Days of Grace

by Catherine Hall

  I wasn’t sure she was right. There were times when I had looked up from my plate at supper and noticed him looking at me oddly, as if he were trying to puzzle something out. But I didn’t want to tell her that. Her feelings were hurt enough.

  ‘He’s bound to notice that the wine’s gone,’ I said.

  ‘No, he won’t. I’ve thought of a way round it. There are lots of bottles in there. They keep them in a cupboard and the key’s hidden behind one of the big Bibles. I saw Father put it there. All we have to do is take one bottle at a time and only drink some of it, then we’ll fill it up with water and put it back. They won’t notice, and even if they did, they wouldn’t guess it was us.’

  She looked at me with mischief in her eyes. ‘Anyway. It’s like the girl said. A bomb might hit us or the church and then it wouldn’t matter anyway.’

  Whenever Grace said things like that I worried in case God was listening. She was careless about him in a way that I could never be. It was one of the things that put me in awe of her.

  ‘Shall we, then?’ she said. ‘Do say yes, Nora. I’ve planned it all. We’ll go to the vestry and get a bottle to take to the lake. We can hide in the grass. No-one will see us.’

  I could never refuse her and this time was no different. Her excitement was infectious. Besides, there was something else. I had heard about girls getting tight at dances. Things happened. Perhaps I would find out if I had any reason to hope.

  ‘Oh all right,’ I said finally. ‘Let’s do it.’

  We sat in the long grass, tussling over who should take the first drink, suddenly nervous. Eventually, Grace put it to her lips, tipping back her head as she drank. She shuddered as she swallowed the first mouthful and shook her head, blinking.

  ‘Golly,’ she said. ‘It’s awfully strong.’

  She passed me the bottle. I looked at it doubtfully.

  ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘It’s not so bad.’

  She sat back on her heels and pressed her hands together as if she were praying. She began to speak once again in the voice of her father at the altar.

  ‘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.’

  I looked out over the lake. The air was perfectly still, undisturbed by wind. I could smell the wild garlic that grew at the water’s edge, at once both sweet and sour. Everything was lazy and slow, a perfect afternoon. I took the bottle and copied Grace, tipping back my head to swallow.

  Minutes passed. We watched a heron fly over the lake, skimming the water with its feet as it looked for fish.

  ‘Can you feel anything?’ asked Grace.

  I thought about it, wriggling my toes to see how they felt. ‘No,’ I admitted.

  ‘Neither can I. Let’s have some more.’

  This time I held the wine in my mouth for a moment before I swallowed it, rolling it over my tongue. It was sweeter without the metal taste of the chalice and I liked the burning sensation that it made as it went down my throat. As the afternoon went on and we drank more and more, I began to feel absurdly happy. My arms and legs were comfortable and loose. Drinking wine was like being in church, where the rest of the world didn’t matter, an easy, sunny church without a roof where you could lie back on a bed of cow parsley and laugh until your stomach ached. Everything was brighter. I felt as if the sun and the wine were heating me up and that if they carried on I might burst into flames.

  I was tired of saying one thing and meaning another, of always thinking before I spoke. We had been like sisters. We had shared everything. My longing for Grace was the first secret I had kept from her. Knowing that I had managed to keep it had allowed me to wonder and to hope. If I could do it, so could she. I had let myself dream that she might feel like me, hiding it like I did, saying nothing. I wanted something to happen. I wanted to provoke some kind of reaction. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and began to sing a hymn.

  Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound

  That saved a wretch like me.

  I once was lost, but now am found

  Was blind but now I see.

  My voice mingled with the buzzing of a thousand small creatures in the grass.

  Twas Grace that taught my heart to fear,

  And Grace my fears relieved;

  How precious did that Grace appear,

  The hour I first believed.

  Singing made my heartbeat slow down but my body stayed as tightly wound as the grandfather clock in the rectory hallway. Grace said nothing. I didn’t dare open my eyes to see if she understood. All I could do was to carry on singing, listening to my voice, shrill and out of place in the peace of the forest. It was a long hymn and I was trapped in it, having to finish it, feeling more stupid with every line.

  Just as I was coming to the sixth verse, I felt a sharp pain just above my elbow, as if someone had stabbed me with a needle. I screamed and opened my eyes to see Grace looking at me, grinning, her cheeks flushed from the wine. The pain in my arm made me forget my embarrassment.

  ‘Why are you smiling?’ I snapped. ‘I’ve been bitten. Look.’

  ‘It was a wasp,’ she said. ‘It was crawling over you for ages, all the time you were singing.’

  ‘But why didn’t you get rid of it? Why did you let it sting me?’

  ‘I was listening to you sing. You were perfectly still so I thought it would fly off and you’d be all right. I didn’t think it would sting you.’

  My eyes filled with tears. ‘Well it did. It hurts. It hurts a lot.’

  Grace had stopped smiling. ‘Don’t cry, Nora,’ she whispered.

  ‘I can’t help it. It hurts.’

  As she leaned towards me I could smell the wine on her breath, a ripe, almost rotten smell that seemed somehow to suit her. I began to tremble with hope as she came closer. My cheeks were hot. I closed my eyes again, unable to stand the anticipation, waiting to feel her lips on mine.

  But they never came. Instead, she took hold of my arm and I opened my eyes to see her peering at the sting, a small sharp peak amongst the gooseflesh that had broken out all over me. As she brushed her finger over it I caught my breath.

  ‘I could suck it out,’ she said.

  I almost choked. ‘What?’

  ‘I could suck out the sting. It’s like a little arrow that the wasp pricks you with. It stays in you and that’s what hurts. If you suck it out it doesn’t hurt any more. Mummy did it once to me, when I was small. Do you want me to try?’

  Without the wine, I might have said no. As it was, I nodded quickly, not trusting myself to speak.

  She lowered her face to my arm. My heart began to hammer and as she pressed her lips to my skin, a warm feeling spread through my body. When she touched the tip of her tongue to the spot where I had been stung, I felt a pulse between my legs. The world was made of Grace and me, the sensation of her lips pulling on my skin and the sound of my breathing, which was getting harder and faster the longer she sucked. I was so absorbed in it that I didn’t notice William until he was standing right beside us.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘What are you girls doing?’

  I sat up immediately, blushing. Grace rolled onto her side and pulled something from her tongue.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Nora got stung by a wasp so I was sucking out the sting. Look!’

  She held out her finger towards us. On the end of it was something that looked like a small length of white thread, which she flicked into the water. She was as calm as if she had been found knitting socks for the troops. My cheeks were still blazing. I looked down at my arm. On it was a red mark where Grace’s lips had been, like the marks that the farmers painted on sheep to show who owned them.

  Grace smiled at William. ‘What have you been doing?’ she asked.

  He lifted his rifle. ‘I’ve been setting up targets in the wood there. I’m practising for when the Germans land.’

  ‘But you’re a good s
hot already, aren’t you?’

  He looked flattered. ‘I’m not bad.’

  ‘I liked it when you showed us how to shoot apples,’ Grace said, giving him one of her best smiles. ‘We’ll have to get some more practice. Will you help us?’

  I was baffled by the way that Grace was acting. She had never shown so much interest in William. Just a minute before she had been sucking my skin and now she was asking him to sit next to her, patting his arm and smiling up at him. I began to feel uneasy and then, as she lay back on the crushed cow parsley with her arms crossed behind her head, rather desperate. I wasn’t sure what was happening but I wanted it to stop.

  ‘Let’s go and do some shooting now,’ I said. My voice sounded loud and falsely cheerful. ‘Why don’t you show us your new targets?’

  ‘I’m feeling lazy,’ said Grace. ‘Let’s save the targets for tomorrow.’

  She was beautiful against the white flowers, her hair almost as pale as they were. The wine had stained her lips red. I wanted to throw myself on top of her and kiss her until my lips were the same colour as hers. I could see from the way that William was staring that he wanted to do the same and I was filled with a sudden fury that made me want to roar out loud, to scream that I had loved her first. I wanted to beat at William’s chest with my fists and shout that if he touched her I would kill him. I wanted to slap her flushed cheeks and tell her to stop what she was doing, that it wasn’t fair.

  But I did none of those things. A small voice in my head held me back.

  Be Careful What You Say, it whispered. Don’t Give Away Any Clues. Keep Smiling.

  I scrambled to my feet and snatched up William’s kitbag and rifle, then I swung them up onto my shoulder and ran into the wood, on and on until I came to the clearing where he liked to set up his targets. Two lopsided scarecrows were bound to trees with rope, like prisoners waiting to be executed. Their bodies were made of scraps of sacking, stitched together roughly and stuffed with straw. One of them wore an old pair of trousers tied around its middle with string and the other had a sheet, draped like a dress. Somehow he had managed to find paint and had given them faces; eyes, noses and smiles. The paint had run, making them look as if they were dribbling.

  Their smiles weren’t enough to save them, I thought. I wanted to blow them to pieces. I rummaged through the kitbag and took out two bullets. I cocked the rifle, fitted them in, then snapped the gun back together. I lifted it to my shoulder, trying to remember what he had taught me, steadied it and squinted through the sights, aiming at the scarecrow with the trousers. Its stuffed face and lumpen body became William. I took aim at his heart, breathed out and squeezed the trigger gently.

  There was a loud bang and the rifle jerked back against my shoulder, hard enough to make me stagger. When I had got my balance back I stared at the scarecrow’s remains. His chest and head were scattered around me, yellow wisps of straw and scraps of trouser. The smell of gunpowder and scorched dust hung in the air. The birds had been stunned into silence.

  For a moment I had truly believed that the scarecrows were William and Grace. But now that the moment had passed, I wanted to hide away. I was scared of myself and of what I might have done if the scarecrows hadn’t been there. I started to shake.

  They came quickly, running through the trees, Grace calling out my name. She rushed over to me.

  ‘Nora! Why did you go running off like that? We thought you’d done something stupid.’

  She seemed genuinely puzzled. I wondered if I had invented what had happened at the lake.

  ‘Are you all right, Miss?’ said William. He had his cap in his hands and was twisting it nervously. He looked horrified.

  ‘I’m sorry for taking your gun,’ I muttered. ‘And I’m sorry for shooting your target. I’ll help you make another one.’

  Together we gathered up the pieces of sacking and straw and stuffed them into William’s kitbag. I kept my eyes on the ground as we did it, too ashamed to look at either of them. He left the other scarecrow bound to the tree.

  ‘Reckon I’ll come back tomorrow to practise on that one,’ he said.

  Grace and I didn’t discuss what had happened. Instead, we went back to the rectory and had tea with Mrs Rivers. But all the time, I was thinking about it, trying to fathom out what was true and what was not.

  That evening I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. A bruise the colour of midnight spread across my chest from where the rifle had been balanced against my shoulder. It was as if all the darkness inside me was seeping out through my skin and marking me as wicked. Grace had sucked out the sting, but by doing so she had added to the poison within me, the desire that seemed to grow and grow, no matter what I did to smother it.

  Eleven

  HAMPSTEAD HEATH HAS ALWAYS BEEN A REFUGE, A PLACE to lose myself, to wander in the woods until London is out of sight. It is full of life, a place where children play and lovers kiss, but it is also a place of commemoration, where the dead are remembered, their names carved into benches, each inscription marking a connection; spouse or lover, parent, child or friend. The flowers that appear from time to time, tied to the benches with ribbon or a piece of string, remember lost loves. I have never felt alone there, surrounded by other people’s memories as well as my own.

  It is a hopeful place, where death is not forever. Grass burns, leaves fall and branches wither but there is never any doubt that in a matter of months, life will begin again. No matter what might happen to the city, there will always be the Heath, with its snowdrops in January and daffodils in March, yellow leaves in October and ice on the ponds at the end of the year.

  I wanted to show it to Rose. I wanted her to like it as much as I did. She had hardly left the house since she had moved in. We had done a few things together to pass the time. The garden had kept us busy for a while. We had tidied it up, sanding down the old iron furniture and rearranging the plant pots. We had gathered up the dead leaves and built a bonfire, warming our fingers on the flames as it burned. We had enjoyed ourselves. But I knew that it wasn’t enough. I wanted Rose to see new things. The Heath would be a start.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’ I said one day.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s a favour. I want to go to Hampstead Heath on Sunday. It’s Remembrance Day. I go every year. I wondered if you’d come with me. I’d be glad of the company.’

  She frowned. ‘Are you going to church?’

  ‘No, no,’ I said. ‘It’s nothing like that. I just want to go for a walk, that’s all.’

  There was more to it than that, of course. For me, the British Legion poppies have nothing to do with the battlefields of France; they take me back to the hayfields in Kent, golden meadows streaked with drifts of red. They remind me of the tickle of grass against my arms and lying back to look at the summer sky. I never feel the cold on those November Sundays. For me it is August, and I am happy.

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll come.’

  I prepared carefully for the outing. Rose was still very thin and I thought it would tire her to carry the baby all that way. I decided to pawn my last piece of jewellery and buy a pushchair with the money.

  Like the Heath, the pawnshop never changes. Cheap necklaces glittered in the window like always. The sign was much the same as it had been fifty years before, tall golden letters on a background of black.

  Pawnshop and Jewellers.

  When I pushed open the door, heavy from the iron bars that stretched the length of it, I was met by the usual smell of stale tobacco, damp clothes and old possessions. Customers waited on plastic chairs pushed back against the wall, looking resigned and clutching bags that held the residue of unlucky lives.

  I am used to the rat-faced men who sit behind the grille playing God, judging the little you have left. I understand the game. But I was still nervous as I laid the earrings out on their velvet bag, two silver loops, each with a single pearl suspended from it. For a moment I hesitated.

  ‘Come on love,’ said the
man.

  I pushed the bag across the counter and braced myself for the negotiations.

  They began with him exhaling though his nose as he picked up one of the earrings. Neither of us said anything. He lodged his eyeglass in front of his right eye and looked at it. I waited, knowing there was nothing I could do to hurry him. After a while, he sighed and leaned back in his chair.

  ‘They’re fakes,’ he said, shaking his head.

  ‘That’s impossible.’

  He shrugged. ‘They’re not heavy enough.’

  ‘But they change colour against the skin. Only real pearls do that.’

  He laid an earring in the palm of his hand. ‘I can’t see it changing colour, can you?’

  I suddenly realized that my visit was pointless. Pawning is the stuff of fools. To do it you must convince yourself that one day things will be better and you’ll be able to buy back what you pawned. I had never been able to bring myself to lose her jewellery forever and so for many years I had been one of those fools, pawning things when times were hard. But now I knew I had no chance of coming back to redeem the earrings. Things weren’t going to get any better. I was going to die. The certainty of it made me strangely cheerful. I felt reckless, almost drunk. I snatched the earrings from him, turned around and marched out of the shop, holding my head high.

  On my way back up the street I passed a charity shop. In the window was a pushchair, exactly the sort that I wanted. Feeling hopeful, I pushed open the door and went inside.

  At first glance, everything was jumbled up together, piled up, crammed onto rails and shelves that sagged under the weight of it all. But there was an underlying order to it, the clothes hanging according to colour and the books arranged by size. There was a shelf for cassette tapes and records and underneath was a collection of glasses and crockery, ornaments and candlesticks. I liked it that nothing matched, that a shop could still hold some surprises. A glass-fronted counter had jewellery in it, laid out on faded silk scarves. Sitting behind it was a girl who looked up from a magazine and smiled at me.