LITMIR.BIZ

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said. “Thank you for believing in me.”

      As she walked to her next class, Grace was filled with a frisson of excitement that she quickly banked down. It never paid to get too excited about anything in her world. As she had learned time and time before, beacons of light on the horizon could be snuffed out in the blink of an eye. As she turned her mind to the impending interview, three whole days in Oxford, her chance to prove herself, Grace felt her elation freeze as another thought slammed into her: she would have to explain her three days away, she would have to tell The Pastor where she was going. All at once the flicker of excitement that Grace had felt began to dim.

      Her lungs would explode. Grace sucked in air as fast as she could.

      “Come on, fatty, come on.” Even through the fog of pain, the sound of her own panting breath ringing in her ears and her thighs rubbing together, stinging with her every step forwards, Grace could hear the taunts. She could always hear the taunts. She didn’t bother to glance back to see who it was; it was always the same trio of boys from her class. How she hated cross country running. But in her excitement about her Oxford interview, Grace had been unprepared with an excuse that would let her miss games, which is why she came to be bringing up the rear, by a long margin on the fourth and final mile. The rest of her class were long gone, already showered and heading off home. Her tormentors had stayed behind especially for her.

      Grace had forever remained the new girl. From the day she arrived in England with her mum and The Pastor, she’d struggled to fit in. She’d never quite learned how to make friends, how to latch on to become part of a group. Right from the start, her accent had been wrong, her hair too uncool compared with all the black girls in her class with their easy London confidence. And that perpetual new-girl feeling felt so thoroughly imprinted on her that she’d carried it from primary school to secondary school and now even into 6^th form.

      And still Grace kept moving, not fast but always forward, her feet sinking into the muddy ground and rising and repeating. Never mind that her mother had forbidden her to take part in any sports, for Simbi still feared that one day Grace’s heart might give out. It was a fear that Grace herself shared but something else was greater than this fear, something that she had struggled to give a name to, until some months earlier when Stephen had named it for her. She had been forced into another cross-country run and had finished twenty minutes after everyone else. Grace had been cornered by the bullies as she’d re-entered the school, tears had risen in her eyes as they’d shouted their insults – fatty, chubber and then from nowhere Stephen had emerged and dispatched detentions all around. As Grace had stood shivering, mud caking her legs, fighting back tears, her teacher had turned to her.

      “You hung in there and you finished because you’re a fighter, nobody can take that away from you.” Always this word: fighter. Why, Grace had wondered, did everything have to feel like a fight? But now as she pushed through, coming to the end of the course, her heart pounding like it was about to explode, Grace remembered those words. She was a fighter. And a fighter she would have to be because when she got home, she would have to tell The Pastor about the interview.

      It was even worse than she’d expected.

      “Who gave you the right?” The Pastor bellowed and Grace ducked just in time as her father’s fist darted out. The letter was gripped tightly in The Pastor’s hand and Grace saw with a dart of sorrow that the once pristine sheet was crumpled. As she and her mother watched, The Pastor tore it into several small pieces. “You, useless and you think you can go to Oxford, you think you can walk out on us, after all we’ve done. Who will pay for it? You think you are better than us?” With every word The Pastor rained down slaps on them both. He was in control again and the slaps landed on their backs, their arms, nowhere that might leave a visible mark to his congregation. Beside her, Grace sensed her mother crying silent tears and then after one last slap that connected hard with her mother’s arm, The Pastor strode out, dropping the pieces of the letter onto the floor. As far as he was concerned that was the end of that.

      They continued to sit there, both sprawled on the kitchen floor and the only sound that remained was the sound of the pot of cooking rice bubbling over on the heat. Grace watched her mother rise to her feet and flick the cooker off. Slowly Grace stood up and waited for her mother to turn and face her.

      “Why did you do this? You know he doesn’t like change.” Grace closed her fist and struggled to contain the stream of anger that rose in her.

      “This is what I want,” she finally said.

      “But Oxford. Where would we get the money from?” her mother asked. “Those places, they aren’t for people like us. You won’t fit in there,” her mother said gently. Grace closed her eyes for a moment.

      “But I don’t fit in here either.” Crouching down, Grace gathered the pieces of the letter and walked out of the kitchen.

      It had been three days since The Pastor had decreed that no word would again be spoken about Oxford. And so it had been. Grace had cut school for the rest of the week and instead sat in the local library all day, reading books, throwing herself into other worlds so that she could pretend that she wasn’t living the life she was. And now it was Sunday and once again they would go to service and present a united family front. Grace struggled into the cream skirt suit that she wore to church most weeks. Ignoring the pieces of the letter that lay on her desk, she winced as she caught sight of her reflection. How had she managed to gain weight?

      Other people shed when they were heartbroken but as she glanced back at her bed and saw the empty wrapping of two boxes of cookies, she had her answer. Grace shook her head at her appearance. The suit with the boxy jacket and fishtail skirt had been unflattering enough when The Pastor had presented it to her two years earlier but now, carrying so many extra pounds, she looked like a beached whale. Grace sighed, ran a comb through the little hair that she had and walked downstairs.

      Throughout the service, Grace had sat stony-faced. She had started to realise that without The Pastor’s permission, her dream of escaping to Oxford was dead in the water. The collection baskets were going around for the second time when Grace felt her mother shift beside her. Grace looked up in surprise as her mother rose to her feet and began to walk up the central aisle towards The Pastor’s pulpit. Grace felt a shaft of fear: what was her mother doing? A few of the congregation were starting to look up interested, for it was rare to see The Pastor’s wife take to the pulpit. Grace’s eyes darted anxiously and she saw the instant that The Pastor saw his wife. His eyes narrowed, his nostrils flared, Grace was sure that his fists might have flexed but here in front of his congregation he could do nothing but watch as his wife took to the pulpit, angling the microphone down towards her. By now the choir had gone quiet and Grace watched, her heart almost in her mouth, as her mother began to speak.

      “Hallelujah,” Simbi said. And the congregation echoed her with hallelujahs of their own. Grace watched as, her voice faltering, her mother spoke again.

      “The Pastor and I have some happy news to share with you. Our beautiful daughter is going to Oxford University for her interview this month, so pray for her, pray for her success and her courage and that she will take the right path in life.” As her mother spoke, a burst of applause spun through the church. The congregation were on their feet applauding. “And praise my husband The Pastor, for his foresight in encouraging Grace to be the best she can be.” And once again the congregation were clapping, the choir had broken into song. And The Pastor knew that he had been bested by his wife. Grace watched the flicker of emotions that he fought to conceal – fury, rage, incredulity. His wife, who never fought back, had utterly outmanoeuvred him and for now, at least, there was nothing he could do about it. He’d been backed into a corner.

      Grace felt a pat her on the back, someone else was shaking her hand and another woman pressed a £20 note into her palm, for her books. Grace rose to her feet joining in with the clapping and singing that swelled through the church. There would be hell to pay, but for now as she stared at her mother, frail and yet determined up on the altar, Grace vowed that she would nail that interview, she would ace those exams. She would go to Oxford. She would do whatever it took to make her mother proud.

      

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