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Authors: Sarah Manning

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BOOK: Unsticky
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He was right again. She was being stupid again. Getting way ahead of herself
again
. ‘Can you drop me off at my hotel?’
 
Vaughn didn’t even look at her but smoothed down the lapels of his jacket. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Of course. You don’t mind if I catch up on my messages, do you?’
 
Grace did mind but she wasn’t in a position to argue, so she stared out of the window and concentrated on the exquisite agony of her pinched toes and the itchy tit-tape and how she wanted to puke every time the car hit a pothole. Or was it from shame? She couldn’t tell either way.
 
When they pulled up outside the Soho Grand, the driver opened the door for her and the only acknowledgement she got from Vaughn was a brief and dismissive glance as he looked up from his BlackBerry.
 
There was no need for him to be so huffy. After all, she was the injured party. ‘Look, maybe we could . . . ?’
 
But the door had closed and the driver was already behind the wheel and pulling away from the kerb. Grace was left standing on the sidewalk outside the Soho Grand on West Broadway with even the doorman giving her a disparaging look as he took in her dishevelled hair, crumpled dress and the way she was scrunching up her face to stop the tears from falling.
 
chapter seven
 
Grace did a lot of knitting during the next two weeks. It was now late August and London was still in the thrall of a relentless heatwave. The sun beat down on her bent head as she purled and plained and moss-stitched on buses and in cafés and, on one occasion, in Waterlow Park in Highgate until she got harassed by a gang of hoodies. Knitting was good for soothing her soul, and as Grace had sworn that she was never going to use a sewing machine ever again after jacking in her fashion degree, knitting would have to do.
 
She liked the rhythmic click of the needles, the feeling of the wool wrapped tight around her fingers, and the satisfaction as row upon row of perfect stitches emerged. Technically she was lapsed C of E, but Grace liked to think that knitting was her version of the Rosary - but without all the Hail Marys and vows of chastity. Besides, she’d been in a state of extreme agitation for a fortnight and it was either knitting or Prozac. As she’d never get time off for a doctor’s appointment, Grace knitted a pair of gloves with
love
and
hate
stitched across the knuckles, a peaked cap for her grandfather because his ears got cold when he golfed in winter, and a stripy jumper to use up all her odd ends of wool. Now she was sketching out patterns for a range of knitted accessories including an iPod holder and a make-up case with a vague plan that she could make enough money to pay off a fraction of one of her credit-card bills.
 
She’d come back from New York to find that the pile of brown envelopes that Anita and Ilonka from upstairs had thoughtfully left on her doormat, stamped with friendly warnings like
Final Reminder!
and
Immediate Action Needed!
had reached critical mass. Grace had an inkling that things might get ugly again, like they had last year when she’d been tailed by a private detective from a debt collection agency who’d wanted to repossess her credit cards. Fun times.
 
It wasn’t as if work could distract her either. Even though it was August, they were already working on the November and December issues, which were always light on both editorial and ad pages so it wasn’t as if Grace was busy calling in clothes for shoots and assembling the fashion credits. Instead she was busy listening to a newly single Posy regaling her with tales of horrific blind dates with old Etonians and getting quotes for granite worktops for Lucie’s new kitchen.
 
Worst of all, Lily was spending her annual fortnight at the family villa in the non-chav part of Majorca and Dan had sent Grace a pointed text message before they left, instructing her not to contact Lily. And Grace needed to contact Lily so they could have a long, drunken night out and Grace could tell Lily about the art exhibition and the Waverly Inn and dinner with Vaughn. But mostly she’d spend hours reliving and dissecting those ten minutes in the limo afterwards. Then Lily would say that he sounded like a total bastard and that Grace was well shot of him and all the bad thoughts would stop tormenting Grace. Or they’d lessen at least.
 
Because the bad thought that made all her other bad thoughts seem like the most microscopic of potatoes, all centred on the moment when she’d got out of that car and watched the tail-lights fade into the distance as he’d driven away from her. If she didn’t concentrate really hard on other things, all she could hear was the way Vaughn had drawled out, ‘This is not going any further,’ in the face of her most determinedly sluttish behaviour. Which had been moments after he’d taken her hand off his dick.
 
So skulking in the fashion cupboard and shunning human contact had become a valid lifestyle choice until the summons from her grandparents to come to Worthing for the weekend. It didn’t matter that it was sweltering, there’d be a mammoth cake-baking session on Saturday afternoon, roast chicken for Sunday lunch and a twenty-pound note slipped into Grace’s hand as she said her goodbyes so she could ‘buy herself something nice’. It was routine, safe, a little boring. But boring was OK sometimes.
 
So Grace was confounded to find herself leaning against the counter of the Worthing branch of Carphone Warehouse on a Saturday morning because her elderly parental signifiers had decided to dip a toe into the twenty-first century and buy his ’n’ hers mobile phones. She watched as her grandmother harangued the spotty Saturday boy with querulous enquiries as to the benefits of a monthly tariff versus pay as you go.
 
‘Gran,’ she sighed. ‘Get the pay as you go phones.’
 
Her grandmother frowned. ‘Pay as you go?’
 
‘You’re only going to use the phone for emergencies, and maybe in six months’ time, you might have figured out how to send a text message,’ Grace explained patiently. ‘I promise it will take a year to use up ten pounds’ worth of credit.’
 
There was no rushing her grandmother, who never drove at more than thirty miles per hour and could make a portion of peas last fifteen minutes. ‘I’m not going to let your impatience influence my decision-making, young lady,’ she said grandly.
 
‘I’m gasping for a cup of tea,’ Grace wailed, but her grandmother was now asking to see phones with larger keypads, ‘Because my eyesight isn’t what it used to be.’
 
Later - much, much later - in the first-floor café in Beales department store, with a pot of tea and a scone each, her grandmother went on the offensive.
 
‘You need to do something about your hair,’ she announced, à propos of nothing. ‘It doesn’t suit you at all. Really, Grace, I don’t know why you meddle with what nature gave you.’
 
‘Because nature gave me mousy brown hair,’ Grace said without much bite.
 
‘You’re very listless,’ her grandmother continued. ‘Are you in trouble with the bank again? You’re sticking to the monthly repayments?’
 
There were so many monthly repayments that Grace was meant to be sticking to. ‘Yeah, of course I am. All that stuff is in the past, Gran,’ Grace assured her blithely. She’d decided long ago that lying to her grandmother for the sake of a quiet life barely even registered on the wrong scale. ‘It’s just super-hot and I’m really busy at work.’
 
‘Too busy to write to your mother?’ If ever the CIA were doing research into new interrogation techniques, they should send some scientists to Worthing to work out how her gran did that thing with her eyes. ‘She said you never replied to the email she sent on your birthday. Did you get the photos of Kirsty? Sweet little thing, we thought.’
 
‘You’ve seen one toddler in a pink fairy outfit, you’ve seen ’em all,’ Grace muttered.
 
‘She’s your sister.’
 
‘
Half
-sister,’ Grace reminded her, yanking out her knitting from her bag. ‘Gran, Mum left me. In fact, she didn’t just leave - she went to the other side of the world to get away from me. Then it took her - what? - twelve years to suddenly feel bad about it. Honestly, I’m glad she got married and that she’s having another bash at motherhood, but I don’t see why I have to get regular updates by email.’
 
Her grandmother’s attention was momentarily diverted by the skull and crossbones pattern on the scarf that Grace was knitting, before she efficiently distributed the last of the tea. ‘Well, it wasn’t as cut and dried as that. If you remember—’
 
‘I don’t want to talk about it! I just want her to leave me alone.’
 
Grace’s voice was rising, which was usually her grandmother’s cue to tell her to calm down, but this time she just stared at the nosy middle-aged couple on the next table until they looked away, and squeezed Grace’s hand. ‘She’s trying, dear. She’s making an effort.’ There was the most delicate of pauses. ‘You might as well know that Grandy and I are thinking of flying out this Christmas, to meet our youngest granddaughter, and Gary. He seems nice.’
 
Gary was the new husband. ‘You know it’s a twenty-four-hour flight, right?’ Grace blustered. ‘Plus it’s going to be the middle of summer in Australia and they have snakes and, Gran, they’re all Republicans. You’d hate it.’
 
‘We thought you might want to come too if we bought you the plane ticket as a Christmas present. What do you think?’
 
‘Do I really need to answer that?’ Grace snapped, watching her grandmother’s lips tighten and relenting immediately. ‘If I have a spare second, I’ll bang out a thank you email, OK? That’s it. End of discussion. Now, can we change the subject?
Please?
’
 
Her grandmother patted a stray crumb from her mouth. She looked older. Her skin was thinner, like creased brown paper, her rigid curls more liberally doused with grey, and it weighed heavily on Grace. Like, her gran was a little old lady to the outside world and earlier, when they’d strolled down South Street, she’d had to glare at a couple of teenage girls who’d knocked into them and not apologised. Both her grandparents had become nothing more than doddery, vulnerable targets for muggers and . . .
 
‘So, are you seeing anyone nice? It’s about time you settled down. I was married by the time I was your age.’
 
Correction. There was nothing vulnerable about her grandmother. ‘When I said change the subject, I thought we’d talk about whether we should make chocolate cake or gingerbread.’ Grace suddenly giggled and her grandmother smiled too, with a naughty twinkle that made Grace reach across the table so she could squeeze one liver-spotted mitt gently. ‘I was seeing someone but we split up. He had no prospects.’
 
Her grandparents were big on people with prospects. Her grandmother nodded sympathetically. ‘Can’t stand a man who dithers,’ she said stoutly. ‘So - any other admirers?’
 
‘Oh yeah, I have a whole string of besotted boys lining up to mark my dance card. Sometimes I think I go for the wrong guys, like, maybe I’d be better with someone older, more focused.’ Grace hadn’t been thinking that at all, but there was no harm in putting it out there if only to see her grandmother’s face wrinkle up in consternation.
 
‘I used to think that an age gap was quite romantic until that horrid business with Charles and Diana,’ was her crushing verdict.
 
 
As weekends in the loving bosom of two seventy-somethings went, it hadn’t been too bad, but Grace was glad that she was back on the train to London by seven on Sunday evening. They’d wanted her to stay the night and catch a morning train at some horrifically early hour, which really was a case of hope over experience.
 
Even knitting couldn’t make the train move faster or the air circulate more efficiently. Grace was just unpicking her last row when her phone started to ring. Her grandfather had already rung five times as he pressed buttons on his new phone and tried to work out how to access his voicemail.
 
‘Grandy? You need to hit star, then number one,’ she squeaked in exasperation. ‘How many more—’
 
‘Am I speaking to Grace Reeves?’
 
It was a woman, her voice polished enough to immediately put Grace on edge. Usually they phoned in the mornings, pretending to be a long-lost friend, and as soon as Grace confirmed her identity, it was threats and counter-threats and bailiffs and debt specialists and, ‘It would just be easier if you signed over your firstborn.’ Phoning on a Sunday evening was underhanded even for them. And surely there were laws that prohibited them from working on the Sabbath?
 
Grace contemplated switching off her phone, then thought of her grandparents panicking when she didn’t answer the next ten of their misdirected calls. ‘Who’s speaking?’ she asked, her accent becoming crisp in a crisis.
 
‘My name’s Ms Jones, I’m calling from Mr Vaughn’s office.’
BOOK: Unsticky
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