Freeing Grace Read online

  She wasn’t quite so tiny nowadays, at the age of thirty-six. A little more matronly, perhaps. Then again, he didn’t have a rower’s body any more. And he was still crazy about her.

  In those early days they’d easily saved enough for a deposit on a place in Finsbury Park. After all, they had two incomes and no children. One day they’d have a family. They’d even talked about names: Fola, Rose and Ben. But there was no hurry.

  Now, in the dark, it seemed that those had been the last days of their youth. They hadn’t seen it back then. Time is stealthy when you’re young. It’s cunning. It pretends to be asleep, but as soon as your back is turned, it leaps up and sprints towards death.

  David reached for her hand under the covers. ‘I need you,’ he said aloud. He thought he felt an answering pressure of her fingers on his, as he sank beneath the surface.

  She heard his murmur; felt his hand embrace hers.

  He’s like a child, she thought, listening to his breathing. When he wakes up—bang! Time to be awake. But the moment he lays his head on the pillow, he slides away as though he’s never known trouble in his life.

  It could be infuriating, especially during the IVF. Three rounds, three cycles of vicious disappointment. But every night David had cheerfully abandoned her, drifted away into his peaceful world and left her lonely and blind in the darkness. Once, overcome by his snoring serenity, she had punched him in the chest, and he’d yelled and sat up, knocking the lamp off the bedside table. She had felt a bleak satisfaction.

  Tonight, though, was different. Five more minutes . . . yes.

  Leila lowered one foot onto the ground then rolled out of bed, careful not to disturb the duvet, and tiptoed across the landing to the bathroom. The fluorescent light flickered on, and she blinked in the white glare.

  She had left her handbag behind the door. There it was. She’d bought it in the Fair Trade shop, years ago; it was made by women in Bangladesh. She opened it—with difficulty, because the zip was sticking—and her hand closed around the paper bag.

  She slid out the familiar blue and white box. No need to read the instructions. She was an old pro at this. At one time it had become a sort of hobby, as though just carrying out the test made the miracle a possibility. But this time was special. This time, she knew. Well, she almost knew.

  The world was already starting to glitter with the wonder.

  Touch wood. Touch wood. She had to touch wood, now, immediately, otherwise something might go wrong. She looked around, panicking slightly, holding her breath until she’d touched some. Bath, shower, mirror . . . bugger, everything was plastic. Her eyes began to pop. The towel rail—surely that was made of wood. She clutched it with both hands and then let out her breath in a rush. It made her feel dizzy.

  ‘Blue line, blue line, blue line,’ she gabbled. ‘If I say it twenty times without breathing, it’ll happen . . . blue line, blue line, blue line . . . Dear Lord, if you make it happen I promise I’ll believe in you once and for all. I’ll join the choir. I’ll do the altar flowers—how’s that for a sacrifice? I’ll start a Bible study group and not laugh at the nerdy types in socks and sandals who turn up. I’ll give myself to you like David did, honest I will. I promise I promise I promise.’

  She tore at the box, forgetting to breathe altogether. Her hands trembled in anticipation and dread.

  Please.

  The blue and white cardboard fell onto the floor with a dry clatter; empty, irrelevant.

  Please.

  She began the test. And waited.

  And waited, her eyes fixed on the stick like a cat at a mouse hole. The rain exploded into celebratory applause, submerging the window, lending the nearest streetlight a wraithlike halo.

  Blue line, blue line, blue line.

  It loomed out of nothing. A blue ghost, for a breathless moment; then triumphantly distinct. Silently. Smoothly. And unmistakeably.

  Chapter Seven

  I mulled over Perry’s request. Once the Harrisons had stopped drivelling on about their lost wife and mother, it was a good weekend. Perry spent most of it locked away in his study. Matt put a lot of effort into wrecking both eardrums in his bedroom, although he sloped off somewhere mysterious on Saturday morning. When Lucy and I strolled along the road for a pint in the Dog and Gun, I spotted him waiting at a bus stop.

  ‘Where’s he going?’ I asked, jerking my chin towards the kid. He was propped up against the bus shelter, hands in pockets, kicking a tin can into touch.

  Lucy glanced over as though she hadn’t noticed him. ‘No idea. Probably off to hang out with his hoodie friends.’ She was looking very shifty.

  ‘How old is he?’

  ‘Seventeen going on seven.’ She took my arm. ‘Now. Let’s talk about me.’ As we went into the bar, she stopped to take off her beret and ruffle the dark, pixie-cut hair.

  The pub had all the usual stuff. Massive leather harnesses, warm beer, big-boned barmaid in a tee-shirt that showed a lot more stomach than was good for her.

  ‘Pint?’ asked Lucy, taking out her wallet.

  Out of the window—complete with fake whorls—I watched a bus pull up. After it lurched away, Matt was gone.

  He didn’t come home until quite late in the afternoon, when he smashed open the front door, thumped wordlessly off to his room and cranked his stereo up to full volume. He didn’t even appear for the delectable feast Lucy and I produced that evening, so she took some into his lair. She stayed up there with him for quite a while, and came back down with an empty plate and a worried frown. Perry seemed determined not to comment on it, so I didn’t either.

  I was last to bed on Saturday night, staying up to watch a trashy film. After I turned the TV off, the world seemed deathly quiet. I could hear my brain ringing like a burglar alarm as I padded up the stairs in my socks. But while I was tiptoeing along the corridor, I caught a whiff of Matt’s special smokes. There was a bar of light under his door. I hesitated, gathered all my courage—he was a big lad, Matt—and gave the door a tap.

  I heard a creak. ‘Uh?’

  ‘It’s me. Jake.’

  Pause. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Wanna share that spliff?’

  The door jerked open, and I didn’t know what to say, because the kid was crying. That isn’t my thing at all. I expect I should have put a fatherly hand on his shoulder or something, but I didn’t. My father’s hand wasn’t very fatherly.

  After a moment, he stepped back to let me in. His grief was none of my business, so I took the easy way out and pretended I hadn’t seen it. The window was open, but his room smelled like an opium den. There were posters on the walls of half-dressed girl tennis stars—quite eye-catching, actually—and model biplanes hung from the ceiling. He handed me the spliff and then crumpled onto his bed with one mammoth arm over red-rimmed eyes.

  Sitting down on a denim bean bag, I had a go. It tasted just like the stuff Jesse and I used to grow at home.

  ‘Where did you get this?’ I thought that was probably a safe subject and wouldn’t start him off blubbing again.

  ‘Grew it in the greenhouse.’

  ‘What, here? Doesn’t your dad mind?’

  ‘He’s okay with it. Doesn’t want me to leave home, so he has to be okay. My plants are five foot tall,’ he rambled vaguely. ‘It’s Dad’s compost that does it. Did you know . . .’

  ‘That it’s a hundred degrees? Yeah, I did.’

  He sobbed and then giggled. ‘It’s hot stuff.’ He was blasted enough to find that unbearably funny, and rocked around on the bed, holding his stomach.

  It was hot stuff, actually. After a couple of minutes, I felt that crazy whizzing in between my ears. Dr Who’s Tardis. I was well out of practice. I passed him the spliff and leaned back.

  ‘Nice sound system.’ I nodded at his deck.

  ‘State of the art. I can lift the roof off this dump.’

  ‘You’ll go deaf.’

  ‘Not until I’m as old as you, and then I won’t care.’ He lay flat, looking up at the
ceiling.

  And I remembered why I don’t like being around teenagers. It’s because they don’t see me as I see myself. I mean, I’m in my prime. I may take a little longer than I did to focus on the instructions for a packet of spaghetti, but they’re definitely printing them fuzzily these days. Have you noticed that? You have to hold your arm out quite a long way to read the writing. Some optician tried to tell me I needed reading glasses, but that’s just bollocks. And I do occasionally limp a bit when I first get out of bed, just until my ankle joints start working properly; but there’s an explanation, I’m sure, and it’s nothing to do with my age. I’m only bloody forty, for God’s sake. I’m not middle-aged. I did the London Marathon last year. I was a teenager myself, very recently. I’m really just one of them.

  But they don’t see it that way. You can tell from the way they can’t even be bothered to look at you. Especially the girls. You’re not an object of interest. You’re old, like their dads. I hate that.

  ‘So, Matt.’ I was deafened by my own voice, very loud, so I whispered the next bit. ‘You got a girlfriend?’

  ‘What? Can’t hear you.’

  ‘Got a girlfriend?’ The question sounded in stereo.

  ‘Not really. Been shagging someone. You shagging Lucy?’

  ‘Not really.’ Pause. ‘Not at all, in fact.’

  ‘You going to?’

  I shook my head, and it felt as though it might fall off. ‘I don’t think I’ll get that lucky, mate.’

  ‘Nah. Too old.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  He held out the joint for me. ‘See that spider by the basin? It’s been crawling up the wall for three weeks, but it never gets any higher.’

  I squinted over at the basin. There was no spider; just a vaguely spider-shaped smudge by the towel rail. Matt’s mind was playing tricks on him. Alarmed, I sat up straighter and pointed at him.

  ‘Hey, Matt. Seriously. You’re going to bugger up your game if you keep getting wasted. You need to give it a rest, mate.’

  ‘I don’t have a game. Got a neck injury last season. Surgeon says I can’t play again unless I want to end up doing foot and mouth painting.’

  ‘Bummer.’ I had a feeling my teenspeak was at least twenty years out of date, but Matt seemed to understand it, because he nodded gloomily.

  ‘Yeah. Mum doesn’t get that. She says it’s a stupid game and she’s glad I couldn’t even finish the season. She’s a cow. She thinks shooting is mindless violence and fishing is for morons and everything I’m half good at is a waste of fucking time. She never even bothered to watch me play.’

  ‘Fault on the right side, mate. My old man only ever spoke to me when I had a mouthguard and black shorts on.’

  ‘He fetched up to your games, then?’

  ‘Oh, he fetched up, all right. Maniac. Frothed at the mouth. Hollered. Swore. One time he smacked the ref.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Gave him a bloody nose. Got himself banned. I was four years old at the time.’

  ‘Four? You’re kidding.’ Matt laughed until he was crying again.

  I cackled wildly too, but it wasn’t funny. ‘They start ’em young in the Antipodes. Small Blacks.’

  ‘How the fuck d’you get boots for a four-year-old?’

  ‘You don’t. Bare feet for the little kids. We ran about on the frost with our toes practically dropping off, while Dad stood there in his farm jacket and two pairs of socks and nice warm gummies, screaming. And if I dropped a pass or missed a tackle, he used to belt me when I came off. It kind of spoiled the fun.’

  ‘Did you pack it in?’

  ‘Wasn’t allowed to. I represented our region for eight seasons, made captain, then left home and never played again. Broke the old man’s heart.’ That’s the reason I quit, even though I love the game. Just to piss him off.

  Matt swore sympathetically, and shut his eyes for a minute—or maybe ten, I tend to lose track on these occasions. Then he stirred. ‘What about your mum? She a cow, like mine?’

  ‘No, mate. No. Poor old lady, she did her best.’ I watched the smoke curling up and away. ‘Tried her very, very best.’

  He didn’t comment. After a while, I heard my own voice.

  ‘She gave me a puppy once for a surprise, for my birthday. Even though she knew Dad was going to go ballistic. Dogs aren’t pets, in his book.’ He had gone ballistic, too. Worse than usual. I’d hidden with Sala, shivering in the orchard. I passed Matt the spliff.

  He inhaled, thoughtfully. ‘You still got the dog?’

  ‘Nah. I was eight, so Sala would be more than thirty by now. That’s about two hundred in dog years. She’d have to be the oldest terrier in the history of the universe.’

  Matt fell about laughing, and I pretended to. When he next spoke, he seemed to be having trouble getting the words out, as though his tongue had been injected with local anaesthetic. I knew the feeling.

  ‘You goin’ look for my mum?’

  ‘I dunno, mate.’

  ‘She has to get back here. She’s needed. She’s really needed. It’s an emergency. Tell her she’s needed, quick.’

  ‘Why’s she needed, mate?’

  He leaned unsteadily across and grabbed me by the collar. ‘It’s life and death, tell her. Life and death. Bring her back.’

  ‘I won’t be going anywhere if you’ve throttled me.’

  ‘Promise you’ll bring her home with you.’ He let go of me, sank into the pillows and shut his eyes again.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I promise.’ After a minute I pulled the duvet over him, stubbed out the spliff, and left him snuffling quietly.

  I sat on the window seat in my room and looked out at the stars, and, my God, they were bright that night. They were as bright as car headlights. They were so bright, they looked as though they were going to leap right in through the window.

  I don’t remember getting into bed. That was hot stuff, all right. I remember the dreams, though. I wish I didn’t.

  Mum crept into my bedroom in the early morning light, because it was my birthday and Dad had gone to the sales. She had something hidden up her jumper, and a smile on her face. And I loved her more than anyone in the world.

  She was older, now, and her body sagged a little. But she was so pleased to see me. She stood at the kitchen door, her arms held out, eyes creased and bright. But I put down the phone and left her sobbing on the doorstep.

  Sala had been in the pig bin again. I could see the mess, as soon as I got off the school bus.

  On Sunday morning, I woke to daytime gloom and a blackbird singing in the rain. I leaned on one elbow and looked out. On the lawn, a rabbit was nibbling at the grass, his ears twitching in the wet. He sat up, sniffing, then lolloped his way calmly through the picket fence and in among Perry’s vegetables, where he began to help himself to cabbages. I had to admire his style.

  I’m a fan of rabbits. My father and brother curse them and spread disease through their burrows so that they go blind and die horribly. We used to find their contorted bodies and throw them into the offal pit.

  After a while, Matt’s stereo sprang to life and the smell of cooking bacon seeped into my room. I liked being there. It was a bit like a home.

  The rain kept up steadily all morning. Lucy and I went for a walk under an enormous umbrella, across the ploughed fields and through Coptree Woods. She was energetic and long-legged in gumboots and a waxed jacket of Perry’s. When her fingers froze, she shoved her hands under my jersey.

  If we were going to start something, that was probably the moment. But we didn’t. Perhaps, when it came to the crunch, the age gap was too wide for both of us. For my part, although I’d pulverise anyone who hurt her, I knew I couldn’t offer Lucy what she deserved. In four years’ time she’d have been throwing me out, just like Anna.

  She stood looking at me with those all-knowing green eyes. Then she smiled and touched my cheek. So we walked home, under the umbrella, like two good mates. Which is what we were.

  Nobod
y mentioned Mrs Harrison again until Perry cornered me after lunch, as I was skulking in the sitting room. I’d been thinking about his suggestion, though. Going to Africa on a zany quest was a ridiculous idea, calculated to waste weeks of my life. But it seemed as good a way as any of avoiding the fact that I’d cocked up my life. I had no job, no girlfriend, no goal. I was rootless and drifting. My freedom was a vacuum.

  And then there was young Matt. Even if I was under the influence of his hooch at the time, I’d promised to find his mother. He’d seemed so desperate.

  Perry brought in a pot of coffee on a tray, and we sat opposite each other by the fire, a couple of old geezers in their gentlemen’s club. Perry was a bit too exotic for the scene, somehow. He ought to be puffing on a hookah in the shadowy depths of a Middle Eastern café, plotting assassinations.

  ‘So,’ he began, fixing me with his kohl-rimmed eyes. I knew what was coming. ‘Have you thought?’

  I nodded my head, and then shook it. ‘It’s just crazy, Perry.’

  ‘You’re entitled to your opinion. But you’ll do it?’

  ‘Your wife does want to be found, does she?’

  He held out his hands, like a used-car salesman. ‘Of course, Jake. She loves us.’

  ‘And you reckon she’s in Mombasa?’

  For just a second—less, maybe a hundredth of a second—I thought I saw a gleam in his eye. It’s hard to describe. It was a flicker of some private party. But even as I watched him, I thought I must have been mistaken. He instantly looked as weary and haunted as ever. In that whole weekend, I only saw him smile about twice.

  ‘We had a postcard from there. Hang on, I’ve got it.’ He dug in the desk drawer and pulled out a postcard with a picture of two Arab sailing boats in a saffron sunset. Clearly, Perry didn’t believe in sticking things to the fridge with magnets. He dropped it onto the tray.