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Monopoly. Noah was banker. Grace should really be at home but coming back from school she had paused outside her own house and looked in at Mrs Shield, who was taking a tray of biscuits from the oven. She was wearing extra-long oven gloves on both hands because she burnt herself so often everyone was beginning to get annoyed with her. In the sitting room were the ladies, waiting to be fed. Grace could see poor Marjory and Mrs Daly and two more. All Mrs Shield’s friends were really kind to Grace.
    Grace had resisted the smell of freshly baked biscuits. Instead she had turned and run down the path and across the road to Northbourne House. Noah, who lived most of the time with his mother in Canada, was over for his holidays already.
    â€˜Another station for Blackstaff Enterprises.’ Noah stretched across to grab Liverpool Street station.
    â€˜Why don’t you want to look for your ghost?’ Grace nagged.
    â€˜I don’t believe in her.’
    â€˜But lots of people have seen her. That’s why you’re so lucky. My mother is a ghost but I
never
see her. No one does.’
    â€˜So how do you know she’s a ghost?’
    Grace threw the dice and got a double three. ‘Because I don’t believe in angels.’
    â€˜That doesn’t make any sense,’ Noah said.
    â€˜Oh look,’ Grace said, moving her top hat. ‘Park Lane.’
    They took a break for tea and cake. ‘You should be nicer to yourgrandmother. If you had a grandmother like Roberta O’Reilly, you would know about it.’
    â€˜Granny’s all right; she’s just not much fun. You can’t do things with her like you can with Grandpa.’
    â€˜She’s always looking at you when she thinks you’re not noticing and she has this funny expression in her eyes.’ Grace thought for a moment. ‘It’s like she misses you.’
    â€˜How can she miss me, dumbo, when I’m right there?’
    Grace shrugged. ‘
I
don’t know.’

Nell Gordon:
Once more the young Grace was hit by tragedy when her father died from a heart attack in her first year of A-levels.
    Poor Mrs Shield had cried so hard there were no tears left for anyone else. Finn was over from Australia for the funeral, but he would have to fly back the next day because they needed him at work. And he was getting married. His fiancée, whose name was Robyn, did not like it when he was away. Grace looked at her tall dark-haired brother, and searched for a way back to the time when they were central to each other’s life. ‘We need you, Mrs Shield and I.’
    Finn put his arm round Grace, awkwardly, as if he was not sure how to do it. ‘I know.’ His cheeks had gone pink, as they always did when he was feeling guilty. ‘I have to get back. There’s really nothing I can do.’
    Grace shrugged free. She thought, I’m seventeen and no one in the world loves me best.
    Mrs Shield had told Grace to leave her ‘wretched camera’ at home. ‘I’m sorry, Grace, but there’s something unhealthy about a young girl taking pictures at her own father’s funeral.’ Grace had put her camera back on the hall table without protest.
    The service was about to begin when Noah’s grandfather, Arthur Blackstaff, strode in through the church portals and everyone turned to look. His wife had arrived earlier and slipped into her pew, but that kind of quiet fitting in was not for Arthur. There were not many men, Grace thought, who could upstage a corpse at its own funeral. Arthur made much of taking a seat at the back and slowly the congregation settled once more, all eyes towards the coffin. As the first hymn was sung, Grace thought about how all those people, most of whom she did not even
know
, werealive and the one person who had been hers lay dead in front of the altar. ‘Excuse me for living’ – was that not what people said? Well, Grace thought, looking