Restoring Grace (23 page)

‘Where's Demeter?' asked Edward, more
pertinently, and impossible to ignore.

‘I'm not sure,' said Grace, opening the door.
'I
expect
she's with Ellie – my friend –
and they will have left a
note. If you could just give me a hand with
the bags?’

Reluctantly, Hermia and
Edward helped Grace get the
bags into the
house and then followed her to the kitchen.

‘
Ah, yes. Here's the note,' said
Grace, heartily relieved
that there was one.
Ellie and I have gone shopping for hair
stuff, back soon,
she
read.

Don't get back too soon, thought Grace, putting
the perishables in the fridge, if you don't want your parents to see what
you've done to your hair already.

She ignored the rest of the shopping – one
advantage to having a cold house – and put the kettle on.

‘
I'm just
going to make you comfortable in the drawing room,' she said, aware she
couldn't possibly make coffee
– or anything – with them standing about
like animated marble statues that hated each other.

She had chivvied them as
far as the hall when the door
bell rang. It
was Ellie and Demi. Ellie had a key, but had
obviously seen the cars and decided not to use it. As Grace
opened the door, she wondered how much persuasion,
or
indeed force, it had taken Ellie to get Demi out of the car; she must have
freaked when she saw not just one parent's car, but two.

‘Demeter!' shrieked Hermia. 'What have you done
to your hair?'

‘Hello, Mummy,' said Demi.

‘Hello, darling,' said Edward, embracing his
daughter.

When Grace had last heard
him say those words it had
been to her, a
very long time ago. She must be a lot better,
she
thought, because it hardly hurt at all.

‘Tell me,. Grace,' asked Hermia, while this was
going
on between Demi and her father, 'how
did you get
Edward to buy you such a good car? He was far more generous
to you than he ever was to me, and I had two children to keep!’

Grace knew at least part
of the reason Edward had been
so generous was because she had
behaved so well when
he said he'd found
someone else, putting as few difficulties
in his path as possible. At the time she had done it in the
very faint hope that if she was terribly civilised
and reason
able, he might come back.
That and the fact that Edward
hated
scenes, and she just thought they would make the
whole agonising
experience even more painful.

Fortunately, she didn't
have to answer as Hermia
realised she should have hugged her
daughter before shouting at her, and made up for lost time.

‘This is Ellie,' said Grace to Edward. 'She's
living with me now. This is Edward.'

‘Hello,' said Ellie. 'Would you like me to go
and make some coffee?' she said to Grace.

‘
That would be terribly kind,' said Grace, who
seemed to Ellie to be coping quite well. 'I'll help!' said Demi.

Grace was
about to forbid this when Ellie said, 'You'll need more chairs. Demi can help
me bring them.'

‘
We don't want coffee!'
snapped Hermia. 'I just want
my daughter back!'

‘Let's have coffee while we discuss it,' said
Grace,
opening the door of the drawing room,
pleased to see
how much early spring
sunshine filled it, although it was
still very cold.

‘
If you think
I'm going to discuss my daughter with
you' – Hermia almost spat out the
words – 'you are very much mistaken!'

‘No need to be rude,' said Edward. 'Grace has
made a very sensible suggestion.’

He always did stick up for me, thought Grace,
as he opened the door and ushered in his ex-wives.

Hermia shivered loudly as they entered.

Ignoring it, Grace said, 'I'll just go and tell
Ellie there are biscuits among the shopping and fetch something to sit on,' she
said.

‘Where did you find Ellie?' asked Edward.

‘
I told
you, she's a friend of mine,' said Grace, refusing
to be intimidated by
his steely tone and raised eyebrow.
'She's
staying with me for a bit and helping with expenses.'

‘
Oh, she's a friend of yours, is she? I wondered if you'd
started taking in lodgers,' said Hermia, earning herself a
reproving
glare from her ex-husband.

‘
Would you
both like coffee?' persisted Grace, trying
to keep the atmosphere
polite. 'Or would either of you prefer tea?'

‘Coffee, please,' snapped Hermia.

‘Me too,' said Edward. 'Hermia, shall we go
into the
window embrasure? There's a
wonderful view of the
garden from there.’

Grace escaped, feeling very ambivalent about
her ex-
husband showing his ex-wife her
garden. She hoped they
appreciated the hundreds of Wordsworth
daffodils she had
planted in the grass, their tiny heads nodding in the
wind.

‘
I daren't leave them in there alone for long,' said Grace
in the kitchen. 'Come with me, Demi,
and bring a chair.'

‘No, I've
got to help Ellie!' Demi said in fright. 'She's going to help me put a bandeau
on.'

‘
Honey, they've already
seen your tiger stripes, and
they can't do much about it. Come on!'

‘No! Please, Grace! I'll bring the coffee and
as many
chairs as you want, but please don't
make me go in there
a minute before I have to!’

Looking at Demi's worried
face, Grace took pity on her
and returned to the drawing room
alone, a chair in each hand, just in time to hear Hermia say, 'God, it's a
heavenly house! Freezing bloody cold, of course. Wasted on her! A half-decent
developer and it would be worth an absolute fortune.’

Horribly reminded of her sister, Grace wondered
if Hermia and Allegra knew each other, and remembered that they did, slightly.

‘The coffee will be along in just a moment.
Ellie and Demi will bring it. Do sit down.’

Edward held a chair for Hermia and tried to do
the same for Grace, but she resisted. She didn't want to
confront Edward and Hermia perched on a kitchen
chair.

‘
And how did you meet your friend Ellie?' said
Edward.
'You've never mentioned her.'

‘No, I met her since you left. She's an artist.
I met her through her work. She's perfectly respectable.’

Hermia snorted. 'Respectable or not, Demeter's
got to come home. She has her education to think of.'

‘
I
certainly agree with you there, but I think the trouble
is, she feels a bit neglected,' said Grace
boldly. 'You both
have new partners
and Demi feels you don't have time
for her.'

‘
Typical self-centred teenager!' snapped Hermia.
'I've
always had to work – since you left,
anyway,' she added,
shooting a resentful glance at Edward. 'And I have
to nurture my relationship—’

There was a sound from Edward.

‘
I do!'
went on Hermia. 'And I have to have a little time
for myself. Demi gets
every second that's left over.'

‘Not many seconds, obviously,' said Edward.
'What do you do with the "little time for yourself"?'

‘
Go to the
gym, have the occasional massage or facial.
I know you' – she indicated
she meant Grace with a sort of grimace – 'never bothered with any personal
maintenance, but it is important, you know. Edward did leave you, even if you
are young enough to be his daughter.’

Aware that Hermia was still very bitter about
her own divorce from Edward, Grace managed to ignore this dig
and, seeing the door handle move, she said
quickly,
'Please don't mention Demi's hair again. She knows she made a
horrible mistake.’

Demi and Ellie came in.
Demi, looking rather pale, was
carrying a tea chest and Ellie mugs.
While Demi turned
the tea chest over so
that it became a table, Grace muttered
to Ellie, 'Only four mugs!
Where's yours?'

‘
I'm going
to unpack the shopping,' said Ellie. 'You
don't need me, this is a
family thing.'

‘
Quite
right,' agreed Hermia. 'You don't need to be here
either, Grace.'

‘Yes, she does,' said Edward with the sort of
authority
not even Hermia would care to
argue with. 'Demi! Where
are you going?'

‘To get a chair, Dad! If that's all right with
you?' she said defensively

‘You're to come straight back,' he ordered, and
Grace
realised why she had never argued with
him. He was
very commanding.

‘Right,' he said when Demi had joined the
circle and
was sitting looking down at her
hands. 'Let's talk this over
reasonably. Hermia, is it
true you have no time for Demi?’

‘
She gets every spare penny and every spare moment—'
Hermia began.

‘
Except there aren't any,' interjected Demi. 'You and Tod
are always chewing each other's faces off.’

Grace winced, wondering
how someone who had
called her children Perseus and Demeter could
possibly live with someone who had a name like a character off
Neighbours.
Hermia opened her mouth to
protest. Edward
raised a hand and no one said anything.

‘Well, would you like to come and live with
Caroline and me?’

Hermia gave a mirthless
laugh. 'That bitch! She hasn't
a motherly hormone in her body,
however many of them
she has pumped in! She
won't want a teenager cluttering
up the place, making her feel old!'

‘Hermia!' began Edward.

Grace felt obliged to mediate. 'I think,
Edward, that Demi feels that you and Caroline haven't been together
long and that she wouldn't really appreciate
having Demi
there.' Demi had actually described Caroline as a selfish
bitch, but Grace didn't think it would be helpful to tell Edward this.

Edward exhaled. 'It's true that Caroline does
find Demeter difficult, because you don't behave well when you're with us.' He
frowned at his daughter.

‘I can't think why. It's not as if she wasn't
properly brought up,' said Hermia. 'Even if I did have to do it single-handed.'

‘
Possibly
her role model wasn't all it might have been,'
bit out Edward from
between clenched teeth.

‘Her role model was fine! It was her absent
father
running off with schoolgirls that
made life difficult for
us! Perseus left the country to avoid watching
you make a fool of yourself all over again.'

‘
That and the place at Harvard,' murmured
Edward. 'Or possibly it was his mother he didn't want to see with a man only a
few years older than himself! No wonder Demeter has gone off the rails.'

‘
For goodness' sake!'
Grace exploded, really angry now.
'Will you two listen to yourselves?
You're talking about
Demi as if she wasn't
here! You're supposed to be
discussing
what's best for her, but all you can do is score cheap points off each other!
You should both be ashamed
of yourselves.’

Only when she'd finished did she register how
silent
the room had gone and realise how
loudly and vehe
mently she must have
spoken to create such an effect. She
must be getting stronger.