Ruby Tuesday

by Hayley Lawrence

  I have so much to say.

  I lose myself in Nan’s room until my tears dry. When I get off her bed, I open the curtains shielding her small window from the light. Then I bend down and tuck her nightdress back under her pillow.

  When I leave I keep the door open.

  I’ve missed the bus. I make myself a quick breakfast, walk down the hall and hesitate at Mum’s closed door. Entering her space feels like a breach of privacy, but I want to check on her, and she’s supposed to be having coffee with Susan in an hour. I press my ear to the door and listen for any noises before opening it.

  Mum’s sitting up in bed, staring out her window. The Great Pianists of the Twentieth Century is propped open against her chest. She doesn’t even notice me standing there.

  ‘Mum?’ I whisper.

  She jumps. ‘Ruby, you have to stop sneaking up on me.’

  She moves the book cover down onto the bed beside her.

  ‘It’s not too late, you know.’

  ‘For what?’

  I point at the book. ‘For you.’

  She looks back out the window again.

  ‘You know when I became a mother, everyone expected me to give up performing,’ she says. ‘Because that’s what is expected, and some women do have it in them. They wrap their baby up in one blanket and their hopes in another, and they pack themselves away in a drawer they never return to. Or maybe they think they will. Later, when the kids are grown up.’ She shakes her head, and when she looks at me her eyes are sad. ‘I wasn’t one of those women, Ruby. I couldn’t give it up.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have wanted you to.’

  ‘No, my sweet girl. But for generations women have been sold a lie – that our stories end when we become mothers because a new story has begun. We’re meant to be content with that. But the truth is, our stories are only beginning. We shouldn’t let ourselves be poured into others and forgotten. I had mountains I hadn’t yet climbed, dreams –’

  She draws a sharp breath.

  ‘And I stopped you from reaching them.’

  ‘No, that’s what I’m trying to say. You didn’t,’ she says sternly. ‘I wouldn’t let you. Nan wouldn’t let you. I practised every day, and Nan fed you, played with you, while I devoted myself to the Steinway. She’d had to let her music go to be a wife and mother. She wasn’t about to let it happen to me.’

  ‘You would never have packed yourself away and devoted yourself to me?’

  She considers this. ‘No. And neither would I want you to. I don’t think it’s possible or fair to exist purely for the sake of someone else. I did quit the band when I kept you. I sacrificed the brilliance for a bit of balance, that’s all. Where did the brilliance get me really?’

  I laugh. ‘To heights I’ve never seen.’

  ‘Oh, yes, but look at Robbie. Fifty and washed out as a performer. Relying on reunion tours to be remembered, validated. I don’t envy any of that.’ She waves a hand dismissively.

  I think back to the articles she keeps. I don’t believe her.

  ‘It’s all fickle. One minute you’re the next big thing, then the hottest thing ever, the next minute nobody remembers your name. You’re finished. The end always finds you. In with the new, out with the old.’ She smiles weakly. ‘You’re never finished as a mother, though.’

  ‘Well, I don’t really need much mothering these days. The job’s pretty well done.’

  ‘Pah, even I still need mothering,’ she says, her voice wobbly. ‘It’s not something you grow out of.’

  ‘You don’t grow out of your dreams, either.’ I say. ‘You can choose not to take a chance, but I’m going to pursue mine, Mum. I’m calling Robbie, with or without your blessing.’

  She doesn’t respond.

  And maybe I don’t need her to.

  When the late bus drops me off at school, I sign in after the bell, but I barely care about walking into a full class. I can’t control what people think of me, what they believe I did or didn’t do. What they think of my singing, my friendships, my life. It’s time to get on with being me. And with getting out of Cooper’s Creek.

  The bell goes for lunch, and I find Alex in the art room, working on her portrait. I want to tell her about Erik, but don’t know how to start. And when I begin telling her about Robbie, my words come out all jumbled.

  Alex stops painting. ‘I don’t understand gibberish,’ she says. ‘What are you trying to say?’

  ‘Robbie Vetter’s my father. Robbie from Celestial Vendetta. The guy with the orange car. He’s been visiting us and wanting Mum to join him for a reunion tour, and she said no, of course, because that’s what she does, and yeah . . . He’s my dad.’

  The words sound surreal. They sound like someone else’s.

  Father. Dad. Robbie Vetter.

  Alex shakes her head. ‘What?’

  ‘He wants to hook me up with some of his connections. To sing.’

  ‘WHAT?’

  ‘And Mum said, no, I’m not ready. She wants me to wait. But I want to.’

  Alex is looking at me like I’m an alien.

  She drops her paintbrush on her easel and hugs me. She doesn’t say anything for a long time.

  When she pulls away, she has the ghost of a smile on her face. ‘So you finally know the other half of your story.’

  ‘Yeah.’ It should feel bigger than it does. Finding out who your father is should come with fireworks. Maybe I should hate him. Or Mum. Hating would be easier than understanding, but hating is lazy.

  There’s no such thing as bad and good. There’s just people. We’re all flawed. Everybody falls, I guess. It’s how you get up, make it right and keep going that matters.

  ‘Did he even know about you?’

  I pull Robbie’s card out of my pocket and pass it to Alex. ‘No, and I guess he’s trying to make up for it now.’

  She turns it over in her hands.

  ‘I’m going to meet with him,’ I say. ‘I’ve got some questions.’

  When Erik arrives to pick Alex up, she tells me to go with him instead. She’s staying back to finish her portrait.

  Hal’s blue ute is waiting in the carpark, and I make out Erik’s silhouette in the driver’s seat.

  ‘Sorry, Alex sent a replacement,’ I say as I climb in.

  He rolls his eyes like he’s totally irritated, but it’s clear he’s not. ‘Home, captain?’

  ‘Aye aye,’ I say.

  I’m hyper aware of everything about him. His hands firmly on the wheel, his shirt clinging to his chest, his dark hair, pushed back by whatever hat he was wearing before he got in the ute. Is he going to bring up what happened last night? Should I?

  ‘This ride’s a little bit tamer than our midnight flight,’ I say.

  ‘Well, dwelling on terra firma is occasionally required.’

  ‘Terra firma is overrated,’ I say, hoping he’ll invite me flying again.

  I’m quiet as the streets blur past. I wonder how much he knows about me. How much Alex has told him.

  At last, I say, ‘Did Alex tell you about the YouTube clip?’

  ‘What clip?’

  ‘She didn’t tell you I sang at a party?’

  He shakes his head. ‘She told me you’d been through some heavy stuff. And trust is something you don’t just hand out anymore.’

  ‘I sang one of my songs,’ I confess quietly. ‘About someone I liked. A guy posted it online. School’s been slightly nightmarish ever since.’ That’s all I can say. I can’t voice the rest. ‘Some people are blessed with perfect lives,’ I say. ‘I’m just not one of those people.’

  ‘Perfect lives are bullshit,’ Erik says. ‘Nothing’s perfect. Some people are just better at hiding the cracks. You’re not going to see their suffering on social, so don’t buy into the lies, Ruby. Photos lie.’

  ‘Is that why you’re not on it?’

  ‘Who has time for bullshit?’ Erik glances across at me. ‘You have a gift, Ruby – your voice. Your mum, she has her music. Don’t get hung up o
n being perfect.’

  I stare out the window and let his words sink in. Have I been comparing my toughest days with someone else’s best ones?

  Have I been wanting a perfect life? Insta is full of perfect lives. Maybe I should get back on there and cut the bullshit. Be one real person in a sea of fakes.

  I’ve made some bad choices and paid some bad prices. People have hurt me, and there’ve been no real consequences. There won’t be any justice, only the good I can make of it – beautiful songs, formed inside of me.

  Maybe those songs can reach out a gentle hand to other people like me and say, ‘It’s okay. I have secrets too. I wish for things I shouldn’t. And if I tell you what I’ve done, what I’ve felt, what I’ve endured, you won’t believe even half of it. But this is my truth.’

  I take a deep breath and release it, then rest my head on Erik’s shoulder. He doesn’t seem to mind. I feel myself dosing off as we near my house, but shoot awake again when Erik pulls onto the gravel road. This time, he doesn’t stop shy of the house but parks right in front.

  We sit there in silence for a moment.

  The house looks more forlorn than usual. Especially compared to Alex’s place. The roof is sagging in the middle, something I hadn’t noticed before, and a slat has broken off the bottom of the steps.

  We really should get someone in to fix the roof. But it would be expensive and, to us, physical things are just clutter. Food is eaten, you grow hungry; water is drunk, you get thirsty; floors are vacuumed, they gather crumbs. But music? Music reaches inside, grabs a fistful of your soul and never lets go. Mum and I don’t live for the stuff in our lives; we live for the songs and the music inside of us. The house might be falling apart, but the Steinway is polished within an inch of its life.

  I’d tell Erik, but I don’t know if he’d understand.

  ‘Mum’s not home yet,’ I say. ‘She’s taken a taxi into Willaware for the day. Did you want to come in?’

  ‘Sure,’ he says.

  Erik follows me up the front steps. I unlock the door, pushing it open.

  I turn down the hall to my room and Erik follows, standing at the doorway. I rummage through my drawers for some clothes to change into. On my pillow is the jacket he gave me to keep me warm that afternoon at the bus stop. I remember curling up in it that night and I feel myself blush.

  ‘I’d better give this back,’ I say, handing it to him.

  He takes it, pretending not to notice that I’ve gone red. ‘I’ll go make tea.’

  Soon I hear the rush of the kettle while I rid myself of my uniform and pull on a dress.

  When I emerge, Erik’s at our table, with two mugs of tea.

  I wait for the table to wobble as I lean on it, but it doesn’t.

  ‘I wedged a bit of cardboard under,’ Erik says apologetically. ‘A stabiliser.’

  He holds out his hand to me at the table and I grasp it. A cool, confident hand.

  ‘Let’s go for a walk,’ he says, looking through the sliding doors at the forest.

  ‘Can your Irish constitution withstand this heat?’ I tease.

  ‘It’ll have to,’ he says. ‘Although I don’t have much time left here. Mum and Dad have already gone home.’

  ‘Oh. Of course.’ The thought of him leaving is unexpectedly sharp. It almost feels like a betrayal. What’s that about?

  ‘I’m not leaving yet,’ he says quickly. ‘You guys are stuck with me for a couple of weeks yet. But it’d be great to see the forest again – even if it’s changed.’

  We finish our tea and head out through the sliding door into the wall of heat. I squint against the sun as I lead us along the edge of the forest until we find the track.

  Nobody walks these tracks anymore. They’re overgrown and most of the younger locals don’t even know there are tracks. But I remember them like a map of my own heart. I wonder if Erik does too. As we wade into the thicker trees, our shoes kick up dust and the scent of dry earth. It used to be damp and cool in here, the trees thick with lichen, but the lichen has long dried and is now peeling off the tree trunks.

  I grab a stick and use it to clear the bracken ahead of me, checking for snakes. When I turn back, Erik’s got a stick in his hand too. We’re bush kids again.

  ‘Don’t you wish we could rewind the last seven years?’ I say, wistfully. ‘Just for a day?’

  ‘Yeah, but I kinda like being grown up.’

  ‘Being small was way better.’ I don’t mean my words to sound bitter, but they come out that way.

  ‘Alex didn’t tell me about the song, but she told me about that bastard,’ Erik says suddenly.

  I stop, and he comes to a halt behind me.

  Surely, she didn’t. But it’s quite evident that she did. And I don’t know whether to feel betrayed or relieved.

  ‘Which bastard?’ I ask. There are two to choose from. Three if you count Kyle.

  ‘Joey.’

  I start walking again, and Erik trails half a step behind me.

  ‘We’ve not seen each other in a long time, Ruby,’ he says awkwardly, ‘but I’m not like that . . . like that prick. Not all of us are.’

  ‘I know.’ But I don’t know. Not for sure. ‘When I’m with you, I feel safe. I know I shouldn’t, but – ’

  ‘Shouldn’t what?’

  ‘Feel safe.’

  ‘Why the hell not?’

  I look at him quizzically. ‘It’s not just what Joey did. Do you honestly not know the statistics?’

  ‘What statistics?’

  ‘One woman a week killed by her partner or ex. Every two minutes a cop in Australia gets a call about domestic violence – and they’re only the women who ask for help. Do you know how many men hurt women they know?’

  ‘Ruby, stop.’ He says it with disgust. ‘Stop right now.’

  But I don’t. ‘Usually, it’s the women they love.’

  He stiffens, arches away from me. ‘What about Dad or Uncle Hal? Grandad? Me? You’re not saying I would ever . . .’

  ‘I feel safe with you,’ I say, then I look away, into the forest. ‘But the women in those stats, I bet some of them felt safe too.’

  ‘Ruby, look at me. Look at me now.’

  He waits until I meet his eyes. ‘I will never hurt you. Never.’

  I can see he means it, but I don’t trust the way he makes me feel. Like I’m falling from a great height. Out of the sky without an engine. I don’t trust my feelings any more.

  I want to tell him everything. The whole story. How much I wanted Joey, but how I didn’t want that. How much it hurt. How awful it was, and how cheap I felt, like a dirty, crumpled piece of paper. And then what happened with Lukas and how that was somehow even worse. Instead, I look up at the faraway treetops, against the dappled sky.

  Erik follows my gaze. ‘This is a wild country,’ he says. ‘And every bit as enchanting as Ireland.’

  A sense of pride wells up in me from some place I don’t even own. I love that the forests of Cooper’s Creek still have a hold over Erik.

  I turn back to him. ‘You want to see something enchanting?’ I say. It’s a challenge. It makes my feet light.

  He gives me a grin, like, here’s the girl I know.

  We wade through the sea of thickening grass, as high as our waists, parting a path where there isn’t one. Where it should be impassable. Where there are definitely snakes.

  ‘Where are we going?’ he says. But I don’t tell him.

  By the time we get there, I’m panting, sweat trickling down inside my shirt. I turn around, smiling like the pirate who just found the treasure. Reaching out my hand for Erik to behold the beauty of our fallen castle. Now surrounded by tall grasses, and covered in wilting strangler vine, our old haunt reaches up like a giant into the sky.

  Erik is silent. Serious. ‘I can’t believe it’s still here,’ he says, squinting up into the branches.

  ‘Come on up, Forest King,’ I say. ‘Your castle needs you.’

  I hoist myself up the wobbly ladder
rungs hammered in by Grandad about a decade ago and now almost hidden by the vine that tangles its way up the scarred trunk.

  ‘Careful,’ Erik says. ‘It might not be stable.’

  I climb to the platform at the top, the timber rotted and weathered. I test out each plank before treading my way to the rusty metal u-frame that once held our pulley bucket. All that’s left of it is a straggly piece of string dangling uselessly. A bearded dragon scuttles away as a bit of timber crumbles beneath my feet.

  ‘Your kingdom awaits.’ I hold out my hand.

  He laughs, then hauls himself up, testing each ladder rung beneath his weight before climbing. ‘It’s crumbled, aye. And it’s much smaller than I remember.’

  ‘We have grown, Forest King,’ I say, as he hauls himself onto our platform.

  He treads up behind me to what remains of our pulley system, places his feet either side of me, and entwines his fingers over mine on the u-frame. Then he holds my arms out, like we’re at the bow in the scene from Titanic.

  He rests his chin on my shoulder. ‘That we have,’ he whispers.

  He’s so close I can feel the bristles on his chin. I wrap our hands around my stomach and close my eyes.

  I keep his arms around me, not wanting the spell to break. Erik gives his love fearlessly. Has he never been burned before? Has he never learnt to guard his heart?

  I turn to face him and a ripple passes through me, but it’s not fear.

  Erik leans forward, and I clutch at his shirt as his lips touch mine. He kisses me – a real kiss, not a drunken nothing. A very sober something. And I want to belong to this boy more than I’ve wanted to belong to anyone before. I want him to belong to me.

  I don’t want the kiss to end. And he mustn’t either because just when it seems like it’s over, his hands are in my hair again and my hands are at his back.

  When he pulls himself away, he’s sort of breathless.

  I lean forward and kiss him again. Softly, slowly, he follows my lead, pressing himself into me. The same way Joey pressed me into the grass . . .