Page 29 of Amazing Grace

Grace laughed to herself as she remembered that when Archie was a toddler he used to ask her if she’d like a ‘piece of quiet’. ‘It would be nice to have some company,’ she responded.

‘So, I may as well ask at the start rather than building up to it,’ Ruth said as she sat on the opposite armchair and put her drink down on the coffee table. ‘How’s it going with my bro? I hear you went out for a meal and then out again to the pics last night.’

‘We did indeed.’ Grace could feel her face light up as she talked about the evenings she’d had out with Vinnie. ‘He’s lovely, isn’t he?’

‘Well, obviously he’s my brother and I’m not going to say he’s an arse, even if he was, but he’s actually not! He’s so lovely. I worry about him all the time. He works too hard, but it’s been so lovely to see him with a spring in his step and a glint in his eye since he met you, Grace. You seem to get on so well together, and I’d love to see more of you too. I think he’s a little fearful about your ex and whether he’s going to get caught up in the middle, and that’s my concern too, to be truthful. So I do hope you don’t mind me asking what the score is on that front?’

‘Mark and I knew each other at school and we went out briefly just before we went to university. He’d always wanted to be a teacher and I’d always wanted to work in interior design. At university it was clear we were moving forward in two completely different directions. I wanted a family and the life that comes with that. I come from a very loving family and my parents had been married for over fifty years when I lost my mum, and it tore us to pieces. We were all devastated.

‘We split up then and met up again a few years later. He’d done his time at uni and was a qualified teacher. He moved back to our hometown and we started dating and fell in love all over again. I’d been off living my life and having holidays with my friends and was ready to settle down, and so was Mark.

‘A couple of years later, I found out I was pregnant. Mark wasn’t overjoyed, but then when Archie came along he changed and became the model father. We got married and were so happy, but then as Archie grew up, he changed again, especially when he became a head teacher. It was as if he was jealous of his own son. He started to resent the time I was spending with Archie. He was a baby, for goodness’ sake, he couldn’t do anything for himself. When Archie was a toddler, I found out that Mark had been cheating on me with a woman at work. You can imagine how gutted I was. I felt like I’d been cut open with a knife and had my heart torn out.

‘I realised that he just didn’t want to settle down, but I couldn’t split my family up. Even after everything he’d done, I couldn’t take my boy away from his father. So we muddled on.

‘Then eventually it all came to a head when I found out that he was still seeing her. He’d promised me after the last time it was all over. He said he’d given her up and that we were all he wanted, but then I found out it was happening again. And that was the last straw for me. I knew that we should be worth more to him than that, so we went our separate ways.’

Ruth nodded in agreement. ‘It’s tough, isn’t it, when you know what you should do but feel that you can’t.’

‘It’s really tough, Ruth. You’re a mum and you know you’d do anything for your children, wouldn’t you? So I thought it was something I had to put up with. So I learned to live that way,’ Grace said sadly. ‘He didn’t love me the way he should. We lived separate lives but in the same house. It was no life for either of us to be honest and certainly not for Archie. People used to think that I was a single mum, even before I was one for real.

‘When I look back at our relationship, Ruth, I was unhappy for so long, and since we split up I feel like I’ve really found myself again. I’ve realised that I have a right to be happy and I’ve actually been happier on my own than when we were together. I hate the times when I’m not with Archie, but I’ve learned to accept them and fill that time with things for me. I’ve worked out that I’d rather be alone and happy than in a relationship and miserable. Life is just too damn short.

‘I hope he is more settled with Lorraine,’ Grace continued, trying to forget the fact that Mark had said he would dump Lorraine if Grace would only take him back. ‘I don’t want him to be unhappy, and I clearly wasn’t making him happy, but it’s taken me till now to realise that some people don’t even know what happiness means to them, so how can they possibly achieve it if they don’t know what they’re looking for?’

‘You’re so right, Grace. I know a lot of people who seem to have the perfect life but they’re constantly searching for something or someone better. Has there been anyone else since Mark, if you don’t mind me asking?’

‘I don’t mind you asking at all. There hasn’t. I’ve not felt like I’ve needed anyone in my life up till now, and until I met Vinnie, there was no one that I’d felt really drawn to. Does that sound a bit soppy?’

‘I’m a big believer in fate, Grace, and that people come into your life at the exact time and for the exact reason that they are meant to. I really hope that’s what’s happening with you and Vinnie. You may have gathered by now that I love him to bits, even if he is a pain in the neck from time to time.’ She laughed. ‘Working here, I do a lot of people-watching and I’m very observant, I’ll have you know. I notice that when you speak about Mark, you seem to shrink inside yourself, yet when we talk about Vinnie your whole face lights up and you smile from ear to ear, and that fills my heart with joy and warmth. Now, the other thing that warms my heart, but sadly ends up on my backside, is cake, and I have cake galore, which needs eating up before I throw it out. Let me bring some over.’

‘Oh dear, that’s not going to help when I go to fat club later! But it’s cake and I’d rarely say no to cake, although I did decline earlier.’ Grace groaned. ‘I hate fat club but I need to go.’

‘Why do you go if you hate it?’ Ruth asked.

‘I need to lose some weight and this seems to be the only way I can do it, although the woman who runs the group is a nightmare. I’d love to set up my own group but it’s knowing where to have it and how to do it. Just a little dream of mine. I’d love to do a meals-on-wheels-type service, too, for people who are working but would love home-cooked food that follows the fat club principles but haven’t got the time or ingredients to do their own. Perhaps it should be called something to do with laziness! I’d love to run a book club as well. But that’ll have to wait till I get my dream bookshop. Perhaps I can do my fat club there. I have too many ideas running around in my head all the time. It’s why I don’t sleep well.’ She laughed.

Ruth looked thoughtful. ‘You could always do it here. With me.’

‘Well, to be honest, when I came in the other week, I came because I was looking to find a venue,’ Grace replied, delighted that her little daydream might actually come true.

‘Well, here is perfect, isn’t it? My café is closed at fivep.m. You could do a fat club here. There’s plenty of room and maybe those who came would come back as customers at other times, so it would be good for my business too. And I’m a trained nutritionist and chef. I’m bloody wasted here.’ She laughed. ‘Let’s do it together, Grace! Life is too short not to grab opportunities as they come up. I’ve been looking at different ways to get new customers and didn’t think of your idea. It’s genius. There’s times in the day that I have nothing to do and I’m just twiddling my thumbs waiting for customers to come in. I could be in the kitchen cooking up some of these meals if you give me the recipes. Then people can order and either pick them up or we could eventually even do a delivery service. Between us, we could really make this work!’ said Ruth, clapping her hands with excitement. ‘I think people would bloody love it. They can have a cuppa for free when they get here, then pay for any additional food or drinks. Oh, Grace, I love this idea. Please say we can do it.’

Grace laughed. ‘I’d really love it, Ruth. Are you sure, though? We’ve only just met really.’

‘We have but I have a really good feeling about you, Grace. I like you a lot and even if things don’t work out with you and Vinnie, I’d like to think that we could be good friends. And this is a great idea. I’d love to be a part of it.’

Ruth glanced over to the counter where a big queue was forming and jumped to her feet. ‘I could sit here and talk to you all day, Grace, but the daggers that Beth is throwing at me tells me it’s time my coffee break is over! Can we talk about it soon and get some dates in the diary? This is going to be great, Grace, I just know it. Let me bring you another coffee over and you can get your notepad and pen out. I know you don’t go anywhere without them, Vinnie told me! You can put your thoughts down and we can discuss them later.’

Grace sat and smiled and got out her latest hand-stitched notebook and her fountain pen. Apart from her stationery fetish, she was a big journal writer and had recently started to write a gratitude journal again. This was something she had always done as a child, but when she was with Mark, he ridiculed her and dismissed it, saying that all the ‘hippy shit’ was addling her brain and she needed to get in the real world.

She once bought a yearly book where she could write down all her goals and dreams, and Mark just laughed at her and threw it away, saying that she hadn’t the time to follow her goals and dreams as she had him and Archie to look after. So once again, to keep the peace, she’d stopped keeping her journals. One of the best things about being single and following her own whims was being able to start up her gratitude journal again and work out her goals and desires, without someone trying to pour scorn onto it.

She was so grateful to Ruth for providing the venue for this new club that she’d been thinking about. The ideas just wouldn’t go away, constantly niggling at the back of her mind. She’d wanted to do it but hadn’t known where to start. But now she had a venue, someone fabulous to do it with, and she was really looking forward to getting this idea off the ground. She loved her job but felt that something was missing from her life, especially the times when Archie wasn’t around. She knew she was going to enjoy organising this club and was really glad that she’d mentioned it to Ruth. Who knew that just saying the words out loud would make some of her dreams come true?

Ruth came over with her diary and Grace left the café after agreeing dates for the rest of the year. They had to start somewhere. They had no idea who or how many people would come along or whether they should charge, and if they did how much. But they agreed that Grace would set up a Facebook page for the group and they would share it, asking their friends to share too, and she knew that Monica, her biggest cheerleader, would spread the word with some of her clients. It was all getting quite exciting. Ruth also suggested getting up some posters in the café to promote the meetings. They would just see what sat right at the time and how the group and the idea evolved. It was really all in the hands of heaven above.

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