Days of Grace

by Catherine Hall

  I knew what was coming. I recognized the plot.

  ‘We had a drink a few days later, in a pub by the river. It was still warm enough to sit outside. There weren’t very many people about. We drank beer and talked until closing time. I remember looking at the water while he went to the bar and thinking it was all perfect. I was so happy. We stayed until it was dark.’

  There were no surprises to her story. She had begun to sleep with him, secretly of course. He had a wife, another academic.

  ‘I went to one of her lectures,’ Rose said. ‘I didn’t really listen to what she said. I wanted to see what she looked like.’

  The flush in her cheeks darkened.

  ‘I didn’t feel guilty at all. I just wanted her to be gone so I could have him. But she turned up one day at his study. I was frightened by how calm she was. It was worse than if she’d shouted and screamed.’

  ‘“Don’t think you’re the first girl I’ve found here,” she said. “And I’m sure you won’t be the last.”

  ‘She told me to get out and I went as fast as I could. There were only a few days of term to go so I packed my things and got the train home. I couldn’t think what else to do. I wasn’t looking forward to the holidays. It was the first Christmas without Dad.’

  She stopped abruptly, as if she hadn’t meant to say it.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Rose shook her head. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. I can’t.’ Her voice was bitter. ‘I just wanted to hide myself away in my room but I couldn’t. I had to be with Mum. She kept inviting people round. They wanted to know all about university. I couldn’t tell them I hadn’t made any friends because I was only interested in my lecturer and that he was married and I’d slept with him anyway. I kept hearing Mum talking about me, being proud. I couldn’t stand it.’

  She was speaking quickly now, as if she wanted to get the story over with.

  ‘I felt sick all through the holidays. I couldn’t eat. Then on Christmas Eve we were watching television and suddenly I knew what was the matter. It was a nativity play, and when I saw the baby in the manger I just knew. We were supposed to be going to my aunt’s for dinner but I told Mum I was feeling awful. I must have looked pretty bad because she believed me. As soon as she left I went to find a chemist’s. It took hours to find one that was open. There was nobody in there except me. I picked up the first test I saw. The shop assistant said Happy Christmas but I couldn’t say anything back. I just ran out.

  ‘I didn’t want to do the test at home, so I went to the pub on the corner of our street. I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. I went to the toilet at the back. It was horrible. My feet kept sticking to the floor. Someone started banging on the door while I was waiting for it to work but I couldn’t say anything to her, not even that I’d be out in a minute. I counted up the cigarette ends on the floor while I was waiting for the second line. I went cold all over when it showed up. I read the leaflet again to be sure but I knew it was right. I couldn’t move. I just sat there, staring at it, until someone else knocked on the door and I realized I’d been in there for ages.’

  The baby stirred in her sleep.

  ‘Do you think she can hear me?’ Rose said, worried.

  ‘No,’ I said gently. ‘Go on.’

  She dropped her voice. ‘We always have a special breakfast on Christmas Day. Dad and I used to bring it up to Mum in bed. I was trying to pretend everything was all right. I’d even made her a stocking like he used to, just a few little things, but when she was opening her presents, all I could think about was the baby and what I was going to do.

  ‘As soon as she’d opened the last one she asked me what was wrong. I knew I wouldn’t get away with lying. She went mad when I told her. I’ve never seen her so angry. She asked me all sorts of questions. She wanted to know everything.

  ‘She made me tell her who the father was. She went on and on about it. She wanted to phone the university and report him. I told her I’d started it. I said it was my fault. She said she didn’t understand how I could have been so stupid. I knew she was right.

  ‘“Well, at least it’s not too late to get an abortion,” she said. “The clinics will be open after Boxing Day. We’ll phone them first thing in the morning.”

  ‘I knew it didn’t make sense to keep the baby. I knew I could get rid of it over the holidays and go back to college without anyone finding out. Nobody would know except me and Mum. But I didn’t want to go back. I thought of what his wife had said, about him having lots of girls. I felt stupid. I didn’t want to see him again.

  ‘I told her I wouldn’t have an abortion. She said I’d regret it for the rest of my life and I’d ruin my chances of ever doing anything interesting. Then she said something really awful.

  ‘“If you go through with this you’ll go nowhere. Your whole education will go to waste. You’ll end up like I did.”

  ‘I’d always thought I’d had a happy childhood. It was suddenly as if all that had been a lie. I ran up to my bedroom. She tried to come in. I heard her knocking at the door but I wouldn’t talk to her. I left that night after she’d gone to bed. I took all the money I could find. I hung around the bus station all night. It was freezing. There weren’t any buses because it was Christmas so I had to wait until morning. I caught the first one to London. I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. I found a job in a bar and stayed there until I started to show, then they kicked me out. They didn’t want a pregnant barmaid. I’d been sharing a flat above the bar with the other girls who worked there but when I got the sack I had to move out. I didn’t want to live with anyone after that. I wanted to be on my own. That’s how I ended up in the bedsit.’

  ‘Have you spoken to your mother since then?’ I asked.

  A stubborn look passed over her face, and she hugged the baby close to her. I noticed her nails, bitten to the quick.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t want her to know where I am. She’d only take over, like she always does. And I can’t forgive her. I never will.’

  ‘And Grace’s father?’

  ‘I don’t want to see him again.’ She shook her head. ‘You know, it’s funny; I used to think about him a lot when I was sitting at the window. But now I can’t even remember what he looks like. I remember lots of things about him but I can’t remember his face. I don’t know why. It’s strange.’

  I didn’t think it was at all strange. I understood it very well. My memories of Grace never added up to how she really was. As the years passed, it was almost as if I had imagined her. My memory was never any match for the truth of her, and she was always impossible to pin down, dancing just out of my reach, exactly as she did when she was alive.

  Ten

  It was so very nearly all right. If it weren’t for what happened next, I would have counted the war as the happiest time of my life. But once it all began, one thing led to another until it wasn’t all right at all.

  I brooded over Ma’s visit for a long time, trying to puzzle out why it had gone so wrong. I had been ashamed of her and ashamed of myself for feeling it and now something between us was broken. She would always be Ma but she wasn’t the one who meant the most to me any more. I had hoped that the things I had started to feel for Grace would go away but they didn’t. After Ma’s visit they grew stronger, leaving no space in my mind for anything else. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get rid of them. They were like the weeds that grew in Mrs Rivers’ vegetable patch, which came back however many times you pulled them out because the roots were still there under the surface, ready to sprout all over again.

  I thought of how I had come to the rectory, frightened and bleeding, and of how Mrs Rivers had comforted me by saying I was no different to other girls. If I could find someone who felt like me I would feel better, I thought, and I began to search, reading as many books as I could, late into the night, moving my eyes quickly over the pages until the words became a blur.

  Shakespeare came the closest of anyone to describing it. I w
as bewitched by his plays, worlds made up of words, the opposite to the silent rectory, full of things that were left unsaid. Reverend Rivers had been shocked to find that I didn’t know who Shakespeare was. One morning he had taken down a heavy, important-looking book from the shelf and put it on the desk between us.

  ‘Can either of you tell me what this is?’ he asked.

  Grace shrugged. Annoyance flickered in his eyes and he turned to me. ‘Nora?’ he said, sounding hopeful.

  I hated to disappoint him. I wondered if it was something religious.

  ‘The Bible?’ I guessed. It was about the right size, I thought.

  He frowned. ‘Let me give you some clues. These are the collected works of a playwright who lived from 1564 to 1616. He was from Stratford-upon-Avon. His plays include Hamlet, Julius Caesar and Macbeth.’ He said the titles in the same way that he announced the readings in church, as if they were significant.

  I shook my head.

  ‘Do you mean to say you’ve never heard of William Shakespeare?’

  ‘No,’ I whispered. ‘They didn’t teach us that at school.’

  For a moment, he looked as if he didn’t believe me. Then a gleam came into his eye, a spark that I had seen before, when he was particularly excited about teaching us something new.

  ‘Well then, Nora, you’re in luck. You have some of the greatest writing in the English language here, just waiting for you to discover it.’

  Grace was staring out of the window, looking bored.

  ‘The history plays would be the most appropriate to start with, I suppose. They have so much to say about war. But I prefer the tragedies. We’ll begin with King Lear.’

  Grace let out a groan.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t like Shakespeare,’ she muttered.

  ‘You’re impossible! If you’re not careful, I’ll stop teaching you altogether. You’ll end up knowing nothing.’

  She tossed her head. ‘I mean, I don’t like Shakespeare when it’s all about battles and kings. It’s dull. Can’t we read something with a love story? What about Romeo and Juliet? Nora would like it better, I know she would.’

  ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘Nora will start with King Lear.’

  They glared at each other for a moment. Reverend Rivers looked away first. Grace rolled her eyes at me and shrugged.

  We read the play out loud. After each speech Reverend Rivers made us stop and talk about what was happening and what the characters meant by what they said. I was surprised that he liked this play, filled with wildness and extremes. I looked at him with new interest as he paced about the room, waving his arms in the air as he spoke.

  ‘Listen to the language!’ he said. ‘Ask yourselves why Shakespeare has chosen these particular words. Try to imagine what would be happening on stage.’

  Grace had the part of Cordelia. She read her lines in a flat, disinterested voice, not seeming to care whether or not they made sense. I could see Reverend Rivers struggling to keep calm. Eventually, he lost his temper.

  ‘Grace!’ he snapped. ‘Will you at least try to make an effort? You’ll find it much more interesting if you put some feeling into it. Listen to Nora. She’s managing, and it’s the first time she’s read any Shakespeare at all.’

  ‘It doesn’t mean anything,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s not real. I don’t care what happens to any of them. They may as well die. What difference does it make?’

  ‘Why must you insist on being so flippant?’ he shouted. ‘You’re such a disappointment to me, Grace, you really are.’

  She looked as him as if he had struck her, then pushed back her chair and ran out of the room. Reverend Rivers leaned against the fireplace with his head in his hands. I stood up to go after her, unsure of why he was so angry.

  ‘Can I borrow it?’ I asked timidly.

  He looked at me as if he didn’t know who I was.

  ‘Borrow what?’ he said.

  ‘The Shakespeare. I’ll be careful with it, I promise.’

  He let out a deep sigh, then nodded. I picked up the heavy book and left quickly, anxious to avoid any more trouble.

  I read all of Shakespeare’s plays. From his lovers’ speeches, I learned that I wasn’t alone. The words were there. But they weren’t words that girls said about girls. And I felt something more, something like King Lear’s madness on the Heath, something violent and wild. I was afraid that one day I would be lost, not able to keep myself from touching her. I felt like a monster, like Caliban in love with Miranda, and I knew that no good could ever come of it.

  Things were made worse by our new way of spending the afternoons. We had brought an end to our childish tea parties in the hut.

  ‘I’ve had an idea,’ said Grace one day.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked, feeling nervous. Grace’s ideas were becoming more dangerous. The more reckless the plan, the more appealing she found it and I always followed because doing something forbidden kept us together in our little band of two. I would have done anything she suggested, and somehow she knew it.

  She smiled. ‘It’s a good one. Kneel down, close your eyes and hold up your hands as if you’re taking communion.’

  The last time she had told me to close my eyes and hold out my hands, she had dropped a dead mouse into them, laughing at me when I screamed. I frowned at her.

  ‘This time it’s something good, I promise. It’s nothing dead.’

  I knew that there was no point in trying to resist. I got down on my knees, closed my eyes and held out my hands.

  ‘For what you are about to receive,’ said Grace, imitating the solemn voice that Reverend Rivers used in church, ‘may the Lord make you truly thankful.’

  ‘Amen,’ I said, as if I really were at the altar rail. Something heavy dropped into my hands.

  ‘You can open your eyes,’ said Grace.

  I looked down. ‘What is it?’

  Grace grinned. ‘It’s a key, silly.’

  I gave her a little push. ‘I mean, where’s it for, what does it unlock?’

  ‘It’s for the vestry in church.’

  ‘But why should we want to go into the vestry?’

  Grace’s grin grew wider. ‘Because that’s where Father keeps the communion wine.’

  I was shocked. ‘But Grace - we can’t!’

  I liked the church. Being in it was like being in a place where time had stopped. The air was musty, as if it had been there forever and the thick walls muffled the screams of the Spitfires. The stained glass in the windows was the only truly bright thing that I had seen since the war had begun, glowing yellow, red and blue for the Virgin’s cloak as she knelt at the foot of the cross.

  There was another reason why I liked the church but I was ashamed of it. I liked it because once I was inside I could drop my guard. I didn’t have to watch what I said because the words were written down for me. Everything we needed to say was in the Book of Common Prayer, which I held up in front of me all the way through the service. When I knelt next to Grace, the scratchy wool of the prayer cushion pricking at my knees, my first prayer was always that Reverend Rivers would talk for a long time so that I could keep close to her. As Reverend Rivers prayed for the King, for England and her Allies, for the men from the village who had gone to fight and for strength to come to the rest of us, I stole glances at Grace. I let my shoulder rest against hers, feeling the warmth of her body next to mine.

  Taking communion was almost as good. I liked the ceremony of it, walking slow steps up the aisle and waiting in line to approach the wooden altar rail that divided us from Reverend Rivers and the stooping churchwarden who stood at his side. When he was behind the rail, Reverend Rivers was like someone from another world, not our teacher, nor the Saturday hermit in the study. His robes and his words made him something else. For those short minutes when I knelt next to Grace at the rail I wasn’t in Kent or in the church. I was somewhere intoxicating.

  The body of our
Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving.

  The bread was dry, as if it really were from a body preserved for hundreds of years. I liked the way it melted slowly on my tongue.

  The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. Drink this in remembrance that Christ’s blood was shed for thee, and be thankful.

  The wine was a taste of danger, dark and sour. Drinking it outside church would have consequences, I knew, and I guessed that they would be bad.

  ‘We can’t,’ I said again.

  ‘Girls from the village get tight, sometimes, when they go to dances with the GIs,’ Grace said dreamily. ‘I heard two of them talking about it one day after church. They said it was like floating. They said we could all die tomorrow so they might as well enjoy themselves.’

  ‘But it’s holy wine. It’s the blood of Christ.’

  ‘No, it’s not. It isn’t holy until it’s been blessed. Before then, it’s just wine. It isn’t anything special. And even when it’s been blessed it’s not really his blood. It’s still just wine.’

  I was beginning to feel flustered and hot. I knew that she was wrong, that it did become blood the moment it was blessed. But I knew as well that she was determined to drink it. I tried again, my last attempt.

  ‘What if your father finds out? We’d be in so much trouble. He’d send me away.’

  She shook her head. ‘Why should he find out?’ she said bitterly. ‘He never notices what I do. You know that. All he cares about is his parishioners and his sermons and choosing the right hymns. He cares for his pipe more than he cares for me. He likes you because you’re clever and you like his lessons, but he doesn’t pay you any attention outside the schoolroom. It’s as if he doesn’t even see us.’