Grace's Table

by Sally Piper

  ‘I’ll get everybody in.’ Jane went to the back door and yelled, ‘Come and get it!’

  ‘Classy,’ Susan mumbled.

  Grace looked at her daughter, disappointed. She thought sarcasm cheap currency.

  ‘Hands, everybody,’ Jane said to the children as they filed past, holding the screen door open at her back – and baptising everyone with a little wine from the glass she was waving overhead.

  Richard and Peter helped Ada up the back steps next, followed by Kath and Nick. Kath had linked her arm through Nick’s as though she’d claimed him as her beau.

  In the dining room Grace began to place people at the table. Ada had just found her seat – when shouting broke out across the street.

  ‘Oi, you. Bugger off.’

  ‘You own the bloody nature strip, do you?’

  ‘A good whack of it, yeah, I reckon I do given it’s in front of my house.’

  ‘That’s bullshit. The useless council owns it which means I can do what I fuckin’ well like on it—’

  ‘Oh, for goodness sake,’ Susan said. ‘Do we have to listen to this?’

  ‘Language alert.’ Jane tried to clamp her hands over Meg’s ears, but the fair head ducked and weaved out of her mother’s reach.

  ‘Everybody knows the f-word, Mum,’ Tom said. ‘It’s part of the school curriculum.’

  ‘Just ignore them. They’ll move on,’ Grace said.

  ‘I’m moving them on right now.’ Peter turned to go out.

  ‘Leave it, Peter.’ Grace caught his arm. ‘People’s tempers are frayed by the heat and mess. Let it go. They’ll give it up soon enough.’

  Grace watched Peter pause in the doorway. The tight fists he made of his hands. When territories were threatened, Peter’s father had been like this, just as determined to reassert the boundaries.

  Grace could still remember the smell of the dance hall that night as she and Bev walked in – it was ripe with cheap perfume, sweat and opportunity. The band was belting out a good likeness of Ray Charles’s ‘Hit The Road Jack’, which struck a rhythm deep in Grace’s chest. She looked across the sea of heads, trying to spot Des’s among them. It was impossible not to be caught up in the pulse of the crowd.

  She and Bev walked the perimeter, each gripping the other’s hand so as not to be separated. Men shimmied in front of them as though acting out some kind of mating ritual, which Grace supposed in a way they were. She and Bev edged round them and continued the search, laughing. But after two circuits of the dance hall, Grace still couldn’t see Des.

  ‘Bev and I aren’t off till late tonight,’ she’d told him on the phone.

  ‘You’re always off late. Can’t you just leave?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because we’re talking about sick people not dead animals.’

  There was silence on the other end of the phone. Grace imagined him scheming ways for her escape from ward and duty, or maybe he was taking time to compose himself.

  ‘I should be finished by ten,’ she said.

  He could meet her and Bev at the nurses’ quarters, then they’d all head to the dance together by taxi.

  But now Des had other plans. ‘I guess I’ll see you there then,’ he said.

  ‘How will I—’

  He’d hung up.

  ‘Do you think we should keep looking for him?’ she asked Bev.

  ‘We’ve looked enough. It’s his turn to try and find you – if he’s here at all.’ They found a seat up on the terraced balcony running round the sides of the dance floor.

  Two girls – two leggy girls – without partners at a dance didn’t go unnoticed. The offers to dance from eager young men kept coming but Grace gave each a polite No. Bev’s face, full of cheery enthusiasm when men approached, was dashed to disappointment as they were sent away.

  ‘You dance.’ Grace was conscious she was setting up an untouchable barrier around them. ‘I don’t mind,’ she lied.

  ‘I’m not going to leave you sitting here on your own.’

  Grace was grateful. She was fragile enough with her chaste waiting, searching the crowds for the tall and familiar, but to be left sitting alone would feel like abandonment.

  ‘Thanks, Bev. He’ll turn up soon, and then we can all have some fun.’

  Grace’s mood changed as the band moved through its mixture of slow and fast melodies. Roy Orbison’s ‘Only The Lonely’, too poignant in its title and theme, allowed her to wallow in calm and diligent waiting. Toni Fisher’s ‘The Big Hurt’ sanctioned her right to feel the victim of thoughtless neglect. When Bobby Bland’s ‘Let The Little Girl Dance’ came on, Grace saw it as a sign.

  Angry indifference took over.

  ‘Come on, this is silly. He’s probably not even here.’

  At the next song, they caught the eyes of boys Grace had turned down, and the two girls were soon up and on the dance floor – where they stayed.

  The young man Grace danced with was powerfully built but not as tall as Des. He was a confident dancer and Grace had relaxed into his lead much the same way she did with Des. Years later, she’d speculate that Des had known where she was all the time, but remained out of sight, watching her, waiting to see what she’d do.

  Maybe it was Grace’s easy comfort that Des recognised and felt threatened by. Or was it more to do with the fact that Grace hadn’t stayed seated, waiting for him to find her? Whatever started the scuffle – one man trying to push in and the other in no mood to let him – soon led to the throwing of fists. A space cleared around the men as they fought. But Grace didn’t see till she was older that it was over little more than their own masculinity.

  ‘Des, please. It was nothing,’ Grace tried, to little effect.

  She wanted to wade in and pull them apart but Bev pulled her back. ‘Are you crazy? You’ll cop one.’

  She gripped Bev’s arm and winced with each punch that found its target. Perhaps Des hadn’t anticipated the strength or skill of the other man. His fists were making contact more often than Des’s.

  ‘Where’re the bouncers? Why aren’t they coming to break it up?’ Grace’s need for the hurting to end made time drag.

  But barely a minute had passed before the men were pulled apart by two broad bouncers.

  Grace followed Des’s flailing arms as he fought his undignified exit from the building. Outside, thrown to the ground, he slumped, spitting blood.

  Grace knelt on the rough gravel in front of him, not caring about the ladders she was putting in her expensive nylons. She dabbed at his lip with her handkerchief. But he wasn’t ready to be soothed, not yet. He brushed her hand away.

  ‘You’re my girl,’ he growled, spitting more blood.

  At the time, Grace thought this was chivalrous, and enchanting.

  ‘Of course I’m yours,’ she soothed.

  ‘I thought you loved me?’

  They hadn’t talked about love, despite spending all their spare time together, laughing easily. Perhaps he thought it was implied by their long kisses, by his hand sliding sometimes too high, or low, from her waist.

  ‘I do,’ she said. She pushed his hair from his forehead to expose a small graze. She dabbed at that too, and he let her.

  She couldn’t deny she liked the sense of menace that surrounded Des. He was a bit wild, intractable, hard to control, but all the more exciting for it. Perhaps she saw herself as someone clever enough to get the kind of behaviour she wanted from Des. Or was it more that she was determined to find love in the city where she’d failed at it in the country?

  Grace tended his wounds and whispered, Of course I love you in his ear.

  They slept with each other for the first time that night. She tasted his blood on her tongue when they kissed and in some ways this sealed her commitment to him.

  Des seemed determined to
cement his ownership over her too. At his flat, there was no gentle coaxing of her into the small bedroom; she was led. And there was no slow undressing of one another; each attended to themselves. Face to face across his narrow bed they dropped their clothes to the floor, proving their readiness to reveal their bodies to each other.

  Des followed the routine. He caressed as he should, kissed as he should, but never offered the same commitment to her pleasure as she’d experienced in the past. Grace wished she’d not known anything else; that she could lie there believing this was the best of it. As it was, she knew she’d be party to a lie.

  ‘All right?’ he asked, pushing her legs apart with his.

  She nodded but couldn’t meet his eyes.

  Grace didn’t know if he noticed, though his earlier tentativeness soon gave way to the deep thrusts of experience; movements that told her the façade could be dropped, or that he didn’t care about fragility.

  She dared to look at him then, and was unnerved to see him staring at her. Defiant, even during this most intimate act, she didn’t look away, daring him instead to fuck her like a prostitute if he must.

  I do, she’d said. And she believed at the time that she’d meant it.

  Gently, Grace placed her hand on Peter’s arm again.

  ‘Come on,’ she said, choosing her words with care. ‘Let’s sit down. They’ll stop.’

  Poor Peter, he worked his fists a few more times.

  ‘They better,’ he said, finally, and returned to his seat.

  Grace wondered what her life might have looked like at seventy, had she chosen her words better and not said I do, twice. But she reminded herself that this was her life now, so there was little point trying to imagine a different one.

  13

  Seated between her friends along one side of the table, Grace faced Jane, Peter, Susan and Richard. Meg sat with the older people, beside Ada, and was busy telling her of the benefits of Caran d’Ache colouring pencils over K-Mart specials.

  Ada listened with the patience of a grandmother.

  Grace had not had twelve people at her table for a while. Theirs wasn’t the kind of family who shared regular Sunday meals. A certain level of commitment to one another was required for that, a commitment Grace conceded that as a family they’d never quite achieved. Past events hadn’t helped, she supposed. History had a way of reorganising the future in unsatisfying ways.

  Grace looked at the two tables she’d had to push together for the day, one a drop-leaf table that she and Jack had manoeuvred in from the lounge room the day before. She liked the irregularity of the two, the way one was narrower and taller than the other, forcing a central ridge in the cream damask tablecloth.

  None of her wine glasses matched – some were cut crystal, others plain, the length of the stems varying as much as the size of the glass. And neither were the chairs all the same. Several had barley twist legs to match those of the dining table, others were of chromed steel, and she’d brought two moulded plastic ones in from the patio. The cutlery was a mishmash of bone-handled, stainless steel and worn silver alongside the confusion of plates.

  Large serving bowls dotted the length of the tables. The roasted potatoes and parsnips were crisp and golden with little trace of the oil that had allowed it. The broccoli looked remarkably green under a sprinkling of toasted almond flakes and the baby carrots glistened with the honey Grace had drizzled over them. The cauliflower au gratin still bubbled from the oven, and the peas, Grace’s favourite vegetable, were an army of minted emerald. There was a gravy boat here, the top flecked with the brownings from the roasting pan, a jug of mint sauce there, and baskets of dinner rolls at either end. Wisps of steam escaped into the air, which was sucked up by the steady orbit of the ceiling fan.

  The leg of lamb reclined in its own glossy juices on the serving platter in front of Peter. The fat across the top was now crisply caramelised all the way to the knuckle. The marrow – the coin, Des called it, and something he’d dig out with a pointed knife, spread on a square of bread and sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper – was a chocolate-coloured dimple at the bony end. It was a plump joint, the prize of the table, except maybe to Jorja.

  Grace felt confident it would feed them all, perhaps with a little to spare.

  Grace had put Nick and Jorja at the head of the table, facing Tom and Jaxon at the other end. It would have been a squeeze to fit two adults along these shortest sides of the rectangle – and anyway, she wanted to break the tradition of the senior man overseeing a meal as though he were king.

  When Grace was a child the carving of the Sunday roast followed a well-worn and traditional path. Mother would bring the joint to the dining table on her good oval platter. The beef or pork or lamb would ooze its juices onto the plate’s design so that the blue Spode figures drowned in the flood. The table would be set with the best of everything the buffet offered, in the way of linen, crockery and cutlery. There’d even be a small posy in the table’s centre, snipped that morning from the garden with Pa’s well-sharpened secateurs. Mother would hand the platter to Pa, seated at the head of the table, and then she would sit to his right ready to receive her plate.

  Pa always served Mother first. He would slice her off the first cut – the flavoursome, crispy skin coveted by all. ‘There you go, Mother,’ he’d say, ‘the cook’s reward.’

  ‘Thank you, Frank.’ On Sundays, Mother’s voice could be gentle.

  He’d then cut slices for Grace, then Joe and last of all himself. He might stop between Grace and Joe if a slice looked a particularly nice one – not too fatty – and he’d offer it to Mother as well, balanced on the flat surface of the knife’s blade.

  This exchange taught Grace about the division of tasks when life was tied to the soil. There were those who toiled inside the home and those who toiled outside and each respected what the other did. In this way Grace grew up believing the cook was valued in a household.

  But then, Pa was an exceptional man.

  Des too would carve the Sunday roast. He’d sit at the head of the table just as Pa had and Grace would sit at the other end, the three children between them. Unlike her mother, Grace liked to set the table casually with an easy-care tablecloth and pretty paper napkins. Des liked the stiff white linen, which never fell well at the table’s corners and required laborious restarching and ironing each week. Early on she’d set it to please him. Later, she set it to please herself.

  He’d carve the joint more deftly than Pa. Des knew how to wield a knife. But where Pa served Mother first, Des served Grace last and he kept the first slice back for himself. The children, more outspoken than when Grace was a girl, would dare to challenge him.

  ‘You’ve got more crackling than us,’ they’d chorus, or, ‘That’s not fair, you always get the parson’s nose.’

  ‘Who brings the meat home round here?’ he’d say, and gobble the crisp, greasy treat down in front of them, while they sulkily looked on.

  Today, Peter stood beside the table to carve the lamb. He wasn’t as experienced with a knife as his father but he took to the job with the same earnestness; the tip of his tongue poked from his mouth as he concentrated on the task.

  ‘Bagsy the first slice,’ called Tom.

  ‘Adults first, Tom,’ Susan said to her nephew.

  Peter put the first slice to one side on the platter. Grace knew why.

  ‘The birthday girl gets served first, champ.’ Peter placed the second slice on Grace’s plate and passed it to her.

  Watching how silently the new knife moved through the meat reminded Grace of an electric one she’d owned that had moved well enough but not been so quiet. It was a General Electric brand from memory, bought sometime in the late seventies. It was weighty to hold and noisy, but efficient. The action of its dual blades allowed the thinnest of slices to be carved from a joint. Des hated it. But that didn’t stop Grace from laying it at the h
ead of the table beside his plate each Sunday, daring him to use it or admit failure. She even kept a short extension lead in a drawer in the dining room, just for the knife. She enjoyed watching the foreign and unwieldy thing in his hands; she liked that it spoilt his masculine performance. She fancied that its intrusive buzzing was like an alarm bell signalling uncertainties and confusion in the normal hierarchy of the household.

  Jorja silently winced at the carving process, especially once pink started to ooze from the flesh as Peter neared the bone. She followed the journey of each slice from plate to plate – making sure, Grace supposed, that no blood dripped onto the vegetables.

  Peter cut a piece from near the knuckle and put it in his mouth.

  ‘Delicious,’ he said. ‘Could have been hand-selected by Dad.’

  Grace bristled. She’d had a lifetime of hearing the butcher praised above the cook.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Let’s give the final credit to the pasture that helped the lamb get fat.’

  ‘Or a good killing,’ offered Nick. ‘I read somewhere that some abattoirs play Bach to calm the animals, thinking it helps keep the meat tender. You know, not … scared … stiff.’ Here Nick did a fine impersonation of a terrified animal, arms and legs convulsing in front of him.

  Jorja went pale. Grace was encouraged. It proved her granddaughter’s vegetarianism wasn’t just a fashion accessory.

  Nick, remembering, said, ‘Oh, sorry, Jorja.’

  Richard spread his hands wide like Jesus at the Last Supper and addressed the food at the table.

  ‘Can’t see too much other protein on the table, Jorja. So where are you going to get it from this time?’

  Jorja reached for the bowl of peas beside her plate. ‘These,’ she said to him. ‘You’re the one always selling the benefits of green.’

  ‘Don’t manipulate my ideas about clean energy to suit your imbalanced food pyramid.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with my food pyramid. Besides, vegetarianism’s as much about clean energy as it is anything else.’ Jorja’s veil of hair was well back from her face as she looked at her father.