Laurie knew how she felt. She hadn’t exactly gone through the stages in the right order either. She had been consumed by rage initially, then cried a lot, then she had willed Alex back into her life with all her strength and her heart, unable to get her head around the fact that he was gone forever, that she would never see him again with so many things unsaid between them. How could that be possible? Now she felt trapped as a fly in aspic with frustration and anger and confusion that he could have left her in the middle of a maze – as Pat Morrison put it. She was a long, long way off the acceptance stage.
‘Everything all right?’ asked Pete, noticing the cloud that passed over her features.
‘Sorry, I’m okay,’ said Laurie, snapping back to the here and now. ‘Anyway have a good week and—’
‘No you aren’t okay,’ said Pete.
Laurie was about to counter protest but what came out of her was a long slow weary outward breath.
‘I was just thinking that I’m stuck like Yvonne. There are so many questions around Alex’s death, so much that I don’t understand . . .’ She trailed off, knowing that once she started talking about this, she wouldn’t be able to stop. ‘Ignore me. Have a—’
‘Like what?’ he asked, not allowing her to cut and run.
Laurie shook her head. ‘Ohh . . . It’s too much to say in a car park. I really don’t want to burden you anyway.’
‘Do you want to go for a drink?’ He held up his hands, splayed palms out towards her. ‘I’m not coming on to you. Not that you’re not coming-on-to material.’ He muttered to himself then: ‘Stop digging, dickhead.’ Laurie smiled and that evoked a smile from him too. ‘Whenever I do get back into the dating game, I need to refine my chat-up lines, don’t I?’
‘I’d love a drink,’ said Laurie. ‘There’s a pub in Little Kipping. The Spouting Tap, I think it’s called.’
If ever there was a more aptly named pub to discuss tonight’s shenanigans, thought Pete. ‘I’ll follow you down there,’ he said, zapping his car open.
Chapter 23
The Spouting Tap was a charming olde worlde village pub with low ceilings, beams, a fireplace and exposed brickwork. It hadn’t followed the trend of transforming itself into a Prosecco or gin palace as it was quietly confident of pulling in trade with its array of craft beers. The car park was empty but the pub itself quite full, indicating that it was a bar frequented by mostly locals. A woman descended on Pete and Laurie as soon as they walked in.
‘You ’ere for t’quiz?’
‘Er . . .’
She didn’t wait for an answer; instead she shoved a pencil and a piece of paper into Pete’s hand and accosted someone else with the same question.
‘Seems we are then,’ Pete said and Laurie sniggered. ‘What can I get you to drink?’
‘Oh, just a J20 please. Any flavour. I’ll go and grab that table in the corner.’
The table was at the side of the fireplace and would have been as cosy as apple pie on a dark night with logs burning in the grate, thought Laurie. She hoped Pete didn’t think she’d picked it for its intimate position: she was scared stiff of giving out ‘take me’ vibes after what had happened with Jefferson.
She let her eyes drift over the activity around the room. The harassed woman giving out the quiz sheets was having a few choice words with the young man behind the bar, who didn’t seem to be coping with the customers fast enough for her liking. There were a couple of old men sitting on stools chatting, drinking from dimpled glass tankards. They looked the type to have their own stored there, thought Laurie. There was a knot of young men in T-shirts that showed off their bulging muscles standing with their slim girlfriends, all from a similar mould of hair extensions, false eyelashes and shovelled-on make-up. Laurie loved places like this, but they were an anathema to Alex. He preferred trendy wine bars with noise and vivacity and prices as inflated as those girls’ lips. Her eyes came to rest on Pete, waiting for his order. He looked extra tall standing under the low roof and she saw one of the muscle-boys at his side give him the once over, an envious look perhaps that they could bulk up but they were stuck with their medium height. His back was broad and his jeans showed off a good chunk of bum. She pulled her eyes away. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d actually appraised another man. She hadn’t needed to because she had Alex, and he was all she wanted.
‘Sorry about that,’ said Pete, eventually arriving at the table. ‘There was a bit of a queue as the barman had just come in from his emergency vape-break. A modern-day catastrophe I think.’
Laurie smiled at that. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’ll get the next one.’ Oh blimey, that was inferring they’d stay for another. ‘If we . . . I mean . . .’
Pete cracked a smile. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
‘Forgive me. Ever since the thing with Alex’s best friend, I’ve been hypersensitive about what I say to the opposite sex.’
‘You and me both,’ said Pete and knocked his own J20 against Laurie’s. ‘Cheers. Here’s to being two fish out of water, united in our gawkiness.’
‘Cheers,’ said Laurie and took a sip before speaking again. ‘Funny lot aren’t they at the group? But lovely. I feel quite at home with them. I’m so glad I gave it another go.’
‘You’ve hit the nail on the head,’ replied Pete. ‘I still can’t believe I actually signed up to something like this. It’s not really my sort of thing. I’m more your stop being a wuss and getting on with it person. Until this year happened anyway.’
‘What was it that made you join in the end? I think you said there had been an incident at work, have I remembered that right?’
‘Yep. I lost it, simple as that, cutting someone out of a car. It was either get help or take sick leave. My boss has been brilliant. He’s swapped my shifts around so I could come to the sessions; I’m lucky I’m so well supported. It was one of the other firefighters who gave me Molly’s number. She’s known her for years. Didn’t you say that someone at the Daily Trumpet recommended her to you?’
‘Yes, the editor. His recommendation is gold.’
‘Really?’ said Pete, incredulously.
‘Alan Robertson is a man fighting a lion with a blade of grass. He wants the newspaper to succeed, but the only way it will is if it carries on as it is. The owner, Sir Basil Stamper, is on course for out-wealthing Richard Branson so Alan is forced to strive for damage limitation at best. And even if he is a journalist, he would never betray a confidence.’
‘Funny how you can be surrounded by family and friends and still feel that they’re too close to talk to, don’t you find?’ Pete put his glass down on the table and Laurie noticed how large and square his hands were. She wondered how many individuals those hands had rescued, saved.
‘I don’t really have many people close to me,’ Laurie admitted. ‘I’m an only child and my mum’s never been on the scene much. We’re very different. Never knew my dad. Neither did my mum so there’s a blank on my birth certificate. My best friend is great but she’s quite forceful in that I should concentrate on the future and not on dissecting the past, but I can’t help it. Until I can dissect the past and find answers, I won’t be able to move forward.’