‘The rest of us still fly economy, Roisin,’ says Faye, rolling her eyes.
‘I don’t know, I think there’s something glorious about being in your twenties, your whole life is ahead of you and everything’s a possibility,’ says Alex, picking up aubergines and peppers to throw into her lethal-looking peeling and cutting machine.
‘I will give youth alcohol tolerance and skin elasticity, which were both excellent,’ says Roisin. ‘What about you, Lucy, would you go back, if you could?’
‘Yes,’ I say, without even hesitating. ‘I can see the advantages to being this age, but there are things I didn’t expect too. Life just feels so busy, like there’s never any time. The big stuff seems so much bigger, the sad stuff . . . well, it’s really fucking sad.’ I pause.
‘You’re right, in some ways, life only gets more complicated,’ says Alex. ‘The older you get, the more you encounter grief, pain and disappointment. Anyone who hasn’t, it is coming for them.’
‘Amen,’ says Roisin. ‘Life is never sorted. It’s just an undulating shit storm of problems and pleasure.’
‘This is all really cheery stuff,’ I say wryly.
‘But’ – Alex holds up a hand, she hasn’t finished – ‘maybe bones need to be broken for you to suck out the marrow of life. We are lucky, we are here, when others are not. I wear the grey in my hair as a badge of honour, the privilege of ageing.’
We all pause for a moment, glasses still in our hands.
‘She’d be so disappointed in us, wouldn’t she, staying in, cooking vegetable risotto, drinking eco wine from a flask,’ Roisin says, tilting her head to one side.
‘She would,’ I say, my voice breaking.
‘To Zoya,’ says Alex, lifting her wine in the air.
‘To Zoya,’ says Faye, meeting my eye. ‘Who we miss, every single day.’
We raise our glasses, making eye contact with one another, a look that says more than words ever could.
‘Sam doesn’t think I’m the same person I was a few weeks ago,’ I say quietly. ‘Honestly, I was worried you all might find me lacking too.’
‘What? How could he say that?’ says Faye with a frown.
‘You’re not lacking anything,’ says Roisin firmly. ‘Your jokes are still terrible, you still drink too fast and I see you’re clinging on to statement earrings like they didn’t go out of style.’ She pauses. ‘I don’t feel like you’ve changed at all.’
‘Maybe that’s because we all revert to being teenagers when we’re around each other,’ I say, leaning my head against Roisin’s shoulder.
‘Or your friends simply know you the best,’ says Faye.
Sitting down to eat, sinking into this familiar rhythm of conversation, it feels like putting on an old, beloved coat – warm and comforting, embroidered with an indelible history. It refuels me, revives me, and I’m glad I did not go home to watch Poirot alone.
Sam is awake, reading in the living room when I get back.
‘Hi, how was your night?’ he asks.
‘Great. It was lovely to see everyone,’ I tell him. Everyone. The word sticks in my mouth because it wasn’t everyone.
‘Good, I’m glad you went,’ he says, closing his book, then nodding his head to one side and patting the sofa, inviting me to sit beside him. Once I’m sitting, he pulls my foot into his lap, takes off my shoe and starts rubbing the sole of my foot. It feels strangely intimate, but I let myself sink into it.
‘Where are you at, Luce? I can’t tell what you’re thinking,’ he asks gently. ‘Was I wrong to tell you about Chloe?’
What would Future Me say? What’s the mature response? Maybe the truth. Now, suddenly I do know what to say.
‘No, I’m glad you told me, I needed to know.’ I pause. ‘And I understand why you said that I wasn’t your wife, but that didn’t make me feel great. It’s made me feel even more like an impostor than I already do.’
He stops rubbing my foot and reaches to tilt my chin so that I’m looking him in the eye. ‘I know, I’m sorry, that came out horribly. You are my wife, of course you are. I love you, I will always love you, whatever happens, whatever you do or don’t remember.’
Sam leans in, his warm, oaky smell so new and yet so familiar. Is he going to kiss me? There’s a moment that feels electrically charged, before he gently presses his lips to mine, so soft, and then suddenly firmer, deeper. I comb a hand through his messy hair and pull him closer, giddy with the feel of him, relief pulsing through every particle of my body. As I stroke my hand around his back, I have a sudden image of the shirt he’s wearing. Breakfast on a beach, him spilling orange juice down it. Is that a memory? That can’t be a photo. I pull away.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asks.
‘Nothing.’ Less a memory, I reason, more a glimpse, a fragment, maybe something I saw in a video. ‘You don’t need to apologise for feeling weird about all this. I feel weird about it too. I guess I don’t feel like your wife either.’
Sam pulls back, pinching the bridge of his nose. ‘You’re going to remember. You will.’
‘But what if I don’t?’
His hand moves back to my leg and he starts slowly massaging my calf. ‘Then I will try to fill in the gaps for you.’
As we lie on the sofa, he tells me about our life together, the beginning of our story. Our first date to Borough Market, where I bought so much cheese he had to lend me his backpack so I could carry it home; our first weekend away to the Lake District where he tried to show off his boating prowess but left us becalmed at the wrong end of Lake Windermere. That prompted our first argument. He tells me about the dinner I hosted to introduce him to my friends, how he was so nervous that he spilt gravy all over Roisin’s immaculate tablecloth. He tells me about a trip we took to Greece with Zoya and her fiancé Tarek, where Zoya was painting a mural for a restaurant and thought it was hilarious that she gave Zeus Sam’s face. He paints each memory with such vivid details: the colour of the sky, the food we ate, my reaction to things, how I laughed at the mural so hard red wine came out of my nose. I’m not sure when I drift off, but his words feel like a balm soothing me to sleep, the details of our life together like brushstrokes, painting their way into my dreams.
Chapter 25
The next morning, I wake with a new sense of purpose. It’s as though falling asleep in Sam’s arms has built a new cocoon around me, reminding me of the need to metamorphose. So I’ve not had instant success. Did I really think I was going to come up with the perfect idea in one evening of research? That I was going to learn how to be a parent in a single day? That I could slot into an eleven-year relationship without any difficulty at all?