There Goes the Bride

by Holly McQueen

  A fact that I’m trying not to take personally, by the way. But if any of this is true, even if it’s not quite the full-on breakdown that Bella is claiming—well, why hasn’t Polly told me anything about it? I mean, Polly has always told me everything. I mean, everything. Her deepest, darkest, most unpleasant secrets. The kind of things you can’t even admit to your own reflection in the mirror. The kind of things that, once admitted, you lock away in a little box and shove down as far as you can inside yourself and try never to think about, let alone talk about, ever again.

  Have I become such a rotten friend, so wrapped up in Saad ever since she got back from New York, that she hasn’t felt able to tell me about any of this?

  “Look, there’s no need to get bogged down in those kind of details,” Bella is saying impatiently. “It doesn’t really matter how I know. The fact is that I do know. And I know that if she’s depressed, she needs Dev more than ever. And that Christmas Eve is the perfect time to …”

  “Ambush her?”

  “… do something about it.” She eyes me with her usual expression now: something close to dislike. “Well. I just thought it was worth intervening before something happens that’s totally beyond anyone’s control. You know, like Dev meeting someone else, or something. Which obviously would devastate Polly. But obviously it’s too much trouble for you to come all the way to Shepherd’s Bush for a couple of hours for a Christmas party. I just thought it might be helpful to have you around, you know, as Polly’s lifelong best friend.”

  Brilliant. Just brilliant. Play a fucking symphony on my overwrought and guilty heartstrings, why don’t you?

  And anyway, I’m not so stressed about the way this evening is turning out that I don’t have room for worrying about my best friend, too. After all, if Polly really is in the terrible state that Bella is claiming, I really ought to be doing something to help. Instead of taking every free moment I have to be with Saad, or planning on being with Saad, or thinking about being with Saad …

  “All right, I’ll come. But Bella …”

  “Oh, Grace, thank you. You’re a star.” She reaches into her trouser pocket and passes me a business card. “My address is on there. Eight o’clock, Christmas Eve.”

  “I’ll look forward to it,” I fib, my ingrained politeness coming to the fore. “Can I bring anything?”

  “God, no.” Bella clearly remembers my nonexistent culinary skills from years back, when I almost managed to burn down her kitchen making cheese toasties in her flat in Bristol at three o’clock one morning. Me and Polly had gone to stay there, ostensibly to check out the university, but mostly to get very drunk and go clubbing. Mind you, almost burning down her kitchen was the least of the bad things that happened that weekend. “I mean, no, thank you. Just bring yourself. And your husband, of course, if you’d like.”

  I’m about to give her some fob-off of a reply, because I know the last thing Charlie will agree to do on Christmas Eve is go around to a party in Shepherd’s Bush, when the crowd near the entrance doors clears for a moment and I see the man himself.

  Charlie.

  He must have just arrived, because he hasn’t yet taken off his scarf and gloves, and he’s heading with great purpose for the middle of the hall. In the direction of Louboutin Lexie’s stall, in fact.

  Because this is where Saad is standing.

  I was wrong to think I’d caught a glimpse of his gray suit before, because he isn’t actually wearing a suit at all. He’s in dark jeans and a midnight blue sweater, looking saturnine, and compelling, and casually, almost absurdly, handsome. This isn’t a fact that’s been lost on Lexie, who has abandoned her usual disinterested body language in favor of peering up at him kittenishly as she attempts to engage him in intense conversation. But it’s an intense conversation that’s interrupted as Charlie reaches them. He’s grinning at Saad, extending a hand to shake, a politely confused what are you doing here expression on his face.

  “I have to go,” I mumble at Bella. “Great to see you.”

  “Hang on a moment, Grace—you must promise me not to say anything to Poll …”

  “Not a word,” I call over my shoulder, already heading for Louboutin Lexie myself.

  OK, I have to stop this little gathering in its tracks. It was going to be difficult enough to fudge the issue of my secret career as a portraitist with Charlie without Lexie introducing herself to him and mentioning the piece of work I’m meant to be doing for Saad. Or the fact that she’s bumped into me around at his place.

  I feel sick just thinking about it.

  “Grace, where do you think you’re going?” My elbow is grabbed, and Chief Miranda’s shrill voice sounds in my ear. “You’re supposed to be persuading people to bid huge amounts of money at your stall! Not spend ten minutes nattering to the caterer and then set off to do some more socializing! Louisa has already got a bid for over four thousand pounds from one of the hedge fund dads, and she looks like the back end of a bus. If she can sweet-talk someone into four grand, I’m expecting twice that amount from you!”

  “Miranda, for God’s sake …” I pull my sleeve out of her grip, then realize I’m not going to get out of her way any faster by pissing her off. “Look, I was just off to get Saad Amar over to my stall. Persuade him to place a bid. I mean, I know I’m already doing a portrait for him,” I add hastily, “but he’s the biggest fish here, isn’t he? If I can get him to put his name down for … for ten thousand pounds, say, somebody else is sure to come along and outbid him. Just for the thrill of beating Saad Amar.”

  Miranda’s eyes narrow, and for a moment I think she’s about to snap at me not to be silly and to get back to flirting with random men in Rolexes. But instead she hisses, “Go, go, go,” and shoves me so hard in Saad’s direction that I stumble and almost knock over a couple of exceptionally scrummy mummies. There’s no time to apologize, though, no matter how outraged they look, because I’ve lost almost an entire precious minute, a minute during which Louboutin Lexie could have dropped me in the biggest pile of steaming horse manure I’ve ever been dropped in …

  But she can’t have done. Because Charlie is laughing. As I reach the three of them, he’s not glaring at me, or shouting at me. He’s laughing.

  “Hi, hon! I’ve just heard the funniest thing about you!” He draws me toward him, placing an arm around my shoulders in the warm, husbandly way he only does when we’re in company, and in a way that makes me freeze like a shopwindow dummy, avoiding Saad’s eye. “Apparently you’re a big, famous artist!”

  Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

  “And here was me thinking you were just a stay-at-home mom!” Charlie lets out another loud guffaw. “Honey, I don’t know if you met Saad Amar at the MMA party,” he carries on, “or if you know … I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name,” he tells Lexie.

  “Lexie.” She’s folded her arms, pursed her mouth, and is staring right at me.

  “Well, Lexie here is under the impression that you’re an artist—no, wait, specifically a portrait painter—and that you’re doing some big commission for Saad here. My boss,” he adds, shooting me a private look that’s supposed to indicate that I should shake Saad’s hand.

  OK. What the fuck do I do now? I can’t pretend to introduce myself to him, because Lexie will scream blue murder about it. No more than I can announce to Charlie that yes, actually, I am a big, famous portrait painter, it’s just something I happen to have forgotten to mention over our hurried breakfasts and silent dinners for the past few years.

  “Grace, hello there.” Saad takes my frozen hand in his and shakes it. I think—but I’m probably not the best judge of this kind of detail right now—that he adds a light, meaningful squeeze. “It’s lovely to see you,” he goes on ambiguously before turning to Charlie. “Your wife was such an enormously helpful supply of information about St. Martin’s while I was deciding where to enroll my brother Adnan. So grateful for her assistance.”

  Charlie looks confused for a moment, but then he obviously
remembers that I did mention this matter to him, before the MMA party. Even if I never actually mentioned that I was going ahead and helping Saad myself.

  “Oh, well, I’m glad to hear it. Grace is quite the expert on schools in this area. When she’s not dashing off another brilliant portrait, that is,” he adds with another ringing laugh. “Is there some artist with a similar name or something?” he asks Lexie, attaching his most charming smile to his lips. Evidently her obvious attractions, in the drapey minidress, haven’t eluded him. “Is that where you think you’ve heard of my wife?”

  “I haven’t heard of her, I’ve seen her. Round at his place”—Lexie nods, impatiently, at Saad—“doing her nude sketches.”

  “Sketches of a nude,” Saad interrupts, with a charming smile of his own. His is a good deal more successful than Charlie’s, even though I know he must be rattled. “Anyway, Charlie, it was good to run into you here, I wanted a quick chat about the Brussels deal, if …”

  “So wait—you’re saying Grace is doing a portrait for you?” Charlie is frowning. “But that doesn’t make any sense. Grace doesn’t paint. Grace doesn’t do anything.”

  “I do plenty!” I hear myself say before I can stop myself.

  “Sure, honey, but not art.” Charlie squeezes my shoulder. “Being an artist isn’t just about crayoning with Hector, you know! Even if you are a little better than him at staying inside the lines!”

  He guffaws again, looking around at all three of us to join in. But none of us do. I’m too humiliated, Lexie is too suspicious, and Saad …

  Saad is staring at Charlie as if he’d like to kill him. With his bare hands. Very, very slowly.

  “Charlie, why don’t you come and get something to eat?” It’s my turn to try to break up this horrible little foursome. “You should come and say hi to Bella Atkins as well—Polly’s sister—because she’s doing the catering, would you believe it? And we should let Lexie get back to getting in bids for her fantastic Scottish holiday … and I’m sure Saad … er … Mr. Amar—I’m sure he’d like to circulate a bit, get to meet a few more people …”

  “Yes. I’d like to do that.”

  “But you wanted to speak to me about Brussels?” Charlie says.

  “It can wait.” Saad turns, abruptly, and walks away.

  This is the cue, thank God, for Lexie to turn back to her table and for me to start trying to hustle Charlie in the direction of the buffet. But he’s not all that willing to be hustled. In fact, now that we’re on our own, his affability has taken a serious hit.

  “What the hell was all that about, Grace?”

  “OK, look, I probably should have told you.” I’ve got to stick to this painting thing now, haven’t I, seeing as I’ve got a bloody sign only a few feet from here declaring that I will paint a portrait for the highest bidder. “I have been doing a bit of painting … on the side, as it were …”

  “But for Saad Amar?” Charlie’s face is like thunder. “And you didn’t think to mention it to me?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Do you have any idea what kind of position you’ve put me in? Dragging my boss into this silly little new hobby of yours? For Christ’s sake, Grace, do you have any idea how important a guy he is? How important my working relationship with him is? And you want to screw it up by … what? Getting him to pay for some crappy painting you’re doing? I mean, how the hell did that even come up in the first place? Was that what you were talking to him about that day in the office lobby?” His face darkens further still. “And is this Lexie right? Did she see you round at his place? Because I’m not happy about that. Or about the fact that you didn’t tell me. I mean, do you have any idea of the kind of womanizing he’s notorious for?”

  “I … no, I …”

  He snorts. “Come on, Grace, why else would a slutty-looking woman like this Lexie be at his house in the first place?”

  “I don’t think she looks slutty,” I mumble.

  “Yeah, well, apparently you don’t think at all. Because if you did, you’d never have put me in this embarrassing position. What, I have to hear about my wife’s newfound career from a total stranger and my boss? I look like an idiot, Grace. So thanks a fucking bunch.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say again, prepared to put up with this temper tantrum because I know exactly what I’m really saying sorry for, and it’s a lot more than just springing a surprise career on him.

  “Yeah, you’re sorry. That’s fantastic, honey. I need a drink.” He stalks off toward the buffet table.

  I don’t think it’s the time to introduce him to Bella, even though she’s the one who ends up pouring him a large gin and tonic. Nor is it the time to mention that we’ve been invited around to her place on Christmas Eve.

  The safest thing, I think, is just to keep my head down, my nerve up, and try to pretend that the past ten minutes just haven’t happened.

  And avoid Saad, at all costs. Especially after the way he was just looking at Charlie.

  It’s a strategy that works, brilliantly, until he ambushes me just as I’m coming out of the ladies’ room, an hour later.

  “Saad, I can’t talk to you. Not here.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” He’s still fizzing with angry energy. “We’re not shagging up against the wall. We’re just having a friendly conversation.”

  “But Charlie’s already suspicious!”

  “No, he isn’t. Charlie doesn’t think you’re capable of having an affair. Charlie doesn’t think you’re capable of doing anything.”

  “OK, he can be incredibly dismissive …”

  “He treats you like a child. No, worse than a child. Like a pet. A fluffy, silly, insignificant pet.”

  This stings. “The way Charlie treats me is absolutely none of your business.”

  “Of course it is. It’s the business of anyone who cares about you!” He rakes back his hair irritably. “Don’t your parents object to the way he treats you? Your friends?”

  I open my mouth to say that my parents haven’t showed all that much interest in me since they retired to France (and not all that much interest in me before that) and that I haven’t really had any friends since I married Charlie, apart from Polly, who for most of that time has been three thousand miles away.

  But I don’t say any of it, partly because it’s just too depressing and pathetic, and partly because Saad suddenly steps forward, leans down, and kisses me, hard, on the lips.

  I kiss back for a moment before remembering where we are and pulling away. “Don’t! Honestly, Saad, this might all just be a big game to you—turning up on my territory, kissing me in the corridors—but it’s my life we’re talking about! What do you think will happen to me if I get caught?”

  “If Charlie ever laid a hand on you …”

  “It’s not about that, you idiot!” I can’t believe I’ve just called him an idiot. On the other hand, I can’t believe he’s being one. “It’s about real, horrible, grown-up things like divorce, and finances, and custody. It’s about Charlie abandoning Robbie and Hector the same way he’s abandoned his oldest son—at best. At worst, taking them away from me and turning them against me. It’s about you deciding you’re bored with me, or tired of me, and moving on to the next woman without the slightest concern for the havoc you might have left behind you.”

  “Grace, that wouldn’t happen. I promise you, that wouldn’t happen.”

  “And I promised Charlie I’d love him, forsaking all others, until death did us part. I’m the last person in the world to be setting any store by promises.”

  I start to go past him, but he stops me, grabbing my hand.

  “Grace, listen, you can’t waste the rest of your life with him. You can’t throw away everything you have to offer, have him keep you in your meek little box.” He takes a deep breath. “Look, no court in the land is going to take your children away from you. And if it’s money you’re worried about, well, that’s just an absurd reason to stay with someone who makes you miserable!”
>
  “Helpful advice, coming from someone who’s got billions in the bank. From someone who never has to work, or worry about bills. From someone who can buy Van Goghs and Picassos and … and Jimmy Choos at the drop of a hat!”

  “And you think that’s all that matters to me, do you?” he shoots back. “You think I don’t need anything in my life except pretty possessions? You think I’m happy having everything else in the entire world if I can’t have you?”

  I want to kiss him and kick him at the same time. Kiss him because I can’t believe he’s just said something so unutterably lovely. And kick him for being so naïve, so blasé about the complications he’s brought into my life. Before Saad, I’d never even thought about a life without Charlie, miserable though my existence might have been. But now Saad stands here in front of me, heart-stoppingly gorgeous in his midnight blue sweater, and gives me mad, desperate visions of an alternative reality. A fantasy reality, the kind that a billionaire playboy can inhabit without so much as a backward glance, but totally off-limits to a mother of two without a single useful qualification or skill to her name.

  “… Grace Costello … could somebody please find me Grace Costello?” The voice—Chief Miranda’s, multiplied to roughly ten times its usual grating level by a microphone—is coming from inside the hall. “I have an announcement to make!”

  “I have to go,” I blurt, pulling my hand away from Saad. “People are looking for me.”

  “Oh, shit.” Saad has turned rather pale and lets me go immediately, though he follows me at a careful distance as I start heading for the hall door. “Grace, listen, you have to understand, I only did this because I couldn’t stand the way he was putting you down about your art. And I told the bloody woman in charge that she should keep quiet about it …”

  I’m not really listening, because all I can think about is getting back into the hall before Charlie notices I’m not around and starts wondering where I’ve been. As I hurry through the door, I see that Chief Miranda is up on the stage at the far end, that everyone is turned to look at her, and that her face is beetroot pink with a mixture of triumph and shock.