Chapter 10
My birthday is on the same day as Danny’s dad’s. Friendly Wendy is into birthdays and star signs and general superstitious nonsense, and she thinks it’s weird that Danny goes out with a girl who’s born on the same day as his dad. When I asked her why, she just answered, ‘Um, dunno, its just a bit twisted, that’s all.’ I don’t know about twisted, but it is incredibly annoying. Especially since Danny’s mum and dad moved to the middle of Wales, because it means I spend all my birthdays on the M4.
We’re supposed to be setting off as soon as I’ve visited my dad, but I’ve decided to delay things a few minutes.
‘Dan.’ I call him on my mobile when I’m back in my car.
‘Hey, birthday girl.’
‘Do us a favour. I left my debit card in the pub last night. I couldn’t get that pill thing – it’s £27! – can you pop over to the pub, pick up the card for me and run up to Sainsbury’s and buy the pill for me. You need to go to the pharmacist in the middle. He should remember me. I’ve answered all his questions, I just didn’t have the money to pay.’
‘Oh, Grace, babe.’
‘Please, Danny, he said I’m at a fertile point or something and I need to take it quickly. I just need to pop in and see my mum before I go.’
Then I hang up. It’s best not to give Danny time to formulate an excuse, and anyway, I’m already swinging into Mum’s driveway. I don’t even stop to look at my beautiful childhood home. I just jump out of the car and run up to the porch.
‘All right, Mildred, how’s it hanging?’ I say as I cross the threshold. Mildred is the lady who’s buried under the porch.
‘Mum,’ I call as I walk into the hallway. There aren’t any lights on, so I flick the light switch. Nothing. Mum never changes light bulbs, although I’m sure she has some. There are bound to be boxes and boxes of them stored somewhere.
The house looks different inside from when I was a child – it hasn’t been decorated since then. That’s not the difference, though. The difference is that it’s crammed with stuff. When I was little there was room to run around or dance in the house, whereas now there are just narrow corridors of space that allow you to move from one cramped room to another. Piles and piles of books, DVDs, beauty potions, make-up, gadgets and fitness equipment are stacked in neat piles against the walls and the effect is suffocating. I’ve tried to speak to her about it, but she gets defensive. She says that she doesn’t nag me about how I spend my money, so it’s not fair for me to do it to her. But it’s not the money that worries me. I remember at the time of my father’s death people saying how clever Dad had been with their money and how my mother would always be well provided for. So it’s not about that; it just makes me sad to think of her sitting in a cramped, dark house buying things she doesn’t need to fill a void in her life that will never be filled. Mind you, thinking about my mum makes me sad, period.
‘Grace, is that you?’ Her face appears at the top of the stairs.
My mum is beautiful. Perhaps that’s the most frustrating thing. Mentally she may be a fruit loop, but her outer casing is divine. She’s short, like me, but whereas I curve in and out dramatically and have a bottom the size of a widescreen TV, my mum is petite all over, like a little bird. My dad used to call her his little starling because she seems to flutter everywhere. She’s blonde and she wears her hair in a neat wavy bob, like movie stars in the fifties used to. My mum has been all dressed up with nowhere to go for ten years.
‘You look nice,’ I say. She smiles vaguely. ‘Did you get a letter about the cemetery and people wanting to build a road over Dad’s grave?’
Mum’s lips tighten and she walks back to the bedroom she came from. ‘I don’t know,’ she says.
I walk into my dad’s old study. I try not to look at his old cork noticeboard with all the pictures of us and postcards and tickets to parties pinned to it. Nothing has faded because Mum won’t open the blinds in here. It’s like walking onto a dark stage where a play set a decade ago is about to take place. His old computer sits where it always sat, looking archaic now. Somewhere in one of the drawers is his old mobile phone. My dad never got to see the iPhone or, more importantly, the iPod. It’s funny the things that make you sad.
There aren’t any letters, opened or unopened, upon the desk.
‘Mum, where do you put the post?’ I shout, but as I’m shouting I stub my toe on something underneath the desk. I reach down and slide a heavy cardboard box towards me.
‘What have we got here?’ I mutter.
The box is full of letters, all of them unopened.
I sit on Dad’s swivel chair and rummage through them. The aim is to spot the All Souls Cemetery postmark, but that’s soon forgotten when I realise they’re all formal, terrifying-looking letters. Many from British Gas show a red letter in the address window. The words ‘Urgent’ and ‘Do Not Ignore’ swim in front of my eyes.
‘Jesus,’ I mutter.
I take the top few letters and put them in my bag. I’ll have to pay them for her when I get the chance. I carry on searching for the All Souls Cemetery letter. It’s not there. Maybe Leonard was wrong and it won’t affect Dad’s grave after all.
‘Mum!’ I shout, walking back into the hallway. ‘Mum, I’m off.’
‘Oh, bye.’
‘Are you sure you didn’t get a letter from the cemetery?’
‘Not that I remember.’
‘You’d definitely have remembered. I’ll see you tomorrow, then.’
I wait for her to say something like ‘happy birthday’ or ‘wait a sec, let me give you your present’ or ‘I love you’, but she doesn’t. She just stands at the top of the stairs and nods.
Chapter 11
I love my car, even though bits keep falling off her. It was my exhaust last week, and the week before that a wing mirror. The passenger door generally won’t open and some of my less agile clients have found it hard to get in the car through my side. She’s a Nissan Micra and she was my twenty-second birthday present to myself. She was £650, and even though she’s cost me a lot more since then, I adore her. She’s red and her name is Nina. The only thing about her that I’m not keen on is the pattern on her seats. They’re flecked with yellow and people have commented that it looks like vomit stain that won’t come off. People can be so cruel. My favourite bit of Nina is her horn, which I am beeping furiously at the moment because Danny bleeding Saunders is in the pub while I’m waiting outside in the car.
So far we’re an hour and twenty minutes late leaving for Wales. I purse my lips and beep my horn again, then again, and again. God, I love my horn. This is the second horn I’ve had on this car. I wore the first one out. I’m very proud of that.
My local pub is the best pub in the area. It’s called The Festering Carbuncle and is thankfully more pleasant than its name suggests. The Festering Carbuncle is a gastro pub, I’ll have you know, and it’s run by probably the nicest man alive. In fact, if there were to be a Nicest Man in the Universe competition, I would enter Anton and put all my money on him. I don’t know how old he is, but he must be getting on for about fifty because he has a son my age and he’s done a host of exciting things in his life. He was a roadie for U2 for years, then, when he left that job, he had a photographic exhibition showing all the photos he’d taken of the band over the years. It was a big success and afterwards other bands asked him to photograph them, so he spent a few years touring with The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Blur. When he found himself rocked out, he bought The Festering Carbuncle, which in those days really was a festering carbuncle. Anton did it up, put lots of his photos on the walls, employed lovely staff and set about his other passion, which is cooking.
The Festering Carbuncle was one of the deciding factors in me buying my flat. That and the fact that it was the only flat I could afford. I walked into the pub with Friendly Wendy, having just viewed my future home, and Anton was sat on one of the wooden tables with three staff eating bangers and mash. Proper
looking juicy sausages, creamy mash and gravy. Wendy and I stood in the doorway, our mouths watering, transfixed. The pub wasn’t even officially open then, but Anton sat us down with them and gave us sausage, mash and mugs of tea, and told us all about the area. As soon as I’d wiped the last bit of gravy off my plate with a slice of homemade crusty bread, I called and put an offer in.
‘All right, love, calm down,’ a man says as he passes my car while I beep the horn.
‘I am a wronged estate agent and it’s my birthday. I can’t calm down,’ I shout back at him.
‘Gracie Flowers,’ says Anton, walking out of the pub towards me.
The sight of Anton always makes me smile. He’s tall. Mind you, everyone’s tall to me. I think Friendly Wendy is tall and she’s only five foot three and a half. Anton’s got a lot of hair. It’s got grey in it, but you wouldn’t say he’s grey. He’s still brown. His is a Hugh Grant circa Four Weddings and a Funeral style. He’s not buff but he’s quite fit looking. He takes his dog, Keith Moon, on a long walk everyday and I suppose he must lift barrels and things while he’s working to keep in shape. He always wears loose cotton shirts and jeans. He’s very comfortable in his own skin, is Anton. He’s just simply lovely.
‘For you, my darling,’ he says and hands me a plate with a bacon sandwich on it. See what I mean! He’s lovely.
‘Oh, Anton, really? It’s my only birthday present!’
‘Oh Gracie, I didn’t know. Will you be in tomorrow for the karaoke? The first of many, I hope.’
‘Oh.’ I pause. I loathe karaoke. ‘Probably not.’
‘Oh well, try to make it. I’ll sing you a special birthday song.’
I wince inwardly and change the subject.
‘How’s Freddie doing?’ Freddie is Anton’s son, a handsome young lawyer who Friendly Wendy is in love with.
‘Ah, he wanted to talk to you about getting on the property ladder. Something like your flat …’
‘Maisonette.’
‘I do apologise, maisonette, would be perfect.’
‘Has he got my number? Here take my card. Or …’ Brainwave. ‘He could call Wendy, he’s got her number, she could talk him through the properties we’ve got—’
‘I think he wanted to be looked after by the super estate agent that is Gracie Flowers.’
Damn.
‘Cheers, mate.’ Danny slaps Anton on the back as he bounds past him and round the car to the passenger door.
‘Oh, Dan, I haven’t fixed that door yet so it still doesn’t open. You’ll have to crawl in through my side,’ I say, climbing out of the car.
Danny folds up his long limbs and clambers into the car.
‘I really should get that fixed. It’s a nightmare when I have clients,’ I mutter.
‘I’ll be off, Gracie Flowers,’ says Anton, and he bends down and kisses me softly on the cheek. Anton always smells nice. The perfect combination of musky man aftershave, olive oil and hops.
I get back in the car and belt up. Danny is already tucking into half of my bacon sandwich, so I take the other half and we set off. Finally.
It’s not until we’re on the M4 that I remember about the morning-after pill.
‘Danny!’ I shout him awake. ‘Where’s my pill thing? I’ve got to take it.’
‘What? Oh, babe. They wouldn’t give it to me. It has to be you. I went all the way down there for nothing. Lampard scored while I was gone as well.’
Bugger, I think.
Chapter 12
A Foxtons estate agent would describe Danny’s parents’ house as ‘peacefully located in the beautiful Welsh countryside’. I would say that it’s ‘inconveniently located in the epicentre of absolutely nowhere’. The nearest postbox is over two miles away. The nearest village – and by village I mean cluster of cottages with a general store and a pub – is nine miles away. When they first bought it and Danny and I came to visit them, we couldn’t believe it. We didn’t see a soul on the road for ages. It was such a novelty we pulled over as soon as the windy road allowed and had a quickie. It wasn’t the most successful sex we’ve ever had, because at one point Danny got a bit carried away and toppled into a bush. Unfortunately, it was a bush of stinging nettles and he didn’t have any trousers on at the time. That was the end of the quickie. He lay on the back seat, moaning with his bum out for the rest of the journey, putting my Boots Protect & Perfect on his arse because he said it was soothing!
We haven’t had random outdoor nooky for a while, I think, looking at Danny, who’s still asleep. He could sleep through a world war. He’s really good looking is my Danny. He looks a bit like that bloke from the Twilight films who teenage girls faint over. He’s certainly pale, like a vampire, mainly because he works for a company that makes computer games, so he spends most of his time in darkened rooms staring at a computer screen. When Dad was alive he’d always make wild predictions about the man I would end up with, Prince William being a favourite. I maintained that I would only consider Prince William if he learned to play the acoustic guitar. All I wanted from a man when I was younger was that he should be able to play the acoustic guitar. Around the time Dad died he was keen for my future husband to be Will Young – he just missed him coming out. He never met Danny. Sometimes I wonder what he’d think about me ending up with a computer gamer who doesn’t play guitar, although, to give Danny credit, he did get his grade one recorder.
‘How’s work, babe?’ I say, trying to ease him back into the land of the living as we’re almost there.
‘Uh,’ he says opening his eyes and swallowing. ‘Crap.’
‘Why?’ I lean my hand across to touch his knee.
‘Dunno.’
‘Talk to me, Danny. What’s wrong? I thought you loved your job.’
‘Aw. Nah. Bored.’
‘Babe, maybe you need a new challenge. You could try another company or ask for a promotion.’
‘Yeah,’ Danny says, looking down. He stretches his legs and I move my hand back onto the steering wheel.
‘Why don’t you read The Five Year Plan?’
He turns to me and gives me a sleepy smile.
‘Yeah, maybe.’
I smile back and blow him a kiss.
‘You won’t regret it. You’ve had the same job for years. You’re bound to be bored. You need … to think big, aim high.’
‘Think big, aim high,’ he echoes. ‘Grace?’
‘What?’
‘Mum wants you to sing at the party tonight?’
‘Why does she want me to sing? She’s never heard me sing.’
‘She has. She was going through all the old home videos and she came across our Year Ten Christmas show. Do you remember?’
‘Oh, yeah, didn’t I sing that Mariah Carey song?’
‘You were amazing.’
‘And didn’t you read some poem?’
‘Yeah.’ He laughs. ‘I well had a crush on you then.’
‘Soft.’ I smile at him. ‘You’d better tell your mum I can’t sing.’
‘Grace, just sing. You’re in the middle of nowhere. It’ll be fine.’
‘Danny!’ I shout. ‘No!’ I hate to get cross, but sometimes it’s necessary. ‘I’m not singing, OK. Jesus!’
Obviously we’re late. We walk into the living room and everyone already has the ruddy glow of at least two drinks and all the best bits from the buffet table have been devoured. The good thing about Danny’s parents’ house is that it’s cosy and warm with old beams and open fires. Just the sort of place you want to arrive at after four and half hours of driving in a Nissan Micra.
‘Danny!’ shrieks his mum. ‘And Gracie! Look, here she is.’
I love, love, love Danny’s mum. In many ways I don’t know what I’d do without her. She’s more my mum than my mum. I was gutted when they decided to move to Wales. I used to adore going to their house in London. Danny’s an only child, like me, and when the four of us had dinner there, it felt like a proper family meal. Mrs Saunders would keep the conversation goin
g with questions and stories, and she was always interested and thoughtful. I love roast chicken, so she’d often make it for me, and when I became an estate agent she would cut out articles about the property market from the paper for me. She would tell us about the charity fêtes and coffee mornings she’d been to, and somehow she’d make them sound fun. She squeezes Danny first, then me. ‘Here’s Grace,’ she whoops. ‘Our entertainment!’
Now I may love her, but I’m not going to be bullied into this. I give Danny a steely look to indicate that he needs to save me, but he’s already wrapped up in the embraces of his other relatives.
‘Happy birthday,’ Danny’s dad says, wandering over to me.
‘And a happy birthday to you,’ I reply.
Danny’s dad scares me. Not because he looks like Freddy Krueger, but because I see in him what Danny will become. And if I had to pick one word to describe it, that would be lazy. If I were allowed more words they’d be ‘lazier than a dead swine’. He is definitely a ‘I’ll have my dinner in the lounge watching Top Gear, love’ sort of a man.
‘I hear you’re singing tonight,’ he says.
‘Er, well,’ I mutter.
‘We’ve got a chap to play the piano for you – Margaret’s son, a music something-or-other – where is he?’ Danny’s dad looks about him, then raises his hand with a jerk in the direction of a youngish-looking man with a beard, who literally runs towards us and puts his arm around me. Blimey, I think, as he nearly winds me with his embrace. The Welsh obviously don’t get much physical contact.
‘Grace! Grace Flowers,’ he says in an English, not Welsh accent. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, you probably don’t remember me. Not with the beard. I taught at Kensal Rise Community College. Well, I assisted for a while when I was doing my teacher training course. Music?’
‘Oh, um.’ Nope, I don’t remember him at all.
‘Olly Bell. Well, Mr Bell.’
Oh, Mr Bellend. Now it’s coming back to me.
‘Oh yes, yes, I remember you.’
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