Josh, Samantha told Michael, had moved out the day before. They’d talked for several hours, Samantha said, and agreed that for the time being it was the right thing to do. She was going to come round and tell Michael at some point, but as she’d bumped into him now, well, he may as well know.
Michael didn’t know what to say. He offered her his sympathies, asked if she was all right. He hadn’t expected them to break. He’d thought, in these last quiet months, they’d been holding each other closer, not coming apart. “God, Sam,” he said, “that must be tough.” Samantha nodded, her jaw tight, holding back. Then, suddenly, she laughed. A short, manic burst that made Michael think she might cry, too.
“It’s amazing, really,” she said, through the tail of it, “that we’ve lasted this long.”
―
Michael had seen hardly anything of either Samantha or Josh since Lucy’s death. The funeral had been for close family only, conducted just two days after the coroner had returned a verdict of accidental death. In the week afterwards Michael had gone for a coffee with Samantha, in the same café in which they were sitting now. She’d cried through most of their time together and left while her coffee was still warm. He’d seen her only a couple of other times since then and usually like this, unplanned, crossing paths around the shops, the supermarket. He’d found it almost unbearable, this sudden distance between him and the Nelsons. Having decided upon his course of action and justified his choices, the only outlet for Michael’s guilt — the possibility of his helping Josh and Samantha — had been denied him with their absence. In the wake of it he’d been left, distracted and hollow, with the hauntings of what he’d done, of what he’d seen.
Since that run on the Heath a couple of months earlier Michael had seen Josh just the once. Michael had been gardening at the time, working on the borders along the hedge that divided his building’s strip of lawn from theirs. It was evening and Josh had come out to smoke a cigarette down by the willow. On his way to the pond he’d only nodded at Michael, but on his way back up to the house he’d come over to speak with him. He was sorry, he’d said, about the other day, on the Heath. He shouldn’t have gone off like that. Michael told him it was fine, that he understood. Which is when Josh had looked at him as if he didn’t know him, as if someone had just reminded him of how recently this stranger had entered their lives.
“See you around,” Josh had said, as he’d turned to go. But Michael hadn’t. Since then, Josh and Samantha had kept themselves closer than ever. The house, when he passed it, betrayed little sign of being lived in. Rather, it was as if they were held within it, the way a box filled with tissue paper holds a blown egg, or a single, almost weightless, filigreed gem. Their loss had become delicate, and it seemed to Michael this was why they’d stayed inside, fearing any exposure or disturbance that might further its fracture.
Rachel, too, he’d seen only once, in a bookshop in Hampstead with her mother. He hadn’t approached them. There’d been something in Rachel’s expression that had stopped him. She’d always been a serious girl, but this was different. As he’d watched her, she’d moved through the shop as if a trick had been played on her, one that no one had told her about. A truth the rest of the world had always been in on, but about which, until now, she’d been kept in the dark. With a sullen slowness, she’d picked a couple of books off the shelves, flicked through their pages, then put them back. She was disengaged, her curiosity defused. And yet Michael was sure, had he gone to her, she would have known. In the way that cats or horses know. She would have sensed his falseness, the ugliness of his endeavour.
For much of the summer Rachel had stayed at Martha’s in Sussex, in the company of her cousins. This was where Samantha was going when Michael had seen her on the street. To pick up Rachel and bring her home. But she had some time, she’d told him, before her train. Would he join her for tea?
“I didn’t want Rachel to be there,” she explained to Michael, as she stirred in her sugar, “when Josh left.”
“Does she know?” Michael asked. “That he’s moved out?”
Samantha looked into her cup, as if she’d been caught stealing. “Not yet,” she said. “But I’m going to tell her tonight. Explain.”
“It would be best,” Michael said. “Before she comes home.”
“It’s the right thing,” she said, looking up at Michael. “You have to believe me. It’s all been so much worse since…He’s been so much worse.”
One of the buses started up and pulled away from its stand. Samantha watched it edge into the road, dislodging a wedge of sunlight onto the pavement.
“Worse?” Michael said.
“He’s been drinking.” She was still watching the bus, as if Josh was on it. “All the time. In the morning, before bed. He’s always had a temper, but…”
“Has he gone back to work?”
She raised her eyebrows and let out another little laugh. “Oh, yes,” she exclaimed. “As soon as he bloody could.”
“Isn’t that good?” Michael said.
“Maybe.” She took a deep breath, exhaling it as a sigh. “He stays out,” she said, returning her attention to Michael. “Or in the office. I never know which. Until one, two in the morning.” She took a sip of her tea. Michael could see this was no longer about discussing a decision. Samantha had come to her choice some time ago, and this was already the aftermath, the resolution.
“Everyone has their own way of coping,” he offered. “That might just be his.”
“I know, I know. But…” She paused. Then, with a small collapse of her shoulders. “To be honest, we’ve been heading this way for a while.”
“Really?” Michael thought of the dinners they’d shared, the walks, the parties. He’d often sensed a strain about them, and he doubted Josh had ever been faithful for long. But at the same time he’d never thought they might split, and he’d always found it difficult to imagine them beyond their marriage.
“What happened,” Samantha said, her face tensing with even this vague reference to Lucy’s death. “It’s just…accelerated.” She took another drink of her tea. Michael did the same. He didn’t speak. He could tell Samantha was weighing up whether to tell him something. When she put her cup down, she did so carefully, like placing the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle, then leant forward, bringing her face closer to his. “I can’t be sure,” she said, looking him in the eye. “But I think Josh has been having an affair.”
“Josh?” Michael said.
“With Maddy.” Samantha said her name as if admitting something herself. “I think he’s been screwing Maddy.”
Michael thought of that night in the lap-dancing club, Josh pointing his finger at him as the dancer, Bianca, led him towards the private rooms. It had been so brash, so immature. It felt a country away from Maddy’s buttoned-down eroticism, her held reserve. But then there’d been that meeting at the wine bar in Belsize Park — Josh’s air of discomfort when they’d gone for their run the day after.
Samantha sat back in her chair, her definitive point made. There’d been no anger in her voice, no jealousy. Just the certainty of her choice. The drink. Maddy. She’d weighed the accumulating factors, all, he knew, in the light of Lucy’s death, and decided her course. Her life was changing, altering by the second. It was both terrifying and exciting to witness.
“Christ,” Michael said. “Do you think Tony knows?”
“I don’t know,” Samantha said. “And I don’t care.” But as she said those words a softness in her voice betrayed her. “I want him to be okay, Michael,” she said, leaning forward again. “I really do. But…” Her eyes began to well. “I’ve got to think of myself, Rachel.”