Finding Ruby Starling

by Karen Rivers

  x

  Mum

  Dear Nan,

  How are you? I am fine.

  So, Nan, it’s come to my attention that …

  Nan. I know it’s different being dead than being alive. I mean, you’re dead and just a cobwebby spirit, spinning your colours across the sky. I bet you stretch all around, everywhere, all silken light, like a big prismy rainbow with no start or finish. I think you’d like that. But if it’s different from that, if you can get together with people and chat and whatnot, d’you think you could track down my dad? Philippe? And maybe ask him what happened and why they gave Ruth away, and then tell me?

  And, being dead and all, maybe it doesn’t matter to you that much what is going on down here. But I hope it does. I hope you still care. Because, Nan, I am really upset. And I can’t talk to Mum yet and I don’t think Fi will really understand.

  It’s just that Ruth is right to be furious. I FEEL GUILTY. Like it’s my fault! But it isn’t, Nan! I was just a new baby! How did it happen? How could you have let Mum do that? I want to understand, Nan, in a way that has nothing to do with you haunting the stairwell and making upsetting noises in the fireplace and knocking over paintings. I need to understand in words! Properly!

  I’ve barely seen Mum the last few days, just when she dashes past me in the hall to the bath so she can soak off some of the clay that seems to be all over her, mostly in her hair. I know you used to say, ‘Oh, Ruby, just leave her alone, she’ll be back to herself when it’s done’ when she got madly intense about her work and stopped noticing anything (or anyone) else. But I wish she’d see that I’m upset! What kind of terrible mum doesn’t know when her daughter is going completely mad?

  I am simply shattered. You must find SOME WAY to tell me what you know. I promise I won’t be frightened, at least not too much.

  I got the letter magnets. I don’t mind Mum teasing me about them, if you can use them to spell things out. I put all the vowels on one side. It doesn’t have to be proper spelling, Nan, just see what you can do.

  Maybe if you could just answer this: Did Mum give Ruth away because she was broken? Would she do that? It’s so cruel! The worst, worst thing! ‘Here, take my defective baby and I’ll keep the good one, doctor! Thanks very much, we’ll just be off then’. I can’t stop picturing it, like it’s a film that’s playing in my head and I can’t shut it off.

  I am gutted about all of this, Nan. Well and truly gutted, like a fish that’s been hacked open and filleted at the fish market. It’s like I can’t even quite remember who I used to be, just plain old Ruby, with the scatty Mum, a good eye for fashion, fab friends, and a mad crush on Nate from STOP. I want to be that Ruby again. It was so much simpler. But I don’t know how to get back to myself from here. It’s like I’m in a labyrinth and I’ve forgotten whether it’s left or right at the next turning and I’ll be stuck in here forever.

  I’m meant to be going to Fi’s in the morning, so I ought to pack a bag, but I think I’ll just lie on the floor of my wardrobe for a while with the lights off and my legs leaning up the wall. It might all make sense in the dark. Sometimes things do.

  Soon I’ll try to write back to Ruth, but all I can think of to say is that I’m sorry. Because I am. I’m just very, very sorry. It’s unfair and wrong, is what it is, and there’s no dressing that up like anything else.

  Love,

  Ruby

  Dear Ruby,

  You don’t have to read this if you don’t want to, I mean, if you’re thinking or whatnot. But it’s like since the last time I wrote to you, all the feelings that I’ve had inside me for all these years have just become unbearable. Multitudes of thoughts! And I can’t even write a poem about them, because there are too many of them. They are like a million fireflies that I can’t put into a jar and also can’t ignore, because they are bright and buzzing around my head.

  Don’t tell my dad, but I really needed some answers, so I snuck a look ahead in the page-a-day calendar, to see if Buddha had anything that might help. And I found this: “Hatred does not cease through hatred at any time. Hatred ceases through love. This is an unalterable law.” It seems to me that Buddha doesn’t say very much that isn’t obvious, but also — at the same time — completely impossible. Yes, I know that hating your mom isn’t going to do any of us any good. It’s not going to change what has happened or make what happens in the future better or make me feel good right now. But it’s there, right there, next to Ashley Mary Jane’s heart, in my chest, like a small black box that’s somehow stuck in me. And Buddha isn’t telling me how to dislodge the box! I don’t know how.

  Then I read this one, “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.” So that’s what I’m trying to do. I am concentrating very hard on this absolute exact second, and how my fingers are typing on the keyboard, and the letters are a bit lit up because it’s dark in here, and I guess that happens automatically, but I’ve never noticed it before. And my dog Caleb is lying across my feet, and sleeping, and kind of huffing in his sleep, and his breath is terrible, like he’s just eaten some kind of rodent that’s been dead for a long while, but he’s so cute that I don’t want to move him. So that’s this moment: crumbs on the keyboard, a smear on the screen, the smell of something awful, and my fingers are moving moving moving and typing this to you, Ruby Starling, my twin sister who lives in England.

  I keep saying that part. My twin sister! Who lives in England! And then I breathe in and out when I say it, smelling Caleb’s awful breath, but still saying it, and then it’s like meditating, which I think Buddhists are very fond of. Dad likes to meditate before work every morning, which might sound silly — because Dad is often silly and it’s hard to take much he says VERY seriously — but he does it for real. He sits cross-legged on the patterned carpet on the living room floor and he closes his eyes. And I stare at him and sometimes make faces, but he doesn’t move or flinch or laugh at me. And when I watch him, it’s for real like something is flowing out of him. I guess that’s why I listen about all this stuff he says about Buddha, even though there is a small part of me that thinks, “What? What are you talking about, Dad? Why can’t you glom on to a more normal religion? Why is there a golden Buddha in our front yard? Just WHY?”

  But there he is, all relaxed and stuff, and then he gets up and brushes off his pants — Caleb sheds a lot — and goes off to work. What he does (heart surgery) is über-stressful. Obviously. And he says that meditating changes everything. And so does the calendar, with all its “You cannot travel the path until you have become the path itself.”

  I think what I mean is that I’m trying to be the path. Except I don’t feel like a path. I feel a lot more wishy-washy than I would imagine a nice, solid, packed-dirt path would feel. Maybe more like a river. A rushing river of feelings. Mixed-up, messy, sort of horrible feelings. And the trouble is with feelings is that when some of them get messed up, it’s like it uncorks all these other messy feelings and now I am completely and entirely AWASH WITH FEELINGS.

  Such as: I’ve never had a real best friend and I think you are going to be my actual, lifelong best friend, being my twin and all. And that makes me happy. But also, it makes me feel like I shouldn’t lie to you, and I lied before when I said I wasn’t scared of dying.

  I am totes scared of dying.

  Part of the reason why I never really have close real friends (except Jedgar, obvi) is — according to my mom — because I’ve always thought I was going to die soon, even though I know I’m probably not. Ashley Mary Jane’s heart is almost as good as my own now. It’s all grown into my body, just like it’s been there all along. Almost. I mean, I take bunches of pills that keep my blood from getting all stopped up in it, like a big scab, and things to make my body not suddenly reject it. Did you know that all the cells in your body renew every seven years? It’s been more than seven years, so I don’t even have any of AMJ’s cells left anymore! The heart is all mine! 100% Ruth Elizabeth Quayle! />
  But I am still super, extra, always scared.

  I know it’s lame and I would never tell anyone because it seems important that I be brave and not wimpy and annoying.

  And anyway, Dad is an amaaaaazing heart surgeon, as I’ve mentioned (though it is illegal for him to operate on me, his own actual adopted daughter!), and he says that I’m just fine and will be just fine forever, because I’m a fighter, and so I believe him. Mostly! Or I try hard to believe him! Which is sort of the same!

  That’s what I have to believe, to keep going and not spend my whole life lying very still in my room, trying not to disturb my heart muscles.

  So anyway, Mom says that I subconsciously want to protect people from being my friend, to spare them the grief if I die. I think this is complete and total 100% Oscar Mayer baloney, except the part that is maybe a little bit true, like maybe 2.3%. Maybe I picked Jedgar because even though he has a lot of feelings (i.e. crushes on me), he never ever ever cries and he isn’t a girl, so we could never really be as utterly, totally close as BFFs who are both girls and can coo together hilariously about boys and makeup and shoes and fashion and all our truest, most embarrassing secrets, like girl BFFs do. At least, in novels.

  Anyway, I just had to get that out.

  I AM scared.

  Sometimes.

  And I want to tell you this: I am not mad at you. I’m really not. I’m glad she picked you. You seem really cool and I would have picked you too.

  Also, late, late, late last night (earlier than now, but still late), I happened to be up getting a glass of water, not from the kitchen or from my own bathroom, but from the en suite bathroom beside my parents’ room, and I accidentally got into their bathtub and waited there until they went to bed. I can’t really tell you why I did this, except that I’d wanted to talk to Mom all evening, but every time I tried, I felt like Dad was kind of stopping me from bringing anything up. I thought to myself, “He is going to talk to her about everything after I go to bed and I won’t hear the whole of it because they will only tell me the very few facts they think I should hear.” So I decided to use the faucet in their bathroom.

  It took a long time for them to even bring me up in conversation, which was kind of disappointing, because Dad had to tell seven stories about heart operations and then Mom had to emphatically discuss the fact that what her trip really taught her is that maybe all her research is just going to turn into a funny article on a website and maybe they should pack everything up and start a hobby farm in Wisconsin. (Oh, please, NO. I don’t like goats.)

  I was very uncomfortable and also was extremely thirsty, but I didn’t want to alert them to my whereabouts by running the tap. Then the conversation got interesting-ish (ACTUAL TRANSCRIPT BELOW):

  Dad: So Ruth has found a … blah blah … Internet … Don’t overreact. I don’t know but … really do look alike…. Think she’s right … so I think we have to … twins.

  Mom: WHAT? Is THAT why she is acting so strangely? WHY DIDN’T SHE TELL ME? Doesn’t she trust me?

  Dad: I guess there’s a … I don’t … I told her … And then … But I think it means …

  Mom: You’re going to have to … [mumble mumble] right to know. I mean, if … I guess it could … so we … find out. [crying] She says … adopted? But … how can that? What kind of mother … one baby? Unbelievable!

  Dad: It’s just … blah blah blah … and also … blah blah blah … up to her. It’s not, it’s not that she thinks we’re not, it’s that … Did you let the dog in?

  Mom: But Ruth is going to … and she … she’ll think … and then ….

  Dad: Ruth is a thirteen-year-old girl! She has an imagination as big as a mouse! [Or maybe he said “house.” Probably “house”! (I do have a big imagination, it’s true.)]

  Mom: She’s twelve.

  Dad: [sighing] She’s ALMOST thirteen.

  Mom: Why do you always round up? It’s so annoying. You’re making her grow up too fast!

  Dad: [mumble]

  Mom: You know, [mumble]. I can’t keep [mumble]. It’s not good for her heart.

  Dad: Ruth is … [mumble mumble] Have you seen my [mumble]?

  Mom: They said that they [mumble mumble] and it won’t be long before they [mumble].

  Dad: Oh, Gen. [My mom is named Gen.] Please stop crying. You’re taking this all wrong. And where IS the dog?

  Mom: Why do I always have to let the dog in? He’s your dog.

  Dad: Do you hear something in the bathroom? Is Caleb in the BATHROOM?

  Mom: No! I didn’t [mumble-shout] your dog in the bathroom!

  Dad: I’m going! I’m just first going to … RUTH, WHY ARE YOU IN THE BATHTUB?

  * * *

  After I was sent to my room in shame and despair and quite sore from having crouched for so long in the tub, I pulled my huge box of photos out of my closet. Mom is always printing out her “good” photos, which means “every photo my mom takes because she thinks she is very good at taking photos, which she does constantly.” I got a little weepy when I found the pictures of baby me with the tubes all over me in the hospital. I was soooooo teeny, like a wet, unfurry, newborn kitten and not like an actual person at all.

  While I was looking at the pics, Mom came barging in without knocking, so I threw the pictures unceremoniously off the back edge of my bed. (I didn’t want Mom to see them because they make her weep, and when Mom weeps, I feel like my whole body is being turned inside out and walloped with a stick. It’s too sad.) I pretended that I’d simply fallen asleep with my head akimbo. I think it worked. She straightened my neck and checked my pulse and tucked me in, like she does. Then she left the room.

  I just wasn’t ready to talk to her yet. I couldn’t stand to be making her sad. Then I lay awake, then I sat up, then I started writing this to you. And thinking. And then writing some more. And thinking. And the house got very quiet, and even Caleb stopped snoring and galumphed off my feet and wandered down to his own bed (read: the couch), and now, you aren’t going to believe this, but it’s MORNING. I’ve been up all night! The sun is just creeping up outside my window and the birds are ker-chirping like they are the official alarm clocks of everyone in the land. STOP CHIRPING, BIRDS.

  Ruby, I’m sorry that I keep writing and writing and writing. It’s just all so important. I can’t seem to stop.

  Love,

  Ruth

  P.S. I’ve attached a photo of me when I was a tiny baby with wires and tubes and big eyes like saucers and the cutest tuft of hair ever! Just in case it seems like something you might want to see.

  Hiya. Got your e from your mum. She’s right talented, innit? Anyway, was wondering if you wanted to go out. Hang about or whatever. Won’t be crushed or anything if you don’t want to. OK then, I’m off. Angus.

  PS — I work at the chip shop, in case you didn’t know. But sure you know me, everyone does, yeah?

  Is this a joke? Get stuffed! I’m 12. What are you, 16? I don’t know what Mum was thinking, she must’ve thought you were much younger than you are. Honestly, don’t be such a creep. I’m not into you.

  You’re not going to believe this, but I’ve had an e from the SPOTTY CHIP SHOP BOY. His name’s Angus, don’t you know, and he expects everyone to know it. Fancies himself, I think. For goodness’ sake, Mum has terrible taste in boys, even when they aren’t for her. He sent the most dreadful message about how he doesn’t really fancy me, so who cares if I want to hang out with him or not? Well, I DON’T.

  There’s nothing I care less about right now than BOYS anyway. I haven’t even been thinking about Nate very much, which is really rare. I’m not able to think of anything but Ruth! I’ve found out loads more things, such as: She was born with a bad heart. They expected she’d die, but she had a transplant and she survived. And it really looks like Mum gave her away because of her manky heart. There can’t be any other reason a person would have twin babies in America and then just leave one of them there. It’s impossible to get my head round! A person who would do a
thing like that is an awful person. And she’s my own mum! I never thought she was perfect or even very good at being a mum, but she’s my only mum.

  My head’s bursting. I think Ruth might be a hippie, like those women we met from Camden last year. She talks a lot about Buddha. I wonder if she wears sandals and those skirts with the mirrors on? Those are naff. But that doesn’t even matter. What matters is that I have a twin in AMERICA who my mum gave away and no one can give me any answers and I don’t know what to DO or what to say to Ruth or what to say to Mum or really anything!

  The e from the Chip Shop Boy was the last straw. I was just going to come to yours, Fi, but I called you and the Mole answered so I just hung up quickly before he could tell it was me. Thought you said he was going away this morning! I can’t come and stay if he’s there! Ugh.

  Ruby

  Gosh, Rube Rube, that’s all super intense! It’s like a film, yeah? So we’re sure it will have a happy ending, though we can’t think what. We want to race right over and give you hugs and fix your hair up until you feel better about things, not that it would change anything, just that it would cheer you up. But we can’t because SOPHIE is going to see a film with Hawkster. Like a proper date!

  And this is where it gets a bit of a funny story, Ru! It’s like, when she told me, I was all, ‘What am I meant to do? Stay home and be soooo lonely and cut my fringe too short and then weep from the ugliness? No! NOOOO’! I had to go with them, I just had to, so I asked the Spotty Chip Shop Boy.

  ANGUS.

  And he said, ‘Yeah, all right then’.

  But that was before I knew he was dashing off lurve notes to YOU! And now he’s TWO-TIMING? What a prat! He’s the worst! I’m furious! Like really really furious! And we haven’t even gone out yet! I think I should dump him! Right now!