Grace's Table by Sally Piper

Author:Sally Piper
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Queensland Press
Published: 2014-02-16T16:00:00+00:00

Ada limped slightly on her left leg as Grace moved them on to the kitchen.

‘Ada,’ Richard said, as the two women entered the room, ‘tell me who it was and I’ll get my best men onto him right away.’

‘Whoa!’ said Jaxon.

Jorja leant up against a kitchen bench, flicking through a magazine. She half-saw Ada’s face from behind her fringe, and winced at the sight.

‘Oh, Ada. I had no idea how bruised and swollen you were. You poor thing.’ Susan fussed with a kitchen chair for Ada. ‘Come. Sit. Sit.’ She gestured towards the seat. ‘Or maybe you’d rather lie on the sofa? We can take you in the lounge, if you like.’ Susan looked torn between pushing the chair back in and steering Ada out the way she’d just come in. ‘I could prop you up with some pillows. Bring you in a drink – a nice cup of tea, maybe.’

‘Stop fussing. She’s fine.’ Grace manoeuvred Ada towards the chair. ‘I’ve got a good bottle of Chardonnay in the fridge. How does that grab you?’

‘Perfectly.’ Ada accepted the chair.

Grace hoped no one else noticed the soft tremor in her friend’s hand as she gripped the chair back and the cautious way she lowered herself into the seat.

Grace took the wine from the fridge and passed it to Richard. ‘Would you mind doing the honours?’

Richard cracked the seal on the bottle. He poured three glasses and passed one each to Grace, Ada and Susan; Susan’s was three-quarters full, Grace’s and Ada’s less than half.

Grace held hers up and inspected it. ‘Tide’s out a bit, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, sorry, do you want more? I thought you’d want to take it easy.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, you know – Ada already being a bit wobbly on her feet.’

‘She’s not on her feet now,’ Grace said, ‘and mine are rock solid.’ She worked the hinges of her knee joints up and down. ‘Do I look like a well-sprung grandma to you, kids?’

Jorja grinned.

‘You look as springy as a slinky to me, Grandma,’ Jaxon said.

With wine glasses topped up, Grace raised hers to Ada. ‘To the stars,’ she said.

‘Yes, the stars.’

Susan and Richard looked at one another.

‘Stars?’ Grace said, encouraging Susan to raise her glass as well.

‘Ye-es – stars.’

‘Celebrity stars?’ Jorja asked. ‘Which one?’ She held up her magazine to show Grace a page covered in women with scant parts of their skin covered by glittering sequins.

‘No. The real ones. Above us.’ Grace lifted her glass to the ceiling. ‘More inspiring.’

Richard looked troubled as he went to the laundry to get a beer from the tub of ice. Was it the ambiguity of the toast that had unsettled him, suggesting the start of dementia, perhaps, or concern about their alcohol consumption? Either notion annoyed Grace.

The empty wine bottles at Grace’s house now were insignificant compared to the number of beer bottles that once accumulated against the back wall of Des’s shed. They were stacked almost a metre high. Get me half a dozen tallies, Des would say to Grace if he knew she was going to the shops.

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