Freeing Grace by Charity Norman Page A

And I loved her more than anyone in the world.
    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