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‘Sure?’
‘Yes!’ She giggles. ‘But you’re still not staying over!’
He laughs, kisses her knuckles one by one. ‘OK! I’m going!’
‘Go on, get lost!’
‘I will. Look at me. I’m so going.’ He stands, kisses her and walks out of the kitchen, calling over his shoulder: ‘D’you know what? I don’t even want to stay. Nah. Very happy to go home. In fact, I’m exhausted.’ He fakes a yawn.
They are both laughing – a little hysterically.
On the doorstep, one hand gripping the front door, he asks: ‘Are we mad?’
‘Everyone is.’ She kisses him. ‘Let’s be mad together. And let’s make it work this time, eh?’
‘Yes! This time we’ll make it work.’
CHAPTER 30
Dear Sam,
I wanted you to stay tonight, honestly I did. But there are reasons why I can’t let you in just like that. Like I said, I need guarantees, and boy, did you deliver! To be honest, things are moving faster than I thought they would, but then you’re a typical Virgo male, aren’t you? You love the chase, but I can tell you’re coming from the right place. I know you love me – you just needed reminding of that, and deep down, I don’t think you’ll leave me, not again, not with Tommy on the scene now. I can see how your face lights up at the sight of him. And that makes me happy, because I need us to be a proper family. You see, when it comes to Tommy, I need to be so, so careful.
My therapist, Dawn, says boundaries allow us to love others while still hanging on to ourselves. Being Pisces, I struggle, but I have to learn to lay down my boundaries because I’m the one who was left high and dry. I’m nervous as hell, Sam. I think these last few weeks you’ve really come to understand how humiliating you leaving was for me, especially right at the start of lockdown. You couldn’t have been crueller really. Talk about a double whammy. Ironically, I must be one of the few people in the world glad we all had to stay in. No gossip. No one looking at me and judging. No one dropping into casual conversation that they’d heard we’d split up, how was I managing, eyeballing the baby, waiting for me to explain so they could go home and warm their hands on Naomi Harper and how she was trash just like the rest of her family.
So I avoid Bridport. I take Toms over to Seaton or Beer. There’s hardly anyone on the beach these days. And if one day I do see someone I know, I’ll pretend I haven’t seen them or that I don’t recognise them. I can’t be bothered with any of it. I want to move away really. Start again. There are other great places to live besides Dorset.
I wonder what will happen now you’ve asked me to marry you. I wonder if you’ll book the register office or if you’ll leave all that to me.
I’m waiting, Sam.
Surprise me.
CHAPTER 31
It is only once he’s outside that he remembers he doesn’t have the van. Only once he begins to walk down Naomi’s driveway towards the path that he realises how tipsy he is. Naomi kept topping him up. Was she a bit drunk too? Her glass seemed always to be full, but he has no memory of her drinking, and now he thinks about it, an uneasy feeling rises in him. Has he made a fool of himself? So desperate not to lose her and Toms, he has gone and asked her tomarryhim. But now that the cold air has hit him, the hot elation is cooling by the second. Was she humouring him? Will she bat it off tomorrow as drunken silliness?
He stops. There’s a bitter taste in his mouth; he’s dehydrated. On the cul-de-sac, yellow windows make lanterns of the houses. Everyone is home. Home is where people feel safe these days.
He walks on. It takes him twenty minutes to reach the bus terminus, and when he gets there, he sees he has another twenty-five minutes to wait. He thinks about calling a cab, getting it to drop him off on Cobb Road so Joyce doesn’t catch him wasting money. But doesn’t.
By the time the bus arrives, he is shivering, sobering up, the sleeves of his jacket pulled over his hands, chin tucked into his shirt collar. The road back to Lyme dips and rises, the countryside hulking black shadows, more cardboard silhouettes. The road is like his mind, he thinks, a little drunkenly. Dipping, rising, his thoughts dark and flimsy.
By the time he descends at Holmbush car park, he has resolved to prove himself to Naomi. He must man up, solidify, become…substantial. He can’t lose her, not this time. He can’t lose the family that has fallen into his lap like a late-autumn plum – sweeter for thinking the tree was bare. He will buy her an engagement ring. He already has her ring size from when he bought her a silver ring from the gift shop on Coombe Street, providing that finger is the same width on her left hand. What else can he do?
Think, Sam.
She mentioned once that him doing Wednesdays saved on childcare.
He hits his forehead with the flat of his palm. ‘Childcare!’
He hasn’t even thought about the cost and is filled with new admiration for her, for never once mentioning the expenses she has had to take on alone. He has never really had to think about that stuff, and he curses his ignorance. He will rectify this tomorrow. Whatever comes of his tipsy proposal, they should share the costs of raising Tommy equally. That way, even if she changes her mind, she won’t be able to extricate herself so easily. She won’t be able to cut Tommy off from him ever again. She won’t be able to stop him from seeing his son.
At the house, the living-room lights are on. Joyce stays up late, later since lockdown. She has only just begun to see her friends occasionally in the daytime, outdoors and at a distance, but still she stays strong – good-humoured, stoical, her absence of self-pity a constant lesson to him.
She is reading. The sweet-almond aroma of Amaretto reaches him as he bends to kiss her on the cheek. Marvin Gaye sings quietly from the CD player.
‘Nightbird,’ he says. ‘It’s nearly midnight.’
