by Alison Bond
She was three months pregnant before she realized why she’d been so tired lately.
It was definitely not part of Ruby’s plan to be a mother again at the age of thirty-six. If this had happened in her old life she would have been frantic with anxiety. Would she be able to work again? Would Dante be angry? Would she be able to cope? How soon would she lose the weight? How many pelvic-floor exercises would it take to get back to normal? She wavered for only a day or two, thinking how inappropriate it was for her to start a second family when she had failed so miserably with the first. But here, with Sean, it felt uncomplicated, he made everything seem easy, and his delight was smeared all over his face every time he looked at her.
Kelly Coltrane came into the world silently. It was the most awful silence that Ruby had ever heard. The doctors pulled Kelly from her and immediately she could see the concern in their eyes.
‘What’s wrong?’ Ruby said. ‘What is it?’ She struggled to pull herself upright, the agony of nineteen hours’ labour instantly forgotten. This brief moment of hushed activity was infinitely more painful. Sean held her hand and tried to catch a glimpse of his daughter through the back of white coats. He saw one tiny foot, bluish and covered with Ruby’s blood. Ruby and Sean locked eyes and held on to each other in mutual dread. The seconds ticked by at an excruciatingly slow pace. Ruby thought, I was never meant to have this child.
Then the newborn Kelly cried out with fierce indignation and everybody relaxed. She was placed in her mother’s arms and Sean thought the baby-pink of her skin was the most beautiful colour he had ever seen.
Kelly changed everything. There were no more languorous days of freedom. The new member of their little family was as demanding as hell. Thank God for Sean. He fell helplessly in love. From the moment he peered into Kelly’s pale blue eyes, he was besotted. He looked after her. He protected her.
Ruby had been the centre of attention for so long that she had grown used to it. This tiny baby took part of Sean away and she was jealous. He didn’t even want to screw her any more.
Was that it? Was a part of her life over for ever? No more sex? Nothing made Ruby feel older than when Sean suggested that they keep their separate bedrooms. He would often bring Kelly into his bed if she was restless and he didn’t want Ruby to be disturbed. Ruby felt excluded, and reacted by trying to forge a relationship with the children she already had. Which did not go as well as she might have hoped.
She made a series of telephone calls over the next few weeks, speaking first to one uncommunicative child and then the next. Almost teenagers, they had lived most of their lives without her. Because she’d been wrapped up in Dante, because now she was absent. She felt as though she hardly knew them at all. She couldn’t even blame them if they hated her. She had left it too long.
If she was no longer part of their lives, then did that mean her place was really here? She found this house grew smaller every day. This world. The same oppressive hills she had looked upon as a child now encroached on who she thought she had become.
And the sad truth was that she hadn’t come very far at all.
28
When Ruby picked up the ringing telephone she had no idea that her life was about to change.
‘Ruby? It’s Max.’
It had been almost a year since they last spoke. A year since she had turned down another insipid script which constituted Max’s idea of a good comeback movie. She figured her repeated refusals had eventually worn him down and he might never call again. But he was still looking out for her, still hoping that one day she would come back to what was no doubt by now a formidable client list and he’d collect another 20 per cent.
‘How are things?’ he asked.
‘Fantastic,’ she said, and she thought that she meant it. It was a beautiful spring morning and she could see a bank of indigo crocuses from her window seat. She’d planted them in the first frosts of November and now they were perfect. ‘You?’
He paused, unused to clients showing concern for his welfare. Nobody ever asked him that. ‘Not bad,’ he said, then moved directly on to business. ‘I’m sending you something.’
Ruby sighed. The very idea of Hollywood seemed abstract now. And a little exhausting. But she admired his persistence. ‘What is it?’ she said.
‘I don’t want to spoil it for you. I know you’re not wild about the idea of doing anything, but just read it, okay? For me?’
‘Sure,’ she said. She had plenty of time and their television was on the blink.
Forty-eight hours later a FedEx package arrived from Max with an ordinary white script inside. It was called Fell in Love with a Boy. Each page had Max’s name xeroxed lightly over it in pale grey shading: a security measure so that any stray copies could be traced back to the source. It must be a hot property. On the front, in black magic marker, Max had scrawled the name ‘Vivienne!!!!!’. A quick flick through showed her that Vivienne was the name of one of the main characters. She threw the script into a magazine rack and went to take a bath.
A week went by before she bothered to read the first few pages. It was dark outside and Kelly was fast asleep. Ruby was curled up in a friendly armchair, half-watching the raindrops chasing down the windows and sipping a hot cup of tea with just a dash of whisky in it, but within fifteen minutes the rain was forgotten, her tea had gone cold and she was transported inside the mind of another woman.
Vivienne. A woman about her age, with a young family and a devoted husband. Nothing special. A woman who risked everything for the wild obsession of a younger man. A woman who let her heart decide her fate, with horrific results. The dialogue crackled, the tension raced across every single page. By the end of the script Ruby was scared half to death and knew deep down inside that this film would be huge.
She couldn’t sleep that night. She kept thinking about Vivienne and the awful choices people make when they are blinded by desire. She understood what it meant to be destructively consumed by love. She could see now that Dante had stopped her from growing up; fear of losing him had kept her trapped in the insecure mindset of an adolescent. Love made you crazy. She knew that. She kept thinking about Ruby Valentine, the actress she once was, and believed that finally Max had got it right. This was a comeback movie, a proper chance. Not a polite request to re-enter the game but a brazen demand for the spotlight to be repositioned and fall on her once more.
Could she still turn it on after all this time? Yes. But she was different now, wasn’t she? Hadn’t she changed? She didn’t even want the spotlight any more, much less crave it. But as she tried to talk herself out of this all she could think of were the possibilities.
The following day she called Max.
‘Who’s the director?’ she asked.
‘You like it?’
‘Who’s the director?’
‘Patrick Mahon.’ Patrick had directed Ruby once before, years ago. She’d been nominated, he’d won the Oscar, and Ruby was the first person he had thanked in his speech.
She drew in a sharp breath. If it had been anyone but him. If only it could have been some kid she’d never heard of, someone she didn’t like. If it had been anyone but Patrick she might have been able to forget all about this dynamite character.
‘From your silence I’m guessing you’re tempted,’ said Max. ‘It’s about time. I thought we’d lost you. I have to say, you’re not on the top of any lists these days.’ The truth was that the last time he’d suggested Ruby for a gig some twenty-something casting assistant had asked who she was.
‘How would this work?’ she asked. ‘I mean, how long would it be for, what are the dates, where does it shoot?’ Max realized she was more than tempted, she was almost sold.
‘Four-month shoot, six weeks’ time, Los Angeles,’ he said. ‘Does this mean you’re considering it?’
‘Of course I am,’ she said. ‘Max, have you read it?’
‘Yep. Great stuff, right? Best Original Screenplay, guaranteed, if they market it right, which they will. I
wish I could say I worked the play for you but you’re his first choice.’
Ruby didn’t know what to do. She felt anxious, as if she was about to dive from the highest cliff into the most treacherous ocean. She was nervous about telling Sean she had even read a script, she was nervous about going back to Hollywood and proving herself again, but most of all she was nervous in case everything fell apart. Ruby remembered how it worked. These people didn’t give you a lot of time to make up your mind. Los Angeles had its own pace, which was a great deal faster than in Wales. Maybe once, a long time ago, when Ruby Valentine meant something, she might have been slowly courted, but not now.
‘How long do I have?’
‘You’ve already had a week,’ said Max.
‘Give me one more.’
‘Forty-eight hours would be even better.’
She simply had to raise the subject with Sean. It felt wrong to be keeping secrets from him. Everything up until now had been shared.
He tried to pretend that he would keep an open mind but she could tell he was upset. ‘So when you said you didn’t ever want to go back to that life, you were what?’ he said. ‘Kidding?’
‘No, I meant it. I meant it at the time.’
‘And now?’ he said.
‘I don’t know’
They sat in uneasy silence. The only sound was Kelly’s contented gurgle from her nest of blankets in front of the fire. She was just starting to talk. Dadda, juice; not Mummy, not so far.
Ruby looked around this place where she had learnt to be a real person again, where she had mended her broken heart and felt safe. ‘It’s just… is this it?’
‘Is what it?’
‘This. Our life. I’m a housewife, Sean. If I’d wanted to be a Welsh housewife I could have stayed where I was all those years ago, saved myself a whole lot of grief.’
‘You said you loved this place.’
‘I do, I really do.’ She would definitely miss the serenity of life here but it was this very absence of challenges that would eventually get to her. She could already tell. ‘I’ll come back.’
But they both knew that it would never be the same. Sean muttered under his breath.
‘Don’t’, said Ruby. ‘If you’ve got something to say…’ ‘You’re right. I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘But would it be so bad? Here with me? I thought you were happy’
‘You could come with us.’
‘Us? You’re not thinking of taking Kelly?’
‘I thought…’
‘This is her home, Ruby, she’s my daughter.’ She knew he was deadly serious. ‘I’ll fight you on this, I swear I will. If you take her I’ll never see either of you again.’
His commanding voice cracked at the final breath. He was close to tears. Ruby couldn’t remember ever seeing a man cry. Not her father, not Andrew, not Dante.
‘At least this way,’ he said, ‘there’s a chance you might come back. For good.’ Sean rubbed the beginnings of a beard on his chin. He wondered why he didn’t feel shocked. Was it because he’d always known that it would end this way? That Ruby was only visiting? It didn’t matter that he had fallen in love with her.
You can keep the house,’ said Ruby. ‘I’ll have the deeds transferred into your name.’
‘It’s not about the house,’ he said. You think this is about a bloody house? Ruby, I love you. I’m in love with you. I have been for a very long time.’ It was the first time he had told her.
‘Please,’ she said. ‘Don’t make this harder for me than it already is.’
You’re going, aren’t you?’ he said. He knew she had already decided. There was nothing he could do to stop her.
‘I think,’ she said eventually, ‘that this could be my last chance.’
‘Then you should take it,’ said Sean. ‘If it’s what you want to do. Take it and make it count.’
She looked at him and down at their beautiful little girl and tried to imagine what it would be like if she stayed here for ever. In time she knew that she would grow to resent them both. Wouldn’t it be better for Kelly to grow up in a place like this, with a father who was devoted to her, rather than with the erratic life of an actress and all the pressure that comes with growing up fast in a sophisticated city? Ruby had already failed once at being a parent to the twins. She could strive to fix things in the few years of childhood the twins had left. But she didn’t know if she could cope with the guilt if she ruined one more child all over again.
Most persuasive of all, though, was the stark, unwavering fact that she was not in love with Sean. She loved him, sure, only not in a way that would ever be enough. They were friends, and perhaps they would always be, but deep down in her soul she knew that her life was only ever meant to have one grand love. And Dante was gone.
If she could live without him, she could live without anyone.
29
So Ruby went back to Hollywood. She finally won her second Oscar for the lead role in Patrick Mahon’s groundbreaking thriller, acclaimed by many as the performance of her life. She stopped being the girl from Disturbance and became the woman from Fell in Love with a Boy, associated for ever with Vivienne, a new feminine archetype for the Eighties’ power revolution, admired by women, feared by men. She was on every talk show and on the cover of every magazine. As comebacks went, it was huge.
In the beginning she thought about Sean and Kelly every day with longing, then after a while her time in Wales started to take on all the substance of a dream. She couldn’t relate to the person she’d been there. Had she really gone for weeks without wearing makeup, unrecognizable in a woolly hat and scarf? Had she honestly shopped at the local store and exchanged the odd bit of gossip with people who only knew her as Mrs Coltrane? How had she survived without mass attention? She easily forgot that she had been happy. She was back in the habit of using other people’s opinions to bolster her ego and wondered how she had survived out of the public eye. Mrs Coltrane ceased to exist. Max was the only person who knew the whole truth, that there had been a baby. And although she never forgot that she had another daughter, gently she let go. She didn’t want to destroy Kelly in the way she had obviously destroyed the twins. Better to allow her the chance of a normal life.
Octavia and Vincent despised her. Of that she was certain. They had been forced to grow up too quickly, to fight for themselves before they were ready. What have you done to them?’ she asked Ella, desperate to blame someone else for the loss of two happy children who had been replaced by these monsters.
‘I didn’t do this to them,’ she said. You did.’
Ruby should have been grateful to Ella, she should have been down on her knees and thanking her. But instead she chose to destroy the closest thing she had to a friendship.
Ella packed up her things shortly after that and arranged for herself and Tomas, by now almost a man and as cynical as Dante had been, to move to New York where she’d been offered a job at a gallery. Before she left she told Ruby something. ‘My father died,’ she said, ‘while you were away, and you know what my mum said? She said she was glad they’d had more good years than bad. And you can’t ever say that, can you? Every year was bad for you two. And yet my mum was out and about within weeks, bless her, after forty happy years of marriage. Whereas you, you walk out on your own children. You’re selfish, Ruby, and you always were. God help you.’
They never saw Ella again. She cut herself off from the family completely, and when Ruby told the twins they wouldn’t see her any more she could see how much they’d loved Ella, and she knew exactly who they blamed for her departure.
Ruby drank an entire bottle of vodka that night. What did Ella know? So what if she was selfish? She was a bloody movie star. She was allowed to be.
It was far too late to build bridges with her children. She hardly bothered to try. In the blink of an eye they would leave home and she would be all by herself. She looked forward to that day. A succession of nannies came and went, driven to despair by the disrespect of their precocious
charges.
Vincent was sullen and withdrawn, preferring his own company to that of other boys. He seemed for the most part to be happier this way, but his fascination with complex role-playing games and cheap fantasy novels was a symptom of the disillusionment he felt with the real world. He had no ambition beyond the following week and didn’t seem to want to fit in. Ruby gave up hope of ever understanding him and he drifted further away, lost in his imagination.
Octavia was impossible to ignore. Unlike Vincent, she baited her mother, getting twisted pleasure from confrontation and tension. Octavia wanted to punish her for what she had done. Ruby had no choice but to take it and Octavia was a constant cause for concern. She was running with a fast crowd and Ruby noticed a change in her of late, a sudden onset of pseudo-sophistication that she feared could only be the result of one thing. She’d had sex. She was barely fourteen years old.
Ruby sensed that some advice on birth control was expected from her but she had trouble communicating with Octavia about trivial things, never mind something of consequence. The irony of giving a lecture on unplanned pregnancy did not escape her. She did try once to sit her down and talk but Octavia was so spiky and hateful that Ruby ended up in tears.
‘Are you trying to be a mother to me?’ said Octavia, when Ruby stopped her on her way out of the house. ‘Is this some kind of joke?’ She was wearing a neon tube dress that screamed jailbait and Ruby thought she had been smoking.
