Unlike a Virgin (7 page)

So far we’re an hour and twenty minutes late leaving for
Wales. I purse my lips and beep my horn again, then again, and again. God, I love my horn. This is the second horn I’ve had on this car. I wore the first one out. I’m very proud of that.

My local pub is the best pub in the area. It’s called The Festering Carbuncle and is thankfully more pleasant than its name suggests. The Festering Carbuncle is a gastro pub, I’ll have you know, and it’s run by probably the nicest man alive. In fact, if there were to be a Nicest Man in the Universe competition, I would enter Anton and put all my money on him. I don’t know how old he is, but he must be getting on for about fifty because he has a son my age and he’s done a host of exciting things in his life. He was a roadie for U2 for years, then, when he left that job, he had a photographic exhibition showing all the photos he’d taken of the band over the years. It was a big success and afterwards other bands asked him to photograph them, so he spent a few years touring with The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Blur. When he found himself rocked out, he bought The Festering Carbuncle, which in those days really was a festering carbuncle. Anton did it up, put lots of his photos on the walls, employed lovely staff and set about his other passion, which is cooking.

The Festering Carbuncle was one of the deciding factors in me buying my flat. That and the fact that it was the only flat I could afford. I walked into the pub with Friendly Wendy, having just viewed my future home, and Anton was sat on one of the wooden tables with three staff eating bangers and mash. Proper looking juicy sausages, creamy mash and gravy. Wendy and I stood in the doorway, our mouths watering, transfixed.
The pub wasn’t even officially open then, but Anton sat us down with them and gave us sausage, mash and mugs of tea, and told us all about the area. As soon as I’d wiped the last bit of gravy off my plate with a slice of homemade crusty bread, I called and put an offer in.

‘All right, love, calm down,’ a man says as he passes my car while I beep the horn.

‘I am a wronged estate agent and it’s my birthday. I can’t calm down,’ I shout back at him.

‘Gracie Flowers,’ says Anton, walking out of the pub towards me.

The sight of Anton always makes me smile. He’s tall. Mind you, everyone’s tall to me. I think Friendly Wendy is tall and she’s only five foot three and a half. Anton’s got a lot of hair. It’s got grey in it, but you wouldn’t say he’s grey. He’s still brown. His is a Hugh Grant circa
Four Weddings and a Funeral
style. He’s not buff but he’s quite fit looking. He takes his dog, Keith Moon, on a long walk everyday and I suppose he must lift barrels and things while he’s working to keep in shape. He always wears loose cotton shirts and jeans. He’s very comfortable in his own skin, is Anton. He’s just simply lovely.

‘For you, my darling,’ he says and hands me a plate with a bacon sandwich on it. See what I mean! He’s lovely.

‘Oh, Anton, really? It’s my only birthday present!’

‘Oh Gracie, I didn’t know. Will you be in tomorrow for the karaoke? The first of many, I hope.’

‘Oh.’ I pause. I loathe karaoke. ‘Probably not.’

‘Oh well, try to make it. I’ll sing you a special birthday song.’

I wince inwardly and change the subject.

‘How’s Freddie doing?’ Freddie is Anton’s son, a handsome young lawyer who Friendly Wendy is in love with.

‘Ah, he wanted to talk to you about getting on the property ladder. Something like your flat …’

‘Maisonette.’

‘I do apologise, maisonette, would be perfect.’

‘Has he got my number? Here take my card. Or …’ Brainwave. ‘He could call Wendy, he’s got her number, she could talk him through the properties we’ve got—’

‘I think he wanted to be looked after by the super estate agent that is Gracie Flowers.’

Damn.

‘Cheers, mate.’ Danny slaps Anton on the back as he bounds past him and round the car to the passenger door.

‘Oh, Dan, I haven’t fixed that door yet so it still doesn’t open. You’ll have to crawl in through my side,’ I say, climbing out of the car.

Danny folds up his long limbs and clambers into the car.

‘I really should get that fixed. It’s a nightmare when I have clients,’ I mutter.

‘I’ll be off, Gracie Flowers,’ says Anton, and he bends down and kisses me softly on the cheek. Anton always smells nice. The perfect combination of musky man aftershave, olive oil and hops.

I get back in the car and belt up. Danny is already tucking into half of my bacon sandwich, so I take the other half and we set off. Finally.

It’s not until we’re on the M4 that I remember about the morning-after pill.

‘Danny!’ I shout him awake. ‘Where’s my pill thing? I’ve got to take it.’

‘What? Oh, babe. They wouldn’t give it to me. It has to be you. I went all the way down there for nothing. Lampard scored while I was gone as well.’

Bugger, I think.

A Foxtons estate agent would describe Danny’s parents’ house as ‘peacefully located in the beautiful Welsh countryside’. I would say that it’s ‘inconveniently located in the epicentre of absolutely nowhere’. The nearest postbox is over two miles away. The nearest village – and by village I mean cluster of cottages with a general store and a pub – is nine miles away. When they first bought it and Danny and I came to visit them, we couldn’t believe it. We didn’t see a soul on the road for ages. It was such a novelty we pulled over as soon as the windy road allowed and had a quickie. It wasn’t the most successful sex we’ve ever had, because at one point Danny got a bit carried away and toppled into a bush. Unfortunately, it was a bush of stinging nettles and he didn’t have any trousers on at the time. That was the end of the quickie. He lay on the back seat, moaning with his bum out for the rest of the journey, putting my Boots Protect & Perfect on his arse because he said it was soothing!

We haven’t had random outdoor nooky for a while, I think, looking at Danny, who’s still asleep. He could sleep through a world war. He’s really good looking is my Danny. He looks a bit like that bloke from the
Twilight
films who teenage girls faint over. He’s certainly pale, like a vampire, mainly because he works for a company that makes computer games, so he spends most of his time in darkened rooms staring at a computer screen. When Dad was alive he’d always make wild predictions about the man I would end up with, Prince William being a favourite. I maintained that I would only consider Prince William if he learned to play the acoustic guitar. All I wanted from a man when I was younger was that he should be able to play the acoustic guitar. Around the time Dad died he was keen for my future husband to be Will Young – he just missed him coming out. He never met Danny. Sometimes I wonder what he’d think about me ending up with a computer gamer who doesn’t play guitar, although, to give Danny credit, he did get his grade one recorder.

‘How’s work, babe?’ I say, trying to ease him back into the land of the living as we’re almost there.

‘Uh,’ he says opening his eyes and swallowing. ‘Crap.’

‘Why?’ I lean my hand across to touch his knee.

‘Dunno.’

‘Talk to me, Danny. What’s wrong? I thought you loved your job.’

‘Aw. Nah. Bored.’

‘Babe, maybe you need a new challenge. You could try another company or ask for a promotion.’

‘Yeah,’ Danny says, looking down. He stretches his legs and I move my hand back onto the steering wheel.

‘Why don’t you read
The Five Year Plan
?’

He turns to me and gives me a sleepy smile.

‘Yeah, maybe.’

I smile back and blow him a kiss.

‘You won’t regret it. You’ve had the same job for years. You’re bound to be bored. You need … to think big, aim high.’

‘Think big, aim high,’ he echoes. ‘Grace?’

‘What?’

‘Mum wants you to sing at the party tonight?’

‘Why does she want me to sing? She’s never heard me sing.’

‘She has. She was going through all the old home videos and she came across our Year Ten Christmas show. Do you remember?’

‘Oh, yeah, didn’t I sing that Mariah Carey song?’

‘You were amazing.’

‘And didn’t you read some poem?’

‘Yeah.’ He laughs. ‘I well had a crush on you then.’

‘Soft.’ I smile at him. ‘You’d better tell your mum I can’t sing.’

‘Grace, just sing. You’re in the middle of nowhere. It’ll be fine.’

‘Danny!’ I shout. ‘No!’ I hate to get cross, but sometimes it’s necessary. ‘I’m not singing, OK. Jesus!’

Obviously we’re late. We walk into the living room and everyone already has the ruddy glow of at least two drinks and all the best bits from the buffet table have been devoured. The good thing about Danny’s parents’ house is that it’s cosy and warm with old beams and open fires. Just the sort of place you
want to arrive at after four and half hours of driving in a Nissan Micra.

‘Danny!’ shrieks his mum. ‘And Gracie! Look, here she is.’

I love, love, love Danny’s mum. In many ways I don’t know what I’d do without her. She’s more my mum than my mum. I was gutted when they decided to move to Wales. I used to adore going to their house in London. Danny’s an only child, like me, and when the four of us had dinner there, it felt like a proper family meal. Mrs Saunders would keep the conversation going with questions and stories, and she was always interested and thoughtful. I love roast chicken, so she’d often make it for me, and when I became an estate agent she would cut out articles about the property market from the paper for me. She would tell us about the charity fêtes and coffee mornings she’d been to, and somehow she’d make them sound fun. She squeezes Danny first, then me. ‘Here’s Grace,’ she whoops. ‘Our entertainment!’

Now I may love her, but I’m not going to be bullied into this. I give Danny a steely look to indicate that he needs to save me, but he’s already wrapped up in the embraces of his other relatives.

‘Happy birthday,’ Danny’s dad says, wandering over to me.

‘And a happy birthday to you,’ I reply.

Danny’s dad scares me. Not because he looks like Freddy Krueger, but because I see in him what Danny will become. And if I had to pick one word to describe it, that would be lazy. If I were allowed more words they’d be ‘lazier than a dead swine’. He is definitely a ‘I’ll have my dinner in the lounge watching
Top Gear,
love’ sort of a man.

‘I hear you’re singing tonight,’ he says.

‘Er, well,’ I mutter.

‘We’ve got a chap to play the piano for you – Margaret’s son, a music something-or-other – where is he?’ Danny’s dad looks about him, then raises his hand with a jerk in the direction of a youngish-looking man with a beard, who literally runs towards us and puts his arm around me. Blimey, I think, as he nearly winds me with his embrace. The Welsh obviously don’t get much physical contact.

‘Grace! Grace Flowers,’ he says in an English, not Welsh accent. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, you probably don’t remember me. Not with the beard. I taught at Kensal Rise Community College. Well, I assisted for a while when I was doing my teacher training course. Music?’

‘Oh, um.’ Nope, I don’t remember him at all.

‘Olly Bell. Well, Mr Bell.’

Oh, Mr Bellend. Now it’s coming back to me.

‘Oh yes, yes, I remember you.’

‘I couldn’t believe it when Mr and Mrs Saunders said you’d be singing and asked if I’d accompany you. What an honour.’

‘Oh, but—’

‘We’re all so excited.’

‘Um, my throat is a bit sore. I’m not sure whether I should—’

‘So what are you doing at the moment?’

‘I’m an estate agent,’ I tell him proudly.

‘Sorry?’

‘I’m a sales negotiator at Make A Move on the Chamberlayne Road.’

‘Oh, God. I’m so sorry,’ he whispers for some reason. ‘Can I ask what happened?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, with your singing career?’

‘I don’t have a singing career. I haven’t sung for years.’

He looks taken aback and Danny’s dad looks uncomfortable. I look around for Danny to save me, but he’s talking to his mum. Whatever they’re saying it looks serious.

‘Pam,’ I say, walking towards them. They both look up at me suddenly, almost guiltily, and I have a fleeting feeling that they’ve been talking about me. ‘Pam, my love, I don’t sing any more. Honestly, please, I haven’t sung for about a hundred years. I don’t want to make a big deal of this, but I can’t sing tonight.’

‘Oh just a few songs,’ Pam begs.

I’m getting angry. Not so much with Pam, more with Danny. He knows I haven’t sung in public since my freak-out all those years ago. Why isn’t he standing up for me? Why has he put me in this position? I glare at him.

‘Oh, go on, Grace. Just do “Son Of A Preacher Man”. Dad’s dad was a vicar. Go on, everyone will love it,’ Danny insists.

‘Oh, “Son of a Preacher Man”!’ Pam screams, clapping her hands together.

‘Yeah, that’s all you have to do, Grace.’

‘Everyone will love it!’