Freeing Grace

by Charity Norman

  ‘And you’re a spoiled little daddy’s girl,’ snapped Deborah. ‘Why d’you think he’s got me back here? Do you really imagine he gives a monkey’s cuss about Matt’s baby?’

  Lucy glared stonily at the road. When she next spoke, it was in the sort of singsong voice people use when they’re reading fairy stories to their toddlers.

  ‘I’m sure you find it hard to imagine anyone having unselfish feelings, Deborah. But actually, Dad does. He cares about Grace. You, on the other hand, care only about Deborah Harrison, because you are dazzlingly self-obsessed.’

  ‘I’m here, aren’t I?’

  ‘You had to be dragged back, kicking and screaming.’

  ‘Well, what about you? You’re her aunt. I don’t see you offering to look after her,’ persisted Deborah.

  ‘Don’t be bloody ridiculous. I’ve got a career. I’ve got a future. You haven’t.’

  One of them, I didn’t see which, turned on the radio full blast. It was an organ recital, I think. The Porsche roared past, and Lucy swung smartly out behind him and fixed him in her sights, hunched and murderous like the Red Baron in a dogfight. No one roars past my Lucy and gets away with it.

  They both shut up then and lapsed into silent seething; I was relieved, although I thought Lucy’s driving was going to kill us all. There’s something humiliating about being forced to listen to two women accusing one another of sleeping with you, as though the suggestion was a grave insult.

  Ah well, I told myself, as I closed my eyes once more. This is not my problem. And I’m not in love with either of them. No way.

  No way in this world.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Phoning her mother would be the best part. Fola must be the first to know.

  They’d agreed to leave the news untouched until after the weekend. After all that had happened, it seemed too bright a joy, too much a thing made by enchantment; they were superstitiously afraid of breaking the spell. It was filmy, a web in the shimmering morning. If they reached out to touch it, the strands might shrivel yet again into nothing. So they hugged it to themselves, and for the first few days they told no one. Better not to tempt fate.

  Leila took a week off work. There was so much to organise, and anyway work seemed irrelevant just now. All through Monday, she saved up the wonderful moment when she would let the news out of its box. She spent the day in the garden under a porcelain-blue sky, raking leaves and digging compost into the beds. Humming to herself, daydreaming, she planned how she would tell them. She practised the words she would use, pictured her mother’s generous face fragmenting into joy.

  In the allotments across the railway line someone had lit a bonfire, and Leila held her face up to the white smoke as it hung in the stillness. At half past three she heard a rhythmic creaking from the garden next door. Jacinta’s swing. A minute later came the sound of talking-to-yourself singing, an aimlessly meandering chant.

  Leila stopped in the act of pruning the roses. She stuck her head over the fence. ‘How was school today, my friend?’

  Jacinta jumped off the swing in midair, plait soaring, and ran to push her way through a hole in the fence.

  ‘My dad caught my sister snoggling with her boyfriend on the sofa yesterday,’ she announced smugly. Her round cheeks were flushed. ‘Sent him packing. He put a big rocket up his bottom!’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Leila.

  ‘Then Daria locked herself in her room and cried and cried. She said her heart was broken. So my mum’s bought her a gigantic box of chocolates. Mum says they’re just as exciting as a boyfriend and a lot less trouble.’

  ‘Very true indeed.’ Leila nodded solemnly. ‘How’s poor old Daria now?’

  ‘She’s very spotty. Can I do your garden?’ asked Jacinta, looking critically around at Leila’s neatly dug beds. ‘I’m brilliant at gardening.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said Leila, handing her a trowel. ‘Because I haven’t a clue.’

  After a while the dew began to fall, softly soaking them. The bell ringers began their weekly practice, the sound glittering in the gentle air; a train grunted past, rattling its commuters home. As dusk was gathering, Jacinta’s broken-hearted sister—a dimpled, red-lipped beauty, who always reminded Leila of Disney’s Snow White—appeared over the fence, looking perfectly cheerful and calling Jacinta in for tea.

  With her chatty companion gone, Leila couldn’t hang on any longer. She left her muddy shoes on the back step, peeled off her gardening gloves and gave her hands a quick scrub. Then, with a sense of momentous occasion, she lifted the telephone. The smell of leaves and earth clung to her clothes as she dialled the familiar number.

  She stood in the hall, listening to the ringing tone; she could picture her parents’ tomato-red telephone hanging on the kitchen wall by the cork message board. They’d had the same board since Leila was a schoolgirl. Nowadays it hung overloaded, crammed with the wild primary colours of grandchildren’s art.

  She smiled as she waited, lips moving as she rehearsed her lines. Mum was going to go crazy. When she heard Fola’s husky voice, she almost lost her own.

  ‘Hi, Mum? It’s me.’

  A brief pause. Then, ‘Leila!’

  ‘Hi. How are you?’

  ‘Fine, we’re both fine. Except your dad’s got a nasty twinge in his hip today.’

  ‘Is he taking the glucosamine I gave him?’

  ‘Yes, because I remind him every morning.’

  ‘Are you ready for the trip to Nigeria?’

  ‘Well, I’ve found our passports, which is a start. Is everything all right?’ Fola sounded suspicious now, guarded, clearly wondering what this call was for. Leila knew her mother’s morbid dread of unexpected calls. She feared bad news, had done for years, since the death of her brother.

  ‘Everything is great, Mum. More than great.’

  ‘Your big brother’s here for supper, with the kids. D’you want to talk to him?’

  ‘Maybe later.’ Leila paused for one last, delicious moment. ‘Hey, Mum. We’re adopting a baby.’

  ‘. . . ?!’ It was a disbelieving yelp.

  ‘We’re adopting a baby.’

  Fola squealed, a long ‘Eeee! ’ of delight, and Leila held the receiver a foot away from her ear, eyes squeezed shut, laughing silently. She could hear her mother yelling to the others, to her father and brother and anyone else who would listen: They’re getting a baby! A baby! Sounds of general celebration floated down the line.

  Isaiah must have grabbed the receiver: she heard her eldest brother’s voice, precise and measured. ‘Look out, Leila!’ He had two already, and another on the way. ‘You aren’t going to get any sleep for the next twenty years!’

  Then Fola again, breathless. ‘When?’

  ‘We don’t know yet. There’s a few legal things first—but quite soon, we hope.’

  ‘Girl or boy?’

  ‘A girl.’

  ‘Has she got a name?’

  ‘We haven’t been told what name the parents have given her. We thought we’d like to call her Fola, Mum.’

  Fola promptly started to cry. Leila could hear her gulps, and then her father’s gravelly pleasure: ‘Hey, Leila! You can tell poor old David to say goodbye to the easy life.’

  Leila was shivering a little now, with the wonder. ‘I’ll tell him that. Sorry about your hip, Dad.’

  ‘Oh, never mind about my hip. I don’t even know why she mentioned it, never been better. You’re going to be a mum, that’s the important thing.’

  ‘And you’re going to be a grandpa—yet again.’

  ‘So I am! Don’t know what I’ve done to deserve such a fate. Oh, my goodness, your mother’s gone completely mad, I’ll have to call the doctor. She’s crying and laughing like a cat that’s drunk the whisky. She wants to commandeer the phone and tell everyone.’

  ‘I’d better get off the line then.’

  ‘We’ll call you later, Leila, all right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘My darling daughter. This
is a great moment. Remember it. Life will never be the same again.’

  It was a great moment, the happiest Leila could ever have imagined. And yet, deep beneath the warm surface of her joy ran a thin, cold current of unease. After all the years, all the waiting, she felt there had to be a catch.

  Forcing the thought away, Leila pressed down the bar, intending to dial again immediately and tell Maggie, but the thing rang, vibrating under her hands as though it were alive. She hesitated, suddenly afraid of bad news from the adoption team, bracing herself as if for a physical blow.

  ‘Leila Edmunds speaking.’

  ‘Ah, Leila. Good evening.’

  Leila instantly recognised the authoritative tones of David’s sister, Monica. Relief. ‘Monica! What a surprise! How are you?’

  ‘I’m very well indeed, thank you. I’ll make this a quick one, Leila, because I’m just measuring up the Lord Chancellor’s croquet lawn for a marquee.’

  ‘Gosh.’ Leila tried to sound awed. ‘Er . . . big lawn?’

  ‘Well, you know. The usual. I’m standing on the helipad as we speak. Now. I’m trying to get the final numbers together for Ma and Pa’s do. And as yet I’ve heard nothing from you two.’

  Catching sight of herself in the hall mirror, Leila glanced at her chin, then stared intently. There was a spot coming; she could see it looming menacingly.

  ‘Their . . . er, do?’

  Irritation crackled down the line. ‘I canvassed your views months ago. The ruby wedding.’

  Oh, bugger. They hadn’t thought of an excuse yet. Leila swore silently and made belligerent faces into the mouthpiece.

  Monica pressed on. ‘I’m at the helm, because someone has to organise these things, and it’s a thankless task, I can tell you. Just a minute . . .’ She was still audible, but distant and wavery, as though she was holding the telephone to her chest. ‘What’s the problem? Can we please have some lights over here! No, no, no! The French doors won’t arrive until tomorrow afternoon. Look . . .’ The voice became more muffled for a few seconds, and then it was back.

  ‘You still there, Leila? Yes. I’m sure everyone thinks I’m being managerial. But at least people might show just a little enthusiasm.’

  ‘Yes, I see that. Sorry, Monica.’ That spot was going to be a whopper. Leila turned her chin this way and that, screwing up her eyes. It gave her a childish satisfaction, somehow.

  ‘Well?’ insisted Monica. ‘Can I put a tick by your names?’

  There was no escaping this one. They were doomed.

  ‘Of course.’ Leila made a pretend crying face at her reflection. ‘I thought David had already let you know. Gosh yes, count us in! Wild horses wouldn’t keep us away.’

  ‘Excellent. All right, that’s a tick. Now, I rather hoped David might say a few well-chosen words, since he’s so good at that sort of thing.’

  ‘I can think of several well-chosen words to say about Hilda and Christopher.’

  ‘Sorry? I’m losing you, I’m afraid . . . No, Louise. The corner of the dance floor is there, by that marker. See the marker? . . . You still there, Leila?’

  Leila sighed. ‘Yes, still here.’

  ‘Sorry. It’s a madhouse at this end. Incidentally, a thousand congratulations. I gather you’re getting a baby.’

  Leila’s eyes widened. ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘Oh well, you know. Family network. Great news, anyway. Fabulous news!’ Monica’s voice was submerged, in a rampaging wave of sound. ‘Oh God, here comes a helicopter. Must go.’

  Leila hung up the phone just as David’s figure appeared behind the glass door. He grinned delightedly when he saw her, and held his arms wide.

  ‘Hello, my lovely.’ He had a special Welsh accent he used on such occasions. ‘Come over ’ere.’

  Leila allowed him to envelope her, shaking them both in a little jig. She wondered where, amid all the celebration, he had filed her question: What else have we got? She’d never had to answer it, even to herself: saved by the bell, literally.

  Sweeping the thought into a corner, she asked accusingly, ‘Have you by any chance been talking to your mother this morning, David?’

  The jig stopped. ‘Er . . . I might have.’

  ‘Hmm. Did you tell her about the baby? Think carefully before you reply.’

  ‘It just came out. I was like a dog with six tails.’

  ‘Soul of discretion, you are. Bloody radio Edmunds. I’ve just had your sister on the phone, banging on about the ruby wedding bash and congratulating me on the new arrival. You were going to wait until I’d told my parents, remember?’

  ‘Oh, dear.’ David put his arm around Leila’s waist, steering her into the kitchen. ‘So I was. I wanted yours to be the first to know too. But you must have spoken to them by now?’

  ‘Yes, and they’re wildly, frantically, sensationally happy. Peckham will be ablaze within hours.’

  ‘Good old Fola.’ David flicked on the kettle, frowning forlornly. ‘Mum seems to think our child’s criminal career is assured.’

  ‘No! What did she say?’

  David waggled his head and imitated Hilda’s honeyed contralto. ‘For heaven’s sake, don’t let this cuckoo into your nest, David. You don’t know where it’s been.’

  Leila’s eyes opened wide in outrage. ‘You’re joking!’

  ‘I wish I was.’ Petulantly, he ran both hands over his head so that his hair stood up on end.

  ‘Did you tell her to sod off?’

  ‘There’s no point in trying to improve my mother, you know. It’s a waste of energy. She isn’t educable.’

  ‘How dare she? Ooh, I wish I’d told Monica where she could stick her ruby wedding.’

  David took off his jacket and hung it over a chair. ‘It won’t be the last judgemental remark we’ll hear on the subject,’ he remarked calmly. ‘People have views, and they like to air them. And guess what?’

  ‘What?’

  The fan of creases around his eyes deepened, as he smiled. ‘I don’t give a toss. This baby is our own private miracle.’

  It was midnight by the time David was ready for bed. Leila was reading a faded library book snappily entitled Roses Around the Door? Case Studies on the Long-term Outcomes of Adoption.

  ‘Some researchers think adoption is a minefield,’ she said. ‘They say adopted children are more likely than others to have problems later. Depression, self-harm, academic failure . . . quite a list.’

  ‘At last! You and my mother agree on something!’

  Leila leaned across, walloping his nose with the book. ‘That’s not funny.’

  David stuck out his lower lip. ‘I think you’ve broken my fine, aquiline nose. I’m going to tell the social workers you’ve got violent tendencies.’

  ‘Shush, I can’t concentrate. This is actually quite serious . . . we need to work out our approach right from the start. I hope we’re up to it.’

  David bent to read the book too, pushing back his disobedient hair. ‘Does this apply to people adopted as babies, though?’

  ‘Um . . . less so, but yes. Some of them feel abandoned, or fantasise about the birth family. Our little Fola has a lot to deal with. Stop reading over my shoulder. It’s really annoying.’

  ‘But how would the same children have fared if left with their birth parents?’ asked David reasonably.

  ‘Fair point.’ Leila carried on reading.

  ‘How was Monica, anyway?’ Noisily, David began plumping up his pillow.

  ‘In hyperdrive. Wants you to make a speech.’ Leila gave up on the book. She closed it and leaned on one elbow, reaching out to smooth his hair. ‘I’ll nip round to the rectory before work tomorrow and let them know the good news.’

  David looked shifty. ‘Ah.’

  She gazed suspiciously at him. ‘What do you mean, ah?’

  ‘Well, I was there this morning, and I happened to let slip . . . ouch!’ He rubbed his chest. ‘I only had two hairs there, it took a quarter of a century to grow them, and you’ve malicious
ly yanked one of them out. That’s a breach of my fundamental human rights. I’m definitely telling those social workers.’

  ‘Is there anyone you haven’t told about the baby?’

  Smiling lazily, David lifted a hand and ran his fingertips down the graceful length of her neck. Her eyes glowed with an incandescence he’d feared was gone forever.

  ‘You’re beautiful,’ he said. ‘You’re as lovely as you were the day I met you.’

  ‘That’s not what I asked.’

  His fingers slid along her collarbone and underneath the red shoestring strap of her nightdress. ‘You’re going to have to share me from now on,’ he warned. ‘Better not waste any time.’

  ‘True.’ She caught his hand. ‘So answer the question.’

  ‘Okay.’ He squinted up at the ceiling, pondering. ‘Who haven’t I told? I know. Dora at the off-licence. I’m leaving that to you. Ow! What did you do that for? That was my last one.’

  Laughing, he reached out for her, knocking the faded book to the floor.

  Leila lay wrapped in warmth, her eyes resting on the square of street lighting that glowed upon one wall. Each time a car drove past, the beam of headlamps tiptoed across the ceiling. She followed the ghostly glow on its course, waited for the driver to change gear before accelerating away. They always changed up just . . . there.

  Twice she heard the siren of a police car and saw lights flash, sliding across the gloom. She listened—forgivingly, tonight—to gangs of late-night drinkers staggering home along the orange underwater streets. One group was clapping their hands and chanting a football song, breaking off into shouts of laughter before moving on. The stillness of the night seeped in behind them.

  She closed her eyes. She could hear David’s heartbeat as she rested her ear against his chest. She’d have to move soon, or they’d both get pins and needles.

  As she tried to ease her head away he stirred, wrapping his arms around her. ‘Don’t go yet,’ he whispered, his words slurring on the edge of sleep.

  ‘I didn’t mean it,’ she said suddenly. ‘David? Are you awake? It was a heat-of-the-moment thing.’