Page 28 of The Girlfriend

L AURA FOLLOWED DANIEL AROUND HIS FLAT, POLITELY ADMIRING IT .

He would point out the obvious (“This is the bathroom”) and she would answer with something equally mundane (“Nice tiles”).

All the fun of seeing her son’s first “grown-up” pad was lost. It saddened her and she could sense he disliked their new distance too.

He’d been in his new place a month now, but it was the first time she’d been to visit.

“It’ll be hard the next few weeks,” he’d said, “now I’m at the hospital.”

She knew it was true. His new job as a junior doctor was all encompassing, but it just highlighted another thing about him that she knew hardly anything about.

They had spoken on the phone a few times since the fateful night of the BBQ, short conversations that had mostly revolved around small talk, but the party was still an obstacle to any in-depth or relaxed chat.

It was impossible to say what she had to say over the phone, and so Laura had waited for a chance to speak to him, face-to-face, and here it was.

The nerves were made worse by the fact she missed him terribly and all she wanted to do was throw her arms around him and have them make up, but she couldn’t.

Not even Izzy had fully understood. They’d met up for coffee shortly after the BBQ and Laura had tried to explain what she’d found out: Cherry’s seemingly fictitious deceased grandmother and the disparity over the cost of the flights to France.

Since the BBQ and Cherry’s evasiveness, she was convinced again that something was up.

Izzy was sympathetic, but pointed out there could have been any number of explanations.

Worse, she’d said she should be careful not to interfere too much.

Paranoia had a way of alienating people.

Laura looked for signs of Cherry as they went around: clothes, shoes, bottles of products in the bathroom.

There was some conditioner and a toothbrush—nothing else that she could see—and so with some relief, she supposed that meant frequent stays, but not yet the semipermanent status that preceded moving in.

She also looked for the reassurance of condoms or a packet of birth-control pills, but couldn’t find any.

Daniel made ham baguette sandwiches for lunch. He pushed a plate toward her as she sat down at the breakfast bar. “Ta-da.”

She smiled. It looked huge. But delicious.

“Thank you. It’s a lovely flat.” She inspected him next; he looked tired, no doubt from all those hours that junior doctors had to put in.

She reached into her bag. “This is for you. I wasn’t sure what you might need .

. . ,” she trailed off, not wanting to highlight the fact she hadn’t seen his new home before now, and ruminated, not for the first time, that a few months ago she would probably have helped him move in.

He opened it up. Inside the stylish wrap was a top-of-the-line alarm clock that woke you with a gradually brightening sunrise that could also be accompanied by a dawn chorus, waves, or a rooster wake-up call.

“You can choose how long you want your sunrise to last for,” said Laura. “I thought it might be useful, now you’ve started on the foundation training, all those shifts and night work. It’s meant to help regulate your sleep/wake cycle.”

“I love it,” said Daniel. “Thanks. ‘A sunrise every day, no rain.’ ” He read the side of the box. “Seems it can also boost your mood and productivity levels. I’ll have no excuse not to write up good notes now.”

“Is it going okay?” asked Laura .

He lit up. “Hard, but I’m loving it. I’ve even got a bit more relaxed about writing prescriptions.

You should have seen me the first time—I checked and double-checked the British National Formulary and re-read the patient’s notes about three times.

It took me twenty minutes to do a five-minute job.

And the rounds! My supervising physician rattles out instructions like a machine gun. I’ve learned to write very fast.”

She watched him glow as he spoke and saw the five-year-old boy who’d bandaged his action men with toilet paper and told her he was going to be a doctor when he was “growned up, when I’m ten.

” And now look at him! She felt so proud, but something else was pricking away at her, childhood memories making her emotional. She quickly shook them away.

“And how about you? How did Pillow Fight go down with the great British public?”

“Not bad. It’s all about tonight, episode two. If we get good ratings, we should be okay for a second series.”

In fact, the first episode had opened to decent viewing figures, but had dropped off a little halfway through.

Nothing to worry about, Alison had told her.

The press reviews had been good. The other piece of news was that Alison had also called to say how much she and Sean had liked the treatment for the new crime drama idea—“It’s superbly zeitgeisty, and what a sensational character”—and wanted to commission a script, to be completed as soon as possible.

The rumor was that one of their mainstays was going to be axed and a replacement was needed.

Laura had no hesitation getting the writer on board and sent her away to come up with sixty pages of brilliance.

With any luck, Cavendish Pictures was going to be very busy over the next few months.

“Fingers crossed, eh.”

“Did you see it?”

“Cherry and I watched it together. We both thought it was brilliant.”

Mentioning Cherry reignited Laura’s nerves. She played with her sandwich, wondering how to start .

Daniel stopped midchew, then swallowed. “What?” he said challengingly.

She had to tell him about what she knew. The reasons why she thought Cherry wasn’t all she made herself out to be. She had to get him to listen to her.

“Look, I know we haven’t seen eye to eye over Cherry lately, and I understand your frustrations at some of the things I’ve said, but I deliberately left a few things out. Things that I’ve done and I’m sorry.”

“Go on.”

“I was also very embarrassed, and that’s why I didn’t tell you. At first.” That got his attention. She took a deep breath. “You see, when we were all in France, I went into your bedroom when you were both out one day.”

His eyebrows rose in indignation.

“I didn’t plan to. I just happened to pass by and the door was open and .

. . well, I went inside. I found Cherry’s flight details and there were two things I noticed about them.

First of all, she hadn’t booked a return flight, which I thought was odd when we’d agreed on when she was going home, and second, it turns out she’d only paid five hundred pounds for it.

You gave her six hundred,” she prompted.

He didn’t say anything, just looked at her, and Laura thought it best to plow on.

“That’s not the only thing. When I came back to London, I went to Highsmith and Brown. Someone there told me Cherry had gone to France to go to her grandmother’s funeral.”

“What?”

“I’m pretty sure she said it to get the time off. I think she needed something big in order to be allowed the leave at a time when they were very short staffed.”

“They probably got her mixed up with someone else. Mum, I’m not being obtuse, but is this really all you have to go on?

To think she’s some sort of gold digger?

They could both easily be mistakes—maybe Cherry forgot how much she paid and this person you spoke to at the agency . . . Who was it, her boss? ”

“No.”

“Who then?”

“A temp, I think.”

“There you go!” he said triumphantly. “They probably haven’t even got the right person. And if Cherry was going to fleece me for money, I think she’d go for more than a hundred pounds.”

“No, you don’t understand—” she said desperately.

“Please, Mum,” he snapped. Then he took a deep breath. “It’s your birthday tomorrow. Let’s not fall out about this now. Can we save it for after I come back from this weekend?”

Laura bit her lip. The more she heard about Cherry, the more convinced she was that the girl was bad news.

Daniel had told her that Cherry had tried to change the booking that had clashed with her birthday dinner, but the company had no other availability that summer that worked around his hospital shifts.

She didn’t believe a word of it. In fact, she was beginning to think it wasn’t just about the money.

This trip, Laura suspected, was designed to show her who had the biggest place in Daniel’s life.

Cherry was intent on taking her son away from her.

A sudden thought came to Laura. What if Cherry managed one day to extract a proposal from him?

An avalanche of misery suddenly descended.

Cherry would machinate a lifetime of distance, and all the things she’d been looking forward to would suddenly be out of bounds: watching his career grow, myriad family events, Christmases, birthdays, holidays.

She’d have to wait for rarely granted permission to see her own grandchildren. . . .

“Look, while we’re away, I’ll ask her about it, and you and I can talk next week. Deal?”

She was brought back into focus. She looked at him and knew that, unless she wanted to alienate him further, she’d have to accept. She nodded.

“Would you like something else?” he said, looking at her barely touched baguette.

“No, no, this is just great.” Her appetite had waned, but she took a bite with gusto. “Are you looking forward to tomorrow?” If nothing else, she would keep asking him about his time with Cherry to see if she could glean anything more.

“Can’t wait. There’s been so much rain the water’s up to grade four. The thrills start at eight in the morning.”

Cold water and speed, it sounded like hell to Laura.

“You are . . . being careful, aren’t you?” she said.

He frowned, not sure what she meant. “It’s all a legit company.. . .”

“No, I don’t mean that.”

“What, then?”

She raised her eyebrows in a way that said, Do I have to spell it out?

His mouth dropped open. “Mum! I’m a doctor. I don’t think I need a lecture on contraception.”

He started to laugh and then couldn’t stop until tears were rolling down his face. “Oh, Mum,” he managed to gasp out, “you are funny sometimes.”

She smiled wanly, but her stomach was still churning, as she knew it would continue to do until her questions about Cherry were answered.