The Pearl in the Attic

by Karen McCombie

  Was Ruby not destined to be a maid-of-all-work, as she and her father had supposed? Was she to be a shop girl instead?

  Ruby bit her already tender lip as thoughts and possibilities flew around her mind. She was not to empty chamber pots, then? To endlessly blacken the stove and fireplaces on her knees? To stitch and mend with eyes that could not manage such neat work, no matter how much she struggled and toiled?

  Ruby was to serve customers. To dress smartly. To be around those cakes that were like pieces of art.

  Was this not something? Was this not hope?

  And then Ruby saw the marks.

  As Aunt Gertrude lifted the key to the door, the cotton sleeve of her blouse rode up her arm, and a purple-blue pattern on her skin revealed itself, matching the fading lilac of the bruise Ruby could now plainly see on the woman’s jaw.

  A sharp breeze picked up, sending a crumpled handbill tumbling along the pavement, taking Ruby’s fragile hopes with it…

  Not Pleased to Meet You

  Crunch, crunch, crunch.

  “Sure you don’t want one?” Zephyr asks, rustling a packet of crisps he must’ve just bought from the vending machine.

  I tap my fingers on the sketchbook on my lap, wishing I was somewhere quiet, somewhere alone, so I could reread Chapter Two, and soak up every delicious description of the cake shop Ruby found herself in.

  Would it be rude – or weird – to disappear off to the ladies’ loos again so soon? I only came back and joined Zephyr a minute ago.

  Still, I am tempted to scuttle off, and it’s not just because of the chapter that’s tucked inside Nana’s sketchbook. The thing is, I’m not really sure what me and Zephyr are meant to say to each other. It’s pretty embarrassing hanging out with a strange boy, with a strange name, who I’m supposed to be related to. But I suppose Mum is in exactly the same position, in a doctor’s office somewhere in this building.

  And I guess it doesn’t help that my bum is on the seat of a hard chair in the hospital café, but my head is still drifting in Edwardian London.

  “Nope,” I reply to his offer of Quavers.

  I drum my fingers on the orange sketchbook in my lap and then glance at my mobile, willing Mum to get back to my text. Nana sleeping – we are in hospital café. Come soon! S x I’d typed on my way here from the loo just now.

  “I could never live in a place like this.”

  “A hospital?” I say, glancing up at Zephyr.

  I could pretend I’m being funny, just fooling around like Nana would do, but of course my humour is armed with barbs.

  “London, I mean!” says Zephyr, laughing along, not spotting the edge to my voice. “It’s way too big and busy. It’s just packed with roads and traffic.”

  I think for a second, trying to remember the name of the place that Nana and Grandad had emigrated to; where Mum was born.

  “Isn’t Melbourne a big city?” I ask.

  “Yeah, but we live outside of it. Near the beach.”

  “You’re into surfing,” I say, thinking of the painting in the room back at Nana’s flat.

  “Yeah, that’s why I wanted to come with Dad when he went to Cornwall – I’ve heard so much about the surfing beaches there,” says Zephyr, shoving some more crisps in his mouth. Then he glances up at me. “Hey, how did you know I was into surfing? I thought you didn’t know anything about me and my family!”

  “I didn’t. I mean, I don’t really.” I fumble for my words. “It’s just that there’s this picture of you that Nana painted—”

  “Oh, yeah!” Zephyr interrupts, his face lighting up. “I can’t wait to see that for real. Patsy’s an amazing artist, isn’t she? I mean, I emailed her that shot a couple of weeks ago, and then when she showed me the painting, finished and up on the wall of—”

  “Wait,” I say, doing the interrupting this time. “How could she have shown it to you? You’ve only just arrived here…”

  Zephyr blinks his brown eyes at me, as if he can’t believe I could be so dumb.

  “Well, Skype, of course! Patsy likes giving us a guided tour of the place. Showing us her latest paintings, and what mad stuff she’s bought. We like when she does close-ups of Mr Spinks and Angie too.”

  “You and your dad Skype Nana? Since when?” I demand, feeling a little rumble of jealousy in my chest. I’m jealous that they know Nana, and that they’ve seen her flat way before I saw it. I’m even jealous that they’re buddy-buddy with the stupid dog and parrot. Who I’m really, really fond of already, actually.

  “Well, since Dad managed to track Patsy down a few months ago … I guess we talk maybe once a week?”

  “You and your dad talk to her that often?” I ask, alternating between a flush of rage and a chill of sadness that someone else has been chatting to my grandmother when it should have been me.

  “Sure. Us two, and my mum and my little sister, Missy, sometimes,” Zephyr says with a shrug.

  SLAM! I have more relatives. An aunt and another cousin, it seems. My head is so twisty I can’t even do the family maths any more…

  “So,” Zephyr mumbles with his mouth full, “how did you guys fall out with Patsy anyway?”

  BLAM! Zephyr’s question is like a slap.

  How can he ask a question like that when he doesn’t even know us? And why do I need to explain Mum and Nana’s eternally tetchy relationship to him anyway? I feel like slapping him back.

  “You do know my grandmother – our grandmother – has dementia, don’t you?”

  As soon as I say it, as soon as I see his reaction, I feel awful.

  “No way!” he exclaims, slamming back in his chair. “I just thought she was a bit, you know, kooky. In a brilliant way. I can’t believe she’s—”

  “Scarlet!”

  I have never been so glad to see my mother.

  She’s hurrying over to me, a few steps ahead of Zephyr’s dad. I feel I’m some oasis she’s trying to reach, after being lost in the desert for days.

  “All right, darling?” she says, wrapping an arm around me and planting a quick kiss on my head before she sits down in the chair next to me.

  “Mmm,” I mumble, blushing a little at Mum’s unexpected warmth, and not just because it’s happened in public.

  Then I see her take a deep breath, sit a little taller, and get herself into Practical Mode.

  “Well, this is quite a day,” she says, raising her dark eyebrows a little. “So, Zephyr; you and Scarlet have already met, but we haven’t. I’m Ren. Your aunt Ren, I suppose.”

  She holds out a hand to shake Zephyr’s, at a tricky point in his snack eating. My cousin quickly shoves a handful of crisps into his mouth, then offers his salty, greasy fingers to Mum.

  “Sorry, I appear to have failed to teach my son any manners,” says Dean, grinning as he intervenes, grabbing a serviette from the dispenser on the table and placing it firmly into Zephyr’s hands. “Anyway, Scarlet, as you can tell, I’ve managed to fill your mum in. You know, surprise, surprise – we’re related!”

  I look from Dean to Mum, who is giving her unexpected half-brother a pursed, small smile. To anyone who doesn’t know Mum, she might be exuding calm, but I’m thinking she’s on the edge of losing it. Tense like she’s about to explode. It doesn’t happen very often with my control-freak mother, but I have seen it when she’s been frustrated about things going mega wrong at work, or being driven mad by Nana’s contrariness, or the couple of times I’ve forgotten to phone her when I’ve been late home from Bella’s or Aisha’s and she’s imagined I’m dead in a ditch…

  “Should we get out of here? Go back to Nana’s or something?” I suggest.

  “Yes, yes! Good idea,” Mum says, looking at me gratefully. “We’ve all got lots to talk about, so let’s go somewhere more comfortable.”

  “Not Nana’s, then!” I can’t help but joke, even if it’s the wrong time for goofing around.

  Dean and Zephyr laugh; not that I care. But I’m relieved to see Mum manage a wry smile.

&nbs
p; “Well, we’ve got satnav in the hire car,” Dean says to Mum, as we all start readying ourselves to go. “So we’ll meet you at Patsy’s, then?”

  “Yes, sure,” Mum says curtly. “See you there in—”

  Mum’s mobile jangles to life in her bag. The ringtone is frantic – one she chose specially for anyone calling from the office.

  “Sorry, I just have to take this,” she says, grabbing her phone and purposefully walking away from us for a little privacy.

  And now I’m left, stranded and shuffling, with Dean and Zephyr.

  “It’s her work,” I mumble, just for something to say.

  “Ah, yes.” Dean nods. “Patsy says she does online … office…”

  “…innovation,” I finish, and hope he doesn’t ask what that means. “What, er, do you do?”

  “I make eco log cabins back home in Australia. That’s why I was in Cornwall; there was a big convention – all about different building materials.”

  “Basically, just different logs, then,” I say, and then wish I hadn’t. I can’t help myself with the cheeky remarks sometime, but I should keep them for people I actually know. Though even the people I know don’t find my comments too funny, sometimes. (Mum, mostly. And I drive Bella and Aisha mad with them sometimes.)

  “Ha!” laughs Dean. “Got your sense of humour from your grandmother, I see!”

  OK, now I’m blushing, and a little bit pleased. Nana always has been funny. I hadn’t thought that—

  Wait … my backpack!

  “I forgot my bag – it’s by Nana’s bed,” I say hurriedly. “Can you tell Mum I’ve gone to get it?”

  With that I grab hold of the sketchbook and my phone and hurry away, the rubber soles of my Converse whacking on the vinyl flooring of the hospital corridors as I run.

  WHACK! WHACK! The blood pumps through my frazzled brain, sharpening it into focus for the first time in hours.

  WHACK! WHACK! What’s going to happen to Nana if she has dementia?

  WHACK! WHACK! Will she have to move into a home?

  WHACK! WHACK! Or come and live with us in Chelmsford?

  I slow as I clatter through the ward door, realizing I can’t bear to think of Nana going into a home, but knowing for sure that having her in our little two-bedroom flat isn’t going to be an option.

  And most of all, I realize that I don’t want the dementia diagnosis to be true…

  “Hello,” I say softly as I reach Nana’s bed.

  She’s still sleeping, but I bend over and gently fasten the loose hair clip I spotted earlier, then plant a kiss on her downy cheek.

  “Thank you for giving me Chapter Two of The Pearl in the Attic, Nana,” I whisper. “It’s perfect. I can’t wait to read Chapter Three.”

  The heavy lids of her eyes may be shut, but I suddenly see Nana give a pleased little smile.

  “You know, there’s no smoke without a fire, Scarlet…” I hear her murmur.

  “What?” I ask, feeling a chill of confusion. Is Nana rambling? Is this part of her condition?

  “You heard, Scarlet,” she says softly. “Kick-start those brain cells!”

  And then her smile slips away into sleep again.

  I straighten up, still staring at her.

  And then a flicker of memory comes to me.

  “Kick-start those brain cells!” That was what Nana used to say whenever I got stuck on clues she’d give during the fun paper trails around her garden.

  This tells the time, but not at night led me to the sundial.

  These bells will never ring took me to the patch of bluebells.

  A secret passage! got me bending down at the fence with the broken chunk of panelling at the bottom where next door’s cat liked to sneak through.

  Hold on; Nana really is playing a game with me, isn’t she?

  Has she just given me a clue for Chapter Three?

  No smoke without a fire…

  “OK, Nana; understood,” I whisper, feeling as if she’s just presented me with a gift, in the mess and the muddle of everything.

  Gathering up my bag, I speed away, now desperate to get back to the flat, whether we have our unexpected visitors or not.

  And on the way there, I need to engage my eight-year-old clue-solving brain…

  The Pearl in the Attic

  Chapter 3

  The full moon made silhouettes of the chimney pots.

  Outside in the yard, the bakery building sat hunkered in the cool shadows, quiet and closed.

  The windows of the houses beyond were mostly dark, with only the occasional flicker of a candle or the glow of gaslight to be seen.

  Ruby held her own candle aloft, turned away from the window and surveyed the room she had been given. The furnishings – a bed, a chair, a table with a washbowl and jug, a cupboard – were plain and good. Yellow roses twined their way prettily up and down the wallpaper.

  She might have considered herself very lucky, if she did not miss her family in Kent so dreadfully, and was not so dreadfully worried about the “family” she had come to in London.

  Still, it was just the first day, she tried to tell herself, biting at her lip.

  I’m fourteen now, and must be brave and make the best of—

  Ruby froze at the sudden sound of the crashing and thrashing, and quickly blew out the candle she was holding.

  It was as if a bear were loose on the stairs.

  A bear disturbed from its hibernation, coming in search of the fool that had dared to awaken him.

  “Gertie! GERTIE!” she heard her uncle bellow, his footfall a staggered thud on every tread, his big body crashing against wall and banister.

  As he reached the landing and unevenly stamped his way towards the front bedroom, Ruby felt the tremor of every thumping step vibrate on the soles of her own bare feet.

  SLAM!

  At the bone-rattling sound of a door thrust shut, Ruby pressed her back against the glass of the window, wishing she could slip clean through it and disappear into the cool of the night air.

  But perhaps all would be well. Perhaps her uncle’s evening on the ale would mean he’d collapse, drunkenly sleeping through till the early hours when he’d need to be up making the day’s bread fresh for his customers.

  Or perhaps not.

  Muffled roars and cursing suddenly burst and buzzed through the wall.

  “D’you HEAR me, woman!”

  Fear fuelling her, Ruby rushed towards the shape in the shadows she knew to be the bed, planted the candlestick on the chair beside her and quickly crawled under the shelter of the scratchy blankets and worn counterpane.

  “…you will NOT disobey me…”

  Lying in a rigid curl in the unfamiliar bed, Ruby tried to imagine the crowded, warm comfort of her wriggling little sisters about her … but like a creeping fog, the noise of her uncle’s foul temper – words marred and muddled by the slur of strong liquor – seemed to seep under her bedroom door and seek her out.

  “Do you understand, you half-witted…”

  On and on he yelled and hectored, yet the only response to Uncle Arthur’s thundering was silence. What was happening in the room next door, Ruby fretted? Was Gertrude standing in her tall, dignified solitude, fixing her blank look upon her husband as he raged? Or was she cowering in her bed as Ruby was, wishing for but knowing there was no one at all to rescue her?

  And then more sounds came which turned Ruby’s skin clammy with fright – clatterings and thumps, as if someone had fallen or been thrown to the floor. Then one long, low groan.

  Ruby barely breathed; a clock somewhere ticked, long minutes passing.

  The quiet was not to be trusted, she felt. What did it mean? What secrets did it hold?

  Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock…

  Another sound began to drone in the distance: snoring.

  And another joined it: a shuffle, followed by a tap-tap, then scrabbling.

  Ruby peeked out from under the covers and stared straight up at the source of these new noi
ses – the ceiling.

  The creature, or creatures, responsible were surely bigger than the mice she was so used to catching and shooing from the cottage back home.

  Rats, perhaps?

  At the thought of them, Ruby sunk further beneath her blankets, silently thankful that her aunt had not followed her husband’s orders and given Ruby the attic as her lodgings.

  Now a creak of a nearby door made Ruby shuffle up on to her elbows. Soft, slow footsteps this time. Footsteps that were not her uncle’s.

  Some twist turned in Ruby’s stomach, and she thought of her mother, constantly lashed and belittled by Father’s tongue. Aunt Gertrude may not have been warm to her in any way so far, but Ruby felt a rush of pity for this woman who plainly had to bear harsh blows as well as harsh words.

  Without thinking, Ruby threw off the covers and ran to her own door, pulling it open. What comfort she might offer, she did not stop to think.

  But Ruby’s good intentions quickly evaporated, like the trailing smoke of a snuffed flame.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” hissed Aunt Gertrude, her hair now hanging down across the chest of her nightgown in a long plait like a great brown snake. It might have been a shadow cast by the candle she held, but it seemed to Ruby as if there was a livid red mark across the left-hand side of her aunt’s face.

  “I couldn’t sleep because…” Ruby began, then halted.

  Something in Aunt Gertrude’s stare seemed to defy her to say the truth of what she had heard, Ruby realized. Perhaps the older woman thought it was not Ruby’s place to draw attention to the matter, or perhaps her aunt could not face the shame of what had just occurred?

  “…I heard some noises from the attic,” Ruby continued instead.

  “There’s a window broken up there,” Aunt Gertrude replied briskly. “Probably a pigeon’s got in and can’t find its way out again. I’ll take a look tomorrow. Now get to bed – the morning will come soon enough.”

  Ruby closed the door softly on her aunt, and her intention to help.

  She crawled back under the covers, not supposing for an instant that the sweet escape of sleep would come to her in this disquieting place…