When she gets out of the shower there is another message from him. Could you come here first do you think? I have a gift for you, but it’s too big to bring to the party.
She feels a blade of dread pass through her. She’s unsettled by his excitement about his gift to her. She’s never been a fan of grand gestures. But more than that, she feels strange about this last-minute change of plans. Blue’s words come back to her again: “A man who can’t love but desperately needs to be loved is a dangerous thing indeed.” She remembers Floyd’s lies about Noelle Donnelly’s house, about her family. She thinks of Noelle’s flat stomach at eight months pregnant and she thinks of the lip balm in Noelle Donnelly’s basement. And then she thinks of the press cuttings in Floyd’s study and the candlesticks in Poppy’s bedroom and she knows, she knows without a doubt that Floyd is bringing her to his house for some ulterior purpose.
She texts Paul and she texts Hanna.
I’m going to Floyd’s on my way to Bonny’s but I won’t be late. If I am late please call me immediately. If I don’t answer my phone please send someone to come for me. I’ll be at 18 Latymer Road N4. I’ll explain everything later.
Then she flicks back to Floyd’s text.
OK, she types back. No problem. I’ll come over when I’m ready.
Fantastic, he replies. See you soon!
She loads her car with wrapped gifts and champagne and leaves for Floyd’s house at 11 a.m.
A text arrives from Hanna.
Mum?
She doesn’t reply.
The roads are busy and slow. People pour out of the cinema at High Barnet, the high street is packed with shoppers, and there is a long-suffering reindeer in Highgate being petted by a crowd of children while a glowering Father Christmas tries to control them.
As she approaches Stroud Green Laurel feels a lump form in the back of her throat. Every street corner, shop front, and side road here holds a memory of Christmases past. The annual pilgrimage for pizzas on Christmas Eve, where they prebooked the same table every year. The last-minute run down to the pound shop on the high street for extra wrapping paper. The little park at the bottom of the road where they used to take the children after lunch to let off steam. The neighbors’ doors that Laurel and the children would post cards through on Christmas morning.
All of those messy Christmases, each a perfect gem, all gone, all turned to ash.
She pulls into Floyd’s road and turns off her ignition.
And then she stops for a moment, sits in her car, feeling the air chill as the heater dies down, watching the wind whip the bare branches of the trees overhead, waiting to feel ready to face Floyd.
Five minutes later she takes a deep breath, and heads toward his front door.
PART FIVE
58
Laurel Mack.
My God, what a woman.
Dazzling.
I could not believe that this woman was allowing me to put my hands upon her. That she was in my house. In my bed.
She smelled like five-star hotels. Her hair, under my fingertips, was like a satin sheet. Her skin was smooth and gleamed under the light. She tasted of icy winter mornings when my mouth was on hers. She held the back of my head hard against hers, those pretty hands entwined in my hair. She laughed when I joked. She smiled when I called her name. She spent an entire weekend in my home. And then another. She told her dying mother about me. She let me join her for a family birthday celebration. She sought their approval and she got it. She took my daughter shopping. She cupped my buttocks as she passed me on the stairs. She woke up with her head on my chest and she changed into my clothes and walked barefoot through my house and drank coffee out of my mugs and parked her car on my street and kept coming back and coming back and every time she came back she was better than I remembered and every time I saw her she was more beautiful than I remembered and I spent every waking hour in a state of raw disbelief that a woman like her would want to be with a man like me.
But now it is Christmas Eve and I am sitting in my living room trussed up in a Paul Smith jumper and a pair of trousers that are slightly too tight on