‘Of course I told Marjorie that father raped me,’ says Grace. ‘Marjorie would never be able to make up anything so interesting on her own account. They’re all like that in the media – no imagination at all. Poor father. He was very drunk and very angry.’
In what serves for a bedroom, Grace packs. That is, she empties drawers upon the floor, selects garments and stuffs them into squashy leather bags, seeming to have as much an affection for old torn knickers as she does for Yves St Laurent jumpers.
‘He’d taken off his belt to beat me – I think he once had a batman whose virility he admired very much, who used to say the way to keep women in order was to belt them. But all that happened to father was that his trousers fell down, and you know what those austerity underpants were like. I could see he had what I supposed – I was only fifteen – to be an erection. Usually his penis was a dim little thing snuggling in beneath his pot belly. Mother referred to it as daddy’s winkie. We had baths together, you know, to save the hot water. Sunday mornings. Marjorie went in with mother, I went in with father. It was unpatriotic to have more than six inches of water in the bath – even King George himself did not.
‘And here father was, pointing this great big swollen thing at me, like a gun. I told Marjorie he got me down on the bed and put it in, because that’s what she wanted to hear, and I might have known she’d pass the word along, but I don’t think he actually did. One would remember a thing like that, I suppose? Though in fact, in sexual matters, one remembers what one wants to forget. At the time I wanted it to be true. I told Patrick my father had raped me. I wanted him to take an interest.’
‘Did he?’ asks Chloe.
‘Yes,’ says Grace. ‘He laid me in the ditch, there and then, to take the taste from my mouth, he said. And then he said tell no-one, or I’ll go to prison, you’re under age, look what a risk I’m taking on your behalf. Forget it outside but remember it inside, he said. It’s good for you.’
‘Patrick and his therapeutic dick,’ says Chloe, sadly.
Occasionally, as Grace tosses about amongst her piles of clothing – as she used to toss about, as a child in piles of autumn leaves – she will lift a jersey or bra to her nose and sniff, and if she finds it offensive she will either throw it into the waste bin, if she considers it too far gone, or spray lavishly with cologne before returning it to its pile. Chloe is half admiring, half shocked.
‘It’s a relief to be able to talk about such things,’ says Grace. ‘All those years we had to keep quiet! Sebastian talks about everything all the time, every detail, as if nothing that happened was too terrible to mention. When we make love, which isn’t often, thank God, he keeps up a running commentary. I don’t like it at all.’
And indeed, Grace prefers the silent embraces of her youth, when there were no words for what she did, or what was done to her, or if there were, she didn’t know them.
In those other days of speechless intertwinings, she feels, a darker force came into play, linking her more closely to the mindless patterns of the universe. Now this procreative essence shrivels in the light of knowledge. Fellatio, cunnilingus, sodomy – is this what is happening? Is this better than the night before, or what the Jaggers do? Grace would really rather not know, but to Sebastian such knowledge is all in all. Presently it will be the same for her. She knows it.
‘I preferred it when fuck was a swear word,’ says Grace.
‘You ought to get this place cleared up,’ says Chloe, nervous of what Grace might say next.
What does Grace have to offer Sebastian, Chloe wonders, since it’s not her sexual cooperation? You could leaf through a whole month’s supply of women’s magazines and not find the answer. Certainly not his creature comforts, let alone a secure and supportive base from which to face the outer world. Apart from the builders’ droppings, the floor is littered with books, crumbs, bills, mouse-traps, wine corks, empty bottles and old camembert boxes. The toilet has recently overflowed and the floor has been only cursorily cleaned. Out on the balcony Grace has been building a curious part-shiny part-encrusted tower with the foil boxes in which Chinese take-away food has been delivered. So much for talent.
Grace If you don’t like the mess, don’t look. You’re a poor cowardly timorous thing, like your mama. You think if you don’t clean up, no-one will love you.
Chloe (Lying) It’s not that at all. It’s if you don’t clear up you get typhoid.
Grace (Happily) We have rats. That ought to look good in court. I feed them.
Chloe You must get in new builders. It’s impossible to live like this.
Grace How can I? I haven’t any money until I get damages from the last lot.
Chloe Grace, you must have some money. You’ve just sold the Acacia Road house.
Grace I’ve given it all to Sebastian. He has to make a feature film about a strike in the Warwickshire coal fields in 1933.
Chloe (Horrified) Grace!
How many times has she not spoken that word, in just those tones? Perhaps it is to hear it that Grace behaves as she does? Spoken by Chloe, a wail of concern.
Grace Sebastian says it’s Christie’s money anyway. It ought to be ploughed back as soon as possible into the society whence it was milked.
Chloe But that’s nonsense.
Grace Do you think so? In any case I’m certain to get it back. I have a percentage of the profits.
Chloe What profits? You’re crazy. If you want to invest in a film why didn’t you ask Oliver first?
Grace Because I don’t love Oliver. I love Sebastian. Anyway Oliver belongs to another world. He’s too old. What a bourgeois soul you have, Chloe. You’ve gone quite pale.
Chloe What about Stanhope’s school fees?
Grace Perhaps he’ll have to go to a comprehensive school, after all. That should please you. But it will be from necessity, not principle, don’t think otherwise.
Chloe God give me strength.
This is Oliver’s favourite phrase.
Grace Don’t get so agitated. Stephen said it was a perfectly good script. He told me I should put my money in it. He said the world was ripe, for protest films.
Chloe But Stephen is in advertising, not films.
Stephen is Grace’s brother. He is twenty-seven.