The Love of Her Life

by Harriet Evans

  She liked the way he was always first to buy a round, that the corners of his blue eyes crinkled when he laughed, the rangy, almost bowlegged way he walked, his strong hands. She liked the way he rolled his eyes with gentle amusement when Paddy said something particularly Paddy-ish. She liked him. She couldn’t help it, she did. And she knew he liked her, that was the funny thing. She just knew, in the way you know. She had also come to know, in the last couple of months, that there was something going on between her and Dan. She just didn’t know what it was. But somehow, she knew tonight was the night.

  Dan was a friend of Chris’s from university. He’d moved about five minutes away from Laura about six months ago, round the corner from Jo and Chris towards Highbury – and she’d known of him vaguely since Jo and Chris had got together. In July, Dan had started a new job, and more often than not Laura found herself on the tube platform with him in the morning. The first couple of times it was mere coincidence. Now, at the end of summer, it was almost a routine. They would buy a coffee from the stall on the platform and sit together in the second-to-last carriage, deserted in the dusty dog days of August, and go down the Northern line together until they got to Bank. And they would read Metro together and chat, and it was all perfectly innocent.

  ‘Dan? Oh yeah, we’re tube buddies,’ Laura would say nonchalantly, her heart thumping in her chest.

  ‘They’re transport pals,’ Chris and Jo would joke at lunch on Sundays. ‘Like an old married couple on the seafront at Clacton.’

  ‘Ha, ha, ha,’ Laura would mutter, and then she would blush furiously, biting her lip and shaking her hair forward over her face, burying herself in a newspaper. Not that they ever noticed – it’s extraordinary what people don’t notice right under their noses.

  But to Laura it was obvious, straightforward. From the first time she’d recognised him on the tube platform, that sunny July day, and he had smiled at her, his face genuinely lighting up with pleasure – ‘Laura!’ he’d said, warmth in his voice. ‘What a nice surprise. Come and sit next to me.’ Through the sun and rain of August, September and October she would run down the steps to the tube platform, hoping he’d be there, not knowing what was going on between them. They had built up a whole lexicon of information. Just little things that you tell the people you see each day. She knew when his watch was being mended, what big meeting he had that day; and he knew when Rachel, her boss, was being annoying, and asked how her grandmother had been the previous day. Out of these little things, woven over each other, grew a web of knowledge, of intimacy, and one day Laura had woken up and known, known with a clarity that was shocking, that this was not just another one of her crushes, or another failed relationship that she couldn’t understand. She and Dan had something. And she was in love with him.

  Oh, the level of denial about the whole thing was extraordinary, because you could explain it away in a heartbeat if you had to. ‘We go to work together, because we live round the corner from each other. It’s great – nice start to the day, you know.’ Whereas the truth was a little more complicated. The truth was both of them had started getting to the station earlier and earlier, so they could sit on the bench together with their coffees and chat for ten minutes before they got on the tube. And that was weird. Laura knew that. Yes, she was in denial about the whole thing. She knew that, too. It had got to the stage where something had to give – and she couldn’t wait.

  Laura collected herself, breathed deeply, smoothed the material of her dress down, and came out of the loo to put on more lip gloss. She realised as she looked in the mirror that she was already wearing enough lip gloss to cause an oil slick – it was a nervous reflex of hers, to apply more and more when in doubt. She blotted some on the back of her hand, and strolled out of the door nonchalantly, looking for Paddy or Hilary, someone to chat to. It was strange, wasn’t it, she mused, that at her best friend’s wedding, knowing virtually everyone in the room, she could feel so exposed, so alone. That on such a happy day she could feel so sad. She shook her head, feeling silly. Look over there, she told herself, as Jo and Chris walked through the tables of the big ballroom, hand in hand, smiling at each other, at their friends and family. It was lovely. It was a privilege to see. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Hilary pinning Jason against a wall, yelling at him about something, her long, elegant hands waving in the air. Jason looked scared, but transfixed. Another man scared into snogging Hil, she thought. Well done, girl.

  Someone handed her a glass of champagne. She accepted it gratefully and turned to see who it was.

  ‘Sorry,’ whispered Dan casually, though he didn’t bend towards her. He said it softly, intimately, and clinked his glass with hers. ‘I thought I’d better leave you to deal with Paddy’s sartorial crisis by yourself. Where did you go?’

  ‘Loo,’ said Laura, trying to stay calm, but it came out, much to her and Dan’s surprise, as a low, oddly pitched growl. He smiled. Laura smiled back, and ran her hand through her hair in a casual, groomed manner, but forgot the lipstick mark of gloss still adhering to the back of her hand. Her hair stuck to the gloss, and her hand became caught up in her hair as she flailed wildly around with her hand in the air, covered in hair.

  ‘Arrgh,’ said Laura, despair washing over her as she stood in front of Dan. Her hand was stuck. Dan took the champagne out of her other hand, put it on a table, held her wrist and slid her fingers slowly out of her hair. He smoothed it down, swiftly dropped a kiss on the crown of her head in a sweet, intimate gesture, and put his palm on the small of her back as he guided her through the room onto the terrace.

  ‘Thanks,’ whispered Laura, trying to walk upright and not cower with embarrassment. ‘I should go back out, to see the first dance, look…’

  ‘No problem,’ said Dan calmly. ‘In a minute. I just want to do this.’ And he slid his hand round her waist, drew him towards her, and kissed her. No one else was watching, they were all turned towards the dance floor where Mr and Mrs Johnson were dancing. They were alone on the terrace, just the two of them.

  Dan pulled her towards him, his hands pressing on her spine, his lips gentle but firm on hers. He made a strange, sad sound in his throat, somewhere between a cry of something and a moan. Laura slid one arm around his neck and drew him further towards her. The other arm was by her side, she was still holding the champagne glass. It tilted, the champagne spilt, and neither of them noticed.

  After a short while, they broke apart slowly, and said nothing. There was nothing to say, really. Laura drained the meagre contents of her glass and leant into Dan. They stood there together as the music died away and applause rippled out towards them, aware of nothing else but themselves, alone in their bubble.

  ‘Well,’ Dan said eventually. ‘I didn’t know that was going to happen tonight,’ and he put his arm around her.

  Laura twisted round, looked up at him. ‘Oh yes you did,’ she said, smiling into his eyes. ‘Of course you did.’

  That was Laura’s second glass of champagne, and she found Paddy and Hilary on another terrace having a cigarette so she joined them. After her third glass, thirty minutes later, she was a bit tired. After her fourth, she felt better again – and she’d eaten from the buffet as well. After her fifth and sixth, she danced for an hour with Jo and Chris and their other friends. And after her seventh glass, she didn’t know how it happened, but she found herself in one of the free taxis going home with Dan Floyd, and they were kissing so hard that her lips were bruised the next day. And that’s when it really started, and Laura went from knowing lots of things about Dan and how she felt about him and her place in the world in general to knowing nothing. At all.

  At one point during the night, she propped herself up on her elbow and leant over him, and kissed him again, and he kissed her back and they rolled over together, and Laura pulled back and said, ‘So… what does this mean, then?’ It just came out.

  And Dan’s face clouded over and he said, ‘Oh gorgeous, let’s not do this now, not when I want you so much
,’ and he carried on kissing her. Something should have made Laura pull away and say, No, actually, what does this mean? Are you going to tell your girlfriend? When will you leave your girlfriend? Do you like me? Are we together? But of course she didn’t…

  CHAPTER THREE

  Yes, Dan had a girlfriend, Amy. Just a tiny detail, nothing much. They were as good as living together, too – although she still had her own place. Another detail Laura tried to forget about. She had almost managed to convince herself that if she didn’t tell anyone about her – well, what was it? A ‘thing’? A ‘fling’? A fully formed relationship just waiting to move into the sunlight of acceptance? – her liaison with Dan, then perhaps the outside world didn’t matter so much. And it didn’t, when she was with him. Because he was The One, she was sure of it. So it became surprisingly easy for Laura, who was basically a good girl, who never ever thought she could do something like this, to turn into a person who was sleeping with someone else’s boyfriend.

  She had tried, after Jo and Chris’s wedding. She told herself – and Dan – that it wasn’t going to happen again. She bit her nails to the quick about it because, much as Laura might be clueless about some things, she was clear about other things, and one of those was: don’t sleep with someone who has a girlfriend. She’d already tried going cold turkey from him, as autumn gave way to winter, and as she realised she was falling for him, badly. She tried avoiding him at the tube station – but she couldn’t. She tried to forget him – but she couldn’t. When she thought about him, it was as if he was talking to her, pleading with her, communicating with her directly. Laura, it’s you I want, not Amy. Laura, please let me see you, his eyes and his voice would say in her head, until the noise got so loud it was all she could hear. Every time was the last time. Every time was the first time.

  Laura knew it was wrong to be thinking like this. But she assuaged that secret guilt in her head with the knowledge that Dan and Amy weren’t getting on well. Dan himself had told her it wasn’t working out. Well, he had in so many words, with a sigh and a shake of the head, in the early days of their coffee mornings together on the tube platform. And she knew from Jo that Dan was going out with Chris and his other mates more, playing more football, watching more football, in the pub more, working harder. Added to which, no one in their group ever really saw Amy. They were together, but they were never actually together. She was completely offstage, like a mystery character in a soap opera whom people refer to but who never appears. You know when a couple are happy together – mainly because you don’t see either of them as much, and when you do they’re either together, or they talk about each other. Or they’re just happy. You know. Laura knew – as did everyone else – Dan wasn’t happy with Amy. Dan wanted out, he just didn’t know how to get out.

  And, actually, Amy wasn’t really her friend. They occasionally all went out for drinks, Jo and Chris, Dan and Amy, Hilary, Paddy and Laura and so on, especially now Chris and Dan had moved nearby. But Amy rarely came along, and in any case, Laura had long ago realised she couldn’t stand her. Never had been able to, in fact. Because not only was Amy a quasi-friend of hers, they had also been at school together, many moons ago, and there is no more mutually suspicious relationship than that of two ex-schoolmates who are thrown together several years later. Added to which, Amy had been one of the mean girls who had teased Laura relentlessly about her love for Mr Wallace the oboe teacher, and had spread the subsequent rumours surrounding Laura giving up the oboe. She’d even told Laura’s mother Angela about it, at a school concert, all wide-eyed concern. Angela Foster had got the wrong end of the stick, and assumed Laura was being pestered by Mr Wallace. She’d complained. He’d nearly been fired. The whole thing was deeply embarrassing. So Laura’s dislike of Amy was genuinely historical, rather than based upon the fact that Amy was with the man Laura felt quite sure she loved. This made her feel better, in some obscure way.

  Amy ate nothing, exercised obsessively, talked about shoes and handbags the entire time (like, the entire time) and she played with her beautiful red hair. Non-stop. It was her thing. She always had, even when she and Laura had been eight-year-olds in plaits and virgin socks at school. Twenty years later, the same white hand would smooth down the crown of its owner’s hair as Amy softened her voice to tell a sad story – about a friend’s mother’s death, or something bad in the news. Or said something deeply meaningful at the pub, which made Laura want to gag childishly on her drink.

  The thing was, Laura knew Amy was the kind of girl men fell for, even though she led them a merry dance. Laura wasn’t. She was nice, she was funny, but she knew she was ordinary, nothing special. Why would anyone, especially Dan, choose her when they could be with Amy? Why was it he got her so well, laughed at her jokes? What amazing thing had led him to think of her as this perfect person for him, just as she knew that he was her Mr Right? It perplexed her, as much as it exhilarated her. It was extraordinary, it was magical, and so even though it was underhand and stressful, she carried on doing it.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  First of all, thanks to my wonderful Mum and Dad. Huge thanks to Pippa and Rebecca as ever for everything, and Brendan and Caroline O’Reilly, Thomas Wilson, Jo Roberts-Miller, Sophie Hopkin, Nikki Barrow and Clare Betteridge. Thanks to the following people for the conversations we’ve had about why we live where we live: Vicky Watkins, Pamela Casey, Nicole Vanderbilt, James Coleman, Lance Fitzgerald, PJ Mark and Simon, Megan and Jasper Mulligan. (Special thanks to Bea, Felix and Harriet for the flowers.)

  I would never have finished this book without the support and encouragement of Clare Foss, my favourite Headliner in an extremely crowded field. Thank you so much, Clare and thanks too, as always, to Jane Morpeth. And Marion for telescope advice!

  Thanks as always to Mark Lucas, and everyone at LAW, Kim Witherspoon and David Forrer (and to Mr Forrer for the Chrysler Building fact). And to Louise Burke and Maggie Crawford at Pocket Books, who make me love NYC that little bit more.

  Finally huge thanks to everyone at HarperCollins, especially Victoria Hughes-Williams, Helen Johnstone, Sarah Radford, Lucy Upton, Leisa Nugent, Lee Motley, Clive Kintoff, Wendy Neale and Amanda Ridout. I am eternally grateful to the super-talented Claire Bord for every little thing, thanks so much CB. Finally, to Lynne Drew, who is amazing. Thanks for understanding that the brand diamond is in my sitting room.

  About the Author

  THE LOVE OF HER LIFE

  Harriet Evans works in publishing as an editor, when she is not writing books. The Love of Her Life is her third novel, after Going Home and A Hopeless Romantic, both of which were bestsellers. She likes old films, liquorice allsorts and the new cocktail she has recently invented, called ‘The Harrie’ (one part sloe gin to three parts sparkling wine).

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.co.uk for exclusive updates on Harriet Evans.

  Praise for Harriet Evans:

  ‘Fabulous … I loved it.’ Sophie Kinsella

  ‘Touching and engrossing… a rollicking ride of joy, disappointment, and self-discovery.’

  Daily Telegraph

  ‘Delicious.’

  Marie Claire

  ‘Harriet Evans has scored another winner… witty, entertaining and full of characters you’ll grow to love.’

  Heat

  ‘A joy from start to finish – sharp, funny and modern as well as warm, cosy and nostalgic.’

  Fiona Walker

  ‘Hard to resist.’

  Elle

  ‘A lovely, funny heartwarmer… Evans’ comic style and love-able characters make it effortlessly readable.’

  Marie Claire

  ‘Harriet Evans’ debut novel is a great romcom, packed with intrigue and suspense.’

  New Woman

  ‘An endearing tale of broken and rescued hearts…’

  In Style

  ‘A contemporary romance that is as sparkly as its cover suggests.’

  Daily Mail

  ‘An entertaining page-turner.’

&
nbsp; Closer

  ‘A superior romcom with heart and soul.’

  Bella

  ‘Few debuts are set to make such an impact as this.’

  Daily Mirror

  By the same author

  Going Home

  A Hopeless Romantic

  Copyright

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

  The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are

  the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to

  actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is

  entirely coincidental.

  HarperAn imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

  77–85 Fulham Palace Road,

  Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  A Paperback Original 2008

  1

  Excerpt from ‘Moving On’ in I Feel Bad About My Neck

  reprinted by permission of International Creative Management, Inc.

  Copyright © 2006 by Nora Ephron

  Copyright © Harriet Evans 2008

  Harriet Evans asserts the moral right to

  be identified as the author of this work

  A catalogue record for this book is

  available from the British Library

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