A Passionate Love Affair with a Total Stranger

by Lucy Robinson

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ I said, chastened. ‘You’re amazing at it. Better than me, even,’ I added. I meant it as well.

  ‘Nonsense.’ Sam suddenly put his coffee down and, without warning, marched over and pulled me into a hug. I sat like a lump of wood, a bit stunned. Sam and I didn’t hug much. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  I was confused. ‘For what?’

  He pulled away. ‘For getting my arse into gear. I know you were pretending to be Shelley at the time but whatever. Thanks to your emails I’ve … um, come out of a coma.’ He moved back to his seat, looking embarrassed.

  I blushed. I loved the idea of having had this effect on someone’s life. Particularly Sam’s, which had always seemed so full of potential and yet so wasted.

  The ensuing silence was broken by the doorbell. Sam jumped up. ‘Aha! I invited Ness and Hailey round for brunch,’ he explained, buzzing them in. ‘You’ve been so damned busy since you went back to Salutech I thought you could do with some bruvvahood.’

  I felt a big swell of gratitude. Sam was right. Throwing myself into work had definitely made me feel sane and in control again (Margot and her blackmail excepted) but there had been a notable deficit in normal human company. Sam was so very thoughtful these days. If only we –

  I cut myself short. If only we nothing.

  Hailey had brought about ten thousand sausages and was looking rather unlike herself in a floaty floral dress. Given that she had been wearing tight-fitting slutty ensembles since long before I met her, I wondered if this meant Matty had tried his hand at buying her clothes. ‘These are the best sausages you will ever eat,’ she announced. ‘I had six yesterday. Don’t judge me until you’ve tried them,’ she added. Ness, who was the sort of annoying person who probably only ate half a sausage a year, laughed nervously. She had brought fruit.

  Hailey swept Sam to one side and took over the kitchen. ‘Bowes, this is not your place,’ she informed him. She rolled a good fifteen or so sausages into the grill pan and got a gigantic loaf of bread out of her bag. She started slicing it and spreading it thickly with butter, barking commands to Ness, who was apparently her sous-chef. Watching her, I couldn’t help but notice how ironic it was that I was the one with the reputation for being a hard-nosed businesswoman yet I had only a scrap of her self-confidence. I had had to fire just two people in the course of my career and both times had cried in the toilet afterwards; Hailey despatched naughty chefs and skiving waiters as calmly as Sam flicked off bogies.

  As Hailey bossed Ness around, my thoughts drifted back to Salutech and I began to wonder if this was the way Margot would start treating me in the office. Margot was as bullish as Hailey but with none of the wit, charm or empathy that made Hailey such a likeable girl to be around. I shuddered. That seahorse had wanted to wipe the floor with me from the moment she’d arrived in our office. I’d long since stopped trying to work out why. But wipe the floor with me she could now, unless I came up with something really clever and brilliant in the next forty-eight hours. It was a grim prospect.

  ‘Are you portioning for dwarfs?’ Hailey asked Ness, who was chopping fruit into bowls.

  Ness giggled. ‘Sorry. I’m used to Sarah. She eats almost nothing,’ she said. It was true: Sarah was even tinier than Ness. (Granny Helen had named them ‘the lesbian pixies of Edinburgh’ the first time Sarah had been introduced to her. Fortunately Sarah had found this funny.)

  Hailey snorted, tipped two of Ness’s fruit salads into one bowl and presented it to Ness. ‘This is a real portion,’ she announced. ‘Unlike you, Ness, I have a hale and hearty man to feed. Please take note.’

  The dynamics in Hailey’s household must be hilarious. I could only imagine how meal preparation would look: Hailey throwing gigantic meals together with noise and smut while Matty opened tins with a laser-beam sword. ‘How are things with Matty?’ I asked her.

  Hailey didn’t turn round. ‘Really good,’ she said slowly. ‘Really, really good. I actually think …’ She trailed off.

  ‘What?’ Ness asked.

  ‘I think we could be heading for dud duh-duh-duhhhh, duh duh duh-duh.’ I nearly passed out.

  Sam, who was less talented at the art of diplomacy than the rest of us, gaped. ‘YOU?’ he gasped. ‘Married?’

  Hailey shot him a finger. ‘No one could be less suited to marriage than you, Bowes,’ she informed him. ‘Imagine what it was like for us when you pulled that one out of the bag!’

  A fleeting moment of pain shot across Sam’s face and I felt suddenly protective. ‘Leave him alone, Tits,’ I said to her.

  Sam waved me away. ‘Ack, she’s right,’ he insisted. ‘But seriously, Hailey. Engaged soon? Have you been talking about it together?’

  Hailey turned away, smiling enigmatically, and as she did so her floaty dress caught on the side of her belly, which seemed to be rather rounder than normal.

  Oh, my God, I thought. She’s pregnant! I clutched the side of my chair for support. Sam getting engaged – admittedly not for long – and now Hailey getting PREGNANT? I couldn’t take much more of this! Sam, Hailey and I had all been single for ever!

  Sam was interrogating Hailey about her possible engagement (Matty had been spied in a jeweller’s in Stockbridge apparently) and I tried to reconcile myself to the idea of her having a baby. It seemed too fantastical and mad for me to get excited. Hailey a mother? How had we got so old? Would the same thing happen to me soon?

  My thoughts turned quickly to John. The range of feelings attached to our ‘relationship’ – if I could call it a relationship yet – was bewildering. Above everything else, of course, I was ecstatic to be here after all these years. Kissing him was a knee-trembling affair and his naughty messages left me dizzy and girlish; it was almost impossible to keep him at arm’s length at work. I wanted to beat my chest and screech that he was mine! But it was still mortifying that – even though Susan had left him – I was basically shagging a man who’d been single for twenty seconds.

  But there was no such thing as a perfect relationship, I reminded myself. I slid my phone out of my dressing-gown pocket and re-read the message he’d sent me this morning: She’s moving her stuff out now and soon I will be entirely yours, Charlotte Lambert. Please remove clothes in preparation. X

  I smiled. I still couldn’t believe this was happening.

  ‘Chas?’ Hailey barked. I looked up. She was putting the sausages between the slices of bread without even halving them.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What’s this?’

  Sam slunk over to the fridge to get his ketchup, looking like a guilty dog.

  ‘Bowes tells us you went on a date with John,’ Hailey said, her eyes narrowing. ‘This true?’

  I braced myself. Already I could feel her energy change. I didn’t want another lecture: I felt shitty enough. ‘Yes,’ I said. It just popped out; I couldn’t help myself. A big, warm guilty grin stretched across my face. ‘And, before you give me a hard time, I’m not just being a slag. He’s left his wife and he wants to be with me. Permanently.’

  Three amazed faces stared across the mound of sausage sandwiches at me. ‘Seriously?’ Ness asked. She looked alarmed.

  ‘Yes, seriously,’ I said, slightly hurt. For the last seven years my friends had actively encouraged flirtation with John. They’d better not change their tune now, I thought. This was my time. My man. I’d waited half a lifetime and finally he’d arrived in my lap. I wasn’t taking any shit.

  Hailey opened her mouth, probably to trumpet some righteous stuff about it being far too soon, but Ness broke in: ‘Whoopeee!’ she shouted, running over and jumping on me. ‘At last! At long last!’

  Sam looked amazed for a few more seconds but then scampered over and made it a three-way hug. ‘That’s fucking magic, Chas!’ he said. ‘You waited long enough, brother.’ He pinched me on the cheek as if he were in some Cockney drama. Hailey had her hands on her hips.

  ‘Stop it,’ I said to her. ‘He’s felt the same way as me for seven yea
rs. He should never have married Susan in the first place and he knows that. If you’d heard what he said, you’d be pleased for me,’ I added.

  Hailey seemed unconvinced. ‘Well, if you’re sure,’ she said.

  I nodded. ‘Very.’

  Something must have cleared in Hailey’s head because she picked up a sausage sandwich and toasted me with it. More modestly than Ness and Sam, but it was definitely a vote of confidence. ‘Well, cheers, Chas. To you and John. Wowzers! Now, tell me. How are things in the bedroom department? Oh, my God, does he make you scream?’ Ness blanched and Sam fled to the bathroom. I started laughing and began to fill her in. For the first time in the last twenty-four hours, I was feeling a bit perky. Maybe there will be a way around all this mess, I thought hopefully. After all, I wasn’t a bad person. I was just doing my best in what had turned out to be a fairly imperfect life.

  Morning turned into afternoon and the sky cleared as we sat around my living room, eating and chatting. Ness had had us in stitches with tales of a mad playwright she was developing a script with: he had turned up at the theatre dressed as a woman in the hope that Ness would ‘renounce her lesbian ways’ and love him. She wasn’t even sure that it had been a joke: he had now written an opera and four poems dedicated to her. Sam, meanwhile, had been showing off our sparkly new website and was now wetting himself over the testimonials William and Shelley had written. Shelley had produced a hilarious polemic and William had come up with an uncharacteristically hyperbolic review of Sam’s emailing skills. ‘Those two!’ He chortled. ‘Bet they were sitting side by side writing these on their BlackBerrys without the faintest idea!’

  ‘Should we put both recommendations up?’ I asked him. ‘It would be such a shame if they saw each other’s names up there and realized what had happened.’

  ‘Shame? It’d be fucking hilarious, Chas!’ He giggled. ‘And William and Shelley aren’t exactly unusual names.’

  We eventually uploaded both comments, agreeing that if they were serious about each other they’d have to come clean about their ghost-writers eventually. We toasted tea mugs happily. ‘To our bloody BRILLIANT little business, Chas!’ Sam beamed. He was flushed and excitable.

  ‘Your business,’ I prompted, not without sadness.

  Hailey, meanwhile, was emerging from the bathroom with a very red face. ‘Phone sex?’ Sam asked her. She went even redder.

  Sam looked amused. ‘Was it violent?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Well, you don’t look post-orgasm,’ he said.

  Hailey batted him off. ‘Mind your own, Bowes.’

  An expression of discomfort settled on her face and I knew she needed help.

  ‘So. My job is fucked,’ I announced loudly. All heads turned to me and I felt Hailey’s gratitude.

  As I told Hailey and Ness about my Salutech woes, I felt Hailey relax – although not fully. I hoped everything was OK with this baby. Assuming there was one. I made a mental note to schedule in a night for just the two of us as soon as possible.

  Everyone agreed that I would somehow find a way to triumph over Margot. ‘You hold that place together,’ Ness said earnestly. ‘Without you, Salutech would implode and all the scientists would atomize.’

  ‘That’s exactly the sort of thing Dad would say, Vanessa Lambert!’

  Ness looked pensive. ‘Dad’s a bit nuts at the moment, Charley. I called yesterday to find out how Granny Helen was doing, and you know what he said? “She’s fine, Nessie. Nothing that a good few Scotches and a nice pipe won’t sort out.” I was like, “Dad, you’re a doctor !” ’

  Sam chuckled. ‘Your dad really is something else,’ he remarked.

  I realized that, irrespective of my fears about work, I felt happy. I loved the three people in this room. Whatever was going on elsewhere in my life, I had companionship, laughter and some nice tea today.

  My phone began to ring. ‘Oh, speak of the devil,’ Sam said, handing me my phone. ‘Dr Lambert on the line.’

  ‘Daddy!’

  There was a silence.

  ‘Dad?’

  And then I heard Dad’s voice, quiet and uncertain, telling me that Granny Helen had died.

  The afternoon turned strange and sad. Autumn sun shifted across the floor as the afternoon progressed and, out of a primal need for comfort and safety, I lit a fire, around which we sat in blankets. Mum had taken over the call eventually, explaining that she and Dad were still at the hospital and that they would prefer it if we came to see them tomorrow.

  Ness sat and cried quietly for two hours. Hailey tried to lighten the atmosphere with a succession of wonderful Granny Helen impressions and, when they stopped working, she cooked more sausages. Sam, still not very comfortable with emotions belonging to anyone who wasn’t a performing actor, gave me a long, awkward hug before scampering off to the bathroom for ‘a long evening soak’ even though it was only four o’clock.

  I sat mostly in silence, listening to everyone around me. I felt only shock and disbelief; the sadness had not yet reached me. It was impossible that Granny Helen was no longer here. She was the head of our family. The leader of the Lamberts. Leaders didn’t just disappear.

  Eventually, Ness drifted off to find Sarah, and Hailey had to go home to cook for Matty, who was having to work weekends in the run-up to December when his gardens were to become a Christmas Wonderland.

  And then it was just me and Sam. We sat in companionable silence, watching Finding Nemo and then Bridget Jones, Sam getting up every now and then to put more wood on the fire and to make tea. Twice he received calls from female voices but twice he cut them short and explained that he was with a friend who needed company. Twice I squeezed his hand, grateful to him for not leaving me on my own. He cooked risotto at some point in the evening, and I smiled as I watched the intense concentration in his face as he chopped mushrooms. He was still a child, really, but he was trying. He was changing. He was committed to being better.

  At some point during the third film in our DVD marathon Sam drifted off to sleep, curling down sideways into a foetal position on the sofa. And within minutes I was alone again, battling all of the thoughts and fears that a day of company had kept at bay. Shock about Granny Helen, serious worry for Dad and a lingering sense of dread over what this would mean for our family. Fear about Margot combined with spiralling panic about how much work I had to do over the coming weeks. If I had a job at all. Thoughts of John, of how our relationship would work (and why he hadn’t yet called me), thoughts of Hailey maybe having a baby and worry for Ness who had been quite inconsolable about Granny Helen. Tick tick tick. My head whirred, exhausting me, and, sick of all the noise, I tried to put a lid on it all.

  But the more I tried to squash everything down, the more anxious and upset I felt. What had I actually done today? Nothing! Sitting around eating sausages and drinking tea was all very nice but I had achieved bugger-all, which, considering I was at war with Margot, was inexcusable. If I was to have any defence against her I had to be more on top of work than ever before. I began to feel angry and ashamed. Who the hell did I think I was, moaning to my friends about Margot trying to steal my job when I was doing nothing to protect it? We had just launched our biggest ever drug! Why had I not spent the day monitoring the press? Why had I not been calling my colleagues in Europe to find out how they were getting on? Why was I not collating figures and preparing reports?

  Because you need a break, a small voice in my head suggested. I batted it down. I could take a break once the campaign was running smoothly and Margot was under control. Careful not to disturb Sam, I reached over the side of the sofa for my satchel, pulled out my laptop and work files and got stuck in. I needed to fight for my job.

  ‘What the arsing hell are you doing?’

  I jumped in the air. ‘Shit, sorry, Sam, did I wake you up? I’m just catching up with a bit of work.’

  ‘No,’ Sam said, pulling himself up. He looked properly annoyed. ‘No,’ he said, more kindly this time. He plumped a cushio
n and sat up next to me. ‘You’ve just lost your granny. Give yourself a break. For once.’

  I winced. Somewhere deep inside I knew there was some sense in this, but not as much sense as there was in me working. ‘This stuff needs doing before tomorrow,’ I said obstinately.

  ‘Tomorrow’s Sunday,’ Sam said, swinging his legs out on to the floor. Gently but firmly he confiscated my computer and put it on the table. ‘And currently it’s two fifty-four a.m. No one in the world cares enough about Simitol to need you right now. You’ve been bereaved, Charley.’

  I stared at him as if he’d punched me in the face. Bereaved. Now I believed that Granny Helen had died. Out of nowhere I had a vision of her sitting on a chair outside her cottage when Ness and I were five years old, feeding us her home-made plum jam on slices of cheese. ‘You are the two bonniest girls this side of the Forth,’ she whispered fiercely. ‘If anyone tells you otherwise, I’ll take my stick to their backside.’ I hadn’t thought about that day in years, but now the memory was dizzyingly strong; a bittersweet taste of my past now seeded with loss. ‘Sam,’ I said, tears welling. ‘Granny Helen’s gone.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered. ‘She was fucking amazing.’

  I gulped.

  ‘Will you stop working now?’ he asked. ‘You need a good cry and then bed.’

  A tear fell slowly down my nose. ‘I want to work,’ I whispered.

  Sam sat down slowly on the sofa next to me. I moved my thigh over to accommodate him as another tear squeezed itself out.

  ‘Work is not the answer,’ he said uncomfortably. ‘To this or to anything.’

  I picked at a hangnail on my thumb, hoping he’d stop. I didn’t want to hear this now.

  ‘Look, Chas, you told me you hide in your work,’ he said. I was alarmed. It had been an unspoken rule that we would not quote anything that either of us had said as William and Shelley. I got up and wobbled off towards my bedroom, Sam in hot pursuit. ‘You told me you couldn’t let go,’ he persisted. I looked at him as I got into bed. He didn’t appear to be enjoying this much but it kept on coming. ‘Don’t you want to do something about that?’