Cobwebs of Youth

By Rose Auburn

'Cobwebs of Youth' is a contemporary, romantic novel set in the London suburbs. It tells the story of Lara Cassidy who realises her dream of becoming a children's book illustrator like her father. Yet her happiness is short-lived and she is plunged into uncertainty as Robert Kennedy, the mysterious stranger she first encountered ten years earlier, comes back into her life. Will Lara finally be able to lay her Father's ghost to rest and fully embrace what the future holds?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rose Auburn
• Release date: Feb 7, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386238508

Book preview

Chapter 1

1992

Don’t go there.’   Valerie said quietly from the shadow of the kitchen.  

Lara ignored her mother and tripped lightly from the final stair onto the carpet, focusing on a small, torn leaf that someone must have trodden in on their shoe.     It was unlike her mother not to have cleared it up.    

‘I said-’

‘I heard, but-’    Lara deliberately stepped on the leaf, obliterating it from view.

‘No buts, Lara, he’ll hurt you-’

‘Why does it always have to be about him?’   Lara exploded, turning and grinding the leaf into the carpet, ‘you’re hurting me, for god’s sakes, is it so bad that I want to see my dad for my birthday?’

‘Your birthday was Monday, he couldn’t even be bothered-’

‘And why is that?  Because you told him not to come, that’s why!’    Lara felt her cheeks flame with the sense of injustice against her dad.

She watched, harsh breathing distorting her vision as Valerie passed a hand over her face.      She could see her Mum looked tired but she didn’t care.     In her black and white, eighteen year old world, she didn’t care.    God, this house was so dark and miserable.

‘She’ll be there, the French tart…’

‘No, she won’t, don’t be stupid.’  Lara flinched at the look in her mother’s eyes and turned away to gather her bag closer around her.    

‘She will-’

‘Oh, so what if she is?  Dad’s got a girlfriend, what am I supposed to do about it?’   Lara stuffed her bag down and pulled the zip tight, pinching the skin on her forefinger as she did.    ‘He’s moved on, Mum, so maybe you should,’ she said lightly, sucking the tip of her finger and walking to the front door.   ‘I’m meeting Jen after, her dad’s picking us up, I’ll be home about midnight,’ she pulled the front door open and the keen, savoury scent of the autumn evening shuddered into the house, rippling the edges of Lara’s thick, caramel hair and making her skin quiver.

‘Don’t wait up,’ she added flippantly.    

There was no reply from her Mother except the soft click as the kitchen door was closed.     Lara grimaced to herself and a watery lump bobbed into her throat.    She shouldn’t have said that.    Damn her Mum for making her feel like this.   That woman wouldn’t be there, her dad wouldn’t do that.  He didn’t have a girlfriend anyway, Estelle worked for him, she was his agent or PA or something.      She swallowed sharply and let the front door slam behind her.     

The bus was crowded.  Lara, still in the sixth form at school, had little conception of rush hour and sat squashed at the back watching Epping Forest flash past in a russet blur of slow decaying leaves.     Her mind was tripping over itself with thoughts, all fairly basic; what would her Father buy her?   What would Jen be wearing?   What if that man was at the corner of the bar again?    Idly these three contemplations and their variations, whizzed round her brain like a pinball until they hit the outskirts of East London when the scenery dulled and Lara looked around the bus.   A sweaty, metallic fug made her long to get off.       She glanced at her fellow passengers.   A woman opposite her, of indeterminate age, was eating a small bag of uncooked popcorn kernels by cracking them between her teeth.   Her dirty blonde hair hung in greasy coils to her shoulders.   She smirked at Lara each time she cracked her teeth.           Lara looked down at her hands curled in her lap.   What if dad had got a girlfriend?     She shuttered her grey eyes and tried to imagine her father with a girlfriend.   It would happen, she knew it would.    The thought of it made her almost feel dizzy and she opened her eyes, realising with a cry that she was about to miss her stop.  She shot up, nearly knocked the woman’s kernels over and clambered over pushchairs and shopping bags to get out of the bus and see her Dad.

The air had lost its balmy quality and grown quite cool, with an edge that presaged the end of summer.    Lara shivered as she walked up away from High Road and up Grove Hill to her dad’s road.     After a while she turned and practically ran along the little row of terraced houses, a careless half-smile on her face.   She breathlessly came to a halt outside a front door, a curious streaky mix of purple and red.   This effect had partly been intended by her dad and was also partly a result of him painting the door on a blisteringly hot summer’s day.    It never failed to make her smile.

As she waited, Lara heard a woman’s voice, faintly accented, laugh and then say, ‘oh, Chris, no!’      A cold finger prodded her spine as she recalled her mother’s words.  No, she didn’t sound French, Lara convinced herself as she waited in the waning autumn sunlight.     The door swung open, and a rectangular patch of light spilled out onto the path together with the mingled scent of cigarette smoke, wine and sweet perfume. The icy finger that had poked Lara’s spine crept up towards her neck.   

‘Lara, baby, come in, come in,’ Chris Cassidy bowed theatrically and moved slightly to the side to let her pass.    ‘Happy Birthday for Monday, my baby girl, all grown up and eighteen, eh?’  

Chris Cassidy’s eyes glistened like wet leaves and his face was slightly flushed.     A cigarette smouldered in an ashtray on the table at the back of the room and he held an oversized wine glass by the bowl like a brandy glass.     It kept tilting as he stood there and some of the wine split onto the hall floor.   He didn’t seem to notice.    Apart from the ashtray, Lara saw that the table was set for dinner but for three people, not two.  Lara suddenly felt the chill finger reach around her hairline.    He seemed different, not the dad who used to swing her upside down by her ankles and who smelt of turpentine and oil and paint.   Maybe he was lonely and just had too much to drink.      Just as Lara was settling this in her mind and rearranging her features into a smile, a woman’s voice floated up from the little passage that lead to the kitchen.

‘Chris, Chris, I can’t open it, I’m frightened it will go pop too much, I can’t turn it.’  The voice, which Lara realised was French, dissolved into laughter.   

‘Hold on, baby, hold on, Lara’s just arrived.’

Baby?   Dad only ever called her that.    He had never even called her Mum that.   Lara swallowed painfully.   What was going on here?   She felt as if she had stumbled onto the set of a film.   Any minute now, someone would dart out of the shadows and shout, ‘Cut!’ and her dad would become her old dad again and the owner of that nauseatingly breathy French voice would swirl away and disappear like mist.    But there were no shadows in the little open plan living room, just streams of bright, sticky light pouring down from the spotlights onto Lara’s pinched, pale face.   

‘Estelle, baby, leave that, come on, come and meet my daughter.’

A pretty, petite brunette with dark brown eyes and olive skin came slightly uncertainly up the two, little cream, wooden steps into the light of the living room.    She turned slowly to her Father and saw his eyes slide over Estelle and the pair of them shared a private smile.    Lara clutched onto the back of the sofa for support.   

‘She’s French,’ she said weakly.

‘Yay, those fees I pay at that school of yours have paid off then,’ said Chris glancing hungrily at Estelle and laughing.   Estelle giggled and leant against the banisters. 

‘She’s French,’ Lara repeated mechanically.

Chris frowned slightly and Estelle stopped giggling.  

‘Yes, Lara, Estelle is French, what of it?’   A sharp note crept into Chris Cassidy’s voice and he took a sip from his glass.

‘You said,’ Lara began to breathe heavily as if she had been running.   ‘You said that you weren’t seeing anyone,’ Lara spoke slowly and monotonously staring at the floor.   ‘You said that−’

‘Lara, baby, I know what I said, but you’re eighteen now and I thought, well, you’re a grown up now, baby...’   He looked at Lara patiently.

‘She’s not a friend.’   Lara gave Estelle a look of teenage disgust.

‘Ok, ok, baby, look, Estelle and I, well, no we’re not friends, we’re together now.’  Chris put his wineglass down behind him and raised his arm and Estelle tucked herself underneath and gave Lara a nervous smile.    ‘And, you are not going to believe this, tonight is a double celebration, I was going to tell you after we ate and you girls got to know one another,’ he leaned forward and pinched Lara’s chin, ‘but Estelle is not my girlfriend, so you’re right there,’ he chucked her under the chin again, ‘she is my wife, think of her as Mum number two, so no surprises now, baby.’

Lara felt as if a nail bomb had detonated in her stomach.    She actually couldn’t particularly feel anything below her neck and was scared to move in case she crumpled to the floor.    Hot whips of panic and poison darts whizzed in impotent, frustrated rage around her body.    A sharp, choking pain filled her throat as she remembered her Mum’s warning.     Her Mum.   Her poor Mum.   No, it couldn’t be true.   He was her dad.     They were going to have dinner together.    She would open her present, some weird, wonderful and completely perfect thing that no-one else would ever find or buy.    No, this wasn’t right, this wasn’t happening.   This woman, Estelle, no, she wasn’t really there.    Please God, she wasn’t really there.   Her dad couldn’t…   He couldn’t, why?  What?   Mum number two?  What on earth was he talking about?   How could he?      She opened her mouth and closed it again, painfully aware that both her Father and Estelle were staring at her but she couldn’t, didn’t know what to say, she barely even knew what to think.    It was too much to take in and instead she burst into tears.  

‘Lara, baby, I know-’  Chris Cassidy reached out and stroked her arm with his free hand.

‘Don’t call me baby!’   Lara’s voice began to rise uncontrollably.  ‘How could you?  How could you, Dad?’  

‘C’mon Lara, you didn’t think-‘

‘You’re still married to Mum!’

‘Don’t be silly, the divorced was finalised six weeks ago, c’mon, have a drink and let’s just take our time, sit down-‘

‘I’m not staying.’  Lara replied in a cracked voice.

‘Baby... Lara, don’t be silly...’ he gestured to the table.  ‘Estelle’s been cooking, we’ve got a bottle of champagne that she’s doing a not very good job in opening,’  Chris grinned down at Estelle before continuing, ‘I bought dessert, your favourite, honeycomb smash cheesecake and we’re ready to roll,’ he inclined his head down towards Lara and widened his eyes, ‘aren’t we?’ 

‘Get off,’ Lara shook her arm free and looked at her Father, grey eyes blazing with hurt and disbelief.   ‘I’m not eating anything she’s cooked,’ she said, her sobs stifled by anger and she glared at Estelle who looked hurt and dropped her eyes.    Good, Lara thought spitefully.  

‘Baby...’ Chris spread out his hands, spilling more wine as he did so.   ‘Look, we’ll get pizza if you want ...’   he looked at Estelle and shot her a warning look with her eyes and lightly shrugged his shoulders.

‘I’m not hungry.’   

‘Estelle’s been dying to meet you, haven’t you baby, come on, Lara, I know it’s a shock, maybe your Mum and I−’

‘Don’t you dare bring Mum into this ...’   Suddenly Lara felt fiercely protective of her mother.   ‘And how dare you tell me to call her,’ she indicated Estelle with a dismissive nod of her head, ‘Mum number two, how could you? After everything you did to Mum…’          

She looked slowly from her Father to Estelle who dropped her eyes again and then back.   Her shoulders sagged as all the colour and vibrancy fled from the evening.   How could she have been so silly?    She saw herself thirty minutes earlier, running up Grove Hill like an over eager puppy.   What an idiot.  The blinding awareness that her mother had been right all along hurtled through her like a bullet, causing her eyes to close momentarily.     She straightened herself up and turned to face her father. 

‘Mum was right about you, I never should have come.’

‘No, Lara baby...’

‘Don’t call me baby!’  Lara shrieked at the top of her voice and Chris’s face suddenly grew tense and white.   Estelle retreated back into the kitchen, wrapping her cardigan round her lithe, little body. 

‘How long?   How long dad?   You were with her,’ Lara gestured dismissively towards the kitchen, ‘you were, weren’t you? and I bet she wasn’t the only one, was she?’

Chris said nothing but instead wiped the palm of one hand down his trousers.

‘I hate you, I hate you, Mum was right, you are a pig, a big pig, I never want to see you again.’   Hot tears began to spill down Lara’s face again and she wiped them carelessly away with the back of her hand.

‘Lara, baby,’ Chris took a step forward, his arms outstretched.    Lara came forward and deliberately knocked the wineglass from his hand, it bounced onto the wooden floor and smashed.   Glass and wine flew like raindrops over the wood and up the wall and carpeted stairs.    Estelle gasped.   Chris remained still and silent, the only clue to his thoughts was the clenching of his jaw.    

‘I never want to see you again, ever,’ she said with eighteen year old finality.  She turned, pulling the front door open with such force that it banged into the back of the sofa and the brass letterbox cover fell off its hinges and clattered onto the floor.    She kicked it swiftly to one side and raced out of the house. 

‘Lara! Lara!’ Chris swiped an envelope from the telephone table against the wall and came out into the dusk, ‘your card! Lara! Lara! stop!  Your birthday money, baby,’ he called out.

Lara stopped a few feet from the path.  ‘Keep it for your French tart,’ she shouted over her shoulder, echoing her mother’s words and broke into a run.     

It was the last time she saw her father alive. 

Chapter 2

She tore down Carnarvon Road as fast as she could, honey-rich hair streaming behind her.    Fiery chips of anger were still flying through her but they were dulled by the sickening betrayal she felt.    She had to get away, her legs, instinctively recognising this, carried her automatically, blindly along the street.    Trees, houses, cars all appeared distorted and enlarged as if she was viewing them from through a plate of jelly.    The dense, dry, leafy smell of Autumn began to rot in her nostrils and the scent of decaying vegetation filled her head until she gagged.     Her legs bore her on to the end of the road.   She nearly stumbled a couple of times but managed to right herself before she sprawled on the tarmac.      How lucky she hadn’t worn heels, she thought to herself and then chastised herself but thinking such a stupid, trivial thing when her father, her dad had gone and …. Mum number two.   Mum number two.    She stopped as she turned into Grove Hill and leaned against a streetlamp, gasping and choking for air.     Why hadn’t he run after her?   Peppery woodsmoke from someone’s back garden stung her eyes and she covered her face with the corner of her coat.     The veil of tears broke and she sobbed into the material feeling as if the very bones in her body were crying.    The vivid sound of her banging the front door behind her at home as her Mum warned her pounded through her head like a reverse echo of the door she had just wrenched open at her dad’s.   Poor Mum.   How could he?    Her dad?   She didn’t expect him to be a monk but God, everything her mother said had been right.   How on earth was she going to tell her Mum.     The thought beat a tattoo in her brain until she thought she would scream.    He didn’t care.   He’d never cared.   He hadn’t even bought her a present.    He normally did.   Her breath came in hard, short gasps that burned her chest and a thread of saliva trickled out of one corner of her lips.      She closed her eyes into the darkness of her coat and saw the three placemats on the table and the dark-eyed perplexity of Estelle.   She visualised raking her nails down the lightly tanned face until they drew blood and pulling the woman’s crackling black hair until she howled.   Why did there have to be Estelles in the world, she thought, knowing all the while that it wasn’t really the French woman’s fault but somehow it made her feel better to make out it was.    Slowly, she brought herself under control.   She pushed her hair back from her face and lowered the coat.   She passed a hand distractedly over her face and found her nose was running and her cheeks were soaked.    Brokenly, she walked over to a bench and sank down staring out over the road in blank, dumb despair.    After a while, she raised her head slightly and for several minutes, watched the long, low red drip of the sun as it disappeared into the dense blue velvet of the evening sky.     Images of her childhood floated disconnectedly through her mind and then evaporated.     She was a child no longer.     The girl who had sat on the bus barely an hour before was no more.      She examined her hands as if seeing them for the first time; she expected them to be different because she, Lara, felt so different.    She cupped her cheeks, touching her face and hair as if she was blind.         Rummaging in her bag, she brought out a brush and mirror.    She looked uncertainly into the little glass.     Her face looked back at her, ashen and tear-stained.    She wondered if Jen would notice any difference, probably not, she thought.   But she saw the difference; the softness of childhood had gone from her cheeks and a tiny light, a candle she had always held in her eyes for her Father had been extinguished forever.    Oh, Lara, Lara, she whispered to herself, you’re a woman now.    She repaired her face as best she could and wandered slowly along to wait for Jen. 

‘Hey!’    Jen was standing a few doors along from the pub in her usual spot and thankfully thought Lara, early as always.

‘Hi,’   Lara walked up to her and suddenly lost her composure, covering her face with her hands and sobbing noisily.

‘Christ!  What’s happened? Lara?’    Jen put her arms round her friend and tried to prise her hands away from her face.   ‘Hey, hey, make-up alert, Lara, if you must cry tip your head back, go on, we don’t want mascara down our face do we?’  

In spite of everything, Lara laughed and gently wiped under her eyes with her forefingers.    Jen was right, she really would look a state if she carried on like this.     Jen took her arm and walked back along to the path and sat Lara down gently like a small child on a low brick wall that enclosed a flower bed and a telephone kiosk.   

‘Is this to do with your parents?’   Jen asked looking at her with patient concern.

Lara nodded mutely and fumbled in her bag for a tissue to blow her nose.   

‘I’m guessing that your birthday dinner with your Dad didn’t go according to plan....’  Jen raised her eyebrows questioningly.

Lara nodded again, exhaled weightily and told Jen what happened.   The other girl was silent for several seconds before saying, ‘look Lara, don’t take this the wrong way, I know how much of a daddy’s girl you are,’ she looked at Lara’s face and corrected herself, ‘were... and I think your dad is a great guy, really funny and all that, but I kind of thought that your Mum had a point with some of what she said, it was kind of obvious that your dad could be a bit of a player, I don’t know, maybe I’m out of order here but I think you maybe needed to see what you saw tonight, he’s still your dad for Christ sakes but he’s a man, Lara and one who, well, drinks a bit, lives a bit and I guess that’s what your Mum found hard to take, I’m not being out of order am I?’

Lara shook her head.

‘Mind you, married?  Bit quick!’  Jen laughed.  ‘Ok, well, what I think we ought to do is tidy ourselves up, get ourselves a drink and have a bloody good night out, worry about this tomorrow, it’s not going anywhere, and hey, at least you know what he’s like now, eh?’

Lara smiled gratefully at Jen and rested her head on the girl’s shoulder.  

‘Right, where’s your make-up?’   Jen grabbed Lara’s bag and dived into it. 

Fifteen minutes later, the girls entered The White Hart and went straight to the bar.    Jen had made Lara feel better but nothing was going to diminish the sense of betrayal and loss, nothing, except decided Lara, to get blind drunk as only an eighteen year old could.    Well, she consoled herself, as she finished her third half of the evening, she was meant to be celebrating her birthday.      It was then that she realised she’d hardly given any thought to him.   That man.    Cautiously, she looked through the throng of sixth formers and over to the bar at the back of the pub.    Yes, he was there again.   Just as he was every Wednesday evening.   Slouching against the corner of the mahogany bar in his lean, indifferent way.   Elbow resting lightly on the top, cigarette hanging between index and middle finger, other hand holding a pint glass, nearly almost empty, across his chest.     Through the layers of milky smoke that hung in the air of the old pub, she instinctively knew that he was looking at her, watching.    Not constantly, but now and again in a curiously detached way that both puzzled and infuriated Lara.    She threw a careless smile in his general direction and turned her wandering attention back to the crowd that she was with.   They were beginning to congregate in front of the makeshift stage, consisting of a battered keyboard and a small set of equally battered drums.   Both of these were positioned at the front of the pub underneath two huge wooden sash windows complete with ceiling to floor drapes and pelmets in an anonymous shade of dusty dark green.       The band that was about to play had, for some lost and ironic reason, attained cult status among the local sixth formers and was one reason that Lara was here as usual.    The other was because of the man who stood at the left-hand corner of the bar and gave her his inscrutable, expressionless attention.

‘’Nother drink?’ Jen Evans looked at her questioningly, her hard, bright eyes and flushed face betraying the fact that she had quite a lot already.  ‘Quick, bar’s free,’ she urged Lara, ‘was’ the matter with you? You’re miles away.’

‘Oh, nothing, yeah, get another one.’  Inexplicably, Lara did not feel like mentioning her preoccupation with the man at the bar to no-nonsense Jen. 

‘Christ, I’m sorry, Lara, it’s not much of a celebration after your Dad tonight, but look c’mon on, let’s have a good one, shit happens, girl, take my parents, they split up when I was three, I couldn’t really even call my Dad, my Dad, we have such a non-relationship, he doesn’t even figure.’

‘I’m sorry, Jen, I forgot, I just, well my Dad and I were, I don’t know, different.’

‘Daddy’s little princess eh?’

‘Something like that,’ Lara smiled ruefully.  

‘C’mon, it’ll sort itself out when he sobers up and look on the bright side, you’ll probably have a better relationship with your Mum after this.  You’ve got to make it work for you Lara, Christ, play them off against one another if you have to, I always have, works for me, I tend to get what I want, when I want, you know?’

‘Yeah, I guess so.’

‘Is he still illustrating kid’s books?’

‘Yeah, what else he going to do?  It’s his life.’ 

‘Think that’s what you’ll do?’

‘Don’t know, if I’d wanted to, should have chosen art ‘A’ level but Mum wasn’t keen, said it wasn’t useful.’

‘Well for Christ sakes Lara, this band will start playing in a bit won’t they? Get another few halves in you.’   Jen frowned pulling in her brown eyebrows, ‘nothing should be the matter,’ she grinned and blew smoke lightly out of side of her mouth before adding, ‘you’re getting all the attention as usual.’

‘That’s not true,’ retorted Lara, ‘whasisface over there, keeps staring at you and you know it.’  Lara gestured towards a long, thin streak of a boy in a black and white striped jumper and ridiculously flared black jeans.  

‘Ok, ok, but it’s Luke, he stares at everyone.’

‘Yeah, right.’

Lara dismissed what Jen said although at barely eighteen, she was developing into an unusually attractive young woman with a soft, slender face, a fine, slightly arched nose and beautiful slate grey eyes.      Her mind flicked back to the scene at Carnarvon Road, her Dad had been right about one thing, she was a grown up now.    She could do what she liked and she didn’t need to keep hanging round her Daddy anymore, no, damn it, he had his life and from now on she would have hers.   She tossed her head and then thought of her Mum.   God knows what she’d say to her, she knew her Mum would question her closely, she hadn’t wanted her to go as it was.   Oh so what?   She was a grown up as of Monday.   She didn’t need either of them and their stupid games.   She could do what she wanted and right now she felt like getting drunk, just like a bloody grown up.    As she waited for Jen to return from the bar, she downed her drink defiantly and then smiled awkwardly around the pub, where was Jen?    Then she saw her come bustling back through the crowd and then stop to chat with two men on her way back, brown hair with its homemade streaks of red and black, bobbing vigorously and causing spots of lager to jump out of the two glasses she was holding.   Jen and Lara had been at school together and had both stayed on for the sixth form.     

‘Not bad in here, tonight is it?’  Jen observed as she finally came over to Lara proffering her half pint.  ‘Can’t believe how many of the bloody school are here though, bet the regulars are pissed off,’ laughed Jen.

‘Yeah, probably,’ answered Lara, glancing quickly in the direction of the bar before downing her drink once more and turning to fix her smile at three boys that had just walked in.

A few more halves later, Lara’s eyes glittered feverishly as she swayed to the music, her thick, caramel hair swinging gently across her back.   Jen was talking to her about someone who had walked past but Lara was not listening.   Instead, she was enjoying the warm, drowsy feeling of drunkenness that was encompassing her.  Everything in the pub glowed with a false, hard brightness and a pulse beat gently at the top of her head and thrummed through her ears.    The thought of her Dad and Estelle had become so fuzzy and indistinct that she nudged Jen and slurred dreamily, ‘think they’ll ever be a better time than this?’

Jen looked at her confusedly for a moment, light brown eyes narrowing and then widening, ‘what on earth are you talkin’ about?’ she exclaimed, ‘better than this?  Wednesday night in a crappy pub with lager all over my shoes, Christ, I should hope so, c’mon Lara.’          Jen studied her thoughtfully for a couple of seconds, ‘you crack me up, I almost thought you meant it.’  She laughed scornfully and turned to speak to the boy in the black and white striped jumper who had finally made his way over to talk to her.

Lara moved away as she saw Luke’s eager face and edged closer to the back of room where there was an old iron fireplace.  She stubbed her cigarette out in a big, circular glass ashtray on a nearby table and caught sight of herself in one of the large, speckled mirrors.     She paused and swept a mass of tawny hair over one shoulder and adjusted the front of her top.    She looked at her reflection and back out into the pub through the mirror.  It was a haze of people drinking, talking, laughing and smoking.  Then she saw him, staring at her.   Their eyes locked momentarily in the old mirror and something snapped like a thunderclap inside Lara, she glared and wheeled round abruptly.    She was too late, the crowd too dense.    She could see his head and he had turned to speak to one of the men he was always with.  A stocky man, with sandy straight hair in a middle parting that hung low over his ears. 

‘Damn that man,’ she said aloud. 

She rarely dared go near the bar if he was there and if he was, she stayed firmly to the right-hand side, eyes straight ahead.    But no, damn that man, she repeated bitterly to herself, what right had he to look at her, every week.  She pushed a strand of hair back from her face, walked back to Jen and tapped her on the shoulder.

‘Drink?’

‘Yep,’ replied Jen without turning her head.

Lara moved quickly through the throng that parted amiably for her.   Her legs felt like two columns of water and the pulse in her head was beating louder.   She heard appreciative remarks from either side of her but merely smiled and made her way forward.  She wanted to get to the corner of the bar, to him, and she was beginning to feel dizzy.   She strode purposefully under the archway that separated the large bar area from the rest of the pub.  Customers were three deep waiting to be served at the front but dipping her head and smiling coyly, Lara got herself through until she was just feet from the corner of the bar where he stood with a knot of other men.   The top rail of the bar obscured his face but she could see he was wearing leather motorbike trousers and a leather biker jacket was slung casually down in front of him. 

‘Bikerman,’ thought Lara.   ‘That’s what I’ll call him, Bikerman,’ she giggled drunkenly at the cleverness of her own invention causing one of the men at the bar to turn round.

‘’Ello darling,’  he was shorter than Lara and very drunk.  ‘C’mon in ’ere girl, whatch you after, a drink?  Cor you’re alright ain’t yer?’

Lara smiled and said nothing as a wave of light-headedness engulfed her.

‘Er, lads, look what we got ere eh?’

She realised with a jolt of horror that the drunken man was part of the crowd that stood around Bikerman.   Her fingertips had reached the bar and she began to tremble imperceptibly.  

‘Why d’you say that?’  she snapped at the man.

‘Whoa, feisty one ere lads,’ he thought for a moment putting his dark, oily head to one side and closing his eyes.  ‘Cos you’re bloody gorgeous, that’s why,’ he shouted, jumping up and down in front of her.   

Raucous laughter erupted from the corner of the bar.    The man grabbed her hand and propelled her round to the side. 

‘Er, Rob, whaddya think?’

Lara shook her hand free and brought herself up to her full height in front of Rob, whom she’d christened Bikerman only moments earlier.    She raised her face to his in a brutally coquettish eighteen year old way, her full, expressive mouth parted softly and breathing heavily as she looked at him with tip-tilted stormy grey eyes.    

She watched him take her in, briefly, before his wide mouth curled into a smile and he said in a carefully measured tone, ‘not bad.’        Subdued laughter rang out.   She continued to face him.

‘Can I ask you a question?’  she demanded.

‘Yes.’

Lara opened her mouth and spoke.   The music grew louder in the old pub and clashed discordantly in her ears.  She could smell the yeasty scent of lager and inhaled the dusty fume of cigarettes swirling around her.   The customers at the bar shouted and harangued over who was next and the brassy glare of the lights beat down on her as she asked him the only question she could possibly pluck from her head. 

‘Will you buy me a drink?’

He contemplated her as she wavered in front of him.  An amused, attractive look came into his dark blue eyes.  She caught her breath and stared provocatively at him, a smile playing around her lips.   And then he answered.

‘No,’ he responded without elaboration.  

‘Fine.’ 

She tossed her head and turned as quickly as she dare, ploughing back into the crowd the way she’d come.    Her throat felt constricted and her legs and arms jerked awkwardly as she moved.    Damn him.    She felt morbidly self-conscious and wanted to go home.    She would never come here again.   But, before she could reach Jen, a feeling of nausea washed over her and she leaned against the archway.      The floor seemed to surge up in front of her like a wave and she could feel her stomach shifting against the smell of lager that seemed to fill her nose and mouth.    Lara had the literally sickening thought that she would be ill right there in the middle of the pub.   Why did she feel so drunk and so sick?   Then she remembered; she hadn’t eaten anything.   The knowledge of it began to make the pub spin around her, the noise from the band and the blur of all the people merged into a seething wall of