From the flat up over where Grace was working she could hear a mumble of voices. Jonty Grant had gone rushing up again to whoever it was – his wife or significant other, she assumed – for at least the third time since Grace had started decorating. What with Jonty hardly ever there and Drew rushing off for whatever reason, Grace wondered if they would even notice she had ever been there if she were to get out of these horrid, stiff-with-clay overalls that didn’t fit and smelled of someone else’s perfume, and simply walk away. But for some reason she felt she should stay.
Grace swallowed hard. She’d walked away once. She had stopped only to gather a change of clothes, her two favourite pairs of shoes and her Kelly bag and she’d gone. And thirteen years of living with Justin had been wiped out in an hour’s train journey back to Bath and her parents.
No, walking away wasn’t the answer. Besides, there was something about Drew she liked. He’d made her laugh, when she thought she’d almost forgotten how. He was, Grace thought, the sort of bloke who would do you a good deed before he even thought of doing you a bad one. And the other besides was that Justin and his bloody cooking programme was going out soon for the first time and she would rather stay here and paint mug bottoms late into the night, night after night, than risk going home, risk her dad putting on the TV and finding Justin grinning back at her.
Tears were threatening to spill over onto Grace’s cheeks. But her hands were all paint-covered and she had to preserve a bit of dignity for when Jonty came back in, or maybe Drew, who’d rushed off for whatever. She twisted an arm up, tried to rub her tears away with the insides of her upper arms.
‘Oh, very glam,’ Jonty laughed, coming up behind Grace. ‘You look like a duck that doesn’t know whether to fly or settle back on the water for a longer leisurely swim.’
Grace sniffed back, very loudly, the tears which seemed now to be going down the back of her throat.
‘Hey!’ Jonty said, ‘No one’s making you do this. You can just go if you want. Now if you want, this minute. I don’t believe in making women do menial stuff if they don’t want to just because they’ve got a child to bring up on their own and this job will fit in with school or whatever.’
‘Very pretty speech,’ Grace said. She followed this with more swallowing, more sniffing, a huge gulp. ‘I don’t have any children, and just for the record I don’t consider art menial.’
‘Ah,’ Jonty said. ‘Bit of an emotional crisis, I think. Right?’
‘It’s personal stuff,’ Grace said. ‘I don’t want to talk about it, and I don’t want to be a total cow and be hell to work with either, so perhaps I had better go.’ She unclipped the buckles of the overalls, pulled the bib part down to waist level.
‘You’ve made an excellent job of the mugs,’ Jonty said.
Grace couldn’t stop a smile from widening her lips. ‘So, does that mean you are okay with the occasional bit of moodiness in return for my skills?’
‘Yes. We do moody in here, Drew and me, for our various reasons from time to time.’
Grace pulled up the bib, re-fastened the buckles of the overalls. She took a deep breath, willing bravery to stiffen her backbone.
‘Can I take these overalls home and wash them?’ she asked, just before her mind linked water to tears and to Justin, and she found herself crying noisily and copiously all over Jonty Grant and his rather nice denim shirt.
‘Of course,’ Jonty said. He patted Grace’s back in a ‘there, there, it will be all right’ way. ‘Where’s home?’
‘Dartmouth,’ she sniffed.
‘Bit of a way to travel every day.’
‘I’ll manage.’
‘I’ve no doubt you will.’
‘I will.’
Grace picked up a brush and began to paint swirls of cloud on the rim of a dish.
Grace knew Jonty was watching her. And he was listening out for something because he tipped his head to one side now and then as though letting his good ear be nearer the source of whatever sound he was expecting to hear.
‘I think my sister’s gone for a snooze,’ Jonty said into the comfortable silence between them. ‘So the coast is clear. What say we discuss business over that drink now instead of later?’
‘Could do,’ Grace said.
God, but she was lonelier than she thought, and more desperate for company than she’d ever imagined if she was actually contemplating having a drink with a man old enough to be her father.
Jonty knew he was taking a risk just leaving Becca without telling her he was going out. She might wake up and freak if he wasn’t within shouting distance. But truth was he almost couldn’t bear seeing Grace so upset, and he didn’t know why. He knew better than to ask what it was all about. She’d arrived looking like someone whose normal habitat was Oxford Street and Selfridges, maybe with a trip to trendy boutiques in Carnaby Street to relieve the monotony of big stores. Certainly not somewhere like Totnes, the hippy capital of England. He had a feeling Grace might be simply passing through. And he knew she’d tell him if she wanted to. Or not. Either way, for some reason he just couldn’t explain, her distress was worrying him.
Now, in Rumours, with a bottle of wine open on the table, some of it in his glass, none of it in his stomach yet, and with Grace sitting looking forlornly at a glass of mineral water with ice and lemon in it, Jonty was unsure about where he went from here.
‘I used to work in a restaurant,’ Grace said. ‘Run it, actually.’
‘I like eating.’
And so does Drew. He could do with sharing a meal with someone who wasn’t his mother.
‘You’re mocking me,’ Grace said. She pulled her jacket tightly around her.
‘I’m not, Grace, I promise. But in truth, I’m a bit out of my depth.’ To tell Grace about Becca or not? How long did they have here? Minutes, or hours? Or even days? ‘I’ve never had a new worker come in, sit down, and just get on with it while Drew and I sort out the angst in our respective lives. Most of my spare time and a big proportion of my working time, unfortunately, is spent caring for my older sister. Becca. She has mental health problems. She—’
‘I’m sorry,’ Grace stopped him. ‘It can’t be easy for you running a business and doing the care. I don’t want to give you a hard time.’
‘You’re not. Honestly. I was rather enjoying a few minutes’ escape from it all. I’m just trying to explain in a not very professional way that you will be left to get on with things some of the time. Drew is used to it, and normally he copes. Today, Drew having to rush off like that is an exception. He has a deaf toddler daughter, no wife, ageing mother. They live in Harbertonford where, I understand, there was an accident that held you up. Get the picture?’
‘Perfectly,’ Grace said. ‘It sounds as though you’re both going through it a bit at the moment – you with your sister and her problems, and Drew’s situation. So now I feel I owe you for being a bit drippy earlier so here’s the reason for it in prècis. My thirteen year live-in lover has dumped me. My home went with the job. Ex-lover is now about to become the next big TV chef star – move over Jamie Oliver sort of thing. My brain took a short circuit and I agreed to move down here with my parents, live with them. I’m suffocating in their love and concern, so I need out. Hence the desperate need for a job.’
‘That’s the formalities out of the way, then. And I’m sorry. It probably still hurts like hell,’ Jonty said, as Grace exhausted herself with her little speech. He wanted to draw her into his arms. He felt like thumping whatever his name was. He closed his eyes for the briefest of seconds, afraid Grace would disappear if he kept them closed too long.
‘Another thing I wanted to ask about was wages,’ Grace said. ‘It didn’t say anything about that in that very jokey ad of yours.’
‘Drew’s. Drew’s little responsibility that ad. But I take full responsibility for the appalling wages. Seven-fifty an hour. Four weeks paid holiday a year.’
‘Good God,’ Grace said. ‘I’m never going to survive on that!�
�
‘It’s all I can offer, I’m afraid. Oh drat.’ Jonty’s mobile began its piping, insistent ring. He hated it when they rang in a public place and he was of the generation who found it embarrassing to be talking about personal matters amongst strangers, most of whom seemed to lower their own voices the better to hear Jonty’s. ‘Excuse me,’ he said to Grace, then snapped, ‘Yes?’ at his phone.
‘I don’t know where the hell you and that new painter are or why, but could you get the hell back here? And fast. Your sister is going ape. Got that?’
And the line died, but not before Jonty had heard smashing pottery and Becca’s high-pitched whining cry.
‘We’ve got to go. My sister. She’s having a mega meltdown by the sounds of it. I need to get out of here!’
Chapter Ten
‘You’re useless, Drew, fucking useless! Literally fucking useless! And as for money – do you really expect to keep up the payments on a mortgage and pay bills, on the wages that Jonty Grant pays you?’
The washing machine was spinning, the phone was ringing, Amy had started to yell yet still his wife’s screams overrode them all.
‘Keep your voice down, you’re frightening Amy,’ Drew said, his voice far calmer than he felt. While Amy couldn’t hear, she could see and she was looking anxiously from one to the other.
‘And that’s another thing. It was you who wanted a family, I didn’t. And it was you who took Amy out to feed the ducks when maybe it would have been better if she’d stopped in by the fire.’ Drew’s wife was throwing things into a holdall – clothes, shoes, make-up, magazines. ‘She might not have caught meningitis if you hadn’t done that. So you’re the one who can pick up the pieces, okay?’
And then she was gone and Drew was left wondering just what he had done to inspire such hate. And if he would ever learn to love and trust a woman again.
‘Blimey!’ Jonty said, as he and Grace stopped dead still in the doorway of the pottery.
‘It looks like a herd of rhinos has been through here,’ Grace said.
‘A woman scorned,’ Jonty whispered, with something bordering on relief in his voice.
At least Becca wasn’t throwing anything now but was safe in Drew’s arms, being rocked and crooned over as gently as if she were Drew’s tiny daughter. In any other circumstances it would have made a touching tableau. And wasn’t it about time Drew found another woman, if not for a lifetime, at least for some mutually satisfying love-making? Although perhaps not Becca. God, what a time to be thinking these things.
‘Your poor sister,’ Grace said, leaning towards his ear. ‘What the heck has brought her to this? Although I know I felt like doing something like that myself. Over Justin, I mean. I understand.’
For answer Jonty smiled. All those years ago when he’d made that rash promise in the Mental Health Unit of the local hospital that he would take responsibility for his sister’s care, he hadn’t understood a quarter of what he was taking on as the specialist had known. But he had stuck to his promise. He wondered now if it was time to get Becca sectioned.
‘You know,’ Grace said, ‘I sort of understand all this high emotion, the madness. This is my first day and already it seems I’ve had months of experience, if not years. It’s not unlike running a top class restaurant with all its high drama. What do we do first?’
‘Get Becca out of here, I think.’ Jonty put a hand gently on Grace’s shoulder. ‘Thanks. So, you’ll stay.’
‘I’ll stay.’ Grace fingered the chain of her pendant.
And instantly Jonty remembered another chain, and another pendant. What, he wondered, was on the end of Grace’s?
‘Good,’ Jonty said.
Seeing Grace standing there, so calm, so understanding, it was almost as though the place wouldn’t be right without her. He wondered why that should be.
She turned and smiled at him – not a smile of compassion but a smile that said she was glad to be there.
‘Good,’ Jonty said again. ‘Very good.’
Drew knew exactly why he was feeling so ill-tempered. All that pent up anger and rage of Becca’s had somehow seeped into him like water on blotting paper. Drew was a big man but it had taken all his strength to wrench the metal bar they used to lock the door at night from Becca and stop her smashing the designer animals and fowls which represented thousands and thousands of pounds and weeks and weeks of Drew’s work. The cups and bowls represented many man-hours, too, but could quickly be replaced. Especially as now there was this new woman, Grace Marshall, to do the decorating. She was quick and good. But would she really want to stay in this mayhem?
Drew had noticed how easily Jonty and Grace had talked together in the doorway, surveying the carnage Becca had created. It was as though Grace understood, somehow. He hoped she’d stay – if only because she seemed to make Jonty in a better mood for some reason.
From upstairs came the sound of a chair being dragged across the room. Drew knew that Becca could sometimes be calmed by putting her in a chair by the window so she could look down onto the comings and goings of the open-air market. Drew heard Jonty’s low rumble of a voice, then Grace’s higher, well-modulated one. Jonty was probably going through the motions – on automatic pilot, doing what he had to do. In the two years Drew had worked at RED this was Becca’s worst outburst yet.
Drew found a broom and began sweeping up the shards of smashed pottery, scooping them up between two dustpans and dropping them in the bin kept for that purpose. Breakages were par for the course in any pottery, but perhaps not quite on this scale. Then he eased the lid from the dustbin of wet clay, broke off a fist-sized chunk and began kneading it and thumping it down on the table to knock out any airlocks. The last thing Jonty would need now was work exploding in the kiln.
He found it good therapy, kneading and bashing, kneading and bashing. Slowly the anger was leaching from him. He felt almost calm again. Amy was fine, thank goodness. There really hadn’t been any real need to go rushing off like that. Maybe if he hadn’t he’d have been able to stop Becca’s crazy rampage along the shelves, swiping things to the floor by the dozen.
‘Can I help?’
Grace’s voice.
‘Help?’
‘Help as in aid. Give succour to. Benefit. Whatever,’ Grace said, a gentle smile on her face. ‘And I don’t just mean to knead clay or sweep up shards. Only you’re bashing the living daylights out of that clay and Jonty’s okay up there with his sister now. It can’t have been easy doing what you had to do. Or have to do?’
‘It wasn’t. And is that a subtle hint that Jonty’s told you why I rushed off like you were going to infect me with something terminal?’
‘A bit,’ Grace said. ‘It seems we all have our crosses to bear.’
‘You, too?’ Drew said.
‘I’m sorry about your daughter.’
‘Don’t be,’ Drew said. ‘She’ll be fine. Eventually.’
He told Grace about the cochlear implant operation Amy was being considered for. How it was considered a safe operation and generally it worked well but there were no guarantees. And he told her about Mel.
Grace listened, not taking her eyes from Drew’s as he spoke.
‘That must have been hard to take. Her mother abandoning her.’
Drew couldn’t think what to say – it was stating the obvious really, but Grace meant well by her words.
‘Fancy a bit of overtime?’ Drew said. ‘If I turn some new mugs, can you decorate that lot over there?’
‘Nothing I’d like better.’ Grace said. ‘It’s been a funny old day.’
‘You can say that again!’
‘It’s been a funny old day.’
And they both burst out laughing.
Drew got the wheel going and started on throwing mugs to replace the breakages. Before he left he would put the sculptures of sheep and goats, dogs and cats, which had escaped death, onto the lift and hoist it to the ceiling out of harm’s way. Experience had taught Drew that Becca’s mad rampage
s never came singly. One day, when he felt he knew Jonty well enough, he would ask just what it was that had turned poor Becca’s mind.
Drew and Grace worked on without talking. Both jobs needed concentration. An hour passed. And then another.
Drew yawned.
‘Time to go?’ Grace asked.
‘Yeah. Mum keeps Amy up until I get home so I can tuck her into bed. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. But it’s getting late. I don’t suppose you fancy a drink? After I’ve done my daddy duty and she’s asleep?’
‘Not tonight, Drew, thanks,’ Grace said. ‘Maybe some other time.’
‘Too much baggage for you? Me with Amy and living with my mum?’
Drew knew this was getting in pretty deep pretty soon after meeting but heck, they’d be working together so …
‘I’ve got a fair bit of that myself,’ Grace said. ‘You go. I’ll carry on here until Jonty pitches up to lock up. If he locks up, that is.’
‘Oh, he does. It’s the only way to keep Becca in if she wants out – not that she wants out often but with Becca you never know.’
‘Night then,’ Grace said. ‘Travel safely.’
Travel safely? Did that mean she cared? She’d said no to a drink tonight but if he asked again in a week or so … maybe.
‘Still here?’ Jonty said.
‘Seems so,’ Grace replied. ‘I finished the mugs Drew said I could do and then I saw these planters needing decorating. I hope you don’t mind but I’ve put my own spin on it. A bit Art Deco. More Susie Cooper than Clarice Cliff.’
Mind? Mind? Why would I mind? Jonty wanted to ask. Grace had been brilliant with Becca. Although Becca hadn’t responded verbally to a single thing Grace had said, she’d done as Grace had suggested – a shower, a change of clothes, a glass of milk with honey in it. And now Becca was sleeping, and Drew had gone home. He’d expected Grace to have left too, but here she was, painting stylised nasturtiums around the rim of a planter. The light was fading fast – Grace was going to have a dark ride home.
Red is for Rubies Page 9