CHAPTER TWELVE

      So, just before lunchtime, Laura rang on the doorbell of Mary’s flat.

      ‘It’s me,’ she said nervously, when the well-known, rather imperious voice of her grandmother said, ‘Yes?’ over the intercom. ‘Your long-lost granddaughter, come to reintroduce herself to you.’

      ‘Goodness gracious,’ said Mary. ‘This is a surprise. Come up, darling, come up.’

      Laura had walked a lot of the way, enjoying being outside. But now she was tired, her early enthusiasm waning, and she felt naked and exposed being out in the normal world again. She kind of wanted to go back to bed, but stiffened her sinews and climbed the stairs up to the second floor. There, in the doorway, a gin and tonic in her hand and a smile on her face, was her grandmother.

      Mary Fielding was still as beautiful at eighty-four as she had been thirty years before. She carried her age with an elegance that owed nothing to expensive clothes or fine airs. She could tap-dance, she could sew, she adored Elvis and cowboy films, and she spoke five languages. She was the best grandmother ever, all in all, and as Laura saw her standing there she knew she’d been right to come.

      ‘It’s been far too long,’ she said, as Laura came towards her. ‘You’re practically a stranger, darling. Good grief,’ she added, as she saw Laura’s face, ‘what’s happened?’

      ‘Everything,’ mumbled Laura, wiping her nose inelegantly on her hand. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been so crap, Gran. I haven’t seen you for ages.’

      ‘No,’ said Mary, ‘but you’re here now. Let’s get you a drink. Come inside and tell me all about it.’

      Laura sat on the grey velvet sofa, a drink in her hand, not knowing how to start or what to say next. She was feeling infinitely calmer now she was inside Mary’s flat. She looked around the room, thinking briefly how much it reminded her of all of her life – more, in a way, than her parents’ house in Harrow where she’d grown up. The photos on the wall; the drawings that each of them had done as children framed in a clip-frame above Mary’s bureau; the tusks and knickknacks; Guy’s pipe in the corner of the room. Legacies of a life spent together crammed into this flat for one person.

      ‘I’m sorry I haven’t seen you for ages,’ she said awkwardly, breaking the silence.

      ‘Me too,’ said Mary. ‘Well, you’re here now, darling.’

      ‘Don’t you want to know why I’m here?’

      ‘Of course I do, if you want to tell me,’ Mary said, lowering herself into the chair next to the sofa. She looked across at her granddaughter.

      Laura clutched the wide base of her tumbler, feeling the ice cool her hand. She looked up, out of the window at the identical apartment building opposite, then down away towards where she had just been walking. Through the open window, the sun was shining, and the purr of early afternoon traffic sounded in the distance. From the balcony upstairs she could hear the sound of laughter.

      ‘Jasper and his boyfriend – they’ve just got back from Skye,’ Mary explained.

      ‘Right,’ said Laura, even then amused by the comings and goings of the inhabitants of Crecy Court.

      Mary took another swig of her drink, and looked expectantly at her granddaughter. Laura shifted in her chair.

      ‘OK. Shoot,’ said Mary, who had a particular fondness for the early oeuvre of Clint Eastwood.

      ‘Well – I’ve messed everything up,’ Laura said calmly. ‘And I don’t know what to do.’

      Mary leant forward in her chair, her earrings glinting in the sunlight.

      ‘I’m sure it’s not as bad as all that,’ she said. ‘Now, my love, suppose you tell me about it, and we’ll see what we can do?’

      ‘It is bad,’ said Laura. ‘The worst.’

      ‘Well, you’re still alive, I’m still alive. I got a postcard from Simon in some small village in Peru today, so clearly he is still alive, and when I spoke to your mother an hour ago she and your father were still alive, so that’s not true, is it, darling? Come on,’ she said, crossing her capri-pant-clad legs. ‘I’ll just sit here, and you tell me in your own time, how about that?’

      So Laura told her grandmother absolutely everything, safe in the knowledge Mary wouldn’t judge her or frown or be shocked. As she finished, culminating in the dinner at the Newman Pie Rooms, the retreat to the bedroom, and the pigeon, there were tears running down her cheeks again.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ Laura said, trying to breathe properly. ‘I just…god.’

      Mary smiled at her granddaughter. She put her smooth brown hand under Laura’s chin, and wiped away a tear with her thumb.

      ‘My darling girl,’ she said. ‘Stop crying. Stop it. From what you tell me I imagine you have had the luckiest of escapes. Now, dry your eyes, and sit still, and I’ll get you another drink. It’s over now, don’t you see? Isn’t that wonderful?’

      ‘What?’ said Laura, wondering what on earth she could mean. ‘It’s not wonderful. I feel like a complete fool. I’ve lost my best friend; I’ve lost my job; I’ve behaved like an idiot.’

      ‘I think it is wonderful,’ said Mary, standing up. She went into the kitchen. ‘You fell in love, well, that’s wonderful. All right, it was with completely the wrong man. But it’s over now, and the best of it is no more secrets. No more living your life in half-shadow, which is what it seems to me that you’ve been doing these last few months.’

      ‘Yes,’ said Laura, staring into the gloom of the kitchen. ‘I hadn’t thought of it like that. But – I’m always doing it, always falling for the wrong person. I’m so stupid.’

      ‘No, you’re not,’ said Mary. ‘You just haven’t met the right one yet. And until then, at least you’re not lying to everyone you know any more.’

      ‘I know,’ Laura said. She squirmed a bit in her seat. ‘But…I know this sounds awful, but –’

      ‘What?’ said Mary.

      ‘I quite liked all of that,’ Laura confessed. ‘The secrecy. The drama of it. If I’m completely honest, I think that was partly it. Isn’t that awful? That’s what makes me feel so bad about it all. What a nasty person I must be.’

      It was dreadful, when she thought about it with the tiniest bit of hindsight, to admit this was the case. That a small part of herself was such a masochist, so enjoyed putting herself through all of this. That she liked hearing sad songs on the radio and staring gloomily out of the window late at night. Liked the tears in her eyes as she walked home of an evening, thinking about how much she loved Dan and how great they were together. It was so adolescent.

      ‘Laura, darling, every woman does it at some point in their life,’ said Mary. ‘You’re not a nasty person. You’re an honest person. You’ve absolutely shown how incompetent you are at cloak-and-dagger stuff, my love, and that’s wonderful too. It’s not in your nature, Laura, it never has been. You’ve always been honest, since you were a tiny thing. It’s best that way. Let me get another drink.’

      ‘It’s boring that way,’ said Laura.

      There was silence from the kitchen. Laura thought her grandmother hadn’t heard her.

      ‘I mean, it’s such a boring way to live your life,’ she said.

      Mary appeared in the doorway, holding two more gin and tonics. She put them down on the raffia mat at the centre of the table. She put her hand on Laura’s shoulder.

      ‘Darling,