– A device that removed nostril hair, from Treena. (‘Don’t look at me like that. You’re getting to that age.’)
– A picture of a Christmas tree with a poem underneath it from Thom. On close questioning, it turned out he hadn’t actually made it himself. ‘Our teacher says we don’t stick the decorations on the right places so she does them and we just put our names on them.’
I received a gift from Lily, dropped in the previous day before she and Mrs Traynor went skiing – ‘She looks well, Lou. Though she runs Mrs Traynor pretty ragged from what I’ve heard’ – a vintage ring, a huge green stone in a silver setting that fitted perfectly on my little finger. I had sent her a pair of silver earrings that looked like cuffs, assured by the fearsomely trendy SoHo shop assistant that they were perfect for a teenage girl. Especially one now apparently prone to piercings in unexpected places.
I thanked everyone and watched Granddad nod off. I smiled and I think I put on a pretty good impression of someone who was enjoying the day. Mum was smarter than that.
‘Is everything okay, love? You seem very flat.’ She ladled goose fat over the potatoes and stepped back as it sprayed out in an angry mist. ‘Oh, will you look at those? They’re going to be lovely and crisp.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Is it the jetlag still? Ronnie from three doors down said when he went to Florida it took him three weeks to stop walking into walls.’
‘That’s pretty much it.’
‘I can’t believe I have a daughter who gets jetlag. I’m the envy of everyone at the club, you know.’
I looked up. ‘You’ve been there again?’
After Will had ended his life, my parents had been ostracized at the social club they’d belonged to for years, blamed vicariously for my actions in going along with his plan. It was one of the many things I had felt guilty about.
‘Well, that Marjorie has moved to Cirencester. You know she was the worst for the gossip. And then Stuart from the garage told Dad he should come down and have a game of pool some time. Just casual-like. And it was all fine.’ She shrugged. ‘And, you know, all that business was a couple of years ago now. People have other things to think about.’
People have other things to think about. I don’t know why that innocent statement caught me by the throat, but it did. As I was trying to swallow a sudden wave of grief, Mum shoved the tray of potatoes back into the oven. She shut the door with a satisfied clunk, then turned to me, pulling the oven gloves from her hands.
‘I almost forgot – the strangest thing. Your man called this morning to say what were we going to do about your flight Boxing Day and did we mind if he picked you up himself?’
I froze. ‘What?’
She lifted a lid on a pan, released a burp of steam, and put it down again. ‘Well, I told him he must have been mistaken and you were here already, so he said he’d pop over later. Honestly, the shifts must be taking it out of him. I heard a thing on the radio where they said working nights can be awful bad for your brain. You might want to tell him.’
‘What – when’s he coming?’
Mum glanced at the clock. ‘Um … I think he said he was finishing mid-afternoon and he’d head over afterwards. All that way on Christmas Day! Here, have you met Treena’s fellow yet? Have you noticed the way she’s dressing these days?’ She glanced behind her at the door and her voice was full of wonder. ‘It’s almost like she’s becoming a normal person.’
I sat through Christmas lunch on high alert, outwardly calm but flinching every time someone passed our door. Every bite of my mother’s cooking turned to powder in my mouth. Every bad cracker joke my father read out went straight over my head. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t hear, couldn’t feel. I was locked in a bell jar of miserable anticipation. I glanced at Treena but she seemed preoccupied too, and I realized she was waiting on Eddie’s arrival. How hard could it be? I thought, grimly. At least her boyfriend wasn’t cheating on her. At least he wanted to be with her.
It began to rain, and the drops spat meanly on the windows, the sky darkening to fit my mood. Our little house, strung with tinsel and glitter-strewn greetings cards, shrank around us, and I felt alternately as if I couldn’t breathe in it and terrified of anything that lay beyond it. Occasionally I saw Mum’s eyes slide towards me, as if she was wondering what was going on, but she didn’t say anything and I didn’t volunteer it.
I helped clear the dishes and chatted – I thought convincingly – about the joys of grocery delivery in New York, and finally the doorbell went and my legs turned to jelly.
Mum turned to look at me. ‘Are you okay, Louisa? You’ve gone quite pale.’
‘I’ll tell you later, Mum.’
My mother stared at me hard, then her face softened. ‘I’ll be here.’ She reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. ‘Whatever this is all about, I’ll be here.’
Sam stood on the front step in a soft cobalt jumper I hadn’t seen before. I wondered who had given it to him. He gave me a half-smile but didn’t stoop to kiss me, or throw his arms around me like in our previous meetings. We gazed warily at each other.
‘Do you want to come in?’ My voice sounded oddly formal.
‘Thanks.’
I walked in front of him down the narrow corridor, waited while he greeted my parents through the living-room door, then led him into the kitchen, closing the door behind us. I felt acutely aware of his presence, as if we were both mildly electrified.
‘Would you like some tea?’
‘Sure … Nice jumper.’
‘Oh … Thanks.’
‘You’ve … left your nose on.’
‘Right.’ I reached down and turned it off, not willing to indulge anything that might soften the mood between us.
He sat down at the table, his body somehow too big for our kitchen chairs, his eyes still on me, and clasped his hands on its surface, like someone awaiting a job interview. In the living room I could hear Dad laughing at some film, and Thom’s shrill voice demanding to know what was funny. I busied myself making tea but I could feel his eyes burning into my back the whole time.
‘So,’ Sam said, when I handed him a mug and sat down, ‘you’re here.’
I nearly buckled then. I looked across the table at his handsome face, at the broad shoulders and the hands wrapped gently around the mug and a thought popped into my head: I cannot bear it if he leaves me.
But then I found myself standing again on that chilly step, her slim fingers on his neck, my feet icy in my wet shoes, and I grew cold again.
‘I got back two days ago,’ I said.
The briefest of pauses. ‘Okay.’
‘I thought I’d come and surprise you. Thursday evening.’ I scratched at a mark on the tablecloth. ‘Turns out it was me who got the surprise.’
I watched realization dawn slowly across his face: his slight frown, his eyes growing distant, then their faint closure when he grasped what I might have seen. ‘Lou, I don’t know what you saw, but –’
‘But what? “It’s not what you think”?’
‘Well, it is and it isn’t.’
It was like a punch.
‘Let’s not do this, Sam.’
He looked up.
‘I’m pretty clear about what I saw. If you try and convince me it wasn’t what I think, I’ll want to believe you so badly that I might actually do it. And what I’ve realized these last two days is that this … this isn’t good for me. It isn’t good for either of us.’
Sam put his mug down. He dragged his hand over his face and looked off to the side. ‘I don’t love her, Lou.’
‘I don’t really care what you feel about her.’
‘Well, I want you to know. Yes, you were right about Katie. I may have misread the signals. She does like me.’
I let out a bitter laugh. ‘And you like her.’
‘I don’t know what I think about her. You’re the person who’s in my head. You’re the person I wake up thinking about. But the thing is, you’re –’