The Beard (22 page)

Amy was feeling both pressured and scared. “You said two,” she repeated.

“Yeah,” said Sam, pointing at her bedroom clock, “and it’s 11.30 now. You telling me all of this will be done by two?” Amy looked back at him without any clue what to say. “You’re still coming, aren’t you? I mean… that’s what you said.” Sam walked towards Amy and she took a step back.

This startled him. “Amy, look, I’m sorry that I’ve been so… you know. I have so much to do, so many things to get ready. All this is being thrown at me, too. I really want you to come, so forgive me for getting so angry and frustrated and… and… oh, I don’t know what. I didn’t want it to be like this, really I didn’t.”

Sam turned and looked out of the window with both hands on his hips. “I’m not sure I even want to bloody well go myself now.”

Amy felt bad, not just for harbouring doubts but for making Sam’s life even harder. She walked towards him and hugged him. He took the embrace and, turning around, hugged her tightly. “That’s better!” he said. Then, looking down at her, he smiled, “It’ll be better once we get there. All this stress will be gone.”

Amy smiled up at him and kissed him. As she did, she looked into his eyes. He looked away. Amy stepped back.

“I’m not coming,” she said. The comment hung in the air like a bad smell.

Sam glared at her in disbelief. “What do you mean you’re not coming?” he said, the anger returning.

Amy looked on nervously as she tried to explain. “You said I didn’t need to come; that you’d wait. Well…”

She didn’t get any further. “SCREW THAT!” shouted Sam as he kicked the chair in Amy’s room. “You’ve been stringing me along all this time!”

Amy felt desperate and it showed. “No, that’s not true. It’s just…”

“It’s just what, Amy?” barked Sam. “The fact that I bought you this luggage? The fact that I got you a massively expensive room and all the trimmings? All for you. All so that you’d feel at home? Is that it?”

He kicked the chair again and Amy began to sob quietly.

“Oh, spare me your insipid crocodile tears, you slapper.” Sam’s character had now turned and Amy was finally able to see the darkness in his personality that had kept her from following him.
She was trembling as Sam paced the floor in fury. She contemplated shouting for Tom but knew that a fight would ensue. “All those meals, all those presents… You just used me. You had no intention of coming with me.”

Amy stepped forward in protest: “I did, I did.”

Sam was too angry to hear any counter-argument. “Really, Amy? So, how come NONE of your family know?”

Amy wasn’t sure what to say. She had her reasons, but some were too private, too personal to share.

“I know why,” said Sam angrily. “You’re in love with that fruit Tom, aren’t you?” He scoffed loudly and shook his head. Amy was beginning to hate the arrangement she had with Tom. Originally a favour, now a farce, it hung around her neck like a millstone. It was meant to make life easier, not unimaginably harder.

“No!” Amy protested. “It’s complicated. I couldn’t tell my family, I just couldn’t. Not yet. Not until I knew for sure…”

Sam spun around at this revelation. “Knew for sure? Knew for sure what?” He was breathing heavily and staring at her angrily. “Knew that you loved me? Knew that you trusted me? Knew that you’d get to keep all the presents? Until you knew what, Amy?”

Amy sobbed uncontrollably, which seemed to antagonise Sam all the more. “I’m sorry,” she managed under her breath, her head low.

Sam bore down on her. “Yeah, right! I bet!” he spat with unconcealed rage.

“I am,” Amy protested. Sam made a step towards her, which took her by surprise. She yelped and stepped back. The sight of her recoiling in his presence infuriated Sam beyond words. He shook his head and gasped. 

“What? You think I’m going to hit you? For Pete’s sake, Amy… I’ve done all of this for you and, at the eleventh hour, you drop me in the shit. And then you make out I’M a monster?” Sam gesticulated wildly as he spoke. “You really are a piece of work, Amy.” He stood and sighed heavily. “Well, if that’s how you feel, screw you! I thought we had something, you and I. I really did. But then you go and let me down. I hope you remember this for the rest of your life, Amy. The day the only man who’ll ever love you walked out on you because of your small-town, small-minded myopia. You really are just a failed human. Pathetic.”

He bent down and picked up both cases, then emptied their contents on the floor and made for the door.

Amy, terrified at the pace her life had now adopted, shouted, “Wait!” after him.

Sam turned his head and looked at her. “What?” he said angrily.

Amy didn’t know what to say. “There’s just so much that I can’t…”

Sam was no longer in the mood to
listen. “Don’t bother, Amy. You’re just a typical gold-digging, lying timewaster. A total waste of skin and bones.”

Despite the thick layer of personal insult, Amy could only mumble, “Sorry,” as Sam walked away.

Sam stopped briefly to balk at this. “Yeah, me too, Amy. Me too.” Then, looking at her with a burning intensity, but some softness, he added, “I loved you.” He stared at her long enough to see the reaction. Seeing Amy’s face crumple, he clambered down the stairs with the luggage and then, with a resounding smash of the door, he was gone.

As soon as they heard the door slam, both Tom and Ash ran upstairs to see Amy. They burst into the room to find her face down on her bed. Her body pulsat
ed with raw emotion and the ceaseless surge of tears.

Tom ran straight over to her and, without saying anything, sat on the bed and stroked her. It was a small but meaningful attempt to offer comfort.

Ash looked at the two rectangles of carpet that signified missing luggage. “Shame you didn’t get to keep the luggage,” he said.

Tom sent him an immediate look of condemnation.

Ash mouthed an exaggerated, “Sorrrry” back to Tom. Amy remained oblivious.

“I’m sorry, Amy,” said Tom. It was a worthless platitude, given that she’d had her heart ripped out. However, despite its negligible soothing effect, he knew that he had to do everything he could to console her. For one thing, she was one of his best friends and he loved her. For another,
they needed to be the perfect ‘will-they-or-won’t-they?’ couple at a wedding later that day.

Tom and Ash sat in silence, waiting for Amy to gather herself. Finally sitting up, she saw Tom, perched apologetically on the edge of the bed. As soon as she turned, Tom reached for her hand. Ash was reading a magazine.

“He’s gone,” said Amy finally.

“We heard,” Tom replied softly, without wishing to intrude on her fragile emotions.

“Yeah, he wanted to come up and get involved but I wouldn’t let him,” Ash chimed in, nudging a finger in Tom’s direction. “I said it was your fight,” he added, turning over a page in the magazine as if the conversation wasn’t that important. “Not an actual fight, of course. That would be wrong. Women shouldn’t fight. It’s unnatural. Well, except for lesbians, that is. They do. But then again, they’re scary people.” Tom and Amy were transfixed with Ash’s narrative. He spoke, as if to no one, as he turned page after page. Sensing a silence, he looked up to find the cause.

As he did so, he saw one tear-stained and one frowning face staring back at him. Wondering why they were reacting with such emotion, he stood up. “Mind if I skid-addle?” he said, hurling the magazine back down. “I’m late to meet John. I just wanted to
see who dumped who. Amy – ouch!”

Tom was about to shout at Ash when he walked over to Amy and touched her chin. “Keep smiling, lover,” he said. “He wasn’t worth it. If they can’t wait, they’re never worth it.” Amy smiled at Ash as he left. “Oh, and sweetie?” Ash added, standing by the door, “get a shower!” Then, extending his arm, he zig-zagged his hand quickly down Amy’s imaginary frame, as if scrubbing a window. “You reek,” he added and vanished off down the stairs.

Tom and Amy stared at one another. Even in the middle of emotional turmoil, where worlds fell apart, Ash was still very much Ash. It was, in essence, the core to his survival and what helped him overcome his setbacks.

Tom looked back at Amy, desperate for any clue as to what she was feeling. As
he explored her pallid complexion, with trickles of pain drying to her cheeks, he felt empathy yet relief. It was clear that Sam wasn’t the man for her. Tom had asked himself over and over again whether this was simply because the two of them didn’t get along. He’d been guilty of judging Amy’s prospective partners harshly in the past. He was aware that any bad first impression they made tended to mark their cards as far as he was concerned. Yet on this occasion, he’d tried very hard to seem positive. If for no other reason than Amy did seem keen on the guy.

“Silly question,” Tom started out, “but how you feeling?”

Amy laughed. It was an instinctive and honest response to a well-meaning and essential but ultimately ludicrous query. Amy didn’t bother to answer, she just smiled and rested her head on Tom’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” she said, slightly hoarse.

Tom smiled and held her head against his body. “Don’t mention it,” he said. “After all, that’s what boyfriends are for!”

This made Amy laugh, a shallow laugh that slowly turned to tears. Tom sat still and held Amy tight, as she rocked with pain and upset. The past few months hadn’t been charitable to her.

Now, however, thanks to her efforts to make her life easier, she had to hide actual heartbreak behind fake happiness. This was, in many respects, the most painful aspect of recent events.

“I knew,” Amy stuttered, her words as shredded as her emotions. “I knew.”

Quite what she knew wasn’t forthcoming. Her sobbing and staggered attempts to suck in air broke any continuity of conversation. Tom said nothing. There was nothing to say.

“I knew it wasn’t meant to be. I just knew,” Amy mumbled. Tom held his council and his tongue. This was a familiar, almost obligatory, lament for the broken-hearted. An inherent knowledge of impending doom that had, until that moment, never seen the light of day. Everyone who’d been hurt or rejected wanted to feel that they knew what they were feeling was in some way inevitable. It stopped them from feeling like gullible chumps. Tom knew that now wasn’t the time to point out that had Amy really sensed this was going to happen, she wouldn’t be quite so upset. Or that she’d been keen on Sam only a day earlier. That was a logic that deserved no audience in the court of a broken heart. Tom’s last relationship may have been years ago, but he knew the basics of human frailty.

Instead, he just sat and wore a concerned face. Amy glanced up from time to time for reassurance and to see if there was anything telling in Tom’s face. There wasn’t.

“You didn’t like him,” said Amy. Tom was well aware of the potential minefield ahead. However, he’d spent too long walking on eggshells, trying desperately not to cause anything to crack.

“No,” he said bluntly. Amy turned with more urgency to look at him. “I didn’t think he was good enough for you,” he added quickly.

Amy found Tom’s attitude condescending but, at the same time, comforting. It was nice to be looked after, even when she didn’t want it. Tom had been guilty of suffocating Amy with his protection in the past, but these days that was better managed –
 contained even. She’d often wondered if it was just something soothing to say to her when every relationship went nipples aloft. Was he just saying it? Surely, by the laws of mathematics and physics, one of the men she dated MUST have been “good enough”? Amy found this routine reply circumspect, but wasn’t in any state to challenge it.

Tom, conversely, was eager to make sure that he wasn’t accused of being too fawning and asphyxiating. He knew that Amy needed space, both physical and physiological. His urge to tell Amy that she’d had a lucky escape was imprisoned behind locked lips. Historically, he may have been overly protective of Amy’s few virtues, but he genuinely didn’t rate Sam. So, while he was determined not to crowd Amy right now, he wasn’t going to lie either.

Amy was surprised to see Tom talking so boldly. She’d expected some warmth, if only to make her feel better. “Why?” she asked. “Why do you think these men aren’t good enough for me?”

Tom spotted the trap. “Not all men, just him. I’m talking about Sam.”
Amy realised that there was little mileage in a row right now. The relevant row currency had, however, been banked. “Did you love him?” Tom asked directly. The question, as innocuous as it seemed, smacked into Amy at a ferocious pace. She recoiled. She wasn’t keen to delve into her emotions this quickly after the events of the day. “Well?” Tom pestered. “You either did or you didn’t.”

Amy felt like she was being harangued about her feelings towards Sam. She felt very bruised, hurt – damaged even. She wasn’t sure she’d remember her phone number or card PIN, let alone see through the fog to answer that question. Whatever she felt, or was feeling, wasn’t exactly clearly labelled. Whereas Tom could almost file every emotion and call up each one at will, Amy’s were akin to strings of Christmas lights. They worked and looked pretty but, after time, they became precariously tangled. One pull, or tug too far, resulted in damage and lasting problems. Trying to find the love line in a large, jumbled ball of emotions wasn’t going to be easy, if at all possible.