Agent Provocateur (25 page)

‘No. Well, not officially, with odds or anything. Most people are sure that you’re going to win.’

‘I am. Grace called me. She’s already riled and I think she knows that she’s made a mistake. There is no way she can win this and she knows it. That’s why I’m chuckling.’

‘Good for you.’

Betty sends Alison an email, thinking that it is all very good for her.

That evening as Grace leaves for her job, she wonders when the right time to see Johnny is. She decides that she will stick to her original idea of a week. A week to prepare herself and her plan of action, and also to tease Betty a bit. No matter how confident she sounded earlier, Grace knows it won’t last. She is one hundred per cent sure it won’t. She decides to number the days of the bet from the first day she meets Johnny. And this week is preparation week. It will still all fit within the three-month deadline. In fact, the more she thinks about it the more she decides she won’t need that long. Three months is too long. Again, she wonders at the reason behind Fiona’s deadline. She wonders at her motives – hers and Betty’s. Grace knows, believes, that if she had a husband she loved and who was faithful, she would never ever test him. She shrugs all those thoughts off. The bet is underway and any musings about motive aren’t necessary any more.

She walks into a private club to do her job. It is a sumptuous club, all large leather sofas, expensive art and men dressed in a similar uniform of Saville Row suits. She sits down at a table, giving her a good view of the bar, and she studies the faces. A waiter is with her in seconds to take her drinks order, and she requests a glass of champagne. When he is gone, she spots the man. Tall, greying, posh-looking. They are all the same, she thinks as she takes a breath and waits to make her move. All the bloody same. But maybe Johnny will be different. With this dangerous thought she receives her glass of champagne and drinks a toast to it.

Chapter Twenty

Fiona lives up to her word and swamps Betty with work. On day two of the bet she gets to work to find more emails than she wants and more assignments than she has time for. She thinks about arguing, but although Fiona is feeling guilty, she still doesn’t like being argued with. Betty shakes her head as she realises she is stuck. She pushes away an irrational thought that Fiona is deliberately trying to keep her away from Johnny so Grace can win. Fiona doesn’t like her being married – this she has made clear – but although she can be a bitch at times, she wouldn’t do that to her. Would she?

At the same time, Fiona is sitting at her desk, composing another email to Betty. She isn’t the sort of woman that suffers from guilt. She is vindictive, she knows that, ambitious to the hilt, and alone. She hasn’t always been that way. When she started out in journalism she was like Betty. Just like her. She had a husband she adored and she worked hard and happily. She pulls her compact out of her handbag and looks at herself. She sees the person she is now. She used to look like Betty, a smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye.
He
came first.
He
always came first. Then he destroyed her. One man took the twinkle and the smile and left her with the hardness that her face now lives with. She can’t bear to see Betty go through the same. When she first met Betty, Fiona was a features writer for the magazine, and Betty was her work experience girl. She adored her from the first moment she saw her. She saw herself in her and she promised herself that Betty would be successful. She delivered. Somewhere along the line, Fiona lost
him
and became bitter. She began to let her ambition take over, because it was all she had left. She climbed up to the top, but she left her smile behind as she fought the competition off. She would never let a man take over her life again. The scars lasted too long.

Betty is like her – she knew that, she was convinced – which meant that Betty would get hurt. Sometimes Fiona thought her conviction about this was irrational, but she believes it. That was the reason for Grace. She didn’t necessarily want to prove herself right, she just wanted Betty to find out for sure. She knew that Betty would hate the assignment – she herself would have done back then. She knew that Betty would feel threatened by Grace and what she stood for. She knew that she had to introduce the bet.

The idea came to her after the dinner party. It wasn’t just about the feature, it was about Betty. She wanted to know - correction, she wanted Betty to know – that her man was either rock solid or like
him
. She needed Betty to find out now before it was too late. She did it because she had promised, from the moment Betty started working for her, that she would take care of her, and she was merely keeping that promise.

All she had to do was to find an opportunity to suggest it. No, she didn’t suggest it – she knows that – she made it happen. Betty gave her that opportunity. She didn’t know that Betty and Grace would fight the way they did; she hadn’t seen that coming. But it provided her with the opportunity she needed to do what she had to do. That is what she believes.

Hannah delivers coffee and perches herself on the corner of Betty’s desk.

‘Hannah, I know how this office works. I know how much they love to gossip and I love it too, but if they are using you to get them regular updates they’ll be disappointed.’

‘Oh.’

Betty smiles indulgently. She would have done the same. ‘Well, maybe I will let you in on the situation and then you can go and be fawned over as the fount of all knowledge.’ She smiles again. ‘But at the moment there is nothing to report and I have so much work to do, I don’t know when I’m going to think about it. But I’ve got a mountain of research I need you to help me with.’

‘OK. But you will tell me?’

‘As soon as there is anything to tell.’

‘Good. Betty?’

‘Yes?’ She sips her coffee.

‘I made an appointment for you to get your hair done. And your nails. Just to be prepared.’ Betty feels shocked. It hadn’t occurred to her that she had to do anything. But then, having her hair done and everything else can’t hurt. It’s only what she normally does anyway.

‘Good thinking, Hannah. Thanks. Oh, and maybe you could add a bikini wax as well.’ Her assistant goes back to her desk with a smile on her face. Not only will she be the most popular member of staff for the next few weeks, but she also has her boss’s favour.

Betty cannot think about the bet for the rest of the week, because she is too busy working late and not even getting to see Johnny herself, let alone knowing if Grace has met him yet. They are existing on phone conversations and when they do see each other she is too tired to speak and he is too tired to ignite conversation. She swings between wanting to kill Fiona, and feeling grateful for the distraction. She is unsure which. Part of her still believes that Fiona is trying to split her and Johnny up, but the other part of her can’t believe that she would do that. She hasn’t got enough time to let them debate it.

She determines that, work or no work, she will devote her time to him at the weekend. On Friday, she skives off early to keep the appointments that Hannah has made for her. Her first stop is her hair.

‘Highlights?’ Beth, her hairdresser, asks.

‘Why not?’ Beth normally knows what is best for her and Betty is almost too tired to think about it.

‘Any occasion?’ she asks when Betty is sitting down, having her hair painted.

‘Not really, just due.’ She doesn’t want to have to discuss the bet with anyone else. The office gossip is bad enough, as are Fiona, Hannah and Alison.

‘Just want to look nice for your man,’ Beth says, which is fairly near the mark.

‘And for myself,’ Betty replies, remembering that she is Modern Woman.

When she has an amazing head of hair, notably shorter, but also notably sleeker, she gets her nails done, and then an incredibly painful waxing. Of course she is doing it for Johnny, but she is also doing it for herself. She praises herself for the sensible way she is behaving. She has barely given Grace a second thought.

As preparation week draws to a close, Grace feels an immense excitement building up. The anticipation that the week has provided has given her even more of an appetite for the bet.

She goes to the hairdresser, a smart salon, one she has never been to before. What is amazing about it, apart from the prices, is that as someone does her hair, someone else does her nails (hands and feet), and she feels as if she is receiving a proper pampering.

‘Any occasion?’ the man doing her hair asks.

‘No, not really. Just thought it was time.’

‘Well, darling, with your hair, you must come here more often. It’s a joy to work with.’

‘Thanks.’

‘I mean it.’ Grace is tempted to tell him the truth – she’s getting her hair done to seduce another woman’s husband – but she stops herself. Enough people are judging her right now; she doesn’t want to add to the number. Especially as she knows that she is right. She has to be.

Back home, as she admires her new haircut, looks at her beautifully manicured nails and picks up the all-important notebook, she knows she is ready. And she is going to win this bet.

Chapter Twenty-One

It is the first day of the bet proper. Grace wakes with a smile on her face, which Eddie, who is lying beside her, thinks is for him. Unexpectedly she gets up, and makes him coffee before packing him off to work.

‘Just like a wife,’ Eddie says.

‘Not quite,’ she replies.

Once her flat is hers again, she follows her usual routine. On day one of the bet, she has an appointment to see a financial adviser at eleven. Which gives her ample time to choose the right thing to wear.

She goes to her office and picks up the bet notebook. Inside she has his place of work and his phone number along with what she knows about him. All that, she memorised last week. His name is Johnny Parkin. He is thirty-three and a financial adviser for STN, which is near the City. He likes golf, football and
Carry
On
films. She still has no idea what he looks like because Betty refused to give her a photo, but as she has a professional appointment with him, she doesn’t need one.

She has headed a page ‘Phase One’. Under ‘Phase One’ is today’s date and the time of her first appointment. She is looking forward to writing a description of that meeting when she gets home. She is treating the bet as a business transaction, a normal job, even if it is anything but.

Betty wakes feeling funny. At first she is unsure if she is ill, but she feels a bit wobbly, unhinged and uncertain. Then she remembers that the bet has been going for a week and she has no idea if Grace has even seen Johnny yet. She looks at the still silent alarm clock, and sees that it is about to jump into life. Then Johnny will, and then she will have to, in order to go to work. She wonders again what Grace is doing, if she has arranged to see him. How is she, Betty, going to cope with not knowing? Ignorance is bliss, Alison said, spouting the old cliché, but Betty is not sure that she can submerge herself in it for two months. She knows she will win. She is still as confident as she was last week. However, she must stop these recent habitual visits of anxiety. She must shake those feelings away.

The alarm goes off. Johnny opens his eyes. He looks sleepy but beatific. Betty plants a kiss on his forehead. He looks at her, slightly startled, still in a half-conscious state.

‘Good morning, my dream girl,’ he finally says, reaching over to her.

‘I love you so much,’ she replies. She looks around the room: everything is the same, nothing has changed. ‘I really do love you, you know,’ she says, and she kisses him.

Everything is going to be fine because they love each other. No one can penetrate their relationship.

Grace has managed to limit her outfit dilemma by choosing a role for the bet. She is going to enjoy the drama of the situation. Of that, she is determined. When she thinks back to the reason she is doing this the humiliation wedges itself around her, tightening itself with huge screws. She thought that Betty might be a pain but she certainly didn’t expect an enemy. She doesn’t think she deserves one either. Betty made her feel worthless and in Grace’s world, in the carefully constructed life she lives, no one is supposed to do that. Betty cannot think she is better than Grace; she shouldn’t be allowed to think that. She is luckier than she is, that is all, but not better.

She pulls her thoughts back to the task at hand. After a week of planning she is ready for her new challenge. Johnny Parkin. It is as if a light has gone on in her head. Maybe it is a game, maybe it is more, but she has a role to play and therefore she must throw herself into it.

She settles for a conservative beige suit. She looks good, as she always does, but she also looks like a character – the character she is playing. Grace Regan, divorcee, legal secretary, vulnerable damsel in distress. She will melt hearts with her sorrow, and then she will attract hearts with her resilience. That is the Grace that Johnny will meet. He does not stand a chance.

Betty has finished the second draft of the honey trap story. The first draft, according to Fiona, was too full of ‘blatant disapproval’. In the second draft she doesn’t write a bad account of Grace, but the fact is that her disapproval of the industry (is it an industry?) is more subtly apparent. She questions lack of trust; she points out that for any relationship to stand a chance, trust has to be visibly employed. She trusts Johnny. Her faith in him is unshakeable, which is why this bet isn’t really bothering her. At worst she is just angry about it, ashamed she is lying to Johnny, and unhappy about Grace cropping up in his life. After all, look what she did to hers. She is as disruptive as the winter wind, that much she knows, and she wants to get the bet over and done with and move on. The end of the bet will get Grace out of her life once and for all. For ever.