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Grace lets out a heavy sigh. Steps towards me and touches my arm.
‘You’re upset, darling. Shall I make us a coffee, love?’
I blink back the tears that spring from nowhere. I don’t deserve her kindness.
‘Hey babe, you want to hear my news?’ Grace sits at the kitchen table rolling a joint. ‘You all right with this?’
‘Of course, it’s what I expect of you.’ See Grace and the chance of a smoke: the idea of both generally cheers me up.
‘Anyway.’ She fits the roach, running her tongue over her top lip. ‘My news?’
‘Go on then.’
She lights the joint with a flourish. ‘Sebbie has only asked me to marry him.’ She takes a toke, then exhales as a grin spreads over her pretty cheekbones.
‘No! You are kidding me.’
‘I swear, down on one knee, diamond…?’ Her smile is straight from a teen magazine.
I sneak a glance at her left hand, but there’s nothing. Of course, she wouldn’t.
‘I said I need to see some commitment. My priority is Francesca, I’m in no rush…?’
‘You told him no, right?’
She passes me the joint. ‘No, babe, I didn’t.’
I take a puff, nicotine dizzy as I sip my coffee, totally at a loss for what to say.
‘I know what you’re thinking. But he says he wants to try; he’s agreed to go to Relate…?’
‘Oh, he’ll say he wants to be with you until you expect something of him, then he’ll be out the door with no explanation.’
‘But I play a part in that as well, and if he can acknowledge he’s got a problem…?’
‘It’s total crap, Grace, and you know it.’ I feel so angry and upset with her, I don’t know what to do with it.
She pulls herself up, tidies her bits of roach card. ‘You could have a bit of faith in me too, you know?’
‘After twenty years and a child? Really?’ Sebbie has been a point of contention between us before. I have never got why she won’t cut free from their endless can’t-live-with-can’t-live-without cycle.
‘The child is grown, and he’s always been her father.’ Grace packs up her little smoking tin.
‘All those times he’s let you down?’ I think about Sebbie too busy playing pool to take her to see her dying father. Or when Francesca was in hospital and he wouldn’t fetch some ice cream. Like a child having tantrums, refusing to make up for months on end. Then finding his sweet side and charming her into giving it one more chance.
‘Babe, he knows he needs to change all that.’
‘Well, I thought you had more sense,’ I say, passing back the joint.
‘No, babe, you keep it, I’m off.’ She pulls her bag to her shoulder.
‘Don’t go, please, I’m sorry, really.’ I feel the panic rising again. ‘Gethin’s gone, Grace, I don’t know what to do.’
‘He’ll be back.’ She turns towards the door.
‘I upset him, really badly.’ I feel the tears again, emotion intensified by the dope.
‘You’re not the first parent to scream at a bunch of teenagers.’
