When Grace didn’t answer the door, I thought she must be out. Her car was in its usual place, parked up against the crumbling barn that would eventually be incorporated into the farmhouse, but I reasoned she was perhaps out for a walk with Jonty. The door was unlocked so, calling to her, I let myself in.
I took one look at Grace’s drained, pinched face and knew instantly things were very wrong. I think I was so used to seeing Grace as strong, in charge and definitely lipsticked and mascaraed, that this stranger that met me as I walked through the door totally floored me. She was lying in a foetal position on the settee, eyes closed, fingers pressed into her ears and still in pyjamas and grubby dressing gown, while a plaintive cry from the next room was becoming steadily more strident and insistent.
‘Grace?’ I put a hand to her shoulder and she started like a terrified deer as she saw my face. Of course. She didn’t know anything about my fall. I’d been looking forward to telling her all about it, embellishing it a bit as you do, especially the bit about my own version of The Vagina Monologues, which made me giggle every time I thought about it. ‘Long story,’ I smiled, as she looked in bewilderment at my bruised face and black eye. ‘Come on,’ I soothed, ‘this isn’t like you. What’s the matter? What is it?’
‘I can’t do it, Hat. I can’t do it.’ She rubbed at her eyes, smudging the remains of black mascara down her white cheeks. That was a bit of a relief – she’d obviously got round to putting some mascara on at some stage but, from the look of her, that had been days ago.
I knelt down beside her, taking her cold hands in both of mine. ‘Just tell me what you can’t do, Grace. Is it Seb or the new house – I glanced round at what could only be described as a tip – or having bloody Amanda round here all the time? She’s not here at the moment, is she?’
‘No, no, she’s at home. And to be honest, I couldn’t have done this without her the last few days, Hat. I just, I just…’ Grace’s beautiful brown eyes filled with unshed tears and I watched, in dismay, as she blinked and the floodgates opened. It was a long time since I’d seen Grace sob like this. Even when Dan had first left her, the previous year, she hadn’t reacted this way. Instead, she’d hardened, her face a polished veneer that hid the hurt inside, and got on with her life.
I couldn’t ignore the other cries which, rising to a crescendo of fury, were coming from what was presumably intended as Grace and Seb’s new dining room and, giving Grace a hug, went in search of Jonty. The brand new ‒ and obviously top-of-the-range ‒ buggy was in the farthest corner of the room, away from the closed door.
‘Shush, little one,’ I said, lifting him out and holding him to my shoulder. ‘Don’t make your poor old mum any unhappier than she already is. We need to make her smile, and you carrying on like this isn’t going to do that.’ I breathed in his lovely vanilla baby smell – even with two of my own I couldn’t get enough of it – and rocked him, murmuring, soothing. He was immaculately dressed, as only a grandchild of Amanda could be. I bet she’d spent a fortune on baby clothes for him – and not at Primark either, if the feel of his little outfit was anything to go by. He hiccupped a couple of times, yawned widely and then turned to gaze at me, his eyes curious. He was a beautiful child: there was no doubt about that. Now eight weeks old, he was already beginning to lose that wrinkled, little old man appearance that, let’s be honest, isn’t the greatest of looks. He had both Grace and Seb’s dark eyes and colouring, and the thought suddenly occurred to me that, if she were anything like her mum, Thea would be a pushover in years to come for this man child. Smiling to myself, wanting to share these thoughts with Grace, I went back into the sitting room to find her.
She’d obviously gone into the kitchen with the intention of filling the kettle, but I found her standing by the window, gazing down the fields to the valley below, the still empty kettle in one hand. I took it from her as I looked round at the kitchen and almost wept myself. Why on earth she and Seb had been adamant on moving into what could only be described as a building site, with a new baby, was beyond us all. She turned from the window, her face stricken, and I handed Jonty over to her. He began to cry almost at once and as Grace’s tears mingled with his she handed him back to me.
‘I told you, Hat, I can’t do it. I’m no good at this. I should never have had him. I should have stuck to what I was good at: teaching. I was a good teacher, wasn’t I? God, what I wouldn’t give to be back with my eleven year olds where I was in control. I was the boss. And they liked me. They loved me. They did, didn’t they, Hat? They really loved me. And I was bloody good at it.’ She moved over to the chair with the least baby paraphernalia, put her head down on the table and wept.
‘Oh, Grace, it will all be all right, I promise you. All new mums feel like this. I remember when I had Libby, I cried for days. Don’t you remember – you came to see me in hospital when she’d just been born and you couldn’t work out why I said I was happy but couldn’t stop crying? I sobbed all over your new cream suede jacket you’d worn for your first godmother’s visit, and you weren’t a bit impressed when you saw all the snot and wet down the front of it.’ I was trying desperately to make her feel better, convince her that we’d all been there, but she sobbed even harder, saying over and over again something I couldn’t quite catch. Then I realised she was repeating to herself and to me, ‘But I’m not happy, Hat. I’m not happy.’
‘No, Grace, but you will be. Honest. It’s bloody knackering having a new baby. All the baby books and adverts on TV paint a rosy picture of new mums with sleeping, beautifully burped babies over their shoulders. And they’ve all got their mascara and lipstick on – the mums, I mean, not the babies – and everything is wonderful. Well, I tell you now, Grace, it isn’t.’ I went over to her and attempted to raise her head from the table, but with Jonty still in my arms it wasn’t easy, so stroked her hair instead. Her thick chestnut coloured hair was greasy and needed a good brush, and a sour, unwashed smell rose from her now hot body.
‘Right. Listen, Grace, I’m going to get a shower going for you and you’re going to just think about yourself for a while. Sylvia will look after my two a bit longer and I’ll stay here with Jonty.’ Even as I said it, I pictured the twins ‒ who would be starving by now, and no doubt giving Sylvia a hard time, and knew I had to get back.
‘You can’t,’ Grace wept from the depths of the tabletop, and from which she didn’t seem to be able to rise.
‘Yes, I can. I’ll stay with you. It’ll be OK.’ I’d have to ring Sylvia in a minute and instruct her about bottles, milk and the baby food with which I was just starting to wean the twins.
Grace finally lifted her head and shook it. ‘No, I mean you can’t run me a shower, Hat.’
‘Yes, no problem. Honest. You’ll feel much better, showered… some clean clothes and something to eat. When did you last eat?’
Grace sniffed, blew her nose on a long piece of loo roll which she’d obviously been harbouring in her dressing gown pocket for days and raised a ghost of a smile. ‘You can’t run me a shower, Hat, because we haven’t bloody got one. There’s still that bath up there, but it’s pretty foul. It’s enamel and where it’s chipped it’s rusted over.’
‘OK, let’s go for that, then. Let me make one phone call to Sylvia and tell her what’s happening and then Jonty and I will run you a bath, find some lovely clean clothes for you, make us both some lunch and then I can tell you all about why, after yesterday’s little disaster, my sex life is probably over for good.’ I needed to make her smile again, but her face remained drawn, impassive.
‘And you want to? Have sex again, I mean?’ Grace pulled herself up from the table, wrapped the grubby dressing gown round her without tying the belt that was trailing on the floor and, without waiting for an answer, headed for the stairs. She didn’t move to take her baby from me where he was now asleep in my arms, making an occasional little snuffling sound. She didn’t even look at him.
The bathroom was a museum piece. When Grace and Sebastian had first shown Nick and me round, once their offer for the old farmhouse had been accepted, we all four had gazed in wonder at the cracked, glazed custard yellow tiles and the rusted toilet chain which produced an explosive rush of water once pulled. We’d looked, open mouthed, at the cast iron bath and huge clay sink which wouldn’t have been out of place down in what had previously been the farmyard. But it was the floor that had finally broken our silence as Nick enunciated just two words that said it all: ‘Fucking hell.’ Black and yellow, to match the wall tiles, the floor covering was a filthy, curling-at-the-corners disaster. Our shoes had stuck to the unwashed, viscid linoleum and I’d laughed nervously. ‘Grace, you’re not still thinking of moving in before the baby’s born, are you?’ and Grace, excited, blooming and full of love for both Sebastian and her much longed for and waited for unborn child, had thrown her arms around me, hugged me as well as she could with our two pregnant bellies between us and shouted, ‘Absolutely!’
That was five months ago and, while the unsavoury floor had been ripped up and thrown out to reveal the wooden floorboards below, nothing else had yet been done. The original contractors had, apparently, gone bust almost immediately after being given the contract and the new ones, sourced by a worried David Henderson, had yet to begin the mammoth task of renovating the place.
‘Sylvia, it’s me.’ I walked back to the sitting room and hooked Jonty over one arm while attempting to explain the situation to my mother-in-law. ‘I’m really sorry to land you in it like this, but could you possibly hold the fort a bit longer? I’m down with Grace and I don’t feel I can leave her at the moment.’ I didn’t want to give Sylvia the total rundown on what was happening at this end of the lane so added, ‘I think Grace has a bit of flu and needs to go to bed – she’s really not very well.’ I could hear Thea wailing in the background, but Sylvia assured me that, if I could just instruct her on what she should feed them both, she’d manage. ‘I’ll be back in an hour or so,’ I promised, glancing at my watch. ‘If you could give them both one of the bottles that are ready made up in the fridge, that would be wonderful.’
Just as I was making my way back up the threadbare, carpeted stairs to the bathroom, the front door banged behind me and I heard Amanda call.
‘Oh, Harriet, you’re here. How are you feeling? You look terrible. Where’s Grace?’ Amanda swooped on to Jonty like a bird spotting a tasty morsel as she rattled off this volley of words and, having eyes only for her grandson, it was apparent her questions were entirely rhetorical. Taking him over to the window, she cooed and jiggled, whispering in his ear and uttering such nonsense that I began to wonder if this was really the Amanda I knew of old. Beginning to feel a bit like an unwanted guest at a private party, I dithered for a while, unsure what to do. This was ridiculous.
‘Amanda, Grace is upstairs. Amanda? Are you listening?’
‘Oh, sorry, Harriet, did you say something?’ She was so wrapped up in Jonty, sniffing him, kissing him and generally behaving so totally out of character, that I was unsure how to break the spell she was obviously under. But I knew I had to leave her in charge of Grace so that I could get myself back home to the twins.
‘Amanda, I don’t think Grace is too good.’ While always loath to give Amanda the upper hand in any situation, I knew I had to share my concerns about Grace with her.
She moved away from the window, putting Jonty over her shoulder and stroking his back with such tenderness and love that he drifted off to sleep once more. She obviously knew how to handle him, I thought somewhat uncharitably. Wait until he was throwing up all over her pink cashmere, and putting sticky fingers on her latest Louis Vuitton acquisition.
Sighing slightly, she turned to me and said, ‘Harriet, I know Grace isn’t too good. It’s totally obvious she’s suffering from some degree of post-partum blues.’ She uttered these last three words in an almost Californian accent and, if the subject matter hadn’t been so worrying, I would have wanted to giggle.
‘Oh, no, Amanda, you’re wrong. Not Grace. She’s the last person who’d get post-natal depression,’ I protested, giving it its proper English title. ‘It’s this damned building site of a house that’s getting to her. It would get to anyone. I think we need to persuade Seb to find somewhere to rent for the three of them while all the renovations are being done. It’s going to be a good six months at least until any of these rooms are fit to live in, and winter is only just around the corner.’
‘Don’t you think I’ve been telling them this since Jonty was born? I’ve been on the phone to Seb at college this morning and he totally agrees with David and me on the matter. I don’t think you realise just what a hard time we’ve been having with Grace, and it’s really important that Seb finishes his course and finds articles without distraction if he is to be any use to Nick and David’s new business. You, as her friend, can surely make her see sense.’
I glanced at my watch. I’d been away from home for nearly two hours and needed more painkillers. All my battered bits were beginning to throb anew – now in time with Amanda’s measured tones – and I knew I had to leave Grace and get back.
I picked up my jacket and made my way to the back door. ‘You’re right, Amanda, she needs to get out of here. I wouldn’t have thought it would be too difficult to find somewhere to rent for the next six months.’
‘There is absolutely no reason to go down the rented place route. They must all three come and stay with David and me. Seb agrees. We’ve lots of room, and I’m more than happy to take over while Grace gets better. It would be a pleasure, wouldn’t it, my little man?’ She kissed Jonty’s head once more and I could see, in Amanda’s mind, at least, it was a fait accompli. I couldn’t, however, see Grace wanting to be a guest at the Hendersons’ for the next few months. She’d have to agree to renting somewhere: no way would she share Seb and Jonty with Amanda. She hated Amanda. Always had.
I glanced again at my watch and Amanda, noticing, said, ‘You get off, Harriet. You look like you should be back in bed yourself. I’ll stay here with Jonty until Seb gets home. I have to be honest with you, Harriet, I think the whole thing is an absolute mess. Sebastian is far too young to be embroiled in being a father at his age, and with…’ she paused, obviously choosing her words correctly, ‘and with a much older woman who obviously can’t look after herself, never mind a new baby.’
‘Hang on, Amanda. That’s not fair, and you know it.’ How dare she poke her damned nose in where it wasn’t needed. Having said that, it was obvious to both Amanda and me, standing in Grace’s building site with Grace herself out of action upstairs, that both Amanda and her nose were very much needed if things were to get any better round here. ‘Look, there’s not much more I can do at the moment – I have to get back to the twins – but I’ll be around to help her now I can see things really aren’t great. You persuade Seb and Grace to find somewhere to rent and I’m sure it will get better. Once she’s out of this dump she’ll begin to improve. I know Grace. This isn’t her at all. Give it a couple of weeks and she’ll be up and running again. She’s having a bath now. I’ll just pop upstairs and see if she’s managed, and then I really, really have to go.’
I heaved my now tired body back up the steep stairs and knocked on the bathroom door. ‘Grace, it’s me. Are you OK? Amanda’s downstairs with Jonty, so you stay in there as long as you want. He’ll be absolutely fine.’ When there was no reply, I pushed open the door. ‘Grace?’
The bathroom was empty: no sign of Grace attempting to fill or have a bath – or any sign, either, of Grace herself. I moved over to the room I knew she and Seb had decided they were having as their main bedroom and opened the door. The window, set in its crumbling and downright unsafe looking frame, was closed, and the air in the room was warm and fetid. Grace, still in her stained and sour smelling dressing gown and reduced to a hump underneath her duvet, was fast asleep.
*
‘Gosh, Sylvia, I’m so sorry leaving you to cope like this.’ I’d hurried home as fast as was feasible. Under normal circumstances, Grace’s farmhouse was only a five minute walk away but, with every bit of me jangling in remonstration at being still on my feet when I should be sitting down with several painkillers and a mug of tea inside me, it had taken me a good ten to walk the distance home. It was almost two o’clock and I needed to think about food for the ravening crowd that would descend in a couple of hours. Sylvia, juggling two babies at once, was, I could see, intent on remaining calm and in control, but her face was flushed and beads of sweat had settled on her forehead and top lip. I took Fin from her and she continued to walk up and down with Thea, who was in full flow.
‘Phew, I’m glad to see you.’ The relief in Sylvia’s voice was palpable. ‘I really don’t know how you manage these two and the other three as well.’ She sat down on the settee, obviously exhausted, while continuing to jiggle her granddaughter on her lap. ‘You need to get some help in, dear. You can’t carry on like this. You’ll make yourself ill. Have you thought about a nanny?’
‘A nanny? Oh, God, no, Sylvia. I don’t want anyone else in the house with me. I mean, if I was working it would be different, but there really is no need. The others are out at school all day and I manage. I muddle through. I’ve got Norma who comes in three times a week now to help with the housework and ironing – I really couldn’t do without her – and now I’ve totally stopped feeding these two myself it’s a lot easier.’
‘Well, I think you’re mad doing all this yourself.’ Sylvia tutted, eyes still closed. She did look a bit pale, and I began to feel really guilty that I’d left her to cope for so long. After all, she was pushing seventy now and, although I was sure Judge Colin was keeping her well exercised (perish the thought) she had only ever had Nick in the way of offspring, and that was obviously many years ago. ‘Now, dear, as this is my last night before I hit the road back south, I think we should all go out to eat this evening. My treat.’
The thought of not having to make a meal for the six of us was very tempting. ‘Where were you thinking of? It would have to be early doors so that we can take these two with us.’
Sylvia opened her eyes. ‘Well, when I was out yesterday looking for someone to do my hair,’ she patted her bob comfortably, a woman at ease now that she knew her hair was as she wanted it, ‘I came across a new little Italian place down one of the side streets in the village. How about that? What time will Nick be home, do you think?’
Nick’s times of arrival and departure were anyone’s guess. Lately his comings and goings were reminiscent of midsummer flights to Greece back in the eighties – one never knew how delayed an arrival would be, if it turned up at all. ‘No idea,’ I said, ‘but I do know where you mean about the place to eat. Grace mentioned it a while ago.’ A long while ago, I now realised. When I thought about it, I really hadn’t been around for her. Not a good friend at all.
‘How is Grace? Some sort of flu bug, is it?’
‘Actually, much more than that. I think she’s very depressed, and not coping at all.’
Sylvia snorted and opened her eyes. ‘Depression? What’s she got to be depressed about? She’s got the baby she’d been longing for. She’s got that very gorgeous young man who – I have to say, Harriet – I think has been an absolute saint sticking by her when he could be off, carefree and with as many young girlfriends under his belt as he could wish for.’ Sylvia emphasised the word young in a not overly pleasant way and I glanced across at her, surprised. My mother-in-law might have her faults, but bitchiness wasn’t generally one of them.
‘Well, living in a building site isn’t helping,’ I retorted sharply. I hated anyone criticising Grace over her relationship with Seb – and there certainly had been a lot of snide comments as to how the very eligible son of Amanda and David Henderson, at the age of just twenty-four, had given up his intended career in London to be with a woman almost fifteen years older than himself, and who was now stuck in the backwaters of Yorkshire and saddled with a new baby. How the tongues would wag now, if people saw Grace as I’d seen her this morning.
Sylvia sniffed. ‘Where’s her mother in all this? I’d have thought she’d be round there all the time, helping. Sylvia had met Katherine Greenwood, Grace’s mother, on several occasions – and although, on the surface, they’d appeared to get on well, I always felt there was a little bit of one-upmanship going on between the two. Sylvia had never felt the same need in staking her claim for superiority over my own mother, a council house residing, working class West Yorkshire woman with, now, unfortunately, the beginnings of dementia.
‘She and Grace’s dad are over in Australia. They’d had the trip booked for years – part of her dad’s retirement present to himself – and they actually postponed it for six months once they knew Grace was pregnant. She seemed OK after she’d had Jonty. It’s only been in the past few weeks, just as her parents left, that she’s found it difficult to cope with it all.’
And she had been fine to begin with, taking on the role of new mother with her usual aplomb. I didn’t know what had gone wrong – why she suddenly didn’t seem to be coping with it all. I was really shocked at the state I’d found Grace in and, while Amanda was not my favourite person – and certainly not Grace’s – I was relieved that she was on hand to help.
Sylvia looked over her glasses at me but said no more on the matter of Grace. Instead, she took our empty cups over to the dishwasher and picked up some of her belongings ready to depart in the morning. ‘Well, dear, I must go and pack. Much as I love being here with you all, I have to think about Colin now. He doesn’t like it when I’m away for too long.’ Sylvia almost smirked at the thought of her beloved. ‘A final meal out tonight will be a real treat, and will set me up for the drive back tomorrow.’
With no supper to prepare for all my other brood, two sleeping babes at my feet and two hours to go until I had to pick India up from school, I lay thankfully on the sofa and closed my eyes.