By Tuesday, however, Laura fears that it is unlikely that she can ever be happy again. London is damp and fog-ridden, Inigo is leaving for New York in two days, and Jack Smack is in the house from before breakfast, chivvying him and missing no opportunity to gloat. For no good reason as far as Laura can see, he elects to travel with them to the studio today, and announces that he will spend the morning there helping them.
‘We’ve got a lot to get through,’ he says with relish, when they reach the building. Flinging his telephone on the red Formica table he draws up a chair and reaches into his pocket for a pen and notebook. ‘We won’t put the house on the market yet,’ he mutters almost to himself. ‘We’ll see what you find in New York before we burn our boats here.’
Laura, going through the post on the desk next to him, slams her fist on the surface before Inigo has a chance to reply.
‘Jack, this is between me and Inigo, not you. Our house is not going on the market. This whole thing is nothing to do with you. Do you understand?’
Jack rolls his eyes and says, ‘Don’t you think it’s time you faced facts, Laura? You and Inigo are history. You want different things in different places and neither of you is prepared to compromise. My job is to make this whole situation easier for you both.’
‘Oh come on Jack,’ says Inigo. ‘That is total crap. You are bloody nosy, that’s why you’re here and I wish you’d sod off and do something useful.’
Crestfallen for a moment or two, Jack takes out a large handkerchief and wipes his face. Refreshed, he delivers a cheesy grin and tips back on his chair, one hand in the pocket of his tight black jeans, silently watching Laura. So as not to slap him, she has to clasp her hands tightly behind her back. She stands up and walks over to the door, holding it open. ‘No. You’re out, Jack. I’d like you to leave now, please.’
Raising his eyebrows, Jack looks over to Inigo for support; he does not look up from his computer screen. Jack stands up and gives Laura a squeeze on the arm. His brittle hand softly dents the fabric of her jacket and she shudders, disgusted.
Jack mistakes this for hysteria.’ I can see you’re taking it hard,’ he says, his eyes treacle dark, glooping fake sympathy. ‘I’ll take a rain check. Inigo, I’ll call you.’
Laura watches from the window as Jack appears on the street below, weaves across the traffic and sets off on the opposite side of the road at a brisk pace.
‘Why did I never do that before?’ she marvels.
Inigo, who keeps expecting her to capitulate, and who is looking on the internet for large houses to rent in New York for his family to follow him out to, gives her an uneasy look. ‘I don’t know. You seem to have become very assertive. Maybe you’re having a mid-life crisis. I deal with Jack, you don’t.’
‘Well, I’m sick of his shadow in our lives, and I don’t have to put up with it any more,’ replies Laura. ‘I’ve never liked him, and he’s never liked me much either. He’ll be glad to see the back of me.’
The telephone rings. It is Hedley, his voice strained and high-pitched with anxiety. ‘I don’t know what to do. Tamsin’s run away from home. She went this morning. She’s left a note saying she’s not coming back and she’s not alone. I just don’t know what to do.’
Shock thuds at the back of Laura’s throat; she strains to keep her voice steady. ‘Oh Hedley, stay calm. I’m sure she’s fine, she’s probably gone to stay with a friend.’
He groans. ‘I don’t think so. She isn’t at school – I went there first thing, and none of her friends have seen her. Do you think Dolly might know something?’
‘I’ll ask her when she comes home. I’m sure she hadn’t heard from her this morning, but they did spend the whole of Sunday lying on the bed in Dolly’s room talking, so she might have some idea of what’s going on. Did you try calling her?’
‘Yes, but her phone’s switched off or she’s screening calls from me because it just rings and then I get her answering message. Shall I call the police, Laura? Gina says to wait but what do you think?’
The anguish in her brother’s voice surprises Laura; Hedley is not a man to show any emotion, unless it’s irritation.
She tries to calm him down. ‘No, I don’t think so. She’s left a note, so she hasn’t been abducted. I’m sure she’s fine and she’ll be back soon. Try not to worry too much.’
Laura puts the phone down, then, thinking out loud, says, ‘Actually, I’ll go to the school now and ask Dolly. It’s never a good idea to hang around with this sort of thing,’
Inigo does not look up from his computer. ‘Bye,’ he says absently. ‘Hope she turns up,’
As if she’s a missing letter, Laura thinks savagely, flouncing out of the studio. She finds Dolly sitting on a radiator eating crisps in the school front hall. Her response is reassuringly Dollyish.
‘Oh yeah. I knew she was doing that. She’s gone with Dan, her boyfriend. Hedley doesn’t know him. I think she wants to go and find her mum.’
Resisting the desire to scream, ‘OhforGodsake-teenagersareanightmare,’ Laura arranges her face into an expression of polite but non-pressuring interest, as if she were asking Dolly about her favourite nail polish.
‘So do you know where she is at all?’
Dolly looks shifty. ‘No, I don’t think I do,’ she says cautiously. Deciding it’s best not to push her, Laura returns home to speak to Hedley. As she dials his number she reflects briefly how utterly this new crisis has eclipsed her own, and is trying to unravel her thoughts about Inigo when the telephone is answered by a male voice.
‘Hello?’
‘Hedley?’
‘No, this is Guy, you’ve got the wrong number. Is that you, Laura?’
His voice is warm, and, Laura finds herself thinking, very sexy. Absently she runs her fingers through her hair. ‘Oh sorry, yes it is. It’s me. I meant to ring Hedley, you see. I’d better get on with it. How was your trip?’
‘Oh, it was great. I’ll tell you all about it next time I see you. But what’s the matter, Laura, you sound upset?’
No one ever notices when Laura’s upset, or if they do, they don’t say so. Grateful tears spill onto her cheeks, and she sighs shakily. ‘Oh, it’s a long story. I’ll explain another time. But I’m OK, honestly.’
‘Are you sure? Is there anything I can do?’
‘I’ll let you know if there is. Thanks, Guy.’ Laura puts the phone down; her cheeks are flushed, and she smiles, staring out the window for an instant before dialling Hedley’s number.
By evening, Tamsin and her boyfriend have been found. Or rather, the bell rings at Laura’s house and she opens the door to find two pale, bedraggled individuals, both carrying backpacks, their trousers dark with wet from the knees down. Their faces are shrouded by their hooded tops; one is tall with a hacking cough, the other jogs about impatiently on the doorstep, long empty-ended sleeves flapping at its sides. In their grey hoods in the street-lit evening they look sinister and other-worldly. The sight of them gives Laura a nasty shock.
‘Ugh!’ she shrieks involuntarily.
The smaller one hastily pulls down its hood. ‘Aunt Laura, it’s me, Tamsin. Look!’ it shouts. ‘And this is Dan. We’re back. We didn’t know where to go because Dan’s friend wasn’t there, so we thought we’d come here. Is that all right?’
Laura gapes at them for a moment before nodding, words rushing as she ushers Tamsin and Dan into the house.
‘Of course it is. How sensible of you to come here. Oh Tamsin, thank God you’re all right, Hedley has been so worried. I must call him right now. Or maybe you should.’
She herds them into the hall and yells up the stairs, ‘Dolly, Tamsin’s here! She needs some dry clothes.’
Dan unzips his sweatshirt and peels it off and, like a frog prince, suddenly a boy with floppy hair and gentle brown eyes appears in place of the creepy alien he was a minute ago. He edges to the door of the sitting room where Inigo and Fred are immersed in football on the television and peers in.
‘Hi,’ says Fred, sensing rather than seeing him, as he is unable to look away from the television. ‘Come and watch this. It’s a brilliant match.’
‘What’s the score?’ mumbles Dan, glancing at Laura as if for permission.
Laura, wondering if she should be cross, but dismissing the thought as it really isn’t her concern, and anyway, she isn’t cross, she’s glad they’re here, simply says, ‘Have you called your mother?’
Dan nods sheepishly. ‘Yup. I said we were coming here. She’s going to call you, I think.’ He slides on to the sofa next to Fred. ‘What’s the score?’ he whispers again, removing the next damp layer of his clothing and dropping it on the floor in front of him.
‘Three-one,’ says Inigo, leaning to pick up the sweatshirt. ‘Shall we dry this for you?’
‘Yes please,’ says Dan, settling back in the sofa with a speaking sigh. Tamsin, almost prone in Dolly’s arms, drags herself up the stairs. Laura longs to know what prompted the flight and the somewhat precipitate return, but no confidences are coming her way, so she has to content herself with draping fugitive clothes along radiators.
It’s important for a mother to know her place, she reflects, listening out as Dolly and Tamsin head for the bathroom. But all she hears is Tamsin blurting, ‘Oh Dolly, it’s been such a pain running away, I can’t be bothered with it any more,’ before the door is closed on her curiosity.
Laura decides she will drive Tamsin and Dan back to Norfolk the next morning, partly to get away from Inigo and his packing, and partly out of sisterly duty to Hedley, who is anxious that Tamsin should not be allowed out of an adult’s sight for more than a moment.
‘It’s all right for you to let her go to the loo on her own,’ he agrees, when Laura telephones to tell him her plans. ‘But hide her shoes.’
Laura is incredulous. ‘Why?’
Hedley groans. ‘So she can’t do it again, of course. I saw it in a film about the Second World War.’
‘Just keep quiet about things like that and I’m sure she won’t do it again.’
‘Hmmmph,’ says Hedley, making Laura glad for Tamsin’s sake that she will be present at their reunion.
It is not until she, Tamsin and Dan are in the car and heading for the motorway that Laura realises she hasn’t said goodbye to Inigo. When she returns tomorrow, he will have left for New York and their life together will cease. Or will it? The situation over the past weeks has been so difficult and ambivalent that Laura is not sure what is really happening. Inigo is going to New York, but is he moving out? Is he removing his belongings from the house? Is Laura supposed to take her things out of the studio? Or is she still working there? Instead of pain, Laura finds she is experiencing disbelief.
Tamsin leans forward from the back of the car into Laura’s thoughts. ‘Can we have some music on, please?’ She waves a disc, and grateful for the curtain of sound to hide behind, Laura turns the volume higher and gives herself up to introspection.
The teenagers shuffle closer together and surreptitiously hold hands in the back. Glancing in the rearview mirror, Laura notices Dan wink and grin at Tamsin as the track on the sound system changes to a song from the genre Laura thinks of as: ‘Cut the bitch up and stuff her in the boot’ songs. It is possible they have a shorter, more user-friendly classification, but no one has told Laura yet. Fred, who likes this music, generally ushers his mother out of the room when he is listening to it, saying, ‘It’s not your sort of thing, Mum, it’s a bit difficult to get into,’ as if she is only fit for the Eurovision Song Contest. He has a point; Laura’s taste is moving steadily towards the rocking chair of easy listening, and she can no longer hide her preference for Radio Two because it is the only station tuned in on the car radio. Dolly loathes this nose-dive out of coolness, and as a reaction has moved on to tinkly, and sometimes moany Moroccan-based music. Laura is not sure which she dislikes more, but knows that in order not to alienate herself from her children she must try to pretend to appreciate both. Maybe Tamsin will report back how much Laura is enjoying the car music. She turns it up a bit and pretends to hum a note or two. The song however, descends into fast and filthy rap and Laura is left way behind mouthing, ‘Oh baby.’ If Inigo were here he would love it. He is always prepared to give all music a chance, and positively relishes listening to Fred and Dolly’s latest favourites. He likes to put them on in the car at full volume and drive. Aching sadness cuts through Laura’s thoughts, and she has to take deep breaths and concentrate on the rapper, who has now tied up his baby and left her in a bedsit, to prevent herself from U-turning the car and heading back to London to beg Inigo to stay.
At Crumbly, Hedley bounds out to greet them, his enthusiasm only just eclipsed by that of the Labrador Diver, who sticks his nose up Laura’s skirt as she fumbles in the car for Tamsin and Dan’s backpacks. Behind her she hears Hedley’s voice, faltering, ‘Tamsin. Hello. It’s nice to see you.’
‘For God’s sake give the girl a hug.’ Laura spins around to see Guy is here too. He pushes Hedley towards Tamsin, as she stands awkwardly, pale and numb by the car. Tamsin reddens and falls into Hedley’s arms, sobbing.
‘I’m really sorry, I’ve been so stupid and I realised it was a mistake. I quite like Gina, in fact and I don’t really want to go and live with Mum in her women’s camp, and Dan …’ Hedley, finding his shoulder damp already, thrusts a handkerchief at her. Tamsin blows her nose gratefully. ‘… And Dan was brilliant because he came to take care of me and he didn’t want to because he had to miss kick boxing and he knew his Mum would blow him out.’
She subsides into Hedley’s arms, and he, stroking her hair, leads her towards the house, saying, ‘Come on, Tamsin, you need to sit down and tell me everything when you feel a bit better. Dan, you come too, we’ll sort everything out.’
Laura leans against the car, arms folded, amazed at her brother’s transformation into a caring and sensitive listener, a responsive and loving stepfather. She turns to Guy, rushing over her words. ‘I think you must have been working on him. I was so worried that he’d shout at her.’
Guy shrugs and digs his hands into his pockets, rolling a stone under his shoe and not looking at Laura. ‘No. I just told him to hug her. The rest comes from him. He’s been so worried, and since he knew she was with you, he’s done a lot of thinking.’ He looks up, straight at Laura. ‘It looks like Hedley’s finally had to grow up.’
Flustered, Laura suddenly wants to be on her own.
‘I must get to the Gate House,’ she says, jumping into the car. ‘Say goodbye to Hedley for me.’ Rap music floods out, drowning anything else she was going to say. Guy laughs and waves, mouthing something Laura can’t hear.