The October sunlight slicing through the windows behind the sink, that season-change vigour in the air, he stood in his beautifully finished kitchen and thought to himself, this is OK. I can live like this quite happily for ever.
The house was desperately quiet, but Sam never noticed the despair.
Two slices of hand-cut wholemeal toast covered in scrambled eggs topped with baked beans. He was a big believer in not rushing beans. When preparing a meal he always put them on first, brought them to the boil and let them simmer on a low heat while he cooked everything else. That way the beans went soft and the tomato sauce thick. People rushed beans, just got them hot and ate them. But there is an art to everything in life, even beans.
On the first morning of a week-long stretch of annual leave Sam liked to do nothing more than spend a few moments just enjoying his house. It was a lovely house and it made him feel exceptionally comfortable. As the beans softened he took in the neatness of the kitchen, the clutter-free surfaces, the breakfast bar and the oak table and chairs, the matching toaster and kettle, the shiny chrome microwave, the spotlights set into the plasterwork of the ceiling. Everything nice and simple. Simplicity is the fuel of the soul, his father once said.
Sam lived alone in a semi-detached house on a housing estate less than ten years old. His front garden had a small, well-kept square of lawn, some shrubs growing in a border along one side, and a pristine black driveway. It didn’t look like the house of a 26-year-old man.
In the living room he had his CDs and DVDs and Blu-rays in order, had his entertainment system comprising an HD TV, Blu-ray player, Xbox, Chromecast, hi-fi and even a video player, all the wires neatly hidden away.
He went to work at a job with a low level of responsibility, which he could put at the back of his mind at the end of each day, saved a little money each month, had two spare rooms for an office and a library, a conservatory for reading and relaxing, and a spacious back garden with a pond at the far end. And of course he pulled on the mask and costume of the Phantasm and diligently fought crime three nights a week. That these things made him contented because they papered over the cataclysmic vortex of loneliness that threatened to pull him apart in the darkest stretches of the night was neither here nor there.
He stared at the beans and listened to the unique silence a house makes on a nondescript Monday morning when the rest of the world has gone to work.
The sea. The open fetch, the roll and swell. Sam loved the ocean, and on the first day of his annual leave routine he always drove out to the coast. There was a little café he liked, hunkered down into the cliff with big windows, where he could empty his mind completely, sit and stare out at the water for an hour or two with a steaming pot of tea and a custard slice.
But before that he needed to pick up some supplies, so he stopped off on the high street of his little hometown for some chocolate and a bottle of Cherry Coke. His phone buzzed in his pocket. A sick dread crashed through him, thinking it might be work asking him to come in. But it wasn’t. It was a message from his friend, Tango.
Sam pocketed the phone and felt annoyed at having his routine disturbed. He didn’t want to go to the pub. He stood on the pavement for a moment and let the cold air press into his face.
‘Give me some money.’
Standing in front of him suddenly was a female homeless person. She was short and a little dumpy, shoulders slumped forward, probably late-forties with thick, frizzy black hair.
‘I’m sorry?’ said Sam.
She fixed him with a stare of extraordinary power.
‘Give me some money.’ The aggressive demand was tempered by the softness of her voice, the quiet pitch of it, the gentle lilt of an Irish accent.
‘Erm,’ he said, fishing in his pocket and landing on a fifty-pence piece. ‘Here you go.’
The female homeless person stared at the coin, took it, and shoved it into the pocket of her coat, the hem of which was caked in dry mud.
‘Buy me a sandwich,’ she said.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Buy me a sandwich there.’
‘I just gave you fifty pee.’ Sam already donated plenty of money to various charities and felt a little affronted at what he thought were slightly excessive demands. ‘Can’t you just ask someone else? If you get a few more fifty pees you can get a sandwich.’
‘Buy me a sandwich.’
‘No.’
‘Yes.’
‘No.’
‘Please.’
‘No,’ he said, finally.
‘Come on. Just there,’ and she nodded towards a bakery a few doors down. Her voice was so gentle, like a breeze blowing through the canopies of a thousand-year-old cedar forest in a Nepalese valley, and Sam suddenly found himself walking down the street with her. Well, there but for the grace of God go I, he consoled himself. I’m being kind, not mugged.
‘So what’s your name?’ he said, glancing across at her.
She walked with purpose towards the bakery, hands thrust in her pockets, her gaze fixed steadfastly straight ahead.
‘Gloria,’ she said. ‘You?’
‘Sam.’
‘I like Samuel as a name,’ she said, distractedly, her voice coming in and out on the wind.
‘My name’s Samson actually. It was my great-grandfather’s name. Where are you from?’
‘Cork.’
‘I like Ireland,’ he said.
‘It’s shit,’ she said.
They reached the bakery and Sam held open the door for Gloria, who moved past him hungrily, heading not for the bank of sandwiches but the drinks. She put her hand on a can of Sanpellegrino.
Those are quite expensive, Sam thought to himself. It was those pieces of foil on the top. But then Gloria’s hand drifted away to the Cokes, which were more reasonably priced. That’s better, he thought. Not that he’d agreed to buy a drink, not that he’d even given verbal consent that he would buy her a sandwich. At the last moment her hand swept away from the Cokes and up to the fresh smoothies shelf, where she selected orange and mango. This was priced at £2.65.
Beverage chosen, she moved on to the next stand.
‘Have they got any soup?’ she wondered aloud.
‘I don’t think they do soup.’
‘Ah,’ she said, forlorn. ‘I guess I’ll just have a sandwich then,’ before lifting from the shelf not a sandwich but a large baguette. Turning, and not looking at Sam, Gloria made her way to the counter.
‘My husband died a year ago,’ she said. ‘Fell down of a heart attack.’
The words drifted into Sam and amplified the sense of sorrow that had grown in him towards her.
‘I’m really sorry to hear that,’ he said.
The immediate thoughts of his own experiences of life tugged at him. He quickly went into default mode and cleared them away with little fuss, the cool numbness releasing itself into his body.
Gloria veered to the centre of the shop, where a small island with bags of miniature pasties stood, and she helped herself to one. Sam tried to tot up how much this was all going to cost as Gloria then grabbed a packet of cheese and onion crisps.
The shop assistant smiled at her.
‘Are you eating in or taking away?’ she said.
Sam noticed a couple of chairs and tables against the wall. They charged extra for . . .
‘Eating in,’ Gloria announced.
Detecting that she was a homeless person and that Sam was her patron, the assistant glanced across to him.
‘Eating in,’ he echoed.
‘And I’ll have a coffee please, love. Americano. Black,’ Gloria said.
Again the assistant looked at Sam. Gloria surveyed the doughnuts in the glass-fronted cake display on the counter.
‘Anything she wants!’ he said. ‘Get her anything she wants!’
‘Small, regular or large?’ the assistant asked.
Sam grimaced but Gloria suddenly conceded. ‘I’ll just have a regular,’ she said, and wandered off to the little shelf next to the counter where they kept the sugars, leaving Sam to pay.
‘You sure you’re OK with this?’ the assistant said.
Gloria was stuffing sugar sachets into her pockets.
‘Yeah. Stick a couple of doughnuts in there too,’ he said.
The assistant shrugged and Sam paid.
‘OK, well, I’m going to go now,’ Sam called to Gloria, who was pouring copious amounts of sugar into her coffee.
She didn’t even look up.
‘It was nice to meet you,’ he said.
But Gloria was no longer interested in him.
He turned to leave and almost bumped into a girl behind him. ‘Oops, sorry,’ he said.
The girl smiled. She had dyed red hair and glasses and had clearly been listening to the exchange, because she gave him a big smile.
His heart thumped with the shock of her prettiness, his face turned beetroot, and he left the shop.