On Saturdays Laurel usually sees her friends Jackie and Bel. She’s known them since they were all at school together in Portsmouth where they were an inseparable gang of three. About thirty years ago, when they were all in their twenties and living in London, Laurel had met up with them in a bar in Soho and they’d told her that they had come out to each other and were now a couple. And then eleven years ago, in her mid-forties, Bel had given birth to twin boys. Just as Laurel was exiting the parenting zone, they’d walked straight into it, and in the years after Ellie went, their home in Edmonton full of nappies and plastic and pink yogurt in squeezy tubes had been a refuge to her.
But they are away this weekend, taking the boys to a rugby tournament in Shropshire. And so the minutes pass exquisitely and the air in the flat hangs heavy around her. The sounds of her neighbours closing doors, calling to their children, starting their cars, walking their dogs, ratchets up the feeling of aloneness, and there is no call from Floyd, no text and she is too old, far too old for all this, and by Saturday night she has talked herself out of it. It was a mad idea. Nonsensical. She is a damaged woman with a ton of ugly baggage and Floyd was clearly just using his effortless charm to secure a night out with a woman, something he could probably manage every night of the week if he so chose. And he was probably sitting in a café somewhere right now, sharing a slice of carrot cake with someone else.
On Sunday Laurel decides to visit her mother. She usually visits her mother on a Thursday; having it as a weekly slot makes it less likely that she’ll find an excuse not to go. But she cannot spend another day at home alone. She just can’t.
Her mother’s care home is in Enfield, a twenty-minute drive away. It’s a new-build, redbrick thing with smoked-glass windows so that no one can peer in and see their own devastating futures. Ruby, her mum, has had three strokes, has limited vocabulary, is half blind and has very patchy recall. She is also very unhappy and can usually be counted upon to find the words to express her wish to die.
Her mother is in a chair when she arrives at half eleven. By her side is a plate of oaty-looking biscuits and a cup of milk as though she was four years old. Laurel takes her mother’s hand and strokes the parchment skin. She looks into her dark eyes and tries, as she always does, to see the other person, the person who would pick her up by one arm and one leg and throw her in swimming pools when she was small, who chased her across beaches and plaited her hair and made her eggs over easy when she requested them after she’d seen them on an American TV show. Her mother’s energy had been boundless, her curly black hair always coming loose from grips and bands, her heels always low so that she was free to run for buses and jump over walls and pursue muggers.
Her first stroke had hit her four months after Ellie’s disappearance and she’d never been the same since.
‘I went on a date last week,’ Laurel tells her mother. Her mother nods and pinches her mouth into a tight smile. She tries to say something but can’t find the words.
‘F-F-F-F … F-F-F …’
‘Don’t worry, Mum. I know you’re pleased.’
‘Fantastic!’ she suddenly manages.
‘Yes,’ says Laurel, smiling broadly, ‘it is. Except now of course I’m really nervous, behaving like a teenager; I keep staring at my phone, willing him to call. It’s pathetic …’
Her mum smiles again, or the facsimile of a smile that her damaged brain will allow. ‘N … Name?’
‘His name is Floyd. Floyd Dunn. He’s American. He’s my age, ludicrously clever, nice-looking, funny. He’s got two daughters, one of them lives with him, the other is grown up.’
Her mother nods, still smiling. ‘You … you … you … you …’
Laurel runs her thumb across the top of her mother’s hand and smiles encouragingly.
‘You … you … you call him!’
Laurel laughs. ‘I can’t!’
Her mum shakes her head crossly and tuts.
‘No. Honestly. I called him the first time. I already made the first move. It’s his turn now.’
Her mum tuts again.
‘I suppose,’ Laurel ponders, ‘I could maybe send him a text, just to say thank you? Leave the ball in his court?’
Her mum nods and clasps Laurel’s hand inside hers, squeezing it softly.
Her mother adored Paul. From day one she’d said, ‘Well done, my darling, you found a good man. Now please be kind to him. Please don’t let him go.’ And Laurel had smiled wryly and said, ‘We’ll see.’ Because Laurel had never believed in happy ever afters. And her mum had been sanguine about Paul and Laurel splitting up, she’d understood, because she was both a romantic and a realist. Which in many ways was the perfect combination.
Her mother puts out a hand to feel for Laurel’s handbag. She puts her hand into it and she pulls out Laurel’s phone and hands it to her.
‘What?’ says Laurel. ‘Now?’
She nods.
Laurel sighs heavily and then types in the words.
‘I will hold you fully responsible,’ she says, mock-sternly, ‘if this all blows up in my face.’
Then she presses the send button and quickly shuts her phone down and stuffs it into her handbag, horrified by what she has just done. ‘Shit,’ she says, running her hands down her face. ‘You cow,’ she says to her mum. ‘I can’t believe you made me do that!’
And her mother laughs, a strange, warped thing that comes from too high up her throat. But it’s a laugh. And the first one Laurel can remember hearing from her mother in a very long time indeed.
Seconds later Laurel’s phone rings. It’s him.
Sixteen
Laurel and Floyd have their second date that Tuesday. This time they stay local, and go to an Eritrean restaurant near Floyd that Laurel had always wanted to try but Paul would never agree to because they had a three-star hygiene rating taped to their window.
Floyd is dressed down, in a bottle-green polo shirt under a black jumper, with jeans. Laurel is wearing a fitted linen pinafore over a white cotton blouse, her hair clipped back, black tights and black boots. She looks like a trendy nun. She had not realised, until she met Floyd, how stern, virtually clerical all her clothes were.
‘You look amazing,’ he says, clearly missing all the signs of her sartorial struggle. ‘You are far too stylish for me. I feel like an absolute bum.’
‘You look lovely,’ she says, taking her seat, ‘you always look lovely.’
She’s amazed by how relaxed she feels. There are none of the nerves that plagued their first meeting last week. The restaurant is scruffy and brightly lit, but she feels unconcerned about her appearance, about whether or not she looks old.
She stares at his hands as they move and she wants to snatch them in mid-air, grab them, hold them to her face. She follows the movement of his head, gazes at the fan of smile lines around his eyes, glances from time to time at the just visible spray of chest hair emerging from the undone top button of his polo shirt. She wants, very badly, to have sex with him and this realisation shocks her into a kind of flustered silence for a moment.
‘Are you OK, Laurel?’ he asks, sensing her awkwardness.
‘Oh, God, yes. I’m fine,’ she replies, smiling, and he looks reassured by this and the conversation continues.
He talks warmly to the waiting staff who seem to know him well and bring him bonus dishes and morsels of things to taste.