Joan has kicked her shoes off onto the floor and is squeezing her brother’s hand, the one that can squeeze hers back. ‘Oh, why do they always do this? Take so long to announce the winner. I can’t bear it! What did you say, love?’
As Joan moves her ear closer to her brother’s mouth she notices a tear in his eye.
‘Yes,’ she says, agreeing with him. ‘That’s our girl.’
‘Put the telly on!’ Gracie’s favourite family scream as they enter the living room.
‘They’re about to announce the winner! We’ve missed all the singing. I can’t believe I had to go to your stupid school play,’ Emma Hammond shrieks, kicking her brother in the shin as they sit on the sofa. ‘This is my favourite programme!’
The camera on the telly slowly focuses on all the contestants one by one.
‘There’s the “Amazing Grace” girl. I love her,’ she says seriously.
‘She was rubbish,’ her brother chimes.
‘Shh,’ she instructs her brother.
‘Ooh, that’s the handsome man who won the first show,’ Mrs Hammond whoops. Her husband squeezes her waist. ‘Not as handsome as you, darling, and I’m sure he doesn’t sing “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” as well as you, either.’
‘No one sings “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” as well as I do. Now then, shall we have a glass of something to celebrate my son’s stellar performance in Wind in the Willows and finally finding our new home today?’
‘That blonde girl looks like …’
‘Oh, my God, it’s her! It’s Gracie! That’s Grace!’ Emma Hammond shrieks.
‘Ah,’ they all gasp in unison as the camera zooms in on a radiant Gracie beaming up at Anton.
‘It was singing,’ Emma Hammond whispers to herself. The thing that Gracie loved doing most of all was singing. Emma smiles. She knew Gracie wasn’t telling the truth when she said it was being an estate agent.
‘SH-i-i-i-i-i-i-t!’ says Tara, her mouth crackling from the popping candy she is eating. She’s sitting on her brother’s bed watching the new Sony widescreen TV that he mysteriously came home with this afternoon.
‘What?’
‘It’s her, innit?’
‘What the …?’
‘The one you nicked the bag off. I told you. She got pregnant. I gave her the bag back.’
‘Shit! You should’ve kept the bag. If she wins we could’ve sold it on eBay.’
Tara opens her mouth so it pops and fizzes in her brother’s face, then she twats him hard on the leg with her fist.
‘Oh shit! What d’you hit me for?’
‘’Cos, you’re a dick, innit. I well want her to win.’
‘Oh, Bob!’ Claire says, swigging some Moët & Chandon out of the bottle. ‘I can’t bear it. She’s got to win it. I wish they’d just come out with it! It’s torture!’
Bob is walking around Claire’s multi-purpose living area with a twin under each arm, as he’s found it’s the only way he can stop them walking up to the screen and dribbling the word ‘Gracie’ all over it.
‘Gracie Flowers, come on, sis. Come on, sis,’ he chants.
‘Bob, sit down. I think I need to cling on to you.’
Bob perches next to Claire on the settee and can’t help but grin as she clutches his leg.
Lube is just pouring out the last of the bottle of Rioja when his mobile rings. It’s his daughters and they’re screaming.
‘What’s going on? What’s happened at the sleepover?’ Bob says, jumping up like the concerned father he is. ‘What? My Gracie? On the telly?’
Rushing up to the TV, he turns it on, only to see the face of Gracie Flowers, the best female estate agent in London, filling the whole of his widescreen plasma television.
‘Well, I’ll be blown.’ He sighs. ‘Well, I’ll be blown.’
John St John Smythe Senior sits in the dress circle of the London Palladium, holding his beautiful wife-to-be’s tiny hand and hoping that all the screaming hasn’t harmed his hearing. Rosemary Flowers sits next to him, beaming. It’s been quite a night for Rosemary: she’s been asked for her autograph seventeen times and she’s heard her only daughter sing for the first time in ten years. John Senior has never seen her look so beautiful, he thinks, as he bends down to kiss her on the cheek.
Freddie, who is sitting next to Rosemary, is paying close attention to the goings-on on stage. Unable to hold it in any longer, he turns to his new girlfriend.
‘Wendy,’ he whispers.
‘Yes,’ Wendy croaks back. She’s almost lost her voice from screaming, ‘GRACIE!’ all night.
‘Do my dad and Grace look like more than just good friends to you?’
Wendy scrutinises her best friend down there on the stage. She notes the way Grace’s hand is wrapped around Anton’s waist, how her head leans into his chest and how Anton is smiling proudly down at her. And being an expert on love and the creator of the hugely successful Love Test, she turns to Freddie in his new shirt – purchased this morning in Selfridges, along with the most magic of knickers – and says, with conviction, ‘Yes, Freddie. Yes, it does.’
‘Blimey.’ Freddie sighs.
‘Is that weird for you?’
‘Yes,’ he says, ‘but in a good weird way.’
‘Ooh. Shh … they’re going to announce the winners.’
Chapter 84
Down on the stage, Gracie Flowers is getting a bit bored with this presenter leaving a sixty-second gap before he says anything. She wants him to hurry the hell up and announce the winner, so that she can do things like gaze into Anton’s eyes and play with his hair and kiss him oh so softly on the lips. She smiles up at him and wonders whether she could kiss him now. No one would notice as there are loads of contestants on the stage. I’ll just steal a quick one, she thinks, and she pulls herself up as high as her five-foot frame allows and puckers up. She feels the warmth of Anton’s face coming towards her own.
‘Er, Grace,’ he whispers. ‘I think the camera’s on us. They just said we won.’
‘You what?’ she yelps, quickly opening her eyes and turning towards the presenter she’d forgotten all about.
The audience, who are becoming very fond of this funny, nervy, short person called Grace, laugh and cheer. Grace stands there with her mouth open until Anton takes hold of her hand and steers her towards centre stage. They now have to say a few words to the presenter and the nation.
‘How do you feel?’
‘Great,’ says Anton, and he turns to the crowd and the judges, smiles bashfully and says, ‘Thank you.’
‘And, Grace, how are you feeling?’
Grace still has her mouth open.
‘Um, a bit strange,’ she whispers.
And this time she’s not surprised when the audience laugh.
‘So are you ready to sing again?’
‘Do we have to sing again?’ she asks, shocked.
‘Yes.’
‘Oh,’ says Grace, seemingly baffled by the whole event. But then she smiles and whispers something to Anton, who nods and gives her a thumbs-up sign.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ Gracie asks. ‘Are we allowed to sing a different song?’
‘Er, well, I’m not sure, we’d need to have the music.’
‘We don’t need a backing track.’
‘Er, well then, I believe that’s fine.’
‘Excellent.’
‘So, what would you like to sing?’
‘“Feeling Good” by Nina Simone.’
Gracie looks up at Anton’s smiling face and thinks, Sod it. Then she stands on tiptoes and reaches up to kiss him softly on the lips.
Next they take their microphones and face the audience at the London Palladium. As they wait for the whoops to quieten down, Gracie has this one thought: Today is the best day of my life.
Acknowledgements
An especially huge and heartfelt thank you goes to my dad. One day, some time ago, I called him up and said, ‘Dad, I’ve got an idea for a story,’ and told him the bones of the Gracie Flower
s tale. At the end he was silent. Oh bugger, I thought, I’ve bored him to sleep. But then he sniffed and confessed to me that his eyes had welled up. Since that moment he’s constantly been there listening to me rabbit on about it, offering me advice and encouragement and reading rambling drafts. I am so grateful and I love you lots. Huge thanks to my mum too. I was a very lucky girl when they were giving out parents.
I realised whilst writing this book that the act of writing could be done anywhere as long as I had my laptop. I therefore owe huge thanks to people who let me cadge in on their holidays (Mum and Dad, Mexico; Gail and Mick, Spain), invite myself to their homes (Jane and Martial Zohoungbogbo, Ghana), gave me homemade flapjacks and whisky in their B & Bs (Charles and Barbara, Bamburgh), and most of all the man who continually whisked me away (Paul – Italy, Canada, California!).
I was also a very lucky girl when they were dishing out agents and publishers. A massive thank you to the amazing and gorgeous and lovely Rowan Lawton, and her estimable sidekick, Juliet. Also to Rachel Mills and Alexandra Cliff and all at PFD. And to my lovely, brilliant editor Rebecca Saunders. I have so loved working with you on this. And the dream team that is Sphere’s fiction department: Manpreet Grewal; Charlie ‘The’ King; Emma Williams; Shauna Bartlett.
* Replace with Chinese, kebab, pizza, Maccy D’s.
Table of Contents
Also by Lucy-Anne Holmes
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Acknowledgements
Unlike a Virgin Page 29
