26
Chris is delighted. The morose Sam of these past few months has been transformed in the last few days. It started when they went to Jill and Dan's for tea, where Sam seemed to bask in Jill's warmth, as Chris knew she would.
The four of them had hit it off, had said they would get together again very soon, and Dan had then suggested supper and a movie one night. He said he had some tickets to a sneak preview of Castaway with Tom Hanks. Chris had looked at Sam, expecting her to do as she always did, and decline on the basis that she wouldn't trust a baby-sitter to look after George, but to his surprise she nodded enthusiastically.
During the journey home it was as if someone had brought Sam back to life. She was bubbly, talkative, and actually laughed. Spontaneously. Three times! Chris felt all his anger melt away as he looked at her with affection, and after they'd got home, bathed George, and put him to bed, Sam, for the first time since George, initiated sex.
And not only that, she was an animal. She couldn't get enough. Chris had always taken the lead, but suddenly Sam was growling with lust and contorting her body into positions he'd never even heard of.
It was f*cking amazing.
Little did Chris know that while Sam was kissing his lips, she was thinking of Dan. While moaning with pleasure as she licked his left nipple, she was imagining Dan. While trailing a tongue down his stomach, she was dreaming of Dan.
She closed her eyes and let lust wash over her body, vaguely conscious of not calling out Dan's name, but picturing him with every moan, every shiver of lust, experiencing a passion she didn't think existed for her anymore. Afterward, when Chris had gone to sleep and Sam was lying in bed, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling, she indulged in an elaborate fantasy about Dan falling head over heels in love with her, leaving Jill, and Lily. She, Dan, and George would live happily ever after. Who knows, maybe even Jill and Chris would get together. . . . Stranger things had happened.
She ran over every possibility, thought through every outcome, while Chris tossed and turned next to her, and when she eventually went to sleep at two o'clock in the morning she had a smile on her face.
The next few days are filled with thoughts of Dan. In an odd sort of way her newfound crush has enabled her to be nicer to Chris. She accepts now that she married the wrong man. It's not his fault, it just isn't meant to be, and with that knowledge she is able to treat him with kindness, with courtesy, because he, after all, doesn't know that she is just biding her time.
Surely Dan feels the same way. She spends hours thinking about that afternoon, going over every glance, every laugh, every movement. Remember how he kissed her hello? Surely that's far too intimate a gesture, one he reserves for women he finds overwhelmingly gorgeous. Surely it was just her.
Remember how he came to sit next to her, brushing his thigh against hers? A sign if ever there was one. Remember how he told her the weight suited her? Weight! Suited her! He liked her like this! Definitely flirting. She hugs herself and smiles, a warm glow enveloping her body. He was definitely flirting and he definitely feels the same way.
A part of her half expects him to phone, is disappointed when the phone rings and it's someone else. Each time the bell breaks into the silence she jumps. Each time she picks it up she hesitates before pouting into the receiver, ensuring her voice sounds sensual and provocative.
“Hello,” she purrs as the phone rings this morning, praying it's Dan, praying he's been thinking about her as much as she's been thinking about him.
“Hello. It's me. What's the matter?” It's Chris.
“Nothing's the matter. Why?”
“You sound peculiar. You didn't sound like you.”
“And who else could I possibly sound like?”
“To be honest you sounded a bit like the rabbit in the Caramac ad.”
A smile spreads itself upon her face. That is exactly the effect she had intended. “Did I?” Her voice is innocence itself. “How flattering. I must try and make my voice sound like that more often.”
“Hmmm. Sounds very interesting.” Chris smiles, thinking of his gorgeous sexy wife in bed the other night. “Could produce unexpectedly nice results.”
“Is everything okay?” Her voice is back to normal. Sam has no wish to encourage Chris's lustful thoughts mid morning.
“Yup. I've just spoken to Jill. The Castaway tickets are for six-fifteen on Sunday night, which means we can go for supper afterward. Jill suggested Montana.”
“Great!” The enthusiasm is back in Sam's voice as she starts to plan, already, what to wear. “Sounds lovely.”
“And you definitely think your mum's not going to pull one of her numbers and claim to be busy on the night?”
“No. I made her swear. She's definitely going to baby-sit, but we have to be back by eleven.”
“Eleven?” Chris lets out a long whistle. “Christ. That's a bit late, isn't it?”
Sam allows herself a smile. “Eight o'clock seems to be bloody late in our household at the moment.”
“I'm glad you said that and not me.”
“Why? You're usually the one who says it. What's the difference?”
“The difference is that when I say it you start having a go at me about how I don't understand how tired you are.”
“Well, you don't,” Sam bristles, but Chris refuses to be drawn.
“Sam, we don't have to have an argument now.”
She huffs and puffs to herself for a bit, but hard as it is to back down from a really good fight, she concedes on this one. After all, she has more important things to think about.
Like what do you wear when you're going to be seeing the man who could turn out to be the love of your life?
Black trousers. (Still left over from maternity but they'll do.)
Burgundy crushed-velvet tunic top, but surprisingly flattering and low-cut to show off a sumptuous cleavage. (New purchase.)
Black high-heeled boots to add a few much needed inches. (New purchase.)
The other things you do before seeing the man who could turn out to be the love of your life?
You make an appointment at the hairdresser's, and finally say a tearful good-bye to your long blond curls that worked so well when you were in your twenties and your hair was thick and lustrous, but has become stringy and greasy now that you have had a baby, and is beginning to have a distinct whiff of mutton dressed as lamb.
You wheel your baby son off to the gym and park him in the creche while you pay a disgusting amount of money for a year's membership (you could pay monthly by direct debit and stop the direct debits when you—inevitably—stop going after six weeks, but you figure that if you pay it all in one go you'll feel so guilty you'll go every day for the rest of your life).
You make an appointment at the beauty salon in the gym. You decide to have your legs waxed, your mustache electrolyzed, and a full Clarins makeover while you're at it. A flash of guilt hits you when the beautician smiles and says your husband is in for a treat, and for a moment you're tempted to tell her everything—isn't it so much easier to confide in a stranger, and isn't there something so comforting about a woman in a white coat—but you manage to keep quiet about the love of your life.
You drive down to Sainsbury's in Camden Town and stock up with Weight Watchers for Heinz ready-made meals, Go Ahead chocolate caramel bars, 98 percent fat-free caramel rice cakes, and Too Good to Be True slices of cheese. By the time you hit checkout you realize that Go Ahead did not mean eating three individually wrapped cake bars while pushing your trolley around the aisles, so reluctantly you put back the cheese and the rice cakes, and go back to the fruit section, where you virtuously replace the goodies with grapefruit and apples.
You walk along Hampstead High Street in a state, cursing designers who are cutting so much smaller these days. (There's no way you're bigger than a size 12. No way. Those bloody designers are just trying to encourage skinny people to shop there.) Eventually you console yourself with the perfect pair of high-heeled boots (Nine West), made even better by the gorgeous top in Monsoon that has your name written all over it, and turns out to be a perfect fit.
You ring your best friend, who has turned into a party animal and is currently painting New York red, and leave desperate messages on her machine, begging her to call you because you have to tell someone or you might just possibly burst.
When your best friend doesn't call, you drag your old telephone book from out of the drawer and flick through looking for someone, anyone, to call to share your good fortune. But then you realize how inappropriate it would be to phone someone you haven't spoken to for months to blurt out the tale of your desperately unhappy marriage, and the reason for your newfound happiness.
So you pile your child into his buggy (yet again), and push the buggy up Mansfield Road toward the Green, and you park it just inside the doorway of a café (you would sit outside but a gloomy, wet early December is not the most conducive for an outdoor cappuccino, no matter how hot the cup), and you sit your son in a high chair and give him a bottle of juice and a reduced-sugar rusk to keep him quiet, and you daydream.
“Excuse me? Is anyone sitting here?” Sam's reverie is interrupted by a tall woman with a BabyBjorn strapped to her stomach, a tiny newborn baby barely visible but quiet, presumably fast asleep.
Sam gives her a smile and nods, although she isn't entirely sure she wants her space invaded. Not today. Yet isn't this what she's been hoping for these past few months? Hasn't she been longing for a local friend with a baby? Someone who looks very much like this woman? Why did it have to happen today when she is busy thinking about other things, happy to sit here alone, lost in her thoughts of Dan?
“I am deeply envious.” The woman sits with a smile as she deftly unclips the BabyBjorn and shrugs a pale lemon snowsuit off a still-sleeping infant. She gestures at George, who's happily gumming down on the rusk, babbling away to himself, looking around the room at all the faces. “We're still at the screaming-all-night phase and I'm longing to get her out of this bloody BabyBjorn and into a high chair.”
Sam smiles, warming to the woman, clearly remembering those days with George. “It's not all fun and games. He's about to start crawling and I won't be able to leave him for a second.”
The waitress comes over. “I'll have a cappuccino,” the woman says. The waitress looks at Sam questioningly, and Sam orders another one, settling in for a while, curious to find out a bit more about this woman.
“You look sort of familiar,” Sam says. “Are you local?”
“Yup. Estelle Road. You?”
“Oak Village.”
“God, that's so lovely. I'm completely in love with those chocolate-box houses. Are they as gorgeous on the inside as they look?”
“Gorgeous,” Sam laughs. “But size isn't one of their bonuses.”
“Ah yes. I can see that. Our house is one of those boring old Victorian terraces, but it's huge on the inside. God, doesn't that sound awful? Actually it was my boyfriend's house before, so I'm allowed to still be slightly awed by the size of it. I probably look familiar to you just by being local. Christ, the only thing that keeps me sane right now is getting out of the house and going for a four-hour walk. Anything to shut this little angel up for a while.”
Sam laughs at her honesty. “I don't know. I've got a feeling I've seen you somewhere else, but maybe it is just local. So how old is your little angel . . . a little girl, I take it?”
“Yup. This is Poppy. She's seven weeks. Yours?”
“George. Nearly eight months.”
“University College Hospital?”
“Of course. Yours?”
“Yup. We were going to go up the road but then heard they'd had a few staffing problems.”
“I heard the same thing,” Sam murmurs in agreement. “Someone I know had a cesarean and no one even came to look at her for about twenty-four hours. Her boyfriend ended up changing her sheets and bringing her food from home. Can you imagine?”
“I heard that as well!” The woman starts to laugh. “A friend of a friend. I think her name was Eleanor.”
“Nope,” Sam says, grinning. “This one was called Janine.” The woman laughs. “Do you think it's become one of those apocryphal stories?”
“I don't know, but don't urban myths usually involve something horribly embarrassing like passing out after you've weed in your boyfriend's parents' bathroom sink?”
“Oh God! I remember that one! My favorite was always the girl who pooed onto the conservatory roof when her boyfriend's parents were eating lunch.”
They both laugh. “It really happened!” Sam insists with mock-seriousness.
“Oh really? Was it . . . you?” and they both laugh again.
“Isn't it weird how they always seem to involve a boyfriend's parents?” the woman said. “Who the hell thinks of these things anyway?”
“Who the hell knows?”
“Who the hell cares?” and they both smile at one another, somehow each knowing that this is more than just coincidence, that they were somehow fated to meet this afternoon, and that this will be the start of an important friendship.
They may not know very much about one another—they don't even know one another's names—but already Sam can see she might have found her NBF—New Best Friend—and she may not be quite the same as Julia (who Sam still misses on a daily basis), but she's a pretty close match.
“I'm Sam,” Sam says, knowing that she no longer has desperation etched on her forehead, knowing that this woman won't be scared off by premature offerings of friendship.
“It's nice to meet you, Sam.” The woman extends her hand and Sam shakes it firmly. “I'm Maeve.”
“I could not believe it,” she squeals to Chris when he comes home. “I mean, what was I supposed to have said?” Just because Chris was not her soulmate, and she'd buggered up her marriage slightly by marrying the wrong man, did not mean that they couldn't be friends, and Sam was itching to gossip with someone.
The only people other than Chris in whom she could confide were Julia and Bella, and Julia, obviously, wasn't exactly an option at this point. She would have been a wonderful option had Sam hated Maeve, and had she been able to phone Julia and tell her she'd met the ghastly Maeve and listen to what a bitch she is, and my God she's so ugly, she's positively evil, but of course she couldn't say any of that.
She could have told Bella, but Bella and Julia are now practically joined at the hip, and the problem with threesomes is that, no matter how good everyone's intentions, one invariably ends up being left out, and unfortunately, thanks to geography, that someone appears to be Sam. She's not about to go confiding in Bella when there's a very strong chance Bella will blurt everything out to Julia. Secrets, have, in any case, never been Bella's strong point.
“Did you tell her you knew who she was?”
“Oh God,” Sam groaned. “It was just awful. I wanted to tell her because she was so nice, but I just sort of went a bit white and speechless, and when she wanted to know what was the matter I told her I just had a hot flush.”
“What did she say?”
“She asked if I was pregnant again.”
“And what did you say?”
“I said unlikely unless it was the Immaculate Conception.”
Chris takes Sam's hand and looks into her eyes with his most seductive smile. “There was the other night, so that's not strictly true. And we can always have a repeat performance now if you'd like.”
“Don't be silly.” She shakes his hand off as if he were a naughty child. “The point is that I feel terrible. What am I going to say to Julia?”
“Why do you have to say anything to Julia?” Chris's voice is harder now, he was hurt by her rebuff, her constant rejection of him.
“Julia's my best friend.”
“But this is just some woman you met at a coffee shop,” he says irritably. “I don't understand why you're in such a state about it. What is the big deal?”
Sam sighs. “The big deal, Chris, is that I liked her. I thought we could be friends.”
“You still can be.”
“But what do I tell Julia?”
“Why tell Julia anything?”
“Because she's my best friend.”
Chris can no longer hide the exasperation in his voice. “What are you so scared of? For God's sake, Sam! You've been banging on for months about how lonely you are and how boring it is looking after a baby all day and how much you miss Julia because now you haven't got a best friend and you never realized before how much you need a best friend, and now you finally meet someone who could potentially be a new friend, and you're not going to pursue it because you're frightened of what your old best friend might say? How old are you? Six?
“And maybe, just maybe,” he continues, fed up with containing his frustration, “you're happy being on your own. Maybe you've been bored and lonely because it's easier to feel sorry for yourself when your life is dull, and it's easy to make other people feel sorry for you. Far easier than making the effort to get up, go out and meet people.”
“You bastard,” she hisses. “You have absolutely no idea what my life is like. You have no idea because you get to leave every day. You're not the one who's expected to do all the housework, and look after George, and cook, and have a life at the same time. How dare you accuse me of being a . . . a victim”—she spits the word out—“when you haven't stood in my shoes. How dare you.” She's so angry she's almost in tears. Angry and humiliated. Because of course she knows he's right.
“Victim,” Chris ponders, just before he walks out to go and read the papers in the other room, to try to calm down, to pretend that his marriage is so much better than it is. “Interesting choice of word. And more interesting that you said it yourself. It certainly gives you something to think about.” He walks out the door just as an Emma Bridgewater mug comes flying toward his head, crashing into the doorframe with a huge bang and an explosion of blue and white china.
“Mmm, clever,” he says calmly, no expression in his eyes as he looks directly at Sam, who's now standing in the kitchen weeping, unable to believe what she has just done. “And that's going to make both of us feel so much better.” With sarcasm dripping from his voice, he closes the door.
Sam doesn't say anything to Chris that night. She goes upstairs, runs a bath, and thinks about how lucky she is to have found Dan, how unbearable this would be had she not met her destiny.
When she was eleven years old, lonely, misunderstood, preparing to enter the dark years from twelve to eighteen, she invented an imaginary friend. She knew it was ridiculous for someone her age. This was, after all, the stuff of five-year-olds, but somehow it soothed her to think that there was someone out there who really loved her, who would reassure her even as her parents shouted at her and told her she was not enough.
Her imaginary friend—Jed was his name—was the love she had always waited for. He was a cross between Sting and Adam Ant. He wore drainpipe jeans and DMs, had short spiky hair, and hated her parents almost as much as she did.
She felt completely safe and utterly protected when Jed was around. She wove elaborate fantasies, so vivid that sometimes she thought they were real, involving Jed's love for her, and her love for Jed.
Lying in the bath, locked in an unhappy marriage, only able to cope by switching off, it never occurs to her that twenty-two years later she's doing exactly the same thing.
Although, she would snort indignantly, how could it possibly be the same when Dan is real? Dan's not an imaginary friend. He's the man she was supposed to have met six years ago, the man she was supposed to have married. Look at the way he made her feel just by touching her thigh with his. Look at the way he's occupying her every waking thought.
This has to be the real thing.