The Cure

Chapter 15

Lola paused by the doorway that she had just barrelled through, equally buzzed and exhausted, her eyes falling on a scene which may as well have been the cover of a "How to be a Perfect Family" manual.

Last night's shift had never ended, and she had drank until six in the morning, dancing on the bar, breaking innumerable glasses, fucking Jared against the humid green tiles of the ladies' bathroom, and heading up to Mayfield Hill to tipsily watch the sun rise; when the hangover had threatened, a few of their more sensible colleagues – those that had slept – had joined them for a picnic breakfast of cheap sandwiches and too-pink rosé sipped from white plastic cups.

They had laughed until midday, where their spinning sleeplessness caught up with them.

And Lola's disappointment was too far away to feel as she wobbled back to the flat, drinking in the midday summer air as thirstily as a swimmer, dreaming of her bed with every step.

The perfect family; a balding man in his late fifties, kindly-lined and smiling, an impossibly beautiful woman with thick black hair, peppered perfectly with streaks of grey, perfect makeup and understated clothes.

And Nate, more relaxed than she had ever seen him, leaning into the sofa cushions as he laughed, an arm stretched along the sofa cushions behind his mother's shoulders.

There was another girl that she had never seen sitting beside them, equally radiant, equally well-looking, her teeth glittering as she shared the joke.

The low coffee table was groaning, recently laid; warm, homemade twisting cheese pastries, fat green olives dotted with slices of chili and garlic, a dark wooden board with artistically arranged charcuterie, marinated anchovies, plump, pink king prawns and a homemade mayonnaise; pâté, toasted, fresh rustic baguette.

Lola's stomach rumbled as she pulled the door to, fumbling for her phone, pretending to find an emergency, seeking sanctuary in its screen as she scuttled to her room.

The oven was ticking, roaring, throwing the delicious scent of roasting meat into the air; she glanced surreptitiously at the bottle of champagne poised temptingly in its ice bucket, beads of condensation winking in the midday sun by the window as she made her way towards her bedroom with a quick nod and smile.

'Lola.'

Nate had raised his voice over the soft folk music filtering from the record player.

Lola started. She clearly hadn't wished hard enough to be invisible; her Converse turned despite themselves, grass-stained and awkward, and watched as Nate half-stood, still smiling, effortlessly untroubled, despite seemingly equally taken aback at his own speech.

'Mum, dad, Mel,' he began, 'this is Lola – my flatmate. Lola.'

She crept forward, painfully uncomfortable, cursing his impeccable manners; they should have left that shit in Downton Abbey, where it belonged.

'This is my mum, Delphine, and my dad, Doctor Gregory Wells.' The mother had flat black eyes, surrounded by thick lashes, and it was impossible to know her thoughts any more intimately than that basic kindness, by looking into them. The father, on the other hand, was a slight and smiling ray of sunshine, and he almost knocked over the dish of cheese pastries in his hurry to stand, and take the room in two strides to shake Lola's wine-sticky hand.

'And this is my friend Melissa.' Nate's sloping, easy smile was still there, the characteristic crease at his cheek, and Lola looked doubtfully at the almost-empty champagne flute in his hand.

The girl's greeting was far less enthusiastic, eyeing Lola from head to toe, her lip curling slightly in a semblance of a smile, squaring cat-like and chilly. Lola returned her gaze as unblinkingly, trying to remember if she had seen her before, wondering if she was the girl she'd heard in Nate's bedroom.

His mother's accented interruption broke the tension.

'You're being rude, Nathaniel,' came her accented lilt, using the French version of his name. 'Won't you join us, Lola?'

'Oh, no, thank you – that's kind, I mean – it's really nice to meet you, but –'

'Are you sure, dear?' Doctor Wells was still at her side, still smiling impossibly wide, as if her presence had made his day.

'—yeah, no,' she insisted in a panic, looking quickly at Nate, expecting to find relief on his features.

But he was looking at her with well-mannered, day-drunk indifference, and Melissa was still looking her up and down, taking in the black summer dress, the thin jumper slung over her shoulders, the round vintage sunglasses pushed into her hair.

Lola felt her cheeks with the back of her hand, which had burned hotly under the eye of the midday sun, and repeated her heartbeat now, surely pink and smarting.

'Excuse me, just one second.' She hurried to the bathroom, closing herself in its cool confines with a sigh of relief, heading with great trepidation to the mirror.

But the colour to her sunkissed skin, the tanned forehead, the pink cheeks made her look alive; the sun-streaked hair more golden than ever, her makeup surprisingly still in place. She stared at herself as she scooped the golden blond into a high bun, then repeatedly shaking it loose, running a frightful hand through the strands before taking a deep breath and returning into the loft.