Unsticky

by Sarra Manning

  By the time Vaughn had sorted out the bar bill, Grace had found a seat, a bottle of beer and some scenesters she’d used to hang around with in her student days when she’d been doing the club kid thing. She looked up to see Vaughn standing there at the edge of the crowd looking completely out of his depth. He shouldn’t have worn a suit, Grace thought. It made him stand out like a fake Chanel bag in a front row.

  Grace smiled encouragingly but he still hung back so she was forced to half-rise off the bench. ‘Vaughn! This is my friend, Laetitia.’ Laetitia was in grabbing distance and not too controversial. ‘We used to work on a market-stall together.’

  Vaughn looked absolutely appalled, but his attention was riveted, so Grace could tug him nearer before he could protest.

  ‘What did you sell?’ he asked. ‘Fruit and vegetables?’

  ‘Vintage clothing,’ Laetitia supplied, scooching along so Vaughn could sit down. She looked him up and down then smiled knowingly at Grace in her impossibly foxy, impossibly French way which always made Grace think of illicit trysts in dark corners of Parisian bars with Serge Gainsbourg leaking out of the speakers. ‘For this woman who was a horrible, horrible bitch. We used to take turns to spit in her tea.’

  ‘Oh, Grace.’ Vaughn’s shoulders shook. ‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’

  ‘She used to accuse us of chatting up boys when we were meant to be working,’ Grace explained, which actually had been a fair point. ‘And she said I was stealing her stock, which I would never have done because it was all disgusting eighties’ stuff that wasn’t even a little bit vintage.’

  ‘And what do you do now?’ Vaughn asked Laetitia, crossing his legs and almost looking relaxed.

  Grace sat back with a little sigh of relief as Laetitia and Vaughn began to talk about her art therapy course and funding for non-profit organisations, keeping one ear cocked in case the talk veered towards ex-boyfriends. Gradually Vaughn was pulled into the general conversation. He was a little stiff for the company Grace was keeping, and although she was used to his precise, slightly fussy way with words, it was odd to hear him talk to people who’d made it their life’s work to drop their aitches.

  He lasted a good half-hour before his foot started knocking against Grace’s shin every few seconds. ‘Do you want to mingle?’ she whispered in his ear.

  ‘Yes, please.’ He was on his feet in an instant, as Grace retrieved her bag and coat and promised that she’d ring Laetitia and, ‘Yeah, straight up, Lily’s married and pregnant.’

  The crowd was beginning to thin out as the alcohol dried up, making it easier to look at the pictures. Which was a pity. Vaughn gestured at the largest canvas, which was a mess of smeared crimson and reminded Grace of a used sanitary napkin. ‘What do you think of Noah’s work?’

  Usually Grace didn’t voice a strong opinion on art because usually she didn’t have one, but the reaction Noah’s paintings provoked in her was too extreme not to pass judgement. ‘They’re revolting! I don’t even want to look at them!’ she exclaimed, pulling a face in case Vaughn needed a visual too. ‘They’re obscene and totally misogynistic. Honestly, if you stick one up at home I’m moving out.’

  She’d said ‘home’, which generally she tried not to do, but if Vaughn was bothered by the idea that Grace was getting too comfortable he didn’t let it show. ‘Misogyny always sells very well. Though Noah says they’re not for sale.’

  Grace sniffed. ‘He’s only saying that because he knows that no one in their right minds would want to buy one.’

  ‘The pieces he did for his degree show were more nuanced than this - delicate pen and ink sketches on a very large scale,’ Vaughn said thoughtfully. ‘I’m not sure if he’s simply being provocative or whether this is the direction he’s moving in.’

  ‘Well, why don’t you just visit him in his studio?’ Grace was already bored with talking about Noah. Lola had been bending her ear for the last half-hour about how she suspected Noah of screwing someone else. If they had a communist relationship then it seemed to be news to Lola, and Grace had longed to give her a heads up.

  ‘Because he’s made it very clear that I wouldn’t be welcome. He really doesn’t like me very much.’

  ‘I wouldn’t lose any sleep over that,’ Grace said scathingly, and she knew that Vaughn liked to bitch, did he ever, but she wondered how he felt about gossip. ‘Apparently he’s been seeing someone behind Lola’s back.’

  ‘Really?’ Obviously Vaughn was down with gossip too.

  Grace scouted the room. ‘That girl over there in the pink dress at your nine o’clock. Don’t look!’ She punched Vaughn’s arm before he could turn round. ‘She’s cute. Think she’s about sixteen though.’ Grace was starting to realise that once a guy hit twenty-five, he always went at least five years younger.

  ‘Stay there and don’t move.’ Vaughn casually strolled to the next canvas then pretended to look around in astonishment when he realised that Grace wasn’t glued to his side. He gave the girl in the pink dress a cursory up and down, made an unimpressed face and beckoned Grace over. ‘At least this one can actually smile,’ he remarked, putting his arm around her waist.

  She hated looking at pictures with Vaughn. He’d stare at them for ages, whereas all Grace needed was two seconds to tell whether something sucked or didn’t. She suspected that Vaughn was faking being engrossed but let herself lean against him as she had only about an hour of standing time left in her heels before she lost all sensation in her toes. She counted, ‘One elephant, two elephant,’ in her head until Vaughn touched her arm.

  ‘This really isn’t my scene. I feel very old,’ he said, helping Grace into her coat.

  ‘You’re not old,’ she protested, because she didn’t think of him like that any more. He was older, but that wasn’t the same thing. ‘Age ain’t nothing but a number and all that.’

  ‘I suspect that inviting Noah to intimate little dinner-parties with influential buyers and curators isn’t going to win him over.’

  ‘Do you really think he’s worth all this trouble?’

  ‘Yes,’ Vaughn said simply as he slowly did up the buttons on Grace’s coat. ‘He might well be a very important artist who’ll reframe the British art scene. You don’t?’

  Grace shrugged. ‘I can predict hemline lengths from season to season to the nearest centimetre, but this art stuff doesn’t make sense. I like pictures that look like what they’re meant to be.’

  ‘Philistine,’ Vaughn sniped, gently cuffing Grace’s chin. ‘So what do I do to bring Noah on side?’

  ‘I should have said something before, but I wasn’t sure how you’d take it,’ Grace said hesitantly. Vaughn digested that with a wry dip of his head and gestured at her to continue. If he’d been this genial from the start, she thought, it would have simpled things up so much. ‘Maybe you could have a party that’s more Brick Lane than Belgravia, with a younger crowd - if one of the newer galleries was putting on a show, you could sponsor it and a ton of Noah-type people would turn up for free booze. Like, young fashion designers and I know loads of photographers and models.’ Grace paused to ponder the scope of her social connections. ‘And you can’t serve poncy little canapés. Before I met you, I used to go to parties because I was broke and dinner was the finger buffet, so don’t offer anything that’s gone in one bite. But I don’t think anyone will buy any art.’

  ‘There’s an interesting little gallery in Whitechapel I was thinking of investing in that would be perfect . . .’ Vaughn began to slowly but definitely move them in the direction of the big swing doors. ‘Maybe I should start creating a Zeitgeist instead of trying to second-guess where the next one will be.’

  Grace eyed him warily. ‘I’m talking about a low-key party, not a whole new art movement.’

  ‘Just thinking out loud.’ Vaughn visibly flinched as Noah called his name, but when he turned around he was smiling and his arm was back around Grace’s waist, though she’d managed to get as far as the door without using him as a crutch. ‘We’
re just leaving, Noah.’

  Noah jiggled from foot to foot. ‘Yeah, we have to clear out too, this place doesn’t have a late licence.’ Much as he liked to think that he was a sharp operator, he simply looked shifty, like a small boy caught with cake crumbs around his mouth, and Grace could feel Vaughn stiffen as he waited to hear what Noah really wanted. ‘So, what are you two up to?’

  ‘We’re going to try and find a black cab with its light on,’ Vaughn said blandly.

  ‘So, I was wondering if you were a member of Shoreditch House? We could move on there. I’d really like to ask you about showing in New York and Lola wants to talk to Grace about something.’ He gestured over his shoulder at a little group of people who were anxiously watching the proceedings. ‘You could sign eight people in, right?’

  Vaughn’s plans to create a Zeitgeist weren’t meant to start tonight. He’d already told Grace that he had to make a 6 a.m. call to Tokyo the next morning, but she could tell he was wavering by the way he nibbled on his bottom lip.

  ‘Sorry, but we have to go now,’ Grace said crisply, opening the door. ‘I’m shooting really early tomorrow morning and I don’t want to do it with a hangover.’

  ‘Yeah, but Vaughn, you could put Gracie in a cab and come on your own?’

  ‘Maybe some other time we could go there for lunch,’ Vaughn said mildly, as if he wasn’t the least bit annoyed at Grace ruining a perfect opportunity for him to cultivate Noah by sponsoring yet another bar tab. ‘Your studio’s just round the corner, isn’t it?’

  ‘You don’t miss a fucking trick!’ Noah wagged his finger in Vaughn’s face. Vaughn really had to rate Noah’s gynaecological daubings to suffer being baited with absolutely no finesse, Grace decided. ‘Never let the whiff of big business sully my studio space, mate.’

  It was just as well that Noah was so good looking otherwise his obnoxiousness would be unbearable, Grace thought as she followed Vaughn out of the door.

  ‘Why on earth did you do that?’ Vaughn demanded before they could even start to look for a cab. ‘I had no choice but to agree with you.’

  ‘He just wanted you there to buy the drinks,’ Grace snapped. ‘Then he’d impress his friends with a few more cracks about how dealers are destroying the art world.’

  ‘You don’t know anything about how this works, Grace.’

  There was something coming down the road with a light on. Grace stepped off the kerb and flapped her arms wildly. ‘I know about boys like Noah. I’ve dated enough of them, and the minute you act like you’re interested, they treat you like shit.’

  ‘You’re trying to hail a road-sweeper, Grace, and it’s about to mow you down.’ Vaughn held out his hand. Once she was safely back on the pavement, he didn’t let go. ‘Where are your gloves?’

  ‘I think I left them at work. We should walk up to the main road.’

  They began to walk, Vaughn adjusting his long-limbed stride to match Grace’s slower pace. ‘So, going with your boy analogy, how should I woo Noah?’

  ‘You’re asking me? He can’t be the first angry young artist who’s refused to succumb to your charms.’

  ‘Well, he is, which should have some novelty value but it’s actually rather annoying. He doesn’t even have an agent.’

  ‘Maybe he’s only in it for the art,’ Grace suggested doubtfully. ‘Or else he has a massive unearned income.’

  ‘His family do actually own a huge estate in Devon - can probably trace their lineage back to William the Conqueror.’

  ‘Typical,’ Grace said sourly. ‘I knew that he was just faking that Cockney accent. But if I were interested in Noah in that way, I’d flirt with his mates and give him some serious cold shoulder. That sometimes works.’

  Vaughn made a non-committal noise, though Grace knew that first thing tomorrow morning he’d get someone to sniff around Noah’s circle to see if they had any discernible talent and didn’t object to being patronised by the Establishment.

  ‘There’s a cab going the other way!’ Grace let go of Vaughn’s hand so she could jump up and down, until the cab driver saw her and did a sharp U-turn.

  Grace sighed gratefully when they were finally on their way back to North London. She shut her eyes, safe in the knowledge Vaughn would give directions to the driver and not rib her for drooling.

  ‘You’re not interested in Noah though, are you? Objectively speaking?’

  Grace’s eyes snapped open. ‘No! Not objectively. Or subjectively. I’m so over that whole East London scene.’

  ‘He thinks you’re very attractive; he makes a point of mentioning it every time I see him,’ Vaughn said, with an edge to his voice. ‘And I was sure I interrupted something the night of my party. On the roof.’

  ‘It was nothing.’ Grace nudged Vaughn with her elbow because yes, she had a lot of personality defects but stringing Vaughn along while lusting after Noah wasn’t one of them. ‘He was drunk. Lola wasn’t there. He made a half-hearted pass at me for the sake of it and I politely declined. That was it.’

  It wasn’t it. ‘He reminds me slightly of that boy I saw you with in Liberty’s the day we met. I just wondered if that was your usual type?’

  ‘Liam? They look nothing like each other!’ Grace frowned. Liam was a standard issue, snake-hipped, messy-haired indie boy who looked like all the other boys in bands who littered the pubs of Camden. Noah was an art boy and they had a whole different vibe. Grace pictured both of them in her head and was forced to admit to herself that maybe both Liam and Noah had the same cocksure swagger and arrogant charm that fooled a girl into thinking they were special. There was a time when Grace had always fallen for those boys with their careless smiles and studied disinterest and God, had they made her work for it.

  She looked at Vaughn’s clean profile and wondered when she’d stopped thinking of him as only handsome in a certain light. ‘Maybe my type’s changed.’

  That was definitely a loaded statement and not one Grace was prepared to elaborate on, but Vaughn just patted her knee. ‘If you promise not to dribble, I’ll let you doze on my shoulder,’ he offered magnanimously.

  chapter twenty-eight

  Vaughn had taken to calling Grace mid-afternoon if they weren’t going out that evening. It wasn’t a ‘Hi, I was just thinking about you’ call that couples in proper relationships made several times a day - but so they could discuss what Grace was making for dinner. The once-a-week home-made meal now happened every evening that they stayed in, and it was vital that Vaughn knew what was on the menu so he could call Gustav, his trainer, who’d adjust the next morning’s workout accordingly. Then they’d decide on the evening’s entertainment. The Ealing Films boxed set was finished and Grace was resisting all Vaughn’s entreaties for a Wim Wenders retrospective.

  ‘We don’t have to watch a DVD,’ Vaughn opined on the BlackBerry as Grace rooted through a box of costume jewellery at work. ‘If you made it worth my while then I suppose I could see Wings of Desire on one of the nights you’re doing something fashion-related. You still haven’t modelled the last present I bought you from Agent Provocateur.’

  ‘I’m not having that kind of conversation in the fashion cupboard,’ Grace informed him primly. ‘So, as I was saying, tonight I’m going to make a lasagne with wholewheat pasta, though it might just be salad if you insist on making me watch some boring black and white German film with subtitles.’

  ‘There’s nothing that would change your mind? I could go down on you because you seem to like that . . .’

  There was a noise at the door and Grace turned her head to see Lily standing there.

  ‘. . . and you make this adorable breathy noise . . .’

  ‘I have to go now,’ Grace said in her most efficient phone voice, as if Vaughn was some snooty PR giving her grief about the fashion credits.

  ‘Why don’t we take a raincheck and revisit the topic this evening, with a practical demonstration?’

  ‘Whatever. Send the car for six thirty; I’ll pop to Tesco Metro first.’
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  Lily was still standing there with a martyred look. ‘You’re wanted in Kiki’s office,’ she said, with a put-upon air because pregnant women shouldn’t have to deliver messages when there were non-pregnant interns about.

  ‘OK,’ Grace said equably. She hadn’t made her daily attempt to mend the rift so now seemed as good a time as any. ‘You look really glowy. Everything all right with the—’

  ‘Was that him?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Grace searched desperately for something else to say on the subject that wasn’t too controversial. ‘Just for a chat about what I’m cooking for dinner. You remember that Jamie Oliver lasagne that I customised with . . .’

  ‘You go around to his house and cook for him?’ Lily rubbed her burgeoning bump anxiously.