Finding Grace Read Free Page A

We're not sure that she will
ever
improve, but we have decided to introduce a primary carer. This person, having almost constant interaction with Grace, will be in the best position to note any behavioral changes. The agency will continue to relieve that primary carer, as they would for other clients.”
    “But I have no training,” I interrupted.
    “Her condition does not necessarily require formal training,” the manager explained. “She can walk. She can feed herself. But she doesn't do anything without direction. She can hear but she doesn't respond and she doesn't speak. You will require some initial training, first aid and so forth. We hold courses here and have taken the liberty of allocating a place for you and the other applicants in the class commencing Saturday. Otherwise, the role is not dissimilar to that of a nanny. Of course, as part of our service, a nurse is available immediately if you need help.”
    I guessed it was light meals and cleaning for one.
    No problem!

I received my letter of acceptance into a science degree at Newcastle University on a Thursday. I should have been more excited, but I had worked hard at school so it was no less than I expected. I had reaped what I had sown. I had made hay while the sun shone.
    I started my training course for the job on the following Saturday. On the first day I learned how to make a splint, how to deliver CPR and how to help someone who is choking.
    I worked in the café with Kate in the afternoons. She's a couple of years older than I am. Kate is one of those slim, funky people who can wear short hair.
    I can't wear short hair. I look like a boy—an ugly boy with a bad haircut.
    Kate can start fashions. She could wear a sack, and have people say,
“I just love your hessian tunic, where did you get it?”
They would just say to me,
“Excuse me, why are you wearing a sack? Are you protesting about something?”
    I hope one day I can look as relaxed as Kate does. She has been at uni for about six years. Her student loan debt would probably be equivalent to the gross domestic product of a small nation. She's doing engineering and has the most enormous brain, so she'll probably be able to afford it.
    While we're cashing up at the end of the day I tell Kate about the new job.
    “How “community sector' of you,” replies Kate, smiling.
    “What do you mean?”
    “Don't get me wrong—that sounds great! It's just that, well, you struck me more as a kind of reclusive privatesector research type, that's all,” says Kate. “I always pictured you in some brutally white laboratory sewing body parts on mice, or something.”
    “Really?”
    “Well, yes. You always look so diabolically cerebral,” she replies.
    I might have to work on my image.
    “I thought I looked quirky.”
    “Oh, of course,” says Kate, “but in a kind of clandestine, bizarre way. You strike me as someone who is always amusing herself with some private joke.”
    I frown, counting the coins as I slide them off the counter and into my palm.
    “I'm sorry,” she says, “have I burst your self-esteem?”
    “Well, yes! I thought I appeared to others as sort of cuteand quirky, like a …”—I scratch my forehead trying to think of an appropriate analogy—“like an overbred Weimaraner pup.”
    “Well, of course you look like an overbred Weimaraner pup,” said Kate, “crossed with say … Gargamel, or maybe Doctor Elefan?”
    “Oh.”
    … … …
    I'm a little perturbed. I think about it on the way home. Firstly, Gargamel and Doctor Elefan are both
boys.
Secondly, they were both ugly—really ugly! I can't believe it! If one is going to be likened to cartoon characters it would be nice if they were roughly the same gender at the very least!
    At the end of the first aid course Mr. Alistair Preston phoned me. I told him that I'd been accepted into the university. He congratulated me and then said, “Over the last few months we have interviewed a number of candidates, none of whom