The State of Grace

by Rachael Lucas

  I feel a wash of horror turning my skin icy cold, then hot, in a split second.

  Well, partly you for running off like that, but mainly Holly Carmichael (and her being a complete cream-faced loon who could have caused massive kite-based tragedy and killed Mabel AND Gabe’s cousin Marek just because she can’t cope with the attention not being on her)

  I look away from the card for a moment, letting the words sink in.

  but then Alison Fairgrave turned up late with her hair dyed mermaid blue and her eyebrow pierced and she was supposed to be sent home but her mum started arguing with the head of Year Eleven in the playground and – well, I’ll tell you the rest later. Oh and if you want the news on everything else – you’ll have to turn your bloody phone on. XOXOXOXOXO (etc.) me x

  PPS (!!!) Gabe says hi.

  I don’t know what to do with any of myself. Inside of me I’m skipping about and doing a celebration dance and I’m crying because I’m so relieved that not everything is awful and I still have a best friend after all and maybe, just maybe, I have a boy who might like me, a little bit, who I like, a little bit. Or even a bit more than that. And another part of me is angry because life is so complicated and nobody tells you anything and there’s so much of being human that’s about unspoken stuff and presuming and well I just thought you knew and I never know anything until it’s too late and I’ve swum to France and given up my old life and started a new one. Or tried to persuade Grandma to enrol me in the secondary school across the field, which I actually hinted at yesterday.

  I smoothe the card out on the table and read it all over again. Then I go upstairs and find the ancient brick phone and switch it on.

  Grandma seems delighted that I’ve had a card from Anna. She leaves me watching television and disappears off to the shops to buy the ingredients to make her famous pineapple cheesecake for pudding, which is Dad’s favourite, and then later when the kitchen windows are steamed up with baking and dinner and the house smells so delicious I think my stomach might digest itself (but she won’t let me have anything to eat, because she’s old fashioned and says it’ll spoil my dinner, which it absolutely will not), she picks up the car keys again.

  ‘Forgot pineapple,’ she says, and is gone in a second before I have a chance to say that, no, I saw four tins in the larder cupboard.

  I’m sneaking a handful of chocolate chips from the plastic tub on her baking shelf when there’s a bang as the front door shuts and a thud, as if someone’s dropped something heavy on the carpet.

  ‘You OK?’ I shout as I open the door to the hall.

  ‘Fine, thank you,’ says my dad, with the biggest, beardiest, scruffiest grin you could possibly imagine.

  ‘Dad!’ I squeal, and jump up and down on the spot like I’m five.

  He catches me mid jump and squishes me into the tightest squeeze. He smells of outside and cold things and Dad-ness and home and being safe.

  ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘Because I just got off a flight in Gatwick, and got on the train down here to see my favourite big girl instead of heading up to the studios to pick up my car,’ he says, still smiling.

  ‘Come out of the hall, you two,’ Grandma says, shooing us through into the little sitting room.

  And we eat dinner until we can’t move and Dad tells Grandma that after months of eating whatever he could get his hands on this is the best meal he’s ever tasted, and Grandma says that he should probably save that line for when he gets home to his wife, because she needs all the moral support she can get after the time she’s had.

  And Dad frowns a bit and looks at me.

  ‘Have you three been having a bit of a bad time?’

  And I look at Grandma because I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say to that, and she sort of gives me a little nod, and I say –

  ‘I don’t like it when you go away.’

  And he nods then.

  And Grandma says –

  ‘I think the balance is a bit off, Graham . . .’

  And Dad nods again and shifts in his chair and I think he’s feeling a bit uncomfortable and that he preferred it when we were all eating cheesecake and smiling and talking about the polar bears he’d seen.

  ‘Anyway,’ says Grandma, ‘that’s for another day. Let’s get the jet lag over with first, hmm?’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  ‘It’s a shame they don’t hand out rule books when you have children,’ says Dad, out of the blue.

  We’re on a motorway somewhere on the way home, and I’m eating all the black wine gums from the packet I’ve found in his glove compartment. The back of the car is full of Dad’s equipment and my bag’s squashed on the top, so you can’t see out of the back window.

  ‘It’s a shame they don’t hand out rule books when you’re born,’ I point out, through a mouthful of wine gums.

  ‘Yeah, well.’ Dad runs a hand through what’s left of his hair. It stands up in little spiky tufts. It’s definitely getting thinner. He’d say that was the stress of having me and Leah, but if that was the case Mum ought to be as bald as a coot.

  (Are coots even bald? I must look that up.)

  ‘Thing is, Grace, your mum’s been so determined to do the right thing by you and Leah, and I haven’t exactly been around much.’

  ‘You’re working,’ I protest, thinking of the three of us sitting down together to watch his programmes with the fire lit and popcorn and Withnail curled up between us.

  ‘Yeah, but Mum needs to get out and have a life of her own, too. And I’ve been so wrapped up in my career –’

  He chews on his thumbnail, holding on to the steering wheel with one hand.

  I realize he’s not saying anything that Eve didn’t say. I turn so my forehead is resting on the cold of the glass and watch the cat’s eyes whizzing past in a blur. It’s not Eve I hated – it’s the change. I don’t want Mum stuck at home bored to death, and we can manage perfectly well – Anna’s mum works, after all. I feel my old friend guilt settling down on my lap. Hello, here we are again.

  ‘She said she wasn’t going to go for the interview after – after what happened with Leah.’

  We’d been driving to the station when she told me. She’d been insistent that the idea had left town along with Eve, and that she wasn’t making any plans. I couldn’t help thinking she had a look on her face that didn’t match the words she was saying, but I didn’t know what to say about that so I just kept quiet.

  ‘Yeah, and I’ve told her she needs to think about what she wants. The whole family has revolved around me for long enough.’

  I look at Dad, who is rubbing at his beard.

  ‘You’re going to stay home and Mum’s going to work?’

  ‘Uhh –’ he pulls a face – ‘not quite. But I’ve taken far too much for granted, and I hadn’t realized – not until last night when I was talking to your Grandma – just how close I came to losing everything.’

  ‘You?’ I say, realizing they must have stayed up talking long after I disappeared upstairs to text Anna on the ancient phone of doom.

  ‘Yep.’ His voice sounds a bit flat. ‘Look, darling – we didn’t want to make a big thing of it, but when I went away last time Mum and I had been talking about splitting up.’

  And it all falls into place. I think of the half-finished comments Mum kept making, and the remarks about needing to stand on her own two feet, and I feel a bit silly that I didn’t work it out for myself.

  And then I wonder where she fits into everything.

  ‘And what about Eve?’

  ‘Oh, I think she’d be quite happy if your mum didn’t have the three of us hanging around.’

  ‘You mean she –’ I turn round in my seat to look at him, wondering if I’d got their friendship all wrong. Did Eve have a crush on Mum?

  Dad shook his head. ‘No, nothing like that.’ He laughed a bit. ‘But I know Eve of old. She likes getting her own way, and even more than that she’s the queen of Divide and Conquer.’

&nb
sp; And it makes sense. She’s like Holly Carmichael, who seems to take pleasure in watching things break apart. Eve didn’t want us in the way of her friendship with Mum, which is why when it all hit the fan and everything went wrong she basically asked Mum to choose between us and her. And Mum chose us.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  We drive through town. I am trying to remind myself of calm blue things and ommm and inner peace and all is well. But even with evil Eve vanquished and Dad coming back to cheer Mum on to get a job and Leah doing tennis and netball and general sportsing nightly (and put off alcohol, from what Dad says, for the rest of her life) I feel sick. Sick, sick, sick.

  I’ve got to go to school on Monday and deal with everything. People are going to look at me with their eyes burning holes in me and I haven’t even let myself think about the other thing. The thing I’m not mentioning. Well, the boy.

  ‘I figured you’d probably want to check on Mabel, so we’ll just nip in to the stables first,’ says Dad, flicking the indicator to turn right towards the yard.

  I feel a flirrup of nerves in my stomach. I’m worried Mabel might have forgotten me and I’m worried Polly is going to have stopped being nice and decided I’m a neglectful sort of owner who swans off on holiday except I can hear a voice in my head (it’s a sensible sort of voice, and I don’t know where it’s come from, but I like it) reminding me that, no, Grace, you had a major meltdown and you needed a break, and that’s OK. And I take a breath and sit up a bit straighter and I feel as if actually being down at Grandma’s has changed me a little bit. That maybe I’ve realized that it’s not just me that messes up, that nobody really knows what they’re doing. And I feel quite impressed with myself for that.

  It won’t last, I’m sure, but it’ll do for now.

  And then we pull into the yard and there’s something taped to the wooden doorframe above Mabel’s box. And I get out of the car and step towards it and I pull my glasses off for a moment and rub them on my T-shirt because I’m not sure I can see right.

  But when I put them back on it’s there.

  Welcome back, Grace, it says on a banner covered in stars.

  And there’s a skittering of hooves and a snort and Mabel’s head appears over the stable door and she whinnies at me with her eyes bright and her ears pricked with excitement and she nods her head up and down and I realize that she’s got something plaited in her mane and I get closer and I see it’s blue hair extensions from Clare’s Accessories and I burst out laughing, and –

  ‘Oh God, you’re not meant to be here yet – I haven’t painted her feet,’ says Anna, who pops out from the tack room with a pot of blue face paint and a brush.

  ‘Just as bloody well,’ says Polly gruffly, but she’s laughing, and she puts a hand on my shoulder and I turn round to look at her. ‘Thank God you’re back. Your friends have been helping and quite frankly I think they might be insane.’

  ‘Friends?’ I say, looking at her and frowning.

  And Gabe’s head pops up from behind the stable door and his face looks pink and he’s actually blushing.

  ‘Well, he can stay,’ says Polly. ‘Turns out he can muck out and everything.’ She grins at Gabe, who unfastens the stable door and slips out. Mabel leans her head across his shoulder, whiffling for treats the way she does with me.

  ‘Hi,’ says Gabe, and he smiles, and I smile right back at him.

  ‘We missed you,’ says Anna.

  And nobody rushes forward and hugs me, and I am glad about that, because it’s more than enough to take in all the stuff that’s happening and all the stuff that’s happened.

  ‘She’s healing really well,’ says Polly. ‘Come and have a look.’

  I step forward towards Mabel’s box and Anna does a little skip of excitement and puts the face paint down (‘I should think so too,’ mutters Polly darkly) and follows us. Gabe steps back out of the way but I pass him close enough to notice he gives me a look that is so kind and lovely that it makes my breath catch in my throat. He’s got a piece of wood shaving stuck in his hair and when I walk into Mabel’s box I realize he’s made it look perfect.

  Mabel steps back politely and allows Polly to push her gently on the shoulder so she turns to face the light. I can see that even in a few days the scratches and cuts have healed. The bandage is gone from her foreleg, and her coat is shining. She looks like my horse again.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper to Mabel, lifting her long mane so my breath catches in the soft hairs of her ears.

  ‘You don’t need to say it,’ says Polly. Gabe and Anna are standing with Dad by the stable door looking out into the yard, laughing and chatting as if they were all the best of friends. They’re waving to someone.

  I don’t know what to do with all this.

  And Polly continues. ‘We’re human, Grace. Screwing stuff up is what we do best.’

  And Dad, who I thought wasn’t listening, turns round to look in at us.

  ‘It’s the only way we learn.’

  There’s a thump as Leah leaps on him from behind, and Mum joins her a moment later, and I watch the three of them hugging, but I don’t feel like I’m left out this time. I feel OK.

  I feel so OK that I suggest that we all go out for dinner that evening, me and Anna and Gabe and Leah and Dad and Mum. All of us.

  And Dad makes embarrassing dad-jokes, and the waiter offers us the wine menu and Mum suggests he gives it to Leah as she’s the expert. And Anna and Gabe laugh and point out Archie, who flies past the pizza place on the way to the floodlit skate park. Gabe keeps looking at me and blushing slightly when I meet his eyes. And I keep blushing when I catch his eye. And Mum and Dad keep looking at us and grinning.

  And when we go up to the salad bar somehow I end up standing there beside Gabe and he looks at me and says, ‘You OK?’ and I say, ‘Yes.’ And I realize that I really am.

  We go back to the table with our little bowls of salad and I notice Mum and Dad are holding hands and he keeps smiling at her. When she goes to the loo, he pulls her back for a moment so she lands on his lap and she laughs out loud and kisses him right there at the table, which ought to be embarrassing but actually, weirdly, it isn’t.

  And the funny thing I’ve figured out is that sometimes, when it seems like everything is falling apart, it’s not the end – it’s the beginning.

  GRACE’S TEN THINGS

  1. We don’t have autism. That is to say, we are autistic. We don’t have it like you have a cold or hiccups. It’s part of us, and part of what makes us amazing. (And increasingly, people don’t mention Asperger’s, because these days we don’t break autism into different categories. We’re all autistic.)

  2. I’m not grumpy; that’s just my face. I can look at you and look like I’m listening, or I can listen and look like I’m staring into space. But both is tricky. You choose.

  3. Autistic special interests are the best thing ever. Doctor Who, horses, old 80s films . . . they make life. If you want to make me happy, ask about mine and let me talk (and talk).

  4. Girls are autistic too. For a long time autism wasn’t noticed in girls, because specialists were looking for the things they’d learned about autism in boys. But autism in girls is different, and it’s often not discovered until we’re teenagers – when we’re getting really stuck, and the social stuff gets really complicated. Hopefully this will get better soon.

  5. Our world is on full volume all the time. The strip light in the classroom hums and the radiator creaks and the sounds are just as loud as the teacher’s voice. Louder, sometimes. Labels itch. Smells make our heads ache. We have to concentrate so hard to hear what we’re supposed to hear. Give us time to process. It’s hard feeling left behind all the time.

  6. It might look like we don’t care, but it’s not true. Imagine hearing over and over that you don’t have any empathy or feelings. Of course we do, millions of them. They’re overwhelming. So sometimes dealing with them means our faces aren’t making the right shapes, or it takes time to process h
ow we feel, and by the time we’ve worked it out the moment has passed. We need time to think about things!

  7. Not all autistic people are maths geniuses. (Yes, some of us are good with numbers and coding and things, but definitely not me.) Autistic people can be artists, musicians, writers and lots of other things.

  8. We don’t have a sense of humour. That’s a joke. Of course we do. In fact there’s a whole world of autistic jokes out there about NT (neurotypical) people and the weird way they see the world. You’re all so ILLOGICAL.

  9. The world is quite hard work. When we get back from doing outside stuff, all we want is some quiet on our own to decompress and do our own thing.

  10. Let us speak. If you Google Ten Things About Autism you’ll find pages full of Ten Things Your Autistic Child Would Want You To Know, written by parents, which isn’t the same thing at all. There’s a whole world of autistic people out there. We have a voice and we want to be heard. Listen to us.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This book was very quick to write, because it was a long time in coming. When my daughter Verity was very young, I realized very quickly that she didn’t see the world the way other children did. It took a long, long time to get anyone to listen to me. Eventually, when she was thirteen, she got an autism diagnosis. And – surprised and not surprised at the same time, because the way she saw the world made perfect sense to me – the same year, I got an autism diagnosis too.

  A year or so later, Grace popped into my head one day and started talking. And talking. I scribbled down her words, and realized she wasn’t going to stop until I told her story – so here it is.