Beth quickly looked at the ground. She didn’t know why her cheeks were suddenly so hot. Perhaps she was ill after all? Her heart began to pound so loudly she was sure they could all hear it and she felt faint again. She put her hands on the floor to steady herself and she looked at the clock. At that very moment she realised that her life was spent waiting for the rose Theo left on the porch each week.
Gracie wriggled.
‘Hold your arm out, Gracie, and keep still,’ Beth said, but it was Gracie’s birthday and she couldn’t keep still, keeping still made her arms and legs hurt and there were presents wrapped in brown paper and string in the corner and one present was in a box and she had had to wait all through church and then all through lunch and now until afternoon tea time, which Paul had pronounced, because of the late lunch and Mister Hooley, would be postponed until four.
‘Have you made a cake, Beth?’
‘I don’t make cakes for girls who don’t keep still.’ Beth winked at Paul.
‘I don’t like cake with fruit in it,’ said Gracie.
‘I know that and if I was to make you a birthday cake it wouldn’t have fruit in it.’
‘I like chocolate cake.’
‘Well you might, but cocoa is four and halfpence for only a quarter of a pound tin.’
‘Oh my glory!’
‘It’s been that for ages, Papa,’ said Edie.
‘No, no, no, I don’t give a hoot for the price of cocoa,’ he said.
‘Well, what then?’ asked Edie.
He rolled the paper and slapped it against his leg. ‘I’m in the paper again. Can’t the papers find any real news? Thank goodness they haven’t mentioned my name. But in this town everyone will know it was me anyway.’
‘Go on. You’ve got our curiosity aroused,’ said Edie. ‘What are you famous for now?’
‘I did two cases this week that have been reported. One was a woman who wanted maintenance for her thirteen children. I did it pro bono of course. She’d never have paid the bill anyway. This woman is a prime example of why women need a maternity payment.’ He paused for effect as though he was in the courtroom.
‘On with the story,’ said Edie.
‘Well, I’ll cut it short for you. She arrived at court with seven of the kids in tow looking like she’d just dragged them up from the mines. Their clothes were filthy, ill fitting and they looked terribly hungry. The husband turned up too and I had a dickens of a job stopping her from yelling obscenities across the courtroom at the him, things I can’t repeat, and he was yelling back that half the children weren’t his so why should he have to pay a darn penny for them. Judge Murphy finally came in and said to the husband, “What’s this all about?” The father said, “She’s not fit to look after me kids and I reckon some of them are probably not mine and I pay her what I can.”
‘Judge Murphy said to him, “Well, I’m sure she says you’re not fit either. How much can you afford?” and he said “Nothing” and Judge Murphy turned to my client and said, “You heard him,” and dismissed the case on the spot. I felt so terrible I gave her ten bob but after that what could I do but send her on her way? And here it is in the paper, you can read it for yourselves, along with the next case, which was just as ridiculous. This stupid twit from Sydney sued the Bunch of Grapes because the victualler, my client, declined to provide him with a meal at ten o’clock at night and the twit had travelled 100 miles that day meaning the victualler was legally obliged to provide him with food regardless of the time the twit appeared at his door. Judge Murphy had no choice but to abide by the law and fine the poor publican one pound. That’s city folk for you, they’ve got to have what they want immediately, no matter who gets put out to do it.’
Paul leant over to Gracie and said, ‘And that’s life as a lawyer for you, Gracie, that’s your father championing the rights of the poor. The rich city folk get a pound for nought but complaining, and a mother of thirteen gets sent on her way with nothing to feed her kids.’
‘Mister Cottingham, I’m sure both parties appreciated your efforts even if they didn’t show it at the time,’ said Beth.
Paul looked at her with soft, thankful eyes; his eyes were changing with age, losing their sharpness and becoming like mists in late autumn, incapable of storms and angry lightning bolts. His shoulders now sloped away, he was shorter and would lean heavily on his umbrella, which had become his walking stick.
‘Beth’s right, Papa,’ said Edie. ‘Who else would look after these people if you didn’t?’
Gracie wriggled again and to keep her still Beth asked, ‘What’s your birth date Gracie?’
‘November the fifth oh five.’
‘What’s the date today?’
‘November the fifth oh eleven.’
‘Just eleven, there’s no O when we get to double figures. There, you can go now,’ said Beth and Gracie scampered off to sit on her father’s knee, her curls bouncing as if eager to leap away from her head. Paul folded his paper and put it aside.
‘Give me one of your smiles, Gracie. My day is only worth living if you give me one of your smiles,’ he said.
She smiled at her father and then at Beth and at Edie.
Everyone noticed little Gracie’s smile and her gentleness that made them feel as though they had found where they belonged. Everyone who came to the door asked, ‘Have you got a smile for me, young Gracie?’ And when she smiled they put their hand over their heart to still its thumping.
As Gracie smiled at her, Beth felt the fog in her head clear and everything fell into place. Suddenly she knew where that
