by Jessie Keane
Michael was staring at her face.
‘You know what? Sometimes I don’t understand you at all. Me and Sheil were never lucky enough to have kids, but I know for a fact that we couldn’t ever have given them up. No way. Sometimes you’re so bloody cold I can feel it coming off you, like ice.’
‘Why? Because I didn’t do the thing you think is right, the impulsive thing? It’s Daisy I was thinking of. She’s grown up with two loving parents . . .’
‘Do you really believe that?’
‘What?’
‘You heard what she said this evening. Her mother’s more interested in a shitting flower bed than she is in her. And Cornelius Bray’s a perverted bastard – everyone in town knows that. He’d screw anything that moves, male or female. He’d stick it in a hole in a fence to get his kicks. He’s not that interested in his daughter. And can’t you see it in her?’
‘What?’ Ruby asked faintly. Why was he attacking her?
Michael twisted around and thumped the pillow, hard.
‘Fuck’s sake, Ruby. The poor kid’s a screw-up of the first water. She’d latch onto anything or anybody for a hint of affection. She’s wild, the poor little cow, into drink and drugs and all sorts. She follows Kit around like a lost pup. And there you are, standing back, keeping to the rules, being all reserved and proper about it. A deal’s a deal, that’s what you’re thinking. And you’re doing the best you can for Daisy by letting her get on with it? Ruby.’ He grabbed her shoulder and gave her a slight shake. ‘What that girl needs is you. Not that pair of upper-crust twats she’s stuck with.’
Ruby swallowed hard, feeling her eyes fill with tears. ‘You think I should tell her,’ she said.
‘I’m certain you should,’ said Michael.
The tears spilled over and ran down her face. ‘No. I daren’t do that. I wanted to once, but now I know I can’t do it. She likes me. She seeks out my company. But if I tell her the truth, she’ll hate me. She’ll think I abandoned her.’
‘And she’d be right, wouldn’t she?’
Ruby stared at him. ‘I had to. I had no choice. Back then . . . it was hard. A half-caste girl with a dark baby and a white one? Can you imagine the shame that would have brought on my family? They were ashamed of me anyway. My God, it would have been unbearable. I would have been stoned in the street, I would have been an outcast . . .’ Ruby started to sob in anguish.
‘Ruby . . .’ Michael was reaching for her.
‘Don’t touch me!’ she yelled in his face, and she was off the bed in an instant, rounding on him. ‘You don’t understand. You have no idea what it was like. How dare you judge me?’
‘I’m not. I swear . . .’
‘Yes, you bloody well are,’ she said, and stormed from the room, slamming the door shut behind her.
103
Daisy drove them down in the Mini to the gatehouse at Brayfield. Ruby followed Daisy from room to room, slowly becoming infected with the younger woman’s enthusiasm.
‘In here I thought I’d do something bright. Orange with accents of mauve.’
‘That would look terrific,’ said Ruby. It sounded hellish to her, but it was Daisy’s place and Daisy was so excited that the last thing Ruby wanted to do was piss on her parade.
‘You think so? Not too over-the-top?’
Ruby almost smiled. Daisy herself was over-the-top, might as well do the whole place out in neon. It would suit her personality.
‘You all right?’ asked Daisy. ‘You were quiet on the way down here. Sorry. Did I railroad you into this? Was there something else you had to be doing . . . ?’
‘No!’ Ruby said quickly, forcing her smile to widen. She was still terribly upset about her fight with Michael last night, but she couldn’t discuss that with Daisy. ‘Just tired after a long week, that’s all.’
‘I’ve dragged you around here quite long enough,’ said Daisy apologetically. ‘Come on, let’s get on up to the house and have some tea with mother.’
Ruby’s jaw dropped. ‘What?’ she asked faintly. ‘But I thought you said she was away.’
‘No, she’s here. Change of plan. Cousin Jeremy cancelled at the last minute. Come on,’ said Daisy, already whipping along the hallway to the front door, jangling the keys as she went. ‘I can’t wait to get started on this,’ she threw back over her shoulder.
‘Um – Daisy . . .’ Ruby was trailing after her, thinking that this couldn’t happen, that she was on some sort of crazy collision course and she had to divert Daisy from it somehow. ‘Daisy, I think I ought to be getting back . . .’
‘Well, I can’t just go and not call in on her,’ said Daisy. ‘She’d nag me to death if I did.’ Daisy was ushering Ruby outside and relocking the door. Then she hurried over to the Mini. ‘We won’t stay long, don’t worry.’
Ruby found herself getting into the car, and Daisy jumped in and revved the engine before shooting off up the drive towards the house.
Oh help, thought Ruby as Brayfield appeared through the curving line of trees. Daisy drove like a Formula One racing driver, and they were screeching to a halt in front of the big fountain of Neptune before Ruby could even think. Daisy turned off the engine.
‘I’ll wait in the car,’ said Ruby.
‘No no! Come and meet Mother, she’s a stickler for manners and she’ll only come out and get you if you don’t come in, so you might as well give in right now.’
Shit, thought Ruby. Feeling like she was about to be shot, she climbed out of the car and followed Daisy up the steps. Daisy put her key in the door, and opened it, guiding Ruby in front of her into a large, cool, airy hall.
‘Mother!’ she yelled.
There was no answer.
‘Perhaps she’s gone out after all,’ said Ruby, hoping against hope.
‘No, she’ll be in the garden I expect, come on . . .’
Daisy led the way through the hall and into a large room painted in soft eggshell blue and gold. Through the open French doors, Ruby could see two people at the far end of the garden, a man and a woman, the woman gesticulating, the man listening.
‘There she is,’ said Daisy. ‘Come on,’ she trilled, and she was out of the doors and hurrying across the grass.
Ruby was forced to follow, but her mouth was dry and her heart was beating sickly in her chest. She’d been stupid to come anywhere near here; she knew it. But the lure of Daisy was just so strong.
Daisy ran up to the woman while Ruby hung nervously back. It was Vanessa, all right. She was wearing faded jeans and Wellington boots with a white top. There was a spade in her hand and she was talking about rudbeckias to the bearded man, clearly the gardener, who listened with polite attention.
‘Mother?’ called Daisy, hurrying towards her.
Vanessa turned and her thin face lit in a smile. ‘Darling!’
Daisy hugged her mother so hard Ruby thought she might break the fragile-looking Vanessa in two halves. So many years had gone by, and with them she could see that Vanessa had not aged well. She was slightly stooping, and her once-delicate complexion was scored with many fine lines from hours spent toiling in the sun.
‘And who is . . . ?’ Vanessa started to say, looking past her daughter to see who she’d brought with her.
As instantly as Ruby had recognized her,Vanessa saw that it was Ruby. Her face fell, and drained of colour. She stared for a long moment, then turned to the gardener. ‘Um . . . if you can carry on with that, Ivan . . . ?’
He nodded, and Vanessa handed him the spade, her eyes averted from Ruby now. She stepped out of the border and onto the lawn.
‘This is Ruby, a friend of mine, I asked her to come down and look over the gatehouse with me,’ said Daisy, glancing between the two older women. ‘Ruby, meet my mother.’
Ruby swallowed hard. ‘Hello,’ she said, and held out her hand.
Vanessa hesitated and then touched Ruby’s hand, very briefly, with her own. ‘Hello,’ she said.
Ruby wished the ground would open up and swallow h
er whole. She shouldn’t be here. This wasn’t the deal. Cornelius would be furious about this, she knew it. But . . . oh, so what? Let the bastard squirm. He deserved it, didn’t he?
‘Um, look . . . I’m sorry, darling, but I’m very busy at the moment. If you could take Ruby back to the house and make her some tea?’ said Vanessa.
‘I know, I know,’ sighed Daisy. ‘You’re dividing the perennials, right?’
‘You see? You could be a gardener,’ said Vanessa, smiling slightly.
‘No, I couldn’t. I’ve just picked it all up from you. I hate gardening.’
‘It’s a beautiful garden,’ said Ruby, feeling she really ought to say something.
‘Thank you,’ said Vanessa, and her eyes were full of freezing-cold wrath as they bored briefly into Ruby’s.
What the hell are you doing here?
Ruby could almost read Vanessa’s thoughts. She wanted to say it was a mistake, that it wouldn’t happen again. But she couldn’t. Daisy was standing right there, and now she was telling Vanessa about her plans for the gatehouse’s interior.
‘Sounds perfectly ghastly, darling,’ said Vanessa.
‘Well, Ruby loved the idea,’ said Daisy with a mulish smile, linking her arm through Ruby’s.
Oh God, let me just die now, thought Ruby in anguish.
‘Does she?’ Vanessa’s smile was fixed. ‘Well, you know I do have rather traditional tastes, Daisy.’
‘Old-fashioned,’ joked Daisy.
‘Traditional,’ said Vanessa firmly. ‘Now, if you will excuse me . . . ?’
‘All right, we’re going, we’re going,’ tutted Daisy in fond irritation. ‘I’d hate to tear you away from the long border.’
As they walked arm in arm back to the house, Ruby glanced back;Vanessa was staring after them, and there was such hatred in her eyes that Ruby shuddered and looked quickly away.
Vanessa rejoined Ivan. She could feel herself trembling with rage.
How dare that woman come here!
‘What a stunning woman,’ said Ivan.
Vanessa looked at him, startled.
‘That woman,’ repeated Ivan, nodding towards Daisy and Ruby as they went back into the house. ‘So exotic.’
Vanessa couldn’t help glancing down at herself – at her cracked nails, her grubby gardening clothes. Ruby looked ten years younger than her actual age. And Vanessa knew she looked ten years older than hers. She snatched up the fork, her face set in fury.
‘Ivan, if you ever see her on this property again, then get her off it. Straight away. You understand?’
Ivan stared at his employer. He’d been with Vanessa for ever, and this was the first time he’d so much as heard her raise her voice. He was shocked.
‘Of course,’ he assured her.
‘Let’s get on with it then,’ she snapped, and plunged the fork savagely into the earth.
Cornelius felt the bile rise in his throat when he got the call from Vanessa. Angrily she told him what had happened, that Daisy had shown up with Ruby Darke. That that woman had the nerve to actually come to Vanessa’s home and stand there smirking at her.
‘You’re not serious,’ said Cornelius, incredulous.
‘Does it sound as if I’m joking?’Vanessa’s voice was bitter. ‘You told me this wasn’t going to happen. You said we had Daisy, and that was it. You paid Ruby Darke off and it would all be forgotten. But I’m telling you she was here, Cornelius. With Daisy. In my home.’
Cornelius was at the London house. He sat down on the couch, feeling genuinely sick with rage and anxiety at this news. He thought about Daisy mixing with that black bastard Kit Miller, and now – far worse – Ruby had clearly started to cultivate a relationship with the girl she’d given birth to. That wasn’t part of the deal at all, and the sooner Ruby was taught the error of her ways, the better it would be.
‘Daisy hasn’t . . . said anything to you about Ruby?’ he asked.
‘No. Nothing. It was a complete shock when she turned up here with her.’
So it didn’t look as if Ruby had told Daisy the truth about her parentage. There was that to be grateful for, at least. But if he allowed the two of them to get closer, to form any sort of bond, then how long could it be before the truth came out?
It just wasn’t on. Ruby was going to have to be made to see that, and keep away.
‘I’ll sort this out,’ he told Vanessa. ‘Don’t worry.’
As soon as Vanessa rang off, he phoned the private detective he’d had look into Kit’s background, and told him to find out what had been going on with Ruby and Daisy, how they had come to be connected. When all that was done, he phoned Tito.
104
‘I hate these places,’ said Kit.
‘It ain’t too bad,’ said Rob.
‘No? I grew up in a shit-hole just like this.’
They were in reception at yet another children’s home. A couple of the ones they’d tried close to where that nutter with the acid bath lived had long since been closed down and converted to housing. But this one was still functioning, and just being inside it, smelling those old familiar odours of overcooked dinners and sweaty plimsolls, made Kit start to gag.
‘You serious? You really stayed in a place like this?’ asked Rob. Kit never spoke about his background.
Kit was nodding, looking around him. ‘The place I was in only took you ’til you were eight. Then you were shipped out to another one that took you until you were twelve.’
‘What, and then another one?’
‘That’s right. Then at sixteen, you’re on your own. Out in the big wide world.’
‘That’s rough,’ said Rob, thinking of his own close-knit family.
‘Life’s rough,’ said Kit. ‘So what?’
Kit remembered all those Christmases, Mother’s Days, Father’s Days . . . The feeling of abandonment, of something always missing. A family. A home. A life.
But he had a job to do here, so he shut down his own discomfort and concentrated on the job in hand.
As it turned out, he needn’t have bothered.
It was another dead end.
105
Ruby refused to speak to Michael when he called her on the phone at her home. He sent flowers to her office, and she binned them. Finally, he showed up in person.
‘It’s Mr Ward,’ said Jane. ‘You ready to see him yet, or you gonna let him sweat just a little more?’
This was stupid. Ruby nodded. ‘All right. Show him in then.’
‘Must have been some fight,’ said Jane, going back outside and keeping her hand on the door while saying: ‘You can go in now.’
‘Thanks.’
Michael Ward walked past her into Ruby’s office. Immaculate as ever, iron-grey hair smooth and tidy, grey eyes serious in his tanned face.
Jane pulled the door closed while making a Whew! Hot! shaking motion of her hand. Ruby ignored her. She looked straight-faced at Michael as he sat down.
There was silence in the room.
‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what for, exactly, but here I am, apologizing. OK?’
‘Oh, and you think that makes it all right, do you?’ fumed Ruby. He’d hurt her. She’d been reeling from rediscovering Daisy, and had been looking for his support. Instead, he’d blundered in and upset her with stupid accusations.
Michael exhaled sharply. ‘Look, Ruby. You shocked me, OK? But then, that’s you all over, isn’t it?’
‘What?’Was he going to lay into her again, was that what he’d come here for?
‘You. You say nothing, tell me nothing, then you come out with these shocking things and expect me to react like you’re telling me nothing of any importance. You don’t ever tell me a thing, Ruby. Not a fucking thing.’
Ruby stared at him. Yes, he was attacking her again, and right now that was almost more than she could stand.
‘Even when we’re in bed, you say nothing,’ he was ranting on. ‘I’d like to know what you like, what you don’
t like. What pleases you.’
‘You please me.’
‘Well you never tell me. What am I, a fucking mind reader?’
‘Michael . . .’
‘No, let me finish. You hold everything inside yourself and then, whoosh! Suddenly it bursts out of you like water from a dam. And it’s shocking. It takes a bit of getting used to. So I’m sorry if I reacted in a way that you didn’t like, but you knocked me sideways. I just wish you’d talk to me more, Ruby. Tell me things. Tell me what you like. Tell me what you don’t like . . . Why don’t you do that?’
‘I don’t like your flat,’ said Ruby suddenly.
‘What?’
‘I hate your flat. It’s got all your wife’s stuff still in it, and I understand you’re still in love with her, why shouldn’t you be?’
‘What . . . ?’
‘And that space on the wall opposite the bed, there was a painting or a picture hanging there – a picture of her, I suppose – and you took it down to spare my feelings, but the mark’s still there, I look at it every time we’re in bed together and it kills me.’
Michael shook his head and ran a hand through his hair.
‘It wasn’t a picture of my wife,’ he said. ‘It was a copy of a painting, Renoir or something. I always hated it, but she liked it. When she was gone, I thought: Why not sell the thing? So I did.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yeah, “oh”.’ He was smiling slightly. ‘And I don’t keep the flat as some sort of shrine to Sheila, of course I don’t. Yeah, that’s her name: Sheila. I named the restaurant after her. I loved her very much and I’ll never forget her, but now I’m in love with you. I just don’t give a shit about furnishings, wallpaper, any of that stuff. The flat’s as it is because I never did that and she did. If you want to do it, redecorate, do whatever you damned well want with it, then go ahead. I don’t mind. You see what I mean, you crazy mare? This illustrates exactly what I’ve just been saying. You say nothing, then bang! Out it comes in a rush. Has this been bothering you for long?’
‘Ever since I first came to the flat,’ she admitted.
‘You’re so clever and such a fool.’
