by Anna Kent
But once we’d been ‘hooking up’ for some time, she started asking when she was going to meet him. She pushed and pushed until, one day, against my better judgement, I invited him to meet me at ours before we went out for a bite to eat. Grace buzzed around like a mosquito before he got there, primping, straightening and tidying the living room.
‘Stop it,’ I told her. ‘It’s only Tom.’
‘I can’t wait to see what he looks like in the flesh,’ she said, fluffing up the sofa cushions. ‘If he’s as nice as you make out. No one can be that perfect,’ and then there was a knock at the door and suddenly he was standing there, incongruous, on our doorstep.
He held out a bottle of wine, and Grace appeared behind me, standing with the posture of a model, shoulders straight, chest out, hip popped.
‘Hello, there!’ she laughed, grabbing the bottle. ‘I’m Grace. Is that for us? You shouldn’t have!’
She sashayed into the kitchen to get a bottle opener while I invited Tom inside. Grace’s hair hung loosely down her back. She tossed it about as she opened the wine showily and poured it into our best glasses. She was wearing shorts. Micro-shorts that barely covered the curve of her buttocks, and she had bare feet, legs that went on forever and a tan from summer, but Tom didn’t seem to notice any of this. He sat with his hand on my knee and awkwardly drank his wine, then he stood and said, ‘Let’s go,’ so it seemed I’d got away with it.
But you know that feeling you get when you’re watching a movie and you know something bad’s going to happen and you’re just waiting for it to happen, kind of dreading it and expecting it at the same time? That sense of impending doom? That’s how I felt after that weird little get-together – and I wasn’t wrong. Looking back, I should have realized that Grace wouldn’t like me being in a relationship. That she would never let me have something that she wanted for herself.
That she’d never let me be happy.
As my relationship with Tom continued, Grace changed. By that time, she was on her fifth-year specialty rotations and our lives were going in different directions, yet it seemed that, even though she was allowed boyfriends, I was not.
At first it came out as little barbed comments.
‘You’re seeing him again?’ Heavy sighs. Eye-rolls when I mentioned his name. Smirks that weren’t altogether pleasant; jokes about child-snatchers, as if seven years was such a huge age gap.
She didn’t like it that I wasn’t always there for her. She didn’t like it when she found my room door locked on the rare occasions Tom came back for the night.
‘I want you to myself!’ she joked.
And then the rumours started. Stories about Tom that she’d overheard – stories about him perhaps not being faithful. Grace, shy and apologetic, her lips in a judgemental pout patting the sofa next to her: ‘Come and sit down, Abs. There’s something I have to tell you. I hate to be the one…’ but she’d seen him in a pub in town with a younger girl – much younger – maybe even one of his pupils.
‘They looked cosy, Abs,’ she said, reaching for my hand. ‘I’m only telling you because I care. I’d want to know if it were me.’ She’d peered into my eyes and I’d tried to read her expression: concern? Or schadenfreude?
I’d asked Tom and he’d denied it. I believed him, but the crack was there, the seed planted, and Grace was very good at watering seeds.
‘You deserve better,’ she said. ‘You shouldn’t let him treat you like this. He walks all over you. The age gap warps the power ratio.’
Tom hadn’t believed that I was breaking up with him.
I did it in a busy café, cups of coffee in front of both of us, a smile on Tom’s face to begin with as we faced each other across a table for two. But then I’d told him.
‘Abi,’ he’d said, the hurt pooling in his eyes as he stroked a lock of hair from my face. ‘What happened? I thought we were good.’
We were. I closed my eyes, unwilling to see the concern on his face. We were good.
‘Was it something I did?’
I squeezed my eyes tighter to stop the tears from spilling, and shook my head. I know what Grace said, but I didn’t believe it; didn’t believe there was anything but a reasonable explanation – if he in fact had been seen out with a younger woman.
‘I just think it’s for the best.’
‘The best for who?’ His voice rose. ‘Abi? For who? Because this is not something that I want. Not at all.’
It’s not you; it’s me. Such a cliché I couldn’t say it, although it was the truth.
‘I just…’ I turned my face away. ‘Tom, please.’
‘Look, I know we don’t talk about the future, but I’d imagined us together long term. Really long term. I know I don’t believe in marriage and diamond rings, but, in as much as I believe anything, you’re The One.’ A pause. Words I’d longed to hear, but not now, not like this. ‘I’ve actually never felt like this before.’
‘Stop it.’
‘I need you to know that. I need you to know that wherever this is coming from, it’s not a feeling I that echo.’
I swallowed a sob and refused to look at him. His fingers played with the bracelet on my wrist, then stroked the top of my hand. I pulled it away.
‘If you tell me it’s what you want, I’ll walk away now,’ he said. ‘I’d never hassle you. But look me in the eye and tell me it’s what you want. Because I don’t believe you. Abi, look at me.’
He put a hand to my cheek and tried to turn my face. His fingers, long and slim, felt warm on my cheek. My eyes, full of tears, looked up at his beautiful face for the briefest second, then fell back down to the table. Inside my chest, there was a physical ache.
‘It’s what I want,’ I whispered.
Grace laughed when I told her I’d done it.
‘So we’re quits,’ she smiled. ‘We don’t need men. I’ll stick with you forever.’
It sounded like a threat.
Thirty
I painted all day. The next thing I knew, Grace was banging on the studio door.
‘Abs! Are you in there? I’m home! Do you want a drink?’
I sat back on my stool and dragged my focus away from the canvas. I’d been deeply involved in the details of this portrait. Although I had lights trained on the canvas, the room around them was dark. Through the black windows I could see the orange glow of the streetlights. When I painted, it was as if I were in a trance.
‘Abs!’ Grace yelled, knocking again on the door, more urgently this time. ‘Wakey, wakey! Are you in there?’
That sent a jolt through me. ‘Sorry! Just cleaning up!’ I shouted. ‘Why don’t you pour us something and I’ll be down in a sec?’
‘Can I come in?’
‘Later! When it’s finished!’ I called. I was going to have to tell her that I didn’t want her to see the pictures until the series was complete. The portraits, I’d realized, would tell a story as Grace grew older, and I didn’t want any comments from her to affect the way I portrayed her.
‘I’d love a vodka, though!’ I shouted. ‘I’m just cleaning my brushes and I’ll be down!’
‘Okay,’ she said, disappointment hanging in her voice, but I heard her steps retreat down the stairs. I turned the finished portraits so they couldn’t be seen if she even glanced inside the room, then I stood back and looked at my day’s work.
Grace’s face was slimmer in this one; the puppy fat gone, the lines of her face more angular. Although she didn’t wear much make-up, I’d curled and thickened her lashes with mascara, made her lips gleam with a little rosy gloss, and groomed her eyebrows. Other than that, her skin was bare, with the gleam of porcelain about it. Light reflected off the tops of her cheekbones and down her perfect, straight nose, and there was a smattering of freckles across her cheeks, faint under her tan, which gave the impression of a summer spent in the sunshine. In her lobes, her earrings glimmered.
I reached out and traced my finger across her cheek on the canvas.
‘Yes, perfec
t,’ I said softly, then I cleaned my brushes and headed down.
‘I thought we could have a girls’ night in,’ Grace said. ‘You know, paint our nails, do a face mask, listen to some music. You used to love doing that.’ She laughed, and not in a nice way. ‘It was all you ever wanted to do.’
I smiled, a little blindsided, and Grace smiled back. She’d changed out of whatever it was she’d worn to work and was sitting at the kitchen table with a drink and a saucer of vegetable chips and now she raised her glass to me. ‘Cheers, by the way.’
I raised mine back. ‘Cheers. To your first day. How was it?’
Grace popped a chip in her mouth and crunched. ‘Yeah. Good,’ she said. ‘No major dramas.’
‘Well, I guess that’s good,’ I said. ‘Easy start. Did the people seem nice?’
‘Yeah.’
I waited for her to elaborate but she said nothing more. In the end, I spoke. ‘Did you find the clothes you’d ordered? I hope you didn’t mind that I opened them.’
She shrugged. ‘Yeah. No worries.’
‘I was going to hang them, but…’
She gave a little pff of a laugh. ‘The wardrobe was full?’
‘Yes! Why did you do that? They stink! And the toys? How can you sleep with that Jack-in-the-Box watching you?’
She shrugged and popped a chip in her mouth. ‘I just felt that they might like to be there. They probably used to be there. It’s their home. What right did I have to keep them squashed up in a box?’
‘They’re old clothes. They don’t care. They’ve probably got moths in them. And they make the wardrobe smell. We should throw them away.’
‘Chill out, Brussel sprout! It’s no big deal, is it? I think it’s kinda cute.’
‘Well… if you don’t mind your clothes smelling musty…’
‘Exactly. It’s my issue.’ She took another chip. ‘So, I’m starving. What’s for dinner?’
Anger jabbed at me. ‘I haven’t had a chance to make anything yet.’
‘Oh, I’m easy.’ Grace raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m sure you can rustle together some nibbles – maybe some smoked salmon and some olives or something? It’ll be just like the old times.’
‘Wasn’t it Quavers in those days?’ I said.
‘Well, we’re grown up now.’ She smiled and I could almost taste the faux cheese flavour of the Quavers on my tongue as I remembered the nights we’d spent doing exactly that at university. ‘Who needs food?’ we used to say in the early days. ‘Who needs food when you’ve got vodka?’
Maybe I was trying to make a point, but I refused to cook anything, so we settled in the living room with some drinks – another elderflower cordial for her and vodka for me – and some of the fancy snacks she’d bought at the organic store, and I got the nail polish while Grace put on some music. She was applying the top coat on my nails when my phone rang.
‘Husband?’ Grace asked with one eyebrow raised. I nodded. ‘Leave it, or you’ll smudge your nails,’ she said, flapping a magazine to create a breeze. The phone rang again a minute later, and then again.
‘Maybe something’s wrong,’ I said, as the anxiety troops started to assemble in my chest with a familiar surge of tightness. I took a deep breath, and then another, to push it back down.
‘I doubt it,’ said Grace. ‘Do you ever not pick up?’
‘Sometimes… if I’m painting.’
‘But not otherwise?’
‘No.’ Another deep breath. Anxiety spiralling.
‘Because you’re the perfect Stepford Wife, of course.’
I looked at Grace, stung by her words, but she gave a little laugh.
‘Just kidding. Anyway, these will be ready in a minute so you can gossip with your husband all you like.’
I tapped a nail to my tooth. ‘I think if I’m careful…’
The phone rang again. ‘Oh God, now it’s Mili. My sister-in-law. I’m going to have to take it.’
So I connected the call. Mili dived straight in.
‘Where are you?’
‘At home?’ I said slowly, as if it were obvious.
‘Oh shit,’ she said. ‘I’d hoped you were on your way.’
‘On my way where?’ I goggled my eyes at Grace and she widened hers back then shook her head and drew her finger back and forth miming ‘no, no, no.’
‘To dinner with Mum and Dad?’
It took a moment for the penny to drop. Of course, it was the monthly catch-up dinner and Rohan and I had agreed with his parents that I’d go.
‘Shit, sorry, Mils. I’ve been painting all day and I completely forgot.’
‘Can you jump in a taxi now?’ she asked. ‘Mum’s saying she won’t order till you’re here.’ She paused and lowered her tone. ‘You know what she’s like.’
I did – I could just picture Meena sitting at the table like the Queen, looking at her watch and stating that she would wait for her daughter-in-law. She loved to play the martyr.
‘You could be here in twenty minutes,’ Mili said hopefully. ‘There’s not much traffic.’
‘Oh, but… God, it’s just that I have a friend here,’ I said. ‘We’re all set up to stay home tonight.’
‘Bring your friend,’ said Mili. ‘Just get here.’
I put my hand over the phone. ‘Do you want to come to dinner with my in-laws?’ I asked Grace. ‘They’re really nice.’
Grace snorted a laugh and put her hands up, palms facing me. ‘Computer says no. You’re on your own.’
I took a deep breath and returned to the call. ‘Mils, I’m so sorry but we’ve eaten and I’m in my pyjamas. I’m absolutely shattered. It really took it out of me today. It was quite emotional… this new portrait series? I lost track of time and everything and now I’m out of battery and I just need to go to bed. Would you mind explaining that to your mum? Please?’
Mili didn’t reply.
‘Mili? Are you there?’
‘Looks, Abs, don’t take this the wrong way, but are you all right?’ she said. ‘We spoke about this at dinner just before Rohan left. You said it was in your diary.’
‘It is! I just didn’t look at my diary. That’s all.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes! I’m sorry. It just slipped my mind what with Grace arriving and Rohan leaving, and the painting and everything…’
I left the sentence hanging but Mili didn’t reply and I worried that I’d slurred. I did suddenly feel a little fuzzy-headed. Could Mili hear the vodka in my voice? Was she wondering if I was drunk? I’d had a couple of vodkas in the afternoon as well as the two I’d now had with Grace. And they’d probably been doubles. If not triples. Grace poured a generous measure. Mentally I totted up the units; I had high tolerance but it was quite possible that I sounded a bit tipsy.
But whatever Mili was thinking, she kept it to herself. She sighed down the phone. ‘So you’re not coming? I’ve got to go in and tell her that?’
‘’Fraid so.’
‘You know you’re never going to hear the end of this, don’t you?’
‘Yep.’
‘And you’re fine with that? It’s going to be family history: “the time that Abigail forgot”.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I’ll take it. But thanks, Mils. Really. And, sorry.’
Thirty-One
As Grace’s first weekend with me approached, I asked her if there was anything in particular she wanted to do. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply as she thought about it, then snapped them open as a smile crept over her face.
‘I’d like to go to the theatre.’
‘Oh. Okay. Anything in particular you’d like to see? Comedy? Thriller? Watford Palace is bound to have something coming up.’
But Grace laughed. ‘Watford Palace? That sounds like a football club. I want to see a musical. One of those all-singing, all-dancing West End shows,’ Grace said. ‘You know, with a cast of hundreds and a live orchestra. I’ve never, ever been to one – can you believe it? I was thinking Matilda, Phant
om, Les Mis. Something like that?’
‘Oh. Oh, I see. Okay. Well…’ I shrugged and Grace peered at me.
‘Are you still scared of crowds? Don’t worry. I’ll look after you. We’ll be fine.’
‘Okay,’ I said, not wanting to admit that she’d hit the nail on the head. Even Rohan knew I didn’t ‘do’ city centres. ‘I’ll have a look online and see what’s available.’
I put tickets to the matinée of Phantom of the Opera on my credit card, and Grace and I rattled into the West End on the Tube on Saturday morning. She dozed next to me while I kept a lid on my anxiety by repeating ‘happy place, happy place, happy place’ to myself. I shut my eyes and visualized the attic with the sun pouring in through the open window, a fresh easel set up, and all my paints and brushes waiting for me. I imagined the smell of the paints and the new canvas, and focused on breathing deeply and evenly. I let myself fall almost into a trance, as I pushed away the thought that I was in a tin can speeding through a tunnel under the ground. When we surfaced at Charing Cross, I gasped in the filthy city air like a dying fish on the deck of a trawler.
‘Let’s walk through Covent Garden!’ Grace said. ‘I love this part of town. It’s so alive!’
That was certainly one word for it. The piazza was thrumming with people and a street act had drawn a large crowd. I kept my head down and my arm linked through Grace’s as we skirted around the edge of the crowd, trying not to stumble on the cobbles. Every now and again the crowd roared with laughter or burst into applause. The street artist was shouting through a megaphone and the noise sucked the energy out of me, leaving me jumpy and ragged. Grace, I could see, was in her element.
‘God, I’ve missed this so much!’ she laughed, letting go of me and spinning around to take in the people, the shopfronts – the busyness – of the scene. ‘I could sit and people-watch here all day! It’s so interesting! I mean, look at those two. Look what they’re wearing! I’ve never seen anything like it. You can tell I’ve been in the Outback too long, can’t you?’