For a moment time seemed to stand still, silence hanging in the air between them, like an awkward guest at a party. Then she stood on her toes to brush a brief, almost formal kiss on his cheek. ‘Yeah. And I’ll see you on Saturday morning.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
EUAN HAD BEEN up since six. Yesterday had been difficult, and this morning all he could think about was the night before last. The way that Sam had kissed him. The way he’d wanted her.
When he turned up at the office, at half past eight, he could already hear her moving around upstairs. Five minutes later she appeared in the doorway to David’s office, looking more beautiful than he remembered, and more tired than she should be.
‘Hey, there. Are you ready?’ He stepped forward, his fingers brushing her elbow in a gesture that hovered somewhere between friendship and something else. Then all hell broke loose.
‘Don’t you dare touch me!’ She snatched her arm away, turning with such abruptness that she jabbed him in the ribs.
‘Ow! Sam...?’ Clearly she’d also had time to think, and it appeared that whatever conclusion she’d come to wasn’t particularly favourable.
‘How could you, Euan?’ Tears glistened in her pretty eyes, held in check by the anger on her face.
‘What? Sam, what is it?’
‘You know perfectly well what. I’m here for another week, and we’re going to have to work together, but if you lay one finger on me...’ she thrust one of her fingers in front of his face, in case he was unclear what she meant ‘...you’ll be walking with a limp for the next month.’
Euan took a step back, just in case she changed her mind and decided to take another swipe at him again anyway. ‘Sam, just calm down.’
‘Calm down!’ His words only served to make her even more angry. ‘You...you sleaze merchant. I know where you were yesterday.’
Yesterday. Okay, so he hadn’t told her where he was going. He had his reasons for that. But even if she had found out, surely that wasn’t enough to provoke this kind of reaction.
‘I trusted you, Euan.’ She was crying now, wiping the tears away as if they were badges of shame.
‘You can trust me now. Just talk to me, Sam.’
‘There’s nothing to say. Just go downstairs and get into your car. I’ll get a taxi out to Kathryn House.’
This was ridiculous. ‘No, you won’t. We’re going to sort this out, here and now.’
‘There’s nothing to sort out, Euan. Nothing you can say is going to make any of this any better, so you might as well save your breath.’ She turned abruptly, flinging the door open and slamming it behind her.
‘Oh, no, you don’t.’ He muttered the words under his breath and followed her, catching her in the hallway, blindly trying to open the door to the flat upstairs. ‘Sam, will you just stop it, and start from the beginning? What’s going on?’
She turned around, icy cold this time. ‘Maya asked me whether I was going down to the clinic yesterday. I said no, because it was your day off.’
‘Right. Then what?’
‘And then she told me.’
‘Told you what?’ If she didn’t get to the point soon, he was going to shake it out of her, even if that did involve touching her.
‘She said, “Ah, yes, that’s right. He’s gone to see his wife.” I suppose that slipped your mind on Thursday night, did it? That you had a wife...’ She turned away from him in disgust.
‘Sam, wait. Maya didn’t tell you—’
‘Enough, Euan. There’s nothing more to say.’ She got the door open, and would probably have slammed it in his face if he hadn’t caught it and pulled it closed before she had a chance to get through it. Imprisoning her between his arms, one on either side of her, planted against the door, he took a chance on the belief that she wouldn’t try to lash out at him and do any permanent damage.
‘She’s my ex-wife, Sam. We haven’t lived together for fourteen years. We divorced ten years ago.’
‘So why did Maya tell me she was your wife?’ She faced him defiantly. ‘Not a particularly easy mistake to make, I would have thought.’
‘No, it’s not. She was probably trying to be tactful. Said one thing instead of another and didn’t correct herself, because she didn’t want to elaborate too much.’
‘And why wouldn’t Maya want to elaborate?’
‘Because my ex-wife’s in prison. That’s where I went yesterday.’
She stared at him, her face starting to redden. ‘But Maya said...’
‘I know. You already told me what Maya said. You want to listen to the facts now?’
The expression on her face made it very clear that she thought there was some kind of catch to this. All the same, she nodded.
‘Okay. I married Marie when I was twenty-one. I was still in medical school and she was studying for her PhD in fine arts. It didn’t last a year.’
The tearing, nagging guilt took hold of him. Then he looked into Sam’s eyes. If she could face her demons, then he could face this. ‘She was an addict. She hid it from me, but I found out that she’d cleaned our bank account out to buy drugs. She’d been getting them in other ways, too.’
‘Wh—?’ Understanding dawned in her eyes and she lay her hand on his arm. ‘You mean...’
‘Yeah. When she didn’t have money for drugs, she traded favours. I was humiliated and hurt, and I confronted her about it. We argued, and she left. Just walked away.’ Suddenly he felt as if the life had been drained out of him and he took a step back, leaning against the wall.
‘And then?’ Sam was done trying to run away from him, and now compassion showed in her face. Perhaps she was about to tell him the same thing that he’d told her, that he was beating himself up over other people’s actions. She couldn’t be more wrong.
‘I let her go. Didn’t try to look for her. You’ve heard me say that we don’t give up on anyone at Driftwood.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I was the one who suggested that rule, because I know just how easy it is to give up on drug abusers. I finished my studies and got a divorce. I tried to put it behind me, but I couldn’t, and I ended up at a meeting.’ He gave a short, grim laugh. ‘When I suggested to you that talking about it would help, that came from first-hand experience.’
‘But you’re back in contact now.’ She laid her hand on his arm, her fingers trembling.
‘Yeah. A couple of years back she got in touch with her parents. I’d kept in touch with them, and they called me and said she’d been picked up by the police on charges of fraud and theft.’
‘Did she do it?’
‘She did it. A habit like hers isn’t cheap to maintain. She was sent to prison, and yesterday she was released.’
Sam looked around, as if Marie had followed him home and was going to suddenly appear somewhere. ‘Her parents have organised a flat for her, close to where they live, in Northumberland. I picked her up, took her there, and we all had tea and cake. Then I drove back home.’
‘Will she be okay?’
‘I hope so. She had counselling in prison and she’s clean now. We’ve organised for her to have ongoing support and she’s got some part-time voluntary work at a local community farm.’ Euan shook his head. It was all too little and too late. He’d let Marie down, been too blind to see what must surely have been obvious to any husband. He was bad news when it came to relationships, and he should have remembered that before he’d kissed Sam.
The weight of that knowledge seemed to bear down on him, and his back slid down against the wall. He hit the floor with a bump, and it was a few moments before he realised that Sam was still there, sitting next to him in the hallway.
‘Do you...still love her?’ She was looking straight ahead, as if afraid of what his face might tell her.
‘No.’ The answer
came without any hesitation. ‘Not for a long time. I care about her, and I’ll do what I can to help her be healthy and happy. I don’t love her, though.’ It wasn’t Marie that stood between them. It was his own shortcomings.
She nodded, her body relaxing as she leaned against him. It was as if they were shoulder to shoulder against the world.
‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called you a sleaze merchant.’
He shrugged. ‘It’s exactly what I would have described myself as in the circumstances. It was just a misunderstanding.’
‘I probably didn’t give Maya much of a chance to explain. When she said wife, I freaked out a bit. Couldn’t get away fast enough.’ She reached over, her fingers brushing his sleeve. ‘I didn’t mean to elbow you in the ribs.’
‘I know. Everyone gets clumsy when they’re tired.’
‘Hey! I’m not clumsy. You just didn’t get out of the way fast enough.’
Euan chuckled. ‘What time were you up till last night.’
‘Two-ish. Three, maybe.’
‘Working?’
‘That’s what I do.’
Euan had thought as much. Sam worked to shut everything else out and this time he’d been responsible for the hurt. ‘Why don’t you give today a miss? Take a rest?’
‘But I was looking forward to it.’ She bumped her shoulder against his. ‘Shouldn’t we get going?’
‘I’m taking you for breakfast first.’
‘But we’ll be late...’
‘It’s Saturday, we’re allowed to be late. And I want to celebrate still being in one piece.’
She laughed. ‘Yeah. I think I do, too.’
‘Still friends, then?’ He hadn’t dared ask until he was sure of the answer.
‘Yes. Surprisingly enough.’
He got to his feet, holding out his hand to help her up. ‘Let’s go, then.’
* * *
They had eaten breakfast under a red and white striped parasol at a café on the seafront. It was a bright, clear morning, and the breeze from the sea seemed to whip away the last of the cobwebs fogging Sam’s brain. Euan was talking to her, she was talking to him, and that seemed like a minor miracle right now.
The number of cars parked outside Kathryn House indicated that plenty of people had turned up today. Euan parked next to a battered van and waved to Juno, who was opening the doors at the back.
‘Want a hand?’
‘Ah! Yeah, just the person I needed.’ Juno grinned at them both. ‘I had a hell of a job getting this lot into the van on my own.’
‘Why didn’t you call?’
‘I did, yesterday afternoon. Your mobile was switched off.’
‘Ah. Sorry about that. My day off.’
‘Do something nice?’
It was just an idle question, and Sam guessed from the lines that appeared on Euan’s forehead that he’d brush it off with an equally vague answer.
‘Actually, I was springing a friend of mine from prison.’
Juno didn’t flinch. ‘Nice one. Go well?’
‘Yeah.’ Euan was smiling, now. ‘I think it did.’
And that was it. The thing that he’d kept so tightly to his chest had turned into something that could be talked about and left alone. Maybe he’d done this on purpose, just to show Sam that. Or maybe he’d just done it for himself.
Whatever. The moment had passed, and Euan had jostled Juno to one side and was lifting one of the heavy sculptures, swathed in plastic, carefully from the van.
‘Watch the bit at the top. Don’t knock it off when you go through the door.’ Juno was shouting instructions, and Euan was cordially ignoring them.
‘I’ve got it.’ The muscles of his arms and shoulders had swelled to take the strain of the load, and Sam watched greedily as he manoeuvred himself and the parcel through the entranceway.
‘Right.’ Now he was out of sight, Juno had consigned her precious piece to fate and Euan’s care. ‘Can you take this box? I think I can manage the smaller piece...’ She gestured to one of the smaller statues, wrapped up in the back of the van.
‘Leave those for the men.’ Sam carefully slid the box out of the van and gave it to Juno. ‘That’s the phoenix, isn’t it? You should carry that in.’
Juno laughed, but took the box anyway. ‘Okay. Perhaps you could get the doors for me.’
Inside the house was a hive of activity, the sound of a radio echoing from the back rooms and David in charge, holding a clipboard. ‘Through there...’ He pointed to a door at the end of the hallway. ‘We’ll lock them in the office so they’re not damaged.’ Euan was on his way back to the van, and stopped when he saw the women.
‘Ah. So the phoenix is home now.’
‘Yep.’ Juno’s tone was as if this was just another phoenix, in just another place, but her face was wreathed in a smile. ‘Watch out! Coming through!’ She bellowed at a young man in overalls, who was a good fifteen feet away, and followed Sam into the bright office, stacked with flat-packed furniture and boxes of computer equipment.
‘Where do you want this?’ Euan appeared, with a second statue.
‘Over there, by the first one.’ Juno gave a nod of approbation and produced a roll of tape with the word ‘FRAGILE’ emblazoned on it in red letters. ‘Better put some of this on them.’ She tore off a long strip, and handed the roll to Sam.
‘Juno...do you do commissions?’ The idea had been rolling around in the back of Sam’s head for the last week, one of those things that get thought about but never done. Suddenly, she wanted it done.
Juno stood and faced her. ‘Kind of. People come in sometimes with drawings or photographs of something they want to have reproduced, and I generally say no to that. But if someone wants to pick a colour, or an emotion, something like that, then I’ll do some sketches and make the piece.’
‘Yes. That’s what I meant. Would you make something for me?’
‘Really?’
‘Don’t look so surprised.’ Sam rolled her eyes and ventured a little business advice. ‘The thing to do when someone asks you that is to say that you can, and then pull out your diary. Look busy. People value something that everyone else wants.’
‘I haven’t got a diary.’
‘Then get a notebook. And when you do, I’d be very grateful if you’d put my name in it.’
‘You’ll be first on my list,’ Juno chuckled. ‘Friend’s dis—’
‘Don’t you dare. No friend’s discount. Can I come by and talk to you about it next week?’ There was the familiar lurch of her heart, the lump at the back of her throat, but this time Sam ignored it and kept talking. ‘It’s for the family of a good friend of mine who died. I want something bright...nothing gloomy because she loved colour. Something to celebrate her.’
Juno nodded. ‘Sorry to hear about your friend. Yes, come to the workshop and we’ll figure out something that does her justice.’
‘Good. That’s great.’ Sam took a deep breath. Somewhere, down in the depths of her heart, Sal was smiling in approval.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THERE WERE ALMOST fifty volunteers. Anyone who could wield a scraper was in one of the teams that David had organised, preparing the walls of the rooms for papering later on today. The younger children were being looked after in a roped-off play area on the lawn, and there was a team of mostly older women in the kitchen, preparing food and washing up.
‘This is fabulous!’ Sam caught David as he hurried through the hallway.
‘Isn’t it? I didn’t think everyone would turn up. Euan!’ David had just caught sight of Euan and he beckoned him over.
‘What have you got me down for?’ Euan peered over his shoulder at the clipboard.
‘You’re not on the schedule. You’re just generally making yourself usefu
l. Rabble-rousing and so on.’ David winked at Sam. ‘I believe in getting everyone to do what they’re best at.’
‘Thanks for that. Do I get anyone to help me? Sam’s not doing anything...’
‘Sam’s on photography.’
‘Yes, I’ve an idea for your website,’ she explained. ‘An area where we can have photos and stream video...’
Euan was wearing the bemused look that always accompanied anything vaguely technical. He should stick with rabble-rousing, he was much better at that. ‘I’ll show it to you when it’s finished. You’ll like it.’
‘I’m sure I will.’ There was the hint of a quirk to his lips, a shadow in his eyes of the look he’d given her when he’d kissed her. Then it was gone.
David was consulting yet another list. ‘Sam, when you need them, the cameras are in the blue bag in the office. I’m just off to help Sandra with the tea, it’s about time everyone had something to drink.’ David was on the move again, making for the kitchen in search of his wife.
‘Do you think he wants a hand?’ Tea for this many people sounded like a mammoth task.
‘He’ll have it under control. This is the kind of thing that David does best. I keep out of his way, and try not to throw too many spanners in the works when he’s in this kind of mood.’
‘Probably best.’ Euan’s free spirit, his approach to any given problem couldn’t be contained on a clipboard. ‘Have you got the key to the office? I took the lock off the latch when Juno and I were finished in there.’
Euan’s gaze had already wandered to the front door, where Jamie was trying to shepherd through a couple of men with bulky boxes. ‘Hey, Jamie. There’s a trolley right there. We can wheel those around the side of the house...’ He pulled a bunch of keys from his pocket, dropped them into her hand and strode towards Jamie, leaving Sam to guess which key fitted the door to the office.
* * *
Two days. Sam had captured it all on camera, the volunteers at work, the regular supplies of food that came from the kitchen, the smiles and the catastrophes. At the end of each day a group photo, and on Sunday afternoon the finished rooms. Finally, she videoed as everyone crowded into the community room and Juno placed her glass phoenix in the alcove that had been reserved for it, to a roar of cheering and applause.
A Doctor to Heal Her Heart Page 10