Love of Grace and Angels, Page 2

  Sure enough, the wobble began. Ric decided he preferred the way she behaved without her family, those times when the two of them were alone. He liked to rescue the blameless and now he wasn’t convinced, because it seemed to him that she was at the helm; it was her leading others astray. That thought alone should have offered a clear warning, for whilst delusion naturally stretched reason thin, there was no room for demotion in Ric’s world. A person was either in, or they were out. His toes began bending, curling down inside his leather lace up shoes. Life, as it did so often, was teetering on change. He slipped a hand into his pocket and felt for the small package picked up that morning from an antiques market, a small, quiet place, tucked away at the top end of town. A Georgian love token, a copper coin engraved with the single word Grace. The coin had been expensive and intended for this one. She would not receive it.

  Since their first chance meeting over a pair of size five stilettos, conversations had never been anything other than gentle and pure, full of joy and happiness; he had not known this less demure side of her existed, and he was becoming irritable with disappointment. In reality their conversations had taken place mostly in his head, only one or two stilted, awkward sentences actually exchanged during manufactured moments. For Ric, fantasy and fact were increasingly indistinct. He had spent so much time fabricating her persona that he could no longer be sure what was real, and therefore could only opt to believe in it all. Or stop believing in it.

  Thoughts shifted, a right-angle turn. Perhaps she was innocent after all. It suddenly occurred to Ric that she had drawn him there to listen by way of confession. Perhaps she was trying in her own sweet way to demonstrate that she needed someone to help her find a better path, a cry for help. It seemed a likely explanation for what he considered out-of-character behaviour, and he resolved to extract her from her wicked family. Too long without proper attention can make undesirable stains very difficult to remove, and in his mind, the blame for her lack of propriety now sat squarely on the shoulders of her parents. To be so suddenly foulmouthed and common where normally she was sophisticated and agreeable could not be her own doing. Could it? Or could it. Too many doubts kept creeping in, uncomfortable, scratchy on his brain. The girl continued to talk.

  Perhaps surprisingly, Ric’s thoughts in regard to her husband amounted to almost nothing, for how can a man form a consequential opinion about something he himself cannot accept, at least, in any sense that matters? Ric could describe the husband’s car, place of work, bedroom, clothing, any number of things in detail, but the man himself fell beneath recognition. In his mind he posed no threat, and if anything, in the light of current conversation, was becoming a victim deserving of pity. Fortunately for the husband, Ric’s Angels were only ever female.

  After two more rounds of toast he watched with no particular interest as the parents left, and although both husband and wife shifted a little and no longer sat in quite such a convenient position for surveillance, Ric continued to watch and listen, looking to be nothing more than a man lost in his daydreams. Not so far from the truth.

  The couple talked in low voices, periodically sharing a secretive chuckle with their increasingly unwilling audience. The intimate way they were behaving seemed to Ric an abomination, although for the moment he refused to contemplate a future without her, not only because his belief in their mutual destiny had become something of a comforting habit, but because for sometime he’d felt her to be all he had. Life was quiet. Equal to this, however, was a reluctant suspicion that something inside did not feel exactly as it should. Somewhere along the way, between her walking in the door and her parents walking out, desire had unhooked itself from duty. Ric’s very special brand of affection had soured.

  His yearning for her had always been circumspect, neatly boxed to avoid any unnecessary or damaging exposure: a cautious thing. But in the face of her newly revealed vulgarity, he wondered if perhaps that particular rationale was no longer sufficiently robust. Boxes could, after all, split at the seams and he didn’t want that. Always favouring long games that heightened the exquisite pleasures brought into being by the very act of pursuit, Ric’s love simply could not survive such a crash, such instant disappointment. He thought about it, feeling pale; he had never wanted to save her from herself, only to rescue her from the terrible failings of others. The truth was, his passion was fading faster than he could recover it. Over a few short minutes, despite his best efforts, another of Ricardo Mancini’s dreams passed into history, fading as a wisp of mist under the shafted light of the sun.

  Evidently, he thought, the couple felt themselves to be entirely alone as their barely whispered words were increasingly intimate. Ric was mortified. Did she not remember that he was listening? Since they’d first met, he had known her in so many ways, even watching her naked in the shower in the days before she thought to lock the house first, and never had he noticed she could be so base. Perhaps, he thought, she was that very common-or-garden type of Angel that often chooses to clip her own wings. There were so many different Angels to save, and some were beyond redemption, preferring debauchery, choosing to remain where they fell. Whatever she was, he didn’t want her. He wasn’t sure why anyone should want her.

  Suddenly, his dampening eyes cut away from the couple’s reflection in the mirror to a middle-aged woman entering the café and sitting down at a table where two other women were already seated. Strangely, she was the same person he had noticed park her car under his window earlier that morning, and overheard discussing the pandemonium of the streets with a passing motorist, who had unwound his window and called to her in a cheery and familiar sort of tone. Her tone, by contrast, had been so flat the driver checked that she was okay. But she’d barely replied before scurrying away. Above, from the window of his first floor flat, Ric had clearly seen she was an elegant sort of woman. Now, with great pleasure, he appreciated that she was also very beautiful. His heart leapt, a strange fluttering skip. It was a sign. Surely it was fate delivering her just when he needed her most?

  Another right-angle turn. Was it fate, then, ensuring he’d seen the fallen one in her true light, ridding him of that misguided love in preparation for this? This woman whose name, he suddenly recalled, was Grace. His mouth began drying uncomfortably as his breath quickened. He slowed it. Rashness had no place here today. But still his hand slipped back into his pocket, fingers feeling for the token.

  The two with her were younger, similar in age to him, and the three were so alike they must have been mother and daughters, though one did not share her lush dark hair. Immediately seeing misery in Grace’s face, Ric could not help but feel compassion. Dear Grace, so graceful and gracious in her suffering, he thought. She put Ric in mind of the fabulous stars of Hollywood’s heyday, but more understated and refined than anyone seeking public adulation could ever be. This Angel was clearly virtuous; she had not fallen. She was vulnerable in a different way than others he’d known; those who needed rescuing from themselves. Grace needed rescuing from the world. She was a beautiful thing, to be scooped up and held in cupped hands, something sacred to be sipped, soft to be stroked. With great relief, Ric could feel his emptied heart begin to fill again, that steady laying down of love that began at the bottom, as coloured sand pouring through an hourglass. He felt tears rising for better reason than they had been. This time it might be true love unlike any other, was his hope.

  With some curiosity he watched as intense discussions began almost immediately. Soon they were consoling their mother as she wept, a real life heroine. Ric was sure there could be only one reason a woman would weep so bitterly while her daughters looked ready to kill. Someone close was treating her badly. Thick dark hair fell over her hands as she buried her face. It was hair he could imagine kissing. The sensation was already on his lips. Coffee was brought to the trio, along with concerned sympathy in the form of a gentle but unwelcome pat on the shoulder. Then Grace sat up, flipped Ric’s heart so he could almost taste the blood, dried her face and composed
herself with a deep breath, before stirring a single sugar into her drink. The daughters continued to watch her, sadly. Behind Ric, the couple’s topic had not changed significantly and it appeared they were getting as much mileage from jokes about pubic hair as they could. It was then a dreadful idea occurred to Ric, and with it the creeping chill of shame.

  Two things seemed clear: firstly his Angel had fallen before she could be saved and he no longer loved her. This in itself was not a concern. In fact it was an epiphany. But secondly, and this is where the indignity of humiliation lurked, he worried that she knew what he had done and told her husband. Why else make such a fuss about pubic hair when she knew he could hear every word she said? He wondered if this was why they were here, his own idea of divine intervention momentarily ignored. Was it to disgrace an innocent man for having loved too much, for having wanted to save? Ric sat motionless as his mind raced to recall if it was even possible for her to know.

  It had been a warm summer’s day. As usual he had followed her home from a safe distance, feeling the thrill of one duty bound to serve an idol; grateful for the reward of saintly composure, enjoyed by those blessed with the watchful eye of a saviour. At least, this is how it had begun and how he liked to think of it. But piety hadn’t lasted because the day was hot, and the object of his affection wore an unusually short skirt and thin white vest top. Despite initial reverence, Ric found himself more distracted than usual by her breasts, partly because he was anxious others might be looking but mostly because the top was so tight he couldn’t concentrate on his purpose. All he could think about was how much he longed to touch them, deciding that when the time was right, he would give her fine breasts all the attention they deserved and the notice they obviously craved. He had always enjoyed the sight of them, sometimes dreaming of eating them before waking up choking on a mouthful of pillow. But he couldn’t bear the idea that anyone else might share in this perversity, because although Ric felt sure he would never do it, he lived in terror of ambitions others might try and fulfil.

  Once she and her delightful assets were safely home, she’d opened all the windows throughout the house. Now overwhelmed with the urge to be inside her, and at the very least have her breasts somewhere near his lips, Ric had chosen to take all she did as a signal that she was finally ready for him. The courtship was over. He got off his new scooter and parked it out of sight, before quietly pushing his way though the unlocked front door.

  He could hear the shower running and followed the sound. The door to the bathroom was ajar and he could see her easily, facing away from him inside a steamy cubicle. With excitement, he could tell she was soaping herself, and so he undressed. He had been about to step into the bathroom when her husband’s voice preceded the gentle click of the front door. Grabbing his clothes, Ric had fled through an open window, silently begging forgiveness from his sweetheart for his rapid exit, and spent the next hour trapped on a sun baked flat roof. When sometime later husband and wife went into the small rear garden to enjoy the hot weather and eat, a sunburned and sweaty Ric very carefully slipped back into the house to claim a souvenir; on this occasion a bar of soap studded with short black hair. He then scurried down the stairs and out of the front door.

  So while he had been thinking in the café, Ric had come to realise something so sickening that for one appalling moment he thought vomit would erupt and engulf him in one final, and absolute, indignity. Whether she knew about the incident or not was irrelevant, the soap would have to go in the bin. He had made certain assumptions about that particular bar of soap because at the time he had seen her using it, but more than once during the absurd dialogue held behind him in the café, the redness of all her hair had been alluded to. Somehow it hadn’t sunk in. Now it had. Her husband’s hair, he observed, was almost black without even the slightest hint of auburn. He took a deep breath and decided to take a shower with fresh soap as soon as he possibly could.

  On reflection, Ric concluded that they could not have known he had taken anything, and part of him was almost regretful. In a way, it would have been fitting punishment for two exhibitionists to discover the privacy of their intimate world had been breached. Given her foul mouth, Ric thought it could be fun to make her wash it out and watch soapy hairs catch between her teeth. But he was not a man who ever chose to exact revenge. What could not be saved or made into something better was discarded.

  He checked his watch. Clearly his beloved sibling would not be coming. He tried to call but got no answer.

  Across the way, Grace and her two daughters continued to talk. Periodically one of them would heave a regretful sigh and all three would then fall into a thoughtful silence, before another question would be asked of the mother, who would look crestfallen all over again. Ric wished they would leave her in peace and allow her space to be silent. But maybe, he thought, they didn’t understand her like he was already beginning to.

  Behind him, the discarded filth from the past exited unnoticed, Ric’s heart now filled with a love he considered superior to all those tragic mistakes gone by. He looked to Grace, seeing there the possibility of love greater than he had ever known. He would not be rash. He would be measured. He would be sure. He would not make again the mistakes of the past. Grace was too important.

  *

  It was liberation day for the girl who never knew she had a stalker, who had done nothing more to earn her freedom than make a few rude jokes and laugh with her family about the unexpected events of a late honeymoon. Carried away she may have been, but overtly vulgar she was not. As her lightly risqué words entered Ric’s judgmental ears so they morphed into something much more coarse than they were. It was his own misperception that saved her from him. The moment was also pivotal in the life of the mature woman who had innocently revealed herself vulnerable to Ricardo Mancini, a man of love determined to save, regardless of what anyone else may wish to the contrary.

  Chapter 2

  MOIRA

  A juicy fat worm encased in a snug white pouch is how Moira’s ample form appeared under the tight silken bedcovers, but today the alarm clock beeped only to the curl of a solitary hair, somehow rubbed free of the mass despite a motionless host.

  This was a day with no time to lie quietly and watch the ticking of time. There was no period of grace in which to enjoy the final empty minutes as they trundled by; no lingering pause before the morning properly commenced. Today there was a thing to do that couldn’t wait, a thing too urgent to be delayed until the official start of the day. It was a foolish thing, a decision taken in a rash moment. The saving grace: that it was reversible. The second Moira’s eyes opened, the vast bed had been vacated.

  The shower was not hot, for Moira enjoyed how cold water could make skin feel sensationally tight, and how warm and welcoming it felt once a wet body stepped outside of the cubicle; that warm caress was a gift. The shower was not long. Moira hadn’t hurried it, but it was a good deal shorter than usual, because if this thing was to be done then an early start was imperative, early enough for the cleaners to have unlocked the studio so Moira could walk in, smile with the appearance of gratitude, and look as if everything were completely normal. Why would a cleaner care who was in and who was out, anyway?

  Bedraggled and dripping in front of the full-length mirror, secured with twenty or more sticky-pads, Moira took a moment from the precious few to look. It was important to have no illusions about one’s body, to see it exactly as it was so there could be no doubt, no mistaken belief about what other people saw. No delusions. Every ceiling light in the apartment reflected this, for not one had a shade that might soften its light. From a stocky frame, broad shoulders contrasted sharply with narrow hips shifting uneasily beneath the rolls of fat. A slightly different arrangement – a nip here, a tuck there, loss of a rib or two for a narrower look – and it could have been the body of a supermodel, Moira thought. Water gathered in pearly drops on blotchy skin. Time was neither slowing nor waiting, but still a thorough facial inspection was required.
Moira peered. It looked okay, the face, not bad when all was said and done; again a slightly different arrangement and it could be stunning. And the slight moustache, well, who cared? With light fingering it was apparent that the overall softness was interrupted here and there by the odd bristle, but nothing requiring immediate attention. The urgency to move on was momentarily lost to vanity, because a few large blackheads begged to be squeezed.

  It was tempting, but while scrutinising, the need to move on resurfaced sharply. There would be no time to sort any of the possible oozing and bleeding if picked. The oily plugs would have to wait. Brushing thick dark hair sprinkled with grey, Moira noted it was still tipped with the faded remains of an auburn dye used months ago. It had been a mistake, turning a weak orange after only a few washes, never looking as sophisticated as intended. A visit to Boots was in order; by this afternoon the hair could be blond.

  Now dried with gentle pats, Moira stepped back into the immaculate bedroom and put on crisp white all-in-one supporting underwear, before covering the lower half with American Tan sheer tights, fresh from the packet. A navy pencil skirt, white blouse and smart navy jacket with polished brass buttons sheltered the whole. Breakfast would have to wait until the mistake had been rectified, after all, such an uncomfortable break in routine was simply the by-product of making a wrong decision in the first place. Nothing was ever without consequence.

  A handbag, perched on the arm of a chair beside the bed for the entire night, was scooped up into the crook of a loose but meaty arm. The bag had been positioned there on purpose and watched carefully throughout those first wakeful hours when sleep had proved so elusive. Now it was time to pick it up again, and the familiar feel of the softly looping leather handle finally cast the long night into history. Bag pushed up onto shoulder, glasses on, suitable heels selected, Moira snatched up the car keys and with a click of the door was gone. Left behind was a chaotic scene of wet towels and an unmade bed, unthinkable any other morning but today an unavoidable evil. To anyone else, particularly those who would come to the empty apartment later that weekend, the bed appeared barely slept in – which was almost true – and the bathroom was, in fact, one shower short of immaculate. Almost predictably, the phone began to ring inside the flat just as the door clicked shut. Maybe they knew already, Moira thought. Ignoring the sound and treading carefully so as not to disturb the neighbours, Moira glanced at the time. It was quite early, but still it could take a good hour to get there.