Vaughn mimed zipping his lips shut because he was a surprisingly amiable drunk and she continued. ‘So, it was a Saturday afternoon and I was in town and I saw my dad coming towards me.’ She grimaced at the memory of her father with his two little boys, one on his shoulders, one swinging on his arm. ‘And I hadn’t seen him for ages because there was this whole thing with the custody and child support, so I’m getting ready to smile and he just walks right past me, like I wasn’t even there. I knew he’d seen me because he’d been looking right at me . . .’ Grace tailed off and took a huge medicinal gulp of champagne.
‘What happened next?’ Vaughn gave her an expectant sideways look.
‘Nothing much. I went home but I was really mad about it and that night I was out with my friends and I got really pissed and went round to his house to break his windows.’ None of Grace’s friends had thought it was a good idea, apart from Angie whose own home was equally broken and was the bad seed best friend you always had when you were seventeen. Grace’s grandparents had hated her, which had just made Angie even more alluring.
‘You should so do that,’ she’d enthused as they’d sat on a park bench drinking cider.
Grace had tried to chicken out until they got to the house and she’d seen the windchimes hanging up in the porch and the two cars parked on the drive and a swing-set in the back garden - all proof that her father didn’t want reminding of what a cock-up Happy Families v.01 had been. That was when she’d taken the brick Angie had found in a skip and lobbed it through the front window.
Her aim had been straight and true. The window had shattered inwards with a deafening crash.
‘Angie ran off as soon as the window broke but my big mistake was waiting for him to come out so I could call him a wanker,’ Grace said with a shaky, self-deprecating laugh. ‘And he shouted at me, and his wife, who’s a fucking heinous bitch, called the police.’ Grace paused for more champagne. ‘The cops didn’t even want to press charges but he insisted. Said I needed to be taught a lesson.’
They hadn’t put her in a cell because it was obvious, despite the caked-on make-up and the perilously short skirt, that Grace was a nice girl from a nice part of town who had Daddy issues. Mainly that her daddy was standing outside the interview room, where Grace had been put by an understanding WPC, and demanding that she was charged with aggravated assault and criminal damages.
It had ended two hours later when her grandfather turned up wearing a raincoat over his pyjamas to persuade all parties concerned that Grace should be let off with a caution. ‘Then I was grounded for six months,’ Grace told Vaughn, who was now sprawled on the steps, his head in her lap. ‘The only reason I did so well in my A-levels was because I wasn’t allowed to watch TV and they took the plug off my stereo.’
‘Poor Grace,’ Vaughn murmured. ‘If it’s any consolation, your father sounds like an utter bastard.’
‘Yup, he really is. My mum’s even worse.’ Christ, the champagne was like truth serum. ‘Y’know she was there when I went back to
Worthing the day we flew to Whistler? I have this cute little half-sister who my mum’s going to fuck up because that’s what she does. But sometimes I wonder if she did fuck me up or if I just use it as an excuse.’
‘Grace, don’t,’ Vaughn said, reaching round with an unsteady hand to pat her back, which seemed to unlock something inside her so the words were spilling out unchecked.
‘You know, I didn’t graduate from St Martin’s, right?’ Grace tugged a lock of Vaughn’s hair to make sure he was giving her his undivided attention. ‘I walked out just before my final show because that was the week she had Kirsty and she decided to get in touch for the first time in years. I remembered that she wanted to be a fashion designer too but she got pregnant with me and didn’t take up her place at art school. She taught me to sew. I had this little dress form and she’d help me cut out patterns and sew them up. I’ve always told myself I walked out because I was scared I was going to turn into her, but maybe, secretly, deep down, I knew I wasn’t good enough and it was easier to jack it in than fail horribly.’
‘You could always go back and finish if you wanted,’ Vaughn said carefully, as if he knew he was crunching over eggshells. ‘I have some sway at St Martin’s.’
Grace shook her head. ‘No, there’s no point. I even got rid of my sewing machine - dumped it on the side of the road and took up knitting instead.’ She wiped her hand across her eyes, not even caring that she was smudging her mascara. ‘God, I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I’ve never told anyone before.’
Vaughn glanced up at her and sighed. ‘I think if you cry at New Year, it’s the same as crying on your birthday. You’ll have bad luck for the whole year.’
It was sweet, Vaughn trying to jolly her out of her funk, but Grace ignored him. ‘I swear to God, that’s why I got flu. It was being so stressed out about having to breathe the same air as her. Bad shit always happens around my parents. They’re like lightning rods for bad shit.’
‘Don’t be so melodramatic. You got flu because you smoke too much and you never button your coat,’ Vaughn said, turning his head so he could press an unexpected but sweet kiss on Grace’s forearm. She ruffled his hair and decided that Vaughn needed to get drunk more often.
‘I think I’ve officially overshared,’ Grace said, because the situation needed lightening up before she smashed the bottle and tried to slit her wrists. ‘Try not to judge me too harshly, OK?’
Vaughn didn’t say anything, just craned his neck at what had to be a very awkward angle so he could have another swig. Then he rested his head back on her thighs with a blissful sigh. ‘I used to be a fat child,’ he announced. ‘A very fat child. I had no friends and I was bullied at school. Hiding my clothes when I was showering after PE, then forcing me to run naked around the Quad, was a very popular pastime.’
‘That’s awful!’ And actually explained a hell of a lot, from the faint cobwebbing of silvery stretchmarks across his hips to the machinations when it was time to order dessert.
‘I don’t drink very much now because when I hit my growth spurt at the very advanced age of eighteen and slimmed down, I decided to spend what was left of my youth acquiring all sorts of bad habits.’ Vaughn’s lips twisted. ‘I got sent down from Oxford and at twenty-three, I was shipped off to rehab after I’d signed my trust fund over to my drug dealer. Apparently, I have a very addictive personality.’ Vaughn sat up and reached for the last bottle of champagne.
Grace instinctively placed a hand on his shoulder. She didn’t pet or stroke him but tried to convey what she was feeling: empathy, tenderness and maybe a little pity through her fingertips. ‘C’mon, Vaughn, it’s in the past. You’re a fine, upstanding member of the community and you got over your addictions, didn’t you?’
Vaughn sat up and popped the cork of the last bottle and drank steadily like a man who was determined to reach oblivion. ‘Now I’m addicted to making money but that’s acceptable.’ He paused to take another swig of champagne. ‘I’m starting to remember what it feels like to be drunk and it’s not as much fun as it used to be.’
Grace didn’t know what to do. She needed Vaughn to be in control because God knows, she wasn’t capable of being the designated adult. And she couldn’t handle him sitting several feet away from her with this awful lost look on his face that she didn’t know how to wipe away. But she could try at least.
‘I do have some funny stories from my teen years,’ she said desperately. ‘Ask me anything about the age of fifteen, when I dyed my hair pillar-box red and my grandmother came into the bathroom and thought I had a head wound, through to nineteen, when I did acid at a party and thought I had multiple personality disorder for six months afterwards.’
Vaughn turned his head and, yay for her, he was smiling, though Grace could tell that he didn’t want to be cheered up, but he was a heterosexual man and when she pressed him (‘Come on. One-time only offer - ask me anything’), she knew what he’d choose.
‘How did you lose your virginity?’ It was dark, but Grace would have bet her new diamonds that Vaughn was blushing because honestly, how predictable.
She took a deep breath. ‘I was sixteen and it was with Paul Gold because we’d been going out for two weeks and he said he’d dump me if I didn’t.’ Even at sixteen, Grace had had an unerring knack for finding boys who would treat her like crap. ‘We did it in his dad’s Ford Mondeo while it was parked on the drive and, yes, it was a major disappointment. Then the next day his mum was giving their elderly neighbours a lift to Tesco’s and they found the used condom down the back of the seat.’
Vaughn snorted with laughter just as Grace had intended, which was why she’d glossed over the part where Paul had told all his friends what a crap shag she’d been and how she’d cried at the crucial moment. ‘I don’t think anyone has a good first time,’ he remarked, finally putting down the bottle.
‘How did you lose yours then?’ Grace asked. She was starting to feel as if she’d drunk her way to sober.
Vaughn gave in without a struggle. ‘Well, it was in Saint Tropez, which sounds glamorous, but the venue for my deflowering - can boys be deflowered? - was an abandoned, ant-infested ice-cream hut. I had bites all over me for weeks afterwards.’ He smiled and Grace smiled back though it wasn’t a happy smile. But then, maybe neither of them had many happy stories to share. ‘What else? I was eighteen, a late developer as I said, and she was older than me, the sister of someone I was at school with.’
‘See? You did have some friends!’
‘He wasn’t my friend. That’s why I fucked his sister.’
‘But you were into her for a while, right?’ she asked, because she wanted it to be true. Vaughn could be a bastard, for sure, she knew that better than anyone, but he wasn’t a stone-cold bastard.
Vaughn shook his head. ‘No, I just fucked her and made sure I told her brother about it afterwards.’ He put his head in his hands. ‘It wasn’t one of my finer moments.’
They sat there in silence, both steeped in memories of the bad times. Eventually Vaughn closed the distance between them so he could loop his arm around Grace’s shoulders and hold up his watch so she could see the second hand getting closer to the twelve.
The fireworks started with thirty seconds to spare. There was an avalanche of bangs and the entire sky lit up so one moment it was glowing a ghostly, smudgy pink, the next it was streaked with a rainbow of sparks.
‘Five, four, three, two, one.’ When the hand hit the twelve, Vaughn chastely kissed Grace’s cheek. ‘Happy New Year,’ he said flatly.
Grace didn’t want the year to start on such a despondent note, soured by past regrets. ‘C’mere,’ she slurred, and lifted her face so she could kiss him properly, which involved hair-tugging, tongue and a lot of enthusiasm even if the champagne had completely destroyed her technique. ‘And Happy New Year to you,’ Grace said firmly, when she pulled away. She looked around the empty square and sighed. ‘Argentines really don’t get the whole New Year thing.’
Vaughn staggered to his feet like a comedy drunk and Grace thought he might topple down the last three steps. ‘I never used to get a headrush.’
Grace stood up and yes, she was definitely on the way to sober and it didn’t feel that great. She shoved her throbbing feet back into shoes that felt as if they’d been lined with razor blades and limped after Vaughn, who was standing in the middle of the road and trying to flag down a passing police car that he’d mistaken for a taxi.
After walking for what felt like hours but could only have been a few minutes, they found a cab. Vaughn had recovered from the bad trip down Memory Lane and was attempting to snog Grace, while she tried to make sure that the driver, who had shifty eyes, took them to the Four Seasons and not to a scrub of wasteland where he’d steal their money and leave them for dead.
As soon as they were in their suite, yet another suite with incredible views and two bathrooms, Vaughn had Grace pressed against the door and his hands up her skirt. His usual finesse was lacking, but he more than made up for it with eagerness. Grace knew from bitter experience that he’d never get beyond half-hard and wildly optimistic.
‘Let’s get more comfortable,’ she suggested, wriggling free and tugging Vaughn towards the bed because if they had sex against the wall he’d probably drop her. She flopped down, Vaughn following so excitedly he almost fell off the bed. ‘OK, how do you want me?’
Vaughn didn’t answer. He had a deep frown of concentration on his face. Grace prodded him with one finger. ‘Vaughn? Do you want me to go on top this time or . . .’
‘Oh,
crap
!’ Vaughn was already jack-knifing off the bed, one hand clamped over his mouth, as he cannoned off an end table in his rush to get to the bathroom. Grace sat up as she heard the unmistakable sounds of the contents of his stomach being regurgitated. That seafood dinner earlier probably hadn’t been a good idea.