A Postcard from Italy

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‘Well, you must have forgotten. You always were a forgetful girl. Now, your older sister, Bernadette … she never forgets. Every birthday, Christmas and Mother’s Day, a lovely card arrives. And flowers. Will you look at them over there on the side. Beautiful they are. And fresh. The smell of them is just terrific,’ Cora rhapsodised. Grace glanced at the big bunch of pink lilies that had arrived earlier that week with a card of apology from Bernie for not coming to see Cora on her birthday, on account of her husband, Liam, taking her and her children out to lunch. The same thing had happened last year. And the year before. ‘You could learn a thing or two from our Bernadette now, sure you could.’

‘Shame she didn’t visit, though. It would have been nice to see her, don’t you think?’ Grace mused as she heaved her mother on to her side, unable to remember the last time her sister had been here to their family home. But then instantly regretted the words as soon as they left her lips.

‘Well, she could hardly do that now, sure she couldn’t! She has a busy life herself. It’s important for a mother to spend time with her children,’ Cora lectured. ‘And Bernadette works so hard on the reception desk of that private bank – you know the customers have to press a special bell just to be allowed inside the building. That’s how important it is – so why would you begrudge her one day off?’ she puffed on, and then, ‘Ouch!’ Cora slapped the back of her daughter’s hand as a strand of her silvery-grey hair got accidentally caught around a button on Grace’s shirt.

‘Sorry, Mum,’ Grace flinched, pulling her stinging hand away as she gently untangled her mother’s hair.

‘Well, be careful. No wonder that boyfriend of yours has gone off the boil … if this is how you are with him. Poor man is probably scared you’ll hurt him too with your rough-handedness. And you’re not getting any younger, Grace, sure you aren’t.’ Cora paused to shake her head in dismay, or was it disgust at her daughter’s perceived inadequacy? ‘You can’t keep on letting what happened with that wonderful Matthew ruin the rest of your life. No, you need to buck up and make an effort with this new one or he will also end up dumping you for someone much younger and prettier.’

Grace inwardly groaned and glanced at the ceiling, having heard this tirade a trillion times at least, or so it seemed, over the last few years. She thought of her ex-fiancé, Matthew. The love of her life. But he was married to someone else now.

Grace and Matthew had met at dance school and fallen in love as they worked together on the cruise ships after graduating. Then, later, they had both landed parts in musicals back home in London. Everything had been carefree and fun, until Cora had become increasingly more demanding of Grace’s time, often persistently phoning late at night and waking her and Matthew up when they were exhausted after having danced two shows that day. Not to mention the impact on the following day’s performances where they would dance and end up making silly mistakes through sheer fatigue, until Matthew sustained an injury to his ankle which cost him a part in The Lion King, in the West End, his dream opportunity. With hindsight, Grace could see that was when the tension between them intensified, with her feeling compelled to help her mother, and Matthew constantly biting his tongue whenever Cora found ways to erode their relationship.

And now Matthew was blissfully happy with his super-fit and bouncy-haired, perky yoga-teacher wife and cherub-cheeked toddler twins, living in a proper chocolate-box cottage in the Cotswolds with an actual stream along the end of his back garden (that was really a meadow) full of wild flowers. And if that wasn’t enough bliss for one person … he’d recently got a chocolate Labrador puppy. And Grace knew all this from his Facebook posts, which she still looked at from time to time. Usually in the evening after she’d had too many cherry-brandy hot chocolates and her self-esteem was somewhere on the floor. Because the image from that day – when she had found him in their bed with the Perky Yoga One – would be forever indelibly inked inside her head.

Two years ago it had happened, and Grace’s heart had shattered into an infinite number of unrecoverable pieces as the Perky Yoga One had nonchalantly untwined herself from straddling Matthew’s naked hips and sauntered off to the en suite. Stopping only to do a bend and snap to retrieve her postage-stamp-sized thong from the floor. Later on, Matthew’s reasoning for being naked in their bed with another woman was that he thought Grace would be ‘out for the whole day looking after your mother again like you always are’. He got lonely, apparently.

Struggling to function for weeks after he moved out, Grace had slumped into a depression brought on by sleepless nights full of flashbacks of Matthew being caressed by a tight-bottomed, naked woman in the very bed that she was trying to sleep in. And unable to pay all of the rent on her own, she had lost the flat they had shared. It was then that she’d moved back into her childhood home here with Cora.

Her mother hadn’t been bedbound back then, but had still needed help with day-to-day tasks. So with Grace in a dark pit of grief for the relationship and future life she had thought she was going to have with Matthew, and her passion for the performing arts having dissipated, she had left her job dancing in the chorus line of a West End show and dwindled into becoming her mother’s carer instead. A solitary role, which had suited her just fine at the time, as it meant Grace was able to retreat even further into herself, away from the outside word and all the dangers it held … like predatory, perky yoga-teacher types! Being reclusive felt like a protection of sorts, where Grace could keep herself safe from potential heartbreak. Because on that horrible day her world really had fallen apart. She had trusted Matthew with her life, and it was as if he’d sucked the air right out of it and she had been over and over this a million times inside her head. Constantly replaying that moment when Matthew had opened his half-closed ecstasy eyes and spotted her in the bedroom doorway where she had stood. Frozen. Watching the scene as if by satellite on a time delay. The two beautiful bodies moving as one in perfect symphony and slow motion, immersed in their sensual delight of each other.

The weeks of staying indoors had turned into months until, a year later, knowing she couldn’t carry on that way any more, Grace had managed to summon up the courage to seek help from her GP. Agoraphobia, brought on by depression, was what the doctor had diagnosed, before referring her to a counsellor who set her a programme of tasks aimed at building her confidence and self-esteem back up. And it had worked, to a point. It was soon after that she had started working for Larry at the storage company; she had been there for a year now as their Girl Friday – the counsellor had a friend who knew somebody who knew his wife, Betty, and that she was looking to bring in some help; with her and Larry not getting any younger these days, and their grown-up children living and working abroad, they were finding it hard to manage the business between just the two of them.

So with Larry’s kind patience and the counsellor’s encouragement, Grace could now venture out to familiar places, if she took a familiar route. Like going to work or to the library or to the end of the road to the convenience store on the corner. Nice and simple. Safe. She knew where she was at then, even if it did mean counting the steps to the bus stop to help calm her breathing. That’s how she had met ‘this new one’, Phil. He had seen her muttering to herself, counting the steps as she reached the bus stop one morning on the way to work, and had struck up a conversation. He had been there again on her way home from work and had offered to walk with her to the front door. Things between them had sort of trundled on from there.

‘And you’ll be thirty-five soon so you need to think about that before you scare any more men away. If you don’t get a move on and find one to marry you then you’ll never be a mother.’ Cora cut in to Grace’s thoughts. ‘And I shan’t be around for ever, you know, and then you’ll be all on your own!’

Grace pulled her bottom lip in and bit down hard as she vowed to talk to her brother and sisters again. Something had to change. She worked hard too. And what she wouldn’t give for even one day off from her mother’s foul temper and cruel words … let alone a leisurely family lunch! And Phil was always complaining about Grace never having any time for him these days. Cora was ruining his life, apparently. And even though Grace wrestled with her emotions for having such guilt-ridden thoughts about her own mother, she had to admit that she was rapidly feeling the same way too.