Love Letters (46 page)

A neighbouring front door was heard to open. Laura hissed at her mother, ‘People will wonder what on earth’s going on! Let him in!’ As she said that, she got the door open and took hold of Dermot’s sleeve. ‘Get in, quickly!’

‘Have you any fierce chihuahuas in there?’ he asked, obviously relishing the situation.

‘No!’ Laura pulled him in. ‘They’re Dobermanns!’ She shut the door and leant on it, panting for a few seconds, and then regarded her parents and Dermot, who were all looking at her. She swallowed. ‘Mum, Dad, this is Dermot Flynn, the one who came to the literary festival I organised.’

Her parents stared at Dermot warily.

‘Maybe we should go through to the sitting room? I’ll put the kettle on,’ Laura persisted, convinced that the narrow hallway was not the best place to be in the circumstances.

‘How do you do, Laura’s mother.’ He took her hand. ‘Laura’s father. I’m Dermot Flynn and I’ve been trying to trace your daughter for some time.’

‘They’re Mr and Mrs Horsley,’ said Laura, beginning to see the funny side but trying to hide it with irritation. ‘Now do go and sit down, everyone. I’ll make tea.’ Her heart sang at the sight of him, even if she didn’t want him to see just how pleased she was to see him. He had a lot of explaining to do.

‘No!’ her mother squeaked, suddenly aware she and her husband would be left with this terrifying Irishman if Laura made tea. ‘I’ll do it!’

‘Now listen,’ said her father, bracing up to Dermot and seeming to Laura suddenly very old and frail. ‘I don’t know—’

‘I’m sure he’ll explain in a minute,’ said Laura, suddenly protective of her parents to whom Dermot must seem like a creature from another universe. ‘If we all just sit down where it’s comfortable, we can talk.’

Feeling like a corgi nipping at the heels of beasts much larger, she chivvied her father and Dermot into the sitting room and her mother into the kitchen. She virtually pushed the men into chairs and switched off the television.

‘Well, Dermot,’ she said into the silence, frightened that she might laugh, ‘fancy meeting you here.’

‘To be honest, Laura, and hoping I’m not being rude –’ he glanced at Laura’s father, who was looking very wary and ready to spring up at any moment, should Dermot look like doing anything unexpected ‘– but I’d have preferred to meet you somewhere else.’

‘Oh?’ She would too, obviously, but couldn’t say so.

‘Yes, I’ve had the devil of a job finding you.’

‘So, how do you two know each other?’ her father asked.

‘The literary festival. I did tell you,’ said Laura.

‘I was one of the writers,’ said Dermot.

‘The star writer,’ said Laura, to punish him a little.

‘I’ve never heard of you!’

‘You never read novels, Dad. But he was one of my set texts at university.’

‘Was I?’ Dermot was very amused. ‘Did you ever tell me that?’

Laura winced. That sounded so intimate – it made Dermot seem more than just a writer she’d met. She was always meeting writers when she worked at the bookshop. With luck her parents wouldn’t notice.

‘So why were you banging on our door in the middle of the night?’ demanded her father.

‘It’s only half past nine,’ put in Laura. Although she wanted to kill Dermot for about a hundred good reasons, she was really very pleased to see him. He had at least put a stop to the boredom.

‘I was looking for Laura. I’ve been looking for ages – ever since I came back from America – but no one would tell me where she was. And she wouldn’t return any of my calls.’ He looked pointedly at her. She shrugged.

‘Why do you want her?’ asked her father.

‘Who told you I was here?’ asked Laura, suddenly intensely curious. ‘No one I know knows I’m here.’

A glance at her father, and Dermot decided to ignore his question. ‘I eventually tracked down Grant.’

‘Grant?’ said her father. ‘That chap you used to work with?’

Dermot nodded. ‘It’s a long and complicated story. Eleanora – my agent – wouldn’t tell me where she was.’

‘I told her not to,’ said Laura.

‘Nor would Fenella and Rupert.’

‘Who are all these people?’ demanded her father, as if trying to pick up the plot of a long-running soap opera.

‘Friends of mine,’ said Laura. ‘Oh good, here’s Mum with the tea.’

Mrs Horsley had got out the best cups and saucers. Pouring and distributing tea took an inexorably long time, but it did mean her mother had accepted Dermot as a guest, thought Laura, which was a start. She’d have to hope her father thawed soon or they’d be in for a very tricky evening.

‘So how did you get on to Grant?’ Laura was touched by her friends’ efforts to obey her entreaties not to give away her whereabouts, even if a part of her had secretly wished one of them might have disobeyed her.

‘Via Monica’s website,’ said Dermot. ‘She said she was sworn to secrecy but she didn’t think that Grant was, and so gave me his email address.’

‘Oh.’ Good for Monica! She knew when a woman was lying to herself and her friends.

‘Sadly for me, his email was down for a couple of days. He said he had been told not to tell me anything but that he thought I had a right to know. So he gave me your address.’

‘It’s all very complicated,’ said Mrs Horsley, nibbling a ginger nut to aid her concentration.

‘So I went there,’ Dermot continued.

‘Where?’ asked Mr Horsley.

‘To where Laura lives in Ireland.’

Some hint of what might have happened, given what had gone on earlier, occurred to Laura. She blushed retrospectively. But joy at the enormous trouble Dermot had gone to find her was starting to warm her heart like sun on the first spring day.

‘I was banging on your door,’ he went on, ‘although to be honest, I could tell there was nobody in.’

Laura was sweating now.

‘Eventually a girl came up to me and asked what I was up to. She recognised me and went mad. Flung herself at me and said, “Oh my God! We didn’t believe her when she said she knew you, but she does! Fantastic!” Stuff like that.’ He frowned slightly at Laura. ‘I didn’t realise you’d be proud enough to know me that you’d tell your new friends about it.’

‘It was forced out of me,’ Laura explained. ‘It was at a book group. They were reading
The Willows
. They said you’d put in the Oedipal bit consciously. I said you didn’t. I did not say I knew you well!’

Only Laura saw the laughing message in his eyes, referring to just how well they did know each other. ‘Thank goodness for that.’

‘So what else did Shona say?’

‘She asked if I’d go and talk to her book group and I said hell would freeze over first.’ He paused. ‘Unless, of course, you’d like me to? I didn’t know it was your book group too, at the time.’

Laura thought she might cry. It wasn’t a declaration of love but it was a very, very kind thing to say. She shook her head.

‘Anyway, after a bit more banter, I asked her if she knew where you were. She said you’d told a friend of hers that you were going to visit your parents in England.’

‘So you’d left your address with your friend in Ireland?’ suggested Mrs Horsley. ‘How sensible.’ She regarded her daughter as if surprised she had shown so much intelligence.

‘No,’ said Laura. ‘I didn’t.’

‘I got back to Grant. Fortunately I had his mobile number by then.’

‘He’s only been here once. He’s usually hopeless about remembering addresses,’ Laura said.

‘He remembered the name of the town,’ Dermot explained. He looked at Laura’s father. ‘Thank God you’re not ex-directory.’

‘Hmm. Well, you never know when someone might need to get in touch with you,’ said Mr Horsley, as if he had foreseen this very occasion.

‘So here I am. If the flights had been a bit more frequent, I’d have been here sooner.’

The clock on the mantelpiece struck ten.

‘Where are you staying?’ asked Mrs Horsley.

Dermot looked at Laura. ‘To be frank with you, I only had one thought in my head, and that was to find Laura. I didn’t think about booking anywhere to stay.’

‘There are no hotels in town,’ said Mr Horsley.

‘It’s too late to book in at a bed and breakfast,’ said Mrs Horsley. ‘Although I suppose I could ask Sheila if she’s got vacancies, but I don’t really like—’

‘Couldn’t he stay here?’ asked Laura, fighting to keep the edge of hysteria out of her voice.

‘No. The spare room is full of your stuff, Laura,’ said her mother reprovingly, the silent subtext being: if you’d wanted your friend to stay you should have done something about it.

Her father said, ‘We took it all out of the loft when we had the extra insulation put in.’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake! He can have my bed!’ said Laura. ‘I’ll sleep on the sofa.’

‘No,’ said Dermot firmly, ‘I’ll sleep on the sofa.’

Laura’s parents exchanged worried glances. What had happened to their safe, familiar Sunday evening? Their daughter, who’d never been much trouble, even if she had been difficult about her studies, had inflicted this wild Irishman on them. What was the best way to react?

‘Is there really nowhere he could stay in town?’ Mrs Horsley asked her husband.

‘No, dear.’

‘Mum! It’ll be all right.’ Laura tried to be patient. She did understand her parents’ anxieties. ‘Really it will. It’s only for one night.’

‘I’ll be quite happy on the sofa,’ said Dermot. ‘I’ve slept on plenty of them in my time.’

‘No, you must have Laura’s bed. We can’t put a guest on the sofa. I’ll go and find some clean sheets.’

‘Really, Mrs Horsley.’ Dermot was firm. ‘There’s no need to change the sheets just for one night. It’s not worth all that washing.’

‘I’ve only slept in them two nights,’ Laura pointed out. ‘They’ll be fine for him.’

‘Really—’ her mother protested.

‘Really,’ Dermot repeated. ‘They’ll be fine.’

‘Shall I make some more tea?’ said Laura, feeling the argument about where Dermot should sleep and the sheets could go on all night if some kind of full stop wasn’t put to it. Tea was the ultimate full stop, she felt.

‘And maybe you would like some sandwiches?’ asked her mother, making Laura send a wave of gratitude towards her. She wouldn’t feel so grateful to Dermot if he accepted them, however. She didn’t know why he’d really come to find her and she just wanted the evening to end. Perhaps everything would seem clearer in the morning.

‘No thank you, Mrs Horsley, I ate some fish and chips somewhere along my route. Can’t remember where.’

‘If you want good fish and chips you have to go up north,’ said her father, whose own family came from Lancashire.

‘I’ll make some more tea.’ Laura disappeared into the kitchen to be joined by her mother seconds later. It was obvious her parents had no intention of retiring just yet. Usually nothing would stop their nightly routines.

‘Darling, who is he?’ she whispered, although it was unlikely she could be heard through two doors and quite a long corridor.

‘I told you!’ replied Laura, also whispering, finding mugs, the best china being still in the sitting room. ‘He’s a writer who came to the literary festival I helped arrange. I did tell you, about the festival, I mean.’

‘But why has he gone to so much trouble to find you? You’re not . . .’ she hesitated ‘. . . an “item” or anything?’

Laura put her arm round her mother and hugged her, just for using the word ‘item’. ‘Of course not,’ she said calmly. ‘I expect he just wants me to do something for him. I helped him run a writing course.’

‘I don’t think he would have made such an effort just for that,’ said her mother, refilling the kettle. ‘I think he likes you.’

These thoughts had been running through Laura’s mind like a tape on fast-forward. Why had he take such pains to track her down? Could it possibly be because he did like her? But was that enough for her to risk everything for? There were still so many unanswered questions she needed to ask before she even dared to hope that. ‘Well, maybe . . .’

‘And I wouldn’t blame you if you liked him,’ she confided. ‘I’ve always had a soft spot for wild Irishmen.’

‘Mum!’

‘Just as well I’ve got your father, isn’t it? Otherwise who knows what might have happened? Shall I just put milk in here? Or bring them through with the jug on the tray?’

Laura was reeling from her mother’s confession. It was not just that they shared a previously unsuspected predilection; it was the fact her mother had told her about it. ‘Oh, let’s just put the milk in here.’

Dermot gave up arguing about which of them would sleep in Laura’s bed and which on the sofa when he realised that the sofa option involved Laura’s single sleeping bag. He did not, he stated, relish sleeping like a sausage in a skin.

Laura had rearranged the cushions on the sofa for what seemed like the hundredth time but was still not comfortable. She suspected, however, that it was not the cushions or the sofa that was making it hard to sleep, but the thought of Dermot sharing the same three-bedroom semi as her and her parents. Him turning up like that was like a miracle, or a film, or a romantic novel . . . or something.

Why had he chased her all over the British Isles? (Well, England and Ireland. Did Ireland count as the British Isles?) Surely he wouldn’t have done that when presumably he could have just gone home to Bridget? Could their night of passion possibly have been more than just amazing sex for him, too?

Ever since she’d worked out, at the festival, that he’d been frantically writing, which was why he’d stopped contacting the outside world, even her, she’d wondered if their subsequent passion was just some sort of release for him, as soldiers high on adrenalin after battle need.

But surely he wouldn’t have gone to all that trouble to locate her unless she was more than a woman in the right place at the right time? No. He hadn’t just jumped on her, he’d made love to her, tenderly, thoughtfully, taking account of her inexperience. He’d made sure she had a really wonderful time.