The First Time I Saw You: the most heartwarming and emotional love story of the year

by Emma Cooper

  Week Twenty-Six

  Sophie

  As I walk past the tall buildings lining the street, my pregnant reflection looks at me with confusion. My large stomach gives my walk a suggestion of the waddle that is sure to arrive in the next few weeks. The Greenlight building frowns at me: what is this woman doing here in her loose summer dress and her flat sandals? What business does she have here?

  The offices are the same as they were when I came here in February: the same noises, smells and air of urgency that I don’t think I have ever noticed before; everybody seems to be in a rush.

  My stiletto-less feet walk to the desk and I ask to speak to Kat. A tall, willowy woman with large glasses and hair scraped into a bun smiles at me from behind the high mahogany desk.

  ‘I’m afraid she no longer works here.’ I fleetingly wonder if that was anything to do with the merger. They were stupid to let her go; her performance in the last year had outshone her colleagues.

  ‘In that case, may I speak with . . .’ My mind goes blank – my baby brain rooting through the lists of employees that I had spent hours and days scouring. Then I retrieve one: ‘Bob Golding, please?’ The willow looks down at me, lingering on the sweat glistening on my top lip.

  ‘I’m afraid you will need to make an appointment.’

  ‘If you could just call him and tell him that Sophie Williams wishes to speak to him.’

  She glances down at my stomach with a slight look of revulsion. Bean kicks inside my ribcage, pushing me forward. ‘Urgently,’ I add.

  ‘As I’ve said, you will need to make an appointment.’

  ‘Very well.’ It occurs to me that I don’t have a diary in my bag; instead I have a bottle of Diet Coke and a packet of crisps. I pull out my phone, swipe the screen to my diary, which is filled with gaps and the occasional antenatal appointment. I tap my blunt nail against the screen. ‘I can fit him in tomorrow.’ She does little to hide her smirk as I say this, and I wish that I had worn a suit. I was wrong to think that my voice alone could command the same respect that my armour and I had worked so hard to achieve.

  ‘I’m afraid Mr Golding has a very busy schedule.’ She looks at the screen of her monitor and begins to rap her fingers over the keyboard. ‘He can possibly fit you in on the fourteenth?’

  ‘Of August?’

  ‘Ye-es,’ she says slowly.

  My cheeks redden as I grimace at how stupid I sound; today is the third of August. ‘But that is three weeks from now. I need to speak to him . . . Please, if you could just call him, tell him my name?’

  ‘Mr Golding is in meetings all day.’

  ‘Sophie?’ I hear a loud male voice call my name. I turn, and it takes me a moment to recognise Bob Swift, back from paternity leave and back, it seems, at the head of our merger. I glance at the willow fleetingly, hoping she can now see the woman I am beneath the rounded stomach and loose dress.

  ‘Bob,’ I smile, hold out my hand and let him shake it before air-kissing me. I worry that I might smell sweaty, but he reeks of coffee and long hours; he vibrates with it. He looks down at Bean and laughs.

  ‘Well, congratulations! When are you due?’

  ‘November,’ I reply and ask about his own baby.

  ‘Total nightmare, doesn’t sleep, wants to be held constantly . . . wife looks about fifty. Truth be told, glad to be over here for a few weeks, get a decent night’s kip!’ Bob speaks as though he can’t afford the time to start his sentences with pronouns. ‘Was just about to grab lunch, want to join?’ he asks. I agree, and we walk to a café not far from the one where I first met Samuel.

  Bob rattles off his order before I even have a chance to read all the options, and then I remember that when I worked, I always ordered a chicken salad. Did we all do that? Choose the same thing because we didn’t have time to read the whole menu?

  ‘So, back in DC?’ he asks, filling his glass with water from the jug, swigging it down quickly. I watch his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.

  ‘Just for a short while. I’ve started up a new business.’ The Adam’s apple stops bobbing for a second. ‘I was hoping to meet up with a few old colleagues that I worked with at Greenlight during the merger, but it seems a lot of them have moved on.’ I reel off a few names, attaching Samuel’s name like a comma, an afterthought, instead of the thing that can change the meaning of the whole sentence.

  ‘Samuel McLaughlin?’ My heart pounds and I feel light-headed for a moment. Will he tell me that he is dead? I’m not ready to hear it; I force aside the words that could fall from Bob’s mouth. ‘Yes, I’d heard that you two were involved.’ I furrow my brows together. I’m about to try and lie, but what would be the point?

  ‘We were, but Bob,’ I say almost desperately, ‘I left him the moment I knew where he worked. It wasn’t easy and I’m not proud of the way that I treated him. I, I didn’t even tell him why I left. I didn’t steal his idea, and I didn’t tell him about ours,’ I add, taking a sip of water.

  ‘Knew you wouldn’t. Always believed in your integrity. Dreadful business, those fools firing you. Preposterous.’

  Our food is served, but instead of asking about Samuel, instead of demanding the answers about his accident, I let Bob lead the conversation. I cower behind the taste of the ripe tomatoes and the garlicky dressing; I let them taunt me, I let them persuade me to enjoy them; I try to concentrate on the way they pop inside my mouth, their sweetness oozing from their centre; but the picture of Samuel’s house burns the back of my throat with every mouthful, and the words of the newspaper report slide down my spine every time I swallow. I know I need to ask. I need to find out what he knows about Samuel, but I’m scared that he will tell me the truth, and any hope I have will be pulled from beneath me and I will fall.

  Bob calls for the bill: my time is up.

  ‘I heard Samuel had been in an accident?’ I ask as I dismiss his attempts to pay with my hand.

  ‘Yes. Terrible.’ He drains the rest of his drink and glances at his watch.

  ‘An explosion or something?’ I say casually as we say our thanks and leave the café.

  ‘Yes. So young, too. Ever meet his friend? . . . Bret something or other, left him in a terrible state after . . . well, after Samuel departed. Much better now, though, full of energy, that chap.’

  ‘So, he’s . . . he’s?’ Bile rises in my mouth and my throat seems to be closing around the words.

  ‘Flew him back to Ireland, I think.’

  I gasp and reach out for the wall behind me.

  ‘Good lord, Sophie, are you OK? You’re as white as a sheet! Should I call for a doctor?’ Bob asks, looking up and down the street as if he can hail one like a taxi. I blink, the scene around me blurring around the edges and then straightening itself, like a drunk in front of a policeman.

  ‘I’m fine, thanks, just the heat. I think I’ll go back to my hotel . . .’ I smile at him, ‘take advantage of the air conditioning.’

  We air-kiss goodbye and my sandals – gold and cheap – walk me back to the hotel, where I lie on the bed, turn on my side and face the wall before I close my eyes and let the realisation of Samuel’s death wash over me.

  Grief slides a hand into mine like an old friend. It’s been a while since we were this close and I feel myself leaning into the embrace in the same way I did when Mum first died. How easy it is to let it cover you and block out the outside world, blunting your senses and protecting you. It feels good to be back, but this time it is different because Bean is here, and my baby doesn’t like it. I try to calm it, I cup my hands around my bump and make gentle shushing noises, but Bean begins to kick furiously; it wants to get out. I can’t stay, as much as I long for the solitude and the quiet of grief’s embrace. I have to get out.

  Week Twenty-Six

  Samuel

  Isabella is here. Again. I’m not sure how to handle this relationship: relationship isn’t the right word to use; ‘thing’ is more appropriate. I don’t want a relationship with her and I’ve been trying
to tell her this. She says she doesn’t want one either, but that doesn’t stop her from constantly turning up here. I know that maybe I should be making the most of my sight, making the most of my life. I know I said I was going to move on from Sophie, and I have, but she’s still here.

  When I sleep, when the murky edges of my life disappear, and the subconscious sights fill every corner of my mind, Sophie is always there: full of colour, full of happiness. And when I wake, it takes me time to accept that my life has to go on without her. Now that I’ve made the decision to let her go, I feel like I’m almost grieving . . . does that make sense? I know I must carry on, but it feels as though there is a hole inside me. No matter how many times I tell myself I’ll learn to live without her, the way that I look forward to dreaming means that I’m not quite ready to move on entirely . . . not just yet.

  ‘Move up, Sam,’ Isabella says, wiggling herself down into the small space next to me, the sofa sinking and tilting her body towards me. ‘So, your mam tells me you’re off to see a show tomorrow?’

  ‘I am.’ I look over to the window. There is a splatter of pigeon shite dribbling down it.

  ‘On your own?’ she asks, the heat from her thigh making me want to move away. I try to manoeuvre myself further up the sofa, but she just moves with me. I resist the urge to sigh.

  ‘No, Sarah is coming with me, we’re staying in London overnight.’

  ‘You should have told me, Sam, I could have made plans to come with you.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

  ‘Afraid you couldn’t resist me in a hotel overnight, on our own?’ The tunnel encapsulates her one eyebrow arching provocatively; I tilt my vision to her mouth which gives me a slow but deliberate smile.

  ‘It’s not that, and for your information I think I could. Resist you, I mean. Isabella, it’s great that you’re here, and I—’

  ‘You’re not going to give me the “it’s not you, it’s me” speech, are you?’

  ‘No, nothing like that, because, well, it is you.’

  ‘Sorry?’ She laughs loudly.

  ‘Well, it’s because you’re you . . . you’re not Sophie.’

  ‘The infamous Sophie who hung up on you and left you twice? That one?’

  ‘It’s not like that.’

  ‘Really, well then, if she wants you so much . . . where is she?’ She begins to lift the cushion and looks astounded when Sophie isn’t hiding beneath the barley-twisted edges. ‘Maybe she’s hiding . . .’ She stands and I lose sight of her but hear her footsteps walk over to the curtains, the whoosh of the material letting me know that they have been dramatically pulled back. ‘Nope, not hiding there.’

  ‘Stop it. I know she doesn’t want me, but that doesn’t stop me wanting her.’

  The sofa gives beneath her weight as she slumps back down.

  ‘Well, that’s just killed the mood.’ She elbows me in the rib, a smile in her voice. ‘I may as well take this off then.’ She begins a movement that I’ve seen many of my exes carry out. (Do they teach this at school maybe? Is it part of Sex Ed lessons, the ones when they split up the girls and boys? We got taught that masturbation is a normal, healthy part of growing up; did the girls get taught how to take off a bra fully clothed?) Anyway, she shimmies about and the fragments of my sight catch a glimpse of black lacy bra through the opening in her sleeve. The clasp of her bag clicks as she hides the garment inside. I focus on the edges of her sleeves and feel her tuck her legs under her bottom and lean in to me.

  ‘So, go on then . . . tell me about this show. Or you could tell me about Sophie.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about her, but . . . ah, feck it. Do you want a drink?’

  ‘White or red?’

  ‘White.’

  We both go to get up.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ she says. Part of me wants to argue but let’s face it, my life is easier if I let her. I catch sight of her back as she walks away, a film shot of her swaying her bottom and pulling her hair into a ponytail.

  ‘Tell me why she left you!’ she shouts from around the corner. I hear the fridge door open and close, and the clink of the glasses.

  The telescope darkens around her figure as she walks back into the lounge; the wine glugs into glasses. I smell it, but it takes me a while to find where the glass is. Before I can worry about it, she is holding my finger and clasping it around the stem.

  ‘Thanks,’ I say. The dynamics of our relationship have changed in just a few moments. ‘She left me because she thought that I had betrayed her, at least I think that’s what she thought . . . I’ve never been able to tell her that I didn’t.’ The wine slides down my throat. I continue to hold the glass; the act of placing it back on the table requires too much effort.

  ‘Betrayed her how?’

  ‘I told her about an idea for some new software . . . God, it sounds so insignificant now.’ I run my finger around the rim of the glass, which barely escapes the blackness.

  ‘When was that? The first time she came over?’ I nod, glancing up, the edges of her profile dimmed by the insatiable shadows that continue to prowl around my world. She takes another sip of her wine.

  ‘Yeah. We never talked about work that much, stupid as it sounds when it was the reason that, well, that meant we couldn’t stay together.’ I stretch my legs forward, most of which the tunnel has swallowed. ‘She left, just up and went in the middle of the night when she realised it would jeopardise our jobs.’

  ‘Why didn’t she just explain?’

  ‘She couldn’t, it would have meant that I would know her firm’s plans to use the same software, to take it over.’

  ‘Ah, so when she came back, you thought that she’d stolen your idea?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Maybe she did?’

  ‘Nah . . . she’s, she’s just not like that.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  I shrug my shoulders. ‘I just do.’

  ‘You don’t get off that lightly, tell me why. I’ve just thrown myself at you in my really bloody expensive underwear which is riding up my crack as we speak.’ I laugh and try not to picture the underwear riding up her crack.

  ‘Sophie is . . . complicated. She’s so vulnerable and so independent at the same time. She can walk into a place like she owns it, she will be so confident, but then once you get to know her you would see that it is all an act. Sophie’s a bit, well, a bit lost really. But after she got to know me, after that week . . . ah, it’s hard to explain. I felt like I had saved her somehow. That sounds wrong, it’s hard to explain what we had without sounding like a twat.’

  ‘OK, so explain why she left you again.’

  ‘I may have got wankered when she first came back and shot my mouth off about her being a manipulative bitch in a bar.’ I rub my forehead and try to erase the foggy memories of that night. I explain how hurt I’d been, that maybe she had played me. I told Isabella how I’d rung Sophie and told her she was the biggest bitch alive. ‘One of the girls I worked with was there – Kat. She wasn’t with us, but I think she must have told someone that Sophie nicked the software idea from me.’

  ‘Ah Samuel, what were you thinking?’

  ‘You don’t know what it was like seeing her walk into that meeting. She was so . . . so frigging professional and cold. She looked me straight in the eye when she told us that her company was taking us over. Do you know what that was like after the time we had spent together? I can tell you the sounds she makes just before she falls asleep . . . like little puffs of air; how she has dimples when she smiles and that they are the width of my index finger away from the corners of her mouth, how she pulls at her earlobe when she’s thinking about something . . .’

  ‘So, she left you because you got drunk and called her names?’

  ‘No. She left me because she thinks I was the one who told Greenlight that she stole my idea.’

  ‘Ah . . . I see. So that’s it? You’re just going to let her go through the rest of her life thinking t
hat you betrayed her?’

  ‘Sophie’s made it clear that she doesn’t want to speak to me.’

  ‘She lost her job and I’m guessing her reputation. It’s no wonder she doesn’t want to speak to you.’

  ‘I’ve tried to find her, you know how hard I’ve tried.’

  ‘Not hard enough, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.’

  ‘If our time together was as special for her as I think it was . . . maybe she’ll find me?’

  Week Twenty-Seven

  Sophie

  I sit down on the blanket opposite the fountain. The grief I feel is consumed by the memories of the last time I was here.

  ‘I know it’s not quite the same, Bean, it was dark when Your Dad brought me here, but it’s just as beautiful.’ I open the plastic bag, my hand shaking as I take out the sandwiches . . . one Marmite from the jar I brought with me, the other salmon from the deli. I pull out a plastic flute and pour a small bottle of sparkling water into it, taking a small sip and trying to convince myself that it is just as nice as the real thing. My fingers peel back the plastic film from the salmon sandwich and I smell it suspiciously. The smell doesn’t turn my stomach . . . Bean, it seems, likes it. Tentatively I take a bite and Bean shuffles. Huh.

  ‘So you’ve got Your Dad’s taste buds, hey?’ My voice snags on the edges of the words ‘Your Dad’, and I feel myself unravel. Sobs expand inside my chest and Bean kicks against me as it is crushed by the pain that I’m trying to swallow down.

  The next day, I drive us to the same cinema, Bean’s shifts and kicks reminding me to breathe, to eat, to live. The film is different but I sit in the same seat as he did. Bean enjoys the popcorn and sleeps while I stare through my tears at the screen.

  I walk us along the tidal basin; I reach up and grab a leaf, the colour vibrant and green this time, not the burnt umber of autumn . . . I’ll keep it, maybe frame it and add it to the sideboard when I get home. The image of the sideboard covered with my memories of Samuel pinches the air from my lungs. I reach out and grab the edge of a bench, my knees buckling, my body slumping against the wood.