Love Nest (22 page)

24

Carol at All Thinges Nice had been very friendly on the phone and said she’d love Grace to come in for an interview. ‘Though actually I’m closing the shop for a couple of weeks,’ she said in a squeaky posh voice. ‘We’re off on holiday to Antigua. Could you come in a fortnight Friday? Look forward to meeting you.’

In that fortnight, Grace recommenced a new diet. She decided to go for one she’d read about online, involving only citrus fruits and protein. After two weeks of it, marred by only one lapse involving an entire packet of Rice Krispies she’d stashed for emergencies at the back of a cupboard, she’d lost ten pounds. So she was in high spirits as she drove to Kingsbridge along narrow country lanes. Spring was definitely arriving, the lilac trees would flower soon, the witch hazel was already out, lambs were frolicking in the fields and the sunlight was pale lemon.

Richie Prescott hadn’t called. But that was all right. Grace kept remembering all the things she hadn’t liked about him: his blotchy complexion, the fact he was her age but appeared at least five years older, the fact he’d been married before. No. She was better off without Richie. She was going to pursue a career in retail.

All Thinges Nice was on a side street and had a candy pink façade. Its windows were strung with feather-shaded fairy lights and displayed a pile of pink cushions, a pink dressing table topped with a pink mirror and a huge pink bamboo birdcage. Pushing open the door, Grace was assailed by an odour of vanilla, lavender and sandalwood. The caressing tones of Enya tinkled out of speakers. She saw a lace-covered table piled high with magenta silk scarves and fuchsia velvet hats. Grace stared at a rack of birthday cards adorned with glitter and sparkly studs. She glanced at a price sticker.
Five pounds?
Surely that couldn’t be right. But it was all terribly pretty, terribly feminine. She reached out to stroke a peach silk camisole.

‘Can I help you?’

A tall
thin
woman with long, blonde hair, in a jewelled tunic and jeans, appeared from behind a carved screen. She looked at Grace dubiously, as if she might steal some scented writing paper.

‘I’m Grace Porter-Healey. Here for my interview.’

Blue eyes scanned her. ‘Oh, Grace! Of course. Hello. I’m Carol.’ She extended a skeletal hand. ‘It’s so lovely to meet you. Welcome to my little empire.’ She giggled. ‘It’s been going about six months – my youngest started school and I had nothing to do, so Bartie, my husband, put up the cash to start this little business. Not ideal timing, what with the credit crunch and everything, but it’s always been my dream to own a shop.’

‘It’s lovely,’ Grace breathed.

‘I’m so glad you like it.’ Carol paused for a second, then said, ‘Now, listen, Grace. I don’t want to disappoint you when you’ve come all this way but unfortunately the role of assistant has actually been filled.’

‘Oh.’

‘I’m so sorry. I tried to call. I didn’t get any reply.’

‘The answerphone was on,’ Grace said. A stone was lodged in the base of her throat. She was too fat for All Thinges Nice.

‘Really? Maybe I dialled the wrong number.’ Carol’s eyes grew bigger by the second. She put her hand on Grace’s arm. ‘But listen, Grace. Not all is lost. There is a job you could do for me. I’d only need you for a week or so but it would be an enormous help. And I’d pay you. Cash in hand. Can’t do the minimum wage I’m afraid, credit crunch and all that, but I could do six pounds an hour.’

‘I…’

‘It’s this way,’ Carol said. She led Grace through the crammed shop floor and down a narrow dark flight of stairs into a windowless basement, crammed with cardboard boxes.

‘We’re putting together eco gift baskets,’ she explained. ‘One bottle of seaweed shower gel, one cake of soap, one flannel. You need to put them all in one of these wicker baskets, on top of some hay, cover them in polythene and tie a lovely ribbon. We’ve got about four hundred to do.’ She winked. ‘I bought a job lot on the internet. With the packaging it’ll be a six hundred per cent mark-up.’

‘Oh,’ said Grace.

‘Do you want to start now or to come back tomorrow?’

Grace shrugged. ‘I might as well start now.’

‘By the way, I won’t be back until late tonight,’ Karen said casually over breakfast on Friday morning.

Phil looked up, annoyed. ‘But
I’ll
be home late. I’ve got yoga.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Karen said. She was in a vile mood anyway, because there was no real coffee. No one had told her they were close to running out, so she hadn’t ordered more and now she was having to make do with Nescafé, which she hated. Plus her high boots were pinching her toes and it wasn’t even eight yet. She was worried about her outfit – a kaftan over leggings, set off with strings of beads. Less than an hour ago she’d thought it gave her an air of jet-set chic but now she suspected she looked like a clown. Then there were her nails – she’d spent all yesterday evening applying polish, then removing it because it looked as if it had been applied by a drunk five-year-old, then reapplying it, then removing it, until the carefully purchased jar was half empty, whereupon she’d decided she was never bothering again.

How could she go to a gig with Max? People would think she’d mistaken the venue for a bingo hall and warn her there was no Stannah stairlift.

‘I did tell you. Yoga’s been changed to Friday evenings,’ Phil said. ‘Anyway, I assumed you’d be home at the usual time. You always are.’

‘We’ll have to see if Ludmila can babysit,’ she sighed. ‘Go and knock on her door.’ Ludmila never surfaced before ten.

‘I can’t do that. She might think I was making a pass. Where are
you
going, anyway?’

‘What’s a pass?’ asked Bea.

‘Nothing,’ Karen said. ‘I’ve got a leaving do. Remember Jamila? She’s off to a new job.’

‘Oh, right,’ said Phil. As she suspected, he couldn’t remember Jamila at all. Just as well, since she’d actually left the
Post
to freelance four years ago.

Why wasn’t she telling Phil the truth about where she was going, Karen wondered as she took her seat on the train, having bribed Ludmila with double pay to babysit. They weren’t living in Afghanistan, it was quite legal to go out with an old friend – male or female.

It was legal. But was it innocent?

Once you were married, you didn’t have friends of the opposite sex any more. They were the first thing to go after marriage – well maybe not the
first
, that was probably shaving your legs regularly. But friendships were not long afterwards. After all, they only really started if there was a batsqueak of flirtation there, and once you were off the market, that flirtation seemed wrong. In any case, all her old male friends were coupled off too now, and seeing them one on one was somehow taboo. In marriedland you had foursomes in the unkinky sense, or women only. Karen missed those insights into how male brains worked.

She missed friendships full stop. Even before Phil got ill, the girls and work had already meant she rarely had the time or energy to lavish on her mates. It was fine, she told herself, Phil was her friend, the only person on the planet who cared – or pretended to care – that Christine had humiliated her in conference or Eloise’s teacher had smirked at the birthday cake she’d made. She’d heard about his business, the companies he was going to invest in, his secretary’s new boyfriend. A lot of it had been boring, but it didn’t matter. A lot of
life
was boring, but when you had someone else’s attention it gave it the veneer of meaning. Of substance.

But Phil’s illness had changed all that. All the trivial stuff that had been the fabric of their lives became irrelevant. They had one sole focus, defeating the cancer. And the cancer had robbed her of Phil, just like another woman might have done; though Phil – surely – would never have got involved with another woman; his faithful nature was one of the things Karen loved best about him.

So how was it that now she often wished he had run off with someone else? Because then she could have left him without anyone thinking worse of her.

Karen shivered as her train pulled into King’s Cross. She wasn’t going to analyse this. She was just going to enjoy a night out. Go with the flow.

Grace managed to put together eight gift baskets that morning. It wasn’t nearly as easy as it looked. It was tricky to pull the polythene tight over the basket and tie a neat raffia ribbon. The hay made her sneeze and the odour of seaweed left a sour taste at the back of her throat. The scratchy baskets pricked her fingers. And her stomach was rumbling. There was a baker’s down the road. Grace kept wondering if it sold sausage rolls. She wondered if she’d be allowed a lunch break. She wondered about telling Carol that she had a PhD in classical civilization.

‘How are you doing?’ Carol asked, sticking her head round the door.

‘Fine!’ Grace said breezily.

‘Um.’ Carol’s nose wrinkled. ‘You need a bit less hay in each basket, Grace. It all costs. You’ll have to take some out of each.’

‘And redo the polythene cover?’ Grace asked, horrified.

‘Afraid so. Sorry, Grace. Good thing I checked on you, eh?’

The highlight of Grace’s day was lunch, though to her horror it didn’t come until three o’clock.

‘Sorry, Grace, I’d forgotten all about you down here,’ Carol laughed. ‘Why don’t you pop out for half an hour?’ She looked at Grace’s work. After redoing the first six gift boxes, she’d managed sixteen more. ‘Oh my God! Grace. What’s with these ribbons? They’re a bit… What can I say? They need to be smarter than this.’

‘Oh.’ Grace looked up at her dejectedly. She’d never been good with her hands, but she’d done her best.

‘Never mind,’ Carol tutted. ‘See you back here at half three.’

To comfort herself, Grace had two sausage rolls. And a packet of crisps. And a doughnut. She sat on a wall, feeling the spring sunshine on her arms. She had a job. Well. Sort of. But if she worked really hard at it, then maybe Carol would overcome her prejudices and realize Grace was a natural shop assistant.

You could be aiming higher than shop assistant
, she told herself uncertainly.
You have a PhD.
But a PhD in a useless subject. She could teach again, she supposed, but the thought of a room full of young, attractive students sniggering at her was more than she could bear.

She’d start another diet tomorrow. Carol would recognize her talents. She’d promote her to the shop floor, then maybe to assistant manager. Together they’d create some kind of franchise. Take over the south-west. Then England. Then Europe, then America…

Carol was waiting for her at the door. She looked serious.

‘Hello Grace,’ she said, as if Grace were the village idiot. ‘Hope you had a nice break. Now, listen, sweetheart, don’t take this the wrong way but I’ve been inspecting your work. And it’s really just not up to snuff I’m afraid. I don’t think All Thinges Nice is quite the place for you, my dear. So…’ She pressed a twenty-pound note into Grace’s hand. ‘Take this, my angel and let’s call it quits. There’ll be a better job for you somewhere else. Maybe in an old folks’ home? All right? No hard feelings.’

And the pink door was slammed in a stunned Grace’s face.

Tears blinded her eyes so much, she could barely drive home. She couldn’t even work in the basement of a stupid gift shop. What was wrong with her? She was useless, unlovable. All her education had been for nothing.

Grace focused on biscuits. She’d stop at Mac Maschler’s shop in the village and buy some Bourbons. And some HobNobs. Jammie Dodgers. An enormous loaf of bread. And she’d eat it all in one vast gulp. Maybe be sick. And then eat some more.

She pulled up outside the shop, formulating her excuses for Mac. ‘
Guests are coming. The Drakes are paying a visit.’
She was sure he didn’t believe her lies, but she didn’t care.

But a sign on the shop door read
Closed.

Grace stared at it in disbelief. She got out. She rattled the handle. But it was true. How dare Mac? Where could he have gone? It was only four. She’d have to drive back to Kingsbridge. Go somewhere relatively anonymous like Somerfield, where she could pile her basket high. Pretend she had a houseful of guests to feed.

But there wasn’t time now. It was the dogs’ suppertime. She couldn’t leave them hungry. She’d go home, feed them, then return to Somerfield, where she’d buy enough food to last her a month. Well, a week anyway.

She roared up Chadlicote’s drive, the Mini’s throttle sending flocks of startled birds out of the hedgerows. As she embarked on the home straight, she saw a black Bentley parked in front of the house. Two men were standing in front of it, in dark suits. Grace slowed down. Their faces came into focus.

One was a tall, dark, rather sad-looking man in a pinstriped suit. The other was Richie Prescott.

25

The Vertical Blinds gig took place in a tiny theatre off Camden Road. Karen was really enjoying it. Yes, the music was loud, but it didn’t make her ears ache. It was really very catchy. She felt herself moving in time to it, then jumping up and down a bit, even singing along to some of the choruses. It helped that she and Max had been out to dinner at an Indian, first, where she had downed three bottles of Cobra, and now had another plastic pint glass in her hand, but still… This was her, she thought, as she applauded wildly at the end of a song. She’d rediscovered the real Karen. The Karen who liked noise; hot, dark crowded rooms; being surrounded by strangers. Fields, open spaces were never going to do it for her.
But Karen, you’re forty-one. You can’t start attending gigs now. Next thing you know you’ll be putting your hair in bunches and wearing ‘Hello Kitty’ T-shirts.

If you left Phil you could do whatever you wanted.

No, I couldn’t
, she told the devil on her shoulder.
Because I’d still have the girls. Broken-hearted girls at that. Girls who almost lost their dad once, who adore him.

She glanced at Max, sweat shining on his forehead. She couldn’t ignore it. He was stirring up all sorts of needs in her, needs she’d assumed had died forever, needs she thought mature adults just learned to live without but which now she realized were as vital as breathing.

Ridiculous. He was practically a baby. Karen had babies of her own. Who would always come first.

At the end of the evening she’d peck him on the cheek and thank him and run for the last train home. She’d cool off the lunches. She’d be leaving London for good in a couple of months anyway. She’d make a new life for herself in the country, she’d join a book group, maybe learn to ride and…

‘You OK?’ Max shouted in her ear.

‘Fine. Just hot.’

‘Do you want another drink?’

‘No, no, thanks. I’m fine. I… Oh, shit!’

A man pushing past her carrying six plastic pints of beer had stumbled, soaking her front, her hair, her feet.

‘Sorry, darling! Sorry, love. You all right?’ He was dabbing her with his denim jacket. Max pulled a tissue out of his pocket and started to dab too. His hand reached a little too close to her breasts, and he snatched it back. Relieved to see someone had taken over, the man disappeared into the crowd with another mouthed ‘Sorry!’

‘You’re soaked,’ Max shouted over the drone of the bass guitar.

‘Thanks for stating the obvious. I must stink. How am I going to get home like this?’ She should be cross, but actually she found it quite funny.

‘Have you got anything you could change into?’

‘Funnily enough, no.’

There was a pause. On stage the music roared, but Max and Karen didn’t hear it as he said, slightly too casually, ‘I only live up the road. You could always come back to mine and borrow a T-shirt.’

*

Max’s flat was a studio in a block of flats next door to a taxidermist’s shop. Through the grilled windows, Karen spotted a stuffed owl, wings poised for flight, several stags’ heads, a snarling fox. She hugged herself. Places like this were what London was all about. Entering the flat, however, her buoyancy evaporated. How studenty, she thought, taking in the framed posters on the wall, piles of CDs and old newspapers everywhere, a vast HDTV screen. At least it was impressively tidy. And why were there candles everywhere?

‘Sorry, it’s a bit of a tip,’ he said apologetically.

‘It’s not, not at all,’ she said – thinking,
Candles?
Were they already there? Or was he planning this? As if sensing her thoughts, Max took a box of matches from the mantelpiece and began to light them.

‘Would you like a drink?’ he said over his shoulder.

‘Well, seeing as I’m here.’ She’d drunk too much already. But she was scared. Her heart fluttered like sails in the breeze.

‘A glass of champagne?’

‘
Champagne?
’

‘It’s all I’ve got in the fridge. Apart from beer. And you’ve probably seen enough beer for one night.’

‘I think I should get changed first.’

‘Oh yeah, I need to find you a T-shirt. Come and have a look.’

Swallowing, she followed him into his bedroom. A neatly made bed. A pile of books by it. No visible trace of porn mags or Nintendos. Max bent over and opened a drawer. Glancing over his shoulder, Karen saw a jumbled mess of T-shirts, boxer shorts and ties.

‘Drawers not as tidy as the room,’ she said.

Max laughed. ‘Nicely spotted. But I didn’t think you’d be looking in my drawers.’

They both realized the implications. Marx had been hoping she’d come back with him. Blushing faintly, he pulled out a white T-shirt. ‘Will this do?’

‘Great.’

‘I’ll wait for you.’

‘OK,’ she said. He left the room. Karen exhaled deeply, as if she were seven centimetres dilated. She pulled off her kaftan, which reeked like a brewery, and put it into her bag. She stood there for a moment in her black lace bra, holding Max’s T-shirt. Gap. A bit crumpled.

‘Are you OK?’ he shouted through the door.

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Only…’

‘I can find you another one.’

‘Maybe you should do that,’ she said. As he opened the door, she stepped forward and suddenly she was in his arms. His tongue was in her mouth. Karen’s heart was beating so hard, she thought it would pop out of her chest. They kissed and kissed. She felt as if she were shedding a skin, the old calloused layer that proclaimed her a wife and mother, and returning to the Karen she used to be, the one who danced all night on tables and still was at her desk at ten a.m., the one who had overcome her demons and had everything to look forward to, the one who had passionate feelings. The old Karen, whose breasts tingled as if they were electrified when kissed and who was suffused with a sweet overwhelming wetness lower down as she pulled Max towards the bed and down on top of her.

*

Grace woke early. She was starving. She hadn’t eaten a thing last night, not after the conversation she’d had with Richie Prescott while his dark-haired friend, who turned out to be a South African called Anton Beleek, was looking round.

‘I’m really sorry I haven’t been in touch, Grace,’ he said. ‘I’ve just been terribly busy, you know. Not that that’s an excuse, but I’m not always the most organized of chaps. Love to make it up to you, though.’

Grace muttered something non-committal, her face flaming. All right, he still had a face like a tomato and terrible teeth. But he was apologizing to her. Perhaps she’d been unreasonable to dismiss him so harshly. It had only been a couple of weeks and people
were
busy.

‘Perhaps we could go out another time.’

Grace jumped.

‘Really?’

‘Of course! Don’t look so worried, I don’t bite!’

Anton Beleek was striding ahead of them, up to the gazebo.

‘Fantastic grounds,’ he said over his shoulder in his whipcrack voice. ‘So much that could be done with them.’

‘I had plans,’ Grace said, panting as she tried to talk and walk. ‘But my mother got ill and… you know.’

‘They really could be restored to something marvellous. Do you know Garberton House at Yelverton? Reminds me of that, except of course this is on a grander scale.’

‘I must go and have a look at it,’ Grace said.

‘You should. People who are buying, are they keen gardeners?’

‘Well… they’re keen but…’

‘Hmm. Hope they don’t ruin it.’ Anton strode on to the gazebo. ‘Marvellous view,’ he called over his shoulder.

‘So Anton is a friend of yours?’

‘Old friend,’ said Richie, between gasps of breath. ‘As I said, very keen on Tudor architecture. And gardens, Lord love him.’

‘I see,’ said Grace.

They’d refused a cup of tea and left around six, by which time the dogs were howling for supper. Grace, however, didn’t eat. Thank heavens Mac’s shop had been closed. And that she’d been sacked – if she hadn’t lost that silly job, she would have missed the visit. She ate nothing that night. As she mused on fate’s vagaries, the phone began ringing at her bedside. She snatched it up.

‘Hello.’

‘Good morning, Richie P here. Hope I didn’t wake you!’

‘Oh no.’ He
must
be keen.

‘Well, sorry to call at crack of dawn but I have something rather unexpected to put to you. Anton adored Chadlicote and, to my total surprise, he called me late last night and asked if he might put an offer on the table for it.’

‘An offer?’

‘Yes. He’d like to buy it.’

‘But the Drakes are buying it!’

‘He’d offer you five thousand pounds more.’

‘Gosh! I don’t… No, I’m terribly sorry but we’re on the verge of exchanging. I couldn’t let the Drakes down like that.’

‘But you’d get five thousand pounds more.’

‘But the Drakes want the house so much. They’ll restore it. Love it. Bring up children here.’

‘Anton would do all that.’

‘He doesn’t have a family.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I could just tell.’

‘But he might one day. Look, Grace, give it a thought… Anton’s a super chap, well, you saw that yourself. And he has a lot of money. He really could do wonderful things for Chadlicote.’ There was a tiny pause and then Richie said, ‘Anyway, that wasn’t really why I was calling. I was wondering if you fancied another dinner some time.’

She hadn’t seen this coming. ‘I’d… That sounds lovely.’

‘Jolly good. I’ll book somewhere and let you know. Now think about this Anton business. Just think about it. No pressure, but every penny helps in my experience. Toodle-oo, then.’

Karen was on the morning train to King’s Cross. She’d had four hours’ sleep, but her eyes glowed and her skin tingled. She was a bad woman, she told herself. Bad wife. Bad mother. Creeping in at three and crawling into bed beside her husband, straight from another man’s bed. Her gorgeous children asleep downstairs. And all she could think about was Max’s hands on her breasts, her thighs, his tongue probing inside her, her straddling him and slipping on to him. She’d fallen asleep with a huge smile on her face as she replayed it all, Phil lying asleep beside her.

And then she’d woken up and showered and gone downstairs and barked out orders about homework and lost games kit and flute lessons as if none of this had ever happened.

But that was that, she told herself. She couldn’t let it happen again. Once could be excused as a moment of madness, dismissed as a stupid, drunken one-night stand that no one except her and Max need ever know about. But if she saw him again…

Her phone rang in her bag and she felt punched in the stomach. Her hands shook as she fumbled to pull it out. Amazingly, for one of the first times ever, she managed to answer before it switched to voicemail.

‘Hello, Max,’ she said, marvelling at how collected she sounded.

‘Hi. How are you?’

‘Very well.’

‘Good. Me too. I’m… very good. Tired. But… Good.’

‘Glad to hear it,’ she said, half terrified, half overjoyed.

‘Listen, I was wondering. Can I see you again? Soon? Like tonight?’

‘I…’

If she said no, she could be excused on grounds of a temporary lapse of sanity. It wouldn’t have been an affair, just a fling. No one would ever know. She would resign from her job, move to Devon, spend the rest of her life a paragon of the PTA and baking cakes. All she had to tell him was thanks, but no thanks, it had been wonderful, but it had been a one-off thing.

‘Tonight? After work?’

Was Phil doing anything tonight? Not as far as she knew.

‘Tonight would be great.’