Grace & Favour2

Her name was Grace, a single mum of West Indian origin, and she had two young daughters; Shawna was seven and her younger sister, Candy, was five. I hadn’t expected children and my heart sank further as Grace began to recite a plethora of house rules – this was going to be like being at home again! The room itself was fairly large, with a desk suitable for studying, but there was no en suite so I would have to use the family bathroom and toilet like everyone else. In the end, I only took it because of that nagging voice within, telling me I had no other choice. The children were mixed-race – their white father had left for another woman, I gathered later, and he had no contact with his original family. Both girls were prone to giggling but were generally amiable and well-behaved. I guessed Grace kept them on a pretty tight rein. I’d only been living there for a couple of weeks when it happened. We had just finished dinner, during which Candy had been pretty obnoxious, and as her bedtime approached, she overstepped the mark once too often.