Page 44 of The Woman Who Said Yes

‘So, what’re you up to tonight, Sam? Doing anything fun?’

It’s become a joke between them, that Farrah adopts the tone of perky young hairdresser not remotely interested in her client’s plans for the evening but feels obliged to ask anyway. ‘Oh, I think I’ll just have a quiet one tonight,’ is his stock reply. As if he’s veering towards turning down the many thrilling options available to him in favour of a music documentary and a mug of tea.

Last night was certainly like that – i.e. just quiet, and not with thrilling alternative options – and he’d been fine with that. Theo was out and Sam had had a browse on Discogs and wondered what Andie was up to and why he hadn’t heard from her all week. With wedding planning going full throttle now, he’s grown used to Eva not being in touch quite so much, but he and Andie have always messaged each other regularly. She hasn’t been feeling funny about him going to Lucy’s exhibition, has she? No, of course she hasn’t. That would be ridiculous. She’s just been busy, he supposes. But he can’t deny that something feels a little off, and that’s why he hasn’t messaged her either.

‘Sam?’ Farrah looks round from the enormous landscape painting that she’s bubble-wrapping with care.

‘Sorry, what?’ He snaps back to the present.

‘I said, got any plans for tonight?’

‘Actually, I do. I’m going out.’

Farrah’s eyes widen. ‘Ooh, are you? Where to?’

‘Just a drink with a friend,’ Sam says with affected casualness.

She grins at him. An immensely capable young woman, Farrah had sauntered into the shop one bleak, wet afternoon with rain dripping from her jacket hood and make-up smudges under her eyes. Sam would be ashamed to admit it now, but he assumed she’d intended to go into the little grocer’s next door for cigarettes.

‘Can I help you at all?’ he’d asked.

‘Yeah,’ she announced. ‘I pass this place all the time on my way to college. The thing is, if you don’t mind me saying…’ In Sam’s experience, when people said this, you were going to mind what they were saying. ‘…You need to make more of your window,’ she continued. ‘Put some art in there so people can see it! And have someone sitting at the front, at the counter, to greet customers.’

Fucking hell, he was a picture-framer with a dwindling sideline in graphic design. Was he expected to be a shopkeeper too, parked there at the front desk with a welcoming smile? ‘Well, it’s just me here,’ he told this brazen stranger, ‘and I’m usually busy in the workshop at the back there. I just go through when I hear a customer coming in.’ He didn’t mention that that suited him fine, and that he was happier hiding away, immersed in practical tasks.

‘But what about the public face of the business?’ Farrah asked.

‘It doesn’t really have one,’ he admitted.

‘No, I can see that.’ She laughed, not unkindly, and gazed around the place as if readying herself to knock it into shape. It struck him that she couldn’t be much older than Theo and yet, to Sam’s mind, she was an entirely different species of young person. It turned out she was looking for a job – ‘Three days a week would suit me,’ she announced boldly – to run alongside her visual merchandising course and caring for her mum who had mobility issues. It seemed like an awful lot to handle for someone so young, and Sam was so impressed that he agreed to take her on. He couldn’t really afford it. However, Farrah’s arrival seemed to trigger a boost in business and the place certainly took on a warmer, friendlier vibe, and Sam is beyond grateful.

Farrah applies lipstick – using her phone as a mirror – and pulls on her jacket, ready to leave. ‘So, who’s the friend?’

‘Just someone,’ he says lightly, catching her bemused expression. Sometimes he wonders if she knows him better than Theo does. She certainly seems to have the measure of him now.

‘Oh, right. Enjoy yourself then!’ Farrah emits a throaty laugh, clearly aware that, for the first time in what feels like a hundred years, Sam is going on a date.

* * *

Not that he is thinking of it as a date-date, as he sets off to meet Lucy at the restaurant she’d suggested. It hadn’t even been just the two of them, that evening in the pub. There had been a couple of others; the woman with the chunky glasses who’d been full of gossip about some mutual friends, and the quieter one with an auburn crop who’d met Lucy on a printing course. But it had been a surprisingly pleasant evening (hang on – why was that surprising to him? Sam supposed he was out of practice at socialising with new people). As they were all leaving and Lucy asked if he’d like to ‘grab a bite sometime’, he’d found himself saying yes.

And somehow this is easy too – sitting with Lucy in the casual Lebanese restaurant with bench tables in Kentish Town, where she is filling him in on her background, her career, her relationships. They haven’t ordered yet. Apologetically, she sent the server away with a, ‘D’you mind giving us a few minutes? We haven’t even looked yet. Been chatting too much.’ In fact, it’s mostly Lucy who’s been doing the chatting, but Sam is perfectly happy to listen.

‘So I did that silly thing of marrying my college boyfriend,’ she tells him. ‘Mistook someone who should have only ever been a friend for bona fide husband material.’ She laughs. ‘Rookie error.’

‘Easy one to make,’ Sam remarks, enjoying her breezy company, and the way she decides that they should ‘just get one of everything’ when the young male server makes another approach. ‘It’s all delicious here,’ Lucy adds. ‘That okay with you?’

‘Yeah, of course!’

She smiles, meeting his gaze across the table. ‘Where was I?’

‘Your ex? You married him by mistake⁠—’

‘Oh, yes.’ Lucy sniggers, and then goes on to tell him that she doesn’t have children and at forty-nine, she is quite happy with her decision – ‘because the flat we’d bought, four flights up in a converted box factory, would’ve been a nightmare with a pram.’

Sam nods, intrigued by the apparent simplicity of her decision-making process. Would a ground-floor flat have altered things? ‘So, are you still in the same place?’ he asks.

‘Oh, yes. I love my flat so much. Can’t imagine ever living anywhere else.’ He pictures hard, shiny concrete floors and black metal window frames. There’s something architectural about Lucy, he decides – all lines and angles with her sharp cheekbones and defined jawline, her hair a deep conker-brown, cut in a precise bob. ‘So, how about you?’ she asks. ‘I take it you’re single?’