The Good Part(33)

‘Your dad had some heart issues a few years ago,’ Sam tells me. ‘He had a pacemaker fitted. Your mum’s got cataracts. Other than that they’re both in good health.’ He pauses, then adds softly, ‘Call them if you want. Though your mum will be in the car on her way over here before you’ve even hung up the call.’

‘Maybe tomorrow then,’ I say, shifting back in my chair. ‘Yesterday, when I spoke to my old flatmate Emily, she said we weren’t friends, that we hadn’t stayed in touch.’

‘You’ve never mentioned her to me.’ Sam frowns. ‘I still can’t believe you went to London and tried to carry on as normal, Luce. What did you say to your colleagues?’

The memory of getting drunk and lunging the twenty-year-old runner flashes through my mind, making me physically cringe.

‘Who am I friends with now? Tell me I’m still close to my school gang – Faye, Zoya, Roisin?’ Sam’s eyes drop to his lap. ‘What?’

‘Let’s just see how you are tomorrow, the doctor said—’

‘The doctor doesn’t know what’s wrong with me,’ I say, my voice cracking with emotion. ‘I went along with all those tests today because, well, it’s the only logical explanation, isn’t it, but nothing about this feels logical. Please, just tell me I have some friends left.’

‘You have plenty of friends. Faye lives twenty minutes away; you see her all the time. We could invite her over tomorrow if you like.’

This is a relief. ‘What about Zoya, Roisin? I couldn’t get through to anyone.’

Sam braces both hands against the edge of the table before saying, ‘How about we sit down in the morning, and I’ll catch you up on everyone. We’ll work out how to tell people what’s going on.’ His face darkens, all the levity gone. ‘Today has been a lot to take in. I don’t think you should try anyone tonight.’

I’m not sure if he means a lot for me, or a lot for him, but I nod. I suppose I can’t expect to be caught up on sixteen years in just one day.

‘Will you tell me more about you?’ I ask.

‘Me?’ Sam looks coy suddenly.

‘Yes. I don’t know anything about you. What do you do for work? Where are you from? Do you have siblings? Any weird hobbies or predilections I should know about, apart from a strange relationship with grouse hens?’ He smiles. ‘I see from the wedding album you play the piano.’

He shakes his head and puffs out his cheeks, perhaps still unable to compute that I really don’t know any of this. Then he takes a long, slow breath, as though gearing up to respond.

‘Well, I’m from Scotland originally, a small village called Balquhidder. I have two sisters, Leda and Maeve. Leda’s still in Scotland, Maeve moved to America, we don’t see them as often as we’d like. I work as a composer, so yes, I play the piano every day. I used to have hobbies, but now I spend my weekends running around after the kids and picking up my drunk wife from train stations.’ This last part makes me reach out and gently tap my fist against his arm.

‘A composer? That sounds impressive. What do you compose? Where’s your piano?’

‘This is so nuts,’ Sam says beneath his breath. Then he turns to face me and says, ‘I used to write songs, now I mainly do scores for film and television. I have a studio at the end of the garden. You and I built it together when we first bought this house.’

‘I don’t know what I’m more surprised by,’ I say, ‘that I helped construct a studio or that I’m married to a pop star.’

‘Definitely not a pop star,’ Sam says firmly. ‘I wrote songs for other people; I never performed them myself.’

‘You never wanted to?’

‘No, I don’t enjoy performing. You think it’s because I’m shy, but it’s not. I love writing music, that doesn’t mean I have any compulsion to get on a stage.’

‘There’s a photo of you playing at our wedding.’

‘That was different. That was for you, for close family and friends.’ He drops his gaze to the table. ‘Plus my leg was shaking so much I could hardly press the pedals.’

‘We look very in love in that photo,’ I say, feeling my cheeks heat as I say it.

‘We were. We are.’ His eyes meet mine, causing the heat to spread through my entire body.

‘Have you written anything I would have heard of?’ I ask briskly, unnerved by this new energy between us. He pauses. ‘What? Why are you smiling?’

‘I wrote the song you sang in the karaoke bar eleven years ago, the night we met.’

‘So, it was “love at first sight” because I was singing your song?’

‘That’s not why,’ he says, biting back a smile.

‘I bet you use it as a line all the time – “Hey, you hear that song on the radio? I wrote that.” ’ Am I flirting with him? It feels like I’m flirting with him. He crosses his arms in front of his chest and it’s endearing, this coyness. He clears his throat.

‘That’s not my style, no.’

‘That’s what I would do if I wrote a famous song,’ I tell him.

‘I know.’ Sam’s eyes are dancing with amusement. ‘You go up to people in bars all the time and yell, “My husband wrote this song!” It’s embarrassing.’