‘Old and leathery,’ Angus suggests.
We walk past a couple pulling matching suitcases on wheels behind them. ‘Wonder where they’re off to,’ Angus says. ‘Have you ever been abroad, Lauren?’
‘Nope. Don’t have a passport. I’ve only ever been on a coach and bus.’
‘Where would you go, if you could go anywhere?’ he continues.
She thinks. ‘Bournemouth,’ she ends up saying. ‘I like the sea.’
‘Me too. How about abroad? If you could goanywhere, right now?’
I sense she might feel put on the spot. It might be impossible for her to answer this question when the likelihood of stepping on to a plane is slim to non-existent, at least for now. Do we shut down our hopes and dreams, when we believe them so unlikely to happen?
‘Hawaii,’ she says finally. ‘I’d wear one of those hula skirts with a big necklace.’ She smiles at the thought. ‘And I’d sip cocktails by the sea. Maybe when I get married? I can go there on my honeymoon.’
‘Sounds like a plan,’ I say, noticing how good it feels to hear her believe that maybe there is a life beyond what she has experienced so far. That we can all have hopes and dreams, no matter how bad our start in life.
‘Want to hear my funny honeymoon story?’ Angus asks.
‘Go on,’ I say.
‘I didn’t put as much planning into my honeymoon as perhaps I should have done. It’s the one and only time Soph has let me book a surprise holiday. Anyway, we’d both dreamed of going to Jamaica so I booked us into this incredible hotel, which Winston Churchill and Noël Coward had apparently visited. I couldn’t believe my luck, they wanted to give us newly-weds the best double room with a sea view, and I bagged the bargain deal of two weeks for the price of one. Sophie is going to love me even more, I thought, buying first-class plane tickets with the extra cash I’d saved. Anyway, it was an amazing hotel, a lovely pool, the food was delicious, we were served martinis by men in white gloves.’
‘What went wrong?’ I want us to be put out of our misery.
‘I hadn’t realised I’d booked us in during the hurricane season.’
I burst out laughing.
‘It didn’t stop raining.’
‘No wonder you got such a bargain,’ I say.
‘Every day we were rushed into the dining room, some member of staff saying “the wind is up” before demanding we duck under the table because any minute now there could be flying corrugated iron which could decapitate us.’
‘I should think Sophie wanted to divorce you,’ I say, ‘I would.’
Lauren seems quiet again, lost in her own world. Out of breath, she sits down on one of the park benches, by the pond, where Canada geese and pigeons gather in the hopes of being fed. A mother and daughter are by the padlocked gates, ready to oblige with their bags of bread. Lauren produces from her pocket her bag of tobacco, and proceeds to roll up, her gaze fixed upon a young family, with two children and a baby, eating a picnic under a tree.
‘I didn’t have that,’ Lauren says, gazing at the family again, and in that moment, I feel even closer to her. I know the pain of wanting something or someone that was taken from you, or yearning for something that I didn’t even have in the first place. When I catch Angus looking at the same family, I’m certain he’s feeling a sense of loss too. He had it, he had it all, but threw it away.
Angus, Lauren and I do a few more circuits around the park, the mood subdued. Even Dolly has slowed down. ‘How do you feel about what the doc said?’ Angus asks Lauren, to break the silence.
‘Don’t know,’ she murmurs.
Two teenage boys walk past. I sense, given they’re not walking in a straight line, they’ve been drinking. One is playing music loudly from his ghetto blaster, music I’m too old to have heard of. They catch a glimpse of Lauren in her red Incredible Hulk T-shirt tucked into black trousers. I wish I had the courage to tell them to stop staring.
Angus distracts Lauren by showing her the pedometer app he downloaded on to his mobile. He suggests the three of us aim to do 5,000 steps a day. ‘We’ve already done it this afternoon.’ He shows Lauren the number. ‘We could do a morning walk.’
‘I have breakfast from seven to eight,’ Lauren says mechanically. ‘I eat a bowl of Shreddies.’
‘Well, we could pick you up after breakfast. We could stop outside the night-shelter just after eight, and wait for you?’ It has been agreed with the staff that Angus and I can only go inside the shelter to see Lauren if she needs us. ‘And then we walk for an hour or so, before Holly has to go to work. What do you think?’
Lauren shrugs.
Angus looks at me helplessly. Perhaps there was an arrogant part of us that truly thought Lauren might be grateful for the efforts we’re going to, for our persistence and company, but I’m wondering if it’s making her feel increasingly anxious and uncomfortable being the centre of attention. Occasionally she joins in, as if allowing herself to enjoy our company, but most of the time, I sense she wants to push us, and our attention, away. I’m no shrink, but maybe any kind of relationship feels threatening for her since there is too much to lose? Someone will only go and hurt her again? What’s familiar for Lauren is being left on her own, to fend for herself. ‘Lauren,’ I venture with caution, ‘I don’t want you to feel this is all about you. Angus and I are going to do this anyway, we need to get fit, but there’s no pressure for you to join us. If you don’t want to, we’d understand.’
Please join us.
