Lost and Found

Chapter Four

Kicking the front door closed behind her, laden with shopping bags, Sam rustled her way along the corridor to the kitchen before her arms gave out. Her quads were smarting slightly after the intensity of her gym session, but thank God for endorphins. It was almost impossible to feel morose with your heart-rate at one hundred and sixty. Determined to keep her activity levels high, she switched the radio on for instant company and automatically re-boxed the CDs lying on the work-top while she searched for a station with a little less bass line and a few ‘classic’ tunes. Classic meaning old. Old enough for her to remember.

Having explored every possible plan of action on the running machine, she had come to the somewhat unsatisfactory, if definite conclusion that there was nothing she could do. According to calendar convention it was a new day, and so, for the time being, Captain Optimistic was back in town, having finally shaken off Assume-The-Worst Woman on the rowing machine.

As she restocked her cupboards Sam noticed a tell-tale slick of grease on the floor tiles. Obligingly, the Chinese take-away diva had left her foil containers out, and it appeared that the insatiable George had gone for self-service.

Roused from a warm corner of the flat by the crinkle of a supermarket carrier, he careered into the kitchen, anxious not to miss a potential feeding moment, and once in full view attempted to feign nonchalance but failed miserably thanks to the negative braking properties of claw and paw on terracotta. Having regained his composure, from the purr crescendo and surprisingly powerful shoves Sam was getting, he was claiming to be hungry. Not physiologically possible but he was one of the few who knew, contrary to popular myth, his owner had a slushy core.

Sam retched at the intense aroma burst of meat, offal and jelly as she opened a new can. Living on her own hadn’t been a problem, but living on her own with a kitten? Cliché-tastic. Now Gemma was around. That had been Sophie’s idea too. Breathing through her mouth, she put George’s dish on the floor and carefully washed up the fork. According to the clock on the oven door it was nearly eleven-thirty, and there was no evidence that the Queen of Peking had even surfaced to make herself a cup of tea.

Sam flicked the kettle switch and turned the radio up in an attempt to mask her enthusiastic, if somewhat atonal sing-a-long. No more tiptoeing around in her own flat. Today had started hours ago.

Gemma appeared in the doorway almost exactly as the kettle boiled, bleary-eyed, her unruly hair even wilder than normal. And she seemed to be wearing a strappy top and pyjama shorts. Obviously the latest in naughty-but-nice-girl-next-door sleepwear, and much more Sarah Jessica Parker in dishevelled sexiness, Sam noted, than it would have been on her. Gem was a natural. The sort of girl who’d never sat at the side of the school hall at the end-of-term disco. Who’d never had to pretend that she didn’t want to dance to ‘The Power of Love’ or the ‘Lady in Red’. Boys had always sidled up to her on the off chance. They still did.

‘Morning.’ Gemma started rubbing her eyes in an attempt to uncrust last night’s mascara and restore the individual lash look.

‘Only just… Look, do you think you could try not to leave food out? He’s a cat—he’s going to help himself. And he’s definitely not designed to eat spring onions drenched in plum sauce.’

Sam had her head in the fridge and was in the process of jettisoning most of the salad drawer, which had apparently liquidised itself in its bags since last week. This had never happened when Sophie had lived there. Mark was a lucky man. Sophie was a rare find in the twenty-first century—perfect wife material. And Sam was speaking from experience. Having a flatmate who’d enjoyed cooking, worked irregular hours and often from home might not have been great for the phone bill, but it had been fantastic for leftovers and getting her washing done.

As she replaced the old bags with new ones, freshly shopped, she knew it would be as good for her nutrition as buying them was for her conscience if she actually ate the stuff—but she never seemed to have time to eat at home at the moment.

‘Sorry. Chuck us the milk. I need tea.’ Gemma might not get up until late, but she was always incredibly perky when she did finally surface.

Sam handed her the plastic container, simultaneously liberating a shrivelled courgette from a dark corner of the second shelf, and did her best not to appear fazed by the similarly dishevelled young man now standing in her kitchen. From his slicked-back hair it looked as if he had at least managed a shower. In fact, he smelt familiarly citrusy.

‘Good shower?’ Her tone was mordacious.

The bastard reeked of her Jo Malone bodywash. And the whole point of paying a mortgage was so that you didn’t have to carry your towels and products in and out of the bathroom each morning.

‘Yes, thanks.’ His reply was hesitant. Small talk or sarcasm? His eyes darted to Gemma and back, hoping for a clue. Gemma, however, was concentrating on squeezing every last drip of caffeine into her cup.

‘Well, hi. I’m Sam.’ She faked a smile.

Now she’d sodding well have to change all the towels. She couldn’t risk drying her face in his pubes, even if Jo Malone had given them the once-over. She swapped neurotic for civil. At least for the short term. Giving her hands a quick rinse with antibacterial wash, she dried them on a teatowel, absent-mindedly polishing the fridge door with it before re-hanging it over the handle on the matching stainless steel oven.

Finally Gemma looked up. She must have sensed the tension because she was actually taking her teabag to the kitchen bin, albeit leaving a trail of drips in her wake, only to realise that she’d filled the bin to capacity before bed. Pushing the teabag down with the spoon, she did create enough space for the lid to spring back—even if it had now become slightly stained in the process.

Sam pretended not to notice.

‘Sorry—how rude of me.’ Gemma gestured with the hand holding the teaspoon and Sam watched more tea hit the tiles. ‘Toby, this is my landlady…’

Sam pulled a face. ‘Landlady’ sounded so curlers and pink nylon housecoat. Friend would have been better…or flatmate…

‘Sam, this is Toby, and he’s just going.’

Toby blushed, even more awkward than he had been moments earlier. Sam had to hand it to Gem. She was bucking every so-called trend and single-handedly proving that there were plenty of single men out there if only you weren’t too dismissive at first sight. She hadn’t even offered him any breakfast.

Sure enough, five minutes later Toby had been consigned to recent history and Gemma had set up camp by the toaster while Sam vigorously attacked the soon-to-be-much-whiter sink with a ‘new and improved’ product she had invested in less than an hour ago. They did have a cleaner, but she never really seemed to do very much. A bit of ironing, cushion-plumping, plant-overwatering and ornament-shuffling. Well worth the eight pounds an hour.

‘That’s looking great.’ Gem stretched and yawned, revealing a naturally toned tummy. Sam subconsciously clenched her abs and winced as a searing hit of lactic acid reminded her that they’d been crunched enough already. ‘Guess I better hit the shower in a minute…it’s about time I started my day before you finish yours… Just out of interest, what time did today start Washington time?’

Sam ignored her. ‘So, he was about twenty-four, was he?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. At least twenty-six.’ Gemma laughed.

Sam scrubbed resolutely. ‘And you met him where?’

‘Hey, Mum, what’s up with you this morning?’

‘Nothing.’ It was too dismissive to be totally true.

‘You just seem a bit—well, a bit on edge…’ Gemma took a contemplative slurp of her tea and Sam reminded herself that, all things considered, she was just fine. What was it with everyone? Now even her moods were public property. ‘You just don’t approve…’ Now Gemma was planting opinions.

‘Hey, I’m just your landlady. It’s none of my business who you see…’

Sam rinsed the scouring pad. It wasn’t that she was unequivocally anti the one-night stand. There were certainly times when she wanted someone to snuggle up to. Someone who didn’t purr or exhale meaty fish. But she’d also definitely been at her loneliest the morning after the night before. Gemma sipped her tea, safely staring into the middle distance, whilst the timer on the state-of-the-art toaster ticked like a time bomb behind her.

‘Sorry, Gem, I’ve just got a lot on my mind. So, do you think you’ll see him again?’

‘Doubt it.’ Gemma seemed relieved at Sam’s overture to normality. ‘Not bad in the sack, though…a huge improvement on Sean. He was an anticlimax—and I mean literally. Plus it saves me going to the gym later. All these women pumping iron when all they really need is a good shag…’

Sam felt herself redden and instinctively clenched her pelvic floor muscles, managing ten repetitions whilst wrestling the stuffed liner from the bin. It was one thing letting a room to a former classmate, but quite another when she had (a lot) more sex and telephone attention than you did. Plus, Gemma was only too quick to volunteer the details.

‘Anyway, Toby’s a Capricorn. Astrologically we couldn’t be more wrong for each other…’

As far as Sam could remember, birth dates were definitely a second or third date question in her book. Unless in these days of heightened security she was asking to see a driving licence or passport for ID purposes.

‘Then again, he saved me half a taxi fare home, he paid for the take-away, and—well, my granny always used to say you never know until you try…’

Sam was sure Gemma’s grandmother had meant foodstuffs, not fellatio.

‘Now, if he’d been a Sagittarius it could all have been very different…’ Gem trailed off mid-sentence as she observed Mr Muscle’s more glamorous sidekick hard at work. ‘Stop. Please stop. I swear I was going to give the kitchen a bit of a tidy when I got up, but I should’ve known your first thing and mine are about four hours apart. Sorry.’

Her good intentions pre-empted Sam’s well-worn washing-up mini-rant. While Sam would admit, if only to herself, that her intolerance of dirty dishes was possibly teetering on the brink of obsessive behaviour, she had to hand it to Gem. Unless she was a bloody award-winning actress, most things really didn’t bother her. As for bringing a bloke back to the flat—to Gemma, having sex was like Sam having a swim. Just about making the effort. And, judging from the Pisa-esque tower of toast and Marmite that Gemma had just made herself, it had a similar effect on her appetite.

Sam wiped the crumbs off the work surface without even realising what she was doing, before grabbing an apple and following Gemma into the sitting room.

‘How’s your job going?’ Anything. Sam would rather talk about anything than leave her mind to wander today. It kept trespassing into restricted areas. And Gemma was the perfect distraction. Just chatty enough to require concentration, just day-to-day enough to allow simultaneous magazine flick-through and general multi-tasking.

‘I could do this one standing on my head, but it pays pretty well considering I spend most of my day sending personal e-mails around the world and surfing the net. In fact, I was checking out the Friends Reunited website this week…’

‘You haven’t got into all that, have you?’

‘It’s brilliant. Most of our year have registered, and it’s great to see what they’re all up to. Loads of them are married.’

‘Mmm.’ Sam didn’t mind weddings. She just didn’t view marriage in the glorious Technicolor of many of her peers. She had trouble visualising the bit at the altar. Or maybe it was visualising the person waiting for her at the end of the aisle that was her main stumbling block.

‘Can’t believe it’ll be Sophie in a month… Anyway, between you and me I’m sort of hoping Dominic Pearson will get in touch. He was so damn sexy.’

‘He was pre-pubescent.’ Puffer Pearson had been smoking twenty-a-day in ten-packs from the age of fourteen and spent his early teens loitering behind his fringe at the bus stop, wearing a denim jacket over his blazer. Needless to say he and Gemma had often had to be prised apart at the bitter end of house parties. ‘And it’s all very well getting nostalgic, but life’s all about moving forward.’

‘But your schooldays are supposed to be the happiest of your life.’

‘Don’t believe the hype. I have no interest in re-establishing contact with people who spent their lives poking fun at me.’

Probably not the best time for Gemma to mention that she’d registered Sam on the site, then.

‘They were just jealous. You were annoyingly good at everything.’

‘I was asked to give up Art.’ She’d liked to think she’d been more of an abstract artist. The Kandinsky of the Greenside High School for Girls art department. So what if she couldn’t sketch a still life of a vase or a feather? She probably could have pickled a sheep or a cow in formaldehyde quite successfully, and with the right palette she was sure she might even have been able to give Mark Rothko a run for his money.

‘Fantastic. You’re not perfect after all. I’ve found your Achilles’ heel.’

‘No need to look quite so delighted. See, this is the problem.’

Sam’s mood had definitely shifted again. Gemma decided to return to non-controversial tales from the typing pool.

‘Anyway, the agency are going to send me somewhere new. The first few days anywhere are always the most fun…that’s when I get to save the day. Once I’ve mastered the software and company protocol, and lost a few incoming calls in the system, that is…’

Sam couldn’t imagine anything worse than being a temp—except maybe having Gemma as her temp. Still, she had to hand it to her. Her positivity was apparently unassailable. Gemma was one of life’s more buoyant passengers.

‘But it’s been keeping me in beer money since Australia, and something better will turn up—I’m sure of it. Only yesterday I met this woman at the bus stop…’

Gemma collected people as eclectically as some people collected fridge magnets.

‘…she was a photographer—nothing National Geographic would be bidding for, just weddings and family portraits, but tasteful. No soft focus airbrush or fake fabric weave…’

Sam nodded, to acknowledge that she was still listening. She prodded her neck and rolled it through one hundred and eighty degrees, first in one direction and then back again. There was no mistaking the tension. She was going to have to relax. She added it to her mental ‘to do’ list for the afternoon, but even she could see that ‘relax’ wasn’t something she’d be able to fit in to the five minutes between bill-paying, shower-head descaling and toenail painting.

‘She used to be an investment banker. Just woke up one morning and realised she wasn’t living the life she wanted and so she changed everything…’

Maybe if she ditched toenail painting? It was March: still far too chilly to get her feet out.

‘…downshifted. With no regrets. It really makes you think, and it just shows you never know what’s round the corner if you keep your eyes open to possibilities…’

‘Yup…alternatively you can just set yourself a goal and work towards it.’ Sam started sorting the papers and magazines on the coffee table.

‘That’s all very well if you’re as focused as you are, but most people don’t have as many objectives, goals, strategies and backup plans as a political party in an election campaign…nor do they get up at eight a.m. on a Saturday.’

Sam was sure there was a compliment in there somewhere, just fighting to get out.

‘But for the rest of us it’s good to see that life all works out in the end. She had a really good karma…’

The only karma Sam knew anything about had something to do with Culture Club in the early eighties. She kept it to herself.

‘Anyway, things do happen for a reason. If I hadn’t come back from Australia when I did, you and I wouldn’t be living together.’

‘Exactly.’ It had been meant to be a joke. Sort of. Smiling in an attempt to soften her tone, Sam got to her feet. ‘Another cup of tea?’

‘I’d love one…’

Silently Sam thanked India for providing the British with bottomless cuppas. There appeared to be no limit to their restorative powers…and no teabags in the jar.

‘Gemma Cousins…’

‘Mmm?’ From Sam’s tone, Gemma could sense trouble. And she could take a pretty could swing at why.

‘We seem to be out of tea.’

‘Ah.’ She did her best to be contrite. ‘Not to worry. I’ll just have an instant coffee, then.’

Sam muttered to herself as she let the cupboard door slam. Gemma clearly believed in teabag fairies, loo paper elves and waste disposal pixies, and her faith was always rewarded.

‘Luckily I went shopping this morning.’

Gemma’s voice wafted into the kitchen. ‘Let me know how much I owe you…’

It was only for six months, and then once again she’d be able to wax her legs in front of the TV, pluck her bikini line while on the phone to her mother and go the loo in the middle of the night without getting dressed.

‘You didn’t get a paper, by any chance…?’

Sam delivered her still pristine copy of The Times, along with fresh tea, to the sofa, separating the main body of the paper from its weekend sections and sitting down with it in the armchair opposite.

‘Thanks, love.’

George, having optimistically followed Sam to the kitchen and back again, just on the off-chance a roast chicken or spare salmon might inadvertently have fallen from the fridge when Sam was getting the milk, decided to sit with Gemma, and when he glanced across, apparently innocently, all smug purrs and green eyes, Sam narrowed hers to express her disdain. As he turned away Sam smiled victoriously before stopping herself. Who did she think she was? The cat whisperer?

Gemma was heading straight for her star signs in the magazine. Despite herself, Sam could feel herself listening to the general murmuring noises. Today’s sounded quite affirmative.

‘Hmm. Interesting. Do you want me to read out yours?’

Sam raised an eyebrow. ‘Now, let me guess… As the week begins, Saturn makes its way through Aries, popping in to Gemini and Scorpio on its way. Take care around the new moon on Thursday, when Pluto’s activity means business matters may not turn out the way you planned. Beware of friends who try and tell you what’s going to happen next. Shop thoroughly. Watch out for Capricorn rising and Venus wandering in and out every twenty-eight hours, when emotions may run high and someone close to you may not be who they seem… How did I do?’

‘You really shouldn’t be so dismissive. It’s a science. You’d be surprised how accurate this stuff can be. If you’d only let me draw up a personal chart for you… I just need your birth time and I can calculate your rising sign. You’d be amazed at—’

‘Then I’d know which days to stay in bed and which ones to bother with? Honestly, Gem, for someone as intelligent as you are I can’t believe you are so into this hocus-pocus, this planetary, may-the-force-be-with-you bollocks.’

‘And I’m surprised that someone as intelligent as you can be so dismissive. I think you’re scared. You don’t want to think that things might be pre-ordained.’

Sam ignored her. She was doing her best to concentrate on an article about law reforms. Gemma, sensing the stalemate of the situation, tried to return to the chit-chat.

‘What’s that you’re drinking?’

‘Chamomile.’

‘Yuk. It smells like wee.’

‘Thanks.’ For a holistic, feng shui kid, Gemma was surprisingly hostile to the idea of herbal teas.

‘Well, it does.’

Sam put her paper down again. She was feeling like a rather irritable husband at the moment. All she wanted was a bit of quiet and a chance to catch up with the rest of the world.

‘No one’s asking you to drink it, but I’m trying to cut out caffeine at weekends for detox reasons and this is great for stiff joints and generally calming—allegedly.’ Sam rustled the broadsheet and turned the page pointedly.

‘Well, rather you than me…’