by Ashly Graham
“Nethersole’s a funny man, Amy May: despite a commendable shoe empathy he’s only got one set himself, and they’re cracked and scuffed and dirty. I complain to him about it. It doesn’t reflect well on me when I have callers.”
Amy May knew that the reason Nethersole was poorly shod was that Ruby didn’t pay him what he was worth, and allow him enough time for himself; but she didn’t say anything.
Ruby called her shoes ‘suites’. Whereas we buy pairs of shoes, ladybirds purchase half a dozen of each; the ones that are for daily use are called ‘sets’, and those for formal wear are ‘suites’. Because most of what Ruby possessed were designer, or haute couture, shoes, they were suites; to her, ‘set’ was a term more applicable to bone china and games of tennis. Only the shoes that Ruby wore about the house and to do the gardening—which meant supervising the gardener, and telling him what he was doing wrong while she sat on the terrace in the shade of an umbrella, holding a tall glass of iced aphid juice as he dug and planted and sweated—were sets.
The shoe racks at Ruby’s house were mechanically complex. The delivery system was electronically controlled, according to programmed selections that Nethersole punched into a hand-held remote control, one that made a global-positioning device look like an abacus. Numbers on the keypad were assigned to individual suites, which meant that each could be retrieved without having to hunt for it, and brought to the front. The racks had wheels on them, one for each suite, and each wheel had six spokes on it ending with a shoe-tree. The wheels automatically rotated forward by one position each time a suite came back from an outing, in order to ensure even wear on each shoe’s tread. The memory sensors beeped until each shoe was placed on the right spoke, clockwise in positions A through F.
Ruby’s shoe racks were not Heath Robinson affairs.
It got more complicated. Depending on the type of event Ruby had been attending, and how long she had stayed, and the quantity of refreshment that she had partaken of, which caused her to list to one side or the other as the evening went on, and depending on how much dancing there had been, and what type…ballroom, folk, tango, salsa, swing, jazz, flamenco, Lindy Hop, cha-cha-cha…—Ruby loved all kinds of dance—wear on her suites was uneven. When the sensors detected this, a red light went on to indicate that a shoe or shoes were in need of re-soling.
When Nethersole went to bed at night and closed his eyes, he saw red lights.
Every morning after her maid, Audrey, had cleared away the breakfast things, Ruby rang for Nethersole to bring her diary and the loose-leaf binder that contained an inventory of her suites—there were nearly a hundred pages in it—so that Ruby could make her choices of footwear for the day. Nethersole had the same information on his computer, but she didn’t hold with computers, on the grounds that her entire collection might be spirited away by a shady character in Seattle, and sold at auction.
Ruby had a number of commitments every day, and wore different suites according to the type of engagement she had, and how many of the same people she might bump into; and she kept changing her mind about what to wear for them up until it was time to leave. Nethersole put them on her feet for her, and sometimes she could go through six suites before she was satisfied that this was really the suite she wanted to wear. Which is why, during the procedure, Ruby lay on an ottoman, and why Nethersole, who was very thin and nervous from the exercise and uncertainty, wore knee pads.
Now it happened that one morning Ruby was preparing to go to the post office to mail an important letter. Normally, she would have sent her maid Audrey on such a footling errand; but today she had a sensitive item to send, and Ruby suspected Audrey of steaming open her letters and reading them before re-sealing and posting them. Sometimes, when Audrey brought in the mail, there were tell-tale traces of wet glue on the envelopes, or the flaps were torn in a manner indicative of tampering.
Ruby already knew that her maid wasn’t to be trusted. Last year, for example, she’d forgotten to renew Ruby’s subscription to The Lady Bird, which was the premier magazine for ladybirds; this resulted in Ruby missing the edition that contained an important feature on the most effective creams for preserving patent leather. She had wished to bring the article to Nethersole’s attention, because it irked her that he still insisted on using lard and goose fat, and other gunges and goos that had been used by his grandfather, Arnie Shoemaker, a cobbler to the gentry, who had written a highly regarded pamphlet on lasts.
“I dare say Arnold never danced a foxtrot,” huffed Ruby. But there were certain subjects that Nethersole was stubborn about, and on which even she dared not argue with him—theirs was a odd relationship—especially since she never had cause to complain about the soft texture of her foot upholstery; and Shoemaker’s authority was not to be disputed lightly.
Just as she was hurrying out of the front door to go to the post office, Ruby met her neighbour Amy May as she came up the steps for their twice-weekly mid-morning cup of honeydew; there was a new kind on the market called Aphidia that they were both partial to.
“Sorry, Amy May, I forgot,” said Ruby; “anyway I haven’t time, not today. Things to do. Come for tea instead.”
“Ah,” said Amy May, thinking that Ruby was on her way either to the Shoe Emporium, or O Sole Mia; “Honoria showed me the picture of those puce stilt heels in this morning’s edition of The Lady Bird. I thought them…well, I’m sure you’d look good in them. You look good in anything and everything you put on, Ruby.”
Ruby sniffed. She had already placed an order by telephone for the shoes Amy May was referring to, but she did not wish to let on how much she liked them. Amy May was a good friend, but she couldn’t have her rushing out to buy a pair herself; one of the great hazards of high society was being seen in public wearing the same shoes as someone else.
“Shoes,” said Ruby, “all I ever hear about is shoes. There’s more to life than shoes.”
“But Ruby,” said Amy May, “you always say that when a ladybird is tired of shoes she’s tired of life, as Dr Johnson said about London. When I gave you those diamanté sandals for your birthday, you were of the opinion that shoes mattered more to a ladybird than her spots.”
“And so they do, Amy May,” said Ruby disingenuously. “Spots are spots, we all have them and that’s that. See you for tea, dear.”
And she hurried off, for spots were exactly what she had on her mind. An extraordinary article, in the Style section of that week’s Lady Bird magazine, had predicted that the spots that every ladybird’s wing cases have on them—Ruby and Amy May bore two of them, large and black on their cochineal, brick-red shells—would shortly be rendered unfashionable by the arrival on the market of a spot-removal cream.
A number of medical tests remained to be conducted, to make sure that the chemicals in the ointment would not leech through the shell; for there was a concern that if they were absorbed into the bloodstream, dementia might ensue. But if all was well and the health department signed off on the spot-removal cream, the Lady Bird piece, which was not bylined, said that the preparation could be on the market within a month.
Ruby would have mentioned this to Amy May, but she was embarrassed to admit to her that she was intrigued by the idea of getting rid of her spots. In addition to which, she wanted to steal a march on her friend, who was younger and better looking than she was, by arriving at Lady Fitzlady’s annual garden party in twelve days time with a spotless shell.
What Ruby had in her handbag for posting, therefore, was a letter to the Assistant Editor of The Lady Bird, Elspeth de Rigueur, whom she’d met once at a ball, asking her for information about what went into this cream. The anonymous writer hadn’t given anything away about the ingredients, which meant that if Ruby received a helpful answer she would be the only one to know.
But by that afternoon, over tea with Amy May, the subject of the spot-removal cream had so thrilled and possessed Ruby as to overcome her desire for secrecy. She had to tell someone about it, and that person could only be Amy M
ay, her closest friend, who would not have seen the article because she was unique amongst ladybirds in not taking The Lady Bird.
As Amy May was prattling on about how Rose Parshall’s uncle had died of a surfeit of Chinese aphids, and how it was rumoured that Hedda Tantrum—who’d been married five times and was suspected of having pushed her last husband down five flights of stairs, the last two after he had come to rest on a landing—had been stepping out with a man who was half her age and a quarter of her size, Ruby interrupted.
Rose’s uncle and the Tantrum scandal were old news, Ruby said, and that whether it was five flights of stairs or one flight didn’t have a material bearing on the severity of the alleged crime, unless one was of the opinion that a single-flight precipitation was acceptable within the context of normal domestic strife; and she told Amy May about the cream and what it was supposed to do.
Her friend listened carefully. “That’s fascinating, Ruby; though as you said, spots are just spots. What’s this stuff made of?”
Ruby decided that she’d given away enough. “Well, Amy May, I believe that is proprietary information. This ointment is very new, and as I say it still has to be proven safe; even if it is, it’ll probably be years before it’s available at the chemist, and then only by prescription. I mean, what if the doctor who came up with it is a quack? It’s unlikely, given that the report is in The Lady Bird, for the magazine has an impeccable reputation and the editors vet their sources very thoroughly.
“But mistakes happen, and it might cause a dangerous reaction. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned it, Amy May; I’d hate to be responsible for my best friend coming out in…I mean, ending up in hospital. Or worse.”
Ruby wiped the corner of an eye with her napkin at the thought of losing Amy May, and reached for another aphid cake to add to the one that was already on her plate.
“Trust me, Amy May, one should steer clear. The risks are too high.”
Amy May smiled and took a sip of tea.
’
Chapter Nineteen
‘
For a week Ruby was in an agony of anticipation as to whether or not she would receive a reply from Elspeth de Rigueur, the Assistant Editor at The Lady Bird, and if so whether it would arrive before Lady Fitzlady’s garden party, which was now only five days away. Ruby was in a more difficult mood than ever around the house, and found fault with everything that Audrey the maid did, and Nethersole the footman, and the cook, Mrs Bustle.
To Audrey’s annoyance, Ruby was waiting at the front door every morning when the post was due to arrive, and Audrey knew that there was something that her employer was particularly anxious or excited about. At their Friday night get-togethers at the Horse and Groom pub, where all those in service in the neighbourhood gathered to exchange gossip about their employers, everyone would be most disappointed at the lack of up-to-the-minute detail about the goings-on in Ruby’s life, which were a staple of the domestic staffs’ entertainment.
That Ruby was going to extra lengths to keep something a secret made them even more intrigued.
But the next day a reply did come, for The Lady Bird is always prompt in its correspondence. Ruby could hardly restrain herself from tearing open the letter; but it was in The Lady Bird’s distinctive gold envelope with the red wax seal on the flap, and she wanted to leave it propped on the hall table all day, so that callers could see that Ruby had received a personal communication from the prestigious organ, which, sooner or later, she would have an opportunity to glance at. Even Audrey wasn’t able to replace that seal, once it was broken, so there was no fear of her reading it.
That evening, after she had served cocktails to the Hardcastle Shelleys, Ruby rushed upstairs to her boudoir with the precious missive and opened it.
Inside she was thrilled to find a hand-written note from Elspeth de Rigueur, thanking her for her letter, and informing her that she had asked the woman who’d written the article about the new spot-removal cream to provide her with a list of the ingredients and their quantities, as well as a description of how the product was prepared and applied.
This she was pleased to enclose.
Ruby’s glance at the list, which seemed more like a recipe, confirmed that the author had given her everything she could have wished for, and there was no mention of any harmful side-effects. She was so thrilled that she rang for Audrey, and gave her and Nethersole the next day off so that maid and footman could go out together, there being an understanding between them. Ruby would be cancelling her appointments for tomorrow, she told Audrey, in order to stay at home with all of her feet up, in her velvet pom-pom slippers on the circular pouffe, and spend the day reading an improving book.
This was on doctor’s orders, Ruby said…referring not to her moral education, but to the resting of her feet.
The following day, after breakfast as soon as Audrey and Nethersole were gone, and she was sure that Mrs Bustle the cook was downstairs in the kitchen—she could smell the bread burning and hear Mrs Bustle cursing—Ruby settled down to peruse the ingredients of the lotion.
It was a very queer “recipe”, calling for a great deal of goats’ milk, and clotted cream; as well as exact amounts of gooseberry jam, ascorbic acid, ground ginger, extra-hot Madras curry powder, garlic, turmeric, cayenne pepper, bleach, ammonia, lemon juice, baking soda, malt vinegar, smelling salts, the yolks of seven pheasant eggs, and three pints of sloe gin.
There was one worrisome item: four ounces of powdered ptarmigan liver; “No substitute”, it read.
Ruby didn’t know what a ptarmigan was, and how difficult it was to come by, and on what terms it might be willing to part with its liver. She had never seen mention of ptarmigan in any of her fine-dining journals, or medical or health bulletins. Asking Mrs Bustle about it, whose culinary repertoire in addition to burnt toast was as limited as a cow’s taste for nothing but grass and hay, was out of the question.
Employing Mrs Bustle had been Ruby’s attempt to keep her weight down, after all her diets had failed.
The dry ingredients, Ruby noted, had to be mixed in a ceramic bowl and added to the clotted cream and goats’ milk, after they had been ladled and poured into a wooden vat. Then the liquid items were added, and the whole left to sit for two hours, during which one stirred it at fifteen-minute intervals with the largest and longest size of wooden spoon.
Under no circumstances was the spoon to be a plastic or metal one, and the instructions included a note in large capital letters that one should wear rubber gloves, goggles, and a face mask while stirring: “Very important”, said the Lady Bird staff writer or contributor; the magazine disclaimed responsibility for injuries or afflictions that might arise from failure to observe this precaution.
When the mixture was ready, one was to take a shower and scrub one’s shell with a loofah. After thoroughly drying off with a rough towel, one climbed into the vat and applied the first coat of cream evenly over the shell with a rubber spatula, before rubbing it well in with the gloves, paying special attention to the spots.
Having stood in the vat for half an hour, during which the windows were to be left open as wide as possible, one slathered on a second coat and left it to sink in for twenty minutes; then climbed out of the vat onto a tile or wooden floor—not a rug or carpet. Whatever cream hadn’t been absorbed by the shell was wiped off with a clean towel, which was then to be wrapped in three thick black plastic bags and taken to the incinerator for burning, along with the lotion-impregnated vat after it had been broken up.
On no account was any surplus mixture to be re-used, or poured down the drain; nor was it to be taken internally, allowed to come into contact with the feelers, or left within reach of children.
Following another shower, the shell was to be brushed with extra-virgin olive oil, and buffed with an electric shell-polisher on the highest setting. For the next forty-eight hours one wasn’t to expose oneself to sunlight, bathe, take exercise, or be in the presence of babies. Upon any sign of bubbling or cracking
of the shell, one was advised to consult immediately with a dermatologist and plastic surgeon.
Ruby decided not to trust her chemist with making up the prescription. He was a well-known retailer of the on dit amongst Ruby’s acquaintance, along with the funny and happy pills and aphid homebrew that he dispensed under the counter and sold out of his back room to his favourite customers. No, she would make the stuff herself; it shouldn’t be too difficult, for everything she required with the perplexing exception of the powdered ptarmigan liver was more or less readily available.
So Ruby tied on the drabbest headscarf that she could find, a bottle-green one, and put on her third darkest sunglasses, the ones she’d got for a holiday in Prague, and went in search of the ingredients. Her theory was that, if she purchased them at a number of different shops, even if she was ‘spotted’, nobody would be curious about what she might want such an unusual variety and quantity of items for.
People weren’t fooled: Ruby’s figure and voice were instantly recognizable, and the eyebrows of others like her who patronized the upper-class establishments, which were already pencilled fashionably high, were raised even farther. The fact that Ruby had taken to doing her own household shopping, rather than sending one or other of her servants, and that she wasn’t being chauffeured in her Rolls-Royce—a taxi was detected kerb-crawling behind her as she darted from place to place—attracted attention.
Usually Ruby only appeared in shops to dither in front of the assistants while she tried to decide between the suede and crocodile-skin shoes, or the hat with the ostrich plume and the blue pillbox; before buying them both and ordering her long-suffering driver, Bentley, invisible under the teetering stack of boxes in his arms, to carry her purchases to the car where it was idling on the double yellow line outside.
Ruby’s ploy of going to several places for lesser quantities of clotted cream and goats’ milk than she needed was also unsuccessful, because everyone compared notes as to where they’d seen her last, and what she had bought. As their enthusiasm mounted to find out what she was up to, several of the other shoppers tipped a couple of urchins to follow her about and report on her movements.
