Unsticky

by Sarah Manning

  ‘I still have the BlackBerry,’ Grace added, after some serious tutting from Madeleine because she couldn’t remember the name of the mansion block. ‘What shall I do with it?’

  ‘Oh, you can keep it.’

  ‘I can?’ Grace asked hopefully because Vaughn was the only person who called her on the BlackBerry and maybe he couldn’t bear to sever all ties . . .

  ‘Well, the calling plan runs out in September and then you can either take it over yourself or throw it away. It’s your choice.’ Grace had forgotten how frosty and officious Madeleine could be, but it was all coming back to her now. It made sense that she’d be on Vaughn’s side.

  ‘Well, if you’re sure that’s OK,’ Grace started to say, but Madeleine had already hung up.

  Madeleine might not be so friendly any more but she was still a stickler for efficiency. When Grace got back from work the next evening she had to climb over a mountain of packing crates to get from the lift to her front door. As an added bonus, she got a dressing down from the night porter, who seemed to hate her as much as his daytime colleague did. ‘Please be considerate of the other residents, Miss Reeves,’ he hissed, as Grace was dragging the last of the crates through the door and making a hell of a racket about it. It wouldn’t have killed him to help, but he just adjusted his stupid peaked cap and went off muttering.

  As Grace started going through the crates, she found that she couldn’t bear to look at most of the contents. There was the expensive shit she’d bought on her shopping binges and there was the expensive shit that Vaughn’s money had paid for, and she didn’t want either kinds of expensive shit in her life. Too many memories, both bad and good, and the good ones hurt the most.

  EBaying would have taken too long and required too much effort, so Grace arranged for a buyer from a second-hand designer boutique to come round later in the week. It was an edifying experience, to watch Barb rifle through her belongings. ‘You’ve got a good eye,’ she told Grace, who was only slightly flattered, as Barb had the leathery look that came from years of sunbed abuse and was wearing a tight pair of white jeans that wouldn’t have worked on a woman even half her age. ‘Pity you didn’t go for the Versaces and the Guccis, I can’t get rid of them fast enough. Anything you want to keep?’

  Grace gave her ill-gotten gains a cursory onceover. ‘Just this,’ she said, unearthing the tomato-red Marc Jacobs Hobo from the bottom of the pile. It was heavier than she expected and when she opened it, she found three jewellery boxes inside. She handed the two smaller ones over - somehow she didn’t think Barb would be interested in Claire’s Accessories’ tiaras and she couldn’t bear to be parted from it. ‘These are from Tiffany’s,’ she said. ‘You can take them too.’

  ‘Either you owe big on the credit cards or it was a bad break-up,’ Barb said knowingly, holding the aquamarine, pearl and diamond necklace up to the light. ‘You got a hallmark certificate for this? Oh, it’s in the box. So, which was it?’

  ‘Break-up,’ Grace said shortly, swallowing hard. ‘And credit-card debt. It’s complicated.’

  A smile passed fleetingly across Barb’s deeply tanned face. ‘Best not to have any reminders lying about then,’ she said, looking like it was sheer torture to stop herself from rubbing her manicured hands together in glee. ‘I’ll give you a couple of minutes to change your mind. No other mementoes you want to keep?’

  Grace shook her head. ‘No, I want you to take it all.’

  So Barb took everything, except the Fendi shearling boots, which had tidemarks, and a couple of dresses by designers that she didn’t know. Grace was happy to see it all hefted out of the door by Barb’s husband and her two hulking teenage sons. In return, she got a cheque for an amount that was barely twenty per cent of what the items had originally cost. It still added up to a hell of a lot of money.

  Then she hurried out to get some food so she could feed her grandparents lunch the next day.

  chapter forty-two

  ‘Well, it’s hardly a surprise,’ her grandmother said. Grace was amazed that she’d been able to restrain herself for that long. After all, they’d arrived a full hour ago with three deckchairs, an airbed and a card-table, which her grandmother had bullied the porter into ferrying in from the car. Talking about little Coco, who’d finally arrived in the world three days ago, and two weeks late, had only taken half an hour. Most of that thirty minutes had been spent with her grandmother voicing her disapproval at Lily and Dan for naming their daughter after Lily’s favourite perfume. ‘You’ve had a lucky escape,’ she concluded.

  How is it a lucky escape when I feel so fucking miserable that I want to crawl into bed and stay there for ever, Grace wanted to ask, but she just speared a pea with her fork and said, ‘Yeah, I suppose.’

  ‘But really, dear, was that any reason to dye your hair that awful colour again? It’s very draining.’

  Grace fingered the ends of her back-to-black hair. It was part of her new economy drive, because once-a-month hair appointments to have her highlights retouched were a thing of the past. And it was also an attempt to make her outside match her mood, which was darker than a coal mine in a black-out. ‘I just fancied a change,’ she muttered. ‘You’re always telling me change is good.’

  ‘This is a lovely place though, dear,’ her grandmother remarked. ‘You don’t see dado rails much these days.’

  This warranted her grandfather putting down his knife and fork so he could give Grace a disapproving look through his bifocals. ‘Why did no one tell me you were living with this fellow?’

  ‘I was thinking of maybe buying somewhere,’ Grace said quickly, because the cheque from Barb was just about enough to put down a deposit on a flat in the scrag-end of London’s outer boroughs if she never bought another item of clothing ever again. ‘Can you explain the whole mortgage thing, Grandy?’

  As diversions went, this was a winner. Her grandfather almost bounced on his seat in anticipation. ‘Were you thinking of a fixed rate or a tracker?’ he asked eagerly.

  ‘Huh? Just a normal mortgage where I pay lots of money every month and in twenty-five years I finally get to own my own place.’

  Her grandfather patted her hand. ‘I’ll explain it and then you’ll understand.’

  Her grandmother beamed at her because Grace was out of the clutches of the sinister older man and had miraculously saved enough money to take her first faltering steps on the property ladder. Deep down, she must have known that rich, forty-something boyfriends came with their own rewards, but she’d obviously decided not to dwell on that detail.

  She sat on a deckchair and nodded approvingly as Grace and her grandfather discussed mortgages. Actually, there was very little discussion because Grace couldn’t get her head round base rates and interest-only repayment schemes. Her grandfather started drawing graphs and pie-charts, while Grace listened with one ear. Or maybe just half of one ear. Being fiscally responsible was deathly boring, she thought, as her grandmother got up to put on the kettle and said, ‘I made some cheese scones last night. I thought they might cheer you up.’

  Her grandfather was now rattling on about interest rates and Grace slipped her arm through his so she could give him a quick kiss on the cheek. ‘I love you so much, Grandy. You’re always there for me. Both of you,’ she added, as her grandmother returned with the tea tray.

  ‘We love you too,’ her grandmother said fondly. Then: ‘Of course, we’re not going to be around for ever.’

  ‘Oh, don’t even go there, Gran,’ Grace scoffed. ‘You’ve got years ahead of you.’

  ‘Well, you say that, but one of Grandy’s golfing chums - you remember Stan? - went into hospital for a minor procedure on an ingrown toenail, caught one of those superbugs and was dead within a week!’

  ‘Yeah, but that doesn’t mean that—’

  ‘And Jean from two doors down, she’s been diagnosed with cancer of the colon, and Barney from the pensioners’ group is booked in for a triple bypass.’ Her grandmother unconcernedly took a sip of tea.
‘I expect to go to bed one evening and not wake up the next day.’

  ‘When you get to our age, your social activities revolve around hospital appointments and friends’ funerals,’ her grandfather chimed in.

  ‘Can we not talk about this?’ Grace implored, but it was too late. Her grandfather was already pulling a file out of a Waitrose carrier bag. ‘We were glad you called because we wanted to go through this with you,’ he said, handing a stack of papers to Grace.

  She stared at the top sheet in horror. It was a bullet-pointed action plan in the event that her grandparents died within a week of each other. And then they were off with talk about life insurance policies and solicitors and who was getting what.

  They’d always been there with unconditional love, unheeded advice and a stoic disposition as Grace managed to disappoint their expectations at every stage of her emotional development. And now, according to them, they could be dead before Christmas.

  ‘I don’t even want to look at this. God, if anything happened to either of you, let alone both of you, I’d be devastated,’ Grace told them, because her heart was currently on the critical list but it wasn’t completely broken. ‘It would be the absolute worst thing in the world.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ her grandmother said stoutly. ‘Soon you’ll be married and have your own family.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s ever going to happen. You have to put up with me, but no one else does.’

  ‘Silly old pickle.’ Her grandfather pulled out even more papers. ‘Now, like we said, we don’t have favourites but you can have first choice of the Royal Doulton figurines. Just don’t tell your Aunt Alison. It will be our little secret.’

  ‘I don’t want the figurines!’ Which was true enough, though their collection of Clarice Cliff pieces was another matter. ‘Let’s drop this, please. I’ll read through the papers but I don’t want to talk about it. It’s horrible and morbid.’

  Her grandparents exchanged an amused glance. ‘There’s no need to get so emotional, Grace. Honestly, you can be so highly strung sometimes. You’re just like your mother.’

  There had been a lot of things said lately that Grace didn’t want to hear, but that took first prize. ‘I am nothing like her at all.’

  ‘She said the same thing when we talked about this on the phone,’ her grandmother said. ‘Practically word for word.’

  ‘Well, it’s not like she’s going to be all on her own,’ Grace pointed out venomously. ‘Anyway, she’s the one who does the leaving, not the other way round.’

  ‘You’re just being melodramatic now, Grace. Why don’t we get all this paper off the table and have a nice game of Scrabble? We packed the travel set just in case.’

  Her grandparents left at four to beat the traffic, though Grace wasn’t sure how many cars there were rushing off to Worthing from Kensington on a Saturday afternoon. Wandering back into the living room, whose period vibe was completely ruined by the deckchairs, she started clearing away the papers. The worst thing about living here wasn’t the lack of furniture, but the lack of people. It was hard being on her own again. Of all the things Grace missed, from making her come so hard that it took quarter of an hour for her breathing to get back to normal, to his huge house and chauffeur-driven black cars, mostly she just missed Vaughn. Missed all those quiet, unspectacular moments that, when added up, showed how entwined their lives had become. And right now, she missed being able to phone him, because it would be so easy to tap in the eleven digits that would put his voice on the line. ‘Grace, about bloody time,’ he’d say, and make it sound like an endearment.

  But she couldn’t call Vaughn, because she’d left him. Which was a novelty, until Grace remembered that he’d have left her eventually if she hadn’t done it first. She was never the one. She was never even the one before the one. She was the girl who seemed like a good idea at the time, but ultimately was just a phase that people went through.

  That was the way it had always been. Friends and lovers came and went because there was something about her which repelled them, and she didn’t have a clue what it was. It was a mystery that she couldn’t solve on her own, and there wasn’t a single person in the world who could help . . .

  Grace glanced down at the papers she was holding until a name leaped out at her, and even when she put the papers in a shoe-box and shoved it into a kitchen cupboard, the name remained stuck in her head, which was just great.

  She needed alcohol. If she was going to do what she feared she was about to do, then she needed a glass of wine, at least.

  A quick trip to Oddbins and half a bottle of Pinot Grigio later, Grace’s hand reached for the phone and she dialled the number that she had memorised, even though she’d never, ever called it.

  The line clicked and whirred, then rang with a hollow echo. It rang and rang, and just as Grace was about to admit defeat, someone picked up.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Caroline . . . Mum - it’s Grace.’

  There was the weird delay that happened when you were calling someone who was half a world away. Factor in a shocked silence and Grace wondered if the phone was still working.

  ‘Hi.’ Caroline sounded just a little freaked out. Then: ‘Mum and Dad are OK, aren’t they?’ she asked sharply.

  There was no other reason for Grace to call her. ‘They’re fine. Apart from being obsessed with dying and their funeral arrangements, though Grandy’s hip is playing up again.’

  ‘They’re not still on about all that, are they?’

  ‘Yeah. There’s an action plan and letters that have to be posted and, just so you know, they don’t want flowers, just donations to the local Red Cross,’ Grace said dryly. And that was that covered, and all she had left to ask her mother was, ‘So, how’s the weather?’

  Apparently it was starting to get really cold, with the odd thunderstorm, and Gary had taken Kirsty to her ballet class and Caroline was waiting in for someone to fix the washing machine because it was making this strange rattle when it went into spin cycle and . . .

  ‘Why did you leave?’ There was no easy way to broach it so Grace found herself simply spitting it out.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Why did you leave me? What did I do wrong?’ Grace croaked because her throat was suddenly dry as if all the moisture had been sucked out of her body.

  ‘You didn’t do anything wrong, Gracie. What’s the point of dragging this up after all this time?’

  ‘Because I have to know. I need to figure out why everyone gets sick of me and leaves, because then I can change and make it stop. And you were the first one to go so you must have seen something, like, rotten in me. What was it?’

  ‘It wasn’t you, it was me,’ Caroline said, which was too ironic for words. ‘You didn’t want to stay with me. The judge asked you, and you said you didn’t want to live with me.’

  ‘But I was eight! Who asks an eight year old something like that? And if you’d loved me, you wouldn’t have just given up and gone to Australia and left me behind.’

  ‘Grace, the judge asked you again and again. The social worker took you out of the court and you were gone ages and when you came back, all you would say is that you didn’t want to live with me or your father.’

  That wasn’t right. ‘No, it didn’t happen like that. She asked me one time.’

  ‘That’s exactly what happened. And that’s what happened when we went back a week later too. And every week for a whole month.’

  Grace could picture it so clearly. Rubbing her finger on the polished wooden table and leaving greasy smears. The portrait of the Queen behind the judge, and afterwards how her grandfather had bought her a lolly from the ice-cream van parked outside. ‘I don’t remember any of that,’ she snapped.

  ‘Well, I do because it was the worst fucking month of my life and it’s been etched in my memory ever since,’ Caroline snapped right back.

  ‘That can’t be right. She asked me and you looked at Dad and then you looked at me, really glared like
you hated me, and so I said it just the once and it felt like I’d said the worst swear word ever, and then you weren’t there and it was all my fault.’ Grace curled her legs under her and rested one hand against her burning cheek. ‘You could still have stayed though, couldn’t you?’

  Caroline’s voice, when she spoke, was thick with tears. ‘Grace, you don’t know how much I regret not staying and fighting for you. I think about you all the time; what would have happened if I’d just dragged you back home with me. I know things got really bad with the divorce but I thought we were happy together. Do you remember how, in the summer we’d spend all day on the beach and we’d collect shells together and you’d nag me to paint your toenails pink like mine?’

  ‘Every time I tried to think about you, I’d get so angry and all I could remember was you and Dad rowing all the time because you wouldn’t have got married if you hadn’t got pregnant. Neither of you really wanted me and that’s the story of my life. That I’m just not fucking good enough.’