Freeing Grace Read Online Free Page A

hand.
    ‘You can’t slink off without buying me lunch,’ she insisted, standing up and grabbing her jacket from the back of her chair. ‘Shall we ask the others?’
    I looked around at the familiar faces. I’d probably never see them again. And you know what? I didn’t care. I shook my head, and she shook hers, too.
    As we left, both our desk phones were ringing.
    We had lunch in a wine bar on Finsbury Circus. I bought a bottle of something that cost enough to feed a Sudanese refugee family for a year, and drank most of it myself. Lucy seemed a bit distracted, and I wasn’t on top form either. She was a very deflating audience, drumming her long fingers on the table and scowling at the crowd mobbing the bar. Normally she’s engaged, lively, cheerily flirtatious.
    The waitress arrived with Lucy’s minestrone, my steak sandwich, and the largest pepper grinder in the world. It made me feel inadequate. When she’d gone, Lucy leaned towards me.
    ‘Now. Tell me why you’re going.’
    I didn’t need to feel guilty. I’d done right by the girl. Been her manager until twelve o’clock that day. In fact, I’d interviewed her for the job in the first place. She was clearly outstanding. The boys leered, said she was outstanding , all right. But it honestly wasn’t about her Wonderbra bust—she wore little green blouses that matched her eyes—or her spectacular legs, or the nifty boy’s haircut that showed the nape of her neck. No. It was the way she looked at the world. She seemed to find it all rather funny. She was bright too, complete with a scary degree and three languages. Next to her, I felt like a hillbilly, which of course is exactly what I am.
    Lucy and I had one of those entertaining friendships with an edge. But I’d never laid a finger on her, honest. It would have been harassment.
    Anyway, I’d been proved right. She was one of the best, and she didn’t need me any more. I told her so.
    She had quite a pronounced nose, but I always thought it was her best feature. It gave her face sophistication. She looked down it now, raised one graceful eyebrow and dunked her bread into her soup.
    ‘Of course I don’t need you, dickhead. Bloody ridiculous. I don’t need a feckless drunken colonial like you, no matter how sexy your smile.’ She gazed at my mouth for a few seconds, allowing herself a sinful little smirk. ‘What I want to know is why you’re going, when you decided to go, and why you didn’t tell me? And what’s the brilliant new career you’re heading for, and should I be hanging onto your coat-tails? Because—whatever it is—I’ll be better at it than you are.’
    ‘I’m going to open a massage parlour.’
    ‘Oh, good. Can I be the receptionist? Together, we could go far.’
    ‘No. You’re too indiscreet. Actually, I’m going to be a bum. Look at them.’ I pointed to the yelling, sweating scrum at the bar. ‘Flooded with adrenaline. They’re ready to fight to the death even now, in the half-hour they’ve got away from their desks. And for what?’
    She glanced at the killer mob. ‘Money.’
    ‘Lucy, the system’s on the verge of collapse. There is no money any more. And anyway, I’ve made enough of the stuff. It’s time I got out.’
    ‘When did you decide this?’
    ‘Six o’clock this morning.’
    She blinked innocently. ‘Oh, yes? You had a midlife crisis at six o’clock this morning?’
    ‘Anna threw me out.’
    ‘Ah.’ She nodded calmly. ‘Well, that was inevitable. A woman like that wasn’t going to wait forever. Did you try to change her mind?’
    I shrugged.
    She leaned closer, raking me with searchlight eyes. ‘Do you love her at all, Jake?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ I said helplessly. Everyone knows I don’t answer that kind of question. ‘What does that mean , really?’
    ‘Honestly! You’ve all the emotional acuity of a dishwasher. Haven’t you ever been in love?’
    ‘Not since I was ten years old.’
    ‘Who was the lucky girl?’
    ‘I had a Jack