Authors: Sarah Manning
Unsticky (55 page)
Vaughn clamped a hand over her mouth. ‘I don’t want to hear it. Your biggest downfall is your defeatism.’ He pressed his thumb against Grace’s bottom lip and his lashes swept down when Grace nibbled at the tip of it. ‘You have an excellent eye, and if you can put together an outfit then I don’t see the problem with shooting shoes or bags or whatever’s in this month.’
Grace kissed his hand before pulling away. She prodded the little pile of DVDs on the coffee-table with her toe. ‘You can watch your boring German film while I sketch out some rough layouts,’ she decided, ignoring Vaughn’s faint moan of protest. ‘And then we need to talk about this party for Noah. I was thinking end of March, which is only three weeks away.’ She picked up her notebook with the true fervour of the list geek that she was, and turned to a fresh page. ‘How do you feel about sausage and mash instead of canapés?’
Her first shoot turned out to be rather an anti-climax for something that Grace had hungered for ever since she’d started at
Skirt
. There’d been a sticky moment when a courier had gone MIA with some really expensive purses, and Lucie had barely glanced at Grace’s painstaking sketches, and didn’t feel the need to come to the studio in case something went horribly wrong. But the photographer did what he was told, which was rarer than being fast-tracked up the queue for a Hermès Birkin, and though Grace waited anxiously to be bawled out for using cupcakes and fondant fancies as props to complement the new spring colours, it never happened. Instead the page layouts suddenly appeared on the gigantic flat-plan that took up a large part of one wall and Lucie decided that it would free her up to talk on the phone to her friends and book spa appointments, if Grace oversaw the accessory still-lifes for every issue. Grace had never thought getting ahead was so simple, but apparently she’d been wrong.
Skirt
. There’d been a sticky moment when a courier had gone MIA with some really expensive purses, and Lucie had barely glanced at Grace’s painstaking sketches, and didn’t feel the need to come to the studio in case something went horribly wrong. But the photographer did what he was told, which was rarer than being fast-tracked up the queue for a Hermès Birkin, and though Grace waited anxiously to be bawled out for using cupcakes and fondant fancies as props to complement the new spring colours, it never happened. Instead the page layouts suddenly appeared on the gigantic flat-plan that took up a large part of one wall and Lucie decided that it would free her up to talk on the phone to her friends and book spa appointments, if Grace oversaw the accessory still-lifes for every issue. Grace had never thought getting ahead was so simple, but apparently she’d been wrong.
The party planning was going really well too, after Vaughn had loaned her Piers to run round East London looking at potential venues, interviewing DJs and commissioning graffiti artists to paint backdrops. Grace suspected that Vaughn was to Piers what Kiki was to her, but without the fashion advice. Either way, he was only too happy to do the heavy lifting and Vaughn was happy because Piers was out of his hair for a week or so and Grace was happy too.
Grace didn’t like to dwell on her happiness, which she thought of as a Ready brek-style warm glow, encasing her in a little cocoon where the bad stuff couldn’t get to her. But she was the happiest she’d ever been, not that she had a lot to compare it with. Life was good, really good - and Vaughn was a huge part of that. Grace could hardly believe that he’d become all things to her in a few short weeks: lover, confidant and friend. Maybe even her best friend, because the one not so good thing about her life was the Lily-shaped hole in the middle of it - but Lily would crack soon, Grace could tell. Then her happiness really would be complete, which was a scary thought, and as soon as she’d thunk it, Grace knew she’d jinxed her new-found joy.
It wasn’t much of a surprise then to get a phone call later that afternoon from her grandmother, demanding to know why a parcel of yarn she’d sent to Grace had been returned with
Not known at this address
stamped on it.
Not known at this address
stamped on it.
Having to tell her grandmother that she’d moved two months ago and had forgotten to tell her, made that little warm glow disappear pretty damn quick.
‘I don’t understand how we can speak every week and yet the fact that you’d moved house seemed to slip your mind. Really, dear, you met this man five minutes ago and now you’re living with him,’ her grandmother said, as if she understood only too well and didn’t like it at all. ‘I think it’s very rash.’
‘It’s been five, nearly six months,’ Grace pointed out. ‘He had a spare room and he’s away on business a lot so it just made sense when I had no hot water.’
‘So you sleep in your own room, do you?’ Scepticism fairly oozed down the phone line.
‘Please, can we not even go there?’ Grace begged, because her grandmother knew she was deflowered but chose to file it in her selective memory, along with the whole Rock Hudson turning out to be gay thing. ‘I don’t think either of us really wants to talk about that. Vaughn’s place is huge and—’
‘Vaughn?’
‘Yes, Vaughn. That’s his name, Gran.’
‘It sounds like a surname.’
Grace put her hand over the mouthpiece so she could sigh. ‘It
is
his surname. He goes by only one name, like Madonna.’
is
his surname. He goes by only one name, like Madonna.’
‘But what’s his first name?’
Vaughn’s first name wasn’t important, except that Grace didn’t know what it was, and when she tried to explain that to her grandmother, it made Vaughn seem like some sketchy figure who could torture Grace for days, then bury her body in his back garden and nobody would ever find out. Her grandmother was the queen of worst-case scenarios.
‘I don’t like the idea of you living with
some man
that I’ve never even met, Gracie. And when I think of some of your previous boyfriends - well, you’re not the best judge of character, are you?’
some man
that I’ve never even met, Gracie. And when I think of some of your previous boyfriends - well, you’re not the best judge of character, are you?’
Grace hadn’t introduced her grandmother to any boyfriends in the last five years so it was kind of unfair to bring up her teen romances. ‘He’s very nice,’ she insisted. ‘I’ll bring him down for Sunday lunch some time soon.’ Some time never.
‘Not good enough,’ her grandmother stated. ‘Grandy’s going on a golfing weekend this Friday so I’m coming to London.’
‘This weekend is really tricky, and . . .’
‘I’ll get the eleven o’clock train on Saturday, and you and this Vaughn fellow will meet me for lunch. You can send me one of those text thingies on the phone to let me know the details.’ It was her grandmother’s ‘don’t fuck with me’ voice that she’d used to great effect when the local cinema had tried to stop their Silver Screen concession rate for OAPs. There was no point in arguing.
chapter twenty-nine
Vaughn booked a table at J Sheekey because it had been his grandmother’s favourite restaurant, but that didn’t mean he was completely on board with the lunch arrangements. In fact, he’d tried his best to wriggle out of it. First he’d muttered something about possibly being in New York, before he remembered that he was an important art dealer who didn’t have to deal with people’s grandmothers if he didn’t want to. ‘It’s out of the question, Grace,’ he’d said flatly. ‘In fact, it goes against the entire spirit of our agreement.’
‘But she doesn’t know we have an agreement. All she knows is that her beloved granddaughter is shacking up with some man who doesn’t have a first name . . .’
‘Of course I do. It’s James.’ Grace had simultaneously gaped at him and spilled tea down her new top. ‘And if you ever call me by that name, I’ll have you out on the street faster than you can blink.’
‘James? I thought it was something really awful like Jethro or Jebediah. Don’t know why you’re so weird about it.’
‘It was my father’s name.’ Five words, but there was a world of agony in Vaughn’s absolutely deadpan delivery, like he didn’t trust himself to put even an ounce of feeling into them. Grace had taken the hint and had launched into a whole series of inducements from sticky toffee pudding and blowjobs to watching back-to-back German films, until Vaughn had finally capitulated.
‘I’ll see you there against my better judgement,’ he sighed unhappily on Saturday morning when Grace left to pick up her grandmother at Victoria because the thought of her braving the tube on her own and getting accosted by chuggers and dodgy Eastern European beggars made Grace break out in a cold sweat. It also meant her grandmother would have plenty of time to harangue her about living in sin, but them were the breaks.
Fortunately her grandmother had had an argy bargy with one of her rambling buddies, which meant she talked about that all the way to Leicester Square without pausing. Vaughn was waiting for them in the restaurant foyer, hanging back as her grandmother looked around suspiciously. Once she’d decided that the place passed muster, she allowed a server to take her coat. She was wearing the navy-blue Betty Barclay suit again - so she meant business. Grace threw Vaughn a sidelong glance, relieved that he was wearing a suit and not his usual weekend jeans and jumper combo.
‘Gran, this is Vaughn. Vaughn, this is my grandmother, Jean.’
They shook hands, because her grandmother’s generation didn’t do air kisses, and then sized each other up like two dogs warily circling each other, before one of them decided to go for the throat.
‘Grace has told me a lot about you,’ Vaughn said politely, his face wearing a smiling Vaughn mask that didn’t even look like him. ‘It’s good to finally meet you.’
‘Well, she’s told me very little about
you
,’ her grandmother replied because she’d survived a war, one stillbirth, a daughter who’d got knocked up at seventeen and ten years of a Labour government, and she didn’t take shit from anyone.
you
,’ her grandmother replied because she’d survived a war, one stillbirth, a daughter who’d got knocked up at seventeen and ten years of a Labour government, and she didn’t take shit from anyone.
Vaughn did his best to be charming and deferential but Grace could tell from her grandmother’s tightly pursed lips that she thought he was smarmy. When he suggested that they had caviar as a starter, that was profligate, which was right up there with adultery in her book.
Thankfully, the smoked haddock put her in a better mood and Grace carefully steered the conversation around to walking holidays abroad and what she should get her grandfather for his birthday. Vaughn remembered to adhere to Grace’s list of strictly forbidden topics, which included politics and anything relating to Grace’s degree (or lack thereof) and her job.
By the time they were waiting for their puddings, Grace allowed herself to relax slightly, leaning back in her chair until her grandmother folded her napkin, told Grace not to slouch and fixed Vaughn with the beadiest of eyes.
‘So, how old are you?’ she asked him baldly.
‘I’m forty-one. Eighteen years older than Grace,’ he added with the merest hint of a challenge, while Grace was forced to readjust the number in her head, which had hovered around thirty-seven. Forty-one seemed a lot older than thirty-seven, but then Vaughn
was
older than her. It was a simple truth - and the four extra years didn’t matter that much.
was
older than her. It was a simple truth - and the four extra years didn’t matter that much.
‘And I suspect you’ve been married at least once before?’
‘Yes.’
‘Children?’
‘No.’
‘Because if you have children with Grace you’ll be in your sixties before they’re even thinking of leaving home.’
Grace had decided to stay out of it because Vaughn was more than capable of taking care of himself, but she couldn’t help the horrified, ‘Gran! We’re not having children. We’re not even thinking of buying a house plant together, so just stop it.’
Vaughn patted Grace’s hand, while her grandmother assessed the gesture to see if it was just a crafty trick to set her mind at ease.
‘Someone has to say these things,’ she insisted icily.
‘No, they don’t, Gran.’
This time Vaughn kept his hand on Grace’s, the warmth of his fingers resting against hers a reminder that this time she wasn’t defenceless in the face of her grandmother’s most vociferous disapproval.
‘Grace is a lovely girl and I don’t see anything wrong in us being involved without having a five-year plan,’ he said firmly.
Their puddings arrived just then, but her grandmother only gave her apple and rhubarb pie the most cursory of glances. ‘A five-week plan would be something,’ she said crisply. ‘Grace
is
a lovely girl but she’s very young and, quite frankly, she’s always finding herself in these silly pickles and getting hurt. I don’t want someone taking advantage of her.’
is
a lovely girl but she’s very young and, quite frankly, she’s always finding herself in these silly pickles and getting hurt. I don’t want someone taking advantage of her.’
‘Maybe she’s taking advantage of
me
,’ Vaughn suggested, and Grace had barely recovered from her grandmother’s pithy summing-up of her failings before she was hurt and panicked all over again, because if Vaughn went where she thought he was going, then it was game over. ‘I could be the one who gets hurt when she decides that she’d rather be with someone who’s less likely to have a heart attack while he’s running for the bus.’
me
,’ Vaughn suggested, and Grace had barely recovered from her grandmother’s pithy summing-up of her failings before she was hurt and panicked all over again, because if Vaughn went where she thought he was going, then it was game over. ‘I could be the one who gets hurt when she decides that she’d rather be with someone who’s less likely to have a heart attack while he’s running for the bus.’
‘I don’t think that’s very likely.’ At least her grandmother was smiling now, even if it was a pretty thin-lipped smile. ‘You don’t seem like the sort of man who takes buses.’
‘He really doesn’t,’ Grace muttered, face pink because it was a sweet thing for Vaughn to say even though it was utter bullshit. ‘Honestly, we’re good and everything’s fine and you don’t need to worry about me.’
Her grandmother patted the hand that Vaughn wasn’t holding. ‘Someone has to worry about you, darling.’ She paused as she came to a decision about something. ‘I don’t think we need to tell Grandy about this. Quite frankly, I can’t see it lasting that long,’ she said, plunging her spoon into the thick pastry crust.
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