Saving Grace (6 page)

She has all the right experience and is looking to live ten minutes away. Could anything be more perfect? More right?

She will phone for the references tomorrow, and if everything works out, she will offer her the job.

There is a part of Grace that feels instant relief at the prospect, as if she is finally able to exhale. The stress of trying to cope with everything herself has been more than she has been able to admit. What a relief, what a joy to be able to hand it over to someone as capable and confident as Beth.

What a relief not to have to mother her husband; for her husband needs not just a wife, but someone to hold his hand, soothe his soul, keep him calm, and there is only so much Grace is able to do.

T
heir lovemaking was never filled with huge passion. Tried and tested, less passionate than well worn, it had been satisfying, comfortable. Often it was quick, routine. Often, they didn’t kiss. It felt perfunctory – Grace acquiescing to fulfill her marital obligation; Ted initiating, more because, it seemed to Grace, it was what he knew he was supposed to do rather than because there existed a great passion between them.

There had been desire in the beginning, but age, exhaustion, their busy lives made that seem a very long time ago. For years it had been more duty than fun. For years Grace had prayed for the sound of Ted’s snoring long before she reached the final page.

How different it was from what she expected as a young woman, convinced marriage was the beginning of a fairy tale. All those years ago she walked across a country field to an arbour strewn with flowers, her eyes sparkling with hope and love and daydreams. She had visions of a perfect life, of endless romance, of finally being able to breathe now that she had found her life partner.

There was nothing that had prepared her for real life, for real marriage, for the ups and downs; the times when you look at your spouse with something that feels very much like hatred, only for it to pass into numbness, then circle back around into deep connection and love.

This morning, Grace looks into Ted’s eyes and realizes she has once again come full circle. There are times when his ego, his demands, his moodiness, his temper are exhausting. There are times when it’s all too much, when she feels herself retreat to lick her wounds, leaving him in the care of Ellen, leaving him to his own devices, unable to deal with his criticism, the way he blames her.

There are times when she finds him exhausting, exasperating. When her feelings for him run much closer to hatred than to love. But it doesn’t occur to her to leave. She made a vow, and the only thing of which she is absolutely certain is that this too shall pass. It always does. The good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful . . . it all passes.

When she looks at him with disdain, finds fault with everything he does, she has learned to take deep breaths, to keep herself busy, to be more careful with how she spends her time – to do things that make her happy, bring her joy. She will ring Clemmie and take her out in the city or go to see a movie with her friend Sybil. Things she can do without him, things that remind her of the good in life.

She will keep the focus on herself rather than look for someone to blame and wait for it to pass.

It has passed. This morning, as they make love, slowly, mindfully, she looks into her husband’s eyes and feels a thread of connection so strong she can almost see it. She loves him. She loves him. She has only ever loved him. These are the times when that is easy to believe.

Afterwards she gets up, goes into the bathroom as Ted watches her from the bed, manuscript in hand, peering over the top of his reading glasses, laying the manuscript down for a few moments to admire his wife.

‘You are still the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,’ he says, admiration and gratitude both apparent in his gaze.

Grace pauses, smiling at the unexpected compliment, glad they have circled back to finding love and appreciation for each other. She blows him a kiss before going into the bathroom, a newfound lilt to her step.

‘How’s the manuscript?’ she calls, hearing Ted’s foosteps on the stairs. ‘Is it still the one you were reading? The writer being hailed as the next Ted Chapman?’ Ellen is the one who usually sifts through the manuscripts and advance reading copies that arrive, but these last few weeks it has been Grace, and she is interested in what he thought.

‘It’s good,’ Ted says. ‘But not great. A compelling story and moving characters, but overwritten. A little too much. Still. I’m blurbing it. It’s from my editor and I think it’s good blurb karma. Will you send it back to the publisher today?’

‘Which publisher? Did you keep the cover letter?’ Grace’s heart sinks, knowing how Ted always loses the letter of introduction, the letter that names the editor.

‘No. No idea where it went. You’ll track it down. It’s someone at Penguin.’

Grace will track it down, by first going through the ever-growing piles of papers in Ted’s office, then, when that fails, by ringing Penguin and speaking to editorial assistant after editorial assistant until someone discovers the editor. It will take at least an hour, and it is an hour that needs to be spent testing new recipes for Harmont House and preparing the shopping lists for next week.

‘Of course,’ she says, staring past the mirror on the makeup table and looking out the window.

The garden is starting to bloom and nothing was cut back last year. She could employ teams of landscapers, but nothing gives her more pleasure than getting out there herself. Even when the work is backbreaking, it grounds her, in the truest sense of the word. She isn’t a style icon, or a writer’s muse, or the wife of an important man when she’s on her knees in the garden, hair scraped back under an old hat, clippers in hand; she just
is.

She doesn’t think, doesn’t worry, has no anxiety She feels no pressure when she is in her garden. She can weed for hours, losing all sense of time until her back starts to hurt and she remembers all the other things she has to do.

Today was the day she planned to do the garden before a market run for ingredients for the week’s cooking at Harmont House.

Perhaps, she thinks with a sigh, she will postpone the gardening. The only thing she won’t skip is Harmont House.

J
ennifer grins at her from the other side of the room, watching as Grace pulls the knife honer out of the drawer and starts to sharpen the knives.

‘What?’ Grace looks up, surprised to see Jennifer still in the doorway.

Jennifer shakes her head. ‘You and I go back years, and to me you’re always just Grace, but every now and then I’ll open a magazine, or watch a TV show, and there you are, wife of the famous Ted Chapman! I just can’t ever compute the glamorous woman in the magazine with the woman who shows up here and cooks her arse off five times a week.’

‘You mean, the woman who shows up here looking like crap?’

‘You could never look like crap, sweetie,’ Jennifer says. ‘Your beauty shines through, whatever the exterior. I mean it, though. I constantly forget who you are.’

Grace straightens up. ‘I’m no one, Jennifer.’ Her voice is soft. ‘I’m no one. Just a girl who loves to cook. The only reason anyone has ever taken notice of me is because of what my husband does. And even that doesn’t make him better than anyone else. He just happens to be incredibly talented. We’re shockingly ordinary.’ Even as she says it, she knows it’s not true. In many ways she is still unchanged, but how could Ted not have been affected by all the years of everyone telling him he was wonderful?

How could Ted think he is no better than anyone else when all he has heard, for years and years, is that he is superior in every way?

She still loves him, of course. But she loves him partly because she sees beyond the veneer, because although his persona is firmly in place, she sees the insecure little boy hiding behind that, and it is him that she loves.

She loves him even when he drives her mad and she tolerates his ego that has, despite what she has just said, grown exponentially over the years.

Harmont House has been her refuge, the place where she finds a sense of peace; she honestly doesn’t know how she would have survived without it.

When Grace was twenty-three, her mother died. The last time Grace saw her, six months earlier, her mother had been living in a refuge behind Oxford Street, a place Grace thinks of every time she steps over the threshold of Harmont House.

They took in homeless women, provided them with a roof over their heads, fed and cleaned them before attempting to put them on the path to rehabilitation. Unlike Harmont House, however, it was a state-run facility – Harmont House without the love.

Which is what brings Grace to Harmont House five days a week. Why she bonds so closely with the women who live there, with Jennifer, who runs the home. This isn’t about Grace doing a good deed for those less fortunate than herself; this is about Grace assuaging the guilt of not being able to do anything for her mother; this is about Grace having the ability to love these women, these women being able to receive her love, in a way her mother never could.

Ted’s refuge may be his barn. Grace’s? Surrounded by women who have come to feel like her family; there’s no question that hers is Harmont House.

Jennifer looks after Harmont House and is the driving force behind the organization. It was her brainchild, fresh out of recovery all those years ago, wanting to give something back. It was Jennifer who raised the funds to buy the big old Queen Anne-style house in Nyack and reworked it so there were five small studios, each with a small kitchenette. There was a large playroom and a kitchen, the dining room table seating twenty at a push. There was a communal living room, and a smaller room set aside for support meetings, for many of the women arriving had their own issues with alcohol and drugs.

Jennifer is strict and tough as old boots, with a heart as big as the ocean. As head of Harmont House, she takes in families broken down by fear and abuse, gives them jobs in the house to build their self-worth before helping them get jobs of their own in the real world.

Her mission in life is to rehabilitate these women enough for them to have their own lives, away from the men who have abused them. They need to show they are clean and sober before going on to support their families, before they can think about moving out of the house.

Families come and go, but the one constant, who stays in touch with all her ‘girls’, is Jennifer. Grace, full-time chef and current chair of the board, is at the forefront of all decision-making, but it is her kitchen prep work there five days a week that is the most fulfilling.

She isn’t the great Grace Chapman when she’s there, isn’t a style icon in her jeans and clogs, her hair scraped back in a bun, not a scrap of makeup or jewellery.

She shows up for shifts, either six or eight hours, giving Jennifer a break. She is there as the fill-in director, assigning jobs, organizing the house, leading meetings, giving out many hugs and teaching the women how to cook as she cooks for them herself.

The children in the house at any given time all fall in love with her, as do many of the women. The hardest part of the work is the turnover. After all these years, despite knowing she must not attach, it is impossible not to, particularly when you see the women come in scared, beaten, tight, then watch them unfurl over the months, watch their faces fill with pride as they get jobs, find self-worth, become peaceful in a way they never dreamed possible before now.

‘“Ordinary” is not a word I would ever use to describe you,’ Jennifer says. ‘It’s your kindness, Grace. And your cooking. We’d be living on macaroni cheese ready meals if it weren’t for you, and I’d probably manage to mess that up. So what’s on the menu today?’

Grace grins. ‘Your favourite. Cottage pie and apple crumble.’ She turns to the bag, rooting through the ingredients.

Jennifer swoons. ‘I’m going to put on even more weight!’ she grumbles, delighted. ‘Your mother must have been an amazing cook. I wish someone had taught me to cook like this.’

Grace pauses. ‘Oh damn. I can’t believe this. I forgot to buy the beef. How could I have forgotten that? It was first on the list.’

‘I can go and get it,’ says Jennifer. ‘I’ll run out.’

‘I’m so sorry. I seem to be forgetting everything these days.’

Jennifer pats her reassuringly on the back as Grace leans her head briefly on her shoulder. Jennifer is the sort of woman you confide in.

If there were anyone to whom she could tell the true story of her mother, anyone she could trust, Jennifer would be the likeliest candidate.

The only people in the world who know are Lydia and Patrick. Ted knows only that her mother died young, that Grace and she hadn’t been close, that Grace longed for a secure family because her own was so fragile. He doesn’t know the true story, only Lydia and Patrick know the true story. She hasn’t spoken to Patrick in years, and although she phones Lydia at least once a month, it is hard to jump right in to the big stuff when you are so far away.