Agent Provocateur (40 page)

‘You’re right,’ he finally says. ‘Absolutely.’ And in that he says nothing and everything.

Betty goes to buy the papers on the way home. He trails after her but his thoughts are elsewhere. He is unhappy with himself, and he still has no idea how to resolve the situation. He watches her choosing all the papers. Picking up the tabloids first and putting the broadsheets on top as she always does. He knows that she will read the tabloids first and then save the others until last. He knows that she will pull out the magazines and not get round to reading the papers. He knows most things about her. He has no idea if Grace even reads a paper.

He knows that he has to see her. He cannot go on like this, and it is not fair on anyone. Betty even spoke to him about infidelity – does she suspect him? He needs to sort it out, although he still has no idea how.

‘Do you want coffee?’ Betty asks as they walk into the house.

‘No, I’ve got to go and pick the car up.’

‘Where is it?’

‘In some NCP car park, probably costing me a million pounds.’ He is lying, but he smiles because Betty should have a nice day. ‘I’ll only be about an hour, and then we’ll do something.’

‘I’d like that,’ she says, kissing him. ‘We could go to a market or something.’

‘That sounds perfect.’ He kisses her, then leaves.

He calls Grace as soon as he leaves the house. Her phone is engaged. He wonders who she is talking to and realises that he is totally out of control. He feels that he needs her, but he also wants Betty. Just who does he want more?

Betty calls Grace as soon as Johnny is gone. Her line is engaged, and she wonders if she is talking to her husband. She can’t go on like this. If Grace has a better nature, Betty hopes she will find it.

After Grace puts the phone down to Eddie, it immediately rings again.

‘Hi, it’s me.’

‘Hello.’

‘I’m coming to pick the car up. Can we have a quick coffee?’

‘Of course. I’m just mooching around, really. How long will you be?’

‘About half an hour, if I can find a cab.’

‘See you soon.’

She puts the phone down and it rings again straight away. She shakes her head at her new popularity.

‘Hello.’

‘Have you been speaking to him?’

‘No, Betty,’ Grace lies. ‘I was talking to a client’

‘Grace, can we talk?’

‘Yes.’

‘I know you were with him yesterday. He said he was with a client.’

‘I know.’

‘I’m going mad. I can’t cope with it. The fact he lied to me makes me imagine him doing all sorts of things with you and I can’t cope at all.’ Betty’s voice is laced with hysteria.

‘Calm down. He might have lied to you but we haven’t done anything.’

‘What you mean is you haven’t had sex with my husband,’ Betty spits.

‘No, I haven’t kissed him. I think he feels weird because we’re friends.’ Grace isn’t sure what to say, but she wants to pacify Betty, for some reason.

‘Friends? Is that all?’

‘Yes, Betty, that is. You’ve got nothing to worry about,’ Grace lies again. ‘He loves you.’

‘So can we call the bet off? No winners or losers, just finish it.’

‘OK. You don’t have to give up your husband, I don’t have to give up my job. We’ll call it a day.’

‘I don’t believe you. He’s on his way over and you’re lying to me.’

‘I love him, Betty,’ Grace says, and hangs up.

Betty cradles the receiver to her chest. The panic is rising, and she has to concentrate to breathe. She loves him. Those words are repeating in her head.
She
loves
him
. What if he loves her? She cannot lose him. She must not lose him. But how can she ensure that she doesn’t? Suddenly it feels like the biggest fight of her life and she is unsure what her strategy to win is any more. Even Superwife doesn’t feel enough.

Grace feels the tears fall and hopes they will stop. She has Betty’s words ringing in her ears – not her words, her sound. The desperation in her voice. The pleading tone to leave her husband alone. She thinks of her life, of Dave, who she knows she didn’t love; of Ben, who she didn’t love like this. Of Oliver and Eddie – again she doesn’t love them. She enjoys the sex, she enjoys the company but it isn’t love and she only knows that now because she understands. She finally knows what love feels like. And people are right when they say it is the best and worst feeling in the world. Because it is. For a moment, when she woke up and she pictured his face, she was the happiest woman in the world. But now, having spoken to Betty, she is the unhappiest. She cannot do this. She cannot carry on.

Johnny sits in the taxi, unsure why his hands are shaking. Is he going to tell her that it’s over? Or is he going to tell her it’s just starting? He doesn’t know. Panic is threatening to overtake him. He is getting closer to her flat, but he is no closer to knowing what he is going to do.

Betty washes her face and applies her make-up. Maybe he will come back home within the hour, as he said, and if he does she doesn’t want him to see her looking such a mess. She picks up the first tabloid newspaper, settles herself on the sofa and reads. Perhaps there is only one way to win, and that is normality. Johnny loves his life with her and he will not jeopardise it for a wild fancy. That is not his style.

Grace can’t face it: that much she knows. Her life feels traumatic, which it hasn’t done since she was young. She knows that she is seeing Eddie that evening to tell him that their fling is over. But what is she going to say to Johnny? Can she walk away, as Betty has asked her to do? She knows that she should walk away. But can she?

With indecision still flying around her head, her buzzer goes. She answers it and nearly screams when Eddie announces himself as her visitor.

‘This isn’t a good time. You were supposed to be here tonight.’

‘I couldn’t wait.’

‘Eddie, please, not now, really not now.’ She panics.

‘I’m not leaving until you let me in. I mean it. I’m not being ignored, like you try to do to me.’ He sounds hysterical.

Reluctantly she buzzes him up. He has always been so calm and together. She feels a pang as she realises that she will miss him, but she doesn’t want him to be there now.

‘I want to know what’s going on.’ He sounds oddly formal, like in old films, and Grace expects him to call her a hussy at any minute.

‘This is not only unnecessary but it’s not what we do. You knew when we started that this wasn’t going to be one of those relationships where we could put our hands on our hips and demand answers from each other.’

‘Yeah, well, maybe I knew that, but you let me fall in love with you.’

‘I didn’t. I always told you not to.’

‘Well, maybe my heart isn’t such a good listener.’

Grace feels as awful as she has ever felt. The tears return. She looks at him. He’s so dishevelled, yet Eddie is not that type. He looks hurt, and she has caused that hurt. There is so much hurt around that she doesn’t even know how they will contain it. Will it ever go away? Then her buzzer goes.

‘Who’s that?’

‘My financial adviser,’ she says automatically.

‘On a Sunday?’

‘We’re friends. I don’t need to explain that to you. Anyway, I guess I better get rid of him.

‘Hi,’ she says, eager, despite everything, to hear his voice.

‘Hi yourself.’ He still doesn’t know what he will say when he gets to her door.

‘Listen, I should have called, but a friend dropped in unexpectedly. Do you mind if we give coffee a miss?’ I mind, she says to herself. I fucking well mind.

Disappointment hits him. He wants to know who she is with. He pauses for a moment.

‘No problem. Will you call me? Tomorrow?’ He still has no answers, but he was hoping that he would find some in her fiat.

‘I will. Bye.’ She feels as if she has to physically tear herself away from the intercom as she walks back to Eddie.

‘Is he worth it?’

‘Worth what?’

‘Worth sacrificing everything for. Me, whoever else you play around with. Your life.’ He is almost spitting the words out at her.

‘I’m not sacrificing my life.’ It is all too much. She is exhausted.

‘Tell me, Grace, would you give up your job for him?’ He looks her in the eyes. Everything is still. Time has frozen.

‘Yes,’ she answers, honestly, as she watches Eddie walk out of her life.

Johnny is by his car, but he hasn’t yet got in. He sees a man walk out of the front door, and he wonders if that is the person Grace was with. He looks upset. He could just live there though; he might not have been with her. He feels jealous at the thought, as he reluctantly gets into his car. He considers turning back for a second, but he stops himself.

Betty calls him. If she is going to lose him, she won’t do it easily.

‘Hello.’

‘Babes, it’s me.’

‘Hi.’ He sounds upset.

‘I just wondered if you were any way near coming home?’

‘I’m in my car now. Took me ages to get a cab. Anyway, I’ll be home soon, honey.’

‘I’ll look forward to it.’

Grace looks out of her window and sees Eddie disappear up the street in one direction, and Johnny start up his car and pull out in the other. She has no idea what happens next, and she doesn’t know how to begin to find out. But one thing is clear as she looks around her perfect flat: her life has changed now, and there is no going back. No matter how awful she feels, or how guilty she is, there is no way she can let Johnny go. Betty is irrelevant, almost. Grace needs him, she wants him, she would give up her job for him. No one has ever entered her life and given her what he has given her. No one has ever made her feel the way she feels with him. She hasn’t touched him, she admits that she barely knows him, but that is the amazing thing. She cannot walk away – she has tried, but she cannot. The next time she meets him she will tell him how she feels, and she will pray that he feels the same.

He opens the door and plasters a smile on his face. He feels wretched, and is unsure how he will spend a normal Sunday afternoon without giving away that fact that he is consumed with jealousy. He is unsure how he will resolve the situation, but he knows he must. It’s not indecision, it isn’t, but he does not know what the right thing is. He still loves his wife, but he fears that he loves Grace too. And he can’t have them both. He has to choose one.

Betty greets him with a hug. She notices that he looks upset but she ignores it. She will not show him weakness. She will be Betty, Super-Superwife. She leads him into the sitting room, where the papers are scattered, like a normal Sunday. She gently pushes him on to the sofa and she sits down too. She touches his arm lightly. She smiles, straight into the eyes she loves. She will not fall apart and she won’t lose him.

‘You will not believe what they’ve printed about that MP,’ she says, as she launches into the latest scandal, and he laughs and they discuss it. For a while she has got him back. Her Johnny. She prays with all her might that she will keep him.

Johnny relaxes into the familiarity of the routine. He has always loved Betty’s idea of a Sunday. She will read the newspapers, he will read the sports pages, she will regale him with gossip and scandal, and he will discuss it with her. Then they will watch the
EastEnders
omnibus if they aren’t going out, while still making their way through the papers. Then, if they haven’t gone on Saturday, they will rush to the supermarket before it closes and buy the food for the week (normally ready meals and, of course, cat food). They will return home, open a bottle of wine and have supper. Occasionally they’ll attempt a roast, but more often than not they will have lasagne (one thing Johnny likes making), and garlic bread. After supper, they’ll again return to the sofa to watch TV, before having an early night.

Johnny kisses Betty on the top of her head. You cannot buy that comfort. You cannot buy the warmth. But you can choose to give it up, if you really think that it’s the right thing to do.

Chapter Thirty-One

Grace feels girlish as she dresses, all attempts at sophistication masked by a silliness, a nervousness, a feeling that she is on her first date. That is how he makes her feel. She is doing what Betty asked; she is forgetting the bet. Only, one thing she doesn’t know is that she is going to follow her heart. No guilt. Eddie took it badly and she felt wretched for the whole of Sunday. She ended things because it is time for her to do what her heart tells her to do. Her heart tells her to be with Johnny. There is no bet. Just a love affair waiting to happen. She will tell him how she feels, she will let him decide how he feels. She will feel bad if he leaves Betty for her; she will feel worse if he doesn’t. But she will take the risk.

She pulls on a short blue floral dress, one which makes her look feminine, because she wants that femininity. She wants to give it to him. Johnny makes her feel this way, and oh how she loves him.

She searches her wardrobe for some strappy sandals, and pictures his smile. Such a gentle smile, such an inviting smile. She longs to kiss him, to feel his arms around her. She has become the heroine of a romantic novel, because that is how he makes her feel.

And tonight is the night. The night when he will tell her that he feels the same. She knows this; feels it in her heart, and in her head. After the disaster on Sunday, he said he had to see her, and the urgency in his voice told her what she needed to know. She has won him, which has nothing to do with winning the bet.

She won’t entertain the thought that she has lost him. Grace isn’t a person who has always got what she wants – that isn’t the reason. The reason she will not think about him not loving her is that she has no idea how she will deal with it. It is easier not to think about it, but to enjoy the feeling she has that it will all work out.

She brushes her hair. It is getting so long, but that makes her feel girlie, and that is how she wants to feel: like a girl falling in love for the first time. That is who she is now. Not Grace the honey trapper, but Grace the woman, the young woman with a huge romance ahead of her.