Laurie blinked and realised what he was referring to – a remark on WhatsApp months ago, ‘maybe I’ll meet someone at your tear-up.’ Tactful of him to repeat it in front of her date. Laurie scratched her neck and tried to avoid Jamie’s pointed oh well whaddya know look.
‘Good to meet you, son,’ Austin pumped Jamie’s hand. ‘Hammer that bar, it’s free all night. Heeeeeeyyyy!’ her dad’s attention was pulled away by someone else behind them.
‘I guess that solves the mystery of why I wasn’t needed for manoeuvres, then,’ Jamie said.
‘Hardly! My dad talks a lot of rubbish.’
‘Mmmm. Harry best not try anything.’
Laurie laughed.
Having been sceptical at first, Cloud 23 actually came into its own when there were no clouds, and the scene beyond the glass was a winter’s night. The streets were long sweeps of yellow, bluer lights from buildings, a jewel box of illuminations amid soft black. It made the city look so full of potential, so exciting.
‘Wow,’ Laurie said, nose almost to pane. ‘The view is really something. Like a Michael Mann film, huh.’
She turned to see if Jamie enjoyed the reference, and he was looking intently at her, not the great outdoors.
‘Did you really not want me to come tonight? Have I clipped your wings?’
‘No! That thing my dad said, he was repeating a message I sent before you and I had even …’ she waved her hand. ‘You know. Started doing this.’
‘Yeah but given we’re not “doing this” … I don’t like to think I’m closing off avenues to you.’
Was Jamie worrying he’d taken on a project with Laurie, one that wouldn’t end when the dating scam did? That they’d have to go through the motions of still socialising? That he was already trying to gently detach? She’d sort of known all along this was how it would feel when it came to an end, and yet it still made her feel empty.
‘Jamie, I’m not your responsibility. You know that don’t you? You don’t have to worry.’
Jamie frowned. Now safely through the door, she’d briefly thought they might have fun tonight, watching the Hogarthian gin hall scenes and squalid tableaus of her father’s life unfold. Looking at Jamie and his taut expression, she knew it was one of those nights when communication doesn’t flow and drink sits heavy.
‘Are you regretting this? The showmance,’ Jamie said, taking a swig of his welcome cocktail.
Laurie paused, before the glib automatic denial sprang to her lips. ‘Yes. A bit. But that’s nothing to do with you. It’s the situation at work, Dan and Michael’s paltry attacks.’
‘You know they’re both in love with you, right?’
‘What?’ Laurie said, screwing up her face. ‘Nah. A fifty per cent hard “nah”, given what Dan did.’
Jamie was undeterred. ‘Don’t let them make you think that their problems are your problems. They are trying to do a head-wrecking number on you, to undermine you, and you have to resist.’
‘Hah. I told my best friend something very similar the other day.’
‘Were you right?’
‘Yes.’
‘So am I.’
Laurie had plans to slink out of the party in full swing and go for a late drink with Jamie elsewhere, but the lure of ‘just one more here’ after they’d seen off two welcome cocktails was too strong. It was a long way down.
Laurie was at the bar when a late middle aged man at her elbow turned towards her. She felt she recognised him, and he said: ‘Hello you,’ as if he knew her.
Laurie didn’t reply.
It wasn’t often in life that a revelation came in an instant. They were usually delivered in stages, sometimes across years, and you had to do some self-assembly to make sense of them. But this man’s features, a ghost from Christmas past – he in a split second summed up why she had been so reluctant to come tonight. He encapsulated what was wrong with spending time in her father’s world.
Looking him in the face, she realised there was something she’d not looked at directly in a long, long time. Since it happened, in fact.
‘What’re are you having?’ said the barman and Laurie couldn’t remember a thing. ‘Gin … and tonic and lager.’
‘Which one?’
‘Whichever,’ Laurie said, dully.
‘Let me get these,’ the man said.
‘Are you … Pete?’ Laurie said dumbly.
‘Yeah! Crikey, how do you know that? Are you? Hang on, you’re not Austin’s girl, are you?’
It had downloaded from nowhere. He was called Pete. The sensation of looking at him was that of the bogeyman threat appearing in a nightmare, a leering ghostly visage between the bedstead posts. You tried to scream for help, but nothing came out.
A voice inside her said: You don’t have to stay here, you know. So she walked away.
33
Laurie found her way back to where Jamie stood, on legs that felt like the bones in them had dissolved.
‘We have to go,’ Laurie said. ‘Now.’
‘OK,’ Jamie said. ‘You’re very pale, are you OK?’
‘If we go, I will be,’ Laurie said.
‘Understood.’
Unfortunately, leaving involved collecting their coats, which attracted the attention of Laurie’s new stepmother.
‘You’re not leaving?!’ Nicola shrieked.
Laurie didn’t know what to do, as she had momentarily lost the power of normal speech.
‘Going to get some fresh air, then we’ll come back up,’ Jamie said, swiftly. ‘Too cold to go without coats. Laurie’s had a lot very fast.’ He gestured a tipping glass motion at Nicola, as Laurie stood mute.
‘Oh right!’ Nicola said, squinting her eyes in sympathy. ‘Do a tactical barf, darling, then have a Smint. See you both in a bit.’
‘Thank you,’ Laurie said in a small voice to Jamie, as they otherwise descended in silence in the lift.
At ground level, Laurie calmed somewhat. She’d felt trapped up there, as though her skin was two sizes too small.
‘Do you want to tell me what’s going on, or do you just want to go home?’ Jamie said.
Laurie breathed out.
‘Yes, but not here.’ She took Jamie by the hand to lead him to somewhere on the street they wouldn’t be jostled by the Friday night crowds, and Jamie squeezed her hand back reassuringly. She felt relief from him somehow, despite the unnatural interruption, and wasn’t sure why.
Once they were in St Peter’s Square, she turned to face him, tucking her hands deep into her pockets and hunching her shoulders against the chill. She was suddenly very cold.
‘There was a man, at the bar,’ she said. ‘One of my dad’s friends. He brought a memory back.’ Laurie shook her head. ‘Until ten minutes ago, if you’d said, did I repress any memories from my childhood I’d say “Haha, I wish.” But I had. I’m kind of … stupefied, to be honest. It’s like I knew it was there, but I’d never looked at it. Like having something in your loft storage.’
She wasn’t just cold, she realised she was shaking. Actual physical shaking, like she’d been plunged into sub-zero temperature water.