The State of Grace

by Rachael Lucas

  (Five.)

  ‘Shall I read it?’

  I hold my breath. I shake my head and hold my hand out, take the phone as if it’s made of something radioactive (which it is, actually, I think, but even I can see that I’m digressing at this point) and then hand it back again.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Nope?’

  ‘You do it.’

  ‘Had a great time last night. Hit me up when you can :-)’

  Anna reads it aloud, but I can see the words on the screen even though they’re upside down.

  ‘Last night?’ She raises her eyebrows.

  ‘I’ll explain while we’re walking,’ I say.

  ‘That means –’ she hands the phone back – ‘call me.’

  Anna’s not being rude. It’s just that I’m better with unambiguous, and ‘hit me up’ is a bit vague for my liking.

  She holds up her hand and I look at it for a moment before realizing she’s expecting a high five.

  ‘Result.’ She beams.

  I feel a bit sick.

  Anna pulls her coat on and we head down to the seafront. Because it’s half-term the amusement park is open, and we’re going to spend Mum’s money on the thing I love best. (Besides Anna and Mabel and Doctor Who and old John Hughes films and cake and chocolate and . . . Well, it’s one of the things I love best – let’s leave it at that.)

  It’s sunny, but the wind is howling in our faces. The trees grow sideways, blown at an angle by the wind that never stops, even though it’s summer. I sometimes wonder if everyone who lives here is bent at the same angle, and when we go away from the coast, people notice us standing in office blocks and train platforms and wonder why we’re at an angle, which I would know the number of, except I am appallingly bad at maths.

  As we walk, I tell Anna what happened with Gabe. The wind steals my secrets and whirls them up into the air, blowing them away.

  I don’t know why the flashing lights and the thumping music and the whirling chaos of the amusement park doesn’t send me mad, but it does the opposite. After last night it’s like a sensory comfort blanket. We stop at the kiosk to change our money into tokens, then run to get to the waltzers, because we can see that the cars are filling up and we don’t want to wait.

  ‘I can’t believe you haven’t messaged him back,’ says Anna, squished up beside me. I’m holding on to the metal safety bar and she’s swinging herself back and forth, trying to make the car move before we’ve even started.

  ‘All right, girls?’ A boy leans over the back of the car and I reach up, handing him two tokens. It’s cheap at this time of year, so we get twice as many rides.

  He drops the money into his apron thing and grabs our car with both hands at the same time as the ride creaks into action.

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ I reply, but the words are spun out into the air.

  I laugh and laugh as we spin round and round, never fast enough, shouting for more when the boy twirls our car until there’s a lull and Anna is gasping for breath and shoving her orange hair back out of her face before it starts again. We kaleidoscope in a spin of lights and distorted music and chaos. And I wonder why in the middle of all this, somehow, I feel safe, and ordered, and happy.

  We stagger off afterwards, with our legs all out of control, and lurch on to the wooden bench beside the candyfloss stand.

  ‘D’you want some?’

  ‘In a minute,’ I say, reaching into my pocket for the jelly beans. ‘We’ve got these, remember?’

  ‘Where’s your phone?’ says Anna with her mouth full.

  I pull it out of my pocket. I know that I need to reply to Gabe, but it’s become a thing now, a big invisible solid thing, and I don’t know how to climb over it or what to say. And I don’t want today to be about that.

  So I type How about Wednesday? and hit send with an unusually decisive tap.

  Gabe, who clearly hasn’t read the same rule book that I have (because aren’t you supposed to wait and look cool before you text back?), replies straight away.

  Sounds good. Same place same time?

  See you then, I reply. And Anna, who has been looking over my shoulder and picking all the red jelly babies out of the bag while I did it, gives a little whistle.

  ‘Impressive.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  It’s quarter past six and I’m rolling out of bed in the darkness to go to the stables when I realize the whirring noise I can hear is someone hoovering.

  I don’t do bleary half awake like Leah or Anna or Mum. I do asleep, which happens like a light switching off, or not for ages, so I lie awake with owl-wide eyes staring at the ceiling wondering why my brain won’t stop whirling. But awake is unequivocal. It just snaps on, always early, usually before the rest of the world, and I don’t like lying in bed because it makes me feel weird. Which is why having an early-morning sort of horse isn’t the problem it might be for other people.

  There’s still no washing in the new world order that Eve has brought about, and as there’s nobody to stop me I just pull on my dirty jodhpurs over yesterday’s underwear because I’m going to have a shower later anyway and I’m sure Mabel won’t care, because she wakes up every morning with green stains on her sides from lying in her own poo, so comparatively speaking I’m quite respectable, really. And I don’t brush my hair because – well, I don’t really like brushing my hair unless it’s absolutely necessary, because it gives me the creeps and makes my shoulders go all prickly. So I shove it back in a ponytail and pull my black hoody over my head and, no, I don’t make the bed.

  ‘Morning, honey,’ says Mum, in the hall, in her pyjamas, shoving the hoover with one hand and holding a tin of Mr Sheen and a duster with the other.

  I look at her with an expression which indicates that I suspect she’s lost the plot completely.

  ‘Ah yes,’ she says, bending down to unplug the hoover and standing up, twitching her nose. She sneezes three times before continuing. ‘Just thought I’d get a head start, you know.’

  ‘Right,’ I say, still looking at her with my eyebrows in the air.

  ‘Grandma?’ she replies, and as she says it she leans over and scooshes a squirt of polish on to the wooden banister and rubs it, hard.

  ‘If this is a guessing game, I’m going to need a bit of help here.’ I fish my boots out from under the dresser and sit down on the stairs to pull them on. I’m slightly concerned that if I don’t hurry up she might start polishing me too.

  ‘She’s on the train. Gets here at half two.’

  ‘Did I know this?’ I love Grandma. I don’t love unexpected things that sneak up on me when I’ve got a day of decompression time planned with no people in it.

  ‘It was on the calendar,’ she says, sounding a bit defensive.

  I get the feeling Mum had forgotten too. Since Dad went, she’s been acting really weird.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ‘Hello, sausage.’

  I’ve only just got home from riding Mabel. When I open the door, the smell of hairspray and soft skin and dog fur and lovely things is in my arms and hugging me before I have a moment to object.

  ‘I smell of horse,’ I say into Grandma’s shoulder. She’s wearing some kind of bobbly jacket thing, which is very pink and doesn’t taste very nice when you get it in your mouth.

  ‘Just as a Grace should smell,’ she says, and she sort of extends me out with her arms as if I’m an outfit she’s trying to decide on. ‘Look at you.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You funny bean,’ she replies, and gives me another hug. Leah skits past in the background and I can’t help noticing she’s got her hair in a neat ponytail and she’s in jogging bottoms and a T-shirt, like she should be.

  ‘Where’s Mum?’ The house already smells all Grandmaish, and not just because she’s arrived smelling of Estée Lauder perfume and old-person things, but because it honks of polish and I can see the sitting-room floorboards are all shiny. Grandma gets up at half past five every morning an
d hoovers the stairs before she takes Elsa, her gigantic German shepherd, out for a walk in the park. So her house always smells of polish and floating dust and tidiness.

  ‘I’m here,’ says Mum, and she appears in the hall, drying her hands on a tea towel, and she’s wearing an actual apron. I’m slightly concerned that I’ve been transplanted by aliens into an alternate – but very similar – universe where things have gone back to the way they used to be, only sort of – shinier.

  ‘How is that lovely pony of yours?’ says Grandma, shooing me into the kitchen, where I sit down at the now-spotless table. I don’t know where all the stuff has gone, but I can’t help hoping that Eve’s been chucked out along with it.

  ‘Horse. She’s a horse, because she’s Arabian, and even if they’re smaller than the official horse classification they’re still horses . . .’ I sort of tail off, because even I can tell when I’m doing the fascinating facts by Grace thing sometimes.

  Grandma doesn’t say anything, because she’s already rootling about in her handbag. ‘Here we are,’ she says, handing me a packet of mints. ‘I was buying a paper for the train and I remembered you said you were training her to take them from your mouth.’

  ‘Yes, well, we’re not really encouraging that,’ says Mum, with her head in the oven. Not in a Sylvia Plath manner – not that I should be making jokes about that because it’s very much not funny, obviously – but in a pulling-out-a—

  ‘You’ve made cake?’ I say loudly, and Mum gives me That Look, the one that I know means Shut Up, Grace. And I realize that while it’s OK for me and Leah to bumble around all half-term with no clean knickers while Mum drinks wine with Eve, apparently that’s not OK for Grandma to know.

  ‘She’s always been a lovely cook, haven’t you, Julia, my love?’ Grandma beams across the breakfast bar at her.

  ‘Thank you, Barbara,’ says Mum pointedly. ‘I’m in the can’t-do-anything-right stage of parenting teenagers, as you can see.’

  I unwrap this month’s edition of National Geographic, which has arrived in the post, so I can sneak it upstairs to read in the bath.

  Half an hour later, I’m still sitting at the table, utterly absorbed in an article about bear cubs. Mum’s chopping vegetables by the kitchen sink, and Grandma’s emptying the dishwasher.

  ‘I’m sure you two can sort this out,’ I hear Grandma say over the clattering of mugs being replaced in the cupboard.

  ‘Things aren’t going to be the same.’ Chop chop chop, goes Mum. ‘I need to be bringing in money. Eve says—’

  ‘Yes, but Eve doesn’t have children, Julia . . .’

  CHOP chop chop chop.

  ‘I had noticed.’ There’s a pause, and the sound of sizzling as something hits oil in a saucepan, and the room swirls with the smell of onions and garlic. ‘But my life can’t revolve around being a parent,’ and I catch her half turn to see if I’m listening, so I turn the page of National Geographic and trace a finger across the top of a photograph of a wooden hut as if I’m utterly transfixed.

  ‘Come on, Julia,’ says Grandma, leaning in really close to Mum’s side, talking in a super-low voice. ‘You know Graham will always make sure you’re OK – even if it does come to . . .’ She tails off.

  ‘While the girls are around, yes – but I need to secure my future as well.’

  I don’t know why it is that none of them ever remember that I have bat-hearing superpowers. But I feel as if I’m hearing half a conversation and the rest is comprised of Meaningful Looks.

  I close the magazine and bang my hand down on the table in a decisive sort of way.

  ‘Right, that’s me off to have a bath now,’ I say, picking up the magazine and the packet of mints. I think Mabel won’t mind if I eat them.

  ‘Don’t drop that magazine in the bath before your father has seen it, Grace, or it’ll be me that gets the blame.’

  God, Mum’s bad tempered at the moment. I smile sweetly at her and disappear.

  I’m running the bath and sitting on the bathroom floor playing a game on my phone when Grandma appears through the clouds of steam, brandishing a small blue envelope.

  ‘I completely forgot. I met a very good-looking young man at the garden gate as I arrived.’

  I know Grandma’s a bit desperate to make sure we’re all married off, but trying to hook me up with the postman is a bit desperate. He’s about forty – mind you, I realize, that probably is her idea of a young man. I take the envelope.

  ‘There’s no name on it.’

  ‘He said it was for you, dear.’

  I tear it open. Inside, there’s a little metal TARDIS key ring. No note, no card, nothing else. I feel a fizz of nerves and excitement.

  ‘No love letter?’ Grandma sounds a bit disappointed.

  I shake my head, and I can’t stop the smile from curving upwards, and I suspect that I’m going red, but hopefully she thinks that’s just the steam.

  ‘How odd. Well, I’m not surprised you’ve got admirers, Grace. You’re clever and funny and I’m very proud of you. You need to open this window, darling,’ she says, reaching over the loo and hooking it open so all the lovely clouds I’ve been creating puff out of the window and disappear. ‘Now before you get in, I’ve got something for you in here.’

  She reaches into her bag again – it’s always reminded me a bit of Hermione’s beaded bag in Harry Potter. I get the feeling that if life got a bit much I could climb inside it and live quite happily on a diet of Werther’s Originals and old-fashioned tins of travel sweets.

  ‘I was hoping you’d all make it down to Kent as you had a two-week half-term, but as you couldn’t I’ve brought these from Aunty Lou’s bedroom. Seems a shame to have them sitting there gathering dust when you love them so much.’

  And she pulls out the three old-fashioned pony stories I love the best, and hands them to me. I run a finger across their crumpled age-spotted covers and sniff the edges of the pages, which smell deliciously of old things.

  ‘Thank you.’ I sort of waggle them in gratitude, because I’m so happy that I half want to cry, but I don’t want to cry, and I can’t really get up and hug her because I’m on the floor and it seems too complicated.

  ‘I knew you’d like them,’ Grandma says, and she turns, and picks up the towel I’ve left on the floor, and she folds it up and puts it on the radiator. ‘It’ll be nice and warm when you get out, that way.’

  We’ve eaten soup for tea, and Grandma’s suggested that maybe she could help me tidy my room a little. When she said it, Mum made a snorting noise, which sounded like a dragon exploding, and Leah (who, predictably, likes to keep her room organized, because she would) burst out laughing.

  ‘Are you serious? The last person who went in there was eaten alive.’

  ‘I’ve seen a lot worse than that in my day,’ says Grandma. ‘You should have seen your Aunty Lou’s room when she was a teenager.’

  Aunty Lou, who lives in a white farmhouse in Spain, is possibly my favourite person in the whole world. She breeds horses and has about ten wild cats with huge ears and long, enigmatic faces, which lie around like pet sphinxes all over the place. When I grow up, I’d like to be her.

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ says Mum. ‘Lou’s place is always immaculate.’

  And it’s true. It’s all whitewashed walls and brightly coloured woven rugs and space – so much space. It’s quiet and cool and she lives there with Javier, her boyfriend, who is Spanish and kind. He gives us huge long strings of sweets when we go to visit. Lou spends so much time speaking Spanish that she forgets words in English sometimes.

  ‘Oh, she was a horror,’ says Grandma. ‘So there’s hope for you, yet, sausage.’

  We’ve mucked out my room. It’s not unlike clearing Mabel’s stable except we didn’t have a wheelbarrow. We might as well have, though. Somehow Grandma’s persuaded me to get rid of a load of old clothes that were too small (which I’ve been holding on to for ages because, well, I don’t like letting go of things) and there are n
early two black bags full of rubbish.

  (I did say it wasn’t exactly tidy in there.)

  My phone pings with a notification and Grandma passes it over.

  ‘Anyone interesting?’

  I can feel my face going pink, because when I look down at the message there’s a gif of an exploding kitten in the TARDIS, which makes me laugh.

  Grandma chuckles. ‘Is it a young man, Grace?’ She puts down the bottle of Flash spray that she’s been using to clean the skirting board.

  ‘He’s called Gabe,’ I whisper. ‘Do NOT tell Mum.’ I put the phone back down on the chest of drawers, face down, just because I already feel like I’ve said more than I meant to.

  ‘Well,’ says Grandma, and she sits down on the edge of the bed, which has been stripped of all the covers and is waiting to be made up. She looks enormously pleased, and I don’t think it’s just because the bedroom now looks like it belongs in a magazine article. ‘That is interesting news. So is this Gabe the handsome young chap who delivered the envelope?’

  I do a little sort of half-shrug. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, my little Grace is growing up.’ She reaches across and gives me a squeeze on my knee.

  I feel a bit sick again. Tomorrow is meeting-up-with-Gabe-again day, and I’ve managed to distract myself by working like a fiend at the stables, having a bath and blitzing my bedroom. Now, with a gigantic surge of panic, I remember that I have to do the whole date thing all over again.

  It’s almost two in the morning and I still can’t sleep. Everything is exhausted except my brain, which is just whizzing round and round and round. I’ve tried counting sheep. I’ve even tried listening to the relaxation app with the man with the annoying accent. All I can think about is tomorrow, and not screwing up by doing something weird or socially awkward.

  What I need is a rule book.

  I pick up my phone and search ‘old-fashioned etiquette’.