Someone Else's Shoes(90)

“I’m afraid so,” says Sam. “This hotel has a very high occupancy rate and Sunday night is the only night the charity could get this standard of room . . .” she pauses for effect and gazes at her clipboard “. . . or we have to give it to the next customer on the list.”

“Oh, no, we can take it,” says Liz Frobisher, jabbing her husband with her elbow when he starts to protest.

“That’s lovely! So if you would like to arrive any time after three and check in, a member of staff will consult with you as to when you’re ready for your special photograph.”

“Will there be hair and makeup?” she says.

Sam sees Nisha’s eyes start to roll and jumps in. “I’m not sure, but I can check. Either way it’s probably best to turn up camera-ready. It’s the kind of place where you never know who is going to be hanging around in the lobby,” she says conspiratorially. “Paparazzi! You know how terrible they are.”

Terrible, they all agree. Terrible.

“Lovely!” says Sam. “So we’ll see you on Sunday! Here’s a card for the hotel. Ask for this person on Reception and we’ll look forward to seeing you. Congratulations!”

“And don’t forget the shoes!” calls Nisha.

“Okay!” says Liz Frobisher, who is still gazing at the card as her husband closes the door.

The two women begin to walk back down the pathway. Sam lets out a small breath she didn’t know she was holding.

Nisha glances behind them, and then says quietly, “Nice job.”

Sam is so taken aback she forgets to respond. The walk down the path seems to take twice as long as the walk up it, and they can just make out Jasmine and Andrea in the car, their faces visible through the windscreen, their expressions hopeful. And then Sam abruptly ducks back two steps and quickly opens the bin, peering inside. She closes it again and looks up to see all three of the women staring at her.

“What?” she says. “I’m just checking.”



* * *



? ? ?

Nisha and Aleks walk to the bus stop together, as they do several times a week now, somehow accidentally ending their shifts at the same time, or bumping into each other outside the staffroom. They started to walk an extra stop, and then two, three stops, a silent tacit agreement that allows them to keep talking, oblivious to the slate gray rain, the endless stream of traffic that runs along the broiling, muddy river. Occasionally he points things out to her: the old MI5 building, unnoticed fishy gargoyles on the ornate lampposts, and once, a seal, its head just visible above the water, a sight she found oddly magical. This God-awful city does not seem quite as dreary through Aleks’s eyes. She finds herself half waiting for this walk all day.

“It sounds like you didn’t have many friends in your old life.”

Normally Nisha would read this as a criticism, but she thinks for a moment and then says, “No. I guess I didn’t really like other women. But these guys . . . they’re okay.” She shakes her head as if she cannot believe she is saying this. “Even the one who took my shoes.”

He has listened to her story of the past two days, laughing out loud at Andrea’s faked collapse in the charity shop, the vanity of the woman who bought the Louboutins. “Jasmine is a good woman. She’s been through hard times. But she has a big heart. She’s always helping someone.”

“Yeah. Me.”

Something in her tone makes him glance sideways at her. His collar is turned up and he is wearing a beanie hat pulled low over his ears, which glistens with tiny drops of rain. Away from the strip lights of the kitchen his skin is less pale and the odd curl of caramel-colored hair is whipped back on his forehead. “Why are you so uncomfortable? With someone helping you?”

“I don’t know.” She rubs her nose. “I don’t like charity. And it’s kind of hard having people do stuff for you when you have nothing to give back.” She steps neatly sideways to avoid a pavement cyclist. “I guess most of my other friendships were . . . transactional. I get you into this party. You get me onto this list. I get your husband access to my husband. We go on holiday together to your amazing house on Lake Como or at Calabasas or whatever. I buy expensive clothes from you. You make me look great and drop everything to accompany me to events that my husband can’t come to.”

“Those aren’t friendships.”

“Isn’t everything transactional, though, when you think about it?” she wonders aloud. “Most marriages are, even if it’s just ‘I look after you and bear you children and in return you look after me financially’? Or ‘I keep myself pretty and give you lots of sex so that you don’t look at anyone else’?”

He turns and stops. “That’s how you view marriage?”

She stammers slightly. “Well—everything’s a variation of that, right? All human relationships are transactional in some sense.”

She thinks then of Juliana. Who wasn’t transactional. Aleks raises his eyebrows but doesn’t say anything and after a moment she finds she is filling the silence.

“I mean, look, even friendship. You listen to my problems, I listen to yours. You are loyal and make me feel good, and I’m loyal and make you feel good in return. That’s a form of transaction, even if it is prettier, right?”