like Sam having a swim. Just about making the effort. And, judging from the Pisa-esque tower of toast and Marmite that Gemma had just made herself, it had a similar effect on her appetite.
Sam wiped the crumbs off the work surface without even realising what she was doing, before grabbing an apple and following Gemma into the sitting room.
‘How’s your job going?’ Anything. Sam would rather talk about anything than leave her mind to wander today. It kept trespassing into restricted areas. And Gemma was the perfect distraction. Just chatty enough to require concentration, just day-to-day enough to allow simultaneous magazine flick-through and general multi-tasking.
‘I could do this one standing on my head, but it pays pretty well considering I spend most of my day sending personal e-mails around the world and surfing the net. In fact, I was checking out the Friends Reunited website this week…’
‘You haven’t got into all that, have you?’
‘It’s brilliant. Most of our year have registered, and it’s great to see what they’re all up to. Loads of them are married.’
‘Mmm.’ Sam didn’t mind weddings. She just didn’t view marriage in the glorious Technicolor of many of her peers. She had trouble visualising the bit at the altar. Or maybe it was visualising the person waiting for her at the end of the aisle that was her main stumbling block.
‘Can’t believe it’ll be Sophie in a month… Anyway, between you and me I’m sort of hoping Dominic Pearson will get in touch. He was so damn sexy.’
‘He was pre-pubescent.’ Puffer Pearson had been smoking twenty-a-day in ten-packs from the age of fourteen and spent his early teens loitering behind his fringe at the bus stop, wearing a denim jacket over his blazer. Needless to say he and Gemma had often had to be prised apart at the bitter end of house parties. ‘And it’s all very well getting nostalgic, but life’s all about moving forward.’
‘But your schooldays are supposed to be the happiest of your life.’
‘Don’t believe the hype. I have no interest in re-establishing contact with people who spent their lives poking fun at me.’
Probably not the best time for Gemma to mention that she’d registered Sam on the site, then.
‘They were just jealous. You were annoyingly good at everything.’
‘I was asked to give up Art.’ She’d liked to think she’d been more of an abstract artist. The Kandinsky of the Greenside High School for Girls art department. So what if she couldn’t sketch a still life of a vase or a feather? She probably could have pickled a sheep or a cow in formaldehyde quite successfully, and with the right palette she was sure she might even have been able to give Mark Rothko a run for his money.
‘Fantastic. You’re not perfect after all. I’ve found your Achilles’ heel.’
‘No need to look quite so delighted. See, this is the problem.’
Sam’s mood had definitely shifted again. Gemma decided to return to non-controversial tales from the typing pool.
‘Anyway, the agency are going to send me somewhere new. The first few days anywhere are always the most fun…that’s when I get to save the day. Once I’ve mastered the software and company protocol, and lost a few incoming calls in the system, that is…’
Sam couldn’t imagine anything worse than being a temp—except maybe having Gemma as her temp. Still, she had to hand it to her. Her positivity was apparently unassailable. Gemma was one of life’s more buoyant passengers.
‘But it’s been keeping me in beer money since Australia, and something better will turn up—I’m sure of it. Only yesterday I met this woman at the bus stop…’
Gemma collected people as eclectically as some people collected fridge magnets.
‘…she was a photographer—nothing National Geographic would be bidding for, just weddings and family portraits, but tasteful. No soft focus airbrush or fake fabric weave…’
Sam nodded, to acknowledge that she was still listening. She prodded her neck and rolled it through one hundred and eighty degrees, first in one direction and then back again. There was no mistaking the tension. She was going to have to relax. She added it to her mental ‘to do’ list for the afternoon, but even she could see that ‘relax’ wasn’t something she’d be able to fit in to the five minutes between bill-paying, shower-head descaling and toenail painting.
‘She used to be an investment banker. Just woke up one morning and realised she wasn’t living the life she wanted and so she changed everything…’
Maybe if she ditched toenail painting? It was March: still far too chilly to get her feet out.
‘…downshifted. With no regrets. It really makes you think, and it just shows you never know what’s round the corner if you keep your eyes open to possibilities…’
‘Yup…alternatively you can just set yourself a goal and work towards it.’ Sam started sorting the papers and magazines on the coffee table.
‘That’s all very well if you’re as focused as you are, but most people don’t have as many objectives, goals, strategies and backup plans as a political party in an election campaign…nor do they get up at eight a.m. on a Saturday.’
Sam was sure there was a compliment in there somewhere, just fighting to get out.
‘But for the rest of us it’s good to see that life all works out in the end. She had a really good karma…’
The only karma Sam knew anything about had something to do with Culture Club in the early eighties. She kept it to herself.
‘Anyway, things do happen for a reason. If I hadn’t come back from Australia when I did, you and I wouldn’t be living together.’
‘Exactly.’ It had been meant to be a joke. Sort of. Smiling in an attempt to soften her tone, Sam got to her feet. ‘Another cup of tea?’
‘I’d love one…’
Silently Sam thanked India for providing the British with bottomless cuppas. There appeared to be no limit to their restorative powers…and no teabags in the jar.
‘Gemma Cousins…’
‘Mmm?’ From Sam’s tone, Gemma could sense trouble. And she could take a pretty could swing at why.
‘We seem to be out of tea.’
‘Ah.’ She did her best to be contrite. ‘Not to worry. I’ll just have an instant coffee, then.’
Sam muttered to herself as she let the cupboard door slam. Gemma clearly believed in teabag fairies, loo paper elves and waste disposal pixies, and her faith was always rewarded.
‘Luckily I went shopping this morning.’
Gemma’s voice wafted into the kitchen. ‘Let me know how much I owe you…’
It was only for six months, and then once again she’d be able to wax her legs
