* * *
In the morning, Laura put all the defrosted food into the microwave and blitzed the lot. She ate as much of it as she could stomach, threw the rest in the bin, and got dressed for work.
“What d’you think you’re doing?” Maya, Laura’s boss at the launderette, said when she came in from the back room to find Laura taking off her coat and hanging it on the peg behind the counter.
“It’s my shift,” Laura said. “It’s Wednesday.”
“Yeah, and yesterday was Tuesday, and it was also your shift, only you didn’t show up, did you?” Laura started to say something but Maya held up the palm of her hand. “Nah, I’m not interested. I’m sorry but I’m not flipping interested, Laura, I don’t care what your excuse is this time, I’ve absolutely had it—”
“Maya, I’m sorry—”
“Do you know what yesterday was? Do you? It was my grandson’s fifth birthday and his mum was taking him on a special outing to the zoo and I was supposed to be there an’ all, only I flipping wasn’t, was I? Because I was here, covering for you, who didn’t even have the decency to call me.”
“I couldn’t, Maya, I’m so sorry, I really am, I’m so sorry for letting you down—”
“You couldn’t call? Why? Banged up, were you?” Laura hung her head. “Oh, you’ve got to be bloody joking! Excuse my French, but you got arrested again?” Maya raised both hands in a gesture of surrender. “I’m sorry, love, but I can’t have this. I just can’t. Enough’s enough. I’ve put up with enough of your nonsense. And you’ve been warned, haven’t you? Time and again. Late, unreliable, rude to the customers—”
“But Maya, it wasn’t—”
“I know! I know what you’re going to say. It’s not your fault. It’s never your fault. Maybe it isn’t. Maybe it isn’t your fault, but it’s flipping well not mine, is it?”
* * *
Laura vomited on the pavement outside the launderette. Fish fingers and pizza all over the place. “I didn’t do it on purpose!” she yelled through the window at Maya, who was watching her, open-mouthed, aghast. She didn’t do it on purpose. It wasn’t like she could throw up on demand—it was just that she’d stuck her card into the cash machine right next door to the launderette and confirmed that she had seven pounds and fifty-seven pence in her bank account, which, combined with the four pounds in change she had in her purse, was all she had in the world. And now she’d been sacked. It hit her then, like a straight punch to the solar plexus—getting sacked meant getting sanctioned. They could withhold her housing benefit; they’d done it to people she knew, sometimes for months. She’d be homeless, she thought, unless she went to prison for murder. That was when she threw up. She wiped her mouth and walked away, biting down on her bottom lip, trying to quell the feeling rising in her freshly emptied stomach, of pure panic.
As soon as she got home, she rang her mother, because no matter how badly her mother disappointed her, how many times her mother let her down, Laura couldn’t seem to stop herself from loving her, from believing that this time, things might be different.
“Mum? Can you hear me?” There was a crackle on the line, noise in the background. “Mum?”
“Laura! How are you, darling?”
“Mum . . . I’m not so good. Could you come and see me?” A long pause. “Mum?”
“Sorry, sweetheart?”
“I said, would you be able to come for a visit?”
“We’re in Spain at the moment, so that might be tricky!” She laughed, a low throaty laugh that made Laura’s heart ache.
“We’ll be back in a few weeks, though, so maybe then.”
“Oh. A few weeks? I . . . where are you?”
“Seville. You know, like the oranges.”
“Yes, I’ve heard of Seville.” She swallowed hard. “Listen, Mum, some shit’s happened and I’m in a bit of trouble. . . .”
“Oh, Laura! Not again.”
Laura bit her lip. “Yes, again. Sorry. But . . . I was wondering, could you lend me some money, to tide me over? I’ve just had a bit of bad luck, it really wasn’t my fault. . . .”
“Laura . . .” There was another crackle on the line.
“I missed that, Mum.”
“I’m saying it’s just not such a good time at the moment; things are very tight for us.”