Erin Lawless - Somewhere Only We Know - The bestselling laugh out loud millenial romantic comedy

Alex remained stupidly paused in the doorframe as Lila followed her boyfriend into his bedroom, chattering away brightly as she’d just been doing in the kitchen with him; the bedroom door was kicked closed, almost like an afterthought. He guessed he wouldn’t be getting to hear what else Lila thought about David Beckham, not that night anyway.

Alex jumped as his saucepan of veg finally boiled dry on the hob, hissing loudly as if it was as pissed off with Alex as he was with himself.

Nadia

Nadia was home from her shift at the shop a little later than usual for a Thursday evening; she’d stopped off at Tesco to buy herself a cheap (but probably not that nutritious) dinner of value-brand instant noodles (supposedly “chicken flavour” but ominously suitable for vegans). Holly was already home when she got there, sitting awkwardly on the very edge of the sofa cushions, knees and ankles together, shoes still on. An impossibly crisp white envelope sat on the coffee table in front of her.

“It came, then?” Nadia asked, in a ridiculously calm voice.

“It came,” Holly confirmed, pressing her palms to her knees, as if she was physically stopping herself ripping open the letter herself.

“Hmmm.” Instead of pouncing on the piece of paper that pronounced her future, Nadia walked into the kitchen and began methodically unpacking her shopping into the cupboards. Holly came to stand in the doorway.

“Well, aren’t you going to open it?” she asked, incredulously.

“In a minute,” Nadia replied.

“How can you wait?”

Nadia turned and rested her hands behind her on the kitchen counter. “I just need a minute, Hol, okay?”

“But…"

“That letter quite possibly tells me that I need to pack up and leave everything I know.” Nadia tried for a light tone but failed miserably. “Let me just have a few more minutes in blissful ignorance, please.”

“Oh, hun.” Holly crossed the kitchen and pulled her friend into a hug. “You haven’t been thinking that, have you? They’re not going to deport you. You’ve lived here since you were a little kid. You’ve paid taxes here. You probably speak better English than me – and definitely better English than Ledge!” Nadia gave a weak little smile. “Everything’s going to be fine,” Holly promised. “Let’s open the letter.”

Nadia could barely open the envelope, her finger clumsily sticking as she used it to try and rip the seal. She shook the contents into her lap. A shiny folded booklet fell out first: a multi-ethnic group of people smiling out at her from under dark turbans and brightly coloured hijabs. It was followed by one piece of A4 paper, just one. Nadia tried to read every word at once; the print just swam before her eyes. She swallowed and cleared her throat, focusing on the familiarity of her name at the head of the letter and slowly fragments started to make sense.

Dear Miss Osipova… regret to inform you… application has been denied on the grounds that you have spent more than 450 days out of the country during your residency here… vacate the country within three months…

Nadia couldn’t read any further. She let the piece of paper fall to her lap on top of the leaflet and pressed the hands that had been holding it against her temples. Vacate the country. In three months she would be back living with her parents, something she hadn't done since before she was a teenager. She’d have to go and live in a country that she barely knew. She may not have ever been totally accepted as British – her surname and her international school accent and her constant visa issues had never allowed for that – but it was even worse when she was back in Russia.

She spoke the language perfectly, of course – she had to, as neither of her parents spoke English – but she never managed to be quite au fait with things like the current slang or the latest fad, always earmarking her out as a foreigner in the country of her birth. She may never have fully belonged in England, but then she’d never quite felt as though she’d ever belonged in Russia, either. And at least here she had her flat, her friends – and a collection of close-to-useless degrees and qualifications sitting atop a mountain of student debt, none of which had mattered to the Home Office, or were any bloody good to her now. She felt sick to her core.

It took Nadia a moment to realise that Holly was speaking.

“We’ll all be behind you, Nads; it’ll come off. You’ll see,” she was finishing, her face hopeful. She’d taken the discarded letter from Nadia’s knees and was holding it against her own.

“What’ll come off?”

“The appeal.” Nadia stared at her friend vacantly. “The appeal they’re suggesting you do?” When Nadia continued to look blank Holly began to read aloud from the paragraph Nadia had given up before getting to.

“'However, we do accept that you may exhibit appropriate grounds for claiming ‘private life’ here in the UK under the Article 8 Law. You have not been a UK resident for the 20 years that is required in your case, but – due to your comparatively young age – a Court of Appeals judge may be able to arbitrate on this further. Please find enclosed a leaflet on how to progress your appeal should you not be satisfied with our decision to deny you Indefinite Leave to Remain in the United Kingdom. Please note, however, that there will only be scope for one appeal and that the decision of which is final and binding. Costs will not be awarded'.”

Wordlessly Nadia took the letter back from Holly and read the concluding paragraph for herself.

“This is good news,” Holly beamed, getting to her feet. “Let’s celebrate.”

By the time Holly returned from the kitchen with two gently steaming mugs of milky tea, Nadia had re-read the entire letter three times and still wasn’t sure how she felt about it.

“Do you want to get a takeaway in tonight?” Holly asked, setting the drink down in front of her silent flatmate. "The cupboards are a bit bare for a celebratory meal."

“Oh, Hols. Thanks. I’m just… not so sure that we should be celebrating as such, at least not yet,” Nadia admitted, her eyes drawn back to the letter again.

“What do you mean? Okay, I know it’s not exactly what we were hoping, but at least it’s not a ‘no’.”

Nadia stared at her. “It is a no. It’s quite clearly a no.”

“I think it's a strong ‘maybe’,” Holly argued. “They wouldn’t bother suggesting that you appeal if they didn’t think you had a good chance.”

“I know, I know. It’s just…” Nadia sighed. “It’s just who knows how much longer I won’t know where I stand, you know? How much longer am I going to be driving my parents into debt in order to get my rent paid?” She considered the letter closely again. “I reckon it might just be stall tactics; they’re hoping I give up and leave the country of my own accord.”

“Nadia, it’s just typical government red tape, not some sort of plot against you personally,” Holly frowned. “I think they’re being quite decent, actually, flagging up that you have the right of appeal rather than burying it in the small print.”

“You’re right. I just thought – either way – that this would all be sorted out today. I hate the not knowing.”

“Isn’t it better that you’re still in the dark, but still here?” Holly asked, quietly. “Rather than having to turn on your laptop to book a plane ticket right now?”

“Of course it is.” Nadia looked at her friend. They’d been inseparable since their school days. She noticed how white Holly’s fingers were as she held her mug of tea and remembered how pale her face had looked before the letter had been opened. She forgot sometimes that the not knowing was hard on her friends, too.