Someone Else's Shoes(99)

Nisha stands a few feet away with Sam, keeping lookout, as Jasmine scans the list of reservations until she finds what she’s looking for. She blocks out a room, makes a few quick changes on the screen, whips a key from the board of hooks behind her head, and is standing back from the desk, smiling blandly, when Michelle returns, smelling vaguely of cigarette smoke. She checks her lipstick in a small handheld mirror and snaps it shut as she slides in.

“You’re a lifesaver, Jas. I can’t believe Lena didn’t turn up for her shift again. Honestly, if they ask me to pull another double I’m going to walk out.”

“Anytime, my darling. Anytime,” says Jasmine, and sweeps out from behind the desk. Michelle looks at her quizzically. “Funny, I didn’t think you were on tod—”

“Perfume. Frederik is going to smell your cigarette.” Jasmine pulls a bottle of unidentified scent from her handbag and squirts two blasts at Michelle, who, distracted, coughs and mutters a weak “Thank you,” as Jasmine shoves it back into her bag and disappears.

Nisha and Jasmine lead Sam through the side door and down the back staircase to the staff changing room, where they put on their uniform of dark shirts and trousers. Sam has been silent since she arrived, her face pale and drawn, and Nisha wonders if it’s nerves. She’s going to have to pull it together if she’s to get this thing done. She’s the kind of woman who might well buckle, suddenly announce that she couldn’t tell a lie, or burst into tears. Please don’t let her fuck this up, she wills some unknown deity. I need my shoes.

“You okay?” she says tersely to Sam, as she does up her trousers.

“Fine,” says Sam, who is sitting on the bench, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. Her knuckles are white.

“You’re not going to bail on us.”

“I’m not going to bail on you.”

“Why not put on some makeup, babe? You look a little bit pasty.” Jasmine, who clearly needs something to do, is steering Sam to the mirror. She pulls out her oversized makeup bag, then starts to apply blusher and mascara to Sam’s face. Sam is completely expressionless, zombified in some private misery. What is wrong with her? thinks Nisha. Nisha is the one who will be shouldering this thing, after all. She’s the one who has the most to lose.

“There,” says Jasmine, finally. “Back from the dead!” She laughs kindly and pats Sam’s cheek.

Sam gazes at herself in the mirror. “Thanks,” she says dully. Her eyes have been outlined, her skin glows with bronzer. She wears so little makeup normally that the transformation is almost shocking.

“What’s the time?” says Nisha, glancing at her watch. “Do we need to be at Reception yet?”

“Checkin is at three,” says Jasmine. “Let’s grab some food. You can’t fight on an empty stomach, right?”



* * *



? ? ?

The three women stand in the corner of the kitchen. Jasmine has eaten her pancakes, but Sam isn’t touching her food, which Nisha knows will make Aleks jittery. He gets actual anxiety if he thinks someone isn’t enjoying the meal he’s made for them. Sometimes she sees him gazing out through the windowed swing doors, silently monitoring who has eaten how much of their omelet, or eggs Benedict and his back will bristle with unhappiness if more than half of it is left.

“You don’t like it?” he says, gesturing to Sam’s barely touched plate. “You want me to make you something else?”

“Oh, no. It’s lovely,” says Sam, her face creasing into a half-smile. “I’m just not very hungry.”

“You should eat Aleks’s food. He’s the best.” Nisha feels vaguely cross at Sam’s refusal.

“I said I’m not hungry.” They’ve snapped at each other all morning, tension bringing to the surface the strange resentments that each has tried to suppress.

Nisha is starving. She had forgotten to eat breakfast, thinking of all the possible angles she needed to cover and distracted by her phone. When Aleks placed a plate of pancakes in front of her, drizzled with maple syrup and ringed with blueberries, she had to fight an almost overwhelming urge to kiss him. She had finished them in a matter of minutes, letting out little moans of pleasure at the perfect fluffiness of them, the sticky syrup and the crisp slivers of bacon.

“You’re ready?” he said, tucking his white tea-towel back into his waistband.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.” She hands back the plate. “Thanks for the pancakes.”

“My shift finishes at four. But I will stay. In case you need me.”

“We won’t,” she says. And then, because it sounds unfriendly, “I mean, I hope we won’t need you. But it’s kind of you.”

He doesn’t flinch. He never does.

“I stay here anyway.” He checks with Sam that she really, really doesn’t want the pancakes and, with a barely suppressed sigh, takes the plates back to his station.



* * *



? ? ?

At a quarter to three, Sam waits in the hotel reception area. She has been sitting for almost half an hour, feeling self-conscious and out of place there, in the marble-clad fortress of imposed serenity. Guests walk by, followed by uniformed porters pushing huge brass trolleys full of luggage, or wheeling one-night cabin bags. Huge bowls of pale orchids punctuate the overstuffed sofas. The smell of vetiver hangs elegantly in the air. Sam cannot remember the last time she was in a hotel, let alone a hotel so grand. Perhaps that night in Formby when she worked for Henry and they went to pitch for a mammoth run of football programs. She has vague memories of a Travelodge key card that didn’t work and a pervasive smell of fish.