Page 62 of The Woman Who Said Yes

I know Phil wants us to be together again. ‘Can we fix it?’ he’d asked once – as if repairing our marriage would be as easy as repairing a punctured inner tube. He looks different now; older of course, a little worn out by his life choices, but still handsome and fit in that active-member-of-the-tennis-club way. His grey-blue eyes are bright, his face lightly tanned and his body in good shape for a man of sixty. His light brown hair has barely greyed and receded only a little; annoying as I’d hoped that pretending to love Mahler would cause it all to fall out.

Back in my kitchen, I pour us each a glass of wine and carry them through to the living room where I find him crouching down on the rug. ‘What’re you doing?’ I ask. His face is all scrunched up as he examines something tiny, gripped between his thumb and finger.

He looks up at me, grinning, suddenly looking like the young Phil again. The Phil I’d met at that party who’d smiled cheekily and handed me a beer from the fridge. ‘I just saw this thing glinting,’ he says. ‘Is it off an earring or a necklace or something?’

I set our wine glasses on the coffee table, and he hands me the object.

‘Oh!’ I say. ‘So that’s where it went.’

‘Is it precious?’ He looks pleased with himself, like a little boy who’s done a good thing.

‘It kind of is,’ I say, holding it gingerly and then dropping it into the little pot on the shelf. ‘It’s the eye from that stuffed fish.’

‘Ugh, God, is it?’ We are laughing now. He knows about the pike. He also knows how ridiculous I am for pretending to love it, just like I’ve pretended to love Dom. I look at him, this man who knows every inch of me, who smashed my heart to pieces, and I know what he is about to do next.

He doesn’t say anything. He just steps towards me and kisses me softly on the mouth. And despite the fact that Trudy flashes into my mind – delightedly crowing, ‘I told you so!’ – I see no reason whatsoever not to kiss him back.

35

SAM

Sam was surprised when Lucy asked him over to her place for a bite to eat. That’s how she seems to term sociable eating – it’s ‘a bite’, never dinner and or even supper, the term that seems to be prevalent in certain circles. (To Sam, ‘supper’ will always mean the vast pile of cheese on toast he and Theo used to devour, in the days when they’d sit up and watch a movie together on a non-school night.)

Despite Lucy professing to be a rubbish cook, the meal was delicious – gnocchi with fennel and a simple salad – although she brushed off his praise. ‘God no, I’m so basic. I keep HelloFresh in business most of the time.’

Afterwards, they relocate to the low black leather sofa that’s as rigid as a concrete plinth. With a large factory-style window overlooking a jumble of rooftops, the room is neat and thoughtfully furnished, everything in muted shades that remind Sam of mushrooms. Although several of Lucy’s nature-inspired artworks adorn the walls, there is no evidence of any printing happening here (he remembers now that she rents a tiny studio space with a friend). The paperbacks on her bookshelf are arranged by spine colours, hardbacks ordered by size. There is no TV that he can see, and no music playing – Sam tends to notice an absence of music in homes – but there is a lot of chat. Lucy is telling him all about her family: her sisters and brother, all seemingly working in similar fields. They are osteopaths, chiropractors, craniosacral therapists and physiotherapists – and of course Lucy is a therapist, which seems to fit. ‘D’you see your clients here?’ Sam asks.

‘I do,’ she says. ‘Some therapists rent rooms, but this works for me.’ He wonders if these clients are allowed to sit in the comfier-looking armchair, and if that’s why he feels a little odd here. If it’s because the space – everything is a ‘space’ now – has absorbed so much spilling out of emotions. Sam has never had therapy. Eva had gently suggested that it might be a good idea for Theo, a year or so after his mum had left, and Sam had mentioned this to him. He could see a specialist children’s counsellor, he’d explained, or maybe they could go to therapy together? Theo had gawped at his dad as if he’d said, ‘I wondered if you might fancy going to an embroidery exhibition, if that might help at all?’ and refused to even discuss it. And in a way, Andie and Eva – Andie especially – had provided Theo with emotional support by taking him out to the cinema or that sushi chain he’d become obsessed with. For a while Theo seemed reluctant to eat anywhere where the food didn’t arrive on a conveyor belt.

‘…So with my family,’ Lucy says now, ‘I’m never short of advice on what to do if I have a bad back.’

Sam chuckles and sips his red wine. He’s grateful that, once again, she’s doing most of the talking, although he’s struggling to remember which sibling does what as seemingly, everything involves tendons and muscles and joints. Perhaps it’s because of her job, he muses, which he assumes involves a lot of listening? In fact, Lucy seems to have pretty much shared her life history over their handful of meet-ups. Or dates? Is that what they are now, he wonders? Are they dating? He assumes not. Apart from that single kiss, there’s been no hint whatsoever of any⁠—

This thought has barely formed when Lucy’s mouth lands upon his, the shock of it causing him to slosh wine on the front of his shirt. Not the shock of the kiss exactly, as he’d wondered if something might happen tonight – but the timing of it, the launching in for a full-on snog precisely as he was wondering whether one single kiss outside Hampstead Tube station meant they were seeing each other, which seems to suggest that therapists can see inside your head!

Can Lucy really do that? Sam hopes not because although he’s not thinking when will this stop? exactly, he is wondering, how long will it go on for? It’s been a very long time since Sam has kissed anyone properly like this, but from memory, he is pretty sure that that’s not a good way to feel. Yet on it goes, this almost ferocious kiss that’s knocked the wind out of him. Lucy is going in with her tongue now – it’s like being propelled back to 1992. Not that that’s a problem in itself as 1992 had much to commend it: such as Sam still being young, brimming with energy, and immune to hangovers and unaware of the existence of Donald Trump. But he is aware of analysing the kiss, and thinking: interesting! So French kissing is still a thing. He’d be no more surprised to receive a fax. And also: a beautiful woman is snogging me yet it feels as if I’m not fully here. It’s as if Sam has turned into a pigeon and is watching the proceedings with interest through the window.

He is still clutching the wine glass which, he imagines, still has some wine in it. If more of it spills, at least the sofa is leather so surely it’ll wipe off more easily than on a fabric type? This isn’t good either, Sam realises – the fact that the extremely attractive Lucy is not only snogging his face off but straddling him now, her long black wrap-around-type skirt hoiked up around her taut pale thighs, and he’s thinking about furniture upholstery.

As the kiss goes on, he wonders if it’ll continue for as long as those high school art classes where they had to sketch that bunch of withering grapes. And at what point might it arouse him? Attractive women never launch themselves at Sam. The very least he can do is be turned on! And now he’s thinking, what’s going to happen tonight? Are they going to have sex? Does she want to? Does he? What about protection – should he have considered that before he came round? It would no more have occurred to Sam to stop off to buy a diving-suit than a pack of condoms. Maybe Lucy has some, if one might be required? Not that that’s likely because now the main focus of his attentions is the shirt that’s clinging damply to his chest.

Why can’t he get into it? The more he tries, the more his mind refuses to cooperate – like when the doctor comes at you with a giant hypodermic needle and barks, ‘Relax!’ Is there something wrong with him he wonders as Lucy clamps a hand on the back of his head? If there is – and actually, he knows there is, and also what that happens to be – then will it always be this way? Sam has dated a few people since Bibi left. It’s not that he was always the one to end things, although he knows that they probably sensed that something was off, that he wasn’t fully ‘with them’. He did end it that last time, with Jane, and it still pains him whenever he allows himself to remember her crying on the phone.

Why, Sam? I thought we were really good! I thought we were having a great time!

She was a lovely person, clever and attractive and affectionate, although she did once remark that she thought Mary Beard was ‘too old’ to be on TV. But was that any reason to finish with someone? It was just her opinion, after all!

Andie would never have said that. That’s all he kept thinking, but of course he didn’t cite the Mary Beard thing as the reason. I just don’t think I’m in the right kind of place to be seeing anyone right now. Good God – when he thinks about that he wants to smack himself around the head.

‘Sam?’ Lucy detaches her lips from his, then clambers off him as gracefully as it’s possible to unstraddle a person. She arranges herself cross-legged on the sofa, with her skirt draped over her knees, to face him.

‘Uh-huh?’ he says.

‘You okay?’ She tips her head, fixing him with a quizzical look.

‘Yeah, yeah. I’m good!’

She squints at his bluey-grey shirt. ‘Oh dear. Hope that wasn’t a new one.’