If I Never Met You: A Novel

“There he is.” Jamie gestured with the crook of his arm, hand stuffed in coat pocket, at a tall beaming man, a few yards away.

Jamie’s dad, Eric, was waiting for them on the platform in a windbreaker, jangling car keys in his hand. He doesn’t look ill, Laurie thought. He was balding, with rounded features and spectacles, no trace of Jamie whatsoever, to Laurie’s eyes. Jamie had told her he was a retired law lecturer and that was exactly what he looked like. He had the right bearing.

“They’re very British, I wouldn’t expect too much cancer talk,” Jamie had said during the journey. “My dad sees self-pity as a vice.”

They did hearty introductions, Jamie giving his dad a hug. She stepped back while there was some clapping of shoulders and second round hugging, then Jamie’s dad leaned down and pecked her on the cheek with a hello. He took her case from her without asking.

“Easy drive here?” Jamie said, and they made the obligatory small talk about traffic on the way to the car, over the noise of luggage wheels on concrete.

Laurie could almost see the Jamie Carter of myth and legend dissolve on contact. No one, not even Prince at the height of his fame, Laurie reckoned, could maintain their adulthood persona around their parents. Your closest family returned you to whence you’d came, when you were still a work in progress. They weren’t fooled for a second. Older you was a construct.

He drove them home in his Volvo, Laurie having to insist to be allowed to sit in the back, saying Jamie should be up front with his dad.

“Now it’s too late for a proper dinner obviously, but we thought you might be peckish, so your mother’s got a lump of Stilton and some pork pies.”

“Do you like pork pies, Laurie?” Jamie said, turning in his seat.

“Love them. Especially with pickle and mustard.”

“I’m sure Mary will have some. Or we can send Jamie to the shop!”

“Good for you, Jamie,” Laurie said, and Jamie mock huffed.

They arrived at the house, and Laurie thought: had anyone asked her, a few short weeks ago, what Jamie Carter’s background was, she’d have said, he’s definitely from money. Possibly privately schooled. You didn’t get his sort of confidence from nowhere.

Yet here they were, in a very pleasant but ordinary three bed semidetached in a suburb of Lincoln.

Jamie’s mum was who he took after physically, dark—presumably dyed her original color—hair in a bob, slender frame, high cheekbones, the same neat nose, dark blue eyes. She was a retired religious education teacher and reminded Laurie of Baroness Joan Bakewell.

They poured lots of red wine and they sat around a table in a dining room stacked with bookshelves, and insisted Laurie eat, eat.

Laurie wolfed down cheese on crackers and grapes and slices of pie and discussed the law, crime in Manchester, politics. Her twitchiness disappeared in small increments, until she was having a thoroughly nice time. She was less ashamed of the false pretenses that brought her here. Yes, she might not be what they thought she was, but her pleasure in their company was sincere, and she hoped vice versa.

The Carters appeared delighted she had plenty of opinions and insights. Dan’s parents were nice people, but they were principally interested in things immediately around them, the neighbor’s intrusive extension, the weather, their own children.

Jamie’s parents wanted Laurie’s take on world affairs, they wanted to know where she was from (but in a “you sound northern . . . ?” kind of way), what motivated her. When Jamie had said they badly wanted her to visit, she thought that it was excitement or relief their wayward son was settling down. While it might still be that, she could see they simply enjoyed meeting people.

“I’m very impressed at your commitment to legal aid cases,” his mother said, when Laurie described why she first wanted to study criminal law, and that everyone deserved a defense. “My son wants to make the world a better place, but only for himself.”

They all laughed.

“Nothing wrong with starting with the man in the mirror, as Michael Jackson said,” Jamie said.

“I think at some point you’re supposed to stop looking in the mirror,” Laurie said, and his parents hooted, slapped their thighs.

“Oh, I like her, Jamie, I really like her,” his mum said, putting her hand on Laurie’s wrist. Laurie squeezed her hand in return and met Jamie’s awestruck gaze of gratitude, and it was in some ways, the most unexpectedly rewarding split second of Laurie’s life.

They asked how Jamie and Laurie met, and Jamie told the lift story with much light wit. Laurie was glad to let him take over there, still prickling at the falsehood.

“We sparked, you know, and that was that.”

Laurie gave a forced smile.

Jamie had been right that the cancer wasn’t present. They obviously wanted normality, to still meet the girlfriend and talk interestedly with her, without the Sword of Damocles hanging over them.

When it came time to turn in, Laurie went ahead and Jamie hung back, tacit agreement it’d be easier for her to change without him.

It had been peculiar, when packing, to plan around the hitherto unexplored social occasion of “sharing a bedroom with a straight man you were not intimate with.” She had a Lycra tank top to stand in for the support of a bra overnight, and on top of that, baggy granddad pajamas. She’d brought a silk pillow, because she was too self-conscious to wear her usual turban to protect her hair from breaking against cotton. Eesh, she’d thought this would be easier because they weren’t sleeping together; in some ways, it was harder.

“I’ll sleep on the floor,” Jamie said in hoarse whisper, tiptoeing in quietly when Laurie was in bed.

“Jamie,” Laurie hoarse-whispered back. “Don’t, it’ll be crazy uncomfortable for you, and if your mum comes in with a cup of tea and sees you, it’s going to be a disaster. You’ll have to start making up lies I’m a True Love Waitser. We can put this big pillow between us like this”—she flumped it onto the bed—“as a breakwater.”

“Are you sure?” Jamie hissed.

“Yeah.”

“OK, thanks.”

“I’ll shut my eyes while you get changed,” Laurie whispered and they started giggling, stupid uncontrollable giggling, as if they were naughty kids at a sleepover.

“This is so fucking bizarre,” Jamie whispered; and Laurie said, “Telling me!”

She twisted around and buried her face in the pillow.

Moments later, Jamie got into bed beside her.

“Am I safe to look?” Laurie said in stagy whisper.

“No, I am doing a naked dance, it’s a nightly ritual of mine,” Jamie replied.

Laurie was shaking with laughter. It was welcome and necessary, this puncturing of the tension.

“Your parents are fantastic,” Laurie said.

“Aw, thanks. They liked you too. You look like a ‘young Marsha Hunt,’ apparently. I’m not sure who she is.”

“She was bedded by Mick Jagger.”

“That doesn’t narrow it down really, does it?”

“Says you!”

“Oh, for fu— I’m sick of this perception of me as the greatest man slag of the northwest,” he said.

“Then be less man slag. Be the unslaggy man you want to see in the world.”

“Pffft. I’m selective.”

“Then select fewer of them.”

“This country. It’ll soon be illegal to be a human man.”

Laurie heaved with laughter.

They whispered “n’night” to each other and Laurie felt grateful that she didn’t, to the best of her knowledge, snore.

The next thing Laurie knew, it was dawn, and she had an extremely disorientating moment when she awoke, remembering she was in the East Midlands, not Chorlton, and that the sleeping male form next to her wasn’t Dan. She couldn’t help wondering what would happen if she moved the pillow away, slipped her arms around him. Would he respond?

How did I get here? she wondered dozily, then it occurred to her that was a bloody good question.