In Touch With Grace Read online

  This tender and amusing novel is set in the nineties, with the Springbok Tour still a recent memory, and as the country debates whether to adopt MMP.

  Letter-writing is about to give way to email but elderly Grace will resist the trend. Through letters and stories, we learn of her friendships, the interactions of the argumentative bowling club, her growing attraction to and relationship with Max, and the jealousy this engenders in her closest friend, Mildred. As the story unfolds Grace faces new challenges: the problems of younger people invade her solitary life. Grace touches the lives of many with her warmth, her festiness, her intelligence and her frailty.

  Starting life as a popular radio series, this is another compelling novel from bestselling author, Jenny Pattrick.

  JENNY

  PATTRICK

  IN TOUCH

  WITH GRACE

  In memory of my mother Allona ‘Tim’ Priestley.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  PART ONE

  Security

  Tangi

  Trying Harder

  PART TWO

  In Need of a Key

  Honorary Gran

  Feeling the Years

  Performing Genes

  Muses

  Spell-check

  Out of Depth

  Protest

  Dragon’s Tooth

  Theatre Party

  Postscript

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Acknowledgements

  Two series, Grace and A Matter for Grace, broadcast by Radio New Zealand, were the foundation for this novel. My thanks to the staff of Radio New Zealand who, over the years, have encouraged and supported my writing.

  I would like to acknowledge the inspirational lives of many friends and relatives whose activities and energies have informed the fictional characters in this novel.

  Thanks also to Bill Manhire, who recognised some early spark in the first chapter of this novel and suggested I take it further.

  And, as always, I owe a debt to Harriet Allan of Random House New Zealand, whose advice and support I greatly value.

  PART ONE

  Security

  ‘Was that Max Friedmann the other day at the outing?’ Mildred’s words are casual but her eyes watch Grace keenly.

  Grace buttons her warm coat with care. The wind is raw today. ‘Who?’

  ‘Max Friedmann. That musician who used to live across the park.’

  Grace looks across to where Max once lived. The memory is painful. ‘Yes,’ she says, ‘I believe it was.’

  ‘You and he seemed very chatty.’ Mildred has never cared much for Max Friedmann. A loud, overexuberant man, given to waving his hands about.

  ‘No, no,’ says Grace, smiling, ‘chatty is definitely not the word. He’s as deaf as a post. I hadn’t seen him in years — it would have been rude not to say hello.’

  Mildred is about to add further warnings about speaking to any Tom, Dick and Harry who might approach, even if they had been neighbours in the past, when her attention is caught by shrieking children, bouncing among the branches of the trees along the park.

  ‘You should do something about those children,’ she says ‘They’re ruining your trees.’

  Grace laughs. ‘They’re people, not garden pests, Mildred.’ She climbs into Mildred’s car and, with a twinge, reaches for the seat belt. ‘And anyway,’ she adds, ‘they are my security system.’

  Mildred doesn’t follow up this interesting lead. At the moment, driving the car takes serious attention. Both women buckle in — a frustrating and sometimes competitive activity — and set their eyes firmly on the road ahead. At a sedate pace, the little car climbs the hill, ventures into the main road and, this corner having been conquered with some success, runs along, quite jaunty, down to the Community Centre.

  Each winter, on the first and third Thursday, Mildred takes Grace to bowls. Second and fourth they go in Grace’s car. Sherry afterwards, in the passenger’s house, is a reward for having exercised.

  Les Comfrey is laying down the last mat when they arrive. Four green parallel stripes divide the wooden floor, and four sets of balls — six black, six brown — wait ready for the first game. Almost all the players are ready to begin. Grace is pleased: like everyone here she enjoys punctuality. She leaves her apricot slice in the kitchen. Afternoon tea is a serious function of bowls day.

  Grace discovers that she is to play with old Mrs Peddie. This is a mixed blessing. Old Mrs Peddie is ninety-three. Her mind wanders, she is nearly blind and very deaf, but somehow she still manages to put down a mean bowl. When playing with old Mrs Peddie you can be pretty sure to win your game. On the other hand Grace, who is a younger and much more erratic player, will have to put up with Mrs Peddie’s loud advice on technique.

  The games begin. Grace’s balls do not behave as she intends them to.

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear, Emily,’ roars old Mrs Peddie, who had a brush with hearing aids twenty years ago and found them wanting. ‘Oh dear, dear me. I think, Emily, that you must have the wrong bias. Do think before you put the ball down.’

  Old Mrs Peddie’s memory for names has gone completely, so the criticisms, though broadcast throughout the hall, are not damaging in a personal way.

  Then it is Mrs Peddie’s turn. Grace places a brown ball in her papery hand. The old lady holds it close to her face and inspects it slowly. Searching for what? Grace wonders. Another couple of minutes are spent getting the bias sorted out. Shakily, old Mrs Peddie lowers herself and sends the ball on its way. She shades her eyes and peers up the mat, but the distance is too far.

  ‘Let’s see how the balls lie,’ she shouts, ‘before we plan the next move.’

  Grace sighs. She can see very well that her partner’s ball is snugly tucked into the jack.

  ‘You do need tolerance when it comes to the aged,’ says Les, who is eighty. It always takes two people to move old Mrs Peddie. With Grace supporting one arm and Les the other she moves in on the jack with the deliberation of an advancing tank. Bending low over the collection of balls, she peers and mutters till she is satisfied, then the trio retreat heavily down the mat to prepare for the next ball. Games with old Mrs Peddie tend to be lengthy and physically exhausting.

  ‘Good exercise, though,’ says Mildred at afternoon tea. ‘You’ll have walked twice as far as me.’ Mildred has enjoyed a nice sociable game. ‘Cynthia and I both played terribly,’ she says, ‘and neither cared a fig!’

  The discussion over the cakes is satisfying. Several pieces of interesting information are relayed. The big house on Pembroke Road has gone for four hundred thousand. At least three bowls members went to the auction and can verify the price. There is general discussion over what this figure reveals about property values in the area. Grace recognises the group’s comfortable glow —-she feels it herself. They are all making modest capital gains.

  ‘Was that Max Friedmann at the outing, Grace?’ says Les. ‘He made a beeline for you, I noticed. Never even glanced in my direction.’ He winks.

  Grace sighs. Les’s innuendoes are as subtle as a sledgehammer. ‘His hearing is bad, Les,’ she says, ‘He simply said hello and moved on. I haven’t seen him in years.’ She shifts the conversation quickly on to burglaries.

  There have been none in the neighbourhood this week, it seems. This is unusual. Les puts it down to the weather.

  ‘Let’s face it, your burglar is just your average man in the street,’ he says. ‘They don’t like working in the rain any more than the rest of us.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t accept that, Les,’ says Grace, who loves an argument. ‘A burglar is not average, no, no — a burglar is someone sick, out of st
ep, not average at all.’

  ‘You may say that, Grace, but I’ve had experience: I’ve been at the coalface. Your burglar today is just Mr Average with knobs on. No different under the skin from any of us.’

  No one is going to accept this. Les Comfrey tends to get carried away, that is accepted, but you have to draw the line. Several severely aberrant burglaries are remembered and re-examined. Shirley Chan’s nephew was knocked down by someone on the run — ‘almost certainly a burglar’. Les is reminded of the time he wrote to the paper on the subject of burglar mentality — ‘… you weren’t talking about Mr Average then, Les.’

  Les clears his throat, straightens his already immaculate tie. ‘Well, well, there may be something in what you say, but I still maintain …’ His voice trails away. Concessions do not come easily to him.

  The next topic is the funeral. A former member of the bowls club has died and Cynthia, the young Mrs Peddie, aged seventy-one, organises cars and food for Friday. Mildred and Grace offer to combine forces on something a bit out of the usual in the savoury line. Grace enjoys the funerals. You have to expect them, at their age, and the occasions are usually warm supportive affairs, serving a real purpose.

  Finally Mildred herself reveals that the post office, empty for the last ten months, is going to open as a French bakery. Dawn, the hairdresser, has told her. Dawn is an excellent source of gossip, and Mildreds hair appointment that morning has been nicely strategic. This bit of news is a coup. A French bakery! It is an exotic and stylish idea with some appeal. However the consensus is that the neighbourhood is too conservative.

  ‘I’m not keen on French bread,’ proclaims old Mrs Peddie. ‘The crusts are difficult.’

  ‘There’ll be a short honeymoon,’ predicts Les Comfrey, ‘and then it’ll go under. French pastries! What a pie in the sky!’ Les has been in retail.

  ‘They’ll be serving pies too, yes,’ agrees Mildred. Grace notices the slip but no one comments. They all mishear from time to time.

  Grace’s little back room is warm, the curtains pulled. The heater has been left on two — a safe level — and the tray with decanter and glasses waits on the coffee table. Mildred notices that Grace has shifted her Drawbridge print; the new position jars slightly, as does the altered arrangement of the seating. Grace will move her things around — you never know where you are. Mildred has not changed one piece of furniture since her husband died fifteen years ago. But she holds her peace. The sherry ritual is one of the highlights of the winter week, and nothing will be allowed to mar it.

  Over the next couple of hours they will drink two glasses of medium sweet sherry, fully justified in terms of sociability and exercise. Their free-flowing conversation will canvass books, politics, gardening, new recipes and the neighbourhood. The friends are good conversationalists. They face each other squarely in strong light so that the sight of the words can aid their sound.

  ‘Now what’s all this about the children being your security system?’ says Mildred, sipping her sherry neatly and with pleasure.

  The security theory is an excuse, Grace knows, but she argues it with vigour, nevertheless. Forty years ago, when she and Reg married and bought the big old bungalow next to the park, they planted a row of trees all down the fence.

  ‘One day,’ Reg said, ‘our grandchildren will climb these trees.’

  There were no grandchildren. Reg died, and then Gillian, Grace’s only daughter, committed suicide. Family hopes and expectations died with her.

  These days, though, the schoolchildren use the trees for forts and wild shrieking games. Their heads poke out from piney branches; they bounce and swing and call to one another from tree to tree like bright tropical birds. Interval and lunchtime, on five sunny days a week they give shape to Grace’s day and she loves them. She knows branches get broken, that some trees are becoming misshapen. So she makes rational arguments to justify the chattering flocks.

  ‘Look, Mildred, at who they are,’ she says, ready to make her case. ‘You have, in my trees, a cross-section of all the homes in the neighbourhood. Now if all those children know and like me, take stories home about the nice old lady in number forty-four, their bigger brothers, if they have a tendency towards being the rough element, are going to respect my home. Don’t you think?’

  Mildred looks most doubtful. ‘No, no, Grace, you’re surely optimistic. Your cross-section of the neighbourhood are probably spying in your windows to see what they or their big brothers might plunder!’

  ‘Well, I may be optimistic. Yes. I prefer to be. Those cheerful boys and girls are good people.’ Grace omits to say that she sometimes goes out with a plate of biscuits or sweets. She suspects Mildred would frown on it; like feeding a cat that wasn’t yours.

  ‘I believe in human nature, Mildred,’ she says.

  ‘Well, don’t we all — so do I — but we must be sensible at our age, Grace. Human nature comes in all shapes.’

  ‘Yes, but if we fear the worst, we encourage it to happen. No, Mildred, I put my trust in those children.’

  ‘At least get deadlocks, Grace. You’re a sitting target, next to the park here.’

  Mildred has deadlocks, bolts on all windows, a random lighting system for when she is away and a burglar alarm connected to the police station.

  But Grace smiles and pours a second glass each.

  ‘There’s a word I can’t get in the Listener crossword,’ she says.

  A month or two later, a child falls from a tree on the park and breaks a leg. It is not one of Grace’s trees but a larger one on the other side. The headmaster places all trees out of bounds. Grace cares more than she likes to admit. Now that the branches have lost their multicoloured blooms her trees have altered. They lean in on her; they are darker. She is aware of their bulk.

  At about this time too, Grace receives an emergency summons from Mildred. Returning home from a visit to her Auckland daughter, Mildred has discovered a burglary. The thieves, negotiating all traps and alarms, have removed several pieces of heirloom jewellery.

  ‘Nothing’s damaged, that’s a blessing,’ says Mildred. But still they feel an alien presence vibrating in Mildred’s immaculate living-room. Two stiff brandies are helping with the shock.

  ‘But Mildred, how did they get in? What about your alarm?’

  ‘Well, you see, they cut a neat hole in my bathroom window. The police, who have been most kind, recommend a deadlock between bathroom and hall. I’m looking into it.’

  ‘Oh but what a rigmarole, going to the toilet at night!’

  ‘Well, that’s true, Grace, yes I hadn’t thought of that. Perhaps my locksmith will have some advice.’

  They both laugh, thinking of the delicacy of this discussion.

  ‘I must say, Mildred, that you’re taking it all very well. I would be angry to lose my family pieces.’

  ‘To be honest, I never cared much for that old stuff. And it’s insured. At least they waited till I was away before they broke in. I’m grateful for that.’ Grace realises that Mildred is rather enjoying the drama. The bowls club will certainly hear all the details.

  Back home Grace wonders why her rambling old ‘sitting target’ has been spared, while Mildred’s neat fortress was singled out. She has deadlocks fitted on front and back doors — mainly as a gesture of solidarity. It is a mistake: the balance has shifted. Mildred, having survived attack, becomes a confident expert on the subject, while Grace stands in the dark hall, behind her new deadlocks feeling trapped. Uneasy thoughts and fears come and go at will. Her beloved bookshelves lining walls in every room now seem to loom. The sunny spare room proclaims its yawning void. Memories of her daughter’s death return.

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ she says out loud, after a depressing week of these dark thoughts. At my age I should be in control’

  First she phones the locksmith and outlines her request. Then the headmaster. That gentleman clears his throat nervously at the sound of her voice and Grace smiles. It is not the first time she has crossed s
words with him. Recently it was the use of the apostrophe on the billboard announcing the school fair. Grace makes an appointment for later in the day.

  Promptly at 3.15 she steps out over the park, coat firmly buttoned, red woollen hat snug over her short grey hair. Grace is a small woman, not much taller than the children who are heading home. One child waves to her. Grace is ridiculously pleased.

  In the headmaster’s tiny office Grace removes hat and gloves, accepts a cup of tea, then comes briskly to the point. ‘I have come about the children in the trees.’

  Mr Gregory is clearly relieved. ‘Ah well, we’re ahead of you this time, Mrs Brockie. You’ll be pleased to know that we have a new school policy: No climbing in the trees on the park during playtime or lunchtime. If the children return to the park after they have reached home, that’s another matter. Out of our hands. It is a public park after all.’

  Grace raises an admonishing finger. ‘I am well aware of your new policy and I am not pleased with it.’

  ‘Your reason?’

  Mr Gregory’s voice has an edge of condescension which Grace notices. He thinks she is going gaga. She glances quickly at the points she has noted down. ‘Climbing trees is surely a healthy activity,’ she says, her words a little too loud in her own ears. ‘I have always believed that it fosters nimble limbs and an adventurous spirit. Today’s youth are far too prone to slump in front of the television set. You yourself, Mr Gregory, have been a sportsman of some achievement’ (she smiles at him here, hoping the flattery will bear fruit) ‘and I know you approve of plentiful activity in the school curriculum.’

  Mr Gregory’s patient smile remains. ‘You’re perhaps not aware that one of our pupils suffered a serious injury falling from those trees. It would be a dereliction of duty …’

  Grace interrupts. It is time for her trump card. ‘That child fell from a tree by the tennis courts — a mature pohutukawa, a tree whose limbs are notoriously difficult to climb. The trees over on my side of the park, on the other hand, are Cupressocyparis leylandii, ideal for the purpose. They’re also lower to the ground. There has never, to my knowledge, been an accident from these trees.’