Her Perfect Life: A gripping debut psychological thriller with a killer twist. Sam Hepburn
new premises as an excuse to detach herself from the rhythms and demands of her own life, she spends hour after hour driving through the streets of London, losing herself in the everyday comings and goings of others. Somehow, catching the swish of a curtain or the slam of a front door, slowing her car in an unfamiliar side road to accommodate someone else’s drop-off or pick-up or hurried trip to the corner shop, helps to soothe the turmoil in her head and dilute the fear and anger corroding every cell of her being.
In the evenings she and Tom avoid all mention of Alicia and her threats, although once when Tom thinks she’s downstairs, she hears him on the phone.
‘It’s the powerlessness, Geoff, not knowing if the little bitch is bluffing … Christ, I don’t know how much longer I can take it …’
There he is, the father of her child, contrite and attentive as they arrive at the launch of her new cookbook, smiling as she mentions him in the speech she wrote before she went to New York and hasn’t had the heart to change. She even reads out the line where she thanks him for just being there because she couldn’t do any of the things she does without his love and support. His smile doesn’t falter when every face in the room swings round to see the husband of ‘adorable queen of the kitchen’, Gracie Dwyer; a hundred pairs of eyes taking in his appealing long-limbed slouch, the rumpled hair, the open-necked shirt gleaming white against skin the colour of perfect toast. She can almost hear the sighs of approval. Afterwards she bears it stiffly as they pose for the photographers – the beautiful couple with the happy wholesome life – he with one hand pulling her close, the other holding up a copy of her book. This is the shot they’ll use, she thinks as the lights flash. If the intern goes to the papers, this is the picture they’ll plaster all over the tabloids.
In the taxi home she sits forward, hanging onto the strap to stop anything of her body brushing Tom’s, but there’s hope in his eyes as they walk into the house, as if the pretence of tonight has become reality. She stops the hand he lifts to caress her cheek, moves it aside and hurries to the kitchen to fill the kettle. ‘Tea?’
‘No thanks.’ Tom pours himself a whisky and sprawls in a chair a little drunk, grunting as he picks up the papers on the table. He takes a moment to register that they’re property brochures: pubs, restaurants, shops. He flips through them. ‘Christ, have you seen the rents on these places?’
‘You can throw them away. I’ve found somewhere.’
He looks up, hurt. ‘You never said.’
She stirs the teapot, staring into the steam.
‘Are you going to show me?’
She doesn’t respond.
‘Come on, Gracie.’
She opens her handbag. Hesitates for a moment then hands him a folded sheet. He shakes open the details of a seventies pub in Battersea – stained red brick, peeling green paintwork and tinted glass. ‘You’re kidding. It’s ugly, overpriced and way too big.’
‘I need space.’
‘Not this much.’
Gracie eyes him uneasily. ‘It’s going to be more than a café bakery. I’m going to have a cook shop, serve a bistro menu in the evenings and run cookery workshops upstairs. Kelvin’s developing a spin-off series built around the courses.’
‘When did you come up with all this?’ That hurt face again.
‘I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since I’ve been back from the States.’
‘And what? You weren’t even going to consult me?’ He flings the brochure across the table. ‘This is what I do, Gracie! What I know about!’ He swallows and softens his voice. ‘You need a building with character, something distinctive that will reflect you as well as your food, like the amazing old chapel this new French client wants me to convert into a restaurant. Why don’t you come and have a look at it, get some inspiration?’
Her eyes dart away from him.
‘Don’t do this, Gracie. Don’t shut me out.’
A silence grows between them, barely dented by her agonised whisper. ‘How can I make any plans that depend on you?’
‘Fuck!’ He mouths the word, and claws back his hair. ‘So what are you saying? That I’m not part of your future?’
‘I don’t know, Tom. Sometimes I look at you and I catch myself seeing the man I love, then I realise he doesn’t exist.’
‘What can I do? Just tell me what I can do.’
‘Why are you asking me? I didn’t make this mess.’ She puts down her mug and moves to the door. ‘I’m going to bed.’
‘Gracie, please—’ He lurches after her.
She turns on the landing. ‘Shh. You’ll wake Elsie.’
He lowers his voice. ‘The new café is something we can build together. You and me.’
‘You destroyed what we built together, Tom. Have you even thought what it will do to Elsie when that girl’s tacky revelations are splashed all over the papers? She’s five years old for God’s sake! And what about me? I can cope with the sniggering and the pity but every single penny I put into paying off the crippling mortgage on this house depends on the way people see me – happy, wholesome Gracie. How’s that going to work when they find out my husband can’t keep his dick in his pants?’ She closes the bedroom door and leans against the wall, biting back her tears as his footsteps fade away down the landing.
‘OK, Gracie. Let’s go again. Just hold the bowl a bit higher when you show us the chillies.’
She pouts for Emma’s waving wand of lip-gloss and swings into action. This is how I get through this, Gracie thinks while her hands move deftly over the bowls and pans on the countertop. I chop and dice and stir for the cameras and pretend that everything is fine, that I sleep at night, that this suffocating sense of loss is something I can bear.
The running order is full – black noodles with prawns, then her super quick fig and blueberry tarts, a chat on the sofa with specialist herb grower Akshay Kumar, tips for healthy packed lunches that kids will actually eat and, for the leftovers slot, her new garden pie, adapted from a family recipe sent in by a viewer. She spears a prawn, bites through the spicy pink flesh and smiles at the camera.
‘Cut!’ The floor manager gives her a thumbs-up, calls a ten-minute break and stands back to let a flurry of assistants swoop in to reset the counter. Emma hands her a mug of coffee. ‘You all right?’
‘Bit tired.’ Gracie slips off to the loo and locks herself in a cubicle. She presses her forehead against the tiles and spends the first five minutes of the break sobbing quietly, imagining the worst, the second five patching up her makeup and assuring herself that the worst can’t happen. She won’t let it. She twists a strand of hair back into the soft knot on top of her head, flicks her fingers through her fringe and gives her cheeks a savage prod. She’s nearly thirty-six for heaven’s sake and her face still has an open, almost childlike quality which she tempers for the cameras with sweeps of black eyeliner and slashes of crimson lipstick. Her height doesn’t help. At five foot four she’s used to people blinking when they meet her. ‘Gosh, you look so much taller on TV.’
So different from Louise’s fair, willowy elegance and the pert freckled features of that scheming little cow Alicia Sandelson. She rocks forward, closing her eyes. Like a fool she’d looked Alicia up on Facebook and now that hiss of a girl has a face – a milk-skinned, pink-lipped, heart-shaped face with a halo of pale curls. She’s smart too – Oxford and an internship at ACP. But it’s not the endless posts charting her glittering time at university or the photos of her partying in skinny jeans and halter tops that flicker through Gracie’s head on an unstoppable