by Karen Swan
‘There’s nothing to talk about.’
‘Did you and Jack have a fight?’
‘Me and— What? No!’
‘So what is it, then?’
‘I am fine,’ Laura said defiantly. ‘I have just got a shed-load of work to do and I can’t spend my days sitting around gossiping like you do. People are waiting for their commissions. I can’t miss a single deadline. You know that.’
‘All right, all right. I was just asking,’ Fee said, raising one hand in surrender.
The phone rang and she walked over to pick it up.
‘If that’s Jack, tell him I’m with a client,’ Laura said hurriedly, shoving her goggles back down over her eyes and going back to the birdcage.
‘So you have had a fight . . .’ Fee said, peering at her through suspicious eyes as she picked up the handset. ‘Hello? . . . Yes, that’s right . . . No I’m sorry, she’s engaged at the moment. Can I help at all? . . . Right . . . I’m not sure, she’ll have to get back to you herself on that.’ Fee walked over to the calendar of Suffolk beaches hanging on the wall and ran a finger over the dated squares. ‘Uh-huh . . . from the looks of things, she can do that . . . Okay, fine – I’ll tell her . . . Thanks. Bye.’
Laura cocked an eyebrow.
‘Well, it wasn’t Jack, you’ll be pleased to hear.’
‘Who was it?’ Laura asked, defiantly ignoring Fee’s leading comments.
‘A guy called Orlando asking if you’re going to Verbier. And if so, do you want to postpone your interview tomorrow?’
Laura nodded, still without looking up. ‘Fine. I’ll ring him back in a minute.’
‘Ahem! Verbier?’
Laura laid her equipment out patiently on the bench. ‘Don’t get your knickers in a twist. It’s nothing exciting. It’s to do with Cat Blake’s necklace. A bunch of them are going skiing before Christmas, and Rob thought it would make my life easier to go along too and interview everybody out there.’
‘Blimey! Nice work if you can get it.’
‘I’ll be working, Fee. Not skiing,’ Laura muttered.
’What did Jack say?’
‘I haven’t told him yet. Rob only mentioned it this morning.’
They sat in silence for a few minutes, and Laura knew that Fee was staring at her.
‘Stop it, Fee,’ Laura warned.
‘I know there’s something. What’s he done? Too many rose petals scattered in the bath and they clogged up the drains? The scented candles leading up to the bedroom dripped on the carpet?’
Laura dropped her head to the side, exasperated.
‘You know I’m gonna keep on going until you tell me.’
There was a long pause and Laura’s eyes darted around the room as if they were chasing shadows. ‘I think I’m pregnant,’ she murmured finally.
Fee slapped a hand over her mouth, staring over at Laura through enormous blue eyes. Laura blinked hard.
‘But you can’t tell him, Fee!’ Laura demanded, panicking at the sight of Fee’s shock. ‘You have to promise me. Not a word.’
‘But—’
‘Swear it!’ Laura cried, standing up agitatedly.
Fee raised a hand in surrender. ‘Okay, I swear. I swear.’
‘Swear on your life.’
‘I swear on my life. Shit.’
Laura sank back on to her stool, her breath coming fast. Saying the words had been like lifting weights, piling flesh and muscle and sinew on to a bony whisper.
‘Why is it a bad thing?’ Fee asked tentatively.
Laura looked at her in amazement. ‘You know perfectly well why. There is no question of me becoming a mother. How could I bring a life into the world?’
Lead lined the air between them. ‘Laur, you’d be a fantastic mum,’ Fee said quietly.
Laura shot her a dark look. ‘Just don’t.’
‘But it’s true. Jack would be such an incredible father, you know he would. And you wouldn’t be dealing with it alone. Jack and I would support you all the way. Oh please, at least talk to him about it,’ she implored, holding her hands together in prayer.
Laura jumped off her stool and advanced towards her in fury. ‘You swore, Fee!’
‘But this isn’t just about you, Laura. Jack has a right to know. You have to make the decision together.’
‘At the end of the day it’s my body, my decision.’
‘But don’t you see? This could change everything for the two of you.’
‘That’s precisely what I’m worried about, Fee. I don’t want anything to change. I want everything to remain exactly as it is.’
‘Do you?’ Fee asked, and Laura saw sadness in her eyes.
‘What does that mean?’
‘Life keeps moving forwards, Laur, even when you stay standing still. Nothing stays the same for ever.’
Laura narrowed her eyes and planted her hands on her hips. ‘You two have been talking again, haven’t you?’
Fee sighed. ‘Jack’s worried about you, and I’m worried about you and him.’
‘Why? What’s wrong with him?’
‘He’s unhappy, Laura. You must be able to see it?’
‘I see no such thing,’ she said defensively.
‘You won’t go on holiday. You won’t make other friends. You won’t move house. You won’t get married. You won’t get a new car. And now you won’t have a baby?’
‘Jack likes routine as much as I do. It’s why we’re so well matched.’
‘That is not the reason you’re together, and sooner or later you’re going to have to face it.’
‘Says the girl who doesn’t keep a boyfriend for more than ten days.’
But Fee didn’t react. Laura’s eyes filled with tears and Fee stood up and walked over to her, placing a gentle hand on her arm. ‘All I’m saying is that I think your life is not healthy the way it is. You have to let some light in. Some fresh air. If something can’t grow, then it decays.’
‘Well, thanks for the biology lesson, but I don’t even know for sure that I am pregnant yet. At the moment, I’m just late.’ Her voice was defensive and tremulous all at once. Breaking.
‘Then buy a test and at least get some peace of mind. It might be that there’s nothing to tell and you’re just shouting at me for the fun of it.’
Laura relented a little. Her tiny, wise best friend had a point. ‘Well. It is fun,’ she muttered, a glint of mischief in her eyes.
‘I know,’ Fee grinned, hugging her tightly. ‘I know.’
Chapter Ten
‘Have you seen my phone?’ Laura asked, rummaging through her bag as Jack squeezed past her on the way to the Bran Flakes the next morning.
‘Can’t say I remember seeing it, no. When did you have it last?’
‘Well, if I could remember that . . .’ she muttered, giving up with the bag and smacking her hands on her thighs. ‘Uuuugh!’
‘Don’t flap. It’s not far,’ Jack said with frustrating calm as he poured the milk and cereal into a bowl and began eating with speedy efficiency. ‘Have you tried ringing it?’
‘It’s out of juice.’
‘Of course it is.’ Jack cast his girlfriend a knowing look. Laura was notorious for never charging her phone. ‘Well, is it urgent? Do you want mine for today?’
Laura shook her head. ‘I just wanted to see whether there were any messages from the sister yet.’
‘Whose sister?’ His voice was muffled as he dabbed at a milk spot on his shirt.
‘For this charm necklace I’m doing. I was supposed to speak to her before all the others, but Fee’s left several messages and she hasn’t come back to us yet, and I need to get on. I was hoping I could get two lots of interviews done in one go today. Surrey’s a long way from here.’
‘Reversing up the drive is a long way in that car.’ He refused to use the name that Fee and Laura used so affectionately for her. ‘Maybe she’s away.’
‘Who is?’ Laura asked, checking under a pile of magazines on the worktop.
‘The sister.’
‘Oh. Yes. Maybe.’
Jack checked his watch. ‘Dash! I’m late. I’ve got to run. What time will you be back?’
‘This meeting’s arranged for eleven o’clock so I shouldn’t be late. That early start almost killed me on Tuesday, and besides, it isn’t a good idea to get there too early. I don’t want to get caught doing an all-day interview again.’
‘I don’t want you to either.’ He kissed her on the tip of her nose. ‘Your place is here, with us, isn’t that right, Arthur?’
Old Faithful looked up at his master adoringly, knowing that in a second he’d hear the jingle of the car keys and they’d head off to Jack’s workshop together. ‘I thought I’d do a casserole tonight. How does that sound?’
‘Mmmm,’ Laura replied absently, still wondering in her head where she’d put the damn phone and only vaguely aware of the front door clicking shut.
Ten minutes later, phone still not found, she was jerkily reversing down the drive in Dolly and heading towards the motorway with the rest of East Anglia.
In the event, she shaved thirty-five minutes off the journey this time round, partly because by the time she hit the M25 rush hour had eased and all the school runs had cleared from the local roads. She followed Fee’s terribly written directions (keeping a wary eye out for camels this time) before finally pulling up outside a double-height smoke-tinted glass cube with rows of black Discoverys parked in front.
‘Well, this is it, all right,’ Laura muttered, her chin resting on her hands as she leaned against the steering wheel and saw that ‘The Cube’ was discreetly etched into the glass panel above the door. She watched as the doors swished open and a sleek brunette came out, iPhone to her ear and wearing white Lycra cropped leggings with a tight white tank beneath a sleek fur-trimmed padded jacket. The patron saint of exercise, perhaps? She was followed moments later by two more women, this time in all-black ensembles highlighted with fluoro piping and offset by yoga mats, glistening legs and long, sleek ponytails that swung in unison.
Laura reluctantly got out of the car, realizing how low Dolly sat to the ground compared with these monster-sized 4x4s – their wheel arches were almost at her roof-height. The little yellow and cream car looked incongruous amidst the glossy black beasts, like a tortoise in the company of panthers.
Shuffling through the tinted glass doors, she walked up to the reception desk – a long, long expanse of white gloss. Two tanned women were sitting behind it wearing headsets and talking intensely at the screens in front of them as if they were reading the latest indexes from Reuters.
Laura waited for one of them to hit a button and give her their attention, fiddling absently with her top and feeling ridiculously overdressed. If Fee had only left her alone, she’d have just pulled on her usual baggy jeans and a jumper of some description, but her friend was clearly living in terror that the commission might be cancelled at any moment and the spectre of Visas unpaid would come knocking in the night, so she’d insisted she put on one of her best tops – a grey and jade silk tunic from Monsoon that Jack had bought her last Christmas.
‘This woman moves in gilded circles,’ Fee had told her sternly. ‘And you have to be an ambassador for your brand. She’s not going to want to wear something with your name attached if you insist on walking around looking like a bag lady, now, is she? Her friends will report back later, you can be sure of that.’
‘Can I help you?’ The receptionist was looking at her – well, past her, really, as a courier staggered past with an enormous container of bottled water on his shoulder. ‘No. No. Excuse me! That’s for the Lotus Room. Over there,’ she added, as though he was an idiot. ‘The vanilla room.’
She rolled her eyes at Laura as the poor man made his way back in the opposite direction.
‘I’m here to see Orlando Morelli,’ Laura said, watching the man try to lock his knees.
‘Do you have an appointment?’
‘Yes.’
‘He’ll be a few minutes,’ the receptionist said, looking back at her screen. ‘He’s just finishing with his Zumba ladies. What’s your name?’
‘Laura Cunningham.’
‘Okay.’ She pressed ‘send’ on her keyboard and nodded to a white leather chesterfield. ‘Take a seat. He won’t be long.’
Laura walked over and sat down. She could hear the muffled thwump of conflicting base beats coming from the rainbow-tinted glass studios that flanked the lobby area. The pink-and-yellow tinted rooms appeared to be mellower, with lots of women lying on the floor in contorted stretches listening to whale music, whereas the green-and-blue tinted rooms sounded like they were conducting illegal raves. Neither option appealed. An iPad had been left on the seat next to her with a Vogue app open – a woman draped over an elephant appeared to be advertising turquoise eyeshadow.
After a few minutes or so of bewildered browsing, she felt someone’s eyes upon her and looked up. A robustly muscled man in navy shorts and a very expensive-looking grey slim-fit T-shirt was standing by the reception desk staring over at her. Laura stared back, not because she’d never seen a T-shirt look that expensive before – although she hadn’t – but because even from fifty feet away there was no way she could be his plus one. Was Rob Blake blind?
‘Laura?’
Laura rose to meet him as he crossed the room in athletic bounds.
‘Orlando Morelli. A pleasure.’ His accent was as rippled as his muscles, his words tumbling like quavers on a score.
‘Pleased to meet you.’
‘You are here to discuss Cat.’
‘I am,’ she replied, disconcerted by his gorgeousness. He had a nose Rome could have been built upon and a jaw so square she’d seen rounder right angles. He was the most chiselled, handsome man she’d ever seen. And that meant he was gay.
‘Come, let us talk in my office.’
He led her towards the staircase, past the vibrating glass rooms. In one, Laura spotted a class full of women crouched over bikes, all going nowhere really fast.
‘You spin?’ Orlando asked, catching her eye as they started climbing a cantilevered glass staircase.
‘Usually only when the credit-card bill comes in.’
‘Funny,’ he laughed, wagging a finger. Ahead of them, spanning the width of the building, she could see a vast gym with running machines, elliptical walkers, weights and vibration plates, all in use. This wall was yellow-tinted.
‘What’s with the coloured glass?’ Laura asked as they climbed.
‘It influences mood, and therefore energy levels. We have cooler tones in the rooms where higher-intensity classes are held – like spinning and Zumba. Warm, pink hues are used for the floor- and mat-work classes like yoga and Pilates and ballet, where we work on muscle tone and core strength. And the yellow in the gym is happy; it feels sunny. Releases lots of endorphins and makes the clients feel energized.’
It sounded like hogwash to Laura. Walking Arthur on the beach always made her feel happy – or the closest she got to happy, anyway. ‘Wow,’ was all she could manage.
He led her down the corridor towards the front of the building and stopped outside a frosted-glass door. He opened it and let her pass through into his office. ‘Please. Take a seat.’
Laura reached down into her bag and pulled out a small voice-activated recorder. ‘Do you mind? It’s useful for later on when I’m back at the studio. I might miss something here that I pick up on later.’
Orlando shrugged. ‘Sure. We must get it right, no? Before we begin, would you like some water?’
What she really wanted was a coffee. ‘Sure,’ she replied, waiting whilst he poured her a glass from an opaque bottle that spelled out in red diamanté letters Bling. Even the water here was rich.
‘So, Cat’s your business partner here?’
‘Yes, that is technically correct. But Cat is also one of my best friends. She saved me not once, but twice. I can never thank her enough.’
‘Saved you?’ A comic image of
him being pulled from the water by a petite blonde flashed up and she repressed a smile. ‘But how?’
He grinned, his teeth spectacularly white against his tanned skin. ‘We first met when I was a trainer at another gym. I had only just come over from Italy and knew no one, was not paid very much. Then Cat came along. She wanted to run the London Marathon – it was her dream, one of her “bucket list” ideas – and she needed a running mate.’ He shrugged. ‘Most of the trainers there had never done more than run around the supermarket, but I have run the marathons in London, Berlin, New York . . . So I drew up a training schedule for her and we started meeting three, four times a week for sessions.’
‘So then you grew pretty close.’
‘Absolutely. And I fell madly in love with her, as everyone does.’
‘I’ve heard she’s very beautiful,’ Laura said dutifully.
‘And gentle, and so funny. Who can resist her?’
‘I suppose she was running the marathon for charity?’ Laura heard the bite in her voice and finished with a half-smile.
‘Of course. She ran for a local hospice.’
‘Did she raise much money?’
‘Quite a lot,’ he shrugged. ‘Twenty-three thousand pounds.’
Laura’s jaw dropped. ‘How many times did she run it, for heaven’s sake?’
Orlando laughed loudly. ‘She and Rob know a lot of very wealthy people.’
‘They must do.’ Laura thought of the £179 cheque she had handed over to the RNLI for a sponsored swim the year before. And she was a good swimmer. Lots of lengths.
‘Do you run?’ Orlando asked her.
‘Only when I’m late,’ she quipped. ‘I don’t believe in running, actually. I think it’s bad for your knees.’
‘Correct running shoes make all the difference.’
Laura shrugged dismissively. To date she’d never found a red pair she liked. ‘So you met when Cat started training for the marathon,’ she prompted. ‘And fell madly in love.’
‘Yes. But sadly for me, she is madly in love with her husband,’ he said slowly. ‘And sadly for her, so am I.’ He burst out laughing. ‘That is how she saved me, you see. I came to England because I thought my family would not understand. But it was hard to bear. I have always been very close to my mother and sisters, and I was sliding into a bad depression, drinking too much . . .’