Read Online Shooting Butterflies by Marika Cobbold - Free Book Online

lovely meal but you didn’t like it, what would you say? Would you say, “Yuk, that wasn’t very nice”?’
    Grace was not stupid and time was wearing on. Soon the lunchbreak would be over and she would have missed the chance of a smoke. ‘No, I would probably keep it as my little secret.’
    The nurse looked pleased, giving Grace a friendly pat on the shoulder. ‘I hope you’ve found our little chat helpful.’
    The answer to that, Grace decided, was best kept her little secret.
    She went back for a follow-up a couple of weeks later. ‘Your mother –’
    â€˜Stepmother.’
    â€˜â€“ stepmother tells me that you’ve been much better since our little chat and that you haven’t upset anyone … much. That says to me that you have been using your
judgement
.That’s good.’ The nurse smiled, pleased. ‘And nothing bad happened, did it?’
    Grace told her, ‘My dog died.’
    Jefferson McGraw thought she was cool. So maybe she would keep the facts about what she was really doing at the demonstration her little secret.
    â€˜I’ll walk your way, if that’s OK with you?’
    Grace nodded. ‘Sure.’ She looked away to hide her smile.
    â€˜What’s on your mind, Grace? You’ve hardly said a word all evening.’ Aunt Kathleen was peering at her as if she was trying to read a manual.
    â€˜Grace shows absolutely no interest in boys,’ Mrs Shield had complained to Grace’s father. ‘It’s not right. Girls her age should be in love.’
    Gabriel had muttered something non-committal before asking his daughter when she was going to bring home a nice young man for them to meet.
    â€˜When I find one,’ she had assured him.
    â€˜See, she’s avoiding the issue as usual,’ Mrs Shield had complained. But she knew as well as Grace that this suited Gabriel very well. Gabriel had lost his shine of late. His life back in England with a new wife had turned out to be much the same as his old life in America with his first wife. He was still doing what others expected of him, still doing work that bored him, still seeing people for dinner to whom he did not wish to speak, still mowing the lawn on Saturday and washing the car on Sunday, although grass made him sneeze and he cycled to the station. To Grace he said, ‘The moment you know what to do with your life, do it and let nothing get in your way.’
    Grace felt anxious, as if she had heard heavy sighs behind each word. ‘What did
you
want to do?’
    Gabriel looked at her, head tilted. ‘Now, you mustn’t laugh at your old father, but I wanted to go on the stage.’ As so often, he looked sadder when he smiled than when he was serious and Grace had not felt in the least like laughing. ‘I nearly made it too.’ He shook his head as if in disbelief. ‘I was invited to join a travellingtheatre company run by a man who slept every night with his head propped up on a hardback volume of Shakespeare’s tragedies, but it was not to be. I had responsibilities.’
    â€˜Why?’ Grace had asked. ‘Why would he want to sleep like that?’
    â€˜It was so that he would never forget that great art is forged through suffering.’ At that both began to laugh. Sad eyes met sad eyes. ‘Oh Gracie, we are the same, you and I.’
    Gabriel, who never got away, became a man who wanted a quiet life above all else. This taught Grace to hang on to her dreams. In conversation her father’s words skimmed the surface like daddy-long-legs on a pond. He liked everything to be pleasant, he said. Keeping things pleasant meant no one getting cross or exercised and everyone agreeing. Everyone agreeing meant no one bringing up anything disagreeable. Never bringing up anything disagreeable meant never being contentious. Never being contentious meant always being pleasant. Always being pleasant was very trying. Grace