Someone Else's Shoes(88)
“Andrea. Sam’s friend. Not a clue what I’m doing here to be honest but it’s a lot more interesting than being at home.”
Jasmine seems to think these are perfectly reasonable explanations.
“Basically,” Sam says, “we’re trying to work out how to recover the shoes in a way that doesn’t involve burglary, or beating anyone up.”
“We haven’t ruled them out, though,” says Nisha.
“And you can’t just ask this woman for the shoes?”
“She put a cat into a bin,” says Sam, as if explaining something to someone not very bright.
Jasmine nods, a little warily. “Ohh-kay.”
“If we ask her for them and she says no, we’re out of options.” Nisha leans forward. “Jas? I remembered what happened when I took my clothes from the penthouse. How you worked out so quickly how to get them back there. And I thought maybe you could . . .”
Jasmine looks at Nisha. She smooths her hair from her face with a beringed finger. A smile twitches at the corners of her mouth.
“What?” says Nisha.
“Nisha Cantor, are you asking for my help?”
It is the first time Nisha’s face loses its hard edges. She stares right back at Jasmine for a moment, and something strange happens to her expression, as if a million tumultuous things are taking place just under the surface. “Are you going to make a big deal out of this?” she says finally.
Jasmine’s expression is incredulous. “Uh . . . yes?”
And Andrea, who has been watching this, puts her mug down on the little coffee-table and rubs her hands together. “Let’s do it.”
* * *
? ? ?
The four women sit in the little living room until almost ten o’clock that evening, talking, planning, laughing. The planning frequently veers off into anecdotes, hysterical giggles or wry smiles of familiarity. At some point after seven they agree to switch from tea to wine, and Nisha runs to the corner shop to buy snacks and two bottles of the kind of wine she would have considered not worth tipping down a sink a month previously. Emboldened by the cheap alcohol, she tells a couple of stories about Carl—including the one about his rage at having the wrong socks—and the three other women are sympathetic and funny about it in a way that would have made her immediately defensive in her previous life. But now she finds, to her surprise, that she likes the hand that emerges to rub her upper arm in solidarity, the jokes about what she should do in revenge.
When Jasmine tells them about putting itching powder in his pants, Andrea, the sick one, coughs wine all over her lap. She seems to be the most restored by the evening: she becomes raucous and rude, funny about people and their motivations, at odds with the apparent frailty of her body, and Nisha realizes the unusual emotion she is feeling is admiration. Andrea explains her illness in the kind of jokey, detached terms that English people do when they’re walking through emotional landmines. Jasmine breaks the brief silence by getting out of her seat and giving Andrea an enormous hug. All she says is “Mate . . .” and Andrea pats at the arms engulfing her as if this one English word expresses a multitude.
Even Droopy Sam seems to come out of her shell a little, and has stopped looking like someone permanently on the verge of tears. She clearly feels responsible for all of this, and she is the one who tries to keep the conversation—and plans—on track. At nine Jasmine announces with horror that she has forgotten her ironing, and when she explains her side-hustle to the others, Andrea says they will all do it, that it will take no time at all if they do it together, and the rest of the discussion is spent with Jasmine ironing, Sam and Nisha folding and packing in the corner of the room as they talk, and Andrea parked on the sofa with a needle beside Jasmine’s extensive sewing kit, neatly hemming a pair of women’s trousers. Jasmine, initially anxious about handing over this job, hugs her and calls her a ninja when she examines the finished stitches.
When Sam and Andrea finally leave, Nisha and Jasmine watch them go, waving from the window. The two women are arm in arm on the walkway, illuminated in orange by the sodium light of the streetlamp. Just as they reach the car, Andrea looks weary and drops her head onto Sam’s shoulder. Sam pulls her in close. None of them have mentioned whatever was going on with Sam and her sad husband and her job: sometimes you know when someone needs a break from whatever is dominating their life.
“I like them. We should do that again!” says Jasmine.
And Nisha looks at her. “Are you kidding me?”
She had half meant it as a joke. But Jasmine puts a hand on Nisha’s arm. “Nisha. Darling. Sometimes you can put that armor down, you know?”
She smiles, not unkindly, and heads off to bed.
* * *
? ? ?
Phil is asleep when Sam finally comes up. She tiptoes around the dark bedroom, placing her clothes on the chair in the corner, and sliding into the bed in a way that will hopefully not wake him. She has no idea what to say. She is just glad he is not hiding out in the camper-van again.
She lies under the duvet, listening to the cars navigating the narrow street, the distant bark of a dog, her brain still humming with the strange evening, the strange new world in which she has found herself.
“I’m not ready to talk about all this,” says Phil’s voice, into the darkness.