by Weaver, Pam
As Ruby ran after Albert to the beach, her mind was in a whirl. What if the empty boat was her father’s? What if he was badly hurt? What if he was lost at sea? And should the worst come to the worst, what would become of them?
Over the years her mother had made a decent home for the family, but without the income from her father’s fishing, how would they survive? This couldn’t be happening … He had to be safe.
The Great War had interrupted their lives because, right from the start, Nelson had joined Kitchener’s Army. Wounded, he was still in hospital at around the time Ruby had been born. Of course she was far too young to remember anything of it, but her mother had told her it had taken her father a long time to recover. In the years before May was born, Nelson had taken them all along the coast to Eastbourne and Hastings in search of work, but Bea had hated it. When they came back to Worthing, Nelson had taken over his father’s boat and later on, when Grandfather died, the cottage too. That was the one good thing, if this terrible nightmare turned out to be true. They owned the cottage so at least they would always have a roof over their heads. Things were much better now, although in the winter – in keeping with a lot of other families in the country – they spent all their waking hours in one room to save fuel.
The real problem had nothing to do with their daily struggle with life. There was something fundamentally wrong with their family. The row Percy had had with her father the night before had been the worst yet. Plenty of things had been said, but Ruby wasn’t stupid. There were many more things left unsaid. Why was her father so hard on Percy? It seemed that no matter how hard Percy tried to please Nelson, he could never measure up. Come to that, her own relationship with her father wasn’t much better. He ignored her nearly all the time and, when he did speak to her, he always seemed to preface everything with a cutting remark. She could never understand why she made him so angry. And then there was their mother. She was his wife, but Nelson hardly had a good word to say about her, either. It was as if she didn’t exist, except when they were in bed. Ruby would often hear them talking in angry whispers, through the thin walls that separated their two bedrooms. Her father continually demanded ‘his rights’ and, although she didn’t understand exactly what was going on, his determined voice and her mother’s pleas made whatever they were doing sound very one-sided, and at times very rough. ‘Shame,’ she had heard her father say once, ‘don’t talk to me of shame. Your shame is much greater …’ and her mother had burst into tears. What sort of a marriage was that? The only person in the family that her father had any time for was May.
As she and Albert came out of the Quashettes, she began telling herself that when it came to making choices, Nelson Bateman was a sensible man. He was also by nature a careful man. The only reason he had decided to go fishing on such a stormy night was because he was angry.
Walking straight down High Street and on to the Steyne, Ruby was desperate to make sense of everything, but she couldn’t. Percy should be here. Where was Percy anyway? After the row last night, Percy had left with a suitcase, but some time later, when she was getting ready for bed, Ruby had heard a footfall outside her bedroom window. When she’d lifted the curtain, she’d seen Percy scooting along the street. He had obviously come back to the house for something, but what? At the time she’d wondered vaguely what he was up to, but what struck her as really odd was the way he was walking. He kept dodging into dark doorways and looking back over his shoulder, as if he didn’t want anyone to see him. At the end of the road he turned and patted his head, then ran off into the night.
At last they arrived on the beach, where a group of fishermen were standing around her father’s empty boat. Albert was right. Everything was gone: his fishing gear, the nets and his marker flags … everything.
‘Any sign of him?’ she asked. The men couldn’t meet her eyes as they shook their heads. The wind whipped her hair and the rain soaked her clothes. ‘Was my brother Percy with him when he set off?’
‘He was on his own,’ said Bluey. ‘He was cursing Percy to the skies for leaving him in the lurch.’
Ruby heaved a sigh of relief.
Amazingly, Albert seemed more concerned that he’d got a quote for his newspaper than with taking part in the search for her father. Ruby quickly found out that although some fishermen were out looking for Nelson, the rest of them considered it too dangerous. ‘If he’s to be found,’ Silas Reed said sagely, ‘lifeboat’ll find ’un.’
She stayed with the fishermen for a while, but then decided there was nothing she could do by hanging around the beach. Besides, she was soaking wet and freezing cold. If she caught pneumonia, she wouldn’t be much use to anyone.
‘I’ll take you back,’ said Albert.
‘No!’ said Ruby. Then, seeing his crestfallen expression, she added, ‘Thanks, Albert, but I need to be on my own.’
Miserably she retraced her steps. Back home, as she peeled off her wet things, her mother was silent when Ruby told her that it was true: Father was missing. Bea didn’t react at all. Ruby supposed it was the shock. As the dawn broke, they sat together drinking hot, sweet tea until it was time for Ruby to leave for work.
As she set off for Warnes, the sky was still a strange colour. Ruby shivered, but not from the cold. There was something eerie and strange about the day, yet as she reached Steyne Gardens and shielded her eyes to look out to sea, there was no sign of the lifeboat. Oh, God, she prayed inwardly for the umpteenth time, please bring Father and Percy home safely.
She changed into her apron, ready to start work in the big dining room. There were several pairs of wet shoes in the staffroom. Clearly Mrs Fosdyke, Winnie and Edith had got very wet coming to work and must have brought extra pairs of shoes to wear on duty. Ruby only owned one pair of shoes, so she had no choice but to work in her wet ones.
‘How did you get on with Jim?’ said Edith, coming up behind her. She began to move the shoes nearer the radiator and to stuff them with old newspapers to help them dry out.
‘Um?’ Ruby was miles away.
‘Jim Searle,’ said Edith. ‘When are you seeing him again?’
Jim … she’d forgotten all about him for a moment.
‘I wanted to ask you last night,’ Edith ploughed on, ‘but your brother whisked you away, when we came off-duty.’
At the mention of Percy’s name, Ruby felt her eyes smart. If Edith said much more, she’d start to howl and that wouldn’t do. She took the Vactric out of the cupboard and plugged it in. Was it really only yesterday when she’d last seen Jim? After all that had happened since then, it seemed like a lifetime ago.
‘Are you all right, Roob?’ Edith asked anxiously. ‘You’re very quiet.’
‘Not really,’ said Ruby miserably. ‘My father is missing at sea.’
Edith and the other girls were wonderful. They were not only sympathetic, but also kept an eye on Ruby and covered her back by picking up on the things she’d missed. Winnie gave her a sympathetic wave in the corridor. ‘I heard about your poor father,’ she said. ‘If there is anything I can do …’
Ruby thanked her and, somehow or other, she got through the shift. Because no one had been sent to fetch her, she felt a little better by the time she was ready to go home. If anything was really wrong, surely someone would have come to the hotel. Oddly enough, Mrs Fosdyke didn’t check up on anybody that day. Edith said it was because she and Mr Payne were planning the mayor’s forthcoming banquet, but one of the other girls said Mrs Fosdyke had taken the rest of the day off. Whatever the reason, Ruby was glad.
‘Do you want me to come home with you, Roob?’ Edith asked as they walked down the stairs. She had the newspaper that Ruby had used to stuff the shoes with in her hand, ready to throw it in the bin downstairs.
‘Thanks, Edith,’ said Ruby, ‘but I’ll be fine.’
Edith lobbed the newspaper into the bin and wiped her hands down her coat. ‘Ugh,’ she said, ‘there was something gritty all over that.’
Ruby walked home with a leaden heart, cons
umed with the desire to be back at home and in the know, but dreading it at the same time. As she turned the corner into Newlands Road, a few of their neighbours were gathered in the street. She waved as she walked towards them, but no one returned her greeting. Instead the small group of women huddled closer together, whispering and secretive. Then Albert Longman came out of the front door, looking very smart in a dark suit with a black tie. A sliver of fear gripped at Ruby’s throat.
‘I’m so sorry, Ruby,’ he was saying as he shook his head.
‘Father?’ she asked.
Albert nodded. ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’
The other neighbours echoed his sentiments. ‘Deepest condolences.’ ‘So sorry, Ruby.’ ‘If there is anything we can do …’
Ruby stared at them all in shocked surprise. Then she felt angry. It seemed they all knew what had happened to her father, but not one person had thought to come to Warnes and fetch her!
‘They found his body along the coast, dear,’ said Mrs Marley, their next-door neighbour. Her voice was barely above a whisper. ‘He’s …’ She glanced around at the others. ‘Oh, Ruby, he’s been drown-ded. Drown-ded dead.’
Ruby didn’t respond, but pushed open the door and went inside. ‘Mother?’
Bea was sitting bolt upright in the chair by the empty fireside, her face completely expressionless. Ruby touched her hand; it was icy cold. She knelt in front of her and laid her head in Bea’s lap. After a couple of minutes, her mother placed her hand on Ruby’s head, but then she gripped the arms of her chair as her body juddered. Ruby stayed perfectly still. She knew Bea was a proud woman and wouldn’t want anyone making a fuss about her grief. Neither of them spoke. Someone – Ruby supposed it was Albert – had closed the door to give them some privacy.
‘Has Percy come back, Mother?’ she asked eventually.
Bea shook her head. ‘They say your father was fishing on his own,’ she said, still stroking Ruby’s head in her lap. ‘But of course we knew that, didn’t we?’
Ruby nodded, but the relief she felt in knowing that Percy wasn’t drowned at sea was enormous. It washed over her in waves, but then she felt terrible again. Shouldn’t she feel some sort of grief for her father?
‘We should get news to him,’ said Bea.
‘But we don’t know where Percy is,’ said Ruby. ‘Have they any idea what happened?’
Bea blew her nose. ‘No. Nobody can understand why he didn’t shout out.’
‘Who would have heard him, over the sound of the storm?’ asked Ruby.
‘The weather only got worse later on,’ her mother went on. ‘There were other boats nearby. They launched the lifeboat, but it was too late.’
Albert put his head back round the door. ‘I’ll get over to the doctor’s surgery now, Mrs Bateman, if that’s all right. We’ll bring Mr Bateman back home as soon as possible. No need for you to worry about young May. Susan Marley says she’ll keep her at her place for a bit.’
‘Thank you, Albert,’ said Bea.
He smiled at Ruby, but she looked away quickly. It was kind of him to help, but she was determined not to encourage him. She stood up. The thing Susan Marley had said was going round and round her head: They found his body … he’s been drown-ded. But the whole time she’d sat with her head in her mother’s lap, Ruby hadn’t shed a single tear for her father. She’d wanted to. It was the right thing to do when somebody died, but she couldn’t. She guessed it must be because she was in shock. Her father wasn’t easy to live with, but she wouldn’t have wished him harm. Now that she was on her feet and could see her mother’s face, she was slightly surprised. Bea’s eyes were tearless as well, but she looked different. She seemed so alive … almost elated. She gave her daughter a thin smile. ‘He’s not coming back, Ruby,’ she said, pressing her handkerchief over her mouth. Her body juddered again and Ruby realized that her mother wasn’t grief-stricken at all; she was struggling not to laugh.
Later that evening when Ruby got back from turning the beds down, May was still staying with Susan Marley and her father’s body was in the front parlour.
‘I’ve told Warnes what’s happened,’ said Ruby. ‘They’ll give me the day off for Father’s funeral.’
‘Is that all?’ her mother complained.
‘I can’t make too much fuss, Mother,’ said Ruby. ‘You know Mrs Fosdyke, and how she’s always on at me. If I make too much of a fuss, she’s just as likely to give me the sack. It may not pay much, but with things the way they are, we can’t afford for me to lose this job.’
Her mother nodded. ‘You’re right. Do you want to see him?’
They never used the front room, but Bea kept all her nice things in there. Nelson was lying in a plain coffin perched on the table. He looked peaceful, but there was an ugly gash on the side of his head. When Ruby looked up at her mother, Bea said, ‘They say he must have bashed his head when he fell in.’
Someone had dressed him in his best suit. He didn’t look like her father at all. His mouth should be snarling, and he should have angry spittle on his lips. But, for all his faults, the enormity of what had happened was beginning to dawn on Ruby and she was starting to worry. If the family was to survive, she would have to work out a way of keeping them all together. Everyone needed an anchor and, from now on, that’s what she would have to be. She’d keep her job – and get another one, if necessary. Her mother was in no fit state to do anything except take care of May.
The steady stream of people coming to pay their respects began. They were mostly other fishermen, for Nelson had few personal friends. Ruby was kept busy making endless cups of tea, and by the time they’d all gone she was exhausted. She was just about to lock up and go to bed when there was a soft tap on the front door. She opened it crossly, wondering who on earth would come at this time of night. It was Jim. Her heart lurched with joy, and for the first time since Albert had knocked on the door early that morning with the news that her father’s empty boat had been found, tears sprang to her eyes.
‘Ruby, I’ve only just heard,’ he said. ‘I am so sorry.’ He grasped her hands in his.
‘Come in,’ she said.
‘It’s late,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I just wanted you to know I’m here for you.’
‘Thank you for coming,’ she said, her voice thick with emotion.
‘You must be tired,’ he said, touching the side of her face gently. ‘I’ll come back tomorrow. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help.’
He leaned towards her and his lips brushed hers. Ruby closed her eyes.
Jim closed the door himself. She stood looking at the wood and still feeling the warmth of his hand so tenderly on her cheek. Oh, Jim …
Turning out the gas light, she made her way wearily up to bed. Somehow – now that Jim knew what she was going through – the terrible events of the day didn’t seem quite so insurmountable.
When Ruby got back from her morning shift the next day, the coxswain of the lifeboat was at the house. He told them they couldn’t bury Nelson until there had been an inquest. For the first time, Bea began to cry.
‘H’everyone concerned with your father’s death will be called to give h’evidence before the coroner,’ Coxswain Taylor said, adding an ‘h’ before every word that began with a vowel, in his usual pompous manner. To emphasize the point, he’d threaded his thumbs through the braces of his thick canvas trousers. ‘H’and his verdict will determine if Nelson was unlawfully killed or if he suffered a h’accident or …’ he sniffed in an exaggerated fashion, ‘… or if the said party committed suicide.’
Bea and Ruby looked at each other, aghast.
‘Nelson wasn’t the sort of man to take his own life,’ Bea protested angrily.
Ruby chewed her bottom lip anxiously. After everything else, she couldn’t face that. A verdict of suicide would mean that her father couldn’t have a Christian burial, and that seemed especially cruel for her mother.
‘And a member h’of the family should be present at the h
’inquest,’ Coxswain Taylor went on.
‘No.’ Bea pressed her handkerchief to her mouth. ‘I can’t go!’
‘I’ll go, Mother.’
‘With h’all due respect, madam,’ said the coxswain, ‘you will have to give h’evidence.’
Bea looked up at her daughter helplessly.
‘It’ll be fine,’ Ruby said, grasping her mother’s hands. ‘We’ll do it together.’
When the coxswain had gone, Bea pointed to a paper bag on the table.
‘What’s that?’ Ruby asked.
‘The things they took from Nelson’s pockets,’ said Bea.
Ruby’s first reaction was: what a small bag. It had contained everything on his body when he’d been found. She watched her mother tip the contents onto the kitchen table and run her fingers through them: a crumpled handkerchief, his penknife, four shillings and eightpence in coins, Nelson’s lucky rabbit’s foot, won at a fairground when he was a boy, and a bullet.
‘Is that real?’ Ruby asked anxiously. ‘Why on earth was he walking around with a bullet in his pocket?’
‘It’s not real,’ said her mother, picking it up and looking closely. ‘It’s hollow. Something’s been etched onto the side.’
They peered at the lettering, but it didn’t make sense: Victory.
‘Must be something from the war,’ said Ruby. ‘Perhaps it was to remind him.’
‘I doubt it,’ said her mother. ‘He never talked about the war.’
Ruby took the bullet from her mother’s hand and held it up to the light. ‘Maybe it was a near-miss.’
Bea shrugged and Ruby put everything back into the bag. By the time she’d finished, her mother was reaching up for the tin on the mantelpiece. She tipped the contents onto the kitchen table and some coins rolled out. ‘The first thing we have to do,’ she said, ‘is find the money to bury him.’
‘Oh, Mother,’ said Ruby, ‘don’t worry about that now.’
‘I need to do this, Ruby.’
With a sigh, Ruby nodded.
‘Doesn’t look much,’ said Ruby, as she helped her mother stack the money into neat rows.
