She couldn’t help but smile when she saw them approach, refusing to be buffeted by crowds of Christmas shoppers. They rarely came up to London, which Grace was hugely grateful for, and the occasion warranted dressing up. Her grandmother was wearing the Betty Barclay suit that did for funerals, AGMs and occasional stints as a Justice of the Peace. And her grandfather was wearing a trilby hat and a three-piece suit. They were so adorably retro. Grace was overcome by tenderness as she skipped over to them.
Her grandmother gave her the usual peck on the cheek and perfunctory hug, but her grandfather squeezed her tight and scrubbed at her face with his whiskers, even though Grace wasn’t five any more and no longer squealed in delighted disgust.
‘It’s so good to see you!’ Grace exclaimed, hugging them again.
‘We hardly recognised you. You’ve got some colour in your cheeks for once.’ Coming from her grandmother, this was high praise. ‘Now, I just need to pop into Liberty’s and get some wool.’
‘There’s not much to buy,’ Grace said. ‘They’ve shrunk the yarn department right down but there’s this great little shop in Islington. You can get the bus back to Victoria really easily.’
‘We always go to Liberty’s for wool. Then we’ll go to that little café round the corner for some tea.’
‘It closed down,’ Grace said firmly, though she had no idea whether it had or hadn’t. But they had really horrible cheese scones in there and didn’t know how to make a proper latte. ‘I’ll take you to Patisserie Valerie. You’ll love it.’
It was hard shopping with her grandparents. They tended to make very loud observations about how expensive everything was and what a pity it was that Marshall & Snelgrove had closed down. They also needed regular bathroom breaks.
Finally, Grace managed to herd them to a corner table in Patisserie Valerie, and before they could start interrogating her on the state of her debts, career prospects and hair, presented them with the chocolate and pralines she’d bought in Paris two months ago. She had had to exercise every last drop of willpower not to eat them herself.
‘That’s very thoughtful, dear,’ her grandmother said. ‘I don’t like to cook with anything other than eighty-five per cent cocoa solids. But can you really afford to go to Paris? Remember the monthly spending spreadsheet Grandy drew up so you wouldn’t get into debt again?’
‘Maybe you got a pay rise at the office?’ her grandfather ventured. ‘Or you’ve been walking to work to save money?’
‘I went with a friend,’ Grace said quickly. ‘And we split the costs.’ Or, to be far more accurate, she’d bought Vaughn a coffee as penance for dragging him into a yarn shop. ‘And I have been making monthly payments, I swear.’
‘A friend?’ her grandmother queried, in the same way that Lady Bracknell would ask about handbags.
‘Yup, a friend. A mate. A pal.’ Grace took a sip of her coffee and tried to make her eyes look extra big and guileless. Her grandparents stared right back at her, like the time they’d known Grace had been drinking cider in the park because she’d been spotted by Mrs Singh from next door, even though she’d denied it vehemently. ‘A friend who’s a boy,’ she added, because she always cracked under pressure. ‘He’s very nice and I like him a lot and we totally had separate rooms.’ Which wasn’t a lie because it had been a suite with two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a sun terrace.
‘What does he do?’ her grandfather asked, actually putting on his spectacles, all the better to scrutinise Grace’s every facial gesture.
‘He’s in art,’ she muttered.
‘Oh Grace, not another artist!’ Her grandmother sighed loudly, as she surreptitiously pocketed some packets of sweeteners. ‘Why can’t you find a boy with prospects?’
‘Not an artist,’ Grace insisted doggedly. ‘He’s in art. It’s a big difference.’
‘And how long have you been courting?’
Why couldn’t they say ‘dating’ or ‘seeing him’ like anyone else who was actually living in the twenty-first century? Grace shrugged. ‘A few months.’
‘How long is a few months?’ her grandmother enquired and Grace wished that she’d never started this.
She did some quick-ish mental arithmetic. ‘Nearly three months.’ Had it really been that long? Their three-month anniversary was coming up and actually things were improving, not going steadily downhill like they usually did at the three-month mark in Grace’s relationships. Not that it was a relationship, but still . . .
‘And you never mentioned him once during our phone calls.’ Her grandmother warranted this important enough to put down her cup. ‘Is it serious?’
‘Gran, we’re just hanging out. It’s not a big deal so don’t make it one.’
‘But he took you to Paris . . .’
‘No, we went to Paris together . . .’
‘Going away with someone is a big commitment, Grace.’ Her grandmother paused and seemed to be having slight trouble finding the right words. Maybe it was the first signs of Alzheimer’s. ‘I’m sure we’ll meet him at Christmas.’ Or maybe it was simply her grandmother moving in for the kill.
She made it sound so reasonable, so sensible, that for one brief moment Grace actually gave the idea serious consideration. Then she thought of Vaughn in their front room being ruthlessly interrogated by her grandmother and ignored by her grandfather, while he gazed at her toothy school photos, the antimacassars, the hideous reproduction of Gainsborough’s The Blue Boy which hung over the mantelpiece.
Then Grace realised she was focusing on the wrong part of her grandmother’s sentence. ‘Hang on, you’re going to Australia for Christmas. It’s all you’ve been talking about for weeks.’
‘There’s been a change of plan,’ her grandfather piped up. ‘Doctor said it could be risky flying such a long way with my angina.’
‘And someone from the Mothers’ Union got deep vein thrombosis when she flew to Florida,’ added her grandmother. ‘Besides, it can be very hot in Australia in December, you know.’
‘I did tell you that but you said—’
‘So that’s why Caroline and Gary are going to fly over here,’ her grandmother continued, though she wasn’t looking at Grace any more, but at a fixed spot on the table. ‘With little Kirsty, of course.’
Grace immediately felt something in her chest clench so she wasn’t sure she could even breathe. She could still talk though. ‘You have got to be bloody kidding me!’
‘Don’t swear, dear,’ her grandfather said reflexively, but he patted her suddenly icy-cold hand. ‘Once you’re over the shock, I bet you’ll secretly be pleased to see your mother again.’
‘You think?’ Tears were falling fast and Grace tried to wipe them away with the back of her hand, until a crisp square of white cotton was handed to her.
‘Come on, Gracie, don’t make a scene,’ her grandmother said, her voice soft now she’d delivered the killer blow. And God forbid that Grace should make a scene. Making a scene was right up there with tax evasion and mass genocide. ‘You’re both very different people to how you were fifteen years ago. If you’d talk to your mother, then you’d realise that.’
Grace curled her arms around herself protectively. ‘I can’t believe that you just spring this on me and think I’ll be cool with it. Because I am not! I don’t even want to be in the same room with her so I don’t really see us pulling crackers and passing the gravy over Christmas lunch. I’ll stay in London. Anyway, I told you Lily’s pregnant and she’s getting married on Christmas Eve now, so there wouldn’t be any way I could get from Godalming to Worthing after the reception.’
Her grandmother put down her cup of tea so forcefully that she spilled a little. ‘Nobody gets married on Christmas Eve; it’s so thoughtless. And she’s pregnant? I hope it’s not going to be a church service.’
‘Well, it is. Apparently the vicar’s really progressive about these things and her dad made a massive contribution to buy a new church organ or something,’ Grace said as tetchily as she dared. ‘So,
I’ll see you between Christmas and New Year, just the two of you.’
‘Now wait a minute, young lady,’ her grandfather snapped because her grandmother might huff and puff but he was the one who laid down the law. ‘You’re coming home for Christmas and you will be civil to your mother and we won’t have any upsets. Is that clear?’
‘I’m not coming,’ Grace gritted, because defying her grandfather when he got all Wrath of God on her was very hard. ‘I don’t ever want to see her again and, believe me, I’m sure the feeling’s mutual.’
The three of them glared at each other for a while, until her grandmother picked up her tea cup again. ‘People are staring,’ she stage-whispered. ‘There’s no point in anyone getting upset about this. We’ll talk about it another time, Grace. Now eat the rest of your scone.’
And Grace knew that there would be daily phone calls in which her grandmother would cajole and threaten and probably play the trump card that she and Grandy weren’t in the best of health and it could be their last Christmas. And Grace would eventually bow to the relentless pressure and give in, because that’s what she always did.
chapter nineteen
It was only the prospect of a long weekend in Miami Beach that turned Grace’s frown right way round again.
It was lovely to wake up on Thursday morning and realise that in a few hours she’d be soaking up the sun, putting on new fancy clothes that she could never wear to work, and seeing Vaughn again. That thought unexpectedly popped into her head while she was waiting for the kettle to boil and she examined it carefully. He’d sent her a text message - something innocuous enough about having an exciting weekend ahead of them - but then when Grace thought of their last phone call and the things Vaughn had said he wanted to do to her in his quest for her elusive orgasm, she shivered. It was a shiver that owed nothing to the fact that her plug-in radiator was taking for ever to heat up and more the thought of Vaughn single-mindedly pursuing his goal.
It felt good to shut the front door of 17 Montague Terrace and leave everything behind as she climbed into the back seat of a toasty warm car that smelled of leather, and ask the driver to crank the heating up just a little.
By the time Grace was ushered into the Business Class cabin by a smiling stewardess, she was shrugging off all the worries of the last week, along with her new Burberry coat. The woman behind her was complaining bitterly because she normally flew first class, but as Grace sipped her complimentary champagne and tried to decide which of the many films on offer she’d like to see first, she didn’t think she’d ever take travelling Business Class for granted.
As she obeyed the announcement to turn off her mobile, Grace realised she was free from Kiki, who’d been an absolute nightmare and had almost refused to sign Grace’s holiday form, Lily and her crazy baby hormones, Lily’s mother, her own grandmother’s increasingly hectoring calls and some woman from a debt collection agency who’d started calling up and leaving ominous messages. In fact, she could switch off her phone until Monday evening and pretend that her non-Vaughn world didn’t exist.
The world that did have Vaughn in it was pretty fucking fantastic. Grace had slept on the plane and was wide awake as her driver took her the scenic route along Ocean Drive so she could see rippling waves frothing along the shore on one side and, on the other, bright lights and people spilling out of clubs and open-topped cars, and she could hear the insistent thump of music. It felt like the city’s pulse was connected straight to the exhilarated beat of her own heart. Grace could remember standing in her kitchen in her underwear calling Vaughn for the first time and he’d been here in Miami. Maybe even driving along the same stretch of road - and all of a sudden she couldn’t wait to see him. She was dying to see him.
But when she was shown into their bungalow at the Delano, which was five steps away from an Olympic-sized pool that shimmered electric blue in the dark, Vaughn wasn’t there. Grace looked around the cool white space, arms clamped to her sides because it was so pristine and perfect, she was sure she’d leave dirty fingerprints over anything she touched.
She wandered from the lounge into the bedroom where there was a note propped on the pillow. Gone to dinner. Hope you had a good flight. See you later. V. Anyone else would have told her not to wait up, but Vaughn wasn’t anyone else and besides, Grace was too wired and excited to go to sleep. She even thought about having a dip in the pool, but decided she’d indulge in her own patented, post-plane ritual - because she had a post-plane ritual now.
Lighting the Diptique fig candle she’d brought with her ’cause she’d read somewhere that Madonna always did that, she poured all of a bottle of Korres bubble bath into the huge tub as she took a bottle of wine out of the mini-bar. This made her think of Vaughn’s incredulous reaction when they’d stayed at the Plaza Athenée in Paris and she’d asked if it was OK to get a Diet Coke out of the mini-bar. Actually he’d looked at her like she was certifiably crazy and snapped, ‘Yes - and don’t let me ever catch you asking something so ridiculous again.’
Five minutes later, she was immersed up to the neck in bubbles, sipping at a glass of Pinot Grigio and wiggling her toes luxuriously, because in Vaughn world you never had to wait for the boiler to fill up again and all bathrooms came with heating as standard. And in Vaughn world, there was now a Vaughn standing in the open doorway, not smiling, not saying anything, just looking at the surprised expression on Grace’s face. The silence only lasted a few seconds, but it seemed to go on for ever, until Vaughn shook his head, then stepped into the steamy, scented bathroom.
‘Hello, stranger,’ he murmured, bending down to kiss Grace briefly on the lips before he straightened up. ‘Can I share your wine?’
‘ ’Course you can,’ Grace said, and if she was pink-cheeked it was because she was in a hot bath, but then Vaughn sat down on the bath’s tiled surround and they took turns sipping from her glass as he told her about the places he’d been, turning what sounded like a nightmare blur of meetings and difficult artists and agents into a long stream of funny anecdotes. Soon there wasn’t much left in the bottle and it didn’t seem so weird to be naked when Vaughn wasn’t.
The bubbles were melting away and Grace could see her body slowly coming into focus. She glanced up to see Vaughn looking too, then he reached down and deliberately trailed his hand through the water, dispersing the last of the bubbles so he could see Grace’s breasts: her nipples a deep, dusky pink compared to the paleness of her skin.
‘I think it’s time you got out of there before you turn into a prune,’ Vaughn said casually, but he was swallowing hard, so if Grace was nervous then he was too. ‘I never did care for prunes.’
Grace gently levered herself out of the water and let Vaughn wrap her in a snowy-white towel, because in Vaughn world nothing ever went grey in the wash. Standing up in the tub, she was the same height as him for once and she wrapped her arms round his neck so she could rub her nose against his and tease a smile from him. ‘You promise you won’t get mad if I can’t come?’ she whispered in his ear.
‘Well, we’re not leaving that huge bed in the other room until you do, so let’s hope there’s twenty-four-hour room service,’ Vaughn said, as he lifted her out of the bath.
Grace had always imagined that the secret to good sex was like an algebraic equation or a chemical formula. There was a complicated sequence of manoeuvres, positions and breathing exercises that other girls knew about but she didn’t because she’d overslept the day they were being given the printed handout.
It had to take more than a pillow under her hips and a simple combination of tongue and fingers building her up and then easing her down so Grace was digging her heels into the mattress, tears of frustration spilling down her cheeks.
‘No, you’re not ready yet,’ Vaughn said to every one of her desperate pleas, until she was beyond mere words and reduced to these high-pitched moans that would make Grace shudder with embarrassment when she thought about them later.
But not then. No, then, she grabb
ed handfuls of Vaughn’s hair so she could tug him upwards and he had no choice but to give in to her growled, ‘Now. You have to fuck me right now,’ or emerge from their battle with half a dozen bald spots.
As soon as Vaughn slid inside her, it was inevitable. Grace went from not-quite to all-the-way-to-happyland instantly, clutching at Vaughn’s arms, his shoulders, anywhere she could reach as he lifted her legs so her knees were almost touching her ears and drove into her again and again. The world seemed to break around her, shattering into a million different pieces and it only seemed whole again, reshaped by Vaughn’s hands and mouth, long minutes later.
Grace sprawled carelessly on the bed, still fighting to catch each breath as tiny and delicious after-shocks rippled through her.
‘Are you all right?’ Vaughn asked, his voice equally unsteady.
The ability to form words would have required way too much effort, so Grace just sighed instead. A little, rapturous exhalation that sounded odd coming from her mouth. She raised her head slightly so she could confirm that her skin was sheened with perspiration and she had a mottled flush on her chest and collapsed on the bed again. Yup, she’d definitely had an orgasm. A monster, no-holds-barred, satisfaction-guaranteed-or-your-money-back orgasm.