Emily Barr - The Sleeper

I knock it back. I don’t think or talk. Then I order another one and do the same.

I spent the night of Olivia’s revelation, the night of the letter, in her box room, carefully avoiding her in the morning, and packing enough stuff to keep me going until I can bear to go back and pick up the rest. Last night I slept at the hotel in St Paul’s. It is a business hotel, perfectly tolerable though utterly impractical financially.

All the same, it beats going to the place my father insists on referring to as ‘home’, and commuting in from there, a grown woman living with my parents.

‘Come on, Lara,’ he said on the phone, that evening. ‘It’s your home. It always will be. Let us look after you.’

I shook my head. ‘I can’t, Dad,’ I told him. I was as firm with him as I have ever dared to be. ‘I live in London to avoid the commute. I need to be near work so I can give it everything I’ve got during the week. Honestly, I do. I need to stay late, go in early. Thank you, though. I’ll find a little studio or something.’

‘Your sister …’ he mused, and I tensed, desperate to defuse him.

‘She’s all right,’ I said quickly. ‘It’s not her fault. I’m pleased for her, I really am. I just need to be away from her for a while.’

‘She is not all right,’ he corrected me. ‘She had no business being so cruel. Now, are you sure? It would cheer the place up no end having you around, and to be honest, I could do with your level-headed advice on some matters.’

I concentrated on sounding neutral while my heart contracted with dread.

‘We can get together any time you want for something like that,’ I said, hoping with all my being that we would not. ‘I don’t really get time for a lunch break, but we can meet up after work sometime. I need to be close to the office, though.’

To my enormous relief, he accepted it. I am now keeping as far from every member of my toxic family as I possibly can.

It is only when I am sitting on the train, a traditional Friday gin and tonic in my hand, Ellen next to me and Guy opposite, that I start to do anything close to relaxing. I sit back and listen to Ellen relating a story about a Skype conversation with Singapore, and I find myself exhaling and kicking my shoes off.

I laugh as the story ends.

‘You all right, Lara?’ Guy asks. When I look up, I see that he is watching me with some curiosity. I put up my barrier, trying to be distant with him.

‘Oh, fine,’ I tell him. ‘Just a bit … tense.’

‘Your sister?’ asks Ellen.

‘No. Well, yes. It is. Quite a week. Big family showdown. I don’t want to talk about it.’ I look at her expression and laugh. ‘Not because I’m traumatised. But because I’m just so fucking bored of it.’

I hardly ever swear. I like the way it sounds. I take a sip of my drink.

‘Let’s talk about something else then,’ Guy says at once. ‘Do you want to hear my current issue?’

‘Oh yes please.’ I lean over slightly, towards him. ‘What is your current issue?’

‘Let me guess,’ says Ellen, her voice dry. ‘There’s a job come up in the West Country.’

Guy laughs, and his eyes crinkle at the corners. I like that. ‘You and I have been train buddies for too long,’ he tells her, and she raises her glass to him. He turns to me. ‘Yes indeed. You know I live outside Penzance with my family? Beyond Penzance, near Sennen – nearly as close to the edge as you can get?’

‘You moved there to be close to your wife’s family.’

‘That’s right. Diana’s dad died very suddenly, three years ago. Long story, but we ended up moving down so that Di could look after her mum, who’s frail in one sense, but stronger than a team of oxen in another. The kids were in the early years of secondary school, so they made the world’s biggest fuss about the move, and to be honest, I was silently cheering them on. Surrey to Cornwall is a big thing if you’re thirteen. If you’re any age. But we had to do it, I knew that really. Poor old Betty wasn’t going to be able to look after herself, and she was definitely not in the market for moving to the Home Counties, so we had to go to her. Di always said it was payback for her happy childhood, and maybe it was. Actually Di was delighted at the chance to move back to where she’s from.’

‘But there aren’t exactly many jobs down there.’

He nods. ‘Precisely, Lara. There’s nothing down there for me. I would literally have had to get a job in Tesco. McDonald’s. Argos. So we agreed that I’d do this and keep an eye out for something closer to home. I like my life this way. I’d go crazy if I had to live in West Cornwall the whole time. In a house full of teenagers – I only have two, but they do fill the house – and with my mother-in-law rearranging everything the whole time. So I’ve settled into this way of doing things really rather happily. Just me, during the week, in a shabby B&B room, but I don’t care. And now there’s only a bloody job come up in Truro. I mean, Truro! Since when was there a good job in Truro?’

‘What is it?’ Ellen’s voice is mild, and when I glance at her I see the amusement on her face. She sees me looking, and winks.

‘Town solicitors, but a big practice. It would involve buying a stake and going in as a partner.’

‘Oh, Guy. You would be the perfect man for the job.’

‘I know! I’m going to have to make a token effort. Then make sure I fuck it up. More drinks, ladies?’

At one in the morning, Ellen stands up.

‘Right,’ she says. ‘Charming as this is, it’s my bedtime. We’ve got a busy weekend ahead. I’ll see you on Sunday, guys.’

‘Night, Ellen,’ I say.

‘Good night, Johnson,’ says Guy. ‘Won’t be far behind you.’

‘I should definitely go to bed in a minute,’ I agree. ‘We’ll be in Truro in six hours.’

‘Six hours! That’s a surprisingly long time, actually,’ Guy muses. ‘I think we can stay up a little while longer. I know! I was going to show you how to use Twitter, wasn’t I? What’s your email address?’

I laugh at this pathetic excuse as Guy starts fiddling with his phone, and tell him. Soon he hands the phone to me.

‘There you go. Your Twitter account. Go on, write something. Your password’s lovelylara.’

‘Oh, thanks. Classy password.’

‘I know. If I were sober, you’d have had a better one.’

I stab at his phone until I have written ‘Trying to work out how to use Twitter.’ Then I pass it back.

‘That’s one thing to cross off the list, then,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve written my first, and definitely my last, tweet. Another thing my sister can do better than me, but at least I’ve tried. Now I’m going to go to bed.’

I think of Sam at home, desperately awaiting my return, pinning all his happiness on the expectation of a perfect weekend. If I got six hours’ sleep, I would be in an acceptable state for that. I would fall in with whatever he has planned, and I would be able to do it properly.

I am about to stand up when I realise that my leg is pressing against Guy’s under the table. I note that it has been for quite some time. I leave it there.

‘OK.’ My voice is quiet. The bar is open all night, but at the moment there is no one here, under its bright lights, but us. Everything has changed.

‘Lara,’ says Guy. He opens his mouth to say something more, thinks better of it, and stops.

‘Yes.’

‘This is …’

‘I know.’ I do not, of course, know. I have no idea whether he means ‘this is dangerous’, or ‘this is suddenly different, compelling and wildly, all-encompassingly exciting’. This is good: that is bad.

The atmosphere between us is electric. He leans forward and takes my hand. His is warm, his skin dry. I look down at our two hands, entangled with one another. They should not be like that, but they look right together. We are holding each other’s right hands, so wedding rings are not part of the tableau.