Page 42 of The Woman Who Said Yes

‘Did you go to art school?’

‘No, no, nothing like that.’ She smiles brightly. ‘I’m actually a therapist.’

‘Really?’ he says in surprise.

‘Yeah, this kind of offsets what I do in my day job. It’s a release, I guess. Once I get in the flow, I forget about everything else.’

‘I can imagine,’ Sam says. They move onwards, with Lucy stopping at each print to tell him about the inspiration behind it. There’s a place in Highgate Wood that she loves, off the main pathway, where she sits on a fallen tree and sketches.

‘That sounds lovely.’

‘You could come with me sometime,’ she says brightly.

‘Oh, er – yeah! That’d be great.’ The room is thinning out now, and each time Lucy goes to thank someone for coming, she returns to Sam. Was Andie right, and she hadn’t just dropped by with those chocolates to say thank you?

A dapper man in a brown tweed jacket comes over to top up their glasses. ‘I hope you enjoyed the chocs,’ Lucy says, as if she read his mind just then. ‘I did think maybe I should’ve taken you a bottle of wine instead.’

‘No, no, they were great.’ According to Farrah, that is, who’d guzzled them before he’d even got a look-in.

Lucy waves to an elderly man with a silver moustache who’s on his way out, then turns back to Sam. ‘You never know with alcohol these days. So many of my friends have quit, they’re on all those crazily expensive no-alcohol drinks made from ground up ginger roots or whatever⁠—’

‘Not me,’ he says, then, wondering if that made him sound like a chronic boozer, he adds, ‘but I know what you mean. My fridge is full of stuff that my son drinks.’

‘You have a son?’

‘Yeah, yeah. He’s twenty. Lives with me⁠—’

‘Ah, so just the two of you?’ She says this with a nod, as if it confirms something for her.

‘That’s right.’ Then a woman comes over, wearing a bright blue shawl and hefty-looking black-framed spectacles that seem to overwhelm her tiny face, and touches Lucy’s arm.

‘Luce, we’re off to the pub now. See you there?’

‘Yeah, won’t be too long now.’ She smiles at Sam, and he follows her gaze as she looks around the gallery and sees that almost everyone has gone. Minutes later, after Lucy has profusely thanked the tweed-jacketed man, they too are leaving.

‘Fancy a drink?’ Lucy asks.

Sam considers this, while wondering where Theo is and what he might be doing. He catches himself then. Apart from that night at Niko’s and Dom’s cocktail evening, Sam has barely socialised for weeks. ‘You work far too much,’ Andie is always telling him. ‘You need some fun, Sam. Remember that?’

Well, maybe she’s right. ‘Yeah, why not?’ he says. ‘That sounds great.’

24

WEDDING COUNTDOWN: 22 DAYS

Andie

‘Mum!’ Marnie calls out. ‘Come here a minute. Look what I’ve found.’

My first thought is Gideon’s eye and that, while I’ve been making her a chamomile tea, it winked at her from the rug. I hurry through with our mugs and instead find her crossed-legged on the sofa, waving her phone at me. ‘What is it?’ I ask.

‘Come here, sit down.’

I glance at the screen. ‘You’re on Facebook?’ I ask in surprise. Like Eva, she doesn’t really engage with social media. At least, not any more. It astounds me that my daughter feels she has outgrown it while, any minute I get, I’m still scrolling furiously like it’s 2012.

‘Yeah,’ she says, grinning. ‘Look.’

‘That’s Dom’s page.’ I set down the teapot and mugs and sit close to her. We meet up every week or so; she’ll pop by or we’ll have coffee somewhere or a cinema trip. But this evening’s visit was a pleasant surprise.