Someone Else's Shoes(57)

“You’re kidding.” Sam is agog.

“Nope. When me and my sisters were younger we’d be dying of embarrassment. Now, I’m like ‘Dude, if it’s still all working for you, good on you.’ It’s a nice thought, right? That you’d still be that into someone in your seventies?” He gives her a quick sideways look, and she feels her cheeks color.

They discuss work and he glowers when she says Simon’s name, and curls his fists, like it’s all he can do to stop himself heading back to work and punching him, and the thought of this makes her warm inside. They talk of his awfulness, how work hasn’t been the same since his arrival. She tells him about Simon’s personalized engraved ballpoint pen and feels a quiet sense of triumph when Joel bursts out laughing. “The man has engraved a ballpoint pen?” Joel urges her to stand up for herself, not to take Simon’s shit, and three glasses in she finds she is saying, Yes, yes! as if she actually will, rather than slope off with her head bowed, wishing she was anywhere else in the world.

“What does Phil say about it all?” he says eventually. He looks straight ahead and takes a sip from his glass as he speaks his name.

“We don’t really talk about it. Things . . . things are a bit tricky at home.” She feels a stab of disloyalty even as she says this, but she can’t help herself. “We’re flat broke. My daughter is pretty much the only person who says anything to me. Phil won’t talk—he’s depressed—but he won’t do anything about it. Won’t go to the doctor. Won’t sign up for help. Won’t take any meds. But it’s like living with a ghost. I’m not sure he even notices if I’m there any more. Normally I’d talk to Andrea about it all—she’s my best mate—but she’s had cancer and I don’t want to put anything else on her. Mostly I just muddle on through but today, with the job threat and everything, I just felt like I couldn’t . . . cope.” Her voice is suddenly thick with tears and she screws up her face, trying to stop them.

Her eyes are actually closed when Joel puts his arm around her and pulls her into him. He smells of a delicious aniseedy aftershave she hasn’t come across before, and warm, clean skin. No man other than Phil has put his arms around her like this, not since they first got together. She stiffens initially, but then it feels so nice to be held, so reassuring, that she slowly softens and lets her head come to rest on his shoulder. Can I just stay like this forever? she thinks.

“I’m here for you, babe,” he says softly, into her ear.

“Sorry,” she says, wiping at her eyes. “Stupid, isn’t it? I should be able to handle this stuff.”

“Nah. It’s not easy. You’re my friend. I don’t like seeing you this low.”

She turns to face him. His lips are inches from hers. His eyes are soft, unreadable. Are we friends? she thinks. His eyes search hers. Something gives inside her. It is a moment that seems to last several years. She stands abruptly. “So . . . shall I get the next round?”



* * *



? ? ?

He is leaning back in his chair when she returns. She feels awkward as she walks toward him, as if she has exposed too much of herself. But he smiles as she approaches.

“I’ve had a thought,” he says.

“Okay,” she says.

“You know what you need?”

She takes a sip of her drink. She realizes she is definitely drunk.

“Boxing.”

“What?”

“Boxing. It’s about energy, Sam. Mental strength as well as physical. You need to look more assertive to deal with that prick. You need to look like nobody is going to mess with you. You’re walking with your head down just now. Like he’s knocked all the stuffing out of you. You need to get your mojo back. Can you throw a punch?”

She finds she is laughing. “I have no idea. Probably not.”

“Tomorrow night. Come to the gym. Don’t look at me like that—there’s loads of women do it. They love it. You can pretend the punchbag is Simon’s face. I tell you, when I’ve had a bad day at work I just head down there, put some gloves on, and doof doof doof doof.” He mimics throwing punches at speed. “An hour later I feel great.”

But that would mean wearing tight gym clothes in front of you, she thinks. It would mean being sweaty and wearing no makeup. Being hopeless at something while you watch. She remembers suddenly how she’d felt at the awful gym, the yummy mummies making her feel lardy and invisible. “I don’t th—”

He puts his hand over hers and clasps it. His is warm and solid. “C’mon. You’ll enjoy it. I promise.”

There is something about his smile that removes the word “no” from her vocabulary. She gazes at him.

“Trust me?”

The words stall in her mouth.

“Okay,” she says, when she can speak again.

He leans back, takes a swig of his drink. “It’s a date. Seven o’clock. I’ll text you the details.”





nineteen


Over the next two days Nisha thinks constantly about the shoes. She wonders whether they were ever returned to the now-closed gym. She wonders whether the woman who took them did it deliberately. She wonders whether you can legitimately ask the police to investigate a theft when you’re wearing the nasty black shoes that belonged to the person who took yours. When she is not thinking about the shoes she is wondering at the oddness of Carl, and if it’s one of those things you see clearly only when you’re at a distance. He was always a little particular about what she wore—clothes were routinely “too matronly,” “too whorish” or sometimes “make you look fat.” He didn’t like her in flat shoes as they made her legs look “dumpy.” She had always assumed it was because he wanted her to look as nice as possible. But was there something about the clothes themselves that had made him want them so dramatically? Some strange fetish? Anything seems possible, these days. Or did he just want them for Charlotte? Had they become some kind of symbol? She remembers, queasily, how he had insisted on her wearing the shoes on the day he gave them to her, the way he seemed to be unusually turned on by the sight of them. And this thought makes her feel so uncomfortable that she pushes it away.