Freeing Grace

by Charity Norman

  ‘It’s vast,’ replied Angus. ‘And like all inner city parishes there’s poverty and racial tension and all that comes with it. The churchyard gets used by bored teenagers as a meeting place. They smoke, drink, sniff glue, get one another pregnant—all the usual things. We’re fighting a losing battle against vandalism.’ He paused, taking a mouthful of casserole. ‘Delicious, Leila!’

  After another moment’s silence, Elizabeth took up the baton. ‘Breaks people’s hearts. They spend more than they can afford on a carved marble angel for their baby son or whatever, and it’s smashed. Only last night, an old fellow arrived at the rectory in tears. He’d laid a bunch of red roses on his wife’s grave—her favourite flowers—cost half his week’s pension, and within hours they’d been ground into the dirt.’

  ‘Ever catch ’em at it?’ asked Hilda.

  ‘Ah.’ Angus held up a triumphant finger. ‘Yes, the odd win. Last summer I caught some boys in the act of lighting a fire in a litter bin. Two ran away, but one stayed to face the music. That bit of courage changed his life. He’s since joined the choir and become a legendary goalkeeper in David’s new team. Quite literally, David is his hero.’

  ‘Then I’d keep a very close watch on the church silver if I were you,’ advised Hilda, with a knowing curl to her lips.

  Leila met Elizabeth’s startled eye. ‘Hilda’s a magistrate,’ she explained.

  Elizabeth’s gaze ran over Hilda before she nodded, coolly. ‘I see. Well, I don’t think there’s any need to lock away the silver. We trust Kevin. He’s a good lad, getting confirmed after Christmas. Lovely voice, too.’

  Hilda smiled. ‘I admire your forgiving nature. But actually, he’s an arsonist. And he always will be.’

  By the time Leila brought in the fruit salad, Christopher had drunk himself into a wheezing, dangerous silence. He seemed to be sulking. Hilda, by contrast, had stepped smartly into her stride.

  ‘People talk about education,’ she mused, passing the cream jug across David’s empty place to Elizabeth. ‘You can’t just take a child and educate it and hope it will behave differently. No. In my experience, it will always go back to its genetic roots.’

  Elizabeth chuckled, but Angus looked appalled. His mouth actually fell open.

  ‘Surely you don’t mean that, Hilda? You’re not suggesting that some folk have no choice but to be criminals? That they’re trapped in their subculture, prisoners of their genes, whatever they do?’

  Hilda blinked sunburst eyelashes. ‘Well, of course they have a choice. They have a choice when they think about burgling a house, but they’ll always choose to go ahead and do it anyway.’

  ‘Whoa there,’ cried Angus. He loved a debate. ‘If they’ll inevitably make that decision they don’t really have a choice, do they? Actually,’ he paused, cheerfully conducting an imaginary orchestra with his spoon, ‘in my view, people are largely a product of their experiences. There’s a genetic component in personality, I’ll accept that, but experience is the make or break. If kids grow up in, say, Priory Park Farm—what a bizarre name for a sixties housing estate—their experiences may be pretty shattering. Some of them—not all—go off the rails. But they can change, with the right input. Is locking them up the right input?’

  Hilda fluttered a pink-nailed hand. ‘My point is that it doesn’t matter what you—or poor David—do for them. You’re wasting your energy. It’s nature, not nurture.’

  ‘Research doesn’t really support you though, does it, Hilda?’ Elizabeth was smiling bemusedly. ‘Children who’ve been adopted—’

  ‘Ah, adoption!’ Hilda rested her chin on clasped hands. This was clearly her pet subject. ‘I’ve seen it time and again. A young person from a good family, a good family, comes before us. He’s got into drugs, stolen from his parents and mugged people. The family sit at the back weeping, the lawyers wave their arms around, and then it’ll turn out he was adopted.’

  At this, Leila slammed down her spoon.

  Elizabeth glanced sharply at her. ‘Children are adopted for all sorts of reasons, I believe,’ she said hastily. ‘No need to assume their birth family’s bad in any way. Perhaps this isn’t the time, though. Tell me, what brings you people to Birmingham? Have you just come up to visit David and Leila, or . . . ?’

  Hilda seemed delighted to be asked this question. ‘No, no. We’re on our way down from the Lake District, actually. Staying in a motel tonight. Michael—that’s our younger son—has a holiday cottage on Windermere.’

  ‘You have other children?’

  ‘For my sins! Michael and Monica. They spoil us rotten, can’t do enough for us. We’ve just spent a week with Michael and his bride, Alicia.’

  ‘How lovely!’

  ‘Mm. They were married this summer. Stunning girl. And . . .’ She glanced coyly at her husband. ‘I think I could make the announcement now, Christopher? I’ve kept it secret all evening.’

  Christopher shrugged with bad grace. His cheeks were a lace of red veins, his eyes heavy and bloodshot. He didn’t look at all dapper any more.

  ‘Well. We’re so thrilled.’ Hilda took a deep, blissful breath. ‘Alicia is pregnant. Already! And it’s twins!’

  Angus and Elizabeth made enthusiastic noises. Leila knew she ought to rejoice for Michael, but she felt her insides twist into jealous little knots. She couldn’t help it.

  ‘Fantastic!’ she said, placing a hopeful hand on her own stomach.

  Angus cleared his throat. ‘Will they be your first grandchildren?’

  ‘Oh, no. Monica has two beautiful little ones. Freya and Charles. My goodness, I’m a proud grandmother.’

  ‘She dotes on them,’ wheezed Christopher, and showed his teeth with malicious satisfaction. He drained his glass, lowering it unsteadily onto the table. ‘Spoils them like nobody’s business. And you people—’ he nodded with exaggerated courtesy in Leila’s direction—‘had better get on with it.’

  Before he had finished the sentence Leila was on her feet, her chair smashing to the floor behind her. ‘You know perfectly well,’ she hissed, ‘that we have been trying to get on with it for ten years!’

  Mercifully, the front door slammed. The next moment David was in the room, rubbing his hands.

  ‘Freezing out there.’ He grinned at Leila, then focused upon her more intently, his good humour faltering a little. He stepped closer, eyes darting suspiciously between his wife and his parents. ‘What’s going on?’

  Elizabeth spoke first. ‘I wholeheartedly recommend the fruit salad, David. And charge your glass, because your parents have some happy news for you.’

  In the kitchen, as she savagely jammed the plug into its hole, Leila’s teeth fairly chattered with rage. ‘The old bastard.’

  ‘Shhh,’ giggled Elizabeth, making an anguished face. ‘Thin walls.’

  Leila scowled, but she dropped her voice to a furious whisper.

  ‘That wasn’t tactless, it was completely deliberate. And as for her! She knows damned well we’ve been trying to adopt for years. Bitchy, even by her standards.’

  ‘Mm.’ Elizabeth shot a furtive glance at the door. ‘He was all over you, and she was fuming. It was revenge.’

  ‘It’s not as if I encourage him,’ protested Leila, pulling on a pair of rubber gloves with a snap.

  Elizabeth picked up a tea towel. ‘Is he—’ She broke off, holding up a warning finger. They waited, listening, as the rest of the party crossed the hall. The sitting-room door shut, dulling the voices.

  ‘Is he always so . . .’

  ‘Sleazy?’ Leila turned on both taps and then jumped back as a jet of water ricocheted off a spoon, soaking her shirt. ‘Only after he’s been drinking. They tell me he was quite an impressive character in his prime. You know, a romantic, half-mythical figure who turned up every few months, bringing swashbuckling stories, and the smell of the sea on his clothes.’

  ‘Ah. And then he retired, and lost all his magic.’

  Leila squeezed out far too much washing-up liquid. ‘One
minute he’s somebody. The next he’s a nuisance, getting under Hilda’s stilettos. No cronies down the local, no hobbies, no one.’ She slid a pile of cutlery into the water. ‘So he drinks. And the more his body crumbles into old age—sunspots, aches, fading hair—the more he tries to prove his virility. Ageing must be awful for the vain, don’t you think?’

  ‘Awful for everybody.’ Elizabeth shook the soap suds from a handful of knives as Hilda’s laughter jangled through the airwaves. ‘I can’t quite work her out, either. I don’t think she’s stupid, is she?’

  ‘Not at all.’ Leila heaved a dripping pot onto the draining board. ‘She ran the family single-handedly as well as managing her rather posh dress shop in Northampton. And she’s said to be very sharp as a magistrate. It’s common knowledge that she liked Christopher best when he was sending pay cheques from twelve thousand miles away. She’s nobody’s fool.’

  ‘Where’s she from? There’s a sort of lilt in her speech . . . I can’t quite place it.’

  ‘That’s Tyneside.’ Leila raised an eyebrow. ‘She’d be horrified you’ve asked because she thinks she’s cast off her roots. Her father was a ship builder. Asbestos got him. Her mum’s ninety, broad Geordie, lives in a home in Gateshead.’

  Elizabeth whistled silently.

  ‘David’s the apple of her eye,’ muttered Leila, dropping her voice still further. ‘Her eldest. She’s never got over the triple whammy. First he married me—I’m hardly going to look the thing on the court and social pages, am I? Not quite the peaches and cream. More Death by Chocolate.’

  ‘Delectable.’

  ‘Then I failed to come up with the goods as far as grandchildren are concerned. Finally—and this was the last straw—David threw away his glittering career in poisons. She thinks I encouraged him.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘Certainly not! After all, I stood to lose by it financially, not her. And—let’s face it—not exactly macho, is it, the dog collar thing? You’re hardly the envy of all the other wives.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Except the kinky ones who like to dress up.’

  ‘Tarts and vicars,’ said Elizabeth, deadpan. ‘Angus makes a great tart.’

  They fell silent, moving quietly, listening to Hilda’s tweeting. ‘Dear Monica’s throwing a party for our ruby wedding anniversary!’

  ‘That’s the sister?’ asked Elizabeth.

  ‘Monica.’ Leila chuckled. ‘She has a kind heart and a big, bossy bottom. She’s a professional party organiser. Voice like a hospital matron.’

  ‘A professional what?’

  ‘Party organiser. People pay her to arrange their bashes from start to finish. If you pay her enough—and you’ll need to take out a second mortgage—she’ll do the marquee, the band, the flowers, the food, the portaloos, the staff, the photographer and a taxi for when Uncle Harold passes out. You name it, Pertwell Party Solutions will provide it.’

  ‘Goodness.’

  ‘She’s flat out. I don’t know whether Freya and Charlie have ever actually met her, but she buys them stuff instead.’

  Leila paused, brow creased, hands resting in the grey warmth of the water. Why bother? Why turn them out like biscuits, and then palm them off on a nanny?

  Elizabeth paused in front of the fridge, looking at the same photographs which had intrigued Jacinta. ‘Are these your parents, on the London Eye?’

  Leila gazed affectionately at the faces in the picture. Fola and Ayotunde, waving from their bubble, surrounded by their dynasty. Leila and David were just visible at the back of the group.

  ‘Ah, that was fun. We took them up for Dad’s seventieth.’

  Elizabeth bent closer to the picture. ‘They look so young. What did they say when you first brought David home?’

  ‘A white boyfriend?’ Leila shrugged. ‘Race wasn’t allowed to be an issue in our household. We were always proud of our heritage, but never to the exclusion of others’. The first time David came home he talked football with my brothers and African literature with my parents, and he’s been one of the family ever since.’

  ‘They know a good thing when they see one.’

  ‘They do.’ Leila smiled. ‘Once—just once—Dad got all serious and warned us to expect hostility as a mixed race couple. And he was right, but it’s been nothing we can’t handle.’

  Another silence. The draining board was almost empty before Leila spoke again. ‘Actually, childlessness can be a greater barrier than race.’

  Elizabeth was absent for a short time, pewter helmet bent over a wineglass. She seemed to be deep in some memory of her own.

  ‘I know what you mean.’ She ran her cloth carefully around the stem.

  Leila tugged at the plug, watching the foamy water as it spiralled away. The hope had trickled away, just like the water: round, and round, and down the plughole. Glug.

  ‘It’s my fault, you know,’ she said. ‘It’s an inescapable fact.’

  Elizabeth had the sense not to protest at this.

  Leila held out her arms. ‘What’s the point in having childbearing hips and page-three knockers if you can’t deliver? Mind you . . .’ She hesitated, eyeing her friend’s calm features, and then put a finger to her lips. ‘Shh, don’t say anything to David . . . I’m pretty hopeful, at this moment.’

  ‘Because?’

  The sitting-room door swung open, and Hilda was in the hall: first her footsteps and then her curiosity. ‘Have you two been kidnapped?’

  Swiftly, Leila crossed the kitchen and switched on the kettle. ‘No, no. Just making the coffee!’

  Once Hilda was safely out of earshot again, Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. ‘Because?’

  Leila’s eyes gleamed. ‘I’m a day or two late and I feel . . . well, you know.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Different. Very, very different. They told us it wasn’t completely impossible, just increasingly unlikely as I grow older. We stopped actively trying ages ago.’

  Elizabeth dried her hands, her keen gaze fixed upon the younger woman’s face. ‘Have you done a test?’

  Unsmiling, sober, Leila rubbed her hands together. It was a gesture of anxiety, of longing, of terror. ‘I’ve got one. I’ll do it tonight, after David’s asleep. Ooh! It would be unbelievable, after all this time. Unbelievable!’

  The kettle began to sigh and gurgle. Frantically, as if wounded, Leila screwed up her eyes and squeezed the back of a kitchen chair.

  ‘Touch wood. Touch wood. Maybe there is a God, after all.’

  Chapter five

  Matt sat down at the dinner table without a word and started shovelling it in as though he’d just escaped from a health farm. Perry poured me a glass of wine and asked about New Zealand. He seemed to be going out of his way to be nice to me.

  ‘I gather you’re not planning on going back for a while?’

  ‘Probably not.’

  ‘D’you call home often? Feel free to use our telephone.’

  ‘Not a lot.’ I tried the wine. It was fantastic. ‘Mum gets a bit emotional. I had to hang up on her one time because she wouldn’t stop crying and it wasn’t much of a conversation.’

  ‘Why was she crying?’

  ‘She hadn’t heard from me for a while. Thought I’d been blown up by a terrorist or something. Silly woman.’

  ‘Your poor mother!’ Lucy was shocked. ‘You should be ashamed, Jake.’

  I was. Poor Mum. She was paying for his crimes. Three minutes later, I’d phoned her back.

  Perry was watching me. ‘When were you last home?’

  ‘I don’t go back.’

  ‘What, not once in . . . ?’

  ‘Seventeen years. I tell a lie: I went over when Gran turned ninety. The drums were beating and the whole family had to front up in their best bibs and tuckers. I stayed five days and it was as though I’d never been away.’

  ‘That’s lovely,’ said Lucy.

  ‘Not very.’ I felt my jaw clenching. ‘My old man was still a bastard.’

  She laughed as though
I was joking, but I wasn’t. I have a picture of Dad in my head, and I take it everywhere with me, and I always will. He’s frothing with rage, marching down to the kennels, with me hanging off his arm and trying to drag him back, and my feet swinging clear off the ground.

  I hate my father. I’d like to kill him.

  ‘Safe over there, though,’ persisted Perry. ‘No one wants to make war on New Zealand, holy or otherwise.’

  I put down my glass. ‘Perry, you don’t want to be that safe. A cuddly hamster in a cage is safe. No cats to eat it, plenty of grub, nice wheel to run around on. He’ll probably live to be about a hundred in hamster years. Doesn’t make his life fulfilling. He doesn’t wake up every morning tingling with zest for the new day.’

  Perry’s face had gone blank. I’d offended him, but I couldn’t see how. Lucy lightly touched his hand.

  ‘He doesn’t mean it, Dad. Jake secretly longs to go home.’

  I snorted, and Perry topped up our glasses. ‘You come from the South Island?’

  ‘Yep. The back blocks, under the mountains.’

  ‘I gather it’s very beautiful there.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s beautiful all right. When you’re mustering sheep and you ride up the hillside just on dawn, it’s pretty magical. Just the calls of the native birds. You don’t want to come down again, ever.’

  ‘Will you take me up there, Jake?’ asked Lucy, half-seriously.

  I grinned at her, helping myself to the salt. ‘Then it hits you just how bloody still and silent it is, and you gallop away and hop on the first plane out.’

  ‘When did you leave home?’ asked Perry. He’d got up, and was messing about with a pudding in the oven.

  ‘Left the farm at seventeen, headed off to uni. Jesse—my older brother—moved into the shepherd’s cottage and became Dad’s partner. He’s the most eligible bachelor for miles around, but it doesn’t get him anywhere because every girl with two legs and half a brain left long ago.’

  ‘I never knew you had a brother.’ Lucy was staring at me.

  ‘We’re not close,’ I said. ‘We were as little kids, but we went in different directions. Chalk and cheese. There’s too much of my dad in old Jesse.’