Amazing Grace Read online

  * * *

  Grace arrived at New Street Station in Birmingham, a bit of a jaunt for a date, with it taking around forty-five minutes on the train, but Monica insisted that she needed to be looking further afield. She saw a man standing there in a black leather jacket and jeans. She had a feeling that this was him. He turned round and it was.

  Mmm, not bad, she thought. For once, someone who looked like their photograph. That made a nice change.

  ‘Grace?’ he asked tentatively as he wandered over.

  ‘That’s me,’ she replied nervously.

  ‘And even prettier in real life than in your picture. I’m Tommy, it’s lovely to meet you.’ He reached across and kissed her on both cheeks. ‘There’s a lovely Caribbean restaurant just down the road, I thought we could go there. Is that OK with you?’

  ‘That sounds lovely.’ Quite decisive then, she thought. That makes a change from spending wasted time saying ‘I don’t mind’ and never actually going anywhere.

  They walked along chatting easily about their respective days. Tommy worked for a mobile phone company in Stoke on Trent so he was quite a long way from home, but had arranged to meet her there as he’d been working in Birmingham that day. He asked her lots about her job and what she liked to do in her spare time.

  When they reached the restaurant, The Rum Shack, they were shown to their table and Grace took in her surroundings. The walls were painted bright yellow, green and red and there was a real Caribbean beach bar feel to it, helped along by the reggae tracks which were playing in the background.

  They were shown the menus and Tommy asked her if she’d like a cocktail. She chose a Reggae Rum Punch for old time’s sake. Barbados sprung to mind, and a little trip down memory lane to a holiday with Saffy, whose very kind, wealthy father had paid for them both to go on holiday when their college course had ended. After a day on the beach, they arrived back at their hotel each evening, perched in the rocking chairs on the wooden porch, watching the sun go down over the beach, putting the world to rights, planning their futures and dreaming. One night they were so tiddled that they didn’t actually get out for dinner as they’d planned, just about managing to stagger back to their room and fall asleep in a drunken stupor. It was an incredibly relaxing and recuperating holiday, which was exactly what they had both needed at the time after all that hard work they put into passing their exams.

  Grace had surprised herself that holiday. She had snorkelled and swum with turtles and scuba dived for the first time, experiencing the most incredible underwater world including lion fish and puffer fish and real life Dorys and Nemos. She had even jumped off the deck of a booze boat into the Caribbean sea. These were things that she’d never imagined herself doing before she went.

  She remembered this Grace before Mark, the Grace who would try new things, the Grace that was brave and adventurous and didn’t have a care in the world. A Grace who seemed like a very different person to the one she was today but a Grace that she was working on getting back again.

  As Grace reminisced, she realised how sad she was that when Saffy’s relationship took her to Australia around the same time that Grace met Mark, they’d eventually lost touch. The wonderful memories that came flooding back to her just from being in this restaurant made her resolve to look up her long lost friend on Facebook and make contact again after all these years.

  She heard a cough and looked up to see Tommy staring at her. ‘I’m so sorry, I was just back in Barbados for a second or two there. It must be the reggae,’ she explained.

  He smiled at her. ‘It was obviously a good memory as you had a really contented smile on your face.’

  Grace explained what a fabulous holiday they’d had, as they looked through the menu choices.

  Grace chose chicken breast in a creamy jerk sauce, plantain, rice and peas. Her mouth was watering just at the thought of it. Tommy chose shrimp and mango curry, with rice and peas and a flatbread and they shared a side order of sweet potato fries. The breadth of choices on the menu got them talking about food and cooking. Tommy explained that he loved cooking but didn’t get the chance to do it very often and couldn’t really be bothered to cook for himself so just heated up ready meals more than anything else. The conversation flowed easily and for the first time since Monica had started setting her up on these dates, Grace felt herself relax and enjoy the evening.

  Grace watched Tommy closely as he talked. He was really very good-looking in a tall, dark and handsome clichéd way and was what her mum would once have called a ‘bit of a charmer’. He seemed like a genuinely nice guy and she thought that perhaps she’d just been unlucky with the first eejit Derek and then the vicar. Perhaps Monica could be right. Tommy could be the one that changed her opinion of internet dating.

  ‘So, it says on your profile that you’ve never been married and don’t have children. Does it bother you that I have a child?’ she asked. She may as well get this bit over and done with early, she thought.

  ‘No, not at all. I’ve always quite liked children but I’ve just never found the right woman to settle down with and have a family. It’s not that I’ve never wanted to, it’s just that the opportunity has never arisen and so I suppose I just threw myself into work and the years just passed me by. Sad, really.’

  The more time she spent talking to Tommy, the more she liked him. He just seemed to be normal, a good conversationalist and actually interested in her and what she had to say, which, after Derek the Dickhead and Malcolm the Vicar was exactly what she was looking for.

  Grace looked at her watch and realised that she only had about twenty minutes before the last train home. The night had gone so quickly and really had been rather lovely.

  ‘So, this isn’t something I’ve ever done before, but I really feel a connection with you, Grace. I’m stopping in a hotel just round the corner so you don’t have to go home, you know. You could always come back with me and we could start with a nightcap.’

  Grace’s heart stopped. There was a teeny tiny bit of her that thought, no one need ever know… she’d never had a one-night-stand before and perhaps she should just throw caution to the wind and get on with it. But the sensible side of her knew that she wasn’t ready to get her clothes off in front of someone new and be intimate with them yet. She knew that, because the thought of it scared her witless. She nervously smiled and said, ‘It’s a lovely thought, Tommy, but I have to get back. Maybe another time, if that’s OK?’

  They swapped numbers while they waited for the bill, which Tommy insisted on paying. They both said how much they had enjoyed the night and that they would like to do it again, soon. When they arrived at the train station Tommy tenderly took her face in his hands and kissed her gently on the lips before waving her off.

  As she sat down on the train, she realised that Archie had a match in Stoke the following day, although Mark was taking him – what a coincidence. She sent a quick text to Monica:

  Finally a normal one! Tommy is really nice, I like him a lot. We’re going to see each other again. You were right – but I still haven’t forgiven you for the other two dates! X

  Then she got her latest book out of her bag and settled down for the journey home, buoyed by the memory of the tender kiss Tommy had planted on her lips. She tried not to get her hopes up, but she knew deep down that she couldn’t wait to see him again.

  * * *

  The first call that came into the estate agency the following morning was from Mark, telling her that she would have to take Archie to football that night as something had come up. She wasn’t doing anything else that night, not that it would have mattered to Mark, but she stomped around work for the first half an hour, annoyed with him for dumping on her yet again. But it did mean that she’d get to spend more time with Archie, so after another latte from the machine in the kitchen, she calmed down and stopped winding herself up. She’d got better at this over the years, when she realised that the only person who was suffering was herself. Mark didn’t give a damn. He’d al
ready moved on once he’d ended the call. She’d learned to choose her arguments.

  Football after school was always a rush, getting back from work and making sure Archie had enough food in him to give him energy but not enough to make him feel sick, and in plenty of time for them to get to the venues too. She loved it when the matches were at home as it was only a fifteen-minute drive, but there were other times like today when the match was nearly an hour away. Sometimes it was a relief to arrive early and have a bit of time to catch up with herself while Archie was training. Being a single mum was something she was getting used to, but from time to time it could be demanding. It was always her who had to do everything. It might be nice just once in a while for someone else to put the bins out, make sure there was food in the fridge, take the dog for a walk, make sure the washing was done, or even flick the duster round. Sometimes it would be nice for someone to just make her a cup of tea.

  She’d never thought that she’d be in this position when Archie was born; she just wanted to be loved and needed and always thought they’d be a family. At least Becks needed her when Archie wasn’t around.

  There were thirty minutes till kick-off, so she waited at the nearby sandwich van, making small talk with the woman in front of her in the queue, while Archie went to warm up with his team mates and discuss their game strategy. The way they discussed tactics was serious stuff, even if they were only playing on an under-elevens team! Grace smiled to herself as she wondered whether Cristiano Ronaldo’s mum used to stand on the touchlines and watch him play.

  She joined the other football mums and they caught up since the last time they’d met. They’d both found it tough when Archie first joined the team. All the boys knew each other both at football and outside of it as they attended the same school, whereas Archie was at a different one, so he’d felt a real outsider but had tried really hard to make friends. Grace didn’t know any of the parents either, and she’d found it really hard to mix, especially on match days, when most parents came in couples, along with their other children. She’d made a real effort to speak to the other parents over recent weeks though and broke the ice when she was able to give some advice to one of the mums who was looking to put her house on the market. It was harder making friends when you were older, but she had definitely started to think of these people as a new friendship group and now she looked forward to catching up with them while Archie was on the pitch. They were a really nice bunch.

  The lady who was in front of her in the queue came and stood near Grace, and they laughed at the fact that they were both either side of the halfway line, on opposing teams, but were close enough to carry on their friendly conversation. The woman kept checking her watch because her husband was supposed to be there and hadn’t arrived yet. She said that she was waiting for him to take over at the match so she could go home and cook their celebratory nineteenth wedding anniversary meal. As they chatted and watched, Archie yelled for the ball and it was passed to him.

  Grace yelled, ‘Come on Archie, shoot!’

  He ran with it, weaving past a defender and looked the goalie straight in the eye as he flicked the ball up and over his head into the goal mouth. Shouts of Goal! and Yes! could be heard around the ground and there were lots of cals of Go Archie! from the parents and coaches. She was so proud. He turned to Grace with a huge grin spread across his face and she laughed as the whole team did a celebratory floss dance.

  She turned to the nice lady she’d been chatting to, who now appeared to be having a full-on snog with someone. Lucky cow, Grace thought. The couple pulled apart and there, standing in front of her, was Tommy. Despite everything he had said just last night, he seemed to be very happily married with children. And clearly a big fat fecking liar.

  ‘Are you OK, love?’ the lady asked. ‘You’ve gone as white as a sheet!’

  Grace looked at Tommy whose jaw had dropped open and who clearly didn’t know where to put himself. She composed herself and drew herself up to her full five feet five inches of height.

  ‘I’m fine, thanks. Your husband just really reminded me then of someone I once knew. Someone I thought was a really nice bloke and wanted to get to know more but turned out to be a complete fake. Your husband must be his doppelgänger. How strange. Anyway, enjoy your anniversary dinner, it was nice to meet you.’ Grace composed herself and smiled at his wife, feeling incredibly sorry for her. As she walked past Tommy she muttered under her breath for his ears only, ‘Arsehole!’

  She held her head high and walked towards the other end of the supporter’s group, leaving the pretty lady staring after her and Tommy looking like he’d developed a facial twitch.

  At half time, Grace went to the car, and rang Monica. She was still shaking with shock. ‘Right, that’s it,’ she yelled down the phone. ‘Take me off that bloody site and do it now!’

  ‘OK, OK, keep your knickers on! What on earth has happened?’

  Grace told her what had transpired and Monica was just as flabbergasted as she was.

  ‘What a tosser, and what a shame for his wife,’ she sympathised. ‘She sounds so lovely too. I’m going to report him to the dating site tomorrow and make them remove him. I do wonder how many other lies he’s told to other women. I’m so sorry, babe. I promise I’ll do that first thing and will remove your profile right now.’

  ‘And don’t ever think about setting me up with anyone again, do you hear me, Monica?’

  ‘I promise you that I won’t.’ And this time she wasn’t crossing her fingers. ‘But at least you’ve pushed your comfort zones a bit and can say you’ve tried internet dating now. You can’t say we’re not triers.’

  ‘You, Monica, are extremely trying and it’s a very good job that I love you as much as I do! Bye!’

  She wished her mum was still around. Even after so many years, she still wanted to pick up the phone just to hear her soothing voice when something was getting her down, or pop in for one of her special hugs. Sometimes – and thankfully, more often these days – she remembered her mum with fond memories and a smile. Other times, the grief rose up from nowhere and just sucker-punched her right in the gut.

  She swallowed down a lump in her throat, wiped a tear from her eye and threw her phone onto the passenger seat as she went back to watch the second half of the match from a viewpoint as far away from Tommy as possible.

  * * *

  I’m so sorry that you’ve had a tough few weeks and some disastrous dates. I‘m really not sure that Monica is the right person to be choosing them for you. I wish I’d realised the truth about Mark while I was there on earth but he was always so charming around your father and me. It was only towards the end of my life, that I started to see cracks in your relationship and how forced your smiles were. They didn’t reach your eyes and didn’t come from your heart. But at that point, I didn’t have the energy to do anything about it. I’m sorry sweetheart, but I was so tired of fighting that blasted cancer attacking my body. I know you thought that I should fight to stay around for you forever but I’d fought it on and off for ten years and I was so exhausted. I know that for a while after I’d gone you were angry because you thought I didn’t love you enough to fight for you. But I did and I do. I couldn’t have loved you more if I tried.

  I just wish I’d told you that I knew how things were with Mark. That you didn’t have to pretend around me. I know you felt that you were letting me down but you weren’t. You could never let me down. All I wanted for my girls was for you both to be happy.

  Please don’t think that mine and your father’s relationship was always a bed of roses. In our day you wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it, that’s all, so you had to stick it out. And I’m bloody sure that if your father had died before me, I’d be out having a whale of a time, kicking up my heels and really living. I know he’s your father and you obviously love him, but sometimes I could kick him up the bum for sitting and moping around. I’m not ready for him up here yet and he’s got plenty of living yet in him. Let’s hop
e he starts to live again in his new home.

  And you too, my darling: you need to live and be happy. I wanted to make sure you knew what I wanted for you before I left you but I ran out of time. You think you have time, you see, even when you are dying, but you don’t.

  I want you to learn from life that you have to do the things you want to do, live every day to the full, don’t save anything for best, because you just don’t know how much time you have left on earth. So eat the damn cake, wear the best clothes and drink from your crystal glasses.

  I love you, Mum xxx

  Chapter Ten

  The week after what she’d now named ‘the disastrous dates’ and after many conversations with Hannah and Monica – whom she had only just forgiven for setting her up with Derek, Malcolm and Tommy – Grace decided that she needed to put it all behind her and throw her energies into setting up her potential slimming club. She was charged with excitement as she got ready to check out the new café in town to see whether it could be a possible venue.

  Grace touched the aqua aura crystal she wore on a chain around her neck for luck, took a great big breath and pushed open the door of Coffee Heaven and looked around. She’d never been in a coffee shop without planning to meet someone else, so she was extremely nervous and her palms were slightly sweaty. She’d dressed up for the occasion, to give herself more confidence, another little Monica trick, but now wondered whether the turquoise silky top, skinny denim jeans and brown knee-high boots were actually ‘her’. Perhaps she’d have felt better if she was wearing something she’d had for ages – that nice black top she always wore and her comfy old jeans for instance. But then she knew that Monica would have killed her.

  Monica was now like a little devil on her shoulder every time she got dressed. She’d had more compliments lately than she’d ever had before in her life, though, so perhaps Monica had done her more of a favour than Grace gave her credit for. Yet it had still been pretty harsh when she’d walked past the charity shop in the village the other day, and thought how frumpy the clothes in the window display were before realising that most of them were hers. At least no one could accuse her of looking like Archie’s granny any more. She was so determined to never go back to that point in her life.