Playing Grace (8 page)

‘I suspect Tate is short for Tate Modern, hmm?’ Gilbert said. ‘Or have you heard that a million times?’

‘A million and one times now.’

They both laughed, before Tate added, ‘Suppose you get people asking if you’re half of Gilbert and George?’

‘Only once.’

There was more laughter and Grace wondered what Gilbert was doing. That ready handshake felt like disloyalty towards her somehow, the jokey chat almost as if he were flirting. And Alistair: was he mad? What had possessed him to hire this brash idiot? This was all wrong … wrong! Didn’t they see how disruptive a guy like this would be? How threatening to the smooth running of … everything?

And how was she going to consign ‘the blond guy’ to the dumping-ground section of her brain if, at this very moment, he had a name and was standing in the office, by her desk, chatting and looking like he felt at home?

She needed some time to get her composure back.

‘I’ll make us all tea,’ she said, and before either Gilbert or Alistair could stop her, she had plugged the kettle in again and switched it on.

There was a ‘phutt’ noise and everyone disappeared into calm cloaking black.

Grace could hear Alistair huffing away, asking how she could forget so soon that the kettle was faulty? Gilbert joked about Tate needing to get used to being kept in the dark in this company, which Alistair responded to with something blustery before Tate cut in with, ‘Hey, Gracie, think you got your night-time routine turned around. You put me to sleep this afternoon, now you’re switching the lights off. What next? You gonna do some tucking into bed?’

However soothing the dark was, it couldn’t stop Grace feeling aggrieved by that smug familiarity, and she turned in Tate’s direction and pulled a face before doing the ‘penis on the forehead’ mime for a dickhead. It felt pretty good, until there was the sound of a match being struck and Tate’s head and shoulders were illuminated in a glow of light. She wasn’t sure she’d put her hand down quickly enough to avoid her rude gesture being spotted.

The match burned down and they were back in the dark.

‘I’ll get the torch,’ she said, fumbling for her desk, and
all at once being in the dark didn’t seem such a good idea. Someone was moving; she could hear them. She worked her way around her desk, her hands feeling clammy, and Gilbert started to whistle. He sounded as if he were still standing right where he had been when the lights went out. She listened again. Someone was definitely moving around – there was the scuff of a shoe, or a boot, on the carpet not far from her.

‘Remind me to take that kettle out with the rubbish when I go tonight, Alistair,’ she said, just to gauge from his answer where he was now standing.

Exactly where he’d been before, judging by the uninterested, ‘Right,’ she got back.

Pulse ricocheting about, she bent down quickly and grabbed the handle on the middle drawer and pulled. She felt for the torch and then squawked.

Someone had just blown in her right ear.

‘What’s the matter now?’ Alistair called.

‘Nothing, nothing,’ she said, swiping through the dark off to her right with her hand, but only connecting with air. ‘I touched something sharp in the drawer. No damage done.’

This time she managed to get the torch and held it in her not very steady hand to turn it on. In the beam she could see that Alistair and Gilbert were indeed where
they had been when the lights went off, but Tate was closer to her desk. His face was a lesson in how to look innocent.

She asked Gilbert to unplug the kettle again and repeated the whole process of carrying the chair out through reception before balancing on it to reach the fuse box. As she did, she listened to the flow of conversation between the three men. It stopped and started as if they felt a bit self-conscious talking into the dark.

‘So, what’s your background?’ Gilbert asked Tate, who replied, ‘Art Institute of Chicago. Then a gallery in New York for a few months …’

Grace flicked the switch back up, the lights came on and she carried the chair back into the room.

‘Wanna hand?’ Tate said, nodding at it.

‘No, thank you. I can manage a chair.’

‘But not a kettle?’

Grace was careful not to plonk the chair down and when she opened the drawer to drop in the torch, she did it gently. Years of training herself to keep the lid on her more extreme emotions were paying off.

‘Good job you had a flashlight,’ Tate went on, raising his eyebrows. ‘Can get pretty scary in the dark.’

She ignored the subtext of that, even though all of a sudden she wanted to put her hand to her ear.

‘Oh, I’m prepared for most things,’ she said brightly and then wished she hadn’t as, rather than making her sound like Superwoman, she felt she had come across like a very old, faintly pathetic female Scout. The kind of person who carries a Swiss army knife around just in case anyone needs something gouging out of somewhere.

‘We depend on Grace to get us out of any mess,’ Gilbert said, making her feel worse. ‘So, you have matches. Please say you’re a fellow smoker? Normally I’m exiled in the yard alone. Be nice to have some company round the back.’ He left a beat. ‘If you’ll pardon the pun.’

Yes, Gilbert was definitely flirting and Tate seemed to be flirting back in a kind of metrosexual way that was something else Grace knew she was going to grow to hate about him. Empty, easy charm. The worst kind.

‘Yup, I’ll keep you company,’ Tate said, ‘but I’m really trying to kick the habit. Cut right back in the summer, but now …’ He turned to Grace. ‘Guess you’ve never been a smoker?’

‘No, afraid not. And now, Alistair, sorry to interrupt, but there are a couple of things on your desk I’d like to talk to you about. Shall we?’

She waved in the direction of Alistair’s office, which was always a tricky manoeuvre and meant you had to decide in advance whether to be literal and do a zig-zagging thing
with your arm to indicate the route into the reception area and back out again, or go for the simple option and, with a sharp jabbing motion, suggest a theoretical route straight through the office wall.

She had gone for the jabbing, which seemed to rouse Alistair. He picked up his briefcase, but before detaching himself completely from the others announced, ‘I used to smoke quite a lot.’ A schoolboy snigger. ‘Not tobacco.’

Gilbert winced and as Alistair did that weird baseball action again, made even clumsier by the presence of his briefcase, Tate caught Grace’s eye just at the moment she was remembering Mr Baldridge’s comment about ‘a bunch of pot-smoking Democrats.’

She looked away. He could forget about building little connections between the two of them based on in-jokes. She was busy building a high wall to keep him out, with possibly a moat beyond.

In his office, Grace saw Alistair glance at the notes she had left him about Gilbert’s payment and the phone messages, and push them to one side.

‘Seems … interesting, Tate,’ she said, knowing an oblique approach to any issue was always best with Alistair.

‘Mmm. Challenging, bit brash maybe, but I can see his potential.’ Alistair did that face Grace suspected he had read about in management technique books – the one he
imagined made him appear inscrutable. In reality, it made it look as if he had a piece of food stuck between his molars and was trying to extract it surreptitiously. ‘I can see him really connecting with the funky young clients,’ he went on. ‘Making us the go-to company for hip tours.’

Grace studied Alistair’s V-neck sweater and the striped shirt under it, one side of his collar buttoned down and the other breaking free, and gave thanks he had not used the terms ‘wack’ or ‘well baaad’.

‘Have you been thinking of getting someone like this in for a while?’

‘Oh, yes. I mean, I know people think I sit in here just faffing around, but I’ve been thinking strategically. Our competitors aren’t standing still, Grace; they’re all offering a wider range of tours than us. And no offence, but neither you nor Gilbert is able to fill this gap in our services: Gilbert’s at home in the sixteenth century, the seventeenth at a pinch, and you’re far too busy keeping me in line.’ He leaned back in his chair. ‘Don’t think I don’t appreciate it.’

When he was like this, she could understand what Emma saw in him. He dressed far older than his years and he could do with shifting a bit of weight, but he wasn’t bad looking in a scrubbed, pens-in-his-top-pocket way. And he was decent. Not a flake. Not like Tate Jefferson.

‘So, he’s employed on a freelance basis? Same terms as Gilbert?’

She saw the beginnings of a look that suggested it was none of her business. ‘Uh-huh,’ Alistair replied with a mistimed wave of his hand, which Grace guessed was meant to suggest nonchalance. ‘Kind of a no-risk approach on my part.’

Grace very much doubted that.

‘And he has a Blue Badge?’

‘No. But what he does have is lots of contacts – artists, gallery owners, curators.’

She would not show how irritated she was that Alistair had put Tate’s extensive address book on a par with the tourist qualifications Gilbert and she had sweated and studied for.

‘And he has all the right paperwork, you know, for being employed in the UK? I expect you’ve seen his qualifications? You interviewed him formally somewhere?’

She could tell from Alistair’s face that the answer to those questions was ‘don’t know’, ‘no’ and ‘yes, in the pub’.

‘Grace, Grace.’ He folded his hands in his lap. ‘Sometimes you have to take a leap. Push back the boundaries. We all get so bogged down in making sure every “t” is crossed and every “i” dotted. Don’t you sometimes feel that you have to shake off the shackles of how things have been
and move on to how things will be? A life lived with regret is a life not lived at all.’

She wasn’t really sure where Alistair was going with this; certainly not towards any practical considerations. Like whether Tate had the tact and patience needed to deal with tricky people. Tricky people who weren’t him. Or if his organisational skills would enable him to make sure he had the right people at the right place at the right time.

‘I suppose he understands all the health and safety issues?’ she tried.

‘He’s doing art tours, Grace,’ Alistair shot back, ‘not potholing.’ He got up and put an arm around her shoulder and she realised he was going to usher her out of the room. ‘I know what all these worries are about.’ His tone was kindly. ‘They’re just manifestations of a teensy bit of jealousy.’ She went to remonstrate, but he held up his finger. ‘And I understand, I really do. We’ve been a settled team for a while and this younger, trendier guy turns up. Charismatic. But really, Grace, you have nothing to fear. He won’t be stealing away any of your potential clients – totally different market. He won’t even be in the office much. It’s not like he’s going to share your desk or anything.’

‘Right.’

‘So, let’s welcome him on board. I told him we’d all go out for a quick one after work. Get to know each other.’

‘That’s a good idea,’ she said, despite having absolutely no intention of doing a quick anything with Tate

‘And after the weekend, first thing Monday, we’ll get to grips with publicising him and his tours, eh? Update the website, do some emailers, amend the leaflets.’ He took his arm from round her shoulders. ‘Right ho. Out in a minute.’

She found herself back in reception and there was a click behind her as Alistair locked his door.

Locking himself in now, as well as locking them out?

Grace returned to her own office, but hesitated in the open doorway. Tate was sitting at her desk and Gilbert was perched on a corner of it.

‘I went to Chicago once,’ Gilbert was saying, ‘very disappointed.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Well, it wasn’t windy. That’s like going to Manchester and finding that it’s not raining.’

Tate spotted her. ‘Alistair mentioned about going for a drink tonight,’ he said, standing up. ‘Gilbert’s up for it. What about you?’

‘Oh, real shame, I’m afraid. I need to see my parents tonight … urgently. Bit of a crisis. Sorry.’ She avoided looking at Gilbert.

Tate still had one hand on the back of her chair, the one
with the silver ring on the thumb. There was no way she was sitting down, even though he had angled the chair as if inviting her to.

‘Sure you’re not still sore, you know, about me in the gallery?’

‘Absolutely not. I deal with difficult people all the time.’

He gave her a look that suggested he had got the insult. ‘Well, as long as you’re OK about it. No hard feelings? ’Cos some people might be tempted, you know, to make faces at me when they think I’m not looking? Perhaps even suggest I was a bit of a dickhead?’

She thought back to him blowing on her ear in the dark and stooped down to get her bag before executing a quick turn to unhook her coat from the back of the door. ‘I’ll give you a ring on Monday, Gilbert,’ she said back over her shoulder, ‘let you know when Alistair’s written that cheque and, Tate, you have a lovely weekend, enjoy your drink and I’ll see you soon. Not sure when your first tour will be; expect Alistair has it all under control.’

‘Doubt it,’ Gilbert said, ‘and, Grace, are you sure you can’t just come for one drink?’

‘Love to, but can’t. Sorry. Have fun.’

She didn’t wait to hear any replies, just got herself out of the room, into reception, picked up the bag of rubbish
and opened the front door. Disposing of the kettle could wait until Monday.

She heard them start talking again and felt forgotten already. Forgotten and miserable about being forgotten.

She went back to the door of her office. ‘Sorry to interrupt. I just felt I ought to remind you, Gilbert, about that stuff you had to get.’ She let her gaze drift to Tate. He was already back in her chair. So much for not having to share her desk with him. She added, with feeling, ‘You know, especially the traps and the poison.’

‘Nice try, Gracie,’ Tate said, ‘but it’s gonna’ take more than a few traps and some poison to get rid of me.’ He swivelled the chair towards her. ‘And don’t think I’m getting in that trash bag without a fight.’

‘Ha, ha.’ She failed to make it sound anything other than forced and Tate stopped swivelling his chair and nodded at the bag. He wrinkled his nose.