Beneath the Skin(68)
Olivia throws her mobile into her handbag and stamps her foot, much like Hannah in a tizz. ‘Unctuous bastard,’ she shouts. A couple of elderly Chorlton-born-and-bred shoppers release their tartan trolleys and stare at her with open mouths.
‘Sorry, ladies. Call centres! Makes you lose the will to live,’ Olivia explains. The shoppers nod sagely and move on.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Sophie is still asleep upstairs, at least Sami thinks so. She’s been so quiet over the last week that it’s difficult to judge. She’s been right next to him in their bed all night, available to speak to and to touch. Yet his mind has been swamped with dreams and thoughts of her as though she isn’t there. He misses the Sophie he knows. He wants her back.
It’s Friday today. Black Friday. The day of David’s funeral. He hasn’t thought about David much. When he does, it still feels unbelievable, like a bad joke or a lie. He wonders if the penny will ever drop. If he’ll ever feel it.
Opening the wooden kitchen cupboard, he removes his favourite bowl and pours out the muesli. He likes his morning routine: muesli for breakfast, sugar free with skimmed milk. But today it looks dry and uninspiring.
He leans on the worktop, his mind propelled back to his night-time reminiscences of eight and a half years ago. He was at his pad in town, pacing. He was expectant, excited. His breath and aftershave were fresh, the cushions were plumped, wine uncorked on the side unit, the lights on dim. A new conquest was at the tip of his fingertips. The best feeling ever.
His doorbell trilled into the soft music. But when he’d opened the door, there was Sophie.
‘Antonia isn’t coming, so you’ve got me instead,’ she’d announced, pushing past him and into the lounge. Her sharp eyes surveyed the room, her hand on her hip. ‘Nice place, Sami,’ she laughed. ‘But fur throws. Really?’
He was extremely irritated. He’d barely noticed her at the club. She wasn’t his style, not the more conventionally pretty type of woman he liked. But he could hardly throw her out and so she stayed. She sashayed around his flat, opening cupboards, gazing at pictures and stroking a finger along the spines of his books. Then she helped herself to the wine and drank greedily, her scarlet lips wet and glossy. Sami found himself watching her every move with fascination until he couldn’t bear it any longer.
‘I think you’ll find there’s more to see in the bedroom.’ He grinned.
‘I’m sure there is. Leave the wine in a cooler next time, Sami. Bye,’ she smiled and then she left.
Sami opens the fridge and studies its contents. It’s colder than it needs to be, but Sophie always did like her wine very chilled. There’s milk, butter, yoghurt, a sausage of chorizo and some out-of-date ham. Then at the bottom, the phials of hormone drugs and unopened syringes. The remains of his last failure. He pulls back the foil on the Greek yoghurt and sniffs, then spoons it generously on top of his muesli, adding a dollop of honey from a jar in the cupboard. It’s as close to comfort eating as Sami gets these days.
Sophie fended him off just with kisses. For weeks. He thought he might burst and he resorted to pleading, which made Sophie laugh. Until a summer’s evening at a pub in the Lakes.
‘You can have me now,’ she said, draining the glass of wine.
‘But we’re miles away from home, in the middle of the countryside.’
‘So?’
They made love in a field, in the shadow of an oak tree. The breeze caressed their naked skin which was dappled by soft sunlight peeping through the leaves. It was the most exhilarating moment of his life. Then afterwards Sophie sat up, the evening air cool on her pale pink nipples and he picked out the dry grass from her hair.
‘Will you move in with me, Soph?’ he asked.
She looked at him for a moment, her green eyes bright in the pale retreating sun and for a pulse of a second he thought she was going to say no.
‘You’ll have to catch me first.’
Her russet hair flew behind her like a kite as she ran. He knew then that there was no turning back as he pulled on his boxer shorts and hurtled after her.
Sophie waits for the click of the front door before opening her eyes. They’re wet. She who never cries is crying all the time. Without reason, without warning.
Sami popped his head around the bedroom door before he left. ‘I’ll be back at twelve to collect you for the funeral. Think it would be best if you wore black, Soph. Love you.’
She can still smell his aftershave. The ‘love you’ catches her breath.
Her mother didn’t say ‘I told you so’ as she’d thought, when Sophie confessed about lying to Sami. Instead, she took Sophie into her warm fleshy arms, kissed her hair and said, ‘Oh, love.’ Sophie cried and cried; she couldn’t stop.
‘I never told Sami about the chlamydia and stuff. I mean, why would I? Why would anyone?’ she sobbed to her mum.
‘You were very poorly, Sophie. And brave. Nobody else would have put up with the pain for that long,’ Norma replied, still holding her close.
‘Stupid, you mean. I knew something was wrong. I was just a coward.’
As Sophie wiped her stinging face with shaking hands she pictured the doctor’s frowning face from all those years ago. ‘You have PID, Pelvic Inflammatory Disease. A very severe case of it,’ he diagnosed, after she was admitted to hospital in horrendous pain. ‘You really shouldn’t have left it so long, young lady.’