Dawdling through the mystifying roads that looped back and round the tall buildings and closed shops, she kept seeing things that reminded her of last time. She shuddered and told Bob to hurry up and get his bearings.
That had been when Sam was a new manageress, one of the youngest the company had ever had. And the one with the most bloody sense. The rest of them had been silly bitches all week. Sam just wanted to go home to Mark and Sally. It didn’t seem right, not going home after work. She liked to come in to find them watching kids’ TV, dinner in the oven. Sometimes she even willed Mark not to find a job. She liked him where she could be sure of him.
There was a big gallery with a square extension. In front, an expanse of flagstones with a patio café, its scattering of pigeons, tables, customers and a couple of phone boxes.
“I’m going to try that number he gave us.”
They parked to one side and Sam told them all to go and get a cup of tea at the café while she phoned. Bob and the ladies complied wordlessly. The ladies were gagging for a drink and the toilets again, and Bob saw that look Sam had. He saw it at times when she cradled him between her knees, down in the basement, beside the cardboard crusher. When she decided the shop could do without her a little longer, that was when she got that look. Determination fired by a keen hunger. “Again,” she would demand and despite the laugh in her voice, the rest of her worked with an urgency that was as serious as it was skilful.
There was a great deal at stake today. A great many irons in this fire. Bob imagined the clinker spat out of today and the havoc it might wreak as it landed all around. In the face of this, all he could do for the moment was scuttle away and buy them all a cup of tea.
“COULD YOU FETCH HIM? THIS IS SAM, HIS WIFE.”
“Sam?”
“Mark, we’re here. We’re slap-bang in the middle of Leeds.”
“That’s quick.”
“We were up at the crack of dawn.”
“Sally’s having her breakfast. She’s fine.”
Sam listened and with satisfaction heard the tinnily distant voice of her daughter asking, “It it Mam?”
“We need more directions,” Sam said, almost accusingly, as if he were withholding vital information.
Mark almost told her to ask a policeman. Instead he passed the phone to Sally, who had come to stand beside him.
“Mam?” Sally began.
“Sally! I’m coming to get you.”
“Oh, Mam. I’m sorry. I thought I was going to the North Pole.”
“It’s all right, Sal. You were kidnapped. Listen, I love you. I’m coming for you.”
“I’m all right, Mam. It’s good here. They’ve got books. But I’m sorry I ran away from home. I love you, Mam. I love you…Mam? I’m sorry.”
Sam’s jaw wasn’t working properly. It juddered and refused to make proper words. Hot tears worked past her eyelids and scorched her face. She felt they must be audible. When she tried to speak again she gave a hard gasp, which she swallowed, and then a high, keening note that she chewed off quickly. Gripping the receiver tighter until it shook in her hand, she realised Mark was back on the line. She wanted to tell Sally she loved her again. For some reason this was more like loss than Christmas Eve.
“Give me the directions, Mark,” she said. When he spoke, she could tell that he had heard the tremor in her voice. He, too, seemed beaten into submission. Was that a pleading tone, an edge of guilt, that she heard in there? God, we hurt each other, she thought. Then he broke off and she could hear him talking to someone else, a male voice. Sam’s stomach lurched. Tony?
“Sam?” Mark asked at last, this quiet exchange over.
“Yeah?” By now she had her tone controlled. She was back in charge.
“The best thing would be if Sally and I met you in a place down the road. It’s a bit complicated here at the house. Apparently there’s a kind of French patisserie that’s really nice.” He waited for a response.
“We’re not on a fucking holiday, Mark.”
“No, but I think it’s for the best if we meet on neutral ground.”
Neutral ground. So. Lines were being drawn up. Their lives were changing. In the clicking silence of a bad but local connection, they were renegotiating the lines their lives would take. Tight-lipped, she took down the address of the place, directions, and the time.
“See you then, Mark,” she said.
“Right.” He sounded clumsy. In their worst moments she had never been able to forgive him for sounding so clumsy. If you are clumsy, you can at least cover it up in your voice or appearance for those who have to rely on you. “I love you, Sam.”
She put down the phone and cried again, forehead pressed on the numbered buttons.
“WE COULD BE IN VENICE, OR PARIS, OR…” IRIS SAID WONDERINGLY, gazing about. “We could be anywhere.”
They were sitting at one of the garden tables with polystyrene cups of tea, on the pavement outside the gallery.
“It’s bloody freezing,” Bob gasped and bundled himself up in his coat. He looked to see if Sam was coming.
Iris had a spread of leaflets out on the table. She had picked them from the gallery’s foyer on her way to the toilets. “They had all the picture rooms roped off,” she sniffed. “It seems a waste, just keeping open for the toilets.”
“I didn’t
