I took it all. I didn’t engage in the game. I had bigger things to do – I was gearing up for my final assault on the Artemis family and I was frustrated enough by my lack of a proper plan, I wouldn’t compromise that to indulge a bored posh girl who wanted me to care enough that it made Jimmy seem more of a prize. Instead, I watched her. And I learned four things:
Caro had a raging eating disorder
Caro had a not insignificant drug habit
Caro flew into rages with Jim which often became mildly physical （from her side）
Caro was desperately unhappy
What a fucking cliché.
He proposed on her birthday. I don’t mean to imply that Jimmy has no spontaneity but people who propose on big meaningful dates lack imagination. I cannot envisage a worse day to get down on one knee than a family Christmas where your dad started on the Buck’s Fizz by 11 a.m. Sophie was beside herself with excitement. Even John was beaming at the celebratory lunch. The Morton family were invited, and the old family connections were fast revived over couscous and a nice assortment of Italian white wines that Lionel brought from his cellar. Caro was her usual collected self, wearing a silk jumpsuit and showing off her ring only when requested, nails short and free of varnish. Jimmy smiled a lot at her, but he was quiet, following her around, only really speaking when she asked him a question.
There was one fun little moment at the lunch, when Caro’s mother started talking about how shocking the death of Bryony Artemis was. The group collectively leant forward around the table, gossiping like old women about a young woman they’d never met, offering up theories about her demise and talking about how ghastly her family was.
‘Gave ￡50,000 to the government trying to be made a lord, I hear. As if we need more barrow boys in the house. Men like that make a mockery of the entire system.’ I sat there quietly, sipping my wine and enjoying the hypocrisy of these people who pretend to be above such salacious stories suddenly finding themselves more animated than they’d been all day. The following conversation about the latest Ian McEwan novel wasn’t nearly as lively, I can tell you.
Two days after the lunch, I broke. I had taken my eye off the ball, so consumed with panic about my master plan and the rising impotence I felt about access to Simon. I stupidly assumed I had more time to deal with this lesser problem, but I was gravely mistaken. I asked Jim to meet me at the Southbank, where I greeted him with coffee and we walked along the river. He traced the freckles on my arm absent-mindedly, like he used to when we were teenagers and saw ourselves as a unit of two. Not charged with a frisson of anticipation but warm with the familiar. He called me ‘Gray’ as he always used to, and teased me about the new shoes I was wearing.
‘So flashy, Gray, your footwear doesn’t have to look like modern art.’
I retorted that his new silk scarf made him look like an old Italian count, and he had the good sense to look embarrassed. We both knew Caro had chosen it. After a while, I asked about wedding plans, introducing the subject with a light touch which felt obvious. He was vague, talking about Caro’s wish to have the dinner at a private club her dad belonged to. Jim didn’t sound too keen, and he kept his eyes on the water flowing next to us. A lull in the conversation gave me the push to get to the point.
I told him that her outbursts were concerning me, that I’d seen the scratches on his neck at lunch. I said that Caro had monopolised him, rubbed out all the things that made him him, and that I thought that marrying her would be a bad idea. I’d got it into my head that this was courageous, and that whatever happened, he’d want me to say it. He looked away as I said it, put his cup in a bin, and then walked over to the river barrier and breathed deeply.
‘I understand that this is weird for you. Our friendship is intense, wonderfully so. You’re my family, my best friend, my surrogate girlfriend, I suppose. For a lot of our life I guess I thought we were bound to be together – but you never let it happen, did you?’ I must have flinched because he powered on. ‘Grace, you didn’t! You kept us at a level you felt safe with. People want to love you and you’re repelled by it.’ He ran a hand through his hair and exhaled. ‘Anyway, fine, you made it clear and I went with it because I know you give what you can. But Caro wants more. I love Caro, and she loves me. And I can’t indulge this, Grace. I just can’t. I knew you wouldn’t be able to just be happy about it – Mum warned me, C warned me. I understand it. But that doesn’t mean that you can do this again.’