Page 66 of The Woman Who Said Yes

‘Why? What’s happened?’

I inhale slowly, wondering how best to put it. ‘Eva, I did something really stupid.’

‘No, honestly, it’s okay!’ she insists. ‘I told you. I understand⁠—’

‘No, not that,’ I say quickly. ‘I mean, not just that.’ I push back my hair and pick up my bowl of barely touched pasta from the table and set it by the sink. ‘I slept with a man,’ I tell her, ‘because he fixed my toilet seat.’

37

WEDDING COUNTDOWN: 3 DAYS

Sam

Andie has this jokey thing about laws and subsections of laws. And Sam knows how she’d put it: As stated in subsection 12 of The Friendship Act, when someone you love is happy, you have to be happy for them too.

And he’s happy about Eva and Dom. Well, no, not happy exactly but relieved that Eva is okay, and that she understood why he and Andie had gone snooping to Dom’s mother’s house, as she explained when she called. Was she all ready for the wedding, he’d asked? ‘Of course!’ she enthused. The thought of witnessing the ceremony – in an official capacity too, as he and Andie have apparently been reinstated as witnesses – does not, admittedly, fill Sam with glee. But it’s going ahead and there’s not a damn thing he can do about it, and at least they are friends again.

At least, he and Eva are. Since his arrival at Andie’s with croissants and a hefty loaf, he hasn’t heard a peep from her. He’s gone to message her countless times but decided that she probably has stuff going on, and might be feeling a little awkward about it. The last thing he wants to do is pester her while she sorts out her life.

Still, Sam can’t quite wrap his head around the fact that Andie and Phil are back together. What brought that about? He’s aware that, these days, they get along fine but he’d assumed that was mainly for the kids, so they all could enjoy those family gatherings. He’d admired her for that. It’s one of the many, many things that Sam thinks is brilliant about Andie, and that illustrate what an amazing person she is. That she can be friends with a man who, while they were still together, bought a sex swing to use with another woman!

Anyway, they’re not just friends now, Sam reflects as Theo takes a hundred years to shower. Andie and Phil are together again, and they appear to be extremely happy about that. Certainly, Phil must feel relaxed enough to keep a set of pyjamas at her flat, in which Andie was mooching about in the morning! There’s something undeniably intimate about wearing your partner’s sleepwear, Sam decides.

While Theo sluices himself so thoroughly it’ll be a miracle if he hasn’t entirely washed away his epidermis, Sam goes to his bedroom and checks that his new suit is still hanging there in his wardrobe – as if anyone would have moved it. He has also bought another new shirt from that little menswear boutique, at Farrah’s suggestion.

In the shop he’d shuddered as he spotted that bluey-grey one he’d bought there and worn the last time he saw Lucy. Not the actual shirt of course; that’s been washed three times and the wine stain is still visible, faded from deep burgundy to a dull pewter hue. Evidence, as if it were needed, that at fifty-seven years old Sam is still incapable of conducting himself in a properly grown-up manner. Still, he will be all suited and booted on Saturday and he’ll do Eva proud and it’ll be fine seeing Andie. Not awkward at all. And if Phil is there with her, then great! Fucking wonderful!

Theo stomps out of the bathroom and Sam dives in, strips off and climbs into the shower. But even the full blast of scorching water cannot dislodge the complicated feelings currently swirling around in his head. He wonders if they are a permanent fixture now and, like with his somewhat creaky knees, he will just have to learn how to live with them.

Sam heads to work. It’s all go all day, with numerous calls and urgent jobs needing to be finished, for which he is grateful. Towards the end of the afternoon, he sips his tea and studies his next item to be framed. It’s not just flat images he works with, but all kinds of items that pose challenges sometimes. Last week it was a football shirt, and then a pair of baby’s bootees, followed by an antique crocheted doily. Now he is framing a very old and fragile embroidered cotton handkerchief; a memento, he supposes, of a loved one. Farrah is more adept than he is at gleaning the background stories behind such objects. She chatters away to customers, and to Sam whenever there’s a lull. ‘Off out tonight then?’ It’s her stock question towards the end of the day – that shared joke.

‘Just a few drinks and then a film premier and a late dinner afterwards,’ he replied blithely today, when of course he is just going home.

‘You and your social whirl.’ She laughed.

‘I know.’ He smirked. ‘I really need to start pacing myself.’ These days it only ever goes this way; Farrah quizzing Sam about his plans. Whenever he used to ask Farrah what she was up to later – out of politeness really – he’d hear himself sounding like an old man. He didn’t want it to seem like he was prying and anyway, it was always either, ‘just having a chill one tonight’ or ‘meeting a few friends’. He doesn’t ask any more. She checked if it was okay to leave a bit earlier today and it didn’t occur to him to ask why.

After she’s gone, as he’s tidying up the workshop ready for her sharp-eyed appraisal tomorrow, there’s a tinkle of the bells above the door. Sam goes through to see one of his regular customers poised at the counter.

‘Oh hello, Brenda, how are you?’ He does know her name, although she’ll always be Squirrel Lady to him, Andie and Eva.

‘Hello, Sam. I’m fine, thanks.’ As ever she is wearing her black beret, a smart belted beige jacket and black leather gloves. Behind gold-rimmed spectacles her eyes are small and bright, and she has brought in a powerful floral scent.

‘It’s ready,’ he tells her, then goes to fetch her latest painting from the workshop. It’s simply displayed in a teak-effect frame and wrapped in protective transparent plastic.

‘Oh, that is lovely,’ she enthuses. ‘A wonderful job as usual. Thank you, Sam.’

‘No problem,’ he says. ‘I think it looks great.’

‘Well, you are very good at what you do.’ Her warm smile crinkles her eyes. ‘You should think about making it a business!’

Sam chuckles. ‘I mean the painting,’ he says, and he means it. There have been so many of these, of squirrels immortalised in various poses: perched on a wooden post, mid-scamper along the top of a fence, grasping a nut between front paws. So many, in fact, that he’d stopped even looking at them properly – but this one is sketchier than the others. Looser and confidently drawn, the creature partly concealed in long grass. It’s really good, in fact. How could he have not noticed? Is he seeing anything properly these days? Andie flashes into his mind, and how he’d misjudged the situation so very badly, and he shudders. He’s not sure if he will ever be able to face a croissant again.

Brenda seems to be regarding him with curiosity. ‘You really think so?’

‘Honestly, I really love it.’

‘Well,’ she says with a small shrug, ‘it’s the last one.’