Page 79 of The First Time I Saw You
I try to ignore my suspicious mind as it tells me there is no smell in the house to confirm it. ‘OK. I’ll pop in later then.’
‘Sophie, you don’t need to keep coming here every five minutes.’ He adjusts the picture and steps back to look at it, checking that it’s hanging straight.
‘I know, but—’
‘I’m sorry. For what I’ve put you through.’ He puts his hands into the back pocket of his jeans and looks at me.
‘It’s fine.’
‘It’s not,’ he answers.
‘No. No, it isn’t, not really,’ I reply, breathing out a loud sigh. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ I say honestly, as has always been his way.
‘You don’t have to do anything.’ He reaches into a brown box and brings out another picture and smiles at it. ‘I took this at half-six in the morning on Jack’s third birthday. Olivia was so cross with me for taking it.’ He turns the photo towards me. She is looking away from the camera at whatever Jack is opening and she is in mid-yawn. Her hair is sticking up on one side and she has the remains of last night’s make-up under her eyes. ‘We’d stayed up late the night before, blowing up enough balloons to cover the carpet. He loved balloons. It had taken ages for him to give any attention to the bloody presents that we’d spent a small fortune on.’
‘I can see why she didn’t want you to take that, though. I’d hate to be caught with bed hair and my mouth wide open.’
‘You’ll have plenty of mornings like that.’ He nods to Bean.
‘Luckily, I won’t have anyone to take the photo.’
‘Well. You need to go and find what’s-his-name then.’
I had been starting to feel a little more relaxed as we had been talking, but his flippancy about Samuel’s name had jarred somehow. I know he knows his name, because he had told me to go and find‘your Samuel’. I think of how convenient it would be for Charlie if I was to go away for a few days.
‘I will,’ I reply, ‘but not now.’ I look at him directly, letting him know that I am under no illusions of what my disappearance for a few days could mean. He throws his head back and laughs.
‘I’m not going to try to top myself again, if that’s what you’re worried about.’ He rummages inside another box, pulls out a wooden frame and slots the picture inside.
‘That’s exactly what I’m worried about.’
‘I’m fine,’ he mumbles as he puts a nail in his mouth and reaches for the hammer.
‘Look,’ I say, taking the picture frame and holding it while he begins to hammer the nail into the wall. ‘I need you to tell me how to help you.’
He hammers the nail five times then reaches out his hand to me; for a fleeting moment I think that he is reaching out for help, but it is just the picture that he wants.
‘I don’t need you to do anything. I’m fine.’
‘Well, I can’t leave you alone for more than a few minutes without worrying, so you’ll be doing me a favour if you just tell me what I can do to help.’
We stare at each other for a few minutes.
‘Stop coming around so much, you need to trust me.’
‘I can’t.’
‘I’ll call you. When I feel . . .’
‘Suicidal?’
‘Empty.’ He looks away then. I can see he is uncomfortable talking, but this is a big step towards him opening up.
‘What . . . hungry?’ I smile, making light of his sentiment, trying to let him know that talking about it isn’t such a scary thing to do.
Week Thirty
Samuel
