Grace is Many Things

There’s a blackhead on my nose. I see it when I lean in and inspect my face in the mirror. It’s the same goddamn blackhead I have been at war with for a week now. You’ve got to lean in to see it or run your fingers over my nose too feel it; but it’s definitely there mocking me. I see it every day I decide to inspect my face.

I try and squeeze it again, but it doesn’t yield. Another try. - Still nothing except that clear sort of fluid that comes when a pimple isn’t ready. I glare at the offending blemish and squeeze until it finally comes out; a hard, dry, yellow lump on the very tip of my finger. Unfortunately, my nose is now a little red, and is bleeding. Mum will ask what I’ve done to it. Well.

I push away from the mirror and stare at myself for a minute. My unmade face with its dark marks and pudgy cheeks. Large lips. Large eyes. When I’ve got make up on, they say I’m pretty.

I blink.

I wouldn’t dare let them see me like this.

The rest of me I barely look at. Just swells of skin and fat. Making a face at myself in the mirror I think dryly, best hidden under clothes dear!

Turning away from the mirror, I continue getting dressed for the day, finally coming back to the dresser for some antiperspirant to spray under my arms. Again, I frown. The state of my armpits is just a horror movie these days.

I’m not very light; but not accurately described as dark either. Whatever the case, my pits didn’t get the memo and are so dark it’s like they’re smeared in charcoal. Actually, it’s one of the reasons I never lift my arms past the elbow; I pretend I’m lazy but I’m actually afraid of being known as the girl with the underarms so dark they absorb light.

“Who is Grace?” I mutter, “Grace is a girl with dark armpits.”

I have been asking myself that question almost every day of my life. My mum makes it a point to be the sort of person who knows who they are and what they are going to do with their life. “You have to know who you are Grace!” She says. “Always have a plan!”

That’s easy to do when you know who you are, and your life is set to unfold in front of you like a one-page catalogue. Things were not so black and white for me.

“Who is Grace?”

My mum always asks me that, right before she tells me to make always make sure I know who I am, and to have a plan. Well. I’m at a college I don’t like, currently flunking a couple of classes, and I’m not even sure I want to be there. But the question has stuck.

But for today, the only thing that was wrong with me was that Grace was a girl with dark underarms. I wouldn’t think about the rest of it until… well, until I had to. I had two long summer months to think about it all… and to lose weight and exercise and go shopping for some new clothes and travel and do all the usual things I always promised myself I’d do whenever it came time for my holidays.

I wasn’t even going anywhere today and I’d gone all out on my makeup. If I could do that then surely, I could attend to this mental list of activities.

Feeling rather full of myself (except for my armpits) I take a couple of selfies and head out of my room to the dining room for breakfast.

“Good morning!” I sing, finding mum sitting there alone as she reads an article on her phone.

Ignoring my greeting, she says “What have you done to your nose?”

I mumble something about a pimple, and sit down to pour some cornflakes for myself.

“We have new neighbours,” she says. “They’re moving in now.”

This being of no interest to me, I simply give a vague “Mm.”

“I think the man is going to start working at the High School,”

“That’s nice.”

“Yes. We should go meet them when they move in.”

I don’t answer this, because I’d rather not go, and anyway, my underarms are still quite dark. I’m thinking about what I can do about that. Who cares about the neighbours? Unless it’s the guy who plays Jon Snow on Game of Thrones, who even cares?

People in movies always talk about how much noise moving vans make. I suppose it’s because in America or England or wherever their houses aren’t separated by fences – with the exception of the affluently wealthy. Here, I barely knew anyone was moving in next door; all I heard was the occasional beep of a car horn. This was nothing unusual, for we did have other neighbours, and they were probably busy with the usual comings and goings of a Saturday morning. Going to the market, going Shopping or visiting people… by the afternoon I had forgotten about the neighbour.

Instead I watched TV and tried not to feel restless in that way I usually do after I got back for the holidays. It was always like that for a few days after I came home – I felt like I should be studying or perhaps working on some assignment I had forgotten about. I knew it was some sort of hangover from the end of year rush with exams and assignments, but still, I felt sort of trapped in my restlessness.

I tried to concentrate on what I was watching; things that had recorded while I was away. Usually, they managed to keep me so engrossed that I’d gotten to point where I felt I was close personal friends with all these beautiful TV characters. Sure, they were a bit model-ey and had silky long hair perfect make up and never once repeated clothes, but they were my “friends” of sorts. If Hannah did something stupid on Pretty Little Liars, I’d tut and say “Oh Hannah.” like I’d have to text her later so we could talk about it.

Was it pathetic? Yes. Was I embarrassed? No. but only because people didn’t know how deeply invested in things I could become. Anyway, today, all these friends of mine are saying things that keep going over my head. I hear them talking, but their voices sound quite whiny and their issues trivial. With a testy sigh I point the remote at the TV and snap, “There are people starving in Africa,” before switching it off.

I feel a teensy bit guilty at my attitude. I mean, not that I’m personally starving (very obviously, I have the opposite problem) but you know, it’s a bit hypocritical of me to belittle their problem when usually I’m hooked to the drama.

It only takes a moment to remind myself they’re not real people; but now also that I’m now sitting in the living room alone with my thoughts. I look at my phone. He’s texted me again. The sort-of-but-only-a-little-bit-boyfriend.

I felt a twinge of annoyance before I could suppress it.

It wasn’t that he annoyed me.

Well, actually I didn’t know. I just sort of… didn’t know if I actually liked him or the attention that he gave me. He was nice enough; but every time I thought about our future together, I pictured the same thing.

We’d be married, and one day he’d come into the kitchen- it looked like the sort of kitchen you’d see in those sitcom shows where the people lived in a gorgeous apartment way too nice for them given their purported jobs. He’d come in and kiss me on the cheek – I’d be standing by the sink looking out the window and not really seeing anything – and he’d sit at the little breakfast table and start eating his breakfast, talking about work or golf or something. I’d be listening… But not really. Then he’d ask if something was wrong and I’d turn around and pull some car keys out of my pocket and say yes, but I’d have to run some errands. - Go out and buy milk or something. And he’d smile at me naively and say okay.

I’d get into the car and keep driving; never to return.

Sometimes he’d ask if I was okay and I’d turn around and pull out a gun and shoot myself out of sheer boredom. Or shoot him. Or shoot us both.

Other times I’d picture myself in that setting picturing myself walking or shooting him and knowing that I’d never do it. In those scenarios I was also driven to alcoholism because my life with him was like watching paint dry.

So no, he didn’t annoy me. And I was pretty sure I knew how I felt about him, but wasn’t quite into admitting a lot of things yet. He was one of the things I had left to think about over the course of the holiday.

I digress. Like I said, I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts, so I go around the house looking at what everyone’s doing to see if I can bother them a for a bit instead.

Dad, as could usually be found to be doing this time around on a Saturday, is taking a nap. My brother isn’t in his room; and I suitably conclude that he must have gone out somewhere with his friends.

That was the difference between him and I – I much preferred to stay indoors but wasn’t exactly a quiet person unless I didn’t know you too well; I liked the company of people I was familiar with. He liked being out and about, but if he wasn’t then he’d stay holed up in his room listening to music and doing whatever twitter users do (I’d never quite gotten the hang of Twitter). I didn’t like parties or drinking and all that, but I did like being around people in chilled sort of vibes. He liked going out and doing it all; but was rather quiet all the same.

Not finding him in his room, I’m left with mum- the maids can’t exactly be asked to provide me with some companionship. I suppose it might sound rather ostentatious to some people that we have maids, gardeners or other workers, but this was the norm in Malawi, regardless of status. We were all a lazy bunch, you see. We needed the help. I digress.

There is nothing in my room except books I had already read, and various things I couldn’t be bothered to do today. So, I go looking for mum.

I find her outside, walking about with the gardener and directing him as he trimmed some hedges. Meanwhile, she manages to water the flowers with the green hosepipe in her hand. This is another thing about mum, she’s always multi-tasking.

“Hi mum,” I say, cheerfully. I make a point of saying things as cheerfully as I can to her sometimes, because she always says how moody I am. I suppose she’s never gotten PMS because of course she hasn’t. - Just like she’d never gotten pimples as a teenager or ever because she knew how to “bathe properly”. If you’re wondering, she did indeed give lectures about how people with pimples only got them because they didn’t wash well enough. And yes, she really believed that.

Also, my brother’s name was Michael. I forgot to say.

Anyway, I say, “Hi mum,” As cheerfully as I can and in the split second it takes for her to reply I pray that she’s in a kindly mood, unlike at breakfast. This time, she replies warmly.

“Hello,” she sings. Looking for something to say, I hear another car horn in the distance and remember the neighbour.

“I thought you’d go say hello to the neighbour?”

“He’s only just arrived. Why should we bother him today?” she responds. It’s said in Chichewa, so it makes me laugh, despite the tone implying I’ve asked a silly question. I just shrug and she continues in English “We’ll go when he’s settled in.”

She starts humming, and having nothing else to do, I just affix myself to her and sort of watch everything; listening to the birds chirp in the trees. With the intuition of an African mother, mum hands me the hosepipe.

“Make yourself useful,” she suggests, with the authority of a command. “Go water the grass outside the gate.”

Tugging at the pipe, I press the little button in the guard’s house and wait for the gate to slide open in the lethargic way it does. I walk through and it rumbles to a close after me.

So now I’m watering the grass outside the fence. The gates of the new neighbour’s house are open, and because of the slight incline of the road, I can sort of see into it.

The house used to belong to some family. I can’t remember their last name, but there were two daughters around Michael’s age who lived there. I think their names were Gertrude and Martha, but can’t too sure, after all, I was quite young at the time; maybe three or so.

Michael used to go over and play with them on the sort of lazy summer afternoons that seem to be the backdrop for all my happy childhood memories.

The three of them being older than me, you would think I’d be a nuisance to them; but I remember the girls found me quite endearing. Back then there was only a thin wire fence between our houses, and it had quite a little gap through which our dogs would sneak through at night when we let them off their leashes. On one occasion, I was unceremoniously handed over to the girls by my nanny through this gap; Michael followed on his hands and knees.

After Gertrude and Martha left, the various people had moved in and out over the years, but we hadn’t taken to anyone else quite as much. The only other notable people I remember living there over the years were the neighbours immediately before this new one, and a couple with a skinny little boy who was rumoured to throw violent tantrums and always had dried snot drying on his face whenever I saw him.

The neighbours before this new one had lived there for years. They were an older couple with a bit of money and no children. You can imagine my mystification when one day, through the fence, Michael and I spied some men digging what appeared to be a small swimming pool. The wire fence was later replaced by my parents with brick walls all around; but not before the swimming pool was actually revealed to be a large fish pond.

The couple moved out about a year ago, but now, watering the grass that lined the perimeter of our property and trying to appear as to be looking around inconspicuously and not nosily, I peer into the driveway. I stare for a few minutes at what I can see of the front of the house, trying but failing to reconcile it with some memory of visiting Gertrude and Martha. All that comes to mind of these visits is the time I was passed through the hole in the fence.

There’s a large truck backed up against the garage, and two men carrying things out of it. They run into the house (a large bungalow) with a box and come quickly out for more things. Even from here, I can hear them chatting loudly in Chichewa.

After a couple of trips, it looks like they’re finished, because they close the truck up and stand with their backs to the side of if it. A third man in a white and blue cap comes out of the house and stands with the two others, and then, a few seconds after, I see a man I presume to be the new neighbour.

Now, to be honest, I wear glasses. Or am supposed to anyway, I have them but don’t actually wear them unless I really need to see something far away. When getting them, the optician did warn me that that if I don’t wear them all the time, my vision would most likely get worse (which it has) but honestly, I’m a fat girl and all I have going for me is my face. I really can’t afford to risk making myself look any plainer than I already do.

Anyway, so now you know what I’m was seeing at the new neighbour’s is a bit blurry.

(But if I can make out that third man’s cap, it’s still pretty accurate thank you very much.)

Anyway, the new neighbour, a man, comes out of the house. The best way I can describe is, he looks to be the sort of person to be named “Sven” and to be of Danish descent. Forming this impression, I decide that I may as well call him Sven in my mind from now on, since “the new neighbour” is getting old.

Sven is a little taller than average height, and is what I suppose you’d call thickset. He’s not exactly thin, definitely not chubby or muscled either. I suppose if this were a Victorian novel, I could describe him as being of “handsome” stature. I can’t see his face too well, so I don’t know if the same can be said of it. I can see a bit of a beard though. It’s strawberry-blonde like the hair on his head. His hair is actually a little long - not like he could tie put it up in a man bun, but long enough that now, he keeps pushing it out of his face. I guess he’s sweating or something.

He’s definitely the whitest person who’s ever lived there, in both senses of the word- there’s never been a white person living in the house next door, and he’s also pretty pale-skinned. Noting this, I come to the second conclusion that he must be fresh from Denmark (or wherever he actually hails from). Given a little time, he’ll soon have a tan.

He hands something over to one of the three movers (probably money) and they climb into the truck to leave.

He looks up just then and sees me. We look at each other for a moment. His hand goes up, and for second, I think he’s going to wave at me, but he just runs his fingers through his hair again. The truck is now moving, and I take that as my queue to finish watering the grass too.