Page 56 of Someone Else's Shoes
Sam (her eyes filling with tears again):
Thank you x
Joel:
Always here for you x
She is not sure how she gets through the rest of the day. She hears her voice as if from afar, checking on print schedules and laminated pages. She calls up clients, conscious that her voice sounds weirdly strangled. There is a lump in her throat that never quite goes away. She does not look at Simon’s office. When she is conscious of someone glancing over at her she makes sure her face is a perfect blank.
She leaves at six thirty. She walks out through Transport so that she doesn’t have to pass his office, and Joel is there goingover the week’s tachographs with one of the drivers. He looks up as she passes and she tries to smile but she suspects it doesn’t reach her eyes. It is raining. Of course it is. She climbs into her car and finally lets out a long shuddering breath. As she starts to drive, tears are sliding unchecked down her cheeks and she hopes that nobody can see through her rain-spattered windscreen. She drives the twenty minutes home, pulls up in the street and stares at the camper-van, which Phil has failed to move so the builders have had to start work round it. The light is on in the living room and the television flickers. She knows she has to tell Phil what has happened but she doesn’t know if she can cope with his anxiety on top of hers. Sam sits in her car, not hearing the radio burbling quietly. And she slowly brings her head down to rest on the steering wheel and leaves it there for a while, just trying to remember how to breathe.
Her phone pings.
Joel:
Hope you’re okay. Here adding anti-freeze for another half-hour if you change your mind x
She watches the three dots pulsing and then:
Everyone needs an ear.
She stares at her phone. She lets her finger rest on the keys, and then, after a moment, starts to type.
Sam:
You’re kind. But I’m fine. Thank you x
She sits still for another moment. Then she drags her bag from the passenger seat, and, with a weary sigh, climbs out of the driver’s door and walks inside.
*
The house is warm. Too warm, given their electricity bills. Phil used to walk around turning down the thermostats but he no longer seems to notice. She glances in as she passes the living room. He is lying on the sofa staring at the screen. She waits in the doorway briefly but Phil does not appear to notice she is there.
She goes into the kitchen and takes off her coat, leaving it on the back of a chair. Phil’s plate from lunchtime sits in the sink, as does a pan encrusted with spaghetti hoops. She gazes at the dried tomato sauce globs on the waxed tablecloth, at the empty tea mug. A scribbled note in his handwriting says:Your mum rang says can you clean Thursday instead.
