Freeing Grace (11 page)

She was older, now, and her body sagged a little. But she was so pleased to see me. She stood at the kitchen door, her arms held out, eyes creased and bright. But I put down the phone and left her sobbing on the doorstep.

Sala had been in the pig bin again. I could see the mess, as soon as I got off the school bus.

On Sunday morning, I woke to daytime gloom and a blackbird singing in the rain. I leaned on one elbow and looked out. On the lawn, a rabbit was nibbling at the grass, his ears twitching in the wet. He sat up, sniffing, then lolloped his way calmly through the picket fence and in among Perry’s vegetables, where he began to help himself to cabbages. I had to admire his style.

I’m a fan of rabbits. My father and brother curse them and spread disease through their burrows so that they go blind and die horribly. We used to find their contorted bodies and throw them into the offal pit.

After a while, Matt’s stereo sprang to life and the smell of cooking bacon seeped into my room. I liked being there. It was a bit like a home.

The rain kept up steadily all morning. Lucy and I went for a walk under an enormous umbrella, across the ploughed fields and through Coptree Woods. She was energetic and long-legged in gumboots and a waxed jacket of Perry’s. When her fingers froze, she shoved her hands under my jersey.

If we were going to start something, that was probably the moment. But we didn’t. Perhaps, when it came to the crunch, the age gap was too wide for both of us. For my part, although I’d pulverise anyone who hurt her, I knew I couldn’t offer Lucy what she deserved. In four years’ time she’d have been throwing me out, just like Anna.

She stood looking at me with those all-knowing green eyes. Then she smiled and touched my cheek. So we walked home, under the umbrella, like two good mates. Which is what we were.

Nobody mentioned Mrs Harrison again until Perry cornered me after lunch, as I was skulking in the sitting room. I’d been thinking about his suggestion, though. Going to Africa on a zany quest was a ridiculous idea, calculated to waste weeks of my life. But it seemed as good a way as any of avoiding the fact that I’d cocked up my life. I had no job, no girlfriend, no goal. I was rootless and drifting. My freedom was a vacuum.

And then there was young Matt. Even if I was under the influence of his hooch at the time, I’d promised to find his mother. He’d seemed so desperate.

Perry brought in a pot of coffee on a tray, and we sat opposite each other by the fire, a couple of old geezers in their gentlemen’s club. Perry was a bit too exotic for the scene, somehow. He ought to be puffing on a hookah in the shadowy depths of a Middle Eastern café, plotting assassinations.

‘So,’ he began, fixing me with his kohl-rimmed eyes. I knew what was coming. ‘Have you thought?’

I nodded my head, and then shook it. ‘It’s just crazy, Perry.’

‘You’re entitled to your opinion. But you’ll do it?’

‘Your wife does
want
to be found, does she?’

He held out his hands, like a used-car salesman. ‘Of
course
, Jake. She loves us.’

‘And you reckon she’s in Mombasa?’

For just a second—less, maybe a hundredth of a second—I thought I saw a gleam in his eye. It’s hard to describe. It was a flicker of some private party. But even as I watched him, I thought I must have been mistaken. He instantly looked as weary and haunted as ever. In that whole weekend, I only saw him smile about twice.

‘We had a postcard from there. Hang on, I’ve got it.’ He dug in the desk drawer and pulled out a postcard with a picture of two Arab sailing boats in a saffron sunset. Clearly, Perry didn’t believe in sticking things to the fridge with magnets. He dropped it onto the tray.

‘Go ahead.’

I looked down at the handwriting. It was a confident scrawl in blue biro; the sharp loops of a person in a hurry.

Lovely family,

      
Got the piece finished and sent off. On another story now, one I’ve
been after for years. Take care of yourselves.

      
Love you all.

      
Mum/Deborah

I squinted at the description printed underneath the picture. ‘It says Zanzibar.’

He waved a thin hand, irritated. ‘Yes, I know it says Zanzibar, man. But look at the postmark.’

‘Ah, I see. Mombasa. Okay. But she’ll be long gone by now, surely?’

‘I don’t think so.’

He knew more than he was telling me, I was sure of it. He wasn’t just relying on a blurred postmark.

‘Perry, I—’

‘She’s blondish. Slim, medium height.’ He picked up the photo of her, the one taken by Lucy in Greece. Slid it out of the frame. ‘Better take this. It’s not the most recent, but it’s a close-up. Ask in the post office, the police station, ask the taxi drivers. Failing that, try along the coast. I don’t imagine she’ll be in one of the big tourist resorts, so look off the beaten track. There are less accessible places. Extremely basic. Campsites. Backpacker lodges.
Someone
will know.’

‘You’ve been?’ I asked, suddenly suspicious.

‘Not recently.’

‘When did you—’

‘You’ll need to hire a vehicle out there. Use your credit card, and I’ll reimburse you in full.’

‘No you won’t. The cost isn’t the issue.’

‘That’s good of you.’ He inclined his head. ‘I suggest you leave your car and all your things here, and have your mail forwarded to this address.’

‘Hold on, Perry. Whoa. I haven’t agreed to go.’ I held up my hands to halt his steamroller. ‘I don’t
get
it. I don’t understand what all this is about.’

This time he did smile, very briefly, and I caught a flash of gold tooth.

‘Come on, man. Where’s your sense of adventure?’

Chapter Eight

The fiftieth birthday party on Saturday night turned out to be a good one. Leila’s band—Dusty and the Defibrillators—consisted of two junior doctors from the Queen Elizabeth (keyboard and guitar), a student nurse (double bass), an administrator (drums), a GP (saxophone) and Leila. They played everything from Gershwin to Lloyd Webber via the blues—it was for fun, not for money, although Leila suspected that Patrick, the drummer, would have loved to give up his day job.

That night they were a success. The hotel’s dance floor heaved with lindy-hopping fifty-year-olds and embarrassed teenagers, and Leila brought the house down with a husky blast of ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’ before the band took a half-hour break.

‘Nice one, Leila!’ Maggie lowered her sax into its case. ‘Watch out, Ella Fitzgerald.’

Maggie’s surgery worked closely with Leila’s pharmacy; the two women were regularly in touch over the minutiae of prescriptions. It was she who’d dragooned Leila into the band.

‘They’re a fantastic crowd,’ said Leila, looking around happily. The sun had risen on the world, tingeing her future with gold light. Leila had new energy, clarity of mind, and affection for her fellow man.

Maggie was thirty: plain, perky and almost divorced. Separation had made her rebellious, and this evening she wore a bowler hat, a black basque and jeans. She had wispy hair and an uncomfortable nose, but no shortage of admirers.

The band had their own table. Maggie turned a chair around, sat astride it and poured two glasses of fizzy wine. ‘Cheers.’ She had to shout above the music, as she handed a glass to Leila. ‘Oh my God, someone’s asked for “The Birdie Song”
.
I thought this shindig was supposed to have a touch of class?’

Leila took the glass, sipped, remembered, and carefully put it down.

‘Can’t,’ she said firmly.

Maggie stared. ‘
Can’t
? You’ve not gone teetotal on me, you baggage?’

‘Temporarily.’

‘Why?’

Leila wriggled delightedly.

‘You’re not . . . ?’ Maggie leaned closer, hazel eyes widening. ‘You’re
not
? . . . No! You
are
!’

‘Shhh!’ Leila’s smile was dazzling as she put a finger to her lips. ‘Top secret. I haven’t even told David.’

Maggie leaped up, blasphemed merrily and spun her bowler into the air. It sailed onto a fan and began to have the ride of its life. ‘This is the best news I’ve had all year. When did you find out?’

‘Last night. It was one of those really early tests, which is why I haven’t told David yet.’

‘Oh.’ Maggie’s enthusiasm slipped a little. She ruffled her flyaway hair, calculating. ‘So you’re still only . . . ?’

‘Four weeks. Max. I’ll do another one soon, but it’s all fine. I just know it is.’

Maggie bustled around the table to hug her. ‘Sit down, for God’s sake. Have an orange juice . . . here. How are you feeling?’

‘I feel absolutely fantastic,’ said Leila. ‘And incredibly lucky.’

Maggie held up two sets of crossed fingers. ‘Come in and see me at the surgery. This week. Promise?’

‘Promise.’

‘Monday. Come in on Monday.’

‘Okay. Maybe. But that’s enough about me. What about you? What’s Harry been up to?’

Maggie shook her head. ‘Poor old Harry has finally lost the plot,’ she said pityingly. ‘I got a solicitor’s letter last week. They reckon I’m stashing about half a million quid in an offshore bank account.’

‘Incredible.’ Leila laughed. ‘You wish!’

‘It’s this new boyfriend putting him up to it,’ said Maggie, rolling her eyes. ‘Paranoid Peter. If my husband had only had the sense to run off with a
woman
, we might have settled everything amicably.’

‘Meanwhile the lawyers charge like car batteries.’

Maggie scowled. ‘He’s not even asking to see Toby. I had to insist that he take him tonight.’

‘Oh, no.’ Toby was Maggie’s three-year-old son. ‘How is the poor little man?’

‘Confused. I never expected it to turn out like this.’ Maggie picked at the lace on her basque. ‘I knew we had to split up when I caught Harry taking a shower with the plumber. But I thought we’d do it with panache. With style. Be bestest of friends. All this aggro is so . . . mediocre.’

She downed her glass in one go, and poured another. ‘If your David ever starts wearing Lycra shorts and going cycling, get a private detective. It’s a very, very bad sign.’

‘David would look
ridiculous
in cycling shorts.’

‘So what’s he really like, under all that lovely lanky charm? Is he incredibly holy?’

Leila’s eyes danced. ‘He was a womaniser of the worst kind when I first met him. Drank, swore, broke hearts and went to church on Sundays to ask forgiveness.’

‘Until you came along.’

‘Perhaps.’ Leila looked slightly rueful. ‘He’s a real teacher’s pet nowadays. Gets up at six every morning. Reckons he needs the space to pray.’

‘What about you?’

‘Oh,
me
. . . My family were pillars of the church. That’s how I got into singing. Through gospel. I was the choir leader.’ Leila smiled and then shrugged. ‘But my faith seems to have slunk away, tail down, like an old alley cat. I’d be an atheist, but I’m too much of a coward.’

‘Not a very good vicar’s wife, are you?’

Leila leaned closer. ‘I promised God I’d join the choir and do the altar flowers, if the test was positive. I even said I’d start a Bible study group. So now I’ve got to do all that stuff, just in case he exists.’

Maggie laughed extravagantly, choking on a mouthful of wine.

Suddenly, Leila giggled and pointed across the dance floor to where Maggie’s hat had flown off the fan, to the delight of a group of young men.

‘Look at that!’ Maggie cried. ‘They’re using it as a Frisbee, cheeky sods. Hoi! That’s
mine
, you thieves!’

A body builder type brought back the battered headgear, apologising. He had a square jaw and broad shoulders, and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to reveal hairy arms. Maggie looked him up and down, thanked him cordially and then winked at Leila. When he asked her to dance, she took his hand and let him pull her to her feet.

‘Look after this for me,’ she yelled, resting the hat on Leila’s head.

Leila tipped it forwards so that it covered one eye, and touched her upper lip with the tip of her tongue.

‘Very alluring. God, woman,
everything
looks better on you,’ complained Maggie. ‘Some people have all the luck.’

The luck held until Monday morning.

As soon as she saw the blood, Leila knew. She recoiled, gasping as though she’d seen a snake. She riffled with numb, shaking fingers through her handbag and took out another pregnancy test kit. It was the one that was supposed to be just for confirmation, before she told David. She went through the old routine. Waited. Waited, willing the line to appear. But this time the little window sneered at her, leered at her, cruelly, sickeningly white.

For a long time, she leaned against the basin of Kirkaldie’s staff toilet in a cold sweat. She felt faint. Panicky. Finally, she splashed water on her face and dug her phone out of her bag. Mercifully, Maggie was between patients.

‘Leila! I’m still hung-over from Saturday night, and I’ve got post-alcohol paranoia. Did I do anything disgraceful? Do I need to apologise to anyone?’

‘No,’ said Leila.

‘Remember hairy Howard, the body builder? He’s actually a physics teacher. Turned out his girlfriend had just dumped him. All he wanted was a shoulder to cry on.’

Leila couldn’t speak. The ground was spinning away from under her feet.

‘Anyway.’ Maggie was cheerful. ‘What’s the problem, you bossy baggage? Don’t tell me you can’t read my writing again. When are you coming in, like I told you?’

‘Um,’ said Leila, and cleared her throat. ‘Now.’

Maggie had half an hour free before evening surgery. She did a blood test. But there wasn’t really any doubt.

‘Be honest, Maggie,’ said Leila. ‘I just need to know.’

‘Okay.’ Maggie took a deep breath. ‘Well. It looks like a chemical pregnancy.’ She washed her hands at the basin. ‘Probably never even had a chance to implant.’

‘So . . .’ Leila perched on a chair, hands twisting together. ‘So my baby never existed?’

Maggie’s face was pinched with sympathy. ‘Oh, Leila. Yes, it existed. But very briefly.’

‘And now it’s gone?’

Maggie laid a hand on her friend’s arm. ‘This is very common. Incredibly common, but normally people never even know. Look, you’re in no state to get yourself home. Let me phone David and ask him to come and get you.’