Freeing Grace (8 page)

‘Awful for everybody.’ Elizabeth shook the soap suds from a handful of knives as Hilda’s laughter jangled through the airwaves. ‘I can’t quite work
her
out, either. I don’t think she’s stupid, is she?’

‘Not at all.’ Leila heaved a dripping pot onto the draining board. ‘She ran the family single-handedly as well as managing her rather posh dress shop in Northampton. And she’s said to be very sharp as a magistrate. It’s common knowledge that she liked Christopher best when he was sending pay cheques from twelve thousand miles away. She’s nobody’s fool.’

‘Where’s she from? There’s a sort of lilt in her speech . . . I can’t quite place it.’

‘That’s Tyneside.’ Leila raised an eyebrow. ‘She’d be horrified you’ve asked because she thinks she’s cast off her roots. Her father was a ship builder. Asbestos got him. Her mum’s ninety, broad Geordie, lives in a home in Gateshead.’

Elizabeth whistled silently.

‘David’s the apple of her eye,’ muttered Leila, dropping her voice still further. ‘Her eldest. She’s never got over the triple whammy. First he married me—I’m hardly going to look the thing on the court and social pages, am I? Not quite the peaches and cream. More Death by Chocolate.’

‘Delectable.’

‘Then I failed to come up with the goods as far as grandchildren are concerned. Finally—and this was the last straw—David threw away his glittering career in poisons. She thinks I encouraged him.’

‘And did you?’

‘Certainly not! After all,
I
stood to lose by it financially, not
her
. And—let’s face it—not exactly macho, is it, the dog collar thing? You’re hardly the envy of all the other wives.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Except the kinky ones who like to dress up.’

‘Tarts and vicars,’ said Elizabeth, deadpan. ‘Angus makes a great tart.’

They fell silent, moving quietly, listening to Hilda’s tweeting. ‘Dear Monica’s throwing a party for our ruby wedding anniversary!’

‘That’s the sister?’ asked Elizabeth.

‘Monica.’ Leila chuckled. ‘She has a kind heart and a big, bossy bottom. She’s a professional party organiser. Voice like a hospital matron.’

‘A professional
what
?’

‘Party organiser. People pay her to arrange their bashes from start to finish. If you pay her enough—and you’ll need to take out a second mortgage—she’ll do the marquee, the band, the flowers, the food, the portaloos, the staff, the photographer and a taxi for when Uncle Harold passes out. You name it, Pertwell Party Solutions will provide it.’

‘Goodness.’

‘She’s flat out. I don’t know whether Freya and Charlie have ever actually
met
her, but she buys them stuff instead.’

Leila paused, brow creased, hands resting in the grey warmth of the water.
Why bother? Why turn them out like biscuits, and then palm them
off on a nanny?

Elizabeth paused in front of the fridge, looking at the same photographs which had intrigued Jacinta. ‘Are these your parents, on the London Eye?’

Leila gazed affectionately at the faces in the picture. Fola and Ayotunde, waving from their bubble, surrounded by their dynasty. Leila and David were just visible at the back of the group.

‘Ah, that was fun. We took them up for Dad’s seventieth.’

Elizabeth bent closer to the picture. ‘They look so young. What did they say when you first brought David home?’

‘A white boyfriend?’ Leila shrugged. ‘Race wasn’t allowed to be an issue in our household. We were always proud of our heritage, but never to the exclusion of others’. The first time David came home he talked football with my brothers and African literature with my parents, and he’s been one of the family ever since.’

‘They know a good thing when they see one.’

‘They do.’ Leila smiled. ‘Once—just once—Dad got all serious and warned us to expect hostility as a mixed race couple. And he was right, but it’s been nothing we can’t handle.’

Another silence. The draining board was almost empty before Leila spoke again. ‘Actually, childlessness can be a greater barrier than race.’

Elizabeth was absent for a short time, pewter helmet bent over a wineglass. She seemed to be deep in some memory of her own.

‘I know what you mean.’ She ran her cloth carefully around the stem.

Leila tugged at the plug, watching the foamy water as it spiralled away. The hope had trickled away, just like the water: round, and round, and down the plughole. Glug.

‘It’s my fault, you know,’ she said. ‘It’s an inescapable fact.’

Elizabeth had the sense not to protest at this.

Leila held out her arms. ‘What’s the point in having childbearing hips and page-three knockers if you can’t deliver? Mind you . . .’ She hesitated, eyeing her friend’s calm features, and then put a finger to her lips. ‘Shh, don’t say anything to David . . . I’m pretty hopeful, at this moment.’

‘Because?’

The sitting-room door swung open, and Hilda was in the hall: first her footsteps and then her curiosity. ‘Have you two been kidnapped?’

Swiftly, Leila crossed the kitchen and switched on the kettle. ‘No, no. Just making the coffee!’

Once Hilda was safely out of earshot again, Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. ‘Because?’

Leila’s eyes gleamed. ‘I’m a day or two late and I feel . . . well, you know.’

‘Do I?’

‘Different. Very, very different. They told us it wasn’t completely impossible, just increasingly unlikely as I grow older. We stopped actively trying ages ago.’

Elizabeth dried her hands, her keen gaze fixed upon the younger woman’s face. ‘Have you done a test?’

Unsmiling, sober, Leila rubbed her hands together. It was a gesture of anxiety, of longing, of terror. ‘I’ve got one. I’ll do it tonight, after David’s asleep. Ooh! It would be unbelievable, after all this time. Unbelievable!’

The kettle began to sigh and gurgle. Frantically, as if wounded, Leila screwed up her eyes and squeezed the back of a kitchen chair.

‘Touch wood. Touch wood. Maybe there is a God, after all.’

Chapter five

Matt sat down at the dinner table without a word and started shovelling it in as though he’d just escaped from a health farm. Perry poured me a glass of wine and asked about New Zealand. He seemed to be going out of his way to be nice to me.

‘I gather you’re not planning on going back for a while?’

‘Probably not.’

‘D’you call home often? Feel free to use our telephone.’

‘Not a lot.’ I tried the wine. It was fantastic. ‘Mum gets a bit emotional. I had to hang up on her one time because she wouldn’t stop crying and it wasn’t much of a conversation.’

‘Why was she crying?’

‘She hadn’t heard from me for a while. Thought I’d been blown up by a terrorist or something. Silly woman.’

‘Your poor mother!’ Lucy was shocked. ‘You should be ashamed, Jake.’

I was. Poor Mum. She was paying for
his
crimes. Three minutes later, I’d phoned her back.

Perry was watching me. ‘When were you last home?’

‘I don’t go back.’

‘What, not once in . . . ?’

‘Seventeen years. I tell a lie: I went over when Gran turned ninety. The drums were beating and the whole family had to front up in their best bibs and tuckers. I stayed five days and it was as though I’d never been away.’

‘That’s lovely,’ said Lucy.

‘Not very.’ I felt my jaw clenching. ‘My old man was still a bastard.’

She laughed as though I was joking, but I wasn’t. I have a picture of Dad in my head, and I take it everywhere with me, and I always will. He’s frothing with rage, marching down to the kennels, with me hanging off his arm and trying to drag him back, and my feet swinging clear off the ground.

I hate my father. I’d like to kill him.

‘Safe over there, though,’ persisted Perry. ‘No one wants to make war on New Zealand, holy or otherwise.’

I put down my glass. ‘Perry, you don’t want to be
that
safe. A cuddly hamster in a cage is safe. No cats to eat it, plenty of grub, nice wheel to run around on. He’ll probably live to be about a hundred in hamster years. Doesn’t make his life fulfilling. He doesn’t wake up every morning tingling with zest for the new day.’

Perry’s face had gone blank. I’d offended him, but I couldn’t see how. Lucy lightly touched his hand.

‘He doesn’t mean it, Dad. Jake secretly longs to go home.’

I snorted, and Perry topped up our glasses. ‘You come from the South Island?’

‘Yep. The back blocks, under the mountains.’

‘I gather it’s very beautiful there.’

‘Yeah, it’s beautiful all right. When you’re mustering sheep and you ride up the hillside just on dawn, it’s pretty magical. Just the calls of the native birds. You don’t want to come down again, ever.’

‘Will you take me up there, Jake?’ asked Lucy, half-seriously.

I grinned at her, helping myself to the salt. ‘Then it hits you just how bloody still and silent it is, and you gallop away and hop on the first plane out.’

‘When did you leave home?’ asked Perry. He’d got up, and was messing about with a pudding in the oven.

‘Left the farm at seventeen, headed off to uni. Jesse—my older brother—moved into the shepherd’s cottage and became Dad’s partner. He’s the most eligible bachelor for miles around, but it doesn’t get him anywhere because every girl with two legs and half a brain left long ago.’

‘I never knew you had a brother.’ Lucy was staring at me.

‘We’re not close,’ I said. ‘We were as little kids, but we went in different directions. Chalk and cheese. There’s too much of my dad in old Jesse.’

‘Do try the peas, I grew them myself,’ urged Perry. ‘And what do you intend to do now? Lucy tells me you find yourself a free man, unexpectedly.’

‘Well.’ I took a spoonful of his peas, glad to change the subject. ‘I never intended to stay in London. I was twenty-three and planned on working my way around the world. But my temporary job at Stanton’s turned into a permanent one, and the bonuses started rolling in. I just didn’t have the balls to turn down all that cash. I sold my soul.’

‘The good old days,’ Lucy remarked sourly. ‘Before the bonus became an endangered species.’

‘So I stayed,’ I said. ‘And stayed, and stayed. Until it was nearly too late.’

‘Too late?’

‘Nearly. I’ve had a narrow escape, really, because I almost got stuck in Basingstoke with a wife and kids and a sofa to think about.’ I shivered. ‘Might as well be dead.’

The kettle was hissing merrily away on the stove. Lucy and Perry exchanged a glance, and I had a nasty feeling I’d said the wrong thing again. Perhaps Perry was born and bred in Basingstoke.

‘This chicken thing is great,’ I burbled.

‘Thank you. It’s very easy.’

I smiled. ‘You sound like my mother. She always swears things are easy, then spurts out a recipe you’d need a degree in catering to understand. It’s a funny thing though, because she hates cooking. She told me once: she hates cooking and gardening and sewing, and she always has. But she’s done nothing else her whole life.’

Perry seemed to be deep in thought. Matt filled up his plate and started refuelling all over again: probably had the munchies, after that whacky baccy.

All of a sudden, Perry stirred. ‘You know, Jake, I believe you could do me a service.’

‘Er . . . ?’

He trickled another couple of inches into my glass. ‘Yes, you could. I have a small difficulty, and I think you can help. It’ll be . . .
entertaining
for you.’

‘Sure. What’s the problem?’ I imagined that, perhaps, the light bulb in the bathroom had blown, and Perry didn’t like to climb the stepladder.

‘Lucy will have mentioned my wife, Deborah?’

Mrs Harrison, the harridan? ‘Um, a bit. All good.’

Matt guffawed before making a grab for thirds. His father ignored him.

‘Deborah was last heard of in Mombasa, but she hasn’t made contact for some time. That in itself isn’t so very surprising. She’ll be busy, and communication can be tricky in these remote areas. But we need to find her. Urgently.’

‘Why?’

‘Do you mind if I don’t tell you that? It’s a private, family thing.’

‘Is someone ill?’ It seemed the most likely explanation.

Perry held up his hands and shook his head. ‘You could be in Mombasa within days. It’s not a large community; I’m sure you’ll pick up her trail.’

‘Why don’t you go, then?’

Matt laughed again, until he choked. Lucy glared at him as though wishing she had a remote control button with which to turn him off. No one answered me, so I tried again.

‘Seriously, why don’t you go, Perry? I mean, isn’t it a bit unusual, sending a total stranger to look for your wife?’

He got to his feet and started collecting the plates, and I stood up to help. I really thought he might be joking. Matt was still chortling away to himself.

Eventually, Perry shut the dishwasher and leaned against the stove. His cheeks were quite sunken, I thought, and he stared with a little too much intensity. It was a bit creepy, to be honest. But then he smiled, and his eyes looked wearier than ever, and somehow he had me on his side. For the first time, I could imagine him loping across the desert: the exhausted, charismatic officer whose men would follow him anywhere.

‘I’d like to go myself, Jake, but I simply can’t afford the time. I’ve several deadlines coming up. I also have Matt at home.’

I was shaking my head, trying to make it work properly. It was spinning a bit. I felt as though I’d been dropped into a play but didn’t know the lines.

The telephone rang, and Perry exited stage left to answer it. Once he’d gone, Lucy leaned towards me over the back of her chair.

‘Please, Jake. I know it’s a lot to ask, but you’ve absolutely nothing better to do.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Well, you haven’t.’

I pondered for a moment. ‘I thought you said this was typical of your stepmother, and you hoped a lion had got her in the Serengeti?’

‘You know damned well I wasn’t serious about the lion.’

‘No, I don’t know. Have you tried the Kenyan police?’

She gestured impatiently. ‘Do try to be realistic.’

‘It’s not me that’s unrealistic. It’s you lot. You’re off your bloody trolleys. This is why you got me down here, isn’t it?’ The penny had finally dropped. ‘To send me off to look for some globetrotting housewife so I can get her to come back and restock the freezer.’