Of course. St. Martin’s. I’d completely forgotten. “Um, yes. I think that would be … efficient.”
“Excellent. I’ll have my secretary make reservations at Locanda Locatelli. Is one o’clock too late for you?”
“No, no. One is perfect.”
“Good. See you there, Grace Costello’s phone. Oh, and don’t forget to bring Grace with you.”
I’m mid-tinkling laugh when he hangs up.
Polly’s mouth has fallen open. “Were you flirting?”
“That wasn’t flirting! Well, OK. It was … attempted flirting.”
“Well, who was it?”
I can’t help the smile that I can feel spreading like sunshine across my lips. “With Saad Amar. He’s Charlie’s boss. And the guy Miranda was haranguing me about.”
“Wait. St. Martin’s Dad Guy is also Charlie’s boss?”
“Yes. But he’s not a dad. He’s an older brother.”
“And he’s incredibly sexy, obviously.”
“How do you know he’s incredibly sexy?”
“Oh, hello, Mr. Amar … Thank you for calling!” Polly breathes, in what I presume is supposed to be an impression of me. Even though I highly doubt I was using quite so sultry a voice as that. “That’s how I know he’s incredibly sexy.”
“Well, it’s totally irrelevant, anyway, how sexy he is. I’m just meeting him for a quick lunch and a chat about St. Martin’s. I’m not planning to rip off all his clothes and jump into bed with him.”
“More’s the pity.”
“Polly!”
“But don’t you see how perfect this is, Grace?” She grabs one of my hands. “I mean, OK, I accept that it might be difficult for you to leave Charlie. But if you were thinking, by any chance, of taking a lover …”
I can’t help laughing out loud.
“I’m serious! It might be just the thing to keep you happy enough to stay in your marriage!”
I’m starting to see why Polly might not be all that cut out for marriage herself after all.
“Polly. I’m not going to take a lover, as you so eloquently put it. And even if I were, it wouldn’t be Saad Amar. The man’s a billionaire, for God’s sake! An international playboy. He probably goes after models and actresses. Not stay-at-home mums from Parsons Green.”
“He’s not interested in you that way at all, then?” Polly folds her arms. “So is he going to tell Charlie that he’s taking you for lunch at one of the most romantic restaurants in London?”
“How can I possibly know what he’s going to tell Charlie?”
“Are you going to tell Charlie that he’s taking you for lunch at one of the most romantic restaurants in London?”
It’s my turn to fall silent. After a couple of moments, I say, “I bet it’s not one of the most romantic restaurants in London at lunchtime. I bet it’s full of men in suits talking about their giant bonuses.”
“Grace, all I’m trying to say is that it sounds as though he likes you. It sounds as though you like him. And I just can’t …” Her voice wobbles. I think it takes her by surprise as much as it does me. “I can’t stand to hear that you’re unhappy with Charlie. And if this Saad guy could make you happier, even if only a little bit …”
“It’s kind of a dangerous way of making myself happier, though. I mean, having an affair …” I break off. “Look, Poll, I really need to get going, OK? I feel bad that we’ve not managed to talk about any of your stuff, but maybe we can …”
“I’ve told you. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“But we’ll see each other later this week? I can come to see the new flat in Clapham!”
“Sure,” she says, though without a huge amount of enthusiasm, before giving me a quick hug. “Call me, Gracie, won’t you? Let me know how your lunch goes.”
I nod and give her a hug back before hurrying for the tube station.
Grace
Monday, November 23
I’ve half an hour to kill before I’m due at Locanda Locatelli, so I’ve decided to use up the time in Selfridges, where I’ve somehow found my way toward the lingerie department.
This is where I’ve just done a very silly thing.
Before stopping to think, I’ve picked out a pretty new bra and knickers from the Elle Macpherson Intimates section, tried them on in the changing room, and now I’m just waiting for the salesgirl to come back with a pair of scissors so she can cut the labels off and I can buy them and wear them right now, underneath my Issa dress, instead of the slightly saggy M&S knickers and the navy bra I bought in a French hypermarket three … no, four years ago.
“It’s so important, I always think,” I say to the salesgirl as she returns, “to have the right underwear on beneath your clothes. No matter what you’re doing, I mean! It’s … it’s just a good foundation, isn’t it? For external poise and confidence.”
“Mmm, absolutely,” she agrees, snipping the label off the knickers (lacy, white), then turning her attention to the bra (matching, with light padding—believe me, I need it—and a plunge front) before handing them both back to me. “Makes you feel better about yourself, top to toe.”
“Yes! Precisely! Feel better about yourself! It’s important—as a woman, I mean—to have enough self-esteem to wear pretty lingerie just for the hell of it. Isn’t it?” I’m aware that I’m clattering out the words at the rate of a champion typist, and that the salesgirl is looking at me as though she thinks I might have a serious coke habit, or something. “I mean, they say so in the magazines all the time. So I’m sure loads of your customers do it for that reason. Just so that we know we’re wearing it. We’re not doing it because we’re thinking we might end up having sex with someone we’re just going out for lunch with.”
There’s a bit of a silence.
“I’ll just go and put these through on the register, shall I?” the salesgirl says after a moment. “Leave you to get dressed and see you there in a couple of minutes?”
Actually, it takes me a bit longer than a couple of minutes, because I use the opportunity not only to put on my new underwear but also to zhuzh up my hair a bit and touch up my makeup with the bits and bobs I’ve just bought in the cosmetics hall downstairs. The Russian Red Lipglass was Just Too Much, I’ve decided. Or maybe Just Not Me. Either way, I’m replacing it with a pretty flesh-colored Givenchy lipstick and subtle shadey-cheekboney-effects with a shamefully expensive NARS Multiple.
Pretty, pretty, pretty. Confidence building. Not sexy. Or available. Just like my brand-new pretty white underwear. That only I’m going to know I’m wearing.
Because obviously Polly was way off-base to get all excited about the possibility that I might end up in bed with Saad. Sorry—take him as my lover. Like I tried to tell her, just because he’s happy to flirt with me doesn’t mean he’s got the faintest intention of actually making a move on me. And more importantly, even if he did, I really do have absolutely no intention of reciprocating. If it came up (in a manner of speaking), I’d politely decline. Courteously—but firmly—say no to the prospect of his strong body pressing itself against mine, his muscular arms entwining themselves around me, his soft, probing lips working their way from my neck s-l-o-w-l-y down to the hollow of my collarbone, before pausing only to lift me off my feet, throw me down onto a bed, rip open my Issa dress, and …
Look, I never said I wasn’t imagining what it might be like to end up in bed with Saad.
I mean, we can all imagine, can’t we?
I’m five minutes late when I eventually hurry through the doors of Locanda Locatelli, and I can see Saad waiting for me at the (quiet, corner) table.
He’s looking better even than I remembered him, comfortable in his smooth, light brown skin and a perfectly tailored gray suit. He’s also wearing a pristine white shirt, discreet cuff links, and a beautiful silk tie in a vibrant shade of burnt orange that looks great with his dark hair and molten black eyes.
I actually have to catch my breath.
He stands up to greet
me, putting down his BlackBerry and extending a formal hand. I’ve barely time to register disappointment that he didn’t move in for a Continental-style double-cheek-kiss when he says, with the smallest of frowns, “You’re late.”
“Only five minutes!” I say as the waiter shuffles me into my seat.
“Well, I was early. So for me it was more like ten.” He doesn’t seem at all concerned about the unfairness of this statement. “I took the liberty of going ahead and ordering for both of us, if you don’t mind. I hope you like rabbit.”
“Um, yes … rabbit is lovely …” What I really mean by this, of course, is that rabbits are lovely; that I kept them as pets as a child and that the last thing I want to put in my mouth and chew is a cuddly, fluffy, pancetta-wrapped bunnikins. But I’m scared that if I object to his choice, he’ll just be irritable about me being “late” again. Because so far—and for the second time today!—this meal really isn’t going the way I imagined it.
“I would have ordered a glass of wine,” he carries on, “but it’s lunchtime, and we’ve got rather a lot to be getting through, so I thought it’d be more sensible to stick to sparkling water.”
“Yes, of course.” Thank God, in fact. I mean, wine would have been nice, and everything, just to give me that extra little boost of confidence that even my new knickers can’t provide, but obviously it might have sent entirely the wrong signals. Boozing, at lunch, with a man who’s not my husband. “Sparkling water is just what I’d have ordered.”
“Good.” His black eyes meet—and hold—mine for a moment, then move away as he reaches for a spiral-bound notebook that’s sitting between us on the table. “So! First things first. I suppose one of the things I’m most interested in is extracurricular activities.”
I swallow. “What—er—what kind of extracurricular activities?”
“Drama. Judo. Other sports. Adnan—that’s my little brother, by the way—is a very keen junior cricketer. So I’d be very interested to hear your son’s experience of the added extras St. Martin’s has to offer.”
Of course. Extracurricular activities at St. Martin’s. That’s what we’re here to talk about. Damn and blast Polly for putting other ideas into my head.
I take a sip of my San Pellegrino, grateful for its cool, refreshing bubbles. “Well, yes, the school really has some wonderful added extras. There is drama. There is cricket. There is judo.” I sound like a total imbecile, and from the way Saad is looking at me, not writing a word down in his spiral notebook, he pretty much thinks I’m an imbecile, too. Gone is the amused, flirty gaze of the other evening at the party. Now he just looks faintly cross, and harassed, and not all that pleased to be here. “Um, I’m afraid my son doesn’t do an awful lot of those kinds of activities, though …”
“Oh? Why not?”
“Well, I’m a big believer in not pushing kids to do things all the time,” I add, which is my attempt at making my laissez-faire style sound like an actual Child-rearing Philosophy that even a full-fledged Miranda would approve of. “You know, just giving them space and time to grow, finding out their interests for themselves …”
I witter on like the most boring and overinvolved mother in the universe until the arrival of the pancetta-wrapped bunnikins, for which I’m suddenly absurdly grateful. I mean, at least the act of trying to get it down my throat shuts me up for a few minutes, so that Saad can ask a few different questions—about the quality of the science and math teaching, and how the children get along with the staff—and actually get the opportunity to write something concrete down in his notebook. He barely touches his rabbit himself, and his manner is brisk and businesslike. When the waiters come to clear our plates away I’m desperate for him to ask for the bill so this meal can end and I can crawl away to my normal, humdrum life, where I don’t get my hopes up about flirtation with gorgeous billionaires. My heart actually sinks when he asks for a slice of the lemon tart and two double espressos.
“My peace offering,” he says as the waiter heads off with the order, “if you’ll accept it.”
Peace offering? I blink at him. “I wasn’t aware there’d been a war.”
“I was cranky when you arrived. And I’ve carried on being cranky throughout lunch. I apologize.” He runs a hand through his hair in an exasperated fashion that just so happens to make him even more devastatingly attractive than before. Not that I’m letting myself think about that anymore. Not now that he’s made it so obvious that the purpose of this lunch really was just business after all. “It’s just that I had a piece of rather bad news a couple of minutes before you got here.”
“Oh, no! Is everything OK?”
“I’m afraid it’s not. Not really.” He lets out a sigh, long and weary. “I had a call from my art buyer. He was bidding in an auction at Sotheby’s for me this morning. And I’m afraid I lost out on a Van Gogh I was very keen on.”
I almost splutter a mouthful of San Pellegrino over the tablecloth. “That’s your kind of bad news?”
A half smile flickers across his face for just a moment, then it’s gone again. “Believe me, I’m aware how ludicrous it sounds. But I’d been really keen on getting my hands on this painting, Grace. I don’t know if you care about art at all, but …”
“No, I do! Very much so, in fact. I adore art!” I realize that this might sound almost as silly and pretentious as my fabulous French toast earlier, so I carry on, hastily. “I went to art school after my A-levels, actually. Well, until I dropped out at the beginning of my third year to marry Charlie …” I tail off, aware that Saad might not be all that interested in my academic disappointments.
But actually, he’s still listening, with an engaged expression on his face that looks entirely genuine.
Either that, or he’s learned the world’s most impeccable manners at some kind of international playboy training academy.
“Um, so, yes, I really do like art,” I finish lamely. “I’d be interested to hear about the Van Gogh you wanted to buy.”
“Lying Cow.”
I stare at him. “What did you say?”
“Lying Cow,” he repeats, that half smile crossing his face again. “It’s the name of the painting I wanted to buy.”
“Oh! I … I haven’t heard of it.”
“No, it isn’t exactly a major work of his.” He reaches into his inside jacket pocket, pulls out a slim, folded-back Sotheby’s catalogue, and hands it over to me. It shows, indeed, a picture of a cow, lying down and looking forward, in Van Gogh’s swirly brushstrokes. “What do you think?”
I glance up. He’s watching me intently, as though what I say about it really matters to him. Suddenly—incredibly—I feel inspired to give my real opinion for a change. “Honestly?”
“Honestly.”
“I don’t love it.”
“You don’t?”
“No, I mean, it’s a Van Gogh, so of course it’s not like there’s anything wrong with it. A Van Gogh painting of a cow is always going to be a million times better than anyone else’s painting of a cow. But it’s still … well, it’s just a painting of a cow.”
“That’s very true, Grace. Very true,” he says, nodding as if I’ve just given him the benefit of PhD-level expertise in Van Gogh’s pastoral period. “So what do you think I should have been bidding for instead?” He points at a couple more items in the well-thumbed catalogue. “Peasants Burning Weeds? Still Life With Cabbages and Clogs?”
“Well, let me think …” The rare and exotic feeling that someone—most of all, a wildly attractive, powerful man like Saad Amar—is actually interested in what I have to say is making me feel rather heady and reckless. I’ve already taken a risk and given him my actual, instinctive opinion about something. Now I’m going to take it one step further. I’m going to do something I haven’t done in years. I’m going to attempt a bit of banter. “The world of art would be a poorer place without weed-burning peasants. But then, there’s always room in any good collection for a picture of some wooden shoes and a cabbage.”
My teasing works. He laughs. Out loud.
It’s the nicest sound I’ve heard in months.
“Well, poor old Vincent obviously doesn’t have your vote today,” he says as the coffees and lemon tart arrive. He nods to the waiter to put the lemon tart down in front of me, then summons the bill with just a suggestive kind of scribble in the air with one hand.
It makes me wonder what other suggestive things Saad Amar might be able to do with that hand.
“So how do you feel about the other grand masters?” he carries on. “Picasso, for example?”
“I did my A-level dissertation on him!” Well, on Picasso and his mistresses, to be exact, with the rather splendidly portentous title “Goddesses and Doormats: Dora Maar, Marie-Thérèse Walter, and Pablo Picasso, 1927 to 1943.” It’s funny, though—I can remember the title, and I can remember doing all the research, but I have no recollection whatsoever of which one was the goddess and which one the doormat.
Saad doesn’t say anything for a moment, as the waiter has come up with the bill and the credit card machine. He hands over his card (it’s platinum-colored, or perhaps made from solid platinum for all I know), taps in his PIN, then takes a hefty wad of cash for a tip out of his pocket and leaves it on the silver salver. Then he clears his throat, fixes his eyes right on mine, and says, “So, Grace. How would you like to come back to my place and have a look at my grand master?”
I’m quite literally lost for words.
“My Picasso,” he adds, before I can say anything stupid.
Ohhhhh … that kind of grand master.
Because just for a moment there, when he was staring right at me, he had this … look about him. The same look he had at the MMA Capital party. A look that implied, albeit briefly, that he wasn’t talking about showing me a work of art at all.
“It’s from his early Cubist period,” he’s saying, “which I don’t know if you’re a fan of at all. But it’s a very striking piece. Well-regarded by art historians. It’s really not far to my place, just a few minutes away in Mayfair …”
“I’d love to,” I say.
There Goes the Bride Page 10