Days of Grace

by Catherine Hall

  ‘Perhaps I should go to the bathroom,’ she said, and started to get up from the bed, but then she let out a terrible wail and collapsed back onto it.

  ‘What is it?’ I stammered. ‘What can I do? Let me help you. Tell me, please tell me.’

  Her body was rigid and her face tight with pain. I grabbed her hand.

  ‘Grace, what’s wrong?’

  She had begun to pant. ‘It’s like I’m being stretched inside. I feel as if I’m going to burst.’

  I watched a mark the size of a sixpence darken and spread as the blood began to soak through the towel. Grace closed her eyes and for a moment her face lost its strained look, but the next minute she screamed again. The pain kept coming in waves. Each time her face would turn red and then the colour would drain away and great shudders pass through her body. With them came blood. It soaked through towel after towel and I started to fold sheets up into wads, pressing them between her legs until they were heavy and sodden. I held a pillow over her mouth to muffle her screams each time the pain came. When it went we were silent, preparing ourselves for the next bout of it, breathing together in unison as if we had become part of the same body. We went on like that throughout the night, fighting it with all our strength. She wouldn’t let me call an ambulance. The old Grace was still there, as headstrong and determined as ever.

  ‘It’ll be over soon,’ she said, gripping the pillow hard. ‘We have to see it through, that’s all. I’m not going to give up. You heard what Mrs Pitts said. We could go to prison, both of us. I won’t let it happen.’

  ‘But you’re losing so much blood,’ I said. ‘What if—?’ I stopped myself.

  ‘She said I would. It’s what she expected. That’s how the thing comes out.’

  I was sure that she shouldn’t be in so much pain and I opened my mouth to say so, but before I could speak she went on. ‘Besides, we’re runaways, remember? If we went to hospital they’d probably make us tell Mummy and Father. Can you imagine what they’d do? They’d be furious.’

  I could imagine it all right. Mrs Rivers would rush to Grace as quickly as she could, determined not to lose the only child she had left. I pictured her face, frantic with worry and concern. But then I pictured Reverend Rivers standing, thin lipped and silent, and the looks that would pass between him and me. I couldn’t stand the thought of it.

  ‘And there’s all the other things. The things in Bernard’s boxes. If an ambulance came here there’d be so much fuss. We’d be in terrible trouble and so would he. Let’s just stick it out. I can stand it, I know I can.’

  I decided to believe her. I bit my lip and held her hand as the contractions came, breathing with her, raising the glass of water to her lips so she could drink. But the blood showed no sign of stopping and as the hours passed, she kept her eyes closed, too tired to hold them open.

  Later that morning, as the traffic began to rumble in the street, I went to the kitchen to fetch more water. When I came back, Grace’s head had fallen to one side. A fleck of white spittle sat at the corner of her mouth. I ran to the bed and held her face in my hands.

  ‘Grace! Wake up!’ I said, shaking her but she was heavy and limp.

  For the first time since Kent I began to pray, the only way that I could think of to save her. I bargained with God, falling over my words.

  ‘God, save her, please save her. I’ll do anything you want. Just keep her alive.’

  I remembered the Book of Common Prayer.

  We kindle God’s wrath against us; we provoke Him to plague us with divers diseases and sundry kinds of death.

  I had started it and now she was paying the price of my wickedness. I fell to my knees, put my hands together and bowed my head. I began to beg.

  ‘Please, God. I know I’ve sinned. I know I was wrong to love her. But let it be me who suffers, not her. I can stand it. If you save her I’ll do anything. I’ll stop loving her. This time I won’t pretend. I’ll make myself stop doing it. I’ll go away. I’ll leave, I promise.’

  When I looked up, I saw a miracle. Grace’s eyes were open. He had listened. God had answered my prayers.

  Thank you, I thought. Thank you.

  She stretched her hand out to me and I took it, squeezing it gently. She had a strange, sad look in her eyes.

  ‘Don’t let go, will you?’ she said.

  ‘Of course I won’t. I’ll never let you go.’ I took a deep breath. I had to tell her, just once, before I took up my side of the bargain. ‘I love you. I can’t tell you how much I love you. I always have.’ I swallowed. ‘Grace, have you ever loved me?’

  She smiled her old wicked smile.

  ‘Of course I have. I always have. I chose you, didn’t I? Right at the start.’

  Then she closed her eyes and was gone.

  Twenty-Five

  ONE AFTERNOON, ROSE TOOK GRACE FOR A WALK, LEAVING David and me together. He sat in the chair next to my bed, reading, his legs stretched out in front of him. I looked at him surreptitiously, noticing the fine lines that were starting to show around his eyes and mouth. He read quickly, turning the pages with his long fingers, absorbed in his book. As the hours passed, I grew tired of simply watching. I decided to start a conversation.

  ‘Is it any good?’ I said.

  It was the first time I’d ever addressed him, but he didn’t seem surprised. He smiled. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It is. I bought it the other day from that little bookshop just off the Holloway Road.’

  I stiffened at the thought of my two worlds colliding.

  ‘I got talking to the owner. He suggested some others as well. I’d love to know what you think of them.’

  I hadn’t been asked my opinion on a book for a very long time. I had missed it.

  ‘You’ve got a lot of books,’ he said. ‘Have you read them all?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you always liked reading?’

  I thought of those lessons in the schoolroom with Reverend Rivers and the tremendous excitement I had felt.

  ‘Yes,’ I said quietly. ‘I’ve always loved it.’

  ‘I like short books,’ he said. ‘Ones about ideas.’

  ‘I like a beginning, a middle and an end,’ I said. ‘You know where you are with those.’

  ‘Who’s your favourite writer?’ he asked.

  I thought hard. ‘It depends on how I’m feeling,’ I said eventually. ‘It’s like friends.’

  It was the closest I’d ever come to admitting that books had taken the place of people in my life.

  ‘What if you really had to choose? Just one book, if that was all you were allowed to keep.’

  I knew immediately.

  ‘Shakespeare,’ I said. ‘The Collected Works.’

  ‘That’s cheating!’ he said.

  Despite myself, I was enjoying the conversation. Books were as good a remedy as always.

  ‘Were you a teacher?’ he asked.

  I shook my head.

  ‘Did you study English at university?

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I never went. There was the war, you see.’

  ‘So how come you’ve read so much?’

  He was leaning forward, listening intently, his hair falling into his eyes. I decided to tell him some of it, the safer parts.

  ‘It was difficult after the war. There wasn’t much I could do to make a living. I wasn’t qualified for anything.’

  I wasn’t going to tell him about those long, painful days when the rest of the country was celebrating, days that I spent waiting for night to fall so I could forage for food along with the rats. I had picked up scraps, not caring about the dirt, pushing them into my mouth and scurrying back to my hiding place. When I had become too hungry to stand it any longer, I’d forced myself to go out in daylight, stumbling along the unfamiliar streets, sticking to the smaller ones, walking in the shadows, keeping close to the walls. I had come across the shop by chance, drawn by the display in the window, feeling as if I were looking into another world. Then I’d noticed the card in the co
rner.

  Assistant sought. Enquire within.

  David didn’t need to know how long I’d stood there, gathering the courage to push open the door and step inside. I thought of how I’d hovered in the silent shop, awed by the books that surrounded me, ten times as many as there’d been in Reverend Rivers’ study. I had jumped at the sound of the cough from the corner.

  ‘Don’t panic,’ a voice had said, sounding amused. ‘I won’t bite.’

  It was a voice like Reverend Rivers’, expensive and low. A wheelchair had come forward out of the shadows.

  ‘Hello,’ said the man who was sitting in it. ‘I’m George.’

  He gave me coffee that he brewed on a ring in the little kitchen at the back of the shop. He brought out a plate of stale biscuits that I bolted down gratefully. He didn’t ask me where I had come from and I was thankful for that as well. But he did ask if I liked books. I was shy at first, but he nodded as I gave him my nervous opinions and listened carefully to what I said. Slowly I began to feel better. By the end of the afternoon I had managed to screw up enough courage to ask about the job.

  He nodded thoughtfully. ‘I need help,’ he said. ‘I had polio as a child. I can’t manage all that fetching and carrying.’

  ‘I could,’ I said eagerly. ‘I mean, I could try. I’m pretty strong.’

  He gave me the job and the little flat above the shop; two rooms to call my own and a key to turn in the lock at night. On the wall I stuck up the illustrations from a copy of Paradise Lost that had fallen apart too badly to be mended. I put the copies of Rebecca and Shakespeare on the nightstand and hung my few clothes in the wardrobe. I kept the other things in the pillowcase under the bed, out of sight.

  Each morning I went downstairs early so the coffee would be ready by the time he arrived. I took pleasure in making it as he had shown me, filling the bottom half of the pot with water, patting down the coffee grounds and screwing on the top, then waiting for the bubbling noise, inhaling the aroma that drifted through the shop.

  He taught me the trade, every last little detail, from doing the accounts to wrapping up the books. Before long I could guess what a customer would like as soon as they came through the door. And all the while, George and I talked, not about the past, or the war, or what would happen next, but about the books that were stacked on the shelves around us. I tried to put my own story out of my mind, like a second-rate novel forgotten after the last page had been turned.

  He taught me other things, too. When I had been at the bookshop for a while, he asked me if one evening I would like to come to his house.

  I was wary and it must have shown in my expression. He hastened to reassure me.

  ‘It’s not far,’ he said. ‘Ten minutes away, that’s all. There’s something I want to show you, something I think you’ll like. And we can have something to eat. I’ll cook for you.’

  ‘All right,’ I said, not knowing what else to say.

  I had never seen a man cook before. He made an omelette from powdered egg and forgot to add salt.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, after his first mouthful. ‘Not one of my best efforts. I apologize.’

  I smiled at him. I rather liked that he was bad at something. It made me less afraid. After we had eaten he took me through to the sitting room at the front of the house.

  ‘This is what I wanted you to see,’ he said, pointing to a gramophone on a table in the corner. He wheeled himself over to it and opened the box, then turned a little handle at the side. I watched as a black disc began to spin, slowly at first and then faster. Carefully, he lowered the needle onto the disc. There was a crackling noise, then music filled the room, wonderful music, notes from a piano rippling over violins that sang out with joy. I stood very still, lifted up by the sound, marvelling at how the instruments wound themselves about each other, swirling and dipping, on and on, with no hesitation, very sure and very light.

  It took me a while to recover myself when it finished. When I came to my senses, I noticed George looking at me, a fond expression on his face.

  ‘I thought you’d like it,’ he said. ‘I hoped you would.’

  We spent many evenings listening to music after that. He introduced me to all of his favourite composers, talking about them as familiarly as if they were old friends. After that first flabby omelette, I suggested that I might take over the cooking. I wasn’t sure I’d be much good at it but I had helped Mrs Rivers often enough to try. I experimented, trying new recipes out on George. He was willing to eat whatever I produced, never minding strange combinations of flavours or cakes that failed to rise. I tried to remember the way that Mrs Rivers had done things. I aimed for something like that first Sunday lunch in Kent. Slowly I became sure of myself, and one day I made an attempt at it, queuing for hours to get the meat and going to three different grocers to find the right vegetables. It was worth it. I arranged our plates carefully, piling the carrots up next to the spinach, three golden roast potatoes each, two slices of pink meat. I knew that the vegetables wouldn’t taste of sunshine like the ones from the rectory garden, but he ate up every last scrap and came back for second helpings.

  ‘You’re very capable, aren’t you?’ he said.

  I blushed with pleasure. It was a long time since I’d felt good at anything. Over the long winter that followed, as we listened to music by the fire, I began to feel better, as if somehow I was being put back together again. As spring arrived, I felt myself begin to thaw around the edges like the ice on the Forgotten Lake.

  One day in April he asked me to go with him to Hampstead Heath.

  ‘I won’t be able to walk that far,’ he said. ‘We’ll need to take the chair.’

  I insisted on pushing him, although he said he could get along himself. When we arrived at the Heath I was astounded. It was like being back in the countryside. I wanted to take off my shoes and feel the new grass tickle my feet, to wander along the little paths that led off into the woods, to pick the primroses that hid in the hedgerows. I turned to him, exhilarated.

  ‘I never knew London was like this,’ I said.

  He smiled, looking pleased. ‘There’s something else I want to show you. Do you think you can push me up that hill?’

  I gasped with pleasure when we got to the top. The city spread out beneath us for as far as I could see. George had shown me maps of London in the bookshop. Now it was as if the maps had sprung into life. I had a sudden sense of knowing exactly where I was. It was a good feeling. I was still here, I thought, still alive, whilst London lived around me.

  As I stood, looking at it all, I felt a hand touch my arm. I smiled down at George.

  ‘Thank you for this,’ I said. ‘It’s beautiful.’

  ‘Nora,’ he said. ‘I want to ask you something.’

  ‘What is it?’

  There was a long pause. I had never known him lost for words before. Then he gave himself a little shake. ‘I wanted to know if you would marry me.’

  Six months before his question would have made me want to run away. Now I was oddly unsurprised.

  ‘I know I’m not much of a catch,’ he said. ‘I mean, I’m older than you. And there wouldn’t be any children. I can’t—’

  I stopped him, as embarrassed as he was. I knew I didn’t love him, not like I’d loved Grace. I didn’t ever feel very much any more, as if I’d used up all my feelings at the rectory and in the little Soho flat. But I liked him. I liked him very much. I knew he would be kind to me. I liked the bookshop too. When I was in it I felt protected from the world outside. A life in the bookshop with George would be a better life than any other I could think of.

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I will.’

  I learned about a different kind of love from George. We spent forty years together, never tiring of each other’s company. We had other worlds at our disposal, a thousand dinner guests that could be invited just by opening a book. At night we lay in bed, comfortably close. At first I had been anxious, lying rigid and afraid, mindful of Reverend Rivers. I ha
d never said anything to George but he seemed to sense some of it at least, reaching out very gently and holding me as if I were something precious. I slept in his arms from that night on.

  David was looking at me closely, waiting to hear what I had to say. I would keep it simple, I thought.

  ‘I worked in a bookshop,’ I said. ‘The one that you went to.’

  ‘Really?’ he said. ‘No kidding?’

  ‘Really. For a very long time.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘All my life. I was married to the owner. We worked there together until he died and after that I ran it by myself.’

  I had worked harder than ever after he died. The shop was the only thing I had left.

  David looked intrigued. ‘What about the man I talked to? He’s not your son, is he?’

  ‘That’s Stephen,’ I said. ‘I’ve known him for years. I’m very fond of him. I sold him the shop. I knew I could trust him to run it in the right way.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know what it was like when you had it,’ he said, ‘but it’s how bookshops used to be. It’s how they should be.’

  I nodded. ‘It hasn’t changed much. Stephen’s taken care of it.’

  ‘Nora,’ he said gently, ‘would you like me to give him a message? Shall I tell him you’re not well?’

  I didn’t want any fuss. I didn’t want an awkward visit. I didn’t want to explain myself.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Just tell him when, you know, when it’s over.’

  He didn’t try to persuade me, but just nodded, looking thoughtful.

  When Rose came back from her walk, she was clutching a bunch of snowdrops.

  ‘Look, Nora,’ she said softly. ‘I picked these on the Heath.’

  The white flowers drooped like the heads of shy children.

  ‘I always think they must be tougher than they look to push up through all that frozen earth. I bet it’s so disappointing to get here and find that it’s still winter.’ She said it quietly, her eyes darting over to David and I knew that her words were meant for him, not me, but I minded less than I might have before.