She ploughed on. ‘Was on a bike with one guy, coming back from a trip up in the hills. We had a crash. He broke both his legs; I just bounced I was so drunk. I picked up a businessman, God knows how – I was looking a wreck by then – and while he was sleeping I nicked his bag. Thought there might be some cash in it I could use for drugs. When I found out there was only some files, I threw it in a skip. Turned out he worked for a military contractor, shouldn’t have taken the files out of the office. He lost his job … big fuss in the Spanish papers.’
Tate nodded slowly when she stopped, his lips pressed together. ‘How many?’ he said eventually.
‘How many would be too many?’
He didn’t answer, seemed to be watching the small dog and its owner who hadn’t made much progress along the street. Grace watched them too until they went into a building.
‘The ones I can remember … twenty or so. Over about three months.’
‘Oh well,’ he said before surprising her with a hearty, ‘Way to go, Gracie.’
‘What?’
‘Well, it’s going some, but it’s not major league stuff. And the things that happened to the guys weren’t just down to you. They had free will, Gracie – their decisions as much as yours. Seems to me women are always getting the “Jezebel” label stuck on them when we all know it takes two to tango.’
‘Are you listening to me? I was out of control. I wasn’t getting any pleasure from it, doubt I was giving any either. And know what my pièce de résistance was? I slept with Bill’s own son. That’s how bad I was. Kept the worst till last. His own son.’ She wondered why she was so desperate for him to judge her.
‘That’ll hurt,’ was all he said.
‘It did, Tate. More damage. I am so, so ashamed of myself. Scott he was called – a horrible, spoilt brat, just a couple of years older than me. I had some weird idea Bill would come to heel this time, and Scott was on some kind of kick to hurt Bill … that father–son thing—’
‘Yup, know all about that. Go on, Gracie.’
‘We did it in the pool where we knew Bill would see us from his studio. He went ballistic, nearly drowned the pair of us. Upshot was Scott left San Sebastián next day with a broken jaw and Bill had a couple of cracked ribs, a broken foot and a sprained wrist.’
‘Hope it was his painting arm.’
‘Is that all you can say?’
‘How about, “Jeez, what a nice family”?’
‘And I split it up,’ she almost screamed. ‘I don’t think they’ve ever spoken since. What kind of woman does that? It was like I was collecting scalps … hoovering up men. I mean, God, where would I have drawn the line?’
‘Calm down, Gracie. Just get on with it. So, Bill chucked you out?’
She took a deep breath and forced it back out quickly, trying to steady herself. ‘No. Forgave me. Said he admired my spirit, what I was prepared to do to get his attention again. We went back to how we were for a good couple of months.’ She paused and thought about how attentive Bill had seemed and knew she wouldn’t be able to keep the bitterness out of her voice. ‘Except we didn’t really go back – I was just desperate to interpret it like that. He wanted me by his side all the time. He even let me hold his paints as he worked in the studio. It took a while for me to realise that he was using me as a kind of nurse with benefits. He couldn’t hold his paints himself his wrist was so bad. He couldn’t even get dressed or walk to a bar without my help. Great, eh? Lover to nurse via whore.’
‘Don’t want to hear you calling yourself that, Gracie,’ Tate said sharply.
When she didn’t reply he reached out and gave her a nudge. ‘You wanna hear a few things about my past to make you feel better? He rubbed his hands together. ‘OK, I had a thing with two women at once when I first when to college.’
‘Two-timing is hardly comparable,’ she said miserably.
‘No, you don’t get it. It was one of those ménage à trois things. Like your sister.’
She had a vision of two women coiled around Tate and knew she had no right to feel the jealousy she was experiencing.
Tate was grinning, rolling his eyes in an exaggerated fashion. ‘Kid in a sweet shop to start with and then like piggy in the middle. Sex was great, emotional meltdown not so good.’
‘Jealousy and back-biting?’
‘Back-biting and front-biting. Stereo angst. Made you feel better yet?’
She shook her head and steadfastly watched a bus pass, seeing the poster on the side blur.
‘Oh Gracie, Gracie,’ he said softly. ‘Come on, look, here’s another thing. Racked up a load of debt on my course and this guy said he knew an older woman needed a handyman. I go round to her apartment – big, swanky place and turns out it wasn’t the apartment needed a hand.’
Grace stopped watching the traffic. ‘You mean—’
‘Yup. And you know what? She paid well. And I tried to give value for money.’
‘How old was she?’
‘How old’s too old?’ he shot back with a grin. ‘Oh, come on, Gracie. Get over it. You slept around a lot, screwed a father and son and, yeah, some bad things happened, but you didn’t set out to make them happen. You weren’t killing and maiming and all those really bad things people do to each other. You were lost and lashing out. It’s not worth dragging about like a chain.’
She wished she could hold on to this moment of forgiveness – keep soaring for as long as possible before the big dive.
‘That’s not all,’ she said bleakly. ‘There is more. Worse.’
He nodded his head as if indulging her. ‘Then get it out. Offload it so we can talk about some happier things, like why you love the icons so much.’ He leaned in closer. ‘’Cos I have to tell you, I think this is one time I’ve been paying attention to the signs.’
Oh God. She hadn’t expected to arrive by this particular route, but here they were. She felt as if he’d just pressed the button in a lift and they were hurtling down from the top floor.
‘And what do they mean, Tate?’ she said very slowly.
‘I think they mean you want to settle down, have a family. It’s that security thing again, isn’t it, that need to feel settled? That’s why you’re so passionate about them, popping in between tours to get your fill. And hey, I don’t know if I’m ready for all that yet, but it’s not a turnoff, Gracie, not—’
‘No, Tate. You’ve got it wrong. It’s not about wanting a baby, it’s about losing one. Mine and Bill’s. I got pregnant during that time I was being his nurse and then I had a miscarriage and it was my fault. Utterly. Absolutely.’ She stopped, then wound herself up enough to speak again. ‘When I visit the icons I’m trying to say sorry, ask for forgiveness. It’s all I can do … that and keep myself on a tight rein, make sure I never slide again.’
She wasn’t sure he’d understood what she was saying because she had fluffed the end bit, her voice cracking, and she made herself keep looking at him to see how bad it was. He was standing up quickly. She saw him walk to the taxi, and she thought that was it – the last view she’d have of him. But he wasn’t getting into it; he was talking to the driver. She heard the engine die. Saw the driver pick up a newspaper and start to read it.
He was back with her.
‘You’ll miss your train,’ she said.
‘Forget the train. Move over.’ She shifted and he sat next to her. ‘Tell me about losing the baby, Gracie. Tell me how it was your fault.’
She wished she had a tissue, but she used her coat sleeve instead.
‘It was my fault because I was so badly out of control that it took me a long time to realise that I wasn’t feeling lousy because I had a hangover, or I hadn’t eaten for a day, but because I was pregnant. I’d been on the pill since I left England … but I guess I was throwing up so much by that point, the protection it was offering was barely nil. By the time it got through to my addled brain that I hadn’t had a period, I was about seven weeks pregnant.’ She turned to him. ‘I should never have allow
ed myself to get pregnant in that state.’
‘Allowed?’ He was looking confused. ‘I don’t think you mean that, do you? It was sheer chance … you were playing Russian roulette with all that sex and hardly any protection. It could have happened with any of those other guys, couldn’t it?’
‘No. With those other guys I always used a condom as well. I didn’t with Bill.’ She saw his disbelieving look. ‘What? Weren’t you listening when I told you what low-lifes some of them were?’
He burst out laughing. ‘So, even when you were drunk out of your skull, high as a kite, you were careful?’
She nodded. ‘Felicity always drummed into us that it was romantic to be barefoot and pregnant, not barefoot and HIV positive. Or syphilitic. One of the few lessons she taught me. Barefoot and pregnant by your one true love was the ultimate goal in her book.’ She looked at the pavement. ‘Barefoot! Can’t remember the last time I took off my shoes outside.’
‘But what about Bill, Gracie? How come you didn’t get yourself an all-over condom before you went back to bed with him? He wasn’t a “true” love, he was a philandering shit. He must have been racking up the partner miles.’
‘Yes. That fact kind of went under my radar. Blinded by passion, you see, and Felicity’s brainwashing. And I was so grateful to be back in his bed that I conveniently forgot the women who had been filling in for me.’ She checked on his expression and couldn’t read it. ‘Anyway, luckily, miraculously, I only caught one thing from Bill – a baby, and he really wasn’t pleased about it.’
‘No shit.’
‘Babies were a drain on his creativity. He hadn’t hung around to help bring up Scott; he wasn’t getting saddled in his forties with another child.’
‘So he wanted you to have an abortion?’
‘Yes. To go back home and have it. Get rid of me and the baby in one go, I think. But that was never going to happen, because within a couple of hours of me looking at the test result and thinking my life was ruined, I suddenly wanted that baby more than I wanted Bill. More than I wanted anything. Can’t describe it …’ She allowed herself to think back to that time, to feeling as if she’d done something miraculous and now the world wasn’t going to be about her for a while; it was going to be about what she could give this baby. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and didn’t care that when she sniffed it sounded thick and unpleasant.
‘Told Bill I was having the baby and I wasn’t going back home like some disgraced serving wench. I dug my heels in. He went into sulk overdrive and I, well, I started trying to clean up my act. No drinking, no smoking, steered clear of the drugs … proper meals at proper times.’ She smiled grimly. ‘Didn’t happen overnight. Struggled with it. But I was getting there. And I got the villa cleaned top to bottom. Ordered all sorts of baby books too. I was going to bask in the sun, getting fatter and fatter and learning how to be a good mum. A mum who was nothing like Felicity. I wasn’t just going to love this baby; I was going to teach it everything.’ She wiped her nose on her sleeve again. ‘Used to talk to it in the night, tell it that I was going to protect it and watch it grow into a good person. Keep it away from all the mistakes I’d made.’
‘Steer it round the bear traps and pull it out when it fell in them,’ Tate said sadly and she watched him until she felt ready to finish.
‘Wasn’t to be, though. Six weeks later it was all over. I still can’t look at yellow tiles …’
She swallowed hard when she felt his arm come round her, seeing herself hunched over in the upstairs bathroom unable to comprehend how the bit of sky she could see through the window could still be blue or grasp the reality of what was happening to her. All she knew was that something so tiny, barely there, was knocking a hole in her by going.
‘Yellow tiles?’ Tate asked gently.
‘We had them in the upstairs bathroom.’ That was all she could say.
Tate kept quiet for a while, just holding her before saying, tentatively, ‘You might have to go back through some of that, Gracie sweetheart, because I’m still missing how it was your fault.’
It all came out in a rush. ‘The drink, the cigarettes, the drugs, staying up all night, not eating properly, the mess and dirt in that villa. I never gave the baby a chance … it was no different than waiting for it to be born and holding a pillow over its—’
Tate’s arm came off her shoulders and he was turning her towards him.
‘Take a breath, Gracie, and listen to me. First off, women lose babies for all kinds of reasons, particularly early on. All kinds of reasons. So, if you’d lived like a saint you might still have had a miscarriage. My sister, she had one and she’s so shiny and healthy you could eat off her.’
‘You’re just saying that to make me feel better.’
‘Don’t, Gracie,’ he said so severely that it made her jerk back. ‘Don’t be a smartass. This is my sister we’re talking about. I’ve never got to know her as well as I should, but I saw her right after it happened and it was real pain she was going through. Right to the bone.’ He put his hand on the back of his neck and rubbed it. ‘Did everything by the book before she got pregnant and afterwards. Same end result.’
‘But I didn’t do everything by the book,’ she shouted, wishing he’d understand. The woman with the dog was coming back and she stepped into the gutter to avoid Grace. She remembered how, when her life had been under control, she had done that with the Special Brew man.
‘Gracie,’ Tate said forcefully. ‘You didn’t do it by the book, but you didn’t do any of that other stuff on purpose either. Having a miscarriage brings enough guilt with it as it is and you’re putting all this extra stuff on top? Surely Fliss, your sisters, they’ve said the same as I’m saying?’
She shook her head. ‘I’ve never told anyone. You’re the first.’ Even now she wasn’t sure she could say I lost my baby in front of anyone but Tate.
Tate looked as if he’d just seen something horrible.
‘You are kidding me? Nobody has helped you with this?’ He had her hand again. ‘Gracie, my sister took months to get over it, and I’m not sure “get over” is the right expression. She’s got a little girl now, a healthy one, but I know she still has that one day a year when she goes off on her own. Remembers. And she’s had family and friends to talk it through with. You should have had help.’
She was going to say she didn’t deserve help because that was the next line she always said to beat herself with, but she glanced at Tate and saw his eyes were filling with tears.
‘What are you doing?’ She couldn’t keep the wonder out of her voice.
‘We Americans call it crying.’
‘But why?’
‘Because it’s so damn sad,’ he said smearing the tears that were now running freely all across his cheeks. ‘No help? Not even in the hospital?’
‘Not really. I didn’t speak the kind of Spanish you needed in that situation.’ And she hadn’t missed the looks from some of the nurses, nurses who she’d seen in the bars around San Sebastián.
Tate sounded even sadder. ‘This is crap. All this time you’ve tried to cope on your own and ended up blaming the one person you should have taken care of and been kind to before anyone else.’
She continued to watch, feeling as if she was trying to find a way through her own emotions while interpreting his. She wasn’t picking up any signs of disgust or even disappointment – if you’re disgusted you don’t cry, do you? She almost couldn’t bear to have hope. She thought of the bathroom again, the rush to the hospital, the noise and activity and then the long drop into silence. It had felt like a pit with a spike in it, just for her, and every time she thought of what she’d done, that spike was still lodged in her guts.
‘I think the baby, the one in the icons, is watching me. Judging me,’ she said. ‘Asking me how I could be so callous. So careless with a life. I should have—’
‘Nope. Should have, would have, could have … all crap. It just happened.’
‘Tate, please.’
‘Please what? Agree that it was your fault because you’ve got to the point where guilt and shame feels like somewhere familiar and warm to live? No way, Gracie, I’m hauling you out of there.’
‘How can you really think it wasn’t my fault?’ she said incredulously.
‘Shouldn’t the question be: how can I really think it was?’
She didn’t answer. She had scrunched up her face to try to keep everything from spilling out into wet, guttering sadness. She heard Tate sigh.
‘OK, different approach. I’m gonna be blindingly honest. Would that help? It would? Well, here goes. This is my head talking, not my heart. No, I don’t think a diet of Rioja and weed and all that other stuff is a particularly good start for a baby, but babies survive worse – doesn’t do them much good, but they make it to getting born. And there are a million reasons why what happened to your baby happened. You gonna go through all of them and feel responsible for each one? Or you gonna do the sensible thing and howl at the moon because sometime’s life is just a bitch and takes the very things from you that are gonna hurt the most?’
She considered that for a while, every now and again checking his face to see if his expression was changing to something more critical. If anything, the warmth in his eyes seemed to be intensifying.
Was it possible to think back on those days in Spain without them being slicked in black, sticky guilt?
They watched a man in a suit walk by, surreptitiously checking on their faces as if he was worried that their emotion would leak out and touch him. Tate squeezed her hand.
Playing Grace Page 35