I tiptoed a few more paces, then paused just outside the door. The smell of something wafted out of an open window – a casserole of some sort? – rich and tomatoey, with a hint of garlic. I felt unexpectedly hungry. Sam never ate packet noodles or beans out of a tin: everything was made from scratch, as if he drew pleasure from doing things methodically. Then I saw him – his uniform still on – a tea-towel slung over his shoulder as he stooped to see to a pan and just for a moment I stood, unseen, in the dark and felt utterly calm. I heard the distant breeze in the trees, the soft cluck of the hens locked nearby in their coop, the distant hum of traffic headed towards the city. I felt the cool air against my skin and the tang of Christmassy anticipation in the air I breathed.
Everything was possible. That was what I had learnt, these last few months. Life might have been complicated, but ultimately there was just me and the man I loved and his railway carriage and the prospect of a joyous evening ahead. I took a breath, letting myself savour that thought, stepped forward and put my hand on the door handle.
And then I saw her.
She walked across the carriage saying something unclear, her voice muffled by the glass, her hair clipped up and tumbling in soft curls around her face. She was wearing a man’s T-shirt – his? – and holding a wine bottle, and I saw him shake his head. And then, as he bent over the stove, she walked up behind him and placed her hands on his neck, leaning towards him and rubbing the muscles around it with small circular motions of her thumbs, a movement that seemed born of familiarity. Her thumbnails were painted deep pink. As I stood there, my breath stalled in my chest, he leant his head back, his eyes closed, as if surrendering himself to her fierce little hands.
And then he turned to face her, smiling, his head tilted to one side, and she stepped back, laughing, and raised a glass to him.
I didn’t see anything else. My heart thumped so loudly in my ears that I thought I might pass out. I stumbled backwards, then turned and ran back down the path, my breath too loud, my feet icy in my wet shoes. Even though my car was probably fifty yards away I heard her sudden burst of laughter echo through the open window, like a glass shattering.
I sat in my car in the car park behind my building until I could be sure Thom had gone to bed. I couldn’t hide what I felt and I couldn’t bear to explain it to Treena in front of him. I glanced up periodically, watching as his bedroom light went on and then, half an hour later, went off again. I turned off the engine and let it tick down. As it faded, so did every dream I had been clinging on to.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. Why would I? Katie Ingram had laid her cards on the table from the start. What had shocked me was that Sam had been complicit. He hadn’t shrugged her off. He had answered me, and then he had cooked her a meal and let her rub his neck, and it was preparation for … what?
Every time I pictured them I found myself clutching my stomach, doubled over, as if I’d been punched. I couldn’t shake the image of them from my head. The way he tilted his head back at the pressure of her fingers. The way she had laughed confidently, teasingly, as if at some shared joke between them.
The strangest thing was that I couldn’t cry. What I felt was bigger than grief. I was numb, my brain humming with questions – How long? How far? Why? – and then I would find myself doubled over again, wanting to be sick with it, this new knowledge, this hefty blow, this pain, this pain, this pain.
I’m not sure how long I sat there, but at around ten I walked slowly upstairs and let myself into the flat. I was hoping Treena had gone to bed but she was in her pyjamas watching the news, her laptop on her knee. She was smiling at something on her screen and jumped when I opened the door.
‘Jesus, you nearly frightened the life out of me – Lou?’ She pushed her laptop to one side. ‘Lou? Oh, no …’
It’s always the kindnesses that finish you off. My sister, a woman who found adult physical contact more discomfiting than dental treatment, put her arms around me and, from some unexpected place that felt like it was located in the deepest part of me, I began to sob, huge, breathless, snotty tears. I cried in a way I hadn’t cried since Will had died, sobs that contained the death of dreams and the dread knowledge of months of heartbreak ahead. We sank slowly down onto the sofa and I buried my head in her shoulder and held her, and this time my sister rested her head against mine and she held me and didn’t let me go.
18
Neither Sam nor my parents had expected to see me so for the next two days it was easy to hide in the flat and pretend I wasn’t there. I wasn’t ready to see anyone. I wasn’t ready to speak to anyone. When Sam texted I ignored it, reasoning that he would believe I was running around like a headless chicken back in New York. I found myself gazing repeatedly at his two messages – What do you fancy doing Christmas Eve? Church service? Or too tired? and Are we seeing each other Boxing Day? – and I would marvel that this man, this most straightforward and honourable of men, had acquired such a blatant ability to lie to me.
For those two days I painted on a smile while Thom was in the flat, folding away the sofa-bed as he chatted over breakfast and disappearing into the shower. The moment he had gone I would return to the sofa and lie there, gazing up at the ceiling, tears trickling from the corners of my eyes, or coldly mulling over the many ways I appeared to have got it all wrong.
Had I leapt head first into a relationship with Sam because I was still grieving Will? Had I ever really known him at all? We see what we want to see, after all, especially when blinded by physical attraction. Had he done what he did because of Josh? Because of Agnes’s pregnancy test? Did there even have to be a reason? I no longer trusted my own judgement enough to tell.
For once, Treena didn’t badger me to get up or do something constructive. She shook her head, disbelieving, and cursed Sam out of Thom’s earshot. Even in the depths of my misery I was left mulling over Eddie’s apparent ability to instil in my sister something resembling empathy.
She didn’t once say it wasn’t a huge surprise, given I was living so many thousands of miles away, or that I must have done something to push him into Katie Ingram’s arms, or that any of this was inevitable. She listened when I told her the events that had led up to that night, she made sure I ate, washed and got dressed. And although she wasn’t much of a drinker, she brought home two bottles of wine and said she thought I was allowed a couple of days of wallowing (but added that if I was sick I had to clear it up myself).
By the time Christmas Eve arrived, I had grown a hard shell, a carapace. I felt like an ice statue. At some point, I realized, I was going to have to speak to him, but I wasn’t ready yet. I wasn’t sure I ever would be.
‘What will you do?’ said Treena, sitting on the loo while I had a bath. She wasn’t seeing Eddie until Christmas Day, and was painting her toenails a pale pink in preparation, although she wouldn’t admit as much. Out in the living room Thom had the television turned up to deafening volume and was leaping on and off the sofa in a pre-Christmas frenzy.
‘I was thinking I might just tell him I missed the flight. And that we’d speak after Christmas.’
She pulled a face. ‘You don’t just want to speak to him? He’s not going to believe that.’
‘I don’t really care what he believes right now. I just want to have Christmas with my family and no drama.’ I sank under the water so that I couldn’t hear Treena shouting at Thom to turn the sound down.
He didn’t believe me. His text message said: What? How could you miss the flight?
– I just did, I typed. I’ll see you Boxing Day.
I observed too late I hadn’t put any kisses on it. There was a long silence, and then a single word in response: Okay.
Treena drove us to Stortfold, Thom bouncing in the rear seat for the full hour and a half it took us to get there. We listened to Christmas carols on the radio and spoke little. We were a mile out of town when I thanked her for her consideration, and she whispered that it wasn’t for me: Eddie hadn’t actually met Mum and Dad either so she was feeling nauseous at the thought of Christmas Day.
‘It’ll be fine,’ I told her. The smile she flashed me wasn’t very convincing.
‘C’mon. They liked that accountant bloke you dated earlier this year. And to be honest, Treen, you’ve been single so long I think you could probably bring home anyone who wasn’t Attila the Hun right now and they’d be delighted.’