against the window. ‘Look, I’d better let you go,’ she said, keeping her voice light and chatty. ‘I’m sorry, I had no idea. You lucky things! Have a great time!’
‘We are,’ said Jo. ‘Thanks, love. How are you, then? How’s things?’
‘Fine, fine,’ said Laura hurriedly. ‘All good. Let’s do something when you get back, OK?’
‘That’d be great,’ said Jo warmly. ‘We’re back in five days – are you around on Saturday?’
‘Not sure,’ said Laura, hedging her bets, then hating herself for it. She cleared her throat. ‘Yes. Yes I am. Let’s do something then. Give my love to Chris, won’t you? And don’t spend loads of money on leather purses you don’t need.’
‘Hardly,’ said Jo firmly. ‘I don’t fall for cheap sales tricks. You know me.’
Laura put the phone down, vaguely dissatisfied, and thinking she was right in feeling Jo had been a bit crap not to let her know. She checked her mobile in case Dan had texted whilst she’d been on the phone. Nothing. Nothing all weekend.
She told herself it was just a matter of time. Dan had told her he was biding his time, waiting for the moment when he could pick the big fight that would wrap things up. Laura was partly