by A. S. Hatch
She rose from the car smiling. I’d forgotten how small she was. Her hair was tied back and she wore tight blue jeans and a red leather jacket. She retrieved a bag from the boot. I wondered, when she saw that I’d put the empty jerry can in there, whether she’d realised that I knew she’d manipulated me into letting her stay in the cottage.
‘Hi! Sorry, I was just texting Jade to let her know I’d arrived safe.’
‘Hi.’ I looked into her eyes.
‘Hi,’ she said again, more softly this time, and meeting my gaze intently. We stood like this for a few moments, just looking at each other and smiling.
‘Glad you’re back.’
‘Me too.’
‘Thought maybe you weren’t coming back.’
‘I stayed an extra night at home. Jade wanted to spend some time. I only realised when it was too late that I didn’t have your number. Otherwise I would’ve texted.’
‘Let me take that,’ I said reaching for her bag.
But she wouldn’t let go of it. Her grip on it was tight. Her knuckles were white. ‘It’s alright, I’ve got it.’
‘How is Jade?’
‘Shall we go in?’ she said, hunching her shoulders and stepping from one foot to the other. Was she avoiding the question? ‘It’s a bit fresh.’
A few moments later we were in the sitting room drinking wine. Ruby was stood before the mantelpiece.
‘I can’t believe how good it looks up there.’ She meant the painting. ‘It was on the wall of my cell for so long, above my bed. And now it’s here, in this place. It’s so weird isn’t it?’
‘A little weird I suppose.’
‘I used to fall asleep looking at it.’ She reached up to touch it and the hem of her white blouse rose above her jeans. The fire crackled. I took a gulp of wine. I sensed a change had taken place while she was gone. It was a subtle change that neither of us was consciously aware of yet. But the air between us seemed now to be positively charged. Her written words came back to me: When I’m lying in my bunk and looking at my painting of you, I think of how I want to touch you, and be touched by you.
‘So, how is your sister?’ I repeated my question of earlier. Ruby sat down in the armchair farthest from me and tucked her bare feet beneath herself.
‘She’s fine. She gets emotional. More than me. But she’s fine.’ She took a sip of wine and started twirling her finger absent-mindedly through her hair.
I missed you. I was lonely when you left. I was afraid.
These were the thoughts that passed through my mind.
‘What did you do together?’
‘Nothing really. Just hung out at the house and talked. She asked me about you.’
‘Me? What did she want to know?’
‘Oh, you know, if you were normal. If you were good-looking.’
‘What did you tell her?’ Ruby let go of the strand of hair she’d been working on and it fell in a loose ringlet over her eye. She looked at me through it.
‘Nothing to worry yourself about.’ A loaded but not uncomfortable silence descended. On the first night she came it had been just me doing the spying. Now we took turns, it seemed, to look at one another over our wine glasses. I enjoyed the electricity of the moment and tried to ignore the seed of anxiety that had planted itself in my stomach.
‘Something happened while you were gone,’ I said.
‘What?’ Ruby sat more erect in the armchair and a hand went to her chest. She looked convincingly alarmed.
‘Just some kids I think. Vandalised my shed with milk and eggs.’
‘That’s awful. Do you have any idea who would do that to you?’
‘I don’t know anyone round here. I’ve met Max Gray but I wouldn’t say we know each other.’
‘It is Halloween this month. Halloween makes some people act strange.’
I didn’t mention the tyre track on the grass. Without the context of my recurring dream it didn’t seem pertinent. And I couldn’t mention the dreams without sounding crazy.
We drained a couple of bottles and when it was time for bed Ruby stumbled from wall to wall as though on a roiling ferry. There was a moment at the door to the box room – a lingering second in which she fixed my gaze and it seemed like she was waiting for me to say something – when it felt like all the cells in my body had suddenly squeezed together tightly. I couldn’t move or speak. I could only look back into her eyes. She said goodnight, so softly, so quietly, almost a whisper.
The smell of wet paint roused me in the morning. I was badly hungover and the chemical aroma amplified the gnawing pain in my head. I emerged into the corridor to find Ruby, clad in an oversize T-shirt only, rolling white paint onto the wall.
‘Morning,’ she said gaily. ‘Thought I’d get started.’ She turned to face me. The T-shirt said BAD BITCH in black letters.
‘Coffee?’
‘Already had two. And I’ve fetched the eggs and milk. Fully intact today I’m happy to report.’
‘Excellent.’
I went into the kitchen with my eyes half-closed.
‘You look rough!’ Ruby yelled. I hadn’t the energy to yell back. I was leaning against the side waiting for the kettle to boil when she padded in barefoot. She pressed the back of her hand to my forehead.
‘I’m not sick, I’m just hungover.’
‘Here, sit down. Let me take care of you.’
‘Why aren’t you hungover?’ I said, relenting and sitting at the table.
‘I’ve never been hungover in my life.’
‘I hate you.’
‘Jade gets them. I don’t. She hates me too.’ She fixed me a strong coffee and then toast and eggs. She watched me eat it, tentatively at first, then with gusto. ‘Feel better?’ I nodded. ‘Then you can help me paint.’
We were immediately back in the old routine, except now I spent more time with her in the cottage helping her whitewash the walls. Occasionally, she would go outside to smoke a cigarette. It was cold but I was happy to stand next to her. The days of this second week passed quickly. During the times that we were waiting for paint to dry we’d go to the living room and Ruby would sit in the rocking chair and read aloud to me. I liked the sound of her voice. She put on accents for the speech parts.
When she had to leave for her next Offender Manager meeting she announced that she would start painting more forest murals when she got back. ‘Ivy will reclaim this house room by room,’ she said. She left at six in the morning and was back at Lanes End by four that same afternoon. There wasn’t time enough for me to fester like last time. Equally, there was no time for me to process my thoughts and feelings, which was maybe a blessing. Maybe living by my instincts would serve me better? But I did realise one thing in the ten or so hours that she was gone. I hadn’t watched the video of Victoria all week.
There was no food in the pantry that we wanted to eat. Ruby suggested we go to a pub up the road. I had never once driven past a pub on the way to Lanes End.
‘What pub?’
‘It’s called The Lighthouse.’
‘Never heard of it.’ I wondered where her local knowledge came from. ‘They do food?’
‘If you had internet we could check.’
‘Well I’m starving so am willing to take a chance.’
‘Shall we take my car?’
This was the first time I’d been driven by Ruby. When she’d turned the engine on, a CD played automatically. It was an American female voice talking. She ejected the disc immediately and dropped it into the door compartment next to her. But before she got to it I heard these words: You are going to be OK. You are going …
‘We don’t need to hear that. How about some music instead?’ She pressed a button and loud house music blasted from the speakers. Cringing at the noise she switched the unit off altogether. ‘Or silence. How about just silence?’
We drove away from the cottage and turned left out of the gate. I had never driven this way before. There was never any reason to. Perhaps I’d been brought t
his way when I was a child? I had a vague memory of a sunny Sunday walk through Bowland Forest and a picnic eaten in the back of my father’s van watching the rain. But the road east was a mystery to me now and I looked out upon this dark country like it was a foreign land. We drove past a stone house. This must’ve been the farmstead I saw when I came to after my accident. Ruby said it was Gray’s place. There seemed no sign of life, even close up.
It didn’t take long to reach The Lighthouse. It was a tiny stone building with four square little windows – two up, two down – which glowed warmly in the blue night. Ruby rolled carefully onto the gravel forecourt. A round wooden table sat unoccupied in the gloom, its sheathed parasol canting sadly to one side. We got out of the Mini and the sound of muffled male laughter reached our ears. There were a few cars parked. Vans too: a Peugeot Partner and a muddy white Transit. I did not see Gray’s Land Rover. Ruby marched towards the door. As I followed her something on the other side of the Transit caught my eye: a pair of motorcycles parked on their kickstands next to each other.
‘Come on then,’ Ruby said, one hand on the door handle. I stood looking at the bikes. They were motocross bikes. Off-road bikes. ‘My stomach’s digesting itself.’
We opened the door and a choir of discordant voices hit us like a wave. We were standing in a hot little room filled exclusively with men. A few glanced at us. I saw one ginger-bearded man eyeballing Ruby as though she were the most exotic creature he’d ever laid eyes on. A man clutching three full pints of ale pushed through the crowd towards us, eyes down on the glasses, and we parted to let him by. Ruby said something but I didn’t hear her. She leant in closer.
‘It’s rammed.’
‘I’m not sure they’ll do food here. It doesn’t look like that kind of pub.’
‘Let’s just get a drink and then find somewhere a bit more out of the way to stand.’
‘What do you want?’ I said.
Waiting to be served by an old man in a dirty white shirt, I could see that the pub was separated into two rooms: the public bar where we were, and the saloon on the other side. The saloon looked far emptier. I could see just one man at the bar reading a tabloid and behind him a couple of men throwing darts. I ordered a pint of ale for me and a glass of dry white for Ruby. I asked the old man if they did food.
‘Chips. Or these,’ he said, pointing to the bags of pork scratchings and peanuts hanging behind him. I ordered some chips and found Ruby standing at a high round table in a corner near a fruit machine. She’d removed her jacket in the sweltering heat and slung it over her handbag, which dangled from a hook underneath the table. Her face was flushed and she fanned herself with a beer mat. I put the drinks down on the table. My left hand was wet with spilt ale. Ruby produced a tissue from her handbag.
‘Come here,’ she said. I looked at her as she worked the tissue into the crevices of my fingers. She was perspiring. When she was done I took the tissue from her and mopped her forehead. ‘It’s so hot.’
‘I know,’ I said. She took the tissue back from me and dropped it into her handbag.
‘Cheers,’ she said, raising her glass.
‘Cheers,’ I raised mine. A moment later a sour-faced teenager came over carrying a bowl.
‘Chips?’ she enquired.
‘Yes thanks,’ I said. The girl put the bowl on the table and disappeared back into the throng of men. ‘What a lovely little place you’ve found here.’
‘It’s fine, let’s just get hammered.’
‘That’s all right for you to say, you’ll be fine in the morning, I’ll be dead.’
And so we drank. Ruby switched to ale. She could certainly put it away. We drank more. And more. Eventually a high stool became available and Ruby pulled it over and sat up at the table like a queen surveying her motley court. We talked and laughed and I forgot about the motorcycles out front.
‘Another?’ she asked, jumping down from her throne. Was this the fifth pint or the sixth? There were fewer men now. Still, one or two watched her closely as she made her way to the bar. She was oblivious. I felt protective of her. I wanted to grab these men by their beards and pull their gaze in another direction. I wanted their sleazy eyes off her. At the bar the old man was serving someone already and I saw him gesture to Ruby that she was next. She leant her weight forward onto the bar. I saw then that she was talking to someone in the saloon bar on the other side. It was a very young-looking man, eighteen or nineteen. Who’s to say he wasn’t seventeen and being served anyway? He wore a black T-shirt with a yellow smiley face smoking a joint on it, and an army camo baseball cap tilted back on his head. A wispy moustache dressed his upper lip. He was smiling lewdly and saying something to Ruby. Impossible to make out over the din. She stretched up onto her tiptoes to try to hear him. I felt like I’d seen this boy before. He raised his pint to Ruby and she gave him a thumbs-up gesture. Then the old man came over and she pointed at the boy and the old man went away and brought back two dark shots. He gave one to the boy and one to Ruby. They each raised their glasses and then downed them. The boy then left some change on the bar and stood up, gesturing to someone out of sight. Then he grabbed his jacket and left. I turned away then. I was trembling with irrational possessive thoughts, with anger, with rampant jealousy. Ruby came over with two more pints. Why had he talked to Ruby? And why buy her a shot? Was it celebratory, a toast to my humiliation? The Lighthouse was entirely Ruby’s idea. I’d never even heard of it. And now he was gone. To do more of her bidding? I wanted to grab Ruby by the shoulders, to shake her, to ask outright if she was Jade, if this was all a con, but another part of me desperately wanted to pull her flushed face towards me and kiss her. I did neither.
‘Who was that … at the bar?’ I said, starting on the fresh pint.
‘Who?’
‘Just now. At the bar. You did … shots.’
‘Some lad. Wanted to buy me a drink so I let him.’
‘I know him,’ I said. I thought this might make her nervous, me knowing him. But she showed no hint of anxiety.
‘Where from?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve seen him before. But I can’t think …’
‘… Come on. Let’s go,’ she said, hopping down from the stool. Her chipper tone was infuriating. I sensed she knew I didn’t want the conversation to end. She was being evasive. I wanted to have it out with her then and there. We were now almost alone in the pub. Only a group of three men playing dominoes at a low table remained. The old man had started putting stools upside down on tables. Ruby tottered as she stooped to unhook her handbag. Suddenly, her drunkenness irritated me. I rubbed my chin and felt the coarseness of burgeoning stubble. I craved the razor.
The air outside was cold. We stumbled towards the Mini. Ruby produced the key from her handbag and jangled it by her ear as though it were a tiny bell. I shook my head. But for Ruby’s Mini, the car park was completely empty. The two motorcycles were gone too.
‘You’re smashed,’ I said.
‘You’re smashed,’ she said.
‘We’re walking,’ I said.
The moon lit up the long straight road. We could see all the way to Gray’s farm and beyond that the curve towards Lanes End. We walked in the middle of the road. Ruby’s teeth chattered. I put my arm over her shoulder and held her to me. I felt her body shivering. She wrapped her arms around my waist under my jacket. Her head was pressed to my chest. A smell like almonds. We stumbled along silently like a three-legged creature swaying left and right. Ditches and thorny hedges lined the road. Behind them fields and fields separated us from everything; the great bay to our right, the hills to our left. The sea was invisible but making itself heard, a whisper on the air. When we reached Gray’s farm there were no lights on but bass-heavy music was coming from somewhere.
Eventually, we came to Lanes End. Ruby ripped the anti-fracking sign from the ground and held it aloft triumphantly.
‘No fracking here! Leave our land alone!’ she cried. I watched her, laughing despite my earlier
anger. She began spinning around with the sign in her hand in a crazy waltz. She let go and flung the sign away like an Olympic hammer and fell into me with such force that we ended up in a heap on the ground. ‘Are you alright?’ she said. I couldn’t speak, the wind had gone from my lungs, but I gave her a thumbs-up. She shuffled nearer to me and began stroking my forehead. ‘I’m so sorry.’ We were so close, her face was only a couple of inches from mine. Her fingers kneaded my forehead with a featherlight touch. Slowly, tenderly. And we paused like that. But then I saw the look in her eyes change, swiftly, almost imperceptibly, and as though a spell had been broken my breath suddenly returned. I sat upright and Ruby rubbed my back until I could breathe normally. ‘Let’s get inside,’ she said, rising clumsily to her feet, and offered me her hand.
We walked side by side now, not pressed together as we had been on the road. The woods clicked and whistled. The lane was crunchy and hard. Ruby was a step ahead of me, tramping unsteadily, her red leather jacket grey in the gloom. Something had passed between us back there, on the ground, and though I wanted to speak, to grab this thing before it escaped completely, reserve held me back. Soon we reached the end of the lane and the cottage sat before us.
‘Is the kitchen light on?’ Ruby said, stopping in her tracks. I stopped too.
‘I must have left it on,’ I said. Ruby backed slowly into me.
‘No, that’s not right.’ She was whispering now.
‘I must have done. Or else you did.’
‘No, I remember switching it off before we left.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. I specifically remember switching it off.’
‘Maybe Alfred …’
‘… I don’t find this funny, Dan.’
‘OK, OK. There must be an explanation,’ I said and began walking towards the side door. I slid the key in the door and slowly turned the handle. Ruby clung to my coat. I did not switch on the corridor light, I went straight to the sitting room because from there you could look straight through to the kitchen. As I turned the door handle I could see Ruby had a steak knife in her hand. The same one I had found, the one I had put in the drawer? I pushed open the door and crept through the sitting room, Ruby just behind, clutching her weapon. The grandfather clock tick-tocked in the corner. Sure enough the kitchen light was on. But that wasn’t the thing that shocked me most.
