At Home with the Templetons

by Monica McInerney

  Spencer came to her room a week later, the day he started work with the film company. His scratches were already healed. It was the first time they’d been alone together since the accident. He’d never acknowledged his part in it, the fact he’d been so drunk, his pulling at her hair. That didn’t matter to her. All that mattered now was Tom.

  ‘Have you heard anything, Spencer? Anything at all?’

  He shook his head, not quite meeting her eye.

  ‘What is it? What do you know?’

  ‘No more than you do. Just what Mum told you. Nina doesn’t want to talk to any of us.’

  ‘For now? Just for now, do you mean? Or ever? Spencer, what do you know?’

  But Spencer was gone.

  A week later there was still no word. She made herself get out of her bed, ignoring the pain in her ankle, made her way downstairs to the kitchen where her mother was standing, staring out the window.

  ‘Is he dead, Mum? Is Tom dead and you’re just not telling me?’ She began to cry again. She couldn’t stop crying. She had to know something. She begged her mother to help her. To find out something. Anything.

  It took another week of pleading before Eleanor asked an Italian-speaking teacher at her school to help. With Gracie beside her, the teacher rang all the major hospitals in and around Rome, pleading for information, asking for names of specialist clinics, spinal wards. On the seventh call to a clinic south of Rome, they found him. Yes, there was a Tom Donovan there. A young Australian man. Eleanor’s colleague asked as many questions as she could before the hospital clerk hung up. ‘He’s alive, Gracie. No brain damage. He’s conscious, talking. He’s got movement from the waist up, but there’s serious lower spinal damage. They’ve operated, but it’s too early to know the exact situation.’

  Three days later, a letter arrived from Nina, addressed to Eleanor, not Gracie. No greeting, no signature. Just hard, black letters in the centre of a page.

  My son will never walk again. We are in the process of arranging to bring him back to Australia. Tom and I want nothing more to do with your family. I will leave Templeton Hall immediately.

  Gracie read the letter a dozen times, searching for something she knew wasn’t there. A message to her from Tom. He would want to talk to her, she knew he would. She had to talk to him. She needed to talk to him. She had to say sorry. Why wouldn’t Nina let her? Why wouldn’t her mother understand? Help her? She pleaded with her again, to travel to Rome with her, to see Nina and Tom before they left for Australia.

  ‘Gracie, it’s very difficult, I know, but we have to accept what she says. She’s his mother.’

  ‘But he was my —’ Her what? Her boyfriend? Her almost fiancé? She could see it in everyone’s eyes, not just her mother’s. You and Tom were just kids. It wasn’t serious. Put it behind you. It’s just one of those tragic things.

  Eleanor was deaf to her pleading. ‘Gracie, there’s nothing more I can do. Nina couldn’t be any clearer. I’m sorry.’

  But Gracie couldn’t understand Nina’s actions. She couldn’t understand her mother’s behaviour, either. She needed Eleanor to be on her side, to say, ‘I’ll keep phoning Nina, Gracie. Don’t worry, she’ll understand, once the shock passes.’ But her mother wouldn’t.

  ‘What did Nina say to you at the hospital?’ She remembered her mother’s expression, after the two of them had been talking, after Nina had been crying outside Gracie’s room that day. ‘Did you have a fight with Nina?’

  Her mother’s face gave something away. Gracie saw it, a sudden emotion.

  ‘What did she say to you? Was it about me and Tom? Was she unhappy about us?’

  ‘She didn’t say anything.’

  ‘She said something.’

  ‘Gracie, you saw her letter. Nina doesn’t want anything to do with us again. We have to respect that.’

  How could she respect that? How could she even understand that? Nina had been her friend. That had been one of the extra, wonderful things about what had happened with Tom, knowing that Nina, her friend Nina, would be happy for them both. Hadn’t they been friends for so many years? How could she just cut them out of her life like this?

  ‘I’m going to go to Australia,’ she said, a week later. ‘I have to find him.’

  ‘Don’t, Gracie. Don’t make it any harder on yourself than it already is.’

  ‘I have to see him. I have to say sorry to him. Can’t I at least write to him?’

  ‘I don’t know where they are. All I know from our solicitor is she’s already moved out of the Hall.’

  Someone had to know where they were. One day, when her mother was out, Gracie rang the Castlemaine police station. She asked for the inspector who’d been there when she was a child. He’d long retired, she was told. She didn’t know anyone else’s name. ‘I need to speak to someone who knows Nina Donovan. Nina and Tom Donovan.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m new to the area myself.’ He sounded young. ‘Who is this?’

  She couldn’t give her name. She hung up then.

  She thought of Nina’s sister in Cairns, then realised she didn’t know her surname or where she worked. There was no way of tracking her down. She tried hospitals in Victoria, in New South Wales, in South Australia. If Tom wasn’t at home yet, he might still be in a ward somewhere. No one would give out any information.

  She tried the cricket academy in Adelaide. She’d decided to ask to speak to Tom’s friend Stuart Phillips. He would know, surely. A cheery female voice answered. Gracie’s heart started to thump. The lie came easily. ‘I’m calling from London, from the London Cricketer magazine. Could I please speak to Stuart Phillips?’

  ‘I’m sorry. Mr Phillips is on long-service leave. Can anyone else help you?’

  She made herself ask. ‘I was hoping to get an update on Tom Donovan’s condition.’

  ‘Tom Donovan? Is he a coach here or a player?’

  ‘A player. A bowler.’

  ‘I don’t know the name, sorry. Let me ask someone else.’ She heard the receptionist ask a person beside her. ‘Do you know anyone called Tom Donovan? Some magazine in London wants an update on him.’

  ‘Tom Donovan? Is he that guy crippled in the car accident overseas?’

  Gracie hung up.

  Her father came home to London to see her and Spencer. It didn’t help. Her mother greeted her father with such loathing Gracie wanted to scream at them both. ‘Forget about your problems for a minute, would you? Can’t you think about us, about me for once?’ From their shocked expressions she realised she’d said it aloud.

  ‘I’ll come back tomorrow, Gracie,’ Henry said. He let himself out.

  He returned the next day when her mother was out, the timing deliberate, Gracie knew. He brought her a jigsaw, grapes, a bag of sweets, as if she was eight, in hospital having her tonsils out.

  But if her mother couldn’t help her, perhaps her father could. He and Nina had always got on well. ‘I need to talk to Tom, Dad. Talk to Nina. Can’t you help me find her? Find him? Ring the solicitor in Castlemaine? He’ll tell you where they are, surely.’

  ‘Gracie, I’m so sorry. No, I can’t. I’ve seen the letter. Nina’s made it clear how she feels.’

  ‘Please, Dad. I have to talk to her. I have to say sorry.’

  ‘We’re all sorry, Gracie.’

  But there was no one more sorry than Gracie herself. Tom would never walk again and it was her fault. She started writing to them, to Tom, to Nina, to both of them, many letters each week, sent to every address she could think of in the hope that even one would find its way to them. Heartfelt letters, filled with remorse, anguish, sorrow. She begged her mother to post them for her. She saw the worry in her mother’s eyes. Two days later, she asked her aunt Hope as well. Hope had been a regular visitor since the accident. She’d even sat with Gracie sometimes, brought her lunch, magazines, books. Gracie grasped at any kindness on offer. To her relief, Hope agreed to post her letters too.

  A month passed, then another. She should h
ave been back at university but she couldn’t face it. She used her still-painful ankle as her excuse. The truth was the outside world seemed too frightening. She kept writing her letters, but there was still no word at all from Australia. Once her ankle finally healed and she could walk without crutches, she forced herself to go to the British Library to read the Australian newspapers, desperate to find some mention of him, of an accident in Italy involving a promising cricketer. If it had made the news, she couldn’t find it.

  Eleanor made her stop. ‘You’re tormenting yourself, Gracie.’

  ‘It can’t end like this.’

  ‘It has to, Gracie. You have to accept it.’

  She tried one more time. ‘Please, Mum. Can’t you try and find Nina? She was your friend. She’d talk to you. Please help her to understand. Please, Mum.’

  ‘I can’t, Gracie. I’m sorry, but I can’t.’

  All Gracie could do was keep writing to him. If Nina wouldn’t answer her, perhaps Tom would, eventually. For the next two months, she sent two or three letters a week. She told him how much she cared about him. How much she loved him. How she was thinking of him every day. How sorry she was. At night, every night, she kept trying to imagine him now, unable to walk, unable to run. The images tormented her. She tried to keep other pictures in her head. Tom on the boat to the Isle of Skye, pulling her up the stairs on to the top deck, the light of the water silver and magical. Him in that Italian piazza, face to the sun, his long legs stretched out. The feel of his skin, his body, against her in bed. Then those images made her feel even more distraught. There was no peaceful place in her mind any more.

  A fifth month passed. She felt like her own life had stalled. She hadn’t gone back to university. She was still living at home. Everyone else seemed to be getting on with their lives. Spencer never mentioned the accident. All he talked about was his courier job and the film world. Her sisters’ lives were busy and productive too. Charlotte’s nanny-training business was going from strength to strength. Audrey had surprised the whole family with her news – she and her husband, Greg, had decided to move to New Zealand. She visited Gracie the day before their flight, so happy, so excited, talking non-stop. ‘I really hope you get back to university soon, Gracie,’ she’d said. ‘Have you thought about doing some voluntary work in the meantime? It might help take your mind off things.’

  But Gracie couldn’t think of anything but the accident. What else was there to think about?

  She knew her parents were especially worried about her. Her father rang once a fortnight, sent her even more postcards, as well as books and magazines from the countries and cities he was working in. They didn’t help. She found it impossible to read. She found everything difficult. She barely managed to speak to Charlotte or Audrey whenever they rang. What was the point? She could never make them understand. Her mother tried to help her see reason. ‘Gracie, it was a terrible accident, but accidents happen. You have to try to move on.’ But she couldn’t move on. How could she? There was nowhere for her to go.

  She kept writing to Tom. A letter a week. Sometimes a page, sometimes more, pouring her heart out to him, telling him everything she could, even trying to cheer him up sometimes, with little stories, memories of their travelling together, anything to try to keep a connection between them. It became her job. She structured her day around it. She could spend hours on each letter, choosing the best words, redrafting each one until it was perfect. Every morning she checked the mat for the post, her fingers crossed, endlessly hopeful that today would be the day she would hear something, anything, back from him or from Nina. Anything. It was the silence that was killing her.

  Six months after the accident, a letter arrived from Australia in the morning post. It was addressed to her. Nina’s handwriting.

  Eleanor had gone to the supermarket. Gracie was home alone. She was usually home. She’d formally withdrawn from university. She rarely ventured far from her neighbourhood. She found it too difficult travelling around London now. There were too many places that reminded her of Tom. She picked up the letter from the mat and held it in her hands. Her heart started thumping and her hands shook as she carefully, slowly opened it. She wanted it to be from Tom but Nina was the next best thing.

  It was two sentences, no greeting, no signature.

  Stop writing to us. We’ve nothing to say to you and we can never forgive you.

  Gracie was still by the front door, crying and holding the letter, when her mother arrived home an hour later.

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Whitby, Yorkshire, England

  2009

  Gracie sat on the edge of the bed in her cheap B&B, her laptop on the bed beside her as she practised her presentation for the fifth time that morning. She glanced at the bedside clock. Nine twenty-five a.m. Thirty-five minutes until her interview.

  She’d been up since five, finally giving up on sleep after her nerves and the scratchy sheets made anything other than a few hours’ rest impossible. Once dawn arrived she dressed in jeans and sweatshirt and went for a fast, bracing walk along the cliff path, detouring back deliberately to stand underneath the Captain Cook statue that looked over the harbour to the stark ruins of Whitby Abbey. ‘Please help me get this job,’ she said quietly and self-consciously, surreptitiously touching the base of the statue for luck. Doing that didn’t seem like enough of a ritual so she circled the statue three times, then touched it again. ‘Please, please, please help me get this job,’ she said.

  A month earlier, she’d come home late one evening, physically exhausted from working a double waitressing shift at the busy Greek restaurant near her flat in Kensal Green. She’d supported herself with her waitressing for the past two years, in between trying for other ‘proper’ jobs, as her sister Charlotte liked to call them. Tired but too mentally alert to sleep yet, she’d logged on to a job website. Less than a minute later, she’d seen the ad for an assistant curator position at the award-winning Captain Cook Memorial Museum in Whitby, Yorkshire. She read it twice, hardly believing how perfect it was – not just a perfect job but the job for which she was the perfect candidate, surely. The right age too, at twenty-seven, neither too young nor too old. Her fervent application letter had led to today’s panel interview in the town of Whitby itself. She’d been asked to make a ten-minute presentation on all she knew about Captain Cook and what skills she would bring to the position.

  She had to get it. She wouldn’t get it. She might get it. Her thoughts went round and round, cancelling each other out. She practised her presentation again. She’d begin with a brief history of Cook to display her knowledge and passion, move on to ideas for future exhibits and end on what she hoped would be a deciding factor – the fact one of her own ancestors had learnt to sail with Cook. Should she mention the fact James Cook’s mother had also been called Grace? It had to be a good luck omen.

  The digital clock clicked over to nine thirty a.m. Time to leave. One last check in the mirror. She hoped she’d chosen the right outfit: a crisp white shirt, a knee-length blue linen skirt, vintage shoes with a small heel. Her still almost white-blonde hair was cut into a short crop. Hoping she looked the perfect combination of studious and modern, she took a breath, picked up her belongings and pulled the door shut behind her.

  She’d walked down Whitby’s steep paths and across the harbour to the museum the evening before to get her bearings. All the guides to successful job-hunting recommended a reconnaissance trip beforehand. She’d been disconcerted by the sight of Goths everywhere – in the street, in coffee shops, walking into pubs and restaurants, until her landlady informed her that Whitby wasn’t just the birthplace of Captain Cook but also the Goth centre of the UK, home to a twice-yearly Goth festival, on account of its Dracula connections. Bram Stoker had written some of the novel while staying there, featuring the Whitby beach in the opening chapters. Another time Gracie would have asked a dozen questions. Not this time. She was too concerned details of Dracula would mix up with f
acts about Captain Cook in her head, making a muddle of her presentation the next day. She’d excused herself and gone to her room as early as possible instead.

  Her mobile rang just as she was in sight of the museum, ten minutes before her interview was due to begin. Her oldest sister’s name appeared on the caller ID. Gracie hesitated for just a moment before answering. As usual, Charlotte launched straight into the purpose of her call.

  ‘What on earth does she want this time, Gracie? Have you rung her back yet? I honestly think I preferred it when she was a lunatic drunk, not this new improved let’s-make-amends-over-and-over-again version. I’m going to say no, whatever it is, and you have to as well, okay?’

  ‘Charlotte —’

  ‘No, Gracie. It’s the Easter Bunny. Where are you? I thought you unemployed people lay around in your pyjamas all day long. Why didn’t you answer your home phone?’

  ‘I’m not unemployed. I’m a waitress. And I’m not home. I’m in Whitby.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Yorkshire. I’ve got a job interview in —’ she checked her watch, ‘seven minutes.’

  ‘Another job interview? Another job? Gracie, are you going for some sort of record?’

  ‘I can’t talk now. I’m trying to compose myself.’

  ‘Forget that job. Come and work for me. God knows I’ve asked you often enough.’

  ‘I don’t want to work for you or be a nanny. I want to work in the Captain Cook Museum here in Whitby.’

  Two passersby looked surprised by her fervour.