There Goes the Bride

by Holly McQueen

  “Ah, Grace! The woman herself! Would you come up here, please?” She’s relishing her new role as emcee, so much so that as I walk up to her, on shaky legs, I half expect her to break into a chorus of Wilkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m very pleased to be able to announce some quite astonishing news.” She puts an arm around my waist, as though we’re the oldest of friends, and actually hugs me to her side. “I’m sure you’ve all heard of Grace Costello, and I’m sure many of you have spent the evening frantically bidding for the chance to have her paint your family’s portrait.”

  I stare across the crowd, to where Charlie is standing right at the back. He’s looking bewildered, and annoyed about being bewildered, in equal measure.

  “But I’m afraid that unless some of you have very much deeper pockets than you care to admit,” Miranda is carrying on, to a polite round of titters, “your chance to own an original Grace Costello has been lost. Because, ladies and gentlemen, we have received a staggeringly generous bid for this particular auction lot. Now, the bidder in question has asked if he can remain anonymous—though I will just say he’s done a mar-velous thing, if you catch my drift …”

  Across the hall from Charlie, still hovering by the door, I see Saad visibly cringe, but he looks too much like a rabbit caught in the headlights to do very much more than that.

  I know what Miranda is about to say.

  Saad has done something stupid, hasn’t he? He’s bid an absurd amount for “an original Grace Costello.” Oh God—it could be fifty, a hundred thousand pounds … What the fuck is Charlie going to say when he hears this? Is he honestly going to carry on suspecting nothing, when a well-known art connoisseur bids six figures for a painting by crappy old not-even-remotely-a-proper-artist me? Even if it is for the good cause of a science block at the school he’s about to send his brother to.

  “I’m thrilled to be able to announce that this anonymous bid has taken us closer to our target for the new science block than anyone on my fund-raising committee could possibly have dreamed of.” Miranda takes a deep breath. “Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together to congratulate Grace Costello on raising the incredible amount of one million pounds!”

  There’s an audible, collective gasp.

  A moment later, the entire hall breaks into noisy applause. Miranda hugs me to her side again, raising a clenched fist, as though I’ve just won an Olympic gold and she’s the inspirational coach it’s all down to.

  And I look first one way, and then another.

  First, to Saad, who’s shaking his head at me like the most penitent man alive and mouthing, “I’m sorry.”

  And second, to Charlie. Who’s staring at me like I’m the most disgusting woman alive, and not mouthing anything.

  Fifty grand might not have done it. A hundred grand, even, and it might still have been just about OK. But with the bidding standing at one million pounds … come on. Charlie isn’t an idiot.

  He knows.

  He catches up with me about four paces before I reach the main school gate that leads out onto Fulham Road. I fled the hall thirty seconds after Miranda finished her announcement, and right now all I want to do is get home. Get anywhere that isn’t here.

  “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

  “Home, Charlie.”

  “No.” He stops me, grabbing my elbow so hard that it hurts. For an insane moment (as if anything could be more insane than what’s just taken place) I wonder if I was naïve to dismiss Saad’s comment about Charlie laying a hand on me. “It is not your home, Grace, to go back to.”

  I open my mouth to ask him what he means, but no words come out.

  “Everything you have, Grace, is bought and paid for by me. Everything. But it’s still not enough for you. You have to go after the big prize. The billionaire prize. My fucking boss.”

  “Charlie.” I find my voice. “I … I didn’t go after him.”

  “You’re denying it? He just dropped a million pounds on some nonexistent painting of yours, and you’re denying that there’s anything going on between you?”

  I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know. Am I denying it? Can I deny it? Will denying it make it any better? Will it turn back the clock thirty critical minutes to the time before Saad decided to do the most stupid, the most reckless, the most dangerous thing he could ever have done to me?

  “Or are you telling me he’s just that fucking charitable?” Charlie still hasn’t let go of my elbow. “Because I know the way he spends his money, Grace. And believe me, if he just wanted to give a million-pound donation to his kid brother’s school, he’d find a significantly smarter way to do it.”

  “No, I’m not telling you that. I don’t know why he bid a million pounds, Charlie.” This much, at least, is true. I don’t know why he bid the million pounds. I don’t know what in God’s name he was thinking. “Look, can we just go home and talk about …”

  “I’ve told you, Grace, there is no home. Home is a place for wives and mothers. Not for women who cheat on their husbands! Not for women who take every penny their husband earns just so they can adorn themselves with all the latest trinkets”—he spits the word, taking his hand off my elbow so he can swing it against my handbag—“to catch the eye of a sugar daddy who can buy them even more stuff!”

  “Charlie, please, stop making this all about money!” I’m astonished to hear my own voice rise. “Money has nothing to do with it! Money isn’t the reason I … got involved with Saad.”

  “Course not,” Charlie sneers. “Course it wasn’t the money. Might have been the houses. The staff. The private island. The cars.” He gestures rather wildly in the direction of the row of cars parked beneath the glaring security lights on the wall nearest us; one of them is a dark Aston Martin that has to be Saad’s. “But it definitely wasn’t the cold, hard cash. How could I possibly think that of a woman like you, Grace?”

  “What do you mean, a woman like me?”

  “A woman who’s always used her looks to get what she wants, no matter who she hurts. A woman who lured me away from my wife and son,” he carries on, wagging a finger in my face, “because she thought I might be a good meal ticket. A good, safe bet for a nice house, and nice things, and a few babies.”

  I’m too appalled by this to say anything for a moment. “Do you really believe that,” I say, when I can speak, “or are you just saying it because you’re angry with me? I mean, do you really think I lured you away from Vanessa and Percy? So that I could give up the degree I loved and settle down to breed? At the age of twenty-one? With someone seventeen years older than me?”

  “Oh, is that it, as well as the wads of cash?” Charlie lets out a short bark of laughter. “My boss’s youth and good looks? His undoubted prowess in the sack? Because you should know, Grace, that if he’s the expert lover I’m sure he is, then it’s pretty much all down to good old-fashioned practice.”

  “Stop it.”

  “That’s what makes me laugh the most,” he carries on, “the fact that you probably think you’re the only one. Well, believe me, hon.” He leans in, very close. “You’re nothing special. Nothing special at all.”

  “Charlie …”

  “You know what? Come to think of it, you should go home. To my home. I’ll be the one to spend the night in a hotel.” He pushes past me, toward the gates.

  “But what shall I tell the boys?”

  “Tell them whatever the hell you like, Grace. I’m sure you’ve had plenty of time to think it all through, while you lay on your back for Saad Amar. But some of us have been caught a little more off guard. Still, I can catch up with you pretty fast, you know. I’ll be speaking to my lawyer first thing in the morning.”

  “Charlie, please … look, I’m sorry …”

  But he’s out on the Fulham Road now, raising an arm for a passing black cab. “Oh, it’s way too late for sorry, hon,” he says before he slams the cab door shut.

  I stare after him. I wonder, briefly, i
f I’m going to be sick.

  Then another, much better prospect occurs to me.

  I stride across the car park to Saad’s Aston Martin and start to kick it.

  Just the wheels, at first. God knows why, after the hand grenade he’s just chucked into my life, but I can’t quite bring myself to do any real damage to the beautiful car itself. But after a moment or two it starts to feel really, seriously cathartic. If that’s the right word to describe the blood that’s suddenly pumping through my veins. So I aim a good, hard kick at the bumper. It hurts my foot when it connects, but I still bring my leg back to kick it again.

  “Grace!”

  It’s Saad, running toward me across the car park.

  “Grace, stop!”

  “Why?” I turn and push him away. To my surprise, it’s enough to send him a couple of steps backwards. If my newfound superstrength is anything to go by, hell hath no fury like a woman exposed as an adulterer in front of the entire parent population of her son’s school. “Because you don’t want the dents in your paintwork? Because you don’t want something that’s precious to you completely ruined?”

  “No. Because it’s not my Aston Martin.”

  Oh.

  Oh, Christ, I hope I haven’t done it any real damage.

  Even though whichever ludicrously overpaid St. Martin’s parent it belongs to will be able to afford the repairs, and even though it’s the last thing I should probably be fixating on right now, I pull my diary out of my handbag, rip out a page, and start scribbling down my phone number and insurance details to put under the car’s windshield wiper.

  “Grace, for God’s sake, don’t worry about that right now!” Saad is looking at me as if I’ve gone mad. In fact, he’s looking pretty crazy himself—less smooth than I’ve ever seen him, with stark eyes and positively wild hair, by his usual sleek standards. “Look, are you all right? I saw Charlie talking to you … shouting at you … I wanted to come over but I thought it might just make things worse …”

  In my mind’s eye I see Charlie and Saad rolling around in a death grip on the concrete while a bevy of St. Martin’s parents, led by Chief Miranda, whoop and holler and place bets on the likely victor.

  “That’s the only sensible decision you’ve made all night,” I tell him, folding my note and sticking it under the mystery Aston Martin’s windshield wiper. My voice is shaking even more than the rest of me.

  “I know. Grace, I know. Look, I’m an idiot! I don’t know what got into me. I didn’t think it through, I didn’t think about the consequences …”

  “No. But I’m the one who’s got to live with them.” I start to stalk toward the gate, but he blocks me.

  “No, Grace, no. You don’t have to live with them. Not like you think. I mean, you don’t have to let him bully you like this. Look, the worst has happened. He knows about us now! So let him carry out every threat he wants to make. Bring it on, and I’ll take care of you!”

  “Slip some money my way for the lawyers’ fees, you mean? Buy me a place to live so that you don’t have to feel so guilty when Charlie chucks me out of my house, and where you can come round for a bit of grateful sex until you get tired of me and move me out for the next incumbent?”

  “No!” He looks horrified. “Grace, we’ve been through this! There isn’t another incumbent! There isn’t going to be! It’s you I care about. Just you.”

  “Yeah, right.” I’ve had enough scorn poured on me by Charlie this evening. It’s about time to start redirecting some of that scorn somewhere else. No matter how crushed it makes Saad look. “What you’ve done tonight is a funny way to show how much you actually care about me. Please, Saad, get out of my way.”

  “Look, let me take you home. You shouldn’t be by yourself …”

  “I won’t be by myself. I have two children. Whom, thanks to you, I somehow have to inform that their dad is leaving. Which is why I need you to let me go. So I can start thinking about how I might set about that.”

  He opens his mouth. Then, wordlessly, he steps aside.

  I head for the gates.

  “Grace, I’m sorry!” he calls after me. “I’m so sorry …”

  I put my head down and keep walking.

  Bella

  Thursday, December 24

  I should have known not to tell Mum and Brian that my Christmas Eve party starts at eight. This pretty much guarantees that they’ll turn up at roughly half past five, Brian because he genuinely wants to help, and Mum because she wants to pretend to help. Actually what Mum wants to do is (and you can pick any combination of the following): interfere, pass judgment, have a bit of a nose around, disapprove of the high-fat items on the menu, and take the credit for everyone else’s hard work.

  But even I’m surprised when the doorbell to my flat rings at 4:36 precisely.

  “Happy Christmas, darling,” says Mum, barging through the front door as soon as I open it. She’s in her “traveling” outfit of black velour tracksuit and leopard print ballet pumps, un-made-up and with her hair scraped back. Oh, shit. This means she’ll be planning on getting ready in my bedroom and bathroom, affording me no time to get properly ready myself and her more opportunities to sneak around in my private things.

  “Mum …”

  She air-kisses me on both cheeks. “So you’re not zhuzhing up the flat, then? That’s a shame. I was hoping you’d have put up some tinsel, at least. Ooooh, what are those you’re holding?” she adds, looking down at the tray of homemade sausage rolls I was just about to pop in the oven. “Oh. Sausage. You know, you can make really delicious little savory pastries with healthy ingredients, darling. Spinach and feta, for example. And if you used margarine instead of butter for the pastry, they’d work out at only seventy-five calories a pop.”

  Excellent. So we’ve ticked off interfering, passing judgment, and disapproving of the high-fat items on the menu. And she’s not even been here thirty seconds.

  “You’re early,” I say, helping Brian through the door behind her. He’s carrying large bags of extravagantly wrapped Christmas presents that they could probably have left at their hotel until they come around for lunch tomorrow and that are now going to take up far too much space during the party. They’ll have to be stuck into a cupboard, which will offend Mum, who will want them to be—who, in fact, has specifically brought them here to be—prominently displayed so that all the other guests can see what a generous gift-giver she is.

  I take one of the largest bags from Brian, who looks relieved to be rid of the extra weight. “Robbie and Hector?” I say, reading the labels attached to two large red-wrapped parcels on the top. “You’ve brought presents for Grace to take home to her children?”

  “Well, obviously. Poor little mites.” Mum pulls her terribly-upset-and-shocked face, which would have a lot more impact if she weren’t trying to catch a glimpse of herself in the mirror as she’s doing it.

  “Polly told us everything about what’s happened with Grace,” Brian says, giving me a hug and then taking my sausage roll tray from me as we head into the kitchen. He’s popped them into the oven and taken down a spare apron from the back of the kitchen door before I can even tell him to sit down. “Isn’t it terrible?”

  “That awful American husband has just walked out on her, you know!” Mum is always keen to be the bearer of dramatic tidings, even if they’re old news by now. “And barely a week before Christmas!”

  So evidently Polly hasn’t told them everything. Because if she had, she might have mentioned the fact that there’s a reason why Grace’s “awful” American husband has walked out on her.

  I mean, not that Polly’s mentioned the full facts of the case to me, either, but I was there, I’m pretty sure, when it all came out. It was at this auction event I was catering, only a few days ago, at the school Grace’s kids go to. Anyway, one minute Grace was being her usual superior self, patronizing me about my job and making it quite clear she’d rather shoot herself in the Manolo-shod foot than come to a party in the iniquitous w
ilds of Shepherd’s Bush, and the next, she was hauled up on stage for this big announcement about some mystery bidder paying a million quid for a painting of hers. A mystery bidder, incidentally, that she’s quite clearly been having an affair with. I’d seen her with this ridiculously good-looking playboy type out in the corridor a few minutes before the big announcement, and I saw her again with him afterwards, having a heated debate next to an Aston Martin, when I went out to get a few bits and bobs from my van. Not to mention the fact that the “awful” American husband (I don’t know why I’m bothering to dispute his awfulness; to be entirely fair to Grace, he does look pretty awful) turned on his heel and stalked out of the event before Grace had even come down off the stage.

  “He’s already filed for divorce, you know,” Mum is carrying on, taking up pride of place at the table, “and Polly says Grace is terrified he’ll be able to take the children … though I can’t believe anything like that would happen to a lovely young mother like her, can you? Ooooh, unless she has a drug problem, or something.” Her eyes light up. “Could that be it? I mean, she does manage to stay beautifully slim, and they do say that’s a side effect of cocaine …”

  Thank God—for once—for Jamie. He’s been last-minute Christmas shopping since lunchtime, but now he’s loudly announcing his reappearance from the front door. He comes into the kitchen, laden down with shopping bags (he’s done all his Christmas shopping at Niketown? Really?), and while Mum is distracted by flirting with him, and Brian is offering to pop on the kettle and make him a nice bacon sandwich to line his stomach before tonight, if he’d like one, I grab the chance to head to my bedroom. This is ostensibly to store away Mum’s overflowing gift bags and Jamie’s Nike bags, but it’s actually to clear away anything that I don’t want Mum to see.

  The cellulite cream on my bedside table, for example—because otherwise she’ll only corner me later, by the nibbles, and suggest that I ease up on the cheesy puffs rather than rely on lotions to de-cheesy-puff my thighs. My mobile phone, with Dev at the top of my most recent call list, to check that he’s still coming tonight—because the last thing I need is Mum discovering this in advance, and accidentally-on-purpose blurting it out to Polly before anyone else, including Dev, gets here. Anything at all to do with the adoption, like the letter that just came yesterday with the details of the first Preparation for Adoption class, in mid-January—because I don’t want to talk about the adoption to my mother at the best of times, let alone when I’m also having to endure her flirting with He-Can-Do-No-Wrong Jamie. Anything at all to do with Liam, like the little bag with Christmas presents he left for me and Jamie late last night, before he caught his hideously early flight this morning to spend Christmas with his daughters in Cork …