With Laura confined to her playpen, Sophie carried a small stack of Jonah’s CDs up to the spare bedroom then returned to do a quick scan for any Jonah-related paraphernalia. She spotted one of the monogrammed handkerchiefs she had given him for his last non-birthday lying on top of the DVD player. She picked it up and ran her fingers across the embroidered JR. Well, he wasn’t likely to be needing that any more. She carried it upstairs along with his Folio copy of Lord of the Rings, his puzzle books and the pewter tankard that he always took over to the Fox and Gander for his monthly skittles matches. It occurred to her that the people in his skittles team would probably start wondering where he was. She ought to find a way of contacting them. She paused to consider Jonah’s piled-up possessions. There wasn’t much there really, at least not much that might declare five years of a man’s life. But, then, he probably kept most of his things in his Exeter house. Along with his real life. A tiny pang of regret caused her to wander over and pick up a framed photograph of herself and Jonah taken at Katie’s doomed wedding. They were both smiling at the camera, her head full of hopes for the future, his head full of the knowledge that he had a wife and two little girls waiting for him to come home. Two little girls deceived. And she’d played a part in that deceit. She had to make up for it somehow because, if she didn’t, then who was she to ever expect happiness? She heard Laura politely protesting her imprisonment and hurried downstairs to pre-empt any possible descent into rage.
Sam returned just after three, with two bags of groceries and a bulging hold-all. He handed Sophie one of the grocery bags and kissed her cheek. Her heart experienced a flurry of extraordinary beats.
‘Did you see your brother?’ she managed to say.
‘No, Jesse’s taken the boys over to Grandma Buckley.’ He dumped his hold-all at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Sandi’s mother.’
‘Was Sandi Jesse’s wife?’
‘Yes.’
‘How did she die?’
‘Ovarian cancer. I came back to the UK when Jesse told me she’d been diagnosed. I’d spent years feeling sorry for myself about my blighted love and it kind of brought me to my senses. Made me feel like a self-indulgent arse.’ He took her free hand and pulled her towards the kitchen and suddenly Sophie’s lungs didn’t feel capable of supplying her with the air she needed.
‘Is Laura in her cage?’
‘Yes.’ She tried to control her breathing. ‘Does Jesse know you’re staying here?’
‘I left him a note.’
‘What about your nephews, if you’re staying here?’
‘He’s already made arrangements, so we can be free to start on the house on Monday. I’ve brought the plans over to show you.’
Suddenly Sophie felt a little panicky. No, she felt very panicky. That same stranger who, just three days ago, had been waiting outside her house, holding a bent bicycle wheel, was now standing in her kitchen. His clothes were in a bag at the bottom of her stairs. She’d made love to him wrapped in the same sheets that Jonah had slept in the night before he dragged his case downstairs and outside into brain damage and a controlled coma. It was all happening too fast. And she had encouraged it. With indecent speed. She started to empty vegetables onto the table. Pea shoots, radishes, carrot sticks. She really ought to change the sheets. Wash away any last remnants of Jonah.
‘I thought you might have a couple of suggestions about my library. It’s very open-plan at the moment. That’s how Jesse does things. No walls where they’re not needed: Open Space No Waste, that’s his battle cry. But I’m not sure I want to see my books when I’m eating pasta. I think a library ought to have walls. Don’t you?’
Cashew nuts, new potatoes, purple grapes. His arms closing around her waist.
‘Has anything happened, Sophie?’
‘No.’ Cantaloupe melon, baby leeks. Caesar dressing, yellow peppers, spring onions. ‘The woman who witnessed the accident came to visit.’
‘The woman you were saying goodbye to just before you spoke to me?’
Sophie pointed to the orchids, still with their stems unsnipped. ‘She gave me orchids.’ She was aware of a slight tremor in her own voice. Felt him easing her round to face him.
‘Are you all right? Soph, if you’re having second thoughts, tell me. There’s no pressure. This is all a bit fast for me too.’
Her heart was racing. ‘I’m not… I…’ Her blood was pulsing through her neck so hard she could hear it. Uninvited images were invading her thoughts: blood and sand and bandages. And Jonah’s ear sliced away by the sharp corner of a metal box. She could feel tiny tremors, rising deep inside and rippling outwards, across her shoulders, down into her fingers, every small sound an echo, every breath inadequate.
‘OK, Sophie, don’t be frightened. It’s a panic attack. Just breathe slowly.’
‘Laura!’ She grasped his shirt. ‘I forgot her!’
‘Laura’s fine. Let’s go and see her, shall we? Just concentrate on walking. That’s right.’
They sat in silence watching Laura pursue her ongoing attempts to remove Blue Bear’s eye. And gradually Sophie calmed sufficiently to construct coherent sentences. ‘I’m so sorry. Everything… I didn’t know what anything meant.’
‘I know the feeling.’ He kissed her hand. ‘It was probably a delayed reaction to three days ago. I’ll make some tea. Or would you prefer a drink drink?’
‘Tea’s good. I’m so sorry. I couldn’t breathe.’
‘But, you were breathing. Just too much. It makes you feel faint. Then you panic about feeling faint. I’ll just be a sec, OK?’
Sophie calmed sufficiently over tea to be able to tell Sam to take his things up to her… to their bedroom and take advantage of the drawer space recently vacated by Jonah. She watched him hauling his hold-all up the stairs, put away the shopping, checked Laura was unlikely to choke in the next five minutes and hurried upstairs. She discovered Sam in the spare bedroom, holding his toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste. He turned as she stepped in.
‘I’m sure there was a bath in here last night. I must have been disorientated after all the excitement.’
She pointed across the landing. ‘The guest toilet’s there, the bath is in the ensuite. And you’re an idiot.’
‘But I’m a sexy idiot, right?’
‘Right. Do you need coat hangers, sexy idiot?’
‘No, I think my scrunched-up T-shirts are OK in the drawer.’
By the evening, Sophie was restored to romantic bliss. So, with Laura asleep and the debris of supper cleared away, Sam spread the plans for his new house across the kitchen table.
Sophie was impressed. ‘Did Jesse do this?’
‘Yeh.’ He pointed to one side of the large empty area on the ground floor. ‘The library’s going there. I’m thinking of asking him to add a wall here. More books. And I thought it might also help prevent the first floor from falling in. So far, Jesse’s not had any of his masterpieces collapse, but I’m not sure I’m ready to risk it. That bit there’s going to be the gym. He sees my guests using it more than me.’
‘It’s all very big.’
‘Jesse prefers big and open. He likes to cook and argue with his guests while they lounge around drinking champagne.’
‘Does he cook?’
‘Like a professional. Sometimes he lets me come down from the attic to peel potatoes.’
‘Is it really an attic?’
‘It’s a big attic. Three rooms. Panoramic vistas. As soon as I’m gone, he’s going to convert it into a granny suite. That’s why he’s so keen to design my dream house for me.’
Sophie felt a brief echo of doubt: why on earth would Sam be so ready to leave his vast attic and move in amongst another man’s leftovers? ‘This place must seem like a hovel compared to what you’re used to.’
‘I’m not used to anything, Sophie. Watching Jesse struggle with his private griefs, I’ve learned to appreciate what I have in the here and now.’
She studied the plans without seeing them. ‘Does Jesse have girlfriends?’
‘Occasionally, but he’s not interested. He’s still horribly shell-shocked. One minute he had a wife he loved and two little boys, and the next he was a widower and a single parent. I came back home and did what I could to help.’
She chewed her lip. ‘What made you move to Hong Kong in the first place?’
He studied her expression, clearly deciding whether to give her the unabridged or abridged version. She would later learn that what he provided was the significantly abridged version. ‘Nothing that spectacular. I fell for this older woman. And after she’d encouraged me to sign away half my life, she returned to her partner.’
‘Eleven years ago? You must have been very young.’
‘Twenty-seven. A wide-eyed young idiot. My mother was still alive then. She saw right through her from the start. But I wouldn’t listen. I’d spent years filling my head with romantic poetry, most of which was more relevant to the eighteenth century than third millennium Surrey. So, I was easy meat. Much of the reason I quit the UK and went to the colonies was to escape my own embarrassment.’ He exhaled. ‘So, two fucked-up brothers, Jesse due to hateful fate and me due to my own stupidity.’
‘I’m sorry that happened to you, Sam. But don’t tell me you’ve avoided relationships ever since.’
‘I’ve not avoided them, but I have run a mile every time it looked like things might get serious. Until about twenty-four hours ago.’
‘Not quite love at first sight, then?’
‘Maybe not. So, what do you think of my library proposal?’
‘I think I have no idea. Shall we open another bottle?’
‘I’d prefer you conscious.’
‘I have quite a tolerance.’ She laughed. ‘You’d be surprised.’
Sam collected a Provence rosé from the fridge, rummaged in the cutlery drawer for a corkscrew and set about opening the bottle. Sophie turned her attention back to the plan. She noticed an insert in the top right corner:
J&S Barnes Architectural Services
Living Space
She’d seen it before. ‘Is that your brother’s company? Jesse and Sam Barnes?’
He looked up from pouring. ‘No. Jesse and Sandi. Sandi was a draughtsman. I’m not involved in his business, although, if he ever needs any help beating up difficult clients, I get his back.’ He laughed at Sophie’s expression. ‘I’m joking. Do you want ice?’
Later that evening Sam demonstrated a unique ability to recite Shakespearean sonnets whilst making love. He explained that he had always found that the Bard’s unfaltering iambic pentameter imposed structure upon what could have otherwise been a more random performance: unstressed stressed unstressed stressed… five times per line. All fourteen lines. With the occasional essential pauses. Sophie failed to disagree.