The Duke's Affair

II

"Oh Lauren, this is no good. What can I do? How can I help you?"

"You can't. It's OK. I'll be fine. I've just had a bad day, packing up alone. It'll be fine tomorrow," she said, wiping her eyes with her ineffectual fingertips.

"Look, let me speak to George. I'll see if he can sort something out." Lauren pictured her friend stomping up and down, gesticulating with her hands as though Lauren could see her. "Oh hang on, he's just walked in. Let me call you back." And the phone went dead.

Lauren sat up and wiped her eyes again. She had never felt this low before, as she sat in the small room with the dark splodges of mould that grew in the window frame and looked at the sad piles of boxes as they spread out over the carpet.

She waited for fifteen minutes for Emily to call back, but when she didn't she decided she had to eat something; after all she hadn't eaten anything all day and it was nearly six in the evening.

She wandered to the kitchen and found a tattered old chinese takeaway menu, called the number and ordered a special fried rice. It was the only thing on the menu that she had enough cash in her wallet for: just less than a fiver. Even unfolding the wrinkled old note made her feel an overwhelming sense of self-pity. What was it for, all the education, if it were to end like this? All that hard work, those hours in the library? Someone, and she couldn't think who to blame for the misrepresentation, had sold her a dream. A false dream. Here she was with nothing to show for it. She would have been better off training to be a hairdresser and working for her aunt back in Brentwood. Much better off.

As she sat on her bed, eating the contents of the congealed cardboard box with a tea-stained spoon (the only clean cutlery she could find in the kitchen) her phone rang again.

"Lauren, I've spoken to George. Can you meet us for dinner tomorrow?"

Lauren paused, chewed and swallowed a mouthful of friend rice, and wondered whether she should admit that her calendar was entirely empty. She chose not to.

"Yes. That's very kind of you Emily. You don't have to, really."

"Nonsense. Of course I do. It will cheer you up."

Lauren wasn't so sure about that. "Where are we going?" she asked.

"Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester. Wear something smart, and be there at eight. We'll have drinks before."

She felt her body sag like the old mattress beneath her. "Oh Emily, you know I can't afford that."

"Darling, our treat. Don't be silly."

Lauren hmmm-ed down the phone.

"You will come?" asked Emily, registering the hesitation.

"Yes. Thank you."

As soon as Lauren put down the phone she began to question why she had agreed at all. She had nothing to wear, and anything she might have would be creased and packed away in a box. She let her head drop and held it in her open palm, unsure whether to laugh or cry.

*

Lauren took the tube to Hyde Park Corner and walked up Park Lane. It was still light, and although there was a chill breeze in the air she was sweating from the crush on the hot tube. At least she had chosen not to wear tights. She looked at her watch: she was on time. If there was one thing you could say about the London Underground, it was pretty damn quick.

She pulled a pashmina tighter about her shoulders, the breeze chilling the sheen of sweat on her skin, as she cursed the fact that she had thought it warm enough not to bother with a coat.