‘OK, don’t then,’ I replied. ‘But you’re coming home with me and I will physically fight you if you try to suggest otherwise.’
He looked back at me, mild surprise in his eyes.
‘Like I said, I didn’t grow up in that mansion,’ I reminded him, eyes forward, purposefully not looking at him. ‘I will kick your arse if I have to, Dr Page.’
‘Right, then,’ he replied. ‘Thank you.’
‘Besides,’ I muttered, keeping a firm hold of Wellington’s neck. ‘Someone’s going to have to deal with it when this cat takes a dump, and it certainly isn’t going to be me.’
‘This is your flat?’ Sam asked, peering inside my place as I opened the door.
‘It would be weird that I had the keys if it wasn’t,’ I replied. ‘Cup of tea? Or something stronger?’
‘On a weeknight?’ He looked positively aghast as I quietly stepped sideways into the kitchen to hide Monday night’s wine bottle in the cupboard underneath the sink.
‘You have a very nice home,’ Sam announced as he moved around, already looking more comfortable than he had in Elaine’s fancy flat. ‘It’s very you.’
‘I’m never really sure what that means.’ I filled the kettle, shouting over my noisy taps. ‘But I’ll take it as a compliment.’
‘It was meant as one,’ he said. I glanced over my shoulder to see him studying the photos on my bookcase. ‘You and Miranda have been friends for a long time?’
‘Since the first day of school,’ I confirmed. ‘Some bright spark sat us next to each other in registration and regretted it for the next seven years. Best thing that ever happened to me. As long as we don’t take into consideration the holiday to Ibiza between sixth form and uni – and we have actually had it written into law that we do not.’
Sam smiled politely and nodded, but his shoulders still sloped downwards as he walked around considering my trinkets. He looked defeated.
‘It must be nice to have old friends,’ he said, picking up a photo taken on Mir’s twenty-first birthday. A Rocky Horror-themed party. In the background, if you knew where to look, you could make out half a Matthew, resplendent in his Burton’s ensemble, refusing to join in with the fun. ‘We moved around a lot when I was younger; hard to keep young friendships going back then. Penpals get bored after a while.’
‘It must be weird now,’ I said, eyeing Wellington with great suspicion as he nosed around my cardigan Uggs. If he peed on them, he’d be out the window. ‘With Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and everything, it’s almost impossible to lose touch with someone. Even if you want to. How come you moved around so much? Parents were super spies?’
‘Possibly,’ he replied. He rested on the arm of my loveseat, not quite ready to commit to a full sit. ‘My mum died when I was three and my dad really wasn’t around an awful lot. I much prefer the thought that he was James Bond rather than your common or garden arse.’
‘Oh,’ I paused, holding one teabag aloft in each hand. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘It was a long time ago.’ Sam stood up again, gingerly picking up my framed graduation photo and studying it. It was the last time my mum and dad had been in the same place, at the same time and no crockery had been thrown. Possibly only because there was no crockery in the vicinity.
‘We lived with my aunt for a while,’ he added, ‘but my uncle was in the army so there was a lot of moving – nowhere really interesting, just up and down the country. When they got posted abroad, I ended up with my grandmother.’
‘It’s a very good cover story,’ I said lightly, closing my curtains on the fading sky and turning on a lamp, to stop myself running over to him and giving him the biggest hug in the world. I knew it wouldn’t be welcome. ‘But I’m almost certain your entire family were super spies. You too, for that matter.’
‘I did go to public school for a while,’ he admitted, fingering the spines of my little library. ‘But I’d make a terrible spy. I can’t ski for a start and martinis make me quite ill.’
‘Then you’re neither use nor ornament,’ I told him. ‘How do you want your tea?’
Sam stood in front of my bookcase, clashing with my lifetime of collected memories. Books, photos, bits and bobs. Tiny objects that stood in for momentous occasions, things I’d recognize blindfolded. And then, Sam.
‘Touch of milk, tip of the spoon,’ he replied, brushing his thumb along the spines, pulling one out at random. ‘Obviously I already know your father is an evil mastermind and part of a global pony-trafficking syndicate. What about your mum?’
‘Ah, Mum is fine,’ I said. ‘She replaced my dad with hobbies after the divorce. It’s good, it keeps her off the streets.’
He looked at me with a half-smile.
‘Isn’t that something parents are supposed to say about their children?’ he asked.
‘That would be a very good question for my sister the shrink,’ I replied, my mind suddenly on the trifle in the fridge. Whenever I thought about my relationship with my parents I thought about trifle. Or ice cream. Or chocolate. Or anything that wasn’t my relationship with my parents.
‘Is there a supermarket nearby?’ Sam put down my book and picked up his tabby. Wellington immediately went limp and placed two paws on Sam’s cheek before turning to me with a look that clearly said ‘Don’t you even try it’.
‘Tesco Metro on the corner,’ I said. ‘What do you need?’
He rubbed Wellington between the ears until he dissolved into a rumble of purrs. ‘I should probably get him a litter tray before he shits in your bath.’
‘He does that?’ I asked, eyeing my new nemesis.
‘Oh, yes,’ Sam confirmed.
‘If Tesco hasn’t got one,’ I said immediately, tossing him my house keys, ‘there’s a Sainsbury’s further up the road.’
‘Do you need anything while I’m out?’ he asked, patting himself down for his wallet. I pressed my lips together and shook my head as he let himself out the front door. ‘OK, back in a mo.’
It was the strangest thing. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had stood in my flat and asked if I needed anything. The simplest little gesture and I was practically in tears.
Out of nowhere, it hit me. I missed it. Someone picking up milk from the supermarket, someone to help me carry the Christmas tree home, someone to complain that I hadn’t done the dishes again. Someone to pick me up from the dentist after they had to give me the laughing gas because I was too much of a puss to even get a cleaning without it. Miranda had flatly refused to do it again after the last time when I might have accidentally wet myself in the Uber on the way home. I’d paid her back for the cleaning fee, so I really didn’t understand what the big deal was.
My heart broke for Sam. I couldn’t imagine how hard it must have been for him, however lovely his relatives were. And now Elaine cheating on him. I was so sad, not just because I knew what he was going through but because I knew what was ahead. Time might heal all wounds but it was not an efficient course of treatment. And I felt bad for my part in it. He could have been two weeks along in the break-up process and instead he was right back in the middle of it, all because I’d convinced him I could help him win someone back who didn’t want to be won.
What a tit I was.
I picked up my phone to text Mir and Brian. Clearly they needed to know the latest gossip. But when I opened my messages, I didn’t know quite what to say. This wasn’t my news, this was Sam’s and it felt wrong to share.
‘Who even am I?’ I whispered, putting my phone back on the kitchen counter and grabbing an unopened bottle of wine from the fridge. I worked the screwtop quickly and hit the second speed-dial button on my phone.
‘I’m putting the baby to bed, what do you want?’ Rebecca answered on the first ring.
‘I’m having an existential crisis,’ I replied, grabbing my mug, tipping the teabag out and filling it with wine. ‘Help.’
My sister sighed down the line and then bellowed for her husband.
‘Can you deal with Basil?’ I heard her ask. ‘I need to talk to the other baby.’
‘Hello, Annie,’ he called.
However did he guess it was me?
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, her voice bouncing as she jogged downstairs to her office. Becks was incapable of having a phone conversation unless she was in her comfy chair.
‘I’m not sure,’ I replied.
‘Annie, it’s nine o’clock at night, I’m knackered. All I want to do is have a bath and finish watching Mindhunter,’ she said. ‘Can you hurry this up?’
‘Ooh, is that any good?’ I asked. ‘I’ve been meaning to watch it. I quite fancy Jonathan Groff.’
‘I know that’s not the problem you’re calling about, but we should definitely discuss it when I see you next Wednesday,’ she replied. ‘Is this a work thing or a boy thing?’
I pouted and sipped my wine.
‘Why does it have to be one of those two things?’
‘Because it always is,’ Becks said. ‘And since you’re avoiding the subject even though you called me, I’d say it’s a boy thing.’
‘Might be.’
‘The boy you brought to Dad’s birthday party?’
‘Might be.’
‘Finally.’ She let out a self-congratulatory exhalation before carrying on. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘I honestly don’t know,’ I insisted. ‘I’ve been trying to help Sam get his girlfriend back. They broke up a couple of weeks ago, he thought it was fixable, but now it turns out she’s seeing someone else and he’s really upset and I feel as though it’s my fault. I know it isn’t but I feel really weird about the whole thing. I feel guilty. But why?’
‘Because you like him,’ she replied.
‘Not like that,’ I said, tipping back more wine. ‘He’s my friend. Sort of. No, I think we’re definitely friends now. We went to Margate.’
‘The true marker of any friendship,’ Becks said. ‘And that was a statement, not a question. You like him. As more than a friend. You don’t need a doctorate in psychology to see that, I could tell from the way you looked at him at Dad’s party.’
A strange cold feeling washed over me and I struggled to swallow my wine.
‘You feel guilty because you’re happy his girlfriend doesn’t want him back,’ my sister explained. ‘But you’re anxious because, now he’s truly available, you run the risk of rejection.’
‘Nope,’ I muttered into my mug. ‘Not having that. I think we’re just friends.’
‘It’s one thing to lie to me and Miranda, but it’s quite another when you’re wasting your time lying to yourself,’ she yawned down the line. ‘But, regardless, I wouldn’t advise you to tell him how you feel just yet. It’s much too soon and you’d be running the risk of getting really hurt.’
‘I can see why that would be a problem,’ I replied, nodding at my phone. ‘If I fancied him, which I don’t.’
‘Denial is exhausting,’ Rebecca groaned. ‘I’ve got to go. It sounds to me as though he needs a friend right now, Annie. Be that friend. Then call me when you’ve decided to stop being stupid.’
And then she hung up. At the exact same moment, the key turned in the lock and I flipped the switch on the kettle to heat it up again.
‘Did they have what you needed?’ I asked, necking my wine and putting the open bottle of wine back in the fridge. Drinking alone on a school night, I was a disgrace.
‘They had the litter but not the trays,’ he replied, holding up a plastic bag. ‘Do you have a spare shoe box or something like that?’
I shook my head. Bloody KonMari method. My flat was still a shit-tip, only now I could never find anything I needed.
‘Hang on, I might have something,’ I said, rootling around in the built-in cupboard that demarcated the end of the kitchen and the beginning of the living room. ‘Would this work?’
Sam squinted at the dusty box.
‘What is it?’
‘Foot spa,’ I said, shaking it out of its packaging. ‘Christmas present from my dad and Gina a couple of years ago. I think I’ve used it once.’
For the want of a better option, Sam opened up the bag of litter and emptied it into the two wells of the foot spa, before placing it carefully on top of three sheets of the newspaper he’d also bought at the supermarket. Once upon a time I would have had at least one free paper hanging around but I hardly ever picked one up on the way home these days. Too busy looking at my phone to bother.
‘Perfect.’ I stood in the hallway with my hands on my hips. Becks didn’t know what she was talking about. I stared at Sam and chewed on the inside of my cheek.
‘What?’ he asked, looking more than a little alarmed.
‘Nothing,’ I said, shaking my head at myself and taking two whole steps back into the kitchen. ‘Tea’s up.’
Sam emptied the rest of his shopping on the kitchen top. Toothbrush, deodorant and a bottle of whisky.
‘I spoke to Elaine.’
I turned off the kettle and handed him an empty mug, which he promptly filled with single malt. So much for the tea.
‘And?’ I asked, fetching the wine back out from the fridge.
Sam slumped onto the loveseat, nursing his drink. ‘Apparently, they’re a thing,’ he said in between swigs of whisky. ‘Her and this Gianni. She said she was sorry and that she wasn’t planning it and she didn’t want me to find out like that.’
‘You don’t say.’
Though it seemed fair enough that she would prefer her old boyfriend not to be hiding in the airing cupboard with a stranger when she brought her new lover home.
This was the wrong time to ask whether or not they had eaten the guacamole.
‘She said the guacamole was excellent.’
He was a mind reader.
Sam sat with his head down, swirling the whisky around and around in the bottom of his mug. He was staring at it so hard, I thought he might fall in.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, that same, strange gnawing feeling in the bottom of my stomach. ‘I know there’s nothing I can say that will make you feel better.’
He didn’t respond.
‘But if she was cheating on you, really, you’re better off out of it.’
His head shot up and a shower of whisky splattered on his shoes. ‘You think she was cheating on me?’
There was nothing I could say that would make him feel better but apparently there was something I could say that would make him feel worse.
‘No!’ I said right away. ‘I misunderstood. I thought you meant they were a thing before you broke up. I’m sure she would never do that.’
I was not sure of that at all. In fact, if I had to put money in it, I’d bet the other way, but that wasn’t going to help matters. What was I supposed to do with a recently dumped dude? I couldn’t give him a tub of Ben & Jerry’s, put on Dirty Dancing and stroke his hair until he felt better, could I? Or could I? I watched his face for clues but he was entirely inscrutable. Yes, he looked upset but I’d seen that same expression on his face a million times over the last fortnight, whether he was hungry, tired, or needed the toilet. His poker face had improved since we shaved off the beard.
Who knew how he was going to react? Who knew how hard he was going to take this? Who knew how long he would need to recover from such an ugly, explicit betrayal?
‘What’s done is done,’ he announced, knocking back the rest of his whisky and then slapping his knees. ‘Cheese toastie?’
He would need four point seven seconds.
‘We can talk about it, if you want to?’ I said, standing back as he strode into the kitchen, refilled his mug and delved into another Tesco bag to produce a white loaf and a bag of grated cheddar.
‘Pre-grated cheese.’ He held the bag up for inspection, shaking his head in wonderment. ‘Best invention since sliced bread.’ He patted the Kingsmill and laughed at his own joke. ‘Where’s the toaster?’
‘Next to the microwave,’ I said, shuffling out the way as he fo
und his own way around my kitchen. ‘You don’t want to talk about it?’
‘If I’m talking about it, I’ll be thinking about it, and I’ve already lost hours doing that,’ he replied, still busying himself with his dinner as he spoke. ‘If it’s done, it’s done. Where’s the good in dwelling on the past?’
‘Said the historian to the digital marketer,’ I replied.
Sam set about his task with as much care and attention as you might expect. He methodically placed each piece of bread in the toaster, opened the bag of cheese, turned on my grill and wiped down two plates he found on the draining board with kitchen towel. Once the first toastie was in the oven, he started on the second. He was halfway through scattering the cheese when the first tear fell.
I placed my hand gently on his back.
‘Please don’t,’ he said. His gaze was focused on the toaster and his knuckles were tight around the butter knife in his hand. ‘I’ll be quite all right in just a moment.’
It was a lie but luckily, I knew exactly what to do.
Without a word, I linked my phone to my speakers and quickly scrolled through my music library. Only one person could help us in times like these.
Sam almost dropped his knife as the music started, bass thumping underneath our feet. I saw a stray grey paw stretch out from under the loveseat and stealthily grab a crumb of cheese.
‘Where is that coming from?’ he said, shooing the scavenger away. ‘Are you doing that? Is that you?’
I stood up and dimmed the lights before turning back to Sam. God, I loved a dimmer switch.
‘That, Dr Page,’ I said, holding out my hand, ‘is the one and only Ms Britney Jean Spears. And she thinks you need to dance.’
I closed my eyes, threw my hands up in the air and waved them like I didn’t care. About how silly I looked, about drinking cheap white wine on a Tuesday, about the nagging feeling that my sister was right.
‘Come on, Sam,’ I ordered with my eyes still closed. ‘Otherwise I’m dancing on my own and I’m going to start feeling like a right tit.’
‘That would make sense because that’s what you look like,’ he replied. I responded by turning up the music. ‘What about your neighbours?’