No Fury Like That by Lisa de Nikolits

Author:Lisa de Nikolits
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Inanna Publications
Published: 2017-12-16T16:00:00+00:00

24. GRACE’S VIEWING

BEATRICE HAS HER FEET UP on the desk and she stares at us. “Plead your case,” she says to Grace. Poor Grace’s botoxed, plastic face is expressionless but her eyes are filled with pain. “Screw you, Beatrice,” she says crudely for her. “You know why this is important to me. But I won’t beg. I don’t even know if I really want to do this. In fact, I know I don’t, but I feel as if I must.”

“Fair enough,” Beatrice replies and she takes her feet off the table, puts on a pair of reading glasses, and peers at her computer screen. She scowls, punches in a few numbers, backspaces a few times, and pounds a couple more keys. Then she stares at the screen and waits. “Processing,” she says. The printer squawks to life and spits out a page which Beatrice hands to Grace who takes it wordlessly.

“Thank you,” I say and we leave and make our way to the Viewing Room. We are anxious, not sure what we are going to get.

We sit down in the same booth as the previous time, and Grace takes the centre seat on the curved red bench. I punch the numbers in for her and the screen flashes black and then the writing appears: WELCOME GRACE! WE HOPE YOU WILL ENJOY YOUR VIEWING TODAY!

“We bloody hope so too,” Tracey mutters and we all nod.

The camera zooms closer to Earth and soon we are in a garden in front of a large house, standing on real grass only we can’t feel it. Three kids are playing with a hose, spraying each other in the heat of the summer’s evening and Grace tries to rush over to them, but she cannot move.

The garden is immaculate, with neatly pruned rose bushes and brightly coloured flower beds surrounded by manicured green lawns.

“At least he kept my garden maintained,” Grace whispers. “Oh, look at Harry,” she says and her eyes fill with tears and she brushes them away, not wanting to miss anything. “He’s gotten so big. Oh my god, how long have I been gone?” She blows her nose on a Kleenex that Tracey shoves into her hand.

“And there’s William, he looks so healthy. And my baby girl, my princess, Beatrice! Oh, they look so good! Everything’s fine. And there’s their nanny, the same one. Richard managed to keep her. That’s good too. And look, there’s my sister. Doesn’t she look lovely? I wonder if Richard has offered to ‘fix’ her. I bet she would have told him where to get off. I wonder where Richard is?”

As if in answer to her question, the View propels us up the garden path and inside the front door. We move down the hallway, past the living room on the left that looks as if it has never been visited by a single soul. We pass the TV room on the right, with a far more lived-in look. We pass a study filled with leather furniture, bookcases, and brass library lamps.

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