Restoring Grace (32 page)

Grace laughed rather uncomfortably. 'I'm sure
you're wrong. We bicker all the time.'

‘It's a sure sign, believe me. So how do you
feel about him?’

Grace paused. She honestly
wasn't completely sure. 'He
is kind and funny and everything,
but he's not Edward. And it's still too soon.'

‘
It can't
be! It's been ages! I'm so over Rick I can hardly
remember what he looks
like!' A slight exaggeration, but she could certainly never imagine going back.

Grace, who had been inspecting a twisted willow
for signs of new growth, glanced at her. 'Is that possibly because you've met a
handsome picture restorer?'

‘
Oh, I don't think you'd describe him as
handsome, exactly, and he's quite a bit older than me.'

‘But?'
Ellie's smile told her there had to be more.

‘
He would be perfect for me to have my last fling
with!'
Grace chuckled. 'Is that why you're so keen to have
this wine-tasting thing so soon, then? So you can work on
Ran?'

‘
Yes.' It
wasn't the only reason but it was certainly one
of them. 'He's only seen
me in my working clothes. If he saw me all dolled up he might fancy me more.'

‘He probably fancies you already,' said Grace,
moving on to a winter-flowering viburnum which was filling the air with sweet,
peppery scent.

‘
No, he
doesn't! It's so annoying! Still, I'm going to
work on him.’

Grace looked back at
Ellie, concerned now. 'Don't fall in
love and get hurt, Ellie. It's so
awful. Not worth it, really'

‘Oh no, I won't do that,' Ellie promised. 'I'm
far too
down to earth. But Ran is the perfect
choice, partly
because I haven't got
much time to find anyone else.
And . . . and I spent so long running
around after Rick that I really do want something that's simple, and fun,
and . . . and that's just for
me
before the baby's born.'
She suddenly looked rather forlorn.
'Do you think that's silly?'

‘Oh no, Ellie. I don't. And I'm sorry! You
don't have to spend all your time worrying about my money problems and restoring
the pictures. Go out! Have a good time!'

‘I am having a good time. I love restoring
things.' She patted her friend's arm. 'Especially people.’

Grace smiled, touched.
'Do you want to go in now? It's
getting cold. I just want to go up
to the end, and see what's going on there.’

Ellie, who had started to
shiver, said, 'No, I'll come
with you. When did you say you
thought Flynn was coming back?'

‘
Judging by
the amount of cat food he's left, he should
be away a couple of weeks.
Cleopatra is awfully sweet.
Perhaps we
should have a cat or something. Demi would
love it.' Grace smiled, pleased with her elegant segue into
safer
topics.

‘Pregnant women can't change litter trays,'
said Ellie. 'Even I know that.'

‘You must sign up with a doctor,' said Grace
firmly. 'You need to look after yourself. Eat a balanced diet, get plenty of
rest.’

Ellie laughed. 'The diet bit's OK as long as it
includes chocolate. The rest part is a joke!'

‘
Really,
Ellie, I just said, you don't have to do the work
experience if it's too
much for you. We could find some other way of restoring the paintings.'

‘
Oh no, it's
fine! I like it.' Ellie smiled hard, hoping that Grace would be convinced that
it was the picture restora
tion she liked so much.

‘Getting the house ready for this food and wine
shenanigans will be an awful lot of work.'

‘
Shenanigans?'
said Ellie. 'That's the sort of word Flynn
would use.'

‘Is it? Whatever, it's still a lot of
housework.'

‘But housework is the new sex!' Ellie insisted.
'Didn't
you see that series last year? No,
sorry, you wouldn't have
done.’

Grace grimaced. 'The new sex? I think on the
whole I
prefer the old kind. On the other
hand, we may just have
to settle for housework.'

‘
Maybe you
will. I have plans of my own.' Ellie
chuckled wickedly. 'It would be
best to use the drawing room,' she went on, getting on with the matter in hand,
'rather than the dining room, because you've
used it more
recently.'

‘
And
decorated it. Getting the dining room up to scratch
would be real
erotica, verging on the pornographic — if housework really is the new sex,' she
explained to a confused Ellie.

Demi appeared. 'There you are! What are you doing
out here? It's freezing!'

‘
We're just coming in. How did you get on with your
mother?' said Grace.

‘
She wants
to take me out for a meal after college. Have a chat about how things are
going.' Demi broke off a stalk
of lavender and fiddled with it
irritably.

‘That's OK. Go somewhere nice, have some nice
food. What's the problem?' asked Ellie.

Demi sighed. 'I dunno! She seems to be happier
now I'm not there to mess things up, but she obviously feels guilty. She'll nag
me about college work.'

‘But you've made a really good start with that,
since you've been back,' said Grace, 'haven't you?'

‘Yeah, but Mum says Media Studies isn't a
proper
subject and I've got to change to
something like English.'

‘
But
you're doing History. That's proper!' said Grace
indignantly, remembering how disparaging her academic
family had
been about her subject choices.

‘
Anyway, she
wants to meet me after college tomorrow,
take me for something to eat
and then bring me home later. Is that OK?'

‘
She's your mother, Dem, of course it's OK!’

Ellie was feeling a bit guilty as she set off
for Bath the next day. Ran didn't need her, didn't want her hanging around, and
after she had delivered the invitation for a date a fortnight hence, she really
had no business being there.

But there was Grace; as
far as she was concerned, Ellie
was learning
all she could about picture restoration. Ellie
couldn't
admit it wasn't possible to learn anything in a
fortnight, far less enough actually to benefit the paintings.
She had more
^c
h
^a
nce of
ruining them — that much she had
learnt.
Even their first, tentative dust with a soft cloth had
probably done
irreparable damage; Ellie hadn't had the
nerve
to confess to Ran that they had actually done that.

And there was Ran. How did one go about
seducing a
man who appeared not to fancy one
at all? It wouldn't be
easy, but
Ellie liked a challenge and refused to be put off
by a lack of
appreciative glances. She had dressed care
fully;
she'd had to be careful to achieve a look which com
bined understated sexiness with practicality. It
would be
awful if he noticed that
she'd dressed to attract more than just dust and stubborn limescale. She'd have
to be subtle.

To this end, with her
soft jersey trousers, she put on an
old, tight-fitting cardigan, which
she wore as a jumper
with a bright silk
scarf around her neck. And so as not
to
clash with the scarf, and to make herself generally more
acceptable to someone over thirty, she had, the
previous
evening, dyed her hair to
the nearest colour akin to brown
as
she could, given that it had been red before. Ellie hoped
that appearing to be more conventional, but
sexier, might
be the key to opening his eyes to her as a woman.

Later, when she was squashing her 2CV into a
space slightly smaller than her futon, she wondered about her chances. She
really did want a final affaire - though she
must
be careful that she didn't get in too deep. Ran would
be lovely to have
an affaire with. And she was just not ready to settle for housework instead of
sex.

Housework definitely came first, though, as it
turned out. When he opened the door to her, he said, 'So you're back, are you?
Well, I've got a nice little job sorting cupboards for you.'

‘And I've got a nice invitation to a very
interesting evening with wine and food for you.' She smiled. No response.
'You'll love it.'

‘I thought the point was that I was going to
get to see the paintings during it, not indulge myself in Bacchanalian delights.'

‘You spend too much time in History-of-Art
books. It's affected your language.’

He smiled, just enough to
tweak Ellie's libido, although
she knew he wasn't doing it on
purpose. 'Come and sort cupboards.’

Ellie sighed. It was
probably the best offer she was
likely to get. For now.

Later, when she gave him his coffee and
sandwiches, she laid everything out in a way that involved quite a lot
of bending over, revealing enough cleavage to tell
Ran
that she had one, in case he'd
overlooked it. He gave her
no encouragement,
no hint that he'd noticed. She sighed,
retreated to the other side of
the table, and bit into her cheese and pickle.

‘
There's
really no point in you coming here each day
if I'm going to look at the
pictures for you,' said Ran.

Ellie was ready for this. 'But I've told Grace
I'm doing
it. If I don't come, she'll wonder
why and suspect I've
told you her secret. You don't mind me coming, do
you? I mean, there are things I can do for you?' She smiled in
a way that would have had the punters at her old
bar job
buying her drinks, asking for her mobile number and offering to
walk her to her car.

He smiled back, but there was no suggestion in
it, no hint that he was responding to her in the way that she wanted.

I must be too young and studenty, she decided,
and
resolved to find a little black dress
that would be
enhanced by a very small tummy for the dinner party.

Apart from needing to in
order to keep up the myth
for Grace, she
had no reason to drive back down to Bath
the next day except to be with Ran. Who was she fooling?
Grace,
or herself?
Hermia delivered Demi home at nine o'clock that eve
ning. Demi was
not happy. Apparently a white van would
arrive at Luckenham House the next
day full of Demi's bed, her bedding, in fact everything that currently filled
her bedroom, including her computer.

‘
That's good,
isn't it?' said Ellie, who was feeling
chirpier
because Ran had touched her arm that afternoon
when he was explaining
something.

‘Well, yes!' said Demi, 'sort of! But she's
going to turn my room into a gym!'

‘Must have been a big room,' said Ellie.

‘
She's going
to put in all sorts of equipment so she and
her bloke can sweat it out
together. It's disgusting!' She looked both furious and on the verge of tears.

‘What is? Keeping fit? Surely not,' said Ellie,
trying to lighten things.

‘No, the thought of her and him . . . you know.
Doing stuff. Yuk!’

Grace looked at Demi, feeling it was possible
it wasn't
so much the thought of her mother
'doing stuff' than the
fact that her mother had eradicated her daughter's
pres
ence from her house. What would happen
if Demi wanted
to go home?

‘It's probably just a phase,' said Grace
reassuringly. 'People are always buying expensive subscriptions to gyms and
never going. They get bored. I read about it in the Sunday papers.'

‘But you don't get the Sunday papers,' said
Ellie.