He hooks his finger around the thin strap and slides it down her arm. ‘You’ve gots too many clothes on.’
‘But, Thomas. It’s freezing.’
Thomas raises the sheets and blankets over their heads. ‘Not under here it isn’t, maid. Come under here with me.’
Chapter 51
Tippy’s Tickle – 12 September 2011
Emmett’s store is how she remembered it. The paint the colour of meat that’s been left to age. The four small windows painted white. The wharf leading down to it from the rocky beach a salt-blasted silver.
Sophie stands on top of a slab of grey rock and watches Sam as he leans over the white wooden hull of a small boat, sanding it by hand to what Sophie can only imagine will be a pristine smoothness. If a job’s worth doing at all, it’s worth doing right. She smiles. Sam didn’t believe in shortcuts. The old way is the best way, he’d once told her. Just mix the method with modern design.
It’s why his furniture has been selling so well in New York. Whenever she’d missed him, when she’d wondered what he was doing right then at that minute when she was thinking about him, she’d stop by The Future Perfect and run her hands over his sculptural tables and chairs. Everything fashioned out of the silver, salt-cured wood of old Newfoundland wharves and abandoned outport houses. She’d feel its contours, its lines, as smooth and cool as satin under her fingertips, and imagine herself back in Sam’s cottage. But then she’d close down the thought like a shutter over a beautiful view that she knew she’d never see again.
He’d called, just after she’d emailed Ellie with her new contact details after she’d started the job in New York.
She’d been rushing up Madison Avenue to a meeting at TBWA to pitch for the redesign of their offices. She’d had her laptop case and the huge portfolio with the presentation boards and she’d been trying to drink a Starbucks skinny latte without spilling it over herself. Then her phone had rung.
She’d meant to call him back later. He’d called a few more times, sent some texts. She’d never answered those either. She’d meant to, but she’d been so busy.
The last time she’d seen him, in front of the airport terminal, he’d said it would never work. That it wouldn’t be fair to Becca to get involved with someone who lives in a different country. He was just doing that ping-pong thing men do. When you want them, they don’t want you. Then when you don’t want them, they can’t leave you alone. She wasn’t going to play those kinds of games.
For about a year he’d tried to keep in touch, the messages thinning out until one day she realised she hadn’t heard from him for several months. Then, about a year and a half after her detour to Newfoundland, she’d walked by The Future Perfect furniture shop. Sam’s picture was in the window.
Introducing the exclusive Bufflehead collection of hand-crafted furniture
by Sam Byrne.
A collaboration between an artisan furniture maker and nature, from the north shore of Newfoundland. Meet Sam Byrne on Friday evening at 6.30pm on a rare visit to New York.
By appointment only. Inquire inside.
She’d gone into the shop and had her name put on the guest list. But when the day came, she’d bottled out. What was it that Sam had said? Timing and geography. They were two people on two different paths that had crossed, but now they were travelling in different directions. It was just one of those things.
He didn’t call her when he was in New York. She’d been expecting the call. Her heart jumping every time her phone had rung. But it was done. A boat missed. A ship passed in the night. The possibility of a relationship with Sam had slipped away, like a memory of a dream that dissolves when you open your eyes to the morning. She’d drunk two bottles of wine and cried in the bathtub. Then she’d got on with life. And life was work.
A tall man with a shock of wiry, grey hair emerges from the store, carrying two mugs. Emmett. He must be about sixty-five or so now. Emmett hadn’t thought much of her, back in 2001. Couldn’t have said more than two sentences to her. Sometimes he’d scrutinise her like she’d caused him some great wrong. She’d never had a chance to find out why. He’d avoided her like she was carrying the flu. If Newfoundlanders were known for their friendliness and hospitality, Emmett Parsons was certainly the exception that proved the rule.
He joins Sam by the boat and hands him a mug. It’ll be coffee. Black. Sam’s a coffee man. The two men lean their elbows on the boat’s hull and talk. Sam shakes his head and rubs his forehead. She wishes she could read his lips. To know if he was speaking about her.
***
‘Sam.’
Sam and Emmett look up. Sophie picks her way down the rocky slope onto the wharf.
‘Hi, Emmett.’ Sophie holds out her hand. ‘Nice to see you again.’
Emmett screws his lips together and stares at her with his odd blue and brown eyes. He gives her a quick nod. He takes Sam’s empty mug and heads back into the store.
‘That wasn’t very friendly.’
‘Why do you suppose that is?’ Sam picks up the sandpaper and drags it across the wooden hull.
‘He never liked me. He’s always been like that with me.’
‘Maybe he’s a good judge of character.’
Sophie bites her lip. He’s just needling her. Trying to get a rise out of her. She runs her hand along the boat’s hull.
‘Why didn’t you tell him his jumper is inside out?’
Sam shrugs. ‘I’m not his mother.’
‘No, that you’re not.’ She leans against the wall. ‘I’ve seen your furniture in New York. I specified it for a restaurant we designed in Tribeca.’
‘That was you?’
‘I had a colleague in our interior design practice place the order. I didn’t want you to think I was doing you any favours.’
‘And were you?’
‘No, of course not. If your furniture was rubbish, I’d never order it. I take my work very seriously.’ She glances at the store. ‘You’re not still making it in there, are you? I ordered over a hundred chairs.’
‘No.’ Sam nods towards the shore. ‘I’ve got a bigger place down by the shore now.’
Sophie squints at the shore. ‘You’ve got people working for you now?’
‘Emmett helps on the bigger orders when I need it. I still help him on the boats when he needs it. Becca’s boyfriend, Toby, has been getting underfoot there, too, since the fish processing plant closed in Heart’s Wish. I’ve had him turning out the table and chair legs on the new lathe.’
‘Why don’t you expand? The lead-time was quite long.’
Sam grunts. ‘Why would I want to do that?’
‘Well, to make more money. Be successful.’
Sam pulls a chamois cloth from his back pocket and rubs it along the sanded hull. ‘That’s it, then? In order to be successful, you need to earn a lot of money?’
Sophie crosses her arms. ‘It’s what capitalism is all about.’
‘Right. And money plus success equals happiness?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Are you happy?’