Afterwife (17 page)

When she got back home Sam was spread out in the living room with a newspaper, cigarette dangling from his lips. He didn’t look up. “How was the lunch with Soph’s mum and sister, babes?”

“Sad. Sweet. Kind of funny.” She smiled, happy to find him in such a good mood. He’d been unpredictable and irritable in the last few days. And he’d been listening to Radiohead, never a good sign.

He looked doubtful. “Funny?”

“We laughed a lot about things she did. Freddie was writing it all down in his Mummy Memory book. Bless.” She smiled and shrugged. “I guess it hit home how much everyone loved her.”

“She was indeed much loved.” And for a moment he looked soft and vulnerable and almost unbearably pained.

“I wish you’d been there, Sam.”

He blew out a smoke ring, puffed away the sadness from his features. “You know I’d just be this eejit in the corner saying the wrong thing.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” she said, feeling sorry for him. He really did struggle to express his emotions. She was sure he’d feel so much better if he let them romp a bit more freely. “Honestly. Ollie would have appreciated some grown-up male company.”

“Next time, eh?”

Was Sam avoiding Ollie? It did look like that. Or perhaps he couldn’t face up to death full stop. Some people were like that. Her phone started ringing, interrupting her thoughts. She pulled it out of her handbag, glanced at the interface and pinged it to voice mail. “Sorry, Tash again.”

He brightened. “Tash Wright?”

“Yes. Er, how do you know her surname?”

He blew out a thick rope of smoke. “Didn’t I tell you she phoned me last week?”

“Really?” she said, forgetting for a moment that she’d given Tash Sam’s number weeks before. “She wanted advice?”

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, asked the Questions.”

She knew all about the Questions. Since Sam’s friends had hit their forties there had been many discreet inquiries about divorce. Tash was probably after a free bit of legal advice in the same way she’d been after a free pair of ankle boots.

“She can talk for England, that one. It’s a small world, as it turns out.…” He stopped and took a lug on his cigarette, frowning. Something was bothering him.

“What?”

He shook his head. “Just a couple of people we both know. Knows Seb Lewis at Pulson Partners. Small world. Actually she knows his sister.”

“Oh, right,” she said, not really relishing the coincidence. Sam was one of those people who appeared to be five rather than six degrees separated from everyone else. Especially women. “Sam, it’s really weird,” she said, changing the subject and sitting down next to him on a scratchy wicker floor cushion. “I had a funny feeling that I was being followed in my car on the way back from lunch.” Spoken out loud, it sounded even more monstrously silly.

He looked up, startled. “Followed? By whom?”

“Some woman. On my bumper all the way back from Muswell Hill to Camden.” She rubbed her temples, trying to rub some sense into her head. “I don’t know. I just noticed her, that’s all.”

“Woman?” Something unreadable passed across Sam’s eyes. He smiled. “Perhaps one of Ollie’s new acolytes want you taken out. It’s a murky world, the world of the new widower.”

“Yeah,” she laughed, resting her head against his knee, suddenly grateful that she had him. That she was not on her own. Like Ollie.

After dinner they had sex. Jenny faked an orgasm. It was the first time she’d faked with Sam. As she’d hoped, he promptly rolled over, satisfied, and fell asleep. Needless to say, she couldn’t sleep. Her brain was like the bluebottle she could hear banging itself between the double glazing. So when her phone bleeped at two a.m. it was a relief that she was not the only person awake. She turned on her side to read the text.

“U up?”

Her heart quickened. She thumbed back a reply, keeping one eye on the sleeping form of Sam, who was snoring now. “U OK?”

“Blk dogs. Can’t sleep.”

“Nor me.”

She sank back into the bed, sweating now, heart pounding, clasping the phone, willing Ollie to text back. After ten minutes he still hadn’t. Her mind started to gallop. Was he in a bad way? What if he did something silly? No, that was stupid. Then again. Anything could happen. He was so up and down. And she wasn’t sleeping anyway. And there would be no traffic at this time of night. Sam wouldn’t even notice she’d gone, would he?

She drove north in record time. The moon was low and heavy in the sky, full, tarnished silver, and London’s empty streets unfolded before her like a computer game. She didn’t ring Ollie’s doorbell for fear of waking Freddie. Nor did she need to, as Ollie must have seen her shadow through the glass, opening the door immediately. He pulled her toward him, sinking his chin onto her shoulder, where it wedged in the fleshy bit.

He stank of booze.

Even in the half-light she could see he looked terrible, piratical. Then she wondered what she herself must look like, no makeup, bed hair, leggings and Sam’s old jumper that she’d thrown on in the blur of the bedroom. “I’ll make a cup of tea,” she said, sounding uncannily like her mother in times of crisis.

Ollie stumbled into the kitchen in the clattery noisy manner of a drunk man trying to be quiet.

“Stop drinking, Ol,” she said, pulling water into the kettle. “You’ve got to stop it. It’s not helping.”

He scoffed. “It’s helping me.”

“No, it’s not.” She leaned back against the cool brick wall. It broke her heart to see him like this.

“I want her, Jenny. I want her back.”

“I know,” she replied softly, unearthing two cleanish cups from the cupboard, wishing she hadn’t admonished him for drinking. She’d love a stiff drink herself.

“I can’t stand
this
,” he growled with sudden, startling ferocity. “I can’t stand…the days…the nights. How long do I have to fucking wait?”

“What for, Ol?” she asked softly.

His gypsy eyes flashed. “How long do I have to wait before I have sex again, Jenny?”

Sex! Oh! The question danced provocatively on the delicate boundaries that protect friend from friend’s husband. She could feel the heat rise on her cheeks.
“Well…”

“I’ve embarrassed you, sorry.” He shook his head, despairing of himself, then looked up and grinned wolfishly in a way that made something inside clench. “I promise you I haven’t lured you round here to have a pop.”

“Don’t be stupid. I know that.” Did she? Yes, yes, she did. Of course she did.

“It’s just sometimes my…mind boils over.”

“I guess it must be very hard.”
Hard!
Why had she said “hard”? She blushed furiously again and fumbled in the cupboard for a tea bag. Her clumsiness activated an avalanche of tea bags and takeaway ketchup sachets down on her head.

“I think I might have just had an offer actually.”

The boiling water splashed over the sides of the cup all over the work surface. “Really? God. Who?”

He looked at her deadpan, raised an eyebrow. “Tash.”

“Tash!”
Oh, no. She crushed her hand to her mouth in horror. “You didn’t…”

He looked sheepish. “No. But part of me wanted to.”

“Right. Right.” She didn’t know what to do with herself. She wanted to stick her fingers in her ears. Tra-la-la-la. But then again…
Tash!
Outrageous! Tash would never appreciate Ollie. She’d never understand him. She’d…she’d use him! And worse…how dare she?

He slumped back against the wall. “And now I feel like a piece of shit.”

“I’m sure this is all normal stuff,” she said briskly, wondering about the box of letters. Had he found it? Was this why he was thinking about other women? Had something in them given him the green light to seek alternative sexual gratification? No, no, her mind was playing tricks on her.

“You think so?”

“Well, it’s a
bit
soon,” she managed, her voice high and squeaky. She despised herself at that moment for not giving him her blessing. That was clearly what he wanted. She was the closest he got to Sophie and he was using her as a conduit to get permission to have sex. Damn. Why couldn’t she give it? That would be the humane response.

“When is not soon, Jenny?” he growled from behind his long, dark fringe.

“I just don’t know, Ollie.” The full force of the late hour hit her all at once. She was totally exhausted. She must get home. She wished she’d never come over here so late. What if Sam woke up and found the bed empty? What was she thinking being here in the small hours?

“You think I’m a fucker for even mentioning it, don’t you?”

“No!” Yes.

He sank his head to the table in despair then. Appalled, blaming herself for her inappropriate prudity, she stroked his arm, unable to hug him as she normally would have done in case he suspected she was doing a Tash too. He looked up, eyes ink black in the early morning gloom. “I don’t want to be alone, Jenny. I want to love and be loved.” He dropped his head into his hands. “Oh, fuck, now I sound like a James Blunt lyric.”

“For what it’s worth I think you’re doing brilliantly,” she stuttered. He must think her so priggish, so deeply uncool. “You will meet someone else eventually, in time, of course you will.”

“I can’t fucking stand that idea,” he spat out.

“But you just said…”

“I know. Both are true.”

“Tea.”

He pushed the tea away from him as if the sight of it revolted him. “That’s the head fuck.”

“You’ve got to think of Freddie, that’s all.” She put her cup down. “Stating the obvious, sorry.” The atmosphere in the kitchen tightened. She really must get back. It was a stupid idea coming here. “Look, it’s late. I better go.” She did up the buttons on her coat with clumsy fingers. Her head was messy all of a sudden, all whooshes and hisses, a tangle of contradictory thoughts. And then there was that strange, curdly excited feeling in her stomach that she couldn’t explain.

He put a hand upon her arm. “I see Sophie in you, Jenny.”

Words clumped in her throat. The silence of the house started to pound around them.

“You two were so tight it’s almost like a little bit of her has brushed off on you.” He hesitated. “Or maybe it’s the other way round.”

She didn’t want to be compared to Sophie. No woman would. “I better get back.”

He studied her intensely. “You’re spending too much time up here, aren’t you? Sam pissed off yet?”

She bit her lower lip hard, fighting tears, suddenly feeling immensely gullible for having driven through the night to be with Ollie, imagining she was so important when all he wanted was permission to shag Tash. It was embarrassing. She was embarrassing. “If I’m crowding you out, I’m sorry.”

He stroked featherlight fingers across her cheek. “Jenny, Jenny. You’re not crowding me out.” She was paralyzed by his touch, the slight rasp of his fingertips. “I’m so pleased you exist; you’ve no idea how pleased I am that you exist.”

The curdly feeling in her stomach became something else, a tugging in her lower body, something so tidal, so powerful, that it stole her breath away. Suddenly it felt like anything might happen.

“Daddy,” a little voice whimpered from the landing. They both jumped. “I’ve wet the bed.”

I
s it just me or might Jenny be going ever so slightly crackers?

She keeps twitching the curtains of her apartment, staring out at the street like an actress in an TV domestic crime drama. Who is she looking for exactly? And why on earth did she wake up at five a.m. this morning and bellow,
“Don’t touch the box!”
scaring the living daylights out of Sam, and me too, quite frankly. Sam had to shake her to make her calm down and bring her back to wakeful sanity. And did I mention that she has still done absolutely nothing,
nothing
about her wedding dress? She has not even bought her wedding shoes! She’s only got three months to find the shoes, and it takes her two years to choose a flip-flop. Her roots are three inches long too, slightly green. Dolly Parton would be appalled. Although I do not think that marrying Sam is the best idea in the world—could in fact be the worst—if she is going to do it, she’d better do it properly.

No, she’s not herself. Really not. Picture this. Earlier Sam popped out and brought her back a bunch of daffs, which was sweet, give him that. Jenny seemed to barely notice them. She stuffed them into
a vase, snapping their stems and making the petals fall off. Inconsequential? I think not! This is a woman who has a photograph of her favorite tree (wild cherry) above her desk, who collected cactuses rather than Barbies as a child and occasionally sings Dolly’s “Jolene” to her pet bonsai tree.

It’s evening now, eight p.m. And she’s still looking a tad deranged. Sam is cooking dinner. She tells Sam she’s going to change and disappears off to the bedroom. Is she changing into something slinky? Is she hell! She has put on flannel pajamas and, Jesus wept, knitted
bed socks
. Jenny, have I taught you nothing? The bed socks are purple. Purple! No woman under seventy who is in charge of her own marbles and wardrobe wears purple bed socks.

She emerges without a hint of shame. Sam glares at the bed socks as if they are a personal affront, which of course they are. If socks could talk these would be saying, “You’re not getting laid tonight.”

She stares dreamily out the window from her parrot perch on the bar stool while Sam stirs prawns and noodles around the gleaming wok and tells her about his client who is fighting his wife for custody of the Aga. She smiles like she’s pretending that she’s listening. He tells her that his mum has invited them for lunch on Sunday and that she is making beef Wellington and trifle and could Jenny bring the cheese? Nothing too French and stinky. That there’s a Tube strike on Monday. That the TV license needs renewing. That Berlin is the hottest city right now and they should go for a weekender, shouldn’t they? Jenny nods, not meeting his eye now, suddenly looking stricken. She cannot manage more than a few noodles and does that gulpy thing when you’re trying to eat and not cry at the same time. It never works. The throat’s not wide enough. You’ve got to do one or the other. I’m not sure if Sam’s noticed or not.

Then he has to notice. As he swerves toward the table, glossy Patisserie Valerie tarte tatin balanced precariously on his palm, she starts to cry. Is it the tarte tatin? Sam asks. Not. Is it Sophie? Sam
asks. Jenny says maybe, but she doesn’t know. Sam looks irritated. Men hate this kind of answer. They’d rather women wouldn’t cry in the first place and if they do cry they like to have the reason hoisted like a flag on a ship so that they can offer a practical solution and move the issue on so it doesn’t ruin their supper. He unwisely suggests that she go shopping for her wedding dress tomorrow. This will cheer her up, won’t it?