by Kate Davies
I looked at her. ‘She’s literally crying next door and she knows I’m here. She’s going to think I’m a total dick if I don’t go in there.’
‘Because you run around after her all the time.’
Alice was quiet now. Maybe she’d gone back to sleep. Was that too much to hope?
Sam saw me hesitating.
‘Stay with me. Ten minutes?’
I thought about what would happen if I didn’t do as she suggested. I wondered how long it would be before she spoke to me again. And then she kissed me, and I didn’t want to leave the room after all.
‘Ten minutes,’ I said.
Sam held her hand over my mouth as she fucked me. Afterwards, she slept with an arm around me. Her breath felt too hot against my neck. When I was sure she was asleep I eased out of the bed, put on my dressing gown and went to see Alice.
Alice was sitting in her bed surrounded by balled tissues. They looked like oversized confetti, which was horribly ironic.
‘Why did he have to propose to me?’ Alice said, through her tears.
‘Just call him. Tell him you didn’t mean it.’
‘I did mean it, though.’
‘But you don’t want to break up with him altogether!’
‘Don’t tell me what I want.’
‘Sorry,’ I said.
Alice had never spoken to me like that before. Maybe Sam was right, I thought. Maybe Alice did need space. I stood up to leave the room.
But Alice reached out her hand and said, ‘Don’t go.’
‘Sam’s here,’ I said. Sam was probably awake by now. She was probably aware I’d gone against her advice.
‘So?’
‘Let me just tell her where I am.’
‘She’ll know where you are.’
‘I can’t just leave her there on her own.’
Alice let go of my hand and lay down, her back to me.
‘Want me to set up your laptop so you can watch TV?’ I said.
‘I want you to stay with me.’
‘Let me just go and see Sam,’ I said. ‘I’ll come back.’
Sam was sitting up in bed waiting for me. She raised her eyebrows as I entered the room and I felt a jolt of guilt.
‘Alice and Dave have broken up,’ I said, sitting on the end of the bed, trying to keep the apology out of my voice and failing.
‘Shit,’ Sam said. She held my hand and gave me a sad sort of half-smile. ‘We’re so lucky to have each other.’
I thought about what it would be like not to have her. I leaned over to kiss her. ‘What are you doing today?’ I asked.
‘Whatever you’re doing.’ Which wasn’t the answer I’d been hoping for. Now I longed for the ‘I need some space’ Sam, the ‘I need to go and paint naked women who aren’t you’ Sam, even the ‘I’m off to France for some kinky sex with an older woman’ Sam.
‘Why don’t I meet you at yours later? I think I’ve got to be with Alice for a bit.’
Sam’s smile disappeared. ‘Alice is a big girl.’
‘I know, but she’s been with Dave for, like, six years, and she’s a bit of a mess.’
‘I think you need to learn to say no to her.’
‘Please, Sam,’ I said. ‘I just want to hang out with her for a few hours.’
Sam’s face changed. ‘Why are you saying “please”? Do whatever you want. I’m not stopping you, babes.’
Alice and I watched old sitcoms on Netflix for a few hours, the canned laughter emphasizing the silence between us. I couldn’t stop checking my watch and the phone, wondering how long I should be away from Sam. At about four, Alice said, ‘I think I’m going to sleep for a bit.’ I kissed her forehead and rushed out of the house, calling Sam as I ran to the Overground. She didn’t pick up.
She didn’t kiss me hello when she opened the door, either.
‘I’m sorry about today,’ I said.
‘That’s OK,’ she said, but in the way that I say ‘Next round’s on me!’ whenever I accept a drink from someone at the pub, i.e. she didn’t mean it.
She was pretty sulky with me all evening, and that night, for the first time, she went to bed without trying to fuck me.
I lay awake for hours, worrying that she’d worked out what had happened with Jane, telling myself not to be paranoid, reminding myself that she loved me. And she did. She woke me up with pancakes the next morning – blueberry ones, with maple syrup. She even dusted them with icing sugar. You’d only do that if you really cared about someone. Everything was back to normal.
40. LEMON DRIZZLE v BLUEBERRY TART
I didn’t see much of Alice over the next couple of weeks. She either stayed in her room, only leaving to forage for food and go to the toilet, as all animals must, or went out after work and came back hammered, eating all the food in the fridge before falling into bed. She often woke up crying at 3 a.m., and I’d go into her room and stroke her hair until she fell asleep again. Neither of us would mention it the next morning. I probably could have been there for her more. I should have sat her down and got her to talk to me about what was going on.
I texted Dave to check if he was OK. He said he was, and that he was staying with his brother and sister-in-law in Walthamstow until he and Alice had ‘sorted things out’. I was glad he was optimistic, and that he was still paying the rent on our flat, but Alice had taken down all the photos of Dave from the noticeboard in the kitchen and given away his six-pack of IPA, so I didn’t feel quite so positive about the future of their relationship.
Cat was back in London – she had left me a voicemail saying, ‘Mate! When are we meeting up? We meant to be looking at flats together, or what?’ but I hadn’t returned her call. Just hearing her voice reminded me of having sex on Jane’s grotty bed to a soundtrack of bagpipe music, reminded me of what a shitty person I’d become. Besides, I didn’t want to give away any of my free time. I was saving it for Sam.
Things were still a bit stilted with Owen, too. I’d apologized for snapping at him about arranging a drink with Carys, but I didn’t want to explain why I’d done so; I didn’t need him to worry about me. Things with Sam were fine now, and I wanted them to stay that way. Anyway, Owen had been for his second interview and was waiting to find out if he’d got the job, and I was finding it hard to pretend I wasn’t bitter.
The day that Tom finally resigned was the same day that Owen heard he’d got the Senior Account Manager job. No one in the team knew how to react. We had to look shell-shocked and devastated whenever Tom sidled up to us, delighted whenever Owen walked past.
Owen couldn’t believe it, when he got the call.
‘It might be a mistake,’ he said. ‘They might have called the wrong person.’
‘Of course they didn’t,’ I said. If I pretended to be happy for him, maybe that would translate into some sort of genuine emotion, an emotion other than envy.
Smriti called Uzo and me into her office one at a time to tell us the news that we already knew.
‘Because Owen’s leaving, we’re going to give Uzo the Correspondence Officer job,’ she told me. ‘It would be different if you were on a permanent contract.’
I nodded. I didn’t want to cry in her office. I hated crying in other people’s offices.
‘But we’d like to extend your contract to the end of the year, so there’ll be a nice long transition period.’
I nodded again. Four months to find a job. I was sure I could figure something out.
‘I’ve been meaning to talk to you, though, because I think you’re really talented.’
I looked up. Maybe I’d misheard. ‘Sorry?’
‘I’ve been reviewing your correspondence log, and you have fantastic communication skills.’
‘I – what? Right! Thanks!’ I said, as if to prove how many one-syllable words I knew.
‘The Fast Stream applications are opening next month, and I think you should go for it. I was a Fast Streamer and the opportunities you get are totally incredible.’
‘Incre
dible! Yeah!’ I said. My communication skills were getting more fantastic by the minute.
‘I’d be happy to coach you some time? Give you some pointers?’
‘Yes, please,’ I said. And then: ‘Fast Streamers are the future, aren’t they?’ because I’d read that in a briefing document from the Cabinet Office.
We all went for a drink after work to celebrate/commiserate, to a pub across the river that smelled of sweat. Tom sat in a corner with his friends, leaning on a table made out of an old barrel, muttering darkly. They looked like the gunpowder plotters would have looked if they had shopped in T. M. Lewin. Apparently Tom had got the job at the Home Office. Another Grade Seven job, so no promotion, hence the muttering.
‘Want to get some food?’ Owen asked me, after we had finished our pints.
‘Better not,’ I said. I had promised Sam I would go to hers, and I didn’t want to let her down. Owen didn’t bother trying to persuade me.
Sam and I were into each other the way you only are at the beginning of a relationship or after a huge fight, i.e. we had lots of excellent sex and hugged each other for the entire length of Bastille songs. I was beginning to relax into the routine of our relationship; it was so much easier to love her now that Nicky wasn’t sowing doubt in my mind every week, and the knowledge that Sam would, at some point, want to shag other women – and the fact that I’d already shagged another woman without telling her – stopped niggling at me all the time and sort of sat there at the back of my mind in the place reserved for things I really ought to address but don’t want to think about, like checking my bank balance or replying to text messages from my mother.
But routine is exactly the opposite of what Sam wanted in her sex life.
One Saturday in early October, we were standing at the cake stall in Broadway Market when she said, ‘I think we should take our relationship up a notch.’ And then, before I had a chance to answer, ‘Don’t get the lemon drizzle. We can make that at home. Go for the blueberry tart.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
‘It’s just much harder to make – it has frangipane in it. Plus blueberries are more expensive than lemons.’
‘No, I meant the relationship,’ I said, as the poor woman at the cake stall hovered in front of us uncertainly.
‘Two pieces of blueberry tart, please,’ Sam said, not looking at me. She handed over the money and led me by the hand to one of the vintage clothes stalls. ‘I think it’s time we tried out some SM.’
‘Just the two of us?’ I said.
‘For now, yes,’ she said. She tried on a tasselled leather jacket. ‘What do you think?’
‘It’s a bit country and western.’
‘But I think I could pull that off.’
‘Then go for it,’ I said. ‘Can we go back to the SM for a minute?’
‘Of course, babes.’
‘How will we do that?’
‘I have a few ideas,’ she said, handing over £30 for the jacket. ‘I’ll surprise you with it. You’ll feel totally worshipped, I promise. You are up for it, aren’t you?’
‘I think so,’ I said.
Sam pulled me towards her. The leather jacket smelled like the trip to Morocco I’d taken with Alice in the summer of our second year at uni; I was a little too aware it used to be a living creature. ‘You’re delicious,’ Sam said. ‘You’re going to make such a sexy submissive. Isn’t it your birthday the Saturday after next?’
‘Yes, but Alice said she’d cook dinner for everyone at ours.’
‘Not any more, she’s not. Keep the whole weekend free, OK?’
My parents were a bit put out that they couldn’t see me on my actual birthday. They like to come to London every year for my ‘birthday treat’, which usually involves dragging me along to something I definitely don’t want to go to – a Royal Society lecture about cell structure, maybe, or one of Dad’s friends’ book launches. (‘It’ll be fascinating, Julia. Dr Susan Grey from Oriel will be there. She is the living expert on ekphrasis.’) I invited them down the weekend before instead, and we went for dinner at one of those trendy Indian restaurants you have to queue outside for so long that they bring you tea to keep you warm while you’re waiting. By the time we got inside, we were so hungry that we ordered three times as much food as we needed and by the end of the meal I never wanted to see a bhaji again, onion or otherwise.
I felt jittery all evening, the way I often did when I wasn’t with Sam. I kept sneaking my phone onto my lap to look at it. At one point, Mum paused in the middle of telling me how idiotic it was of the neighbours to remove the chimney breasts – ‘The chimneys could crash through the roof and kill them at any moment!’ – and said, ‘Put your phone away, darling. It’s no good to be too reliant on someone.’
‘I’m not,’ I said.
‘We’ve come all the way to London to take you out to dinner. I’d be grateful if you could give us your full attention.’
I grunted under my breath. Dad was fiddling with his phone too, and she wasn’t telling him off.
‘Look!’ he said, passing it to me.
‘Very nice,’ I said. ‘I have the same one.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘the video.’ He unlocked the screen and started it.
It was a YouTube video of my father, sitting in his study, arms waving, spittle flying, ranting and raving about Songs of Innocence and Experience. ‘People forget that William Blake was a radical. These are not poems for children. These are subversive political texts. The chimney sweeper in Songs of Innocence addresses the reader directly: your chimneys I sweep. You are complicit in this child’s abuse,’ Dad said, jabbing his finger at the camera.
‘Just an introduction to the poem for first year undergraduates,’ Dad said, with a modest smile.
‘I feel quite attacked,’ I said.
‘Good,’ said Dad.
‘Harry next door helped your father set up his channel,’ Mum said, tucking into a samosa.
‘I have two subscribers,’ Dad said. ‘One of them is Geoff. Keeping an eye on the competition, I suppose.’
As we said goodbye, Mum hugged me and said, ‘Don’t be a stranger, darling. I’ve hardly heard from you the last few months.’
‘I’ve been busy,’ I said.
‘I can tell.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Nothing. You’ve just been a bit distant since you’ve been with Sam.’
‘I thought you liked her,’ I said. ‘I thought you were delighted that I was a lesbian.’
‘I do!’ she said. ‘I am! You just don’t seem like your usual self.’
I stayed in on Friday night, just in case the sex was going to start then – I’d never done SM before, so I had no idea how long it would take. Polly had told me about a time Jasper and their friend Tina had burst into her house in the middle of the night, wearing balaclavas, and had tied her up, bundled her into a van and taken her to a warehouse for a kidnap ‘scene’. I expected Sam would break me in gently, but it’s fair to say I felt pretty apprehensive about it, so I had a couple of glasses of wine in front of the TV to calm my nerves, and then I thought I might as well finish the bottle.
So I wasn’t feeling entirely fresh when I was woken at nine the next morning by a text from Sam. Happy birthday, babes. Tonight’s the night. Wear a dress with something sexy underneath it. I had been hoping we’d spend the day together, but Sam said she needed the time to get ready for our night out, so Alice took me out for brunch. I was too nervous to eat much, though.
‘What do you think she’s going to do? Whip you?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know,’ I said, cutting up my avocado toast.
‘Tie you up? Do you think she’ll use fire or anything?’
‘I hope not,’ I said. ‘Can we talk about something else?’
Alice took a sip of coffee. ‘Dave came round to get his stuff on Thursday night.’
‘How was that?’
‘He’s going to stop paying rent.’
‘He cried.’
‘Of course he did.’
‘I cried, too.’ And she was tearing up now, though she was opening her eyes as wide as possible, trying to stop herself.
‘Did you talk?’
‘Not really. I still don’t want to get married.’
I passed her my napkin, and she wiped her eyes.
‘I miss him, though.’
‘I know you do.’
Alice straightened her knife and fork on the plate. ‘Have amazing sex for both of us.’
‘I will.’
‘Was that a weird thing to say?’
‘A bit.’
41. EL JEFE
Sam asked me to get to hers at eight, but I was ten minutes late. I could hear Nicky’s voice in my head: ‘You’d have arrived on time if this was something you really wanted to do. Are you sure she’s not pressuring you into this? You can still turn around and go home … have dinner with Alice instead …’ But I shut it down.
Sam looked amazing; she’d just had her hair cut so it was shaved at the side and curling into her eyes at the front. But she wasn’t smiling.
‘You’re late.’
‘I’m sorry …’
‘Don’t worry. I just missed you.’ She pulled me inside, pushed me up against the wall and kissed me really slowly. ‘I am going to make you come more times than you ever have in your life tonight, birthday girl,’ she said.
‘That’s nice,’ I said. My dirty talk still definitely needed work.
‘But first I’m taking you for a drink,’ she said. ‘Somewhere special.’
I sat on the sofa while she went to get something from her wardrobe. I looked around, trying to reassure myself that I was in a completely normal relationship with a completely normal person who happened to have an exciting sex life. She had an IKEA kitchen. Totally normal. There was a yucca plant next to the sofa that looked like it needed watering. Loads of people had yucca plants they never watered. Normal normal normal. The paintings of naked women all over the room weren’t completely normal, maybe, but she was an artist, and they were her work, so of course her flat was filled with them, like mine was filled with pens and notebooks I’d stolen from the stationery cupboard.