Someone Else's Shoes(43)

She cooks chicken pie, mash and greens, one of Phil’s favorites, and sets the table in the kitchen so that he cannot just slide his plate from the work surface and eat it in front of the television. She opens a bottle of wine, and pours them both a glass. He doesn’t speak much but he doesn’t complain about the seating arrangements and even makes a bit of an effort, telling her about their neighbors’ new car. He clams up when, two glasses in, she tries to ask him how he’s feeling—she sees his face close over as if someone has drawn a curtain—so she chats on gamely, filling the silence with tales of her parents and the briquette-maker and he does his best to look interested. The kitchen clock ticks loudly.

“Nice wine,” he says.

“It is, isn’t it? It was on special offer.”

“Yes. It’s . . . nice.”

At one point Cat texts her to ask if either of them have seen her driving license and there is a brief interlude when they become almost animated discussing the missing license, how easy it is to lose the little plastic ones, how often Cat loses things she shouldn’t. And then it fades and the sound of the kitchen clock takes over and Phil settles back on the sofa to watch the ten o’clock news. She reminds herself that in Phil terms, these days, dinner has been something of a success.

She washes up, hoping that whatever he watches does not depress him again. She eyes the bottle of wine, two inches remaining, and then, abruptly, picks it up and glugs briskly, letting the dark acid warm her throat, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

When the kitchen is done she heads upstairs, showers and, after a moment, adds a little spray of scent. She gazes at her reflection in the steamed mirror of the bathroom. She’s not too bad for her age. She has a nice neck. Good tits. Nothing too saggy yet. Not hard and lean like those yummy mummies, but not a bad body, given everything. Think about how you felt in those shoes, she tells herself firmly. Think about how you felt in the later meetings, how you felt on the dance-floor: powerful, magnetic, unstoppable.

She climbs into bed and waits for the sound of his feet on the stairs, thinking of how he used to chase her up those stairs when they first moved in, his hands grabbing at her bottom in his eagerness to get to her.

She watches through the bedroom door as he heads into the bathroom, listens to the sounds of him washing, brushing his teeth, a quick gargle with mouthwash, sounds that are as familiar to her as the boiler clicking on in the morning or the squeak of the gate outside.

And then he is climbing in beside her, the bedsprings creaking slightly under his weight. For some time now they have slept with their backs to each other: Phil snores, so he has learned to sleep on his side.

It is eleven months since they last had sex.

She had calculated it one evening, working back from the last time he had been to the pub. At work, the coffee room is full of women complaining that their husbands are all over them, joking about how they would prefer to read a book. Sam is very tired of reading books. Sex used to be the lubrication of their marriage, the thing that stopped the small irritations mattering—the pants on the floor, the failure to empty the dishwasher, the parking ticket. Sex used to bring them closer. Sex was the thing that made them feel like themselves again, not some desiccated shadow of what once was.

She lies there for a minute, thinking, then turns over silently and slides her arm around him. His skin is warm, and he smells vaguely and pleasingly of soap. When he doesn’t move she edges herself closer, so that every bit of her is pressed against him. She kisses the nape of his neck and rests her cheek on him. She has missed him, missed his touch. She wonders why she hadn’t done this months ago. He shifts a little and she feels a tiny thrill of desire. Her leg creeps forward and slides between his. She strokes his stomach, feeling the soft hair on his lower belly, and then the thicker hair as she slides her hand lower. This is going to happen. She is going to make this happen. This will be a new start for them. She kisses him again, letting her lips trail softly down his spine, pulling at him slightly to make him twist to face her. I am unstoppable. I am a female force. I am sexy. She will slide herself on top of him and—

His voice breaks into the darkness. “Sorry, love. Not really feeling up to it tonight.”

It is as if she has been stung. His words hang there in the dark. Sam grows very still, then lightly removes her hand from her husband’s groin. She wiggles her way backward under the duvet and turns away so that she is lying on her back. She wishes she had put on her nightie. They lie in silence for a minute.

And then he speaks again. “The chicken pie was very nice, though.”



* * *



? ? ?

If Phil acts as if she no longer exists, the other man in her life, Simon, is, as the younger members of staff put it, all up in her grill.

Some of her colleagues have begun noticeably steering clear of her at work, as if whatever bad juju she is carrying could become infectious. Nobody wants to acknowledge what is happening as, you know, a job is a job and they are hard enough to come by just now.

Except for Joel.

She has begun sitting in her car at lunchtimes, as the coffee room makes her feel exposed, and she can no longer eat in her cubicle because Simon will inevitably walk in at the exact moment her mouth is full. So she sits and listens to one of her Calming Classical music downloads and eats her sandwich alone, trying to avoid her thoughts.

“What are you doing out here?”