The Make (12 page)

Gracie

DECEMBER

Chapter 27

22 December

Sandy and Gracie sat on either side of George’s bed in intensive care. George’s nurse had taken the pyjamas and dressing gown from Gracie, said thanks, and was now scooting around them, smiling briskly, checking monitors, reattaching tubes. To Gracie, George looked just the same as he had last night – seriously ill. Maybe terminally. But Sandy was nattering on to him, spouting any old crap, telling him about the weather, how much she was looking forward to having him back with her for Christmas, her day at work.

‘You’re in admin? What line of business?’ asked Gracie, butting in because now she wished she hadn’t come, she hated this place, the stink of the antiseptic, the sheer heat and confinement of it, seeing George laid out there like a living corpse. She was desperate for distraction.

‘Dental supplies,’ said Sandy brightly. ‘Anything you want to know about amalgam, drill bits or sterilizing units, I’m your girl. I know all the terminology. Medial, occlusal, distal. All that stuff.’

Gracie nodded. She thought that Sandy seemed very ‘up’ tonight, which she supposed was fair enough. These places took different people in all sorts of different ways: who was she to judge? If it helped Sandy to witter on while clutching George’s hand like a lifeline, what could it hurt?

‘I’m going to nip outside, get some coffee. You want some?’ asked Gracie.

‘No thanks.’ Sandy barely took her eyes off George’s face. Gracie turned away gratefully and was out of the door with indecent haste. She went out into the corridor and walked smack into Lorcan Connolly.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked as he grabbed her arms to prevent a violent mid-corridor collision.

Gracie irritably shrugged herself free. Looked at him. God, still so good-looking, so imposing, so . . .
stop it, Gracie. Forget it. It didn’t work then and it won’t work now.

‘I came to see George,’ said Lorcan.

‘He’s just the same,’ said Gracie, fumbling in her bag for change. ‘Jesus, it’s red-hot in here.’

She went over to the vending machine and got a coffee, then came back to where he was now sitting. She sat down as well, not too close, sipping at the coffee, which was vile.

‘They probably won’t let you in anyway,’ said Gracie. ‘Near-relatives only.’

‘I am a near-relative,’ said Lorcan calmly. ‘I’m his brother-in-law.’

Gracie gave him a scathing look. ‘For now,’ she said.

Lorcan sat back and folded his arms, his eyes on her face. ‘Yeah, when
are
you going to get those papers signed and back to the courts?’

‘As soon as I can,’ said Gracie coldly. ‘But they’re in Manchester, and I’m in London, so no can do. Not yet, anyway. As you can see, I have
slightly
more important things on my mind. Why, you got some other poor cow lined up?’

Now he was smiling. ‘Charming as ever,’ he said.

‘Hey –
you
sent the divorce papers.’

‘So you think I must have someone standing in the wings, ready to hop into the marital bed the minute you vacate it?’

Gracie blew on the coffee and sipped it. It was displacement activity, but she needed it right at that moment, because what had just sprung into her mind was a vision of her and Lorcan in bed together. And
why
had she said the papers were in Manchester? She had them right here, in her bag. She’d stuffed them in there with the Jiffy bag of hair and the rest of the post, meaning to sort it all out later.

‘Actually,’ said Gracie. ‘Just a small point, but an important one I think you’ll agree – I vacated that damned bed five years ago. You could have filed after two, you know. Irreconcilable differences. Which pretty much fits the bill, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Yeah, I would. So why didn’t
you
file?’ returned Lorcan sweetly.

It was a good question. And Gracie knew the answer; she hadn’t filed because the whole thing had been too painful even to think about. She’d loved him so much; but life – well, work – had intruded, pulled them apart. They’d been unable to find a compromise, and it had destroyed their marriage.

She shrugged. Kept her face blank. ‘Too busy, I suppose.’

‘Oh yeah. Gracie the dedicated career woman.’

‘That’s what I am,’ said Gracie.

‘Yeah,’ said Lorcan. ‘Hope it keeps you warm at night.’

‘Listen, I am
plenty
warm at night,’ said Gracie.

‘Gracie, you love your casino, that’s just bricks and mortar. And you were nearly in tears yesterday over a fucking car. That’s not natural.’

The git. It hadn’t
just
been the car. It had been everything. The threat on the windscreen. George and Harry. Her mother. The fire. The scare over Brynn’s safety. The notes. Those bags of hair.
Everything.
Oh yeah – and seeing Lorcan again. That had upset her too. It was still upsetting her, even now.

But his words had hit home like a hammer-blow. Maybe she
did
love her job and all the sweeteners that went with it too much. For a year now she’d had no close family, no friends except work colleagues, not even a lover. She had no
time
for any of that. Work claimed every waking minute of her day, and by the time she got home she was too bloody
tired
to even notice the gaps in her life, far less actually care about them.

‘Don’t you think this is a bit harsh?’ she demanded, going instantly on the defensive. ‘Pitching up at George’s hospital bed to tell him he’s fired?’

Lorcan stared at her. ‘I
was
going to fire him, but now I’m just hoping he’ll recover. What sort of a shit do you think I am?’

She gave a cynical half-smile. ‘Oh, you don’t want an answer to that.’

‘Yeah, I do. Come on. Let’s have it.’

Gracie stood up abruptly. She dumped the plastic cup and most of its contents in the rubbish bin and glared down at him. ‘You know what? I can’t be arsed with all this. Tell Sandy I’ve gone home, will you? And in future, let’s just do this through the courts, okay? I have
nothing
left to say to you, Lorcan. Nothing at all.’

When she got home, Suze was sitting at the kitchen table having a smoke, and from behind the closed lounge door came the sounds of gunfire. Claude was clearly in there, watching Bruce Willis – or someone like him – wreaking havoc.

Suze looked up as Gracie came in, and her face hardened into grimmer than usual lines.

Gracie took one look at her mother’s face and thought:
No. I’ve had enough.
She turned in the kitchen doorway and made as if to go on up the stairs.

‘How’s George?’ asked Suze quickly.

Gracie paused. ‘The same,’ she said.

Suze nodded, her face tight with dislike as she stared at her daughter. ‘I know what you did,’ she said.

Gracie looked at her mother’s face. Suze’s eyes were hostile. ‘What?’ asked Gracie, bewildered. ‘You heard me. I know what you did. Claude explained everything to me.’

Gracie opened her mouth to speak, to ask
what the . . .?

‘No, you listen to me,’ snapped Suze, stubbing out her cigarette with vicious movements. ‘Claude told me
exactly
what went on with you last night.’

Gracie leaned against the doorframe and folded her arms. ‘Oh really? This I’ve got to hear,’ she said.

‘Now don’t come that acid tone with me,’ said Suze, coming in close to her daughter. ‘It all happened just as Claude said. He came up to your room and knocked on the door to ask if you wanted anything to eat. He was being
polite.
And you opened the door in your underwear and gave him the come-on; you invited him in.’

Gracie’s mouth had dropped open as Suze spoke. ‘Oh, that’s priceless,’ she said at last.

‘Oh, it’s not priceless,’ said Suze, shaking her head, her eyes bitter as they glared at Gracie. She waved a finger in her face. ‘It’s just
typical
of you, Gracie Doyle. Seeing your own mother as competition, trying to score points.’

For God’s sake
, thought Gracie.
With that sorry son of a bitch? Is she serious?

Gracie knew that this ‘competition’ thing was Suze’s hang-up, not hers. While overindulging ‘her boys’, Suze had always seen the rapidly developing Gracie as a threat – not a daughter to be treasured and taken on shopping trips. As competition. And
younger
competition, at that.

Is that why I grew up cold?
Gracie wondered again, thinking of Lorcan’s derisive words about her attachment to material things. And her own mother’s words too, once heard and never forgotten:
Gracie, the girl with a calculator where her heart should be.

Maybe they were both right. But she was back here, wasn’t she? She wasn’t cold like they all said she was. She’d come to help. She was
determined
to help.

‘I want you to leave,’ said Suze, turning back to the table and shaking another fag out of the packet. She stuck the cigarette between her lips and snapped the lighter on, lighting the cigarette and inhaling deeply. Gracie wondered aloud when her mother had started smoking.

‘After the divorce,’ said Suze, seeing Gracie’s stare. She gave a taut smile and folded her arms. ‘I started on the fags then. It broke me, that bloody divorce. I loved your father.’

But you cheated on him.
Gracie didn’t say it. No good stoking up the animosity yet another notch.

Suze’s face hardened again. ‘I want you to pack your bags and go, Gracie. I won’t have you coming between me and Claude. He’s a good man, he don’t deserve it. There’s the B & B just down the road – you can stop there if you want. Or there are hotels enough, God knows you can afford it.’

Her mother was taking the word of her lover against that of her daughter.

Why am I surprised?
wondered Gracie.
Whatever I had to say, she never listened.

‘Well, ain’t you got nothing to say about it?’ prompted Suze irritably.

Gracie stared at her mother’s face. Hostile. Closed off. Wreathed in skeins of smoke.

‘Smoking’s very bad for your health,’ she said, and turned away. ‘I’ll go and get packed.’

Gracie started off up the stairs.

‘Yeah, that’s you, Gracie,’ Suze bellowed after her. ‘Don’t react, will you? Cold as fucking ice and twice as hard, ain’t you?’

Chapter 28

23 December

It was past midnight when Gracie let herself into George and Harry’s flat. She’d tried the B & B her mother had suggested, but it was full of people visiting their relatives for Christmas. She tried a couple of hotels, too, and found a similar story. In the end, she thought –
oh rats to it
. She still had the key to the flat, she’d just paid the damned rent and all it was doing right now was standing empty. And if Harry did by some chance show up, he’d come back to the flat, wouldn’t he, right?

Right.

She switched on the harsh overhead light, then flung her bag aside and sat down on the open sofa bed among all the mess and disorder. How the hell could anyone live in this shit? She put her head in her hands. She felt dispossessed, exhausted, bewildered and – yes – hurt. She’d been at her mother’s house for barely two days and already she’d been kicked out.

God, she was so tired. In a minute she’d make herself a drink, change the sheets – Jesus, they needed it! – and wash her face, clean her teeth. She kicked off her shoes and put her legs up on the sofa bed, thinking, okay, yeah, in a few minutes I’ll move, I’ll get cleaned up. And she fell instantly asleep.

When she woke up, there was sunlight filtering through the murky windows and beaming straight into her eyes. She’d fallen asleep fully dressed, half under the duvet and half out of it. For a few blissful moments she thought she was at home in Manchester, then it all came back to her. She was at George and Harry’s place, in London.

Shit.

She grabbed her toilet bag and stumbled through to the bathroom, yawning. She took a quick shower, cleaned her teeth, put on a little make-up and brushed out her hair. Then she went back to where she had dumped her suitcase and bag in the lounge, dug out clean underwear, jeans and a black polo-neck sweater, slipped on cosy moccasins and warm socks, and began to feel a little better.

She went into the little kitchen, filled the kettle, and found bread in the freezer to make toast. Then the flat’s landline rang. She went through to the lounge, plonked herself down on the sofa bed, and picked up.

‘Hello,’ she said cautiously.

‘Hi,’ said Lorcan.

‘Oh. Hi.’ She felt instantly tense; instantly hot.

‘I called round at your mother’s; she said you’d left after coming on to her boyfriend.’

‘Did she.’

‘I saw her boyfriend.’

‘Hm.’

‘He came on to
you
, right?’

Gracie sighed. ‘It’s academic, wouldn’t you say?’

‘She said you’d gone to a B & B, and I checked a couple but you weren’t there. Everywhere’s bombed out pre-Christmas, and then I remembered you’d been at George and Harry’s flat and thought you must still have a key.’

‘Well done, Sherlock.’

‘Shrewd deduction, yes?’

‘Lorcan, what exactly do you want?’ asked Gracie irritably.

‘Oh, I just wondered if there’s anything you’d like to share with me?’

‘Like . . . what?’ She thought about the note with the hair.
No filth or you’re all dead.
If she told Lorcan, would he insist on the police getting involved? She thought of Harry, out there somewhere, unaccounted for. Someone had hacked off his hair, someone had him; she was afraid for him, the fear sitting in her stomach like a constant, low-lying ache. Was he dead or alive? They had no way of knowing.

‘Well, when I was at the hospital last night, one of the nurses told me and Sandy that George’s brother had been in.’

Gracie clutched hard at the phone. ‘You
what?
’ Her heart picked up pace as hope surged through her.

‘That’s what she said.’

‘
Harry
’s been at the hospital? My God, you mean he’s okay? Well, what the fuck’s he playing at? We’re all worried sick about him. He ought to go and see Mum, set her mind at rest. It’s bad enough she’s got all this worry with George, without having to fret about him too.’

‘Yeah, yeah. All correct. But the nurse described him, and you know what was really strange? He didn’t have red hair like yours, Gracie.’

She felt her spirits deflate like a pricked balloon. ‘But who . . . what the hell’s going on here?’

‘I don’t know. But this “brother” is young, slim – and blond. Whoever it is, it isn’t Harry.’