LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER THREE

      Yes, Dan had a girlfriend, Amy. Just a tiny detail, nothing much. They were as good as living together, too – although she still had her own place. Another detail Laura tried to forget about. She had almost managed to convince herself that if she didn’t tell anyone about her – well, what was it? A ‘thing’? A ‘fling’? A fully formed relationship just waiting to move into the sunlight of acceptance? – her liaison with Dan, then perhaps the outside world didn’t matter so much. And it didn’t, when she was with him. Because he was The One, she was sure of it. So it became surprisingly easy for Laura, who was basically a good girl, who never ever thought she could do something like this, to turn into a person who was sleeping with someone else’s boyfriend.

      She had tried, after Jo and Chris’s wedding. She told herself – and Dan – that it wasn’t going to happen again. She bit her nails to the quick about it because, much as Laura might be clueless about some things, she was clear about other things, and one of those was: don’t sleep with someone who has a girlfriend. She’d already tried going cold turkey from him, as autumn gave way to winter, and as she realised she was falling for him, badly. She tried avoiding him at the tube station – but she couldn’t. She tried to forget him – but she couldn’t. When she thought about him, it was as if he was talking to her, pleading with her, communicating with her directly. Laura, it’s you I want, not Amy. Laura, please let me see you, his eyes and his voice would say in her head, until the noise got so loud it was all she could hear. Every time was the last time. Every time was the first time.

      Laura knew it was wrong to be thinking like this. But she assuaged that secret guilt in her head with the knowledge that Dan and Amy weren’t getting on well. Dan himself had told her it wasn’t working out. Well, he had in so many words, with a sigh and a shake of the head, in the early days of their coffee mornings together on the tube platform. And she knew from Jo that Dan was going out with Chris and his other mates more, playing more football, watching more football, in the pub more, working harder. Added to which, no one in their group ever really saw Amy. They were together, but they were never actually together. She was completely offstage, like a mystery character in a soap opera whom people refer to but who never appears. You know when a couple are happy together – mainly because you don’t see either of them as much, and when you do they’re either together, or they talk about each other. Or they’re just happy. You know. Laura knew – as did everyone else – Dan wasn’t happy with Amy. Dan wanted out, he just didn’t know how to get out.

      And, actually, Amy wasn’t really her friend. They occasionally all went out for drinks, Jo and Chris, Dan and Amy, Hilary, Paddy and Laura and so on, especially now Chris and Dan had moved nearby. But Amy rarely came along, and in any case, Laura had long ago realised she couldn’t stand her. Never had been able to, in fact. Because not only was Amy a quasi-friend of hers, they had also been at school together, many moons ago, and there is no more mutually suspicious relationship than that of two ex-schoolmates who are thrown together several years later. Added to which, Amy had been one of the mean girls who had teased Laura relentlessly about her love for Mr Wallace the oboe teacher, and had spread the subsequent rumours surrounding Laura giving up the oboe. She’d even told Laura’s mother Angela about it, at a school concert, all wide-eyed concern. Angela Foster had got the wrong end of the stick, and assumed Laura was being pestered by Mr Wallace. She’d complained. He’d nearly been fired. The whole thing was deeply embarrassing. So Laura’s dislike of Amy was genuinely historical, rather than based upon the fact that Amy was with the man Laura felt quite sure she loved. This made her feel better, in some obscure way.

      Amy ate nothing, exercised obsessively, talked about shoes and handbags the entire time (like, the entire time) and she played with her beautiful red hair. Non-stop. It was her thing. She always had, even when she and Laura had been eight-year-olds in plaits and virgin socks at school. Twenty years later, the same white hand would smooth down the crown of its owner’s hair as Amy softened her voice to tell a sad story – about a friend’s mother’s death, or something bad in the news. Or said something deeply meaningful at the pub, which made Laura want to gag childishly on her drink.

      The thing was, Laura knew Amy was the kind of girl men fell for, even though she led them a merry dance. Laura wasn’t. She was nice, she was funny, but she knew she was ordinary, nothing special. Why would anyone, especially Dan, choose her when they could be with Amy? Why was it he got her so well, laughed at her jokes? What amazing thing had led him to think of her as this perfect person for him, just as she knew that he was her Mr Right? It perplexed her, as much as it exhilarated her. It was extraordinary, it was magical, and so even though it was underhand and stressful, she carried on doing it.

      ‘So, then she said I should know why she was pissed off. And I’m thinking, well god, woman, you’re pissed off the entire time, how the hell am I supposed to tell the difference between you being annoyed because I was late back from football or annoyed because I didn’t notice your new haircut? Is that for me? Hey, thanks so much. Toast, too. Wow.’

      Laura set down the tray on her bed. She peered out of the window. It was two months after Jo and Chris’s wedding, a cold, grey Saturday morning in February. Dan shifted up in bed, crossed his legs, and pulled the tray towards him.

      ‘This is great,’ he said, pouring some tea. ‘Come on, get back into bed.’

      Laura hopped in beside him. He handed her a cup of tea and kissed her. ‘Mm. Thank you,’ she said.

      Dan and Amy had had another huge row the night before and Amy had stormed back to her own flat. Laura cleared her throat.

      ‘So, what did she say next?’ she asked, desperate for more details, but not wanting them too, fearing what he might say or not say.

      Dan frowned momentarily, as if thinking something

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