The Facts of Life and Death

by Belinda Bauer

  Trick looked down stupidly at the blue exercise book he was still holding.

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’

  Miss Sharpe smiled and held out her hand, and he gave it back to her.

  As soon as Mummy and Daddy left to see Miss Sharpe, Ruby ran upstairs to find the gun.

  The cowboy drawer squeaked and grunted like a wooden pig, and got stuck halfway at an angle. She knelt down and leaned into the deep old wooden drawer and felt as far as she could go. Her fingers nudged the gunbelt, slid over the brim of the Stetson, shifted the Texas string tie. Right at the back, her fingers closed on something soft and she took out a black woollen hat.

  She’d never seen it. It must be for fishing on the beach in the winter when it got so cold.

  She pulled it on and it went right over her face! Ruby giggled, then realized there was a hole in it. She yanked it off quickly, with a little tingle of fear in case she’d made the hole and Daddy would know she’d been messing with his stuff, but in fact there were three holes and they were meant to be there. One for the mouth and two for the eyes. Ruby pulled it over her face again and looked at herself in the mirror. She could see one eye, one cheek and a bit of her chin. She looked pretty funny. She giggled and kept it on while she dug her arm back into the drawer.

  The Jingle Bobs clinked musically, but the gun wasn’t there, and nothing else held her interest now.

  Ruby frowned and sat back on her heels. The gun should be with Daddy’s cowboy stuff. Where else would he keep it?

  The hat was hot and itchy, so she yanked it off again and stuffed it back in the drawer. Then she went through Daddy’s wardrobe, looking in shoes, patting pockets, lifting underpants.

  Nothing.

  Under the bed.

  Nothing but dust bunnies the size of mice.

  Ruby brushed them off her T-shirt and sat on the bed and frowned.

  Then she searched the rest of the house. The gun wasn’t in the wardrobe and it wasn’t behind the sofa and it wasn’t in any of the kitchen drawers or cupboards. It wasn’t in a whole lot of other places too.

  She did find the custard creams in the washing machine though, so the evening wasn’t entirely wasted.

  Alison Trick managed to reach the car before she spoke.

  ‘Mummy is a whore?’ she said

  ‘I don’t know where she got that from,’ said John. ‘Maybe that Maggie Beer. That maid’s got a right dirty little mouth on her. Her and her mother.’

  Alison didn’t look at him. He reversed out of the parking space and put the car in gear.

  ‘I don’t want you taking Ruby out at night any more.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard. She’s tired in class.’

  He swung the car on to the coast road. ‘She’s fine. You said so yourself.’

  ‘I didn’t want a row in front of her teacher.’

  ‘Who’s rowing? You’re the only one who’s rowing.’

  ‘I’m not rowing. I’m just saying.’

  ‘You can say whatever you like. We’ve been out a few times in the car, and where’s the harm in that?’

  ‘If you and your mates want to act like ten-year-olds, that’s your choice. But Ruby really is ten and she needs more sleep.’

  ‘That’s just your opinion.’

  ‘Well, my opinion counts because she’s my daughter!’

  ‘Yeah, well, she’s my daughter too.’

  John Trick glared at Alison. His wife pushed her hair behind her ear in a nervous tic he knew so well, but he felt he was seeing it for the first time. Her pale hand; her straight, strawberry-blonde hair; her delicate ear with the lobe that was like velvet.

  The hand, the hair, the ear – slowed a thousand times, so he finally understood that the tic was the only truth Alison knew how to tell.

  She did it when she bought shoes with other people’s money. She’d done it tonight when the teacher mentioned Ruby’s red hair. She did it whenever she lied.

  Trick gripped the wheel in a spasm and the car swerved and almost hit the kerb.

  Ruby wasn’t his.

  ‘Careful, John!’

  He got it back on line and fought to stay sane. He felt sucker-punched, kicked in the balls. He’d been played for a fool and he was dizzy with shock.

  But it would explain so much.

  It would explain everything.

  The lack of respect.

  The glove behind the sofa.

  Ruby’s betrayal.

  And – worst of all – the fact that Alison hadn’t been a virgin.

  Not that first time, in her bedroom, with her parents downstairs watching Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? They’d never talked about it, but John Trick had thought about it, over the years.

  More than he’d wanted to.

  Alison was his, and Alison was perfect. So perfect he’d convinced himself that she’d lost her virginity riding a bicycle, or a pony. That was the kind of shit she did before they got married. Fancy shit.

  But now – at last – he saw the light.

  This wasn’t just about Tim Braund. This wasn’t just something that had happened since he’d lost his job. This had been happening from the very start. Alison had fucked him on a first date – and how many others? How many before him and how many since? How many while they were ‘keeping it a secret’? How many while he was slaving at the shipyard? How many at the hotel while she was supposed to be working? How many at the supermarket? How many in their fucking bed while he was fishing on the Gore? How many? How many? How many?

  They drove the rest of the way to Limeburn in gaping silence, and when the car stopped, Alison immediately got out and walked briskly up the short slope to The Retreat.

  John Trick didn’t follow her with anything but his eyes.

  Maybe Ruby got her red hair from Alison, maybe she didn’t. All he knew was that she sure as shit didn’t get it from him.

  37

  THE NEXT DAY, the sun came out. Having spent the summer wasting its warmth on the backs of the clouds, there wasn’t much left to scatter on Limeburn, but as soon as Ruby got home from school, she picked up her little orange fishing net and ran down the slope to make the most of it.

  Not for the first time, she stopped on the cobbles and tried the doors and the boot of the car.

  Locked. Locked. Locked. Always locked now. Daddy never used to lock it; he had always lived in hope that one day someone would steal it and they could get the insurance money and buy a better car.

  The gun was in there. She just knew it.

  She sighed and went on down to the slipway and looked across the beach to where she could see Daddy in his camping chair, fishing in the Gut.

  ‘Ruby!’

  It was Maggie, crossing the square towards her with Em trailing behind her. Maggie wasn’t allowed to take Em on the beach any more – not since a rogue wave had knocked her off her feet so hard that it had washed the shit right out of her nappy. It had been so funny, but Maggie had got a good thumping when they’d got home, and now they were only allowed to play on the cliff.

  So Ruby went down the slipway. She didn’t have to run fast to leave them behind. She wanted to be with Daddy. Wanted to remind him that she was a cowboy, and cowboys stuck together.

  It took her ten careful minutes to cross the beach to the Gut, testing each pebble for wobbliness before trusting her weight to it.

  ‘Hi, Daddy,’ she said.

  Daddy looked round at her with a Strongbow in his fist.

  ‘I’m going to go fishing too,’ she declared, holding up her net.

  He grunted.

  She’d have to be good and not wind him up.

  There was a big rockpool close by, and Ruby took off her daps and rolled up her jeans and paddled about in it for a while. There were dozens of snails and deep maroon anemones that clenched their fingers and turned to soft rubber fists when you touched them. There were limpets dotted around like cats’ eyes, and a whole wall of sharp purple mussels, draped over the rock and in
to the pool – making that end of it impassable to bare feet.

  Ruby sneaked up on a limpet, banged it off the rock with a pebble and gave it to Daddy for bait, but he took it without thanks.

  She went back to the pool and poked about until she disturbed a tiny fish – sending it darting under an overhang.

  ‘There’s a fish in here,’ she said.

  ‘I’m going to the Gore,’ he said.

  Ruby was disappointed. She’d only just got here, and Daddy knew she hated the Gore, jagged and sticking so far into the sea that the water around it was deep and dangerous.

  But she wanted to stick together with Daddy. It was the only way she’d ever get to see the gun. And so when Daddy had reeled in and picked up his catch bucket and cider, and tucked his chair under his arm, she carried his bait box and followed him across the pebbles and down the long, thin spit of black rock, all the way out into the waves to the big rock at the end, where the Devil had finally abandoned his plans.

  The blood leaking from Mummy’s old stocking worked its magic and, just as the tide turned back towards them, the fish started to bite. Ruby put down her net and just watched Daddy haul in catch after catch. At first he put them in the big white bucket and it was her job to keep scooping out old water and putting in new, so the fish didn’t die. But when there were four in there, Daddy caught a nice dogfish, so he threw all the other fish back, to make room for it.

  ‘Wow!’ said Ruby, staring into the bucket at the sinuous, shark-finned beast. ‘Let’s take him home!’

  ‘Not leaving while they’re biting,’ said Daddy, so Ruby kept a good supply of fresh water trickling into the bucket, using an empty Strongbow can and going gingerly back and forth to the water’s edge.

  Daddy hooked an eel then, but lost it on the rocks and swore so hard that Ruby said nothing at all, not even sorry. She just kept on, to and fro with the can of seawater.

  Slowly it dawned on her that she wasn’t walking so far each time. Now she was only taking a few careful paces to the edge of the Gore.

  For the first time in an hour, Ruby stopped her work and looked around her.

  She felt as if a big black pebble the size of her head had dropped into her tummy.

  ‘Daddy!’

  ‘What?’ He turned in his chair.

  The tide was coming in fast. A lot of the sea was already behind them and, in places, the Gore itself had narrowed to mere inches. Bigger waves covered it completely, and in those places the black, slime-covered rock was only visible in the troughs.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ cried Ruby.

  ‘We’re going to hurry,’ said Daddy. He started to reel in his line, but halfway through, he stopped and took a knife from his tackle box and cut it instead, then he grabbed the rod, tackle box and fish bucket and started back down the long spit.

  ‘Bring the bait,’ he shouted.

  Ruby dithered. ‘What about your chair?’

  ‘Leave it. Bollocks.’

  Ruby snatched up the bait box and her net and went after him. The path back to the beach was always treacherous with rough rocks and wobbling pebbles – all with a lethal frill of algae and weed – but nothing like this. Now it was also narrowing fast and – washed by the sea – sometimes it was even invisible. What Ruby had carefully picked her way across before, she now had to negotiate at speed, and with the tide tugging at her ankles. Every few strides a bigger wave broke right over the Gore and she was knee-deep in water. More than once she slipped and nearly fell, only the thin bamboo shaft of her little fishing net keeping her upright.

  She looked up and saw that Daddy was twenty yards ahead of her now, and between them there was more water than Gore.

  She froze. ‘Daddy!’

  He turned at her cry.

  ‘Come on, Ruby! Don’t just stand there!’ he shouted.

  But she couldn’t move. Not even if she’d wanted to. That day of the dog in the forest, her legs had decided to run all by themselves. It had been terrifying, and the fear had only got worse and worse and worse, all the way to the blind terror of the Bear Den.

  This time her legs decided not to run. This time her legs downed tools and told her to stay right there.

  A swell pushed her sideways and she almost fell over. Only a quick hand on a sharp rock stopped her, and when she staggered upright again, her palm was bleeding, her jeans were wet right up to her crotch, the bait box was gone and her net was floating away from her – out of reach.

  ‘Daddy!’

  She looked up through the spray and saw Daddy – rod and tackle box in one hand, bucket in the other, looking at her with a strange expression on his face.

  Not panic. Not worry. Not fear.

  Just.

  Looking.

  He was going to leave her there. Ruby just knew it.

  Her chest went tight with terror as the dirty green ocean tried to knock her down and swallow her whole.

  ‘Daddy! Help me!’ she shrieked.

  He did.

  Of course he did. He was her Daddy. He wouldn’t leave her to drown. He took a few uneven strides towards her and then swore soundlessly and discarded the bucket. Ruby saw the dogfish spill back into the waves and wriggle away.

  Daddy splashed towards her. She stretched out her arms, as if he might pick her up and carry her – the way Granpa had lifted her on to the kitchen counter – but he just grabbed her wrist and pulled her along behind him. She still stumbled; she still fell; the waves still knocked her sideways and threatened to wash her off the spit and into the hungry sea.

  But now Daddy was there to take care of her.

  When they were only ankle-deep, they stopped and looked back. Ruby’s teeth chattered with cold and fright. She couldn’t believe how close they had been to not making it. The sea had swallowed the Gore – all but the highest rock right at the end, where Daddy’s chair still perched. As they watched, a large, dark wave slapped it down and dragged it off.

  And then there was just the sea and the foam and the gulls laughing overhead.

  ‘Fuck,’ said Daddy. ‘That was a twenty-quid fish.’

  Then he squeezed her hand and said, ‘Don’t tell Mummy.’

  Ruby nodded, shivering and blue in the lips, even though she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to not tell Mummy about – the lost dogfish, or the fuck.

  Or the way she’d nearly drowned on the Gore.

  38

  MARION MOON WASN’T sure Donald was ever going to get over the Frannie Hatton thing.

  Stepping on a dead woman’s face in the half-dark was bad enough, but the subsequent questioning and searching and suspicion had almost finished her husband off.

  ‘It’s almost finished me off,’ he sighed several times a day when she least expected it. Staring at his uneaten dinner; in the ad-break of Countdown; waiting for the cat to come in.

  The Big Sheep had been very patient with him, but after six weeks of calling in sick, they finally had to give him an ultimatum. If he didn’t return to work by Monday, they’d have to find someone to replace him. Permanently. Donald told them that he understood and he’d do his very best – and then hung up the phone and cried for everything he’d lost and was going to lose.

  ‘Come on,’ said Marion after an hour or so. ‘We’ll go litter picking. That’ll cheer you up.’

  It was a universal truth that however tragic and unfair life got, nothing ever seemed so grim once it was tidied up a bit. So Donald changed out of his pyjamas for the first time in three days, and he and Marion took their pointy sticks and Day-Glo vests and their big green plastic bags over to Instow beach, which was always a safe bet for blue rope and used condoms.

  And parking tickets.

  Donald raised his pointy stick up to his face to examine the third one he’d found in fifty yards. And all of them unopened. Therefore unpaid. That was a lot of council revenue being denied the taxpayer right there.

  ‘I’ve got one too,’ said Marion.

  ‘Cheeky monkeys,’ said Donald
. ‘Probably think by throwing them away they won’t have to pay ’em.’ He speared another one, closer to the sea wall that separated the beach from the road, with its line of parked cars.

  ‘In fact,’ he went on, ‘in fact, they’ll have to pay double.’

  Marion said nothing. But in a minute she’d say, ‘Why’s that?’ and let Donald tell her that it was because of computers linked to the DVLA in Swansea.

  This was how their marriage worked: this measured back-and-forth of Donald knowing all, and her requesting knowledge. It wasn’t that she really didn’t know things, of course; Marion knew plenty. But most importantly, she knew that Donald liked to take the lead and tell people things, and so she saw no harm in following and being told. It was a habit she’d fallen into in the early days of her marriage just to avoid petty disagreements, but which she’d have found hard to break now – even if she’d wanted to. She joked about it to her friends occasionally, but now that that back-and-forth hadn’t been there for six weeks, she missed it.

  They’d been the hardest six weeks of Marion Moon’s married life. It would have been easier to pull a two-headed lamb out of a virgin ewe than to cheer Donald up since he trod on Frannie Hatton. The whole affair had knocked the stuffing out of him, and had made Marion realize that the stuffing was the best bit of her husband.

  But now, on Instow beach on a blustery, spitty day in late October, it felt almost like old times, and Donald already seemed perkier.

  So a minute after he said that in fact the driver would have to pay double, Marion said, ‘Why’s that?’ and jabbed a cigarette packet. They were a rarity nowadays because branded cigarettes were so expensive. Most people who were really devoted to getting cancer had to roll their own. Rizla packets, plastic water bottles and knotted black bags filled with dog poo – these were the litter pickers’ new stock in trade.

  Marion looked up, wondering why Donald hadn’t said Computers linked to the DVLA in Swansea, but Donald was standing upright, peering at something over the sea wall.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ said Marion.

  ‘They’re all off the one car,’ said Donald.