‘Why zone in on her?’ asked Pete.
‘Because of the way your face changed when you said those three words.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘Connection made?’
‘Sort of.’
‘Knew it, you bastard.’
Pete’s turn to grin now. ‘She’s called Laurie and she’s about the same age as I am, lost her fiancé in a crash so we have plenty of common ground, but neither of us are in a position to step over any barriers. She’s a friend, I like her, no more than that.’
Sal listened patiently. Laurie. She thought it sounded a name that would belong to a gentle woman, a pretty one too.
‘She’s working some magic, I can tell,’ she said eventually.
Pete prepared to divulge something. ‘I’ll have to be careful, Sal. The last two times after the sessions, we’ve gone to the pub and done the quiz and it’s been . . . too . . . good. I feel as if I’ve known her far longer than I have.’
‘What’s wrong with that?’ asked Sal, sweeping up Pete’s mug and taking it with hers over to the kettle to make refills.
‘It’s only been seven months since Tara died.’
‘Read the textbook on grief and how to behave,’ said Sal.
Pete looked incredulous. ‘What textbook?’
‘Precisely. There isn’t one. Just because you feel something for her, doesn’t mean you’re on course for the aisle, Pete. There’s nothing wrong with some companionship. You can feel love for friends too, you know. I’d even go as far as to say that I love you, in a non-bodily-fluids-swapping way, obviously.’ Sal mock-shuddered and chuckled to herself. ‘Your heart is lonely, mate, so it’s reaching out. You’re obviously both benefitting from being together, so don’t chuck it up just because you’re scared of what other people might think.’
‘I’ve had a lonely heart for ages, Sal,’ said Pete. The disclosure was out before he had a chance to haul it back. Sal was easy to talk to too, in a different way to Laurie. Sal felt like a sister, close, easy but without the family ties that clouded judgement, stirred up emotion.
Sal spooned the coffee granules into the cups, added milk and sugar, put the mugs down on the table and closed the kitchen door so they couldn’t be overheard.
‘Talk to me,’ she said.
‘I haven’t told anyone this before,’ Pete said. ‘Tara and I were going through a rough patch for months before she died. We’d stopped sleeping together. Apart from once, on our anniversary so that’s when she must have conceived, which makes sense now because her moods after that were all over the place. I don’t know if you knew but she died the day before her thirtieth birthday. I’d booked a weekend away for us, as a surprise. I was going to give her the full works: best room in the hotel, trip to the theatre, champagne, roses, massage in the spa, everything to try and keep us together. I didn’t know what was going on because something was, but she said it was all in my imagination. I didn’t know if we were back on track or what was happening with us.’
‘But you didn’t realise she was pregnant. It does a lot of things to a woman’s body and mind. She was obviously going to tell you that night, wasn’t she? It would have all been all right, mate. If life hadn’t been so fucking cruel and thrown you that curve ball.’
Pete felt hard prickles behind his eyes, sharp as fragments of glass.
‘What was she doing on that road, Sal, when she told me she was somewhere else completely?’
Something Sal had wondered herself a few times, not that she had ever said. Maybe Pete had misheard. They’d never know.
Sal reached across, kneaded Pete’s shoulder affectionately.
‘The here and now is all we have for certain, Pete. Life is for the living. How many times have we said that to each other when we’ve been to a job and found someone isn’t going home again? Take comfort in your new friendship and just let it happen. Let life happen.’
Pete nodded, smiled. He couldn’t think of a single person whose opinion he valued who wouldn’t have said the same. But coming from Sal, it felt like a blessing.
Chapter 31
29 September
Laurie pulled up in the car park, killed the ignition and continued to sit for a few moments while she revved up her nerves to do what she had forced herself to. Some entity inside her had decided that if no one would go with her to see the film, she should go by herself. This was a test. If she passed, she would say to hell with it and book herself a holiday. Other single people went away and it wasn’t such a stigma these days. The Canaries maybe, in spring, something to look forward to, to ease her into the world of singledom. But before she jumped over that particular hurdle, she needed to get her ass out of her car and into the cinema.
It was a late night showing and it was unlikely to be packed full of people totally ignoring what was on the screen in order to obsess about why a lone female was in their midst. Plus it would be dark, she wouldn’t be noticed. Maurice had done it and said it wasn’t half as bad as he’d imagined.
On the count of three she threw herself out of the car, refusing to give herself any more thinking time. She’d dressed in jeans and a casual top because she thought it made her look less likely to have been stood up than if she was tarted up to the nines. With every step towards the cinema, she could have sworn her mouth became drier. Totally ridiculous. She didn’t get nervous standing up in courts, but here she was, heart thumping because she had to join a small queue to buy a ticket to see Keanu Reeves on a screen. She mentally rehearsed saying, ‘One, please,’ and then mentally saw the kiosk clerk flashing her a look of sympathy. This was a stupid idea. She wondered if she should take out her phone and pretend to ring someone, make sure people heard her saying, ‘Oh, you’re running late. Okay, I’ll meet you inside.’ Or maybe she’d just slink off back to the car – she wasn’t sure which would draw less attention to her.
*
Pete hadn’t been to the cinema by himself before and he wasn’t sure why he was going there tonight by himself either. That there was nothing on the TV and he was sick of the four walls of the house was a reasonable explanation. He’d noticed in the Chronicle that the new John Wick film was showing and some persuasive voice in his head had decided it would be a good thing for him to go and see it. The more single stuff he did, the quicker he’d get used to it. It was a test, he told himself, as he parked up in the Courthouse car park in town.
*
It was no good, thought Laurie, standing in the queue for far longer than she’d anticipated because someone’s card wasn’t recognised by the machine. She felt sadder than sad among other couples, imagining them gossiping about the poor, friendless woman with the long, blonde plait. She’d try this another time, and would catch up with Keanu when he appeared on Netflix. She slipped away from the queue as if she was hanging around, waiting for someone to arrive before joining it again.
‘Laurie.’
She heard her name and turned to see a familiar figure coming across the road from the direction of the car park. She felt her heartbeat respond with a flutter and silently cursed it. We do not want this complication, her brain sent down a stern message. She cringed, knowing she wasn’t going to be able to avoid talking to him, not to mention explaining why she was loitering outside the cinema at this time of night.