Playing Grace

by Osmond, Hazel

  ‘And he’s been doing what?’ she asked, wishing as she spoke that she hadn’t, but still having a morbid curiosity to find out.

  ‘Well, nine times out of ten he nips down side streets, doubles back and we lose him. Then when one of us waits near his flat for him to come back, he doesn’t pitch up till about two in the morning.’

  ‘He’s a young guy, Dad. He’ll be out clubbing, or … with a woman.’ She hated saying that last bit and hated, even more, that she hated it.

  ‘Yeah, that’s what we thought.’ Her Dad’s eyebrows were having a field day. ‘But he leaves all that crowd behind in the pub … except the night they all headed off with Gilbert. Did you know Gilbert went out with them?’

  ‘It’s hardly an offence, Dad, staying out till the early morning, nipping down side streets.’

  ‘And he goes out every morning again at six. Regular as clockwork. Where’s he going then? And he does that same nipping about and doubling back. Why’s that?’

  Grace didn’t know and it hurt her head to think about it.

  Her father eventually left her with a warning that she should keep an eye on Tate, report back anything that seemed fishy.

  His voice was still in her head when she sat down on the sofa in reception, too confused and headachy to get any further. She got a bottle of water from her bag and popped a paracetamol out of its silver bubble and swallowed it down. Her father was barking up the wrong tree – he must be. She popped out a second tablet and sent it to join the first. There was a big difference between being overconfident and stealing icons to order.

  She thought of the way Tate had watched her in Gilbert’s bedroom and in the office before the bombshell of Esther’s plane ticket. She remembered the intensity of what he had said in the courtyard of the Shillingsworth. The determination with which he’d moved towards her. Being cradled into his shoulder. She remembered him lying on the sofa she was sitting on now and felt something awful and exciting twist around in her belly, and it made her forget to breathe and then have to pull in a great lungful of air to stop from feeling woozy.

  She went to check the answerphone to distract herself. Nothing of any interest. There was never anything of any interest.

  Why was Tate living in a wealthy Russian’s flat? What had he been doing before he came to work here? If Alistair had obtained any references, got any kind of background information on him, she could have double-checked it. But could he be a thief? A real, heavy-duty, tear-gas-people thief?

  The phone rang and she sent the box of paracetamol skittering to the floor.

  It was Emma. Something was wrong – she could hear it in her voice as she asked Grace how she was, said what a terrible run of bad luck she’d had to be caught in two robberies, asked if she should be back at work. And then Emma was crying, great guttering sobs just like Felicity’s. Grace waited silently, knowing what was coming.

  ‘There’s more money going out, Grace, and, you know, I thought that what you said, about the Christmas present, well, it might be true but … but I’ve started finding things. Oh God, it sounds such a cliché … lipstick, Grace – not on his collar, on one of his cuffs – and a receipt, in the pocket of his trousers – I know, I know, I shouldn’t have been nosey – for a shop called Julietta’s. Have you heard of it?’

  ‘No.’ Grace glanced towards the filing cabinet where Gilbert had stowed the carrier bag. She couldn’t help it. She glanced towards the office door, checking Alistair wasn’t there. She couldn’t help that either. Stupid, stupid Alistair. A receipt in his trousers – another vital piece of paper he’d mislaid.

  ‘It’s a lingerie shop, Grace. He spent ninety-five pounds in there. And … I know that might be for me for Christmas, but what with that and the lipstick and the longer hours … I don’t know any more. I want to ask him but I’m afraid of what he might say. Oh Grace, if he was having an affair, you’d tell me, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Yes … yes, of course I would. If … if I knew anything for definite.’

  Emma was on that hanging phrase like a dog. ‘For definite – what does that mean? That you think he is but you’re not sure?’

  Grace tried to say something, anything, but it wouldn’t come and to her horror she found herself putting the phone down, cutting Emma off. She had just ended the call. Her friend had rung her, a cry for help, and she’d put the phone down.

  She pushed her chair back slowly and went out of her office and towards Alistair’s. His door was open and his welcoming expression died away as he caught sight of her face.

  ‘I’ve just had Emma on the phone,’ she said, and she didn’t know how she was going to say the next bit, but once she’d started it felt like a release. ‘She’s worried you’re having an affair – the long hours, the money going. Look, I don’t want to get involved in this, but I am. I’ve tried to cover for you and explain it away, even to myself, but I can’t any more. I’m already stuck in the middle of Mum and Dad’s mess; I can’t bear this too. I’m sorry if you’re affronted because nothing is going on, but please, please talk to Emma.’

  Alistair’s phone began to ring and both of them stared at it. Did Alistair know it must be Emma? It went through to the answering machine.

  ‘I have to go and do your tour,’ he said, still staring at the phone.

  ‘No, you need to ring Emma back. I’ll do my tour. I’m fine. I’ve just taken some paracetamol, they’ll see me through.’

  As she closed the door of Picture London behind her, she heard the phone ringing again.

  CHAPTER 29

  ‘Well, look who’s here.’ Lilly came out from behind the ticket desk and chuckled, a not particularly friendly sound. ‘Not got your fight partner with you? Heard he’d given you a knock to the head?’

  ‘That’s not true,’ Grace said, ‘I walked into a sculpture.’

  Beneath her make-up, Lilly’s face suggested she knew better and Grace decided to let it go. She had a lot of things she was trying not to think, worry or get angry about, and so she just added Lilly’s annoying behaviour to that list. It was a pretty full list and she supposed she should fret about that too, except that would make it even longer.

  She positioned herself on the flagstones near the clock with the loitering man in the powdered wig on it. If she examined him more closely, she was sure she’d discover that he had green eyes. She kept her own eyes on the double doors. She couldn’t remember who was going to be on this tour. Had there been eight or nine names on the piece of paper she’d run off for Alistair earlier?

  ‘So, things are getting back to normal here,’ Lilly said, ‘if you count us all being interviewed again as normal. And the police have been poking around all over the place. They’ve even been down in the drains.’ She did a dramatic look towards the top of the staircase. ‘Poor Norman’s gone off with stress. Not surprised – had to put up with all that extra attention ’cos of his wife.’ There was a sly look towards Grace. ‘Bad luck you being in both robberies. Police’ll be interested in that.’

  Grace approximated a brave smile in response and Lilly steamed on. ‘Heard your company’s only got one life left. Better be a good girl today. I’ll be keeping an eye on you.’

  Grace was glad to be saved the hypocrisy of another smile by the arrival of people who wanted to buy some tickets and Lilly went back behind the desk to serve them. Grace resumed waiting. She felt surprisingly calm down here, her recollection of the actual robbery hazy, but she knew that when she got to the part of the tour where she usually diverted to see the icon, the memory of its loss would sink its teeth into her again.

  She was watching Lilly apply her lipstick when the double doors opened and in they came: eight people, all different shapes and colours and sizes, who she assumed were her group, so she hiked on yet another smile and gave them her spiel about the fantastic things they were going to see.

  Upstairs she was meant to start with Renoir – she always started with him – but she dragged them along to Manet instead; they would never know
. And there she was, standing in front of the woman who was standing behind the bar at the Folies Bergère, and both of them were looking as if their minds were elsewhere.

  She felt herself drift further away as she explained when the painting had first been exhibited and how old Manet was when he painted it, and then she was thinking of poor Emma and of her mum, of the icons ripped from the walls, of Gilbert going home for his lamb chops on a Tuesday. She was thinking of Bill too and how Tate was another one who looked like a beach boy but was actually a bonfire. No, not a bonfire, don’t think of that.

  The way people were looking at her made her understand that she’d stopped talking, but she couldn’t remember one single thing about the picture behind her. She saw the glances run around the group as they realised that what they had interpreted as a pause was turning into something more embarrassing.

  ‘It has bottles in it, this painting,’ she tried. ‘Champagne and beer. English beer. What does this tell us? Yes, what indeed? Well, lots of things. Many, many things. It tells us that …’ She came to another halt and turned round to the barmaid as if she could help her out. ‘It tells us—’

  ‘It tells us that the bar was frequented by people of all classes, and by British tourists, ’cos we all know how the British like their beer.’ Tate did a slalom to get round the group and arrive by her side. ‘Sorry I’m late, folks,’ he said, ‘but Gracie here has been kind enough to start you off, now I’m gonna take the reins for a while. Just give me a second.’

  He steered her over to one of the benches, and she felt him press gently on her shoulders to make her sit. He had on what he’d been wearing that first time she’d seen him, his greatcoat slung over his shoulders. She saw genuine concern in his eyes. ‘What you doin’, Gracie, honey?’ he whispered. ‘Tryin’ to kill yourself?’

  He sprinted back to the group and she watched him talk them through the painting, his hands emphasising and illustrating what he was saying. He did her trick of picking someone to come up close to the painting and tell everyone what they saw, and when they said, ‘Some feet on a trapeze,’ he professed complete astonishment, said no one had ever noticed that before. Had them all laughing, had them in the palm of his hand.

  She knew that she was in the palm of his hand too.

  She followed him round, as he’d done with her on that first day, and she saw Lilly come into the room and check on them. She seemed disappointed that there was no fighting yet.

  Tate carried on talking, laughing, entertaining, but every now and again he would stop and defer to her: ‘Gracie, as the expert, you wanna add anything?’ Once or twice she did and he beamed at her, giving the group the impression that nobody could explain things as well as she could.

  He was lying: she knew he was much better at this than she was. He wasn’t hiding behind a wall of reserve keeping everything locked down; he would joke, nudge, and ask people about themselves, get them to trust him.

  So, he’d make a good con artist … but a thief? Maybe being a con artist was enough. Distracting people, getting them to open up, relax. She wished her head wasn’t throbbing again – it made it difficult to think this through properly.

  At the end, as he said his goodbyes in the courtyard, the group seemed loath to leave. His hand was full of the tips they had given him.

  ‘Thank you for helping me,’ she said when the last person had gone. ‘You were good in there. Really know your stuff.’

  ‘Chicago’s a great teacher.’

  ‘You brought it alive.’

  ‘I’m a good actor. Like you, Gracie.’ The penetrating look was getting an outing again and then he did a big sigh, the kind where your shoulders hunch up and then come down and you blow the air out through your lips. ‘You know what?’ he said. ‘I can’t go back to this snippy-snippy stuff any more.’ There was a lift of an eyebrow. ‘I gotta keep my big mouth shut and not keep trying to get you to spill your guts and you gotta stop looking like I came in on the bottom of your shoe. Deal?’

  There she was saying, ‘Deal,’ and holding out her hand. He put the money he was holding into it and closed her fingers, one by one, over the notes. It should have seemed too clever – a nicely contrived image – but it didn’t; it felt like something delicate and tender.

  ‘You’ve earned the money, you should keep it,’ she said, but he seemed more interested in keeping hold of her hand. The only way she could get him to let go was by starting to walk. Hard to think when someone was looking at you like that.

  As they neared the archway, her mobile rang.

  ‘Sounds like you just got a signal?’ Tate said. ‘Wanna answer it?’

  She juggled getting the money into her purse and getting the mobile out of her bag. It was her father. She moved away from Tate a couple of steps, mouthed ‘sorry’.

  There was no ‘hello’ or ‘how are you?’ when she answered the call; just her father plunging straight into, ‘I need you to do something, Grace. That American lad, you’re with him now, aren’t you?’

  She moved further away from Tate.

  ‘How do you know that?’ She tried to keep her voice down and did what she hoped was a subtle scan to check if there were any familiar figures loitering about.

  ‘Stop looking, Grace, and just listen. I need you to keep him busy, just for an hour or so.’

  ‘Dad, what is this? What are you playing at?’

  She saw Tate had taken out a pack of cigarettes and flipped open the top. He looked across to her, glanced back down at the cigarettes, seemed to hesitate and then flipped the top of the packet closed again. He couldn’t get the packet back into his pocket cleanly, as if he were fumbling and it made her want to go and help him.

  Her father’s tone was wheedling. ‘Just an hour, Grace. Go to the pub, talk about art. You can do that. Just till seven.’

  ‘That’s an hour and a half.’ An hour and a half in a pub with Tate? She felt her throat tighten at the thought of that.

  ‘It’s for a good cause, Grace. What if he is involved in this robbery lark? That would mean you were doing a public service, stopping any more paintings getting stolen. You know how you love those paintings. It’s not fair that someone’s going to hide them away in a private collection. Stop you looking at them. Come on, Grace. Just keep him busy while I go and check on something.’

  She glanced back at Tate, who had the cigarette packet back out and seemed to be repeating the open, look, hesitate, close process.

  ‘Will you stop badgering me if I do, Dad? I can’t think properly …’

  ‘I won’t ask you to do anything else.’

  ‘All right, all right. Just till seven. And don’t do anything daft. Or dangerous.’

  ‘Course not.’

  ‘Trouble?’ Tate said, coming towards her as she put the mobile back in her bag. The lights were shining off his hair. He was like an angel who’d fallen into a theatrical outfitter’s. She saw how people were looking at him, even here in London. It made him seem more dangerous. Not angelic at all.

  ‘Just my dad.’

  He nodded and wrinkled his nose. ‘Yup, dads can be tricky.’

  ‘Not as tricky as mums.’

  He laughed at that and there it was firmly established now – that connection. A bond.

  ‘So.’ He shrugged. ‘How are you doin’? Can’t believe Al sent you out to do this today. Not sure you should even be back at work. Neck still sore? Head still hurting?’

  ‘Comes and goes.’

  ‘Yeah?’ His gaze travelled from her hair, down her face to her neck and then back to her eyes. ‘It’s there at the moment, your head. Looks fine to me. More than fine.’

  She walked under the arch and out into the street where the lights were burning up the dark and the traffic was rushing past and Grace wasn’t certain she could go through with sitting in a pub next to Tate and making polite conversation about art. She knew how to argue with him – that was safe – but talking properly?

  He stopped. ‘You look like you could use
a drink, Gracie, but you don’t drink, do you? So …’

  Inside her, the old Grace yawned and stretched. ‘I know a pub that serves really good water.’

  He gave her one of his straight-down-the-line smiles. ‘Water it is then.’ His laugh came out like a breath.

  They walked away from the worst of the traffic and the worst of the crowds and in the pub he kept looking back at her as he waited to be served, as if he expected her to get up and go. Yet when he brought the drinks to their table, his ‘You mind, ma’am?’ with a nod at the space next to her had a confident, almost demanding, tone to it that made her think of a gunslinger again – which, she thought, must make her a saloon girl. She felt her sense of caution roll further out into the long grass.

  ‘Careful,’ he said, as she lifted her glass, ‘I got you fizzy. Sure you can handle it?’ There was a challenging look in his eyes and that awful and exciting something was twisting inside her again. He didn’t seem interested in his drink, didn’t seem inclined to stop looking at her face. She glanced at the clock behind the bar. Barely quarter to six.

  She felt stupidly self-conscious and tried to bolster up her resolve by remembering the reasons why her father was suspicious of Tate. He stomped all over her careful thinking with a low, ‘Sorry I’m staring. Couldn’t stop thinking about you this weekend, Gracie. Worried about you. Kept remembering that moment you hit your head. My fault. Pushing and pushing at you when it’s none of my business. Saying all that stuff to Esther. I don’t back off, that’s my problem. One of them.’

  She studied him as he talked. A strong, open face. Yes, definitely more of a cowboy than a beach boy, except those green eyes were too cat-like, too willing to take things beyond far. But far enough to steal the very things she loved?

  ‘I should have seen Esther was getting too … you know. Should have read that sign: Handle With Care. Messed up Gilbert a bit too, maybe …’

  He gave her a look to check what she might think about that but she wasn’t thinking about Gilbert; she was looking at Tate’s eyebrows, how they were light brown, and how one of his lips still had a mark where Violet had nipped him.