Shooting Butterflies (7 page)

Jefferson hushed her as they got up to go. ‘They'll keep us here all night.'

Suits me, Grace thought, but she knew enough to keep that to herself.

‘Was it a cop you punched?' Outside it was hot and humid as if the very streets were sweating.

‘Sure,' Grace said. ‘I wasn't going to be pushed around.'

‘That's so cool; the way you're prepared to really do something. Most of the girls I hang out with aren't into issues. They say they are, sure, but they're into other stuff, you can tell.'

She felt bad lying, pretending to have been part of the demonstration when actually she was the enemy. She considered owning up – she had a thing about honesty. In fact Mrs Shield
had taken her to see the school nurse because, in her view, you could take honesty too far, as Grace had – way too far – on several occasions.

Grace had confided to the nurse that she believed bad things would happen to anyone who did not tell the truth. The school nurse had smiled a soothing smile and explained that, although telling the truth was
very, very good
and
very, very important
, it was not always appropriate. Grace had stopped listening and was counting the hairs on the mole on the nurse's left cheek, only tuning back in when the session was drawing to a close. ‘Your mother –'

‘Stepmother.'

‘– your stepmother told me that you believe that God will punish you if you tell a lie. Of course I'm not saying telling lies is a good thing … as such … just that you should remember that there are times for telling the truth and times when, well, when it's wise to keep that truth to yourself; to think of it as your little secret.' By now the nurse herself seemed a little confused. Looking at Grace who sat so still in her chair and with such an attentive expression on her face, the school nurse took a deep breath and tried again. ‘Let's take an example. If someone had spent a lot of time and effort cooking you a lovely meal but you didn't like it, what would you say? Would you say, “Yuk, that wasn't very nice”?'

Grace was not stupid and time was wearing on. Soon the lunchbreak would be over and she would have missed the chance of a smoke. ‘No, I would probably keep it as my little secret.'

The nurse looked pleased, giving Grace a friendly pat on the shoulder. ‘I hope you've found our little chat helpful.'

The answer to that, Grace decided, was best kept her little secret.

She went back for a follow-up a couple of weeks later. ‘Your mother –'

‘Stepmother.'

‘– stepmother tells me that you've been much better since our little chat and that you haven't upset anyone … much. That says to me that you have been using your
judgement
.
That's good.' The nurse smiled, pleased. ‘And nothing bad happened, did it?'

Grace told her, ‘My dog died.'

Jefferson McGraw thought she was cool. So maybe she would keep the facts about what she was really doing at the demonstration her little secret.

‘I'll walk your way, if that's OK with you?'

Grace nodded. ‘Sure.' She looked away to hide her smile.

‘What's on your mind, Grace? You've hardly said a word all evening.' Aunt Kathleen was peering at her as if she was trying to read a manual.

‘Grace shows absolutely no interest in boys,' Mrs Shield had complained to Grace's father. ‘It's not right. Girls her age should be in love.'

Gabriel had muttered something non-committal before asking his daughter when she was going to bring home a nice young man for them to meet.

‘When I find one,' she had assured him.

‘See, she's avoiding the issue as usual,' Mrs Shield had complained. But she knew as well as Grace that this suited Gabriel very well. Gabriel had lost his shine of late. His life back in England with a new wife had turned out to be much the same as his old life in America with his first wife. He was still doing what others expected of him, still doing work that bored him, still seeing people for dinner to whom he did not wish to speak, still mowing the lawn on Saturday and washing the car on Sunday, although grass made him sneeze and he cycled to the station. To Grace he said, ‘The moment you know what to do with your life, do it and let nothing get in your way.'

Grace felt anxious, as if she had heard heavy sighs behind each word. ‘What did
you
want to do?'

Gabriel looked at her, head tilted. ‘Now, you mustn't laugh at your old father, but I wanted to go on the stage.' As so often, he looked sadder when he smiled than when he was serious and Grace had not felt in the least like laughing. ‘I nearly made it too.' He shook his head as if in disbelief. ‘I was invited to join a travelling
theatre company run by a man who slept every night with his head propped up on a hardback volume of Shakespeare's tragedies, but it was not to be. I had responsibilities.'

‘Why?' Grace had asked. ‘Why would he want to sleep like that?'

‘It was so that he would never forget that great art is forged through suffering.' At that both began to laugh. Sad eyes met sad eyes. ‘Oh Gracie, we are the same, you and I.'

Gabriel, who never got away, became a man who wanted a quiet life above all else. This taught Grace to hang on to her dreams. In conversation her father's words skimmed the surface like daddy-long-legs on a pond. He liked everything to be pleasant, he said. Keeping things pleasant meant no one getting cross or exercised and everyone agreeing. Everyone agreeing meant no one bringing up anything disagreeable. Never bringing up anything disagreeable meant never being contentious. Never being contentious meant always being pleasant. Always being pleasant was very trying. Grace had grown accustomed to silence. Poor Mrs Shield never did. When they were meant to be talking about her stepdaughter's lack of teenage ways and she met only vagueness in return once again, she got so provoked that she said something about Grace maybe preferring girls. Grace had not minded. You could take pleasant too far, she had been thinking for some time. As her father fled the room, red-faced and upset, she explained kindly to Mrs Shield that, as she had never kissed a girl let alone slept with one, she could not be absolutely sure, but thought that, on balance, it was boys she liked. Mrs Shield had apologised, saying she didn't know what had come over her. Grace had told her not to worry; having to be so damn pleasant was a strain on everyone.

At the time of her father's death Grace had still not brought back a nice boy, or girl either for that matter. She had friends, quite a few, but as for falling in love; well, it seemed not to be for her. Anyway, she had other things to do.

At just after eight o'clock the following morning Grace was woken by Aunt Kathleen knocking on her bedroom door and telling her ‘that McGraw boy' was downstairs waiting to see her. Aunt Kathleen did not approve of visitors dropping in before nine in the morning or after nine at night. Before and after those times
she wore her curlers and her housecoat and wished to be private; everyone knew that.

Face to face again, they became shy. He kept looking at his feet, shuffling like a ten year old. Grace started to sweat although it was still cool inside. ‘I thought you might want to go for a walk or something,' he said finally. ‘I could show you around the place.'

Aunt Kathleen had appeared behind them on the stairs. ‘Grace has been here for two weeks already,' she said. ‘I'm sure she knows her way around by now.'

‘No, I don't,' Grace said firmly and without blushing. ‘I have a truly shocking sense of direction.' When it came to telling lies she was coming on a treat.

Much later on Aunt Kathleen told her that she had watched the two of them walk down the path and out of the gate that morning and then she had gone into the bathroom where Uncle Leslie was shaving and said, ‘I expect that soon they'll think they're in love. They're young and good-looking and we're going through a hot spell.' And she had worried that Jefferson might not yet have got over Cherry Jones, who had upped and left for Europe in the late spring. But she had kept her concerns to herself as she had an idea that a negative thought, once let out, would spread and take hold.

They lay in the deep grass, gazing at the sky. He was wearing nothing but his old cut-off jeans; his shrunken tie-dye T-shirt was suspended from a low-hanging branch of a maple and his mucky sneakers lay upside down on the ground. Grace, in her khaki shorts and a white cotton shirt, was chewing on a blade of grass. He reached out and took her hand and then he raised himself on one elbow and leant down as if he was about to kiss her. Instead he said, ‘Do that again.'

‘Do what?'

‘Smile.'

‘Why?'

‘Because.' He turned away, but not before she could see the colour rise in his tanned cheeks. ‘Because you could light up a room with the wattage of that smile.' Then he turned back to her.

Grace's grin widened. God he was corny, but still it felt good.

‘You're special.'

I'm dreaming, she thought.

‘This girl, Cherry, is travelling in Europe. She's in Greece right now. Could you believe that, Greece?'

‘I've never been,' Grace said. ‘Mrs Shield always yearned to go to Rhodes but my father refused to go because of the junta. He played Theodorakis records instead, but that just made Mrs Shield yearn more. “I will not compromise my principles because my wife wants a holiday in the sun,” he said.'

‘He was right.' Jefferson sat up. ‘I couldn't believe it when Cherry said she was going. It's like there's no consciousness.'

Grace sat up too. ‘Jefferson.' She took his rough boy's hands in hers. ‘I bought fur … once. I never got to wear it but I might have if … if something hadn't got in the way. So you see,' she lowered her eyes, ‘I'm not … conscious either, not the way you mean it.'

Jefferson looked back at her, his brow furrowed. ‘That's different,' he said finally, pulling a chunk of grass up by its roots. ‘It's OK, Grace.' He was smiling and she could feel his warm spearmint-gum breath. ‘You're different.' Grace did not ask him how, or why. Instead with a little sigh of contentment, she lay back down in the grass.

A while later she took pictures of him asleep in the shade, resting on his front, one knee drawn up and his arms above his head. He was nineteen and perfect and she, who was eighteen, wept because, in her experience, that which was perfect came back to haunt you from the far side of loss. She knelt down and brushed her lips against the soft hollow of his young boy's neck, tucking a lock of dark hair behind his ear. ‘Come, wolves and giant birds,' she whispered, ‘come, storms and angry winds. I'm here and you can't hurt him.' The dappled light from the branches and leaves above formed shifting patterns across his sleeping form. She got to her feet and shot close to a roll of film.

Grace and Jefferson were jumping, laughing and as naked as God had created them, into the cool water of the wide, lazy-flowing river that divided the town from the woods beyond. She twisted round in the water, dived and surfaced right by him, shaking the
water from her hair, sending a cascade of droplets like a spinning wheel around her head. She dived again, swimming beneath him slinky as a seal, stretching her hand up and touching the soft slippery skin on the inside of his thighs. This time they surfaced together, wide-eyed and out of breath. Without a word they swam towards land. He lifted her up and she wrapped her legs around his hips and leant back against the bank, closing her eyes against the bright sun.

‘And Jefferson always such a
good
boy.' Della Parker was complaining to her friend Jan Miller while they were in the queue at the mart. Della was shocked and she was angry and she didn't mind who heard what she had to say, and that included Aunt Kathleen blushing by the cereal aisle. ‘You would think a person would be spared that kind of sight, practically in their own back yard and in the middle of the morning with the kindergarten walking by on their nature ramble. I tell you, it's that girl. We've all heard about the way those Europeans carry on.'

Aunt Kathleen had responded by saying loudly to her friend Susie, ‘It's good to see the boy so happy. There was no end to his moping after that Cherry Jones went away.'

But to Grace she said, ‘It's not that I expect you young people to be angels, but did you have to be so … well … public about it?'

Grace was too proud of her happiness to be embarrassed, although she was sorry to have upset Aunt Kathleen. She wanted to ask her if it was common to feel holy when you made love, but she did not know how to go about broaching the subject. She made a very pretty apology in the form of a photograph of the house framed with freshly picked roses. ‘I know the roses won't last,' she said. But Aunt Kathleen had already forgiven her. Grace was in far worse trouble with Jefferson's mother. She too blamed Grace, that English girl with the unfortunate mother, and she told Kathleen all about it. ‘But I shall keep my opinion to myself, Kathleen. As Jim pointed out, the more you fuss the more they go their own way. No, Jim says let him go on seeing her – in a decent manner, of course – and it soon won't seem so interesting. She leaves at the end of the summer, doesn't she?'

Aunt Kathleen thought that Gene McGraw, in spite of her cosy small-town ways, was a frightening woman. She tried to warn Grace, but love had turned the girl, if not blind, then deaf. But it seemed that a week later Mrs McGraw too had forgiven her. Jefferson had organised a picnic for just the two of them. He turned up, looking slightly embarrassed, with a coolbox and a red and blue picnic rug. He'd brought cans of Coke and even some candy-coloured chocolate buttons because he remembered that she had told him she missed Smarties. There were sandwiches and some cookies his mother had baked specially. It was that which made Grace think she was forgiven. After all, why make cookies for someone you don't like? Who cared what the oldies thought, said Jefferson, and anyway his mother blamed what had happened more on the 1960s than on Grace. Mrs McGraw blamed most things on the 1960s and wished with religious fervour that the entire decade could just be rubbed out as if it had never been. She herself remained firmly in the 1950s, with her gingham apron and her neat blonde curls.