by Jessica Ryn
Grace looks around at each face in their rudimentary semi-circle and feels a renewed respect stir inside her belly for every one of them who has endured this way of life. Day in, night out, amongst ridicule, spit, do-gooder smiles and pity-pennies in otherwise empty upturned hats. How can she allow a single one of them to go back to that whilst she tucks herself in a warm home with hot chocolate and marshmallows?
‘Could I please borrow your phone?’ Dawn appears next to Grace’s sleeping bag. ‘Mine doesn’t have a camera, it’s only a cheap one. £9.99 from Tesco’s.’
‘What do you need a camera for?’ Grace braces herself for Dawn’s latest scheme.
‘I want to film some of what we are doing. Show people how hard it is.’
Grace slips her phone out from her sleeping bag and hands it over. ‘Try not to get it wet. It’s not a fancy waterproof one.’
‘Grace Jennings?’ Dawn holds the phone up to her face. ‘My name is Dawn Elisabeth Brightside, one word. Am I right in thinking you were expecting more people for this event?’
Grace nods. ‘You could say that. Rubbish weather though. Can’t really blame them.’
‘Indeed,’ Dawn says, looking up at the sky and back at all of them and their drowned state. ‘But what would you like to say to the locals, the ones following the story on the St Jude’s social media pages?’
‘What story?’
‘The one you’re about to tell me. About St Jude’s. About how it’s going to close unless people donate to your sleepout and save the place. About how if they don’t, it won’t be long before lots of people in this group will be doing this for real.’
‘There’s plenty of people up there in the doorways who are doing this for real,’ pipes up Peter.
It gives Grace an idea. ‘Don’t interview me. Or even him,’ she points at Peter. ‘Although he knows what this is like much more than I do. Ask them. The people who have done this for real every single night. Any one of them about what this is like. Sleeping out here again after allowing themselves to believe that the future would be better after they’d been offered a room and some support, just weeks or months before potentially having it all ripped away again. There’s a reason why people haven’t turned up today. Because it’s wet and bloody freezing. Dangerous for our health. But that’s exactly why we needed people to come down here, just for one night – so these people won’t have to do it for many more. No one wants to, not even for one night. And that’s exactly the problem.’
Dawn stays quiet, and Grace swallows hard. Of course Dawn knows exactly what it’s like to live outside. She should be interviewing her, not the other way around. But Dawn is already looking around, considering who to approach next. She turns and walks towards their motley crew, phone in hand, stopping by each sleeping bag, one after the other before visiting the row of doorways up the high street.
Chapter 34
Dawn
THE LAST DROP OF rain has fallen on Dover town as the burnt-orange sun sweeps upwards from the sea, bringing with it the first warmth of the day and the faint taste of salt on the lips of each one stirring beneath the ocean of nylon and polyester.
One by one, people haul themselves up to sitting, blowing on their hands and flexing their limbs, many of them amazed they could still feel them after such a night.
Dawn is the first one to peel open an eye and stretch out a numb arm. Next to her, Grace’s nose twitches as a clump of her damp hair falls across her face. She sits up with a start, disorientated. Peter turns over and catches Hazel’s eye, and her cheeks blush into two perfect round circles. Peter braves a nod and receives one in return, accompanied by the briefest of smiles. It’s a start. Nothing like a night on cold concrete to bring people together and leave the past behind.
Dawn lies there a little longer, making shapes with her mind from the clouds above her before scrambling around in her sleeping bag for her linen trousers and flat, ballet-style pumps, £11.99 from Shoe Zone. She needs to get ready quickly today. She has her medical assessment appointment for her ESA benefit payments. Apparently, claimants are regularly assessed on their health condition and this would be Dawn’s first appointment. She checks the pocket of her cardigan and feels for the folded-up letter with the directions on. She’s going to need them as she’d spent hours yesterday convincing Grace that she could attend on her own. That she needed to start standing on her own two feet. She’s glad she did now; Grace will be shattered today after spending a whole night under the stars, resolutely facing away from that Jack fellow. She’d made it look ever so tiring.
Grace had reluctantly agreed after assuring her if she changed her mind she’d come along with Dawn for moral support. Dawn wasn’t sure there was anything moral to support really; how could it be right that the ill and infirm should have to stand on a stage under a spotlight, whilst showing their flaws to an audience who then get to decide if they’re ill enough to get the money? They may as well be stripped naked. She’s heard they aren’t even doctors or nurses. Just people who’d completed a six-week course on being judge and jury.
She rolls up her sleeping bag and stuffs it in her backpack before shuffling off unnoticed to the bus stop.
Chapter 35
Grace
EVERY PART OF GRACE’S body aches from sleeping on the ground and she fights to keep her eyes open as she looks through the office checklist. It’s almost lunchtime and she hasn’t tackled any of the daily tasks yet. After last night’s washout, it almost feels like there’s no point. If the place closes down, what will it matter if Grace has filled out the health and safety sheets? The first task on the tick list is: Check emails.
Damn. Grace feels the blood drain from her face when she sees the message from head office entitled: Funds Raised for Sleepout.
Any secret hopes Grace had been harbouring are dashed against the rocks when she looks at the numbers.
She’s still staring glumly at the screen when Dawn appears at the office hatch, talking at a thousand miles per hour about her ESA appointment.
‘I am so sorry.’ Grace gets up from her desk and puts her head through the hatch. ‘I should have been firmer about coming with you. Those appointments can be extremely stressful.’
‘It’s fine, don’t worry. It’s done. I did fine on my own.’ Dawn looks tired but her trademark smile is still stuck firmly to her face. ‘I’m not holding my breath, though. The questions were brutal – I felt like I was on an episode of Judge Judy.’
Grace should make her a coffee, give her some reassurance about how she could appeal if she wasn’t granted the sickness benefit, or a pep talk about how well she’s been doing lately; that it might not be long until she’s ready to work again and then she won’t need the ESA. But the tears are going to fall, and she doesn’t want Dawn to see.
‘I’m sorry, I need to close the office for an hour. Peter will be here soon. I just need to go somewhere.’ Grace rushes the words out and pulls the shutter down before running past Dawn in the foyer and bolting through the front door. Her Fiat is parked at the bottom of the hill and she fumbles with her car keys.
The engine in Grace’s car starts just in time for the first teardrop to skid down her face. Had she really believed she could make a difference? She never should have taken the manager’s job in the first place; she just doesn’t have what it takes. Her mum would never have allowed everything to crumble away like this in her line of work.
She wipes her face dry with the sleeve of her favourite hoody. Cold wind slashes through the car as the passenger door opens.
‘Room for one more?’ Dawn doesn’t wait for an answer, just slams the door shut and buckles up her seatbelt. ‘Where are we off to – anywhere nice?’
Grace shrugs but manages half a smile. ‘I just thought I needed to be on my own. As you’re here though, I’ll show you my favourite thinking spot.’
The roads of Dover are quiet with fewer cars than usual. Raindrops start to fall, splattering against the windscreen. Grace puts the wipers on, and
they squeak across the glass.
‘I don’t know what else to do to keep the hostel open.’ Grace hates the sound of her own voice. It’s flat. Defeated, with all of the fight sucked out of it.
Dawn places her hand on the gearstick, covering Grace’s own.
‘Maybe I shouldn’t have encouraged the fundraising,’ Grace carries on. ‘I might have just let you all get your hopes up for nothing. Why didn’t I just spent the last few weeks looking for flats for all of you?’ She looks in her rear-view mirror as if she’s considering reversing the whole way back, rewinding the last three weeks.
‘Because some of us aren’t ready,’ Dawn says. ‘Needing a place to stay is the one big thing we all need. But St Jude’s is more than that. We need the support, all that other stuff you help us with, so we don’t end up back outside again when things go wrong.’
‘I think you’re almost ready,’ Grace says. ‘I don’t think you realise how far you’ve come. But the ugly truth is, there’s no guarantee that St Jude’s will still be here in the winter. All of us will need to start preparing for that.’
‘At least we’ve gone down fighting.’
‘I’m so sorry.’ Grace’s voice gets a dent in it halfway through.
‘Not your fault. We’ll all be fine, one way or another. And that’s all because of the work you and Peter and the others have all done. Besides, it ain’t over yet; we’ve still got two weeks and we don’t know how much people will pledge when they see our sleepout video.’
‘I love your optimism.’ A smile breaks out on Grace’s face, taking her by surprise.
She keeps driving forward, shrugging off Dawn’s question about where they might be going.
Flint walls and lush green trees fly past the car once they’ve left the concrete of the town and suburbs and arrived in the car park of Kearsney Abbey.
‘I love it here,’ Grace says as she pulls up the handbrake. ‘The place I told you about is just up there.’
Grace’s thinking spot is the left side of a chipped metal bench, on top of the hill that overlooks the lake. The lake that somehow always shimmers, whatever the weather, as it carries around cloud-white swans with their long, proud necks. Grace envies them each time she comes here, for their poise and effortless grace. Pah. She wishes she was effortless.
Everything she’d done up to this point to sculpt herself into what she is now has taken every measurement of energy she has ever consumed. Trying to make her parents proud. Working hard to give her residents the best chance possible. It’s all been so exhausting.
‘I just don’t know who I would be without St Jude’s.’ Grace lowers herself to the bench and Dawn plonks herself next to her.
‘There’s a big world out there with a Grace-shaped hole.’ Dawn swivels around to face her. ‘Perhaps you need to find where it is and slot yourself in. Maybe it’s time to remember that you’re more than just your job. That there are other things – or people – for you to enjoy.’
A black and white collie runs after a tennis ball and catches it before it hits the ground, wagging his tail smugly all the way back to his owner.
‘Time.’ Grace turns the word over in her mind as a battle begins around it. A small frisson of excitement takes hold as she considers a different future for herself. She’d been so busy worrying about what would happen to the residents, she hadn’t entertained the thought that there might be more for her waiting around the corner. A life that could hold Jack within it with no recriminations.
‘You remember when I asked you what your smart goals were?’ Dawn asks, smiling. ‘You never did answer me.’
‘I did! I told you I wanted to make St Jude’s the best place it could be and to help all you lot. For all the good it did,’ scoffs Grace. ‘Peter’s right. Smart goals are a load of shite after all.’
A duck hops out from the water and starts waddling around on the grass, searching for treasures in the ground with its beak. Grace wishes she was a duck. No pressures. No expectations.
‘But what else would you like to do if you had to do something else?’ Dawn presses. ‘What would you want to do most if you could do anything?’
‘Channing Tatum,’ Grace says without missing a beat, and they both laugh. It feels good, and Grace can feel some of the weight lifting already. ‘Okay, I’ll tell you.’ She holds her hands up at Dawn in mock-surrender. ‘There’s someone I’ve got close to. Someone I want to be with. But it’s complicated.’
‘Does this mystery person know?’
The duck has given up mooching around in the grass and lands back on the lake with a gentle splash.
Grace nods and then shakes her head. ‘I’m not sure what he knows to be honest. He’s probably as confused as me.’
‘Remember that time you told me to remind myself that I was worthy of happiness?’
‘That’s different – you’re…’
‘Why’s it different? Because I’m homeless?’ Dawn finishes for her. ‘There’s a load of people out there going through all sorts of rubbish and not living their happiest lives. What would you tell them?’
‘That we can’t control everything that happens to us, but that we should grasp onto the positive things as hard as we can,’ Grace lets the words flow out, words she has said countless times to residents. ‘It’s not as simple as that though. There are… circumstances. And besides, I need to focus on the hostel. That has to be my priority. I don’t have time to be with anyone else right now.’
‘So, you want to be on your own?’
‘Not really,’ Grace admits. ‘I hate making meals for one and secretly detest the happy endings of romcoms.’
‘What would make you happy? Your happiness is important too.’
Grace’s jaw clenches tight as she shakes her head in an effort to dislodge the unwanted pictures that have flooded her mind. Her mum’s I’m-just-disappointed-that’s-all face as she’d rebuked Grace for complaining when her parents arrived home from New York three days late and missed her tenth birthday. We’ve been working hard to buy you nice things. To give you a life that will make you happy. You could at least be grateful.
‘St Jude’s makes me happy. I love helping you guys.’
‘I know.’ Dawn reaches across and places a hand on Grace’s shoulder. ‘I’ll always be grateful – we all will. But what’s to stop you getting out there and making yourself happy too? Maybe you need to look to your own future – and perhaps that certain other person in Room 4 who always makes you smile?’
Grace looks at Dawn’s wide grin and feels the blood rush to her cheeks. ‘Does everyone know?’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ laughs Dawn. ‘But I’ve seen the way you look at each other, and if life has taught me one thing it’s that happiness can be found in the darkest of places…’
‘Isn’t that Harry Potter?’
‘No idea – I read it on your coffee mug.’
The park side of the abbey has almost emptied by the time that Grace and Dawn make their way back to the car park. The squirrels run and chase and climb, and the trees begin to dance faster as the wind picks up and rushes through their branches.
Grace drives Dawn back to Dover town in silence, but this time it’s made from hope and quiet thoughts. She drops Dawn off at the bottom of the hill towards St Jude’s before pulling a U-turn and heading home.
When she arrives at her bedsit, Grace pulls her nan’s cardigan from the wardrobe. It smells of lavender talc and childhood cuddles.
She bounces across her bed and reaches for her work mobile. Her fingers click on the contacts and scroll to the number she wants. She stares at the screen whilst the smell of beef and onions wafts under the door from the flat next door. Before putting her meal-for-one back in the fridge and pulling a takeaway menu from the drawer, Grace selects Jack’s number and types out a message. She adds her address, and suggests he tries to get there in time to help her eat a curry.
After all, what is to stop her from grabbing hold of some happiness?
�
�You’re lucky I actually finished work on time, otherwise you would’ve had to eat this all by yourself,’ Jack grins as he helps Grace unpack the takeaway. ‘Bloody hell, how many people were you expecting?’
‘Just you,’ Grace says, feeling the blush creep across her cheeks.
Jack doesn’t answer. He fiddles with the edge of one of the rice containers. He’s tanned from working outside all week and Grace is trying desperately to think of something to say to make him smile, just so she can see the dimple by the side of his mouth.
‘Sharknado Two is on Netflix,’ she blurts out. ‘Thought we could watch it together, since we enjoyed the last one so much.’
Jack doesn’t laugh, doesn’t smile. He lets go of the container and turns his dimple-free face towards Grace.
‘What is this?’ he asks. ‘What are we doing here?’
‘Just having a curry, watching a film. Doing what friends do. I mean, if you don’t want to watch Sharknado, there’s plenty of other things on. I just thought that…’
‘Grace.’ Jack interrupts her babbling, turning towards her and walking forwards. He stops close in front, not touching her but leaving only inches between them.
‘I can’t do this anymore,’ he murmurs. His mouth is so near to hers.
Grace’s chest squeezes inwards over her thundering heart and her stomach plummets.
‘I’ve tried to keep my distance, tried to be patient,’ he carries on without taking his eyes from hers. ‘And if you only want a friend, I will be that for you one day. But at the moment, it’s too confusing.’
Grace takes hold of Jack’s hands, hoping her own aren’t too clammy. ‘That’s why I asked you here,’ she croaks. ‘I’ve been confused too. But I know I don’t give a shiny shit about the film. Or the curry. And I don’t just need a friend. I need you.’
Jack watches her face for several seconds, inching closer until their lips finally find each other. Jack’s full lips feel as soft and plump as Grace had imagined they would, and her bare toes curl up as the kiss deepens and his hands move low around her waist, crushing her chest against his.
