Seconds later and Jamie was being unspeakably charming to the two girls – who he thought might’ve inadvertently snapped him and his girlfriend, would they mind if …?
They were delighted to AirDrop him the photos and Jamie was as pleased with the results as they were to send them. Laurie squinted. Two happy twenty-somethings, mouths jammy with lipgloss, pouting in the front of the frame. To their rear, Jamie and Laurie, looking to be indeed in what the tabloids would term a clinch.
Props to his artistic direction – it was a very Richard Curtis pose, like Bridget Jones with Mark Darcy in the snow. It invited you to imagine what might have been said seconds before, and what might happen seconds after.
Laurie remembered a film and director guy they’d met at a party of Upwardly Mobiles in Chorlton who said that ‘what works on screen can be too much in the room’ and that ‘Michael Caine is like a ship’s foghorn!’– the same seemed to apply here. The face clasping had seemed very ‘swelling strings’ and purple in real life, but on the phone screen, it looked like an authentic private moment. Jamie’s look of passion, Laurie’s hand over his, so affectionate and natural. Laurie made a note to never, ever trust photographs posted online. They could be as designed and stage-managed as much as any political poster.
‘No need to praise me to the skies for this gonzo BRILLIANCE,’ Jamie said, almost hugging himself with glee. He skimmed through filter options, turned the light up on it so Jamie and Laurie were more distinct, and posted it to his Instagram. He flashed his screen at Laurie. She read the caption.
‘When you accidentally photo-bomb someone’s birthday but they’re nice enough to give you the evidence. Happy twenty-first, Madeleine!’
Jamie was fizzing.
‘It’s perfect. No one’s going to guess we saw them taking the selfies and manoeuvred ourselves into it, even if they were sceptical of The Ivy shot. It’s too high concept. They’ll apply the simplest explanation, and for once, Occam’s Razor is wrong.’
‘You call me a natural lawyer but you’re no slouch yourself.’
When Laurie got in, her phone blipped.
Jamie
You know how you thought this was a washout and no one would believe we were seeing each other?
Laurie
Yes
Jamie
A recently joined Instagram user, with no photos posted yet, who doesn’t follow me – one ‘Dan Price Mcr’ – watched my story with the Hawksmoor food. So you officially have his attention. Enough to set up a stalking account.
Laurie
OMG. But … why did he use his real name, if he knew you’d see his name?
Jamie
If he’s new to Insta my guess is he doesn’t realise Stories aren’t like posts on your general profile, you can see who’s looked at them. It won’t be his finest minutes on Earth when he realises … x
Laurie went to bed with an increased heart rate, mind whirring. She had been scared she could no longer win Dan’s attention, so much so she’d not forecast how she’d feel, knowing for sure she had it. It was unexpectedly daunting.
Lying in bed, she wondered once more how they’d got to this point.
She and Dan had had a good origins story, and they were often prompted to tell it for new arrivals at any Chorlton parties they went to.
It was Fresher’s Week at Liverpool, and Laurie was so homesick she’d cried herself to sleep every night, pasting on bravado every day, along with her Rimmel Lasting Finish in Mauve Max.
She could remember with total clarity how it felt, as if everyone else had been introduced on some other occasion and were right in the flow of it, while she ached with insecurity and inadequacy. No one else, she was sure, felt the way she did. And what were they doing?
Laurie was a virgin, she’d never taken drugs unless you counted weed, which came to an abrupt end after a terrible whitey at Dean Pollock’s house when she was sixteen. She secretly didn’t really like how beer tasted, or want to get paralytic, or swallow pills: she was sure she’d end up the cautionary misadventure story with her inquest reported in the Daily Mail.
She had been Saffy to her mum’s Eddy in Ab Fab, what did a Saffy do as a student?
This Friday night, Laurie was in the eye of the storm in a rowdy barn called Bar CaVa. It catered exotically foul flavoured shots to the undergraduate population, and was the place you went to pre load before getting even more steaming at second or third locations.
She was in a Pixies T-shirt and jeans, hair in ironic schoolgirl plaits (she was in the student mode of immediately glomming on to the things she would have scorned and rejected back home, including hankering after the batty flavour combinations in her mum’s vegetarian cooking). She was with a bunch of girls she met in halls who seemed quite loud, posh and not much her thing: two of them were discussing joining the hockey club.
Laurie was vaguely aware of a group of lads in fancy dress for some Rag Week stunt in the corner of the room but didn’t pay them any heed until a girl with long straight brown hair tumbled to the floor, dramatically pissed. The lads dashed over to help her up.
‘She needs to be taken home,’ said an Austin Powers, through false teeth. ‘Where are you staying?’
The petite girl, like a rag doll, looked to be mumbling, indistinctly.
Laurie’s ears pricked up at ‘be taken home’. There was no way she was letting someone who’d lost her motor functions be carried out of here by a load of men who Laurie would be unable to identify in an ID parade. She had not started her law degree, and yet with her innate fiery sense of right and wrong and moral duty, she suspected she might be a good fit for it.
‘She’s spannered, leave her,’ said a Zorro, after they propped the girl upright in a seat. You could just about imagine she was OK if you didn’t notice her eyes were closed, like the corpse in Weekend At Bernie’s.
‘We can’t leave her like this,’ said a Hot Dog. ‘Where are her friends?’
They gingerly poked around in a purse that was attached to the drunk girl’s wrist by a small loop of leather, and found a halls of residence card.
‘Here’s her room number,’ said Zorro.
At this, Laurie swigged the last of her drink and approached. ‘Hi. I don’t know her, but might be better for me to take her home?’
‘Hell-LOH!’ said Austin Powers, truly inhabiting the role. ‘I can’t speak for her but I wouldn’t mind you taking me home.’
‘Hi,’ said Hot Dog. ‘And thank you.’
‘I’m Laurie,’ she said, feeling uncharacteristically confident.
‘Lorry? As in haulage?’ said Zorro.
‘L-A-U-R-I-E.’
‘What a great name,’ Hot Dog said. ‘It would be much, much better if you’d take her, thank you so much.’
‘No problem.’ Laurie squatted down to level of Drunk Girl. Drunk Girl appeared to briefly focus on her and gave her a sloppy little grin.
‘Harro,’ she slurred. ‘You look nice.’
‘Thank you.’ Laurie grinned back. ‘Let’s get you home, eh? More fun to be sick in your own bed than here.’ She hoisted her up, wrapping her arm around her tiny frame, and prepared to exit Bar CaVa.
‘Here’s her halls card,’ Hot Dog said, handing it over. ‘Thank you.’