Days of Grace

by Catherine Hall

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Acknowledgements

  VIKING

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Published in 2010 by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Copyright © Catherine Hall, 2009

  All rights reserved

  Excerpt from “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” by Cole Porter. © 1936 (renewed) Chappell & Co., Inc. (ASCAP). All rights reserved.

  Publisher’s Note

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA

  Hall, Catherine, 1973-

  Days of Grace : a novel / Catherine Hall.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-19015-9

  1. World War, 1939-1945—Children—England—Fiction. 2. Teenage girls—Fiction. 3. Friendship in children—Fiction. 4. Female friendship—Fiction. 5. Atonement—Fiction. 6. Kent (England)—Fiction. 7. Psychological fiction. I. Title.

  PR6108.A46D39 2010

  823’.92—dc22

  2009050254

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrightable materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

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  For Anne-Marie

  He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.

  William Blake, Proverbs of Hell

  It was August when I finally crossed the street. I slipped off a shoe and pressed my foot into the warmth of the doorstep, finding a space amongst the plastic bags and paper scraps that littered it. I sniffed at the air, swallowing the taste of roasted meat and smoke. At the end of the long weekend, the street was empty. Beer cans lay abandoned in the gutter and sacks of rubbish spilled out the remains of picnics. Birds hunched on branches, tucking their beaks into their chests. There was no-one to see me. I was safe. I untied my headscarf and wrapped it around my hand, then picked up a brick from the pile of rubble by the step. The dirty glass smashed easily. I reached through and lifted the latch.

  The hallway was as I’d expected, smelling of old tobacco and gas. A stack of telephone directories filled a corner and a table was piled high with unclaimed post. The pattern on the linoleum was hidden under layers of dirt and the walls bore the marks of many tenants. Once-white paint, now a greasy yellow, flaked off the banisters. I knew without reaching for the switch that the bulb which dangled from the ceiling would give off no more than a dim glow. I walked across the hallway to the second door, as scratched and battered as everything else. It gave way to my push. The body was hunched on the bed, under a grubby sheet.

  One

  THE SICKNESS HAD STARTED IN MAY. IT CAME STEALTHILY at first, creeping up on me. Strange aches occurred, odd pains. At first I ignored them, convinced they were nothing, but as they grew stronger, I worried. Each night I fell asleep hoping that the dragging in my stomach would be gone when I woke. Soon it was the first thing I noticed each day.

  It made me tired. I spent most of the time in my chair, wrapped in a blanket, staring out at the street. The window had nine panes of old, thick glass and I looked through it one pane at a time like a painter dividing up a landscape with his fingers, watching the comings and goings of Victory Road. The street had changed over the past few years and some of the houses had been smartened up. Window boxes appeared on ledges, red geraniums flowered and the stumps of railings grew back into tall spikes. Garden gates were hung and oiled, swinging open smoothly when the postman pushed them.

  The house opposite mine was still shabby, a poor relation to the others in the row, blackened with dirt and stripped of everything that could be sold. Each window held just one piece of glass, giving the house a blank, indifferent appearance, and the flimsy front door had no knocker. The railings remained amputated and the garden had been smothered by concrete. Weeds straggled through the cracks. Tenants came and went, none staying longer than a few months.

  It was June when I first noticed the girl. One morning, she was sitting at the downstairs window looking back at me. I ducked away, pretending to watch a group of children who were circling on bicycles like predatory animals. When I dared to look again, she hadn’t moved.

  I puzzled over what she was doing there. She was young, no more than eighteen, I thought, perhaps not even that. Girls her age had other things to do. I often saw them, prowling the streets in packs, strutting and swaggering like boys. I avoided them, afraid of attracting their attention. But this girl was different. She sat motionless, as if she were waiting for something, her thin shoulders poking out of a tight black vest. Despite her physical fragility, she had an air of determination about her. Her shoulders were squared and her face set, her little chin held high.

  I was intrigued, and watched her for the rest of the day. She showed no sign of having noticed me but went on staring out of the window, straight ahead. At last, at dusk, she stood up. Her silhouette was a shock. A high, round belly stuck out from her body. It was jarring to see, grafted onto someone who was still a child herself. She yawned and stretched, then turned to draw the curtains, shutting me firmly out.

  I watched the girl the next day, and the next day after that. All through the summer I watched her at the window, staring into space as her belly g
rew, making the vest rise further and further up her torso. As the days passed, something odd began to happen. My stomach started to expand, as if in sympathy with hers. My skin stretched over a small potbelly, smooth and tight, as if I were young again. The rest of my body was shrinking. Skin hung loosely from my arms and thighs. It was as if I had a baby of my own trapped within, a malevolent little thing, a child who would never be born, staying inside until it had consumed all of me.

  I didn’t want any interference from doctors. I didn’t want to draw things out any further than required. But as the summer wore on, I worried that I was losing my mind. I mislaid things. A stain developed on the bathroom floor from water that slopped over the sides of the tub when I forgot to turn off the taps. I found myself standing bewildered in rooms, unsure of how I had got there. I did not mind my physical disintegration but losing my capacity to think was something different altogether. One day in August I decided I couldn’t put it off any longer. The time had come to seek medical attention.

  I was on edge from the moment I left the house, knowing that I’d have to pass the prison. I hurried past it quickly, my head down, to the surgery. It was a cuckoo of a building, squeezed between two houses, squat and square and practical, with a blue sign outside listing the names of the doctors.

  The doors slid open as if my arrival had been predicted. As I entered the smell of disinfectant caught in my throat, making me cough. I leaned against a pillar to catch my breath and looked about. It was a dismal place. Faded posters telling those who looked at them to change their ways were stuck haphazardly on walls that were blistered with peeling paint. A patch of damp crept down from the ceiling to the window as if it were trying to escape. Patients slumped on chairs around a table covered with magazines that were missing their covers. The only sound came from a small boy playing with a toy truck that had no wheels.

  I went up to a counter with a sign on it that said Reception.

  Like a hotel, I thought, and for a moment felt more hopeful, until I caught sight of the woman behind the desk, who was bending over some papers and muttering. I stood very still, waiting for her to notice me, looking at a vase of drooping carnations. The water was flecked with green scum.

  Eventually she raised her head. ‘Yes?’ she said sharply.

  ‘I think I should see a doctor,’ I said.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  I told her and she peered at a machine, stabbing at it with long, crimson fingernails.

  ‘I can’t find you. What time’s your appointment?’ Her voice was accusing.

  Not like a hotel at all, I thought, sadly. I looked down at my feet, shifting my weight from one to the other.

  ‘I haven’t got one.’

  She sighed, as if I had confirmed her suspicions. ‘Then you can’t see a doctor. You’ll have to make one now and then come back. Who do you usually see?’

  ‘I haven’t been here before,’ I admitted. ‘This is my first visit.’

  ‘You need to see your own doctor,’ she said. ‘You can’t go to just any surgery. Where are you registered?’

  Everything was a question. I was being cross-examined before I’d even entered the doctor’s consulting room. I felt my heart begin to beat faster, speeding up to match the pace of her interrogation.

  ‘Nowhere,’ I muttered.

  ‘What? I can’t hear you.’

  ‘I haven’t got a doctor. I’m not registered anywhere.’

  She looked at me sceptically. I forced a smile, trying to arrange my features into something that might suit her.

  ‘All right,’ she said, at last. ‘We might be able to fit you in. You’ll need to bring proof of address and identity. That means a utilities bill or a bank statement and a passport or a driving licence. And we’ll need the name and address of your previous doctor so that we can get your notes and check your medical history.’

  I didn’t want her or anyone else to check my history, medical or otherwise. I didn’t want them to know where I lived. I didn’t want them to write things down about me for just anyone to see. I remembered the drill.

  Be Careful What You Say. Like Everyone Else, You Will Hear Things That the Enemy Mustn’t Know. Keep That Knowledge to Yourself - and Don’t Give Away Any Clues. Keep Smiling.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I’ll come back when I can prove who I am.’

  She had gone back to her papers before the words had left my mouth.

  The Holloway Road was choked with traffic fleeing the city. I stumbled the opposite way, my head spinning. The trip to the doctor’s had unnerved me. There was someone I wanted to see. I made my way past the Indian restaurants and the off-licences, flat-fronted pubs and bookmakers, the flooring shops with giant rolls of carpet stacked on the pavement. I avoided the enormous hall of the Seventh Day Adventists, offering salvation for sinners. My own salvation was up the little side street. I walked along it, wondering why I’d left it so long to go back.

  The minute I pushed open the door and heard the jangle of the bell, I felt better. I stood for a moment, drinking in the shop’s familiar smell, soothed by its particular, contented silence.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  It wasn’t the voice I’d been expecting. I turned to see a young woman sitting behind the desk. She was smiling brightly, waiting for me to answer. I tried to hide my surprise.

  ‘Isn’t Stephen here?’

  ‘Not today. He takes Wednesdays off.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said.

  ‘Had you arranged to see him? I can call him if you like.’

  I kept my voice even. ‘It doesn’t matter. I was just passing by, that’s all. I’ll have a look around while I’m here.’

  She nodded. ‘If you need any help, just ask.’

  I went into the next room and stood in front of one of the shelves. I ran my hands over soft leather bindings, feeling the raised lettering with my fingertips like Braille. Fat novels stood next to slim volumes of poetry, rubbing shoulders with dictionaries and encyclopaedia sets, atlases and cookery books, their covers spotted and stained. I scanned their titles, looking for ones that I recognized. I couldn’t afford to take a gamble. I wanted a proper story, with characters to care about and hope for, something to take me away from myself.

  I was out of sorts after my trip to the surgery. I wanted to talk to Stephen. My disappointment made me realize how lonely I’d become. I took down old favourites and flicked through them, reading pages at random, but none of them was what I wanted. It was a while before I saw it, a slim book with a faded dust jacket, not the sort of thing that I was looking for at all, not a novel, strictly non-fiction, a textbook or a manual. My hands shook as I pulled it off the shelf. I turned to the list of chapters, looking for answers. This was the one, I decided. It would tell me all I needed to know. There would be no doctors, no examinations, no evidence for anyone to find. My disease would stay a secret, my own last secret.

  I took the book to the girl and counted out coins.

  ‘Would you like to leave Stephen a message?’ she said. ‘Shall I tell him you were here?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry. It wasn’t important.’

  I made coffee, strong and hot, carried it to the sitting room and put it on the table next to my chair. I wrapped the blanket around myself and settled a cushion behind my head. I found the chapter and started to read.

  WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS? said the first line, in capital letters.

  Loss of appetite, vague indigestion, nausea, swelling in the abdomen, abnormal bleeding.

  None of that was news but the next question was intriguing.

  WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR YOU?

  The answer was surprisingly simple.

  Your body is made up of cells and they repair and reproduce by dividing themselves. But sometimes the cells are abnormal and get out of control. They carry on splitting and they cluster together into a lump, which invades and destroys the tissue around it. If left untreated it will spread to other parts of your body and do the same again
.

  There it was, written down in black and white, confirmation of how my life would end. It was almost a relief to have it spelled out. I read on.

  By the time it is detected, it may have been growing for many years.

  This was no surprise. I knew exactly when I had started to go bad.

  However, treatment is available. Many patients fight the disease and win.

  I didn’t want to fight it. I’d lived long enough. I closed my eyes.

  ‘I’m coming,’ I whispered. ‘I’m coming to join you, my love.’

  Two

  If I had been given the choice, I would have taken my chances and stayed. I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to leave her and I said so. But it made no difference. I was going; Ma said I must. We sat at the table eating bread and dripping. I liked bread and dripping but I wasn’t hungry. I stared at the floor as she said dripping but I wasn’t hungry. I stared at the floor as she said it again.

  ‘Nora love, there’s going to be a war. I want you to be safe. It won’t be forever. When it’s all over you’ll come back and it’ll be as if you were never away.’

  Two woodlice were hurrying towards one of the table legs. I fixed my eyes on them instead of Ma.

  ‘It’ll do you good to live in the country. You’ll have lots of fresh air and space.’

  The woodlice had almost got to the table, little grey shapes running one after the other. I didn’t care about fresh air and space. I wanted us to stick together, like them.

  ‘I don’t want to go,’ I said. I pushed my plate away and looked up at her. Ma’s face was my favourite thing to look at in the world, the first and last thing I saw each day, but she wasn’t pretty now. She had two dark patches under her eyes like smudges of coal dust and she was frowning. It was early still, but the room was made dim by the paper we had stuck up over the windows the week before. I had cut it into squares with the scissors that Ma used for bacon, leaving smears of grease along the edges. If I went she would be left in the dark. The thought of her sitting alone at the table every night made my stomach twist and churn.