If I Never Met You: A Novel

Since Baby Shower Gate, after which had ensued the longest stoniest silence imaginable, on both sides, Laurie had been in danger of believing she could avoid the Chorlton set forever. She was getting a loaf of bread in the local deli and, too late, spotted Stepford Claire by the luxury spreads.

Claire put down a jar of organic orange curd and made a swift beeline. Laurie inwardly slumped in dismay. Where was Claire’s sense of good old-fashioned burning shame—couldn’t she simply pretend she didn’t see her? But that wasn’t Claire’s style, of course. Nothing about Claire’s style was Laurie’s style.

“Hi! Wow. OK. This isn’t easy . . .”

Why bother then? Laurie said nothing. Claire didn’t sound uneasy, she sounded slightly breathless and gleeful. In her place, Laurie would’ve been shriveling into smoke.

“Reeeeeaaalllly sorry about the WhatsApp thing. We were all still getting our heads ’round it, but there’s no excuse. Please accept my apology?”

“Sure. I’d forgotten it, to be honest,” Laurie said.

Claire narrowed her eyes. “So how are you doing?”

“Great,” Laurie said.

“Oh, great. Pleased for you.” Claire tipped her head to the side: So that’s how we’re playing it.

This wasn’t a friendly exchange; it was like fencing.

“I hear you’re seeing someone?” Claire said, picking a stray strand of her neatly scissored, blunt blond bob out of her lip balm. Dan always said she had Lego hair.

Naturally, whether Laurie had another man was the most important thing. Especially with it being foretold that she’d never be able to find one.

“Yeah,” Laurie had forgotten the three witches of WhatsApp would be seeing Facebook, same as everyone else. “Jamie.”

“You work with him?”

Oh God, of course. She’d have then been straight on to Dan.

“Yes, Jamie is at Salter’s.”

“I didn’t know if . . . you’re, you know. At the stage of meeting each other’s friends, or if it’s that serious, but I wondered if you’d like to bring him to Phil’s fortieth this Saturday coming? It’s nothing much, open house, barbecue. Dan’s invited. He’ll be on his own, I should add . . . she’s, erm . . . his new girlfriend is away.”

Hah, so Dan and preg Meg got an invite straight out of the traps. Claire, on spec, decided it might make for a spicy spectacle to throw Laurie and toy boy into it too. Ugh.

“Thanks, I’ll have to see. Socializing with Dan isn’t among my favorite hobbies now, you can probably imagine.” Seeing Pri and Erica and their husbands appeals as much as getting the runs on a choppy ferry crossing too. “And I’ll have to ask Jamie if he’s free,” Laurie added.

“Yes, Dan said he didn’t think your fella would come.”

This was lightly, rather than deliberately, thrown. Claire could be extraordinarily insensitive, Laurie had forgotten that. It wasn’t only about what she inflicted on purpose, she was perfectly capable of doing it by mistake. She was hugely indiscreet.

“Oh. Why not?”

“Erm . . .” Claire looked flustered for the first time during their conversation.

“He said . . . well, implied, really. That it was more of a fling than a relationship. That coupled-up stuff wasn’t the page you guys were on. Said Jamie’s kind of known for casual, not commitment.”

Laurie seethed. She was loath to give Claire the satisfaction of knowing she’d gotten to her, but she had. Dan had said disparaging things about Jamie, and possibly even about his purported misuse of Laurie. Meanwhile, Laurie had spread nothing about stupid Spotify playlists.

She’d not done the Wounded Woman tour, made them feel bad about picking his side, made it a female solidarity issue. She’d never be so crass. But Dan’s stupid wounded pathetic male pride, after all he’d done, drove him to call Jamie trivial, a distraction. Don’t embarrass her by asking her to produce him at an event full of responsible adults, he’s not up to that sort of scrutiny. Bit of a Jack the lad, if you know what I mean. For display purposes only. Well. Two could play that game.

“What time does it start? Half six. OK, I’ll let you know.” This was obviously British code for “I’m as likely to attend as self-immolate,” and Claire said tartly: “Sure, well, you’re welcome.”

When she got in, Laurie called Jamie, more to rant than anything. Expecting him to make polite noises of sympathy while saying he was very sorry, he had something on that night, and her saying, Oh sure, sure I was only venting. Instead, he offered to pick her up at six.

“It’s walking distance from yours, right?”

“What? You want to go?”

“‘Want’ is overselling it, but fuck them, if Dan’s been running me down, running us down, then this is essential labor.”

“The rivalry of men,” Laurie said, and Jamie laughed.

“I don’t know if you noticed, my interests in this and your interests bled into each other a while back. Never mind the promotion, since Dan accused me of trying to ruin you professionally, this became wholly personal.”

Laurie internally repeated my interests in this and your interests bled into each other a while back, after ending the call. Ostensibly a fairly trivial remark, but that was precisely how Laurie felt and didn’t dare say. They started as accomplices, now they were a team.

Jamie squinted in the dark on Laurie’s doorstep, all facial geometry and good tailoring and lightly worn masculine confidence, holding a bottle of red wine, and Laurie thought anew: God, you’re so beautiful, you’re nonsensical.

You wouldn’t ever want to be that beautiful because becoming less beautiful as you aged would be so hard. How would he cope when that incredible jaw sagged, when those full lips thinned, when the dark blue eyes became pouchy? Would he mind, would he notice the difference in how the opposite sex treated him, as his powers dimmed? In Lincoln and after her dad’s party, he’d started to be a boyish funny friend; in Manchester, this evening, he was returned to being an intimidating semistranger.

“You all right? You look like you’re doing very long addition in your head or something,” Jamie said.

Laurie gave a startled laugh. “Yes, no, fine, sorry. Haha. Shall we head off?”

Jamie gave her a quizzical look as if to say, Ey up, have you started on the wine already.

They walked to Claire and Phil’s at Corkland Road and Laurie said: “Brace yourself for a major lump of property. Their home is ridiculous.”

“Farmhouse sinks with boiling water taps? Heated tiled floors? Quartz worktops? Am I warm?”

“Oh my God, you’re burning up!”

A five-bedroom, bay-fronted Edwardian semidetached—Laurie had wondered how much of Claire and Phil having loads of friends was because they had loads of money. They were both quite brittle people, really, but presided as king and queen over Chorlton’s thirty-somethings’ and parents’ party circuit because they had the castle.

“Laurie! You came!” Claire said as she threw the heavy front door open to the Minton tiled hallway, in genuine astonishment.

“Phil’s only forty once!” Laurie said, feeling grimy at the insincerity.

Claire openly stared at Jamie until Laurie intervened with the introductions, passing over coats, bottles, and gifts.

Their ocean liner–size kitchen was fairly busy, but the fall-quiet-and-stare when Laurie and Jamie entered was perceptible.

In a corner, she saw Dan turn, the emotion pass across his face. He turned back quickly.

Claire fussed over getting them both drinks and then they stood in splendid isolation, as Claire as hostess was fast claimed by someone else.

A conversation right by them involved a man in an ecru polo neck saying: “It’s only worth doing if the zucchinis are properly ripe, and sadly we’re in south Manchester, not Sicily, hahahaha.”

They’d been there ten minutes when Pri and Erica, both looking mortified, made an approach.

“Hi, Laurie.”

“Hi! This is Jamie.” They cooed hellos. Neither Pri or Erica were truly malign, of course, they were just in Claire’s gang, playing by her rules. They weren’t as egregious in the Baby Shower roast. But some people never really leave school, and more fool them, given how horrible living by school rules was.

Neither of them had the front that Claire did and didn’t reference the WhatsApp, looking pink around the edges and gulping wine like it was water after a marathon.

When they did steal looks at Laurie, it was with a nervous incredulousness. How was this possible, that she could survive being thrown over by Dan for a woman now bearing his child, and consent to come to the same party, and have a dashing younger man in tow? Had she made a pact with an old washerwoman that would see her teeth fall out on the stroke of a fairy-tale midnight?

Laurie remembered coming to dinner parties here and she and Dan putting effort into being a funny charming double act. It was an aspect of being in a couple you never talked about, the way you developed a you-wash-and-I’ll-dry persona for public consumption.

That’s why the schadenfreude had been so strong when they split. There were couples here that got gossiped about after they left, speculation on why he spoke so harshly to her, why she drank so hard, whether the au pair was too pretty to be a good idea.

But Dan and Laurie were being groomed to join the upper ranks, as proven by Dan being asked to man the barbecue of a weekend with Phil, or Laurie making it into baby shower WhatsApp groups, despite having no baby to contribute.

“They like the quota filling of having another woman of color in the gang, you and Pri are great for the photos,” Dan used to guffaw, while Laurie bashed him with a cushion in mock outrage.

But you know, he might not be totally wrong. There was a really nice woman called Maya who ran a local vegan café who was a single mother, and very curvy, and Claire had made disparaging remarks about I know I shouldn’t say this, but what can she eat that puts weight on?! And Maya never scored invites.

“How did you two meet?” Erica was asking, and Jamie was deftly retelling the lift story.

When he excused himself to the toilet, both Erica and Pri breathed: “Oh my God, Laurie. What a catch.”

“Ah, he’s all right.”

“He’s gorgeous.” Pri sighed reverentially.

Laurie should be feeling some ignoble glory, but her overriding feeling was, this is bollocks. It’s ALL bollocks. Not purely because Jamie was a stuntman, an actor, but she saw it for what it was. When she had Dan, she fit in, she was accepted. He left her, and she was unclean, cast out, othered.

Now she sashayed back with another presentable member of the opposite sex, and her status had shot up again. None of it was to do with who Laurie was, anything she had to say for herself.

If your value was dependent on these things, you had none.

“I’m so so sorry about the WhatsApp group,” Erica said, having possibly had enough alcohol now to broach it. Both she and Pri looked at their shoes.

“I don’t mind. Talking about people you know is natural, isn’t it,” Laurie said. Then, in case they thought she was going to be nothing but magnanimous, added, “Claire doesn’t like other women, though, from what I can tell. So good luck with her continued friendship if either of your partners leave you.”

Their heads snapped up and their mouths fell open.

“If you’ll excuse me, I think Jamie needs some rescuing over there.”

Had walking away ever felt this good? As Laurie crossed the kitchen to join Jamie in another group, she knew this was probably the last time she’d spend time with these people, and realized that it finally felt OK. She was more than these people said she was—if breaking up with Dan was the catalyst for giving fewer fucks about other people’s opinions and reminding herself who she was without him, well, perhaps it had almost been worth it.

Perhaps, in their relationship, she had lost herself a little bit.

Jamie was politely discussing the merits of turning forty with Ecru Polo-Neck Zucchini Guy (and Laurie was counting the minutes until it was safe to politely leave), when a chilling scream went up from the direction of the Belfast sink with the boiling water tap. Laurie spent a second wondering why red wine was spurting out of Phil’s arm like a geyser, before realizing it was his blood. A jagged shard of wine bottle stuck proud out of the sink, like a shark’s fin.

While everyone else was frozen, Jamie grabbed a tea towel, Laurie glancing at him in surprise.

“Here, mate. You’re going to be fine.” Calmly, authoritatively, and with great speed, Jamie tied it around Phil’s arm as a tourniquet, the blood instantly staining it rich crimson. Phil slumped forward and Jamie caught him, with some effort, as Phil was north of six feet.

“Oh my God, oh my God, he’s passed out?!” Claire wailed. “Due to blood loss?!”

“He’s fainted at the sight of the blood, and who can blame him, to be fair,” Jamie said, lowering Phil to the floor and carefully maneuvering his head forward, both hands smeared with the overflow. Claire crouched down, putting an arm around her husband, whimpering.

“Phil! Phil? Can you hear me?”

“He needs to go to hospital, I think he might’ve cut an artery. It’s Saturday night and I don’t know how fast the ambulance will be, versus taking him there ourselves. You got a car I could drive?” Jamie said. “I’ve only had half a beer.”

A sheet-white Claire nodded and fumbled keys out of her handbag.

“Thanks. Can I get some help putting him into it?”

It was a confronting situation, and only a minute or two had elapsed, but Laurie still couldn’t help notice that their closest mates were spectating and letting unknown plus-one guy Jamie do the heavy lifting, literally and figuratively.

Dan darted over to the semiconscious Phil’s side and helped heave him to his feet. Laurie had an ungenerous moment of wondering if it was an authentic urge to help or if he’d had enough of Jamie being first responder.

“Are you a doctor?” said a posh, thin man in spectacles, to Jamie, in a tone of challenge as much as any admiration.

“No, I did a first aid course at Cub Scouts,” Jamie said, and Laurie couldn’t tell if he was being funny or not.

Outside, Dan helped heft the bloodied Phil into the back seat of a BMW, next to Claire, while Jamie in the front jammed the key in the ignition and adjusted the mirror. Laurie got in the passenger side.

“I didn’t think you were coming today,” Dan said to her, as he closed the back passenger side door and peered in at her, as they prepared to drive off.

“Yeah, I heard—you didn’t think Jamie would be up to it, or something?”

Dan had no comeback but to stare blankly, and she slammed the door. They pulled out of the drive and into the evening traffic.

“We’ll be at the Royal in no time,” Jamie said, “How’s he doing back there?” Claire had reached the tearful stage and merely whimpered.

“Hey, hey,” Jamie soothed. “This is a few stitches and good as new. It’s frightening to see blood, that’s all.”

Claire nodded. Phil was a sickly beige color and not fully with it, which Laurie judged maybe a good thing. She wouldn’t want to be there when they unwound the tea towel.

At the ER he got rushed straight through and Laurie and Jamie were left in their party clothes, under bright lights, surrounded by people with sections of their anatomy leaking or bandaged, a baby crying on the other side of the room.

“Fresh air?” Jamie said, and Laurie nodded. “Let me wash this off and I’ll meet you out front.”

“Well, that was the most dramatic way to get out of cooking fifty burgers I’ve ever seen,” Jamie said, joining her five minutes later, a few rusty specks on his sleeves and a massive Nike swoosh across the front as trophy of the evening’s unexpected turn.

“Your shirt,” Laurie said, gesturing at its ruin.

“T.M.Lewin”—Jamie inspected it, pulling it away from his abdomen—“RIP.”

Laurie had a split second of imagining unbuttoning it before a shower, and wondered if there was something in the adrenaline of emergency that made you randy, because she really wanted to.

Minutes later, Claire found them, looking considerably more composed.

“They’re giving him a transfusion and they might keep him in overnight for observation, but he’s going to be fine.”

“See, told you. Let us know how he gets on, won’t you,” Jamie said kindly.

“I can’t thank you enough,” Claire said to the Hammer Horror–splattered Jamie.

“No thanks necessary,” he said, returning her car keys.

“You were an uncompromising man of action and a general hero tonight,” Laurie said as they waited for their taxis.

It was only when Laurie hugged him goodbye, she felt how hard he was trembling. He drew back and could see in her expression, she’d felt it.

“You OK?”

“I . . . I find stuff like this difficult, after my brother.”

Of course. Laurie hadn’t thought of that until this moment, how was that possible? Of course Jamie might have learned what to do, that he’d want some basic skills.

“But you helped anyway?” she said. “There were tons of people who knew Phil there; one of them would have stepped in eventually.”

Jamie looked slightly baffled. “My dad always says if you can help someone, you should help someone.”

“I love your dad,” Laurie said, on reflex.

“Thank you,” Jamie said.

“Can I . . . will you let me write to them, when we go our separate ways? To tell them how much it meant to me, meeting them? I couldn’t bear for them to think I flitted in and flitted out without a backward glance.”

“Yes,” Jamie said, looking drawn. “Sorry I’ve put you in that position.”

“I would rather be in that position than have not met them. That’s the truth.”

Jamie stared at her heavily for a second. “There’s something I said. That weekend away. I think I suggested that . . .”

A car horn interrupted them and a cabdriver waved at Laurie.

“Suggested what?”

“Ah. It’ll keep,” Jamie said.