Page 40 of Someone Else's Shoes
‘Well … I think maybe you need to give Phil a bit of a boost. Make him feel good about himself.’
‘Why shouldheget to feel good about himself? I don’t.’
‘Don’t be facetious, Samantha. He needs your support, even if it is irritating.’
‘I’m doing everything I can.’ She cannot keep the weariness from her voice.
‘Well, sometimes you have to do more. When your father had that problem with his you know what –’
‘Mum, I told you, I really don’t want to know about Dad’s penis troubles.’
‘Well, we got him some of those blue pills. And apart from that unfortunate incident in Sainsbury’s, after he took too many, they worked a treat. He felt like himself again and that means we’re both happy.’ She pauses, thinking. ‘That said, we do have to use the Tesco over by the bypass now. And the parking spaces are much too narrow for a family car.’
Her mother places a hand on her arm. ‘Look, all I’m saying is that it may well be that you’re having to do more than your share of the heavy lifting just now, but if you can boost Phil up a bit it’ll make you both feel better in the end.’
Her mother’s blue eyes are piercing. She gives Sam a reassuring smile. ‘Just have a think about it …’ Then her gaze swivels. ‘Tom, whatareyou doing with that wretched device? I can hear the water sloshing onto the living-room floor from here. Honestly, do I have to doeverythingmyself?’
Sam thinks about her mother’s words during the short walk home. She and Phil have been, in the language of women’s magazines,disconnectedfor months. Without any outings together, there is little for them to discuss beyond the dog (no, he has not walked him), their daughter (no, he’s not sure where she is) or her work (he doesn’t want to talk about that).Maybe this is one of those times when she really does have to try a little harder. Maybe if she focused less on how tired she is, and how furious at the deficit of support coming her way, they could see a way through.
She stops for a moment on the pavement and registers this. It’s quite a startling thought for Sam, to be taking seriously advice given by her mother. And then she thinks about her father and the blue pills and has to sing loudly to herself all the way to the post office to get the image out of her head.
Phil is on the sofa, watching some programme in which couples bicker about low ceilings and storage space. Sam stops as she hangs her coat on the peg and gazes at the top of his head, where his hair is thinning slightly. She had persuaded him to get a haircut two weeks previously, as he had begun to veer tragically towards Mad Professor, and now at least he looks like somebody she recognizes. She has a sudden memory of the two of them, legs entwined on that sofa, Phil reaching over to kiss the top of her head, and she thinks,Maybe I could make you feel better.
She cooks chicken pie, mash and greens, one of Phil’s favourites, and sets the table in the kitchen so that he cannot just slide his plate from the work surface and eat it in front of the television. She opens a bottle of wine, and pours them both a glass. He doesn’t speak much but he doesn’t complain about the seating arrangements and even makes a bit of an effort, telling her about their neighbours’ new car. He clams up when, two glasses in, she tries to ask him how he’s feeling – she sees his face close over as if someone has drawn a curtain – so she chats on gamely, filling the silence with tales of her parents and the briquette-maker and he does his best to look interested. The kitchen clock ticks loudly.
‘Nice wine,’ he says.
‘It is, isn’t it? It was on special offer.’
‘Yes. It’s … nice.’
At one point Cat texts her to ask if either of them have seen her driving licence and there is a brief interlude when they become almost animated discussing the missing licence, how easy it is to lose the little plastic ones, how often Cat loses things she shouldn’t. And then it fades and the sound of the kitchen clock takes over and Phil settles back on the sofa to watch the ten o’clock news. She reminds herself that in Phil terms, these days, dinner has been something of a success.
She washes up, hoping that whatever he watches does not depress him again. She eyes the bottle of wine, two inches remaining, and then, abruptly, picks it up and glugs briskly, letting the dark acid warm her throat, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
When the kitchen is done she heads upstairs, showers and, after a moment, adds a little spray of scent. She gazes at her reflection in the steamed mirror of the bathroom. She’s not too bad for her age. She has a nice neck. Good tits. Nothing too saggy yet. Not hard and lean like those yummy mummies, but not a bad body, given everything.Think about how you felt in those shoes, she tells herself firmly.Think about how you felt in the later meetings, how you felt on the dance-floor: powerful, magnetic, unstoppable.
She climbs into bed and waits for the sound of his feet on the stairs, thinking of how he used to chase her up those stairs when they first moved in, his hands grabbing at her bottom in his eagerness to get to her.
She watches through the bedroom door as he heads into the bathroom, listens to the sounds of him washing, brushing his teeth, a quick gargle with mouthwash, sounds that are as familiar to her as the boiler clicking on in the morning or the squeak of the gate outside.
And then he is climbing in beside her, the bedsprings creaking slightly under his weight. For some time now they have slept with their backs to each other: Phil snores, so he has learned to sleep on his side.
It is eleven months since they last had sex.
She had calculated it one evening, working back from the last time he had been to the pub. At work, the coffee room is full of women complaining that their husbands are all over them, joking about how they would prefer to read a book. Sam is very tired of reading books. Sex used to be the lubrication of their marriage, the thing that stopped the small irritations mattering – the pants on the floor, the failure to empty the dishwasher, the parking ticket. Sex used to bring them closer. Sex was the thing that made them feel like themselves again, not some desiccated shadow of what once was.
She lies there for a minute, thinking, then turns over silently and slides her arm around him. His skin is warm, and he smells vaguely and pleasingly of soap. When he doesn’t move she edges herself closer, so that every bit of her is pressed against him. She kisses the nape of his neck and rests her cheek on him. She has missed him, missed his touch. She wonders why she hadn’t done this months ago. He shifts a little and she feels a tiny thrill of desire. Her leg creeps forward and slides between his. She strokes his stomach, feeling the soft hair on his lower belly, and then the thicker hair as she slides her hand lower.This is going to happen. She is going to make this happen. This will be a new start for them. She kisses him again, letting her lips trail softly down his spine, pulling at him slightly to make him twist to face her.I am unstoppable. I am a female force. I am sexy.She will slide herself on top of him and –
His voice breaks into the darkness. ‘Sorry, love. Not really feeling up to it tonight.’
It is as if she has been stung. His words hang there in the dark. Sam grows very still, then lightly removes her hand from her husband’s groin. She wiggles her way backwards under the duvet and turns away so that she is lying on her back. She wishes she had put on her nightie. They lie in silence for a minute.
And then he speaks again. ‘The chicken pie was very nice, though.’
If Phil acts as if she no longer exists, the other man in her life, Simon, is, as the younger members of staff put it, all up in her grill.
Some of her colleagues have begun noticeably steering clear of her at work, as if whatever bad juju she is carrying could become infectious. Nobody wants to acknowledge what is happening as, you know, a job is a job and they are hard enough to come by just now.
