Someone Else's Shoes(76)

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? ? ?

She is in the cab when her mother calls. She has eighteen minutes left to get into the office, she has worked out, and makes a series of rapid calculations. If she blames car trouble, Simon will find a reason to criticize her for lack of organization, as if anyone could know their battery was about to die. Should she say there was a road accident? He’s the kind who would check up, just to prove her wrong. It’s best not to lie. Perhaps she could pick up a file on the way in, say she’d gone back for extra figures.

“You didn’t come and clean last week. And I need you to look up some socialist hymns for me.”

“What?”

“Socialist hymns,” her mother repeats impatiently. “Your father is giving a talk about the history of ‘Jerusalem’ at St. Mary’s and I pointed out that the Bishop of Durham said that ‘dark satanic mills’ actually referred to churches, not flour mills, so it wouldn’t be appropriate. You know how easily offended Mrs. Palfrey is. She’s thick as thieves with the vicar and called poor old Tess Villiers a Maoist for putting ungodly flowers on the altar last week.”

“Ungodly flowers?”

“Arthuriums. Terribly penile. We were all agog. Anyway, your father has done something to the Wi-Fi box thing and we can’t get online so we need you to find some more appropriate socialist hymns that he can talk about. Preferably by this afternoon. He’s got his eye appointment at teatime.”

Sam rummages in her bag for some makeup. Cat had hogged the bathroom and she had had no time to do her face.

“Oh, and we’ve decided we’re going to take in a refugee. But there’s quite a lot of paperwork and we need you to help us fill it all in. We have to get the stuff out of the spare room so that we can put a bed in there. Actually, I think there might be a bed in there. I’m not sure because of all the boxes.”

“A refugee?” Sam cannot keep up.

“It’s important to think about people other than ourselves, Samantha. You know Dad and I like to do our bit for the community. And apparently some of them are very nice people. Mrs. Rogers has an Afghan and he always takes his shoes off.”

“Mum. I can’t do this right now. I’m very busy.”

Her mother’s tone manages to convey a precise combination of affront and hurt. “Oh. Well, it would be nice if you could think of us occasionally.”

Sam wedges the phone between ear and shoulder, doing her best to apply a tinted moisturizer. “I do think of you, Mum. And more than occasionally. Look, if you want to take in a refugee, that’s lovely. But I haven’t time to clear out your spare room just now, or find socialist hymns. I’ve got a lot on. I’ve organized a supermarket delivery for you for Tuesday and I’ll come and help when I can.”

“A supermarket delivery.” Her mother’s tone is pained. “Well, I suppose we’ll have to tell the poor suffering Afghans our daughter has too much on to find them a bed just now.”

“Mum, nobody’s seen the bed in your spare room since 2002, when Dad started piling his eBay train set collection on top of it. I’m not even sure there is a bed. Look, I’ll come when I can. I just have a lot on.”

“We all have a lot on, Samantha. You’re not the only busy person in this family, you know. Goodness, I hope you don’t speak to Phil like this. No wonder he feels so neglected.”



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She is four and a half minutes late. For the look Simon gives her as she hurries into the meeting room it might as well be four hours.

“Nice of you to join us,” he says, glancing at his watch, raising his eyebrows, and then looking at his colleagues to make sure they register it.

She thinks about canceling lunch with Miriam Price all through the second meeting. Simon is relentless, questioning her figures, looking distracted or bored or tapping the end of his engraved biro on his notepad whenever she speaks. Sometimes he even mutters to himself as she’s talking. She sees the way the Uberprint managers—who all look like him and dress like him and talk like him—watch this performance and observe her weakness, mark her out as dead meat. When the sales meeting is finished she goes into the Ladies and presses her face hard into her hands so that nobody can hear her crying in the cubicle.

While she is sitting on the loo she texts Phil, who does not reply. He only responds to one in three of her messages at the moment, and she is no longer sure she can blame depression. She texts Cat who answers simply: He’s fine. No x at the end. No questions about her day. Some days it’s hard to feel like anyone even cares if she exists any more. She makes to text Joel, but it feels somehow too much, an admission of need she doesn’t feel comfortable making. Her fingers hover over the keyboard of her phone, and then she hears someone come into the next cubicle and puts it back into her pocket.

By the time she emerges it is already a quarter to twelve: too late to cancel. So she splashes water on her face, reapplies her makeup, and heads out to lunch, ignoring the pointed stare of Simon through the glass of his window as she leaves.



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? ? ?

“Sam! How are you?” Miriam is already at the restaurant. She is sitting at a table by the window. As the waiter shows Sam to the table she stands momentarily and gives her a warm smile.