Love Letters (45 page)

Although it was sweet of Shona to credit her so, the thought of being a dinner-party favourite made her shiver. She got up. ‘I think I’d better be going. No, you don’t need to come with me, Shona, I know my way home and it’s not dark or anything.’

Jocasta rose to her feet to show her out. ‘I have to say, Laura, I think you’re going to be a real asset to our book group. And not only that – I’m having a few friends round next week. Nothing formal, just a bite to eat and some good conversation. I’d be thrilled if you could join us.’

‘When’s that?’

‘Next Friday?’

‘Oh, that’s a shame! I’ve arranged to go back to England to visit my parents for a long weekend. I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye properly when I left, and they’re anxious to know how I’m settling in.’

The thing about lying, she’d learnt, mostly from reading fiction, is to keep it as close to the truth as you possibly could. When she’d got home she went straight on to the Internet to look up flights. Then she telephoned her parents.

Laura wished she felt more enthusiastic about this visit. She loved her parents, of course she did, but she was aware she seemed like a cuckoo to them, a small, undemanding cuckoo, but still not really one of their own.

They had arranged to meet her at the airport and were there when she came through the gate, looking out for her in their matching his-and-her beige anoraks.

‘Oh, it’s so kind of you to come and get me!’ she said, feeling a rush of love and hugging first her mother, and then her father, who patted her awkwardly.

‘There’s no sense in wasting money on taxis,’ he said, taking her bag. ‘Have you only got this?’

‘Mm. I didn’t want to check anything in. To save time.’

‘Well, come along,’ said her mother. ‘We don’t want our parking ticket to run out.’

As she went with her parents to the car park she realised how deflated they always made her feel. If anyone else had collected her, Monica, or Grant, say, they’d have been plying her with questions about her new life, full of enthusiasm for her great adventure, or saying how much they missed her. But no, her mother was more concerned about overstaying her time in the car park.

Always she hoped that this time it would be different, and always it was the same. However, she was pleased to be seeing them again; it saved her having to talk about Dermot to people who were only interested in her because of her tenuous connection with him. Not that it had been tenuous, but at this remove, the whole Dermot thing felt like a dream, or as if it had happened to someone else and hurt just a little bit less.

‘Oh, you’ve changed that flowerbed!’ she said as they walked up the path to the house. ‘Didn’t it used to have roses in it?’

‘Yes, but they kept catching your father’s clothes as he went through to the garage, so I put lavender there instead.’

‘How lovely! You must smell it as you brush past,’ Laura said.

Her father turned to her as he put the front-door key in the lock. ‘Can’t say I’ve noticed.’

Laura followed her parents into the house, trying to fight the feeling of depression she always felt when she visited them.

‘I think I must have grown!’ she said brightly. ‘Everything seems to be smaller!’

‘I don’t think so, dear. Everything’s the same as it was. Once you’ve got the house how you like it, there seems no point in changing it.’ She put the kettle on. ‘Would you like tea? Or shall I open the bottle of wine I bought?’

A glance at the kitchen clock told her that at Somerby the wine would have been opened at least half an hour ago. She felt horribly disloyal. These were her parents, this was the home she’d grown up in, and she was comparing it unfavourably with what was virtually a stately home. She knew that children did sometimes change when they left home and went to university, but she hated herself for doing it. On the other hand, as she warmed the pot, making tea for her parents, she wondered, if she had changed, really, or if she just had never fitted in.

‘So what have you been up to, Mum?’ she said, finding knives and forks so she could set the table.

‘Nothing much, dear. We lead quiet lives really. You know that.’

While she put three table mats on the kitchen table she waited for her mother to ask her what she’d been up to, in return. But she didn’t. Laura fetched the cruet from the sideboard in silence. Surely her mother must be a bit curious about Laura’s new life? Apparently not.

‘Can you call your father? It’s ready and there’s a television programme I want to watch later. Have you got a television now?’

At last, some expression of interest! ‘Um, yes. There is one in the house I’m staying in.’ She waited for a question about the house. None came. ‘And I can get English channels too, but I don’t watch it much. I’m not in the habit of it. Besides, I’ve been really busy since I moved to Ireland.’

‘I never miss an edition of
Midsomer Murders
if I can help it. Oh and I like that one with the two gardening women as well.’

‘I’ll go and get Dad,’ said Laura.

Her father was a bit more interested in her life than her mother. ‘So, are you going to manage on the money?’

‘Oh yes, I think so. Of course being freelance isn’t as secure as having a salary—’ It was out before she could stop herself. Her father pounced on it.

‘Then why did you take it on? Why did you want to go to Ireland anyway?’ His jaw went from side to side as he chewed, adding emphasis to his disapproving tone.

Hoping (unrealistically she knew) that it was just that: her father didn’t like the idea of her being so far away, she ploughed valiantly on: ‘Jobs like that are quite hard to get into. In England you have to work your way up. After the literary festival, and I told you how successful that was—’

‘But it didn’t pay very well, did it?’ persisted her father.

For some reason she didn’t quite understand she hadn’t told her parents about her bonus. ‘I didn’t do it for the money, I did it because I love working with books and writers.’ Why couldn’t her father ever just be happy that she was doing what she enjoyed? Why did he always have to bring money into it? It wasn’t as if she ever asked them for a loan or anything. ‘Anyway, I met this woman who put me in touch with my new job.’ She felt too deflated to tell them about Gerald in detail.

‘But why go off to Ireland?’ insisted her father. ‘There are plenty of jobs here.’

‘But this is an opportunity to do what I’ve always wanted to do! Ever since I left university, I’ve wanted it. I’m a copy editor, and editor – a permanent one if that’s the way the work goes.’

‘In my day, sorry if that makes me sound like an old codger’ – he didn’t sound at all apologetic – ‘we didn’t do “what we’d always wanted”. We did what would put food on the table and pay the mortgage.’

Laura sighed and put her hand on his where it lay on his rolled-up table napkin. ‘I know, Dad, and I’m really grateful that you did all that so you could keep Mum and me, but I haven’t got to keep anyone else except myself.’

‘Forgive me for saying this, Laura,’ he went on, removing his hand, ‘but it strikes me that young people nowadays are all me, me, me.’

Defeated, Laura turned her attention to the shepherd’s pie, which was delicious.

‘I’ve got pineapple upside-down cake for pudding,’ said her mother. ‘I know that’s your favourite.’

It had been her favourite when she was nine years old but she’d never felt able to tell her mother her tastes had changed.

After she and her mother had washed up, which didn’t take long as her mother was a very tidy cook, they spent the evening watching television. There was a documentary on about world poverty and the arms trade. Tears she hadn’t allowed herself to indulge in for a while slid silently down Laura’s face. Everything came back to her in a rush. Dermot; her overwhelming love for him, not returned . . . She could hardly bear it.

‘I’ll just watch the news and then I’ll make us all a cup of tea before bedtime,’ said her father.

‘Oh, we never opened that wine,’ said her mother.

‘Never mind. Tea’s fine.’

No wonder I spent all my time reading, thought Laura when she was back in her old room.

All her old childhood favourites were there, marking the progress of her growing up. There were the pony books that she adored until she moved on to Georgette Heyer in her early teens. Then there was her D. H. Lawrence phase, Iris Murdoch, Edna O’Brien, and then Dermot’s two slim volumes. She’d bought these second-hand and loved them. When she went to university she found she could study them and bought new copies. It was these copies that she had taken with when she left home. She sighed, wondering how her life would have turned out if she’d never read his books. She laughed forgivingly at her old self, and congratulated her new one. She’d come a long way!

Now, she burrowed in her bag for the book that Veronica had signed for her at the festival. She’d been saving it for emergencies: a time when only a really good page-turning, romantic read would do. This definitely qualified as an emergency.

Chapter Twenty-Four

The Saturday morning routines were not altered because Laura was there. The three of them went shopping, and then went to a café for lunch. Here they each had a bowl of soup, a bread roll and a sandwich. Then Laura’s father had steamed pudding with custard and her mother had a small portion of vanilla ice cream. Feeling terribly rebellious, Laura had a cappuccino.

‘I never could get on with coffee,’ said her mother, seeing Laura stir in some sugar. ‘It gives me a headache.’

‘It does make me a bit buzzy sometimes,’ said Laura, ‘but I thought it would make a change.’

‘From what?’ asked her mother, puzzled.

‘I don’t know really,’ Laura said apologetically. ‘Shall we get out the paper and start on the crossword?’

‘Not till we’re home,’ said her father. ‘I don’t like the paper to get all creased.’

‘Besides, it rude to read at the table,’ said her mother.

Laura’s flight was for Monday morning but she was seriously considering changing it to Sunday, to end the agony a bit sooner. But what reason could she possibly give?

On Sunday night she and her mother had just joined her father in the sitting room, having washed up the supper things, when there was a banging on the front door. Laura was calculating that there were over twelve hours until it was time for her to leave. She was really looking forward to the number being in single figures.

‘Oh my goodness, who can that be, at this time of night?’ said her mother.

‘I’ll go,’ said Laura. ‘I’m on my feet.’

‘Keep the chain on,’ ordered her father, getting up. ‘I can’t imagine who’d be knocking so loudly. If they were a neighbour, they’d just ring the bell.’

Laura, feeling she’d welcome in an army of Jehovah’s Witnesses just to relieve the monotony, went into the hall, unlocked the door, leaving the chain on, as instructed, and opened it.

‘Hello?’ she said tentatively. ‘Can I help you?’

‘Is that Laura? Jesus-Kerrist-on-a-jet-ski! Am I glad to see you! I’ve been over half the world trying to track you down!’

Sure she was about to faint, Laura fiddled with the door chain but her sweating fingers skidded over the fitting.

‘Who is it?’ demanded her father, coming up behind her. ‘Who are you letting into the house?’

‘It’s me, Dermot, you silly—’

Just then, Laura got the door open. Dermot was on the doorstep wearing his old leather jacket, a pair of filthy jeans and three days’ worth of stubble.

Laura’s father acted quickly and had the door shut again in seconds.

There was a roar from outside and then more banging.

‘Dad, it’s Dermot! He’s – well, he’s a friend of mine.’

‘I demand to see Laura!’ came Dermot’s voice. ‘Or I’ll break the door down.’

‘Better let him in, Dad. Think of the neighbours!’ Laura hoped this old mantra would work as it always had before.

‘Shall I call the police?’ said Laura’s mother, who had joined them.

‘Good idea,’ said her father. ‘I think the man must be drunk.’

‘I don’t think so, Dad.’

‘I’ve never dialled nine, nine, nine before,’ said her mother. ‘I’m not sure how it works.’

‘You don’t need to dial it!’ insisted Laura, wrestling with her father for control of the door. ‘He’s not a burglar! He’s someone I know!’

‘He’s not coming into my house!’ said her father. ‘Making all that noise.’

‘Mum, you don’t want the police round. The neighbours! What would they think? Or say?’ Laura had been threatened with the wrath of the neighbours all her life. Why weren’t her parents thinking about them now, when it would be quite useful?

‘I’m not letting him in. He sounds quite mad to me,’ said her father. ‘And Irish!’

‘That’s racist!’ said Laura, fighting harder now and getting her fingers on the door chain long enough to pull it back.

‘I am Irish, and I am mad,’ said Dermot unhelpfully, grinning at them and certainly looking the part. ‘But I’m not drunk and I undertake not to break the furniture.’