Читать книгу Black Diamond - Havana Adams - Страница 12

CHAPTER 2

Grace slammed into wakefulness with a sharp gasp.

For a long moment she stared into the darkened room, the only sound her own rapid, shallow breaths. Her legs were tangled up in the sheets and after a moment she realised that her arms were raised up in front of her as though to ward off an onslaught. An onslaught from what, Grace wondered. She reached over to the bedside table and flicked the lamp on, bathing the room in a dull orange glow. Her room was a small rectangular shape and if she stood in the middle of the room and stretched her arms out either side of her, she could easily touch both walls. Along one wall her bed rested and on the opposite wall her desk with a neat pile of books and notebooks. Grace stared at the peeling floral wallpaper and once again wished she was allowed to cover them with posters, flyers, pictures, anything, but The Pastor didn’t permit anything like that. Once, she had placed a Boyz II Men band poster up on the wall but the slap she had received had quickly quelled any further thoughts of rebellion. The only decoration on her wall was a framed illustration of the Baby Jesus that The Pastor himself had nailed into the wall.

Slowly, Grace lowered herself back onto the bed and stared up at the peeling paint and lines of damp on the ceiling. Her mind returned to the dream that had woken her up, but as was always the case, she could remember nothing. All that lingered was the same sense of anxiety and confusion that accompanied so many of her dreams. At least this time she hadn’t screamed. The nightmares were not new. For as long as she could remember, Grace had had trouble sleeping. She often woke panicked and in fear, with a bewildering conviction that somehow she had woken up in the wrong place. Grace glanced at the small clock-face beside her bed: 6 a.m. It was New Year’s Eve. She sighed and swung herself out of bed.

Grace walked to her wardrobe and swung the door open to reveal a full-length mirror inside one of the doors. She stared at her reflection and a deep sigh rose in her chest. It was New Year’s Eve and she was eighteen years old and yet she wouldn’t be going out tonight, wouldn’t be ringing in the New Year with her friends. A ball of anger rose in her chest and she blinked back tears. A friend from school had got them tickets to an under-21s club event that night. For once, Grace had dared to hope, dared to dream that perhaps The Pastor might relent or maybe just for once her mother might champion her cause. The Pastor had glanced at the ticket and with a sneer he had ripped it cleanly in half and dumped the pieces in the dustbin. Grace knew she was lucky to have escaped with just the harsh look he had thrown her way.

Grace turned her attention back to her reflection in the mirror and a small angry snort of laughter burst from her. What was she thinking? Of course she wasn’t going out on New Year’s Eve. Look at you. Grace stared at her short Afro hair that had been shorn close to her head, when The Pastor had decreed that hairdressers’ costs were too high and that she had become vain with her love of her thick, loosely curled natural hair. Grace’s gaze travelled down her body and she felt a swell of despair rise in her. There was no other way to put it. She was fat. Not curvy or sassy. She had no discernible waist, her tummy jutted out like a pregnancy bump and her thighs rubbed uncomfortably together whenever she walked. She belonged at home, where no one would see how hideous she was. Grace’s eyes drifted up to her face. Her eyes had always been her best feature – an unexpected hazel colour that lit up her round brown face, and if not for the thick-lensed glasses that almost completely hid them, they might have drawn attention away from her spotty skin. Grace stepped away from the mirror and slammed the wardrobe door shut. Her eyes slid once again to the clock. It was almost time for church and in The Pastor’s house, no one was ever late for service.

“You must give back to your community in any way you can. You must give back to your fellow man and woman. You must give to your Pastor. Give to your church.” With every phrase The Pastor uttered, the congregation nodded and the sound of their “Amens” filled the hall. From her seat at the back of the church, next to her mother, Grace watched as the collection baskets were passed around and the congregation dipped into their pockets and purses, quickly filling the baskets with money. Where the money went, Grace had never been able to tell. Certainly not to the upkeep of the hall that housed The Pastor’s weekly ministry, which like their house was a small, dank place that was too cold in winter and far too hot in summer. Next to her Simbi, her mother, nodded at a member of the congregation and Grace felt a beat of anger, that they were once again consigned to the back row. The Pastor had decided that the front row should be left for special VIPs and high-value donors. At the front, The Pastor rose again and headed for his pulpit.

“And now at this time when people are shopping and buying decorations and drinking and carving turkeys, I will remind you of the true meaning of the season.” Grace felt her stomach dive and she felt a warm hand creep to hers and quickly squeeze her hand. Grace looked up into her mother’s eyes and willed the tears away. The Pastor was going to tell his favourite story.

“I was a young man newly married. I travelled from Nigeria and started my ministry in Cape Town, South Africa. God did not see fit to bless me and my wife Simbi with children. Our only surviving child, a son, died at birth. My wife was barren but it is a burden we bore.” Grace and her mother held hands and stared straight ahead as The Pastor continued. The airing of their private lives was a humiliation they had grown used to over the years.

“And then one day we went to an orphanage and we saw a girl. Grace. Nine years old and abandoned there since birth. Nobody wanted her; nobody loved her. She was sickly, weak. And I saved her. I brought her to England. I did my duty to God. Like the Innkeeper who took in Mary and Joseph, you too must open your doors…” Grace watched and felt sick as the congregation rose to their feet, singing and clapping and turning to nod at her and her mother. Grace felt a mist of rage settle over her and even as The Pastor beckoned her forward to be paraded on the altar like a prize calf, she remained sitting. The Pastor waved her over again and next to her, she felt her mother prod her.

“Grace go.” But Grace remained silent and stayed sitting. The Pastor had turned to join the choristers, but Grace knew that before the day was done, she would pay for her transgression. She sighed heavily as she thought about The Pastor, her adopted father, though she could never, ever think of him as her father, not after the pain and hurt he inflicted on her and her mother daily. The word Dad always stuck in her throat, in her head, he was only ever The Pastor. Why does he hate me so much? Was it because she wasn’t the son that he had lost? Was it because her imperfections were so obvious? Grace sighed again, there was no point trying to understand The Pastor. He was who he was and she was stuck.

“You think you are somebody?” The word was bellowed into her ear and then two slaps followed in quick succession. Grace gritted her teeth as tears fell silently. Another slap this time on her upper arm and pain seared all the way up her shoulder into her neck. Grace bit her lip hard and tasted blood.

“Just leave her alone, Michael.” And suddenly Grace was free. The Pastor spun around.

“This is your doing.” Grace heard the smash of fist against flesh and she felt shame rise up in her. Her rebellion had put her mother in the line of fire. “You and the stupid, useless girl. We should have left her there to die. You gave me no children and then you bring this useless one home, with a heart that isn’t right. You cursed us. You dragged me down.” And with one last slap that sent her mother sprawling in a heap on the hallway floor, The Pastor slammed out of the house.

Slowly, Grace rose from her crouching position on the stairs. Her arm and neck felt sore, her cheek ached and blood leaked from her split lip. She moved towards her mother and sank to her knees and cradled the only person who had ever shown her love.

“I’m sorry,” Grace said remorse swimming through her. Once again her selfishness had landed them both in trouble.

“We can’t make him angry, you know that.” At her mother’s words Grace felt anger dilute her remorse. Why would her mother never fight back, two against one would surely be better? And yet in the decade since they had taken her from the orphanage, the decade since they had lived in London, not once had her mother ever defended herself and slowly Grace had started to resent her for this.

Later, as she sat in her darkened room wrapped in a faded duvet, Grace ran a finger up and down the fading scar that bisected her chest, running vertically between her breasts about three inches in length. She had always been a sickly child, unable to walk quickly or run or play in the yard like all the other children at the orphanage. Matron had said that every birthday she lived was a miracle.

“You were supposed to die,” Matron had said once. And Grace hadn’t known how to respond. The Pastor and her mum had brought her to England and here finally she had been properly diagnosed. It was a small hole in her heart, a small defect, easily corrected.

“You must be one hell of a fighter,” the doctor had said smiling at her before they took her into surgery. “You’ve survived this long and you’ll be even better after.”

Grace traced the scar slowly and blinked away tears. The Pastor hated her for not being his own flesh and blood child, he hated her because she made a mockery of his faith. He could not love her the way he counselled his flock to love their neighbour. She was no fighter. She couldn’t even look after her mother. Outside, a rapid barrage of popping sounds had started and Grace raised her curtains slightly and watched as the North London sky was set aglow with greens and reds and golds; fireworks ringing in the changes. It was midnight. A new year had begun.

“I have to get out.” She uttered the words into the darkness and thought about the form that she had secretly sent off weeks ago. Grace thought with sadness about her mother; she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her alone with The Pastor. But worse even than that was the thought of staying here herself, of living another year in fear and under their roof. “I have to get out,” she whispered again with a quiet conviction and, for the first time in her life, she felt like her destiny might actually be in her own hands. This time next year, she would not cry herself to sleep.