Finding Grace

by Alyssa Brugman

  I suddenly felt sad. I don't have many friends. There's Kate that I work with at the café and a few friends from school but they are mostly my friends because we were in the same class. I'm a bit of a loner.

  I wanted to tell my mother that I'm not ready to go out on the town. I don't know about boys and clothes. Other girls at school seemed to know about this sort of thing by instinct. Not me. I'm just a plain old sparrow. This job would suit me because it would give me an excuse. I could tell myself I wasn't going out because I was working, not because no one had asked me.

  “It can't hurt to go for an interview,” I mumbled.

  My mother rubbed my shoulder and smiled. “You do what you want to do, darling. I just want you to be happy.”

  … … …

  The interview was held in an office building in the city. It was a private nursing agency that provided “carers” at an hourly rate for elderly or disabled clients.

  I was interviewed by the manager of the agency and (surprise, surprise) Mr. Alistair Preston. The manager was an attractive woman in a conservative navy pinstriped suit. She smiled, shook my hand and thanked me for coming.

  I was to live, rent-free, in a two-bedroom house near the university. I was to receive a wage of $135 a week.

  $135 a week! Boggle, boggle.

  I was to care for a brain-injured woman named Grace. For between fourteen and twenty hours a week I was to be relieved by a nurse, who would administer Grace's physiotherapy.

  “Since Grace came out of hospital she has been cared for by this agency,” said the manager. “We have provided a series of nurses on a rotational basis twenty-four hours a day. We have been more than pleased to offer this service; however, this kind of care is unusual for us. Grace is an unusual client because there is no primary carer.

  “Our normal service is to provide relief to the primary carer of the client, usually parents, adult children or other family. As part of the service we hold six-monthly evaluation consultations with the client's doctor and family.”

  Mr. Preston leaned forward. “At the last consultation we discussed the adverse effect of this constant stream of new faces on Grace's progress. We haven't seen any improvement since she's come home. We're not sure that she will ever improve, but we have decided to introduce a primary carer. This person, having almost constant interaction with Grace, will be in the best position to note any behavioral changes. The agency will continue to relieve that primary carer, as they would for other clients.”

  “But I have no training,” I interrupted.

  “Her condition does not necessarily require formal training,” the manager explained. “She can walk. She can feed herself. But she doesn't do anything without direction. She can hear but she doesn't respond and she doesn't speak. You will require some initial training, first aid and so forth. We hold courses here and have taken the liberty of allocating a place for you and the other applicants in the class commencing Saturday. Otherwise, the role is not dissimilar to that of a nanny. Of course, as part of our service, a nurse is available immediately if you need help.”

  I guessed it was light meals and cleaning for one.

  No problem!

  I received my letter of acceptance into a science degree at Newcastle University on a Thursday. I should have been more excited, but I had worked hard at school so it was no less than I expected. I had reaped what I had sown. I had made hay while the sun shone.

  I started my training course for the job on the following Saturday. On the first day I learned how to make a splint, how to deliver CPR and how to help someone who is choking.

  I worked in the café with Kate in the afternoons. She's a couple of years older than I am. Kate is one of those slim, funky people who can wear short hair.

  I can't wear short hair. I look like a boy—an ugly boy with a bad haircut.

  Kate can start fashions. She could wear a sack, and have people say, “I just love your hessian tunic, where did you get it?” They would just say to me, “Excuse me, why are you wearing a sack? Are you protesting about something?”

  I hope one day I can look as relaxed as Kate does. She has been at uni for about six years. Her student loan debt would probably be equivalent to the gross domestic product of a small nation. She's doing engineering and has the most enormous brain, so she'll probably be able to afford it.

  While we're cashing up at the end of the day I tell Kate about the new job.

  “How “community sector' of you,” replies Kate, smiling.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Don't get me wrong—that sounds great! It's just that, well, you struck me more as a kind of reclusive privatesector research type, that's all,” says Kate. “I always pictured you in some brutally white laboratory sewing body parts on mice, or something.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, yes. You always look so diabolically cerebral,” she replies.

  I might have to work on my image.

  “I thought I looked quirky.”

  “Oh, of course,” says Kate, “but in a kind of clandestine, bizarre way. You strike me as someone who is always amusing herself with some private joke.”

  I frown, counting the coins as I slide them off the counter and into my palm.

  “I'm sorry,” she says, “have I burst your self-esteem?”

  “Well, yes! I thought I appeared to others as sort of cute and quirky, like a …”—I scratch my forehead trying to think of an appropriate analogy—“like an overbred Weimaraner pup.”

  “Well, of course you look like an overbred Weimaraner pup,” said Kate, “crossed with say … Gargamel, or maybe Doctor Elefan?”

  “Oh.”

  … … …

  I'm a little perturbed. I think about it on the way home. Firstly, Gargamel and Doctor Elefan are both boys. Secondly, they were both ugly—really ugly! I can't believe it! If one is going to be likened to cartoon characters it would be nice if they were roughly the same gender at the very least!

  At the end of the first aid course Mr. Alistair Preston phoned me. I told him that I'd been accepted into the university. He congratulated me and then said, “Over the last few months we have interviewed a number of candidates, none of whom have been satisfactory for a number of reasons. I talked to your principal at your graduation. We have been friends for many years. She described you as being responsible, intelligent and having a delightfully quirky sense of humor.”

  There's that word again.

  “Your manager at the café, who is also an old acquaintance of mine, said you were punctual, hardworking and excellent with customers. We have discussed your suitability on the basis of these references and your competence during the course, and have decided that with adequate support from the nursing staff, you should be more than capable. And given the wage and the proximity of Grace's house to the university, you should still be able to pursue your studies.”

  “Great,” I said.

  “Do you still want to do it?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “It's not going to be easy,” he said. “How about we take you on trial?”

  What is this? Nobody thinks I can do it. My mother doesn't think I can do it, Kate doesn't think I can do it— and now even the guy who's offering me the job is questioning my ability.

  I got an A+ in snakebites and hyperventilation. What's so hard about it? What do I have to do to prove that I'm capable?

  “I'll do it.”

  I drove my car to my new house on a Saturday and arrived exactly on time.

  I have a car that's older than I am. Sometimes I have to pump the brakes before they work. The car goes through more oil than petrol. Also, steam blows in through the heater vents straight from the radiator and it doesn't turn off. It would be less of a problem if the windows opened properly, but they don't. This is not a bad thing in winter, because the hot air from the radiator keeps me warm, but in summer the condensed water and coolant can be pungent.

  I've been concerned about the effec
ts on my health of breathing coolant. That can't be good for one, can it? So I keep my trusty snorkel on the passenger seat and when I drive I poke it out the narrow slit between the pane and the seal of the driver's side window.

  Anyway, I found the house. The street was probably once a main thoroughfare, but the end has been blocked off with giant plane trees reaching over and meeting in the middle. It's cool and quiet, except for birds.

  Three blocks away is the “restaurant strip.” There are heaps of restaurants, Mexican, Italian and Turkish. I love Turkish. I love sitting on those little cushions. Then there's the “contemporary Australian cuisine.” I wonder if it's known as “CAC” in the biz?

  As far as I've observed, contemporary Australian cuisine means that instead of laying the food out flat on an ordinary plate, they pile up the food in a cone shape in the middle of a very big plate.

  Anyway, the house is lovely and cozy like the ones you see in those country magazines. There are agapanthus bobbing about in front of a white picket fence and overgrown daisies in pink and white poking through the pickets. Pavers warped by flourishing weeds lead to a small front veranda.

  The front door to the house is open. I can see down the hallway straight through to the dappled green and yellow light of the back garden. The hallway has a high ceiling. I can hear the hollow clop of footsteps on a polished timber floor. I can hear the echo of voices from inside the house.

  Down the hallway there are two open doors opposite each other. The bedroom on the right is yellow, the same as the hallway, and the other is cream. I can see a large mahogany four-poster bed and cream mosquito netting pulled back with two big satin bows on the wall. I hope that's my room.

  Farther down the hallway is an opening to the kitchen. Soft light comes through a large skylight. There's a bookcase, floor-to-ceiling, on the far wall, filled with cookbooks, ferns and crockery.

  As I stand in the doorway to the living room I see two women. One is wearing bright pink rubber gloves. She's sitting on a hearthrug on the floor in front of a big stone fireplace, rolling a glass vase in newspaper with her legs stretched out on either side of a cardboard box.

  She picks up the vase and shoves it into the box. The mantel is bare, probably because all the ornaments that were on it are now wrapped in newspaper in the box on the floor.

  The other woman is wearing denim overalls and her lips are pursed. She's standing in the middle of the room facing the woman in rubber gloves, with her hands on her hips.

  Some people look exactly like an animal, or what an animal would look like if it were turned into a person. The woman in denim overalls with the pursed lips reminded me of an animal.

  What does she look like?

  Now let me just say up front—I'm as tolerant as the next omniscient eighteen-year-old (who knows everything, well, not everything, but I do know, for example, that a watched pot will boil eventually), but in the first thirty seconds I didn't like the look of these women. I didn't like their hair. I didn't like their clothes. I didn't like their shoes.

  Rubber Gloves looks to me like one of those competitive mothers at school—the ones who do canteen duty not out of the goodness of their hearts but because they are busybodies; the ones who think Presentation Day at school is Best Parent Award Day.

  The tall one? I guarantee that her car is just riddled with man-hating bumper stickers, and stickers that start with “Honk if.” How can you respect anyone who looks like they have “Honk if” bumper stickers?

  “Well, you can't have the piano,” announces Rubber Gloves, brushing her gloves together. “I've already booked a piano tutor for Jeremy. I've paid for three months of lessons up front. A kind aunt wouldn't break little Jeremy's heart.”

  I peek around the doorframe and see an old upright piano on the far side of the fireplace.

  The lady with the tight mouth frowns. “Well, you know I'll be taking a few of those vases you've got there and the lamp table.” She talks very quickly and shakes her head. That's something else for me not to like about her.

  “Angelica is having the lamp table. We have already agreed on that,” says Rubber Gloves.

  Tight Mouth sniffs. “Well, I'll be having the leather armchair then.” They both turn away from me. It's then that I see the third woman in the far corner of the room.

  She is sitting in a dark mahogany wingback chair with a green throw rug over her legs. Her hair is lank and dirty and hangs in her face. Her mouth hangs open. She is twisted around looking out the window with vacant eyes and absently stroking a small black cat in her lap.

  “Jesus, Brioney!” says Rubber Gloves. “She's still using the leather chair. What? Are you just going to tip her out on the floor?”

  Tight Mouth tosses her head. “We'll get her another chair. She can have the one in the shed.”

  I drop my suitcase loudly on the floor. Both women, startled, turn back toward me, and then glance quickly at each other.

  “You must be the new nurse,” says Rubber Gloves. They both beam at me in the most insincere way.

  “We were just getting rid of a few of these old things, so there would be more room for you,” says Tight Mouth. “We've been just dying to get in here and have a good cleanup. You know, tidy the place up a bit.”

  It looks to me very much like they were stealing stuff.

  “There's no need really, this is all I've brought with me.” I point to the suitcase on the floor. “Just my clothes, really.”

  They glance at each other again. “Well, we'll just get a few things out of your way and then leave you to settle in.”

  Rubber Gloves struggles with the box of newspaperwrapped objects. “Well, are you going to help me or not?”

  They drag the box toward the door.

  “Put the box down,” comes a deep, quiet voice from the doorway behind me. Both women flinch, a little squeak escaping from Tight Mouth. I turn around and see a large and growly bear.

  “Alistair!” They say in unison. “How lovely to see you. We didn't know you were coming today. We were just tidying up a bit.”

  “I said put the box down.”

  They both let go of the box and it thuds to the floor.

  “Come along now, Alistair, surely that's not necessary?” says Tight Mouth. “Is it, darling?” She turns to Rubber Gloves for support.

  “I said empty your pockets!”

  Rubber Gloves reaches into her pockets and pulls out car keys. “See?” she smiles.

  Tight Mouth crosses her arms across her chest.

  She squeals as the large and growly bear charges over to her and thrusts his hand into the breast pocket of her overalls. “This is outrageous!”

  He holds his fist in front of her face. Entwined in his fingers is a fine gold bracelet with a heart-shaped clasp.

  “She doesn't need it anymore.”

  “Get out! Scavengers!” he roars.

  Mr. Preston is holding the gold chain up to his face, the fine links resting in the palm of his hand.

  I'm still standing there with my suitcase at my feet.

  Without even acknowledging me, Mr. Preston walks hastily over to the woman in the chair. He kneels before her, brushing her hair back from her face, hooking it behind her ears. The large and growly bear is gone.

  “Hello, Grace.” He holds her face in one of his large hands for a moment. Then he loops the gold chain around her wrist and fastens the clasp.

  The woman sits looking out the window with the small black cat on her lap. The cat stretches, yawns, its green eyes blinking as it regards Mr. Preston, an intrusion into its sleep.

  The woman doesn't stir, she doesn't respond at all.

  Her hair is a little bit longer than shoulder length, dark brown and quite thick with little ringlet curls at the ends of it. She has dark shapely eyebrows and big, dull brown eyes. Her dark pink lips are full, but hang loosely.

  She looks oddly like Snow White. I'm going to live with Snow White.

  Well, I'm certainly not Prince Charming but I cou
ld pass as a dwarf, surely?

  Mr. Preston showed me around the house. “This is your room,” he said, standing back so that I could enter. My room was the yellow-painted one. The timber floor continued in here and was covered with a pale blue rug.

  A brass double bed with a fancy country quilt in yellow and blue flower prints stood in the center of the room. Next to the door there was a pale wooden dressing table (“distressed,” I believe, is the technical term for the effect, although this one looked quite sedate—boom, boom!).

  “Grace's room is across the hall.” I followed him into the cream room. Beside the four-poster and two bedside tables stood a rocking chair. Soft billowy cream curtains covered French doors that led out to the veranda.

  On the right side of the bed was a walk-in wardrobe. “You can walk through here into the study,” said Mr. Preston, demonstrating.

  I poked my head through the wardrobe into a small room, with books and a computer. That would come in handy.

  “Down the hallway, living room to the left, kitchen and bathroom,” he said, pointing to the closed door.

  Mr. Preston picked up the cat and laid him on his back on the inner curve of his arm. “This is Prickles.”

  I raised an eyebrow. (I can do that. I inherited it from my mother. It's very useful—particularly when you can't think of anything clever to say.)

  “Prickles?”

  “It's a long story.”

  I often amuse myself by thinking of cool names for pets. I think a good name for a small dog would be Eccleston. There's a place on the way to where we used to go camping when I was little. We would drive along and there was a sign that said “Eccleston.” Then there was a church and a house and then there was a sign facing the other way that said “Eccleston.”

  I want to buy a small dog and call it Eccleston because it wouldn't be far from one end to the other. I'd be amused every time I saw him. I'm very much my mother's daughter.

  Mr. Preston leaned his forearm against the doorjamb above his head. “What do you think? Are you OK?”