‘So that’s another thing you can stop worrying about,’ said Bella. ‘If I’d known it was on your mind this much, I’d have told you before. I’m sorry. Now can we put it to bed?’
‘We can,’ said Laurie. She must have got it all mixed up though because she was sure the breakdown came long after Anna’s wedding.
*
Bella finished her coffee and said she’d better get off home. In her car she breathed a long drawn-out sigh of relief as if she’d had a tight band around her chest that had suddenly snapped. Pat Morrison had come so close to the bone there she’d hacked off some of the marrow. It wasn’t Meredith keeping secrets, it was her. And what she’d just told her friend about Alex wasn’t the whole truth, but it was the only truth she was going to part with. For Laurie’s sake.
There was an unfortunate mistake in an advert that appeared in the ‘Little Darlings’ section of the Daily Trumpet last weekend, namely: ‘Photographer Malcolm Robson will shoot your children in your home’. Mr Robson wants us to make it clear that he is only prepared to shoot children in his studio.
Chapter 19
10 September
‘I despair, I fu— bloody despair,’ said Alan Robertson at their weekly Tuesday meeting. He picked up the well-creased copy of the Daily Trumpet from his desk and began to read.
‘ “Confidential information recently came to light that directors of the business had been syphoning money from the coffers for years. The source, Derek Eastman, has asked to remain anonymous for obvious reasons.” I ask you. What pillock deputy editor lets that through? I can’t take any time off ever because this happens when I do and it’s my chuffing head that’s on the block. I’m going to resign, I really am. It’s the only way I’ll get any sleep. Sir Basil isn’t paying me enough to manage that shower of shit, excuse language, Laurie. I’ve forgotten how to say a sentence without using an expletive. Swearing has become part of my DNA thanks to those . . . those . . . Why is there a finite selection of profanities in the British language? The one I want to use hasn’t been invented because there isn’t one strong enough. The Italians would have a word for it, I bet.’
Laurie smothered a laugh. It was always a pick-me-up coming to Daily Trumpet HQ but ever since Meredith had posted the bank statements through the front door, the trials and tribulations of ‘anonymous Derek Eastman’ et al. were an even more welcome diversion from darker thoughts which were stuck in her brain like teazels resolutely tangled in an Afghan Hound’s coat.
Alan’s phone rang and he snatched it up.
‘You’re joking?’ he said, after listening to the caller for a few seconds. ‘That’s the best news I’ve had all day. There is a god.’ He put the phone down, none too gently. He was too used to slamming it back on the cradle to tone down his style to respect his visitors’ sensitivities.
‘As luck would have it, Derek’s dead,’ Alan said to her.
‘Oh no.’
‘Very lucky for us,’ said Alan. ‘Not for poor Derek, obviously. I think we’ll blame it on a misprint. No need for any action on that one. Which concludes our business for today, thank you very much, unless you feel like picking me out some less ugly kids than the rest for the Bonny Babies competition.’
‘Thanks, but no thanks, Alan.’
Laurie stretched a crick out of her neck. She’d slept at a funny angle and woken in pain. The wonder was that she’d been sleeping at all. Questions were tumbling around in her head like a washing machine with no off button. When she slipped from consciousness at night, she was dreaming about Alex and Meredith and mysterious secrets and mazes and they had worked in conjunction to plough to the surface lots of emotions she had done her best to bury over the years. Feelings spun from his affair with the woman he had never named: soul-crippling betrayal and the cold, lonely hinterland of rejection.
‘You okay there? I can recommend a good chiropractor if you need one. Sometimes I think someone has taken off my head and poured a box of Cornflakes down my neck. Crunch, crunch, crunch when I swivel it. He transforms my spine to a velvet ribbon. He’s Russian. They don’t muck about applying pressure.’
‘I’m fine, Alan, thank you. I just had a bad night’s sleep, that’s all.’
‘Okay then. I’ll see you next Tuesday,’ said Alan. ‘Bet you can’t wait.’
‘I can’t,’ smiled Laurie. ‘This is the highlight of my week.’
Alan opened the door. ‘Then I feel sorry for you. Tell you what, let me see you out. I need some fresh air. It’s filled with poison in here. From all those cocks out there. Yes, you can look, I’m talking about you, not to you.’
Those in the newsroom bowed their heads, smothering snorts and giggles.
‘You love working here really,’ said Laurie, when they were in the corridor.
‘This job makes purgatory look like a frigging picnic in the park. I would love to know what I did in a past life to merit this torture. I must have buggered a nun,’ said Alan. ‘It’s only bearable because every day is a day nearer to me leaving this devil’s arsehole and jetting off to the sun.’ His voice softened. ‘How are you doing, anyway?’
‘Oh, you know, curate’s egg,’ said Laurie, which was a lie because at the moment, her curate’s egg was all bad. She felt back at square one after Meredith had brought those bank statements. She might as well have posted a grenade through her door.
‘Molly will help you, on that I have no doubt. Have you been to see her yet?’
‘I did go . . . once. A fortnight ago.’
‘And?’
‘I thought I’d made a mistake so I missed last week—’
‘Ah.’
‘Let me finish. I think the mistake was in not going back so I’ll be there tomorrow, eating cake again and spilling my soul.’
‘Good girl. You’re doing the right thing.’
Am I? thought Laurie. But she would go because the psychic had told her she must. It will work for you so you must stick at it. This time. As if she realised she’d had a false start. Knew she had.
Chapter 20
11 September
‘Ah, Peter, do come in,’ said Molly, genuinely delighted to see him, though she’d had a feeling somehow that he would be back among them. He and Laurie both. ‘You’re the first to arrive.’ Her eyes went from his face to the bunch of flowers he was carrying in one hand.
‘I know. I came extra early to explain about last week,’ said Pete.
‘You don’t have to.’
‘These are for you, to apologise,’ he said, holding the flowers out towards her. ‘I’m not the messing around type usually.’
Molly chuckled. ‘Oh bless you, that really isn’t necessary at all. But thank you, I shan’t refuse them as I do love flowers. It wasn’t the first time and it certainly won’t be the last that someone decides not to come again. Talking things through this way isn’t for everyone. But more often than not, some—’
Molly’s words were cut off as the doorbell gave a merry jangle and in walked Laurie, wearing roughly the same sheepish expression as Pete had.