Then she presses the send button and quickly shuts her phone down and stuffs it into her handbag, horrified by what she has just done. “Shit,” she says, running her hands down her face. “You cow,” she says to her mum. “I can’t believe you made me do that!”
And her mother laughs, a strange, warped thing that comes from too high up her throat. But it’s a laugh. And the first one Laurel can remember hearing from her mother in a very long time indeed.
Seconds later Laurel’s phone rings. It’s him.
16
Laurel and Floyd have their second date that Tuesday. This time they stay local, and go to an Eritrean restaurant near Floyd that Laurel had always wanted to try but Paul would never agree to because they had a three-star hygiene rating taped to their window.
Floyd is dressed down, in a bottle-green polo shirt under a black jumper, with jeans. Laurel is wearing a fitted linen pinafore over a white cotton blouse, her hair clipped back, black tights and black boots. She looks like a trendy nun. She had not realized, until she met Floyd, how stern, virtually clerical all her clothes were.
“You look amazing,” he says, clearly missing all the signs of her sartorial struggle. “You are far too stylish for me. I feel like an absolute bum.”
“You look lovely,” she says, taking her seat, “you always look lovely.”
She’s amazed by how relaxed she feels. There are none of the nerves that plagued their first meeting last week. The restaurant is scruffy and brightly lit, but she feels unconcerned about her appearance, about whether or not she looks old.
She stares at his hands as they move and she wants to snatch them in midair, grab them, hold them to her face. She follows the movement of his head, gazes at the fan of smile lines around his eyes, glances from time to time at the just visible spray of chest hair emerging from the undone top button of his polo shirt. She wants, very badly, to have sex with him and this realization shocks her into a kind of flustered silence for a moment.
“Are you OK, Laurel?” he asks, sensing her awkwardness.
“Oh, God, yes. I’m fine,” she replies, smiling, and he looks reassured by this and the conversation continues.
He talks warmly to the waitstaff, who seem to know him well and bring him bonus dishes and morsels of things to taste.
“You know,” she says, tearing off a piece of flatbread and dipping it into a mutton stew, “my ex refused to bring me here because of the poor hygiene rating.” She feels bad for a moment, belittling Paul, painting a one-note picture of him for a stranger when there is much more to know about him.
“Well, hygiene, schmygiene, I have never had a dodgy tummy after eating here and I’ve been coming for years. These people know what they’re doing.”
“So how long have you lived around here?”
“Oh, God, forever. Since my parents went back to the U.S. They gave me a piece of money, told me to put it down somewhere scruffy but central. I found this house; it was all split up into bedsits, just disgusting. Jesus, the way people live. Dead rats. Blocked toilets. Shit on the wall.” He shudders. “But it was the best decision I ever made. You would not believe how much the place is worth now.”
Laurel could believe it, having sold her own Stroud Green house only a few years earlier. “Do you think you’ll ever go back to the States?”
He shakes his head. “No. Never. It was never home to me. Nowhere ever felt like home to me till I came here.”
“And your parents? Are they still alive?”
“Yup. Very much so. They were young parents so they’re still pretty spry. What about you?” he asks. “Are your parents still with you?”
She shakes her head. “My dad died when I was twenty-six. My mum’s in a home now. She’s very frail. I doubt she’ll be around this time next year.” Then she smiles and says, “In fact, it was her who told me to call you. On Sunday. She can barely talk, it takes her an age to form a sentence; usually all she wants to talk about is dying. But she told me to call you. She said it was fantastic that I’d met you. She literally put my phone in my hand. It’s the most”—she glances down at her lap—“the most maternal thing she’s done in