Free Grace's Table by Sally Piper Page B

which he used to mop up the leftover juices and fat on his plate. She always marvelled at this attention to detail and the neatness with which he ate, which never went beyond his meals and the dissection of slabs of meat.
    Des rested back in his chair, flicked crumbs from his shirt to the floor. His front was much flatter than it should have been. But nursing had shown Grace that disease didn’t always present itself as expected. Sometimes it worked covertly, mostly under the surface, like an iceberg. Des rolled his tongue around his teeth, licked and smacked bits free from the gaps. He washed down whatever he’d collected with a swill of tea.
    Peter strolled into the kitchen, eyes half-closed with sleep and hair sitting every-which-way but flat. The smell of stale alcohol secreted from his skin as much as it came from his breath and dominated the musty smell of sleep.
    â€˜Big night out with the lads, mate?’ Des asked.
    â€˜Ugh.’
    Des chuckled in between taking slurps from his tea.
    Peter opened the fridge, propped himself up against the door, scanned the shelves before closing it again, empty-handed.
    â€˜There’s nothin’ to eat.’
    â€˜There’s plenty. You just need to be here when it’s served,’ Grace said.
    â€˜Give the kid a break. Can’t you see he’s had a big night?’
    â€˜So?’
    â€˜C’mon, help the young fella out and cook him a good recovery breakfast. Sit down, champ. Mum’ll rustle you up something.’ Des pulled a chair out from the kitchen table, slapped the seat of it.
    â€˜You can wait until I finish my tea.’ Grace sipped at her tea slowly, tried to savour it, but the flavour was lost. Disgruntled, she got up, tipped the last of it down the sink. ‘I’ll make you poached eggs,’ she said, clanging a saucepan onto a burner.
    â€˜Give the kid a fry-up like you gave me. It’s the best cure for a hangover.’
    â€˜I’ve used up all the bacon and sausages,’ she lied.
    Des slid his cup across the table. ‘Any more tea in the pot?’
    Grace took the empty cup back to the bench. She added a dash of milk then filled it with tea from the pot. It was dark and strong now. Stand a spoon up in it, Pa would have said.
    â€˜Don’t forget to sugar it,’ Des called. ‘Just the one.’
    Grace added two, and stirred.
    â€˜I don’t think he knew how to take responsibility for what he ate,’ Susan said, after a silence, wrapping her empty pods into a bundle with the newspaper. She got up and took the package to the bin.
    â€˜Compost,’ Grace called.
    Susan changed tack from bin to compost bucket. ‘After all, he left school when he was barely fourteen. Wasn’t one to read much. How was he to know better?’
    â€˜The doctors told him, so he knew well enough,’ Grace said.
    â€˜I suppose you both did.’
    Grace picked up the last pod, a malnourished looking thing whose failure to thrive made it not worth the effort.
    â€˜Which is the odd thing really.’ Susan rested both hands on the edge of the sink and stared out the kitchen window.
    Grace watched her daughter’s back, stiff, straight, and wondered if she was taking in the view or considering the paradox. Given the view wasn’t much she could only assume it was the latter.
    Grace wrapped her pods up neat and tight like a butcher’s bundle for the compost bucket, and forced it down on top of Susan’s.

6
    â€˜They look like op-shop specials.’
    â€˜Eclectic, I’d call them.’ Grace defended her twelve assorted dinner plates, from finest bone china to heavy earthenware. ‘That one I painted myself, when I was going through a crafty stage. Thought I was the next Clarice Cliff.’ This was a plate lurid with simple but bright purple and yellow crocuses. ‘And this one …’ she held a white porcelain plate up to the dining room window, where the