Beneath the Skin(41)
An argument at the counter brings Sami back to Thursday lunch at McDonald’s. He shakes his head, feeling a chesty tightness in his lungs from the fried oil in the atmosphere, just like the young Samuel who’d stuff down his burger and fries ferociously despite the discomfort. He knows the stinging eyes and the tightness comes from rejection and humiliation, too. Like fat boy Samuel, the boy who had no friends.
Sami clears his clogged throat, aware that the man is openly gazing. ‘Penny for them?’ the man asks.
‘I’ve been a complete wanker,’ Sami replies. ‘But I’ll get over it. Come on, let’s get out of here. I’ll buy you a pint.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
David walks. His plan is to catch a taxi, a taxi home to shower and shave. That’s as much of a plan as his muddled mind can manage. His head is inordinately painful and he’s so very tired. It vaguely occurs to him that perhaps he’s concussed from the crack to his forehead and nose last night and he smiles an ironic little smile. He’s leaving a hospital. A more sensible man would turn around and get himself checked out. But David isn’t bothered. Res ipsa loquitur, the matter speaks for itself. He’s clearly not a sensible man. The foolishness of the past week and month, hell, the past year, are ample evidence of that. Besides, the hurting head blocks out all his guilt, his lies, and complaining about a headache seems childish, indulgent and unfair given Charlie’s condition.
He wanted to puke in the hospital. He was shocked by all the tubes and wires and drips attached to Charlie’s body, the spiteful winking monitors and he wanted to vomit.
‘He’s sleeping,’ Helen said. She said those words clearly, but he hadn’t heard, not really heard. Then Charlie’s body twitched and the relief drained him of speech, of movement, of thought. It was all he could do not to climb on to the bed next to him, to hold on to him tightly and sleep. But then Helen started to talk.
Busy roads have become country lanes, the town of Macclesfield is behind him, the opportunity to catch a taxi long gone. But the autumn sun is warm on his back, the walk is clearing his head, helping him to focus on the conversation with Antonia in the early hours, to remember what she said.
It was the perfume, he now recalls. He was thinking about his mother’s scent on and off all day yesterday. He doesn’t want to contemplate his visit to Charlie’s house or to recall his behaviour in the pub, but he knows that he drove home like a blockhead, that he eventually stumbled through the front door of White Gables and into the lounge. To his surprise, there was Antonia, asleep on the sofa, so beautiful, icy and still, that he knelt down by her side to listen for her breath. The smell of her perfume, so like Mummy’s perfume, and the soft warmth of her throat. They overwhelmed him.
‘So you decided to come.’ Sophie turns away from the door and stomps back into the townhouse. ‘I’m honoured.’
Antonia follows her into the lounge with a feeling of mild panic rising in her chest. Sophie’s eyelids are swollen and her face looks crumpled. It’s not like her to cry. ‘Has something happened, Soph? Are you OK?’
‘No, I’m not OK.’ Sophie roughly pushes a copy of Cosmopolitan magazine off the sofa and thumps heavily into its place. ‘You and Sami.’
She throws a bunched-up tissue into the wicker basket and then looks up at Antonia for a few seconds, her green eyes sharp. ‘You’re never here when I need you.’
Antonia lets out the breath she’s holding, sits down on the sofa and rubs Sophie’s knee. ‘Sorry, Soph, it’s been one of those days. Come on, tell me, what’s up?’
Sophie takes a deep breath. ‘It’s my own bloody fault, isn’t it? I can’t give Sami what he really wants from me and he’ll leave, I know he will.’
Antonia relaxes and sighs. She doesn’t really know what to say that she hasn’t already said a hundred times before. ‘It isn’t your fault. Chlamydia is a silent infection. Millions of women contract it. You were just unlucky.’ And then there’s the usual, ‘Tell Sami the truth. You’re not being fair. He needs to know.’ Part of her feels that there is no point, that nothing she can say will make any difference once Sophie has made up her mind. Yet on the other hand, she always feels she should try.
‘Of course he won’t leave you. He adores you. You have to stop beating yourself up about it and come clean,’ she says today.
Sophie’s face darkens and she pulls away from Antonia’s touch. ‘Oh, fuck off. You really annoy me at times with your sanctimonious crap. As though you’ve never told a lie, Antonia. Preacher heal thyself and all that.’
‘This isn’t about me.’ Antonia stands up. ‘I’m not the one demanding attention twenty-four seven. I’ve had a hard morning so if you’re going to be horrible, I’m not hanging around.’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake sit down and don’t be so bloody sensitive. You’re here now, Sami’s working late and I’m a bundle of nerves.’
Antonia doesn’t move. Her jaw is clenched.
‘Come on, Toni.’ Sophie stands too and puts her warm bare arms around Antonia. She kisses her cheek several times, the way she always does when she’s pushed things too far. ‘Hey, believe it or not, I don’t even want wine.’
‘Well, every cloud …’ Antonia relents with a small smile. She sits down, taking up Sophie’s position on the sofa. ‘I’ve had a busy day so you can wait on me for a change. I’ll have a cup of tea and something to eat, please. I’m starving.’