by Amy Lloyd
Each night Dennis got into bed and Sam lay on the sofa. She would lie awake wondering why he didn’t want to make love to her, whether there was something wrong with her, or if there was something else.
Neither had any clothes suitable for winter in New York, so they shopped more, spending money as if it was nothing. They tried on thick winter coats, lined with goose down. ‘I’ve never bought a winter coat before,’ Dennis said, putting his hands into the deep pockets. They took everything to the counter without looking at the tags, and he handed over a MasterCard and carried on talking, ‘Do you think it’ll snow?’
‘Maybe.’ Sam thought of Christmas lights and gloved hands and hot chocolate. She longed for the sensation of cold air, where outside was cooler than inside, her breath fogging in front of her face.
They took the car back to their room and piled their new clothes on top of the old ones. Sam knew she would have to call her mum back to explain she wouldn’t be coming home for Christmas, and apologise for not calling in weeks. But so much had happened, so fast. She ignored the calls from work, and hadn’t replied to the email they sent to tell her not to bother coming back at all.
Sam hadn’t wanted to speak to anyone from home because she knew exactly what they’d say. Now she couldn’t avoid it any longer, so she excused herself and took the call on the balcony, sliding the glass door shut behind her.
Her mother answered right away. ‘Sam?’
‘It’s me.’
‘Why haven’t you called me back? I’ve been so worried.’
‘I’m fine, I’m still in Florida.’
‘I know! I’ve seen the pictures. You’ve been in all the papers. Our phone hasn’t stopped.’
‘Then why did you say you were worried?’
‘Because I don’t know how you are. Or whether you’re OK with him.’
‘We’re happy.’ Sam leaned on the white balcony wall, watching a lizard skitter on the patio below them.
‘I can’t understand it.’
‘I love him, Mum.’
‘He scares me.’
‘Why?’
‘You can’t spend decades in prison and be a normal person. You just can’t.’
‘But he is normal.’ Sam moved back into the shade. ‘He’s sweet and kind and shy.’
‘But he’s a murderer.’
‘He isn’t a murderer, Mum. That’s the whole point. They exonerated him.’
Sam heard her mother sigh. ‘I know it ended badly with Mark but—’
‘Don’t.’
‘It doesn’t mean you don’t deserve someone who—’
‘Mum, please!’ Sam realised she was shouting.
‘You didn’t mean it, sweetheart. We know you didn’t. If you come back home we’ll find you help.’
It went on. Sam kept her back to the patio doors so Dennis couldn’t see how upset she was. She wasn’t ready to tell him about Mark yet but she knew she would have to eventually. What if Mark sold a story – was that possible, now? Or if someone else did, one of his friends, maybe? Or even his mother, who’d called her from the hospital, using Mark’s phone, and told her he refused to press charges but that Sam was never to contact him again. One moment, a slip, was all it had been. It wasn’t her. It was the games, how Mark had played with her. How he’d said he loved her, but he hadn’t meant it. And then she’d just … She shook it away.
They’d come while she was at work, cleared all Mark’s things and posted the key back through the letter box. She wished he’d come back and trashed her house, cut her dresses, smashed a window, anything to show he was angry, or upset – anything at all. But in the end all he felt when he thought of her was fear.
Mark always told her, right from the beginning, their relationship was no strings. It was her fault when he hurt her. She understood that now. She’d known the rules and she’d ignored them, and pushed too hard. This time it was different, she told herself. Dennis was all hers. They were married; he was unquestionably committed. She wouldn’t lose her mind again, not even for a second, even if she had to fold the bed covers and put them away every day before housekeeping arrived to make sure no one knew they weren’t sleeping in the same bed. Dennis needed time, she knew. Time and space after the confinement of the past twenty years. He was so beautiful she sometimes forgot she was not. When he held her and his fingers danced just under the edge of her T-shirt, she would hold her breath and hope for more, and when he curled them back into his palm and turned away she would have to understand. He wasn’t ready. That was all.
Seventeen
They left for New York a few days later. The flight made Dennis grouchy; his ears popped on landing and left him temporarily deaf, separated from the world in a cotton-wool shroud. ‘What? What?’ he kept asking Sam as they navigated airport security, smiling agreeably at all the things he couldn’t understand from staff and passersby, nodding, Yeah.
A car took them to the hotel where a doorman greeted them with an umbrella to shield them from the freezing drizzle that didn’t fall so much as float all around them. Their bags were loaded on to a cart and Sam and Dennis made small talk as they took the elevator up to the fortieth floor. Their room was all reds and golds, and at the centre of it all was a huge four-poster bed with carved mahogany fixtures. They looked out of the floor-to-ceiling windows in the sitting area at the gridlocked traffic and the light caught in the drops that rolled down the glass.
Sam took Dennis’s arm and put it around her. ‘I love it here.’
‘It’s cold,’ he said, pulling away.
‘You’re a curmudgeon,’ she said, smiling.
‘Curmudgeon. Samantha, I’m impressed.’
‘When you say Samantha, I feel like I’m in trouble.’
‘Maybe you are,’ he said, and Sam felt it again, a kick of desire. Maybe it was a move, she thought. Maybe this would be where it happened, but then he started unpacking the cases, hanging shirts in the wardrobe. She left her clothes in her suitcase, and slid it under the bed so he wouldn’t complain.
He took out his laptop and placed it on the desk in the sitting area. Sam tensed, remembering the determined tap-tap-tap of his one-fingered typing. For hours, tap-tap-tap, their hotel room silent, no television so he could concentrate. Dennis wouldn’t let her read his autobiography, shifting his body to shield the screen as she passed. Whenever he left she fought the urge to peek, to see the only thing he kept hidden from her. How bad could it be? All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, she thought.
The room had a couple of armchairs, a dining table and a chaise longue. Sam took a pillow and lay down on the chaise longue, her legs hanging off the end, so that she had to screw up into a ball to fit entirely.
‘Um, Den? I don’t fit on here.’ She straightened out again to demonstrate, and he looked around the room, his expression darkening when he saw there was nothing else. ‘What shall I do?’ Sam tried to sound light, not hopeful, just agreeable, willing to compromise.
‘I guess I’ve had a lot of good nights’ sleep now,’ he said.
‘Really?’ Her heart beat fast.
‘Where else are you going to sleep?’
She went to him, kissed him and let him pick her up and drop her on the bed. She pulled him on top of her, holding him there so she could kiss him again. She wrapped her legs around his hips and pressed against him, his tongue hot in her mouth. A noise escaped her, a moan she wasn’t expecting. He stopped.
‘Are you OK?’
‘Yeah.’ She tried to pull him back.
‘Did I do something?’
‘No.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yes.’
He started to pull away. She sat up, clutched his shirt, but he stood and stretched. ‘I’d better finish this.’ He gestured to the clothes spilling from the case. Sam lay back, feeling her heartbeat between her legs.
His phone buzzed on the bedside table. ‘Can you see who it is?’
‘It says unavailable,’ Sam said, holding it to him.
‘What does that mean?’
‘It’s a private number.’
He held it in his hand and watched it until the buzzing stopped, passing it back to her with a shrug. As he folded another T-shirt to put in the closet it buzzed again, ‘Answer it,’ he told her.
‘Hello?’
‘Who’s this?’ a man’s voice asked.
‘Samantha,’ Sam said. ‘Who’s this?’
‘Is Dennis there?’ His tone was short, almost angry.
‘Um, who is this?’
‘Tell him it’s an old friend. He’ll know what it’s about.’
‘An old friend?’ Sam held the phone out. Dennis stared at the screen for a moment before putting it to his ear.
‘Hello?’ He held up a finger and disappeared into the bathroom. Sam waited a second or two before tiptoeing over to the door and pressing her ear against it. She heard nothing, and sat back on the bed disappointed and anxious for him to come out.
Dennis reappeared a few minutes later, wiping at the phone screen with his shirt and rummaging for his charger in the case.
‘Well?’ Sam said, ‘Who was it?’
‘Nobody.’ He plugged the charger into the wall, the screen lighting up as he connected it. ‘Someone I used to know. How would they get this number?’
‘I don’t know. How did you know him?’
‘School,’ he said. ‘Did you give anyone my number?’
‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘Why would I?’
‘I don’t know how he got it, that’s all.’
‘You think someone’s stalking you?’ Sam was concerned, but he snorted.
‘Don’t worry about it. It’s just weird, that’s all.’
‘You want to go somewhere? We can get food or go for a walk.’
‘I think I’m going to go to the gym for a while,’ he said.
‘Oh,’ Sam said. ‘OK.’ She watched him change, fold his old clothes into a neat pile in the empty suitcase, and pull on a grey T-shirt.
As he was about to leave he turned back and unplugged his phone. ‘Music,’ he said, and left. She looked at his headphones still coiled on the dresser.
Eighteen
The next day Dennis visited an ophthalmologist about the detrimental effect long-term imprisonment on Death Row had had on his eyes. Twenty-one years of looking no further than a wall a few feet ahead had made his eyesight deteriorate, and the lack of sunlight had made him sensitive to brightness. The doctor prescribed eye exercises and new lenses in the hope of regaining some lost vision. Every day Sam sat patiently with Dennis, moving a pencil slowly towards and away from his eyes, listening to him breathe, feeling the space between them thick with tension. He’d go without glasses where he could, looking across Central Park with his face wrinkled in pain until he had to put them back on. He got new designer frames that softened his face and Sam couldn’t help noticing the way the optician seemed to spend too long making sure they sat right on the bridge of his nose, her hands almost cupping his cheeks.
He was told he’d receive the maximum compensation for his wrongful conviction – two million dollars – but his lawyers promised they’d sue for more. There would be extra compensation for legal costs but as most of the money for his appeals had been raised by supporters, Nick suggested they make a donation to the Innocence Project.
‘Yeah, it’s up to you. I don’t know what else we’d do with it,’ Dennis said.
Nearer Christmas Sam stopped at the front desk and asked them if they could have a Christmas tree. ‘It’s his first since he … came back, you know? It would be nice to make it special.’
‘No problem,’ the receptionist said, and booked them in for dinner at the restaurant the next night so the tree could be decorated in their absence.
When they returned the tree was glowing in the corner, two stockings hung underneath the television. Dennis smiled despite himself. ‘Come on,’ Sam said, pulling at his T-shirt. ‘It’s cute.’
‘It’s too cute,’ he said, kissing her on the top of her head.
Carrie and her girlfriend, Dylan, visited for New Year. They came back to their hotel room for drinks after dinner, already loosened by red wine and rich food. Dylan wore her hair short, and had a smarter, more businesslike dress sense than Carrie. They were different in many ways – Carrie more artistic, Dylan more academic; Carrie so brash and flippant, Dylan more considered and serious – but they worked together in a way Sam and Dennis did not. Sam noticed how they moved, limbs like water running over each other, whereas she and Dennis often collided with mistimed kisses and clumsy elbows.
‘This is nice,’ Carrie said. ‘I could get used to visiting you in places like this. Much better than Altoona. Right, Sam?’
‘It’s been amazing,’ Sam said, taking Dennis’s hand.
‘You guys thinking of making New York your permanent home?’
‘No,’ Dennis said. ‘Too cold.’
Sam said nothing. She loved it here, and she didn’t want to leave. Dennis often stayed in the hotel room, or walked only as far as the waiting taxi as a concierge held the door open for them, but Sam walked for hours, closed her eyes and smelled the air, sat in the windows of cafés and watched the people. She’d started smoking again, secretly, hugging herself against the cold. Spraying herself with perfume before going back into the room. She knew Dennis hated smoking. He was always complaining about the smell, or coughing extravagantly as they passed through a group of smokers on the street. But more than that she just wanted to have her secrets. Just as he had his. ‘An old friend,’ she whispered, the words leaving her mouth with the smoke, curling away into the air.
Later Carrie stood with Sam, looking over the view of the city from their window. ‘So, how’s the honeymoon period going?’
‘Oh, you know,’ Sam said, turning red. Carrie laughed, drunk, happy.
‘Maybe it’s best you guys are still living out of hotels. You probably aren’t getting much else done right now, right?’
Sam thought of the nights she and Dennis spent back to back, tailbones pressed together, of being woken by the sharpness of his elbow in her ribcage.
‘You’re talking in your sleep again,’ he’d moan.
‘What was I saying?’ she’d ask, hot and clammy from dreams of him pressing her against walls and bending her over tables.
‘Who cares?’ He’d yawn and turn away from her, pulling the covers tighter around him.
‘We’re looking to settle down, soon,’ Dennis was saying to Carrie and Dylan. ‘We’re tired of living out of hotels.’
‘Come to LA,’ Dylan suggested.
‘You would love LA, Dennis. It’s so you,’ Carrie said.
‘Well, we’ll be flying out in time for the series premiere,’ Dennis said. ‘Maybe we’ll stay for a while.’
Sam’s stomach lurched. He knew she didn’t want to stay in LA. She needed to get home to England for a while, get her house ready for sale. She wasn’t ready to get back into the heat. She loved the days in winter that never quite got light, grey sky and orange lights from windows.
When Dylan and Carrie left the next day Sam and Dennis argued bitterly. He went outside for a run at eleven at night and didn’t come back until one a.m., ice-cold when he slipped under the sheets, her skin jumping at his freezing hands.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered, shaping himself to her back.
‘Me too,’ she said. ‘It’s fine if we stay in LA a while. I was just being selfish.’ He thanked her, kissed her neck. She shivered as he held her. The cold he brought in with him seemed to drain the warmth from the room.
Nineteen
Over the next couple of weeks Dennis appeared on talk shows, giving practised answers to the standard questions that everyone seemed to ask. What has it been like since you left prison? Can you forgive the Red River police for what happened to you? Will you be helping others who are wrongly incarcerated?
Dennis had sessions with a media coach on public speaking and communication. Con
troversial opinions – such as his indifferent stance on the death penalty – needed to be tamed or sidestepped entirely. The coach helped him formulate answers that wouldn’t offend or divide people, that focused on forgiveness and understanding and moving on. She trained him how to share his attention between the host of the TV show and the audience, how to evade an awkward question and how to maximise the impact of his answers with well-timed pauses and sincere eye contact.
A nutritionist brought him smoothies the colour of swamp water and all-natural protein bars that looked, to Sam, like something you’d hang on a bird feeder. Instead of coffee he sipped on cups of hot bone broth that smelled like the Bovril Sam’s grandmother used to have on winter evenings. He kept trying to get her to eat unpronounceable things like acai berries and echinacea supplements but she drew the line after he gave her a coconut water that tasted, she thought, like sperm, though she couldn’t tell him that.
People told him what to wear, how to pose for photographs, where he needed to be and at what time. There would be someone to drive him there and when he arrived someone to take him to a room where another person would pluck stray hairs and powder his forehead so that it didn’t shine in the flawed way regular people’s skin did.
‘You’re ready,’ Nick told Dennis over lunch on a Sunday.
‘I don’t know,’ Dennis said. ‘Live TV?’
‘What’s the difference between live TV and being interviewed in front of a studio audience? You did great on Colbert, they loved you. Trust me, you’re ready.’
Dennis and Sam arrived at the Today’s Talk studio on Wednesday morning, just before the show started broadcasting at eleven a.m. Dennis wasn’t due on until midday so he and Sam had some time to look around, the energy different to the late-night shows and pre-recorded interviews they were used to, the pressure of going out live creating an atmosphere buzzing with excitement and dread. Nick called to wish Dennis good luck. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t make it,’ he said. ‘You’ll be fine! Just relax and have fun.’ Then Dennis was being whisked away to make-up, and Sam was left alone.
