Page 77 of If I Never Met You

‘We sparked, you know, and that was that.’

Laurie gave a forced smile.

Jamie had been right that the cancer wasn’t present. They obviously wanted normality, to still meet the girlfriend and talk interestedly with her, without the Sword of Damocles hanging over them.

When it came time to turn in, Laurie went ahead and Jamie hung back, tacit agreement it’d be easier for her to change without him.

It had been peculiar, when packing, to plan around the hitherto unexplored social occasion of ‘sharing a bedroom with a straight man you were not intimate with.’ She had a Lycra vest top to stand in for the support of a bra overnight, and on top of that, baggy grandad pyjamas. She’d brought a silk pillowcase because she was too self-conscious to wear her usual turban to protect her hair from breaking against cotton. Eesh, she’d thought this would be easier because they weren’t sleeping together but in some ways, it was harder.

‘I’ll sleep on the floor,’ Jamie said, in hoarse whisper, tiptoeing in quietly when Laurie was in bed.

‘Jamie,’ Laurie hoarse whispered back, ‘Don’t, it’ll be crazy uncomfortable for you and if your mum comes in with a cup of tea and sees you it’s going to be a disaster. You’ll have to start making up lies: I’m a True Love Waitser. We can put this big pillow between us like this,’ she flumped it onto the bed, ‘As a breakwater.’

‘Are you sure?’ Jamie hissed.

‘Yeah.’

‘OK, thanks.’

‘I’ll shut my eyes while you get changed,’ Laurie whispered and they started giggling, stupid uncontrollable giggling, as if they were naughty kids at a sleepover.

‘This is so fucking bizarre,’ Jamie whispered, and Laurie said: ‘Telling me!’

She twisted round and buried her face in the pillow.

Moments later, Jamie got into bed beside her.

‘Am I safe to look?’ Laurie said, in stagey whisper.

‘No, I am doing a naked dance, it’s a nightly ritual of mine,’ Jamie replied.

Laurie was shaking with laughter. It was welcome and necessary, this puncturing of the tension.

‘Your parents are fantastic,’ Laurie said.

‘Aw, thanks. They liked you too. You look like a “young Marsha Hunt” apparently. I’m not sure who she is.’

‘She was bedded by Mick Jagger.’

‘That doesn’t narrow it down really, does it?’

‘Says you!’

‘Oh, for fu— I’m sick of this perception of me as the greatest man slag of the North West,’ he said.

‘Then be less man slag. Be the unslaggy man you want to see in the world.’

‘Pffft. I’m selective.’

‘Then select fewer of them.’

‘This country. It’ll soon be illegal to be a human man.’

Laurie heaved with laughter.

They whispered ‘n’night’ to each other and Laurie felt grateful that she didn’t, to the best of her knowledge, snore.

The next thing Laurie knew, it was dawn, and she had an extremely disorientating moment when she awoke, remembering she was in the East Midlands, not Chorlton, and that the sleeping male form next to her wasn’t Dan. She couldn’t help wondering what would happen if she moved the pillow away, slipped her arms round him. Would he respond?

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