‘We’re just really different, aren’t we?’ He said the words slowly. ‘I’d never play the lottery.’
I laughed away his comment, stunned by its absurdity. ‘It’s just a lottery ticket.’
‘It’s just a bit… It’s a bit…’
‘What, Sam?’ I snapped, feeling the strain of London and my hour-long commutes closing in around me.
‘It doesn’t matter. I’ll tell you next time I see you.’
‘Tell me now,’ I demanded, not sure I wanted his answer but unwilling to let it wait.
‘It’s just a bit… well, my parents would say it’s a bit… working class,’ Sam admitted. ‘But I don’t think that, really, and there’s nothing wrong with being working class anyway – obviously – it just surprised me because I didn’t know you played and I never would and you know, we’re just different, aren’t we?’
‘Working class, different?’ I asked, anger filling my blood. I didn’t realise being a snob was hereditary. Was that what his parents thought of me? Surely society had evolved past that.
‘No, that’s why I didn’t want to say, I don’t mean it… I just… we’re different, is all.’
‘Yeah we are. You’re a man and I’m a woman; you’re a medic and I’m a creative; you’re a judgmental nob and I’m…’ Red buses, red phone boxes. Red was all I could see.
‘Jess, please, can we just forget about it?’ Sam reasoned, like I’d been the one to bring it up in the first place. It was just a lottery ticket.
‘I thought you liked that we were different?’ I asked, unwilling to back down.
‘I did, I do,’ Sam said.
‘I’d hate to date the male version of me.’
‘Yeah me too, well, the female version,’ Sam agreed as I remained far from convinced. ‘Can we just forget about it? I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. If you want to play the lottery, you play the lottery. You know I love you, every lottery-playing bit of you.’ Sam was overcompensating, trying to recover from acting out or acting more honestly than he had done in weeks, I couldn’t tell. And I really, really didn’t want to find out.
Chapter 31
6 September 2020 – Sydney, Australia
My mascara-stained reflection mocked me from the toilet mirrors as I tried to tell myself this wasn’t as bad as I thought, that this would all blow over, that everything would be okay.
Holding my phone in my shaking hand, I scrolled to Zoe’s number and hovered my finger above the dial button. It was the middle of the night back home. And anyway, what was she going to say? It wasn’t like she’d been in touch to ask how the exhibition went. And I wasn’t ready to hear I told you so. Sam had always been the one to rescue me, but I was pretty sure all his efforts were going in one direction right now, no thanks to me. Once again, my mind sifted through people I could call. I could only think of one other person who might be kind enough to hear me out. Scrolling to Joshua’s number, I forced my breathing to normalise as I pressed my phone to my ear. I held my breath as the dial tone rang out, then his voice on his answerphone message, telling me Joshua ‘can’t come to the phone right now’. Can’t or won’t? I knew he was Jamie’s brother but hadn’t we become friends, too? And he’d said if I needed anything, he was always there. I called again, and again. The dial tone rang on until I heard a quick click and a deep exhale and the pained voice of Joshua: ‘Please stop calling, Jess. This isn’t a good time.’
Darting from the toilets, through reception, I picked up my bag and didn’t look back, striding purposefully across the paved square, past the palm trees and the wall that Sam had leaned against when he came to meet me for lunch. I had nowhere to go, nothing to do, but I wouldn’t let the guys on reception know that. I knew I didn’t deserve the dignity. I felt their eyes burn into the back of my head as they watched my walk of shame: CreateSpace to empty space. I wasn’t a co-curator any more; I wasn’t even a clipboard-holder. I wasn’t a girlfriend, a friend, I wasn’t even a tenant of my ex-boyfriend’s box room. I was a joke. A jobless, homeless, hopeless joke.
With nowhere better to go, I found myself on the path to the beach but without Sam and a sandwich or Joshua and a surfboard it felt pointless. This isn’t what was supposed to happen; the thought circulated around my head, deafening any comforting reassurances I had once been able to tell myself: Sam will come back; this isn’t the end; just wait, your happily-ever-after will come; you can make it; you can fabricate it. Maybe Zoe was right. I was naive at best, deluded at worse. Sam and I were never getting back together. My future was never going to be what I imagined.
Scrambling to take my shoes off, fumbling under the weight of my rucksack, I let my feet sink into the sand. This time it didn’t feel cool, refreshing or nostalgic. It felt like a lie, a promise unfulfilled. Sydney was meant to be the answer. A fresh start. A chance to forget about Sam, to forget about the future I had invested every scrap of time, energy and delayed gratification in. Call it fate, call it the universe, call it God – whatever or whoever was up there wasn’t looking out for me, they were looking down on me – laughing sadistically. My life was a Saturday Night Live sketch for the deity.
Flinging my rucksack to one side, I crumpled down onto the sand. Looking down at my bare feet, I let my mind escape, transporting me to my fifteen-year-old self. Fun-loving, vivacious, ambitious, and with such big dreams for such a small girl. She had never wanted to be an editor, or an art therapist, or just somebody’s girlfriend. She had wanted to paint, to be a barefooted, free-spirited artist, with massive dreams; not heels, champagne and flipping Art Today. I missed that girl.
I picked up a stone from the sand and flung it out to the ocean. That’s for you, Lady Devon Atwood. Thanks for screwing up my career before it even began. I was twenty-seven, I shouldn’t just be starting out. I was nearing thirty and yet had little to show for my twenties. Zoe had her house. Jamie had her fiancé. Joshua had his youth group. Sam had, well, everything. And I had nothing. I picked up another stone and threw it into the sea, too weak to make a ripple. That’s for you, fucking fate. My phone jabbed into my back pocket as my arse sank further into the sand. I pulled it out and looked at the screen. No calls. Not one. I scrolled down the list of contacts again and again: Sam, Jamie, Joshua, Tim – it was a who’s who of people’s lives I had made worse just by being here. Why had I even pretended, even for a moment, that I had things made?
I reached for another stone, and with all the strength I had left, launched it into the ocean. And that’s for you, Jess. You screwed everything up. You always do. Angry tears started to sting and fall as the stone sank heavy into the water and a thought started to rise: I have no one to blame but myself.
21 October 2017 – Nottingham, England
‘I don’t blame you, Jess. I just need space, I just need some time.’
Sam’s words filled the room and yet still I couldn’t hear them. He stopped his pacing and came to sit down on the bed beside me. I couldn’t turn to look at him. I didn’t need to. I knew his profile better than my own – strong jawline, but with more stubble than there had been five years ago; deepening laughter lines, so many of which I had been responsible for. The extra etches of worry on his forehead; I guess I’d had my fair share to do with those too.