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‘There,’ she says. ‘Easy-peasy! You can use your thumb now, which is easier when you’re at home and saves you having to remember a passcode.’
She puts his thumbprint into her phone too, in case of emergencies, and puts her thumbprint into his.
‘Now that’s romance,’ he jokes, attempting to conceal how much this reassures him. They are still going forward. Maybe they can get married soon. But he doesn’t ask. Best not to push.
Naomi takes a week off and comes to the house every day, leaving before Tommy’s teatime, always putting his needs before her own. Sam takes the week off too, even though the garden project is in its final stages, and together he and Naomi go walking, Tommy in the backpack Sam bought. They hold hands, find secluded spots to kiss, hands running beneath each other’s clothes when Tommy is asleep. Sam can still remember the shock and delight of Naomi letting him into her bed on their first date. Still blushes at how quickly it was all over, at the delicious memories of Naomi teaching him, guiding him over the weeks that followed. This almost teenage fumbling in the woods is so far from how they were before. But as she reminds him, a return to innocence is the point.
Sometimes Jo babysits, sometimes they pay for Cheryl. Sometimes they eat at Naomi’s; sometimes she comes over and together they cook for Joyce. Naomi never complains like she used to about spending time with Joyce. In fact, it is often she who suggests it, expressing worry that Joyce might be lonely. Naomi has got used to nights in, she says. She prefers them these days. Besides, the pubs and restaurants are still struggling to stay open; too many staff down with COVID. Thank God Sam’s job is safe and Naomi is a key worker. We are so lucky, they say. Others have it much worse.
At the end of July, Sam finishes the Higher Mill job. He and Miranda meet with the delighted client, who hands him an envelope of cash – a few pints for the boys, he says, for a job well done. Sam shows him the underground grotto, shining his torch into the tunnel, explaining that it used to be a floodgate for the mill race back in the day.
As they drive away, Miranda teases him, tells him he’s a big kid, that the client glazed over with boredom. Seeing him laugh, she carries on, really roasting him, until they are both helpless with giggles.
‘Honestly,’ she says, wiping her eyes, ‘I think you might be an actual Enid Blyton character.’
In the easy silence that follows, he longs to tell her how things have moved along with Naomi but for some reason can’t find the words. Miranda hasn’t asked how it’s going, and when she gets out of the van, she says only that she’ll be in touch with more work in the next few days. A big project, she tells him. She’ll need his magic touch. When he asks her if she wants to come out later to celebrate the end of the job, she says no, that she’s tired, but to have a drink for her.
He finds he is disappointed.
That night, he and the lads go for pizza at Poco’s and a few beers at the Harbour Inn. It is warm, almost balmy. In good spirits, Sam drinks more than he means to. When Darren asks him about his love life, he shrugs and says, yes, he’s met someone, that it’s getting serious. He doesn’t mention Naomi by name because when he and Naomi split, Darren shook his head and said,Best way, mate. She’s trouble, that one. Her and her sister.
By the time he staggers up the road, it is midnight: later than he intended. The air is cool; the alcohol hits and some part of him is aware that he is drunker than he’s been for a long time. At the top of the hill, the house is silent and dark. Even in his woozy state, this strikes him as unusual. Joyce always waits up. She likes to hear about his evening, doesn’t sleep until she knows he’s safe home.
He steps inside to a silence that feels off-key.
‘Hello?’ he calls into the hall. Something is not right. The hair on his forearms rises.
He switches on the light. Nothing is out of place, but still his skin prickles. ‘Joyce? Gran?’
It’s cold. That’s what it is. Colder than it should be, a draught coming from the back of the house.
Steps quickening, he makes his way along the hall. The back door has been flung open. He steps out into the garden, stops dead. Listens, head twitching like an owl’s.
A creak. The shed. The angle of the door is wrong. He approaches slowly, sees that it is unlocked, drooping a little.
‘Hello?’ His heart beats faster. ‘Anyone there?’
He throws open the shed door. There is no one inside. The tools hang from their hooks, neat in the outlines he traced out for them with indelible marker pen. He looks closer. The spade is missing. The sight fills him with fear. He casts his eyes about, but there is no sign of it. Pulse thrumming in his ears now, he runs back to the house.
‘Joyce!’ He dashes up the hall, throws open the living-room door. Here, it is still warm. His gran’s pink wrap is on the sofa. He picks it up and presses it to his face. It is not cold. It smells of Coco perfume, of sweet almond, of her. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches something off and turns to see the television on the floor, smashed as if dropped. The DVDs are scattered around it. The shelf above is half empty.
Burglars.
A sob catches in his throat. Moving faster than ever in his life now, he takes the stairs three at a time, races for his gran’s room, bursts in.
The wardrobe doors are open, clothes strewn on the floor. Her dressing-table drawers are open. One has been pulled out, lies upside down on the padded stool. The bed is made. She has not been in it.
‘Joyce?’
He sees her feet first: toes towards the carpet. The angle of them is strange, wrong.
‘Gran!’
CHAPTER 40
It is after eleven. Joyce yawns hugely. She should go to bed really but wants to wait for Sam, ask him about his evening out. She turns the page of her book, smooths it with the heel of her hand.
A bang.
