Kiss Heaven Goodbye Part 50

'You can't stop me seeing Bill,' she said insolently.

He smiled cruelly. 'I think you'll find I can. I'm offering him the job as general manager of the Globe Sydney. That should be far enough to keep his filthy paws off you.'

'He won't take it.'

'Oh he will. If he doesn't, by the time I've finished muddying his reputation he won't be able to get a job shovelling s.h.i.t from the pavements in Soho.'

He stretched across to the small mahogany table and picked up the phone. 'Room service?' he said. 'Mr Ashford here in the penthouse. I'd like you to prepare something special, perhaps that thing you do with quail? And retrieve a bottle of forty-seven Petrus from the cellar. My wife and I have something to celebrate.'

57

December 2008

When the Toddington Hall renovations were finally completed, after almost four years of work and five million pounds on structural and cosmetic alterations, Julian decided to throw a weekend house party to celebrate. To Grace's disappointment, he invited art dealers, collectors and gallery owners, a very staid and serious crowd, and she was beginning to wish she'd laid on hors d'oeuvres on the terrace instead of a hog roast.

'Never let it be said that your boyfriend doesn't like the sound of his own voice,' whispered Sarah Brayfield, loitering at the back of the west wing gallery, sipping a much-needed gla.s.s of red wine. Grace giggled behind her hand, feeling like a naughty schoolgirl bunking off a field trip. They were forty-five minutes into a guided tour and had yet to leave the gallery, where Julian was standing in front of his paintings and talking expansively about his early abstract period.

'He's just proud of what he's done.' Grace smiled.

'Well I'm not sure about the paintings, but you can't fault what he's done with this place,' said Sarah. 'I'm just hoping you're going to adopt me and I can move into the bedroom in that Rapunzel turret.'

Her friend was right. Toddington Hall was absolutely spectacular. The house itself was a labyrinth of rooms, secret turrets and huge bedrooms, while the grounds had miles of woods, lush meadows and lanes flanked by lavender and cow parsley where Grace would spend hours riding her bike in the sun.

'Well that's enough about my daubings,' said Julian. 'Now I've got something a little special to show you. Follow me, everyone. To the screening room.'

Grace smiled at the guests, showing them towards Julian's specially constructed darkroom. He was keen to show off his new project, 'Newspeak', a wall of sixty-four television screens which would randomly flick between TV stations around the world. He had installed a giant satellite screen on the roof for the purpose.

'I think I've seen enough for one day,' whispered Sarah as they sloped off to hide in the kitchen, toasty from the Aga filling the room with heat. 'Feels like we're back in the Bristol house,' she said, settling at the farmhouse table. 'Remember how the boiler was always on the blink? Either tropical conditions or icicles on the cold tap.'

Grace nodded and filled up their gla.s.ses. 'That seems a lifetime ago.'

'For you maybe,' said Sarah. 'I'm still single, childless, careless ... only difference is its five-hundred-quid Frette sheets keeping me warm at night.'

'You were adamant last month you like being single.'

'I said I'm not afraid of being single. Thing is, I don't want just anyone anyone. I want the right one. Speaking of which, did you read about Alex and Melissa's divorce? Sounds messy.'

'I spoke to him a few weeks ago,' said Grace. 'I invited him down tonight actually, but he couldn't make it because his mum isn't well.'

'Still carrying a torch for little Alex?' Sarah teased. 'Can't imagine what you'd see in a gorgeous millionaire rock star like that.'

'Sarah, I'm a happily unmarried woman,' said Grace, feeling herself blush.

'I know that, but we can still talk about our "What if" men, can't we?'

If Grace was honest, she had been dwelling on that very thought lately. She had begun to wonder how she had managed to end up rattling around another big, beautiful mansion with an absent partner and just a handful of staff for company. Julian was away four nights out of seven working on his 'urban study', an extension of his Newspeak project which involved installing a series of TV screens in and around east London. For that end, he was using a rented studio in Sh.o.r.editch rather than the five-thousand-square-foot s.p.a.ce he'd just had built in the grounds of Toddington Hall. It felt like history was repeating itself.

'So how's life in the castle?' asked Sarah.

'Julian is giving up smoking, so he's snapping like a little dog,' said Grace, dodging the question. 'I'm actually glad he's up in London half the week.'

'I think you're bored,' mused Sarah. 'You know what you should do?' she smiled mischievously.

'What?'

'A film a doc.u.mentary. You've got a fantastic visual eye.'

'Come on. Julian's the one playing around with videos. I'm a photographer, not a director.'

Sarah took another sip of wine. 'I'm not talking about you being the next Spielberg, but I think you could do an incredible doc.u.mentary. Michael Moore has won Oscars from getting on his soap box with a camcorder.'

Grace loved how Sarah believed in her, thought she was capable of anything. She had none of her friend's confidence in her own abilities and for a moment she wondered if the years living with bullish, driven men like Gabriel and Julian had sapped her self-belief.

'I can help with investment.' Sarah worked in one of the country's biggest media law practices, with contacts across the business.

'You know I don't need it.'

'Film finance isn't just about money. I know a couple of guys who could exec-produce it for you.'

For the first time in a long time, Grace felt a flurry of excitement.

'The big four zero is out there, Grace. When it comes, we want to be forty, fulfilled and fabulous.'

'I'll drink to that,' said Grace.Julian hated the idea. Grace wasn't entirely surprised; he hadn't been all that supportive of her photography, deriding it as 'populist' and 'commercial', two things he found completely unacceptable in any artistic venture. Grace also suspected that he disliked the idea of her stepping on his toes. He was the visual artist in their relationship and he didn't want her stealing any of his thunder. Grace had spread a series of black and white prints of photographs she had taken in Parador on the big table in the conservatory, a sort of makeshift mood board for a possible doc.u.mentary. Julian gave them a cursory glance.

'Say something,' said Grace with gathering frustration.

'OK,' he said. 'I just don't understand why, of the million subjects in the world, your doc.u.mentary has to be about Parador.'

'Because there's a great untold story there.'

'And your desire to go back there has nothing to do with your ex-husband?'

'Don't be so childish, Julian,' said Grace. 'You know Gabe has a new wife.'

'I just think it's strange, that's all I'm saying.'

He walked back into the house and she followed him. She was angry that he could be so dismissive of her interests and ambitions, yet he expected her to drop everything and muck in when he got excited about a project.

'Don't walk away from me, Julian,' she said. 'This is important to me.'

Julian stopped and crossed his arms. 'Is this about you rea.s.serting some ludicrous sense of independence?'

'No! Why would you even think that? And what's so wrong about having my own career anyway?'

He snorted. 'Be honest, Grace,' he said. 'This whole thing is just about you showing me and your precious Gabriel how clever and creative you are.'

'I can't believe you're behaving like this.'

'Fine,' he said, flapping a dismissive hand. 'Do whatever you want. Fly off to Parador. But don't expect me to go running around after your kids if they want to come home from school for the weekend. Or go dashing off to your mother's if the poor dear has a fall.'

She stared after him, wondering if she had ever really known this man at all.'Have you lost your mind?' cried Gabriel, pacing up and down the lawns at El Esperanza. 'You left Parador, left our marriage marriage, because you were terrified about safety, and now you want to go running around some of the most dangerous barrios in the world to make a movie movie?'

Grace was furious. This was the first time she had been back to Parador since she had left Ibiza years before, and she hadn't exactly expected to be welcomed with open arms. But she had expected a little more support, considering that the reason for her visit, if it came off, would help Gabriel's precious cause.

'Gabe, don't you start. Julian didn't speak to me for three days when I told him I wanted to do this.'

'Well for once I agree with Julian,' said Gabriel. 'I told you on the phone I can't be responsible for what happens to you, and if you choose to blantantly disregard what I say ... It's dangerous dangerous out there, Grace.' out there, Grace.'

At forty-five, Gabriel was still a handsome man. The flecks of grey in his hair gave him the elegance and dignity of a forties matinee idol. But the fire she had seen in his eyes when they had first come back to Parador had dimmed. His words were laced with bitterness and anxiety. After three attempts at winning the presidency, he had resigned himself to life as a senator in the Parador a.s.sembly, and that all-consuming drive for change and justice had gone. He seemed smaller somehow, his shoulders less straight.

He still travelled in a bulletproof car, but the truth was the CARP party was toothless, far too weak to be a threat to anyone. Even so, Grace had hoped Gabriel of all people would understand her desire to bring the problems of his country to a wider audience.

'You wanted to make a difference, Gabe. It's the reason you ran for office, it's the reason our marriage failed.'

'Don't blame the party for-' he began, but she cut him off.

'Our marriage failed because Parador was the most important thing to you. I just want to go out into the barrios and show the world what's happening.'

Gabriel stopped and looked at her. 'This is about Angel Cay, isn't it?' he said.

'What? What, I ...' she stuttered, remembering the time she had told her husband about the island. He'd once asked her if she had ever done anything bad and after Caros' death she'd admitted what had gone on that hot summer night.

'Just because you once found a body and did nothing about it doesn't mean you have to spend the rest of your life being a saint, Grace. The charity work, the photographs, the doc.u.mentaries. It's all atonement for one stupid mistake.'

'It's not,' she said vigorously.

'Are you papering over the cracks, Grace, or is this really making you happy?' he asked her, his blue eyes boring into her. 'Because I want you to be happy, I really do.'

'Gabe, I ...' she began, but just then Gabriel's wife Martina appeared at the French windows of the house and came across the lawns with a tray bearing three cold drinks for them. She was in navy slacks and a cream silk shirt; elegant, decorous, the politician's wife Grace had never been able to be. Grace watched Gabriel's face as Martina approached and she didn't miss the little smile, the softening of the eyes. He loved her, there was no doubt of that. She wished she could feel happier about it.

'Will you be staying for lunch, Grace?' Martina asked, hooking her arm through her husband's.

'No, no. My car should be here in twenty minutes to take me into Palumbo.'

'But you'll be back for dinner?'

'Si dios quiere,' said Gabriel, shaking his head.

If G.o.d wills it.She spent eight hours in 'El Tumba', Parador's worst slum, which clung forlornly to the hillside overlooking Palumbo. She interviewed orphans and farmers who had lost everything after the paramilitary sequested their land. She spoke to them of hunger and suffering, she spoke to them of disease and squalor, but most of all, she spoke to them of hope and their amazing, inspiring belief that G.o.d would provide, that one day they would come down off the hill and make a new life for themselves.

Back at El Esperanza, she stripped off her clothes and stepped into the shower, tipping her head back as the hot water washed away the stench. Wrapping herself in a clean white terry robe, she sat at the desk by the window watching the sun set across the jungle, a sight at once so familiar and yet so alien to her now.

Gabe peeked around the door. 'Can I come in?' he asked.

'I'm decent,' she said, thinking, Nothing you haven't seen before Nothing you haven't seen before.

'How was it?'

She shook her head slowly. 'A quarter of a million people in one slum,' she said. 'It beggars belief. Did you know one child dies a violent death there every eight hours?'

'Do you think you got enough for your film?'

'I wish,' she said ruefully. 'There were so many stories to be told: happy, sad, some even terrifying. But I'm still missing the angle. At the moment it's just a lot of very poor people in appalling circ.u.mstances. I need a narrative to pull it all together.'

Gabriel took a piece of paper from his pocket and held it out to her.

'What's this?'

'Phone numbers,' he said. 'The first one is for Father Diaz. He looks after six hundred orphans in twelve sites around Parador. His brother was Pablos Cavalas, one of the most notorious drug-dealers in the late eighties. The second number will help you arrange an interview with the president.' He smiled. 'Although I doubt you'll get much there, I'd be interested how he justifies El Tumba to you.'

'And the last one?'

'The third number is for Felix Philipe, coach for the Parador national football team. Five years ago he opened a soccer academy for the children of the slums. Half of his squad are men who've grown up in the barrios.' Gabriel shrugged. 'I think you should find your angle in there somewhere.'

Grace stood up and hugged him. 'Thank you, Gabriel,' she said simply, resting her chin on his shoulder. They stood like that for a long moment, then Gabriel turned back to the door.

'I'm proud of you, Grace,' he said, his eyes flicking to hers and holding them for a second. 'I really am.'

And for the first time in a long time, Grace felt the same way.

58

April 2009

Alex came to, jerking awake.

'What the h.e.l.l?' he mumbled, before wincing at the pain in his neck.

I fell asleep on the sofa again, he thought numbly. In the corner of the room, the TV was still playing with the sound off. Breakfast TV. b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, I haven't seen that in years Breakfast TV. b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, I haven't seen that in years.

Squinting, shading his eyes from the bright morning light, he pushed himself on to one elbow, shook a bent cigarette from the pack and lit it, coughing the smoke straight out again. He sat forward, trying to ignore the thumping in his head, and picked up the various cans and bottles crowding the coffee table. Empty ... empty ... a-ha! An inch of whisky sloshing around in the bottom of the bottle. He tipped it up, feeling the c.h.i.n.k of the gla.s.s on his teeth, and gagged it down in three swallows. And that was when it hit him, as it did every morning: the sinking, churning feeling in his stomach the feeling that he was still alive and had another day to face. He ran to the toilet and vomited.