Havana Adams - Black Diamond

CHAPTER 3

The biting mid-January wind slashed into Grace, cutting through the inadequate coat that she wore but Grace barely noticed. She walked quickly down the scruffy North London high street. For once, she didn’t notice the smashed-in shop windows and the boarded-up stores; Grace’s mind was focused only on the letter that she gripped between her cold fingers. The letter was still sealed and once again she looked down at it. It was addressed to her but above her name and address was the unmistakeable crest of Oxford University. Thank God she had reached the post before The Pastor.

“I can’t do it.” Grace slumped onto the edge of a desk and stared across at her teacher Stephen in the empty classroom.

“Grace, just open it,” Stephen said coming around his desk and holding out the letter to her. Grace stared at him and felt as though she was standing on the edge of a precipice. She had pretended that it meant nothing as she’d filled out the form but now this eggshell-coloured envelope laid waste to her pretence of indifference. Inside it was a possibility, a chance of something, a beginning. And yet another part of Grace piped up, perhaps it would be just another closing door, the way they always seemed to close for her, the way that opportunities always seemed to be less than the sum of their parts.

“If you don’t open it, I will,” Stephen said and as he made to start tearing into the envelope, Grace jumped up and grabbed it from him, ripping the tab open in one swift action. She looked up at her teacher and by his smile she knew that he’d deliberately provoked her. Though she had always excelled, Stephen was the only teacher who had ever made any effort to get to know her, to dig beneath the predictability of her A grades to find out what drove her. Grace was filled with a burst of gratitude towards him and she looked down at the open envelope and pulled out the single sheet of white paper. Her eyes scanned quickly and she felt relief wash through her.

“I’ve got an interview.” She whispered the words incredulously and stared at Stephen who smiled broadly at her.

“Of course you have. You’re a perfect candidate,” he said and without thinking, Grace found herself throwing her arms around his shoulders in a bear hug. Stephen stilled for a moment and then he hugged her back before stepping away.

“Thank you,” Grace 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 thform.

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?