Harriet Evans - A Hopeless Romantic

The next day it was still raining, and Mrs McGregor wrote a letter of complaint to the local education authority about Laura. She faxed it to Laura’s boss Rachel, who gave Laura a formal warning. She had no choice, she said, looking firmly at Laura as she twiddled a pencil between her fingers. Laura watched the pencil, sliding in and out and around, and wondered what all the fuss was about. Mrs McGregor was wrong, she was a horrible woman and she was wrong. Marcus Sussman was a bit hearty but he seemed to be a nice man: all he’d done was to tell a kid who called him ‘a fucking cunt’ to shut the fuck up – well, was that so bad? No, not in her book. Who cares, she thought, mentally shutting down and blocking out the memory of Mrs McGregor’s droning voice.

‘I won’t say I’m not disappointed,’ said Rachel, leaning over her desk towards Laura. ‘I thought that was one of your strengths, people management. You’ve always been so good at it, Laura. They love you at St Catherine’s, too. What happened?’

Laura looked at her and felt tears start in her eyes. She was being stupid, she knew it, behaving so irresponsibly, but she didn’t know how to start to explain. So she just said, ‘Oh, you know. I just – she really was so vile. I just couldn’t take it any more. I’m really sorry, Rachel. You know it won’t happen again. Can I ring Mrs McGregor and apologise?’

Rachel smiled at her, slightly more warmly than before. ‘Of course. Thanks a lot. You know how it is, Laura. We have to follow procedures. You know that. Just don’t let it happen again. And watch that Marcus Sussman. You’re sure he’s OK?’

‘Absolutely,’ Laura said. ‘I promise she’s making it into something from nothing. This is the last time, I won’t let you down.’

‘So, darling,’ said Angela Foster that evening, smoothing the sofa cushion over with her hand. ‘How’s work?’

She glanced around the sitting room, as if she expected a troupe of tiny tap-dancing mice to can-can out from a hole in the skirting board and pirouette off with her handbag.

‘Fine, fine,’ Laura said hastily. ‘Today was…er, fine. Thanks so much for these, they’ll look great.’ She gestured to the pastelspotted blinds her mother had bought her from John Lewis as a belated birthday present. ‘It’s so nice of you to bring them round, Mum, you shouldn’t have.’

‘Not at all, darling,’ said Angela. ‘And I wanted to see my girl. We haven’t seen you for such a long time, you know. You’re so busy these days.’

Laura changed the subject hastily. ‘So, Mum. Have you got time for a cup of tea or do you have to go?’

Angela looked at her. ‘I can see you’re longing for me to stay,’ she said dryly.

‘No, of course I am,’ Laura replied hastily. ‘Of course. Do stay. I’ve got some biscuits, too. Sit down, Mum. I’ll put the kettle on. Sit down, make yourself at home.’

‘I’ll try,’ said Angela, lowering herself gingerly onto the blue sofa with its tea-stained arms and cigarette holes in the cushions. She moved aside Paddy’s copy of Maxim with her heel and sat with her ankles neatly crossed. She smiled up at Laura.

Laura sighed and hurried into the kitchen, glancing anxiously at her watch. Dan had said he’d come round later, and she didn’t want the two to collide. Not that it was likely they would – he only ever turned up after the pubs shut, whereas her mum was usually in bed and fast asleep by that time. She hunted desperately in the cupboards as she waited for the kettle to boil, searching for biscuits of some description, but of course could find none, and then one of the kitchen unit doors finally gave up the ghost and pitched itself sideways, the MDF cracking and ripping as the door fell flat on the floor. ‘Shit,’ Laura said, picking it up and wedging it back into place again. She had heard similar sounds the previous night, very late, after Paddy had got back from a marathon drinking session, and suspected he might have done exactly the same thing himself, leaving it as a nasty surprise for her the next day. No biscuits, then. Laura grabbed some slightly soggy Carr’s water biscuits and took them back into the sitting room with the tea instead.

‘How nice,’ said Angela, taking one. ‘Hm.’

‘I couldn’t find any biccies,’ said Laura. ‘So sshh, just enjoy them.’

‘The flat’s looking nice,’ Angela said, obediently changing the subject. Laura gritted her teeth. Her mother was a Grand Master of the art of faking it. Laura knew she didn’t do it on purpose, but her superbly repressed nature meant that whenever an unkind or negative thought crossed her mother’s mind, she obviously felt she had to atone for it by saying the opposite of what she thought. It was quite a good barometer, actually. ‘What a lovely short skirt, darling!’ meant ‘I am embarrassed to go with you dressed like that to the Hunts’ wedding anniversary party, you look like a common prostitute.’ Or ‘Your friend Hilary is very lively, isn’t she? Dad loved talking to her,’ meant ‘Your friend Hilary drinks more than is socially acceptable at a barbecue buffet lunch in Harrow and is nothing more than a jail-bait husband-stealer.’

‘Thanks, Mum. It’s a bit of a tip at the moment. Paddy’s been on half-term and he just lazes round reading newspapers all day in his dressing gown.’

‘Ahh,’ said Angela fondly. She had more than a soft spot for Paddy. ‘How is James?’

It was strange, Laura thought, musing over this, that James Patrick could read mothers – and his female friends – like open books, and yet be so disastrously out of sync with the opposite sex for the rest of the time. Half-term had been notable for Paddy’s attempts to catch the attention of the girl in the flat downstairs, which involved hanging around the stairwell and by the pigeonholes for half the day, and smiling mysteriously, raising the eyebrow he’d now learnt to raise, and generally looking like an unemployed spy. The girl in the flat downstairs – whom Laura had met, she was called Becky and seemed really nice – simply cast him looks of something amounting to concern for his mental state every time she saw him. He was despondent about it, because he really liked her. And before he’d decided he fancied her, and had started acting like a lunatic, they’d actually got on quite well, during the few times they’d chatted. Added to which, Mr Kenzo from the flat opposite now thought Paddy was clearly a delinquent or else some kind of dodgy sex practitioner, and spent a lot of time watching him watching Becky, which all contributed to the atmosphere of light comedy pervading the stairwell of the block of flats.

‘He’s fine. Bit gloomy at the moment.’

‘Any girls on the horizon?’ said Angela hopefully.

Laura didn’t want to get into Paddy’s love life with her mother. She cast around for something else to say about him. ‘He’s giving me a hard time –’ Laura stopped, cursed herself and then went on, ‘– for not tidying up more,’ she finished, inwardly hugging herself for her own ingenuity.

‘Well, I’m sure he’s right,’ said Angela. ‘You are a bit messy. Still, it’s nice to live with someone who is too, isn’t it? You’re only young once, it does no one any harm to leave the Sunday papers strewn about once in a while.’

‘True, very true, Mum,’ Laura agreed with a grin. Angela sipped her tea and smiled back at her over her mug, a lovely smile with her eyes, and Laura thought how pretty her mum would be if she’d only do that more.

‘How’s Aunt Annabel?’ Laura said after a pause. Annabel had a beefy-faced husband and was the mother of the dreaded Lulu and Fran. A long time had passed since Laura and Simon happily played with Lulu and Fran on the beach in Norfolk as children. Now they were all grown-up, Lulu was a trust-fund skeleton who hung around with posh Eurotrash, and Fran was a porky, demented sports physio, with a loud, bellowing voice. Simon and Laura spent every family gathering trying to avoid them.