It’s the first time he’s ever called me Gracie.
In this moment, I realize just how hopelessly I’ve fallen for him.
I pull away, feeling my face flame. “OK, if Thomas doesn’t mind …”
“He won’t. I’ll tell him now. Oh, by the way,” Saad adds as he starts toward the bedroom door, “did Charlie say why he couldn’t get out of the office this afternoon? I mean, is there some big crisis going on over there, or something?”
“He didn’t say. Back-to-back meetings, apparently.” I start pulling on my clothes, hoping I can make myself look respectable enough in time for the carol concert, and hoping that putting on the uniform of the upstanding yummy mummy will magically obliterate the sudden rush of feeling I’ve just had for Saad. Back into Breton stripes, back to normality. “I knew something like this would happen. Charlie’s never been much good at time management.”
“No. That’s for sure.” Saad is already on his way out. “I’ll go and get things sorted with Thomas.”
Robbie’s solo goes beautifully, his clear, high voice floating out over the school hall to the massed mothers and fathers, and even though his own father hasn’t actually graced us with his presence, the unexpected appearance of Percy, right at the end of the carol concert, is enough to distract Robbie from too crushing a disappointment.
There’s something a little bit downbeat about Percy, though. At first I was panicked that Thomas had said something to him about the real reason he knows me. But as I’ve realized that he isn’t being hostile to me—quite the opposite, in fact—that suspicion has gone.
And been replaced by the suspicion that he’s a bit downbeat because he spent most of his journey to London smoking something funny in the train toilets.
Still, he’s just been incredibly, sweetly helpful with Robbie and Hector’s slightly rushed supper- and bathtime, and a little bit of his general aura of melancholy has lifted with the arrival of Kitty-next-door to babysit. Or, as I’ve told Percy, to help him babysit. I could have canceled her now that he’s staying over, but I can’t just ignore those suspicions about those funny cigarettes on the train. Besides, Kitty is a red-hot eighteen-year-old blonde with a penchant for flimsy vest tops and visible candy-colored bra straps. So, like I said, her arrival seems to have shaken off a few of Percy’s pot-induced doldrums.
He sticks his head out of the living room now, as I stand in the hallway buttoning up my coat over my little black dress, ready to set off for the silent auction.
“Grace, can I have your card for the DVD shop? Kitty’s never seen Saw, so I thought I’d see if they have it.”
I hand over my DVD card, even though I’m not sure it’s the wisest thing in the world to allow my fourteen-year-old stepson to arrange an evening of horrific screen violence with the neighbors’ daughter.
“Get a nice romantic comedy, too,” I suggest, “just in case Kitty doesn’t like … er … Saw.”
“She’ll love it. And if they’ve got Saw Two, Three, and Four as well, we can do a whole marathon!” He watches me as I pick up my handbag. “So is Dad meeting you there?”
I bite back the words I should be so lucky. “Yes. If he finishes work in time.”
“Right.” He stares down at his feet. “Typical Dad, yeah?”
It would be disloyal to comment. “OK, well, we shouldn’t be back later than midnight, and Kitty knows where everything is if you want a sandwich, and …”
I’m silenced by Percy suddenly launching himself toward me and wrapping his long, gangly arms around my shoulders. “Thanks, Grace,” he says, his voice muffled by my coat fabric, “for sending your friend to pick me up, and everything. I know Mum and Dad forgot.”
“Perce, they didn’t forget! They’re both really busy with work, that’s all! And it was no trouble, asking my fr … asking Thomas to come and get you. I thought you might enjoy the ride in the Bentley.”
He steps back, letting go of me. “It was a seriously awesome car.”
“Great! Oh, and by the way, Perce, could you not mention that to your dad? The Bentley, I mean, and Thomas? It’s just that … well, I was meant to come and get you myself, and your dad would be ever so cross if he knew I hadn’t …”
My God, who have I turned into, manipulating and coaxing Percy like this? I feel like the Child-Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, or some creepy pervert promising rewards to a child as long as they don’t tell anybody what I’m up to.
“Don’t worry about it, Grace. I won’t say anything.” Percy is ducking back into the living room, avoiding my eye again. “You’re cool. Thomas was cool. Have a good night.”
I’m still in shock about this—Thomas? Cool?—when I arrive at St. Martin’s fifteen minutes later.
Chief Miranda, it’s no surprise to see, has done a terrific job transforming the cavernous, slightly chilly school hall into a location worthy of her silent auction. Gone are the rows of gray plastic chairs and hard wooden benches from the afternoon’s carol concert. The lights have been dimmed, and there are tables covered with crisp white linen stationed all around the hall. Each table is dedicated to one of the dozen or so different auction lots, where the milling parents—fifty or sixty of them already—are invited to write down their bids for the various treats on offer. The tables featuring the very best lots—the wine tasting in Puglia, Louboutin Lexie’s salmon- and deer-slaughtering fest in Scotland—have been decorated with these themes in mind. Half a grocery’s fruit section, from bunches of grapes to clementines and lemons, has been piled up on the Puglia stall, along with Italian tricolore flags and—bizarrely and stinkily—a huge hunk of Gorgonzolacheese. And Lexie’s stall is featuring big swatches of mixed tartan (old curtains?), a CD player blaring out “Scotland the Brave,” and a set of actual deer antlers that makes me wonder if Chief Miranda has pulled off a recent stealth raid of Buckingham Palace. Oh, and standing beside the table, being talked at rapid-fire by Chief Miranda herself, a furious-looking Louboutin Lexie.
Well, I can hardly blame her. Old curtains and random bits of dead animal don’t exactly chime with her usual glamour—today a fabulous drapey minidress in chic French navy, and some incredible over-the-knee boots, with a stalky stiletto heel and, I’m sure, a signature red sole. And she looks bored to tears by whatever Chief Miranda is nattering on at her about. Which is probably why she hails me, when she sees me, with quite as much enthusiasm as she does.
“Grace. Hi, there!”
“Hi, Lexie. Hello, Miranda. You’ve made the place look amazing!”
“Well, it’s taken me hours. I must say, I did think I’d have a few more offers of help from my fund-raising committee members.” Chief Miranda stares, disapprovingly, at both of us. “Especially when so many things have gone wrong at the last minute. Two dozen of the wineglasses were broken on delivery, and I had to go to three different stores to get enough grapes for Louisa’s stall, and the caterers canceled on me only a week ago, and I’m not at all sure the woman I’ve got to replace them is any good … oh, she knows you, apparently, Grace. She saw your name on your table, over there, next to where she’s set up all the food. She’s called Bella something-or-other.”
“Bella Atkins?” I don’t know why I’m even bothering to ask, because as I look over to where Miranda is pointing, I can see Bella herself. She’s standing behind a buffet table laden with huge platters of food, trying to persuade a clutch of reluctant-looking yummy mummies to take bread rolls from a wicker basket.
Oh, shit. I really don’t have the energy to cope with Bella tonight. Especially not here at St. Martin’s, where she’ll just be radiating disapproval about everything, from the conspicuous wealth of the other parents to the way practically everyone in here is on a low-carb diet …
“What a nice surprise,” I half-say, half-sigh.
“Talking of nice surprises, another friend of yours has showed up tonight,” Miranda says. An expression of satisfaction replaces her deliberate look of put-upon weariness. “I must say, I wasn’t expe
cting him, but it’s wonderful that he’s here. And such a good sign, too, that he already wants to get involved in St. Martin’s fund-raising!”
“She’s talking about your client,” Lexie tells me, because I must be looking slightly bewildered.
“My client?”
“Saad Amar, of course.”
Saad is here?
Oh, God, Saad is here.
“What do you mean, her client?” Miranda demands as I start casting frantic glances over each shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of Saad among the throng.
“Grace is painting a portrait of his girlfriend. A nude, in fact. Isn’t that right, Grace?”
“What? Oh … yes …”
“You paint?” Chief Miranda’s eyebrows have shot upward. “I didn’t know you painted.”
“Um, well, I don’t like to talk very much about it …” Where is he? I can’t see him anywhere. “… in case it disrupts the creative process, you know …”
“But you must be fairly good,” Miranda is carrying on, in a tone of utter amazement that I could be good—that I could be even competent—at anything at all. “Or Saad Amar wouldn’t have commissioned you. Honestly, Grace, you should have said something! I mean, what on earth were you thinking, offering up crappy old opera tickets as your auction donation, when obviously you can donate your time to paint a professional portrait instead!”
“Oh, God, no, Miranda. I don’t want to do that …”
“Don’t be ridiculous. This is no time for false modesty. Some of the parents here would kill to have a painting done by an artist who’s been commissioned by a renowned art lover like Saad Amar. This could raise us five, six grand! At least! Come with me so we can change the details on your table, Grace.” Miranda actually links her arm through mine and starts leading me in the direction of the table with a sign on it saying GRACE COSTELLO OFFERS … AN EVENING AT THE OPERA! “What should I change this to?” she asks. “A professional portrait of you, your children, or all the family? I don’t think we want to mention anything about nudes, do we? It might entice some of the fathers, but a lot of the mothers will be rather turned off.”
“Honestly, Miranda, I really don’t think this is a good idea. My work is …” Absolutely nonexistent? “… really quite experimental, and I’m not sure the parents will get it.”
“Nonsense.” With a flourish, she finishes writing out the new sign for my table and starts to Blu-tack it over the old one. “Now, I’m going to start spreading the word, so wait for some bidders to start coming over. And talk yourself up, for God’s sake, Grace! You’ve hidden your light under a bushel for far too long.”
She hurries away before I can tell her that there isn’t a light.
I mean, for crying out loud, there isn’t even a bushel.
Grace
Friday, December 18
Peering through the growing mass of people in the school hall, trying to spot Saad, turns out to be a mistake when I accidentally meet Bella’s eye instead. To be fair, it was always going to happen, seeing as her food table is stationed only a few meters away. But I’m surprised by how enthusiastically she hurries over to me.
“Grace, hi.” She leans in to give me what I assume is meant to be her usual brief hug, so I’m embarrassed when it turns out to be an attempt to kiss me on both cheeks. I think she’s pretty embarrassed, too, because she has to kind of haul me back in for the second kiss, and we both mistime and fumble, and end up practically snogging each other right on the lips.
“All the food looks amazing, Bella,” I tell her, eager as I always am with her to get in a couple of compliments, to curry favor. Anyway, it’s hardly a lie. As ever, all her food does look amazing. “And you look great, too!” Still not a lie—she does look great, in her short, scary, dynamic kind of way, and I can’t help the pang of jealousy that I always feel whenever I see someone making such a terrific success of themselves.
She ignores this. “I should have remembered your boys come to this school! Or maybe just your older one at the moment? I’m sorry, I’ve totally forgotten his name.”
Oddly enough, I have, too, for a moment. “Er … Robbie.” Luckily Bella isn’t the tallest person in the world, so I can still look over her shoulder for any sign of Saad in the crowd. “Yes, he’s very happy here.”
“I’m not surprised. The place is like a palace.”
I knew she’d get in a dig or two about St. Martin’s poshness. “I know. Ridiculous, isn’t it? I’d be happier sending him to the local primary, but my husband has other ideas.”
“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever met your husband. Is he here this evening?”
Oh, Jesus, I’d completely forgotten about Charlie. This will be the first time that he, Saad, and I will all be in the same room at the same time for the first occasion since Saad and I began sleeping with each other.
“No, he’s not here. Yet. I mean, there’s a very good chance he won’t make it at all—he did miss our son’s carol concert this afternoon, and he might very well be caught late at the office …”
“Right.” Bella doesn’t seem all that interested, though she’s wearing a deliberately friendly expression that I’m not used to. “Actually, Grace, it’s a really good thing I’ve run into you this evening, because I wanted to ask you a bit of a favor. What are your Christmas plans, if you don’t mind me asking?”
This isn’t a question I was expecting.
I mean, quite apart from anything else, I’ve been so caught up with everything that’s been going on with Saad that I haven’t given much thought to Christmas at all.
“Er … nothing all that exciting. Just staying in London, having my stepson to stay.”
“Excellent! Then I’d love you to come over on Christmas Eve. Say, around eight? Nothing formal, just some drinks, a bit of food …” Her eyes are a little bit too wide and bright. “It’ll be a small gathering—my best friend, Anna, and my parents … Polly, too, of course … and I thought it might be nice if you joined us.”
“Oh!” This is even more unexpected. I’ve always known Bella isn’t exactly my biggest fan, and now she’s inviting me over for a Christmas party? “Um, well, that sounds very nice … I’ll have to check with Charlie, of course …”
“Yes. Look.” Bella takes a step closer. “Even if Charlie can’t make it, I’d really appreciate it if you could definitely come along.”
This is starting to sound less like an invitation and more like “come or else.” Mind you, that’s pretty much the definition of an invitation, Bella Atkins–style.
She’s about to carry on when we’re interrupted by a small gaggle of parents coming to write down their bids for the marvelous professional portrait that (ha!) I’m going to provide for them. There follow a couple of minutes of them asking me about my stylistic techniques and favored medium, and me fobbing them off with half-baked replies and trying to persuade them not to bid very much before they write down their bids and wander off toward the food table to restock their plates.
I assume Bella is going to ask me at what point I suddenly became a professional portrait painter, but she doesn’t seem to have paid all that much attention and is right back to her Christmas party plans as though we’ve not even been interrupted.
“The thing is, Grace, that I might need you there for a bit of … well, a bit of moral support.” She takes a deep breath. “I’m hoping to use the occasion to get Polly back together with Dev.”
It’s the first thing she’s said that’s got my full attention. I stop craning my neck for a glimpse of Saad and look directly at her. “What?”
“I thought this might just be too good an opportunity to miss,” she’s carrying on, talking rather fast. “I mean, they got engaged on Christmas Eve last year, so she’ll probably be feeling quite emotional about that—swoop when she’s vulnerable, and everything!—and besides, she can’t cause that much of a fuss at a Christmas party! And she can’t exactly argue if I’ve just happened to invite Dev to my Christmas party. I mean,
he was a friend of mine before he was her boyfriend.”
Ahhh. I get it now. This hastily convened Christmas party is Bella’s smoke screen for some meddling into Polly’s life. Some pretty ill-advised meddling, if you ask me.
I’m just going to have to be a bit braver than I usually am with her and tell her what I think.
“Bella, honestly, this is a bad idea. I don’t like this breakup any more than you do, but Polly must have her own reasons for wanting to leave Dev, and we just have to accept that they’re good ones.”
“But they’re not. They’re not good at all. They’re … look, I don’t know how much you’ve noticed, but Polly isn’t in a very good place right now.”
“People don’t tend to be when they call off their weddings.”
“It’s more than that. Anyway, she’s not miserable because she’s called off the wedding, she’s called off the wedding because she’s miserable. Because for some reason, she doesn’t feel worthy of marrying him.”
Now she’s started to lose me. And—hang on a moment—was that Saad I just saw on the other side of the hall? That flash of gray jacket, that fleeting glimpse of jet-black hair …?
“The point is,” Bella is carrying on, “that Polly is in crisis. And I for one don’t think it’s right to just stand by and let her make the biggest mistake of her life with Dev just because she’s having some kind of total nervous breakdown.”
This gets my attention back again. “Polly’s having a nervous breakdown?”
“OK, maybe that’s taking it too far. But she’s in a bad place, Grace. Seriously depressed, at the very least. Why else would Polly—gorgeous, amazing Polly—feel unworthy of getting married?”
I don’t know whether to be confused or very, very worried. Or just to laugh. Hysteria feels like it might be starting to bubble up inside me. “But how do you know she’s depressed? She seems OK—well, OK enough—when I talk to her. Has she said anything about feeling depressed? Because she hasn’t said anything to me …”
There Goes the Bride Page 26