… heard about Samantha Sweeting …
… Samantha Sweeting jokes. What do you call a lawyer who …
… Samantha Sweeting fired from Carter Spink …
One after another. From lawyers’ Web sites, legal news services, law students’ message boards. It’s as if the whole legal world has been talking about me behind my back. In a daze, I click to the next page—and there are still more. And on the next page, and the next.
I feel as though I’m surveying a wrecked bridge. Looking at the damage, realizing for the first time quite how bad the devastation is.
I can never go back.
I knew that.
But I don’t think I really knew it. Not deep down in the pit of my stomach. Not where it counts.
I feel a wetness on my cheek and jump to my feet, shutting all the Web pages down; clearing History in case Eddie gets curious. I shut down the computer and look around the silent room. This is where I am. Not there. That part of my life is over.
Iris’s cottage is looking as idyllic as ever as I dash up to the front door, out of breath. In fact, even more idyllic, as a goose is now wandering about with her hens.
“Hello.” Iris is sitting on the front step with a mug of tea. “You seem in a hurry.”
“I just wanted to get here on time.” I glance around the garden, but there’s no sign of Nathaniel.
“Nathaniel had to go and sort out a leaking pipe at one of the pubs,” says Iris, as though reading my mind. “But he’ll be back later. Meanwhile, we’re going to make bread.”
“Great!” I say. I follow her into the kitchen and put on the same stripy apron as last time.
“I’ve started us off already,” says Iris, going over to a large, old-fashioned mixing bowl on the table. “Yeast, warm water, melted butter, and flour. Mix together and you have your dough. Now, you’re going to knead it.”
“Right,” I say, looking blankly at the dough. She shoots me a curious glance.
“Are you all right, Samantha? You seem … out of sorts.”
“I’m fine.” I will myself to concentrate. “Sorry.”
“I know people have machines to do this for them,” she says, hefting the dough onto the table. “But this is how we make it the old-fashioned way. You’ll never taste better.”
She kneads it briskly a couple of times. “You see? Fold it over, make a quarter turn. You need to use a bit of energy.”
Cautiously I plunge my hands into the soft dough and try to imitate her.
“That’s it,” says Iris, watching carefully. “Get into a rhythm and really work it. Kneading’s very good for releasing stress,” she adds with wry humor. “Pretend you’re bashing all your worst enemies.”
“I’ll do that!” I manage a cheerful tone.
But there’s a knot of tension in my chest, which doesn’t dwindle away as I knead. In fact, the more I fold and turn the dough, the worse it seems to get. I can’t stop my mind flipping back to that Web site.
I did good things for that firm. I won clients. I negotiated deals. I was not nothing.
I was not nothing.
“The more you work the dough, the better the bread will be,” says Iris, coming over to the table with a smile. “Can you feel it becoming warm and elastic in your hands?”
I look at the dough in my fingers, but I can’t connect with it. I can’t feel what she wants me to. My senses aren’t plugged in. My mind is skittering about like a squirrel on ice.
I start kneading again, harder than before, trying to capture it. I want to find that contentment I had last time I was here, that feeling of simplicity and earthiness. But I keep losing my rhythm, cursing in frustration as my fingers catch on the dough. My upper arms are aching; my face is sweating. And the turmoil inside me is only getting worse.
How dare they wipe me out? I was a good lawyer.
I was a good fucking lawyer.
“Would you like a rest?” Iris comes over and touches my shoulder. “It’s hard work when you’re not used to it.”
“What’s the point?” My words shoot out before I can stop them. “I mean, what’s the point of all this? Making bread. You make it and you eat it. And then … it’s gone.”
I break off abruptly, not quite knowing what’s come over me. I don’t feel totally on top of myself.
Iris gives me a careful look.
“You could say the same of all food,” she points out gently. “Or life itself.”
“Exactly.” I rub my forehead with my apron. “Exactly.”
I don’t know what I’m saying. Why am I picking a fight with Iris? I must calm down.
“I think that’s enough kneading,” she says, taking the dough from me and patting it into a round shape.
“Now what?” I say, trying to speak more normally. “Shall I put it in the oven?”
“Not yet.” Iris places the dough back in the bowl and puts it on top of the stove. “Now we wait.”
“Wait?” I stare at her. “What do you mean, wait?”
“We wait.” She pops a tea towel over the bowl. “Half an hour should do it. I’ll make a cup of tea.”
“But … what are we waiting for?”
“For the yeast to rise and work its magic on the dough.” She smiles. “Underneath that towel, a small miracle is happening.”
I look at the bowl, trying to think miracles. But it isn’t working. I can’t feel calm or serene. My body is wound up too far; every nerve is hopping with tension. I used to be in control of my time to the minute. To the second. And now I’m supposed to wait for yeast? I’m supposed to stand here, in an apron, waiting for a … fungus?
“I’m sorry,” I hear myself say. “I can’t do it.” I head for the kitchen door and out into the garden.
“What?” Iris comes after me, wiping her hands on her apron. “Sweetie, what’s wrong?”
“I can’t do this!” I wheel round. “I can’t just … just sit around patiently, waiting for yeast to get its act together.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s such a waste of time!” I clutch my head in frustration. “It’s such a waste of time. All of it!”
“What do you think we should be doing instead?” she asks with interest.
“Something … important. OK?” I walk to the apple tree and back again, unable to keep still. “Something constructive.”
I glance at Iris, but she doesn’t seem offended.
“What’s more constructive than making bread?”
Oh, God. I feel an urge to scream. It’s OK for her, with her hens and her apron and no wrecked career on the Internet.
“You don’t understand anything,” I say, close to tears. “I’m sorry, but you don’t. Look … I’ll just leave.”
“Don’t leave.” Iris’s voice is surprisingly firm. The next moment she’s in front of me, placing her two hands on my shoulders, looking at me with her penetrating blue eyes.
“Samantha, you’ve had a trauma,” she says in kind, even tones. “And it’s affected you very deeply—”
“I haven’t had a trauma!” I wheel away, out of her grasp. “I just … I can’t do this, Iris. I can’t pretend to be this. I’m not a bread maker, OK? I’m not a domestic goddess.” I look around the garden desperately, as though searching for clues. “I don’t know who I am anymore. I have no bloody idea.”
A single tear rolls down my cheek and I wipe it away roughly. I’m not going to cry in front of Iris.
“I don’t know who I am.” I exhale, more calmly. “Or what my goal is … or where I’m headed in life. Or anything.”
My energy’s gone and I sink down on the dry grass. A few moments later Iris comes and squats down beside me.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says, her voice soft. “Don’t beat yourself up for not knowing all the answers. You don’t always have to know who you are. You don’t have to have the big picture, or know where you’re heading. Sometimes it’s enough just to know what you’re going to do next.”
For
a while I let her words run through my head, like cool water on a headache.
“And what am I going to do next?” I say at last, with a hopeless shrug.
“You’re going to help me shell the beans for lunch.” She’s so matter-of-fact that I half smile in spite of myself.
Meekly, I follow Iris into the house, then collect a big bowl of broad beans and start splitting the pods as she shows me. Pods into a basket on the floor. New broad beans into the basin. Over and over and over.
I become a little calmer as I immerse myself in my task. I never even knew broad beans came from pods like this. To be honest, my total experience of broad beans has been picking them up in a plastic-covered packet from Waitrose, putting them in my fridge, taking them out a week after the sell-by date, and throwing them away.
But this is the real thing. This is what they’re like, dug straight out of the ground. Or … picked off the bush. Whatever it is.
Each time I split one open it’s like finding a row of pale green jewels. And when I put one in my mouth, it’s like—
Oh, OK. It needs to be cooked.
Yuck.
When I’ve finished the beans we return to the dough, kneading it into loaves. We put the loaves into special tins and then have to wait another half hour for them to rise again. But somehow this time I don’t mind. I sit at the table with Iris, hulling strawberries and listening to the radio until it’s time to put the tins into the oven. Then Iris loads a tray with Cheshire cheese, bean salad, biscuits, and strawberries and we take it outside to a table set under the shade of a tree.
“There,” she says, pouring some iced tea into a tumbler made of bubbled glass. “Better?”
“Yes. Thanks,” I say awkwardly. “I’m sorry about earlier. I just …”
“Samantha, it’s all right.” She cuts a piece of cheese and puts it on my plate. “You don’t have to apologize.”
“But I do.” I take a deep breath. “You’ve been so wonderful … and Nathaniel …”
“He took you to the pub, I heard.”
“It was amazing!” I say with enthusiasm. “You must be so proud, to have that in your family.”
Iris nods. “Those pubs have been run by Blewetts for generations.” She sits down and helps us both to bean salad, dressed with oil and speckled with herbs. I take a bite—and it’s absolutely delicious.
“It must have been hard when your husband died,” I venture cautiously.
“Everything was in a mess.” Iris sounds matter-of-fact. A chicken wanders over to the table and she shoos it away. “There were financial difficulties. I wasn’t well. If it hadn’t been for Nathaniel we might have lost all of the pubs. He made sure they got back on track. For his father’s memory.” Her eyes cloud a little and she hesitates. “You never know how things are going to turn out, however much you plan. But you already know that.”
“I always thought my life would be a certain way,” I say, gazing down at my plate. “I had it all mapped out.”
“But … it didn’t happen like that?”
For a few seconds I can’t answer. I’m remembering the moment I heard I was going to be partner. That instant of undiluted, dazzling joy. When I thought my life had finally fallen into place, when I thought everything was perfect.
“No,” I say, trying to keep my voice level. “It didn’t happen like that.”
Iris is watching me with such clear, empathetic eyes I almost believe she’s able to read my mind.
“Don’t be too hard on yourself, chicken,” she says. “We all flounder.”
I can’t imagine Iris ever floundering. She seems so puttogether.
“Oh, I floundered,” she says, reading my expression. “After Benjamin went. It was so sudden. Everything I thought I had, gone overnight.”
“So … what did you …” I spread my hands helplessly.
“I found another way,” she says. “But … it took time.” For a moment she holds my gaze, then looks at her watch. “Speaking of which, I’ll make some coffee. And see how that bread’s getting on.”
I get up to follow her, but she bats me down again.
“Sit. Stay. Relax.”
So I sit in the dappled sunlight, sipping my iced tea, trying to relax. Trying to enjoy the present, just sitting here in a beautiful garden. But emotions are still darting around me like unsettled fish.
Another way.
But I don’t know any other way. I feel like the light’s gone out and I’m feeling my way forward, one step at a time. And all I know is I can’t go back to what I was.
I clench my eyes shut, trying to clear my mind. I should never have looked at that Web site. I should never have read those comments.
“Hold out your arms, Samantha.” Iris’s voice is suddenly behind me. “Close your eyes. Go on.”
I have no idea what she’s up to, but I keep my eyes closed and hold out my arms. The next moment I feel something warm being put into them. A yeasty smell is rising up. I open my eyes to see a loaf of bread in my arms.
Proper bread. Real, proper bread like you’d see in a baker’s window. Fat and plump and golden-brown, with faint striations and a crusty, almost flaky top. It smells so delicious I can feel my mouth watering.
“Tell me that’s nothing,” says Iris, squeezing my arm. “You made that, sweetie. And you should be proud of yourself.”
Something hot is wadding my throat as I clutch the warm loaf. I made this bread. I made it. I, Samantha Sweeting, who couldn’t even microwave a packet of soup. Who gave up seven years of her life to end up with nothing, to be wiped out of existence. Who has no idea who she even is anymore.
I made a loaf of bread. Right now I feel like this is the only thing I have to hold on to.
To my horror a tear suddenly rolls down my cheek, followed by another. This is ridiculous. I must get a grip on myself.
“Looks good,” comes Nathaniel’s easy voice behind me, and I wheel round in shock to see him standing next to Iris.
“Hi,” I say, flustered. “I thought you were … fixing a pipe or something.”
“Still am.” He nods. “I just popped home.”
“I’ll go and get the other loaves out,” says Iris, patting me on the shoulder and disappearing over the grass toward the house.
I stand up. Just the sight of Nathaniel is adding all sorts of new emotions into the mix: more fish darting around my body.
Although now I think about it, they’re mainly varieties of the same fish.
“Are you all right?” he says, acknowledging my tears.
“I’m fine. It’s just been a strange day.” I brush them away in embarrassment. “I don’t usually get so emotional about … bread.”
“Mum said you got a bit frustrated.” He raises his eyebrows. “All that kneading?”
“It was the rising.” I raise a rueful smile. “Having to wait. I’ve never been good at waiting.”
“Uh-huh.” Nathaniel’s steady blue eyes meet mine.
“For anything.” Somehow I seem to be edging closer and closer to him, I’m not entirely sure how. “I have to have things now.”
“Uh-huh.”
We’re inches apart, and as I gaze up at him, breathing hard, all the frustrations and shocks of the last couple of weeks are distilling inside me. A huge block of pressure is growing, until I can’t bear it. Unable to stop myself, I reach up and pull his face down toward mine.
I haven’t kissed like this since I was a teenager. Arms wrapped around each other, oblivious of anything else in the world. Completely lost. Trish could be standing there with a video camera, issuing directions, and I wouldn’t notice.
It seems hours later that I open my eyes and we draw apart. My lips feel swollen; my legs are staggery. Nathaniel looks equally shell-shocked.
The bread is totally squashed, I suddenly notice. I try to reshape it as best I can, putting it on the table like a deformed pottery exhibit while I gather my breath.
“I don’t have long,” Nathaniel says. “I have to get b
ack to the pub.” His hand runs lightly down my back and I feel my body curving toward his.
“I don’t take long,” I say, my voice husky with desire.
When did I become so brazen, exactly?
“I really don’t have long.” He glances at his watch. “About six minutes.”
“I only take six minutes,” I murmur with an enticing glance, and Nathaniel smiles back, as though I’m joking.
“Seriously,” I say, trying to sound modest yet sexy. “I’m fast. Six minutes, give or take.”
There’s silence for a few moments. An incredulous expression is coming over Nathaniel’s face. Somehow he doesn’t look as impressed as I thought he would.
“Well … round here we take things a bit slower,” he says at last.
“Right,” I say, trying not to look at all disappointed. “Er … well … I’m sure …” I trail off.
I should not have started that sentence.
He looks at his watch again. “I must be off. I have to drive over to Gloucester tonight.”
I feel an inward drop at his businesslike tone. He’s barely looking at me anymore. I should never have mentioned timing, I realize in dismay. Everyone knows, you never bring up any kind of numerical measurement during sex with a man. It’s the most basic rule.
“So … I’ll see you,” I say, trying to sound casual yet encouraging. “What are you doing tomorrow?”
“I’m not sure yet.” He shrugs noncommittally. “Are you around?”
“I guess so. Maybe.”
“Well … I may see you.”
And with that he’s striding away again over the grass, and I’m left with nothing but a misshapen loaf of bread and total confusion.
Seventeen
Like I said. There should be a different system. There should be some kind of universal arrangement that leaves no room for misunderstanding. It could involve hand signals, perhaps. Or small, discreet stickers placed on the lapel, color-coded for different messages:
AVAILABLE/NOT AVAILABLE
RELATIONSHIP ON/RELATIONSHIP OFF
SEX IMMINENT/SEX CANCELED/SEX MERELY POSTPONED.
How else are you supposed to know what’s going on? How?
By the next morning I’ve thought long and hard and have got nowhere. Either: a) Nathaniel was offended by my references to sex and isn’t interested anymore. Or b) he’s fine, it’s all still on, he was just being a man and not saying much, and I should stop obsessing.