Somewhere Only We Know: The bestselling laugh out loud millenial romantic comedy. Erin Lawless
“We can hit Clapham High Street, you know that’s where all the totty is.”
Alex rolled his eyes. “Thanks, but no thanks, at least on the totty front. Pub sounds good, though.”
Rory continued, undeterred. “This guy at work says there’s an epic pub quiz in one of the places by the Tube, loads of film-based questions and stuff, apparently. And people stay on in the place afterwards because they do a tray of Jagerbombs for, like, a tenner.”
“A tray?” Alex echoed.
“A tray,” Rory assured him.
“A tray of shots sounds a little heavy for a Friday night…” Alex said, tilting his head back against the sofa. Rory rolled his eyes and paused the video game once again.
“Look, I’m going to make this easy for you, okay? Go to Clapham Common Tube after work tomorrow. I’ll find out the name of this pub from the girl at work and text it to you. You and I will then drink beer, astound everyone present with our fantastic general knowledge, win some cash, then spend it on trays of shots. You got it?”
Alex couldn’t really argue with that. “Okay, sounds good,” he smiled, getting to his feet to go and forage in the kitchen cupboards for something for dinner.
“Cool,” Rory said, starting his game up again. “I’ll tell Lila to get there early and make sure we get a good table.”
Alex raised his eyes to the ceiling, pleading for patience. Of course Lila was going to be there. Of bloody course.
Nadia
Nadia was just trying to have one evening where she didn’t have to think or talk about her immigration status. Unfortunately, nobody seemed to have got the memo.
“I really wish you’d let me get you some legal representation,” Caro said, frowning, using one finger to delicately scroll on her iPad. “The information on the Home Office website makes the whole process seem very obtuse.”
“Yeah, but the information in this leaflet makes the whole thing look like a piece of piss,” Ledge argued, waving said leaflet for emphasis. “Don’t worry, Nads. You turn up to court, you give ‘em a big smile, you present your case and then the judge goes, cool, I see that you totally should be allowed to stay in Britain, sorry for the inconvenience love, bosh, done.”
Holly rolled her eyes over her cousin’s head and silenced herself with a substantial gulp of wine.
“Do you think that you could get one of the managers from your old company to be there in the court with you?” Caro continued, ignoring Ledge. “If this whole thing is hinging on how much of a ‘private life’ you have in the UK, the wider range of people we can get to show their face on your behalf, the better.”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I’ll email them when I’ve got the court date,” Nadia replied, reaching for the wine bottle and topping up her glass, even though it was still half full. So much for having a nice night in to distract her from her visa woes.
“Hope you get it confirmed sooner rather than later,” Holly said. “It’ll definitely be a weekday, won’t it? And it’s an absolute bitch for me to get time off work at the moment.” Holly worked for a charity HQ, but her managers were the most hard-nosed, hard-arsed businessmen anyone could ever come across.
“Well, I’ll be there!” Caro said, giving Nadia a clumsy one-armed hug, causing both of their glasses to slop wine.
“Well, it’s not like you have to worry about getting your annual leave approved,” Holly remarked, her tone sweetly polite. Caro just screwed up her nose and stuck out her tongue in eloquent response before releasing Nadia and turning her attention back to her iPad. Holly and Caro had a strange relationship; they were both close to Nadia and so spent an inordinate amount of time together, but Nadia sometimes wondered if the two girls would even bother keeping in touch were she to be deported back to Russia…
Deported back to Russia. Nadia sighed and topped up her wine glass some more.
“And I’ll be there too,” Ledge said, hefting himself to his feet and shuffling towards the kitchen. At the door, he turned back. “Hey, what are you planning to do about your ‘boyfriend’?” he asked, genuinely curious.
Nadia jolted, her brimming glass of wine halfway to her mouth, sloshing chilled Pinot against her collarbones. She stared up at Ledge in horror.
“Her boyfriend?” Caro echoed, confused, looking from one to the other. “What boyfriend?”
“The one she mentions on her application form,” Ledge replied. “You know? The one I ‘play football’ with?” he clarified, with air-quotes to belie the lie he gave in his letter of support to Nadia’s application.
“Oh.” Caro settled back uncomfortably against the legs of the sofa. “That boyfriend…”
“Don’t worry about it,” Holly said immediately. “They wouldn’t necessarily be expecting him in court, and even if they are, you can always just say you two just… broke up…”
“But that doesn’t reflect that well on Nadia,” Caro said, alarmed, sitting forward once again. “Besides, having a British boyfriend has got to be a massive box-tick for these people. You can’t get much more of a private life than that!”
“Guys!” Nadia pleaded, dabbing her neck with the drier part of her top.
“Ledge, how do you feel about telling the government that you’re seeing Nadia?” Holly asked her cousin, her ‘business’ expression firmly in place.
“Hols,” Nadia tried again.
“I don’t think that would work,” Ledge replied slowly. “Didn’t I say in my letter that me and her were really good mates, and that I play football with her boyfriend? Matthew, did we call him, in the end? Yeah, we used your dad's name, didn't we? It’ll be too suspicious if we change the story now.”
“We should have thought this through,” Caro said, crossly. “We should have said that Ledge was the boyfriend from the start.”
“Come on, guys! It’s the government! They must get these sort of lies every day.” Nadia rolled her eyes. “We wouldn’t get away with it.”
“Well, we won’t get away with it now,” Caro grumbled, glaring at Ledge as if it was his own personal failing that they as a group hadn’t contrived to swindle the British government at an earlier stage. “We need to think of something.”
“Why don’t we just advertise me as a Russian bride to some sad old man on the internet?” Nadia suggested, sarcastically. “He’ll save money on the shipping, because I’m already here!”
“Well,” Caro said, winking as she reached for her wine glass. “Okay, it’s not the best idea, but in theory…”
“Seems to me we just need to find some guy called Matthew and make him fall in love with Nads,” Ledge proposed, returning to the living room with a cold beer.
Nadia spluttered again. “I'm sorry, I'm not quite sure if you guys are joking or not?"
“At the very least, we should all keep our eyes out for any eligible British citizens called Matthew,” Holly argued, ignoring Nadia's protests. “There’s no harm in that!”
“Yeah,” Ledge agreed. “There must be thousands of guys called Matthew hanging around South London.”
“Well, at least a handful of them anyway,” Caro granted.
Alex
When Alex got to the pub it was already heaving, people sitting hunched