Page 72 of Still Me
“No.”
“Then how can you not know whose it is?”
“I don’t know! But—but it’s not mine! I haven’t had sex with anyone else!” I realized as I was protesting that the mere act of insisting you hadn’t had sex with someone else made you sound like you were trying to hide the fact that you had had sex with someone else. “I know how it looks but I have no idea why that thing is in my bathroom!”
“Is this why you’re always on at me about Katie? Because you’re actually feeling guilty about seeing someone else? What is it they call it? Transference? Is—is that why you were so... so different the other night?”
The air disappeared from the room. I felt as if I’d been slapped. I stared at him. “You really think that? After everything we’ve been through?”
He didn’t say anything.
“You—you really think I’d cheat on you?”
He was pale, as shocked as I felt. “I just think if it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, then, you know, it’s usually a duck.”
“I am not a bloodyduck... Sam. Sam.”
He turned his head reluctantly.
“I wouldn’t cheat on you. It’s not mine. You have to believe me.”
His eyes scanned my face.
“I don’t know how many times I can say it. It’s not mine.”
“We’ve been together such a short time. And so much of it has been spent apart. I don’t...”
“You don’t what?”
“It’s one of those situations, you know? If you told your mates in the pub? They’d give you that look like—mate...”
“Then don’t talk to your bloody mates in the pub! Listen tome!”
“I want to, Lou!”
“Then what the hell is your problem?”
“He looked just like Will Traynor!” It burst out of him like it had nowhere else to go. He sat down. He put his head in his hands. And then he said it again, quietly. “He looked just like Will Traynor.”
My eyes had filled with tears. I wiped them away with the heel of my hand, knowing that I had probably now smudged yesterday’s mascara all over my cheeks but not really caring. When I spoke my voice was low and severe and didn’t really sound like mine.
“I’m going to say this one more time. I am not sleeping with anyone else. If you don’t believe me I... Well, I don’t know what you’re doing here.”
He didn’t reply but I felt as if his answer floated silently between us:Neither do I.He stood and walked over to his bag. He pulled some pants from inside and put them on, yanking them up with short, angry movements. “I have to go.”
I couldn’t say anything else. I sat on the bed and watched him, feeling simultaneously bereft and furious. I said nothing while he dressed and threw the rest of his belongings into his bag. Then he slung it over his shoulder, walked to the door and turned.
“Safe trip,” I said. I couldn’t smile.
“I’ll call you when I’m home.”
“Okay.”
He stooped and kissed my cheek. I didn’t look up when he opened the door. He stood there a moment longer and then he left, closing it silently behind him.
—
Agnes came home at midday. Garry picked her up from the airport and she arrived back oddly subdued, as if she were reluctant to be there. She greeted me from behind sunglasses with a cursory hello, and retreated to her dressing room, where she stayed with the door locked for the next four hours. At teatime she emerged, showered and dressed, and forced a smile when I entered her study bearing the completed mood boards. I talked her through the colors and fabrics, and she nodded distractedly, but I could tell she hadn’t really registered what I had done. I let her drink her tea, then waited until I knew Ilaria had gone downstairs. I closed the study door so that she glanced up at me.
