Grace knew Caro was being ironic; it was a running joke of hers that Gabriel – at least, Gabriel the politician – was the most strait-laced man she had ever met. He’d certainly lost a lot of his breezy charm over the past two years. It was understandable, of course: with the pressure to win, the seriousness of Parador’s situation and the constant reminders of the living conditions many of the population were forced to endure, anyone would find it hard to smile. But it didn’t stop Grace from wanting the old Gabriel, the charming, happy, spontaneous man she had met on a street in Australia, to come back.
At the top of the stairs, she paused. Even now, she hesitated before entering Gabriel’s study. It wasn’t officially out of bounds, of course, but her husband liked to see it as his man-cave, his own private space. It’s my house too, after all, she told herself, pushing the door open. She walked across the room and sat at his desk, smiling as she looked at the photograph of them both in front of her.
Putting her camera on the desktop, she opened the bottom drawer. Reaching inside, something familiar caught her eye, hidden between sheafs of paper: Gabriel’s old notebook.
Glancing around, she pulled it out, running her fingers over the leather cover. Gabriel had carried this battered old book around with him all the time in Australia. Just ideas, he’d told her at the time. Maybe something will turn into a novel, who knows? She flicked through the pages and her heart leapt: it was clearly more than ‘just ideas’; it looked like at least a dozen chapters, written in longhand. Moving across to the sofa, she curled her feet under a cushion and began reading. It was a love story set in wartime Australia, and from the first sentence, she was transfixed. It was good, very, very good, one of those raw books that touched your life and made you want to share it with people you cared about.
‘What are you doing?’
She hadn’t even noticed the study door open. Gabriel walked slowly into the room and sat in the chair opposite her. She held up the notebook.
‘I found this when I was looking for film,’ she said.
He frowned and shook his head. ‘Put it away. Please.’
She sat up, clutching the notebook to her chest as if it might be snatched away, as if she did not want to let go of the life they could have had together.
‘But Gabe, this is incredible. Has your agent or editor seen it?’ She knew Gabriel had barely been in contact with his New York-based publisher since he had arrived back in Parador, and despite repeated phone calls from his agent, he seemed content to let that part of his life melt into the past. He waved a dismissive hand.
‘Grace, I haven’t got time for writing.’
‘But it’s such a waste!’
‘It’s not a waste,’ he snapped. ‘I’m trying to achieve something bigger, better here than mere words.’
Frustration boiled inside her. ‘What’s happened to you, Gabriel?’ she said.
‘What do you mean, what’s happened to me? Nothing has happened to me.’
She had avoided this conversation before now because she knew how important politics had become to him, but lately she had been wondering if it was all worth it. They had arrived in Parador with a romantic ideal: Gabriel was going to avenge his brother’s death; he was going to save his country. But over the last year, she had begun to wonder if it was actually possible to save Parador. Corruption seemed to be eating the country from the inside. Gabriel and his mother seemed blind to it – they were too close to the issues – but Grace was able to see the situation from a different angle. Corruption in Parador had become so entrenched, so much a part of everyday life, she doubted that any new government would be able to wash it clean again. And the sad truth was that Gabriel’s CARP party was so stridently anti-corruption, so against playing Parador’s unique little games, it actually stood little chance of success in the 1994 election. The reality was that politics was a dirty game and anyone who tried to play it whiter than white was going to get crushed. Grace had seen it happen in her father’s empire; she’d heard the conversations behind closed doors. Success always came at a price. Deals had to be done, people paid off, the powerful made promises. It was the way the game was played, and if Gabriel wasn’t prepared to get his hands dirty, he was doomed to fail.
‘Do you think you can win, Gabe?’ she asked simply.
‘Yes. If only we can reach more people, work harder, do more.’
‘How much more?’ said Grace, balling her hands into fists.‘You’re missing your children g
row up. We don’t have a life together. You’ve even abandoned your talent, your one-in-a-million gift for writing.’
‘I think it’s worth it.’
‘Nothing is worth this!’ she cried.
He came off his chair and knelt down in front of her, taking the notebook from her hands.
‘Help me, Grace. Help me win. We need one big push, and you can make a difference. You need to get on the campaign trail, be there by my side. Twelve months of your time. That’s all I’m asking.’
She pushed his arms off. ‘Have you been listening to a word of what I have been saying?’ she said. ‘I can’t stand it any more. I don’t want this political life.’
‘But I promise you, once we are in power, then we can have more time together.’
He wrapped his arms around her and for a second she pulled away. He didn’t even smell familiar these days.
‘Listen to me, I can do the presidency for two terms. That’s just ten years, Grace. It’s nothing; you’ll be thirty-three, I’ll be in my mid-forties and then we’ll have the rest of our lives to write, talk, just be together. But life will be better, sweeter, because of the difference we’ve made.’
He looked at her intently. ‘Have you ever done anything bad, Grace?’
The question startled her and she flinched. Anything bad? Her heart was thumping and she could hear the ticking of the study clock getting louder and louder. She had never told him about that night. She had always meant to. He was her husband. They shared everything: a bed, a family, a life, secrets.