A Hopeless Romantic Part 5

"You're not?" Dan said. "Really?"

"Really," said Laura drily.

Dan licked his upper lip, which was dewy with sweat, and said hoa.r.s.ely, "Thank G.o.d for that." He slumped back into his seat and took his drink, almost sullenly. "Thank G.o.d. Sorry, Laura love, but you had me there for a moment. The timing...not good."

"I didn't say-" Laura began, then broke off. She patted his arm. "Calm down, Dan. I wouldn't do that, I'm not stupid."

Dan took a huge swig of his drink. "No, you're not," he said simply, and gazed around him. Laura breathed again, feeling almost light-headed. Dan said suddenly, "That's one of the things I've always loved best about you, you know."

"Me?" Laura said, taken aback. "Really?"

"Yeah," Dan said, fiddling with a beer mat. "You know. You're so...just smart. You know? You make things better. You're organized. You do that job, you know. Help all these kids, give them a better start and s.h.i.+t. And the way you organize things, remember everyone's birthdays, all that stuff. It's...it's..."

He put his pint down and turned to her, and Laura was astounded to see he had tears in his eyes.

"It's...it's just always better when you're in the room."

Laura had often wondered-ever since the fifth day of b.u.mping into each other at the station and chatting away till they missed two trains, when Dan had said, "This is ridiculous. Let's meet fifteen minutes earlier. We can have a coffee. Yes?" and she had trotted down onto the Tube platform the next day to find him waiting for her, a smile of welcome on his face, holding a coffee he'd bought from the stall for her-what exactly it was about her that he apparently liked so much that he was willing to risk so much for her, for himself. And now she knew. She was dependable, she was nice. She was organized. She got the job done. A more prosaic-no, boring-set of qualities would be difficult to find, she thought, and had she been displaying any of those qualities lately? No, absolutely not.

She swallowed, trying to look on the bright side, and immediately an image flashed into her head of Amy, stunning, slim Amy, reclining at home, flicking through a magazine, gingerly blowing nail varnish dry on one fingernail. Wearing some exquisite lace and silk nightgown, specifically for lounging around in, probably. Why? Why was Dan...why was he here, with her, then?

She looked at him, swallowed again, and gripped the side of the table. She knew the moment was coming; she could feel it creeping inexorably toward the conversation, like a marching beat. It couldn't be avoided anymore.

"Thank you," she said.

"I mean it," Dan said. "When you're around...I just feel better. You look after me. The way you make breakfast, for instance, and remember I like to put the Marmite on myself." He ran his hands through his hair. "That sounds c.r.a.p, but you know what I mean. You listen to me if I've had a bad day."

And how many times have you ever asked me about my day? Laura suddenly thought. It was a straightforward question, but suddenly she couldn't think why she hadn't thought it before, six, seven months before, ever. How many times? She didn't want to be a boring nice person! She wanted him to see her as the unattainable, the alluring woman of mystery who drove him to the edge of distraction, not...not this. Pleasant. Kind. Ugh.

"And you...I don't know. You care about me, I can tell you stuff. And Amy, she never...Well, to be honest, I just think that's why we don't-" He stopped suddenly. "Oh, G.o.d."

"You don't what?" Laura said sharply. "She never what?"

"I shouldn't complain about her to you," Dan said. There was a pause, and then he said again, "It's really good to see you." He stared at her almost hungrily. "Oh, Laura. I know we need to talk, but...can't we just leave? Go back to yours? You know-"

"No!" said Laura, much more loudly than she'd meant to. Dan jumped, as did the middle-aged American couple at the table next to them.

"Right, then," Dan said, smiling at the couple, who obviously thought Dan and Laura were mad. He handed them a napkin to mop up the beer that the husband had spilt, and gave them a charming smile. Laura did, too, and found herself thinking, What a great couple we make.

"No!" she said again, more to herself, and the wife jumped again.

Dan stared at her and said, slightly impatiently, "Laura, what's going on with you? I'm trying to...to talk to you, to tell you stuff, and-well, you're behaving like a schoolgirl who's afraid she'll be caught for bunking off or something, darling. What's up?"

Laura took a deep breath, and another draught of wine. "Right. We do need to talk, you're right. What's going on, Dan? What's going on with us? I want...er...I want some answers," Laura said, holding her nerve.

"Well," Dan said. He ran his hands through his hair again. "Darling, I've told you. Well...G.o.d, you know how I feel about you-"

"It's not enough," Laura said gently. "It's not enough anymore. Dan, we're going on holiday in two weeks' time, for G.o.d's sake! And you're supposed to be leaving Amy before that. You-you know how I feel about you. This has been going on for-how long is it now-seven months? And we're nowhere nearer than we were at the beginning of it. It's not enough. We have to sort it out. I'm-I'm in love with you. It's killing me, this is. We have to sort it out. Otherwise..."

Laura trailed off. She didn't know what the otherwise was-or, at least, it was too terrifying for her to come out with.

"Otherwise..." she repeated softly, and lowered her head.

Dan took her head in his hands, lifted her face up, and looked at her. He looked serious, more serious than she'd ever seen him.

"Laura..." he said. "There's something I have to tell you. I didn't want to, but you're going to know sooner or later. G.o.d...I can't believe I'm doing this to you."

"Wait a minute," Laura said.

"No, let me finish." Dan's hands were clammy against her cheeks. "I didn't want to tell you tonight; I just wanted to see you, for us to have a nice evening, one last night."

Laura's stomach clenched and she felt sick again. "What?" she said quietly. "Dan, what is it?"

"Amy's pregnant, Laura."

Dan released her, and Laura could feel the dampness his hands left on the sides of her face. He was quite sweaty, she thought, as if watching this scene idly from another room, another life.

"Laura, are you listening?" Dan said sharply.

"Yes..." Laura cleared her throat. "You..."

Her eyes filled with tears, and one ran down her cheek. She gave a tiny cough, almost a gasp, and sat up straight. No, she wouldn't cry. She would not cry.

"Laura...I wanted to tell you, I've been trying to-"

"How pregnant?" Laura said calmly. "When's it due? It's yours, I presume?"

"Yes, of course," Dan said. "Of course it's mine." He wiped his hair off his forehead. "It's...it's due in January."

"Three months," Laura said, calmer still. "She's three months pregnant. How long have you known?"

"About a month. Laura, I've been trying to find a way of telling you. I couldn't..." Dan punched his fist into his thigh. "I-f.u.c.k. Look, she did it on purpose, I-I didn't want her to get pregnant. I don't know what to do, but I've got to-we're going to make a go of it, I have to. Of course I have to."

Amy. Of course it wasn't a mistake, Laura thought. Amy was as likely to accidentally get pregnant as hippogriffs and unicorns were to be found wandering in Hyde Park. She had planned this down to the last letter, and Dan-oh, G.o.d, Dan was the sacrificial lamb, and she, Laura...she had to leave. She had to leave, or else break down completely.

Dan was wringing his hands, quite literally clutching them in an agony of inaction. He touched her arm. "Laura, I know you must hate me. But believe me, I hate myself more. I can't-I've completely screwed this up, my whole life, and hers. And yours, and that's-that's worst of all, because-oh, G.o.d-" He broke off, and buried his head in his elbow.

"I'm going to go," Laura said, and again she had the sensation of watching herself from another room, from afar, and that other person was cheering her on, saying, Well done, girl, you're doing well.

Dan grabbed her arm as she reached for her bag. "Listen, Laura. Listen to me, just one thing before you go. Please."

Laura turned to face him, and looking at him nearly broke her composure, but she steeled herself.

"Look, Laura," Dan said. "I realize...it's over now, you and me."

"Well, I kind of a.s.sume so now," Laura said, repressing all emotion and taking refuge in heavy sarcasm. She removed his hand from her arm, shaking slightly. "It's one of my rules. Practically the last one left I haven't broken, actually." She laughed bitterly, feeling the breath catch painfully in her throat. "Don't carry on s.h.a.gging someone who tells you he's in love with you and that he's going to leave his girlfriend, then gets his girlfriend whom he was supposed to be dumping six months ago pregnant, and makes you realize the whole f.u.c.king thing was a pack of f.u.c.king lies."

She stood up and pulled her bag slowly up onto her shoulder. "Bye, Dan," she said. "Bye."

"It wasn't a pack of lies," Dan said as she turned to go. "If you want to punish me, you've got your punishment. I love you. I always will. I never lied to you, Laura."

She tried to think of something to say back, something grand, something great, something worthy of Carrie Bradshaw in s.e.x and the City or Barbra Streisand in The Way We Were. But there was nothing to say, and the moment was nothing, it wasn't about that anymore. There was nothing for her to do but leave. As she stood in the door frame, she half waved at him, then turned and quietly walked down the stairs.

chapter eight.

A s Laura marched briskly out of the pub, she paused for a split second at the door, clutching the old bra.s.s handle, her hand smearing the metal with perspiration. Her vision blurred as her eyes filled with heavy, painful tears. She knew Dan would be watching out the window as she left. She had to hold her head up high. She couldn't let him see how hurt she was. This wasn't Mary and Xan and their early-morning moment at the pyramids, this wasn't it at all. It was all a lie.

Legs shaking, eyes still filled with tears, Laura walked into the street, up Conville Place, past the cafes where people were sitting and enjoying the evening's warmth. A man at a table on the corner raised his espresso cup to her and nodded as she turned left down Mortimer Street. He raised his eyebrows as Laura stopped, put the ball of her hand against her lips and cheek, and breathed deeply, expecting the tears to flow.

But they didn't. She couldn't cry. It was as if she were in a shock so sudden she didn't know how to react. The clarity of her mind startled her. It was over with Dan, there was no question that it wasn't. There could be no reconciliation, no "I've changed my mind," no "I'm leaving her." Amy was pregnant, and whatever happened between them, Laura had to be out of it. She was surprised, she noted with detached interest, that she could see it with such clarity, that it wasn't mired in a welter of excuses and what-might-have-beens. No. It was over.

Laura carried on walking down Mortimer Street, welcoming the cool breeze that played around her shoulders and the back of her neck, after the unbearable heat of the restaurant. Ahead of her stretched the city, unfurling into relaxation, gently welcoming, quiet and warm and beautiful. She pa.s.sed the wide dark driveway of the ornate Royal Marsden Hospital and kept walking.

How would she feel about everything, how did she feel about it now? She probed her feelings delicately, like a child touching the cavity of a newly lost tooth to see how it hurts, where it hurts, how much. It was strange, foreign to her; she didn't know how to deal with it, so she kept on walking, into the night, along the wide street, the branches of the trees that lined it gracefully dipping and framing her in the quiet breeze.

She had lost her job. She had lost her best friend. She had lost-she winced suddenly as she thought of it-nearly all the money she had in the world on a holiday she now wouldn't be going on. For what? For a golden dream, a sweet, stupid boy with a beautiful smile. For that. For someone who had never even given her any definite idea of his commitment to her. He loved her, she knew that. He was going to leave his girlfriend, she knew that. But how and when and what would happen after that-she had never had any idea.

Laura had reached Regent Street. She looked about her, bewildered, at the purr of sudden, slow-moving traffic. Down to her left lay the lights of Oxford Circus, the permanent chaos and snaking crowds of people visible to her even now. To her right loomed the ascetic outline of All Souls Church and Broadcasting House behind it. Ahead lay the white-faced, formal squares behind Oxford Street. Where was she going? She didn't know. She couldn't face Yorky or being at home just yet. She just wanted to walk.

So she did. She crossed the road and carried on walking, through the impersonal grandness of Cavendish Square, past Coutts, past the Wigmore Hall, along the jumble of shops and converted mansions on Wigmore Street. She kept a steady pace, neither swerving nor stopping, just walking, looking ahead, pounding the streets, trying to walk herself back into sanity.

She walked until she could see the vast s.p.a.ce of Portman Square and the back of Selfridges looming up ahead of her. She didn't know what to do then-didn't want to go toward the roaring hustle of a main road. She could go and see Mary, she thought suddenly, and then her heart sank; no, of course she couldn't. This wasn't the kind of situation her grandmother had ever found herself in. Better to keep on walking. So she ducked right, up Duke Street to gracious, leafy Manchester Square, past the Wallace Collection, its windows black and unblinking. She walked up Manchester Street and crossed the road.

Suddenly a car swerved around the corner and nearly smashed into her. It missed her by a hairbreadth, and the driver swore at her and sped on, not even pausing. Laura fell against a car, and ricocheted herself slowly off it so she was sitting on the edge of the curb in between two parked cars.

Then she cried at the shock, the loneliness, the feeling of terror that had flashed through her. She cried, silent heaving sobs, fat tears spilling out of her, dropping between her legs into the gutter. She felt totally alone, powerless; with nowhere to turn, she was bone-weary, flattened. And most of all, she felt stupid.

Amy was pregnant. She and Dan were going to have a baby, an actual live baby. This was reality, not the dreamworld she, Laura, had invented for herself about it all. How could she have been so naive, so stupid? What was she doing?

Laura ran her hands through her hair, riding out the jerking sobs that racked her. As they subsided, she breathed out, and a juddering, blubbery sound escaped her that even she, in her darkest hour, found strangely funny. It made her smile to herself, a wobbly smile. She chewed her lip and sat motionless on the curb for a moment. When was the last time she'd actually had a relations.h.i.+p based on reality, instead of some completely invented fantasy she'd written in her head? In her stupid, silly, romantic head.

The calm after her crying was cathartic. Laura stood up slowly, her legs shaking. Suddenly she was tired, dog tired, and when a black cab swung into view a few seconds later, she hailed it gratefully and sat huddled in the back, staring blankly out the window, for the journey home.

chapter nine.

L aura couldn't remember going to bed. She didn't remember much, and when she woke up, it was early Sat.u.r.day afternoon. Which meant that she had slept for around twelve hours. She had no job to go to on Monday, no friends, no money, no Dan.... She rolled over and closed her eyes again. Her pajamas were sweaty, and so was she. She tried to think about the previous night, reached for her phone to check for messages, and then swallowed and gripped her hands into fists. She wasn't going to. She felt nothing, nothing at all, and she closed her eyes again and sank back into an exhausted, defeated sleep.

When Laura woke up again, it was later in the afternoon, and she realized she was starving. Without really thinking, she pulled on her jeans and, zombielike, went downstairs to go to the shops round the corner. She was stumbling back, clutching in her arms a paper, some crisps, a soda, a bottle of wine, some chocolate, and a DVD, when she felt dizzy and thought she was going to collapse. When she reached home, she leaned against the wall of the building's entryway, unsure how she was going to get up the stairs again, feeling so totally alone and sad she didn't even know how to respond to her own feelings. Should she cry? Scream? Yell? Smile bravely? She didn't know; she was simply sick of the treadmill in her head going round the same old thoughts over and over again. What was she going to do now? What could she do now?

What she really wanted to do was curl up under the mailboxes and go to sleep for a year. Would anyone notice, would they care? No. And she deserved it. More than anything, Laura realized helplessly, she wanted a shoulder to cry on, and the reason she had none was entirely her own fault.

Laura gritted her teeth. She would go upstairs. She would.

Back on the third floor at last, she fumbled for her keys, and the door behind her opened. It was Mr. Kenzo, who lived in the flat opposite Laura.

"Laura!" he cried at her back, as Laura gathered up her haul from the shops in one scooping motion and tried to turn the key in the lock. The paper and the can of c.o.ke slid out of her hand, and the sections of newspaper feathered across the floor.

Laura stared at them and tried not to cry. She bent down as Mr. Kenzo also bent over, tut-tutting, and deftly folded them up.

"My dear, my dear," he said, handing the newspaper and the can back to her. "Are you okay? You look not well, let me tell you."

"Thanks," said Laura blankly. "I'm going in now." And she turned away and tried to unlock the door.

"Do you need some help?" said Mr. Kenzo, unfazed by her rudeness. He stepped forward and took the key from her. As he turned it in the lock, the door was pulled open from inside, and Mr. Kenzo nearly fell forward into Yorky's arms. Yorky gazed at them both with bemus.e.m.e.nt, his hands in the pockets of his dressing gown.

"Sorry, Mr. Kenzo!" he said. "How are you? Helping Laura out there, are you?"

"Yes, yes," said Mr. Kenzo, eyeing Yorky's dressing gown curiously. He gave Yorky a packet of crisps. "She dropped these, take them please."

A voice on the stairs said cautiously, "Er-James? Laura?"

Not really caring who it was, Laura turned toward the door again, but the expression on Yorky's face stopped her. He was smiling in a dazed, stupid fas.h.i.+on and running his hands through his hair.

"Becky!" he said. "Hi! Hi-ya!"

Becky-from-Downstairs, who was still very much the object of Yorky's affections, appeared on the landing. "h.e.l.lo, Mr. Kenzo," she said, not at all ruffled by the strangeness of the scene in front of her. She s.h.i.+fted her bag on her shoulder. "Hi. James-er, someone's signed for this delivery, and they pushed it through my door, and I think it's for you." She held out an envelope bearing the legend "Ticketmaster" on it.

"Oh, yeah!" said Yorky, leaping forward and taking the tickets from Becky. Laura watched as he gave her a super-enthusiastic smile. "Thanks. Thanks, Becky! Yeah, that's great. Just my...er...it's my, er, Snow Patrol tickets. Yeah!"

"It's your tickets for We Will Rock You, isn't it?" said Laura with an interested expression.

"Queen?" said Mr. Kenzo. "Ah, fabulous."

Yorky kicked her in the s.h.i.+n, and Laura took this as her cue to leave. "Thanks again, Mr. Kenzo. Bye, Becky."

"Er, bye, Laura," said Becky.

Laura pushed past Yorky into their flat, turned, and said again, "Sorry, Mr. Kenzo."

Mr. Kenzo's creased face smiled kindly at her. "Why you saying sorry? You are having bad day. Go in. And look after her," he said confidentially to Yorky.

"Thanks again," Yorky said to Becky. He swiveled from her to Laura, standing behind him in their hallway. "Er," he said.

Becky smiled at him expectantly. Laura cleared her throat.

"I'll-see you around, Becky," said Yorky. "I'd better go in. That's really kind of you. Great, thanks again."