Chapter Text
Do you remember the way that you touched me before,
all the trembling sweetness I loved and adored?
Your face-saving promises whispered like prayers,
I don’t need them.
No, I don’t need them.
(Natalie Merchant - My Skin)
At the end, the end of Tommy and her, Helen calls Grace. She can’t explain why, how it comes that she feels so connected to Grace, having only met her at the funeral and wake of her husband. They had talked for quite a while after Helen noticed the way Grace seemed to feel uncomfortable around her husband's ex-wife, Maureen, and took Grace aside to see if everything was alright. She found herself unusually fascinated by the other woman, the way she held herself, the way she spoke - seemingly insecure and unbreakable at the same time. It seemed as if Grace might actually have felt the same unexpected connection because, against all unwritten rules, they exchanged numbers, had messaged each other a few times, even talked to each other once, after the case was closed.
And now, after Helen starts to speak about feeling trapped in her own home due to the fact that she shares it with Tommy, about feeling more and more unwilling to reconnect with him, Grace just quietly suggests that she stay at her house. Argues that it's big enough to give both of them enough space if needed and that she actually wouldn’t mind some company other than her own thoughts, going round and round about things that happened to her in the silence of the house.
Helen tries to stop worrying about being a burden like Maureen was when Grace doesn’t stop insisting. Packs up her most vital things, clothes, laptop, work stuff, some books and mementos she can’t bear to leave behind and - almost on a whim - her old camera, before she temporarily moves in with Grace in an attempt to find a way back to herself and also to offer Grace some company and support. She leaves Tommy a letter, calls him before she leaves the house, but also waits for a moment when she knows that he can’t return to the house quickly enough to hold her back. She does not tell him where she’s going, stops answering his calls the moment the door to their house falls shut behind her. It might not have been fair to him, but by now Helen feels like she’s run all out of words, weighed down by the countless times she’s tried to talk to him.
Maybe this is why their first days are quiet - both Grace and Helen easily transitioning into sharing a house, happy to spend their time together, but both of them also not yet in the mood to talk about what made them end up at this unexpected point in their lives. Grace spends a huge amount of her time in the garden, tending to her flowers, looking after the vegetable patch she finally created. Dermot had been strictly against one, didn't find it proper. Flowers, of course, he could get, lush English gardens, tended to by his lovely and respectable stay-at-home wife. Vegetables were what the supermarkets were invented for, so starting to grow her own vegetables was the first act of defiance Grace showed after his death.
Helen just follows her around, starts to take pictures of the plants - never of Grace after her first attempt to do so. Grace had become so anxious about the camera that Helen kept it in her room for a few days. She tries to read, but can’t concentrate, tries to cook, but should have known better, she never was able to cook something edible that didn’t involve a microwavable ready meal. Her cooking attempt marks the first time she makes Grace laugh though, Helen standing in the middle of a messy kitchen, frowning at the remains of something that should have been simple stir fried vegetables, Grace entering the room, erupting into loud honking laughter as soon as she lays eyes on her.
Time goes by and at one point they start to talk or, at least at the beginning, Helen does. She talks about Tommy, about him asking her to marry him again and again, until she finally said yes, about her never ending need for space, about their inability to deal with each other after the accident, him spending more and more time with work and her wandering around the house like a premature ghost, waiting for her time to finally haunt someone other than herself. She doesn’t mention the loss of her child though, feels like she might cause Grace more pain, might make her feel responsible. Grace knows, of course, but Helen remembers Tommy telling her about Grace’s reaction upon realising that her friend and former lover murdered Dermot and caused Helen’s accident, guesses that Grace feels guilty enough already, even though she isn’t guilty at all.
Slowly Grace joins in, starts to reveal bits of her life, talks about how she met Dermot, how she admired him, how hard she fell for him. She doesn’t talk for long or in a lot of detail, but she talks. About having an affair with Dermot, his stories about his loveless marriage, his sudden divorce, his proposal. Her utter joy at marrying him, the man she loved so much. Then she whispers about the first time he hit her, while Helen sits by her side in the slowly darkening living room, the both of them sharing a bottle of wine, shadows from the fire they lit playing tricks on their faces, the portrait of the very man Grace is talking about looming over them.
For now, Grace doesn’t talk about Tessa and Helen doesn’t ask.
Instead, Grace starts to talk about change one day, now that Dermot is gone. She has yet to change things in the house, has left everything like it was before. The bedroom and the living room are wearing her down though, both rooms spaces that evoke memories Grace would like to lay to rest, like she did Dermot.
Helen thinks it’s a good idea, a step towards a future that Grace can shape after her own liking. She offers to help, because that’s actually something she might be able to do, something she’s done before. Remembers her mother going around their house, talking to interior designers, forever changing things, adjusting them. Grace seems grateful, smiles at her, agrees when Helen suggests that they both take a look at the living room right after breakfast the next day. Helen feels hesitant to offer her help with the bedroom, hasn’t even set foot inside yet, although she’s been here for weeks.
They both stand in front of Dermot Finnegan’s portrait dominating the room. He looks cold, condescending. Helen wonders why he would have chosen to be portrayed like this. It seems too accurate, too close to his real self, the one he so carefully hid from others. Grace takes a few steps away from it, away from Helen, turns her back to the painting. Helen turns away too, slowly taking in the whole room, noticing not for the first time the missing warmth, the lack of anything that looks like it might truly belong to Grace. Anything beside the ornaments that have been placed all over the room.
“What are your plans? Replacing the painting with something brighter, of course, I guess. New furniture? Maybe a bit more colour, plush cushions, more plants. You sure like gardening, some potted plants inside the house would be a lovely idea. I couldn’t keep a cactus alive, even if I tried. What about the ornaments? I noticed more of them in the kitchen and in the garden. They are yours, right? You probably want to keep them.”
Grace’s features seem to sharpen right in front of Helen’s eyes, the corners of her mouth turning down, lips pinched together, a coldness to her eyes that vanishes almost as soon as it appears, leaving tired lines behind on Grace’s face and pain welling up in her eyes.
“Dermot bought them. Gave me one, every time after he... “ Grace falls silent, but Helen hears the missing words as clearly as if Grace had spoken them out loud - every time after he hit me.
“The next day he’d apologize and bring me a gift.” Grace looks at the ornament next to her on the mantelpiece, strokes a finger along its surface.
Helen takes in the dozens of ornaments strewn around the room, thinks of the ones in other rooms, the ones outside. Bile rises up her throat, and for a moment she has to take hold of the sofa next to her to keep herself steady, feels like she has to scream.
She instinctively knows that an overly emotional reaction to this memorial of the violence Grace must have endured won’t be welcome, might make Grace take a step away from her, might even make her lose her trust in Helen. She inwardly squares her shoulders and does her best to keep her face and voice from showing the rage and horror she feels building up inside her.
“I guess you could always bring them out to the garden and smash them up with a shovel, if you want to get rid of them.”
Grace, fingers gliding over ornament after ornament within her reach, startles and turns to her, eyes wide and surprised.
“Don’t look at me like that! Keep them, if you want to, send them to charity or do a car boot sale, it really is up to you, but somehow I think smashing them up might feel liberating.”
Helen takes a step towards Grace, notices the fine signals of Grace bracing herself, a shoulder slightly turned towards Helen, a hand placed over her stomach, head turned down. She wants to scream again, not at Grace, but at Dermot, wants to throttle him, even after his death. She slowly sidesteps Grace instead, passes her by as if she hasn’t noticed her instinctive reaction at all, only turns back to her when she’s already at the door to the hallway, at a safe distance.
“How about a cup of tea?”
Grace's eyes jump between Helen and the ornament in her hand, before her gaze settles on Helen, her fingers losing their grip on the small statue, her posture softening, a shy smile lighting up her face a bit.
“I’d like that.”
They settle down at the kitchen table, mugs in hand. They don’t speak, but their silence isn’t awkward, it just is - both of them running through things in their head. As if on cue, they both speak up at the same time.
“Look, I’m sorry I said you should smash-“
“Would you help me bring them out to-“
They both stop, Grace giving a short barking laugh and Helen laughing back at her with a wide smile on her face.
“You go first,” she says, nodding towards Grace.
“You don’t have to apologise, you know? Coming from you, it feels okay. I feel good with you,” Grace stops for a second, “with you suggesting things, I mean. It’s time for me to change things and maybe you’re right and it will be liberating. It’s certainly of no use to keep them around. So - would you help me take them out to the garden?”
There’s still an undertone of insecurity to Grace’s voice that makes Helen’s heart clench. She offers her hand to Grace, slowly moves it across the table, towards Grace, palm up.
Grace looks at it as if it’s the most unexpected thing, but loosens the grip on her mug, carefully laying her hand next to Helen’s for a moment, before she watches herself intertwine their fingers.
Grace’s fingers are cold, even after holding the mug, and thin, awfully thin, although there’s a certain strength to them. Helen wants to warm them, wants to cradle them close to her, wants to press a kiss to them.
She startles herself with that thought, can’t believe this crossed her mind. Looks up at Grace’s face, relieved to see her still watching their hands in rapt attention, sure that if Grace looked at Helen right now, the inappropriateness of her last thought would be written clearly all over her face.
She pushes the thought away, chalks it up to herself being tired, hurt, stressed and protective of Grace, who she feels so close to even after only such a short time of knowing her. It’s practically a miracle with Helen being far from easy to make friends with, at least not close ones. Food, drinks and a friendly chat she can manage just fine with almost everyone, she knows others think of her as charming, but the ordeal of a close friend, someone who would get to know her, really know her, never sat right with her, always made her pull back until now. Now she feels like she could open herself up to Grace like a book desperate to be read after spending a long time hidden on an unregarded shelf, gathering dust.
Of course she had been friends with Tommy long before they became lovers, before marriage and commitment and loss, but even with him she held parts of herself back. He never seemed to notice, and she never really cared, too used to going her own way, doing her own things to mind not fully baring her soul to him. Until the accident suddenly put a spotlight on their inability to truly talk to each other, to really connect on more than just a superficial day-to-day level. She fully realised this the moment she reached for the phone to call Grace, a virtual stranger compared to how long Helen and Tommy had known each other, but somehow the one person she wanted to talk to, wanted to cry with about the loss of her marriage and her child, wanted to hear how badly trapped Helen felt at that moment, how she longed to leave, without really knowing where to go. She couldn’t find it in her to talk about all of this with Tommy, especially not about the loss of their child, always aware of how conflicted he felt about becoming a father. Couldn’t bear to maybe realise that he might actually feel relieved somewhere in the darker parts of his mind.
A careful pressure on her fingers makes Helen become aware of the fact that she had drifted off into her thoughts, makes her come back to sitting at the kitchen table, still holding hands with Grace. Grace, who had set her mug down and covered Helen’s hand between both of hers. Her dark eyes are full of empathy and something Helen can’t decipher before Grace stops looking at her, her fringe partially covering her face again. Helen’s chest tightens and she feels like something is settling around them, can’t make sense of the tension she suddenly feels, nervous energy fluttering around her stomach. Grace seems to feel it too, seems to get restless in her chair, slowly starts to remove her hands with an apologetic look at Helen. She smiles back at her, willing herself to ignore everything but her wish to make Grace feel safe, supported and happy.
“No time like the present?” she asks, though she doesn’t move, leaves the decision completely to Grace, who looks up at her. Their eyes lock and Helen feels like she’s lost, but also found at the same time, everything deconstructing around them, leaving her in a surreal state of suspension, unable to stop looking into Grace’s eyes. Suddenly Grace blinks, breaking the moment by abruptly standing up, turning away from the table as if fleeing from something, but Helen can’t exactly say from what.
Grace turns back to her as suddenly as she’d turned away, her eyes shining with unfamiliar energy.
“How about we use the laundry baskets to bring them outside?”
It takes them several trips through the house, both of them searching thoroughly, to not forget even one single small ornament. It’s a shock to see them all in one place, Helen feeling sick to her stomach, brimming with fury, ready to charge anyone ever trying to hurt Grace again.
Grace stands there, rooted to the spot, back ramrod straight, looking at the mounting evidence of her personal pain, her face a ghostly white mask. Helen doesn’t dare to touch her, fears that Grace might just shatter at the first brush of Helen’s hand against hers.
She goes to the garden shed instead, tries to keep Grace in her line of sight, comes back to her, carrying one of the bigger shovels. She stands beside Grace, hoping that she can feel Helen’s silent support, that she realises she’s no longer alone and trapped in her personal hell. She holds the shovel out to Grace, determined to wait as long as it might take for Grace to come to terms with all of this. After a while she can feel cold fingers brushing against hers, takes her chance to carefully squeeze one of them with her index finger. Grace lightly squeezes back, then takes the shovel from Helen’s hand.
“You can do this,” Helen assures Grace in a low voice, before taking a step back to give Grace more room without leaving her. She leans against one of the compost bins, watches Grace who has yet to move. Time trickles by, both women unmoving until Grace’s fingers slowly start to glide along the handle of the shovel, like she’s trying to memorise the texture of the wood. Her grip around the handle tightens, she lifts the shovel to take it in both hands. Weighs it, her face still unmoving, until she suddenly swings the blade against one of the bigger ornaments, which promptly bursts into pieces upon the impact of metal on pottery. Grace looks shocked, loses her grip on the shovel, which clatters to the ground. Her breathing starts to accelerate, her brow suddenly drenched in sweat. She turns towards Helen, her eyes wide open, mouth gaping in her attempt to breathe and Helen is glad that she stayed near her, glad that she has dealt with people having a panic attack before. Notices Grace starting to tremble, unsure if she should try to approach her or keep her distance to not distress Grace any further. Then Grace reaches out to her and Helen quickly steps up to her, takes her hand and pulls her into her arms, holds her tight against her own body, murmuring soothing words into Grace’s hair, drawing slow circles around her back. Slowly the sobbing and trembling subsides, but they still stay tightly embraced until Grace takes a small step back. One hand keeps holding onto Helen’s, while Grace wipes her face on the sleeve of her shirt. The lines on her face are pronounced, her eyes red rimmed, but there’s also a new glimmer of determination in them. She presses Helen’s hand once before she lets go, bending down to pick up the shovel once more.
“You might want to step back a bit,” she says, her eyes caring, “I don’t want you to get accidentally hurt.” They both stop at that phrase, both of them realising at the same time that Helen being accidentally hurt was what brought her here. Grace’s face darkens and with a smooth motion she turns around towards the ornaments, swings the shovel and hits several of them with a satisfying sound. This time she doesn’t let go of the shovel, doesn’t hesitate and even though Helen takes a step back, she clearly sees the rage and hurt on Grace’s face as she brings down the shovel again and again.
Sweat begins to form patches on Grace’s shirt, her breathing becoming a bit laboured, her arms swinging the shovel in hypnotic movements, her face almost peaceful by now. There’s still too many ornaments left, some completely intact, others partially fallen to pieces, while the ground is littered with more and more shards. Grace pauses, rams the shovel a bit into the ground, turns towards Helen while slightly leaning on the shovel for support. Her hair is plastered against her head, her cheeks burning, droplets of sweat running down her throat, vanishing between her neckline. Helen finds herself fascinated by them, follows their path with her eyes as long as she can, imagines them making their way between the valley of Grace’s breasts.
“Helen?” Grace’s voice brings her back from her thoughts, the curiosity in Grace’s eyes making her blush and fiddle with the hem of the soft jumper she’s wearing. Helen wonders what’s going on in her own mind, chides herself inwardly for being an inexplicable idiot when she should just support Grace.
“I’m sorry - I was away with the fairies, apparently.” She gives Grace an apologetic smile, relieved when Grace crookedly smiles back.
“It can’t be too fascinating to watch me smash pottery to pieces. Although it could be worse.” Helen raises an eyebrow at this, daring Grace to elaborate. “He could have gifted me silver, like with his first wife. Worth more, of course, but also decidedly harder to trash with a shovel. I might have had to build a melting bath and I bet it wouldn’t have felt as liberating as this does. You were right of course.”
Helen snorts, relieved to see Grace able to make a bit of light fun under given circumstances.
“I have an idea,” Grace continues, “how about you get yourself another shovel and help me?”
At first Helen demurs, feels like it’s certainly not her place to take an active part in this step of Grace’s way to recovery. Grace does not accept Helen’s refusal though, insists until Helen goes and picks up another shovel in the shed. Maybe Grace perceived the pent up rage in Helen better than Helen herself, because when Helen takes her place right next to her and deals a first blow to an ornament already partly destroyed, she’s startled by the red hot flash of fury rushing through her body, followed by smug satisfaction at seeing the ornament completely fallen to pieces. She turns to Grace, who simply nods at her, a small gesture that nevertheless makes Helen feel like she’s completely understood, before Grace lifts her own shovel and hits another ornament.
The next ornament Helen targets is one of the bigger ones. She imagines it as the head of Dermot Finnegan, gathers all her hate, and swings the shovel at it in a wide arc, not realising that she actually screams in fury until the moment the shovel hits and shards fly around, leaving her panting and leaning on the shovel, ears ringing. An anxious glance at Grace reassures Helen that she didn’t scare her, might have even encouraged her to stop her own silent approach to this, because Helen can hear a satisfied grunt leave Grace’s lips as the next ornament is hit by her shovel. They work side by side like this for quite some time, pieces of clay crunching beneath the soles of their shoes, fine dust collecting on their clothes.
Helen leaves the last piece to Grace, watches her poke around the shards until she lifts the shovel and lets the blade fall down onto the remaining ornament like a guillotine, splitting it in half. She remains standing in front of it, her fingers tightly gripping the handle of the shovel, her face seemingly emotionless, except her eyes jumping around with a haunted look to them, taking in the scale of destruction. Helen can see the first telltale signs of tears forming, carefully lays down her shovel, before stepping towards Grace to softly pry the handle from her hands. Grace doesn’t look at her, keeps staring at the ground, seems miles away from all of this. Helen takes her hand, brushes her thumb softly over Grace’s fingers, notices the fresh blisters. She lays the other shovel down next to hers, doesn’t let go of Grace and, after straightening up again, she intertwines both their hands in an attempt to anchor Grace. Notices the usual coldness to Grace’s hands, brushes her thumbs over her knuckles, carefully massages her fingers a bit between hers.
“Let me take care of you,” she whispers, her lowered voice an attempt to not frighten Grace by pulling her back into the present too quickly. All of a sudden Grace looks up at her, face tearstained, eyes dark and unfathomable, her gaze dropping from Helen’s eyes towards her mouth, while pulling her closer. Helen’s breath stops, her heart skips a beat, but she must have been imagining things, foolish woman she seems to have become lately, because Grace does of course not kiss her, but instead goes for a hug, burying her face into the crook of Helen’s neck. Helen tries her best to regain control over her racing heart, puts her arms around Grace’s thin body and holds her close.
They sweep up the remains of Grace’s past, deciding that it is for the best not to leave them in their sight any longer than strictly necessary. Grace looks more and more tired and withdrawn, her eyes dull, her face slack. Helen offers to warm her some soup, asks her if she should run her a bath, both of which Grace declines. They soon decide to retire to their rooms after that, Grace reassuring Helen that what she might need the most right now could actually be sleep. Helen still worries about her, but doesn’t question her decision. Right in front of her bedroom door, Grace takes Helen’s hand, pulls her into an embrace, whispers thanks to her, before she kisses Helen on the cheek and vanishes into her room.
For a moment Helen remains standing in front of the closed door, sure she can still feel the warmth of Grace’s lips on her skin, until she mentally shakes herself and makes her way to her own bedroom. But for the first time since she moved into Grace’s house, sleep doesn’t come easy. Helen’s mind keeps going back to her wish to kiss Grace’s fingers, to hold Grace, comfort her, make her laugh and feel happy. It also goes back to the moment in the garden, when Helen thought Grace might kiss her and - most serious of all - it goes back to the split second when Helen actually longed for Grace to kiss her. Sometime during the early morning hours she finally falls asleep, her mind weaving an unexpected blanket of blonde hair and deep brown eyes, soft lips and intertwined fingers, laughter and love.