Sam smiles widely. “That’s mates for you.” He looks at his watch. “Look, I’m going to have to get going soon. Can I help you get back to your place?”
My stomach sinks. I’d stupidly envisaged us staying for another drink… maybe two… maybe more. Of course, though, he’ll have things to do. Maybe he’s going to meet a girlfriend. My pride wants to say that I can make it back on my own, but I know that’s just stupid. “If you’ve got time, that would be great. Thank you.” I can hear a politeness in my voice; a formality that wasn’t there a moment ago. I have to protect myself, though.
“It’s no problem.” It feels like Sam wants to say more, but he doesn’t.
We shout thanks to Andrew, and leave the First Aid box back on the bar, with our empty bottles.
“Want to lean on me again?” Sam asks, and I do, very much, not just because of the pain in my foot.
I hobble along, his arm along my shoulder this time. I can’t talk to him like this. Instead, I concentrate on walking, and look straight ahead. Tears are threatening again and I am annoyed at myself.
When we get to David’s place, Sam asks if I want him to help me up the stairs but I say no. I can’t bear the thought of him coming up there, bringing more memories fluttering down like confetti.
He looks me straight in the eye and for one crazy minute I think he’s going to kiss me, but he looks away, down at his watch, and looks worried. “I’d really better go,” he says. He squeezes my hand. “I hope that ankle’s better soon.”
“Thank you, Sam,” I say, and I really mean it.
“It’s no problem.”
I watch as he hurries off along the street; his shoulders are broad under his t-shirt, and his back tapers in neatly. I feel sad, and I wish I’d said more. As I’m about to go in, though, Sam turns round, calls back to me, “You owe me a beer!”
He grins, and is gone, and somewhere in me a little light of optimism pings on.
Chapter Twelve
I manage to pull myself up the stairs, shouting hello to David.
“Are you OK?” He appears at his living room doorway. “I thought I could hear some kind of sea monster dragging itself up my staircase. I was about to hide behind the sofa. Ow, that looks painful!”
“I twisted my ankle,” I say, “on the coast path.”
“And you managed to get back here? That must have taken you all day!”
“It’s OK, I had some help.”
“Oh yeah? Some hunky surfer, was it?”
“Actually, do you remember Sam?”
“Sam… your Sam?”
I can’t help but smile, that he remembers Sam, and that even he calls him ‘your Sam’. That’s me, Julie and David that think that way, at least. If only Sam did, too.
“The very same.”
“What… are you two..?”
“No, nothing like that,” I hasten my reply. “He just happened to be coming along when I fell.”
“And I suppose you fell straight into his arms?”
“No, worse, right at his feet.”
David laughs.
“Come in, Alice, why don’t you come and rest in here a bit? I’ve got a lovely pouffe you can rest your foot on.”
“Thank you David, that actually sounds lovely.”
I haven’t seen much of David since we’ve been back but he’s on annual leave at the moment and Martin’s at work so David’s been at home a bit more. Last time we were here, he was going through a hard time. He was about my age then, in his late twenties. He and Bea had been through a lot, their parents dying a few years earlier, within months of each other. When David had returned to Cornwall to live, he hadn’t found everybody in his home town accepting of his sexuality, or the lifestyle they imagined he’d had living ‘upcountry’ as a gay man. That’s not to say everybody thinks like that but I think some of his old friends gave him a hard time. In honesty, I think he’d struggled even in Bristol, not just with his sexuality but with his stressful job, working for a law firm there.
David had been in three longish relationships in the time he’d been away, all with older men, none of which had worked out particularly well. He had decided to return home when a job came up down here, at a place in Truro, but he had found it hard coming back and I think felt like he’d never find the right man. I’d spent more than one evening comforting him; he’d been drinking quite a lot at that time too, which didn’t help matters.
Now, he says, he has the occasional nice glass of wine or whisky, but he’s much happier “not being a lush” and since meeting Martin three years ago he’s really settled down. He’s also been made partner at the law firm and, although it’s hard work, he says he couldn’t be happier.
“Let me get you a coffee. Or a brandy – isn’t that what you need when you’re in shock? Or a coffee and a brandy?”
I laugh. “I’m not in shock, it’s just a twisted ankle.”
“It’s not your ankle I’m talking about,” David shoots me a look.
I go red.
“Come on!” he says. “You and Sam. You were so into each other, I was sure you were going to be together forever. I couldn’t believe it when I bumped into him that New Year’s Eve and I could tell he was gutted you’d found somebody else.”
“What?”
“The year after you were here, when you and Julie came down before. I’m sure it was New Year’s Eve, it must have been, because I seem to remember he was dressed as a Chuckle Brother, and Luke was the other one. Barry. Well, I guess it was Barry. It’s hard to say, they look so alike… what’s the other one’s name, anyway?”
Despite the mental image of Sam and Luke as the Chuckle Brothers, I’m not smiling. “So you saw Sam, and he knew I was with somebody else?”
“Yes, and you were, weren’t you? We’d had a Christmas card from you, and your new amore, was it Greg?”
“Geoff,” I say flatly. “So you told him I was with Geoff?”
“What? No! He already knew you were with somebody. I’m sure he did. Unless I’m getting confused, it was during my Drinking Years. But I seem to remember it clearly enough, Sam saying you’d met somebody back home.”
Well, this is weird. How the hell would Sam have known about Geoff?
“Yes, that’s right,” David continued, “because he’d been in that accident, hadn’t he?”
“What accident?” I almost shriek.
“Sam, he said he’d been injured in a car accident. Sounded nasty. Some drink-driving grockle had run him off the road.”
“And… he was OK?”
“Well, unless that was a ghost you bumped into today…” David says drily.
I can’t believe it. Sam had a car accident, and I didn’t know. And he had known about Geoff, but how could that be? I try and work it out but I’d been so heartbroken about Sam, I hadn’t really kept in touch with Bea or David very well. I probably had sent them a Christmas card, yes, and I remember now, how Geoff insisted I sign his name on the cards I sent. And that he checked who I was sending them to, and he hadn’t really wanted me to send that one to Bea and David, but had relented when I explained David was gay, and Bea my ex-employer.
Would Julie have told him, or – more likely – somebody who knew him? This seems the most likely possibility, but I don’t think Julie was any better at keeping in touch than I was. She’d barrelled off to university up in Scotland, and barely even contacted me while she was away. I didn’t mind; that was just Julie, but I doubted she’d have made a better job at making contact with people she’d known for a handful of months.
“I think I will have that brandy, please,” I say to David.
When I get back up to the flat, it’s baking hot. The windows are closed, none of the curtains are drawn – not that they make a great deal of difference – so my first job is to hobble around, opening the windows and welcoming in the fresh air, the voices of people passing below, and, not far off, the constant, slow churn of car motors turning over as a queue of hot, red-faced visitors form a sl
ow procession through town, stuck on the one-way system, on their way out, or looking for a parking space.
I lower myself gently onto my bed and I lie there, letting the events and the revelations of the last few hours wash over me. So many thoughts are dancing through my mind. I am still exhilarated from that close contact with Sam; I can still feel his arm round my waist, his warm skin and the soft, blond hairs brushing against me.
And he’d said I owe him a drink. Did he mean it? If only I had a way of getting in touch with him. Although I wouldn’t admit this to many people, I can still remember his old mobile number, but that has long since been cut off. I know, because that autumn after the golden summer (the grey autumn) I had rung it again and again, but I always received the same long, high-pitched reminder that the phone was no longer in action. That was my only way of getting in touch with him, aside from writing – and I’d stopped short of that. I wanted to speak to him, to actually hear his voice and his reaction to me. If I sent a letter, I wouldn’t know if he’d received it, and I wouldn’t know how he’d received it.
Mum has a stack of letters Dad wrote to her when they were first together. They had only lived about forty miles away from each other, but could only see each other at weekends because of work and not having their own cars, so they had kept in touch by letter and by phone. I think it’s romantic and lovely that she still has those letters. Dad’s lost his from her, but I’ve seen them both reading through the ones he wrote, very occasionally, and smiling at each other as they remember their younger selves and those early days of their relationships. For a while I kept all Sam’s texts, which is not the same at all, of course, but I would scroll back through them, and sometimes it would make me feel good – but usually it would make me feel awful, and then Geoff came along and I caught him looking at my texts, and I decided to delete the whole lot. I knew I had to move on, anyway.
So now I have new information, what am I going to do about it? I can ask Julie if she knows how Sam knew about Geoff. I could ask Luke too, I suppose. I definitely want to ask him about the car accident. But I feel like if I ask too much, I’ll be showing my hand. It will be so obvious that I’ve never got over Sam.
Maybe Julie could arrange for us all to go out one night… but I know that’s not quite right, either; too much like a double date.
All I can do is hope that I bump into Sam again, and I vow that if I do I will insist that I get him that beer – even if it’s seven in the morning – and get to the bottom of all this.
I must have dozed off, despite the whirling thoughts. When I wake, I can tell that the light is different and it must be early evening. I hear a knocking sound and David’s voice calling, “Hello-o?”
“Hello,” I croak.
“Mind if I come in?” He pushes the door tentatively and I see he has a tray, with one of those dome things people use to keep food warm, a glass of wine, and a can of Coke Zero. “Room Service!”
“Wow,” I say, pulling myself up. I wince at the pain in my ankle. “David! You didn’t have to do this.”
“Well, I couldn’t have you limping around up here trying to sort something out on that crappy little cooker! Look,” he pulls the dome away, “Thai green curry, with jasmine rice, all veggie of course.” The aroma reaches my nostrils and I feel suddenly very hungry.
“And you don’t need to worry about work, I’ve called Bea and I’m filling in for you tomorrow.”
“David!” I say. “This is meant to be your week off!”
“It’s fine! You know I love camping it up for the tourists.”
I must admit, that’s a bit of a relief. I hadn’t really thought about work, but I don’t suppose a limping waitress is a great idea. Hopefully, a day of rest will sort my ankle out. “You are too kind. Really, really, too kind.”
“Well, you seem like you could do with a bit of looking after. Seeing as your mate’s dumped you in favour of her new love.”
“She hasn’t… well, I suppose she has, a bit.”
David raises his eyebrows at me. “Erm, she has totally… what happened to her summer of fun?”
“I don’t know,” I sigh, “And I really, really don’t mind being alone a fair bit, if I’m honest. I’m used to it. And I don’t mean that in a self-pitying way. I enjoy my own company. But you’re right, we did come down here with the intention of enjoying the summer together.”
“And now she’s got together with Luke… who is looking fine, by the way.” David gestures to the chair by the window. “Mind if I sit?”
“Go ahead,” I say, taking a mouthful of the curry. “Oh wow, this is delicious. Luke is looking good, isn’t he? He’s such a nice bloke. Do you know about his mum?”
“Yes, I had heard something. You know what this place is like. You can’t even get a terminal illness without everybody having to know about it and have an opinion on it!”
“It must be awful. For Luke, I mean. So maybe it’s good that he’s got Julie.”
“But you’re worried that she’s on the rebound?”
He’s good, this one.
“Yes, if I’m honest, I suppose I am. I am worried for her; she was meant to be marrying Gabe, for god’s sake. And I’m worried for Gabe, too; he’s a very nice bloke. You’d love him. But most of all, I think, I’m worried for Luke. He’s already going through so much. I don’t think Julie should have jumped into this so quickly but if I say anything it sounds like sour grapes.” I dip a crispy spring roll into the sauce. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt so hungry.
“I don’t suppose there’s much you can do,” says David, “except watch and wait.”
“Mmm,” I agree through a mouthful of curry.
“But if you need some extra company, remember I’m always downstairs… or at Martin’s,” he admits. “But you’re very welcome to come and hang out with us both, we won’t make you feel like a gooseberry, I promise.”
“Thank you, David, that is really, really lovely of you.”
“It’s no problem. Listen, I’ve got some cheesecake downstairs, and I’m going to bring my DVD player up here. You can borrow all my old boxsets. I’ve got Friends, This Life, Spaced…” He waves away my attempts at a protest. “Just rest up, and you’ll be right as rain soon. Then you can come and wait on me someday.”
“It’s a deal,” I smile, and I want to cry with relief, and the thought of David’s kindness. It’s been good to talk to somebody who gets it, and to know that my concerns about Julie and Luke aren’t completely unreasonable. I decide to do as I’m told and make the most of this chance to rest.
Chapter Thirteen
Julie obviously got my note last night, as she didn’t come crashing into my room to wake me for work. In fact, when I wake up it’s because of a car horn somewhere in a nearby street and when I check my clock, I see it’s nearly 10am. I can’t believe it and I experience a moment’s panic until I remember David’s kindness, and my swollen ankle. I tentatively circle it, and I’m pleased that it already feels a lot better. However, I decide to give Pilates a miss. I’d told Casey I’d try to get to her Thursday class this afternoon, which she said is busier than the Monday night one – though full of grannies, according to her. I gently ease my way along to the bathroom, using the wall for support and stopping to put the kettle on. I retrieve my phone from my bag before heading back to bed with a cup of tea. Then I sit up and send David a text thanking him once more, and Casey a message to say I’m sorry but I’ll have to miss her class.
I don’t know why I feel I have to let her know, but there’s something about her which makes me think she will appreciate a bit of extra support. She is quick to respond:
Oh no that’s not good. Take it eezy, hopefully you’ll b bak on Mon. KCx
I thank her and say yes, I hope to see her Monday, and I hope that her class goes well today.
Thanks luv, I was just thinking, do u fancy a drink tomorrow night, if ur foots better? KCx
I wasn’t expecting that. I type back:
C
an I let you know? I should check with my friend what her plans are, I haven’t seen her all week!
Casey’s response is short: OK
I’m immediately wrong-footed. Have I offended her? This is one of the reasons I hate text messages. It’s very hard to know what somebody means if they just type ‘OK’. Is she annoyed? Or is she just distracted by something? It’s just that compared to her other friendly messages, this one sounds abrupt. I feel compelled to send her something a bit friendlier back, just to make sure things are alright.
Thanks for the offer – if not tomorrow then defo another night x
I even add a kiss, to show I’m being friendly. I’m well aware it’s pathetic. This is not how I behave in other areas of my life. If somebody asks me face-to-face if I want to go out and then seems offended if I say no, or I’m not sure, I would generally just leave them to it. I don’t like to be pressured into things, and I feel far less inclined to do something if I think that somebody is behaving like an arse.
However, I suppose that right now, from a selfish point of view, I don’t feel I have many options open to me socially in Cornwall. Julie has jumped feet-first into bed with Luke, and while I’d obviously love to go for that drink with Sam, I suspect that it’s not really a realistic prospect. Casey seems quite nice. Maybe I should just say yes, and if Julie’s at a loose end tomorrow night, it’s tough.
In fact, I think, yes, I’m just going to do it.
Sod it… I’d love to go for a drink, yes please.
Another super-quick reply:
Fab! I’ll come round to u about 8? Send me ur address. KCx
Now I’m sure she was sulking before. Oh well. Maybe she thought I was trying to give her the brush-off. It can’t hurt to go for a drink or two with her, anyway. I can always blame my ankle if I want to leave early.
After a day’s rest, my ankle is much better and I am up bright and early with Julie on Friday morning, ready for work. David had pretended to be disappointed when I said I was going to go back.
A Second Chance Summer Page 8
