opposite but we cried at both, which, Grace thought, was actually pretty odd.
âI expect youâre longing for a nice cup of tea,â Mrs Shield said. At that Grace too burst into tears.
Two weeks before she was due to start university Grace discovered that she was pregnant. She told no one. Who should she have told? Jefferson, so that she could ask him for money or, given the old-fashioned ways of his family, shame him into a shotgun wedding? Mrs Shield? Yes, she could tell Mrs Shield and the reward would be her stepmotherâs clumsy yet determined support, but the price would be fifty-five per cent of Graceâs mind and soul and right then she couldnât afford that. A helping hand from Mrs Shield made you feel like a glove puppet.
So Grace kept quiet, turning all the taps on in the bathroom when she was being sick and saying only that she had decided not to take up her place at Cambridge but was moving to London and getting a job instead. Mrs Shield was greatly upset. She had told everyone who was interested, and many who were not, that her stepdaughter was going to Cambridge. Grace tried to reason with her.
âYou must realise that I canât go to university just because youâve told your bridge group and your hairdresser and poor Marjory Reynolds.â Mrs Shield looked as if she realised nothing of the sort.
Grace got the job in the Adam and Eve photography gallery through her friend Angelica Lane, whose mother owned it. Grace unlocked the doors in the morning and locked them at night. She dusted the pictures and sometimes, when there was no one elseavailable, she hung some. She spent those days of early pregnancy surrounded by moments saved in time: Marilyn Monroe stepping out of a limousine, as radiant as if sheâd swallowed a light bulb; a man reverently lifting out a book from the shelves of a blitzed library; Audrey Hepburn laughing on the set of
Funny Face
; James Cagney strumming a guitar. And always sunbeams shot through the roof of Grand Central Station.
In her spare time she pored for hours over her snaps of Jefferson and the two of them together; photographs that proved that for a while, at least, he had smiled as if there was nowhere in the world he would rather be than right there with Grace.
She went nowhere without her camera and she saved every spare pound to buy a better one. She learnt to develop her black and white films in a makeshift darkroom, really no more than a large cupboard, in the flat in Bayswater she shared with two old friends from school. Angelica was at secretarial college and Daisy worked in a casino, an added bonus as it made Mrs Shield feel that
things could have been worse
.
Grace had still not seen a doctor. She hadnât put on much weight, but she kept being sick in the mornings and there were days when she was so tired that she would gladly have handed over her last ten pounds to anyone who would take her place in the world. She kept waiting to be overwhelmed by a sense of Jefferson; after all, the baby growing inside her was the mix of him and her. Instead she resented this tiny someone who, although they had never even met, was controlling her physical wellbeing, her ability to do her work, her moods, what she ate and drank: lots of dairy products and no alcohol and an apple once a day. She could not even smoke.
When she finally did see her GP he asked her if she wanted to keep the child. Grace looked as if she hadnât known she had an option so he explained that very soon she would have to decide. On the Saturday she walked into Mothercare. She had almost convinced herself that an abortion would be the right way to proceed, but still she spent an hour wandering around, trance-like amongst the cots and prams and baby clothes, bottles and sterilising units, potties and nappies, singing mobiles and chimes. She found herself at the till, paying for a tiny whiteBabygro, and only then did she realise that she must have decided to have
âI expect youâre longing for a nice cup of tea,â Mrs Shield said. At that Grace too burst into tears.
Two weeks before she was due to start university Grace discovered that she was pregnant. She told no one. Who should she have told? Jefferson, so that she could ask him for money or, given the old-fashioned ways of his family, shame him into a shotgun wedding? Mrs Shield? Yes, she could tell Mrs Shield and the reward would be her stepmotherâs clumsy yet determined support, but the price would be fifty-five per cent of Graceâs mind and soul and right then she couldnât afford that. A helping hand from Mrs Shield made you feel like a glove puppet.
So Grace kept quiet, turning all the taps on in the bathroom when she was being sick and saying only that she had decided not to take up her place at Cambridge but was moving to London and getting a job instead. Mrs Shield was greatly upset. She had told everyone who was interested, and many who were not, that her stepdaughter was going to Cambridge. Grace tried to reason with her.
âYou must realise that I canât go to university just because youâve told your bridge group and your hairdresser and poor Marjory Reynolds.â Mrs Shield looked as if she realised nothing of the sort.
Grace got the job in the Adam and Eve photography gallery through her friend Angelica Lane, whose mother owned it. Grace unlocked the doors in the morning and locked them at night. She dusted the pictures and sometimes, when there was no one elseavailable, she hung some. She spent those days of early pregnancy surrounded by moments saved in time: Marilyn Monroe stepping out of a limousine, as radiant as if sheâd swallowed a light bulb; a man reverently lifting out a book from the shelves of a blitzed library; Audrey Hepburn laughing on the set of
Funny Face
; James Cagney strumming a guitar. And always sunbeams shot through the roof of Grand Central Station.
In her spare time she pored for hours over her snaps of Jefferson and the two of them together; photographs that proved that for a while, at least, he had smiled as if there was nowhere in the world he would rather be than right there with Grace.
She went nowhere without her camera and she saved every spare pound to buy a better one. She learnt to develop her black and white films in a makeshift darkroom, really no more than a large cupboard, in the flat in Bayswater she shared with two old friends from school. Angelica was at secretarial college and Daisy worked in a casino, an added bonus as it made Mrs Shield feel that
things could have been worse
.
Grace had still not seen a doctor. She hadnât put on much weight, but she kept being sick in the mornings and there were days when she was so tired that she would gladly have handed over her last ten pounds to anyone who would take her place in the world. She kept waiting to be overwhelmed by a sense of Jefferson; after all, the baby growing inside her was the mix of him and her. Instead she resented this tiny someone who, although they had never even met, was controlling her physical wellbeing, her ability to do her work, her moods, what she ate and drank: lots of dairy products and no alcohol and an apple once a day. She could not even smoke.
When she finally did see her GP he asked her if she wanted to keep the child. Grace looked as if she hadnât known she had an option so he explained that very soon she would have to decide. On the Saturday she walked into Mothercare. She had almost convinced herself that an abortion would be the right way to proceed, but still she spent an hour wandering around, trance-like amongst the cots and prams and baby clothes, bottles and sterilising units, potties and nappies, singing mobiles and chimes. She found herself at the till, paying for a tiny whiteBabygro, and only then did she realise that she must have decided to have
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