the first time she’d ever seen him. She pretended to check him out, to assess if she still wanted to jump the bones of this stranger before her. She surveyed the optimum amount of stubble across his face and the dark brown hair that was perennially in the just-got-out-of-bed style. She studied his tall build – athletic without even trying – and his weathered Che Guevara T-shirt. She smiled. Yep, he definitely still had it. Despite being annoying in a multitude of ways, Lawrence Edward Hill could still turn her stomach to mush.
‘See?’ Lawrence said without looking up, his voice drunk with ‘I told you so’.
‘All right, well done.’
He stared at her expectantly.
‘Yes, you were right.’
He smiled. ‘So, since I won, maybe you can get the wine for dinner?’
‘You’re all charm,’ Holly said, poking him in the ribs, then beginning to walk up the road.
‘But not just yet…’ he said, tugging at her arm. He bent down to kiss her and they smooched under a street lamp like teenagers.
‘Hey,’ Holly said, breaking away. ‘Don’t laugh, but, if for instance I should, you know, die in some sort of freak accident tomorrow – what would you remember most about me? My eyes? My voice?’
Lawrence’s thick brown eyebrows crinkled towards each other. ‘Well, since you ask, your laugh. I think it’s the most beautiful sound ever. But what is this? Have you gone wonky with motion-sickness again?’
‘I just got a bit hypnotized by that Tube announcer’s voice, hearing it over and over. I didn’t have a book to read, so for some reason I went off on one, and started overthinking things.’
‘That doesn’t sound like you,’ he said, before smiling, ‘although, you did have a much longer journey than me.’
‘Ha ha, very funny,’ Holly said, as they walked hand in hand towards Boozenest – the 24-hour convenience store she lived above with her two flatmates.
‘But just imagine, what if you actually knew her? What if you were her boyfriend and she’d up and left you one day? Would it be really painful hearing her voice every time you travelled? Or – what if she did these recordings years ago, and now she’s six feet under?’
Holly crouched on the pavement and began opening bags at random. Lawrence bent down to assist her in The Great Key Hunt. ‘Well, if that were true, it’d be a bit like she’s been accidentally immortalised by Transport for London.’
‘Exactly! I mean, imagine if she’d left behind a widower. Do you think the poor guy would ride the Northern line, just to hear her voice again, as a way of being with her again in some way? Or maybe he’d always avoid it, as it would be too painful?’
‘The Northern line is always painful,’ Lawrence said as his fingers pulled out something sharp and metal. ‘Et voilà!’
Holly smiled, took the keys from him and began unlocking the door, just as her phoned beeped with a message.
‘Shut the front door!’ she said, stopping on the stairs to re-read the text.
‘I just did,’ Lawrence replied, shooting her a puzzled look before noticing her mouth drop open. ‘Oh. What’s up?’
‘It’s Olivia. No wonder she wanted to come over for dinner all of a sudden. She’s just broken up with her boyfriend. I can’t believe it. She and Ross were an institution at university.’
‘How awful. Who’s Olivia?’
‘You know Olivia. From Uni. Wow, I really thought they were in it for the long haul,’ she mused as they stood up and began to hike up the stairs.
‘Hello?!’ Holly shouted over a booming Ella Fitzgerald song as they reached the internal front door and she pushed it open. They headed up more stairs, past a tapestry of Blu-Tacked posters of film and music icons. On first moving in to 249a Fortess Road, Holly’s long-term flatmate Bella, had been outvoted on the motion to only display pictures in frames from now on ‘We’re not students anymore’, Holly and her other flatmate Daniel had pointed out. But slowly, as if by osmosis, new Blu-Tacked posters had begun appearing every few months.
Holly wandered into the lounge and through the kitchen, looking towards the small roof-terrace where Bella was smoking. Seeing her flatmate, she thought again how fine the line was between fancy dress and Bella’s style preferences. A slave to vintage, Bella was dressed head to toe in fifties housewife chic, from the red and white polka-dot apron pinching in at her waist, to the Routemaster-red lips and heels.
‘We have wine!’ declared a triumphant Holly, opening the bottle and popping it onto the kitchen table to let it breathe. Then she bent down to the speakers, turned down the insanely loud Ella, and headed outside, kissing Bella on the cheek. She stood on the terrace and took in the staggering view of North London trees and rooftops, remembering again why they’d chosen to live at the top of so many flights of stairs.
‘Sorry, it took forever to get here from zone twenty. We’ve left you to do all the dinner. Can we help now?’
‘Oh, crap!’ Bella stubbed out her cigarette and headed back into the kitchen where some pots were just starting to bubble over. Next to the hob there was a cavalcade of crumbs, empty tofu packaging, stray lentils and shards of purple sprouting broccoli. Bella began stirring the lentils with one hand while applying mascara with the other, using the kitchen window as a mirror.
‘No, it’s all under control. Just open some wine. Who’s this friend of yours that’s coming over again?’
‘Olivia. We were in halls together at university. She’s down in London this weekend,’ Holly said, attempting to fold napkins in a way that didn’t look entirely eighties. ‘She stayed up in Manchester after graduation, which is why we don’t see that much of each other. That, and she’s been mummified in a relationship for the last seven years. But apparently they’ve just broken up, so…’ Holly looked at Bella to make sure she was paying attention, ‘…so she’s probably going to be a little fragile right now,’ she warned just as the doorbell rang.
‘Liv!’ she squealed into the intercom. ‘Hey love. Come on up.’
Some moments later, Olivia Mahoney appeared under the curved archway next to the kitchen. Unlike Holly and Lawrence, who had both emerged from the stairs looking like they’d just been traversing the Pennines, Olivia was barely out of breath.
‘Hello!’ she sang, with a smile that made everyone stop what they were doing. Olivia had always been disarmingly stylish, but today she appeared to have actually been curated by Dolce & Gabbana themselves – if her freshly straightened mahogany hair and immaculate shift dress that perfectly highlighted her curves – were anything to go by. In short, this was not the look of a recent refugee from Dumped Ville, Tennessee.
‘Holly! It’s been so long! Oh my days, you look so healthy!’ she said, going in for a hug.
‘Thanks,’ Holly smiled, wondering mid-hug whether to take this as a compliment, or some sort of backhanded suggestion of weight gain.
‘I’m so sorry to hear about you and Ross,’ Holly lamented as she squeezed her tight, ‘how are you coping?’
‘Oh!
