Break-Up Club: A smart, funny novel about love and friendship. Lorelei Mathias

Holly said as they headed into her bedroom and he started bashing out a tune.

      In truth, Lawrence plus guitar equalled total subservience on Holly’s part. She could be furious with him about something, and all he’d have to do was strum three notes, and the drawbridge to her lady-garden would drop there and then. Right now, he was playing ‘You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away’ – but singing the chorus over and over because it was the only bit he knew all the chords to.

      Lawrence perched on the edge of the bed, his muscular frame stooped over his guitar, his brown curls falling into his eyes like a slightly crustier Jim Morrison. He was playing a new chord sequence now, which Holly couldn’t place in his usual repertoire. After a few more beats she recognised it as ‘My Boy Lollipop’. Only, when he sang the chorus he changed the lyric to ‘Hollypop, Hollypop’ for attempted comedic gain.

      ‘Oh, that’s cute, Lawry! Although, am I a boy?’

      Lawrence grinned. ‘Yes. For the purposes of this song you are. Anyway, it’s not quite ready yet.’

      ‘It’s lovely. Thanks, baby.’

      She sat on the bed and watched him slowly pick out the chords. Lawrence had never got round to learning how to read music. But what he lacked in patience he made up for with a most amazing ear. He could usually pick out most requests just by listening for the notes that sounded right. As a result, having Lawrence and a guitar around was sometimes like having a slightly hyperactive human jukebox at your disposal.

      ‘Play it again, Lawry,’ she said, brushing some sleep out of his eye.

      ‘No. I’m bored of that one now,’ he said, pulling her towards him for a kiss.

      ‘Hey,’ Holly said, breaking away after a minute, ‘do you remember the other day, when I got a bit fixated on the woman’s voice on the Tube?’

      Lawrence squinted, trying to recall a memory lost in a distant fog.

      ‘Well, I’ve been thinking about it some more, about whether it could make an interesting story – all about the comfort people might take in the voices of their loved ones after they’ve gone? I wondered if there are any real-life TFL widows out there that we could make a documentary out of?’

      ‘Bit morbid, but there could be something in it.’

      ‘That’s what I thought, but Jez blew it out. But then I got to wondering; could it be the kernel for a short film instead? A heart-wrenching little film, about someone’s journey through grief, guided by voices…’ she looked at him, her eyes dancing with possibility, ‘but you know more about shorts than me.’

      Lawrence had been tinkering with a chord sequence all this time. He stopped for a moment and looked into her eyes. ‘It’s definitely interesting, Fol. I mean, I like the irony that to most passengers the voices are just these robotic murmurs; a necessary and repetitive part of getting from A to B. Yet, to a few people they are these ghost-like traces of someone they used to know. Someone they used to share their world with.’

      Holly’s eyes widened. ‘Exactly! I just have this feeling it could be really poignant. What do you think about us developing this into a film together? It’d be lovely to spend our time doing something creative, as opposed to box-set bingeing.’

      ‘But we love box-set bingeing!’

      ‘We could actually make it though – you direct, I’ll edit! It would be great for both our reels! Put it into festivals. Stop our careers from flatlining?’

      ‘Sounds like a plan,’ said Lawry while picking out the opening bars to ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’.

      ‘You’re better at writing than me though,’ she said, taking one of his curls and twirling it around her finger. ‘Will you help me script it sometime?’ But her voice was drowned out by a strange robotic tone coming from the bed, which sounded not unlike ‘Live’.

      ‘What the bejeezus?’ Lawrence said. But then it happened again. ‘Where is that robot voice coming from, and why is it telling us to live? Is it a new Existentialist phone line?’

      ‘It’s my new upgrade,’ Holly said, retrieving her phone from the top of her bed. ‘It’s the world’s most complicated mobile. It insists on telling me who’s calling, in a Stephen-Hawking-on-weed voice.’

      ‘Why don’t you read the manual?’ Lawrence said, infuriatingly.

      ‘Oh, you ARE my father!’

      Everyone in the world – except from Lawrence and her father – knew that life was too short for reading the manual.

      ‘Live,’ bleated Stephen Hawking.

      ‘Can you make it stop?’

      ‘Oh, hang on!’ Holly said once she’d found her phone, ‘He’s saying Liv! As in, Olivia! She tapped the answer button. Hey Liv, how you doing?’

      ‘Bored,’ came Olivia’s voice. ‘Can we go to the pub?’

      ‘Well, it would be good to walk Bella again. She’s been surgically attached to the sofa for two days and is starting to grow mould. I’ll go and prod her.’

      Holly hung up the phone and turned to face Lawrence, who was picking out another new song on Georgia.

      ‘Lawry… Do you mind if we go and meet her?’

      He looked up. ‘Actually, I’m really close to mastering a new song. I might stay here and finish it if that’s OK?’

      ‘OK. And maybe when I’m back we can have a go at writing the script. I’ve even thought of a name for it! Mind the Gap. What do you think?! It works on two levels…’

      Lawrence looked up from his guitar and into her eyes. ‘Yeah, I get it! But if I’m honest, Folly, I’m not totally convinced it’s film fodder. It seems a tiny bit far-fetched to me.’

      Holly’s heart sank a little. ‘The name, or the idea?’

      ‘That’s a point though, it’s that short film festival in Paris in March. We best get tickets soon. Remember, you said you’d come?’

      ‘I did?’ she said, wishing he could stay on topic for more than five seconds, just once.

      ‘Yes! It’s the European Independent Film Festival? It’s like, the undisputed Mecca of Indie Films? I have to go and do the whole networking thing, but it’d be so much more fun if you came with me.’

      ‘Are we not doing Cuba this year? Surely we should be saving all our pennies for that?’

      ‘Yeah, we definitely will. We can totally do both.’

      ‘With what, exactly? When did you start sweating tenners?’

      ‘I’ll sort it out, I promise… chill, Winston! How about, I start having a look at flights and stuff, while you’re in the pub?’

      ‘OK. Deal. Thanks.’

      In the lounge, Bella was now mummified in duvets. There were flecks of crisps in her hair, and her laptop lay ajar on her knees. Her face was dotted with white blobs of toothpaste in a bid to dry out her spots – a technique she’d long referred to as the ‘poor woman’s facemask’. As she stared, transfixed at the laptop screen, the pantone of her cheeks began to change from peach to pillar box red.

      ‘What. A. Cock,’ Bella shouted at the screen.

      ‘What’s happened?’

      Bella turned to face Holly. ‘Here I am, screaming my guts out, mourning the death of my relationship, not knowing if I’ll live to see another day, and Sam Cocknamara is joining groups like “Bring Back Superted!”’ Bella lifted up her laptop as if to throw it across the room, then seemed to change her mind and rested it back on her knees. ‘Oh and get this – Sam’s status update, 48 hours after breaking up with his girlfriend of just over two years…’

      Holly walked