Freeing Grace

by Charity Norman

  As they reached the high school playing fields, Leila hoisted her handbag, ready to stand up. Jodie seemed to have been waiting for this moment. She leaned closer, determination dimpling the cushioned expanse of her face.

  ‘I saw you selling yourself a test a while ago,’ she muttered conspiratorially.

  Leila’s fingers tightened on her bag, but she feigned blank incomprehension. ‘A test?’

  ‘You know. Pregnancy test. Sorry, I’ve been dying to ask.’ Jodie was blushing now, a flood of mottled mauve seeping down her neck, and Leila felt a sudden fondness for her.

  ‘Oh, that,’ she exclaimed, as though light had finally dawned. She swept the back of her hand across her brow as if to show she’d had a near miss. ‘Negative. Whew! Big relief!’

  ‘Oh.’ Jodie pouted. ‘I was hoping you was banged up.’

  ‘Blimey.’ Leila forced a merry laugh, rolling her eyes at the narrowness of her escape. ‘A rugrat! That’s the last thing I need.’

  The train swayed past the canal bridge and began to slow down. Leila stood and staggered, gripping the back of a seat. ‘See you tomorrow.’

  Jodie took out her iPod. ‘Aren’t you going to have kids, then?’

  ‘Well.’ Leila blinked. ‘I’ve got a career.’

  ‘I am.’ Jodie stuffed in her earphones. ‘Two. A boy and a girl.’

  As soon as the doors opened, Leila fell out and into the blessed quiet of the evening. Jodie’s moon face appeared briefly at the window, and then the train slid away.

  Dusk was falling. Gloomy, and spitting with rain. The shortest way home was through the housing estate, and then across the canal and around the churchyard. Leila left the station, negotiated the main road and turned into the concrete desolation of Priory Park Farm. Pulling on her gloves, she made her way across the wretched play park with its defiant graffiti, threading a trail among dancing crisp packets and other detritus. The place looked like the set of a futuristic film. It was impossible to imagine that any child had ever played on the empty swings. Someone had systematically dug up the ground and thrown broken cement down the slide; the metal would be no good at all for sliding on ever again. It was pockmarked, twisted, hopelessly dented, with broken bottles scattered around its base.

  She walked slowly. She mustn’t cheat by hurrying past. On every side, despairing tower blocks reared over her with blank eyes, whispering, What are you doing here? Only a smattering of lights gleamed among the windows. These flats were half-empty, she knew, the glass broken and boarded up, and the smell of urine on the staircases made your eyes water. David came often, dutifully climbing the concrete stairs and visiting people whose doors opened onto bleak and windswept balconies.

  As she passed beneath the furthest tower, she could make out a small child watching her from high up. Little hands gripped the bars and a pale, pinched face jutted forwards, jammed between them. She stopped, hopefully, and called to this other soul in empty space, but he turned away as if bored. And so did she.

  The canal bordered the estate and touched one corner of the churchyard. She could smell the water before she could see it, oozing under the bridge. Plastic bags and shopping trolleys littered the grimy brambles on both banks. There were more miles of canal in the West Midlands, she’d read, than in Venice. It had sounded funny at the time. She paused halfway across the bridge and leaned on its cast-iron parapet, gazing down at the unmoving green.

  What am I doing here?

  The roadmap of her life bore no resemblance whatsoever to the reality of its landscape. Pregnancy used to be something inevitable, something for later. Fola, Rose and Ben. So careless. So arrogant. Precious years were wasted, waiting for the right time. The realisation that David and she were disastrously different—faulty—had trickled only gradually into their complacency, freezing the smiles on their faces. The thing they’d postponed so casually became their most desperate need.

  Then began the frantic search for help: specialists and tests; diets, charts and thermometers. Scanning women’s magazines, self-help books, medical journals; poring over the wackiest websites. When nothing else worked they invested their hopes in IVF, which for months dominated their lives. It would be their saviour. But it failed.

  So they had whirled around and headed for adoption—sprinting now. A bewildering process. More waiting (No, we won’t consider you so soon after fertility treatment, come back in six months), then a preparation group. And yet more waiting.

  Time passing, squandered in the slowly turning wheels of the system. Birthdays celebrated with tight, frantic smiles. Friends peeling away, losing contact except for the guilty Christmas cards with their scribbled apologies. Must try and get together this year. So busy. Molly’s doing the ballet thing, Flynn’s started school, loves soccer.

  Then the assessment: nerve-racking visits and complex, detailed forms; referees, as though they were applying for a job. Every aspect of their life was on show. Social workers poking and prying, as though David and she were criminals. Other people just had babies. They didn’t need permission. They didn’t have to be superheroes.

  More waiting. Finally, the news came. They were accepted. They were in!

  Or perhaps not.

  ‘Prepare for a very long wait,’ the social worker warned, sighing. ‘You’re on a good wicket, as a mixed race couple, but even so . . . Only about five percent of adopted children are babies, and only a fraction of those share your racial heritage.’

  So they continued to wait, while the months and the years screamed belligerently past like express trains. Waiting became their obsession. Waiting, and waiting, imprisoned in limbo. Four years of waiting. At this moment, it seemed to Leila that the thing was hopeless. They were too old. They had missed their chance. She would never take her children to playgroup, never snuggle with them in front of Postman Pat. Never watch her son be a shepherd in the nativity play. Never go shopping with her daughter: hot chocolate and new shoes. Never, never, never. Her children were lost. Perhaps they were wandering somewhere in a hinterland, crying for her to find them.

  The mushy-pea water under the bridge didn’t even flow. It, too, was trapped in this sordid place. It looked solid. If you opened your eyes under there, you wouldn’t be able to see anything at all. You could slide under the slime with barely a ripple, and it would close over your head. It wouldn’t be difficult. You’d simply disappear.

  The terrifying thought hung in her mind, wheedling and cajoling: easy-peasy, lemon squeezy. It would only take a moment, and she’d be off the rollercoaster forever. No more crashing down, down, sick and screaming.

  It obviously isn’t meant to be . . . there’s more to life than children, dear; find yourself a hobby.

  David. She felt a choking sadness at the thought of his bewilderment. But he would be better off without her, in the end. For him there were years to marry again, have a family, do birthday cakes and bicycles and tiny pairs of wellington boots. She leaned a little further over the parapet, stretching her neck to glimpse the murky shadows under the bridge. Her feet lifted up from the pavement and hung, toes clicking together in a vague little dance, as she wondered idly what it would be like, not breathing. It was said to be quite pleasant, once you gave in. Small lumps of stone broke off under her hands, sliding down the curve of the parapet and dropping noiselessly into the scum.

  It won’t take a moment. Over in a jiffy.

  The world hung, suspended.

  A lorry thundered across the bridge. The juddering blast of it shook the elegant old arches. Leila flinched, clutching the parapet and dropping her feet swiftly onto the ground. She watched the monster turn onto the main road. Then she slapped herself smartly on the wrist.

  ‘That was bloody self-indulgent,’ she scolded. ‘Get a grip.’

  ‘I agree,’ came a dry, deep voice. ‘But we’ve all been there.’

  Leila whirled around, a hand to her chest. ‘Elizabeth! Good Lord, woman, you just about gave me a heart attack.’

  Elizabeth led a fluff
y black dog on an extendable lead. ‘Dora’s mother’s,’ she explained calmly. ‘Dora, at the off-licence? Her mother’s back in hospital, and Dora’s allergic to dogs. Guess which mug volunteered to take the hound?’

  Leila bent to pat the black, snuffling creature, taking the opportunity to recover her cheerful mask. ‘He’s so cute.’

  ‘Yes. But he smells worse than a sewage farm. And what drives Leila Edmunds to the parapet of the canal bridge?’

  Leila tried to laugh. ‘I wasn’t on the parapet.’

  They turned and started walking together across the churchyard, where mist spun and danced among the ranks of stones. Elizabeth took Leila’s arm. The dog genially cocked his leg against a lichen-covered angel.

  Eventually, Elizabeth spoke. ‘David adores you, Leila—come on, Frodo! He doesn’t want a brood mare. He wants you.’

  It was some time before Leila could answer. She swallowed. ‘It says in the marriage service, for the procreation of children. I’ve failed to deliver.’

  ‘Oh, rubbish.’

  After a minute’s quiet strolling, Leila said, ‘Perhaps we should look at international adoption.’

  They’d come to the rectory gate. Elizabeth wound Frodo’s lead around her hand. Her grey eyes were stern. ‘Or perhaps you have to plan a life without children.’

  ‘No! I can’t imagine it . . . David’s wonderful with children. He’s meant to be a father.’

  ‘Is he? David has much to offer the world. And so have you.’ Elizabeth pursed her mouth severely. ‘As a childless couple you have more to give, not less.’

  Leila smiled.

  ‘I haven’t convinced you, have I?’ Elizabeth looked exasperated.

  ‘Not really.’

  Elizabeth squeezed the younger woman’s arm. ‘Have a bloody big drink, Leila, and drown your sorrows. Sometimes oblivion is the only way out.’

  Chapter Eleven

  I sat on the edge of my bed and dug right down to the bottom of my bag. There it was, the envelope Perry had given me for his wife. Pretty battered by now. I sat for a long time, thinking, holding it in both hands. It felt different, suddenly. Heavier. Less ordinary.

  And Mrs Deborah Harrison didn’t want it. She didn’t even want to be Mrs Deborah Harrison.

  After she’d shot off towards the restaurant as though the place was on fire, leaving me to the mercy of Karin and her purple toenails, I’d hung around on the ruffled sand. Darkness fell and coloured lights flared along the terrace above us, and I lost three games of chess before I worked out that Erik and Karin were an item. That put a bit of a dampener on proceedings.

  Leaving Karin and Erik to their sexual jealousies, I’d wandered off to arrange a place to stay. In the bar I found a grey-haired manager, Hamisi, who cheerfully led me through the trees to a round, thatched banda, perched on the edge of a little cliff above the gently breathing sea.

  From the bar, I could hear laughter and the clinking of bottles. A couple of guys were smoking weed around a bonfire a little further down the beach, and someone was strumming a guitar. I sat on the bed and held the envelope. And I thought about Mrs Harrison. In the end, I made my decision. I’d found her. I must deliver her mail.

  She’d gone to ground in the office. As I pushed open the door I could see her face in the lights from the bar. It was a ghost’s face, gleaming red, blue and yellow as it floated on the shadows.

  ‘He’s sent you to bring me back, hasn’t he?’ she said. ‘I’ve jumped bail, and you’re the bailiff.’

  ‘I’ve no idea what’s in here. But I’ve brought it all this way.’ I dropped the envelope onto the wooden table in front of her. ‘So you might as well have it, Susie-Deborah.’

  She didn’t even glance at it. ‘I’m not coming,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing you can do to make me.’

  ‘Someone’s lit a fire on the beach. You could head straight down there and chuck that thing into it. I can tell Perry—quite honestly— that I didn’t find anyone who answered to the name of Deborah Harrison.’ I turned and was halfway out of the door when she called out.

  ‘Hang on . . . have you seen Matt?’ Her voice gave way a little. ‘He’s not ill, is he?’

  ‘I honestly don’t know,’ I said. And I got out of there as fast as I could, feeling like a hired killer.

  Believe it or not, I was still reasonably sober when I left the bar long after midnight. They were a friendly crowd, with their leather necklaces and hair tugged into rubber bands. We had the last round by candlelight. I said a warm goodnight to all my new mates—funny how quickly you make lifelong buddies over a few beers—and made a detour to the edge of the campsite.

  The darkness around me was zinging with the hiss of cicadas. It was deafening. It sounded like the steam escaping from a giant pressure cooker. And thousands of creatures—frogs, I think—were making an almighty din out in the undergrowth. Rawk, rawk, rawk.

  Yellow light flickered feebly through the mosquito screen at the office window. I pictured her alone with her battered envelope, in the breathless heat of that little room. When the door swung open, I was caught out. I mean, I must have looked like a complete weirdo, skulking around in the shadows.

  ‘Ah,’ she said quietly. ‘The bailiff. Got your handcuffs?’

  I began to edge away. ‘I came to check you were all right.’

  ‘All right?’ She threw back her head, staring at the stars. ‘Well, come in then. You can’t do any more damage than you already have.’

  She stepped back to usher me in, and our shadows loomed like bruises on the whitewashed walls. She was poised, like Rod. Her back was very straight, her head up, tendrils of hair luminous against the bronze of her collar bone. Yet she’d changed, already. She had lost her peace.

  ‘You didn’t get laid then?’

  I smiled ruefully. ‘Nope. Karin finally succeeded in making Erik jealous, and I became redundant.’

  ‘She was onto a win–win, wasn’t she?’

  ‘I reckon.’

  She sank onto a chair behind the table. The envelope lay in front of her. It had been opened.

  ‘I knew you were trouble,’ she said. ‘I wanted to run the moment I clapped eyes on you. You stuck out a mile with your short back and sides, and your long stride. Much too purposeful. Purpose isn’t a common commodity round here.’

  ‘I’ve gathered that.’

  She sighed. ‘Tell me. How did you know where to look?’

  ‘Your card. It had a Mombasa postmark.’

  ‘Bugger.’

  ‘And Perry seemed certain you’d be somewhere around here.’

  ‘He worked it out.’ She rubbed her face, a hand on each cheek. ‘Had to catch up with me in the end. You can’t run away, can you? A whale eats you up and spits you out, back where you started.’

  I hadn’t the faintest idea what she was talking about, so I just looked grave.

  She regarded me tiredly. ‘So. Who are you, mystery man? A private detective? Somehow I don’t think so.’

  ‘Jake Kelly.’ It seemed a little late to shake her hand. ‘A friend of Lucy’s. I had a bit of time on my hands.’

  ‘They sent you all this way, but they didn’t tell you what’s going on?’

  ‘It’s none of my business,’ I answered staunchly.

  ‘Oh, of course it is,’ she snapped, waving a hand. ‘Don’t be bloody ridiculous. You’re not a spy, working on a need-to-know basis just in case you get caught and tortured.’ She spun the envelope across the rickety table. ‘I didn’t throw this into the fire. Maybe I should have done. But instead I opened it, and read it three times, and now it’s too late. You must have had a teeny peek inside?’

  ‘Actually, I resisted the temptation.’

  ‘I bet you tried holding it up to the light, though.’

  ‘Er . . .’

  For the first time, she seemed to focus on me properly. Then she smiled, and her eyes slanted up at the corners.

  ‘Thought so. Tip it out. Go on, tip it all out. You’ll be astonis
hed.’

  I shook the envelope, and a pile of paper spilled out onto the peeling varnish of the table. On top was one of those chemist’s paper sleeves with a stack of photographs inside. I picked it up. Looked at her.

  She shifted restlessly. ‘For God’s sake, take a look.’

  I slid out the photos and glanced at the first one, tilting it to catch the light. Then I held it closer, because I couldn’t believe my eyes.

  It was Matt. Matt, perched awkwardly on the edge of an armchair, looking muscled and clumsy and holding a tiny sleeping baby in a bubblegum-pink suit. It was a golden brown, this baby, with wisps of curly hair, and black eyelashes that reached halfway down very round cheeks. I could see one doll-sized arm. The wrist was no wider than Matt’s forefinger. He could have snapped it with no effort at all.

  Matt himself was hardly recognisable. This was not the sullen young gorilla I knew. He was looking down at the child with an intensity I could never have imagined in him. I couldn’t fathom Matt showing such fascination for any human being, let alone one about ten inches long.

  Baffling. I moved on to the next photograph, and the next. They were amateur snapshots, with the occasional red eye and fluffed focus. All were of Matt and the baby. Given the pink fluffy clothes someone had dressed her in, I presumed she was a girl. Even I could see she was cute, and I’m scared of babies.

  I stared at the last photo for a long time. In it, Matt was feeding her with a bottle, and her shining eyes were open. They were huge, like a cartoon baby’s eyes. She was looking straight up at Matt, and he was gazing down at her like a devoted servant. If I didn’t know the boy better, I’d have said he loved her.

  I looked up. Deborah was watching me.

  ‘Who’s the baby?’ I asked.

  She laughed sharply, unsteadily, moving her shoulders up and down as though trying to ease some pain. ‘That’s my granddaughter. She’s called Grace. Adorable, isn’t she?’

  I suppose I should already have guessed. But, believe me, I hadn’t. I was slack-jawed for a moment, trying to work it out. It took me a while. You may think I’m slow, but this woman—this girl—was totty, not Granny. She was younger than me, for Pete’s sake.