Ruby Parker Hits the Small Time

by Rowan Coleman

  I sat at the table and watched her stir and stir, her face tipped down into the steam as if she could see something else apart from risotto in the saucepan. Everest sat at her feet and gazed up, trying his best to psychically levitate some of the chicken out of the pan and into his paws.

  “What is it, Mum?” I finally asked her. I was pulling my fingers through my hair, which, although it smelled nice, was not any blonder than it had been this morning.

  Mum looked up at me and smiled, but it was one of those upside-down smiles that are really more like frowns—like a mixture of both the comic and the tragic mask in my school badge. “Dad will be here in a minute and then we’ll talk about things,” she told me carefully. “We just need to talk, Ruby—about how things are at the moment and how things are going to be.”

  I felt my stomach knot up and tighten again. When she said things, she meant us. She meant me and Mum and Dad and how we were going to be.

  “Things are fine, though,” I said, trying to stay casual, as if a nameless dread wasn’t beginning to boil up again in my tummy. In the garden with Nydia—in the middle of our film, in the middle of the jungle with Justin swinging me through the trees on vines to save us from giant man-eating ants—my tummy knots had untied themselves and gone away. I told myself that I’d been worrying over nothing—that I was exaggerating the way I was feeling again and getting everything out of proportion, like I did when I thought this lump on my foot was cancer and it turned out to be an insect bite. But even if it hadn’t been for the chicken risotto, I knew that what was coming was bad when I heard Mum’s voice. When she spoke, her voice sounded as if it was stretched very, very thinly, as if she were speaking from a very long way off. Another universe, practically.

  And then Dad came in and Mum went sort of stiff and nobody looked at me for a long time. They went about just doing normal stuff, only it wasn’t normal because normally they weren’t ever in the same room as long as this. Dad hung up his coat and took off his tie. Mum put out the cutlery and poured out drinks and didn’t ask me to do anything, which was definitely not normal. And neither one of them told Everest off for sitting right wherever it was they were trying to walk and for making them trip and stumble. Dad didn’t even tell me his joke of the day. They just moved around like robots.

  Then we all sat at the table and Mum brought out the food. I looked at it steaming on my plate; it looked delicious, but somehow not real, and I couldn’t eat any. My stomach was too full up with worry.

  “Ruby, do you want some cheese?” Mum passed me the shaker, but I pushed it away. I couldn’t stand this abnormal normalness for a minute longer.

  “Just say it!” I snapped. My words popped the bubble of tension that had suffocated the room like cling film, and suddenly the kitchen was crowded with emotion. “Just say whatever it is you’re going to say. Please. Just say it.”

  I felt frightened then, and very small. Mum and Dad looked at each other and there was a moment of silence. I felt Everest come and sit on my feet; his fat, warm body made my toes tickle, and I told myself it was because he was on my side and not because he was just after scraps.

  “Well …,” Mum said, looking at Dad. “You tell her, Frank. I think that it’s you who should tell her.”

  The way my dad looked at my mum then—I’ve never seen him look at her, or anyone, like that before. He looked at her as if he didn’t even know her, like she was just some strange woman in his house telling him what to do. He looked at her as if he didn’t like her, not even a little bit.

  “Ruby, you know that things have been difficult at home for a while, don’t you?”

  I shook my head vigorously. Just like Mum, he was talking about things again. Why didn’t he say what he meant? Why didn’t he talk about me, Mum, us? We’re not things. We’re living, breathing people.

  “No. No, I don’t know that. I think things have been fine. Really fine,” I said. “So don’t worry about me. I’m fine. Is that all?”

  Dad bit his lip and took a deep breath. He picked up his fork and put it down again. Then he swallowed as if someone had made him take some really bad medicine. I watched his face for any sign of what it was he was about to say, but it was almost as if my dad wasn’t in there.

  “Ruby, I’m sorry,” he spoke at last. “Your mum and I, we don’t get along like we used to. We’ve been making each other …unhappy …for a long time now.”

  My mum huffed out a breath of air, as if “unhappy” wasn’t nearly a good enough word to describe how my dad made her feel.

  I looked at them both, from one to the other. My mum and dad: the two people who put me here in the world. It was them loving each other in the first place that made me happen. If they hated each other, then what about me? Did they hate me too?

  I tried to make them see that we were happy. “Are you sure?” I asked quickly. “Because I don’t think we’re as unhappy as you think we are. I mean, when you say a long time, how long do you mean? We were happy at Christmas, weren’t we? And that’s only a few months ago. We were happy on holiday. We’re a little happy every day, aren’t we?”

  Neither one of them would look at me.

  “Well, aren’t we?” I pressed on. “It’s about working it out, isn’t it? And anyway, you don’t make each other unhappy. Mum, didn’t Dad get you that perfume you really wanted at Christmas? And you were happy then, weren’t you? And you’re happy when Mum makes a big roast, aren’t you, Dad? You love a big roast, don’t you?”

  Mum looked at her hands.

  “Well?” I asked them both.

  Mum reached across the table and picked up my hand; her skin felt hot and dry. “We were, darling, but you’ll understand better when you’re a bit older. Being happy for one day a year, or just sometimes—it’s not enough.” She shut her eyes tightly for a second and then looked at me. “And sometimes …sometimes it’s easier to pretend to be happy.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. Mum was holding my hand, but it felt like I was slipping away from her, from Dad, from everything I knew and trusted about my life, into an unknown darkness.

  “No, you see, that’s not right. And anyway, it’s a start, isn’t it?” I looked at Dad, desperate to make him see. “Because you used to be happy every day, and if you used to be, you could be again.”

  I sat up and reached out my other hand to Dad so I was linking the two of them together. “I know there are rocky patches, but I think we’ll be OK. I really do.” I smiled at them both. “I really, really do, but I’m glad we’ve talked about it and it’s all out in the open so all we have to do now is—”

  “Ruby, I’m leaving.” Dad spoke over me. The words dropped onto the table with a clatter like heavy stones. “I’m not going to live in the house anymore.”

  As I stared at him, my smile gradually fell and melted away. “You mean for a bit, like before?” My voice was very small. “While you clear your head and have space?” I asked him hopefully.

  Dad shook his head and moved his hand away from under mine. “No, darling. I mean I’ve got a new place—a little flat. It’s only five minutes away, but I’m going to live there. I’m going to take some stuff and sleep there tonight and move out over the next few days. But, Ruby, you must understand; it’s not you I’m leaving. It’s just the house …it’s just …” He looked at my mum, who had turned her face away from us, as if she couldn’t bear to look at him; her skin looked like it had turned to hard, cold, gray rock. “It’s not you that I’m leaving. I’ll still be your dad, I’ll see you just as much, more even, and—”

  “NO!” I screamed. And just then, everything—all the fear and the worry and the knowing—welled right up inside me like a volcano and erupted. I pushed back my chair so hard it fell over with a clatter and Everest shot out from under the table, yowling, and raced through the cat flap.

  “No!” I shouted again, slamming my hands down on the tabletop and making my palms sting. “No, Dad, it won’t be the same. How will it be the same? How can you even sa
y that? How can you say that you’re going, tell me that you’ve known you were going for ages? You’ve just let me go around thinking I have a normal life, a life with proper parents. People’s mums and dads live together; that’s how it’s supposed to be. Otherwise why did you ever get married? Why did you ever have me?”

  Then I looked at my mum and waited until she looked back at me. I felt so angry with her, just sitting there made out of stone, not doing anything. “Why are you letting him do this, Mum? Why don’t you do something? You could have been nicer to him, been kinder or something, been pleased when he got you flowers instead of going on about your hay fever. Or happy when he got you chocolates instead of cross because of your diet. Why are you letting him do this? Why are you driving him away?”

  Mum shook her head and looked like she was trying to say something, but her mouth just moved and no words came out. I could see her body was trembling, and her gray skin suddenly flared up with blotches of bright red and she began to cry. She held out her arms to me.

  “Oh, baby, sometimes there’s nothing anyone can do. I’m so sorry, Ruby, I …”

  I wanted to go to her then and sit on her lap and hug her like I used to when I was a baby, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. I had to make them see what they were doing. “No! You’re just giving up! Why are you giving up? There is always something you can do! You—both of you—just don’t care! You don’t care about what happens to me, do you? You don’t even love me anymore; you can’t if you’re going to do this!”

  I ran out the back door and into the garden. I found Everest hiding on the swing seat, and I picked him up and hugged him so hard that he struggled for a bit and tried to get away. But then I think he felt my tears wet his fur and he stopped and sort of snuggled close to me and rested his soft, fat head on my shoulder and stared at me.

  “They don’t know what they’re doing, Everest,” I told him between sobs. “They think they know, but they don’t.” I cried and cried then, quietly, into Everest’s fur.

  It was a long time before Dad came outside. The sun had gradually seeped from the sky, leaving traces of its light streaking the evening. When he opened the back door, a rectangle of yellow fell over the grass and I could see his silhouette, but not his face. I’d worked out what to say to him; I knew exactly what to say to make him stay. Dad always gave in to me in the end because we were best friends. When Mum made up her mind about something, it stayed made up, but Dad was the sort of person you could talk to and reason with. I’d always believed that he loved me—that whatever he said about Mum, he’d never want to hurt me.

  I waited until he walked across the grass and sat down next to me on the swing. Everest opened one eye and looked at him. Dad put his arm around my shoulder and tried to hug me, but I held myself very stiff, so he just rested his hand there instead.

  “Darling, I know this is hard for you,” he said, sounding like my dad again and not the stranger who’d been in the kitchen. “I know right now you can’t see how this is ever going to be OK, but one day, when you’re a bit older, you’ll understand …”

  I wanted to hug him, but I shrugged his hand off my shoulder and slid away from him. “A bit older? Why? Why doesn’t anything I think or feel matter now? Why doesn’t it, Dad?”

  He shook his head. “Of course it does, Ruby. Of course it matters. All I’m saying is right now you can’t see things the way your mum and I can …” Dad trailed off as if he had run out of words.

  My moment had come. I slid Everest off my lap and onto the cushioned seat of the swing and I picked up Dad’s hand. This was my big scene; these were the lines I’d been rehearsing out here all this time as the sun went down.

  “Dad, please. I love you so much and I don’t want you to live in some poky little flat. I want you to live at home with me. Stay, Dad, please. If you love me, please, stay for me.”

  I’d been certain—I was sure—that if I asked him, he would stay. He would hug me and sigh and say, “Of course, Ruby. Of course I’ll stay because I do love you.”

  But he didn’t. He just shook his head and said, “I’m really sorry, Ruby, but I can’t. I have to go.”

  Chapter Seven

  After Dad had said that he was going anyway, no matter how I felt, he got up and walked back to the house. A sort of numbness spread through me, and I stayed outside in the garden until the last bit of warmth of the day had finally gone, waiting to feel something again. Finally, I went to the kitchen door. I couldn’t see Mum or Dad, so I went inside.

  I just wanted to go upstairs, get into bed, pull the duvet over my head, and go to sleep and forget about everything. But Mum was in the living room and she heard me.

  “Ruby?” The tight voice she’d had earlier seemed to have snapped and disintegrated, and I knew she’d been crying too. I stood outside the doorway for a moment and I wished more than anything that I didn’t have to go in there and see her crying. But I went in anyway.

  “Are you OK?” I asked. I didn’t sound like I meant it. I couldn’t seem to feel anything at all—just numbness like I’d been swimming in cold water for too long. And I think I even sounded a bit cold, maybe angry with her still.

  She sat up in the armchair and wiped the heel of her hand across her eyes. “Yes, darling, I’m OK. I feel sad, Ruby—hurt and angry and sad, but I’ll be OK. We will be OK, I promise you.”

  She tried to smile, and held out a hand to me, so I took it and sat on the arm of the chair, although at that moment all I wanted to do was run upstairs and hide under the duvet.

  “What’s worrying me is you, Ruby. All this, everything that’s happened this evening—this isn’t how I thought it would be. Your dad and I thought we were protecting you by trying to sort things out before telling you. We thought if we all sat down and talked it through it would be easier for you. I can see now that it must have been a terrible shock. I …I suppose I thought you sort of already knew, that you were expecting it. We didn’t do a very good job and I’m sorry, Ruby. I really am. We were trying to think of you, but we got it wrong.”

  Like everything else, I wanted to say, but I didn’t.

  She put her arm around my waist and hugged me close to her.

  “Mum, did you want Dad to go?” I asked her tentatively. “Was this your idea too?”

  She bit her lip hard and looked up at me with red-rimmed eyes. Her mascara had spread out over her face and cheeks.

  “No, darling,” she said. “I didn’t want him to go. But I also know I can’t stop him from going—not without hurting us all even more. I know that eventually this will be for the best and we’re going to try very hard to make this OK for you. We didn’t get off to a good start, but we will make it work. We’re not going to fight over you; you can see him whenever you want. You can even live with him if you want …”

  The way she said it made it clear that if I did, it would hurt her more than anything. Even if I had wanted to live with Dad, I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave Mum because I loved her. I understood that, even if Dad didn’t.

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to live with him,” I said. “And I don’t want to live with you. I want to live with us, all together, like always.”

  Mum sighed and her shoulders slumped. She looked exhausted. “It’s going to take a long time to get used to it, Ruby, but we will …” she said, rubbing her closed eyes with her fingertips.

  “But if it hadn’t been for Dad, you’d have kept on trying, wouldn’t you?” I asked her, thinking again of Dad’s refusal to stay, even for me.

  Mum thought for a moment. “Yes …” She hesitated. “I probably would have, but if your dad didn’t feel the same, it wouldn’t have worked. It couldn’t have. It’s no one’s fault. Ruby, you mustn’t blame—”

  “But it is him!” I interrupted with a flash of anger. “He doesn’t love us anymore, Mum. It’s not that he needs space, or that he wants to be on his own. He just doesn’t want us. It’s not just you; it’s me too. This is all his fault.”

  Mum s
hook her head. “No, Rube, that’s not true—” she began, but I couldn’t listen to her anymore. I didn’t want her to stop me from feeling angry. If I was angry, I wasn’t hurt; I wasn’t lost and I wasn’t abandoned. Angry was much, much better.

  I stood up.“But it is—it is true.” I raised my voice and gestured toward the garden. “Because he told me it was, out there. So you needn’t worry; I don’t want to live with him. I don’t even want to see him or speak to him ever again.”

  And then at last I did run up the stairs, climb into bed, pull the duvet over my head, and shut my eyes as tightly as I could. But I couldn’t stop the tears from squeezing out. After a while, I just cried. I cried for a long time and thought about Mum downstairs crying somewhere too, and him out there probably laughing his head off, and I couldn’t believe that anything that had happened to me today was real. How could it be real? How can a person’s life change so completely over a few short days? And worse still, it was nothing like on Kensington Heights. There was no one there to rewrite the script, bring in a rich uncle or an identical twin, and make sure it all turns out OK in the end.

  “Are you sure he’s not coming back?” Nydia asked when I called her, still under my duvet.

  “I’m sure,” I said staunchly. “And I’m glad. I don’t want him to come back. Ever.”

  Nydia thought for a moment. “Maybe we could do something like in that film The Parent Trap, about the twins who have to get their mum and dad back together again. I could think of a plan. Hey, maybe we could get them trapped in a lift or something.”

  I smiled because Nydia was always so sure that her plans would work. “It’s a good idea, but it won’t work—not this time. It’s all right, really. I mean, OK, so my career is over and I’m only thirteen, I come from a broken home and, oh yeah, I’ll never have a boyfriend because I’m the frumpiest girl in Britain, and I’ll probably get chucked out of the academy and have to go to school without you. But apart from that, everything is just fine.” It seemed easier to joke about than to actually think about it.