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We had a quick chat at a distance. He told me he and the lads would get tested, though I told him my best guess was that I’d got it from my mate Tara.
‘We walked five K really carefully,’ I said. ‘Then forgot and hugged goodbye. Force of habit. Anyway, we’re not too ill. I just don’t want to give it to my folks. Or yours.’
‘Exactly. I’d die if I gave it to Joyce.’
Shewould, more likely, I thought but didn’t say. I said something like: ‘I think the government slogan should’ve beenIt’s Not About You.’ I laughed at my own joke.
‘You should do the press briefings.’
‘I should. Stay the hell at home.’
He laughed. ‘Do you need anything else? I can stop by the pharmacy.’
‘We’re fine, don’t worry.’
He hesitated, as if he didn’t like leaving us. ‘Text if you need anything.’
I made to close the front door before adding, as if in afterthought: ‘Oh, listen, how’s it going with Naomi?’
He grinned, and as my heart sank further and further, he told me that last night there’d been a phone call deep into the early hours, the sky beginning to lighten as she whispered down the line that she loved him still, there was nothing she could do about it, and he had replied, me too, I can’t help it either, I’ve tried not to, but I do, I love you too, Naomi Harper, you are under my skin, lodged in my bones, running in my blood. And she laughed and said, not like you to be articulate in matters of the heart, Sam Moore, anyone would think you’d changed, and oh yes, he said, I have, I’m so glad we can talk, it’s so much better this time, maybe we’ve been through a kind of catharsis, and she laughed and said, catharsis, what the hell does that mean, and he said, it means I love you, I love you, I just do, and then the sun came up and he thought he might explode.
He didn’t say any of that. Sorry, that was me obsessing, sliding down the wall after he’d gone but stopping short of putting on ‘Killing me Softly’ and having a self-indulgent cry-along. What he actually said was that they were becoming close again, that they talked a lot on the phone.
‘It’s like Tommy’s given us a new start,’ he added. ‘I’m actually going to hers tonight. For dinner.’
‘Sounds like it’s going great,’ I said helplessly. More than anxiety for him, I’ll admit I felt sad for me. When he was here with me and Betsy, it was always just so… easy. It was when I felt most happy, almost as if we were a family. ‘So are you… are you guys back together?’
He’d just told me they were, for God’s sake. In so many words. But I couldn’t stop myself. I was shielding my face with my hand as if the sun was in my eyes. It wasn’t.
‘I guess so.’ That lovely grin failed to be suppressed. ‘Yes, I think we are.’
I can remember kicking at something that wasn’t there on the front step. ‘That’s great. Good on you. That’s great, really good.’
Sam told me later that as he walked away, he had the feeling I wasn’t pleased but he didn’t know why. Hardly surprising, he thought at the time. Miranda has only heard me say that things were grim with Naomi. Miranda doesn’t know her like I do. She’s worried for me. Good friends can be overprotective, he thought.
Miranda is a good friend.
CHAPTER 29
Naomi’s new place is small and modern, the front garden a neat rectangle of lawn, the tarmac driveway lined with orange physalis. He makes a note to tell her that the seed pods, Chinese lanterns as they are known, are highly toxic, even fatal. They will both have to be vigilant once Tommy starts to walk.
He presses the doorbell, nerves rising now. Checks his watch: 7.10 p.m. Perfect. It was Naomi who taught him that arriving ten minutes late was the polite thing to do. Too punctual and you risk finding the host still getting ready, too late and that’s just rude. In one hand he has a bottle of her favourite Prosecco, in the other a bunch of pink tulips from the supermarket, cellophane removed and wrapped in pink tissue and brown paper by Joyce. Naomi can’t stand supermarket flowers – she says they are for cheapskates, but he didn’t have time to call at the florist. This kind of thing used to set his nerves on edge – the fact that there were so many unwritten rules he didn’t know about – but he is beginning to see that Naomi was always trying to help him get thingsright.
The bright yellow door opens. His breath catches. She is wearing an off-the-shoulder top, the black line of either a bra or a camisole strap distracting him momentarily. The skin of her collarbone and neck shines in the porch light. Her eyes are smoky with black eye make-up, and her perfume drifts out to him. How, he thinks, how did I ever manage to attract this woman? As well as looking and smelling incredible, she is funny, clever, and now she is kind too. He wonders what she is thinking, whether she, like him, is thinking about their confessional words of love whispered to the hazy dawn.
Hopes she hasn’t spotted the flowers aren’t from a florist.
‘You’ve shaved your beard off,’ she says, grinning. ‘Thank God! You look so much better – didn’t I tell you you would?’
‘Er, thanks. I brought you these.’ He holds out the flowers. ‘And this.’ He hands her the bottle. ‘I put it in the fridge, so it should still be cold.’
‘Oh my God, welldone! And it’s my favourite. You remembered.’
I remember everything, he thinks. Though the bad stuff is fading like tail lights in fog.
Inside, the house smells of something spicy. Naomi never really cooked; she was always on a diet. So when she tells him she’s made a lamb and apricot tagine, he fights to hide his surprise. The house is immaculate: smooth walls and skirtings, a dining table and chairs that look solid, expensive. There are paintings of landscapes, a field of flowers, an abstract in grey and cream tones, and on the mantelpiece, a framed photograph of Naomi and Tommy. The taste is more conventional than he remembers. More expensive perhaps. He wonders how she afforded it all… although didn’t she say she’d been promoted? Did she? Her dad left her some money, she definitely said that. Her taste has evolved along with her. She has grown up, more than him, he thinks.
‘It’s so nice,’ he says, though secretly he prefers the eclectic look of their old flat, the second-hand stuff she used to bring back for him to fix up. ‘It’s so… well appointed.’
