Unlike a Virgin (35 page)

‘JOHN! JOHN!’ the voice shouts.

The knocking continues. Posh Boy’s heart drums away. His finger rests on his lips. I suck on my caramel centre. I’m taking this keeping-quiet thing so seriously I won’t even risk crunching the hazelnut. Whoever is knocking very much wants to come in. I haven’t heard knocking like this since the night of the heavies.

Eventually it stops, and for a baby second I think that we’ve been left in peace, but then the door flies open. Now I’ve heard the expression ‘a door flies open’ before and really it’s nonsense, a door can’t fly, it’s on a bleeding hinge. But this door gets pretty close to busting its hinges and soaring off into Hyde Park. If anyone treated my doors like that I would break their neck. We both sit up quickly. No, this can’t be right. In walks John, the evil old bloke from SJS Construction.

‘DAD!’ shouts Posh Boy aggressively.

‘DAD?!’ I repeat in higher register. ‘He’s your dad!’ I screech again. I furrow my brow and stare at him, as if he were an algebra problem I can’t get my head around. SJS Construction Man is Posh Boy’s Dad! ‘He’s your dad,’ I whisper.

But the two men aren’t taking any notice of me. They’re glaring at one another, like boxers before a match.

‘I wrote you a note!’

‘Oh, yes, a note telling me not to disturb you because you have a lady friend staying.’ SJS Construction man looks at me now. He stops and squints. ‘Grace Flowers,’ he says, sounding bizarrely polite after the earbashing he’s just given Posh Boy. ‘Do send my regards to your mother.’

‘But … but … you’re not posh …’ is all I can muster by way of a response.

‘No, unlike my son, who had tens of thousands of pounds spent on his education!’

SJS Construction man is Posh Boy’s dad! But I told Posh Boy all about the graveyard situation and SJS Construction and he never mentioned it. SJS! St John Smythe!

‘And as for you, young man. I tell you, I’ve wanted to kill you. I’ve calmed down now and I’ll make do with just disowning you, but anger me any more and I’ll raise my fist to you, believe me!’

If this is him calmed down, I’d hate to see the revved-up version.

‘DAD!’

‘Don’t “Dad” me! I’m telling you now, just leave those plans alone. Touch them again and our little agreement, which we go public with in an hour’s time, is off. Off, I tell you.’

‘But—’

‘That graveyard stays as it is. It was a stupid idea of yours, I don’t know how I agreed to it, but we leave those people’s graves alone from now on, do you hear me?’

‘You lose thirty-six units by moving the slip road, Dad,’ Posh Boy says in a cold voice. ‘Thirty-six. I don’t need to tell you what a difference that will make to the profit figures.’

‘WHAT?’ I suddenly holler. ‘What?!’

‘Damn!’ Posh sighs.

‘Damn! Damn! Yep, damn you! All that …’ I stop as it comes back to me. ‘All that, “I don’t know what I’d do if someone wanted to build on my mum’s grave.” Urgh!’ The sex. I had sex with him. ‘Urgh!’ I say again. ‘Urgh!’

‘Grace,’ he starts, and he looks quite pitiful, it has to be said. I shake my head, then I look at his dad.

‘I would thank you for backing down, but my friend, Leonard Barry, who you were pressuring, had a stroke from all the stress it caused him, so I can’t thank you. But I’m pleased about your decision.’

He nods.

‘I’m terribly sorry about your friend.’

‘Yeah,’ I say, and I pick up my leggings and babydoll dress and leave the room with them. It’s unfortunate that my bra is in there somewhere too, but it didn’t seem the moment to go rummaging around for it.

I change on the landing, leaving Posh’s shirt on the floor, then I pad my way down the stairs and across the spacious hallway to the front door. As rotten-luck patches go, this one is quite extensive.

‘John!’ shouts a lady’s voice and a head pops out of a closed door to my right. ‘Oh, sorry, I thought you were John.’ She smiles.

She’s an attractive older woman. Her hair is rolled up in those big Velcro curlers and covered with a pink silk scarf.

‘No, sorry,’ I say.

‘I couldn’t just ask you a favour.’

‘OK.’

‘Can you open this?’ She holds up a jar of honey.

‘Oh, honey’s always a nightmare to open,’ I say sympathetically, ‘but I’ll have a go.’

She pads into the hallway and offers me the honey. I take it and open it straight off, because I’m surprisingly good at opening tricky things. It’s one of my powers. I hand it back.

‘Marvellous. I can’t have my tea without honey.’

‘No,’ I say. ‘Well, cheerio, enjoy your tea.’

None of this is good. SJS Construction man, who my mum is smitten with, has clearly got a woman. He must have. Why else would there be an incompletely dressed woman is his house at seven forty-five in the morning?

I don’t want to go to work. I don’t want to go to work. I don’t want to go to work. Why’s that then, Grace? Because you slept with your boss and he turned out to be the devil!

I came back to the flat and had the longest shower of my life. I still feel dirty, though. Now, I’m giving myself a good telling off before I have to go to work and face him again.

‘Grace. Oh, Grace. Oh, oh, oh, Grace! You fool. I mean, Jesus, I knew he was posh, I knew he was annoying, but I didn’t think he was sly! I didn’t think he was evil! I thought he was all right. All that ‘I don’t know what I’d do if someone wanted to build on my mum’s grave’! I mean, this couldn’t be on many more levels of awfulness. I work with the bloke. Maybe I should tell Lube what he’s like. But John just wants money above everything else, what’s Lube not going to like about that? This is all wrong. How did I get here? The plan!

I look at the wall. It’s still there. Blank. But I don’t want to
look at that one. I want to look at the one I followed religiously. The one I breathed for five years. The one that led me here. I squint at it. ‘This is where you got me! Was that what it was all about? Was I just supposed to find out that people are evil? That they’ll take your body, the graves of the dead, anything if they think it will make them some wonga? If they think they can put some self-contained apartments on it?! Oh, Grace! GRACE!’

I’m really shouting at my reflection now. ‘THIS IS ALL WRONG!’

I sit on the loo.

‘Calm down, Grace, put a track on. Chill out. I look through my CDs, but there’s no song that would help. A song would be too good for this situation. A song would be like introducing something pure to something that’s rotten. I just need to go to work. Ignore Posh Boy and work harder. I make my way to the door. When I get there, though, I turn back.

‘Calm down, Grace,’ I say to my reflection. ‘Calm down.’

And I walk back to the toilet and sit down. This time I close my eyes and wait until his voice comes to me, then I sit and listen to my dad singing to me until it calms me.

Afterwards I get up and finish getting ready. But I still don’t want to go to work.

It’s eight forty-five and Lube and Posh Boy are already in the office.

‘What’s going on here?’ I ask Lube as I walk to my desk and turn on my computer. I will never, ever speak to Posh Boy again.

‘Gracie Flowers, don’t take your coat off. We’re taking you out.’

‘Why? To see a property?’ I say directly to Lube.

‘No.’

‘What then? Oh please, not another team-building exercise.’

‘A celebration.’

‘What for? Where?’

‘Grace, just shut up and follow me to my car. Fifty questions, that’s what women are like,’ Lube says, holding the door open for me. I walk back out onto the street. I haven’t looked at Posh Boy once, and I’m not going to either.

We get into Lube’s Audi and he drives us to a fancy hotel on Park Lane.

‘What on earth are we doing here?’ I protest. I don’t want to be anywhere near Posh Boy this morning, or any morning, in fact. Let alone off on some jolly celebratory threesome with him and Lube.

‘Champagne breakfast, my darling.’

‘Champagne? Why? I can’t drink champagne at 9 a.m. I’ll be asleep by ten.’

‘That’s all right by us today, isn’t it, John?’

‘Certainly is, Ken. It’s your day,’ chimes in Posh Boy.

‘Please don’t talk to me,’ I mutter.

‘Children,’ chides Lube.

‘Are you two pissed?’

I’m ushered into a lift that takes us to the top floor of the hotel, and when I get out I’m faced with a floor-to-ceiling window. The whole of London is at my feet. I can see Hyde Park, Marble Arch and beyond to the streets of houses I’ve been selling for the last five years.

‘Wow! What a view,’ I say.

‘London Town, eh. Isn’t she a beauty?’ Ken sighs, sidling up to me. ‘The streets are paved with gold down there, eh, Grace.’

I scrunch my face up because Lube is being a freak this morning.

‘Paved with gob and fried chicken wrappers more like.’

‘Grace Flowers?’ a waitress asks, approaching me with a glass of Buck’s Fizz. ‘Congratulations.’

‘What have I done?’ I ask. ‘Oh my God, am I Estate Agent of the Year?’ I gasp.

‘She thinks she’s Estate Agent of the Year.’ Lube laughs to John.

‘Oh,’ I say, disappointed. ‘I’m so confused.’

‘She probably will be,’ chirps Posh Boy.

‘I’m starting to feel sick.’

‘What with the height?’ Lube says.

‘No, with you two fruitcakes being so weird! What’s going on?’

‘Come through, come through.’

I’m led into a meeting room, again with a floor-to-ceiling window, and this time I can see Buckingham Palace. There’s a big glass table in the middle, around which sit four people. A woman in her mid-forties, who looks very expensively coiffed, two middle-aged men who I don’t recognise and SJS Construction man, Posh Boy’s dad. I stare at them. I’m completely baffled now, so I may as well drink this Buck’s Fizz. The three people I don’t recognise get up as soon as I walk in and hold out their hands to congratulate me.

‘What’s this about?’ I ask.

‘This is it, Grace Flowers,’ Lube says. ‘I’m so proud of my girl.’ His voice cracks and he hugs me.

‘Grace,’ John St John Smythe Senior says. ‘Let me explain. Sit down everyone. Top Grace’s drink up please, son.’

I still don’t acknowledge John, lest I be tempted to throw my Buck’s Fizz over his head.

‘Now, this is the board of John St John Enterprises, minus two others who have some business in the Cayman Islands. John St John Enterprises owns SJS Construction, which is the fourth largest commercial housing construction company in the UK. We also own Smiths Estate Agents.

My eyes open wide.

‘We lost the “y” and the “e” to make us feel friendlier as a brand,’ he explains. ‘We have various other ventures, but these are our largest and the ones which will affect you.’

‘Sorry? How?’

‘We will be merging Make A Move with Smiths and we want you to head up the new company, which will be known as Smiths Make A Move, so as to maintain the two strong brand identities. My son John has been working in the company undercover for the last few months while the deal went through, in order to learn the ropes and see if, as Ken here suggested, you were the woman to front the venture. And you impressed him hands down. He said you were the best female estate agent in the country.’ I shake my head at the word ‘female’. ‘So it’s a big job, but one we know you can do. John will head up the construction side of things and Ken Bradbury, your old mentor, will sit on our board while the transition takes place. We’re tripling your salary and we’ll throw in a five per cent share of the company. You’ll also be paid a generous commission if each branch hits its target. It’s the big time, Grace, Well done.’

I stand there blinking at them all. I’m not smiling. I’m thinking, I’ll be tied to them. This will be my life. Do I want this? Deep down inside, Gracie Flowers, is this what you really want?

‘I’m sorry. I can’t. I thought this was what I wanted, but, I’m sorry. I’ve got to go.’ And I walk back to the lift and out of the hotel. It’s not until I’m in the middle of Hyde Park and have taken off my shoes, felt the damp grass under my toes, hurled my mobile phone at a tree, downed my Buck’s Fizz in
one and burped that it dawns on me I’ve just quit my job. I don’t care, though. I want to feel fifteen again, before all the bad stuff. I fling my coat down under a tree and rummage in my bag for my old diary. I want to read it and find that girl again, that Gracie Flowers. The one who loved to sing. I want to meet her again. I settle down under a tree and I start to read:

I won! I didn’t think I would. This means I’ve won every competition this year. Now I start my parent-imposed singing break while I do my GCSEs, then it’s the biggie. The National Under 16s. Apparently I’m the favourite. I don’t want to get too excited. It’s not the be-all and end-all. Sometimes people get record deals and they’re horrible. I mean, what if they wanted me to record shit pop and be on the cover in me pants. So not me. I need to not get too worked up. What will be will be.

So, song choices. I haven’t really worked them out yet. I talked about it with Dad in the car. I have to do a hymn or gospel and I have no idea. I blame Dad for bringing me up such a non-believer! Dad said I should do ‘Amazing Grace’ just to piss Ruth off! So cruel. Maybe I’ll do ‘Kumbaya’ or ‘Little Donkey’! I’d like to do a Nina, maybe ‘Feeling Good’, because I’ll definitely be feeling good to have finished my GCSEs. Anyway there’s loads of time.

We had a funny journey home. Dad was in a good mood. He’d finished the opening chapter intro thingy for his book. He said I’d like it. Then! Then! Oh my God!!! I got a love talk. It was well soppy! I assume it was inspired by Danny Saunders asking me out.
Apparently, I’ll know when I’ve met the right man because I’ll be shy and weird around him, like I’ll behave strangely and stuff and probably embarrass myself in his presence. Because I won’t be able to stop thinking about him. Because all I’ll want to do is kiss him and touch him. Because he’ll make me want to be a better person. Because I’ll want to sing for him. Because all my songs will be for him. Phew! Sounds exhausting! I think there was more that I’ve forgotten, but even when I feel all this I’m not allowed to have sex with him for twenty years. What’s he like?!