Chapter 40
FORTY
I floated down the seventy-two floors of the Shard in the lift on a cloud of vicarious bliss.
Zahra’s happiness had been incandescent.
Okan had glowed with pride at the success of his proposal and the beauty and feistiness of his new fiancée.
Even Uncle Ahmet and Auntie Farida had relented slightly when Okan told them who his father was and it turned out he was an old business associate of Zahra’s dad.
More champagne had been ordered and more canapés produced, and the string quartet had departed for the pub to spend the vast tip Okan had pressed on them.
All that remained for me to do was arrange for the floral arch to be delivered the next day to Great Ormond Street Hospital, where I hoped the children being treated there could enjoy it.
I’d sent a photo of it to Molly and told her my plan, and she was as delighted as everyone else.
But when the lift returned to earth with a bump, so did I.
Almost all the other problems I’d had when I woke that morning were still there. Jamie was still out to get me. What I’d learned about him from Ava still weighed heavily on my conscience. And I was still devastatingly sure that I’d lost Sam forever.
Sam, who’d asked my mother for the engagement ring that had been her mother-in-law’s before it was hers.
I remembered asking her about it once, when I was a little girl just beginning to understand what marriage was, my idea of it heavily influenced by fairy tales that ended, ‘And they all lived happily ever after,’ even though I’d already realised that, in my parents’ case, things hadn’t quite worked out that way.
‘Why don’t you wear a ring, Mum?’ I’d asked.
‘I do,’ she replied shortly, holding out the hand with the plain gold band on it.
‘But – you know. One of those sparkly ones that princesses have.’
‘I had one of those. It was impossible to keep clean, so I took it off.’
Much later, I realised that refusing to wear the ring that had belonged to his dead mother, who he’d adored, was yet another way for her to spite and punish my father.
It was my grandfather who’d told me the story of how he’d bought the ring, taking my grandmother to a fancy jeweller off Bond Street and letting her admire the sparkling trinkets in the window, tempting her to choose which one she liked the best and would want to wear if they ever got engaged, before going down on one knee and proposing to her right there in the rainy street.
I’d told Sam the story once, when I’d been explaining about my family and trying to get him to understand that they hadn’t all always hated one other. And he’d remembered, and somehow plucked up the courage to ring Mum and ask her if she still had it and if he could give it to me.
‘But he hasn’t, has he?’ Mum had asked. ‘Commitment-shy, like I told you. I’ll have to ask for it back, I suppose, and then I may as well sell it, if that’s the only way to stop that Emily getting her hands on it.’
I hadn’t told her what was going on with Sam and me. She thought the worst of him anyway – she’d only let him have the ring because she simply hadn’t cared at the time what happened to it.
But he’d cared. He’d cared enough to think that if I got married, I’d want some token of a marriage I knew had been happy, even though I’d never known the woman who’d originally worn it.
He must have meant to give it to me. He must have been planning to ask me to marry him – planning it in his own way, different from Okan’s way but none the less heartfelt.
It would never happen now. It had all gone wrong. But I wanted Sam to know that I knew, and that the gesture he’d never got to make meant the world to me.
Wearily, I got off the train at the stop nearest to our flat.
The rain that had given Okan sleepless nights was falling now, a thin drizzle driven by a cool, gusty breeze that heralded the coming of autumn.
Fallen leaves skidded under my feet on the grimy pavement, and an empty soft-drink can rattled past me, propelled by the wind.
I was glad to be home, even though it might not be my home for much longer.
I pushed open the door, calling for Milton, who I knew would be furious at the delay to his dinner. But he didn’t come as I expected, running and yowling, telling me off for my neglect, tail curving in the air like a question mark.
I stopped, putting my keys and bag down, my heart sinking. I called his name again, but there was no response. I looked in the bedroom, but he wasn’t there. Dreading what I might find, I went through to the living room.
And there Milton was. Not forlorn and alone, but on the sofa, sitting on someone’s lap.
Sam’s lap.
There was a distinctly smug expression on the cat’s face. See, he seemed to be saying, I don’t need you. I’ve got a better human.
‘Hi,’ Sam said.
‘Hi.’ And then because I couldn’t think of what else to say, ‘You gave Milton his dinner.’
‘Come on, Georgia. Like I had a choice in the matter. He practically mugged me when I walked in the door.’
I smiled and saw an answering smile on Sam’s face.
‘I was working late,’ I told him apologetically. ‘Last night as well. He’s not been best pleased with me.’
And he’s not the only one, I thought. But I couldn’t help the flicker of hope that lit up my heart like the first glow of a candle on a birthday cake.
‘I came back to get some stuff,’ Sam explained. ‘But I got ambushed. When he saw me, he demanded food and then cuddles, so I had to sit down. I’ll clear off now, if you want?’
He shifted on the sofa, but Milton gave a protesting meow and dug all twelve of his front claws into Sam’s thighs.
‘Looks like he’s not letting you move just yet,’ I said. ‘He’s glad you’re here.’
‘Since I’m stuck here for the foreseeable’ – Sam scratched Milton behind the ears, and I heard his purr rumbling out – ‘any chance of a drink?’
‘Of course. Tea? Coffee? Beer? I’m not sure what there is in the fridge.’
‘I’ll have whatever you’re having.’
In the kitchen, Sam’s bag sat on the worktop next to an empty pouch of cat food. Ambush was right – he hadn’t stood a chance of doing anything else before giving Milton his delayed dinner.
He hadn’t even had time to help himself to a drink from the fridge that was, after all, still half his. I wondered whether he would have done that otherwise – whether he’d have waited for me to come home so he could see me as well as Milton.
I rinsed out the cat food sachet and put it away for recycling, then found a bottle of merlot and two glasses. Then I joined Sam and Milton on the sofa, reaching out to caress the cat’s soft fur but not touching the denim-clad legs that were directly beneath his body.
‘He missed… he misses you,’ I said. ‘He snuffles around on your side of the bed at night for ages, and then he goes to sleep on your pillow.’
‘Doesn’t sound much like missing to me.’ Sam smiled. ‘Sounds like he’s enjoying having a pillow to himself and you haven’t changed the sheets since I lef— since I’ve been staying at Jared’s.’
‘I have too!’ I protested. ‘I did on Sunday. So there.’
‘That’s more than I have,’ Sam admitted. ‘Me and Jared have been fully embracing the bachelor lifestyle. I found a pizza crust down the sofa the other day that was practically fossilised. Won’t be long before I’m watching Andrew Tate videos and wanking into my socks.’
‘Eeeeuw! You wouldn’t wank to Andrew Tate, would you?’
Sam burst out laughing, and I joined him.
‘Seriously, though.’ My laughter ended almost before it had properly got going. ‘Are you… I mean, Jared’s normal flatmate – what’s his name?’
‘Enrico.’
‘Enrico’s been working away, right? But he’s coming back. And he’ll need his room.’
Sam nodded.
Sayitsayitsayit, I willed him. Say you’ll have to move back in…
But instead Sam said, ‘He’s back in about ten days. Eleven, maybe. So I’ll need to get a hustle on and find somewhere else. And then I guess…’
My heart sank.
‘There was a leaflet through the letter box yesterday.’ Normally I’d have chucked it in the recycling, but I hadn’t. ‘From an estate agent. Walkerson’s. I could call them and…’
My voice petered out. The idea of someone coming into our flat, measuring the rooms, scaring Milton, putting a value on the safe home Sam and I had created together was almost unbearable.
‘I can’t afford to rent somewhere and pay the mortgage here,’ Sam said gently. ‘Not long term anyway. Maybe for a couple of months. We don’t need to rush into anything.’
I could move back in with Mum.
I couldn’t move back in with Mum.
Thinking of her reminded me of the ring, but I didn’t mention it. That hurt too much.
‘Sam, there’s… I guess there’s something I need to explain to you.’
His hand resting lightly on Milton’s back, he looked at me. His eyes were full of compassion – all the guardedness I’d become used to seeing there gone.
‘Go on,’ he said.
‘I thought… I thought, when I met you – not originally, at uni, obviously, but afterwards. I thought I’d be able to figure out how to love someone. How to be kind and not worry about stuff I didn’t need to worry about and just – you know – be normal.’
Sam’s lips twisted in a half-smile that made me long to kiss him. ‘I’m not sure how many of us know how to be normal.’
‘You know what I mean, though. I thought I could fake it till I make it. I thought there was no way you and me would end up like my mum and dad, basically having a marriage that was a fucking war zone.’
He was looking at me now, properly listening.
‘And it turns out, I could – but only as long as everything was going well. The second there was, like, I don’t know, something – a bit of dust in the machine – I couldn’t any more. Because I didn’t know how.’
‘Ava was the dust in the machine?’
I smiled. ‘No disrespect to Ava. She’s told me a lot of stuff’ – there was no way I was going to bring up the Jamie issue right now – ‘and I think she’s an amazing person. I’ve realised how wrong I was about it all.’
I spread my hands out like the shrug emoji, and Sam nodded.
‘But yes,’ I went on. ‘I guess she was the dust in the machine.’
‘And I guess Jamie was for me,’ Sam said, saying the name I’d avoided saying.
I wondered whether Ava had told him what I now knew, but surely she couldn’t have?
‘The same. I thought if I came clean with you about the Ava stuff, we’d be able to go back to where we were. But it turns out I was wrong.’
‘Jamie and I are’ – I swallowed some more of my wine – ‘we’re not friends any more. I’m not sure what’ll happen at work now.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Sam said, ‘but also, not sorry. You know what I think – I’m not going to bang that drum any more. You’ll figure it out.’
Would I? The knowledge that Sam still believed I’d kissed Jamie willingly made me burn with remorse, but there was no point in impassioned denial now.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I guess that’s what I’m going to have to do.’
Milton had slid off Sam’s lap now and was lying on his back in the space between us, his four paws in the air. Cautiously, Sam stood up, and gravity made the sleeping cat flop over onto his side.
‘I should pack some stuff and go,’ he said.
‘Okay.’
I managed to wait until he’d done rooting around in the bedroom wardrobe, filled up my wine glass and washed his up, and left before I allowed myself to start crying.