Grace Read online

  Grace

  ALSO BY VICTORIA SCOTT

  Patience

  Grace

  Victoria

  Scott

  www.headofzeus.com

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2022 by Head of Zeus Ltd,

  part of Bloomsbury publishing Plc

  Copyright © Victoria Scott, 2022

  The moral right of Victoria Scott to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN (HB): 9781800240926

  ISBN (XTPB): 9781800240933

  ISBN (E): 9781800240957

  Head of Zeus

  First Floor East

  5–8 Hardwick Street

  London EC1R 4RG

  WWW.HEADOFZEUS.COM

  For my parents, Chris and Yvonne Milne

  Contents

  Also by Victoria Scott

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  PART TWO

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  PART THREE

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Book Club Questions

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  An Invitation from the Publisher

  Prologue

  October 8th

  Michelle

  ‘Arrrrgggghhhh.’

  ‘Just breathe for me.’

  ‘Ahhhhhhhhhhh.’

  Michelle tried to suck in air, but the deep searing pain that radiated out from her cervix seemed to be blocking the way. Instead, she exhaled, producing a guttural grunt. She closed her eyes to block out the scene in front her – there were far too many people in the room, witnessing her undoing – and focused on the living being inside her instead.

  She had named her when she had felt her first kick. She had sung to her at bedtime, had read to her in the early hours, and had whispered to her at dawn. They had grown to love each other. And now they were to be parted.

  ‘Okay, good girl. Now pant, just pant.’

  Michelle took a series of short breaths, keen to please the midwife, who had been nothing but kind to her since she’d arrived at the hospital almost ten hours ago. But in truth, part of her wanted to freeze time. If she could stop this, she would. And not just because of the pain.

  ‘There’s the head! You clever girl… And there’s baby’s shoulder. One more push, and she will be out.’

  No, no, Michelle thought. I am not clever.

  ‘Here she is! You have a beautiful baby girl.’

  The atmosphere in the room had changed. Michelle opened her eyes and saw the figures in the corner of the room were now staring between her spreadeagled legs, at the wriggling, bloody infant who was just about to emit her first cry. The midwife rubbed her with a towel and then lifted her up, placing her on Michelle’s naked chest.

  ‘There you go, pet. Well done. You were a champ. Here’s your reward.’

  Michelle looked down at the face she had been imagining for months: at her two warm, soft cheeks, her deep blue eyes and quizzical expression, her swollen pink lips. She was astounding. As she took her daughter in, an involuntary cry escaped her mouth before she could stop it. Then that woman arrived beside their bed.

  ‘Okay, Michelle. We know this is going to be difficult. But you’ve got a day or two with her before the hearing. I know it’s hard, but try to make the most of it.’

  Michelle looked at her. She was a new one, quite young, fresh out of training probably, not someone she’d even got to know. And she knew nothing, not about life, or this, or her. Nothing.

  ‘Take her,’ said Michelle.

  ‘But you can…’

  ‘I said, take her.’ Michelle could not bear the pain for one minute longer. She wanted it over with, now.

  ‘But Michelle lovely…’

  ‘Take her. I need a kip…’

  Michelle watched as the social worker glanced anxiously at her more senior colleague, who was lurking in the shadows, and saw the nod of agreement that passed between them. The woman then leaned over her and wrapped her hands around the baby, lifting her up like a prize. She watched as the midwife took her from them and swaddled her, before handing her back to them without a word.

  ‘We’ll put her in the nursery,’ the social worker said, as they walked towards the door. ‘She’ll be there if you want to see her.’

  Michelle did not reply. But just before the door closed, she called out after them.

  ‘Her name is Grace, you hear me?’ she shouted. ‘Grace.’

  PART ONE

  1

  October 8th

  Amelia

  Amelia held the foil pack in her left hand and ripped its top off with her teeth. Then with practised ease, she pulled down both her brown cord trousers and white cotton pants with her right hand before parting her legs and squatting in slow motion, her quadriceps quivering with the effort. She pulled a white stick out of the pack, removing its plastic cap and placing it on top of the cistern, before twisting back around and positioning its exposed end between her legs.

  Now.

  She released a stream onto the stick for the prescribed five seconds. While she forced herself to count to five slowly – one potato, two potato, three – Amelia focused on the leaves of the oak tree outside, which were shadow dancing on the window blind, lit by a streetlamp. It was half past five and getting dark already.

  When she reached five, she retrieved the cap and replaced it on the stick, saying a silent prayer as she did so. She needed to, didn’t she? But she wasn’t sure why she was bothering. After all, she never prayed when she was told to, during chapel. She sat there each week in that awe-inspiring building, her head bowed as required, but her mind was full of shopping lists and household chores, not heavenly wishes and words. Her tiny rebellion went entirely unnoticed, she was certain, but here, in the bathroom of the grace-and-favour flat that came with Piers’ job, and to which absolutely nothing charming, beautiful or unique could ever be done, she did feel like talking to God. Odd.

  Amelia placed the white stick back onto the cistern, making sure to keep it flat. The pack had said to leave it for three minutes, so she’d give it that, at least. She wiped herself, discarded the tissue in the bowl and stood up quickly. She pulled up her knickers and her trousers, fastened them and then checked her long, thick brown hair, which was pulled back into a ponytail, in the mirror above the sink. It was prone to frizz, and a quick glance revealed that it had returned to this favoured state, despite all efforts to the contrary. It was drizzling outside, and the merest whiff of damp made it disobedient. She smoothed it down on top as best she could and searched it for greys in the bald halogen light overhead. It was depressingly easy to find them now. She located one, a small wiry one near her parting, and plucked it out with her fingers.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t so easy to rid herself of the other signs of ageing now that forty was on the horizon. She had developed crow’s feet around her eyes in recent years and she could see furrows beginning to form on her forehead. Her daily application of Nivea, encouraged by her mother from childhood, had failed to live up to its promise of holding back the years. It seemed that genetics could not be beaten after all. It might be easier to give up now, she thought. Ageing was just another thing to fight.

  She checked her battered brown leather watch. Three minutes had passed. Some of the women on the groups had seen a BFP – ‘Big Fat Positive’, such an optimistic acronym, she thought, so affirmative – after just a few seconds. Should she look now? No. Watching it reveal its secrets felt to her like tempting fate. She preferred being kept in suspense. She preferred holding on to hope.

  Amelia had adored those internet groups, right up until that horrific day when she’d said goodbye to Leila. After that, she’d preferred her own echo chamber. Those groups were full of women from all over the world all blathering on about the stuff they had in common, the stuff their real-life friends and partners had long since tired of hearing, but none of them seemed to understand her pain. Some had even offered meaningless platitudes, and she h
ad acknowledged them politely before logging off for good. Those groups had been her best friend, hands down, during their hideous years of IVF, but now they were just an unwanted depository of depressing statistics about her remaining chances of getting pregnant again.

  She hadn’t told Piers that she was still testing every month. It was for his own good, she thought; it didn’t do to get his hopes up. They had been through enough, where infertility was concerned – four cycles of IVF, the last of which had led to Leila. They had run out of money – and hope – after that.

  It had taken them both a while to get themselves together afterwards and they had both chosen different pathways out of their pain. For Amelia, it was this monthly testing ritual. She knew her chances of conceiving naturally were infinitesimally small, of course. She wasn’t an idiot. And yet she still tried, every month, refusing to accept reality, as all idiots do, she thought.

  Piers, meanwhile, had focused on adoption as their pathway to parenthood, and despite her early misgivings, his enthusiasm for the idea had finally won her over. A year after they’d made the first enquiry, they had been placed on a waiting list for a child. It had been twelve months so far, and nothing. The process was horribly reminiscent of trying to conceive, she reckoned, riddled as it was with uncertainty, waiting and dashed hopes.

  Piers, on the other hand, was absolutely convinced that social services departments up and down the land were quite literally desperate to give them a baby. After all, as he’d told her many times, who wouldn’t want to give a child who’d had a rocky start to a well-off, stable, well-educated couple like them? His optimism was far too overt to be comfortable, she felt, given the horrors they’d experienced, but she was doing her best to accept it and run with it. She knew she was given to negativity, and after all, he was usually right.

  Amelia stepped over to the toilet and picked up the ridiculously expensive plastic stick, her eyes darting towards its small grey window, which should, if the stars had aligned, show ‘Pregnant’ in unmistakeable, unarguable English.

  Shit.

  Amelia felt her throat tighten and a spasm grow in her abdomen.

  Still, it might be too early.

  Gillian, one of the women in the groups, had gone back to check a discarded test hours after she’d chucked it in the bin, and she’d got a positive result. She had a baby boy now, called Joseph.

  The thing was, though, she knew, absolutely knew, that she wasn’t too early. Nobody, even her old cheerleaders online, could spin this situation in a positive light. She knew that it was exactly fourteen days since she’d ovulated, because she’d been taking her basal temperature every morning.

  She was suddenly possessed by a paroxysm of rage. She lobbed the pointless, taunting stick in the direction of their chrome bathroom waste bin, hearing it clatter down to the bottom as she ran out of the room and into their bedroom, where she threw herself onto the bed. She hammered her fists into the pillows and roared. It was a roar of failure and of frustration. And of self-hatred, most of all.

  She drew herself up as quickly as she had thrown herself down, and began to tear off her clothes, flinging them away with wild abandon, so that they made a patchwork pattern on the carpet. Within minutes she had replaced them with black running tights and a white tank top, and had pulled on her trainers, which were always sitting beside her bed, waiting.

  She grabbed her keys from the top of the dresser in the hall and plunged out into the night, taking a deep breath and inhaling the twin scents of wood smoke and rotting leaves which enveloped her. Then she began to run. She forged a path up the steep road outside their home, her trainers struggling to grip on the slippery leaves, her arms pumping relentlessly forwards. She looked up ahead of her and could just make out the looming presence of the Worcestershire Beacon. It was to be both her challenge and her salvation tonight.

  Fifteen minutes later, the colour had risen in her cheeks, her calves were twinging in protest and her chest was beginning to burn. But she had begun to fly; her feet had taken on a rhythm of their own and her heart and lungs were working in emphatic harmony. As she passed the final Victorian streetlamp on the path and entered the inky darkness of the hill trail, her mind cleared. There was no time for melancholy or reflection when she was running. There was just the here and now.

  On and on she ran, her footsteps flicking mud up her legs, her fingertips tingling with cold, her sweat making her eyes sore. But none of it mattered. The sky was clear, and she could see the summit of the hill above her, getting closer with every step.

  She looked down for the last fifty metres, concentrating fiercely on the final flight of steps, determined not to fall now. One, two, three, four, five – each step, each impact of her foot was a moment of failure that she needed to extinguish. She took a deep breath and hit the ground harder, pounding into the earth, aware more than ever of the gravity which weighed her down.

  Just five more steps.

  Four.

  Three.

  Two.

  One.

  For the first time in forty-five minutes, Amelia’s feet were still. Gasping for breath, she stretched her limbs, and raised her head.

  The view that met her never failed to stun. Below her lay a patchwork quilt of rural towns and villages, ancient hedgerows and historic castles, cathedrals and churches. The bright lights of Birmingham, Worcester and Gloucester burned in the distance, and beneath her, nestled up against the hill, was Great Malvern.

  Once a small village that had sprung up around an ancient monastery, the town had grown in the nineteenth century due to the Victorians’ love of its natural mineral water. Its wide streets were now home to palatial villas constructed from granite gouged out from the very hills they looked upon. There were also several large private schools, housed in old hotel buildings that had now become surplus to requirements. Once a venue for recuperation and restoration, the town was now more focused on revision and results.

  The tolling of a bell startled Amelia. It had come from Malvern Priory. Situated halfway down the hill, the ancient church’s striking multi-coloured stone exterior was illuminated by bright floodlights. The bell chimed six more times.

  ‘Shit,’ she said out loud, the first word she’d spoken in almost an hour, before beginning to run back down the hill at speed. It was seven o’clock.

  The planning meeting for parents’ evening was due to begin at half past seven, and she had completely forgotten about it until now. School tradition dictated that the housemaster’s spouse should be there – Langland College never missed an opportunity to harness unpaid labour – and she doubted whether Piers would think her running clothes were suitable attire for the occasion, either.

  It was time once again to pull on her armour of presentable clothes and well-kept hair and defend her emotional inner world from all comers.

  She would not let anyone know how devastated she felt about her empty womb. Because it was her secret. Her sorrow. Her shame.

  2

  October 10th

  Michelle

  ‘Miss Jenkins?’ Michelle heard her name and looked up at the severe-looking old woman wearing the tight black high-necked dress, who was looming over her. ‘Do you have anything you’d like to add?’

  The lawyer she’d picked at random from a list thrust at her by social services when she was in the hospital – a skinny, shiny young woman called Sally who she’d met only an hour ago – had just said a whole load of stuff to the judge really quickly. It’d sounded like it was being said in Klingon. And now it looked like it was supposed to be her turn. But she was never going to say a word to anyone in here. Never.

  Before they’d started the hearing, when they’d been sitting on the cold metal chairs outside, the lawyer and that other woman, the older one – the children’s guardian, she’d said she was – they had both tried to get her to give in to a whole load of stuff, too. But she’d refused, hadn’t she? She was always going to. It was the only way to keep Grace safe.

  They’d said that if Michelle would just let social services take care of them both right now, away from him, then she could keep the baby. They’d also said that if she could prove she was a sensible, capable parent, they wouldn’t take her away at all.