Page 102 of If I Never Met You

You wouldn’t ever want to be that beautiful because becoming less beautiful as you aged would be so hard. How would he cope when that incredible jaw sagged, when those full lips thinned, when the dark blue eyes became pouchy?Would he mind, would he notice the difference in how the opposite sex treated him, as his powers dimmed? In Lincoln and after her dad’s party, he’d started to be a boyish funny friend; in Manchester, this evening, he was returned to being an intimidating semi-stranger.

‘You alright? You look like you’re doing very long addition in your head or something,’ Jamie said.

Laurie gave a startled laugh. ‘Yes, no, fine, sorry. Haha. Shall we head off?’

Jamie gave her a quizzical look as if to sayEy up,have you started on the wine already.

They walked to Claire and Phil’s at Corkland Road and Laurie said: ‘Brace yourself for a major lump of property. Their home is ridiculous.’

‘Belfast sinks with boiling water taps? Heated tiled floors? Quartz worktops? Am I warm?’

‘Oh my God, you’re burning up!’

A five-bedroom, bay-fronted Edwardian semi-detached, Laurie had wondered how much of Claire and Phil having loads of friends was because they had loads of money. They were both quite brittle people, really, but presided as king and queen over Chorlton’s thirty-somethings and parents party circuit because they had the castle.

‘Laurie! You came!’ Claire said as she threw the heavy front door open to the Minton tiled hallway, in genuine astonishment.

‘Phil’s only forty once!’ Laurie said, feeling grimy at the insincerity.

Claire openly stared at Jamie until Laurie intervened with the introductions, passing over coats, bottles and gifts.

Their ocean liner sized kitchen was fairly busy but the fall-quiet-and-stare when Laurie and Jamie entered was perceptible.

In a corner, she saw Dan turn, the emotion pass across his face. He turned back, quickly.

Claire fussed over getting them both drinks and then they stood in splendid isolation, as Claire as hostess was fast claimed by someone else.

A conversation right by them involved a man in an ecru polo neck saying: ‘It’s only worth doing if the courgettes are properly ripe, and sadly we’re in south Manchester, not Sicily, hahahaha.’

They’d been there ten minutes when Pri and Erica, both looking mortified, made an approach.

‘Hi, Laurie.’

‘Hi! This Is Jamie.’ They cooed hellos. Neither Pri or Erica were truly malign, of course, they were just in Claire’s gang, playing by her rules. They weren’t as egregious in the Baby Shower roast. But some people never really leave school, and more fool them, given how horrible living by school rules was.

Neither of them had the front that Claire did and didn’t reference the WhatsApp, looking pink around the edges, and gulping wine like it was water after a marathon.

When they did steal looks at Laurie, it was with a nervous incredulousness. How was this possible, that she could survive being thrown over by Dan for a woman now bearing his child, and consent to come to the same party, and have a dashing younger man in tow? Had she made a pact with anold washerwoman that would see her teeth fall out on the stroke of a fairytale midnight?

Laurie remembered coming to dinner parties here and she and Dan putting effort into being a funny charming double act. It was an aspect of being in a couple you never talked about, the way you developed a you-wash-and-I’ll-dry persona for public consumption.

That’s why the schadenfreude had been so strong when they split. There were couples here that got gossiped about after they left, speculation on why he spoke so harshly to her, why she drank so hard, whether the au pair was too pretty to be a good idea.

But Dan and Laurie were being groomed to join the upper ranks, as proven by Dan being asked to man the barbecue of a weekend with Phil, or Laurie making it into baby shower WhatsApp groups, despite having no baby to contribute.

‘They like the quota filling of having another ethnic face in the gang, you and Pri are great for the photos,’ Dan used to guffaw, while Laurie bashed him with a cushion in mock outrage.

But you know, he might not be totally wrong. There was a really nice woman called Maya who ran a local vegan café who was a single mother, and very large, and Claire had made disparaging remarks aboutI know I shouldn’t say this, butwhat can she eat that puts weight on?!And Maya never scored invites.

‘How did you two meet?’ Erica was asking, and Jamie was deftly retelling the lift story.

When he excused himself to the toilet, both Erica and Pri breathed: ‘Oh my God, Laurie. What a catch.’

‘Ah, he’s alright.’

‘He’s gorgeous,’ Pri sighed, reverentially.

Laurie should be feeling some ignoble glory but her overriding feeling was, this is bollocks. It’s ALL bollocks. Not purely because Jamie was a stunt man, an actor, but she saw it for what it was. When she had Dan, she fitted, she was accepted. He left her, and she was unclean, cast out, othered.

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