Sublime

Grace Macaulay, then: seventeen, small and plump, with skin that went brown by the end of May. Her hair was black and oily, and had the hot consoling scent of an animal in summer. She disliked books, and was by nature a thief if she found a thing to be beautiful, but not hers. She didn’t know she couldn’t sing. She was inclined to be cross.

employers, and believe you me, Grace, without

‘This is Thomas,’ said Grace, without explanation. She stood close by the boy with the ease of long acquaintance, and seemed to Thomas they were in some way ranged against him – that it was possible to make out some connective tissue dissolving between himself and Grace, and re-forming between the other two.

The room was cold; it contained nothing of what Grace Macaulay loved. No absurd petticoats of lace and silk – no pendants, bangles, hair-combs and boots with laces replaced by ribbon. She had severed herself from herself.

‘We are solving a mystery,’ said James, examining Grace with pleasure, and becoming extraordinarily handsome. ‘Would you like to see?’