by Sharon Owens
‘It wouldn’t do any good, I’m sorry.’
‘Ruby, don’t torture yourself,’ Jasmine whispered.
‘But I love him so much.’
‘I know you do,’ Jasmine sighed.
Ruby kissed Jonathan softly on the lips.
‘Okay then, I’m ready,’ she said finally.
Quietly, the machine was switched off. Eventually they all left the room and went to stand in the corridor.
Ruby wept until she couldn’t breathe and her eyes were raw and sore. Jasmine wept too. Even the nurse was visibly upset.
‘I want to go home now,’ Ruby said a few minutes later, suddenly feeling completely numb. ‘I don’t want to be here when they… when they…’
‘Okay, I’ll drive,’ Jasmine told her.
‘Are you still drunk?’ Ruby asked as they got into the car.
‘Just a bit,’ Jasmine admitted.
‘Are you able to drive? Only I don’t think I can manage it. I’m shaking all over.’
‘No problem. Can you believe we got a bloody parking ticket?’ Jasmine said bitterly.
‘They weren’t to know,’ Ruby sighed.
‘All the same.’
‘What time is it?’ Ruby asked suddenly.
‘Eleven thirty.’
‘It’s still Christmas Eve,’ Ruby said dully.
‘Yes.’
Jasmine automatically switched on the radio. Ruby switched it off again.
‘No radio, sorry. If they play a sad song, I’ll kill myself,’ she said.
‘Okay. Sorry.’
The traffic had thinned out considerably by now. Ruby barely spoke as Jasmine drove home at a snail’s pace. The red berry lights were glowing brightly in the bay window as Jasmine carefully parked the car outside the house.
‘Thank God there were no cops about,’ she said. Her hands were white with gripping the steering wheel so tightly. ‘I’ve never done that before, I swear to you.’
‘I know you haven’t. Thank you, Jasmine,’ Ruby said, beginning to cry again.
‘Come on, Ruby love. Let’s get you inside and warmed up a bit. Yeah?’
Ruby’s key in the lock sounded horrifically loud and the house rang with silence when they stepped into the hall. Jasmine closed the front door softly behind them. They went through to the kitchen at the back of the house in a kind of daze. Ruby switched on the radio to a talk station and then turned it down very low so she could still hear the presenter’s voice but not very much of what he was saying. Anything to drown the silence.
‘Shall I make us some tea?’ Jasmine asked.
‘Yes, please. Actually I think a brandy would be better. Make mine a double, would you?’
‘Right. Where do you keep the glasses again?’
‘On the dresser,’ Ruby said, pointing.
As the two women sat down at the kitchen table, cradling their drinks, they saw Jonathan’s Christmas present sitting on a chair. The fancy wrapping now felt like a reproach.
‘I’m so sorry, Ruby,’ Jasmine sighed.
‘What for?’
‘Making you buy that gift,’ Jasmine said, nodding towards the prettily wrapped box.
‘Don’t be silly,’ Ruby said. ‘It was a lovely idea. They are beautiful shoes.’
A few minutes passed in silent contemplation.
‘Can I phone anyone for you?’ Jasmine asked then. ‘Family? Friends?’
‘No,’ Ruby sighed. ‘Jonathan had no family to speak of. His parents died a few years ago. He had no siblings. Isn’t it funny? I have none either. And I don’t want all his colleagues to land round here on top of us tonight. Not on Christmas Eve! I’m not ready for all that yet. I’m not ready for people.’
‘No, of course you’re not ready for people. But what about your own parents? Surely I should ring them?’
‘Oh, it’s all right. I’ll speak to them tomorrow morning,’ Ruby said flatly. ‘They’ll be off to Midnight Mass by now anyway. They wouldn’t miss Midnight Mass if the world was coming to an end. They’d be sitting up as straight as pokers in the front row, clutching their best missals and their best rosary beads and muttering their good intentions to Saint Anthony or Saint Jude or something… Praying for other people when they should just go round and talk to them…’
‘Okay,’ Jasmine said carefully. She had no idea what Ruby was muttering about. Jasmine was Church of Ireland. Not that she ever darkened the door of her local church unless it was a special occasion. Religion was for the oldies in God’s Waiting Room, Jasmine reckoned, for those who had nowhere else to go on a Sunday morning.
‘I won’t be holding a big wake if that’s what you’re wondering,’ Ruby continued.
‘No?’
‘No. I’m Catholic but Jonathan was Presbyterian. And, anyway, he wasn’t overly religious. He wouldn’t have wanted anything too fussy. He once said that a quiet cremation was the most civilized thing to do when someone died. Lots of white flowers, but no words spelt out in the hearse. Nothing too…’
‘Common?’
‘Over the top.’
‘Right. You must do what you think he would’ve wanted…’
‘I just want to sit here for a little while, Jasmine. By myself, if you don’t mind? And you don’t have to come here tomorrow, you know? Or even tonight; I’m sure you have plans for Christmas Day?’
‘Would you listen to yourself! Don’t be daft, Ruby. Of course I’m staying here tonight. And as long as you need me. All over the Christmas holidays. That’s not a problem. Sure I’d only be partying and talking pure rubbish otherwise.’
‘But you said you had a big family get-together to go to,’ Ruby reminded her. ‘Your mum will be cooking a goose and everything, you said.’
‘Hush, woman, I’m going nowhere. I’ll just give my parents a ring to let them know where I am, now you mention it. And then I’ll fix us some supper.’
‘Yes, go ahead, the phone’s in the hall. But I don’t want anything to eat.’
‘You must have something. A little drop of soup?’
‘No, really. You go on up to bed, okay? Unless you want some supper yourself, of course. The guestroom is on the first floor. It’s the pale blue room with the red curtains and bedspread. You’ll find some towels and pyjamas in the airing cupboard next to the bathroom.’
‘I’ll go up now. But just shout if you need a hug. Right then. Goodnight, I suppose…’
When Jasmine had left the room, Ruby drained her glass and poured herself another large brandy. Combined with the pill she’d taken earlier the effect was pleasantly insulating. Her head felt as heavy as lead. And her heart felt as fragile and light as an empty birdcage.
Better watch it, she thought suddenly. Mustn’t take to the drink! Don’t want to end up a raving alcoholic, now do I? Muttering to myself at bus stops. The neighbours avoiding me. Wearing two odd shoes to the shops.
Then she lifted Jonathan’s gift and went to the sitting room to place it reverently beneath the Christmas tree. She sat down gently beside the tree, sipping brandy and sobbing until the cold morning light stole across the rooftops and it was Christmas Day.
When Jasmine came tiptoeing down the stairs at nine o’clock the following morning, she discovered two things. One: Ruby fast asleep on the sofa, fully dressed and reeking of brandy. And two: outside, it was snowing heavily.
4. The Aftermath
‘Ruby? Wake up, sweetheart,’ Jasmine said softly, rubbing her friend’s arm gently.
‘What is it?’ Ruby mumbled, still deep in a brandy fog.
‘You’ll do your back in sleeping there like that.’
‘Leave me alone, please, Jasmine. I’m fine.’
‘No, you’re not fine. You’ll be crippled, woman. Come on now, up you get.’
‘No, please just let me sleep.’
‘Ruby O’Neill, you’re still legless and you need to go to bed. Wake up this minute or I’ll phone one of my brothers to come round and carry you up the stairs.’ Jasmine heaved Ruby into
a sitting position and carefully tried to pull her off the sofa. Several of the pink and white scatter cushions toppled on to the floor. Jasmine cleared them out of the way with her foot.
‘I’m really tired,’ Ruby groaned.
‘I know you are,’ Jasmine soothed her.
‘I want to sleep.’
‘Yes, I know. Can you walk upstairs? You’ll be much cosier in bed.’
‘Okay, I’ll try.’
‘Good girl. How much have you had to drink anyway?’
‘Not that much.’
‘Oh yeah? Looks like it!’
Ruby staggered to her feet and Jasmine supported her slowly up the wide stairway, gripping on to the banisters for extra security at every step. Ruby was asleep again before her head had even touched the pillow. Jasmine slipped off Ruby’s chunky boots and folded the plump duvet across her body. Poor Ruby was in a right old state, Jasmine thought to herself. She wondered briefly if there was any point in falling in love herself if this was what happened to a girl when the fairy tale came crashing to an abrupt end. Maybe she was better off playing the field and not getting too attached, too soon.
‘You have a good sleep now and I’ll check in on you later,’ Jasmine whispered softly. She closed the curtains and stole out of the room as quietly as she could, even though Ruby was sleeping so soundly that a Lambeg drum falling down the stairs wouldn’t have woken her up at that point.
As Ruby’s neighbours on Ravenhill Road celebrated Christmas by tearing open their selection boxes and unwrapping their various presents, Ruby lay curled in a tight ball, lost in a long and meandering dream about herself and Jonathan. Sometimes they were young again and larking about drinking cheap lager in the Union bar. And sometimes they were getting married, laughing and giggling about how crazy they were to be running away. Eloping like film stars, Jonathan had said. Like film stars…
‘I bought you something nice too,’ Ruby heard a man’s voice say. And suddenly she was sitting bolt upright and wide awake in the bed, wondering if Jonathan’s ghost had come back to visit her.
‘Jonathan, are you there?’ she whispered, not wanting to scare him away. Or indeed make Jasmine think she was going mad.
But the room was deathly quiet and still.
‘Jonathan, it’s okay, you can talk to me. I won’t tell anyone,’ she added tearfully. But there was no sound except the soft drift of snowflakes being blown up and down the street outside.
It’s what he said to me on the phone last night, that’s all it is, she thought after a few more silent minutes. He said he’d bought me something nice. I wonder what it was.
And then remembering it was now Christmas Day Ruby slipped out of bed and began to search for her lovely present. She carefully opened the wardrobe and had a rummage in the back but there was nothing there except for several neatly boxed pairs of her own boots and shoes. She looked in Jonathan’s bedside cabinet and in his chest of drawers, but again she could find nothing except perfectly pressed T-shirts and expertly folded socks.
‘I had so much time with him,’ she said to herself. ‘I had all that time. We had all that time. And yet I wasted it ironing T-shirts and folding socks and putting shoes into boxes. And he wasted his time driving papers all over the place for his clients to sign. Why didn’t we spend more time together? Why didn’t we spend our time together doing nice things?’
But that question, like so many others, had no satisfactory answer. Ruby sat down on the bed and racked her brains. It must have been jewellery, she decided. Jonathan must have bought her some jewellery. Wasn’t that what some men bought for their wives for Christmas? Usually Jonathan bought Ruby a knick-knack for Christmas because she preferred glass candlesticks and pretty cushions to real jewellery. But this year he must have changed his mind.
‘So I’m looking for a small box,’ she decided.
She looked around the room for a clue.
‘Where would he have hidden a small box?’
And then her eyes came to rest on his favourite acoustic guitar propped up in the corner of the room on a black metal guitar stand. He didn’t play very often any more, but he just liked the look of the guitar sitting there, he’d once said. Ruby tiptoed across the carpet and gently reached in behind it. Her fingers touched something feathery and light, and when she lifted it out she saw it was a tiny box.
‘Oh, Jonathan,’ she sighed. She stared at the box for a few moments and then she carefully opened it up. To her amazement it contained a diamond engagement ring. And when she examined it under her bedside lamp she saw that he’d had it engraved with the words, I love you, Ruby. From J. Ruby tried the ring on her finger. It fitted perfectly.
Damn you, she thought. You always said you’d buy me a nicer ring some day. Damn you for being so perfect. I wish I’d never met you now. I wish you’d been some awful husband who was getting on my nerves all the time. I wish you’d been a loudmouth drunk or a hateful womanizer or a lazy bloody lump of a man and then I could be glad to be rid of you.
She got back into bed and pulled the covers over her face to muffle her sobs. And she cried and cried until her head was about to split in two and her eyes were raw and sore all over again.
When Jasmine came into the room at lunchtime to check on Ruby, she was fast asleep once more, the new ring now warm and snug on her finger. Jasmine saw the empty box and the old ring inside it on Ruby’s bedside cabinet and guessed what had happened.
Wow, he really was a special guy, she thought.
A gentle knock at the front door distracted her then and she fled downstairs to answer it before the noise woke Ruby up. It was too dark a day to make out the two figures on the other side of the glass. She prayed to God that it wasn’t a couple of priests or reverends as she quietly eased the door open. She usually felt quite nervous in the company of the clergy.
‘Mum! Dad! Thank God it’s only you. What are you doing here?’ she said happily, ushering her parents into the hall and closing the door again as a flurry of snowflakes blew on to the pristine hall carpet.
‘We’re visiting you, miss! It’s bloody freezing out there,’ Jasmine’s father complained. ‘My back has nearly seized up, it’s that cold.’
‘And the roads round our way are like a bottle,’ her mother added helpfully. ‘Wee rascals have been pouring water on the streets so they can slide on them.’
‘You shouldn’t have come across town in this weather,’ Jasmine scolded.
‘I had to see my only daughter on Christmas Day,’ Mrs Mulholland said firmly.
‘Yes, we were bored with only our five sons and their girlfriends, wives and children to talk to,’ her father said, kissing her cheek gently with his ice-cold lips.
‘Oh my God, you’re frozen solid,’ Jasmine said, horrified. ‘Come through to the kitchen before you collapse on me. It’s much warmer in there. ‘What’s in the bags, Mum?’
‘Well, I brought over your funeral outfit from the flat, just in case you didn’t like to leave Ruby on her own to go and fetch it yourself. Wasn’t it great I had the spare key? And there’s some hot food as well,’ her mother smiled.
‘Hot food? I was hoping you’d say that,’ Jasmine said happily. ‘And thanks for getting my funeral outfit for me. Even though it’s not a funeral outfit! It’s a black hat and coat I bought to wear to a fancy dinner in the Europa Hotel last year.’
‘Oh, aye, sorry. How’s Ruby?’
‘Fast asleep. Shocked to the core. Devastated for all time. Drunk as anything. Gutted. Take your pick,’ Jasmine sighed.
‘The poor creature. Are there any family here so far?’ her father asked.
‘No, they both come from small families. Friends have been phoning – I suppose everyone heard it on the news – but I’ve been telling them Ruby’s asleep. I don’t think she’s really taken it all in yet anyway. She had a bit of an episode in the hospital when they told her, poor love. I thought she was going to go loopy on me.’
‘Aye, it’ll be about a year before she acc
epts that he’s gone,’ Mr Mulholland said wisely.
‘I’m sure Ruby can’t face eating much at the moment, but you should have some dinner,’ her mother said then, setting her bag of food on a chair and looking around for the cutlery drawer. ‘This is some fancy kitchen, I’ll say that much,’ she added, gazing around at the green-painted units and the grey granite worktops.
‘Ruby and her husband did most of the work themselves,’ Jasmine said. ‘Ruby told me it took them two years to source all this stuff cheaply and get it organized. She loves her wee trinkets, doesn’t she?’ she added as Mrs Mulholland pointed out various pretty jugs, bowls and baskets on the dresser.
‘Yes, she does. Right, can I stick your dinner in the microwave to revive it? Where is it?’ Jasmine’s mother asked.
Jasmine pointed.
‘It’s behind that door.’
‘Right. And maybe you could make us a coffee to take the chill off our bones?’
‘Surely I will, Mum. And thanks for coming over here today,’ Jasmine said, hugging her parents hard. ‘I really, really missed you both this morning, but of course Ruby needs me now. She has nobody else to come and sit with her. Not really. Not anyone that she wants to see, in her current state.’
‘That’s all right, love,’ said her father. ‘We’re here now and we’ll be only a phone call away if you need us.’
Then they all sat round the table to a strange Christmas dinner where Jasmine wolfed down two helpings of roast goose and roast potatoes while her parents drank coffee and looked on lovingly.
Ruby opened her eyes and blinked hard a few times, vaguely confused by the eerie whiteness of the master bedroom. She glanced at the clock on her bedside table. It was seven o’clock. Seven o’clock in the evening on Christmas Day! Yes, it must be evening by now, she decided. But the light coming in at the edges of the curtains was strangely soft and flickering. The entire room was glowing like an angel’s halo. And then Ruby realized what was happening: it must be snowing heavily. Perhaps it had been snowing all day? The flickering patterns across her bedroom walls were the shadows cast by the snowflakes as they fell around the streetlight directly outside her window.
