“I sense a but coming.”
“But surely you can see the effect that job had on her. I know PTSD when I see it. She had a flashback because of the food last night, didn’t she?”
Ian stared at his friend. Chris was clearly speaking out of concern, but the things that Grace had told him were confidential. How much was too much to reveal? “I know what Grace is going through. She’s dealing with it.”
“I don’t think you do. And I don’t think she’s dealing with it at all. My brother served in the Balkans, and you know how long ago that was. Still has nightmares. Can’t walk down the street without checking his sight lines and escape routes. Sleeps with a knife under his pillow. Craig’s wife hung in there for a while, but after a few years, she couldn’t take it anymore. The drinking, the women—”
“That’s combat stress,” Ian said. “Grace hasn’t been in combat. She hasn’t killed anyone.”
“Do you think that’s any better? The things she’s seen—even soldiers don’t deal with that sometimes. You only have to look at her pictures, mate. She’s carrying around some heavy baggage.”
“So what are you saying?” Ian stuffed down the anger that threatened to spill into his voice. “Are you saying she’s damaged and I should write her off? You know me better than that.”
Chris leaned back against the booth and spread his hands wide. “I’m not telling you what to do. I’m telling you that these things don’t disappear overnight. You need to understand what you’re getting into.”
Before he got too attached to cut her loose. The subtext was clear. Completely understandable, and yet the wrongness of it all made him feel a little ill. Grace herself had said she didn’t want to be his rehabilitation project.
Was Chris right, though? So far she’d referred to her problems as “issues” and “episodes.” She’d refused to go to another therapist, didn’t think she needed one. And yet she was self-aware enough to recognize her own destructive coping mechanisms, to not want to repeat the same mistakes. That had to be a sign of progress.
Chris could evidently see his comments had thrown Ian into a tailspin. “Listen, you know I’m behind you whatever you do. But I’ve seen it firsthand, and I thought you needed to be prepared.”
Ian gave him a slow nod.
“Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to talk about today. You hear about Nik?”
“No. What about him?”
“Fractured his collarbone playing rugby with his boys in the garden. He’s going to be out indefinitely.”
Ian winced. There was a reason they had avoided playing contact sports while rowing. The training scheme took its own toll on the body without adding the possibility of major injury on top of it. Recovery was a solid eight to twelve weeks for a fractured collarbone. “So Henley’s out. Pairs too. What about it?”
“There was some talk about you as a replacement.”
“I’m no longer competitive. You know that.”
“I don’t know that. You could have been stellar, you know, one of the best, had you just stuck with it. Your name would be up there with Pinsent and Searle. You don’t lose those instincts.”
“But you lose the hunger,” Ian said.
“So you’re not interested.”
Of course I’m interested, he wanted to say, but he had to be sensible. No matter how flattering it was to be considered to sub for a rower like Nik, he’d have to dedicate himself completely to training for the next several months. And for what? A chance to relive the glory days? Stroking a veteran boat in a second-string race? He pushed back his unfinished meal and stood. “No, sorry. Thanks for breakfast, though.”
“You would have done it a few months ago, wouldn’t you?”
“Whether or not I would have is irrelevant.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Chris gave him a wry look. “Listen, some of the lads are having supper and a pint at the local after workout tonight. You might as well come along. And bring Grace.”
It was Chris’s way of asking if they were still okay. Ian gave a quick nod. “I’ll ask her.”
“Good. And don’t be too hasty on that decision. I still think you’d make a good sub for Nik.”
“I’ll think about it.” But his mind was made up. He’d already spent too much time living in the past.
An hour later, Ian made his way back to the Tube, kit bag on one shoulder, briefcase in hand, while Chris’s words tumbled over in his mind. What he had said about Grace and her issues, the offer to sub on the veteran crew: things he would have once given serious consideration.
But he’d meant what he said. His rowing career was over. And he wouldn’t abandon Grace because of what she’d endured for the sake of what she believed was right. The two were linked somehow in his mind. Once, he’d had as much passion for his rowing as Grace had for her photography, but somewhere along the line it had become rote. Something to fill the time, a way to keep his mind busy and his body active. Something that defined him beyond the daily routine of going to his brother’s office, minding his brother’s business. When he was on the water, his problems seemed distant. The familiar clunk of the oars in the locks, the swish of the water against the hull, metaphorical barriers against his regrets.
But now that Grace was back, he could see how empty his life had been.
Actually, it had started earlier than that, watching his brother fall in love with a woman he hardly knew, seeing the changes that Andrea’s presence had made in Jamie’s life, small at first, and then greater. Jamie had always been driven, successful, outgoing. But now he actually seemed happy. A little sickening at times, but more settled than Ian had ever imagined seeing him.
It made it harder to claim that some men just weren’t suited to the domestic life.
It was why Ian had made the cursory attempts at dating, even when he knew at first sight none of those women would ever elicit more than vague affection and admiration. They had never stolen his breath, never kept him up nights, and he would have said that was a good thing. Look what his passion for Grace had done to him once before.
He’d been lying to himself.
Which is why rather than head to the office as he should have, he found himself returning to his flat. When he emerged from the Underground onto street level, he pulled his mobile from his pocket and called the office.
“Ms. Grey, it’s Ian.” Even if she refused to call him by his first name, he wasn’t about to get into the habit of referring to himself as mister. “I’m going to take my ten o’clock at home. Will you please conference me through when it comes in?”
“Of course, sir. I’d be happy to. Should we expect you later?”
“What’s on my calendar?”
“Just a three o’clock status update with Bridget. I can reschedule it for tomorrow if you’d like.”
“Hold off on that. I’m not sure how my day is going to play out yet. I’ll let you know if I’m not coming in.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll talk to you at ten.”
When he pushed through the door of his flat, he tossed his kit bag in the foyer, dropped the briefcase on the hall table, and went straight to the old-fashioned address book he kept in the drawer with Grace’s clips, a remnant of days when mobile phones were the size of bricks. He flipped through to find the one contact he’d been fairly certain he would never call again. Then he dialed.
“This is Ian MacDonald. I’d like to make an appointment with Mr. Segal for today if possible.”
“Of course, sir,” the faintly German-accented voice said on the other end of the line. “Mr. Segal would be pleased to meet with you. Design or purchase?”
“Design. Or I suppose I should say redesign. Mr. Segal made a piece for me a number of years ago.”
“I understand, sir. Would half past two at the Old Bond Street boutique suit you?”
“It would, thank you.” He said his good-byes and clicked off, his pulse feeling oddly unsteady.
He went to the walk-in wardrobe in his bedroom and kn
elt before the small safe bolted to the floor. It was empty but for his passport, a small stack of banknotes, and the insanely expensive gold Patek Philippe watch his mother had given him for his thirtieth birthday but he hated too much to actually wear.
Plus a small, gray velvet box.
He took the box out and flipped open the lid. He hadn’t looked at the engagement ring since Grace had left it on his kitchen countertop. Even when he’d moved house, he’d left the box closed, simply shoving it back into the safe and not questioning why he couldn’t bear to let it go. Now, looking at the cushion-cut diamond set in a flashy pavé band, he wondered why he’d ever thought she would wear something so ostentatious.
He snapped the box closed and returned to the living room, where he intended to prep for the conference call with the first of the law firms he was considering to replace Barrett. No matter how much he tried to concentrate, that gray box drew his attention. It was rash, coming so soon after they’d revived their relationship. It wasn’t as if he planned on asking her to marry him right now. He simply believed in being prepared.
Prepared to do whatever it took to convince her to stay this time.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE NEXT DAY PASSED MORE SLOWLY than any other day of Grace’s life. She’d always prided herself on her good sense and her independence, but now she checked her phone every three minutes to see if she’d missed a call or text from Ian. It made her feel pathetic and clingy. Melvin had asked her to come by the gallery in the late afternoon, but that gave her hours in which to mark every single minute until the clock turned over to three thirty.
Melvin greeted her with a smile. “Grace—I’m glad you came. I wanted your opinion on this particular photo.”
Curious, Grace followed Melvin back to the workroom, where a single print was pinned out. Grace smiled when she saw it. It was one of her favorites, a Sudanese woman standing before a burned-out building, cradling a tiny baby. Despite the background’s gloomy subject matter, the photo had captured the woman’s total adoration for her infant. To Grace, it perfectly summarized the theme of the collection.
But she could also see why Melvin had singled it out as problematic. The balance between the woman’s dark skin and the brightly lit background would be difficult to get right. She moved closer to the photograph, inspecting it, noting the areas where the contrast was too low or the print too light.
Melvin came up beside her. “I can dodge the woman in the foreground and expose the rest a bit more. You have some time to join me in the darkroom?”
“Sure.” Grace gathered her gear and followed him through the connected doorway.
The small, ventilated room was barely large enough for both of them, so Grace pressed her back against the wall while Melvin refilled emulsion trays and checked supplies. He turned off the lights, and a red overhead came on in their place.
“I’m surprised you didn’t want to do these yourself,” he said. “This used to be an interest of yours.”
“I’m out of practice. A darkroom necessitates a permanent address. Besides, why would I go to the trouble when I have you?”
Melvin chuckled. “When you have time, I’ll show you some large-format platinum prints I’m working on. The platinum gives the images a depth you just can’t get with silver.”
“I’d love to.” She smiled as she watched him expose the negative through the enlarger, wishing she had been able to shoot some of these portraits medium format. But the larger camera didn’t lend itself to trekking into the villages and up the mountainsides where she’d taken most of these. Besides, part of the appeal had been using Aidan’s Leica on a project he’d always talked about but wasn’t able to attempt before he died. The practicality of printing 35mm for gallery exhibition had never occurred to her.
Melvin was putting the paper into the developer tray when Grace’s phone trilled in her pocket. She pushed an earphone into her ear, then clicked the microphone button. “Grace Brennan.”
“Am I interrupting something?”
Ian’s voice sent a pleasant hum of energy through her. She turned away and lowered her voice, though the room’s size hardly allowed for privacy. “I’m in the darkroom with Melvin, fine-tuning a print. I was just thinking about calling you.”
“Oh, really?”
Something about the way he uttered those two words made her flush to her toes. She cleared her throat. “I missed you.”
“Then we’re even. How about dinner? A pint and a light supper at the Plucked Goose, maybe?”
“Are we dining alone?”
“With Chris and some of the other lads, probably.”
First dinner with Chris and Sarah, now a pint with his mates. That was some sort of girlfriend initiation, even if she knew most of them from the old days. “What time?”
“Half eight?”
“I’ll be there.”
“See you then, love.”
Grace clicked off and tried to wipe the smile from her face before she turned. She didn’t need Melvin to know she’d become a complete fool over a man.
Too late. Melvin was grinning at her over the developer tray. “That him?”
“You heard everything, didn’t you?”
“Of course I did. Who is he? Anyone I know?”
“Do you remember Ian MacDonald?”
“Your ex?” His eyebrows arched into where his hairline should have been. “I liked him.”
“You never met him!”
“True, but I liked how you were when you were with him. Happy. You used to laugh, Grace.”
“I laugh!”
The dubious look he sent her said it all. Then he shrugged. “I suppose I don’t blame you. I’d be more worried if you weren’t affected by everything you’ve seen and experienced. You should have someone who gives you as much as you give everyone else. You deserve some happiness.”
When she didn’t immediately answer, Melvin transferred the print carefully into the fixative, then said, “Stop worrying, Grace. Stop waiting for the other shoe to drop and just live for a while, will you?”
He knew her too well. “I’ll do my best.”
“Good. A couple more minutes and we can take a look at this.”
His words trailed her through the rest of the afternoon, through talk of exposures and burning and dodging. It was after six o’clock before they had gotten a print that pleased them both. Fourteen more to go, but she knew the process would be a pleasure. Melvin shared her vision, and he was always careful to guide without imposing his own expectations.
But their discussion stayed with her through the trek home and her preparations for supper with Ian. If she stayed in London, she would have the freedom to explore whatever creative endeavors she wished. She could have a darkroom. She could experiment with other kinds of photography besides conflict.
Maybe if she could stop focusing on the misery of the world around her, she could embrace the happiness that was in front of her.
CHAPTER TWENTY
THE NEXT FOUR WEEKS TOOK ON their own rhythm. Grace photographed London while Ian rowed and worked, and they met for dinner almost every night. She and Melvin made their way through the remaining prints, some of which they got on the first try, others requiring multiple days of fine-tuning and numerous reprints. All the while, James’s wedding in Scotland came nearer. And surprisingly, the idea of seeing Ian’s family again held more anticipation than fear.
When Ian called and said he would pick Grace up at Asha’s flat at 6 a.m., she expected him to arrive in a cab. Instead the sleek, shiny roadster pulled up to the curb, the hood already tucked back.
Grace straightened from her perch on the front steps. “I thought we were taking the train.”
He climbed out and circled around to the pavement. “Change of plans. Are you disappointed?”
“Not at all. Driving to Scotland in what might be the coolest car ever built? That’s the good kind of spontaneity.”
“And so is this.” He grabbed her hand and pulled he
r into a long, lingering kiss. When he let her go, she was fairly certain she had a dumb, dreamy look on her face. He eyed her suitcase on the steps. “That’s all you’re bringing? Could you have fit enough shoes and clothes for the weekend in that?”
She gave him a withering look.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” He lifted the suitcase and grimaced. “What’s in this? Every pair of steel-toed boots you own?”
“That’s my camera equipment, so be careful. It’s worth as much as your car. Almost.” A wild exaggeration, but it was worth it for how gingerly he placed it in the boot.
“Where are your clothes, then?”
“Rucksack.” She turned so he could see the sizable pack on her back.
“You’re something else, Grace. Come on. We’ve got six hundred miles to cover in one day.”
Grace climbed into the passenger side and placed her rucksack behind her seat. “You could have been slightly less spontaneous and decided to leave yesterday. When exactly did this idea hit you?”
“About two hours ago.” He twisted the key in the ignition, then pulled a pair of sunglasses from his jacket pocket.
“I changed my mind. You look like James Bond, not Superman.”
“That I can live with.”
Grace settled back as he pulled into light morning traffic, enjoying the coolness of the air, even if it came with London’s signature fragrance of damp concrete and diesel fumes. Twelve hours straight in a car would have been a horror with anyone else, but she selfishly loved the idea of having Ian all to herself.
“What are you thinking?” he asked after several minutes of silence.
About you. Out loud she said, “I was wondering if you’d finally let me drive her.”
He threw her an unreadable look—he really did look like James Bond in those shades—and then said, “Maybe.”
“That’s an improvement. I’ve graduated from ‘not a chance’ to ‘maybe.’” She grinned and went back to her observation of the London cityscape. By the time they were out of London proper, though, the nerves were already encroaching.
London Tides Page 17
