‘Don’t start all that again,’ Vaughn snapped. ‘Haven’t you got enough clothes, for God’s sake? I’m not always going to be around to bail you out.’
Since Vaughn had paid her debts, there had been no more binges. OK, she hadn’t had a reason to cane her credit card before now, but Grace had made a concerted effort to buy only what she needed in the way of going-out clothes each month. Vaughn knew that and it was one of the things left unsaid. Or it should have been, like Noah. Or what an unmitigated bastard Vaughn really was.
‘I’ll get back to you on that one,’ Grace snapped back, and it felt so good to unleash just a teensy little bit of the rage that had been simmering just under the surface for weeks. ‘I have to go.’
‘Don’t drink too much. I’ll see you later.’ And Vaughn was gone before Grace could get a ballpark figure on how late ‘later’ was.
Grace did think about going shopping then, because it was better than spending hours in Vaughn’s house repacking all her worldly goods and chattels for the umpteenth time. But going shopping was what the old Grace would have done, and Grace wasn’t like that any more. Or she didn’t want to be like that any more, didn’t want to slide back into old habits and pretend it was a coping mechanism, when actually it just made her feel worse.
She sat at her desk for several minutes trying to fight the urge to leave the office because she knew that instead of taking the back road to get to the bus stop, she’d head straight down Oxford Street and find herself in Selfridges, probably in the Louis Vuitton concession on the ground floor.
She was saved by the ping of her email.
Gracie
Final offer: a cab here and back, all the red wine you can drink and my scintillating company.
Be there or be incredibly dull and boring.
Noah x
At exactly seven o’clock, Grace heaved herself up the fifth flight of stairs in a crumbling old warehouse in Dalston. Noah was waiting for her on the next landing and looking fairly thrilled to see her, which was a novelty these days. He held a bottle aloft. ‘I have alcohol.’
‘Those are my three favourite words in the English language,’ Grace grinned.
His studio took up the entire sixth floor. From the splatters of paint on the worn floorboards to the sagging furniture and the smell of turps hanging in the air, it was exactly what Grace imagined an artist’s studio to be - and Noah, in battered jeans, Japanese trainers and a holey T-shirt, was exactly what a Young British Artist should be, Grace thought as he hugged her.
‘You all right?’ he asked sharply, stepping back and looking at Grace with more intensity than she would have liked.
‘I’m fine,’ she said, shaking out her hair so it half-covered her face.
Noah shrugged and peered at her again. ‘I don’t know - you seem kind of sad.’
‘Nothing a glass or three of wine won’t put right,’ Grace declared stoutly.
Noah poured a good half-bottle of Pinot Noir into chipped mugs stained with tannin and handed one to Grace. ‘So, can I show you what I’ve been working on?’ he asked eagerly.
Grace couldn’t have heard him properly. ‘You wanted me to come up and see your etchings? Really?’
‘I’d have mentioned that in the email if I’d thought it would have been an incentive,’ Noah said with a sly smile, and Grace punched him lightly on the arm. Her gran would have called him ‘incorrigible’ among other things, and the light, flirty banter that Grace and Noah always slipped into when there wasn’t anyone else around was a welcome change after weeks of tense silences and stilted conversation.
Noah started pulling out canvases. ‘The poppy paintings were deliberately designed to shock,’ he confessed, like Grace hadn’t already guessed. ‘But I liked the idea of flowers; it’s unexpected from a male artist, but it’s more interesting to capture them decaying. They’re still beautiful but there’s something sinister in documenting their death. It’s very voyeuristic.’
‘Hmmm.’ Grace looked at the canvases, relieved that none of them looked like bloody vulvas any more. Instead, she saw wilting flowers, their stems unable to bear the weight of drooping petals any longer, the water in the clear vases fetid. Just in case the visual wasn’t working, the smell coming from a huge bunch of rotting lilies on the table next to Noah’s easel caught at the back of her throat.
‘Do you like them?’ Noah asked, scrutinising Grace’s face. ‘How do they make you feel?’
‘Well, they’re OK, I guess. In a melancholy way.’ She paused. ‘Honestly, Noah? They just don’t do it for me. Christ, I never want to get a bunch of mixed blooms again.’ And she could hardly bear to look at them any more because - yes, she got it. Nothing lasted. Especially the good stuff. All you were left with were memories, and even they crumbled and faded over time.
Noah seemed delighted that his flowers were hurling Grace into an existential crisis. ‘That’s a really visceral reaction,’ he announced with obvious satisfaction. ‘I want people to look at them and become haunted by their own ghosts. Oh, but now I’ve made you look all sad again.’
‘Really, I’m fine. This is just my thinking face.’ Grace stepped away from the paintings and wandered across the floor so she could stare out of the window at the mean streets of East London below. ‘What did Vaughn think of them?’
‘Well, he said they’d be more powerful if I preserved the flowers, rather than painted them. Which is just tenth-rate Damien Hirst. Pickling a shark is one thing, but a bunch of tulips is just fucking stupid. Shall we finish the bottle?’
Grace looked at her mug, which was still half-full. She drained the contents, and held the mug out. ‘Why not?’
Noah poured her another mug and stayed at her side. ‘That should put a smile back on your face,’ he said, chinking his mug against the side of hers.
‘So, is this a live-work space?’ Grace asked, looking around curiously. She was currently in the clutches of an eager estate agent who couldn’t believe her luck that there were still cash buyers in the middle of a recession, but Grace was beginning to wonder if she wasn’t done with North London and period conversions. Maybe she should think about loft living in East London - a complete change of scene.
‘Yeah - I’ll give you the tour.’ He started walking her over to a collection of haphazard screens, stepped through a small gap and took Grace’s hand to pull her through.
It wasn’t as squalid as the studio, but it could have definitely done with an intensive spring clean, Grace thought as she stepped over a couple of take-out containers on the floor. There was a huge plasma TV mounted on the wall and underneath it a collection of games consoles, and to the side a huge, cracked leather sofa, a couple of interesting-looking lamps and more dirty crockery. ‘Sorry about the mess,’ Noah muttered guiltily. ‘My mum came round last weekend and told me I lived like a pig.’
‘What is it about boys living on their own and their complete inability to do the washing up?’ Grace asked, flopping down on the sofa. Noah’s place reminded her a lot of Liam’s flat, though Liam had had a lot less high-tech gadgetry. It even had that same slightly musky smell of cigarettes and burned toast. It wasn’t altogether unpleasant; it reminded Grace of the weeks when she and Liam had first got together and they’d stay up all night, smoking, drinking, listening to records and snogging for hours. Vaughn’s house didn’t smell of anything.
‘So, like, shall we just talk about you and Vaughn, get it out of the way and then we can both chill out and get really pissed?’ she went on, toeing off her sneakers and taking a cigarette from the pack that Noah was offering her.
‘How did you know I wanted to talk about Vaughn?’
‘Educated guess,’ Grace said dryly. ‘So, what’s going on with you and him then? I take it he’s cooled off.’
‘Yup, he’s so cool, he’s got frostbite,’ Noah said, and he sounded quite peeved about it. ‘He barely looked at my pieces, said he wasn’t quite sure that we were a good fit.’
‘I thought you didn
’t want to be repped by him,’ Grace reminded him a little bitterly. ‘So, do you think you and Vaughn might still cut a deal?’
‘Don’t know. I said that I was going to work on some new stuff and he said he’d be in touch within the next few weeks.’ Noah sat down next to Grace. ‘There was nothing wrong with my work. Yeah, it’s a little controversial, but that’s better than playing it safe.’
‘But, like I said, you weren’t into the whole corporate art thing so it’s no big deal.’
‘Just because I was playing hard to get didn’t mean I wouldn’t have given in eventually. Vaughn only ever takes on one new artist at a time. It’s a huge deal.’ Noah cleared his throat nervously. ‘So, Gracie, I have to ask you, why isn’t Vaughn returning my calls?’
‘You wanted to ask me that?’ Grace nibbled on her bottom lip. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Of course you know! Has he said anything to you - asked your advice?’
Grace snorted. ‘Apart from letting me buy his shirts, no, Vaughn doesn’t come to me for advice. I mean, really, can you imagine it?’
‘I’ve been hearing rumours that he’s interested in a couple of other artists and I haven’t been invited to any of your parties for weeks.’ Noah sounded as if his entire world had spun off its axis now that he’d been taken off the guest-list.
‘Dude, you hated those parties.’ Grace patted Noah’s knee in what she hoped was a comforting manner. ‘He really doesn’t discuss this stuff with me.’
Noah’s hand covered hers. ‘You can’t bullshit a bullshitter, Gracie. Just put me out of my misery and make it quick.’ He finished the contents of his mug and gave Grace a doleful look that reminded her of those sad-eyed pictures of street urchins.
‘Look, between you and me, there’s a couple of new names floating around. Some Australian girl called Tabitha who’s a silk-screening lesbian and a Japanese guy.’ Grace frowned. ‘His name’s . . . I’m wanting to say “ruche” but that can’t be right.’
‘Fuck!’ Noah knocked over his empty mug in his consternation. ‘Ruichi . . . Roo! That wanker! He’s a mate of mine. I saw him last night and he didn’t say anything about Vaughn.’
Grace patted Noah’s knee again. ‘Sorry.’
‘I knew I shouldn’t have dicked Vaughn around for so long.’ Noah took off his flat cap and rubbed his cropped hair. ‘This is all your fault.’
‘What did I do?’ Grace leaned down and picked up the bottle so she could pour some more wine into Noah’s mug. He looked like he needed it more than she did.
‘Got hammered in the pub with me after your party,’ Noah informed her. ‘That was when Vaughn started cooling off. But first he read me the riot act, told me to keep away from you. In fact, he said that I was to imagine that there was a twenty-foot exclusion zone around you at all times.’
As they were currently thigh to thigh on the sofa, Noah hadn’t taken Vaughn’s warning to heart. Grace was all ready to start feeling hopeful that Vaughn going all caveman was a good thing when she remembered that it simply wasn’t the case.
‘I wouldn’t even try to second-guess Vaughn,’ she advised Noah sourly. ‘Not if you want to actually stay sane.’
‘But Gracie, he’s really into you. Obviously. So couldn’t you use your influence and persuade him to give me another chance?’
Grace sighed and decided she might as well come clean. ‘Look, I have no influence. I’m on the outs too. About another week should do it,’ she added, groping for the cigarettes, because lately her nicotine consumption had tripled. ‘It was the only reason I was with him - to be pimped out to impressionable Young British Artists.’
‘Well, Gracie, it’s not exactly a newsflash,’ Noah said, shifting closer so he was pressed against her. ‘Everyone knew you were only with him for the money.’ Now it was Noah’s turn to pat her knee and keep his hand resting heavily on her leg, while Grace concentrated on smoking and drinking and pretending that Noah wasn’t way too close for comfort. Light, flirty banter was one thing, but that was all she was in the mood for. ‘I have to say though, he was really fucking scary when he told me to leave you alone. Guess he had a change of heart.’
‘He doesn’t have a heart,’ Grace scoffed. ‘He probably had it removed, got Damien Hirst to cover it in Perspex and sold it to some Russian with more brains than taste.’
‘You’re so sexy when you get mad. Your face goes all pink, it’s adorable,’ Noah husked in her ear as his hand slowly and predictably travelled up her thigh. ‘It must have been a fucking nightmare being stuck with him night after night.’
‘You have no idea,’ Grace said, calmly removing Noah’s hand. ‘Back off, Art Boy.’ She looked around the room for a diversion from Noah who was huffing slightly. ‘Oh, hey! I haven’t played Guitar Hero in ages.’
‘You want to play Guitar Hero?’
‘Can we?’ Grace begged, already off the sofa and crawling across the floor to pick up one of the guitars. ‘Is it hooked up to your Nintendo or your PlayStation?’
It was the good, old-fashioned kind of fun that Grace dimly remembered from the days of Liam. Though even Liam had never let her climb on his sofa so she could jump off it in the middle of ‘I Love Rock ’n’ Roll’. She’d been so down on the old Grace that she’d forgotten how much fun she could be.
‘You’re such a dork,’ Noah scoffed, when Grace insisted that they both stand back to back and brandish their guitars in unison to ‘Sweet Child of Mine’, but he didn’t seem to mind, and when she got so giggly that she thought she might start to hyperventilate, Noah skinned up a couple of spliffs and made Grace a mug of tea exactly how she liked it. And toast with peanut butter because, unlike certain men she knew, Noah could operate a kettle and a toaster and knew how to have fun that didn’t involve black and white subtitled foreign films or boring parties at embassies.
Grace sat cross-legged on the sofa sipping her tea and looking at Noah from under her lashes as he assembled another joint. He glanced up and grinned at her. ‘I’m glad you don’t look sad any more.’
‘Me too. Being sad sucks.’
It occurred to Grace that once she was done and dusted with Vaughn and had given herself a suitable amount of time to get over him, Noah would be the perfect rebound romance. He was cute, ambitious, funny ha ha rather than funny peculiar, had his own place and he was really into her in this normal, unambiguous way. She’d have to tell him that she had zero tolerance for communist relationships, but apart from that wrinkle, Noah would make a great boyfriend.
‘You know, it’s probably a good thing that you and Vaughn are calling it quits,’ Noah remarked as he expertly rolled another joint. ‘He doesn’t make you happy - anyone can see that. Don’t you think you deserve to be happy, Gracie?’
‘I am - I was happy. I just got in over my head and now . . .’
‘You should be with someone who really gets you,’ Noah whispered, and they were on the same page and that was another point in Noah’s favour. No mixed signals. And in the end, though it wasn’t quite what Grace had planned, which involved getting closer and closer to Noah so that the kissing was inevitable, Grace just turned her head and kissed him because really, what difference did ten more days make? She and Vaughn were done and there was no point pretending otherwise.
The kisses were all teeth and tongue. Not good kisses. Not even bad kisses. But kisses that were just a prelude so they could get to the next part, which was Noah pressing Grace back against the arm of the sofa so he could lie on top of her and grind his hard-on into her hip.
Grace shoved him away slightly so she could yank her sweater over her head, then lay back down so Noah could wrestle with her bra clip, and then he was cupping her breasts so he could lower his head and kiss them and it was nice. Super-nice, but it wasn’t making Grace get that swoony feeling that weighed down her limbs and made her want to arch her hips and close her eyes and become short of breath.
‘Kiss me again,’ she murmured, pressing herself against Noah, and he was happy to
oblige, sliding his tongue into her mouth and stroking her face even as his other hand delved between them.
‘I wanted to fuck you the first time we met,’ he muttered as he pulled down her zip. ‘Couldn’t you tell?’
‘Not really. I’m crap at picking up on stuff like that,’ Grace admitted, rubbing her knuckles against his cropped hair, which felt surprisingly soft, like goose down. She waited patiently for Noah to kiss her again but he was already fishing a condom out of his back pocket.
‘You have the most fantastic tits,’ Noah said, watching them shimmy as he pulled his jeans down, didn’t even take them off and fisted his cock once, before he started pulling on the rubber. ‘I can’t wait to see the rest of you.’
Grace had thought that maybe they’d just have a little bit of a snog, maybe some dry humping, which wasn’t so terrible in the grand scheme of being almost dumped. For a second, she thought about taking her jeans off because she’d started this, she’d kissed Noah, so she couldn’t exactly back out . . .
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