Page 54 of The Woman Who Said Yes

‘Yeah, that’s right,’ he says, and something clicks in him. He’s not entirely confident – it’s just guesswork – but it’s making more sense to him than that incomprehensible film about the egg-frying man. ‘Could Gerry be Geraldine? I mean, Gerry with a G?’

Andie’s eyes widen, and she nods. ‘Yeah, it could be!’ She takes the envelope from him, studies it again briefly and stuffs it into her jeans pocket. ‘So, Geraldine Morecock could be the landlady they’re so pissed off about…’

‘But Dom changed his name,’ Sam reminds her. ‘Why would he have done that?’

Andie shrugs, looking baffled. ‘No idea. But none of this is tying in with the image he’s portraying, is it? About his property portfolio and the riverside house?’

‘Not at all.’ Sam exhales, aware of a heaviness in the pit of his stomach. There’s no sense of achievement to be derived from any of this. Even if they do find out that Dom isn’t what he purports to be, then there’s the dilemma of whether to break it to Eva. How will they decide what’s serious enough to wreck her marriage plans? The thought of breaking bad news to her triggers a wave of dread in him. Plus, what would she think of Andie taking sneaky photos of his notebook and phone, and of the two of them embarking on mad trips across London to check out various addresses, behind her back? It still feels deeply wrong to be doing this. Perhaps they’d have been better leaving well alone? Because the cold, hard fact is that, whatever happens, Eva and Dom are set to get married in two weeks’ time.

‘Sam?’ Andie snaps him back to the present. ‘Perhaps we’ve got it wrong and Geraldine’s his aunt or something?’

‘Yeah, maybe.’ He glances at the house. It occurs to him that they could simply knock on the back door and ask her, but he doubts if she would respond favourably to any quizzings about her family tree.

‘Could they have the same surname, if it is?’ Andie asks.

He considers this, feeling under pressure to supply a definite answer – like when Theo was little and still believed that his dad knew stuff and wasn’t just a gnarly old fool, nagging him to hurry up in the bathroom. ‘Dad, why do birds lay eggs?’ ‘What happened to the Romans?’ ‘How does someone get a job at NASA?’ For a time, the questions came thick and fast and yet, when Bibi left, Theo no longer asked Sam anything at all.

‘I think,’ he says, ‘it’d depend which side of the family she’s on—’ He breaks off, his attention snagged by a sudden movement at the back of the house. The door opens. Sam freezes as a tall, slender man with striking blue eyes and cropped silvery hair steps out.

‘Well, hello there,’ says Dom.

31

ANDIE

We could run. We could tear through the gate and along the alley and leap into Sam’s car and drive away. Or I could feign illness, collapsing in a dead faint in the long grass. Or actually die! How about that? What would happen to Gideon then? What would Trudy and Dad think when he was found stashed under my bed? As these possibilities surge through my brain, I am also aware of something else happening.

Sam is stepping forwards and speaking in an eerily level voice as if everything is completely normal. ‘Hi, Dom,’ he says. ‘I guess we’d better explain why we’re here.’

I stare at him in awe. At what point did he learn how to remain calm in a crisis? The first week I knew him, he accidentally toppled a storage unit of tank tops and legged it out of the shop. But Sam is showing no sign of panic now as Dom regards us steadily, his mouth set in a tight line.

‘That might be a good idea.’ With arms folded across his chest, he is regarding us as if we are neighbours who have appeared to discuss some tedious bin-related matter, and he has more important things to do with his time. Again, this is a different Dom, and one that I haven’t met in person before. In the mode of barbecue man, he is wearing faded jeans and a dull green rumpled T-shirt, his hair not sitting quite so neatly today.

He unfolds his arms and takes a step towards Sam. For an instant I think he’s going to punch him and, without thinking, I’m yelling, ‘Hey!’

Sam whips round to face me and Dom frowns and splutters, ‘Andie, it’s all right.’ As if I’d shouted ‘shithead!’ at an afternoon tea.

‘Okay,’ I start, reddening. ‘I’m sorry. I just want to⁠—’

‘Can the three of us have a talk, Dom?’ Sam asks levelly. Again, the model of composure.

Dom regards him sternly, seeming to consider this. Then his expression changes, those hard edges softening, and he nods. ‘Yes, I think we should.’ He flicks a quick glance at the house, as if detecting movement in there, and almost immediately the woman appears at the open door.

‘Everything all right out here?’

‘We’re fine.’ Dom seems to be willing her to go back inside. She peers around at all of us, and then her gaze seems to land upon the knickers on the line. With a scowl, as if they had hung themselves there to embarrass her, she stomps over and yanks them off the line with such force that the pegs ping off into the grass, and marches back into the house.

A pause hangs for a moment. ‘So, is there somewhere we could go around here?’ Sam asks.

Dom’s mouth twists as he seems to consider this. ‘There’s a coffee shop not too far away.’

‘Great,’ says the one-man Diplomatic Corps. ‘Let’s go there then, if you have time?’

‘Okay.’ Dom nods. ‘Just give me a minute. I’ll see you round at the front of the house.’

* * *

He’s so terribly reasonable and understanding that I almost forget that Sam and I are not here to be granted forgiveness. However, there has been no avoiding the chain of events that led us to Storey Avenue: my snapping of the ‘G’ in Dom’s contacts, and then calling the number and inventing the lost purse scenario in order to glean the address. Laid out like that, it sounds ridiculous and doesn’t exactly portray me and Sam in a favourable light. Yet Dom has sat here, impassive, as we’ve explained how we ended up in his neck of the woods.