Goodness, Grace and Me

by Julie Houston

  ‘It’s me, Harriet. Who the hell did you think it was?’

  ‘A bloody nun, that’s who the hell I thought it was.’

  ‘It’s me. I’m off to the theatre.’

  ‘Dressed like a bloody nun?’

  ‘Yes. Ralph, what are you doing in that bush?’

  There was a silence for a while before he answered, ‘Call of nature, Harriet. Got caught short. You know how it is.’

  ‘Right. Well, I must be off,’ I said breezily and then added, ‘bless you, my son,’ as I hurried past him to meet Grace.

  Bless you, my son? I repeated out loud, tittering to myself as I huffed and puffed up the rest of the lane. Wasn’t that what the Archbishop of Canterbury said to his genuflecting flock? Not the words of a lowly nun, surely? I was getting serious giggles now and had to remind myself that I’d spent a hell of a lot of time putting on several layers of Liberty’s new mascara, nicked while she was out of the house, in addition to the lovely new knickers I’d bought in hopeful anticipation of Nick’s return. So busy was I trying to control my giggles, my habit and my wayward wimple that it wasn’t until I reached the main road that ran adjacent to our lane that it suddenly occurred to me that there was no rational explanation for Ralph taking a leak in the bush when he had a couple of perfectly good loos at home. And no explanation, as far as I could see, as to why he should have a pair of binoculars hanging round his neck.

  Grace drew up just as I was beginning to shiver, musing: what did authentic nuns wear under their black habits? Did their frocks traditionally come under the same genre as Scottish kilts so they wore nothing? Or maybe they suffered hair knickers and bras to go with their hair shirts?

  ‘Get in, Sister, we’re late,’ Grace shouted from the depths of her warm car.

  ‘Don’t I know it,’ I grumbled, hauling myself and yards of fabric into her car. ‘Oh thanks very much,’ I added as I saw how she was dressed. ‘You order me the habit from hell and get yourself tarted up to look gorgeous.’

  Grace was dressed as the archetypal female German Officer – the dream of every man who has ever had fantasies about women in uniform. She wore a very short and tight-fitting skirt and the jacket was tailored and figure hugging. Her black, seamed stockings were elegantly placed in killer black stilettos, and she’d obviously spent a great deal of time on her make-up as well as her hair which she’d swept up into a severe, chestnut chignon under a peaked cap. She looked like Madame Sin does Adolf Hitler.

  ‘Where’s your German Shepherd?’ I asked.

  ‘Um, I did consider asking Beryl and Stan if I could borrow their Dalmatian, but reckoned he’d get thoroughly overexcited once the singing got under way,’ she said seriously through red-painted lips.

  ‘I’ve just come across Ralph-Next-Door lurking in the bushes along our lane,’ I now said as we hurtled along country lanes trying to make up lost time.

  ‘Have you? What was he up to?’

  ‘I dunno. Very strange, but he said he was taking a leak. He nearly scared me to death.’

  ‘He’s got a dog hasn’t he? He was probably taking it out for a walk and needed to pee. It is a bit parky out there this evening.’ Grace pulled into the theatre car park with a good five minutes to spare.

  ‘Well that’s what I thought at first, but Shep wasn’t with him, and he had a pair of binoculars round his neck.’ The more I thought about it, the stranger it seemed. ‘I mean, you just don’t hide in bushes with a pair of binoculars unless you’re either a burglar or a Peeping Tom do you?

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Grace looking in the car mirror and adding more lip gloss, clearly not overly interested in the strange nocturnal habits of my neighbours. ‘Hey, look at Ray over there,’ she laughed, pointing to what could only be described as a grotesquely tangerined sunflower.

  ‘Ray? Ray who? Do you know him?’

  Grace laughed again, ‘No, Ray. Ray, a Drop of Golden Sun. Get it?’

  I groaned. I could see I was in for a wing-dinger of an evening.

  And I was. It was really good fun. Best evening I’d had in ages. We sang along at the top of our voices, we booed and hissed the German baddies and the Countess and we cheered every time Julie Andrews made an appearance, which, given that she was the star of the show, was rather a lot.

  I glanced across at Grace several times during the film and she too seemed to be genuinely enjoying herself. I’d been worried that the almost feverish air she’d been sporting for the last few days could, at any time, dissipate, leaving her empty and vulnerable as the events of the past month really kicked in.

  ‘I can’t see Nick’s car,’ said Grace as she drove up our drive. ‘Do you reckon he’s not back yet?’

  ‘I hope he is,’ I said looking at my watch. It was eleven o’clock. ‘His car is in the garage. Sylvia took him to the airport last week and he said he’d get the train and taxi back from Manchester Airport. It’s actually quicker than driving now that the Trans-Pennine train goes right into Terminal 1. Come on in and have a quick coffee.’

  ‘No, I’ll leave you two lovebirds to your reunion,’ she said almost wistfully.

  I suddenly couldn’t bear the thought of her going home all alone, dressed in her Nazi uniform with no one there waiting to show it off to as she walked into her empty house.

  ‘Come on,’ I said firmly. ‘It’ll be a laugh. Nick’s no idea what we’ve been up to this evening.’

  ‘Two minutes then,’ Grace agreed, switching off the engine and putting off for a little while the moment when she’d have to accept all over again that Dan wasn’t going to be at home, waiting for her to come in.

  A light was shining under the closed sitting-room door and I motioned Grace to be quiet as I flicked the switch from the hallway, plunging the room into darkness. Opening the sitting-room door we caught Nick as he rose from his favourite chair, the light from the wood-burning stove illuminating his way as he stumbled towards us looking for the light switch.

  Giggling helplessly, Grace grabbed him in an all-embracing clinch, forcing him back into the chair as she whispered in a low, guttural accent, ‘Don’t move, my darling. Ve ‘ave vays ov making you talk. You ‘ave been a very naughty boy ent you must be punished.’

  The sitting-room light snapped back on as Nick walked in, a look of utter incredulity on his face. He was carrying a tray laden with a cafetière and my best Emma Bridgewater mugs.

  ‘Hello, Grace,’ said Amanda coolly, giving Grace a long hard stare as she followed in Nick’s wake, the Belgian chocolate biscuits I’d hidden from the kids at the back of the kitchen cupboard in her hand, ‘I see you’ve met my husband.’

  ‘How were we supposed to know you had the Hendersons in tow?’ I demanded of Nick twenty minutes later. ‘There was no car in the drive to warn us. I assumed you were at home by yourself after catching the train from Manchester.’

  ‘David had arranged to meet Mandy off the flight and obviously offered me a lift home. I invited them in, not only for a coffee but because Mandy wanted to have a word with you about some do you’re both going to tomorrow, apparently. There were also still loads of things I needed to iron out about what we’ve sorted in Italy.’

  ‘So where was David’s car? We might have acted with a little more decorum if we’d known you had visitors.’ Actually, if Grace had had any idea that the first sight Little Miss Goodness would have of her after twenty-five years was dressed as a Nazi tart she’d have been back down our drive before you could say ‘Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.’

  ‘David’s car was round the back,’ Nick explained as he loaded the empty coffee cups back on to the tray. He looked exhausted, the slight tan he’d acquired failing to mask the lines around his eyes and the tension in his shoulders. ‘He overshot the drive and ended up round the side and stayed there rather than reversing.’

  ‘And why was Mandy in the kitchen with you?’ Just what had those two been up to in the kitchen while David Henderson was left alone to be assaulted by marauding nuns and Nazis? As I r
ecalled how stunning she’d looked in a brown suede tightly fitting dress with dark brown suede boots, I heard my tone become peevish. ‘Since when do you need help making a cup of coffee?’

  ‘What is this, Harriet? Why the third degree over a cup of coffee?’ Nick said crossly as he made his way into the kitchen, me still in my nun’s habit, albeit sans wimple, worrying at him like a terrier with a rag doll.

  ‘Well, she must have been in my kitchen cupboard,’ I went on. ‘In all our married life you’ve never known where I’ve hidden the chocolate biscuits.’

  ‘Harriet, I’ve always known where you’ve hidden them. Inside the blue Tupperware box labelled, “Bones’ Cat Biscuits”.’

  ‘Really? You’ve always known?’ I was momentarily nonplussed. If he’d kept this from me what else was he capable of hiding?

  ‘Look, I’m dead on my feet. It’s not been all beer and skittles, you know, this trip to Italy.’

  ‘Hey, don’t look at me for sympathy.’ I said, following him doggedly up the stairs. ‘It was your idea to jack it all in and swan off leaving me a single parent and chief breadwinner. I’ve had to cope with a son who’s apparently suddenly Midhope’s answer to Casanova, a mother who has taken to wandering round the streets of the Isle of Man, and a perverted neighbour who hides in bushes and jumps out at nuns with a pair of binoculars round his neck.’

  ‘Tell me all about it in the morning,’ Nick said, pecking me on the cheek and falling into bed, leaving me grinding my teeth and twanging my unappreciated suspenders in frustration.

  Chapter 10

  It never ceases to amaze me how evocative sounds and scents, but particularly scents can be. The pungent scent of ‘Opium’ perfume immediately takes me back to 1989. I’m fifteen, The Bangles are belting out ‘Walk Like an Egyptian’ and Grace and I are drinking Lutomer Riesling in her bedroom, deciding what to wear for some party or other that we’ve been invited to.

  Even though they’d split up years before we were both still big into Wham! – Grace favoured Andrew Ridgley, even before his nose op., while there was only ever George Michael for me. Dressed in our vivid blue jump suits, the trouser legs rolled up to reveal an ankle chain, the sleeves pushed up beyond the elbow and the waists cinched in with wide leather belts, we’d add another layer of mascara and eyeliner to our already sooty eyes and jump around Grace’s room to ‘Wake me up before you go-go’. Or we’d wear our five-year-old Frankie goes to Hollywood ‘Relax’ T-shirts over black footless tights, secured around our middles with a huge black plastic belt and topped with denim jackets studded with very tasteful rhinestones. Frilly socks worn with high heels completed that particular choice eighties ensemble. Hair was big as were our shoulders, our blue eyeliner matched our blue plastic button earrings and we thought we were the proverbial dog’s bollocks.

  It was Friday evening, half term had officially begun, and I was once again in Grace’s bedroom, getting dolled up for the much-lauded Midhope Grammar reunion and breathing in the smell of Opium as Grace, in an effort to recreate ‘getting ready’ sessions of yesteryear, sprayed the scent around the room. I’d left the kids to Nick – and, presumably, Sylvia – and made good my defection for the evening.

  ‘Phew, how old is this Opium?’ I asked, sneezing as the fumes found their way up my nose.

  ‘Very,’ Grace admitted, as she scrabbled in the bottom of her wardrobe for something. ‘Right, here we are,’ she said, placing a 1984 Compilation CD on her CD player. ‘I don’t seem to have anything later than 1984 but this should still bring back some memories.’

  ‘Ninety-nine red balloons,’ sang a soulful Nena whose German accent maybe Grace should have noted last night prior to jumping on, and whispering in the ear of, David Henderson.

  ‘No Lutomer Riesling or Liebfraumilch?’ I asked as Grace returned from the kitchen with two glasses of cold Australian Sauvignon Blanc.

  ‘Hardly. One has to draw the line at retro somewhere,’ she smiled. ‘Anyway, they’re German aren’t they, and I don’t want anything to do with anything German tonight.’ Her tone was flippant, but I knew that, in her present vulnerable state, feeling exposed, she’d been highly embarrassed by the events of last night. With Dan at her side she’d have laughed it off, even thoroughly enjoyed the whole debacle, but her emotions were too raw to have enjoyed making a spectacle of herself in front of someone she’d never met before. And in front of Little Miss Goodness.

  ‘So, what did you think of David Henderson?’ I ventured, reading her thoughts as she sipped her wine.

  ‘I think he’s probably the type of man I would find extremely attractive had I not been too embarrassed to take a second look. Once I’d nibbled his ear and to all intents and purposes rotated my bum in his groin, the last thing I was going to do was actually meet his eyes,’ she said ruefully.

  ‘How do you think I felt?’ I laughed, in an effort to make her feel better. ‘The first time I met him I was a gibbering wreck on his doorstep, and the second time I’m dressed as a bloody nun.’

  ‘That’s true,’ she conceded. ‘Nick must think we’re a real pair of head-bangers. There he is, trying to be all grown-up with his cafetière and Belgian biscuits, showing the Hendersons what a suave, cool business man he is, and his wife and best mate ruin it all for him, acting like a pair of overgrown, giggling schoolgirls.’

  ‘Hmm, unfortunately the last time Amanda saw us both together, that’s what we both were. Bet she thinks we haven’t changed a bit. She still looks pretty good though, don’t you think?’

  ‘Stunning,’ Grace agreed. ‘But then, she would wouldn’t she? She was gorgeous at seventeen, and hasn’t changed much since then.’

  ‘Do you think she fancies Nick?’ I asked airing the thought that had been uppermost in my mind since our dinner at the Hendersons’.

  ‘Bound to. Who wouldn’t? And do I think Nick fancies Amanda? Again, the same answer – Bound to. Who wouldn’t?’ And then seeing my face, she added hastily, ‘But of course, you and I both know there’s never been anyone else for Nick since that Saturday night in the university union bar.’

  ‘Yes, but I would have said that about Dan and you, and look what happened.’

  Grace snorted derisively. ‘Daniel has always had a roving eye, if never, as far as I’m aware, until now that is, extending it to roving hands.’

  ‘Really?’ I was shocked. ‘You never said.’

  ‘Well, you don’t do you? It’s a matter of pride. I’d have been embarrassed to tell you every time Daniel looked at another woman. One has to pretend everything is hunky-dory even if you think maybe it’s not.’

  ‘Ooh, I hate this,’ I interrupted, as a new track started on the CD. ‘I spent the whole evening fighting off Simona Kennedy’s brother at her sixteenth birthday party, and every time this track came on he grabbed me, pressing his hot sweaty hands on to my bum.’

  ‘Not surprised. It’s Chaka Khan’s “I Feel For You”, Grace laughed squinting at the CD sleeve.

  ‘Yeah, well, he certainly felt for me, the little pervert. He was only thirteen.’

  ‘Same age as Kit,’ Grace pointed out. ‘Mind you, he doesn’t look like a sweaty groper. He seems far more grown-up.’

  ‘Hmm,’ I agreed. ‘That’s what worries me. He’s fourteen this week, and suddenly my little boy isn’t so little any more. I caught him with a copy of Loaded the other day.’

  ‘Pretty harmless stuff isn’t it?’ Grace called back from the depths of her immense wardrobe of designer clothes. ‘Right, Hat, we are going to slay them tonight. We’re going to show them that we’re still young, gorgeous, and now sophisticated, women of the world. Here’s the dress I promised you.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ I breathed, as she handed me a brand new Max Mara grey jersey dress, the labels still attached. I flinched when I saw the price. ‘This is far too expensive a dress to let me have first shot at,’ I said, handing it back.

  ‘Oh rubbish, get it on,’ she said. ‘Think of it as a reward for all the times you’v
e been there for me lately.’ She turned away, slightly embarrassed, busying herself with tidying the room of the clutter of glasses, clothes and make-up. A very different room from Grace’s bedroom of 1989, this one was essentially feminine and, like anything to do with Grace, very tasteful. I noticed she’d deliberately positioned her pillows in the middle of the bed, moving them from the side she’d always favoured before Dan had left.

  The room, very much like the Hendersons’ sitting room I’d coveted a couple of weeks ago, was predominately cream. It was a rich, buttery cream reminding me of the clotted cream we’d eaten with raspberries on our one trip to Devon many moons ago. Heavy, cream damask material sporting a gold leaf hung at the windows and was also pleated and gathered at the bed head. A large easy chair, covered in a gold chintzy material, stood in front of French windows which opened onto a balcony resplendent with pot plants. In my new role as Head Gardener, I recognised that many of these plants should have been brought inside now that autumn was well and truly under way. Knowing that Grace had no interest whatsoever in anything horticultural, I surmised that she wasn’t the only one to be suffering because of Dan’s defection.

  I moved over to the long cheval mirror in order to get a good view of myself in Grace’s dress. It fitted like a kid glove, the jersey material obligingly accommodating the hills and troughs of my body.

  ‘Oh wow!’ Grace exclaimed, turning round from where she’d been putting on yet another CD. ‘You look absolutely fantastic. It fits you much better than me.’

  ‘Hardly,’ I said. Grace’s gym-toned body could give mine a run for its money any day of the week. ‘Mind you, it does look fantastic doesn’t it?’

  ‘Absolutely. Look at your boobs. How voluptuous are they?’

  ‘Time of the month. I’m due a period any day.’

  ‘And your stomach’s so flat. God, three children and you’ve still not got any flab on you.’ Grace said admiringly and without rancour.