When she didn’t reply, he pushed his chair back and got to his feet. ‘Oh, that’s it. I get it. I’m like him and so I’m not to be trusted. Well, that’s kind of insulting, Grace. I’m not him, I’m me. The one and only.’ He flung open his arms, but without a smile to round off the gesture it was too bitter.
‘No, no. It’s not about you, it’s about me,’ she blurted out. It came across all whiney and she wasn’t surprised when he shook his head and plonked himself back down in his chair and laughed.
‘That’s it? That’s all I get? Something people say to explain why they wanna split up when they don’t wanna get to grips with the real reason? What the hell does that even mean, Grace?’
She stood and came round the desk. Should she push it, take a step nearer to him? ‘I know you’re not him, Tate, I know that, but you’ve got that same walking-on-the-cracks way of looking at life and that’s what scared me about you … and then in the pub, in the taxi, in the flat I just decided I’d chance it, I’d fall off the edge—’
‘That’s how you see being with me, as falling off the edge?’ He was looking at her as if she’d slapped him.
‘No … yes … please, Tate, that didn’t come out right. I’ve fallen in love with you – really, really fallen. I can’t get enough of you. I want to be with you. These last few days
without you have been as if someone’s turned off a light. But, please trust me on this. I don’t want to go back over things I put away a long time ago. Please don’t keep pushing me. I don’t want to keep harking back to the past. Isn’t it enough that I love you in the here and now? That I’m so, so sorry that I didn’t trust you? Isn’t it enough that you’ve fallen for me too – enough to copy the icons? It’s the loveliest thing—’
‘No, it’s not enough.’ He shoved his hands in his pockets as if he was scared he’d touch her otherwise. ‘It’s pretty good, Grace, I’ll give you that, but I want more. I’ve got a right to ask you about what went on with Bill stinkin’ Jackson because whatever he’s done to you has come back to bite me. It’s made you distrust me from the first time we met … all this holding yourself back, all this order, routine, reining yourself in. That girl I saw spinning around in my chair pretending to be a gunfighter, she was real. I could see it in you from day one; she’s the one I fell for. Why’s she hiding, Grace?’
‘I can’t … I can’t tell you. Please, it’s painful—’
His eyes were stormy, his hands out of his pockets again, underlining what he was saying. ‘What, more painful than being arrested, having to call my mom and tell her, thousands of miles away, that I was in trouble? Hearing how sick with worry she was?’
Her head, her chest, her stomach felt as if they were being compacted. She didn’t speak.
‘Tell me, Grace,’ he said harshly. ‘What really happened?’
‘I can’t. I really can’t.’
‘Why? ’Cos it makes you feel vulnerable, like you made me feel vulnerable? Know what it feels like to make love to a woman and then have the police pile in while you’re still naked, still got the scent of her all over your skin?’
She couldn’t even begin to answer that. She was gulping.
‘This is bugging the hell out of me, Grace. If you won’t even meet me halfway …’
She could see he was really trying not to lose his temper. She wondered, if she leaned over and kissed him, could she heal this, make it all go away?
‘Did he hit you?’ he asked suddenly, the anger coming out in the force of his words. ‘Assault you … worse?’
‘No, nothing like that.’
He made a harsh noise as if that had been his best shot and he had nothing left. She could see he was trying to take his hurt and work it into something less sharp, but then his face settled into an expression that made her feel like he’d walked out of the room already and she closed her eyes. She gave a start and opened her eyes when she felt him lay the palm of his hand gently on her face.
‘I feel like we’re in the Last Chance Saloon here, Grace,’ he said, with a look as if willing her to understand. ‘I can’t be with you if you won’t tell me what this is all about. It’s a huge, great hole in what I know about you, can’t you see that? I mean, I’d tell you everything about me if you just asked – first kiss, things I’d do differently, what I’d look back on my life and say I’m proud of, ashamed of. All the big stuff, I want to share it with you, because meeting you, falling for you, wow, it’s been frustrating and maddening and crap-ass wonderful. I liked how you watched over everyone else – even when you were being snitty, I liked that – Gilb, Al, Vi. Liked it even more when I saw Fliss, saw how you were the mom in that relationship … it rang so many bells with me, Grace. You’re kind and loving and caring and I thought I could trust you. A rock-solid pair of hands. A true heart. ’Cos you know, I’ve had it with flakiness, that casual letting everyone else go and hang because you’ve got to express your innermost self. Sticks right here.’ She thought he was going to point to his throat, but he was pointing to his heart.
‘You made me feel as if someone had turned up the power on all my senses, and I spent a while wondering if it was because I was kicking against you, trying to get a reaction, but it wasn’t, Grace. It was just ’cos I loved you. Seemed like you were someone who might bat for me for
a change.’ He smiled and then it was gone. ‘But here you are hiding a big part of yourself away as if you feel I’m too young or stupid to cope with it – whatever
it
is. And now … now you’re talking about you and me as if I’m gonna demolish you. What way is that to start anything?’
‘Tate, please …’
‘You don’t get it, do you?’ he said, ‘I need to know how he broke your heart so I can mend it properly.’
‘Oh, Tate.’ She reached up and put her hand on his. It was such a wonderful, wonderful thing to say to her and she was so tempted to take a chance. But then the guilt and shame came back. How could she see that handsome, open face change under her words? That would be harder to get over than him walking away.
She was trying to commit to memory how his skin felt when it was no longer going to be on hers.
‘I don’t know how else to reach you,’ he said and he slid his hand out from under hers and it was gone. He was glancing over her shoulder like he was already thinking how he was going to make it to the door. He looked as if he’d just been taught a horrible lesson by life.
She tried to get him to sit down again. ‘Please, Tate, people don’t have to know everything about each other. I love you, I want to be with you and maybe, maybe I’ll tell you it all when—’
‘I don’t want “maybe”, Grace, it’s not enough. I want “yes”, “definitely”, and I want it now. I want all of you. I’ve had years of promises that get broken; years of feeling second in line behind whatever passion was grabbing Mom at that moment. Whatever guy was grabbing her. Lots of superficial love, you know, lots of “my darling, clever boy”, but none of that helping you see where the big bear traps are hidden, pulling you out when you fall in them.’
He glanced towards the door again and she sensed there was a lot more he wanted to tell her but didn’t have the strength. He was still looking at the door when he said, ‘Listen, I’m heading off to France quicker than I’d planned, as soon as Sergei and his lawyer have sorted out if I’m free to go. I was gonna ask you to come with me. I
still
want to ask you, but not like this, Grace. Not if you won’t trust me enough to confide in me.’ He suddenly bent forward and gave her a peck on the cheek. ‘I love you, Grace, but I’m not coming round begging again. I’ve done all the running in this, kept on trying even though you kept on knocking me away. This is it. Your turn now. If I’m an edge, if that’s how you see me, well, you gotta jump.’
He started to move away and then stopped, but she could tell from his face it was not a reprieve. His shoulders had dropped and she saw his chest rise and fall as it had done when she watched him sleeping.
‘If you can’t do what I want you to do for us, please, for fuck’s sake, do something for yourself – get yourself a job that doesn’t involve taking out the trash and putting the magazines straight and getting some guy’s ass out of the fire who earns about five times what you earn. If you’re gonna stay here, get Al to face up to what you do and either pay you for it or get another person in to do all that crap.’ He reached up and mussed his hair about. ‘Or … I could help you get some money together, maybe become Al’s partner … I don’t know … or you could go somewhere else – another company, more money. But do yourself a favour: if you’re gonna stay, stop treading water, huh? Because, Grace, someday you’ll just give up and drown under all this handmaiden stuff.’
She remained standing where he had left her and was still there when Alistair came back from lunch. He didn’t say anything, just got her to sit down. She put her head on the desk again and it could have been a replay of the scene before Tate had visited her, except at least then she’d had some hope that she could be with him, and now she didn’t.
CHAPTER
33
‘So, New Hampshire next or you wanna go for a biggie?’
Violet pondered and said, ‘Montana, I would like to go for Montana.’ She giggled. It felt a bit naughty Tate being here during the day without Gilbert. Without Grace.
Tate got up and walked across the squares of paper as if they were stepping stones and had a look through the pile of scrapbooks. Montana filled three and he brought them back to the sofa, stone-stepping very neatly on his return journey.
They went through mountains and ranches and lumber, through Glacier National Park and the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Tate reading all the snipped-out bits of paper and now and again telling Violet things she didn’t know. He had a nice voice to listen to, and now the mice seemed to have gone quiet, it was good to have some noise in the house.
She hadn’t even been afraid when he’d turned up and done Grace’s knock but wasn’t Grace. They’d laughed about that when she’d let him in, although she felt his laugh
didn’t sound right. She expected that was because Grace and he had, as Gilbert said, ‘fallen out’.
Violet knew it was something to do with the robbery and the fact that Grace thought Tate had stolen the Russian Ivons, which was plainly ridiculous. Anyone could tell that he was a good boy, although she would have liked to have seen his hair a bit shorter. Tate said it was also because Grace wouldn’t let go of her secrets and Violet nodded despite not having the foggiest idea what he meant.
When they got to the last page of Montana, he closed the scrapbook with that same kind of action her mother used to use when she had finished telling them a bedtime story.
‘It’s been great going through these with you, Violet,’ he said. ‘Taken my mind off … lots of other things. But we won’t be able to do all of the US. This is going to be my last visit.’
‘Until when?’
‘Until a long time.’ His smile was a good one but she felt it had shrunk since that first time he had come here, although maybe that was because his lip wasn’t swollen any more.
‘I’m going to France,’ he was saying, ‘day after tomorrow. To learn a bit more about painting.’
Violet remembered Mr Lewis on the corner. ‘My neighbour
is a decorator. You could get him to talk to you. Think of the money you’d save not going to France.’
He explained to her that it wasn’t that kind of painting and she realised she’d been silly and laughed, although she was still rather sad that he wouldn’t be calling again and a bit put out too. She had moved all the scrapbooks down to the sitting room after all.
When he didn’t speak he reminded her of how droopy Grace had been when she’d visited. And then, out of the blue, he asked her whether she’d ever been in love.
That was easy. ‘Of course. With my mother and with Gilbert.’
He was still droopy. ‘Hurts, doesn’t it?’ he said and she agreed with him to be polite. She didn’t remember it hurting at all; it was very straightforward.
‘And … has Gilbert ever been in love?’ he asked next, and she had a think about that; she said he’d probably loved their mother and she knew he loved her.
‘No one else?’
Violet said ‘no’ and saw Tate open his mouth and then close it again.
‘Did you want to ask something else?’ she said.
‘No. Old me would have. New me is reading the signs. Got Grace to thank for that.’ He really shouldn’t twist his mouth like that – the wind might change.
‘Anyway, gotta go,’ he said finally. ‘It’s good you love Gilbert and he loves you, ’cos you know, Vi, love comes in all shapes and sizes.’
He stood up and so she did too.
‘I want to give you a big old hug, Vi,’ he said, ‘but know you’d hate it, so shake on it?’
She wasn’t sure about the hand he was holding out but he said, ‘That’s paint under my nails, not dirt,’ and so she did shake it – just a quick touch and away again. She surreptitiously wiped her palm down the back of her skirt afterwards.
As they walked to the door, he asked if she’d like him to send her some postcards from France? Suggested she could collect them and start a French scrapbook after she’d finished with China.
She said she expected China to take quite a while, but that yes, if he washed his hands before he wrote them and perhaps put each one in an envelope to send, that would be a lovely idea.
When he was putting his boots back on, he said he was sorry to be saying goodbye to her and to Gilbert. He didn’t say he was sorry to be saying goodbye to Grace.
She watched him wander off down the path. Those boots could do with a polish.
Gilbert came home not long after that. The way he shut the front door didn’t sound promising.
Another droopy person.
‘You look very tired,’ she said to him, ‘can I make you some tea?’
‘It’s Grace,’ he replied being really rather rude by not answering her question. ‘I popped in earlier; she’s still very upset. Not nice to see. I don’t know what to do for her … she won’t talk about it. She’s pretending that everything’s under control, everything’s fine.’ He was playing with the arm cap on the chair, which he knew irritated her. ‘So stupid,’ he said, really tweaking it. ‘She’s lovely, he’s lovely, but it looks as if it’s doomed. Makes you think …
carpe diem
and all that.’