Still Me

There was a brief silence.

‘I love you, baby,’ said Meena, and kissed him full on the mouth.

‘I love you too, baby.’

They gazed at each other and I brushed imaginary crumbs from my coat and tried not to think about Sam.

Ashok and Meena headed over to her mother’s apartment to pick up their children, hugging me and making me promise to come next week. I took myself to the diner where I had a coffee and a slice of pie. I couldn’t stop thinking about the protest, the people in the library, the grimy, potholed streets that surrounded it. I kept picturing the rips in that woman’s coat, the elderly woman beside me and her pride in her grandson’s mentoring wages. I thought about Ashok’s impassioned plea for community. I recalled how my life had been changed by our library back home, the way Will had insisted that ‘knowledge is power’. How each book I now read – almost every decision I made – could be traced back to that time.

I thought about the way that every single protester in the crowd had known somebody else or was linked to somebody else or bought them food or drink or chatted to them, how I had felt the energy rush and pleasure that came from a shared goal.

I thought about my new home where, in a silent building of perhaps thirty people nobody spoke to anyone, except to complain about some small infringement of their own peace, where nobody apparently either liked anyone or could be bothered to get to know them enough to find out.

I sat until my pie grew cold in front of me.

When I got back I did two things: I wrote a short note to Mrs De Witt thanking her for the beautiful scarf, telling her the gift had made my week, and that if she ever wanted further help with the dog I would be delighted to learn more about canine care. I put it into an envelope and slid it under her door.

I knocked on Ilaria’s door, trying not to be intimidated when she opened it and stared at me with open suspicion. ‘I passed the coffee shop where they sell the cinnamon cookies you like so I bought you some. Here.’ I held out the bag to her.

She eyed it warily. ‘What do you want?’

‘Nothing!’ I said. ‘Just … thanks for the whole thing with the kids the other day. And, you know, we work together and stuff so …’ I shrugged. ‘It’s just some cookies.’

I held them a few inches closer to her so that she was obliged to take them from me. She looked at the bag, then at me, and I had the feeling she was about to thrust it back at me, so before she could I waved and hurried back to my room.

That evening I went online and looked up everything I could find out about the library: the news stories about its budget cuts, threatened closures, small success stories – Local teen credits library for college scholarship – printing out key pieces and saving all the useful information into a file.

And at a quarter to nine, an email popped into my inbox. It was titled SORRY.

Lou,

I’ve been on lates all week and I wanted to write when I had more than five minutes and knew I wasn’t going to mess things up more. I’m not great with words. And I’m guessing only one word is really important here. I’m sorry. I know you wouldn’t cheat. I was an idiot even for thinking it.

The thing is it’s hard being so far apart and not knowing what’s going on in your life. When we meet it’s like the volume’s turned up too high on everything. We can’t just relax with each other.

I know your time in New York is important to you and I don’t want you to stay still.

I’m sorry, again.

Your Sam

xxx

It was the closest thing he’d sent me to a letter. I stared at the words for a few moments, trying to unpick what I felt. Finally I opened up an email and typed:

I know. I love you. When we see each other at Christmas hopefully we’ll have time just to relax around each other. Lou xxx

I sent it, then answered an email from Mum and wrote one to Treena. I typed them on autopilot, thinking about Sam the whole time. Yes, Mum, I will check out the new pictures of the garden on Facebook. Yes, I know Bernice’s daughter pulls that duck face in all her pictures. It’s meant to be attractive.

I logged onto my bank, and then onto Facebook and found myself smiling, despite myself, at the endless pictures of Bernice’s daughter with her rubberized pout. I saw Mum’s pictures of our little garden, the new chairs she had bought from the garden centre. Then, almost on a whim, I found myself flicking to Katie Ingram’s page. Almost immediately I wished I hadn’t. There, in glorious technicolour, were seven recently uploaded pictures of a paramedics’ night out, possibly the one they had been headed to when I had called.

Or, worse, possibly not.

There was Katie, in a dark pink shirt that looked like silk, her smile wide, her eyes knowing, leaning across the table to make a point, or her throat bared as she threw back her head in a laugh. There was Sam, in his battered jacket and a grey T-shirt, his big hand clasping a glass of what looked like lime cordial, a few inches taller than everyone else. In every picture the group was happy, laughing at shared jokes. Sam looked utterly relaxed and completely at home. And in every picture, Katie Ingram was pressed up next to him, nestled into his armpit as they sat around the pub table, or gazing up at him, one hand resting lightly on his shoulder.

16

‘I have project for you.’ I was seated in the corner at her super-trendy hairdresser’s, waiting while Agnes had her hair coloured and blow-dried. I had been watching the local news reports of the library-closure protest, and switched my phone off hurriedly when she approached, her hair in carefully folded layers of tin foil. She sat down beside me, ignoring the colourist who clearly wanted her back in her seat.

‘I want you to find me very small piano. To ship to Poland.’

She said this as if she was asking me to buy a packet of gum from Duane Reade.

‘A very small piano.’

‘A very special small piano for child to learn on. Is for my sister’s little girl,’ she said. ‘It must be very good quality, though.’

‘Are there no small pianos you can buy in Poland?’

‘Not this good. I want it to come from Hossweiner and Jackson. These are best pianos in the world. And you must organize special shipping with climate control so it is not affected by cold or moisture as this will alter the tone. But the shop should be able to help with this.’

‘How old is your sister’s kid again?’

‘She is four.’

‘Uh … okay.’

‘And it needs to be the best so she can hear the difference. There is huge difference, you know, between tones. Is like playing Stradivarius compared to cheap fiddle.’

‘Sure.’

‘But here is thing.’ She turned away, ignoring the now frantic colourist, who was gesturing at her head from across the salon and tapping at a non-existent watch. ‘I do not want this to appear on my credit card. So you must withdraw money every week to pay for this. Bit by bit. Okay? I have some cash already.’

‘But … Mr Gopnik wouldn’t mind, surely?’

‘He thinks I spend too much on my niece. He doesn’t understand. And if Tabitha discovers this she twist everything to make me look like bad person. You know what she is like, Louisa. So you can do this?’ She looked at me intently from under the layers of foil.

‘Uh, okay.’

‘You are wonderful. I am so happy to have friend like you.’ She hugged me abruptly so that the foils crushed against my ear and the colourist immediately ran over to see what damage my face had done.