Agent Provocateur (16 page)

Although her parents were loving to their only daughter, Betty never told them how unhappy she was, they would have blamed themselves, and Betty knows it wasn’t their fault. But she resents Grace, for having the life that she coveted so badly when she cried herself to sleep every night, and felt lonely every day.

‘Pull in here, please,’ Grace says to the taxi driver. She gets out and pays him, and Betty follows.

‘It’s a shame that your fiancé left you,’ Betty says, as Grace is paying the driver. She sounds mean as she says it, but she is unsure why.

‘I just hope your husband doesn’t wish he did the same to you,’ Grace bites back.

Betty stares at her. The cold war is over; hostilities have commenced.

‘Mrs X, I’m Grace Regan. This is my assistant, Betty.’ She smiles warmly at Mrs X. Betty is still reeling from Grace’s last comment. She can feel her cheeks heating up, the rage threatening to overcome her. That is the worst thing anyone could ever say to her. The very suggestion that Johnny might leave her is far too horrible for her to contemplate.

‘Hi, good to meet you. Sorry it couldn’t be under nicer circumstances,’ Betty says, instantly regretting it. She sticks her hand out to shake Mrs X’s, telling herself not to misbehave in this meeting. Grace looks horrified, but plasters a smile to her face.

‘Please come in.’ They follow Mrs X to her living room. The house is in an expensive part of London, and would have cost a fortune. Grace might have come far but she can only dream about a house like that. Mrs X is in her late thirties and is very attractive. Grace cannot understand a husband wanting to cheat when he has such a lovely home and such a lovely wife. She has no idea if they have children.

Grace and Betty sit on the brown leather sofa in silence while Mrs X goes to get coffee. Mrs X is obviously nervous, but so is Grace.

‘Here. Please help yourselves to milk and sugar.’ Mrs X puts a tray down on the coffee table.

‘Where would you like to start?’ Grace asks after the coffee has been poured.

‘Well, it’s a bit difficult really.’ She looks at Grace and Betty, then she looks into her coffee cup.

‘You only have to tell what you want to,’ Grace says.

‘We’ve been married for ten years. Everything was perfect, or so I thought. We’ve got two children, Molly and Henry, and, well as a family we were doing really nicely. Then things started changing. He works hard, he always has, but his hours are getting longer and longer: When he is at home he seems distracted. He practically ignores the children, and he totally ignores me. It’s a bit embarrassing …’

‘Don’t be embarrassed. I’ve heard a lot in my time,’ Grace coaxes.

Betty bites her lip. Mrs X is too busy staring into her coffee cup to notice.

‘We haven’t had sex for a year and I have tried. But he always makes an excuse. Then there’s the phone calls. I can’t believe he thinks he’s being so clever. He sneaks out of the house, says he needs fresh air, and I see him in the garden with the mobile phone stuck to his ear. Of course he has the bills sent to him at the office so I will never have proof.’

‘Do you think he’s been cheating for a year?’

‘Yes I do.’

‘But you don’t know who with?’

‘No. I don’t even know if it’s the same woman. You see, that’s where you come in. I thought, although I’m not sure, but I thought that if you chatted him up he would either fall for it, or tell you he was happily married, or tell you he had a mistress. You might be able to get me proof and stop me from going insane.’ She lets out a hollow laugh. She looks as if she will crumple in tears.

‘You’re sure?’ Betty asks. Then she looks shocked at the fact that the words were said aloud.

‘I’m not sure about anything anymore,’ Mrs X replies.

‘Have you thought about confronting him? Just asking him straight out,’ Betty continues, horrified that she is still speaking but unable to stop.

Grace restrains herself. She almost blames herself. She should have known that Betty would pull a stunt like this. It is all her fault. She has to rectify the situation.

‘Of course you could do that. But just one thing in my experience; they deny it, which is fine, but without conclusive proof you have nothing.’

‘That’s true. If he is cheating he’s bound to deny it. I mean, if he is cheating then he’s being devious and so another lie won’t mean anything to him.’

‘But what if he’s innocent?’ Betty asks. She has stopped thinking, and she’s lost control of herself. She is just a mouthpiece for the part of her she has been trying to suppress.

‘Well, I don’t think—’

‘Then I will find that out for her. Which would be wonderful really.’ Grace’s smile is almost cracking her face.

‘Yeah, but what if he’s not cheating and then he meets you and he propositions you? Then he’ll be seen as a cheat, but he wasn’t cheating before.’ Betty digs her nails into her palm, but that doesn’t seem to help.

‘The chances are that if he does proposition me, he has cheated before. Why would he, otherwise?’

‘Mrs X, excuse me but have you taken a good look at her?’ Mrs X appears confused, but stares at Grace. ‘She is simply stunning, isn’t she?’ Mrs X nods. ‘Well, I don’t think that it’s any reflection on you if a woman like Grace turns up, looking amazing, and starts flattering your husband and he falls for it. Most men would. I am not saying that you shouldn’t find out for sure, but you really think sending her in is a good idea?’ Betty knows that she has just signed her own death warrant. She is angry with herself but she is still unable to stop. All her frustrations about Grace’s job come tumbling out, along with anger at the previous night. She is a slave to her emotions.

‘Well, I really don’t...’ Mrs X tails off and Grace feels totally inadequate. She knows she is not the most intelligent person in the world but she never thought that anyone would run rings around her the way Betty is doing.

‘Yes, but that isn’t how it works. There has to be suspicion. Suspicion, if it’s genuine (which in this case I can tell it is), has to be caused. It doesn’t just appear and it always has foundation. Now, it might be that he is having problems at work that he isn’t telling you, but that is what I will discover.’

‘I just don’t think that you should put your family at risk,’ Betty says, unable to see how that will rectify the situation but hoping it will, somehow.

‘Betty, shut up, please,’ Grace replies angrily.

‘Because it is a risk, as I discovered last night. You turn up in your sexy outfit, and you let the men drool all over you while you flatter them and pander to them and then you say that they are the cheats. You’re the cheater. Agent provocateur.’ Betty looks at her shoes; she is almost cowering from her words.

‘How dare you? How dare you?’ Grace is on her feet, Betty is as well. The client sits and stares in shock. Suddenly Grace remembers where she is.

‘I am so sorry. Mrs X, this is unforgivable, not to mention unprofessional behaviour. I’m sure you wouldn’t hire me in a thousand years after that little tirade, so we’ll leave now.’ Without giving the open-mouthed Mrs X a chance to reply, Grace roughly grabs Betty by the arm and marches her out of the house.

‘How fucking dare you?’ she screams when they are on the pavement. She had plenty of fights when she was younger, screaming and physical ones. She actually is something of an expert.

‘How dare I? How dare you? Firstly you try to turn me into the same sort of tart as you last night, then you pretend to be sympathetic to a woman who has a nice home, a husband and two children just so you can wreck her happiness.’

‘She doesn’t seem very happy, does she? Last night was because you were being so superior. I heard the condescending tone in your voice, the disapproval dripping out of you. Well, you can afford it, can’t you, with your perfect marriage, but did it ever occur to you that others aren’t quite as fortunate?’

‘And did it ever, ever occur to you that you should leave people alone to work out their own problems?’

‘It’s so easy for you, isn’t it? The world you live in, people are nicer to each other. They don’t cheat or bully. But not everyone has it that way.’

‘You know nothing about me.’ Grace is stunned by the intensity in Betty’s voice. Her words are ringing in her ears.
Marriage
wrecker
. She looks at her and wonders why she hates her so much. Was it really the chino man? She suspects it is more than that. The old Grace is making a brief appearance. Here for one time only. She squares up to Betty. ‘And you know nothing about me.’ She pulls her arm back and slaps Betty hard round the-face.

Grace has not hit anyone since she left school, and then it was only to defend herself. Betty has had her hair pulled, been called thousands of names, but she has never been slapped. The rain is getting heavier as they both stand there, shocked, surprised, unsure of where to go now.

‘You bitch,’ Betty hisses, choking back tears.

‘You deserved it,’ Grace replies. She is also close to crying. She is no longer going to be bullied. Never again. They stare at each other for a few moments before turning on their heels and walking away in opposite directions.

Grace turns the corner and leans against a wall. She feels winded, and she has no idea what happened. She knows that she looks a sight, dripping wet and almost hyperventilating, so when she spots a coffee shop she goes inside and orders an espresso. She sits down, still shaking with rage and cold, and pulls out her phone.

‘Nicole,’ she says before the tears get the better of her.

She finds a taxi. Nicole talked to her as if she were a child, and although that was unfamiliar, it was comforting. She arrives home and goes inside. Ten minutes later, the buzzer goes and Nicole is there.

‘I’m sorry,’ Grace says, and she tells her the whole story.

Nicole does not have children, but she has maternal instincts. As Grace is recounting the full horror of her week with Betty, Nicole manages to run her a bath, get her to take her wet clothes off, and then put her in the bath. She sits on the loo seat next to her, listening.

‘When you called me that first day, I should have talked you into calling it quits.’

‘I didn’t know this would happen. Anyway, I should never have done what I did last night.’

‘No, you shouldn’t, because you were working, Grace, and that comes before getting your own back, but I understand. I can’t believe she asked you if you slept with the men. I can’t believe she called you a marriage wrecker.’

‘And a slut.’

‘And, what else was it?’

‘Agent provocateur.’

‘That’s quite funny. Sorry, Grace. Anyway, there is no need to worry. We’re pulling out and I’ve a good mind to sue
Modern
Woman
for the lost job.’

‘I should have been able to save it.’

‘No, you shouldn’t. Now stop beating yourself up. It’s over.
Finite
. Now get out of the bath before you turn into a prune, and I’ll get some coffee.’

‘I’m sorry to drag you away from the office.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, stop apologising. It’s a quiet day in the land of the spies.’

Later, when Nicole gets back to her office, she calls
Modern
Woman
and informs Fiona that she will no longer do the profile. And she tells her why. Leaving nothing, especially her anger, out.

Betty makes her way home, desperately trying to find a cab. Typically, they are all full on a rainy London afternoon, so she hikes until she finds a tube station. It takes her forty-five minutes to get to her stop and she is feeling wretched and uncomfortable. As soon as she gets in, she takes a hot bath, she puts on her dressing gown and she crawls under her duvet where she cries herself to sleep, ignoring Fiona’s angry voice on her answer machine.

Chapter Twelve

‘I can’t believe it,’ Johnny says when Betty tells him what happened that day. ‘I mean, why did you lose it so badly?’

‘Firstly I was still angry at her making me part of her job, and then you should have heard her. She was advising this woman to get her to honey trap her husband. The woman had two kids and had been married for ten years.
Ten
years
. She suspects him of having an affair and I just suggested that she should confront him rather than hire her.’ Betty is trying to justify to herself, and to Johnny, her outburst.

‘Baby, you’re supposed to be doing an article on this woman and honey trapping, not ruining her business.’

‘But she has been so awful.’

‘I know, but it’s not professional.’

‘I could lose my job.’

‘Don’t be silly. Fiona won’t fire you.’

‘But there is no way we can continue this article.’

‘Look, persuade Fiona to get someone else to do this one and you can do another, feature. I know how much you resented having to do it in the first place.’

‘You know it hasn’t always been easy for me, not the way she said, but since I met you, well, everything’s been so perfect.’

‘I love you so much, Mrs Parkin.’

‘I know, and I love you too.’

‘You hit her?’ Eddie (who has been called over as an emergency comforter) looks horrified. He is seeing more of Grace than ever, but he is not sure he likes the reason behind it.

‘She deserved it. She told a potential client not to hire me.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yes, oh.’

‘But what did you do to her?’

‘Nothing. I was perfectly civil.’

‘Grace.’

‘Well, she was so high and mighty. Flashing her wedding ring around all over the place, being condescending, and making out that I was nothing better than a slut. I think she was getting revenge for me making her join me on that job.’

‘Probably.’ He knows better than to argue that she is also to blame.

‘Well, you know, I thought that maybe it might teach her not to look down her snotty little nose at me.’

‘Grace, what if she writes a really awful piece about you?’

‘She won’t. Nicole called her editor and told them that I would not be taking part anymore.’