A Hopeless Romantic by Harriet Evans Page B

surrounded by feathers, blood, and glass, as well as crisp packets, cans, chocolate wrappers, and bits of paper. He said slowly, “I think you should get out of there. Where are your slippers?”
    “Don’t know,” said Laura helplessly. “I don’t wear them in summer. They’re too hot.”
    “Oh, good grief,” said Yorky. “Flip-flops?”
    “I don’t know,” said Laura. “Oh—there.” She pointed at her chest of drawers below the window, which was covered in glass, and below it a collection of glass-strewn flip-flops.
    “Wait there,” said Yorky, and he trotted lightly down the corridor, returning with a pair of Wellington boots that he used for fishing trips (last year’s Yorky craze).
    “I’m going to throw them gingerly at you,” he said.
    Laura looked at him. “What does ‘throw them gingerly at you’ mean?” she said crossly. “Just throw them. Don’t knock me out. And don’t—urgh! Oh, Yorky—urgh. Don’t throw them at the pigeon. Urgh!”
    Yorky had prided himself on his spin bowling at school, and indeed was reckoned to be rather good at it. He tossed each wellie in the air, and miraculously each landed, in a slow, spinning arc, in Laura’s outstretched hands. She pulled them on and climbed out of bed. Stepping around the glass and rubbish by her bed, she leaped across the mound of it at the bottom, and landed next to Yorky by the door.
    “Er…” she said, not knowing how to ask. “Yorky…?”
    Yorky stepped forward and gently picked up the dead pigeon. He dropped it into Laura’s wastepaper basket, and picked up the bin.
    “Cup of tea?” he said.
    “Yes,” said Laura. She pulled her hair back and tied it into a ponytail. “Yes, yes please.”
    “Going to buy a new duvet and bin?” said Yorky as he pulled the bedroom door firmly shut behind them.
    “Oh, you bet.”
     
    It was Yorky’s last week of term, so he left for work a while later, by which time they had had several cups of tea, called a glazier (Laura), deposited the pigeon in some newspaper and a bag in the rubbish bins outside (Yorky), donned rubber gloves and begun the work of—once again gingerly—collecting each piece of glass that had managed to spray itself remarkably widely around Laura’s room (Laura). By the time the glazier showed up after lunch, Laura had showered and dressed and had stripped the bed and washed her sheets. She threw away the duvet; she knew it was wrong and a waste of the world’s resources, but it was almost fetid and covered in dead pigeon. There was no way she’d ever sleep under it again, she knew.
    The glazier was a short, squat man who looked as if he had been born in blue dungarees. He was called Jan Kowolczyk.
    “Well, well,” he said, when Laura came to check on him after a little while. “Nearly finished here, young lady, then all will be good as new again.”
    Laura nodded. She agreed. It was all part of it, she knew, her feeling of having been evangelically cleansed. She had had her time in the wilderness, and A Sign had come to her to show her The Way. Sure, it was a disease-ridden pigeon, and it had almost given her a heart attack, but she had felt and interpreted its symbolism as keenly as if she were an A-level student reading Emily Brontë for the first time. And she knew what she was going to do next.
    “Thank you,” said Laura, smoothing down her long black linen skirt and then clasping her hands lightly in front of her. Her hair was clean and soft, tied up in a neat ponytail that brushed the back of her neck. The breeze through the window blew gently across her face and chest. She felt so in control now. She glanced around the room, her eye falling on the bookshelf piled high with her own books and videos, the self-indulgent ones she daren’t have out in the sitting room. It was an unspoken agreement between her and Yorky. The Godfather and This Is Spinal Tap were out in the sitting room, along with various thrillers and classics and the usual clutter of