Saving Grace Read Online Free PDF

year? The Yves Saint Laurent one?’
    ‘The very same.’
    ‘And you’re complaining? That was always my most favourite outfit in the world. The only reason I’m not wearing it tonight is, thanks to the delightful side effect of ageing, my waistline appears to have gone AWOL.’
    ‘Your waistline is fine. You’re beautiful.’
    ‘You have to say that. I’m your mother.’
    ‘I’ll say it to your face soon. I have to go. My hair still looks terrible.’
    ‘Wait! This is important.’
    Clemmie’s voice is again loud and clear. ‘Yes?’
    ‘Hair. Up or down?’
    ‘Surprise,’ Clemmie says, putting down the phone.
    T here is nothing Grace loves more than spending time with her daughter, particularly when it is unexpected. Those times when Clemmie calls and their schedules align to enable them to have a quick lunch, or a rush round Bendel’s as a treat.
    When she was pregnant with Clemmie, Grace worried terrifically about what kind of mother she would be. Her own mother was terrifying, nothing like the loving, present, warm mothers she read about in books. Grace had been so frightened she would follow in her mother’s footsteps, she had determined to be the sort of mother she had always wanted; but she hadn’t counted on Ted, on having a husband who had so many demands of his own.
    Would she really be able to shower love and attention on both Ted and a child? Would Ted simmer with resentment because Grace had to give the baby a bath, or walk them through the fields, take them to mother and baby groups, at which all men, even the great Ted Chapman, would be excluded?
    She had nothing to worry about. From the minute Clemmie gazed up at her father with her big blue eyes, she had him wrapped around her little finger. She was fiery and funny and stubborn, and instead of finding her distraction a problem, Ted welcomed it.
    Clemency.
Noun: mercy; lenience.
There was a reason for her name.
    Grace taught Clemmie to cook, the two of them side by side at the kitchen counter, baking pavlova, Clemmie delighting in watching the egg whites transform into pale, puffy clouds as she whisked. Grace wanted her to love cooking, just as she had loved learning from Lydia, but Clemmie wasn’t a cook, couldn’t be a cook, not when writing called to her as soon as she learned how to put pen to paper.
    Of course Ted had bought Clemmie her own notebook and set her up on his old vintage Corona typewriter. She would punch down the keys while biting her lip, telling endless stories, before gathering up sheaths of paper and sitting at her own little desk in the corner, with a box of crayons to illustrate.
    ‘She’s rather good,’ Ted would say in delight, bringing her finished books in later that day, showing them off to Grace. ‘I think we may have another writer in the family.’
    She
is
a good writer, thinks Grace. Better than that, she is a wonderful writer. Every door could be, would be, open to her if she announced herself as Ted Chapman’s daughter, but she has always refused to use her family’s name or influence to help her work get published, which Grace cannot understand.
    Clemmie could be, should be, pushing out novels. Instead she works on a local paper in Brooklyn, writing features every day, which is – as her father always says – the greatest training a writer could hope for: when an editor is standing over you every day requesting a thousand words in an hour, you aren’t able to say you’re not inspired, or ask that they try again when you feel a little more motivated. At home, in Clemmie’s nightstand, is three quarters of a novel that no one has read, other than Grace, who was sworn to secrecy.
    Grace is not a fan of nepotism, but she saw instantly that Clemmie’s work stood up for itself. Clemmie’s refusal to jump on what she calls the ‘celebrity offspring bandwagon’ makes no sense to Grace, who wants her daughter to do what she loves, who knows that she is merely treading water at the newspaper while