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Saving Grace

Page 28

by Jane Green


  Beth’s face is set in fury, but Grace is no longer frightened.

  ‘You wanted my life?’ says Grace quietly as she leans towards Beth. ‘My dear, you can have it.’ And, leaving the book on the table, the sales assistant open-mouthed, she walks out of the store.

  Forty-two

  They don’t talk divorce. Not yet. Separation is the first step, putting the house on the market, for all that they have left is in the house, which they can no longer afford.

  Beth disappears. One morning Ted wakes to find all traces of Beth gone. He phones Clemmie in a panic, who phones Grace as soon as she is off the phone with her father.

  ‘Can you believe it?’ says Clemmie. ‘Can you believe she did that?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Grace, who has been counting the days.

  Ted moves into the barn for Grace to come back home, at least until the house sells. They do not eat together, have little to do with each other, although Ted has started to find excuses to wander up the garden path and ask Grace a question. She ought to feel irritated, she thinks, but instead she feels, mostly, nothing.

  ‘He’s trying to win you back,’ says Sybil one afternoon over tea with Grace, after Ted has just popped his head in the back door.

  ‘I know,’ says Grace. ‘He’s like a different man. If only this had happened twenty years ago.’

  Everything about the way Ted treats Grace these days is different from how it was before. He is sweet, solicitous, gentle. When he does come up to the house, he follows her with an adoring gaze, his eyes filled with a gratitude that makes Grace want to scream.

  Ted is finally the sort of man who could be a partner, she thinks, wryly. He asks how she is every day and truly seems to care what her answer is. He offers to help, to do the chores that Grace has never enjoyed, mundane things that he never would have lowered himself to do before – putting gas in the car, going to the supermarket for milk.

  ‘I have changed,’ he said to her just this afternoon as Grace was starting to get ready for Sybil and Fred to come for dinner. She hadn’t been ready to entertain, but Sybil is family, and she is making individual truffled porcini and Gruyère tartlets, a tenderloin of beef, and a fig and apple compote with homemade ginger ice cream.

  She has chopped the celery, the carrots, the onions, is cooking them slowly in oil, ready to add the seared meat and the aromatics, and realizes that suddenly, on this chilly day, in her cosy kitchen, she is enjoying cooking again.

  It was one of the hardest things about the medication. It stole the one thing she had always been passionate about – gathering people in her home, or Harmont House, and feeding them. The foods she craved when she was on the drugs were carbohydrates and sugars, the more processed, the better; she lost the energy to cook and even when her energy started to come back, the will hadn’t.

  But here she is, this afternoon, searing the meat in hot oil, removing it from the pan when it is golden brown, replacing it with the rest of the vegetables, the stock, the wine, with a smile on her face. She wipes her chopping board clean as she has been taught to do, washes her hands, yet again, then takes the eggs from the bowl on the counter and starts cracking them into a bowl, separating the whites from the yolks, measuring out the milk and cream, the sugar, the finest vanilla essence, grating the ginger and finely dicing – brunoise – the crystallized ginger to fold into the ice cream. She tips the ginger and sugar in a pan, adding a couple of tablespoons of water, and cooks slowly before adding the milk and cream. Whisking furiously all the while, she holds the pan high and adds the liquid to the whisked egg yolks, stirring constantly, pulling it straight off the heat when the mixture perfectly coats the back of a spoon.

  Through a sieve, she adds the mixture, the vanilla, before putting it straight into the freezer. She should have made this yesterday, the day before. But she has made last-minute ice creams before, and even if it isn’t as firm, as chilled as she would like, it will still be the perfect accompaniment to the fig and apple compote she made first thing this morning.

  Ted walks in as she is sieving the ice cream, watches her silently, wanting to have her full attention, but she can’t give it to him, busy trying not to splash a drop. He clears his throat, waiting for her to turn, moving forward until he is right behind her in order to make her stop what she is doing and look at him.

  ‘I have changed,’ he says. ‘And I am sorry. How can I prove it to you, Grace? How can I show you that I am not the same man? That I deserve forgiveness. This whole separation thing is ridiculous. We belong together, Grace. You know that and I know that, and I will do anything, Grace. Anything to have you back.’

  ‘You have me back,’ she says when she has finished sieving, squashing the curds and lumps into the sieve with the back of a plastic spatula, up and down, side to side, until every drop has been squeezed out. ‘I am here, aren’t I?’

  ‘Physically, yes, but I want us to be together. As husband and wife.’ Grace stops then, looks up at him. ‘Do you mean back in your bed?’ She may have moved back to Sneden’s, but she cannot go back to the family bed, is sleeping instead in the guest room, filling it with her possessions in a bid to make herself feel more at home.

  ‘No!’ he says. ‘Well, yes! But no, that isn’t what I mean. I just . . . want you to forgive me.’

  Grace looks down at the counter, at her hands, her thin gold wedding band, studded here and there with tiny diamonds, like the tiniest constellation of stars on her finger. ‘I have,’ she says. For it is true.

  This life had made her so happy, for so many years, she had never wanted anything or anyone else. She had never thought to question her role, to question her happiness. Most of the time she truly felt that somewhere up high, perhaps to make up for the hell of her childhood, the gods, or angels, were smiling upon her.

  She had been charmed. She led a charmed life. At least if you didn’t look too closely; at least if you pretended, as she did so well for so long, that if you put on a good enough act, it would make it so. But then the gods and angels had deserted her and she fell to the ground with a crash. And now? This is a decision of necessity. She has nowhere else to go, has to put her new life on hold until the house sells, until she knows where she will go next.

  Nothing is the same. Harmont House has reached out via Sybil, letting Grace know they miss her and are thinking about her, but they don’t ask her back. It’s far too soon for that.

  Not that Grace would go back; her hands are too full taking care of herself, trying to figure out the next right steps.

  Ted goes back to the barn, irritated at having made no headway. Grace finishes making the porcini tartlets, sets the table, then takes the scraps outside for the chickens.

  She sits on the bench by the chicken coop, watching her girls cluck gently around her legs, taking carrot peelings from her hand, setting the bowl down to clutch her wrap more tightly around herself to stave off the chill.

  Pulling her mobile phone from her pocket, and scrolling through the numbers, she finds herself pressing Lydia’s, needing suddenly the comfort of Lydia’s voice; the comfort of home.

  ‘Grace!’ Hearing Lydia on the end of the phone has Grace’s shoulders sagging in relief. ‘What a lovely surprise!’

  ‘It’s so good to hear your voice.’ Grace blinks back the tears. ‘Where are you? What are you doing?’

  Lydia laughs. ‘Do you want details?’

  ‘Yes! Details and descriptions. I want to feel as if I’m with you in Dorset.’

  ‘It’s not very interesting, I’m afraid. I’m at the kitchen table sorting through lots of boring old bills, which I will then take out to the post box. I just picked up some eggs from the farm, and I’m going to make on omelette for supper. What else can I tell you? I spoke to Robert earlier today and he’s invited me up to Scotland to stay, and as much as I adore those grandchildren of mine, I’m not sure, at this age, I can bear the noise and chaos. I might find an excuse and stay in that nice little bed-and-breakfast down the road from them. Haven’
t spoken to Catherine, but Patrick has just arrived in the Lake District for the new film, and he suddenly has this fanciful idea of buying a cottage here in Dorset, down the road.’

  Grace’s heart does a small skip. Of course Lydia was going to talk about Patrick. Grace wanted her to talk about Patrick, but still, at the mention of his name she couldn’t help but feel that jolt.

  ‘How is he?’ Grace keeps her voice light, but of course this isn’t what she wants to say.

  Does he talk about me? is what she suddenly wants to say. Does he miss me? Does he think about me? Does he do what I have found myself unable to stop doing, waking up in the middle of the night and thinking about him? Replay every second we were together? Think about the way he laughs when he’s sitting across the table from me? The way he makes me feel? Does he even think about me at all or has he moved on? I don’t want to know, but I have to know . . . does he have someone else? Has he fallen in love? I need to know, at the very least, if he still misses me or whether those were empty words he just said in response to me.

  ‘Patrick? He’s . . . Patrick! Happy to be back on these shores, I think. Los Angeles was a tremendous amount of fun for him, but he needed, he said, to get back to reality. What about you, Gracie? What are you up to?’ Lydia says. ‘How is life back at the ranch?’

  Grace pauses. At that moment, something falls into place for her. Something, finally, after this awful year, feels completely right.

  ‘Grace? Are you there?’

  ‘Yes. I’m here.’ She smiles, her heart light. ‘Lydia? How much are flights to England these days?’

  GINGER ICE CREAM

  INGREDIENTS

  700ml double cream

  240ml whole milk

  15g grated fresh ginger

  ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

  40g finely chopped crystallized ginger, more if, like me, you love it!

  Pinch of salt

  8 egg yolks

  150g sugar

  In a large, heavy saucepan, combine the cream, milk, ginger and salt over a medium heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

  Whisk the egg yolks and sugar together until pale gold and fluffy. Pour one ladleful of the hot cream mixture onto the egg mixture, combine, then add all the egg mix into the hot cream mixture. Stir constantly for around 5 minutes until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

  Strain over a fine-meshed sieve into a large bowl, pressing with the back of the spoon to extract as much liquid as you can. Cover tightly and refrigerate until cold – at least 3 hours.

  Add the crystallized ginger to the cold cream mixture, then pour into the bowl of an ice cream maker and make the ice cream according to manufacturer’s instructions. Transfer the ice cream to an airtight container and freeze until ready to eat.

  Epilogue

  The basket of eggs is overflowing today as Grace drops them off at Abbots, telling them to pay her next time, for today she is in a hurry, today she has to get back home and get the spare room ready for Clemmie and Luke’s visit, finish baking rhubarb and apple pies for the country market, figure out next week’s menu for the food truck she runs, driving all over Dorset and Somerset, feeding those who can’t afford to feed themselves.

  She climbs into the ancient Deux Chevaux, scowling yet again at the rust on the driver’s door that she keeps meaning to take care of but hasn’t got around to, before pulling out onto Long Street and heading down Piddle Lane, delighting every few yards in how pretty the village of Cerne Abbas is, how lucky she is to live here, and how completely at home she has been made to feel.

  Patrick found the house just weeks before Grace arrived. He collected her from Heathrow and drove her straight to Dorset, to the cottage in Cerne Abbas he had fallen in love with. He had exchanged contracts, he said, but had not yet completed, and if Grace absolutely hated it, he could afford to lose the down payment and move on.

  There was never any talk of them doing anything other than live together. As soon as Grace phoned him and told him she was leaving Ted, that it was over, that she had been thinking of moving to Dorset permanently, they both knew this was the beginning of their future together. It didn’t need to be discussed, was an unspoken assumption – now that they had recognized everything Lydia said she had known her entire life: that they would spend the rest of their lives together.

  Patrick drove up Long Street, pointing out all the wonderful places they would go – skittles at the Giant Inn, dinner by roaring log fires at the Royal Oak, Abbots for proper Dorset cream teas – Grace feeling partly terrified, partly excited, no longer settled in the world, no longer sure where to call home, only certain that it was not Sneden’s Landing. Not with Ted. Not anymore.

  Up Piddle Lane, down a tiny cul-de-sac to a thatched story-book cottage backing onto farmland, horses grazing in the distance. Close enough for a brisk walk to the village, the house has been added on to over the years: a conservatory containing a large country kitchen with – joy of joys! – an Aga, a big kitchen table, and a sofa for the lurchers Patrick was determined to get now that he was back and settled in Dorset. Back to settle down with Grace.

  Seventeenth-century beams stretched across the living room, a huge stone fireplace taking up one wall. The master bedroom was large and tucked under the eaves, window seats looking out over the fields.

  ‘You know, this isn’t my house,’ Patrick said that first day as Grace silently walked through the house, going into every room, breathing in the house’s history. ‘It’s ours.’

  And Grace just nodded, knowing then that all these years of searching had, finally, brought her here. Brought her to a place where she no longer felt guilt at being a bad daughter, and then, as an adult, a wife who was never quite good enough.

  Those years of searching had finally brought her home.

  Across the pond, Marissa Weiss sits on her living-room sofa, apologizing for her nine-year-old constantly darting into the room to show off yet another elastic band bracelet she has made on the rainbow loom.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she says to the woman sitting opposite her. ‘As you can see, we’re in desperate need of a babysitter, not to mention everything else.’

  The woman laughs, calling the little girl over, complimenting her on the bracelet and asking if she might make one for her.

  ‘I know it’s not my job,’ she looks up at Marissa as the little girl skips out of the room, ‘but I adore children. I’m really happy to roll up my sleeves and do whatever needs to be done, and if that includes babysitting, that’s perfectly fine with me.’

  Marissa shakes her head. ‘I’d love that, but my husband would kill me. You’re really here to help out with the running of our lives. Bill-paying, QuickBooks, organizing events, scheduling – both our schedules and the kids’. And then there are really mundane things too: taking the dog to the vet, going to the post office, shopping for office and household supplies. It really is a little bit of everything. You said you were well versed in running this kind of household. Can you perhaps tell me a little more about what you’re looking for, Liz?’

  She looks at the woman expectantly, although she already knows she will employ her. She is perfect. A little plain, a little frumpy, she has a sweetness and eagerness about her that Marissa finds appealing.

  The last assistant had been a glamourpuss and Marissa had never felt comfortable having her in the house. She and Jack would laugh about the outfits – the skirts got shorter and the heels grew higher week after week – but each time she saw Jack and the assistant having a conversation, she grew nervous. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Jack, but she didn’t trust the assistant.

  Since then, she had tried out a number of different women. There was the Brazilian girl who was lovely, but her energy was so frenetic, so nervous, it put everyone on edge; the girl who came with glowing references but had no initiative whatsoever and, Marissa joked, turned stupidity into an art form. Then there was the one who had been efficient and organized, but who had demanded they double her p
ay after a month as she hadn’t realized what the job entailed, and she was “effectively COO of your company”.

  They had despaired, until placing an ad in the New York Times, and receiving Liz’s résumé. She had all the right qualifications, seemed to be exceptionally bright and well read, and clearly knew the job inside out. Her references were wonderful, although Marissa liked to think that references were never as important as her gut feeling. Marissa can generally tell what someone is like within the first minute and her instincts about people are never wrong.

  Jack teases her about it all the time, particularly after she has got it wrong so many times in recent months. He wanted to be involved in the interview process after the last few disasters, but he is always travelling. His job in wealth management sees him meeting with clients all over the country. He regularly leaves their San Francisco home to travel across the coast, often for days at a time. That’s why they need an assistant – with three children and a travelling husband, there’s no way Marissa can handle all the household things on her own.

  ‘The first thing you have to know about me,’ Liz says sweetly, ‘is that I love doing this work. I live to help people and nothing gives me more satisfaction than organizing someone’s life and keeping everything running smoothly. My job, as far as I see it, is to make your life easy, and I will do whatever it takes to make that happen. That’s what gives me pleasure.’

 

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