What She Wants (42 page)

home and go to the consultant myself. I’m not a baby, Hope.’ ‘But I wanted to…’ ‘I know.’ Sam made the fatal mistake of leaving Millie alone with a big bowl of chocolate in order to hug her sister. ‘I can manage on my own, you’ve calmed me down and made me feel normal again.’ They hugged until a squeal and a crash made it obvious that Millie had taken the catering into her own hands. ‘It fell,’ Millie said, wide-eyed when they both looked at her and at the broken bowl and the chocolatey mess covering the floor. When both Sam and Hope started to laugh, Millie giggled happily. She’d never thought anyone would find that funny.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Far from the chalk-stripe suited consultant Sam had imagined, Professor Olivieri was a tiny grey-haired woman of few words who was even smaller than Sam but who had warm, shrewd eyes in a pale face. She read the letter from Sam’s doctor silently, while Sam sat in the high-tech consulting room and shivered with a mixture of nerves and embarrassment. Now that she was here she felt hideously ashamed at the thought of being considered a deranged hypochondriac. Ever since she’d stopped panicking, she’d regained her appetite and the night before had managed to consume an enormous pizza with half a bottle of wine as she watched Sense and Sensibility on video. ‘I’m really sorry about all this hassle,’ Sam said. ‘I was nervous and I didn’t think I could wait so long …’ Professor Olivieri merely smiled. ‘Do not worry,’ she said. ‘Now I am going to examine you for cysts in the abdomen, glands and in the neck of the uterus. Then we will give you a scan to be sure.’ Sam nodded weakly. ‘Fire away,’ she said in a whisper. She had talked herself into believing she was going to be fine, but what if she was wrong after all?

In Redlion, Hope sat in the kitchen and stared at the Little Mermaid clock that hung on the wall over the kitchen table. Five past three. Sam’s appointment was for three. How long could it take? Hope began to work it out: perhaps five minutes waiting to see the consultant. Then fifteen to talk

about what was wrong, five or ten for an examination. Then, what if the consultant had to send Sam off somewhere to get a scan? Would that mean a separate appointment somewhere else? Curlew Cottage was quiet except for the gentle ticking of the Little Mermaid and the distant lowing of a cow in the field nearby. Matt had kindly taken the children out for the afternoon and contrarily, now that they were gone, Hope wished they were there. Millie and Toby would have kept her mind off worrying about Sam. As she sat and waited in anguish, Hope raged with herself for not flying to London with Sam. It would have been so simple: Matt could have taken care of the children and she wouldn’t have been sitting in Kerry now, hoping for a phone call to tell her everything was fine. She’d have been holding Sam’s hand, being with her, helping. Damn Sam for being so stubbornly independent. But even as she thought it, Hope knew that being independent was what Sam had needed at this time. She could be strong on her own; if Hope had been with her, she might have crumbled. Damn, cursed Hope. There was nothing for it: she might as well do the ironing. She’d ironed ten shirts with savage speed when the phone rang and she left the iron perilously on the board, racing to the phone. ‘Hello.’ ‘It’s me,’ said Sam. Hope took a deep breath, praying she’d know what to say. ‘I’m fine!’ gasped Sam. ‘Absolutely fine. The scan shows fibroids but nothing else and they can whip them out no bother.’ ‘Oh Sam,’ sobbed Hope, ‘I was so afraid, so very afraid.’ ‘Me too,’ sang Sam delightedly, comforting her sister, ‘but it’s wonderful now. I’m free, free and well and healthy. She wants to book me in for something called TCRE, trans

cervical resection and it’s easy. I could be in and out of the clinic in one day.’ She threw her head backwards as if she was greedy to breathe in life now that she had it guaranteed, ‘I’m so thrilled, what’ll I do now?’ ‘Have a party?’ suggested Hope, who longed to be there at that moment to hug her sister. ‘Great idea,’ said Sam. Hope felt a pang of loneliness but quashed it. ‘Tell me who you’re going to ask?’ she said.

Catrina was all on for a last-minute dinner party on Friday night. ‘I never go anywhere any more,’ she wailed. ‘I suddenly feel huge, you know.’ Jay and Greg were going somewhere else later, but agreed to drop in. ‘No sloping off to the bedroom for a bonk,’ warned Sam over the phone. ‘What’s the party for?’ asked Jay suspiciously. ‘For me being happy and alive,’ said Sam, wiping away tears. ‘I had a bit of a bad moment last week when I thought I was ill, but I’m fine.’ ‘What do you mean you thought you were ill?’ demanded Jay. ‘I’ll tell you later. Now what shall I cook: take away That, take away Indian or take away Italian?’ ‘Why don’t you go the whole hog and ask Delia Smith along? It’d be easier.’

Sam danced into the office on Friday, astonishing everyone who’d been told she was ill all week by Lydia. ‘You sounded at death’s door with that flu last Friday,’ Lydia remarked, looking at her boss who was radiant if slightly too-thin in a cream fine wool trouser suit. ‘You’re sure you haven’t been at a health farm?’ Sam grinned at her. ‘If you want to leave, why don’t you

try the more conventional route of handing in your notice, rather than making me fire you,’ she teased. She left the office early in the afternoon, stopping off in a taxi to pick up several huge bouquets of flowers. The wine and food were being delivered later at great expense. As Sam had said gaily to Hope on the phone the previous night: ‘Why earn all this money if I don’t do anything with it?’ ‘Exactly,’ said Hope, thrilled that Sam was in good form but still feeling a bit left out at not being there to share the celebrations. At home, Sam gave the apartment a cursory tidy up - it didn’t need much work due to her obsessive cleanliness and arranged her flowers everywhere, a bowl of coral pink roses on the dining room table, blood red amaryllis surrounded by striking foliage in the cool white living room, and beautifully-scented stargazer lilies in the hall. She was just putting a couple of rose buds in a crystal glass on the dining room windowsill when she glanced out into the next door garden and saw Morgan hauling a bay tree in a huge stone container along the patio. It clearly required more than one person to drag it along but that was so Morgan: one man taking on the world. Sam smiled at the sight of him, then ducked back when he stood upright, rubbed his aching lower back and looked directly up at her window. He’d seen her. Suddenly, she flushed with shame as she remembered the last time she’d met him and she’d been such a bitch. He’d been nice to her, not just nice, friendly and a bit flirty, and she’d behaved like a crocodile who’d just been to the dentist for root canal work. As the deep-seated shame spread through her body, she realized she had to make amends. She was going to change her life after all, she decided firmly. Apologizing to Morgan would be first on the list. Racing out of the apartment before she could change her mind, she reached his front door and rang the bell forcefully. Several minutes elapsed before the door was wrenched open. Morgan was clad in his trademark jeans and there were

bits of leaf and dirt clinging to his jumper and to his rumpled tawny hair. ‘Yes?’ He looked at her warily, as if waiting for her to land a punch or something. Even when he was mad, he couldn’t get the sex appeal out of those treacly eyes. Although they were narrowed and suspicious as they surveyed her arrogantly over his proud, hooked nose. ‘I’ve come to apologize,’ she said, launching into it before she could have second thoughts. ‘I was so horrible to you and I apologize. I was being a bitch but if it’s any excuse, I was going through a bit of a personal crisis. Not,’ she amended, looking down at her shoes because she couldn’t meet that wary expression any more, ‘that having a crisis is any real excuse. I’m really sorry, Morgan. I understand if you’d never want to see me again but I’d like us to be friends. I’m having a dinner party tonight and I wonder if you’d like to come?’ She looked up, hopeful that her grovelling had worked. It was worth it to see his face light up in a glorious smile. ‘Can I bring ten bimbo girlfriends?’ he asked evilly. Sam bit her lip. ‘If you want, you can bring one,’ she said. ‘Only kidding. I’ll just bring myself,’ Morgan said, looking very pleased. ‘It’s strictly cas …’ began Sam and stopped herself. She’d been about to say ‘strictly casual,’ but then, what other clothes did Morgan Benson possess? ‘Jeans are fine, then?’ he asked, the corners of his mouth lifting. ‘Fine,’ Sam said gravely. ‘Just not those ones.’ They both looked down at the frayed hems at the ends of his long legs. ‘I’ll go then,’ Sam added. ‘Cooking and so on, you know.’ ‘I know. Dinner parties can be hell,’ he deadpanned. ‘All that stirring risotto and hoping the butler’s not getting stuck into the dessert wine.’

Back at the apartment, Sam realized that the food and drink people would be rolling up any minute, so she had to dress. But instead of going for her usual casual uniform of a cotton shirt and tailored trousers, she dressed in a soy-sauce brown silk wrap dress, with a flattering V-neck and a skirt that showed off her slender legs. She’d bought it for a party and then never wore it, as it was too girly. And what was wrong with being girly anyway, she thought gaily, slipping on crazy stack heeled sandals that looked as if they’d been custom made for Carmen Miranda. There had to be a place for frivolity in her life, hadn’t there? By eight, all the gang were there: Jay and Greg still heartbreakingly in love; Catrina and Hugh proudly expectant and eager to discuss every scan and baby detail; Andy with a shy fellow teacher, named Vanessa, who looked as if she was getting him over his divorce. Morgan astonished Sam by turning up looking devastating in a crisp charcoal shirt unbuttoned at the neck and grey trousers, all of which screamed expensive and classy. His lips brushed Sam’s cheek as he handed over a bottle of wine. ‘How lovely of you to invite me, Ms Smith,’ he said formally. ‘What a pleasure it is to have such nice neighbours. Will there be loud music later?’ Sam giggled and sat him next to Jay and Vanessa, before rushing into the kitchen to dish up the first course. ‘He’s gorgeous,’ murmured Catrina to Sam when they were tucking into That chicken. ‘Where have you been hiding him?’ ‘He’s just a friend,’ Sam protested, handing round the salad. ‘With friends like that, who needs husbands?’ replied Catrina with a salacious wink. The evening raced by. Sam had never had such a successful dinner party and it was due in part to how relaxed she was, and, she was astonished to realize, to how happy she felt to have Morgan there. The rest of the gang clearly liked him too, with Hugh and Morgan hitting it off particularly

well. They were talking intensely about people they both knew and Sam was desperate to overhear because she was still in the dark about Morgan in so many ways, like what he did for a living, for a start. He and Hugh seemed to know lots of the same people and Morgan had apparently worked in New York years before, where he knew Hugh’s older brother, Christopher. ‘What were you and Morgan talking about?’ Sam asked Hugh idly when he was helping her make a second batch of coffee. ‘Oh just work and that. He’s a decent chap, Morgan. Seems glad to be out of the rat race, though.’ At that moment, Morgan arrived to help so Sam had to stop probing. It was nearly twelve when Catrina announced that it was time she and Hugh went home. ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen when the baby comes and you lose your designated non-drinking driver,’ she remarked as a tipsy Hugh kissed Sam goodbye. ‘We’re going to get the baby a driving licence,’ declared Hugh. ‘What else are we having children for if it’s not to look after their dear old parents?’ Jay and Greg said they were too tired to bother going on to the party now and got a taxi with Andy and Vanessa, who were going in the same direction. ‘I’ll help you clear up,’ said Morgan when everyone had been waved off. Together, they stacked the dishwasher in companionable silence, with Macy Gray playing softly on the CD player. It was like being an old married couple, Sam thought sentimentally. ‘You’re very laid back tonight, Ms Smith,’ Morgan said, filling the sink with hot water to rinse the glasses. Her tongue loosened with a couple of glasses of wine, Sam let her defences down and told him about her frantic week. ‘No wonder you were so upset,’ Morgan said, drying his

hands on a towel and, to her astonishment, pulling her into his arms. ‘I’m so glad you’re not ill. You must have been terrified.’ Sam was speechless in his embrace, loving the feeling of his arms wrapped protectively round her and the sensation of being safe against him. He felt even better than she thought he’d feel: solid and warm, his chest hard against her face. It was nice to be held by someone who wasn’t Hope or Hugh or Andy, someone who wasn’t hugging her in a sisterly or brotherly way. Then, just as suddenly, Morgan moved away, leaving Sam reeling with excitement as she stood there limply. ‘Sorry,’ he said abruptly, ‘I didn’t mean to invade your space. Sometimes I forget the proprieties.’ ‘No, that’s fine,’ muttered Sam, feeling let down. Too late she remembered the first time they’d met when she’d accused him of invading her personal space, just before she kicked him on the shin. ‘I should go,’ Morgan said. He wasn’t looking at her, but at the last few glasses he’d gone back to rinsing. ‘Of course,’ she replied politely, staring at his solid charcoal-shirted back. ‘Thanks for coming and for staying behind to wash up.’ ‘No trouble.’ He didn’t kiss her on the cheek when he left but merely said thanks again. Sam stood at the door for a moment, waiting for him to turn back and smile, but he didn’t. She shut the door, conscious of a sense of anti-climax. There had been a definite air of anticipation in the air until Morgan had pulled away from her. She wondered why, then stopped herself. If he was interested, he’d make a move, she decided firmly. If he wasn’t, he wasn’t. What was the point torturing herself over it. She’d made her peace with him and that was the main thing. The new, improved and deliriously happy to be alive Sam Smith was not going to get her knickers in a twist over what might have been. She was going to be happy, contented and change her life for the better. She was

going to take up yoga, eat organic food, be kind to everyone and try to live her life filled with inner spiritual light. She would not worry about the hunk of manhood who brooded Byronically in the house next door, absolutely not.