This all changed when they gathered in front of Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington. Mr Laurent sighed in a way that suggested he found the subject of Waterloo and Wellington’s victory over Napoleon deeply, deeply boring. At which point Mr Baldridge, with an overfamiliar nudge to his arm, had said, ‘Yup, that guy sure gave you a whipping.’
Grace had hurried everyone along to the next painting, talking all the while, but Mr Laurent’s body language suggested he was seething.
Grace thought of the paintings ahead, trying to anticipate any other potential flashpoints: Constable’s The Haywain and Stubbs’s Whistlejacket. Surely no one could get into a fight over a pastoral scene and a horse? And the painting after that? Oh no. Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire. Could she miss it out? Unlikely: it was on the publicity leaflet and they would walk right by it. She decided she’d simply elaborate on how Turner’s masterful brushwork in sky and sea invoked a sense of impending loss as the old ship was towed away. She would forget entirely about the battles it had fought.
‘Painted when Turner was in his sixties,’ she began, feeling a chill skim up her neck as Mr Baldridge opened his mouth.
‘Hey,’ he said, delivering another nudge to Monsieur Laurent, ‘I know this one … this is the ship that helped whop your ass at Trafalgar.’
‘If we could just return to the painting,’ Grace said, seeing Mr Laurent squaring up to Mr Baldridge. ‘The feeling here is of an age that is passing—’
‘I ’ave ’ad enough of you, you odious fat man.’ Monsieur Laurent’s verdict was accompanied by a pointing finger that seemed to stir Mrs Baldridge into life.
‘Don’t you raa-ise your voice to myyyy husband. And he is not fat. He is manly.’
‘The ship was being towed—’
‘I will raise my voice to whom I like,’ Monsieur Laurent snapped. ‘Your ’usband is deliberately trying to provoke me. Because. I. Am. French.’
‘Yeah, well, the truth hurts,’ Mr Baldridge said.
‘… was being towed to scrapyards at—’
‘Truth?’ Mr Laurent cocked his head.
‘Trafalgar, Waterloo. Ten years between ’em but yah got yer ass kicked both times.’ He smirked towards his wife. ‘Nothing changes, huh? Last time you had to get us to come bail you out—’
‘Mr Baldridge, I cannot talk at the same time as you,’ Grace said in her sharpest voice, ‘which is a great, great pity as the rest of the group would like to hear about this painting. And, Monsieur Laurent, can I just ask you to please move to the other side of the group where you might be more comfortable.’ Grace stood her ground, knowing as she did that either Mr Baldridge or Monsieur Laurent might protest. When they both did, she repeated her request and suggested that if they didn’t wish to comply, they should leave now; this was, after all, the last painting on the tour.
Nobody left, but a nasty, clotted atmosphere hung over the group as Grace battled on with Turner, and when she wound up the tour, those who had behaved seemed eager to get away and those who hadn’t engineered showy, huffy departures. Grace felt a sense of failure churn through her stomach. How had she let this happen? Things were starting to slide, she could feel it.
Even a visit to see Samuel stationed in ‘Dutch Painting 1660–1800’ didn’t cheer her much. She had hoped to drop Gilbert into the conversation to see if she was right about how Samuel felt towards him, but the poor guy had been surrounded by a group of schoolchildren, his grey uniform disappearing among a blur of bright clothes, and Grace only got a raised hand in greeting before his attention was grabbed away again.
Grace decided to stop thinking back over her tour, rinsed off the nailbrush and the toothbrush in the kitchen sink and returned to her office through the people and the mess in reception. Tate was helping the Goth girl balance on Joe’s shoulders and someone else was taking photos. She laughed long enough to get through the door and to her chair, stepping over some more rocks that had dislodged themselves from a cairn.
She logged into her email account. No further correspondence from her sisters, which suggested that Felicity had not yet told them about her business plans or Jay Houghton. Typical Felicity – she was leaving it to Grace to broach the subject, which meant it was Grace who would suffer the flak if she didn’t get the wording just right. She tried to think how she’d phrase that particular email but was finding it impossible not to get distracted by the noise coming from reception and the knowledge that it would now have descended even further into a quagmire of crumbs, empty paper bags and dirty cups. And she would most definitely not take any notice of Tate who kept calling out to her to ‘come and kick back and join in’.
Here he was again, but this time heading for the kettle, Bebbie following. As he spooned more coffee into his cup and flicked on the kettle, Bebbie wrapped her arms around him, resting her head against his back. Grace imagined how uncomfortable that must be – today Tate had on jeans and a T-shirt plus a black leather jacket, scuffed as badly as his boots and with a pattern of tiny studs across the shoulders. There had been a number of these hugs from Bebbie and a range of other signs of intimacy – a hand on Tate’s arm; reaching out and running her fingers down his thigh. At first Grace had taken them as lavish signals from Bebbie that Tate was her man and she was his woman, but now she wasn’t so sure. There was something needy about Bebbie’s movements and a touch of indifference in the way Tate reacted to them. The kettle hadn’t even boiled when Grace heard Tate say, ‘Bebbie, honey, I need to get that,’ and flex his shoulders as if he wanted to underline his desire to be free of her.
Bebbie released Tate and moved to his side. Her hand reached out for the milk, presumably to add to his coffee.
‘I got it,’ he said, picking up the carton himself. ‘You wanna check and see if anyone else needs a refill?’
Grace made sure she did not look up as Bebbie walked by her desk, but she could almost smell the frustration and confusion coming off her.
‘Sure you don’t want a coffee?’ Tate asked, holding out his cup to Grace.
She shook her head.
‘Anything to eat?’
‘No.’
‘Like a spin in my chair?’
‘Thank you. No. I’m quite comfortable here.’
‘Don’t look comfortable. Look kinda under siege. Want me to take all those rocks and stones and build a wall around you?’
‘Not at all. Nice to have some life around the place.’
‘I’ll get Joe to bring in his electric guitar next time then.’
She did an approximation of a giggle and he watched her and twisted his mouth. It was a movement that made it clear he knew there was nothing real about the sound she’d just made.
He strolled over and perched on the desk, still holding his coffee cup. ‘Sure you don’t want me to build a wall round you?’ He dropped his voice. ‘Keep you safe?’
‘Safe? No, and by the way, it’s lovely, your … installation.’
He grinned. ‘Really? You like it?’
‘It’s … intriguing.
He slapped his leg and hooted with laughter. The genuine kind. ‘Intriguing is good, Gracie. So, whaddya think it means?’
‘Does it have to mean anything?’
He put his cup down. ‘Nope. But in this case it does. It’s kind of a metaphor for our relationship.’
Grace didn’t like the way he was looking at her now. Too much warmth. Too close.
‘I see.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘You see as in you understand, or you see as in “oh no, what’s he gonna say now?”’
She couldn’t stop herself from smiling at that and she received a smile back from him that made some longdormant nerve endings perk up.
‘I should really be getting on with—’
‘These,’ he nodded at the nearest cairn, ‘these little mountains represent an uphill struggle.’
‘Fascinating,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘Now, if you’ll just—’
‘’Cos that’s how it feel
s with you, Gracie. Even having a conversation is an uphill struggle. But maybe it will get better because, see, every now and again, the rocks in these little mountains move of their own accord. Someone slams a door downstairs, a floorboard settles and down come a few more.’
‘That’s very Zen,’ she said, choosing her words carefully. ‘But what happens if someone keeps putting the rocks back on the piles?’
Why had she said the very thing that would make him come forward instead of backing off? Immediately she felt him take her hand.
‘Yeah, I noticed that, Gracie,’ he said, a wry expression making his eyes seem full of light. He rubbed one of her fingers. ‘You’ve been caught red-handed messing with the artwork. I’m guessing you got gold paint on your fingers and tried to scrub it off.’ He made a regretful little noise. ‘Looks sore. Use the toothbrush in the kitchen?’
‘Nailbrush in my drawer.’ She hadn’t meant to say that.
‘Thorough,’ he said, his mouth curving up into one of those fond smiles that told her that was a compliment.
She was aware of how his thigh was only inches from her other hand and how he might as well have had a sign on his body saying, Do Not Touch. Danger of Burning. Or maybe it should read, Crashing and Burning.
He was still gently rubbing her fingers, but it was beginning to feel increasingly like a caress and her heart was throwing itself against her ribcage. She wished he’d let her hand go, but seemed unable to move any part of her body to make that happen. Now he was looking at her fingers as if they were the most miraculous things he’d ever seen, and she suddenly became terrified that he might lift her hand to his lips and kiss the sore patches, and she feared if he did that the rocks on those small mountains would all fall at once and possibly the windows would crack and a huge great dark gust of wind would blow into the office, whirling everyone and everything around like a scene out of The Wizard of Oz …
Except none of those things happened because he was lowering her hand and looking towards the door, and as Grace saw it open, Bebbie appeared carrying in some cups. Grace put both her hands on her keyboard and typed Tohgjskt hsuddu and tried not to think of that stabbingly regretful look Tate had given her just before he let her hand go.
The expression on Bebbie’s face suggested she was not happy with Tate sitting on Grace’s desk and not particularly happy that Grace knew how to breathe either.
‘Three more coffees,’ she said to Grace, peevishly plonking the cups down on the desk next to her arm. Bebbie’s hand then went to Tate’s thigh and gave it a rub.
‘Come on, Tate, we’re just discussing the Hockney retrospective. We need you.’
With enough allure lavished on every word to power a small massage parlour, Bebbie’s inference was clear: I need you Tate and later I’ll show you just how much … so stop wasting time in here and let Miss Boring make the coffee.
Somehow the coffee cups that had been on Grace’s desk were now on the floor. Grace resisted the urge to rub her elbow.
‘There’s a slight tilt on this desk,’ she said. ‘Should have warned you.’
She was going to stand up, but Tate beat her to it. He held his own cup of coffee out for her to take. ‘Better keep a grip on that, Gracie, don’t want that sliding about too. First my chair, now the cups.’ She had no choice but to take the cup from him, although it looked as if Bebbie would have fought her for it, and then he was bending down, picking up the ones on the floor.
‘You go on out, Bebbie,’ he said. ‘Just gonna get those coffees.’ He soon had his back to Bebbie again, busy over at the coffee jar.
Grace made an effort at least to look as if she were composing an email in a vain attempt to avoid thinking about what he’d just said and done and what she’d just felt, and how the thing with the cups was exactly what she’d been afraid of – a lapse into her old ways, a flash of rebellion.
Looking at her email also meant she didn’t have to watch the embarrassing sight of Bebbie still loitering in the room. She could hear her, though, advancing on Tate again, picking up his cup, offering to carry one of the other ones. Grace did a quick check despite intending not to. Yes, Bebbie was lavishing all kinds of doe-eyed looks on him.
When they both finally left the room, Grace felt as if a boulder had been lifted off the top of her head. Or a small cairn. She looked at them and grimaced.
She wanted to close the door on all that life in reception, but knew it would appear too antisocial. She thought back to that awkward scene over the coffee-making and wondered whether this kettle wasn’t turning into some kind of magnet for tension and uncertainty, even if, unlike its predecessor, it didn’t fuse all the lights. She remembered the way she had misunderstood Alistair asking what she thought of it, and her mother watching Tate bending over it. And then, this morning, when she had arrived early to an empty office, she had found it still warm. Which could only mean that Alistair had been in earlier and disappeared out again. Particularly confusing behaviour as when he did appear later, just before Grace set off for her tour, he was chuntering on about how bad the trains had been that morning, that’s why he was late. Lying, locking himself in his office, coming in early, not mentioning it – it all pointed to him doing something underhand.
And Grace was meeting Emma tomorrow with all those suspicions in her mind.
She turned back to her email:
Dear Aurillia, Zin and Serafina,
I am no nearer to finding out what caused Dad to leave home, but Mum popped in earlier in the week. She is planning on setting up a business from home – massage, reflexology, yoga, that kind of thing – and her partner in this business will be Jay Houghton. I gave her some advice regarding loans, etc. Talked to Dad about it and he was not very forthcoming, but did give me the impression that …
Grace hesitated. If she wrote something like he is afraid Mum is not being objective, it would elicit a three-pronged lecture from her sisters, who had largely cast objectivity aside to make all their major life decisions based on listening to their inner voice. She settled for he is afraid Mum is not considering all the implications and, after adding a few more lines enquiring after Zin’s partners and Serafina’s children, sent it. Out there in California and India and the Philippines, she hoped alarm bells would start to ring without her forcibly having had to press the button. Then again, she might just get the usual deluge of huggy-feely claptrap back. Well, that got you nowhere. Actually it did – it was the kind of thing that made you stumble into situations that ripped your heart out of your chest and turned you into something scummy and flaky until you damaged everything around you, including yourself.
She wrote another quick email asking them to reply as soon as possible because she knew that would annoy them, and jabbed at the ‘Send’ button as if she wished it actual harm.
All of this could have been avoided if Felicity would accept that she was no longer the captivating wild child of her youth but, in fact, a grandmother. Please, God, let this whole thing be a storm in a teacup, one of Felicity’s habitual infatuations that blew itself out after a welter of flirting, inappropriate hugging and not much else. As all four sisters agreed, these things were largely done to reignite their father’s interest. But him being reignited usually took the form of a mini-break in the New Forest, not this latest crisis.
Grace heard the outer door open and close a few times and each time the noise of music and chatter in reception lessened. Soon it had died away altogether. Where was Tate? She went out to find him asleep on the sofa, surrounded by all the mess he had helped create.
She remembered another room with plates of dried-out food balanced on top of tubes of paint. Glasses with the dregs of red wine still in them. Cigarette butts in ashtrays, each tipped with a kiss of that pink lipstick she used to wear. All that mess, and another blond guy right at the centre of it.
‘Penny for them,’ Tate said, still with his eyes closed, and she scuttled back to her office wondering how long he’d been watching her and just what her face
had been doing.
Her bottom had only just connected with the seat when, in quick succession, she took a phone call from her father and one from her mother. Her father wanted to know if he could have the Newham Gang round, just for a couple of hours, and did she have any superglue? He’d had a small incident with one of her kitchen chairs but he was optimistic that with a dab of glue it would be as right as rain.
She said yes to the Newham Gang and no to the super-glue.
Her mother wanted to know whom she should talk to at the council about running a business from home, and when Grace said it would probably be the planning officer but shouldn’t Jay be helping with some of this stuff, her mother accused her of being ‘snippy’ and said she was going to send her a crystal which she should put on her forehead at night to redress her negative impulses. Felicity then showed a few of her own by putting the phone down in the middle of Grace trying to tell her she’d emailed her other daughters.
When the phone rang again, Grace snatched it up ready to begin Part II of Grace versus Felicity, only to hear Gilbert’s voice.
‘First thing, dear girl: Vi would like you to come to tea. Yes, I know, bolt from the blue and she’s up to something, but if you could oblige … And second thing, fancy running away? I’m in the vicinity, haven’t had my lunch yet so was going to go to Acar’s. Come join me, Grace, hmm? I would drop by and scoop you up but Bernice the beast may see me. Come on Grace, what do you say?’
‘Yes to Violet, I’d love to see her, though it’ll have to be after the weekend and … just a minute,’ Grace put down the phone and quietly closed the door before talking to Gilbert again. ‘I think I could slip away to Acar’s too. Fifteen to twenty minutes, I’ll be there. Why not?’
Playing Grace Page 17