Her laces were a little too tight, but she figured that by the time she’d pounded the pavements at her very brisk pace, ducking and diving around groups of tourists and weaving between irritating lovers and amblers with all the time in the world, they would slacken off to be just so. Casting an eye in the direction of Jason’s office, she was glad to see he had already left for the day. Not that she was taking part in the competition exactly, but where and when possible, she liked to arrive before and leave after him; she had a point to prove and was waiting for him to screw up, then she would pounce!
Grace stood, lifted the receiver, popped the phone in the space between her chin and shoulder and punched the three-digit speed-dial code that her finger performed automatically.
‘Hey, you, just about to leave. What’s she up to?’ She spoke quickly, hoping her husband would match her pace; it was important to keep things moving. As she waited for his response, she gathered up the printed promotional sheets that required her approval, her chunky notepad and the mock-ups for the photographic shoot she needed to organise, and shoved them into her bag, along with a selection of her favourite pens, that morning’s
Metro
, which she still hadn’t had a chance to open, and half a banana, the fate of which she was undecided about. She might eat it on the train or lob it in the bin.
Tom drew breath. His unhurried response made her jaw muscles tense, just a little. ‘She’s had a great day. I’ve tried not to mention… y’know… our little upcoming adventure, but we did read her book about the tiger who had to go into hospital and her only question was, did the tiger’s daddy stay with him while he was in hospital, so I guess that gives us a bit of a clue about what she’s worrying about.’
No mention of the tiger’s mummy?
‘Okay, well, we can go through that. I’m literally leaving right now…’
‘Bye!’ she mouthed, waving her palm at Jayney, who was finished for the day. As with anyone who spends too much time at work, her shared PA straddled the line between colleague and friend.
Jayney rushed over to Grace’s desk and placed a neon-pink Post-it on her bag before making her way from the office. As ever, she ignored the conversation being had; it was the same whether Grace was talking to a client or sorting supper at home, Jayney appeared wonderfully disinterested in the detail.
Grace read the message.
Have a great w/end.
Tell Chloe good luck for Monday. See you Tues! x
She winked at her friend and confidante.
Tom had started discussing supper. She cut him short. ‘I’ll get something when I get in. Don’t worry too much. I had a late lunch at my desk. Look, Tom, I’ve got to go or I’m going to miss my train. I’m cutting it fine as it is.’ She glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘See you in a bit. Love love.’
‘Okay, love love, Grace, see you in a bit.’
Tucking her chestnut-coloured bob behind her ears, she dashed down the wide marble staircase, ignoring the corporate advice to walk slowly and grip the shiny handrail as she descended. Who had time for that? Certainly not her; she had a train to catch. With her rucksack on her back, her light mac belted tight and her yellow Radley bag lying flat against her stomach, she quickstepped across the palatial, marble reception area. Head down, she did her best to ignore the throng of staff that had streamed down from the sixteen floors of the Shultzheim Building, where advertisers, marketeers and the pretty people who worked in PR rented floors, smiled at each other in the communal gym and fought competitively from their individual offices. Grace eyed the revolving doors, waiting for the right moment to step in.
Having been cocooned inside her double-glazed, climate-controlled office since that morning, she found the noise of the city impossible to ignore. Cabbies beeped, bus engines wheezed and a thousand individual voices shouted into mobile phones. The cacophony fuelled the beginnings of a headache. She headed for the station as if she was on automatic pilot, her internal satnav set to N1C 4QP. She no longer paid attention to the London landmarks, grandiose architecture, red buses and telephone boxes that apparently screamed photo opportunity to those who crowded her path.
Grace remembered when there had been something exciting about being in London. Many streets held haunts she associated with fun times in the past. Sometimes she could actually glimpse herself, young and smiling, outside a particular pub. Wearing sassy clothes, too much lipstick and holding a glass of wine aloft as the younger carefree Grace laughed long and loud at nothing very much in particular. She had been high on life, fresh out of uni and with the man she loved; her career was set and nearly everything was hilarious! Yet now, as she knocked on the door of her forties, the big city, with its bright lights and frivolous distractions, had gone from being a place of fascination to an absolute chore. The airless Tubes frustrated, the crowds infuriated and the exorbitant cost of her daily coffee horrified her. The moment her foot stepped from the train onto the platform at St Pancras, she wanted to get back to the countryside and gulp down its exhilarating air. Her preferred destination on any day was home with Tom and Chloe, make-up-free, sofa-bound and in her comfies.
She knew part of her disillusionment could be attributed to age. Things that she wouldn’t have paid heed to in her youth now struck her as totally unacceptable. Why did politeness have to come at a premium?
Oh my God
, she thought as she circled yet another loiterer,
I’m turning into my mother!
Grace smiled and pictured her mum, Olive. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Her mum managed to effortlessly pull off being all things to all people. A great mother, devoted wife and lovely friend, everyone loved her. Olive was honest, blunt, fiercely loyal and fun. Grace knew that if she morphed into half the character her mum had become, then she would be doing okay.
Grace was tired. Battling with Jason was wearying; it added an unwelcome layer of stress to an already demanding role. She felt the throb of a bone-deep ache. This was no normal fatigue; her body was firing warning shots across the bows. Its message? Slow down or fall prey to one of any number of bugs that will render you useless. That wouldn’t do at all. She didn’t have time for illness; if it wasn’t scheduled on the kitchen calendar, it simply couldn’t happen. Instead, she would do as she always did, medicate her headache, down mugs of industrial-strength coffee to try and kickstart her flagging system, and get on with it.
Her day had been exceptionally hectic. Mid morning had been worst, with Jayney standing in front of her holding up two mood boards, asking her to approve one, while she herself had been on the phone listening to another client explain in agonising detail why they simply couldn’t stretch to the suggested budget; meanwhile Jason had stood in the hallway tapping the face of his watch, reminding her she was already late for their meeting. She had felt like running away, but then she felt like that most days at one point or another. And running away was not an option.
The rhythmic sway of the hot, sticky carriage encouraged her to doze. Grace cast a sleepy gaze over her fellow commuters. She considered the strange relationship they enjoyed, this cluster of strangers who made the same journey together year round. In the mornings they convened in the same carriage and at the end of the day they met at St Pancras and travelled home together. Anyone not present would have their absence noted with a cursory glance up the platform. Factoring in the inevitable waiting time at either end, she calculated that she spent two hours and forty minutes in the company of these strangers on a typical weekday – more than she did with Chloe. Yet, apart from the briefest of smiles or heads nodded in acknowledgement, there was no real interaction.
She, of course, had her own name and life story for each one of them. There was Mr Mumble, who tutted a lot, shook his head and spoke quietly from beneath his bushy, grey moustache, chatting to himself and clearly not always happy with things. His incomprehensible ramblings sometimes reached her ears along the platform. She was sure he lived with his mother and fifteen cats and was smarting because his mum had taken away his Xbox privileges. Maybe he had left his room in a mess, a wet towel on the floor, or a pizza box on the landing, something like that. He sulked despite the fact that he was fifty and a justice of the peace. Even thinking about that made her smile. Then there was Mr Stress, whose tie was permanently askew around his bloated neck and whose tone and demeanour both screamed heart attack. Though he was a rather portly chap, he always tried to squeeze himself into the tiniest of vacant seats, the sort you’d only really want occupied by a close relative. He would then spend the remainder of the journey awkward and consciously trying not to squash those sitting either side of him, meanwhile shouting into his mobile about various meetings and ideas he had. She imagined him running the training department of a medium-sized supermarket and thought that his stress levels might be due to the unrequited love he had for Marjorie in the fruit and veg aisle. Grace could tell by the tightening of his jaw and his fake laugh that he was anything but ‘delighted’ about Colin’s promotion over his own more than capable head. She knew how that felt. Then there was her favourite, Miss I-Love-You, who spent large chunks of each journey cooing down the phone to her man. Grace had decided, however, that the man belonged to her cousin and that the two lovers were therefore forced to smile politely at family functions, clink glasses of Buck’s Fizz at Christmas over the kids’ heads and feign indifference when their other halves announced they were buying a bigger house or new car. This would explain her barely concealed snivels into a tissue as they neared St Pancras. Grace wondered what story and name they had given her. Ms Prim, Ms Sour Puss, Ms Stuffy Professional? Quite likely. The idea made her smile. They didn’t know her – very few people did, maybe two in the whole world, her sister, Alice, and Tom, her husband.
Grace laid her head against the window but couldn’t drop off despite her tiredness; she was worried about Monday. Sending her little girl off to hospital, no matter how minor the procedure or how often she reminded herself of all the benefits, felt like a big deal.
Grace wondered what Chloe would be doing right now. Probably having her bath, or her bedtime story. She felt the familiar stab of resentment that she was away from home, working or travelling as usual. But what was the alternative?
You’re just tired. Hot bath, good sleep, tomorrow is another day.
The train began to draw up alongside the platform, shuddering to a halt. Grace gathered up her bag and briefcase but decided to leave the now well-thumbed
Metro
behind. She ditched her banana in the little bin between the seats and stepped over the outstretched legs of her fellow travellers who were continuing further along the line to Leagrave, Harlington and Flitwick.
The station was comparatively quiet at that time of night, save for a few nattily dressed teens with carefully structured quiffs, uber-tight jeans, and tweed jackets that made them look part pheasant beater, part chemistry teacher. It made her smile. When she and Tom were at university, he used to think he’d done well if he’d managed to put on a clean T-shirt; she had to remind him to brush his hair and couldn’t imagine him or any of his mates going to this level of effort for a Friday night on the town.
You must be getting old, Grace.
The single lamppost gave off a modest orange glow as she tried to locate her car keys. When it came to handbags, she fitted the female stereotype perfectly: the bigger the bag, the more junk she could fit in it. She sifted through bits of make-up and items of electronic wizardry that made her accessible no matter how remote she was from the office. Her fingers fumbled over wet wipes, and books and toys on hand to amuse Chloe at a moment’s notice; chewing gum, notebooks, several pens and a box of cornflour. She had no idea how that had got in there, but could probably at a push name her prime suspect.
Finally she found the keys, running her finger over Chloe’s photograph, which had been made into a key ring. It was a cheesy gift that her mum and dad had bought as a souvenir of their day at the seaside. Tasteless, yes, yet that two-inch square gave Grace pleasure on a daily basis. She thought again of Chloe, who had been to pre-school that morning, which probably meant another masterpiece for the kitchen wall. They would soon have to find another ‘gallery’ as the kitchen was already groaning under the weight of macaroni glued onto card, paper chains, coloured-in handprints, and bells and stars made of painted salt dough. Her art portfolio was growing weekly. Chloe, darling, sweet, chubby Chloe…
Grace approached the car and pressed the button. Popping the hatch, she threw her briefcase into the boot and slammed it shut. It was bloody cold. The large 4x4, with its leather seats and softly glowing interior light, looked invitingly warm and comfortable. She considered what music to listen to on the journey home, deciding on Ryan Adams, with whom she would duet.
It was a twenty-minute drive via a series of high-hedged lanes to Nettlecombe, where her family would be waiting. Despite losing herself in the lilting lyrics of ‘Gimme Something Good’, her mind whirred through her never-ending to-do list. It was this virtual catalogue that routinely kept her awake into the early hours, caused her to lose her thread of thought when in conversation, and was responsible for the random shouting of words as she remembered something urgent that she’d forgotten.
Must get milk out of freezer as we’re running low. Shit, I didn’t return Ruthie’s call.
Her school friend had left her two messages asking about lunch.
What can I get Mum for her birthday? I could organise a bouquet, but that feels a little like I haven’t bothered to put any thought in. I’ll ask Alice if she’s got any ideas. Must get Jayney to send the proofs off to Nell, if we’re going to make the lead-time. Did I reply to Angharad about the final cost? Need to check that. Wonder if Tom has packed Chloe’s bag for Monday. What will she need? Not much, I suppose. I’ll have to check. God, I’m tired.