Page 80 of Someone Else's Shoes
‘We’re always on the lookout for people and I was very impressed with what you turned around for us. I think you should come in and meet our team.’
‘… Meet your team?’
‘You should be somewhere where you can get your mojo back. Wherever that turns out to be.’ Miriam signals to the waiter, and holds out a credit card before Sam can say anything. ‘Might you be interested in talking to us?’
Sam is so stunned that she can barely speak. ‘… Er, yes. Yes – that would be great.’
‘Good. I’ll email you with a date.’ Miriam is standing up. She taps a card on the reader proffered by a waitress, while Sam sits digesting this. Then she tucks her wallet into her bag and leans forward.
‘In the meantime, put on some really great shoes with that jacket and a red lipstick and let Simon Stockwell know you’re not to be messed with.’
24
The coffee shop gives a clear view of the back of the printworks, a small, litter-strewn yard flanked by a Co-op grocery store, the White Horse pub, and an office block that appears to have been vacated several years ago, judging by the grubby windows and graffiti-strewn walls. Nisha, who was marked off this afternoon at short notice (zero hours contracts, Jasmine had sighed) sips a lukewarm cappuccino and watches the battered white vans reverse in and out under the Uberprint sign, the groups of men who gather at the rear entrance, chatting or drinking from mugs of tea between loadings, their laughter sending small puffs of steam into the cold air. She is taut, focused, half waiting for the woman to walk out in her shoes, even though she knows this is unlikely.
She has sat here for almost an hour now, picturing a dozen different outcomes: she follows the thief to her house, confronts her, wrestles the shoes from her feet (though that means the woman would have to be wearing them, and she feels icky about touching someone’s feet). She calls the cops, though if they’re anything like US cops, she might as well whistle. She breaks into the woman’s house when the woman is asleep, locates the shoes and escapes. Perhaps wearing a face mask. This is admittedly a risky strategy, especially as she doesn’t know who else might be in the house. Plus a face mask will make her itch. There is always the trump card: she could tell Carl and he could send Ari in to get them. But she is not sure she trusts Ari to tell the truth about whether he’s got the shoes: he could just as easily spirit them away and leaveher in a worse position than before. And there is something about Ari and these shoes that just doesn’t sit right.
Nisha sits and considers all these factors, and the dregs of her coffee grow colder. Finally, when the barista comes over for the third time and pointedly asks her if she wants another, she picks up her coat and bag and leaves.
Simon is chatting to colleagues when Sam arrives back. She comes in through the side entrance so that she can go to the Ladies and check her face before anyone spots her. Now she sees a bunch of young men gathered around the desk in his office, looking intently at something on his phone, then bursting out laughing simultaneously. She pictures some gross meme, probably involving a young woman with unfeasibly large breasts. She is relieved that he is not in her cubicle, one buttock resting on the corner of her desk, his head tilted in fake concern. She stands for a moment, watching them, then drops her handbag and places the cream Chanel jacket on the back of her chair. She walks out, through Accounting, past Reception and down the narrow corridor to the loading bay.
The vans are all out and he is seated alone in the little office by the main shutters. He has his back to her when she arrives, his hands linked behind his head as he gazes, apparently deep in thought, out of the window at the yard, his shoulders too broad for his navy blue company sweatshirt. Behind the office, suspended from the rafters, hangs a large black and yellow punchbag. She stops for a moment, gazing at him. She has a sudden memory of them dancing, his hand on her waist, his eyebrows raised in amused appreciation as she strutted in those shoes.
The drivers’ office is warm and fuggy, thanks to an ancient bar heater in the corner, and the walls are lined with tachographs and whiteboards detailing the day’s jobs, faded birthdaycards and new Uberprint memos. She is not sure she has been in here more than a handful of times in all the years she’s worked there, and suddenly the office feels smaller than she remembers. Or maybe he is just bigger. He turns in his chair.
‘Sam. I didn’t know you were –’
‘Have you got any gloves?’
He blinks. ‘What?’
‘Gloves,’ she says. ‘Boxing gloves. Have you got any here?’
He follows her gaze out to the punchbag. ‘Uh … I’ve got mine. But they’ll be too big for you.’
‘Show me.’
He reaches under his desk and pulls out a kitbag containing two scuffed black gloves, which he holds up to her. She examines them briefly. She pulls them onto her fists, securing the Velcro with her teeth until they are as tight as they can go around her wrists. Then she walks out of the office and over to the punchbag. She stands in front of it for a moment, and takes a breath, tightens her core, allows everything that has been spinning around her head to settle. And then she pulls her arm back from her shoulder and throws everything she has into a right-handed punch. The impact sends the bag wheeling backwards on its ropes. She meets it with her left, rooted through her feet, all her strength coming from her left shoulder so that it spins again. She hits it, again and again, hammering the leather, her hair working loose from its ponytail, her breath coming in short bursts, little gasps emerging from her mouth with each impact. She hits and she hits, not caring who sees her, not worrying if she looks daft attacking a punchbag in her good trousers and a Next blouse.
Joel, who had initially moved back in surprise, walks round to the other side and steadies the punchbag with his arms so that she can hit it harder, and she notes with gratification that increasingly he flinches at each impact, his body leaning in,his left foot sliding forward to give him greater purchase. Sam hits and hits until she feels something in her finally give. And then, abruptly, she stops, her hands dropping to her sides, suddenly aware of her heart racing, the trickle of sweat running down her back into her waistband. There is a silence, broken only by the creak of the punchbag swinging gently on its chain. She looks up at Joel, who is watching her, both hands still resting on the bag, as if he is not sure whether she is about to hit again.
‘You okay?’ he says.
‘Miriam Price wants me to come in and talk to her,’ she says, panting.
Joel looks startled.
‘About a job,’ she adds. They gaze steadily at each other. Sam feels sweat dripping into her eye and attempts to wipe it away with the back of her arm.
Neither of them speaks.
‘I don’t want you to leave,’ Joel says finally, dropping the punchbag.
‘I don’t want to leave,’ she says. They stare at each other. And then, without thinking, she steps forward, takes his face between her boxing gloves, and kisses him.
At the first touch of Joel’s mouth, Sam’s body goes into a kind of shock. She has kissed nobody but Phil in more than twenty-five years, and she is not sure even they have ever kissed like this. Everything about Joel is alien, and delicious. He smells different, his lips are softer, his body harder, his hands on her hair, the suggestion of overwhelming strength. Joel’s arms slide around her, her body melts into his, and the kisses grow deeper, more urgent, her gloved hands at his neck, her breath rapid. Time stalls, everything around her disappears so that it’s just his lips, his skin, the heat of his body against hers. Her whole body feels as if it has becomemolten, melded to his, long-dormant synapses springing to life. She wants to take off the gloves. She wants to feel his skin against hers, smooth and warm. She wants to wrap herself completely around him. She wants to reach into his trousers and – and – She pulls back, her breath hard in her chest, her gloves raised to her face.
And then she sees Ted. He is standing by the loading doors, his mouth slightly open as he sees them, a look of what she can only describe afterwards as horrified disappointment on his kind, fleshy face.
