Restoring Grace (4 page)

‘
So,' said
Rick, when, clean and nearly dry, he presented
^hi
mself
downstairs and sat on the sofa. 'How did you get
on? Flog any daubs of mansions to the bloated plutocrats?’

Ellie shook her head. Grace had not been a
bloated plutocrat, even if some of her ancestors had been. 'No, but I took some
photos of a really lovely house.'

‘Get a commission?'

‘No. The owner couldn't afford it.'

‘
I think it's
a waste of time, Ellie, spending all that
petrol money trying to sell your paintings. You'd be better
off
with a job.’

She realised that this
was Rick 'taking an interest', and
she wished he wouldn't bother. 'I
have two jobs already, Rick, and they both involve standing. I'm not supposed
to stand too much now I'm pregnant.’

Rick scowled and it made him even more
attractive. 'I
thought we'd agreed you were
going to do something
about that.’

Ellie bit her lip. She didn't have the energy
for a row,
but how could he bring this all
up again? All Rick's sensi
tivity seemed to go into his art; there wasn't
any left for his relationship. 'You agreed. I didn't,' she said.

‘
We talked
about it and agreed it was the sensible thing
to do.’

Don't cry, Ellie, just hang on and keep calm, she ordered
herself. 'I agree it's sensible, I'm
just not going to do it.’

‘Susie had
one. She was fine.'

‘I'm sure
she was. I'm happy for her, but I'm not doing
i
t.'

‘Sentimental
fucking bitch,' he said without rancour.
Rancour
or not, Ellie winced. He didn't mean to hurt
her feelings, but he did
it, all the same.

‘
Are you going to cook me some tea, then?'

‘
No. I'm
going to work.' She would be early, but she
didn't care. At least at work she was paid to clean up and
people
occasionally said 'thank you'.

*

After Ellie had gone, Grace had continued with her prepar
ations for the wine tasting. It was
a new project: her
attempt to do something which
would eventually be lucrative and get her back in contact with people again.

She was quite successful
with her articles – a couple of
the local
papers had taken the ones she'd done so far and
were
keen for more – but she was mainly writing about special wine, which most
people couldn't afford. The wine-tasting project was an effort to get ordinary
people involved in tasting the wine that most people drank. It should be fun.
She just hoped her social skills hadn't completely atrophied. It would be the
first time she'd entertained since Edward left, and she'd never done it before
she was married.

She fetched the glasses
from under the stairs and took
them out of
the boxes, checking for smears. Then, dissatis
fied with their clarity, she put the kettle on and held each
one in
the steam before polishing it with a cloth.

Each place had six glasses
placed over a sheet marked
with numbered
circles, so people knew which glass
applied to
which numbered bottle. She had lovingly
drawn
round the bottom of six glasses and photocopied
them at the post office in the nearest town. While the man
behind
the counter had helped her when the machine broke down, she had discovered he
was a wine buff; he and his wife were coming tonight.

Beneath the glasses was a score sheet, with
numbers
and letters down the side and
columns for comments on
the smell and taste of each wine. There were
also places for scores. This sheet she'd made up from memory of a wine tasting
she'd gone to when she still worked for the Wine importers.

At the bottom of the sheet
was a list of the wines, their
^o
rigins, and their prices. It always made Grace smile when
she
remembered how people so often guessed wrong which was the most expensive and
which the cheapest; they were always so indignant about it.

She was
unnaturally nervous. It was, after all, only a
very
informal wine tasting - it was even free. She hoped people might make a
contribution for the wine, but this
was by
way of an experiment. Would people drive out
to the country and go into
someone's house to taste supermarket plonk? Her previous experience in the
village hall for the WI had been hugely popular and enjoyable. Everyone had
really got into the spirit of it, and although Grace had
thought she might actually vomit from nerves, once
she'd
got into describing the wines, she'd discovered she liked sharing
her interest with others. And meeting Ellie this afternoon made her feel a bit
better about being social -she'd managed fine with her.

When the telephone rang,
she assumed it was someone
ringing up to cancel - probably on
behalf of everyone -leaving her to drink all the wine and eat all the nibbles
by herself. Unsure whether, in her current state,
this was
what she wanted on not, she picked up the telephone gingerly.

It was her
sister. 'Hi, Grace, how are you?'

‘
Oh, hi, Allegra. Nice
to hear from you.' In some ways
it was nice, it would pass some time
before her guests
arrived and stop her
getting so nervous she started on
the wine and ended up a drunken wreck
before anyone arrived.

‘
I was
wondering if you'd thought any more about
selling the house.’

Typical Allegra, straight to the point. 'Well,
obviously I've thought about it, since you suggested it, but I'm certainly not
doing it.'

‘It just doesn't make sense, you living there
on your
own, now Edward's left.' Allegra
was obviously
convinced by the water-dripping-on-stone theory: if you
went on at someone long enough, eventually they would agree, being unable to
resist for ever.

‘
Edward left ages ago. Why should I sell now?'

‘Because now
you've had the roof fixed you'd get a proper price for it.’

If Allegra wasn't pulling her punches, then
neither would Grace. 'You mean you'd get a larger chunk.'

‘Don't be silly!' Allegra could be very sharp.
'Of course
the money you spent on the roof
would be taken off before
the money was divided. It was your divorce
settlement, after all. But you know perfectly well it was very unfair of Aunt
Lavinia to leave the house to you and not to all of us.'

‘
She left you
and Nicholas the furniture! That was
worth
quite a bit.' Grace felt both bored and exasperated.
It was not the
first time they had had this conversation and she knew it wouldn't be the last.

‘
Nothing like the value of the house.'

‘Well, she
was my godmother.'

‘
Really, Grace, I wish you'd stop being so childish and
stubborn about this! You must see that the house is far
too large for you to live in. Aunt Lavinia never paid much
attention
to you when you were a child, so why did she leave you her house when she died?
Obviously she was starting to go gaga. And if she wasn't in her right mind,
it's only fair that you should do the decent thing
and
share the house.'

‘
Do say if
you want to come and live here with me,'
said Grace crossly, 'but I
thought you were quite happy in Farnham with David and the boys.'

‘
Oh, don't be ridiculous!'

‘
Well, perhaps she felt
guilty about never doing
any
thing for me
as a child. Anyway, gaga or not, she did
leave it to me. And why bring it all up again now? I've
had the
house for nine years.'

‘Yes, but when you had Edward it made a little
more
sense. And how can you live in a house
without any furni
ture in it?'

‘
I've got a bit.' She looked round at the
kitchen table,
which
she had bought from a junk shop in the local town. 'Tea chests are very
versatile, and if my wine project takes
off, I'll get lots of nice
wooden crates. There was a girl I used to work with who built a whole kitchen
out of wine crates.’

A sigh of irritation gusted
down the telephone.
'Anyway, Nicholas asked me to ring you—'

‘He could have rung me himself.' In spite of
her indignation, Grace was quite glad that her brother had not done so; he was
even more bossy than Allegra.

‘He's very busy. He's got a very high-powered
new job. Offices in Canary Wharf.'

‘That sounds good,' Grace snapped. 'His ego
will fit in nicely among the other skyscrapers.’

Accustomed to a much milder younger sister,
Allegra
was shocked. 'Grace! You never used
to be so rude when
you were a child! A complete idiot, but not rude.'

‘
No, well,
I've grown up, I suppose. Divorce does that
to you.’

There was a silence. Grace could tell that
Allegra was debating whether she should say that she always knew her younger
sister's marriage was doomed to failure, or whether she could keep her mouth
shut on the subject. Edward's antique furniture had meant she and Nicholas
could strip the house of everything that wasn't nailed down.

‘I'm sorry, Grace, I suppose I am being a bit
tactless, but I really do think it would be far better for you to sell the
house. It must be worth a fortune.'

‘
Not
necessarily. The property boom is over and I might
well have death-watch
beetle.'

‘You haven't, have you?' Allegra sounded
seriously alarmed. 'You've just had the roof redone.'

‘
There's lots more to the
house than the roof,' said
Grace, disconcertingly pleased at having rattled Allegra. 'Well, have
you had it checked out?’

Death-watch beetle was obviously not to be made light
of. 'Not yet.'

‘
You must! I insist on it. In fact, I'll do more
than that,
I'll send my friend's son along to do it.’

Grace held the telephone
away from her ear. Her sister
was getting very shrill.

. . he'll be very
reasonable. In fact, I'll pay for it myself,
then you can't possibly find any excuses for not having
it
done!'

‘Er, no,' said Grace, acknowledging the truth
of this. She would have found excuses, the most pressing one
being that if the house were being slowly eaten by
beetles
she couldn't afford to do anything about it. Also, as long
as there weren't too many beetles, the house
would prob
ably last as long as she would. It was very large.

‘
Let me know
when would be convenient.' With Grace's
acquiescence, Allegra became
calmer.

‘I'm here almost all the time, Legs.'

‘I do wish you wouldn't call me that!'

‘Sorry’

Allegra sighed. 'No,
well, it's a habit, I suppose. Bloody
Nicholas, starting it. But really, Grace, I am a bit worried
about
you. You really should get out more.'

‘
But not now,
I've got a lot of strange people coming
for wine tasting in a minute, and I haven't put the bread
out.’

*

Grace had found the
telephone call from her sister
^st
rangely bracing. It reinforced all her thoughts and feel
ings
about the house. She was determined not to sell it.
She loved it; it was hers. Her brother and sister could go on envying
her good fortune. After all, the furniture they
had taken had been very valuable. They were both settled
in
successful careers, and had partners - a wealthy
^h
usband in
Allegra's case, and a very glamorous, rather racy female investment banker in
Nicholas's. And although investment banking wasn't the career it once had been,
as a couple they were very well off.