Someone Else's Shoes(123)

Jasmine and Nisha stare at each other. Nisha sits, her thoughts whirring.

Jasmine puts a hand on her arm. “Babe. You can’t do this.”

“He’s done me up like a kipper,” Nisha says quietly.

Carl is making his way back from the Gents, listening to something Ari is saying. He starts laughing, looking as relaxed and cheerful as if he had just come back from a good lunch. Charlotte emerges from the lift and skips after him. She says something urgently to him and he lets his hand rest briefly on her belly and nods. As Nisha stares, registering this, Charlotte follows him back to the table, a smile already on her lips.

He has outmaneuvered her again, Nisha realizes. In so many ways. She never stood a chance. She lifts her chin and remains composed as Charlotte arranges her extravagantly long legs alongside Carl’s.

Just then, her attention is drawn to a faint commotion in the foyer. She glances to her right and there is Sam, running toward her, slipping slightly on the marble floor.

“Nisha! Nisha!” She is holding up her hand. As she sees Carl, she stops, and motions frantically.

Carl looks at Sam, at her anorak, her mom jeans and scuffed trainers. He smirks at Nisha. This is who you mix with now?

“Nisha. Please. I need to speak to you.”

Nisha looks at Sam’s pleading expression. “Give me a minute.”

“We’re leaving in five,” Carl says, and sits down, waving to Ari to fetch him some water. Charlotte runs a manicured hand over his thigh, letting it rest there.

“I recognized him,” Sam says breathlessly, dragging Nisha to the side of the foyer. “I recognized him. Your husband. I’ve put the original in a safe place, but I got Phil to download it onto my phone.”

Nisha stares at her, trying to work out what Sam is telling her. She looks down at Sam’s phone as Sam, fingers stumbling on the keys, clicks a little video into stuttering life. And there he is: Carl, stark naked in black and white in a tiny pixelated form, Charlotte crouched over him.

“What’s this?” says Jasmine, peering over her shoulder.

“Oh—oh.” Nisha is briefly transfixed. “Ohhh. Oh, no.” She blinks, then pulls a face. Then looks up at Sam, who is watching her intently.

“The night I wore the shoes. This man just handed it to me in the pub. I had a quick look with Andrea and we just . . . well, we just thought, Eurgh . . . like it was some kind of prank. Sorry, no offense.”

“Totally fair,” says Jasmine.

“And I just stuffed it into a drawer and forgot about it. And then I realized when we walked in. That’s your husband, isn’t it? Him! In the video.”

Nisha looks at Sam. “My insurance,” she murmurs. “I’d forgotten.”

“I already texted it to you. Figured you’d need copies.”

Nisha looks at her phone. Sees the notification that says the video is there, waiting.

“Okay,” she says, breathing hard. “Okay.”

“Now you can roast that pitiful excuse for a man,” says Jasmine. “Yesss!”

Sam smiles then, a huge abrupt smile of happiness and pride. “You can. There’s your bargaining chip. There’s your new settlement.” She cannot resist a further comment. “See? I told you I knew about deals.”



* * *



? ? ?

Carl looks briefly perplexed when the two women sit down on the sofa. He regards, with barely disguised disgust, Sam’s disheveled appearance, her slightly jiggly air of anticipation. And then he becomes almost theatrically bored. He sighs, checks his watch, and drawls, “Are you done?”

Nisha leans forward and studies the document. “So, according to this document we separated six months ago. Even though you and I know that’s not true.”

“That’s right.” He takes a sip of his water and leans back in the chair.

“And you will transfer that settlement . . . when? Now?”

“Nish—hang on!” Sam begins, but Nisha holds up a hand.

Carl nods. “Alistair will do it. But I want to see the shoes first.”

Nisha reaches down. She pulls the bag onto her lap and removes one of the crocodile-skin high heels. She had glued the heels back on carefully with Grace’s craft gun the previous evening. She turns it left and right, then pulls out the other, so that he can see both, then puts them back into the bag.

“So . . . making me run around trying to find my own shoes was just a joke. A way of keeping me at bay while you fixed this up.”

Carl’s expression doesn’t flicker. “Maybe. Does it matter?”

“You know her feet are too big for them? She does have very large feet.” She nods toward Charlotte, who opens her mouth, and then smiles sweetly at Carl. “Are you really sure you want these shoes?”

They hold each other’s gaze, and suddenly there it is. They despise each other. Nisha cannot believe she ever shared her life with this man.

“Give me the shoes,” he says, his voice low and dangerous.

“Sam—give me your bank details,” Nisha says.

“What?”

“I don’t have access to a bank account here. As he well knows. Give me your bank details.”

Sam slowly taps her phone, then hands it over. Nisha hands the phone to Alistair.