‘Thanks!’ Laurie said, with a tight, bright smile.
Silence descended and Diana darted looks at Laurie every so often, while tapping rapidly at her keyboard at brief intervals. Laurie was tempted to need something from the filing cabinet behind Di, forcing Di to click away at frantic speed from the G-chat about Laurie’s woes. It wasn’t that Di was anti Laurie, but this was hot off the presses and it had to be discussed.
Laurie WhatsApped Emily. She’d not told her yet.
Don’t call me, as I’m at work, but Dan’s got an Other Woman, who he’s now got pregnant. No kidding. Instantly. Mr ‘I’m not ready for you to stop taking your pill’. She’s a lawyer at another place here, and they were clearly good to go once he’d left me. He’s trying to claim it’s not an affair because they waited until then to sleep together.
Emily
HOLY SHIT? WHAT? I don’t know what to say. Or do. I actually feel sick. Oh my God
Laurie felt a pinched, stinging sensation at the back of her throat that presaged tears, and waited it out before typing again.
Laurie
Be honest with me: did you think he had someone else from the start? Have I been incredibly slow and stupid?
It was strange that plain old embarrassment should play a starring role in this shit show. Next to the decimation of love and hope, who cared about foolishness? And yet.
Emily
NO! Absolutely not, L. I thought he was having a mid life, and once he’d bought Sonos surround speakers, failed to work the multi room function on them properly & maybe had a lacklustre boff with a girl from the gym with a Martini glass shaped bikini wax, he’d be crawling back. Pregnant? Seriously? Are you OK?
Laurie
I’m on my knees, to be honest. Can you believe I have to work with him?!! I must have been a genocidal warlord in a past life to deserve this. Or the kind of person who puts their bag on the seat next to them on public transport in rush hour.
Not only that, there was no way out. With a new responsibility on the way, Dan wouldn’t be getting a new job, never mind his blather about rethinking his professional choices. The results were in. And if Laurie went – and why should she? – the rules on being hired within a certain radius, within a certain time period, meant she could either accept a job at a tiny firm in Buttfuck, Nowhere with a huge commute, or sell her house, and leave Manchester entirely. Hey, maybe she could sell the house back to Dan and Megan! She jutted her chin upwards in defiance in the pain at this thought, and her eyes met her reflection in the window. In uncharacteristic thinness and tiredness, she could suddenly really see her mother.
Emily
Repeat after me: You do not deserve it. I will come round as soon as I can. May I ring Dan and call him a piece of shit? I don’t want us to forget the proper formalities in the middle of this
Laurie grinned at her handset. Best friends knew humour was pretty much always welcome and needed.
Laurie
With my greatest pleasure xxx
This notion pepped Laurie up slightly, until she needed to check something on the board in the criminal office and the whole room fell into an awed hush when she entered.
She forgot whatever she was supposed to be inspecting, stared blankly at marker-penned words that were mere blue squiggles to her, and went back to her desk, wondering if, despite the impossibility, she was in fact going to have to find another job.
The day, which had lasted several months by Laurie’s reckoning, finally rolled to a close and Laurie got up bang on time to leave, intending to make as fast and clean an exit as possible. She was intercepted by Kerry, Salter’s ferocious personal secretary. Kerry was a forty-something bottle blonde and dressed and carried herself like a matriarch from a 1960s kitchen sink film: leopard skin, fag frequently on and red pleather handbags. Laurie could’ve warmed to her if she didn’t know her to be a total viper.
‘Laurie. I want you to know. We’ve all agreed …’
Laurie tensed her stomach muscles and waited for the inevitable nonsense about solidarity. Dan would receive the same, of course.
‘You’re far more attractive than Megan Mooney. She looks like Prince Harry in drag.’
‘Oh. Thanks,’ Laurie said, completely at a loss for what she was supposed to say. Kerry was terrifying.
‘Laurie! Call for you!’ Di said, hanging out of the office doorway, and Laurie bit down her irritation that, strictly speaking, when someone had their coat on you should take a message.
‘Hello, Mrs Watkinson?’ said an accented older male voice, after she accepted the receiver from Di.
‘Miss,’ Laurie said. ‘Or Ms.’
‘This is Mr Atwal, from Atwals News. The Doolally boy who beat me, you were his lawyer today?’
Laurie’s heart sank still further. It was rare she got shit-o-grams from the victims of those she defended, partly because the serious cases she dealt with got kicked up to crown court. It was uniquely unpleasant, explaining to someone why you’d done everything you could to minimise the impact of what they’d suffered, and put the best possible spin on the version of the person who’d inflicted it. Laurie didn’t think she was in the wrong, but at moments like that, she couldn’t feel it.
Oh God. Not today, Satan. She took a deep breath and prepared to justify her role in a fair and open legal process. ‘Yes?’
‘I thought you might like to know, he came in and gave me a bottle of wine and a box of chocolates! I do not drink, but the thought was very nice. He said he was very sorry and your kindness has helped him see a better way. Well done, young lady.’
In a moment, Laurie’s ratty temper vanished. Not only was she very glad to hear Darren Dooley had made amends, there was something absurdly touching in him thinking Laurie doing her job in a courteous manner was some sort of inspirational tenderness. Poor lad. What a life he’d led.
‘That’s great to hear, I’m very pleased he has apologised, Mr Atwal. I hope this is a corner turned for Darren and that you don’t get any more trouble.’
‘Oh, I doubt that,’ Mr Atwal said, in his lovely, musical, old fashioned cadence, ‘There are some real, how do you say, dismal little cunts around these days.’
Laurie ended the conversation trying desperately not to hysterical-giggle. If life was entirely different, she’d be repeating that phrase to Dan tonight while they fell about.
Hell, maybe she would hire Darren Dooley to rough up him and Megan. It might give him a sense of purpose and a nice fee.
Laurie hated how powerless she was, the mask she had to wear that ate her face. Dan had done so much to her, and she could do nothing.
11
‘Are you going to the Christmas do?’ Diana asked on Friday, all innocence, though Laurie knew exactly why she was asking and Di knew she knew.
It was weeks away, but S&R always revved up for it as soon as the clocks changed.
‘Oh. Hadn’t thought,’ Laurie said. ‘Maybe.’
Diana fell quiet, as there was nothing she could do with this equivocal response.
‘Rumours of karaoke,’ Bharat added.
‘Jesus. I long for death’s sweet release.’
‘Don’t know that one, Shania Twain?’ He paused. ‘I can imagine it’s the last place you want to be this year, but it’s a shame for us, because you are the very finest company.’