winter wonderland dream of laughing and joking in a Missoni print cape as she and Dan carelessly drank hot chocolate and held hands amidst the frosty trees.
‘I mean,’ said Dan, ‘if I’m going to split up with Amy, you and I won’t be able to see each other whilst it’s going on. I mean on our own, not the usual in the pub with everyone else there. Right?’
‘Oh right,’ said Laura, not daring to hope he was saying what he was saying. ‘So…’
‘So,’ said Dan, bending over her nipple and kissing it gently, ‘this might be the last time we get to do this for a long time. So – we should – make the most of it…’
‘Yes,’ gasped Laura suddenly, understanding him, and pulling him down. ‘Yes…I see…’
As Dan moved down her body, Laura closed her eyes, and the last thing she saw was the crumpled cover of the Guardian’s travel section. ‘Road Trip: Florida’s Hidden Treasures’, the front page declaimed. A road trip, she thought, and abandoned herself to something more immediate.
Laura worked for an inner-city London council, as a schools and business co-ordinator. She loved her job, contacting local businesses, trying to get them to support their nearby schools, arranging volunteer reading programmes or school sponsorships – where companies or individuals could sponsor a school, donate money, and feel good about themselves. She loved it because she could see how it made a tangible difference, how much disillusioned company secretaries enjoyed reading with a six-year-old once a week, or how much it benefited a school to have a thousand pounds for new computers that some corporation or anonymous donor could easily spare. She had been there for nearly four years now, and the previous year had been put in charge of their new fundraising scheme, and the reading volunteer programme, which meant a lot more work, but she loved it. At least, she used to love it. Like everything these days, it seemed to have lost a little of its allure.
If Laura had stepped back from her situation, chances are she would have seen that she was behaving badly. The trouble was, her lack of perspective meant she couldn’t see the main reason why she was in thrall to Dan: he made her feel gorgeous. He made her feel devastatingly attractive, that she was so powerful to him he had to have her, he couldn’t control it. It made her feel just marvellous, and a little bit dirty too. It was dangerous, because Dan was like all the others, in that Laura had fallen for him hook, line and sinker, without really stopping to think about it. Only this time it was harder and deeper than ever before – and with no control over the situation she’d got herself in, and no endgame in sight. Having always thought of herself in the bottom half of the class in terms of looks, attractiveness and intelligence – not to mention sporting prowess – Laura couldn’t quite believe the effect she had on Dan.
Laura knew she wasn’t working as hard as she should; she knew her boss Rachel was on her case about things. She knew she hadn’t been a good friend, or daughter, or sister, since Dan came along. She forgot birthdays, she was late for work, her mind wandered. But she consoled herself with the knowledge this was a temporary situation, and in a few short months – by the summer – they would have sorted it out and could be together. And then she would make everything all right.
Dan just needed a push, that was all. Just a little something to let him know she wasn’t going to wait around forever, that she had deadlines of her own, too. She had another life apart from him and she was neglecting it, he had to see that.
The following Wednesday afternoon, Laura was in the office when the phone rang. It was pelting with rain, which rattled on the windows of the shabby, draughty Victorian building in Holborn. It was an old school, and hadn’t been redecorated since the pupils had been moved into the big glass comprehensive south of the river, close to London Bridge, in 1972. In summer Laura would wander up to Lamb’s Conduit Street and around the Inns of Court. On days like today she and her four other colleagues stayed inside, reheated soup in the ancient, sticky microwave and huddled around the fan heater which guzzled electricity and dispensed minimal heat.
Laura looked up wearily from her emails and glanced suspiciously at the caller display panel. A teacher from St Catherine’s primary school nearby had said she would be calling to discuss a problem with the latest batch of teaching volunteers, who’d just started at the school once a week, helping individual children with their reading. This was a pretty big firm of financial advisers called Linley Munroe, and it was something of a coup to have them onboard – perhaps they might be induced to get involved in other ways. Laura didn’t particularly like Mrs McGregor, though she could see how devoted she was to the school and the children. She knew from experience that Mrs McGregor was the kind of person who had her own world view and couldn’t be persuaded that anyone else’s was admissible. In her own way, she was pretty hard-line, especially since her arrest during the demo she’d organised the previous spring at the NUT conference. This had renewed her zeal in a way that made her even harder to deal with, and Laura knew why she was ringing – she made the same complaint, along different lines, every year. Laura picked up the phone with a heavy heart.
‘Hello?’ she said tentatively.
‘Laura? Laura Foster?’ came a slightly husky voice down the phone.
‘Yes,’ said Laura, resigned.
‘Oh Laura, I really must talk to you. I’m afraid this is a very bad situation, very bad indeed. Something’s going to have to be done, it’s a disaster. A catastrophe.’
‘Yes, hello, Mrs McGregor,’ said Laura.
‘Well, Laura,’ the voice was saying five minutes later. ‘I’ve told him. You may think you can come here and believe you’re doing something marvellous, helping these kids, so you can sleep easy at night in your big banker’s flat. Well, you can’t behave like that and get away with it. I’m not putting up with it any more, really I’m not.’
‘I explained the guidelines to him and all his colleagues, back in October,’ Laura repeated. ‘I’m sure this Marcus bloke’s just got his wires crossed. As I said, you know we’ve never had any problems with Linley Munroe so far, Mrs McGregor.’
She gazed at her in-box and looked flatly round the office. In Rachel’s absence, Shana was on another call, Tim was out on a visit and Nasrin was clearly reading Pick Me Up and not doing any work at all.
‘I don’t care,’ Mrs McGregor said quickly. ‘Laura, I’m afraid who they are isn’t relevant here, not for my kids, anyway. That Marcus – he’s a big thug. I know those kids aren’t perfect, but…’
‘Look,’ Laura cut in, wanting to avoid another ten minutes of Mrs McGregor. ‘I’ll talk to Clare at Linley Munroe, tell her to have a gentle word with Marcus. But I really don’t think he should be banned, Mrs McGregor. He’s obviously enjoying it, and – well, let’s face it – all he did was tell this boy to shut it – it could have been worse, couldn’t it? They call each other the most horrific things in the playground, don’t they?’
Her email beeped and her eyes flicked instantly to the screen. She opened the message and read, her heart pounding.
‘Do they?’ Mrs McGregor said. ‘Not in my experience, Laura. Sure, there are rude words, but…’
Laura wanted to reread and reply to the email. She said shortly, ‘Oh come on, Mrs McGregor. You know what I mean. Fuck, bum, willy, vag—And…’ she paused, realising what
