by Karen Swan
‘It’s okay just this once. I don’t want to burn the milk. You go down, I’ll listen out for you. Go on.’ She watched him run uncertainly out of the room and down the stairs; she had undone all the chains and deadbolts earlier, when she’d put the list out, so that all he had to do was turn the lock.
Putting down the milk, she tiptoed to the top of the stairs, hearing the audible gasp as her child saw who was standing on the doorstep.
‘Well, hello there. You must be Jasper,’ she heard Sam say in an altered voice.
She bit her lip, feeling a peak of hysteria that he was actually here, a rush of affection for his kindness. She couldn’t believe he was doing this for her.
‘May I come in?’
‘Mama!’ Jasper called excitedly, his voice bubbling with undisguised joy. ‘It’s Sinterklaas! Sinterklaas is here!’
Fleeing back to the hot milk on her tiptoes, tiny giggles escaping her too, she was stirring the hot chocolate when they both emerged a few moments later. ‘Hmm?’ she asked distractedly. ‘Who is it?’
‘It’s Sinterklaas!’
‘No, it can’t be, darling.’ She looked up casually, feeling her heart somersault at the sight of Sam standing there, disguised again – robe, mitre, sceptre, big book; white beard, white eyebrows, white wig. Only his hands and those eyes revealed the younger man in disguise, but they weren’t the sort of finer details five-year-olds clocked. ‘Oh! Sinter!’ she exclaimed in fake astonishment.
‘Good evening. You must be Jasper’s mama.’
She went over to him, clearly able to see the laughter in his eyes too as she drew closer. ‘Yes, I am.’ She placed a hand on Jasper’s shoulder. ‘How good of you to visit us.’
‘Well, I’m seeing all the children on Bloemgracht today.’ He looked down at Jasper again. ‘I’ve got my book here to tell me who’s been good and who’s been naughty. Have you been a good boy, Jasper?’
Jasper nodded with the same awed solemnity Lee had seen in Tomasz.
‘Shall we have a look then?’
Jasper nodded again.
‘Please, take a seat,’ Lee said, ushering them towards the armchair. The sofa cushions were crushed from where she and Jasper had been lying watching the film. She picked up the remote and turned off the TV; the credits were still rolling. ‘Before you begin, Sinter, would you like a drink? A cold glass of milk, perhaps?’
Sam’s head turned and he pinned her with a bemused gaze. It was all either of them could do not to burst out laughing. ‘No, thank you. I just had some milk in the last house.’
‘I’ve already put my carrots out for Amerigo,’ Jasper said, pointing to the tiny filled clog by the fireside.
‘And he’s been enjoying those very much, Jasper, thank you. He does get very tired leaping from roof to roof each night. It’s not easy when you have to stay so quiet.’
Jasper nodded, sympathetically. Horse hooves were clippity-cloppity at the best of times.
‘So, let’s see what we have here,’ Sam said, heaving open the book. ‘Jasper, Jasper, Jasper . . . ah yes, here we go.’ He read the sheet of paper Lee had left out for him. The crinkles appearing at the edges of his eyes told her he was trying not to laugh again. ‘Right. So, I see you chased a cyclist into the canal.’
‘No, I was chasing the pigeon,’ Jasper said earnestly. ‘The man got in the way.’
‘Oh.’ Sam looked up at him from beneath his fluffy eyebrows, laughter evident in his eyes. ‘Well, that was very silly of him.’
‘I just wanted to stroke the pigeon. It had velvety fur.’
‘Feathers,’ Lee corrected gently.
‘It sounds like you’re a loving boy, then,’ Sam said, looking back at the sheet. ‘What else? Hmm, and you – oh, you turned your mama’s hair blue?’
‘I was making magic potions . . .’ He glanced at Lee worriedly. ‘But I forgot to tell mama I used her shampoo.’
Sam looked at her, almost shaking with laughter.
‘It was fine. Nothing an emergency trip to the hairdresser couldn’t sort out.’ Lee grinned, ruffling Jasper’s hair and trying not to burst into hysterics too.
‘But I’m a good boy, I am,’ he said worriedly. ‘I climb into bed with mama every night and hold her hand when she has the nightmares.’
Lee’s smile faded.
Sam’s shaking stopped too as he looked across at her. ‘Oh. Well then . . .’
‘And I never cross the road without her and I always wear my helmet and I don’t run whilst I’m eating because I mustn’t die. It’s very important that I don’t. I’m her whole world and she’s seen too many dead people.’
No one said anything. Lee stared at the floor, feeling mortified. She hadn’t anticipated Jasper going solo.
Sam shut the book firmly. ‘. . . Well, that’s it then. Not only do I know for certain that you are a good boy, Jasper; now I know that you are the best boy. The best boy in all of Amsterdam.’
‘Really?’ Jasper gasped, his dark eyes shining.
‘I’ve seen them all and there’s no doubt in my mind – you are the best.’ He looked at Jasper closely. ‘Tell me, if you were an animal, which would you be?’
Jasper looked up at Lee, confused. She forced a smile and nodded encouragingly.
‘A bear.’
‘A bear? And why do you say that?’
‘Because I like honey and I like sleeping and mama says I’m cuddly but also brave.’
Sam’s gaze met hers again briefly, his eyes loaded with questions. ‘Yes, I can see that about you.’ He reached inside the cover of the book and pulled out a slip of paper, Lee and Jasper watching on as he quickly began to draw. It was more an elegant assortment of penstrokes than a consciously worked image and yet it captured the very essence of a slumbering bear, a tiny kitten curled up between its paws.
‘This is for you,’ Sam said, holding out the sheet. ‘For being a brave, kind and gentle boy. Your mama must be very proud of you.’
Jasper took it with wide eyes.
‘What do you say?’ Lee prompted him, seeing how he was shocked into silence.
‘Thank you, Sinter,’ Jasper whispered, his gaze travelling over the plush white beard, eyebrows, mitre . . .
Sam rose from the chair. ‘Well, I must get going. There are still plenty of other boys and girls to see this evening, but it has been a pleasure meeting you, Jasper.’
‘Jazz, you run along upstairs now and start getting ready for bed,’ Lee said. ‘I’ll see Sinterklaas out.’
Jasper stared at him for another moment. ‘Goodbye, Sinter.’
‘Goodbye, Jasper.’
Jasper ran from the room – the hot chocolate completely forgotten – and sprinted up the stairs, his drawing rustling loudly in his hand, as together Sam and Lee walked down to the ground floor.
‘It was very kind of you to visit us this evening, Sinter,’ Lee said loudly, for her son’s benefit.
They got to the hallway. ‘Oh my God, you were amazing,’ she whispered excitedly. ‘He just loved that!’
‘He’s a great little boy,’ Sam said, seeing how her hands were pressed together in front of her mouth, her eyes shining.
They stared at each other, reminding themselves of one another from their fleeting encounter in the hospital toilet, and a small silence bloomed as she felt the atmosphere shift between them, one reason for coming here being replaced by another.
‘If you get changed in here,’ she whispered, opening the door to the spare bedroom. ‘I’ll just get him into bed and then we can have that glass of wine.’
A small smile came onto his lips. ‘Okay, great.’
‘I’ll just—’ She went over to the front door and opened it. ‘Goodbye, Sinter!’ she said loudly, before closing the door again with a slam. She winked at him as she passed. ‘I won’t be long. Give me five minutes.’
She shut Jasper’s bedroom door softly and jogged down the stairs to the kitchen; she needed a box of matches for the scented candle she’d bought for the g
uest room.
‘Oh!’ she said, drawing up short as she saw Sam standing by the island on his phone, the bottle of red she had left out and two large glasses in front of him. ‘You’re in here.’
He looked up with a surprised grin. ‘Yes. Where else would I be?’
She shrugged – she had expected him to stay downstairs – but she was happy to see him looking like himself again; it was deeply disconcerting being attracted to a white-bearded old man. He was wearing jeans and an ivory chunky ribbed sweater, his skin still a little pink from where he’d had to peel off the beard and eyebrow glue again.
‘Pinot Noir?’
‘Great,’ she said. She was used to other people hosting in her kitchen.
He poured and held out a glass for her. Lee took it, feeling the charge between them surge now they were alone again. It had been instantaneous on Friday and she felt it again now, a powerful attraction neither one of them was trying to hide. ‘To good deeds,’ he said.
‘To good deeds,’ she murmured, already anticipating naughty ones.
They both took a sip, feeling the evening settle into its second act. She had been waiting for this all weekend. Their first meeting on Friday had left her frustrated and impatient for this as it was, but last night’s news about Cunningham had only compounded her need for an escape. She needed to think about something other than him for a while.
‘So you think he enjoyed that, then?’ Sam asked, sinking slightly against the unit.
‘It was everything to him! His eyes were just . . .’ She tried to find the right word. ‘. . . ablaze when I was tucking him in just now. He’s at that age where it’s all still so real for him.’ She paused for a moment, trying to imagine a world like that, one full of magic and hope and good things. ‘I just hope he’ll be able to sleep tonight. I don’t think he can believe what just happened.’
‘Then I’m glad to have been of service.’
‘Oh, trust me, that’s going to keep him going for a full year.’ She chuckled. ‘God only knows what we’ll do next year to top it!’
He shrugged. ‘Well, I can always come back and do it again.’
Her eyes flashed towards him, her heart stuttering and missing a beat, panic pinballing through her. Next year? He was just being polite, right? ‘That sketch was beautiful,’ she said instead. ‘You’re very good. And so fast! I can hardly draw a stick man.’
‘Oh, I’m sure you could. It’s just a matter of confidence and finding your style. I spent years trying to master oils and gouache, only to realize that my preparatory paper sketches in pencil, ink and charcoal were far better than anything on the canvas. It was a bruise to my ego at first, it felt like I wasn’t a proper artist.’
‘Does it relax you, drawing?’
‘Yes. It’s almost like a meditation sometimes.’
‘You make it look so easy.’
‘Well, I could say the same about you.’
‘Ha. Anyone can point and click a camera,’ she said dismissively.
‘That’s true, but in the way that anyone can also put a pen on paper and draw a shape. There are levels, aren’t there?’ He took another sip of wine, his lips becoming gently stained. ‘What’s your bread-and-butter work? You said you were just volunteering the other day?’
‘Oh, mainly editorial for magazines – features, occasionally fashion shoots.’ She rolled her eyes in disdain. ‘But I only do studio stories. I won’t go on location.’
‘Because of Jasper?’
‘Yes. He’s in kindergarten. I have to keep a routine for him.’
‘Sure. And do you have a nanny, or . . .?’
‘No, it’s just the two of us.’ He nodded and she knew what he wanted to ask her next – what about his father? – but she closed the door on that opportunity. ‘But we like it like that.’
‘Right.’ He was watching her closely, studying her almost, and she felt he could see more than she was giving, as though he could read her regardless of what she showed. ‘And you said you’re English?’
She nodded. ‘But I lived here for five years when I was a teenager, which is why my Dutch is passable. My father was a diplomat, so we were stationed here when I was thirteen.’
‘Are your family still here?’
‘No. My parents moved back to the UK when Dad retired, but they’re both dead now. Passed away within eighteen months of each other.’
‘Oh. I’m sorry.’
‘Yeah, me too.’ She gave a small smile; the pain of being an orphan, alone in the world, was still as undimmed as the day of her mother’s funeral. ‘Still, I’ve got Jasper and he’s all I need.’
‘No other family? Brothers, sisters?’
‘Nope. But I do have a small circle of very good friends who are like surrogate aunts and uncles to him, so they’re our family now.’
‘It sounds good, maybe I’ll do that. I’m not sure I’d choose certain members of my family,’ he quipped.
She chuckled. He was easy to talk to as well as easy on the eye.
‘So what are you doing here in Amsterdam? Why not the UK?’ he asked.
‘Umm, well, I guess it was because of Mila, really; she was my best friend when we were living here. We’d done so much travelling over the years for Dad’s job that the UK didn’t really feel like home. Especially after they died.’ She sighed. ‘So when I was coming back and needed to put down roots, this seemed as good a place as any. She was my only friend in the world at that point.’
He sipped his drink. ‘Where were you coming back from?’
So many questions. She watched his mouth as he talked, just wanting to kiss it, just wanting to get on with what they both knew he’d come over for . . . Did they really have to know each other’s life stories? ‘Huh?’
‘You said when you were coming back, you needed to put down roots. Had you been abroad?’
‘Oh.’ Dammit. She hadn’t wanted to stray onto this. It invariably opened up a litany of questions and it wasn’t talking she wanted to do. ‘Um, yes. I . . . travelled a lot in my previous job.’
‘Like where?’ he grinned, having to pull it out of her.
‘Middle East mainly, but parts of Asia and North Africa too.’
He looked intrigued, which was not what she’d wanted. She didn’t want to waste time talking about this stuff. ‘Wow. What were you doing out there?’
She inhaled, knowing there was no way around it. ‘Actually, I was a war photographer.’
Sam’s mouth dropped open, his glass moving back to the countertop. ‘What?’
‘Yes. I was freelance to begin with, then worked for the Washington Post.’
‘God, I wasn’t expecting that,’ he replied and she could see he was reframing her – she was no longer the anonymous, slightly kooky blonde woman from the hospital loos, but a GI Jane with a camera. He looked around the large space with fresh curiosity. ‘You haven’t got any of your work up on the walls.’ They were enlivened only by a yellow neon sign that said ‘Sunshine Days’ in slanting script.
‘No. I have a young child,’ she reminded him. ‘I don’t want him thinking about suicide bombers over his breakfast. There’s no benefit to him being exposed to those horrors at his age. He’d never sleep again.’
‘Is that why you don’t?’
She looked up at him questioningly. How did he know how she slept?
‘Jasper mentioned your nightmares. He said he holds your hand.’
‘Oh . . .’ She looked away, feeling panicked again. ‘Well, he didn’t mean that literally. He was exaggerating for your benefit,’ she lied.
But Sam was still watching her closely. ‘It must have been intense.’
‘Intense,’ she repeated. ‘Yes, I guess you could say that.’
‘Do you miss it?’
She laughed. ‘Nobody misses—’ Her voice cut off suddenly as the memories came unbidden: ruined buildings, blazing cars, people screaming, the rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire like background radios.
She felt something war
m on her hand and looked down to find he had covered it with his own, a look of concern in his eyes. She smiled, forcing back the memories that crawled over her like shadows. ‘I’ll tell you one thing I miss about it – living in places like that makes you appreciate the moment. When you have to live by the minute, you don’t waste time dwelling on the past or worrying about the future. All you have is the here and now, and that’s liberating. No one plays games, there’s no bullshit. There’s an integrity that’s missing here. In the field, the best way from A to B is always the shortest way.’
He was watching her like she was a unicorn – something magical and beautiful and rare – and she took a step closer to him, knowing this was the moment. The magnetism between them was undeniable. She turned her hand over, still in his, clasping his fingers. ‘Out there, no one makes things harder than they need to be,’ she murmured, letting her gaze roam him freely before reaching up and boldly, provocatively, kissing him lightly on the lips.
She felt his lips yield slightly to hers, accepting the kiss. But where she had anticipated passion, there was hesitation. She pulled back. He was staring at her, his brown eyes inscrutable now – the veneer of mannered politeness was gone and his gaze kept falling to her lips. He wanted her, she could see that. Her smile grew again, a suggestive light gleaming in her eyes—
‘Why don’t we sit down?’ He glanced over to the sofas.
She put her hand to his chest, able to feel the steady, distant pound of his heart beneath her palm. ‘Or we could just go downstairs.’
‘What’s downstairs?’
She laughed. ‘My spare bedroom? Where you got changed earlier?’ She plucked suggestively at one of the ribs on his sweater.
He watched her fingers work, before placing his hand over her own. It was heavy and warm and firm. ‘. . . How about we take our time getting to know each other first?’
She stared at him in bafflement. Huh? ‘Why?’
It was his turn to laugh. ‘Because you intrigue me. I want to know more. I don’t want to mess things up by rushing in too fast.’
Oh God, he was a gentleman. ‘The thing is, Sam, time is something I don’t have with a five-year-old. I don’t “do” dating and I’m not looking for a relationship.’ She sighed, moving into him again, getting in his personal space, reaching an arm up and running a hand through his hair. ‘This can just be easy and fun,’ she whispered, seeing how his eyes dilated at her touch.