‘Har har,’ Laurie said, rolling her eyes, with the tense, clenched up feeling she got when thinking about him.
He’d not contacted her since the fight, so that was clearly that. It confirmed her suspicions that he would now laser focus on re-employment, probably in the capital. She’d not contacted him, either, of course, so this was hypocritical. But what would she say?
She hadn’t thought she’d be another scorned woman left in Jamie Carter’s wake, but equally, no scorned women left in his wake thought that was who they’d become. That was how it happened.
Who was he, in the end? Had he been totally himself in the dark, when they were alone? The man who wore glasses and didn’t need glasses, who could be so generous and open and then so cold and hard, in that moment outside the office.
But mostly, Laurie had been studiously not thinking about Jamie. Doubt lingered, but doubt only caused more trauma. Better to forcibly banish doubt, and get on with the rest of her life.
Laurie explained the situation with Jamie, as much as she could. Referring back to Liverpool, and to her doubts over Eve. ‘I was at the quacks like a duck, walks like a duck point,’ Laurie said, sipping her wine. ‘He’s a duck. I’m OK, though. It’s OK.’
She wasn’t OK, obviously, but Emily was a good enough friend to know that it meant Laurie wanted to be treated as OK.
‘You think he did sleep with this boss’s niece? I mean she was clearly pissed at being used by him, to do what she did?’ Emily said and Laurie winced anew.
‘… I don’t know. Maybe?’ She played it as not caring much, while it turned her intestines into a reef knot.
‘Mmm,’ Emily tapped her paper straw against her mouth thoughtfully. ‘Although, although …’
‘Oh God, what!’ Laurie said.
‘No, I think you did the right thing. One strike, out. It’s just …’
‘What?’
‘It’s not mutually exclusive, is it? He could have been a person who did those things, and then fallen for you for real, later? I don’t know.’
Laurie shook her head.
‘It’s like you said. This isn’t what I need. Also no one can change anyone’s character. No love of a good woman can fix a bad man. It’s you who told me this!’
Despite saying this, Laurie couldn’t accept Jamie was a bad man, not yet. But that was due to attachment hormones still swirling through the body. She imagined that final realisation would arrive with a jolt, when a tale of his misdeeds got filtered back to her via the usual channels at Salter’s. Like reconciling herself to Dan and his affair: your mind has to start the process, and your heart will follow.
‘I know, I know. It’s a shame but at least you got a sensational rumping out of it. By the way, warning, Nadia may be what I believe she calls “ornery”,’ Emily said, ‘She’s been thrown out of her sister’s book group. Ah, here she is now.’
‘Why?’ Laurie said under her breath.
‘Because Nadia is the epitome of herself,’ Emily raised her voice. ‘Laurie wants to know why you got banned from the book group?’
Nadia was in her usual cloche hat, today a pleasing salmon shade.
‘Firstly, I rejected the central tenets of Eat, Pray, Love,’ Nadia said, as Emily pushed a glass of wine towards her, and she wriggled her duffle coat off. ‘Then we were required to produce “Gratitude Lists” to discuss what we were thankful for.’
‘Oh really?’ Emily said, swinging a and how did that go look at Laurie, who tried not to laugh.
‘I said I was not grateful for my life, I had worked for it, and my sister’s friend Amy said I was “too centred” in my own privilege’ and I told her to fuck off and then my sister said I had to go.’
‘We won’t ask you to be grateful for anything this evening, Nads,’ Emily said, handing the menu over. ‘Not even lobster tacos. Can I tell her your latest news?’ she looked to Laurie.
‘Knock yourself out,’ Laurie said.
‘She’s no longer with the hot lad she was pretending to date. It turns out that messing women around and then saying he hadn’t was kind of his thing, he got sacked for it.’ Emily gave Laurie a ‘fair?’ questioning look and Laurie nodded.
‘Ugh,’ Nadia said. ‘I’m sorry. I mean I am sorry for any pain. While not being sorry you gave him his marching orders, if he is a shit.’
‘Thank you,’ Laurie said. ‘I’m not in pain. Well, I’m in some pain over it, but I know that it will pass and I’ll feel happier again, at some point. That will do for now.’
‘Like that poem “to the girl crying in the next toilet stall.” Listen I love you, joy is coming,’ Emily said.
‘Yes. Joy is coming. If maybe not here,’ Laurie said, glancing around. It was the kind of poseur’s bear pit that would’ve scared Laurie, pre-Dan’s bombshell, but not now. Her fling with Jamie had given her that confidence back, at least. Sigh. Who would ever measure up to … STOPPIT.
‘Can I propose a toast,’ Laurie said. ‘To what happiness looks like, to us.’
‘Yes,’ Emily said, picking her glass up so fast she spilled some. ‘To deciding what our happiness is, and being happy that way. Rather than having some bunch of bastards tell us what it is.’
They clinked glasses and drank.
‘Are you girls ready to order?’ said a waiter with a goatee, appearing at their side with a touch screen pad. ‘Need me to explain anything?’
‘We’re not girls,’ Nadia said. ‘So you can explain your mode of address.’
‘Hey y’all look pretty young to me,’ he said, chewing gum and grinning in what he thought was a flirtily winning manner.
Emily said: ‘Oh, you dear sweet fool, she will now verbally decapitate you.’
Laurie felt it was a poorly advertised part of kitten owning, that they were absolute sodding hooligans. If her new twelve-week-old black longhair mix breed with white whiskers, Colin Fur, was in the magistrates court, Laurie would be advising the short sharp shock of a custodial sentence for sure.
‘Only language he understands, sadly,’ she’d tell the bench, while removing another shredded pair of Wolford tights from the little beggar’s jaws.
She’d impulsively picked him up from the PDSA at lunchtime, on her way home from work, Christmas Eve of all days, thinking how nice it would be to have a tiny friend around on her solo Christmas Day. She was now realising it would mean spending the whole time extracting said tiny friend from re-enacting Touching The Void on the curtain rails.
Laurie wasn’t daunted by Christmas Day alone, not one bit. She was going to dress up, only for herself, make a giant lunch, only for herself, and share some smoked salmon with Colin Fur. Finding out she could manage on her own was great.
She didn’t mind the time off work, either. It had been wild lately. After Jamie’s sacking on Friday, Monday had felt like a peculiar limbo period where she had no idea what her status was. In the end, she took the initiative and asked to see Mr Salter, late on Monday afternoon. He said yes, he and Mr Rowson would see her, suggesting an unprecedented both-partner bollocking designed to strike fear into her heart.