Page 58 of The Woman Who Said Yes

The music has been cranked up and there’s a bit of dancing starting. In a younger incarnation, these fashion people were clubbers, frequenting the Wag, the Blitz and Heaven, as did Eva back in the day. Sam and Andie were always more pub types. Beer, crisps and a jukebox, plus cheap pasta for ballast – and Niko’s for a special treat. That was their idea of Heaven.

Just as Sam finds himself alone again, Eva reappears. He realises with a small jolt of alarm that this time she has brought Hadley Morgan – her celebrity client – to meet him, again disappearing once introductions have been made. What’s she playing at? Does he look so conspicuously awkward in his basic clothing that she’s on a mission to find him someone – anyone! – to talk to? Now he’s found himself in the awkward scenario of knowing she’s famous, yet he’s never watched her shows or read any of the gossip sites. So he knows nothing about her, or indeed what to say, apart from agreeing that the bar is busy and hot and how amazing it is that Eva is getting married.

After a few minutes Hadley sidles off. Sam looks around the room and sees, with no small degree of relief, that Marnie is here. She grins and waves and they weave their way towards each other and hug.

‘Good to see you, Marn!’ Sam says. ‘Didn’t know you’d be here tonight…’

‘I was under strict instructions from Mum,’ she announces.

‘Really?’

She laughs, seeming totally at ease, despite the fact that she hardly knows anyone here either. ‘No, it was sweet of Eva to ask me.’

‘Is your mum here yet?’ Sam asks.

Marnie nods, scanning the bar. ‘Yeah. Over there somewhere.’ Now he spots Andie chatting with Hadley (it strikes him how easy she makes it look – mingling with Eva’s ‘other’ crowd). Sam and Marnie catch up on news, and when they find themselves a little detached from the crowd, their conversation switches to Dom. He is aware that Marnie is up to speed on the hastily planned wedding. However, until now, he hadn’t realised that Andie had told Marnie about Boggis Road and their fake purse-seeking mission in Chiswick. ‘Really?’ Sam exclaims. ‘You know all about that?’

Marnie laughs. ‘You know Mum. She can’t keep anything bottled up for very long.’ It seems they tell each other everything, Sam reflects. He wonders how a parent and child can arrive at such a healthy-seeming situation like that. At least, it seems healthier than orbiting each other, like two different species so unaccustomed to sharing a habitat that at some point, one will claim dominance and drive the other out.

‘How’s Theo these days?’ Marnie asks now.

‘Oh, he’s good,’ Sam says, although in truth he actually doesn’t know. How to ask your adult kid where they keep going out at night without seeming overly prying? It used to be, ‘I’m off to Saul’s’ or wherever. Now it’s, ‘I’m off out’ and a few times recently, Theo has stayed out all night. That’s fine, Sam has told himself. He is a grown man who no longer needs the top of his boiled egg slicing off. Of course he should be out there, leading his own life.

‘Hey, here you are!’ Now Andie has appeared, and Sam tries not to appear too delighted as she envelops him in a hug. She pulls away, turning to her daughter. ‘Have you said anything to him yet? About the thing?’

‘No, not yet.’ Marnie shakes her head quickly.

‘What about?’ Sam frowns, his sense of foreboding ramping up as Andie beckons them both to a corner. ‘What thing?’

‘Eva’s ring. Tell him, Marn.’

Marnie seems to scan the room before leaning towards Sam. ‘It’s not real,’ she murmurs.

‘What?’ He stares at her.

‘I mean, it’s gold, probably. I’ve only seen on it her finger. But the stone? No way that’s a genuine emerald.’

‘But Eva thinks it is?’ Sam turns to Andie.

‘She does.’ Andie nods gravely. ‘I mean, that’s what Dom told her…’

‘Yes, but as I said to Mum,’ Marnie continues, ‘he’d have to be a sultan or something to afford one that size. And even if he was, you can tell when you see it up close⁠—’

‘Can you?’ Sam exclaims. ‘How?’

Marnie shrugs. ‘It’s too even in tone and too bright and sparkly under artificial light like this.’

Sam is astounded, not only that Marnie could deduce this, merely with her eyes and without having to wrestle it off Eva’s fingers and whisk it away for expert appraisal by a jeweller – but also that it’s possible for a gemstone to be too sparkly and bright. Isn’t that the whole point of them – to dazzle? ‘Are you sure, Marnie?’ he asks.

‘Definitely,’ she says firmly. ‘A real emerald of that size would have tiny imperfections all over it. The colour isn’t quite right either. It’d be a deeper, warmer green.’

Sam exhales, still trying to make sense of this. ‘So… what d’you think it is?’

‘Probably zirconia.’ Marnie takes a sip of her cocktail.

‘So that’s another thing he’s lied about,’ Andie observes.

‘Why, though?’ Marnie asks. ‘I just don’t see the point. It’s not as if Eva’s this madly materialistic person who’d expect some whacking great jewel⁠—’