I put my earphones in and sang my way drunkenly through some Beyoncé songs that I knew would make me feel worse, but somehow I didn’t care. I scrolled through my phone, looking at the few pictures I had of Sam and me together, trying to detect the strength of his feelings from the way he put his arm around me, or the way he bent his head towards mine. I stared at them and tried to recall what it was that had made me feel so sure, so secure in his arms. Then I picked up my laptop, clicked open an email and addressed it to him.
Do you still miss me?
And I pressed send, realizing, as it whooshed into the ether, that I had now condemned myself to unknown hours of email-related anxiety while I waited for him to respond.
13
I woke feeling sick, and it wasn’t the beer. It took fewer than ten seconds for the vague feeling of nausea to seep along a synapse and connect with the memory of what I had done the previous evening. I opened my laptop slowly and balled my fists into my eyes when I discovered that, yes, I had indeed sent it and, no, he hadn’t responded. Even when I pressed ‘refresh’ fourteen times.
I lay in the foetal position for a bit, trying to make the knot in my stomach go away. And then I wondered about calling him and explaining lightly that Hah! I’d been a bit merry and homesick and I’d just wanted to hear his voice and you know, sorry … but he had told me he would be working all Saturday, which meant that right now he would be in the rig with Katie Ingram. And something in me balked at having that conversation with her in earshot.
For the first time since I had come to work for the Gopniks, the weekend stretched out in front of me like an interminable journey over bleak terrain.
So I did what every girl does when she’s far from home and a little sad. I ate half a packet of chocolate Digestives and called my mother.
‘Lou! Is that you? Hold on, I’m in the middle of washing Granddad’s smalls. Let me turn the hot water off.’ I heard my mother walking to the other side of the kitchen, the radio, humming distantly in the background, abruptly silenced, and I was instantly transported to our little house in Renfrew Road.
‘Hello! I’m back! Is everything all right?’ She sounded breathless. I pictured her untying her apron. She always removed her apron for important calls.
‘Fine! I’ve barely had a minute to talk properly so I thought I’d give you a ring.’
‘Is it not fearful expensive? I thought you only wanted to send emails. You’re not going to be hit with one of those thousand-pound bills, are you? I saw a whole thing on the television about people getting caught out using their phones on holiday. You’d have to sell your house when you got home, just to get them off your back.’
‘I checked the rates. It’s good to hear your voice, Mum.’
Mum’s delight at speaking to me made me feel a little ashamed for not having called before. She rattled on, telling me about how she planned to start the poetry night classes when Granddad was feeling better, and the Syrian refugees who had moved in at the end of the street – she was giving them English lessons. ‘Of course I can’t understand a thing they’re saying half the time but we draw pictures, you know? And Zeinah – that’s the mother – she always cooks me a little something to say thank you. What she can do with flaky pastry you wouldn’t believe. Really, they’re awful nice, the bunch of them.’
She said that Dad had been told to lose weight by the new doctor; Granddad’s hearing was going and the television was on so loud that every time he turned it on she nearly did a little wee; and Dymphna from two doors down was having a baby and they could hear her retching morning, noon and night. I sat in my bed, and listened and felt oddly comforted that life continued, as normal, somewhere else in the world.
‘Have you spoken to your sister?’
‘Not for a couple of days, why?’
She lowered her voice, as if Treena were in the room instead of forty miles away. ‘She has a man.’
‘Oh, yeah, I know.’
‘You know? What’s he like? She won’t tell us a thing. She’s after going out with him two or three times a week now. She keeps humming and smiling when I talk about him. It’s very odd.’
‘Odd?’
‘To have your sister smiling so much. I’ve been quite unnerved. I mean, it’s lovely and all, but she’s not herself. Lou, I went down to London to spend the night with her and Thom so she could go out, and when she came back she was singing.’
‘Woah.’
‘I know. Almost in tune too. I told your dad and he accused me of being unromantic. Unromantic! I told him only someone who truly believed in romance could stay married after washing his undercrackers for thirty years.’
‘Mum!’
‘Oh, Lord. I forgot. You wouldn’t have had your breakfast yet. Well. Anyway. If you speak to her try and get some information out of her. How’s your fella, by the way?’
‘Sam? Oh, he’s … fine.’
‘That’s grand. He came to your flat a couple of times after you’d gone. I think he just wanted to feel close to you, bless him. Treena said he was awful sad. Kept looking for jobs to do around the place. Came up here for a roast dinner with us too. But he hasn’t been by for a while now.’
‘He’s really busy, Mum.’
‘I’m sure he is. That’s a job and a half, isn’t it? Right, well, I must let you go before this call bankrupts the both of us. Did I tell you I’m seeing Maria this week? The toilet attendant from that lovely hotel we went to back in August? I’m going to London to see Treena and Thom on Friday, and I’m going to pop in and have lunch with Maria first.’
‘In the toilets?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. There’s a two-for-one pasta deal at that Italian chain near Leicester Square. I can’t remember the name. She’s very fussy about where she goes – she says you should judge a restaurant kitchen by the cleanliness of the Ladies. This one has a very good maintenance schedule, apparently. Every hour on the hour. Is everything good with you? How’s the glamorous life of Fifth Street?’
‘Avenue. Fifth Avenue, Mum. It’s great. It’s all … amazing.’
‘Don’t forget to send me some more pictures. I showed Mrs Edwards that one of you at the Yellow Ball and she said you looked like a film star. Didn’t say which one, but I know she meant well. I was telling Daddy we should come and visit you before you’re too important to know us!’
‘Like that’s going to happen.’
‘We’re awful proud, sweetheart. I can’t believe I have a daughter in New York high society, riding in limousines and hobnobbing with the flash Harrys.’
I looked around my little room, with the 1980s wallpaper and the dead cockroach under the basin. ‘Yeah.’ I said. ‘I’m really lucky.’
Trying not to think about the significance of Sam no longer stopping by my flat just to feel close to me, I got dressed, drank a coffee and went downstairs. I would head back to the Vintage Clothes Emporium. I had the feeling Lydia wouldn’t mind if I just hung out.
I had picked my clothes carefully – this time I wore a Chinese mandarin-style blouse in turquoise with black wool culottes and a pair of red ballet slippers. Just the act of creating a look that didn’t involve a polo shirt and nylon slacks made me feel more like myself. I tied my hair into two plaits, joined at the back with a little red bow, then added the sunglasses Lydia had given me and some earrings in the shape of the Statue of Liberty that had been irresistible, despite coming from a stall of tourist tat.