Goodness, Grace and Me

by Julie Houston

  I don’t know if it was that last gulp of wine, the look of absolute horror on Sarah’s face or the notion of Amanda digging up Miss Rhodes from her resting place in the local cemetery for the sole purpose of playing the school song just one more time, but I began to giggle uncontrollably.

  ‘Oh no,’ whispered Grace, giggling herself. ‘Don’t make her laugh.’

  ‘She doesn’t still snort like a walrus when she laughs does she?’ asked Rebecca, wide-eyed, and as Grace nodded in affirmation, began to cackle herself.

  Soon, our whole table was affected. Infectious as measles, the tittering and chortling spread amongst us until we were in the grip of uncontrollable laughter, tears rolling down cheeks, shoulders heaving, my buttocks and pelvic floor clenched to dizzying new heights of tightness. Thank goodness I’d been for a pee the last time I’d gone to the bar.

  As the desiccated old fossil who’d once ruled the roost in Midhope Grammar School’s music department brought the school song to a triumphant end, Grace wiped the mascara from below her eyes, took a long drink from her glass and said, ‘Girls, I think we’re in trouble again.’

  Chapter 11

  Now that we were all best friends again, we were in no mood to go home. The lugubrious-looking caretaker who’d been hanging around in the corridor, breathing heavily as he leaned on his broom for the last ten minutes in the hope that we’d all get lost so that he could polish his floor, lock up and drink the cocoa that was even now gathering a skin, began to give us beseeching looks while glancing meaningfully at the ancient hall clock.

  ‘Who’s for “Jimmy’s?”’ asked Sarah Armitage suddenly, draining her glass and looking round our table expectantly.

  ‘“Jimmy’s?” as in “Jimmy’s” nightclub?’ Grace asked, pulling a face.

  ‘Yep, unless you know some gorgeous man called Jimmy who’d give us a drink and let us carrying on talking,’ said Sarah, putting on her jacket. ‘Come on, it’ll be a laugh. We can’t any of us drive home, apart from Clare, who for some reason has never liked the taste of alcohol, so we may as well leave our cars here, grab some taxis and head into town.’

  And with that, she jumped on to the stage, smiled sweetly at Amanda who was helping Miss Rhodes into her cardigan, and took hold of the microphone.

  ‘Listen, everyone, some of us are going to carry on with our reunion down at Jimmy’s. Anyone fancy coming? I think there’s actually an “Eighties’ Night” on so we won’t feel too much out of place.’

  Various murmurs of assent, particularly from those who’d been in our year and below, meant she seemed to be in business.

  ‘No slinking off, Amanda,’ Sarah now called. ‘Are you coming with us?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Amanda laughed, shaking her head and indicating, by means of gestures, that she was still responsible for Miss Rhodes.

  ‘Come on, Amanda. We need you to keep us all in order. How about it, Miss Rhodes? Do you fancy a bit of a knees-up?’

  ‘Oh, my God,’ said Grace, in dismay, ‘She’s off her trolley. A nonagenarian in Jimmy’s on a Friday night? That’s all we bloody need.’

  ‘God, I hope Sarah is right about it being an eighties’ night,’ I said, half an hour later, as Grace, Rebecca and I clambered out of the taxi in front of Jimmy’s, Midhope’s longest running nightclub. ‘Could you see Miss Rhodes boogieing on down to ‘House’ or ‘Rap’ or whatever it is people dance to these days?’

  ‘She’s not actually coming with us is she?’ Grace said grimly as she searched the queue in front of Jimmy’s. ‘If she is, I’m off. And if I see any of my ex-pupils in there I’m going straight home too.’

  Laughing, Rebecca and I took hold of Grace’s arms, bundled her past the two mesomorphic bouncers on the door and made straight for the loos where we repaired the damage to our make-up caused by the laughing fit in the school hall.

  Having commandeered a number of tables and chairs, and thus established a safe haven to which we could retreat if and when necessary, Sarah and Clare and a couple of others from our table were already on the surprisingly spacious wooden floor, dancing round their handbags while Culture Club confirmed that we were, indeed, in the required decade.

  From Phil Collins and Lionel Richie to The Thomson Twins, from Howard Jones to Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran, the music belted out non-stop. Even Grace began to relax and enjoy herself, resurrecting the dance moves we thought we’d forgotten years ago, and joining in with ‘Relax, Don’t do it’ from Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

  I was amazed to see Amanda on her feet, shaking her blonde hair, jiggling her pert behind and dancing, if a little out of rhythm, with gusto. Miss Rhodes, chaperoned by Amanda’s prefects and nursing a sweet sherry in one corner of the club, appeared animated, nodding her head to the music and generally giving the impression of being totally at home with her surroundings.

  ‘Oh shit,’ I mouthed to the others, nodding in her direction. ‘What if she has a cardiac arrest? I can’t remember the procedure for resuscitation, can you?’

  ‘Or resurrection,’ Rebecca shouted back over the music. ‘Don’t worry, if she goes now, she’ll die a happy woman.’

  By one in the morning, only a hard core of the original crowd remained. One of Amanda’s cronies had finally persuaded Miss Rhodes to call it a night, and she’d been taken home.

  ‘Night-night, girls,’ she’d waved on her way out, her Crimplene frock somehow caught up in her enormous cream plastic handbag. ‘Behave yourselves now. Don’t be too late going to bed.’ No doubt her bunions would give her jip in the morning, but she’d left with a smile on her face, determined to do it all again next year.

  The rest of us, including Amanda who, to my surprise, had seemed determined to stay the course, had all had far too much to drink. We were at the stage of believing that dancing with our arms overhead while yelling ‘woo-hoo’ was seriously cool. Every time a different record came on that took us back to our youth one of us would get thoroughly overexcited, shouting, ‘Oh I just love this record. It reminds me of when I used to go out with John/ Peter/Michael/first time I had a snog/ that holiday we went on to Majorca.’

  Rebecca, who’d been knocking back alcopops like some let-loose fourteen-year-old, had overestimated the tenacity of her stiletto heels and, after a particularly vigorous stamping of her feet, was now in the process of swinging a broken-heeled shoe above her head as she hopped about on one foot. Even Clare, with no alcohol to fuel her emotions, must have told every one of us, including Amanda, how much she ‘luurrved’ us at least ten times each while Sarah, who’d been engaged in some very energetic dancing with a Robbie Coltrane lookalike, was rendered speechless when, after escorting her back to our table, he complimented her by patting her bottom and saying, ‘Eh, you don’t sweat much fer a fat lass, do you?’

  ‘You seemed to be getting on well with him,’ I said to Rebecca, indicating the guy she’d been deep in conversation with a few minutes before. He’d appeared to be doing most of the talking, whispering intently into her ear. ‘He reminds me of someone. Who is it?’ I looked over to the bar area where he now stood, trying to think who he looked like.

  ‘Brian Cox?’ Rebecca asked. ‘You know, Professor Brian Cox?’

  ‘God, yes, that’s right,’ I said excitedly. ‘It’s just like him.’

  ‘The thing is, I’ve got a bit of a thing for Brian Cox. It’s all that brainpower, and the fact that he was once in a rock band. But mainly it’s his voice. I just have to watch him on TV in that tight black T-shirt and jeans saying, “black holes” or “particle physics” and I feel ridiculously randy.’ Rebecca looked slightly embarrassed. ‘So when he came over to me I asked him if he wouldn’t mind whispering something, you know, Brian Cox-ish into my ear.’

  Grace and I laughed. ‘And did he?’

  ‘Well, yes. He started with “the moon” and “Jupiter” and built up to “asteroid belt” and “relativity”. He needs to flatten his vowels a bit more – too Yorkshire rather than Mancunian – but
I’m meeting him next week, hopefully for some “quantum mechanics”.’

  Grace and I nodded sagely. We’d both been through the Brian Cox syndrome and knew exactly where she was coming from.

  ‘Oy, Mrs Stevens!’ came the cry from the bar where a gang of youths, all similarly attired in short-sleeved, open-necked shirts worn outside their trousers, stood, bottled lager in hand, surveying the room for talent.

  ‘I knew there’d be someone here I used to teach,’ Grace said irritably, peering through the dark in an attempt to put a name to the voice. ‘I’ve no idea who it is – they all look the same to me with their short-cropped hair and identical shirts.’ And then as the owner of the voice, grin all over his face, pushed through the crowd towards her, Grace laughed delightedly.

  ‘My goodness, Chubby Tingley. Well, you’ve grown a bit since you were eleven years old.’

  ‘I should hope so. I don’t think they’d have let me in here if I hadn’t.’

  ‘So how old are you now? No, don’t tell me. You must be, oh golly, seventeen?’

  ‘Eighteen next week,’ Chubby said proudly. ‘What you doing in here, Miss?’

  ‘My old school reunion. The school I actually went to. Not the one I used to teach in. And this is my friend, Mrs Westmoreland,’ Grace said, pulling me forwards to be introduced.

  ‘It’s all right, Chubby, you can call me Harriet,’ I laughed, thinking what a lovely face young Chubby had. ‘So were you actually in Grace’s class?’

  ‘Grace? Oh you mean Mrs Stevens! Yep, best teacher I ever had. I was a real little bugger until I went into her class, but she wouldn’t let me get away with anything. She used to make me laugh if I was about to get up to something. It sort of made me stop wanting to mess about.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it,’ Grace laughed, in turn. ‘You still had your moments.’

  ‘Yeah, do you remember when I tried to superglue the hamster’s paws to its exercise wheel and you stapled me to the wall through my jumper?’

  ‘Those were the days,’ said Grace wistfully. ‘Couldn’t get away with it now. We’d be up for child cruelty. Irrelevant that I was trying to show you how the hamster would have felt if you’d succeeded.’

  ‘Come and have a dance, Miss. And then I can tell all the lads at football who were in your class that I’ve seen you and had a dance with you.’

  ‘We really should be going shouldn’t we, Harriet?’ Grace looked at me meaningfully.

  ‘All the time in the world, Mrs Stevens,’ I said airily. ‘I’m going to get another drink.’

  Glaring at me, Grace reluctantly followed Chubby onto the dance floor, which was slowly emptying of people. I stood with the others, watching Grace cringe with embarrassment as Chubby put her through her paces.

  ‘My God, his hips need their own postcode,’ Rebecca sniggered, as Chubby’s legs gyrated this way and that to Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat it.’ Never once taking his eyes from his favourite teacher, and occasionally thrusting his nether regions towards her, à la Jackson, Chubby obviously thought he was set up for the rest of the night.

  I could see that Grace didn’t quite know what to do and where to look. Should she throw caution to the wind and ‘bump and grind’ along with Chubby? She stepped and hopped daintily on the spot, a fixed smile on her face, every now and then turning to where we stood to fix us with a glare.

  ‘Rightio, you ravers,’ the ageing DJ shouted over the music, ‘we’re going even further back in time. Never mind the eighties. In fact, fuck the eighties. It’s rock and roll that we want. It’s Rockabilly that we need.’ And with one, not overly fluid, movement he did a sort of scissors jump from his turntables and was on the dance floor.

  He must have been sixty, if he was a day, but he couldn’t half move. As Little Richard’s ‘Lucille’ belted out, he grabbed Grace from Chubby and spun her round before taking her two hands and jiving her around the floor. I honestly saw the whites of Grace’s eyes as, mouth open in a single ‘O’ of protest, she disappeared over his shoulder only to reappear between his splayed drainpipe-trousered legs.

  A crowd, consisting almost entirely of weekend Teddy boys reliving their youth, gathered, egging Eddie the DJ on to ever more amazing feats of rock and roll while Chubby, rendered both speechless and motionless by the kidnap of his former teacher and dance partner, looked on helplessly.

  ‘You’re going to have to get in there and save her,’ I hissed as a collective ‘woah’ went round the room as Grace disappeared round Eddie’s back once more.

  ‘No chance,’ Chubby said, taking a swig of lager. ‘There’s no chance. I’ve seen Eddie in action before. There’s no escape.’

  ‘We’re gonna rock-around-the-clock-tonight,’ the crowd yelled as Bill Haley made his appearance over the speakers and Grace simultaneously made hers between Eddie’s legs once more. Thank God she was wearing trousers. Rebecca, just back from the loo, stared in amazement at the scene in front of her. Whooping with excitement, she kicked off her remaining good shoe, grabbed the hand of the nearest foot-tapping member of rent-a-crowd and joined the other two, centre stage.

  ‘Whose fucking idea was this fucking nightclub?’ Grace managed to snarl in my direction from her upside down position over Eddie’s shoulder.

  ‘Hey, I didn’t know teachers swore,’ Chubby said, shocked.

  As Bill Haley sang the final notes –‘Doop doopy doop doopy doop doopy doop doopy dooooop doopy bedoop’– Grace executed a final twirl and landed back at my, and Chubby’s, feet.

  ‘Do not say a word, Harriet. Not one single word.’

  And with that she gathered up her Mulberry bag, her drink and what was left of her dignity and, head held high, walked in the direction of the Ladies.

  Amanda was still sitting with Sally Davies and Andrea Collins. She said something to the pair of them and they all turned to watch as Grace reappeared, face freshly made-up and hair restored to its pre-jiving state. No doubt Amanda had related last night’s little episode to them both, and they’d thoroughly enjoyed Grace’s discomfiture on the dance floor.

  ‘Ok, time to go,’ I said, steering a still obviously shell-shocked Grace back towards the table next to Amanda’s where the girls, my unfinished drink and handbag waited. I was suddenly fed up with Amanda’s superior, cool gaze. Those navy-blue eyes of hers were as unfathomable as the deep, but they didn’t miss a trick.

  ‘Right, are we off?’ I asked, at the same moment as Rebecca dug me in the ribs.

  ‘Look at that,’ she breathed. ‘Just get an eyeful of that would you?’

  We all turned in the direction she was gazing. At the bar, waiting to be served, dark eyes surveying the crowd as if looking for someone, stood Enrique Iglesias. Well, obviously it wasn’t the Enrique Iglesias – I mean, I doubt that the real Mr Iglesias had ever heard of Midhope, never mind visited its seedy nightclubs of a Friday night. But this man, with his olive tan, his dark eyebrows and his designer stubble was Enrique down to a T. No, I tell a lie. At around six foot three, his very obvious six-pack outlined beneath a white T-shirt and well-scuffed brown leather jacket, he was even more stunning. His eyes continued to search the room and then, without warning, he suddenly left the bar, slowly making his way towards our table.

  ‘He’s coming over,’ Rebecca squeaked, unconsciously shaking back her hair and wetting her lips.

  ‘Oh for heaven’s sake, get a grip, Rebecca,’ Sarah said, watching as he came towards us. ‘I’ve got knickers older than him!’

  Grace seemed transfixed, her eyes never leaving his for a second. He came right up to her, gave her a slow sexy smile and then carried on to where Amanda was sitting, oblivious to his approach.

  ‘My God, Amanda’s pulled,’ Rebecca hissed. ‘Would you believe it? The bitch has pulled!’

  Amanda turned in surprise as Enrique laid a gentle hand on her shoulder and then, losing all her usual composure, jumped up, knocking over her chair in the process as she threw her arms around him, burying her face in his shoulder.


  ‘Blimey,’ Sarah said in surprise, ‘She doesn’t hang around does she?’

  ‘How did you know I was here?’ Amanda said, half laughing, half crying, taking his hand as he righted her overturned chair. ‘Everyone, this is my son, Sebastian. I’ve not seen him for nearly six months.’ And she grabbed him again, kissing his face, while he grinned down at her in adoration.

  ‘Can we give anyone a lift?’ Sebastian Henderson asked ten minutes later, gazing unblinkingly at Grace.

  She still hadn’t said a word apart from a muttered, ‘Hi,’ in response to Amanda’s introduction. She reminded me of the terrified rabbit I’d once held hypnotised in my car headlights. Even when I’d actually jumped out and tried to shoo it away, the silly thing had still remained in the road, rooted to the spot.

  ‘Well Clare, who very sensibly has not been drinking all evening, is the right direction for Rebecca, Harriet and myself. So, the only one who is going your way is probably Grace,’ said Sarah.

  ‘No, really, I’ll get a taxi,’ Grace protested. ‘I really don’t want to put anyone out. I’ll ask the guy on the door to get me one.’

  ‘Do they do that these days?’ asked Sarah in surprise.

  ‘Well, whatever,’ said Grace in some embarrassment as she realised she was at the centre of attention. ‘I’ve got my phone. There really is no problem.’

  ‘Oh come on, Grace,’ said Amanda, almost impatiently. We go right through your village. Seb’s got David’s car so he can squeeze us all in. Mind you,’ she added, turning once more to her son, ‘I’m surprised you’re not on your bike. I’d have thought that would have been first on your list once you got home.’

  Sebastian grinned showing a set of perfect white teeth. ‘When Dad told me you’d rung home to say you were down here, I just fancied surprising you. I couldn’t see you coming home with me on the back of my bike.’