They drove down a road like a tunnel, covered in trees with red and brown leaves, then they took a track into a field. In the field there were three burnt-out cars and a bony piebald pony. In one corner a rusty caravan was propped up on a pile of bricks. The caravan door was opened by a fat old lady.
“I’m afraid she’s a bit eccentric.” The social worker whispered as if she were talking to an adult. Grace was only eight but she understood what the word meant More loudly Miss. Thorne said, “Come on, Grace. This is Nan.”
Through the open door Grace, who hated mess at the best of times, saw black bin bags spilling over with clothes and newspapers. There was a cat standing on the cooker, the smell of cat piss and stale cat food.
“Shall I stay for a bit?” the social worker asked. Grace nodded, though she would have preferred that neither of them stayed at all.
By the time they started out on their walk the social worker had gone.
It was autumn. Bundles of purple elderberries were hanging down over the river. They were so heavy that the branch was bending. She remembered plump hips, the colour of fresh blood and little haws which were a darker red, some of them shrivelled and almost black. There were blackberries. Nan ate them and offered a handful to Grace but she refused. Earlier she had seen a white maggot crawling from the overripe flesh of one. There was rose bay willow herb covered in wispy white hair, thistle heads and dead umbel lifers The umbel lifers were rather taller than Grace. The stalks were brown and ribbed. She reached up and broke one. It was hollow and quite easy to break. At the top of the stalk were branches like umbrella spokes and when she snapped it the hard seeds scattered.
Then she saw a red squirrel at the top of the tree. Nan didn’t point it out to her, she saw it for herself. She knew it was a squirrel because she’d seen pictures in story books, but this was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her. She wasn’t thrilled by the animal because it was cute or furry, but because it was skilful, so competent. When she first saw it, it was eating a hazelnut, holding it with its front paws and nibbling. Then it jumped from one branch to another, a huge jump which took it across the river. It judged the gap perfectly. If you were a squirrel, it seemed, it was all right to do things well. For Grace, who had to pretend at failure to be accepted at all by the other kids at school, this was a revelation.
Years later Grace could remember the red squirrel with photographic detail. It had a huge eye, whiskers and its tail was nearly black. She could see it dropping a nut into the river and the spreading ripples. She knew too, with certainty, that they didn’t see otter that day, although the river was probably very good for otter.
Nan didn’t speak to Grace while they were walking, though she did seem to be talking to herself. At first Grace tried to be polite.
“I’m sorry?” she said when Nan muttered. Nan turned and glared at her but didn’t reply.
Grace was pleased with this response. She was fed up with people asking how she was feeling then staring at her waiting for an answer.
She would prefer to watch the squirrel and the brown trout in the river.
“Did you have a nice time?” the social worker asked in the car on the way home.
“Yes, thank you.” She didn’t say this just to be polite. She enjoyed the walk. She decided as an afterthought, “I didn’t understand anything Nan said though.” “Oh,” said the social worker. Grace realized she wasn’t listening.
Miss. Thorne often asked questions and didn’t listen to the replies.
The other trips to visit Nan all followed the same pattern. The social worker would drop her off and come back later to collect her. Grace asked her once where she went on these occasions, there wasn’t time to drive back to town. She said she had another client to see.
“A foster child?” Grace asked wistfully. She would like to be placed out here in the country.
“No. Someone who might like to foster one day.”
Grace would have liked to ask if that person might want to foster her but that would have been rude to the present aunt and uncle, who were trying their best.
No matter what the weather was like Grace went for a walk. She hated sitting all afternoon in the smelly caravan. Often she went by herself. Even if Nan was with her there was still little communication between the old woman and the child. Grace found that restful.
As time passed Grace became convinced that Nan was her father’s mother.
She could remember nothing of her father. In the scrapbook put together by the social worker there was a picture labelled
“Dad’ but it meant nothing to her. There were no photographs of her mother and father together, or of them all as a family. The photograph of her father showed a tall thin man standing outside a brick house with a steeply pitched slate roof. There was a storm porch which had plants growing in the window. This certainly wasn’t the house where she had lived with her mother, where her mother had died. She had a perfect recollection of that house, which was flat-faced and new like many of the foster parents’ homes.
It never occurred to Grace to ask her social worker about the photograph or about her father, to ask even if he was still alive. She knew that she wouldn’t get a straight answer. Miss. Thorne had always seemed frightened by information. She was prepared to talk about feelings, to go on about them at length, but facts disturbed her.
Perhaps that was why Grace enjoyed them so much.
She came to the conclusion that the man in the photograph was related to Nan because the garden beside the brick semidetached house in the picture was such a tip. The weeds were waist high and piles of rubbish in black plastic bags were piled in front of the garden wall. It was the black plastic which first linked Nan with her father in Grace’s mind. That, and the way the man was standing, glaring out at the camera.
Nan glared at everyone, even if she wasn’t particularly cross.
One day they were sitting in the sun on the caravan steps waiting for the social worker to come in the car to take her home. Grace had had a good day. She’d seen a kingfisher for the first time, and she’d tracked down its nest to a hole in the river bank. There were bluebells in the woods. She was older, in her last year at primary school. Suddenly she asked, “Where’s my dad?”
She hadn’t planned the question, but she was feeling comfortable sitting there in the sunshine, relaxed after the walk, so when it came into her head she spoke it, without her usual calculation. But then she realized its significance. She watched Nan carefully. Usually Nan muttered because she had no teeth, but with some effort Grace had learnt to make sense of what she said. Today, however, Nan didn’t attempt to speak.
“You do know, don’t you?” It wasn’t like Grace to be so persistent.
She waited. A tear rolled from Nan’s eye down the groove which separated her cheek from her nose and onto a stubbly upper lip, but Grace refused to be put off.
“Well?” she demanded.
Then they heard the social worker’s car jolting up the track. The sun was so low that it shone straight into Grace’s eyes and she couldn’t see the car, except as a blurred shape, until it stopped outside the caravan. Nan wiped her eye with the hem of her apron.
On their way home the social worker asked, “What was wrong with Nan?”
“I don’t know,” Grace said truthfully.
At the time the social worker seemed to accept the reply but Grace was never taken to visit the old lady again. No explanation was given.