GOODNESS, GRACE AND ME
BY
Julie Houston
* * *
© 2013 Julie Houston
Julie Houston has asserted her rights in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
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First published in eBook format in 2013
eISBN: 978-1-78301-162-9
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Contents
Copyright
Acknowledgements
1993
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Six months on ...
About the Author
Acknowledgements
There are several people to whom I’d like to say a big thank-you. Firstly to Fiona Woodhead and Janet Winch at Wooldale Junior School who, over the years, have made me laugh out loud with their one-liners and who read the very first draft and said they loved it. Others who encouraged me in the early days were Jayne James, Lynda Hulme and Janet Wills, but particularly Janet who, at the very start of every book club meeting says, ‘How’s the book going, Jools? When can we get our hands on it?’ Loyalty indeed! Thanks to Clare Brandstrom who, when faced with me polishing my granite rather than drinking the proffered wine, coined the phrase, ‘Compulsive Granite Disorder’ the original title of ‘Goodness, Grace and Me’ and for sharing her hilarious stories of barking mad and randy au pairs.
I’d like to thank my agent, Anne Williams at KHLA, for believing in me and my book, for taking me on and doing such a good job in editing the MS before hauling it round the publishers. Thanks to Susanne Hillen for doing such a brilliant job with the copyediting and Aimee Fry at Author Works for the design of the front cover and website.
Finally, one big thank-you to Nigel, Ben and Georgia. Just for being you.
1993
‘Lust,’ Grace scoffed as I pointed out the man with whom I intended spending the rest of my life. ‘Pure unadulterated, don’t kid yourself it’s anything else but, lust.’
‘The One,’ I countered, secure in the knowledge that indeed he was.
I recognised him instantly of course. Not from any prior knowledge, but from a deep instinctive belief that here was the man I’d been waiting for. A feeling, almost of relief, that my search was over.
And I could have missed him, for heaven’s sake. Gone home for the weekend as I so often did in that first term of my second year at university. Or spent the Saturday evening in the laundrette without the indignity of queuing, bulging black bin liner in hand, until a washer came free.
But I didn’t miss him. Sat with Grace and me, but not actually speaking to us, was Michael, my boyfriend from home. He’d travelled down from Yorkshire as he had every other weekend for the last year or so, and the reason he was in a deep sulk was not only the presence of Grace, my best friend from the age of eleven with whom I now shared a student house, but because I wanted out of the relationship – and he knew it.
My eyes, restlessly travelling the room, had been arrested in their journey by another pair, holding their gaze for what seemed an eternity. Flushed, I’d looked away, seeking my drink in order to give my hands – and eyes – something to do. And then started that glorious game which has only two players. And which ignores everything around it, but concentrates solely on the meeting of eyes, again and again, the winner being the one whose lingering glance lingers longest.
The contest was hotting up nicely, and I would have said my last glance, accompanied by a slightly wry, almost flirtatious smile had me in the lead, when Nuala, one of the other girls in our house bounded into the bar. She came over, spilling Noilly Prat and Irish conviviality in equal measures as she pushed her way through to where we were sitting. Catching sight of Michael, she frowned. Like Grace, she didn’t approve of Michael, couldn’t see the point in conducting a weekend-only relationship with someone who, it had to be said, appeared to spend the time he was with me either trying to persuade me to get engaged or in a deep sulk.
‘Hi, Michael. How are you?’ Nuala said carelessly. Not being remotely interested in Michael’s health she turned her back on him and, in the act of squeezing her ample behind into the space between us, proceeded to alienate him even further.
‘What’s your man doing here?’ she hissed, loud enough for him to hear. ‘I thought you said he’d finally got the message when you went home last weekend.’
‘Obviously not,’ Grace complained, leaning over me in order to speak to Nuala. ‘He turned up a couple of hours ago, and rather than spend an evening arguing with him at the house, she’s brought him down here where there’s safety in numbers. I thought the plan was a night out on the town, didn’t you? And what do we find? Him,’ she nodded towards Michael, ‘still in situ. And her,’ here she gave me a nudge, ‘mooning over some other man.’
‘Do you mind, you two, not speaking about me as if I wasn’t here?’ I’d lost eye contact with the man across the room and was desperate to get it back.
‘Harriet, you are being a total eejit. Do you want us to tell him to bugger off, or what? Come on. Grace and I are off into town without you if you’re going to stop here with that boring little fart.’ Nuala was beginning to get cross. Downing the remains of her glass in one practised move she turned to leave and then instantly sat down again. ‘Jesus, Mother of God, don’t look now, but there is the most divine man looking in my direction. Don’t look. Don’t look!’
‘Actually, it’s me he’s looking at,’ I hissed back, giving her a poke in the ribs for good measure.
‘Shame on you,’ Nuala said. ‘You’re practically engaged to this lovely man here,’ and, turning to Michael, she patted his knee encouragingly while taking another surreptitious glance across at The One.
Michael might have been thick-skinned (or possibly just thick – I don’t really recall) but all this whispering and giggling between Grace, Nuala and myself was too much. With as much dignity as he could muster, he stood up and, like Captain Oates of the Antarctic going to his untimely death, made his exit from the union bar with the words, ‘I’m going now – and I shall be gone some time.’
Nick and I had met up every evening for a week. I loved everything about him: loved his voice – the way he said ‘barth’ and ‘clarss’ rather than the ‘bath’ and
‘class’ with the flattened vowels that I’d been accustomed to hearing and using back home. I loved his dark blonde hair that he was forever pushing back out of his amazing eyes. I loved that he was over six-foot tall and seemingly unaware of the female glances he attracted wherever he went. But, most of all, I loved being kissed by Nick.
In fact Nick didn’t kiss me at all until our second date and even that was a brotherly sort of kiss on the cheek as he dropped me off home at the end of the evening. When he did finally kiss me properly we were tucked into the corner of an Irish bar buzzing with noise, and I had to lean forward to catch what he was saying. As I moved towards him he brought up his hand to my hair and simply kissed the corner of my open mouth. And I was intoxicated: not from the alcohol, but from a clear, absolute certainty that everything was as it should be. The anticipation of what was to come was almost unbearable and I wanted to freeze-frame everything, absorb all that was going on around me because I knew this was it. He was The One.
I was in love, lust – call it what you like. I felt feverish, unable to sleep, going to lectures as normal, but unable to concentrate. Every part of me just wanted to drown in those chocolate-brown eyes, so when, at the end of one evening, he’d kissed me on the cheek and said he’d call me, I was frantic to know when.
When I’d not heard from him for six days (and this included a very long weekend where I’d hardly moved from the hall phone, willing it to ring and then snarling at the astonished callers when it did) I had to find out why he’d not been in touch. Disregarding advice from all the females in our shared house to play it cool, I decided to call round at the house I knew he shared with two other blokes from his course. This was conveniently close to the university library so I figured it wouldn’t seem untoward if I just happened to drop in, say I’d been to the library, and was there a coffee on offer? So, armed with a pile of books as my alibi, I set off.
I was so nervous I nearly came home, but I really was desperate to see him. All the way there, shifting my books from one arm to the other, I rehearsed the nonchalant speech I’d deliver as soon as he opened his front door. Except he didn’t. Open his front door that is.
‘Yeah?’ A rather ugly, sallow-faced guy, bearded and obviously just out of the shower, answered my timid knock on the peeling, sludge-coloured door.
‘I was just passing,’ I gabbled, ‘and wondered if Nick was around?’
‘Well he’s around. But rather busy if you get my drift.’ He leered at me, showing uneven, discoloured teeth.
I felt as if I’d been winded, as if all the breath had been squeezed out of me, as I stood there, my eyes fixed on those revolting teeth in a vain attempt to dislodge the image of Nick doing God knows what – with God knows whom – from my brain.
‘Any message?’ The teeth seemed to have a life of their own as I continued to stare at them in fascination.
‘Er, no thanks. It’s fine. It doesn’t matter. I just called round on the off chance.’ I was gabbling again, and couldn’t seem to make the necessary connection between brain and feet in order to actually walk away. The teeth, asymmetrical as the fallen, crumbling tombstones found in the graveyard backing on to our student house, protruded even further as their owner grinned an all-knowing gesture of disbelief at my risible ‘off chance’ claim. My feet finally engaged and turned in the direction of the garden gate.
‘Should have brought my brolly,’ I muttered to myself as raindrops began to fall onto the books that, now redundant from their former shallow pretext, were clutched to my chest as an armour-plated comfort blanket. It was only with the realisation that the rain was falling at a much higher temperature than one could expect from a chilly autumn evening that it hit me that I was crying, great big fat tears dripping messily from my nose and onto my hands and books.
‘Oh my God. Get out the gin. Hattie’s back.’ Nuala, just about to draw the moth-eaten rags that passed for sitting-room curtains, had witnessed the last few steps of my return home. Grace and Sara (our fourth housemate), whose sole intention for this Monday evening had been a post-boozy weekend soap-fest, left the sofa, with its Nutella and half-eaten Pringles, and joined Nuala to witness the journey’s end of their very own soap character.
‘You wouldn’t listen to your Auntie Sara would you? If you will go chasing after men who’ve promised to ring and who then don’t, well, you’re just asking for trouble.’ Sara unbuttoned my jacket while Grace relieved my cramped arms of the books and Nuala returned from the kitchen with the bottle of gin.
‘He didn’t promise to ring,’ I sobbed. ‘He just said he’d call me.’
‘Yeah, six days ago,’ Sara said caustically, retrieving the jar of Nutella from the sofa and digging out a huge spoonful.
‘So what did he say to you?’, demanded Nuala, handing me a gin the size of which guaranteed a hangover by the end of the evening, never mind the next day.
‘Nothing – I didn’t get to speak to him. He was ‘otherwise engaged’ to quote the sniggering flatmate from hell.’ I winced, as much from the memory of myself rooted to his front door step in embarrassed silence as from the huge slug of neat gin that was now burning its way down my throat. ‘Jesus, Nuala, haven’t we any tonic or orange to put in this gin?’
‘Never mind the technicalities of the drink, Hat. What do you think your man was up to? Having a shower? Having his tea?’ Nuala probed the possibilities, hopefully.
‘Having Anna Fitzgerald more likely,’ sighed Sara.
‘Oh God. I knew he was too good to be true,’ I howled. ‘Who the hell is Anna Fitzgerald and why didn’t you tell me about her?’
‘Anna Fitzgerald is that gorgeous, upmarket blonde who zooms around the university campus in a little red sports job and who, I’m afraid, Hattie, has been going out with Nick Westmoreland since the first year.’ Sara had the grace to look a little shamefaced with this admission. How could she have kept this vital information from me?
‘I can’t believe you let her rave on about Nick, let her go out and meet him when you knew he was involved with someone else.’ Grace, always my champion when the chips were down, glared at Sara before snatching the jar of Nutella from her hand.
‘Hang on a minute,’ Sara protested, ‘don’t shoot the messenger, Grace, it’s not my fault he led her up the garden path.’ And then turning to me said, ‘For heaven’s sake, Harriet, you’ve only been seeing him for a couple of weeks. And furthermore, I didn’t know Anna Fitzgerald’s boyfriend was the same bloke you’ve been lusting over.’ Sara was beginning to get angry herself now.
‘So when did you realise?’
‘Not until this afternoon when I saw them together in the library. I was with Becky Patterson and she spent the entire time telling me how she’d fancied Nick Westmoreland since she’d seen him at the Freshers’ ball last year but hadn’t been able to have a crack at him because he was always with Anna Fitzgerald. As soon as she said his name I realised your Nick and the one sitting across from me with Anna were one and the same. That’s why I kicked up such a fuss about your little plan to just drop in on him this evening. That’s why I told you to play it cool and not go hunting him down. Sorry Hattie, but he’s well involved. Mind you, you were right about one thing.’
‘What’s that?’ I asked, starting to cry again.
‘He is bloody gorgeous.’
Nuala, recalling Nick from that first sight of him in the union bar, shook her head sadly. ‘Gorgeous,’ she repeated. ‘An absolute ride. A total gobshite of course, but an absolute ride nevertheless.’
‘Well, at least one good thing has come out of all this,’ said Nuala, as she and Grace tucked me into bed with Keith, my teddy bear, and a cup of hot chocolate.
‘What’s that?’ I asked again. My crying had subsided into occasional little hiccups and my head was beginning to ache.
‘You might not have got Nick Westmoreland, but at least you haven’t got that boring little fart, Michael, either.’
I reasoned that I could either hibernate for th
e next few years or I could face the world. So the next morning I showered, took several Paracetamol, put on my favourite jeans and the crimson cashmere sweater passed on to me by my big sister Diana and, with an extra layer of bright-red lipstick, did just that. Thank goodness I’d stepped out with hair washed and head held high. Grace and I had a nine o’clock lecture so we made our way to the Education block, cutting a swathe through what I considered to be ridiculously overeager students waiting impatiently for the library to open.
‘Harriet?’ Nick, looking pale, but undoubtedly still sublime, pushed his way through a chattering group of girls from where he’d been leaning against the gum-decorated wall outside the Education faculty.
‘Hello, Nick.’ Calm or what? Grace, for once at a loss for words, gave me a meaningful look and then made her way to the lecture theatre, leaving me face to face with the man who was about to complete the job, started last night while he bedded his long-term girlfriend, of breaking my heart.
‘Can we go for a coffee?’ he asked, taking my arm.
‘I’ve a lecture to go to,’ I said, moving towards the steps.
‘I’ve been here since half-past eight, hoping you had a nine o’clock lecture. I really need to talk to you.’
Oh God. Here it comes, I thought. The ‘I-should-have-told-you-about-Anna’ routine.
‘Look, you obviously know I called round last night,’ I said, looking somewhere in the region of his chest. I knew if I’d looked into those wonderful eyes I’d have been lost, started blubbing, or buried my nose into his neck just to smell him, or something equally awful. ‘I didn’t realise you were involved with someone else or I’d never have agreed to go out with you. You really don’t need to explain anything to me. I must go or I’ll miss this lecture, and psychology isn’t my strong point.’
Nick took my arm again and said, ‘Harriet, please just come with me for a coffee. One missed lecture isn’t going to ruin your career.’
I nodded and without another word we walked off the campus and across the busy main road to a quiet little Italian coffee place I didn’t even know existed. As Nick stood at the counter ordering the coffees, I took in every aspect of him, from the dark-blonde hair curled on to the blue-striped shirt collar, down to the frayed bottoms of his faded jeans where they skimmed his somewhat weathered desert boots. How was I to sit there, listening to his apologies, when all I wanted was to wrap my arms around him, lose myself in his eyes, his voice, his smile?
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