Page 16 of The Wrong Suitcase

‘This is me,’ he declares, using one hand to undo the button on his jacket, and stretching his other out towards Kat, and then Anastasia, and then me.

‘I’m Sam,’ he says, ‘But everyone calls me Birchy.’

‘Birchy?’ says Kat. ‘Are you Claire’s son?’ She points in Claire’s direction.

He takes his napkin and unrolls it as he replies, ‘I am. How did you know?’

‘She said her surname was Birch,’ Kat replies.

‘Oh, we know all kinds of things,’ Anastasia says under breath at the same time, but luckily I don’t think he’s heard her. I kick her under the table. Not hard enough to bruise, but enough to let her know I’m not playing. At least we know why he’s so damned grumpy: Claire had said one of her sons – the handsome, serious one – had been stood up at the airport. If the doppelgänger beside him is the dad to the little boys, and the woman a few seats over from me the sister, that means it’s Sam – Birchy – who she was talking about. Knowing that, I feel a whole lot more empathy for him. He’s angry at a woman for trampling on his heart. But then, after the side of him I’ve just seen, I can’t help wondering what he did to deserve to be trampled on in the first place.

14

Birchy

I’m eating the last spoonful of my tiramisu as she – Izzy – passes behind me and leans in so that I feel her breath, hot and wet, on my ear.

‘Are you enjoying your evening?’

There’s not enough room to swing around and talk to her face to face, but she’s far enough forward that turning even halfway to where she is means our noses almost touch. She smells like wood and vanilla – sweet, but with a bite.

‘Well, the view has been particularly lovely,’ I reply, and she cackles.

‘Cheese-fest!’ she accuses me, her tone changing from low and sultry to outraged and amused.

‘I’ve had many, many glasses of wine,’ I explain, delighting in her laugh. ‘My powers of creativity are inhibited.’ It has been nice though, sitting opposite her. She’s smart and funny, as happy to listen as everyone else talks as she is to make a witty observation or ask an insightful question. We’ve barely spoken directly to one another, but we’ve existed in this same part of the table, breathing the same air and talking with the same people, for hours now. She keeps catching my eye, and I can’t tell if she’s looking at me and I’m catching her, or if it’s because I keep looking at her first, to see if she’s found the same joke funny that I have or confirming that she still looks as incredible as she did two minutes ago.

‘Maybe all that wine will make you brave enough to askmefor a dance later,’ she flirts, to which Aran, who I think is hitting on the guy sat the other side of him, suddenly announces, ‘He promised me first dance, lady! Hands off!’

I hit him playfully in the shoulder, but when I turn back she’s gone. She’s like smoke, gathering and clearing, impossible to get a grasp on.

‘She’s pretty, love,’ Mum tells me, an apparition appearing from nowhere, as apparitions are wont to do. ‘I talked to her before the service. Schoolteacher, she said. Single.’

She says the wordsinglewith such pointedness I’m surprised it doesn’t cut me.

‘We’ve talked about the boundaries of meddling, Mother dearest,’ I remind her.

She lets out a ‘Ha!’ and insists, ‘Darling, a son’s meddling is a mother’s gentle probing.’

‘Aliens have been known to probe gentler than you,’ I say.

Across the table Esme, my sister, shouts, ‘Are you asking him about who he’s been making doe eyes at all night, Mum? Tell him he doesn’t stand a chance!’ My nephews follow her shouts and laugh too, even though they don’t really understand what’s ‘funny’.

I whip my head so fast it cricks my neck as I check to make sure Izzy hasn’t heard. She’s not back at the table, though – thank god.

‘You’re slurring your words, Esme Grace,’ I retort, just as loud.

‘Am not,’ she slurs.

Charlie pipes up. ‘You are, actually.’ Only he misses a syllable out of ‘actually’ because he’s slurring too, and we all clock it at the same time and collapse into hysterics.

‘Why is it always my children making a scene?’ Mum asks the air, and it makes the three of us laugh even harder. Winding Mum up is, to be fair, the thing that unites us.

‘You have been mooning,’ Charlie continues, once Mum has moved on to chat with Aran. ‘But I don’t blame you, she’s gorgeous. You should go for it.’

Charlie being sincere instantly prompts my suspicions. I fill up my water glass and wait for the other shoe to drop, but he continues with, ‘I’m serious, man.’

I down my drink, and when his attack still doesn’t arise, I say, ‘Are you sending me into battle unarmed? It won’t be as funny as you think it will to see me fall on my face. I’m walking wounded, remember?’

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