The First Cut (3 page)

‘W
hy is it always the ugliest clothes that are locked up?’ Greg was looking at a leather jacket with long tassels dangling from the arms, and trying to pull it off the hanger. Nicky watched him trace his hand along the white security wire that ran away into the depths of the rail.

She smiled, feeling the ruffles on the front of a blouse. ‘You should see the handbag section.’

‘No, thanks.’ They weaved past some animal-print accessories balanced on a dead-tree display. ‘Get off me, you maniac!’ Nicky whirled round to see Greg wrestling with a leopard-print scarf.

She started giggling. ‘I’ve missed you.’

He came up behind her and put his arms tightly round her, resting his chin on her neck. ‘I’ve missed you too.’ They stayed just so for a long moment, neither of them wanting to move, until Greg stood up straight and looked about. ‘Which floor are we on? Haven’t we been through this section before?’

She loved days like this with Greg, drifting around town, just the two of them. He’d come back from working in LA two days ago and they were fitting back together after his long absence. In a few days he would be gone again, forging his burgeoning career in the States, but for now he was here and she was enjoying his company.

‘Come on, I want to buy you something fabulous. Maybe once we’ve paid the exit signs will reappear, as if by magic.’

They walked to a section full of dresses and started picking items out.

‘Can I be of any help here?’ The sales assistant’s smile was an invitation to splurge.

‘You betcha,’ replied Greg, dumping a pile of dresses in her hands. ‘She needs the changing room.’ Greg was blond, tall and loud. A bit like herself, she knew. He had a strong chin, blue eyes and an imposing physical presence that was hard to ignore for women and men alike. Life just seemed more fun with Greg. She shut the curtain behind her and changed into a blue dress.

She came out onto the shop floor. The sales assistant was laughing at something Greg was saying. He turned towards her, his face expectant. She shook her head, looking down at the dress. It wasn’t right; it was too sack-like and came across as sad. She swished away behind the curtain and picked up a red patterned shift.

Six months after Grace’s death Nicky started dating Greg. Grief bends and twists relationships into unrecognizable shapes. They were both in mourning and they leaned on each other, then one day that leaning turned into something more physical. A lot more physical. She was at pains to tell people it had not been planned or even ever thought about when Grace was alive. When Nicky first met Greg he was simply the man that Grace loved, a filmmaker who lived half his life in London and half abroad, chasing his dreams. He was full of talent and ambition and such self-belief that no one would bet against him succeeding. Grace already owned and ran a successful gastropub, which she had started with some money from her dad. They fell in love, he proposed and she accepted. They got married and then a few months later, with Grace’s thirtieth looming, Nicky had started trying to persuade Grace to celebrate her birthday properly. They would all have a laugh and it would be a great holiday, a way to enjoy herself when Greg was away.

Nicky stared at herself in the changing-room mirror. She didn’t see any of those former friends now. The recriminations and the suspicions killed their relationships. The media went mad for the story, but the police couldn’t solve it. No one was ever charged; there was no trial. The picture might have been confused, but several clear facts stood out: Grace was killed before she ended up in the water, and a blood trail was found leading away from the lake and the house, probably to a car. The alarm was likely to have been set off by the killer, which meant no one heard it leave.

Nicky told people that their beginning had been easy. She knew that sounded absurd, considering the circumstances, but it was easy to fall in love when they had a tragedy that united them. Life seemed precious, fate was cruel and time felt short. She had fallen in love hard and fast, and so had he. It was as if by being together they could keep Grace alive. And that had worked beautifully for eighteen months – right up until they were married. It was what came afterwards that was the problem. It was then that it had all changed.

Greg poked his head round the curtain and looked her up and down. ‘God, you look great in that. Come here.’ He pulled her to him across the litter of clothes on the floor and gave her a kiss. ‘Let’s buy it and go get some lunch. I’m starving.’

They rode the escalator to the ground floor and skirted hats, then Greg paused by the flower shop. ‘I’m going to buy a notebook,’ Nicky said. ‘I’ll see you here in a minute.’

Greg nodded as she headed off to the stationery department, where she spent some time deciding between a green and a yellow patterned notebook. She paid and came back to the florist’s, but couldn’t see Greg. After standing for a while looking through the crowds of people she began to circle out to find him. She went past designer bags then came to the beauty department and saw his broad back at a counter. A woman so young she looked like she’d only just hatched was standing opposite him, behind a glass counter. Nicky hung back for a moment to see if Greg was buying her a surprise. She didn’t want to spoil it. The woman leaned across to Greg and touched him on the arm. Nicky watched as her glossy lips shrank from a smile into a look of disquiet.

‘Sir, are you OK?’

Nicky started towards her husband as a bunch of flowers slipped from his hand and landed on the floor. The woman had rounded the display now, unsure whether to come closer. Nicky watched Greg slump forward on the counter. She put her hand out to him, wondering if he was going to faint. His face was white, his eyes closed. ‘Greg, what’s the matter?’

He didn’t answer. He looked as if he hadn’t heard her, didn’t even realize she was there. It took her a moment to see that he held something in his hand which the assistant was trying to take from his grasp. It was a bottle of perfume.

‘I was showing him this reissue of an old classic. He smelled it and then he . . . he went like this.’ She was Australian, her voice low and concerned.

‘Greg?’

He opened his eyes with what looked like a great effort and straightened up. ‘I’m fine, I’m fine.’

‘You don’t look fine.’

The shop assistant smiled. ‘Perfume has a very powerful ability to conjure emotion and memories. You know, research shows that once a woman finds a perfume her partner likes, she tends to wear it for years. Maybe this will become your signature scent!’ She was in selling mode, trotting out the company guff.

Nicky rubbed Greg across the shoulder. ‘It’s OK, honey, it’s OK,’ she said quietly.

Memories. They had both been ambushed at different times by the past, by objects that connected to Grace. Greg didn’t look at her but walked off towards the aisles of men’s underwear.

Nicky picked up the bottle and felt the cold weight in her palm. She steeled herself, knowing where she would be transported when she put the bottle to her nose. She sniffed the tiny black hole and frowned. A distinct, lemony fragrance hit her, but Grace did not come flooding back. This was not something she had ever worn; it wasn’t her perfume. ‘Greg?’

She found him holding a display stand, rubbing his forehead.

‘What was that all about?’

He smiled, keen to move on. ‘Nothing, nothing at all.’

‘
That
was nothing?’ They stared at each other in silence. ‘Let me in, Greg.’

He laughed but it was without humour. ‘It’s nothing, honestly. Jet lag, that’s all.’ He strode away, closing off any chance of talking about what had happened.

She was about to follow and have it out with him, when the Australian assistant called out, ‘Madam, madam! He’s left the flowers.’

Nicky turned back into the beauty section as the woman held out the delicately wrapped bouquet. Nicky took it, but it felt like a consolation prize.

T
he doorbell rang as Nicky was sieving hot tomatoes and swearing. She’d decided to cook a meal for Greg’s family and, with hope triumphing over experience, had chosen a complicated recipe that was slowly and painfully turning into a disaster. Everything was taking longer than she’d anticipated, allowing her to drink more and care less about the food.

‘Greg, can you get it?’

She was answered by a chorus of voices advancing on the kitchen. She burned her fingers on the tomatoes as Greg’s mother, Margaret, loomed in for a kiss and a hug. Arthur came over and pinched her cheek and then proceeded to demand the bottle opener. Greg’s sister, Liz, brought up the rear of the party with her son, Dan, who sloped in last. Dan had gelled his hair so that it stood up in stiff peaks. A smell that Nicky assumed was meant to imply mountain freshness but screamed ‘awkward teen approaching’ wafted towards her. She half began to put her hand out to try to ruffle his hair, and then realized he’d get tomato in those peaks.

‘Whatever are you doing?’ Liz asked, sniffing with implied disapproval. Nicky gave up sieving and slopped the tomatoes back into the saucepan. How predictable: Liz had begun sniping before she’d even sat down.

‘You really don’t have to make such an effort, love,’ Margaret added, peering unconvinced into a pan. Margaret approached any stove as if it was a deeply untrustworthy foreigner that would rob her sooner than it would boil eggs. Her only interactions with such an implement over the years had been to open the oven door and slam in the frozen item before retreating across the room, poised for fight or flight. To see Nicky actually leaning against it with gas rings burning was, for Margaret, as wondrous as watching a pagan ritual.

‘I like making an effort . . .’ she began, but was stopped by Greg’s large hand on the back of her neck, massaging.

‘You OK, babes?’

She wanted to shout ‘No!’, but gave a thin smile instead. She wished they had the evening alone, that he hadn’t invited them. The Petersons were a herd, moving like wildebeest over the plain, stampeding over to their house whenever Greg put in an appearance. His trip home was far too short; they’d hardly had any time alone and he was going again in two days. She wanted him to herself, and felt guilty about it.

She heard Arthur cheer as he pulled a cork from a bottle of red wine.

She stuck on a smile as Liz eyed them coolly from the corner sofa, taking small slurps of wine. ‘How long you back for, Greg?’

‘Four days. It’s a flying visit.’

‘Hope you’re not getting too lonely, Nics.’ Nicky slid a knife through the cellophane on a packet of cod fillets and didn’t answer. Liz leaned back into the cushions, her short hair a defiant grey that she refused to dye, even though Margaret was always nagging her to. Nicky watched her narrow her eyes at the garden, as though the trees and shrubs were an advancing enemy. Their kitchen was large, their house in a grand avenue in north London. Liz the divorcee had to make a tortuous journey from a terrace in south London to see them. She was a social worker whose shift pattern gave her this weekend off. Nicky wished she was saving children today. ‘Here in this big fancy house all by yourself.’

‘Christ, Liz, give it a rest!’ Greg snapped.

Liz smiled knowingly at Nicky as she took another slurp. Nicky picked up the fillets and felt the slime spread across her fingertips. Liz liked to pick at scabs, she liked to play dirty – and, looked at a certain way, there was dirt in abundance.

Nicky thought that having survived Grace’s death, she was strong enough to withstand anything, but other people’s reactions to her altered relationship with Greg were hard to take. Liz had simply given her that awful, secret smile of hers, like a shark about to attack. Grace’s brother had been more straightforward – he came round to the house threatening to hurt Greg and Nicky. Grace’s father no longer spoke to them. That cut to the heart, but it was to be expected. Grief killed relationships; it was death’s last laugh.

But Nicky never wavered in her belief that Grace would have been happy for them. And Nicky felt it was her duty as Grace’s best friend to quell the rumours, the vicious slurs, the insinuations that Greg was responsible.

He was the grieving husband, the widower. He might have been thousands of miles away when it happened but, as the husband, Greg was automatically one of the prime suspects. The police had grilled him, of course, over and over again, about his relationship with Grace and about the money. Grace’s death made him a rich man. He’d sold Grace’s gastropub – what else could he do? Yes, he said defensively, he’d made a lot of money from the property boom, but Grace was gone and it wasn’t his line of work. Nicky wondered to what extent his subsequent success as a director of photography on big-budget films, his drive and ambition, his workaholic tendencies, were based on a need to prove the doubters wrong, to show that he wasn’t someone who lived off a dead wife’s money.

The twists of fate were cruel, Nicky believed – she had not only lost Grace, she had lost Grace’s family too, given them up for Greg. Now, five years down the line, she occasionally wondered if he was worth it. She drummed her fingers on the worktop, the old desire for a calming cigarette nagging at her. She’d quit smoking after Grace’s murder in a desire to try to cleanse herself and start anew, but old habits were hard to break.

She watched Liz kick her shoes off and yawn, put her stockinged feet on the ottoman and lounge on the sofa in the house Greg had bought with Grace’s fortune.

She suddenly felt a fire of defensiveness for Greg and anger at the doubters, at those who hadn’t believed him. She was the one who’d been woken night after night by him thrashing this way and that in the bed, gripped by the night terrors. She was the one who’d wiped away the tears of the grieving widower.

‘Don’t do any for Dan. He won’t touch it,’ Liz shouted as Nicky began frying the fish.

Margaret was inviting her out to the house in Essex, telling her she had a new swinging garden seat, perfect for the hot weather. Nicky answered in distracted, half-finished sentences. The cod skin was sticking; it wasn’t going to work well.