Despite what she said, he was smart enough to spot she wasn’t coping. Typical lawyers, she thought. We read people constantly. We don’t necessarily care about what we discover, but we read them.
She breathed, and calmed.
Laurie and Jamie had exhausted polite, banal chat about Salter & Rowson’s internal politics, and the gnarly attitudes of certain magistrates, and the clock had barely shifted. Twelve minutes had passed since Laurie last looked.
Out there, 6.25 p.m. would’ve arrived without noticing, it would’ve been an eye blink, a long stride in the short distance to the tram. In here, it was an eternity.
Jamie saw Laurie clicking her phone agitatedly to check the time and she remembered he knew she couldn’t be picking up messages, and stopped.
‘How is only twenty-five past six?’ she said, mournfully.
‘Yeah this feels like the film Interstellar,’ Jamie said, ‘If Matthew McConaughey came back to Earth and his daughter’s an old woman, my date’s probably married with three kids by now.’
‘Has this taken a real crap on your plans, then?’ Laurie said. ‘Was it a first date?’ she said, in a ‘I’m not just an uptight workaholic!’ way, she hoped.
‘Yeah it was. And Gina, twenty-nine, from Sale, is not likely to be impressed at being stood up. We met on Tinder, actually, so she’ll be on to five other standbys after half an hour. Gina twenty-nine from Sale waits for no man.’
Laurie laughed: this sounded less like dating, more like studying a menu in a specialist sauna. She wasn’t made for being single in this time. A sad weight pressed on her ribs.
Tinder. Or Deliveroo for dick, as Emily called it. Laurie inwardly shuddered.
The intercom buzzed. ‘Hello?’
Jamie was on his feet in one bounce, in a feat of agility: ‘Mick! Hello!’
‘Hello. There’s good news and bad news.’
Jamie sagged. ‘The bad first?’
‘It’s going to be another hour. Sorry.’
‘Oh for fu— And the GOOD?’
‘They’re certain it’ll only be an hour from now.’
‘Mick, that’s all bad news!’
‘Sorry.’
Jamie turned back and slithered down the wall.
‘Permission to cry, Laura?’
‘Laurie!’
‘Ha ha, oh God, sorry. I’ve got a blind spot where I’m determined to call you Laura. I’m turning into my dad. LOOK IT UP, MARJORIE!’
Laurie laughed again and decided to enjoy Jamie, when he was the only pleasure to be had.
‘It’s a very cool name. Is it after anyone or anything?’ he added.
‘Laurie Lee, who wrote Cider With Rosie.’
Jamie squinted. ‘Wasn’t he a man?’
‘Very good!’ Laurie said, ‘Five points to Slytherin.’
‘Oh wow, presumed ignorant. And I’m in Slytherin, am I?’ Jamie said. Laurie grinned.
Resigned to their fate, they crossed an imaginary boundary – she felt herself relax – where making the best of limited resources for entertainment felt oddly nice. Like the final days before Christmas, where you can’t wait to break out on holiday, but no one’s doing anyone work and are pelting each other with Quality Street. Sometimes it’s more enjoyable than the holiday itself. Must be something to do with relief of having choices removed, and expectations very low. Laurie wondered if she was a chronic over analyser.
‘Cider With Rosie was a set text for my English Lit GCSE so I won’t pretend to be better read than I am,’ Jamie said.
‘And you got the Harry Potter reference too, don’t be hard on yourself,’ Laurie said, with a smile. ‘My mum didn’t know Laurie Lee was a man, she just liked it. It’s very much like my mum to trot off to register the name without even checking she had the gender right.’
Jamie smiled back.
‘I wish I had a quirky story about my name, but nah.’
Silence fell again. Jamie hung his glossily curly head, temporarily out of conversation.
They had another hour to kill. Laurie decided to chance her luck.
‘It didn’t work out with Eve, then?’
‘Eve?’ Jamie looked up and his forehead creased in what seemed genuine rather than feigned confusion. She was probably a few conquests ago, to be fair, Laurie thought.
‘Niece of Mr Salter? Long hair? I saw the two of you in Refuge back in the summer, remember?’
‘Ohhhh, Eve!’ Jamie said, in a possibly faked moment of comprehension. ‘Nah. Went out for dinner and career advice chat, but that was it. More than my life’s worth anyway, what with the family connections here. Like messing with a Mafioso’s wife. And she’s very young.’
There was a pause as Laurie intuited Jamie was doing some internal sums, in light of Laurie’s knowledge.
‘You didn’t say anything to anyone else here about seeing us, did you?’
‘Nope. Why would I? You asked me not to, if I recall right.’ Although if you didn’t do anything, why so edgy? Laurie thought.
‘Well, thanks,’ Jamie said. ‘There’s lots of people here who’d have it on a global email before they’d knocked the lid off their macchiato.’
‘It’s a very gossipy place,’ Laurie said.
‘You’re telling me. I owe you one.’
‘You don’t owe me, don’t worry,’ Laurie said, trying not to snort at what sort of ‘one’ Jamie might owe her. ‘I can’t stand the way people here feel entitled to know others’ business.’
‘Hah. Agreed.’
Another silence descended and Laurie knew it was because Jamie was in a quandary: the only other possible topic was her ex, and yet that fell under category heading: other peoples’ business.
‘You’re, er … separated from Dan Price in civil, is that right?’
He risked it. Probably for the same reasons Laurie mentioned Eve. If Mick had given them a timeframe of fifteen minutes, there was little chance that these hot potatoes would be gaily lobbed about the place.
‘Oh yeah. As separated as you can be,’ Laurie said, and tried for a satirical smirk that came off as strained.
‘I don’t know him that well,’ Jamie said, and trailed off, obviously struggling to judge what was appropriate.
‘I feel like if I say anything polite about him it’ll stick in my throat and if I say anything negative, it’ll make me look bitter,’ Laurie said. ‘Safe to say working together is fucking awful.’
Laurie thought again about the day to come, when Dan dashed out because Megan was in labour. Having to hear about it on the office grapevine, the glances, the whispers, who’s gonna tell her. She’d be expected to put her anger aside and wish him well. A baby carries all before it, how could Laurie’s feelings matter more?
How Dan would be in a floating state, partly due to sleeplessness, and briefly imagine the hatchet could be buried in the wash of love and wonder he felt. She could imagine the horrifically misjudged Laurie, meet my son/daughter xx text and photo already. The retraction later, which would come via mutual friends: ‘He feels so stupid about that, he’d been up for twenty-seven hours straight. It was a difficult birth in the end, ventouse I think, and you’re still very much a part of him/on his mind.’