GRACE WILLIAMS

by
Mark Gallacher

I've come a long way and there's not much you can tell me that I know can't be negated with some opposite truth. Or lie, so close to the truth nobody can tell the difference.

This story is true, at least true enough so some people might think they recognize themselves in it. But I've taken liberties. For instance, I've made myself more interesting than I was, and a lot more likeable than I am. Another thing, I don't even live on the West Coast anymore. I don't think much about the town I grew up in, so ordinary it hardly needs a name.

But I remember the waves beating on the shore, summertime. The sea's lazy sweep, heavy and golden, each wave a slow handclap.

Grace Williams liked to walk along the beach too. I saw her often.

A tall girl with a wide stride and smoky grey eyes, with electric wheat colour hair, all straw lightning when the sun lit it.

Grace had a way of saying hello, an interested, wide eyed smile went with that bouncy salutation. When she listened she liked to reach out and touch you if you said something amusing.

Amusing talk was just about the only thing I showed any skill in when I was seventeen. James Henderson, Secret Poet, Captain of the worst football team Sacred Heart Academy had ever seen. In those days I had a part time job in The Big Top Caf�. A skinny kid in an apron, with a way of asking "What do you want?" that irked the pensioners from Glasgow, off the bus for a day trip.

If I saw Grace at school I'd say hello and make small talk but for the most part I was a loner, with my head in a dream or a book. And if I saw Grace on the beach I kept my distance. That was about as complicated our relationship was.

Then it all changed the day Ayr Academy thumped us 8-1 and Mr Petersen, our PE teacher went home at half time, saying he had the flu.

But I was optimistic. I'd scored our single goal and had an idea or two about bagging some more glory for Sacred Heart. So I'd told the team not to worry about Mr Petersen. After all what good had he done us all season anyway?

Grace was on the sideline and she'd brought her mum's Collie along, a frisky, smart dog called Blackie. It barked at our team every time we had the ball and pulled on it's lead.

Grace handed me an orange when the team came off at half time.

"I think you've softened them up, James. They're for the taking."

"I think so too" I said and sucked on the orange. Bits of orange flesh stuck to my mouth and the juice dribbled down my chin. I tried to distract Grace from my eating habits.

"In fact" I said, "we've got them so over confident it's a certainty we'll overtake them next half. It's only 5-1 and our reputation belies the fact that we're always stronger in the second half."

"What are you gibbering about?" Gordon Masters our right back butted in. "We're getting crucified out there!"

At which point Blackie slipped his lead and leapt on Gordon and started humping his leg.

"Get this mutt off me, Grace!"

Grace laughed and pulled Blackie off. "This dog is Scared Heart through and through Gordon. He's only trying to fire you up."

"I know exactly what he's trying to fire at me thank you very much." Gordon threw his orange peel onto the grass and ran back onto the pitch. "Come on Jimmy. Time to lead the lambs."

I looked at Grace and shook my head and pulled my socks up and tucked my shirt in.

"I'm going to have to get a positive healer into the dressing room."

Grace beamed at me then, a big shining, right into the soul smile and blew me a kiss. "Tuck that in your boot tiger."

Gordon was sent off ten minutes into the half. He'd ran around the park like a madman, tearing into every tackle like life depended on it. After the red card he stormed off the park and didn't wait for the end. Blackie got off his lead again and chased after him.

After the match, Grace hung around a bit. The showers in the changing rooms were busted again, so most of us kept our kit on and walked home. Grace walked with me some of the way. Grace said she'd meet me the next evening at The Big Top Caf� when I finished work and she made it sound so agreeable I said okay.

Grace came round to the caf� at eleven. I'd already chucked the last customers out and let her in and sat her down at one of the tables. I had a candle lit, with a bottle of red wine and Grace laughed at my fake Italian accent.

"Now you gonna like what I have for you. Sexy woman with the long hair."

I brought out a pizza from the oven and put it down on the table and then I ran over to the juke box and flipped a few credits and asked Grace what she wanted to hear.

"Gimme some Robbie Williams. He's such a charmer. And some Corrs. James this pizza smells wonderful. Is this wine paid for?"

"That's a week's wages your guzzling down girl."

I came over and threw my apron onto another table.

Grace cut the pizza. A piece of cheese stuck to her finger and she sucked on it.

"I like it when you do that thing with your hand there, missy."

"Settle Romeo. Let's deal with one appetite at a time." Grace smiled, pleased with herself.

We talked stupid talk, the kind of conversation evaporates in the open air if you describe it to someone else. And for most of the time I was on a high and there wasn't a word I said didn't please Grace Williams.

"So how you going to escape this dead end town, Jimmy?"

"The usual. Education or drugs. Maybe I'll try a bit of both and come up with interesting anecdotes."

"That's right." Grace poured some more wine. "I heard you were a secret scribbler."

"Who told you that?"

"Word gets around, James. We see what books you get of the library. They come back with all the pages in them. You're not using them for toilet paper."

Grace giggled, but I could see an edge to her now, there was something Grace wasn't telling , but she was maybe building up to it.

"So what's your secret habit, Grace Williams? What lights the candle for you when the lights go out?"

It was the wrong thing to say, or the right thing to say because she looked at me so intensely I thought her eyes were going to water and then she looked away at the caf� window, our reflection in the glass.

"Maybe I should ask who you've been talking to, Jimmy."

"Me?" I held my hands up. "I'm a one man monastery. I have trouble holding conversations with plants. Walls even. This dinner is the highlight of my summer. After this it's back to an existence of brooding."

Grace looked at me. She had that searching look again and I could feel a knot turning in my stomach.

"Thing is James. I'm pregnant."

"Oh."

That was all I managed. A half hearted croak. Maybe I blinked at her a couple of times. For a few seconds she might as well have told me she was immigrating to Romania. It made that much sense to my small town brain.

Grace sat up in her chair, and waited. She waited but I didn't understand what she was waiting for. Then she reached across the table and held my hand.

"I need some people on my side, James. My parents don't know and they aren't going to know. There's you, my doctor and the guy that did it. Well, that�s a lie. He doesn't know."

"Shouldn't you tell him?"

"It was a one time thing, James. It wasn't much fun. We got careless. It's my decision. Will you help me?"

I pulled my hand away. I felt too much reality crowding in. This wasn't the world of candles and a beautiful girl I wanted to fall in love with me. It was the messy stuff of zippers and condoms, of sweat and sex.

"What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to dance with me."

"What?"

Grace stood up and she came round the table and led me over to the juke box and we danced.

My heart beat fast and I could smell her perfume on her neck and her hair was pushed against my face.

"I'm eighteen, James. I don't need their permission. I really need support. I know you're a sensitive guy. Will you help me?"

"What do I do?"

"Just drive me to the hospital in the car and bring me back. Mum and Dad's away next week. I get to use the car. But you have to meet Dr Hogarth. You'll be called my Rescue. You've to take me and bring me back. Make sure I don't puke all over the place or pass out or something."

We slowly turned in a circle as the juke box played a George Michael number, and Grace waited for me to say yes.

"Grace in case you haven't noticed me at school mass every Friday all these years. I'm Catholic."

"So am I, James. But let's keep The Pope out of this. He's got enough problems with his health and his horny Bishops. I like this record. Let's not say anything else for a while. OK?"

"OK"

And I knew I would do it.

When I met Doctor Hogarth he told me what I was doing showed great principle and maturity. I could come and talk to him about it any time I wanted. These things had a way of generating unexpected emotions he said. He said Grace had told him the pregnancy wasn't my doing. I was just a friend. Still he wanted to ask me anyway, just to be sure. In case I hadn't thought it through.

So when I told Dr Hogarth I was a virgin he nodded. He played with his pen for a couple of seconds. He said he hadn't saw any wise men in town lately so he'd sleep easy. Then he told me he didn't meet his wife until he was twenty five and until then he'd only kissed three women. Forget all the MTV stuff he said mysteriously. Youth Culture and beautiful people. The world changed a lot, but it didn't change that much for a lot of people. Things still happen in their own good time, he said.

On the way to Glasgow we stopped once, at a motorway caf� so Grace could go to the toilet. When Grace came back out onto the car park a gust of wind whistled in off the embankment. It gusted just as she passed a bin where rubbish had over spilled onto the ground. Newspapers whirled around her and she held her hands out and dipped her head and just for a moment, a tiny moment, she looked like she would totter over.

We reached the clinic and signed Grace in. I sat in the waiting room and watched day time television. A plastic plant in the corner that needed dusting. There were two other guys in there but no one spoke. A nurse came in and said: "She's ready to go home now." and the man she spoke to nodded and left.

I can't tell you how long it was before that nurse came in and talked to me. It couldn't have been that long. But I remember when I stood up I did it slowly and hitched my jeans up and pulled the zipper of my leather jacket tight.

"Alright. Alright." I said as if I had a say in it.

I drove Grace home and walked her into her bedroom and made sure the phone was working and she had my number. I phoned Doctor Hogarth to tell him she was home.

He asked me to wait and hour or so and check to see Grace was okay when she was asleep.

So I made a coffee and played some music and when I went back upstairs Grace was still awake, but looking white and sickly. She told me to go home and rolled on her side. She pulled the blanket over her head and didn't say anything else.

When Grace came back to school she kept herself to herself. I spotted her in the library a few times, hunkered over a reading table. It didn't feel right to say hello. It wasn't that I expected gratitude, it just felt like it wasn't finished, that something was still to happen.

Then it did.

It was the game against Cummnock High a couple of weeks later. We were two minutes from kick off and Gordon hadn't turned up. The team mulled about on the pitch with the usual sense of doom. The Cummnock players joked and warmed up.

I spotted Gordon and ran onto the sideline and waved at him. "Come on Masters!" I shouted as the REF blew the whistle. "What's the matter with you? Come on!"

Gordon walked up to me and as I held my arms out at my sides, big grin on my clown's face, he punched me right on the side of the head. Bang.

"Hey?" I said and stepped back and Gordon hit me again, in the same place. Bang.

I staggered back but he got a grip of me and kicked me high on the shin and grabbed a hunk of my hair and pulled me down and beat me with his fist.

I curled up on the grass. Someone shouted at Gordon from the pitch and I heard the Ref. blow furiously on the whistle. Some of the Cummnock team laughed.

Gordon let me go. Snot ran from his nose. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and looked about, like there was a way of fixing something.

"You killed it. You and her. No one asked me. No one."

Gordon swung his leg back and gave me another kick in the ribs. "Who are you anyway?" he said and kicked me again.

I winced and curled up on the grass in the foetal position and suddenly I was crying, big naked sobs and something burned in me like shame.

Gordon howled in fury and landed another kick to the back of my head and then he was gone, running back the way he'd came.

Grace came round to the caf� that night just after I had closed up and peered in. She tapped on the window a couple of times. She stepped back and leaned against the street lamp and she was beautiful and sad and unaccountably lonely in the neon light. She'd brought Blackie along and the dog sat down on the pavement at her feet.

Grace waited a while but then Blackie stood up and yawned and wagged his tail and whined. Grace said something I couldn't hear and then they crossed the road and went home.

I came out front and sat in the dark for a while. I was wasting time, waiting on enough time to pass until it wasn't a big deal anymore. The world felt too big and too complicated and I wasn't ready for it.

I got my jacket from the back and went out and locked the caf�. I looked both ways along the street. It was dead quiet. I shivered. Someone stepped on my grave maybe.

Then I crossed the road.

I can tell you this story is true, only where the end comes I don't know. Gordon Masters drowned off Peterhead the age of twenty seven in a force 6 gale. He never left the town.

Grace Williams was gone before that summer had ended and graduated from Glasgow School Of Art. She married twice with one child from each marriage. You can buy her paintings in any number of galleries in Edinburgh.

And me? Well I walk the corridors of this hospital nursing my illness like some secret. And back home I huddle in my blanket of memory. And at night I dream I am sitting in The Big Top Caf�, with the lights off, in the cold ticking dark. And beyond the dark plane of glass I can see Grace Williams in a pool of lamplight, miraculous and beautiful, beyond my comprehension or care.

� Mark Gallacher
Reproduced with permission

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