The Truth About Gemma Grey: A feel-good, romantic comedy you won't be able to put down

by Sophie Ranald

  I heard a sort of thumping scrape, and as I watched, a dark figure appeared on the fence, then dropped down into the garden on our side. The police, at last? But I couldn’t see the neon flash of high-vis clothing, and surely a police officer would have knocked on the front door, not come sneaking over the fence like the burglar I’d imagined earlier. I could hear stealthy footsteps on the gravel, and I withdrew my head into the room, closed the window and waited, holding my breath.

  I could hear voices downstairs. Men’s voices. One of them was Richard’s; the other I couldn’t recognise, and they were both speaking too softly for me to make out any words. I listened intently, but it was no good – their conversation was no more than a rumble.

  Right, I decided. I was going to go downstairs. This was ridiculous – I was an adult, I had my phone with me, I already knew that Richard was unlikely to hurt me. It was just a question of opening the door, walking down the stairs, and telling him that the police had been called and Hannah wasn’t coming anywhere near the house until he was gone. I was being pathetic. I needed to confront my fears and get over them.

  I put my hand on the doorknob, then took it away again. Then I went and sat back down on the edge of the bath and stared at my phone some more.

  It sounds pathetic, I know. But I kept remembering Hannah’s face after Richard had attacked her – the shock, the naked fear, the livid marks on her neck. I remembered reading, just yesterday, how dangerous strangulation is – how you can kill someone in seconds with your hands around your neck if you know exactly where to apply pressure, or even, accidentally, if you don’t. I remembered the faces of the women I’d met that morning. I didn’t want what had happened to them to happen to me. So I stayed in the bathroom like a big chicken.

  A few minutes later, I heard a car beep its horn outside, and the unmistakeable sound of the front door opening and slamming shut, and then footsteps on the stairs and a voice calling, “Gemma? Are you there? Are you okay?”

  I opened the door and stepped out, hoping that my trembling knees would keep me upright.

  Raffy was on the landing.

  “I came as soon as I got your text,” he said.

  I said, “Oh my God. How did you know? I mean, how did you even...”

  “You were pretty cryptic, I have to say.” He took his phone out of his pocket and read aloud the words that, over the past two hours, I’d totally committed to memory. “Hey – sorry I haven’t been in touch. I really wanted to. My dodgy landlord turned up at my house and I’m hiding in the bathroom. If I ever get out, shall we go for a drink?”

  I blushed. “Well, I didn’t want to sound... you know.”

  “Gemma, you needed help. You could have just asked me to help you.”

  “But you did anyway,” I said. “You came. How did you know what was going on?”

  “I worked in the Daily Grind, remember? That place is a hotbed of local gossip. It’s the Queen Vic of the hipster world. Someone told Luke what happened to your – to Hannah, and he mentioned it to me. So I knew what I was up against.”

  “What did you do? To Richard, I mean?”

  “Oh, I bludgeoned him to death with an Ikea hammer,” Raffy said. “I was hoping you might help me dispose of the body.”

  I gasped, and then laughed. “No, come on. Seriously.”

  “I just talked reasonably to him,” Raffy said. “And now he’s gone off quietly in an Uber to hand himself in at the police station – on my account, so I can make sure he gets there safely.”

  “You just talked reasonably to him?” I echoed disbelievingly.

  “Well, mostly reasonably. I may have told him that I’d be watching him, and if he ever turns up here and frightens you again I’ll hurt him so badly he’ll wish he’d never been born.”

  “You what? You wouldn’t.”

  “Well, no,” he said. “But that’s not the point, is it? The point is he believed I would. People like that – they understand violence, and threats. It’s how they work. He’s had lots of practice at intimidation, so it worked against him. Anyone else would probably have laughed at me.”

  I looked up at him. He was wearing black: black jeans and the same leather jacket I’d dropped in a puddle on Halloween night, black boots, a black and grey scarf over a charcoal coloured shirt. I noticed for the first time how broad his shoulders were. If he threatened me, I wouldn’t laugh, I thought. The idea made me shiver.

  “Gemma,” Raffy said. “I studied drama in my first year of uni. I wanted to be an actor, but then I realised how shit I was, and changed my course to film-making. One of the shows I was in was this spoof gangster thing. All the lines I used on that bloke just now were from there. This isn’t me, at all. I promise. I’ve never hit anyone and I never will.”

  “You’re not some international man of mystery?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Not a leading figure in the Hackney underworld?”

  He shook his head. “I’m just the guy from the coffee shop, remember?”

  “Okay,” I said. “Just the guy from the coffee shop.”

  Raffy took a step closer towards me, and I stepped closer to him. Then we were so close we couldn’t step any further, and he put his arms around me and held me close. I was still trembling – I’m sure he could feel it. I reached under his jacket and put my hands on his warm, strong back.

  “Now,” he said. “What we need to do is get an emergency glazier out to fix that window, otherwise you’ll all freeze. And once that’s done, how about that drink you promised?”

  “Trust me,” Kian said. “It’s the only way forward for mac and cheese. A splash of beer in the sauce. My mate’s a chef and he gave me his recipe.”

  He was standing over the cooker, wearing Hannah’s apron with the pink roses all over it, stirring intently. Amy and Hannah were at the table drinking tea. The emergency glass guy had just left and the room was starting to warm up again, and smelled deliciously of cheese and whatever spices Kian had put in the sauce. The hunger I’d almost forgotten about came flooding back.

  “Twenty minutes in the oven and we’ll be good to go,” Kian said.

  “Nice work, Jamie Oliver,” said Amy. “Are you guys going to eat with us?”

  “I should really…” Raffy said. “Unless Gemma…?”

  For the first time since I’d met him, he sounded uncertain.

  I said, “I promised to buy you a drink, didn’t I?”

  We put our coats on. Hannah hugged me and hugged Raffy, and kept thanking us, no matter how many times we told her not to worry, it was all part of the service. And at last, the door closed behind us and we were alone together in the cold, drizzly night.

  “So, where to?” Raffy said.

  I thought about all the places I’d been with Charlie – the clubs and cocktail bars and speakeasies. I could try to impress him with my encyclopaedic knowledge of London nightlife, but I sensed he wouldn’t be impressed – that he’d know, just as I’d known on all those nights out with the Berry Boys, that those kind of places weren’t my kind of places.

  I said, “You remember, that night you and Luke were going to the pub and you asked me to join you?”

  “And you turned me down,” Raffy said. I felt a little thrill of pleasure that he remembered.

  “I was going to come,” I said. “I was literally just leaving, and then...”

  “Excuses, excuses,” Raffy said. “Right. The Prince George it is.”

  I found my umbrella in my bag and we sheltered together under its inadequate cover, our shoulders touching. After a few steps, Raffy took my hand. His fingers were warm and dry and felt entirely right twined around my own, and when I looked up at his face, half-smiling in the darkness, that looked right too. I felt the strangest sensation – like something clicking into place inside of me. We walked like that, close together, all the way to the pub, and once we were sat together on opposite sides of a shiny wooden table, he reached across to me and our hands found each other again.
>
  We didn’t talk about Hannah and Richard that night. We drank red wine and ate pulled pork burgers that were served on proper plates and chips that didn’t come in a little wire deep-frying basket, and I told Raffy about Tom’s obsession with serving implements. He laughed and said that the message had clearly been heard and understood, because everywhere was going back to plates now, and maybe for Tom’s next trick he should expose the evils of kimchi.

  He told me about the film he was working on, about refugee children in Dunkirk, and what he’d seen volunteering at the Jungle in Calais the year before. The way he described it was so vivid I could almost imagine I was there, surrounded by mud and smoke and despair and hope.

  I told him about the gingerbread house Sloane had suggested I build for one of my Vlogmas videos, and how I was sure I’d mess it up, and he listened as if it was every bit as important, and said he’d tried to build one with his sister and Zara, and they’d messed it up totally, but that was surely the whole point of gingerbread houses.

  We talked and laughed, and held hands again once we’d finished our food, and that feeling, that sense of things falling into place, didn’t go away. We were so engrossed in each other that we didn’t hear the landlord call last orders, and it was only when the lights were turned up bright that we realised it was midnight, and closing time.

  “Come on,” Raffy said. “I’ll walk you home.”

  I remembered the last time he’d done that, after Jack had dumped me, and how embarrassed I’d been about getting drunk and trying to kiss him. I wondered if he remembered too. He didn’t mention it, and nor did I – we walked back home in silence. The rain had stopped and I didn’t need my umbrella, but we stayed just as close together as we had on the way.

  At the corner of our road, we both paused. Raffy said, “Gemma?”

  I thought, He’s going to ask if I’m okay to walk the rest of the way on my own. And I am, of course. But I wanted him to kiss me – at least, I wanted him to want to kiss me, so I’d have the chance to say no, that it was too soon, even though it didn’t feel too soon at all.

  I said, “Thanks for a lovely evening. I really enjoyed it.”

  But then he said my name again, “Gemma,” and when I turned towards him, he put his arms around me and kissed me. I wondered briefly if I had pulled pork caught in my teeth, and then, a second later, stopped thinking about that, because it was the most amazing kiss ever.

  “I’ve been wanting to do that for so long,” he said, when at last we came up for air.

  “Me, too,” I said, realising how true it was. “But not as much as I want to do it lots, lots more.”

  We walked rest of the way home – a short distance, but it took a long time, because we kept stopping to kiss each other again. And then when we got to our front door, I said I’d walk Raffy back up to the corner, and we kissed some more, then repeated the process outside my house, and by this stage we were both starting to giggle and I was worried we’d wake Hannah and Amy, so we stopped and reluctantly parted.

  The house was in darkness. I wondered if Hannah was asleep, or anxiously listening for a key in the door and feet on the stairs. I hoped Kian had stayed over – with him and Amy there, she would surely feel as safe as she possibly could. And I felt safe, too – safe and cherished, but excited too, with the sense of something new and wonderful beginning and the memory of Raffy’s kisses and his arms around me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Hi everyone.

  So, it’s Wednesday now – in fact, it’s really really early on Wednesday morning – if you listen carefully you might hear the blackbirds that live in the tree outside my window – they go absolutely mental in the mornings and sometimes it wakes me up. It didn’t this morning, though, because I was already awake. I was lying in bed for ages thinking about this video, and what I wanted to say to you all. It’s a bit off the cuff, really, and I’m afraid there are no cool products or anything to show you, but I think it’s important anyway – maybe the most important thing I’ve ever posted.

  “So the charity we’ve been working with – they’re called ADIVA, which stands for Against Domestic Violence and Abuse, which is a bit of a contorted acronym, I know – work with women throughout London and the South East. They’ve got a series of safe-houses where victims – survivors, they call them – can go to escape violent relationships. And it’s not just about getting away from the person who’s a danger to them – these women need huge support rebuilding their lives, accessing benefits, getting their children settled into new schools and so on.

  “Often they’ve been prevented from accessing household money, so they’ve been made completely dependent on their abuser. That’s one of the big things that prevents people from leaving – that and the threat of violence itself, of course. And after they’ve left, the danger doesn’t stop, which is why many of them have to move to completely new areas, erase themselves completely from social media, things like that.

  “As you can imagine, it’s an expensive operation to run, and services in this area, like everywhere else, are being massively cut. So everything we as an organisation can do to help support them will also help save women’s lives.”

  I looked around at the rapt faces. I was addressing not just the content team, but Clickfrenzy’s monthly company meeting. Everyone had scooted their chairs up to one end of the office, and Sarah had asked Hermione and me to provide an update on how our story and campaign were developing. I was really nervous about it until I got started. It was strange how, when I was making a video, I could talk quite naturally and easily, even though I knew that far, far more people would watch me – but here, faced with a real-life audience, even though they were my colleagues who I saw every day, I still felt so self-conscious.

  And of course, even though I talked them through as much as I could of what I’d learned over the past two weeks, and what I’d seen at the house in Acton, there were other things I wasn’t able to talk about. Like how I’d locked myself in the bathroom for two hours waiting for Richard to leave the house, and how Raffy had come to my rescue. And how, the next night, Raffy had invited me round to his place. He hadn’t said the words “Netflix and chill”, but we both knew exactly what was going to happen. And when it happened, it was properly, unforgettably amazing – as amazing as kissing him had been, times a lot.

  I felt myself blushing at the memory, and said, “But that’s enough waffling from me. This morning we received the edited cut of the video, so let’s hear Ann, Siobhan and Martine tell their own stories.”

  “Sandra at ADIVA has been incredibly helpful,” Hermione said five minutes later, filling the silence the women’s voices had left. “She’s provided loads of facts and statistics, so we’ll be able to put together infographics and animations to accompany the video and Gemma’s article. And we all know how you guys in the art department love an infographic. The fundraising campaign is already going extremely well. Our readers have donated more than twenty thousand pounds so far, and that’s only going to increase once this content goes live. We’ll be linking to Gemma’s vlog, too, and she’ll link to us, so it’s a great example of cross-pollination of content.”

  “Advertising sales are up, too,” Sarah said. “Which isn’t surprising, because our click rates have increased massively. We’re leaving Boredcubed in the dust where they belong.”

  “And the bake-off made a couple of hundred,” Tom said. “Emily’s salted caramel brownies just pipped my lemon drizzle to the post. We meant to keep a slice for you, Gemma, but someone nabbed it from the fridge.”

  “I can’t think who,” Ruby said, and Tom went absolutely scarlet.

  “We’re all very proud of Gemma, Hermoine, Jim and the rest of the content team, as well as everyone else who’s helped out on this campaign and, of course, all those who’ve kept our usual streams of business ticking over and growing,” Sarah said. “Marina and Ian have had two great new business wins, we’ve got four new starters coming on board next month, and
of course the events team have been hard at work organising the Christmas party – there’ll be more details about that up on the intranet as soon as they’re available. Any other business? No? Then let’s all get back to work.”

  Dozens of chairs rolled back across the office to their desks. People picked up their phones and started tapping away of their keyboards. Callista did a tea run. Harrison asked me to look at his ‘Have You Tipped Over The Edge Into Total Cat Craziness?’ quiz before he sent it to Jim for approval. Sloane emailed me about a meeting with Elle magazine, and I put off answering until lunchtime.

  It felt just like a normal day at work – and yet it didn’t. Everything was different. It wasn’t just Raffy, the sense of shivery anticipation mixed with soaring happiness I felt whenever I thought about him, or googled his name just to make sure that he was real. There was something else too, a new sense of purpose alongside the thrill of being – I was almost completely sure – in love.

  My vlog wasn’t going to change. I didn’t want to change it, and Sloane would be seriously pissed off if I did. I love make-up and fashion just as much as the next girl – probably more, if the amount of stuff cluttering up my dressing table and bathroom cabinet is anything to go by. But I realised that I could talk to the audience I’d built up about other things, too – things that mattered even more to me and to them than the launch of the new Kat Von D palette, if such a thing were possible. My head was full of ideas, and I couldn’t wait to get home, switch on my camera, and start recording. And at Clickfrenzy, too, now that the cats were in the past, I could work on new projects, learn new skills, become a proper journalist. The day – the whole world – felt replete with possibility.

  I was startled out of my thoughts by an unfamiliar trilling sound. It took me a second to realise what it was – my desk phone. No one had ever called me on my landline at Clickfrenzy before. I picked up the handset and said, “Hi, Clickfrenzy content team, Gemma speaking. Oh, hi, Sandra.”