“I’d better try his mobile,” I say, already reaching for it in my bag. “He’s probably just away from his desk.”
But Charlie’s mobile rings and rings, then clicks into his voice mail.
With the security guard watching me, I’m feeling flustered and embarrassed. I’m more aware than ever that I look a bit of a frazzled mess, with the distinct aura of children’s tea and bedtime wafting around me, and violently at odds with the sleek, glossy glamour of this office building.
My embarrassment is only intensified when I unsuccessfully try Charlie’s mobile again, and then a third time.
I mean, if the flash drive was that bloody urgent that I had to drop everything in the middle of the boys’ bedtime to schlep across town and bring it to him, isn’t answering his phone the least he could do?
“Look, why don’t you take a seat and I’ll try him again in a few minutes?” I’m clearly pitiful enough that even the granite façade of the guard has softened up a fraction. He nods toward an area of low, cream-colored sofas, to the left of the escalators. “Or you could just leave the flash drive with me, to give to him.”
I don’t want to risk Charlie’s wrath by handing what could be superconfidential information over to a third party. “No, thank you, I’d better wait.”
“Fine. I just thought you might have somewhere more important to be.”
I almost laugh at how wide of the mark he is. Obviously I don’t have anywhere important to be. The only important place I did have to be—at home, putting the boys to bed—is redundant now. Robbie and Hector will be fast asleep.
It’s then that, as I’m putting my phone back into my bag, I feel the outline of the envelope that contains my hand-drawn card.
Fuck it. I’m tired of being the timid little mouse. Sick to death of being the one who can be left waiting in an empty office lobby, because obviously I’ve got nothing better to do with my Thursday evening.
“Actually, there is something else I’d like to leave with you. But it’s not for my husband. It’s for a Mr. Amar?” I slide the envelope across the guard’s countertop toward him. “Also at MMA Capital.”
“Fine.” The guard takes the envelope. “This urgent, too? You need it to go up now?”
“Oh, God, no. I mean, no. It can wait until he comes in tomorrow morning.” And when I’m far, far away from the building, so I don’t have to witness whatever reaction it provokes. I mean, I’m not feeling that much less timid. “Thank you. I’ll just go and wait over there.”
I sit down on one of the low sofas and pick up a copy of today’s Financial Times from the neat spread on the glass coffee table. I wish there were a couple of magazines, but the FT is all there is. Well, Charlie has often banged on at me about how he’d like it if I were more well informed, so this seems as good a place to start as any. I open up the paper and start to skim-read an article on the Chilean government’s new austerity budget. I won’t say I’m exactly gripped, but I’m concentrating quite hard on trying to make sense of it all, and so I’m not paying attention to any more of the dwindling comings and goings in the lobby.
Which is why I don’t see Saad Amar until he’s only three feet away from me.
“Grace? What a nice surprise!”
I blink at him. I don’t stand up, or even put down my newspaper. All I can think about is that I left the house without putting on a scrap of makeup, brushing my hair, or bothering to check for the food stains that, after teatime with Hector, are very likely to be somewhere on my clothing.
And that Saad—predictably enough—looks completely, totally, just-kill-me-now gorgeous.
“Sorry, Grace, had you come here to see me, or something?” he carries on, with a smile that’s just a smidgen more uncertain than usual. “Kenneth on the desk over there just told me you’d left this for me.” He holds out the envelope.
Oh, God.
Now this really is a just-kill-me-now moment.
“No, no, it’s nothing!” I get to my feet. “A mistake, really. I’m here to drop something off for Charlie, that’s all …” I wonder, can I swipe the card from his hand? More to the point, can I swipe the card from his hand without looking a bit unhinged? “The security man … Kenneth … must have got muddled.”
“But the envelope has my name on it,” Saad points out.
Not a lot I can say to that, really. “Er …”
“Kenneth said you wanted to deliver some kind of a flash drive to Charlie,” Saad carries on, “but apparently he’s gone AWOL?”
I shoot Kenneth—so now he gets all chatty—a dirty look over Saad’s shoulder.
“Do you want me to see if I can track him down? Head back up to the office and have a look for him?” Saad’s smooth forehead is gently creased with puzzlement and—I think—a little bit of concern. “I mean, I’m sure he didn’t intend to leave you waiting like this, especially if you’ve brought something all the way in to give to him.”
“No, really, it’s absolutely fine. He’ll be here any minute, I’m sure. Anyway, it gives me a few precious minutes to catch up on my reading!”
Saad’s inky eyes flicker toward the copy of the FT that I’ve abandoned on the sofa. “Right.”
“And I wouldn’t want to keep you, anyway. You’re obviously on your way out.” My own eyes are flickering rather desperately toward the envelope. If I can’t wrest it from his grip, the least I can hope for is that he shoves it into a pocket and opens it later, when I’m a long way away. Mexico City, perhaps, might just about be far enough for me to flee in order to properly escape the embarrassment of it all. I could hide out there for a few weeks, couldn’t I, offer Kitty my entire meager savings account to look after the boys …
“Yes, but I’m still waiting for my date for the evening … oh, here she is now.”
I’ve barely time to feel (stupidly and pointlessly) crestfallen at the mere fact that he’s got a date for the evening. Because there are far more important things to feel crestfallen about. Mostly the fact that the girl walking through the glass doors and sashaying her way toward us is the very embodiment of the kind of Victoria’s Secret model that I’ve been assuming Saad hangs out with (and possibly snorts gold-plated cocaine from the naked nipples of, although I have to admit that the more I’ve seen of Saad, the less likely I think it is that he has a cocaine habit, gold-plated and nipple-mounted or otherwise).
In fact, I think I may very well have seen this girl strutting her stuff on the catwalk at one of the Victoria’s Secret fashion shows I sometimes watch on the E! Channel. Her breasts, which are huge, and attached to a sticklike body, and teetering tantalizingly over the edge of her plunging cocktail dress, look exactly like a pair I couldn’t take my eyes off on E!, and she’s also sporting the big, swingy mane of hair that’s a prerequisite for a Victoria’s Secret model. The only thing she isn’t doing, unlike the models for Victoria’s Secret, is smiling.
Still, with a body like that, I suppose she doesn’t really need to.
My stomach coils with jealousy. For her eye-popping body, for her astonishing confidence. For her date with Saad.
“It’s raining,” she announces to Saad, in an unplaceable accent that’s a little bit Scandinavia, a little bit New York. She scowls. “You said you’d be waiting for me outside with your driver.”
“Yes, I apologize, Britta, I’ve been slightly delayed.” Saad puts a hand on her elbow—not a kiss on her lips, I can’t help noting—and nods toward the glass doors at the pavement outside, where a large, dark car is waiting with its lights on and its windshield wipers going. “The car is right there. You can go and get in, get warmed up, while I just finish up with Grace here.”
Britta’s scowl intensifies. “Get the driver to meet me at the door with an umbrella,” she says, not bothering to acknowledge either my existence or the fact that Saad’s car is parked a mere one and a half supermodel strides from the building’s exit.
Saad proffers her a pleasant smile and hands her the rolled-up umbrella that he’s
actually carrying under one arm. “Take mine.”
Her perfectly shaped eyebrows shoot upward. She’s unimpressed. “Well, how long will you be?”
“He’ll be no time at all,” I interject, seeing my golden opportunity to get rid of Saad and that bloody homemade card. “You really don’t need to wait, or anything,” I add, to Saad himself. “Charlie is on his way down right now, I’m sure.”
Britta stares at me as though I’m something she’d like to scrape off her Gina platform. And Saad shoots me an odd look of his own before turning back to Britta.
“I’ll be just one minute,” he tells her, giving her the gentlest of nudges in the direction of the exit. “You’ll be more comfortable in the car.”
She spins on a heel and does that supermodel stride back across the lobby. I watch her, fascinated by how anyone that skinny can have a bottom that plump. Kenneth watches her, probably fascinated by pretty much the same thing. But Saad isn’t watching her. He’s already turned back to me.
“I’m sorry. Where were we?”
“We weren’t anywhere. I’m perfectly happy just waiting for Charlie. You have an evening out to enjoy.”
He pulls a bit of a face. “I’d hardly say that. Not now that I’ve angered Her Highness.”
It’s a slightly odd way to talk about your girlfriend. I mean, I’m assuming that Britta is his girlfriend.
“She’s a friend of my brother Wael,” Saad says, as though he’s read my mind and—why?—feels the need to offer an explanation. “I’m attending a party hosted by Vogue magazine tonight, and Britta is keen to put herself among the movers and shakers.”
Oh, so she’s not a full-fledged supermodel yet, then.
Nor, apparently, his girlfriend.
Not that it matters, of course. And anyway, even if he isn’t going home with Britta tonight, he’ll just be substituting her with some other voluptuous, leggy beauty from the ranks of the Vogue party invitees.
Not that that matters either.
“But look, I am running a little late, I’m afraid. So if you don’t mind me being rather quick …” Saad starts to run his thumb across the top of the envelope.
“Honestly, you don’t need to open it now! In fact, I’d rather …”
Too late. He’s got it open and pulled out the card.
I’m squirming, almost physically, as I watch him stare at it. From the back, it looks so silly and pathetic—a little folded rectangle of slightly floppy white card. And not even, now that I look at it more closely, folded quite accurately enough. If he stood it up, it would topple over. Although from the expression on his face, standing it up is the last thing he’s going to do. Chuck it straight in the nearest bin, more like.
“It’s a thank-you,” I croak, “for lunch the other day.”
“Oh! Oh, right …” His usual impeccable manners appear to have deserted him.
“That’s the Van Gogh cow you were trying to buy,” I go on miserably. “And it’s drinking a Starbucks coffee, because … well …”
It’s too embarrassing to go on.
Mexico City, here I come.
But, thank God, Saad seems to have recovered those manners in the nick of time. “No, no, I get it! Because of you stealing my Starbucks coffee when we first met. Well!” He stares back down at the card for a moment. “Well!”
“Look, it was just a silly little thing … a hobby I used to have.”
“Well!” is all he manages to say, again, to this, before adding, in a careful tone of voice, “You know, I don’t think anybody has ever made me a homemade thank-you card before. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve even had a thank-you card before.”
“I know. Nobody sends thank-you cards. Even my son emails his grandparents these days to say thank you for his Christmas and birthday presents. I should have just emailed. Texted, or something.”
“Not at all!” He stops staring at the card and almost—but not quite—meets my eye. He’s embarrassed for me, I can tell. “It’s a very … sweet gesture.”
“Right.”
“And a very, er, a very amusing picture.”
Not for the first time in the last ten minutes, I wish fervently that someone—Kenneth, perhaps—would just kill me now.
“Thank you, Grace,” Saad carries on, stuffing the card back into its envelope and then into his trouser pocket. “You didn’t need to thank me for the lunch. But thank you anyway. To take all that time to do the drawing …”
“Oh, God, no, it only takes me about three minutes! No time at all. Really, it’s just a silly scribble, and … oh, here’s Charlie!” I never thought I’d say this, but thank God for my husband, who is just making his way through the glass doors into the building. He’s looking pink-cheeked from cold and, I immediately realize, a beer or two.
“Obviously popped out for a post-work drink,” says Saad, in a tone I can’t quite identify. “Well, I’d better leave you to it. Can’t keep Britta waiting any longer than I already have. Evening, Charlie,” he says as he heads for the exit himself and the two of them cross paths. “See you in the morning.”
Charlie does a bit of brown-nosey and jocular ho-ho-ho-ing, even though Saad hasn’t said anything funny, and then the moment Saad is out of the doors, he turns to me. “Grace?” I’m expecting him to ask if I’ve been waiting long, but what he actually asks is, “You were talking to Saad Amar?”
“Yes. We met at the party …”
“But what on earth were you talking about?” He looks astonished, as though the idea that I could possibly have anything to say to Saad Amar is as absurd as suggesting that Robbie could make stimulating small talk with Barack Obama.
“Plenty! The … the austerity budget in Chile, for one thing.”
Charlie lets out a laugh. I can smell the faint trace of his recent pint on his breath.
“And why my husband made me hurtle out of the house to bring him a terribly urgent flash drive only to vanish to the pub for half an hour, for another thing.”
Now Charlie stops laughing. “Hey, I hope you didn’t talk about me to my boss, Grace. That would be seriously inappropriate if you did. And anyway, almost everyone but me has left for the night. It’s not a problem that I went for a quick drink with the rest of the team.”
“I’m sure it’s not a problem for Saad Amar. But what about whether it was a problem for me?”
“Oh, come on, hon, I’ve only kept you waiting a couple of minutes!”
“Try fifteen. I could have finished putting the boys to bed if I’d known you were just going to slip out for a post-work drink.”
“OK, OK, I’m sorry, OK!” Charlie holds up his hands in an exaggerated display of apology that he doesn’t remotely mean. “Anyway, did you bring the flash drive?”
I dig in my bag and hand it to him. He pockets it without actually saying thank you.
“So look, I would take you out for a bite to eat or something, now that you’re over here, but I’m going to be at least another couple hours finishing up with this stuff from the flash drive. Anyway, you haven’t exactly dressed for dinner.”
“No, Charlie. I haven’t.”
“OK, well, I’d better let you get back to the tube, then.” He leans down and places a brief peck on my forehead. Even this lukewarm show of affection is, I think, done for Kenneth’s benefit. Outward appearances are very important to Charlie. “Unless you were going to hitch a lift in my boss’s Bentley or something. Now that you’re on such cordial terms with him, I mean!”
I don’t join in his laughter. “Are you going to walk me to the tube?”
“Honey, it’s only five minutes away. And it’s hardly the depths of night. And like I told you …”
“Your work is really urgent. I know. I’ll see you later, Charlie.”
Outside, by now, it’s really bucketing down. I set off for Green Park tube station, hoping that maybe the pouring rain will flood away not only my anger with Charlie but also—more importantly—my embarrassment about my silly Starbucks cow card.
<
br /> Though I’m not sure there’s enough rain in all the heavens for that.
Bella
Thursday, November 26
Jamie texts, just before I leave the flat, to say he’s running late for our dinner date, but I get to the restaurant just after eight anyway. There’s no reason to hang about the flat. After my Jolen moment with Liam, let’s face it, I’m desperate to get out of the flat. And anyway, it’s a nice opportunity to have a chat with the restaurant owner.
This isn’t, by the way, because I’m one of those insufferable people—usually middle-aged men with large BMWs and even larger God complexes—who like to have their egos plumped up by some fawning maitre d’. It’s because this particular restaurant owner, Vito, happens to be an actual friend of mine. He’s the owner of two restaurants, in fact—this one, the eponymous Vito’s on Chiswick High Road, and Vito e Angelina in Shepherd’s Bush, which is where I worked for eighteen months when I first came to London and I was saving up the money to start my own catering firm. Neither is exactly a fancy place—the likes of Grace Costello would probably feel the need to decontaminate themselves and flee to Locanda Locatelli the moment they walked through the door. But that isn’t the point. Vito and his sister, Angelina, took me under their wings in the kindest, most genuine way imaginable, and though I tried to return the favor (by attempting to teach them to cook properly, among other things; they may be only second-generation immigrants, but the things they do to Italian food have to be seen to be disbelieved), I never feel there’s anything I can do to repay them for the way they took care of me back then.
As soon as I walk into Vito’s tonight, see the cheery green tablecloths and smell the familiar smell of ever-so-slightly singed garlic, I feel the knot of tension in my stomach ease. Vito himself practically self-combusts with excitement when he sees I’m here and has me seated at the best table in the house with an extremely large (and not terribly Italian) Bacardi and Coke within two minutes of my arrival.
“You look beautiful, Bella,” he proclaims, returning after a brief disappearance with a plate of what he’d call bruschetta. I’d call it chopped tinned tomatoes on barely toasted Mother’s Pride. “So, what are you doing here tonight? Are you celebrating something?”
There Goes the Bride Page 13