The State of Grace

by Rachael Lucas

  Anna, who appreciates Mabel – but from a distance – thinks it’s disgusting that I’d let a horse snuffle all over my face.

  But I love Mabel with the heat of a million suns. She’s standing, silhouetted in the golden light of early morning, her profile as beautiful as her desert ancestors, nostrils flaring in a sigh of contentment. I reach up, placing a hand against the flatness of her cheekbone, sending a silent message.

  Thank you. Thank you for letting me be your person. Thank you a million times for the day they said, ‘We’ve decided you can have a horse of your own.’ I can’t say the words out loud, but I feel them pulsing through me and into the warmth of her skin.

  And then there’s a crash, which sends Mabel wheeling and snorting to the end of the reins, my arm jerking as she pulls away from me, the tips of her ears almost meeting in the middle, her nostrils flaring, neck rigid with shock.

  ‘Shit.’

  There’s a voice behind me.

  There’s a metallic sound and a groan. As I turn, I see a mountain bike emerging from the ditch, followed by a soaking-wet, mud-splattered arm, followed by –

  ‘Jesus. What are you doing up here at this time of the morning?’

  The voice comes first before a shape clambers over the bank, its face completely covered in mud, water dripping from the visor of his – it’s a he, I realize – helmet. He hauls himself out over the edge of the bank and looks at me through his mud mask, wiping his face with the hem of his sweatshirt. I’m so hopeless at recognizing people out of context that it takes me a second before I recognize the dark brown eyes staring out from the mud-covered face.

  ‘It’s a bridle path. And this –’ I indicate the highly unimpressed Mabel, still stock still, who gives a well-timed huff of disapproval – ‘is my horse. Wearer of a bridle. Hence the path.’

  Shut up, Grace, for God’s sake.

  Gabe Kowalski looks down at the slightly mangled bike, which is lying beside him on the grass.

  ‘Right,’ he says, and he’s laughing. ‘Did you have sarcasm flakes for breakfast?’

  I thought I was simply stating the obvious. Not sure what to say, I carry on looking at him as he clambers to his feet, frowning down at the bike wheel.

  ‘I’m not being sarcastic,’ I manage eventually. ‘It’s just – what on earth are you doing riding a mountain bike into a ditch?’

  ‘It wasn’t exactly in the plan. I was coming down the hill and the ditch just sort of – appeared. And then we – me and the bike – were in it.’

  He gives a sheepish smile. One front tooth crosses over the other, I notice.

  ‘D’you need a hand?’ I step forward, but Mabel has other ideas. She’s rooted to the spot and she’s not moving one inch. She’s got no concept of sisterhood, this horse.

  ‘Looks like your transport isn’t behaving any better than mine.’ He hauls the bike upright. ‘It’ll be fine, just need to get it home and fix the forks.’

  ‘If you take the path down there –’ I wave my arm in the direction of the stables – ‘there’s a shortcut back to Lane End.’

  ‘Past the stables?’ He’s holding on to the bike now, readying himself to leave.

  ‘Yes.’ I don’t know why I don’t say, ‘Oh, that’s where I keep Mabel.’ Or even, ‘That’s where I’m headed – do you want to walk with me?’

  I couldn’t really say that (even if it wasn’t a lie, because it’s not where I’m headed, obviously) because Mabel is utterly convinced that the bike is some kind of evil swamp monster designed to murder her in her sleep, but, even so, I can tell this is one of these moments where if I was in a film I’d say something cute, and so would he, and then he’d wipe the mud off his face and we’d walk home together chatting and . . .

  ‘See you, then.’ He jerks his head upward as a sort of goodbye, and heads back down the track towards home.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, realizing as I do that Anna and I are going to replay this conversation a million times. ‘See you.’

  I watch him wheeling the bike, the damaged front wheel in the air, down the track towards the stables, until he’s a tiny speck in the distance and Mabel’s nudging me in the back, the metal of her bit jingling, and then I get back into the saddle and ride on, up to the moor.

  The hollow thudding of her hooves on the peat turf and the occasional whoop of the birds overhead are the only things I can hear. It’s not exactly helpful. My thoughts are going round and round inside my head, my brain going over all the amusing things I could have said. Like, ‘Hello, I’m Grace; we’re in opposite sets so we don’t share any classes, but it’s nice to meet you.’ That might’ve been a start. Instead, just for a change, I’ve gone for socially awkward, as usual. A vision of me at Charlotte’s party, standing in a corner, trying to look like I’m mysterious and interesting instead of a total loser with no social skills pops into my head and I feel a bit sick.

  I’m looking forward to the party. Keep telling yourself that, Grace.

  I am.

  I loosen the reins and Mabel, reading my mind, soars forward into a canter and I lose myself in the thrumming of hoof beats and wind in my face.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  It’s Monday. Again.

  There’s a smell in here that’s making it impossible to concentrate. I’m vaguely aware that Miss Jones is saying something, but I can’t pick it out amongst the stink. It’s overwhelming.

  ‘GRACE!’

  I open my eyes. Tabassum, who has – I’ve just realized – been nudging me, lets out a resigned sigh. She knows what’s coming next.

  ‘What?’

  Holly Carmichael, who sits opposite me, mutters ‘weirdo’ under her breath. I don’t look at her. I haven’t looked her in the eye since she deliberately wrecked my donkey painting in Year Four, just because it was loads better than hers. I’m aware that sounds ridiculous, but we all have coping mechanisms, and not looking at people is one of mine. I don’t imagine she’s even noticed – I’m not exactly on her radar these days. I’m just glad she’s forgotten the time I peed in my pants at her fifth birthday party because I was having a meltdown and the balloons were scaring me.

  ‘Don’t you “what” me, my girl.’ Miss Jones is approaching the table now, her mouth set in a straight line. She slams her palm down on the table so my books all jump in the air. Holly makes a ‘wooooo’ sound, which makes the rest of the class laugh. I reach a hand forward to straighten the books, but Tabassum kicks me under the table.

  The smell’s coming from outside, I realize, as I see a man jumping down from the low roof of the PE storage sheds. They’re sticking something down and the gluey smell has adhered to my nostrils and it’s making me want to throw up. And I’ve just realized she’s still talking.

  ‘. . . a whole class here, Grace, and I can’t keep interrupting to deal with you if you can’t keep on task and I . . .’

  I reach into my pocket. I can’t concentrate on a word she’s saying and it’s all in the textbook anyway.

  ‘Miss . . .’ Tabassum begins, hesitantly.

  I shoot her a look. There’s no point even trying to explain when she’s on a roll. I pull out the time-out card so it’s tucked in my palm and hand it to Miss, standing up as I do so. I don’t have to stay here. I’m going to the library to read about the circulatory system in peace.

  ‘Sit down.’

  ‘I’ve got a time-out card.’ I say this almost under my breath, turning away so that the only people who can hear me are the teacher and Tabassum. It’s not a state secret, but my parents seem to think life will be easier if my autism is on a need-to-know basis. I’m not sure it works, but nobody bothered to ask me. So the teachers know, and most of my friends, but –

  ‘I don’t care what you’ve got, young lady.’ Miss looks down at the card again, and back at me. She’s got a sort of wart thing on her forehead, and there’s a speck of mascara on her cheek. ‘You’re not leaving my class.’

  I knew this would happen when Miss Young laminated this time-o
ut card. Half the teachers are terrified in case I start climbing on the tables or setting fire to the desks. But the old-school ones – and they’re not old-wrinkly-old; some of them are the youngest teachers we’ve got here – think it’s just a cop out, an excuse for me to disappear out of class before anyone realizes I haven’t done my homework. The irony is I always do my homework, because I’m terrified of getting into trouble. But trouble just keeps getting into me.

  I can feel everyone looking now, getting ready for something to gossip about over lunch. The silence is roaring in my ears and their eyes are all on me, all over me. I feel hot and cold and sick.

  ‘If you’re feeling stressed, Grace –’ in what I assume is her attempt to tick the box and do the right thing, she has lowered her voice to a whispered hiss, her face rigid with fury – ‘why don’t you turn the chair round to face the wall?’

  ‘What?’

  Have we gone back to the Victorian times? I can’t concentrate on a thing she’s saying because the smell is screaming in my head and everything I have is focusing on not throwing up on the table, and she wants me to face the wall?

  ‘What?’ I repeat it, scrunching up my face to indicate I literally do not get it.

  ‘You mean pardon.’ The words are sharp-edged. They feel like broken glass.

  ‘I don’t mean “pardon”, actually. If you’d read Nancy Mitford –’ (which I did last summer at Grandma’s house, when I was completely obsessed with British manners and all that stuff, but I digress) – ‘you’d know that saying pardon is incredibly rude. So – for that matter – is toilet instead of loo, and serviette instead of napkin, and –’

  A vein stands out on Miss Jones’s forehead and I watch her face turn puce with fury.

  I don’t turn my chair round. I don’t throw up on the table. I sit for the remaining twenty-five minutes with my nails digging into my palms, everything shut down so I don’t hear a word she says, and then when the class is over I turn round to pick up my stuff, but because I’m stressed and hungry – and, well, because I’m me – I drop my bag and the contents spill out all over the floor.

  And because my life is only like the crappy bits of films, as I’m scrabbling around on the tiles shoving it all back in, I realize that there is a pair of immaculate black shoes standing in my way and I follow them up and there’s Holly Carmichael, and she’s holding something in her hand.

  It’s my time-out card.

  Holly taps it thoughtfully on her palm, her head cocked slightly to one side. She looks down at it for a moment, thinking. I can feel my heart racing and my stomach lurches as if I’m going to throw up.

  She looks at me, her eyebrows raised. Her voice is dripping with scorn.

  ‘You don’t look autistic.’

  ‘And you don’t look ignorant. And yet here we are.’

  She gives a snort, half turning as if to check her harpies are all still in place (which they are, flanking her on either side, like gormless, gum-cracking henchmen).

  I snatch the card from her hand and march out of the room before she has a chance to answer.

  As soon as I turn the corner, I flop back against the wall of the science corridor and start to laugh.

  Yes. Yes, yes, YES. I’ve had that bloody comeback stored away in my armoury forever. Stuff you, Holly Carmichael.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  It’s only the middle of the week – and I shouldn’t complain, because we’re breaking up at lunchtime on Friday – but I am so tired. Tired to my bones tired. The teachers are wound up about exams as usual, and the special-needs coordinator is stressing out about me having somewhere quiet to do my mocks. The room she wants to put me in is right next to the science lab and it stinks, but I couldn’t face the conversation, so I just nodded when she suggested it. I’m so tired I’ve run out of words. Mum picked me up from school and she must’ve got it, somehow, because I flopped into the back seat and she called Polly and asked her to look after Mabel this evening, and she didn’t ask me how my day had been, or expect anything but silence. Lucky, because I don’t have any words left.

  ‘Come on.’ Mum fiddled around with the CDs in the side pocket of the car as we left school. ‘We’ll take the coast road home.’

  It takes twice as long to drive this way, but it’s nice, because the car is one of the places I feel safe, and where I can turn my brain off.

  And I’m glad Mum gets it. She might make me want to scream sometimes, but she is good at recognizing when I’ve hit the wall and keeping me from losing it.

  It makes me think about being small. When Leah was a tiny little pink blob in a car seat, Mum used to take us out in the car and drive around and around town, along the long shore road with the bleached grass of the dunes and the huge sky stretching out beside us. I remember the music playing and my blue shoes sticking out into the air and the same songs playing over and over, because it was the only thing I’d let her listen to.

  She’d drive and drive, until Leah would fall asleep, and she’d sing along to Avril Lavigne, and she says I used to, too, and it became Grace’s Avril music, soundtrack to a million afternoons.

  Only now it’s more than a decade ago, and Mum’s not singing this time – she’s driving in silence. I don’t mind, because the last thing I need is any more noise in my head. Leah’s got netball training, so she doesn’t need picking up for ages yet. She chose to go to the school on the other side of town, the one with the award-winning sports teams. If it wasn’t for the fact that she looks like a smaller, neater, less scribbly version of me, I’d be convinced Leah had been swapped at birth.

  I let my eyes stop focusing. Outside becomes a blur, passing by the car windows.

  I rest my head against the glass.

  The trouble is that by this time my filtering system has broken down completely and there’s a light flickering in the corner of my eye and the plastic smell of the car is giving me a headache right behind my eyes.

  ‘Grace?’ Mum’s voice breaks through my thoughts. We’ve pulled up outside Leah’s school.

  Dinner’s in front of the television tonight because Dad’s programme is on. I’m curled up in my chair, with a cushion on my knees, and a bowl of pasta balanced on top. Mum’s got a row of tea lights flickering along the mantelpiece and the fire’s lit – it’s only October, and the weather forecaster said we’re going to have an Indian summer this week, but it looks pretty, anyway. And autumn is waiting to catch us – I see it when I’m out riding Mabel. The fields have been ploughed and the grass on the verges is faded and tired. A bit like me tonight.

  Leah is sitting on the sofa beside Mum, who is clutching the remote control so tightly her knuckles are going white. She’s narked – I think because she was half hoping Dad would call tonight before his show went out, even though he’s already told her it’s virtually impossible to ring to order when he’s floating around on an iceberg, or whatever he’s doing this week.

  ‘Right?’ Mum looks at me.

  ‘Ready when you are.’ I hate missing the beginning of programmes. If I do, I won’t watch them at all. Same with the cinema. I like to be in my seat before the adverts start and I stay until the end of the credits, long after the lights have gone up and the usher is tidying up the sweet wrappers and strewn popcorn. It’s just one of my things.

  ‘The tortoise of the Galapagos Islands is an intriguing creature . . .’ begins the voice from the screen.

  I curl my hands round the bowl of my pasta and sit forward in my chair, fascinated.

  Dad’s been disappearing off on wildlife shoots for as long as I can remember. He’d be there, then he’d be gone, then he’d come home with a gigantic stuffed cheetah (toy, not actual animal, obviously) or whatever, and we’d all sit watching his programmes together. But in the last couple of years he’s been away a lot more, probably half the year, and, unlike this one, the shoot he’s on at the moment is special, because he’s going to be narrating it too, so it’ll be like he’s here in the room.

  Leah’s got h
er phone tucked under the cushion beside her on the sofa. I can see she’s messaging with one hand while eating dinner and looking innocent with the other. She’s become a complete social-media addict over the last few months and Mum and Dad haven’t noticed. Mum, meanwhile, is halfway down a glass of red and has barely touched her pasta. She’s flipping a coaster between her fingers and she looks cross – or maybe tired? I can’t really tell.

  I flick a piece of my pasta across the chair so it lands on the arm beside Withnail.

  ‘Grace, if you’re feeding that cat at the table again he’s going out.’ Mum doesn’t even look across at me.

  ‘We’re not at the table.’

  I flip another twirl of pasta out and sneak it into my palm for him to have in a moment. He’s started his motorbike purr of delight in anticipation. How can I deprive him of his favourite thing? (Besides chips, cheese, strawberry yogurt and Christmas cake, but you know what I mean.)

  ‘GRACE.’

  ‘FINE.’ God, she’s in a right mood. Meanwhile, Leah’s doing whatever the hell she likes right under her nose.

  ‘Who were you talking to earlier when Grace was in the shower?’ Leah looks at Mum, mouth stuffed full of pasta. I swear our carb-wolfing qualities are in the blood, with Mum being half Italian. ‘Was it Dad?’

  Mum shakes her head.

  ‘Grandma?’

  ‘I do have friends, you know,’ Mum says, and she sounds a bit sharp.

  ‘Who?’ I look across at her, interested. The turtles are still doing their thing on the television – between you and me they’re not that interesting, and I speak as someone who’s watched more nature nerd programmes than anyone I know.

  ‘For goodness sake, you two.’ She sounds a bit huffy now. ‘If you must know, it was my friend Eve from university.’

  She’s never mentioned an Eve before. I wonder if that’s who she was talking to the other night when I went into the sitting room. But she can say she’s got friends all she wants . . . the truth is that basically all Mum does is be a mum. And do her volunteer stuff at the centre. And attend classes on How To Parent Your Asperger’s Child. And read books on the same. Meanwhile I just get on with being myself, because nobody actually gives you a guidebook on How To Be An Autistic Person. Anyway, it seems to keep her occupied.