Chapter Sixteen
The following morning while drinking coffee in her kitchen, Grace was still pondering what Frank could have meant when a reply came through from Annie.
As soon as she saw Annie’s name on her phone screen, a pang of guilt stung.
She’d become so focused on her own family she’d forgotten she’d texted her.
She put her coffee down on the granite island and opened the message, ready to be a good friend and do whatever Annie needed. The message said: All good thanks! X
There was the exclamation mark and the kiss again, but this time it didn’t ring true.
Grace nibbled on the skin on the inside of her lip, her thumb paused over the keyboard on the screen, ready to type a reply, but unsure of what to say.
She found she wanted Annie to know she could turn to her if things weren’t good.
She put the phone down. Who was she kidding?
Even if Annie was struggling, she probably had countless friends she could rally to cheer her up.
Grace was nothing but a recent acquaintance.
How grandiose of her to want to ride in on her white stallion and save the day.
Making herself a cup of tea, Grace recalled the time in the car when Annie had mentioned that sometimes people feel alone even when they’re not, and the hairs on the back of her arms stood up.
Even if Annie did have plenty of friends, it didn’t mean she wouldn’t welcome one more.
She put her mug down and picked the device back up.
She typed: Great. If you fancy a cuppa sometime this week, I’m around.
X. She reread the words a few times, wondering if that hit the mark.
She deleted ‘this week’, because it was already Thursday so that seemed a bit demanding.
And she wasn’t only free this week. The chasm of her life opened up before her, depressingly empty and completely free. She pressed send.
She spent the day cleaning and doing errands, unable to settle for long on any one task before her thoughts overtook her. After an early dinner, she called Rosie to see if she could pop around for a visit.
‘Please do,’ said Rosie. ‘Paz isn’t back until Saturday and Jude’s at the BFI watching some obscure indie film I’ve never heard of. I’ve got a box of Maltesers with our names on it.’
Grace drove to Rosie’s modern townhouse near the station and parked on the steep drive, dragging her handbrake on tightly.
Rosie answered the door in a sweatshirt and joggers, chewing furiously.
‘I’m already halfway through the Maltesers,’ she said.
‘You’ll have to be quick if you want any.
’ Grace followed her up the steep stairs to the untidy through-room on the first floor, where Rosie’s laptop was open on the kitchen table next to the red box of chocolates and scattered utilities bills.
‘I’ve been editing these sunset shots.’ Rosie pointed at the screen where a row of trees was in silhouette, a flaming sunset behind, melting into gold at the top of the shot.
‘Stunning,’ said Grace. ‘Is that in Hawkwood?’ She popped a Malteser into her mouth and sucked the chocolate from the honeycomb centre. She lifted the papers and tapped them into a neat pile.
‘Yes.’ Rosie touched the keyboard, and another picture appeared. In this one, a wooden gate was flanked by two trees, their boughs creating the perfect frame. Beyond the gate was a field over which the sky was ablaze with the most beautiful sunset.
‘Wow,’ said Grace. ‘I love that one.’
‘They’re going on display at Chislehurst Library,’ said Rosie. ‘Then on to Petts Wood and Bromley.’
‘That’s great. So many people will get to see how clever you are. It’s late to be editing, though,’ said Grace. ‘Surely you don’t work every evening?’
Rosie grinned. ‘I remember someone saying, “Find a job you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.” Now who could that have been?’
‘Hm, you really are your father’s daughter.
’ Grace pulled Rosie in for a hug. She might be considerably smaller than her daughter, who took after Frank physically with her height and dark hair, but Rosie would always be Grace’s baby girl.
She pulled back and stared into her daughter’s eyes.
They were blue, like her dad’s but with hazel flecks at the centre, as if nature wanted to give a nod of acknowledgement to her mother’s part in her creation.
‘Actually, I wanted to talk to you about your dad.’
Rosie made them both a cup of tea, then picked up the chocolates and took them through to the back of the long room, where a large cream sofa sat under the window.
She shoved away a pile of clothes randomly sitting in the middle.
They both took a seat and Rosie put the Maltesers on the cushion between them. ‘What’s up, buttercup?’
‘Did your dad ever talk to you about his brother?’
‘Tony?’
‘Yes.’
There was a crunching sound as Rosie bit through a chocolate. ‘Yeah, he talked about him sometimes. Why?’
‘I found one of your dad’s reading journals. He’d read a book called Rachel’s Holiday and said it reminded him of Tony.’
‘In what way?’
‘The main character was addicted to alcohol.’
Rosie nodded. ‘Right. I remember Dad giving me a firm talking to about the perils of alcohol when I was about fifteen. He’d picked me up from a house party and I was absolutely smashed.
It was back in the days before me and my friends realized necking six vodka shots in half an hour wasn’t the best way to enjoy a party. ’
Grace usually avoided thinking about those awful teenage years, when Rosie was wilful and defiant and seemed to go years without making a single good decision.
‘God, you were a handful. I can’t believe you’ve got off so lightly with Jude.
A part of me wishes he was a nightmare teen, so you knew what we went through with you. ’
‘Ha!’ Rosie paused, mid-chew. ‘Although, I think I’d rather he’d been out drinking and partying than being the anxious perfectionist he was.
He seemed to find being a teenager harder than I did.
Every perceived criticism cuts him to the core, and that trait wasn’t exactly conducive to hanging out with typical teenage boys, or girls for that matter.
’ She sipped at her tea before popping three chocolates into her mouth at once.
‘Fair point.’ Grace remembered too well how Jude shied away from company, staying in his room and worrying about his homework when he should have been downing vodka shots – well, a fruity cider, at least. ‘He’s out with friends tonight, though? He’s doing well, isn’t he?’
Rosie smiled. ‘He’s with his friend Robin. I can’t see him ever needing to hang out with a big group of people his age, but he’s got one or two close friends, and that seems to suit him. He’s doing brilliantly. I hardly worry about him anymore. Never thought I’d see the day.’
Grace reached over and squeezed her daughter’s hand. ‘That’s good to hear.’ She sucked the coating off another Malteser thoughtfully. ‘Did your dad say anything about Tony’s drinking being a symptom of anything?’
Rosie furrowed her brow. ‘Not really. He did say there was a history of alcoholism in his family, though.’
‘What?’ Grace blinked at Rosie, unable to assimilate this new information. ‘What history?’ She wanted to ask why he hadn’t told her, because that was the question piercing her heart, but it didn’t seem like a question you asked your child.
‘He just said “a history”. I was a kid. I didn’t ask the ins and outs. Maybe he didn’t say anything to you because of the way his parents hushed everything up. I don’t really remember Grandma, but I know she was devoutly Catholic, wasn’t she?’
Grace remembered Frank’s mother turning her rosary beads over and over in her gnarled fingers near the end of her life.
‘She was. That makes sense. She was a proud woman, hated the idea of people knowing the family’s business.
She never told anyone Tony was drunk when he fell.
Just pretended it was an awful accident.
Which it was, in any case. But … I’m surprised your dad didn’t tell me.
’ She was surprised. She was hurt too, although she didn’t want to admit it.
‘I think Dad only told me because he was worried I was going the same way.’
‘You were never …’ Grace stopped when Rosie cocked her head to one side. ‘Okay, you were a worry for a few years. I’ll give you that.’
‘Dad wanted me to know I was more at risk than other people might be.’
‘From alcoholism?’
‘From any addiction, I think. We talked about how he was prone to getting obsessed with things, and how I started hobby after hobby, certain it was going to be my life’s work, then I’d ditch it to try something else as soon as you’d bought me all the kit.
Obviously, I told him he was wrong, and he didn’t know what he was talking about, but …
’ She nodded towards the laptop on the kitchen table.
‘I’ve been editing the pictures for that exhibition since after lunch without a break. ’
‘You enjoy your job,’ said Grace. ‘That makes you lucky. I’m sure most people would throw themselves into work if it was their passion as well, and I like the fact you and your dad never did things by halves. It shows a strong work ethic.’
‘If only I could apply the same ethics to the laundry,’ Rosie said, surveying the pile of clothes.
‘No one sane is passionate about laundry,’ said Grace.
Rosie pulled a face. ‘Most normal people don’t have to do every load three times because they forget they’ve put it in.’
‘You’re saying normal as if it doesn’t apply to you, but we’re just an ordinary family like everyone else.’ Grace was indignant at the suggestion her family was anything but perfect.
Rosie paused and took a breath, and Grace got the impression she was choosing her words carefully. ‘We’re a bit quirky, that’s all – me, Dad and Jude have always had that levelled at us. And there’s nothing wrong with being quirky.’
‘Quirky is good. At least you’re not boring.’ She hadn’t been included in the list, and the exclusion hurt, even though she wasn’t sure she wanted to be quirky.
‘At least you and Paz pass as normal.’
Grace found she was in the strange position of being insulted by the suggestion she was normal.
She didn’t feel like she was different to the rest of her family, but that was because she didn’t view them as strange.
After reading Frank’s journal, and talking to Rosie, unease was settling over her.
Did she know her family at all? Had she been kidding herself they were one happy family?
She was an observer by nature, but the thought she was on the outside looking in at the only people she’d ever needed made her stomach acid fizz.
She was about to ask Rosie more, when Rosie’s phone rang. Rosie squinted at the screen. ‘Unknown number.’ She raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Let’s see what they’re trying to sell me this evening.’
She accepted the call and pressed the loudspeaker icon. A male voice said, ‘Mrs Clarke?’ But in the background came the unmistakable, bone-chilling sound of Jude screaming.