The Spare Bedroom: A totally heartwarming, funny and feel good romantic comedy

by Elizabeth Neep

  Chapter 16

  4 August 2020 – Sydney, Australia

  I headed towards the car; this time I was up, dressed, wearing shoes and mascara, and ready to talk. All night my mind had been running a mile a minute, trying to make sense of the fact that my adamantly atheist ex-boyfriend now seemed to be hosting some sort of church in his living room. Like I said, I had nothing against Christianity. I had nothing against any religion. It was the twenty-first century for Christ’s sake, people could believe what they wanted. I just knew my ex-boyfriend wasn’t one. He might think he’d found God after seeing his smoking hot girlfriend in a bikini, but one Charlie’s Angel did not a Christian make. Clearly it was a phase for him; and that was okay – people went through phases. But marriage is not a phase; in fact, it’s meant to be one of the most permanent things this side of heav— wherever. And then there was the doubt in his eyes every time he talked about it, every time he looked at her and then at me. I just didn’t want to see him trapped into something, trapped into someone he was going to regret.

  ‘You managed shoes today!’ Sam called out from his open-door driver’s seat. ‘It’s a miracle!’

  I cringed. Was he trying to say these things on purpose? Did he say them before, when religion was just a man-made construct to him? I forced a weak smile as I got into the car. I caught Sam looking me up and down as I did: the same ripped jeans as yesterday but this time with a blocky oversized T-shirt, jet black – not a hint of yesterday’s inappropriate sheer in sight. Sam turned the key in the ignition and started to drive, the backdrop beautiful even though the sun still refused to shine. I said very little as I searched for an opener. Sam, I don’t think you are a real Christian; are you sure you’ve not accidentally joined a cult? No, that didn’t seem right. Sam, I know you think you love God, but you actually love Jamie. No, that wasn’t right either. Sam, please don’t marry her unless you really believe it’s right.

  ‘You’re uncharacteristically quiet today, J,’ Sam said, briefly taking his eyes from the road to raise an inquisitive eyebrow in my direction. The sound of Sam’s music in the background failed to distract either one of us from the tension that filled the car. How could everything feel exactly the same between us when his whole bloody outlook had seemingly changed?

  ‘It’s just last night, really,’ I said, hoping the next part of my sentence would just flow from there even though my mind was struggling to form coherent thoughts.

  ‘Home Group?’ Sam asked. I wasn’t down with the lingo but yes, I guess that was what I meant. The question lingered as I searched around for the right words.

  ‘Yeah, Home Group,’ I said, the words tasting foreign in my mouth. ‘I guess I’m a little confused as to why you are suddenly into all of this stuff. It’s just not you.’ I looked at him, my words hanging in the air like a bad smell.

  ‘Oh, J,’ Sam began, the way he often did. ‘You’re right.’

  I smiled, somewhat surprised that I was.

  ‘It isn’t me, well… it wasn’t me, the old me. But things change, I’m different now.’ He briefly looked my way again to see the smirk fall from my face. ‘And I know that may seem sudden to you, but it’s been a slow journey for me and, well, all my questioning has led me in one direction,’ he explained, eyes now back on the road.

  ‘To Jamie?’ I asked.

  ‘To God,’ he replied. Well, if that was what he wanted to call her. I swallowed hard.

  ‘Which came first, Jamie or the God stuff?’ I asked, slightly awkwardly. Sam sighed. I knew it.

  ‘Jamie,’ he replied reluctantly.

  ‘And she, erm…’ I went on, knowing I was treading on eggshells, searching for the right words. ‘…encouraged you to convert?’

  ‘No, Jess, Jamie didn’t encourage me to do anything,’ Sam said, shaking his head but not taking his eyes off the road. ‘We met in the hospital we were working at together and we started talking and, well, there was just something different about her,’ Sam explained, romantic nostalgia in his voice.

  ‘I’ll tell you what was different about her, Sam,’ I began, desperately trying to act like ‘just friends’ but knowing ‘just friends’ shouldn’t care this much. So what if Sam said his outlook had changed? I didn’t buy it, and I’m pretty sure Sam didn’t either, not really. ‘She’s gorgeous. She’s a doctor. You took one look at her and knew you’d do or say whatever—’

  ‘Jess, please. That is not what happened. I asked her out and we went for dinner and Jamie explained how much her faith meant to her. She was so full of life, so together, that I just thought… I thought, I wanted to find out why she was like that…’

  ‘And now you know?’ I asked, stung by the ‘together’ comment as I felt anything but. This was ridiculous. I wasn’t saying Sam should be with me – well, not really – but to be with someone who made him completely change who he was surely couldn’t be the right thing. She was successful, together. That part made sense at least. Heart-wrenching sense.

  ‘I think I do,’ Sam replied, his voice softening.

  ‘But you’re not sure?’ I asked. See, I knew he had doubts. I knew he wasn’t convinced.

  ‘Jess. This stuff’s pretty big, right? Sure, I have my doubts. But I’ve felt enough to make me doubt that God isn’t real.’ Sam hesitated for a moment, sheepish at sharing something so sensitive. ‘I’ve started to have a relationship with him and…’

  A relationship with him? This was too much. Sam was not a Christian. He was a materialistic sceptic who had never given this stuff a second thought in the whole five years we were together. Brainwashed was a strong word, but he’d been surrounded by friends, colleagues and one persuasively hot girlfriend who believed this thing. It was bound to have an effect. It could have happened to anyone.

  ‘And your relationship with Jamie, getting married and everything.’ I stiffened beside him and Sam seemed to follow suit. ‘You’re pretty sure about that too?’

  I shouldn’t have said it; I shouldn’t have said a lot of things. Not when I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer. But then how else could I explain Sam’s eagerness to see me, be near me? I needed to know what it all meant.

  He sighed deeply again, not taking his eyes off the road as I felt myself going more and more off-piste. ‘I mean, do you feel… sure?’

  He’d always felt sure with me – until, of course, he didn’t.

  Changing lanes to avoid the traffic, Sam turned his head, eyes heavy with confusion. Trying to shake away the moment. He looked trapped, manipulated by his own mind. Confused about what he wanted even now. Now I was here. And he’d been the one to welcome me into his home, his home with her. And he’d said he missed me.

  Sam’s phone started to ring on the dashboard: Jamie – always managing to get in the middle of things. Sam reached for it and turned the screen face down.

  ‘Woah, sounds like a sure thing at the weekend,’ Sam said as he turned up the radio to hear Saturday’s surfing conditions. So surfing was a sure thing, but what about Jamie? A woman so fundamentally different to me, so different to him, that he’d forgotten who he was in the first place. Sam’s change of topic drifted into the background as I tried to order my rising thoughts. He didn’t want to be surrounded, he wanted to question, he wanted to doubt; maybe that’s why I was here. Maybe it was fate after all. The reason I was here was to remind Sam of who he really was. Like Sam had said: what were the odds of bumping into each other here, after all this distance, after all this time?

  Sam reached a hand to the radio dial and changed it back to his so-called music. Even the throbbing bassline of the track couldn’t drown out the voice in my head. I needed to save Sam from making the biggest mistake of his life, a lifetime of being someone other than the man I’d always known him to be. And I had less than two months, eight weeks, fifty-six flipping days to do it.

  20 October 2012 – Brighton, England

  His hand moved up my thigh, hungry for more. I grabbed it at the top, escorting it back down. I thought I wa
s the spontaneous one but there was something about our being here that made Sam relax, become more messy, untethered.

  ‘Piss off.’ I looked up to see the figures of Zoe and Austin in the distance, Austin trying to trip her up whilst Zoe ran along the sand in search of ice cream. It was freezing, but true to form, Sam had had a picture in his mind of what he wanted our first trip to his hometown to look like. And I thought I was the artist.

  ‘To think that they could have ever been together.’ Sam laughed, shaking his head at the thought. It was never going to happen, but bless the boy for trying. I pulled Sam’s hoodie further around myself, snuggling into his side, our bodies morphing together: the perfect fit.

  ‘So, this is home?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, gazing out to the horizon. ‘See the old pier there? That’s where my cousin first took me out on a board.’ He grinned, eyes full of nostalgia. ‘He held me up on it and I felt like I was flying.’

  ‘Sure you weren’t just second-hand high?’ I nodded to the circles of youths lighting up under the pier. ‘What does it feel like?’ I asked, so used to seeing Sam passionate about patients and professionalism, not something so raw and instinctive as riding the waves.

  ‘Getting high?’ Sam raised his eyebrows, knowing that was not what I meant. ‘When I surf? I guess I feel like all the pressure just fades away.’ He was looking out over the water, grey-blue for as far as the eye could see. ‘All thoughts of grades and getting jobs and making the right choices and doing the right thing just disappear.’

  I had always envied kids who went to private schools and grew up in posh houses until I met Sam. It seemed privilege was synonymous with pressure.

  ‘I leave all of that behind,’ he continued. ‘And all that’s left is the feel of the cold water, the sound of the waves, the taste of salt, and the feeling…’ His sentence trailed off, for the first time not knowing precisely where he was going. ‘Have you ever felt that way?’ he asked. I was feeling that way now, feeling the rest of our surroundings slip away until all that was left was Sam. But I had felt it before, in the smell of paint and the strokes of colour and the feel of my brush on a once-blank canvas.

  ‘I feel it when I paint. Maybe not the same, but similar. That can be your next class…’

  ‘Only when I get you on a board,’ he teased. I shook my head, breaking away to look out at the frosty ocean, laughing nervously at my own trepidation. ‘Guess we’re pretty different, right?’

  He was a soon to be doctor with his future planned out. And I… well, wasn’t.

  ‘Yeah, I guess.’

  He laughed again. ‘Good job I’ve been looking for something different, then, isn’t it?’

  Chapter 17

  4 August 2020 – Sydney, Australia

  I walked into CreateSpace, head still buzzing, adrenaline pumping. Sam couldn’t get married. Not to Jamie. They were too different. He was too different. I had to make him remember who he was before that temptress came into his life. Well, temptress was a bit strong, but still, Sam couldn’t get married to someone who didn’t know who he was. The same damn kitten heels from the day before bit at my ankles as I smiled at the receptionists, striding past the gallery’s shop purposefully into the exhibition space. Do not bring personal stuff to work, I reminded myself. It had been my mantra at Art Today. Although, Tim’s insistence that I put on mascara before seeing my ex-boyfriend seemed to indicate he knew I had some extracurricular drama afoot. And everyone in Coogee knew about him and Carlo. Clearly, the line between work and pleasure was pretty blurry around these parts.

  In the first room I was greeted by the vision we had agreed upon yesterday, my vision, of tones and textures telling a story of time. The blue and yellow hues surrounding me were reminiscent of the Sydney sky between morning and midday, transporting me to an upside-down world where everything was cheerfully simple, just as it was meant to be. I had spoken and, for some reason, they had listened.

  One particular painting stopped me in my tracks. It was a large landscape of three messy horizontal lines: blood orange, deep blue, light grey, interlacing intermittently and fading into one another – the sand, the sea and the sky, sometimes so distinct, at other points so soft they slid into one. For just a moment their colours dispelled all anxiety, before my pressing to-do list unfolded in my mind: save wages, find apartment, get a proper job. Save ex-boyfriend from living a lie. I looked around the gallery, tasting the irony: it wasn’t like being honest had got me here. Tim thought I’d be an editor at Art Today Australia by the end of the month.

  I dreaded to think how late Tim and Olivia must have stayed while I was busy discovering my ex-boyfriend had not only saved me in Woolies but had been saved himself. I couldn’t see them, but I could hear the sound of Olivia’s heels clicking and the flamboyant exclamations of my born-for-Broadway boss coming from the second room. It wouldn’t surprise me if they’d slept here. Sure enough, I walked into Room B to be greeted by Olivia pacing and Tim holding a hand to his perfectly sculpted chin. At least their anxiety was set against a backdrop of dusky pinks and sultry greys, the dusk to darkness colours of the collection, just as we had planned. En masse, the ensemble looked stunning, abstracts so amazing that they invited the mind to imagine more. Tim and Olivia, on the other hand, looked spent. They didn’t even notice me walk in. I cleared my throat loudly. Nothing. I turned; maybe I’d be able to grab myself a coffee from the staff room before they even noticed.

  ‘Jessica.’ Tim turned to me in disdain. ‘Please tell me you’re not leaving already after we’ve been here all night.’ Of course he’d look now. I’d thought he thought I was doing him a favour. Looking at him now, hand on hip, I should have known better.

  ‘I, erm… This. Looks. Great!’ I replied, turning to retrace my steps towards them and throwing my arms wide to admire the space. Olivia looked up, fear in her eyes. I’d said the wrong thing. Why did I always keep saying the wrong thing?

  ‘This looks great?’ Tim echoed, evidently thinking it looked anything but. ‘Great?’

  ‘Well I… I think it does,’ I replied honestly, not sure whether I lacked the artistic skill to see the issue or the artistic temperament to care.

  ‘We stayed up all night,’ Tim said, exasperated. ‘All night! And still we can’t fit in Tuesday’s Slumber.’ He gestured towards a canvas, leaning against the studio wall. Ironic, I thought, given that it was a Tuesday and both had gone without sleep. But I knew now wasn’t the time. I looked to the piece, almost a solid block of blue until you stepped closer to see the small, scratchy jagged brush strokes, a fractious sleep painted like the patchwork sky of Van Gogh’s Starry Night.

  ‘We can’t fit them all in. It’s impossible. It’s either Tuesday’s Slumber or Patience!’

  I desperately prayed for the latter. We’d already established that we didn’t need to use them all, but judging from how Tim looked at Tuesday’s Slumber and how Olivia looked at Patience, I knew better than to suggest we leave either of them out.

  ‘I think we should go for Patience,’ Olivia bravely suggested, gesturing to the light grey swirls scrawled across the canvas, so calm and unobtrusive that they could settle into either space.

  ‘And you’d be wrong,’ Tim snapped in return. Bloody artists. Olivia bit her quivering lip; she’d need a thicker skin if she was going to survive this level of sass.

  ‘Now,’ I began, sounding a bit more authoritative than I’d intended as my voice bounced around the room, ‘it’s all going to be okay. I have an idea.’

  Tim and Olivia took a step closer to me in perfect unison. The meek and the mighty, hanging on my every word. I looked at Tim, glasses perched on the end of his nose, his grey T-shirt tucked loosely into his ripped jeans. I looked at Olivia, delicate in her designer gear. Why were they trusting me with this?

  ‘You’re both right,’ I said slowly – a win-win answer undoubtedly received as lose-lose. ‘Personally, I think Tuesday’s Slumber is the stronger piece.’ Tim drew back his shoulders,
broad and boastful. ‘But I think Olivia is right too – Patience is more cohesive with the rest of the collection.’ Tim’s face fell and he placed his hand on his hip again as if to say: and that helps us how?

  ‘I say we hang Patience in here and we place Tuesday’s Slumber in the foyer, above the reception; that way, the press will have something to get excited about as they make their way in.’

  ‘What press?’ Tim asked, confused. ‘Leo’s agent said she didn’t want to do press.’ Yes, she wouldn’t; ‘Privacy Over Publicity’ – that was the headline Mary-Anne’s latest feature on the artist had gone with. I think she had even referred to Leo as ‘him’. Mystery was her publicity. But that didn’t mean the gallery didn’t need it, that we didn’t need to actually tell people that the up-and-coming Brit’s work had arrived even when she hadn’t, and that local artists were welcoming her too. I breathed deeply and stared at Patience.

  ‘Yes, but what about general publicity, a press night?’ I asked, unsure as to what tantrums or breakdowns my words might unleash. Dramatically, Tim sat on the floor – an act of protest or defeat, I couldn’t tell. Olivia remained perched on the tips of her stilettoes. I stood a little too close to her just in case she began to fall.

  ‘Did Carlo—’ I began before Tim cut me off.

  ‘Yes, Carlo used to handle the press. He used to handle everything…’

  I would have rolled my eyes at him throwing his toys out the pram if I hadn’t spent the last three years doing the same; we’d both lost our better halves. I bit my lip; I couldn’t fall apart now. For the first time in a long time people were expecting me to be the strong one.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I said, crouching into an uncomfortable mid-squat next to Tim. ‘Some of the details get swallowed up in the big idea.’ Tim hugged his ripped knees. Honestly, he was in his fifties – either that or he’d partied really hard when he was young. ‘It’s all going to be okay,’ I repeated for what felt like the hundredth time since I had entered CreateSpace, expectant to meet the self-confident artists working inside. ‘I have a plan.’