Agent Provocateur

by Faith Bleasdale

  Just as Grace was making her way home, Fiona summoned Betty to her office.

  ‘I thought I’d find out how it’s going.’

  Betty looked at her. She couldn’t tell if she was being kind or she just wanted the gossip.

  ‘Fine, as far as I know. Johnny still sleeps in my bed, anyway.’

  ‘But what about her?’

  ‘I don’t know. Remember one of the conditions of the bet was that we don’t speak until the two month mark.’ She looked sharply at Fiona. This was all her idea and she was sitting there, unaffected.

  ‘So, you can only guess what she’s doing?’ Fiona saw a flaw in her plan. She was uncomfortable with Betty’s ignorance. It was making her edgy.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Doesn’t that make your imagination run wild?’ Fiona knew hers was. She genuinely wants Betty to win this; she wants Johnny to turn Grace down, because then she will know that Betty isn’t like her and has a rock-solid marriage. Yes, sure, it will make her jealous as hell, and she knows that deep down in the vindictive part of her brain she would like Betty to lose him, to prove to Fiona that all men are shits and it’s not just Fiona who can’t hold on to her man. However, the nice part of her, which is buried beneath the rubble of the divorce, wants her to win.

  ‘Fiona, I don’t need to worry. This is Johnny we’re talking about, remember.’ But Betty knew then that she was slightly worried. She believed this was a sign of human nature, not a sign of mistrust. She was just acting as any normal wife would if she thought that a gorgeous woman was trying to seduce her husband.

  ‘Of course you don’t. I’m just feeling a bit responsible.’

  ‘What?’ Fiona never, ever took responsibility for anything.

  ‘Well, it was my idea. I’m just checking that it isn’t driving you mad.’ Fiona was frustrated. If she had known that the bet would be dredging all these tiresome emotions out of her, then she might have thought twice before suggesting it.

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘Well, then, I was right to persuade you to do it.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘You’ll thank me in the end.’ Fiona felt better.

  ‘I will?’

  ‘Especially as you have no doubts about him and you don’t feel a bit insecure. Well done, Betty. I am proud of you.’

  Betty left the office feeling insecurity fly on to her shoulders and follow her out.

  Johnny has booked a large, bright, Italian restaurant near his office, and near where he believes she works. He is there first, nursing a Bloody Mary and feeling guilty. Although the dinner is technically work, he has lied to Betty for the first time in their marriage. He told her that the client was male. He doesn’t know why, because he has nothing to hide – this is strictly business -but the fact is, he lied. He could have told her the truth, she wouldn’t mind, and he doesn’t feel proud of himself for not doing so.

  He sees her approaching. She is wearing a black trouser suit. Her body looks amazing in it, and Johnny notes how everyone in the restaurant turns to look at her. Again, he finds it incredible that her husband left her. He must have been mad. Another thought flashes into his head; he feels proud to be meeting her. He knows that everyone else is envious of him and that makes him feel good.

  ‘Hi,’ she says, sitting down and placing her handbag on the floor and the napkin on her lap.

  ‘How are you?’ He is rigid – nerves rather than intention.

  ‘I think I’ll be better with a gin and tonic inside me.’ She smiles, and he orders. The flirting from Phase Three is being carried over to Phase Four.

  ‘So, how was your day?’

  ‘Johnny, that’s the sort of question my husband would ask. Actually, not my ex-husband because he didn’t give a fuck about anyone other than himself.’ She laughs to show him she is teasing. ‘But it was hell. I really think we should probably not talk about it, otherwise you’ll have to endure an evening of me ranting. Why don’t you tell me about your day?’

  Her voice seems to be having a physical effect on him. He looks a little flustered.

  ‘How about we order and then I will bore you with all this wonderful information about how to make you rich?’

  Grace wonders if she is the only person aware of the chemistry. She is sure she can sense something in his eyes, in his face, in his tone, that suggests he is fully aware of the situation, even though there isn’t really one. Two meetings and a dinner. It hardly constitutes infidelity; betrayal. She fancies him, of that she is sure. Like a heady teenager, she wants to be bullish about it, to storm him, knock him over, keep him there with her. But she cannot, because that would only scare him off. She is embarking on a dangerous mission because her feelings are already intertwined with the bet. She thought about many possibilities before she decided on her favoured revenge against Betty, but this was not one of them. Not that she would get personally involved. Not that she might end up hurt. And certainly not that she might end up caring that she hurt him. But she does. Her feelings are clear. Despite the brevity of their acquaintance she knows this is not just fancying.

  She has never been as alone as she is without him in her whole life. She spent the weekend with Eddie, thinking about Johnny, his face, his voice, his manner. She knows little, but she thinks she is in love.

  ‘What’s your wife like?’ she asks him. She knows that that seems an idiotic move – one that will make him aware that he is married for the rest of the dinner – but Grace knows what she is doing. She is two Graces at the moment: the professional seducer and the terrified little girl. She is trying to ignore the fear and go with what she knows, the seasoned ‘provocateur’, because that doesn’t instil her with panic. For a minute after she asks the question, Johnny seems taken aback.

  ‘She’s a journalist for a woman’s magazine. She’s lovely, a bit dizzy at times; like you, hates finance. That’s how we met.’

  ‘You don’t mind me asking?’ Grace notes how Johnny looks flushed and is fiddling with his tie.

  ‘No, no, I just didn’t know that…’

  ‘Wedding ring.’ She winks at him.

  ‘Of course, I should know by now that women are more observant than men. You don’t wear yours anymore.’

  ‘I’m not married. I have no intention of wearing that pig’s ring. Sorry. Tell me about how you met your wife.’ He starts recounting the story, and Grace sees love in his eyes. She can gauge the way a man feels about his partner by asking him, and then looking. She is in no doubt that Johnny loves Betty; she is also painfully aware of how lucky Betty is. They are interrupted by the waiter, and they order. Grace asks Johnny to order the wine, and then gestures for him to continue.

  ‘I’m not sure about all this love at first sight stuff. I thought she was attractive but, well, she pursued me quite relentlessly. That’s what I liked, really – the fact that I didn’t have to do the running.’ He laughs to show he is joking, but also serious.

  His eyes shine with love for his wife, but he feels uncomfortable talking about her to Grace. She has all she needs to know.

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you how I met my ex. I was playing golf.’ Her professionalism is back as she prepares herself for a future phase.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt, but you play golf?’

  ‘Yes. Why are you surprised?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He blushes. Grace loves his blushes. They make her want to stroke his face.

  ‘I know, it’s a man’s sport. Anyway, I love it, although I’m a bit rusty. Do you play?’

  ‘Avidly. Go on.’ He is still slightly red-faced from her teasing but he is enjoying it, which is, of course, the idea.

  ‘Right. Yes, well, I was playing golf- with a boyfriend, actually – and the ex was in front of us. But the game was really slow and I wasn’t having a good day, and when we were at the last hole, actually finished the last hole, he said that I could do with some lessons and he’d teach me. Told me he was a golf coach. Anyway, my boyfriend scowled, but he gave me his number and I call
ed him. He wasn’t a coach, by the way, he was a sales manager, but that was that. We married after six months. It was a whirlwind. What do they say, marry in haste, repent at leisure? I’m doing that.’

  ‘Do you still love him?’

  ‘No. You know, the awful thing is, the longer it goes on, the more I realise that I never did. I was hurt by his betrayal, my ego is still bruised and my self-confidence is living in my shoes, but I don’t think we were in love. Isn’t that awful?’

  Johnny doesn’t answer as the food arrives. He is thinking, and his thoughts are entering his brain at one hundred miles a minute; travelling too quickly, and he feels constricted. He is not doing anything wrong; he keeps telling himself that. It is not a crime to find a woman attractive if you’re married, or to find her interesting, intelligent, funny. It is human to care that she is obviously very hurt and it is human to want to help her mend that hurt. But he feels he is being mentally dishonest; to Betty and to Grace. It is not business, he knows that – he is enjoying her too much for it to be business – but he doesn’t love his wife any less; he adores her. He has no idea why he is feeling the way he is, but he can’t help it. Can’t do a damn thing about it.

  The rest of the dinner passes in talk of golf and Grace’s fictional boss. It is nearly eleven, when they order coffee and realise that they haven’t talked about Johnny’s proposals.

  ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have yapped on so much,’ Grace apologises.

  ‘No, it’s my fault.’ Johnny is now furious with himself. He has never been so unprofessional in his life. He enjoyed talking to her, listening to her voice, looking at her big hazel eyes. He hates himself for behaving as if he is having an affair when that is the last thing on his mind. But it was meant to be a business dinner and he was happily distracted from talking about finance at all.

  ‘I’ll come to your office. It’s easier for me not to gabble on there.’

  ‘Really, Grace, it was my fault.’

  ‘Don’t be so polite. Now we’d better hurry up and get you back to your wife before she thinks you’ve turned into a pumpkin.’ She winks. Phase Four is complete. Mission accomplished.

  Betty watches television when she gets back from her drink with Alison, but she finds only trash on offer. She feels restless and a tiny bit merry. She goes to the fridge and pours herself a glass of wine. She then pulls out some work to do, but she finds herself unable to concentrate.

  The weekend they spent in the New Forest enters her mind. Wonderfully restful, pub lunches, overindulgent dinners, making love with an intensity they normally reserve for when they are away – it was perfect. But there was a nagging feeling that Johnny wasn’t always there. Nothing major, just a little tiny fleck of doubt. She has no idea if it is her or if it is him.

  She promised herself she wouldn’t get paranoid, but now she admits she is. She is going to call Grace, but until then she is alone with her suspicions, which seem to be eating her from the inside out. Is it paranoia or are her instincts right?

  She sips her wine as she again blames Fiona for unnerving her. Then she blames Alison. It was her idea to call Grace. Then she blames Grace. Then she blames Johnny, because he might be interested. Finally she blames herself because she agreed to the bet. But she will not let it defeat her.

  Betty is in bed when Johnny gets home, but she isn’t asleep.

  ‘How was dinner?’ she asks.

  ‘Dull. Sorry I’m so late, he wouldn’t stop talking.’ He baulks at his lies.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Night, honey.’ Betty shuts her eyes and prays that he is not lying.

  Johnny shuts his eyes and tries to get rid of the image of Grace that seems to be tattooed to his eyelids.

  Grace feeds her fish, with a smile. As the fish food melts in the water, she realises that her heart has started to melt, and once it starts there is no way she can stop it. She does not know if she is in love, but if she is then it feels wonderful. Most of all she feels liberated from herself.

  Sleep dances around, eluding her, teasing her, as her thoughts are fully on how she will win Johnny. It is not the bet she wants to win now, but the man. This makes it very dangerous for her, for him and especially for Betty.

  She is torn, utterly confused. If she really cares about him the way her feelings were telling her, then she would let him be. She wouldn’t lie, or try to confuse and upset him. It is nothing to do with Betty, although it is, because now she knows how special he is; she knows that she would destroy Betty if she took him away and she doesn’t want to destroy her. Her anger against Betty has ebbed away. There is only a trickle left and she is no longer involved to hurt her or teach her a lesson. However, Grace cannot leave him. She wants him. She must do because she has never felt so glued to anyone in her whole life.

  She also knows that even if he thinks he has feelings for her (which she believes he is developing like a slow rash), he won’t have when the truth emerges. The idea of the bet was for her to seduce him and then walk away, but she cannot walk away, not while he will let her be with him. If she seduces him once, she will want to keep doing so. She wants him, properly, as Oliver would say, properly in her life.

  And if in the next month and a half she achieves this, what is going to happen? She will lose him. Either that or she will always have to be Grace the divorcee legal secretary. She cannot do this. Whichever way she looks at it, she has boxed herself into a corner. She has to play out the bet. She can’t but she will, and that is all there is to it.

  The first thing Grace knows is that Johnny loves Betty. She also knows that he finds her attractive. Johnny invited her to dinner and he let her distract him from business the whole night. She knows that he doesn’t think he is doing anything but being a kind, financial adviser or a typical man who can’t resist a damsel in distress. Especially when that damsel is wearing a short skirt. But there is something about her that he is drawn to, and although she knows that he is the type of person who will hate himself for it, she knows that she is already somewhere under his skin. It just remains for her to ensure that she stays there. Seductress Grace is now in charge.

  Progress, for just over three weeks, is very promising, but for what reasons she is unsure.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Betty is in Fiona’s office. Fiona is out at a conference, so Betty has commandeered her office to make the phone call she has been thinking about all night, which meant she didn’t get much sleep. The stupid bet is in her head, under her skin, everywhere, and it will drive her insane unless she takes a stand. Trust, she has discovered, is not as easy to believe in as she thought. This is a weakness in her rather than in Johnny. She hates herself for it; she has no idea how to get rid of it. There is a battle going on, and she knows that she is responsible, no one else. She was trustful, he was trusty. Now she is feeling suspicion and insecurity, and he is still trusty. Isn’t he?

  She sits in Fiona’s chair and rests her head on her desk. She needs to put her thoughts in order. There has been only one night when he was out, and that was the previous night. If she has seen him, which Betty is sure she has, then it must have been during the day, and if he was lying, then last night. But Johnny doesn’t lie, that much Betty knows. He was with a client, but he specified that the client was male, so he couldn’t have been with Grace. Because if he was with her, he would have said that his client was female. Betty isn’t a jealous monster; she knows he has female clients and that’s fine. The trouble is that if Grace is posing as a client, which Betty believes she is, then she is not only a female client, but a female client intent on seducing him.

  Why did I ever agree to this? she asks herself, but the answer upsets her as much as the question. Is her job more important to her than her marriage? Or is she just more sure of her marriage than her job? That would be a good answer. She agreed because she knew, and everyone else agreed, that she had nothing to worry about. Johnny is her husband, her best friend, her lover. He is the one person in her life that has never let her down. She is
unsure now why she felt even the tiniest bit of doubt. However, she still picks up the phone.

  Grace is woken by the phone ringing. She looks at the clock. It is half-past ten. Because sleep teased her all night, she has slept late. She thinks about ignoring the phone, but then she gets out of bed and goes to her office, mentally making a note to get another phone as she stubs her toe on the door in her sleepy state.

  ‘Hello,’ she says, rubbing her toe and suddenly realising how cold it is. She is wearing only a T-shirt.

  ‘Hi, it’s me.’

  ‘Betty?’ She blinks and wonders if she is still asleep.

  ‘Yes. Look I know we agreed that we wouldn’t talk or whatever, but I just wanted to … to …’

  ‘To know if I’ve fucked your husband.’ Now she is awake. She is also in a very bad mood.

  ‘Grace!’ Betty immediately feels her hackles rise.

  ‘I’m just teasing you. I haven’t, by the way, in case you were worried. The deal was that you don’t call me and I don’t call you. Until after two months. If you’re getting all paranoid then it serves you right. The woman who said she would never doubt her husband is doubting him. Tut-tut, Betty, that’s not very nice of you, is it?’ Grace’s memories of why she dislikes Betty are prominent.

  ‘I am not calling you because I am worried about him.’ Betty is remembering what a bitch Grace is.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I’m not worried, I just feel guilty. You know how it is.’

  ‘I have no idea. I don’t have a husband.’ Grace knows she is being deliberately obtuse but then she doesn’t want to make it easier for Betty. She wants to make it as hard as she can. And she can.

  ‘I trust him, OK? It’s just really hard knowing that I’ve done this to him and that he might be seeing you or might not be. I’m not blaming you, I blame myself. I hate myself for doubting him, really hate myself. And it’s only been a short time. I am worried that I won’t keep it together for the rest of the month, or the next one.’ Betty is trying to stop herself from crying. She is angry with her eyes for even thinking they should be allowed to shed tears.