Love...Maybe

by Gill Paul

  Well, I still notice. But I don’t want to punch anyone any more.

  ‘So, do you want your present now, or shall we wait ’til dessert?’ he says playfully. He’s holding something under the table, out of sight.

  ‘Um, well I was thinking, let’s leave it ’til a week on Wednesday. Then we can really do it justice.’

  He frowns a little. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘No, you idiot! I want it now! Obviously.’

  His frown is replaced instantly by that heart-stopping grin, and he pushes out his lips. ‘You bastard. OK, here you go.’ And he holds a small silver wrapped parcel across the table.

  I stare at it without moving. It’s small, almost a cube, and sits in the palm of his hand. He knows I hate cufflinks. I don’t have any piercings. I can barely breathe.

  ‘Sam …’ It’s all I can say.

  ‘Take it then.’

  I don’t. Instead I reach into my jacket pocket and bring out a small, blue velvet box, about the same size, and hold it across the table towards him. He stares at it for a second, then gazes at me.

  ‘Wow,’ he croaks, and I watch his eyes fill up with tears. ‘Is that for me?’

  He takes it, and I take his, and we each open the boxes. He’s bought me a stunning pale gold band with a single square of black onyx set into it. It’s simple and masculine, but also romantic and beautiful. His is white gold, set with mother-of-pearl. He looks up at me as he takes it from the box, and we both grin and sniff and try not to rub our eyes because we’re men and men don’t do that.

  ‘Are we engaged now?’ he asks me quietly. ‘Because that’s what that—’ he jerks his head towards the ring I’m still holding, ‘—is. I mean, that’s what I want it to be. You know, if you want it to be. I mean, if not, you know, it could just be, you know, a nice ring to wear when we’re going out, it doesn’t have to be anything else, unless you want it to be …’

  ‘Stop gibbering you idiot. Of course we’re engaged. It’s exactly what I wanted. It’s why I bought you an engagement ring.’ I reach across the table and touch his cheek. ‘I love you, Samuel Flynn. I want to live with you forever. I can’t imagine my life without you anymore.’

  He sniffs again and grins, and slips the ring onto his fourth finger. ‘Well thank Christ for that.’

  The waiter comes and we order food and I can’t stop looking at the ring on Sam’s finger. And then I remember the ring on my own finger and I feel such an enormous feeling of relief. The relief is immense. He’s mine and he’s going to stay mine and I will never have to be without him. Whatever life throws at me now, whatever misfortunes or mishaps or disasters befall me, I know Sam will be there with me to face them, and nothing holds any fear for me anymore.

  ‘There’s something I need to tell you,’ he says as the dessert dishes are cleared away.

  Savage fear slices down my spine. ‘What?’

  He looks down. ‘I mean, now that we’re engaged.’

  ‘What’s being engaged got to do with it?’

  He looks up again. ‘I just … I wanted you to know, before I tell you, that I am completely committed to you. I want you to understand that. OK? Don’t doubt it. Ever.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Nothing. Well, nothing recent. Look, Will, I should have told you before, it’s been on my mind to tell you ever since we met, but I couldn’t to start with, and then a year went by, and now …’

  ‘Jesus Sam, is this a wind-up? Coz you’re scaring me a bit.’

  ‘Oh, God, no, no, it’s nothing bad. Nothing to worry about.’ He pauses. ‘Well, maybe a little bit of worry.’

  ‘Jesus …’

  He puts his hands up. ‘No, no, it’s not about us. It doesn’t affect us. Well, it kind of does … Oh bloody hell, this is all coming out wrong.’ He glances up at me with a pained expression. ‘Could I start again?’

  ‘No way. You just spit it out now.’

  He nods. ‘OK.’ And at that exact moment, his mobile phone starts to ring.

  ‘Ignore it. For once.’

  He’s already pulling it out of his pocket. ‘I can’t, Will …’

  ‘Fuck …’ I lean back in my seat and push my hands through my hair, then turn to look out of the window. Sam’s words reach me easily, but he’s turned away from me to prevent me from hearing, so I try not to listen. Unease, hatched in my belly a few moments ago, is growing rapidly and spreading its wings inside me, making me fidgety and uncomfortable. I shift in my seat, crossing and uncrossing my legs, rubbing my head, folding my arms. In the dark window I can see that my hair is standing up on end in a ridiculous mess, but it seems so unimportant now.

  Eventually Sam clicks off the phone and turns back to face me. He is white and stricken, his lips bloodless, his eyes full of tears.

  ‘Oh my God, Sam, what the hell has happened?’ I lean across the table towards him, my own anxiety forgotten. ‘Tell me.’

  He shakes his head. ‘I will tell you. But not now.’ He takes my hand and holds it gently in both of his. ‘I’m really sorry but … I have to go.’ He stands up, so I do too.

  ‘I’ll go with you …’

  ‘No. No you can’t. Will, I’m so sorry, I promise I will explain everything, but right now I have to go. I’ll see you at home later. OK?’

  ‘No. Definitely not OK.’

  He bends to pick up his helmet and collects his jacket from the back of his seat. ‘Nothing’s changed, Will. I promise. I’ve just had … some pretty awful news. I need to go and … I need to go. It’s not something I can’t tell you, I swear. I just don’t want to tell you in a rush. I want to explain it all. It’s not going to be easy … but I need to do it right. And now is not the time.’ He hooks a hand around the back of my neck. ‘I love you. You know that. I want to be with you. Nothing is changed. OK?’

  I don’t answer this time, so he steps past me and walks hurriedly to the exit. Outside, he mounts the bike and starts it up, then hesitates a moment and meets my eye through the glass. He mouths some words at me, one of which starts with an ‘l’ – I’m guessing it’s ‘I love you’ but I’ve never been any good at lip-reading – then pulls on his helmet, fastens the strap, and speeds off.

  I want to roar and rage and throw the table over and smash everything, but I don’t. I close my eyes for a couple of seconds, clench my fists and breathe deeply, and by the time I’m paying the bill, I’m just jittery and anxious. As I’m striding back out onto the pavement, the maître d’ catches up with me at a run, his arm outstretched towards me.

  ‘Mr. Henley, you forgot your card!’

  ‘Oh, God, thanks. Thank you.’

  I try to focus my mind a bit more as I drive home, but Sam’s stricken face is there, clouding everything. If I knew what to worry about, I might feel slightly better, but all I have right now is a nameless, unidentified anxiety. Sam said nothing’s changed. He said he’s committed to me. I glance at my left hand on the steering wheel and feel an echo of the earlier relief when I see the ring. But it’s not the same. It’s swamped now by the most gigantic unease I’ve ever known. Sam with something huge to tell me. Sam getting some bad news he won’t explain. Sam rushing off on his bike in a state of high anxiety. I don’t know which thing makes me feel the worst.

  At home, I find the hallway floor littered with tiny little gold foil champagne bottles. Two gold heart-shaped helium balloons are bouncing against each other on the end of strands of gold ribbon, with the words Will and Sam on them, interlocked. In the kitchen, there’s a bottle of champagne in the fridge; and on the side a bowl of chocolate-dipped strawberries, covered with cling film. A couple of drips of melted chocolate are still visible near the hob, and my heart expands a little.

  It’s close to two a.m. when he comes home. I’ve dozed off on the sofa and wake with a start when I hear the front door. The house is freezing, and I’m shivering as I go out into the hallway.

  Sam’s taking off his jacket, his helmet on the floor. He looks at me anxiously. ‘This
isn’t exactly how I imagined us coming home tonight,’ he says quietly.

  ‘No. Do you want a cuppa?’

  He nods, so we both go through into the kitchen. ‘First of all,’ he says, without any kind of preamble, ‘you have to know that this happened before I met you.’

  ‘What did?’

  He puts up a hand. ‘I’ll get there, just let me …’

  I nod. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘OK. So. Before we met …’ He tails off and rubs his head. ‘God, this is hard.’ He’s making his hair stand up in a mess. I want to go and smooth it down, but I stay by the kettle. ‘Before we met, I had a … relationship … with someone.’

  ‘OK.’ My stomach twists. So it’s about an old boyfriend. This nugget does nothing to ease my discomfort.

  ‘Well,’ he goes on, ‘it wasn’t really a relationship. More just … you know, a fling. It was very brief, lasted about a week.’

  ‘Right.’ The kettle clicks off, so I focus on making the teas. Mugs, tea bags, milk …

  ‘The thing is …’ He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. ‘She got pregnant.’

  Boiling water slops over onto my hand and I yelp and bang the kettle down. ‘Ow, shitting, crapping, sodding fuck!’

  ‘What is it, what happened?’ Sam’s at my side instantly, his hand on my arm. ‘Are you hurt?’

  I’m at the sink turning on the cold tap and quickly I stick the scalded hand under it. The pain eases instantly, but I look into his eyes and say, ‘Yes.’

  We hold each other’s gaze a moment and I know he understands what I mean because he gives a tiny shake of the head. ‘I didn’t love her. I … don’t really know what it was. My head was … Anyway. When she told me about the baby, I was, I don’t know, part horrified, part thrilled. I mean, I had pretty much accepted the fact that I wouldn’t ever be a dad – at least, not biologically. So when she said …’ He shakes his head again. ‘I know I should have told you this two years ago. But Toby was only a month old when we met …’

  ‘Toby …’

  A smile comes to his face as he thinks about Toby. ‘Yeah. Toby. He’s great, Will. He’s really getting interesting now – walking and talking, so clever! If you tell him to do something, he totally understands what you mean. And he’s starting to learn abstract things, colours and stuff. Like yesterday, I asked him if he knew where his blue jacket was, just ’coz you’re supposed to do this kind of running commentary with them, to help them learn to communicate and stuff. Anyway next thing I know, he’s trotted off somewhere and come back holding it …’ His voice trails off. ‘What?’

  I’ve got my un-scalded hand up. ‘Hold on.’ I can’t seem to make sense of any of it. ‘Wait … Just … wait.’

  ‘What is it?’

  I turn off the tap and my hand immediately throbs, but I need the silence to think. ‘Yesterday?’

  He breaks eye contact and turns away. ‘Ah. Yes. That’s … the other thing.’

  ‘What other thing?’

  He walks three or four steps away, then turns and comes back. ‘I have a son, Will. I mean, it’s huge. A massive responsibility. He’s two, he’s expensive, he needs stability. You can’t imagine that I don’t have any contact with him …’

  I shake my head, trying to make all the disjointed, chaotic bits of information line up neatly and make sense, but it’s like throwing paint at a canvas and hoping for a masterpiece. ‘But I don’t … I don’t understand. When? I mean, you’ve never told me … When do you see him? When did you see him yesterday? How? You were at work, weren’t you? And then you were at home, with me, having dinner. And then you …’ Something clunks into place in my head and with a kind of swooping feeling some of the chaos does suddenly align itself. ‘Oh my God …’

  Sam has the decency to look shame-faced. ‘Oh Will, please babe, I never wanted to deceive you, I just didn’t know how to … I didn’t know what else …’ He’s coming towards me now with his hands out, as if to placate me or hug me or something, but I can’t stand still, I can’t stay here, I can’t look at him.

  ‘It’s one of the things I love about you,’ I say quietly, moving away from him. ‘You’re so kind, so generous with your time, so giving. And yet all this time …’ I’m shaking and it’s not just the cold. ‘All this time you were …’ I can’t finish saying it. The gorgeous picture of tranquil contentment I painted for myself earlier is collapsing in on itself so fast, like a wax model by the fire. Except it never existed, not really, because Sam isn’t who I thought he was.

  ‘But that’s still me,’ he’s saying now, desperation in his voice. ‘I am that person. I do volunteer, I just don’t go as often as you think I do, that’s all. Christ, Will, it’s still me, nothing’s changed. Oh God, man, don’t …’

  ‘Don’t what?’ I stop by the kitchen door and stare at him. ‘Don’t leave? Is that what you were going to say?’

  He nods, his eyes brimming. ‘Don’t.’ His lips make the shape, but no sound comes out.

  I shake my head. ‘How can I stay? I thought you were one thing, and it turns out you’re not. You’re practically a stranger to me. I’m so in awe of you, volunteering at Samaritans, giving up your time to help others. For two years you’ve made me think … But, my God, it’s one giant lie, told to keep an even bigger secret …’ I look at him briefly and see he has tears running down his cheeks. ‘I just … I just don’t know what to think.’

  I move to the hallway, not sure of what I’m doing or where I’m going, only that I need to get out. The two balloons are in my way as I reach for my jacket and I punch at them and find myself entangled in the ribbon. ‘Oh for fuck’s sake!’ I yell, not even caring that it’s two-thirty in the morning and we have neighbours on both sides. The balloons bounce cheerily against each other, undaunted, and eventually I fight my way past them. I grab my jacket and swing into it, aware of Sam behind me pleading silently. With one hand on the door knob, I turn back to him to say goodbye.

  ‘She’s dead,’ he says simply.

  I freeze. ‘What?’

  ‘That’s what that call was. Earlier. He’s two, Will, and his mummy’s just died. For Christ’s sake.’

  My head is reeling. ‘Oh hell. How?’

  ‘Drunk driver. Mounted the pavement. Took her feet out from under her.’ His voice breaks as he says this.

  ‘Christ.’

  He nods. ‘Yeah. She died instantly, apparently.’ He pauses, looks down. ‘Toby was with her.’

  I close the gap between us and look in his face. ‘Shit, he was there?’

  Sam nods. ‘Yeah, it’s fine, he’s fine, he was unconscious but he’s been awake and had scans and stuff and there’s no damage. Just a broken wrist. He was strapped into his buggy, so the frame protected him a bit. I’ve just come from the hospital – they’re keeping him in overnight, just in case. I just came to talk to you, then I’m going straight back.’

  ‘Oh Sam.’ I pull him in close. ‘That’s horrific. I’m so sorry.’

  His arms close around me and hold on tight.

  ‘This doesn’t change anything,’ I say eventually, pulling away.

  ‘What?’

  I step further back. ‘I mean, it doesn’t change the fact that you lied to me for two years. You pretended to be a Samaritan …’

  ‘I didn’t pretend! I really am a Samaritan. I just said I was going there when I wasn’t sometimes …’

  ‘You’ve been with a woman and didn’t think to mention it. You have a child and didn’t think to mention it. I thought I knew you. Well enough to choose you. To share my life with you. But it turns out I don’t. How much more is there that you haven’t told me?’

  He’s shaking his head. ‘Nothing. There’s nothing else. I swear it.’

  We hold each other’s gaze for a few seconds, then I look down at the ring on my finger. Such a short time ago, the sight of it made me feel so secure and relaxed and safe. It felt like home. Now it feels like a tendril wrapped round me, a tentacle of some giant horror, trying
to pull me down into the maelstrom. I ease it off my finger and hold it out to Sam. He chokes on a sob and shakes his head.

  ‘Don’t you give that to me,’ he says in a low voice.

  ‘I can’t wear it, Sam. I was engaged to someone else.’ He shakes his head and turns away, covering his mouth with his hand, so I bend and put the ring on the bottom stair. ‘I’ll leave it here, then.’

  ‘No.’ His voice is muffled and snotty, as if he has a heavy cold, and my heart hurts to hear it.

  ‘I’ll come back to collect my things in the next couple of days.’

  He doesn’t answer, so I grab my car keys from the hook, open the front door, and step out into the chilly night. As the door closes behind me, I hear him shouting, shrieking, incomprehensible vocal sounds that are almost inhuman, and part of me cracks open and bleeds inside. I pull my jacket collar up against the February cold, and walk briskly to my car.

  *

  I drive aimlessly for ten minutes until I find myself outside our friend Amy’s house. I park the car and turn off the engine and the street falls back into that eerie, middle-of-the-night silence that’s more like static or the sound of the sea very far away. Did someone say it’s the last echoes of the gigantic explosion that created the universe?

  I’m telling myself I’ve ended up here by chance; because it’s three a.m. and I know she won’t mind; because I’ve got nowhere else to go. But I know there’s a reason, even if I’m not acknowledging it to myself. I bang on the door for two or three minutes before she appears, bleary and yawning, in her dressing gown.

  ‘Whoever that is, you’d better have a fucking good reason for waking me up at three in the morning. Oh my God, Will.’ She opens the door wider so that I can squeeze past. ‘What in the name of Queen Liz and all her family has happened? Bugger me, you look like death, my love. Come in, come in, I’ll get you a drink.’

  We go into her vast kitchen and she presses a brandy into my hands, then lights the Aga and pulls a little sofa up near it. ‘Wanna talk about it, love?’