Playing Grace (25 page)

He turned one of the shoes over and peeled off the price sticker, wondering how he could hide spending that amount of money from Emma. Could he say he’d got out some cash and lost it? Might work. He’d lost money before. Add it to the blouse, though, and it was all starting to mount up.

The shoe felt light in his hand. So light yet so expensive. He lifted it up and studied it as if her foot were already in it.

Hang the expense. She’d be here soon.

CHAPTER
21

It was the question Grace had been dreading since she had walked into the pizza restaurant, and despite having run through various answers in her head all day and settled on the exact words she wanted to use, she still wasn’t sure she was going to get the tone right.

The pause between the end of Emma’s question and where the start of Grace’s reply should be was lengthening.

Grace went for the ‘concerned but confused’ approach. ‘Alistair acting weird? No, I haven’t noticed. Is he? In what way?’

Emma poked a piece of discarded pizza crust with her finger and Grace wondered upon which of the many ways in which Alistair was acting weird Emma would elaborate. Staying late for meetings that did not exist? Clutching his briefcase as if it contained his internal organs? Or that morning’s absolutely priceless performance when he had obviously remembered that Grace was meeting Emma later
on and that his story about taking his wife out for an early meal the night before might be exposed as a lie. He had tied himself in knots relating to Grace how after he’d left work he’d been halfway to Waterloo when he’d got a call telling him there was an emergency meeting of the tourism committee and so he had had to remain in town.

That was weird enough – what counted as an emergency in the world of tourism? Everything in Madame Tussauds melting? The London Eye spinning off down the Thames? But then it got weirder when he had shouted at Grace for not putting her evening out with Emma in his desk diary in the first place. She presumed that was because, if she had, he wouldn’t have thought up a lie that involved his wife in the first place.

At any point Grace could have blown him out of the water by relating the conversation she’d had with Emma on the phone from Brent Cross, but she was afraid he’d have a seizure right there on the spot.

Grace looked uneasily at the only part of Emma she could see at the moment: the top of her head bowed over her plate. Her straight hair hung in two neat sheets and almost touched the crust of pizza she’d left. Impossible to see what her face was doing.

She hadn’t seemed that upset when they’d met, nor during the pizza-eating part of the evening, but now, on
her third glass of wine, it was obviously all going to come out – whatever ‘all’ was. And as Emma’s friend and Alistair’s employee, Grace did not know how to play this. That Alistair was lying to Emma was obvious; why he was doing it was not. Although Grace had to agree with Gilbert and Tate that it probably involved another woman.

If Emma asked her if she had any suspicions about an affair, she was damned whatever she replied. Pour cold water on the idea and it later turned out to be true, and she’d lose Emma as a friend. Give the slightest hint that she suspected Alistair might be playing away and she’d be clutching her P45 by the end of the week.

What was she doing thinking of herself in all this? She should be thinking of Emma. She was a friend who, until Grace had introduced her to Alistair, had been remarkably easy company. Grace had met her at a Pilates class when she had returned to London from university and she had not only been friendly but had fulfilled two requirements that Grace had of any new friends these days: she hadn’t asked too many questions and she’d talked about herself a lot. While this often made for dull conversation, it did have the advantage that you knew you could relax and kick back because Emma wasn’t going to say, ‘So, what did you do after you left school?’ She’d be too busy saying, ‘This is what I did.’

Emma’s preoccupation with ‘I’ had become ‘we’ when she and Alistair had married, barely six months after meeting. Emma was one of those wives whose likes and dislikes seemed to be subsumed under her husband’s. Now she would talk about films ‘we’ liked or meals ‘we’ enjoyed, as if they shared the same brain and taste buds as well as the same surname. It grated a bit on Grace, especially when Alistair was held up as being a complete paragon, but there was also something quite touching about Emma’s belief in him and, up until now, he’d seemed besotted with her too. This was all so sad. She was tempted to get up from her seat to go and sit next to Emma and put her arm around her.

Emma still had her head bowed and Grace wondered how to distract her. They’d exhausted talking about the women in Emma’s office, who seemed to be either macrobiotic, bulimic or catatonic. They’d talked about Mark too, Emma making unsubtle suggestions that it might be time for Grace and him to get serious. They’d also ‘done’ Grace’s family problems, although Grace had edited the story and added more humour to it than she actually felt. They’d even done a quick tour around Tate, during which Grace had regurgitated the normal platitudes. She had been able to be dispassionate about him tonight having had a Tate-free day while he was off doing whatever he did when he
wasn’t leading a tour or bugging the life out of her. To sit in her office without him either zooming around on his chair, flaked out on the sofa or holding impromptu coffee and jamming parties in reception had felt like a holiday.

She had even been able to resist the urge to superglue all the rocks back in place, although any new ones that wobbled free she had rounded up and chucked in the bin on the grounds they were a threat to health and safety.

‘It’s just Alistair seems … a bit jittery,’ Emma said, suddenly raising her head.

Grace was relieved to see she did not look as if she were on the verge of tears. If anything, her expression mirrored Grace’s earlier perplexed one. There was a group of vertical lines between Emma’s eyebrows. ‘It’s almost as if he’s on edge all the time, very volatile,’ she explained. ‘I think he’s taken on too much. You know, with these extra meetings, hiring Tate. He’s so tired when he does get home too.’ She glanced at Grace and away again. ‘And then there’s the money.’

Grace stayed quiet. Money and sex were two aspects of Alistair and Emma’s private life that she didn’t want to hear about.

‘He’s going through quite a bit. I do the accounts, you see; he’s hopeless with money. Well, I don’t need to tell you that … And he’s taking out a lot of cash, but I can’t
seem to see what he’s spent it on. He tried to tell me he’d lost some of it, but he was lying, I could tell. Hiding something. You don’t think—’

A sudden need to calm Emma and make the conversation go away caused Grace to blurt, ‘I think perhaps … perhaps he’s saving up for something special for you for Christmas. Wants it to be a secret.’

Emma had large, quite beautiful eyes and Grace saw the worry seep slowly away to be replaced by what might be a willingness to believe Grace’s theory. It made her feel simultaneously pleased and cheap.

‘He could be, couldn’t he?’ Emma said, raising both hands quickly to scoop and push her sheets of hair behind her ears. ‘I’d never thought of that. You know, I did tell him I’d like one of those benches for the garden, the kind that go around the base of a tree? Perhaps it’s that … they’re really expensive.’

Grace pictured the locked cabinet: nope, it wasn’t big enough for a bench that would fit around a tree. Emma was wrinkling her nose and making an ‘ahh’ sound. No doubt she was already picturing Alistair and her on Christmas morning cosied up on their special bench. Emma’s hope now had a momentum all of its own.

‘The more I think about it,’ she said, a flush on her cheeks, ‘the more I think you might be right. Maybe the
grouchiness, the mood swings, it’s just the wear and tear of commuting and running a business. We find it tough, very competitive.’ She giggled. ‘But in all other areas, we couldn’t be happier. Even when he’s terribly tense, I can relax him.’ She dropped her voice, looked like she had the biggest secret in the world to tell. ‘The sex is still amazingly satisfying. He’s very demanding. Very imaginative.’

‘Oh good,’ Grace said softly and refilled Emma’s glass. If only she still drank herself, it might take the edge off the picture of Alistair performing his marital duties that she now had thrusting away in her head.

*

Alistair had the television switched on, but he wasn’t really watching it or listening to it. All of his attention was on the mobile phone on the sofa cushion next to him. Shiny black against the red velour, it was like some hard-backed insect. Menacing.

When Emma rang to say she was on the train, he’d know from the sound of her voice. Just know.

Why hadn’t he told Emma and Grace the same story about last night’s meeting? All they had to do was compare notes and his lie would be found out. Either the meeting was a planned one as he’d told Emma, or it was an emergency as he’d told Grace. It couldn’t be both. And what the hell would constitute an emergency in tourism? Not
enough street performers for Covent Garden? The royal family being replaced by the Muppets?

She’d have called straight away if she’d been suspicious about something, wouldn’t she?

He looked at his watch, not registering what the time was, in the same way he hadn’t registered it when he’d tipped his wrist before.

Why did she have to be meeting Grace today when that conversation they’d had about money over breakfast would still be fresh in her mind? He could tell she hadn’t bought that story about losing the money near the cashpoint.

Perhaps they wouldn’t talk about him.

No, women talked about everything.

The phone rang and he snatched it up.

‘I know what you’re up toooooo,’ Emma said into his ear and he was up and off the sofa heading he didn’t know where, until he registered that she sounded, (a) drunk and, (b) happy.

‘Are you a bit tipsy?’ he asked breathlessly.

‘A teensy bit. But I’m on the train safely. Safe. And. Sound. Gets in at eleven. And you … you’re a bad, bad man, but a lovely one too.’

His mind came back from the precipice. ‘I am … I mean, yes, I am, but why?’

‘Shh. It’s a secret, but it makes me love you more and
let’s just say Christmas can’t come quickly enough for this happy bunny.’ There was a clunk where she had obviously dropped the phone and then it was picked back up and she said, ‘Oops,’ before all went quiet.

Alistair sat back down on the sofa. Was he feeling relieved or even more of a bastard? No, definitely relieved – he was going to live to fight another day. Grace hadn’t dropped him in it. Good old Grace. He remembered how he’d shouted at her that morning and screwed up his face. That had to stop.

But what had that Christmas comment meant? Was she planning a trip away for them?

He went to fetch his car keys. Probably find out on the drive home – she was hopeless at keeping secrets.

That was
his
speciality.

CHAPTER
22

One-hundred-and-eighty-thread Egyptian cotton. Twenty-four-hour room service. Grace welcomed the solidity of numbers – you could count on them to be exactly as they promised. Do what you expected.

Like Mark. She turned her head on the smooth, cool pillowcase and watched him perusing the menu. Suntanned. Solid. Here when you wanted him, gone when you didn’t.

His brown hair was lighter than she remembered, but otherwise, he was a surprise-free zone.

Even down to the sex. Energetic, satisfying, but like having a good workout rather than someone throwing you over a cliff with both hands still clamped around your heart.

‘What do you fancy?’ he said without looking up.

‘Soda water. And a Caesar salad.’

‘Nothing else? No bread? Don’t want you wasting away.’ He glanced up, a hint of teasing about the eyes. But only
a hint: Mark’s face, with its dark brows and straight nose, easily conveyed earnestness. It was an eminently straightforward face with nothing unsettling in it.

‘I’m fine. So … what are you having?’

‘Merlot, steak sandwich and chips.’

Of course he was.

She saw him put down the menu, felt his hand slide its way between her legs.

‘You first,’ he said, moving nearer, hand probing deeper. ‘You first and then food.’

That wasn’t a surprise either.

*

Grace was drinking her soda water in the bath later, her back against Mark’s chest, when he said, ‘This still working for you?’

She wondered what he was really asking, but nodded, before adding, ‘I mean, of course it would be good to see more of you.’

His chest moved as he laughed. ‘There’s not much more of me to see.’

‘You know what I mean. And why are you asking anyway? Don’t I seem happy?’

She saw his glass go past her head en route to his mouth and thought how weird it was having a conversation where both of the participants this time were talking to the taps.
Perhaps in a moment he’d put his mouth against her hair, talk into it.

Probably not.

‘I just don’t want you to think I’m taking you for granted, that’s all,’ he said when the glass, slightly emptier, had been lowered again. ‘I don’t expect you to sit around just waiting for the times we meet up again. I like it that you do, but I don’t
expect
it.’

She turned round, making the water run and splash up the side of the bath. ‘Everything’s fine, Mark. Absolutely fine.’ She put her hand on his thigh, registering how attractive he was when wet.

‘It is, isn’t it?’ he said, transferring his wine glass to his other hand. ‘I mean, in a couple of years’ time, you know, when I stop travelling so much, maybe then …’ She moved her hand over him, feeling how he had already hardened under the water, and he didn’t finish talking, simply leaned over the side of the bath and put his glass on the floor.

‘Yes, maybe in a couple of years …’ she said just before he sat back up straight and reached for her. Chest to chest this time. Mouth on mouth. No room for talk.