by A. S. Hatch
I walked her outside. It was late now. Fully dark. I sensed a strange and exciting opportunity was passing me by. She wound down the passenger-side window.
‘It was so lovely to see you, Dan’. She turned the key in the ignition. The engine coughed dryly. She tried it again. I knew instantly what the problem was, I could hear it. No fuel. She tried a third time. ‘Shit.’
‘Look at your petrol gauge.’
‘FUCK!’ Ruby looked over at the Transporter parked beside her on the shale. ‘Do you have any spare fuel, just to get me to the petrol station?’
‘Van’s diesel.’
‘Right.’
‘Why don’t you stay the night?’ The words just came out of me. ‘There’s plenty of room; you’d have a bed. We can get petrol and set you on your way in the morning.’
Was it fear of loneliness that pushed me into making this impulsive offer? Or something else?
‘Are you sure? I passed a pub up the road that probably has rooms.’ But I could tell she didn’t really mean it; she sounded relieved.
‘Of course. You’ve come all this way, it’s the least I can do.’ Ruby mulled this over. She pulled the key from the ignition and got out of the Mini.
‘Thank you, Dan,’ she said with sincerity. ‘I guess I didn’t factor in the petrol I would use looking for this place. It’s quite well hidden, you know? I was driving around for ages. I only found it after I was given directions.’
‘Someone gave you directions?’
‘Yes, a farmer up the way. I think his name was Gray. At first when I saw his place I thought: this must be it, so I pulled up. I was relieved to hear him say he wasn’t you after I met him. He was drunk. And the place was a state. Couple of pit bulls chained up barking like mad and two sad-looking teenagers sitting on a bale of hay smoking. Very welcoming. I suppose they were his sons. Still he told me how to find your place.’
‘Were you by any chance the one who stood the fracking sign back up?’
‘Oh yes that was me. Sorry. Bit of a neat freak. We can go and knock it back down in the morning if you want?’ I watched her grab a handbag from under the driver’s seat, which I hadn’t seen earlier, and slip the little dark book from the door compartment inside it. ‘Thank you so much. I’m sorry for the trouble.’ She closed the driver’s door sharply and locked the Mini.
Standing in the corridor outside the box room – where I had made up the bed – I presented Ruby with a toothbrush and a clean towel. It was clear we both felt drained, and though it was still only ten o’clock it felt later.
‘Help yourself to anything you want in the kitchen.’
‘Thanks. I’m an early riser, though – I hope that won’t bother you.’
‘No, I’m the same.’
‘Oh good,’ she said and hugged the towel to her belly.
‘Well, goodnight then,’ I said.
‘Goodnight.’ I walked away and heard the box room door squeak on its hinges but it did not click shut. I turned around. ‘I don’t cope well with enclosed spaces these days,’ she said.
‘Right of course. I’m sorry, that room is so small.’
‘No, it’s fine really if I leave the door ajar.’
‘OK, well. Just knock on my door if you need anything.’
‘Will do.’
I went into my bedroom and stood at the closed door for a while listening for movement on the other side. It was silent. Eventually, I heard the ka-dunk of the pull cord in the box room and knew she’d switched the light off.
It was surreal to think of Ruby lying just a matter of metres away from me. It was like I had conjured her into existence. She’d walked straight from the virtual world into my life, passing by Victoria as she made the opposite journey. Victoria was now the one who existed only on a screen. I walked to the window and looked up to see a fat bright moon. Despite being exhausted I knew I wouldn’t sleep easily so I stayed at the window and scanned the trees. But was I stupid to think the threat was outside? Maybe it was already here, three paces down the corridor.
At around one in the morning a terrible thought occurred to me. The laptop! It was on clear display through the window of the workshop. Ruby would only need to see that to realise I’d lied to her. I had to do something with it before the morning. I snuck out of my room, stole silently along the corridor to the door and tiptoed as lightly as I could across the shale. The laptop’s little green lights blinked at the far end of the workshop. When I pressed the spacebar to wake it up, the screen bathed the workshop in blue light. This was a risk, I knew. Ruby might be a bad sleeper too, she could’ve wandered out at any moment. The video was still paused. Victoria’s mouth was open, baring her newly perfect teeth. I stared at it with shame, with longing. I watched the video for about thirty seconds before pausing it. Then I pulled the Chinese folding screen over from the corner where it stood next to little Daniel’s dismantled cot and arranged it so that it shielded the laptop. I just had to hope Ruby hadn’t already seen it. Then I left the workshop, locking it behind me, and went back inside the cottage. I tried to close the door behind me as delicately as I could but it still made a noise. I winced and waited but there was no movement from inside the box room. I climbed into bed, sure that I would now be able to sleep – but not before I had wedged a chair under the door handle.
I woke to a scream. Then, a crashing sound like a pile of things falling over. I looked at the Nokia. Three forty-two. I jumped out of bed, grabbed the claw hammer, which I had recently taken to keeping in my bedside drawers, then pulled the chair away from the door and dashed into the corridor. I opened the door to the box room and switched the light on. Ruby was standing on the bed waving her arms wildly above her head. Her hair, which she’d said was ruby red but was actually a deeper plum colour, covered her face in a chaotic swirl. The plastic storage cartons had been toppled over and Constance Lovett’s things were spilled across the floor. Ruby ran past me into the corridor emitting a high-pitched sound. Not fully in control of myself I ran into the box room with the hammer primed by my ear. My arms and legs were throbbing with adrenaline. I looked down and saw Alfred perched on the rail at the head of the bed. I exhaled deeply and lowered the hammer. Ruby was whimpering in the corridor behind me.
‘I see you’ve met Alfred.’
‘What?’ Ruby said, wafting her hands violently through her hair.
‘It’s all right, there’s nothing there,’ I said, taking her wrists and calming her.
‘In the room. There’s something …’
‘… Yes, that’s Alfred. He lives here. He goes where he wants.’ Ruby leant out from behind me to peek into the box room. She saw him. Alfred buried his orange beak in his green feathers and started rummaging. He seemed oblivious to the carnage around him. Or indifferent.
‘Wow. He’s beautiful.’
‘He’s a quaker parrot.’
‘A quaker?’
‘Yes. Or a monk parakeet.’
‘Look at the colour of him.’ She freed her wrists from my grip now, which I noticed she had not objected to, and crept into the room. ‘Look at you,’ she said to Alfred, approaching him slowly, ‘aren’t you pretty?’ I watched her tiptoe to the bed. She didn’t seem self-conscious in my company clad only in a singlet top and underpants. ‘You go where you want to, hey? So you’re free too?’ She crawled across the bed towards him and he jumped down from the rail to greet her. Memories of Victoria on her knees in the back room at Beryl Avenue waving the little stick in circles about his and Oscar’s heads came flooding back. ‘I’m sorry, Dan,’ she turned to look at me. ‘I didn’t mean to scream like that.’ Alfred took off now and fluttered into the nursery.
‘No, I’m sorry. I should’ve told you about him. It slipped my mind.’
‘He just gave me a fright. I heard something sort of scurrying about and I thought it could be anything out here in the countryside, maybe a rat. And then I felt something on my face.’
‘I feel terrible.’
‘Don’t. Pleas
e. It’s no big deal.’ I went into the box room and began putting the mess into some kind of order. Some plates had smashed. It would be no good trying to sort through this stuff properly now so I simply pushed everything into a less messy pile away from the bed. As I was doing this I spotted Ruby’s handbag on its side. Her belongings had spilled out across the floor. Tissues, a pack of menthol cigarettes, a lighter, lipstick, a hairbrush, keys with a Mini keyring, another set of keys, an old Nokia like mine and … the little dark book. Her purse had fallen out too and I saw something poking out from it that made my heart jump. It was a driver’s licence. But it wasn’t hers. It was her sister’s. Why would Ruby have Jade’s licence? I remembered then that they were identical twins.
I looked up at her now. ‘Now at least you won’t cut your feet on the china.’
‘Thank you. You’re very thoughtful.’
I rose then to leave her. ‘Well, goodnight take two I guess.’
‘Goodnight Dan.’ I went to close the door. ‘Can you leave it ajar please?’
‘Oh, right, yes, of course.’
‘I’m just not used to pitch dark.’
I went back into my bedroom and replaced the chair beneath the door handle. Before I put the claw hammer back in its drawer I turned it over in my hand. I had surprised myself in the box room. I had been ready and quite willing to use it.
The next morning, after a dreadful sleep, I got up at six. The door to her room was still ajar. I didn’t dare peer inside.
In the living room our mugs were still there, Ruby’s on the hearth, mine on the small table. I noticed a gap in the row of books. Had she taken one? I hadn’t heard anything in the night; she must’ve moved like a spirit. I took the mugs into the kitchen and filled the kettle with water. I spotted my portrait on the table. I rolled it out flat. There was something eerie about it. It just wasn’t me but there was an uncanniness about it that tickled like an ant on the back of my neck. I recognised things about the man, little details: the mole on his cheek, the pinkness of his lower eyelids, the wispiness of his hair. The kettle began to whistle. I made coffee. Then I realised that it looked just like my father.
‘That smells good.’ I heard Ruby’s voice behind me. I turned around. She was standing with one leg in front of the other in the doorway as though paused mid stride. She was barefoot and still wearing only the singlet. I wasn’t sure where to put my eyes.
‘Good morning. There’s plenty of water. I’ll grab another mug.’
‘I couldn’t sleep so I borrowed this,’ she brandished a book: Wuthering Heights, ‘I hope you don’t mind?’
‘Of course not. Someone ought to read them.’
‘I was wondering which one to take, you have so many good ones, but being here, in this place, just lent itself so well to this one.’
‘My father loved Wuthering Heights.’
‘Then he had great taste.’
I gave Ruby her coffee. I sat down and began to drink mine.
‘Oh god, the painting. Look at it!’ Ruby stood at the foot of the table, taking in the length of the portrait. ‘It’s nothing like you at all is it?’
‘Not really. But it does look just like my father.’
‘You’re kidding?’
‘Somehow you’ve painted a freakishly accurate portrait of my father. He even had a mole on his cheek right there like that.’ She pulled a chair up and sat nearer to it, nearer to me.
‘That is freaky! Will you hang it? You don’t have to.’
‘Of course I will.’
Ruby beamed. I remembered what she said, in one of her letters, about doing somersaults into her father’s pool trying to impress him, trying to get his attention. We sat in silence then, sipping our coffees and poring over the painting. The October sky was the colour of faded slate. Through the open window we could hear the pines rubbing against each other in the wind.
‘Before we go to get the fuel, how about you give me a guided tour? I feel part of this place. I read all of your work logs remember?’
‘They weren’t work logs.’
‘You went into a lot of detail, Dan. Yesterday I shaved the edge of a door with my edge-shaving implement. Today I painted a wall shocking pink.’
‘There are no pink walls in this house.’
‘Prove it.’
After coffee we washed and dressed and I took her around the cottage. Then we went outside. I walked her over to the workshop and she peered through the glass. The laptop was perfectly hidden behind the Chinese screen. She asked me what I was working on. I said nothing in particular and shepherded her to the end of the driveway, where I intended to walk her through the woods to the rock pools. I was almost to the trees when I heard the steel garage door screeching open behind me.
‘That’s just an empty garage,’ I said, running over and positioning myself in her way. ‘I don’t use it.’
The router was in there. If she saw it …
‘I like empty places,’ Ruby said and bumped me playfully to one side and began tugging again at the door.
I thought for a second about creating a distraction, but what?
‘Oh, what’s this?’ She slipped inside through the gap and emerged a few seconds later holding aloft the Brexit placard. ‘Let’s take back control, Dan!’ She pointed at me with a serious expression on her face and then burst into laughter. ‘Why do you have this?’
‘It was foisted upon me.’
‘So you didn’t vote Leave?’
‘I didn’t vote at all.’
‘And you’re not against fracking either?’
‘I don’t even really know what fracking is.’
‘Fair enough.’ She gave me the placard and marched into the woods. I threw it back into the garage and pulled the door shut. I would have to padlock it.
Signs of her true personality were beginning to emerge. She was spontaneous, impish. But I sensed in her a relentless spirit, a sort of defiant tenacity when there was something, however whimsical, she wanted.
‘Come on!’ she yelled from the trees.
We proceeded across the soft, pine-carpeted ground with Ruby in front and me behind. When she saw the sea she was energised. She ran to the edge of the cliff and peered down into it as it washed lazily against the rocks.
‘Now this is a view,’ she said when I caught up with her. She inhaled deeply. ‘Since I got out all I’ve seen is Stoke. This is such a tonic. Is that the Lakes over there?’
I nodded. ‘The view’s even better when it’s clear.’
‘I think the view’s just fine,’ she said solemnly. I looked at her and I had the sense that this was truly a woman savouring her freedom. I doubted whether her sister could’ve acted this well. ‘Do you mind if we just sit here a bit?’
And so we sat and looked out at the sea.
On the drive to get petrol, Ruby put on the radio and peered out of the window at the country. At the petrol station I filled a jerry can with unleaded, enough to get her back to Stoke, and Ruby went inside to pay. When she climbed back into the Transporter I could sense instantly that the atmosphere had changed. Her energy was gone. I felt flatter too. I didn’t immediately start the engine. There seemed to be words rising inside me but they died in my throat, half-formed, and I swallowed them back down. I rolled the Transporter slowly off the forecourt and onto the road.
On the drive back, Ruby did not turn on the radio. The silence between us was the first noticeable one since she’d arrived. I drove as far as the turn-off towards Lanes End and stopped. As the engine idled and I waited for a gap in the invisible traffic Ruby asked if I was hungry.
‘Starving,’ I said, and swung the Transporter around in a violent U-turn back towards Wilder.
This was the second of October.
I pulled up at a greasy spoon on the seafront and ordered two full Englishes and a pot of tea for two.
‘Can I ask you something?’ I said.
‘Of course,’ Ruby was opening the lid of the stainless steel teapot and stirring th
e teabags around.
‘How are you able to pay for things? Like, for instance, the petrol.’
‘I’m lucky. I’ve got Jade to help me out. I don’t know what I would’ve done if I didn’t have her. When you’re released you’re given forty-eight quid and sent on your merry way. What’s a woman supposed to do with forty-eight quid?’ She closed the teapot lid and inspected the steam rising from her teaspoon. ‘Not everyone qualifies for benefits. Plus, even if you do qualify you have to wait twelve weeks to be assessed first. Plus, they only pay direct into bank accounts these days and what if you don’t have a bank account, or even a fixed abode to apply for one? Some charities can sort you out with job opportunities before you get out, but that’s very rare. I guess if you don’t have anywhere to go when you get out you might end up on the streets. A lot of the women I knew inside had reoffended within twenty-four hours of getting out because they felt they had no other choice. Robbing. Selling themselves. Either make some quick cash and eat, maybe get enough for a night in a hostel, or else end up back inside, where they’re used to. At least it’s warm and dry inside.’
‘That’s terrible.’
‘The whole system is, Dan. There’s a lot of good women who could lead good lives if they were given a fair crack. Like I said, I’m lucky, I have family. But a lot of women get stuck in the machine and never get out.’ A waitress delivered the fry-ups. We dug in ravenously.
‘You must be so relieved to be out.’
Ruby nodded. Her eyes had welled a little.
‘Yes,’ she said, through a mouthful of food. A bit of toast flew across the table and landed on my sleeve. She laughed and a tear fell from her eye now. I laughed too.
It was a dry day. After breakfast we walked a little along the prom. Anti-fracking signs had been affixed to the suicide prevention fencing on the tidal walls. Bold black capital letters on a yellow background. It looked like we were quarantined, like the whole of Wilder-on-Sea was contaminated, condemned. Beyond the fences the grey western sky was milky over the sea. Ahead of us an old lady in a tabard struggled to pull an A-board into the pavement. It read: PAYDAY LOANS and on the other side: PALMS READ HERE. We tried to peer into the shop window but it was obscured entirely by bits of long silver tinsel. Then the wind picked up and Ruby wasn’t dressed for it so we went back to the Transporter.
