Playing Grace (6 page)

As they approached the large window at the front of the building, Gilbert’s progress faltered.

‘Remind me what day it is?’ he said craning his neck to try to peer into Far & Away’s window before his feet reached it.

‘You’re safe, early closing. No Bernice.’

Gilbert stopped craning his neck and sauntered past the darkened window and the posters advertising individually tailored itineraries.

‘Thank God for that,’ he said. ‘The eighteen-month buildup to the wedding I could just about cope with, but if I have to hear any more about the house restoration, about
cornices and picture rails and damp courses I … well, I may book myself on one of her holidays and never return.’

He held the door open for Grace.

‘Leave Bernice alone.’ She walked along the hallway, past the glass-panelled door of the travel agency and then up the stairs. ‘She’s just enthusiastic about everything to do with her and Sol’s life together. I like hearing about it. And, you know, she’d be as enthusiastic about Violet’s projects if you only told her about them. She could get you some really good stuff on China – you wouldn’t have to buy all those expensive travel guides. Why don’t you ask?’

‘Not likely.’ Gilbert’s tone was so sharp that she turned on the stairs to look down at him.

‘Really? That’s a shame because while you were talking to Bernice about China, you could also apologise for crawling past her door on your stomach earlier in the week so she wouldn’t see you.’

‘I’ve never done such a thing.’ Gilbert executed an impression of an innocent man before patting his stomach. ‘How would that even be possible?’

‘How indeed?’ She resumed the climb up the stairs until she reached the first turn where there was a window and, more importantly, a wide window sill where Gilbert liked to stop. He said it was to look at the view, but they both knew it was to get his breath back. She waited for him to
puff into place and, when he had, he flicked the latch and pushed open the window. The sound of someone warming up their voice, running first up and then down a range of scales, drifted across from the dressing rooms of the nearest theatre.

‘Did Bernice really spot me?’ Gilbert asked, still looking out of the window. ‘Has she said something?’

‘No, I saw you; just happened to look down the stairwell. But it could very well have been her.’

‘Point taken, Mum.’ Gilbert closed the window again, but seemed in no hurry to set off up the remaining flight of twelve stairs that led to Picture London’s front door. From here they could see the white lettering on the black paint and the wonky drawing of the London skyline that Alistair swore was ‘refreshingly naïve’. Gilbert and Grace felt, with the way Big Ben was afforded such prominence, that it was vaguely rude, as though a gargantuan and very wonky penis were menacing the capital.

‘So,’ Gilbert gave her a gentle prod, ‘last chance to bet on Alistair’s current crisis. On what is now unfolding behind that black door.’

‘Stop it, Gilbert.’

‘Oh, Grace, Grace. Just for once you should let him disappear in his own paper storm; work your contracted hours and see where that leaves him. Or at least point out that
making sure his backside engages with his office chair more often might improve things.’ Gilbert’s expression became more knowing. ‘And another thing: where does he keep nipping off to these days? And why has he started locking his office door? Has he got another woman?’

‘Hardly. He and Emma seem very happy.’

‘Ah, yes, your friend Emma. Gives every appearance of being normal and then goes and does something stupid like marrying Alistair.’

‘Ignoring you, Gilbert,’ Grace said, going on ahead. She heard him get up and slowly follow her to the door.

‘Right, last chance,’ he whispered. ‘I am going to put my bet on Alistair screeching, “Grace, I appear to have a spare trouser leg and keep toppling over.”’

Despite trying to maintain a disapproving expression, she laughed at the picture of Alistair with both feet crammed down one leg of his chinos. Gilbert laughed too before placing one hand flat on the door and one on his forehead, suggesting it enabled him to tune into what was happening inside the office.

‘No, no,’ he said in a stage whisper, ‘I was wrong about the trousers … hang on, it’s coming through, yes, what he’s actually going to say is, “My God, Grace, we haven’t paid this bill, the bailiffs could arrive at any minute to strip the place.”’

With that, Gilbert put both hands on the door handle, turned it and let the door swing open.

‘My God, Grace,’ Alistair’s voice called out, full of fret and worry, ‘we haven’t paid this bill. They could cut the electricity off at any minute.’

‘Ah, so close,’ Gilbert said, and then stepped aside to let Grace enter the office before him.

CHAPTER
4

Grace believed that everyone had a distinguishing characteristic. Whenever she thought of Alistair, she thought of paper – he was always waving it about, stuffing it in his pockets or sifting through the drifts of it that accumulated on his desk. On rare occasions he would even get to grips with writing on it. Today he was clenching an envelope in one hand and a couple of sheets of paper in the other and there was more, in a rough roll, protruding from the pocket of his chinos. Grace recalled the paper crane Mrs Hikaranto had given her and smiled. Alistair, her origami boss.

‘The brown stuff’s really going to hit the fan, Grace,’ he was saying, thrusting the papers towards her. ‘Except there won’t be any power for the fan, so it’ll just—’

‘Slide to the floor,’ Gilbert said behind Grace.

Alistair’s colouring, already stormy, darkened. ‘Yes, thank you, Gilbert. This is no time for your mordant wit.’

Gilbert came into the reception area and shut the front door behind him, which meant Grace had to tuck herself
in between the leather sofa and the coffee table. The reception, with its art magazines and designer lamps, was furnished to impress clients, but was not spacious enough to accommodate Alistair and his two staff when Alistair was ‘achieving orbit’. This consisted of standing with his feet planted wide apart in the centre of a room while brandishing whatever was offending/upsetting him at the time. As he was fairly bulky to start with, and brandishing was accompanied by finger jabbing, Grace and Gilbert were often corralled into a tiny portion of the space not laid claim to by their boss.

‘Perhaps if you just let me see what you’ve got there,’ she said, soothingly, ‘I’m sure—’

‘It’s red, I tell you, Grace. Red.’

It took her a moment to realise that he was talking about the colour of the bill, and not that he’d run his eye over it and she needn’t bother.

‘How in God’s name has it got this far, Grace?’ Alistair’s voice was getting louder, rising in pitch. ‘Why didn’t you bring it to my attention earlier?’

There was a sound of barely concealed exasperation from Gilbert at the way nothing was ever Alistair’s fault, even though he opened all the post and was meant to pass Grace anything that needed action. It was a system that could have worked smoothly if Alistair didn’t have the organisational
skills of a drunken gorilla. Sometimes Grace imagined he dealt with the post by standing in a corner of his room with his eyes closed and hurling it in the direction of his desk. While Grace tried to work around this by surreptitiously tidying up when he was out of the office and actioning things she found mouldering in the far reaches of his room, sometimes something important would elude her. This could be due to a mishap, such as Alistair letting post fall down the back of a piece of furniture or taking it home in his pocket and never bringing it back. Other times he was more imaginative in his stupidity. Once he’d even managed to sandwich incoming letters between outgoing ones and lobbed the whole lot into the postbox together.

Luckily for Gilbert, Alistair did not hear that exasperated noise, being deaf now to all but his own hysteria. Judging by the way he had screwed up the envelope and thrown it on the coffee table and was using both hands to shuffle through the offending paperwork, that hysteria was on the rise.

‘I’ll lose business through this,’ he was saying, ‘and more money because we’ll have to get reconnected.’

‘Alistair, I’m sure it’s nothing that can’t be sorted.’ Grace wasn’t sure of that at all, but calming him down was her first priority. Getting out of her prison between the sofa and the coffee table was her second.

‘How about we go to your office?’ she said, indicating one of the two doors in the wall opposite. ‘I can’t see what you’re worrying about while I’m trapped over here by the sofa.’

‘No, not my office … not just now.’ Alistair looked as evasive as it was possible for anyone to look without actually pulling up a trench coat collar and ramming a trilby down over their eyes. He moved towards the other door in the wall. ‘We’ll go into yours. But it doesn’t really matter where we go, Grace. This is beyond sorting.’

He opened the door and stepped into her office.

‘Why can’t we go to his?’ Gilbert said very quietly. ‘Do you think he’s got a fancy woman in there now? Over the desk?’

Grace didn’t reply, but she couldn’t help wondering what kind of mess Alistair’s office must be in if he didn’t want her to see it. God knew, she’d seen it in some terrible states.

Alistair replanted himself, but at least this time there was more space around him. Here too there was room enough for a desk, a couple of filing cabinets, an easy chair in which Gilbert took up residence whenever he was visiting and a wooden table holding everything needed to make tea or coffee, including a battered kettle. There would have been even more room if Alistair had not cut corners,
literally, when overseeing plans to have this floor of the building converted. As a result, the place was Partition Heaven, which meant that instead of offering a layout where there was a spacious office leading off the reception area via one door, there were two less spacious rooms leading off the reception area via two doors. Alistair’s office was narrow at the front, but widened out near the back, a feat achieved by nicking a big square of space from Grace’s. Things were further complicated by the fact that the only way to get from one office to the other was to go back into the reception area and start again. Even more inconveniently, the only way to get to the toilet was through Grace’s office, and the only way to get to the kitchen was through Alistair’s. Neither of these arrangements was really convenient, particularly when Grace had to put up with clients trooping back from the toilet, sometimes only a few feet ahead of any smell they had created.

Grace took off her coat and hung it from the hook on the back of the door and saw Gilbert lower himself into the easy chair. She wondered if sitting at her own desk would give the impression that she wasn’t taking Alistair’s problem seriously enough. She remained standing, but reached over and turned on her computer.

‘Don’t fuss with that,’ Alistair snapped, ‘we’re meant to be getting this sorted.’ He waved the papers at her again.

Alistair’s mood was now morphing from fretting into tetchiness and it was possible there would be a short detour through snitty later. There had been a time when incidents like this one happened only every couple of months and between them he would simply be disorganised with overtones of bright and breezy. These days he got worked up about the slightest thing.

‘If you could just let me have a look.’ Grace tried reaching out for the papers, but Alistair did not appear ready to hand them over.

‘Perhaps,’ Gilbert said from the chair, ‘before you get bogged down in that, we could discuss my last payment?’ He pulled an envelope from his pocket. ‘I’ve brought in the invoice I submitted and the cheque you sent. Now, if you compare one with the other, you’ll see—’

‘I will not bloody see anything,’ Alistair shouted, his eyes flaring. ‘You don’t get it do you, Gilbert? This,’ the papers were waved again, ‘this is serious.’

‘So is my payment.’ Gilbert’s tone was affable, but Grace saw Alistair’s colour heighten further and he stopped moving, even stopped waving the papers. It was always a dangerous sign that he was about to take his tirade up another notch. Gilbert obviously thought that too, because he shoved the envelope back in his pocket, got to his feet and said, ‘How about I make us all a cup of tea?’ He had
gathered up the kettle from the small wooden table and was carrying it out of the room before Alistair could wind himself up any more.

Grace took her chance and got hold of a corner of one of the pieces of paper in Alistair’s hand, but as she pulled at it, he jerked away. ‘You’ve given me a paper cut,’ he said with a yelp and stuck his thumb in his mouth.

‘Sorry, Alistair. Really sorry … but I’m just trying to help. I can’t understand why you’ve got a bill. You pay by direct debit.’

He took his thumb out of his mouth. Stared blankly. ‘Do I? Yes. Or … or did I change it?’

Grace wondered how Emma put up with constantly having to iron out problems and sort out hiccups. At least Grace was getting paid for it. Well, some hours of it.

She held out her hand for the papers again. ‘Stop worrying, Alistair. I’m sure the electricity company has to leave twenty-eight days between sending a bill and a disconnection notice. Even then there has to be about a week before they actually do anything.’

‘Ivecheppedvedake,’ Alistair said, around the thumb that was now back in his mouth. Grace interpreted this as ‘I’ve checked the date.’

‘And?’

Alistair wiped his thumb on his pullover. ‘End of August.
That’s six weeks ago, Grace. Which means that they might have sent a disconnection notice already and if I’ve … we’ve mislaid it, well …’

Gilbert came back into the room with the kettle. He glared at Grace in a meaningful way before saying to Alistair, ‘Your door is locked.’

‘So?’

‘So I can’t get through to the kitchen to top this up.’ Gilbert shook the kettle.

‘That bloody kettle shouldn’t be in here anyway,’ Alistair stormed, ‘it should be in the kitchen along with the rest of that junk on the table.’

‘But we don’t like to disturb you by coming through your room every time we want to make a hot drink,’ Grace said, trying to calm him down.