Red is for Rubies

by Linda Mitchelmore

  ‘I know. Jonty told me. She can come and play with Emma.’

  ‘That’s nice.’ Drew wondered where his negotiating skills had suddenly come from. This must be how it feels for the police trying to talk a possible suicide down from a high-rise car park. An incredible calm had come over him where he might have expected fear. A quick glance told him the window behind Becca was shut. Locked probably because Jonty had experienced years of this without a doubt and had taken every possible precaution. ‘How old is Emma?’

  ‘I can’t tell you. Hugh wouldn’t like it.’

  ‘Hugh?’ This was the first time Drew had heard any man connected with Becca mentioned. ‘Does Hugh live with you and Emma?’

  ‘You ask too many questions. Of course he doesn’t. He’s in London and he’s very important.’

  Becca pulled a shawl up over Emma’s hair. He noticed that the hand he’d stamped on was still a bit red but it didn’t seem to be bothering Becca. He thought it best not to ask if it hurt, or bring up what had happened down in the studio. Who knew what she might do if he did?

  ‘I see. Emma’s got lots of dresses.’ Drew pointed to the piles by Becca’s feet.

  ‘Like me. I have wardrobes full of dresses. I wore them with Hugh.’

  Past tense. Everything was clearing for Drew now. Hugh was someone in Becca’s past and whoever or whatever he was had left her very disturbed. Certain now that it was a very lifelike doll and not a real baby in Becca’s arms, he crossed the room to sit beside her on the window seat. Why for God’s sake hadn’t Jonty told him at least just how disturbed Becca was if not the reason for it? Thank God he’d not mentioned Becca at all to the police. He’d simply said the mechanism had snapped and they’d said Health and Safety would have to be informed, which Drew had already known would be the case. God, what a life Jonty was living. It made caring for Amy look like a Sunday School outing.

  ‘Tell me about Hugh.’

  ‘See for yourself. In that box.’ Still not relinquishing her hold on Emma, Becca gestured with her head towards a wooden box on the coffee table. ‘Jonty knows about the box but not about Emma.’

  ‘Right,’ Drew said, still with some sort of counsellor’s voice and not his own. He reached for the box and opened it.

  Hugh Harris MP. His name was on every single newspaper cutting and there had to be hundreds. He rifled through them with his fingers, then tipped them onto the coffee table. They were all numbered very neatly in red ink. He looked from Becca to the cuttings and then back again to Becca. She must have been a beautiful woman once. Her waist-length grey hair still had black streaks in it. Drew had never seen her with her hair down before. She was wearing a different dress now to the one she wore when she had almost killed Grace; purple velvet. Drew had a feeling she wouldn’t remember trying to kill Grace if he mentioned it.

  ‘Hugh’s my husband. Not hers.’

  ‘I see.’

  Everyone in the country must surely have heard of Hugh Harris MP. The most colourful member of the cabinet, known for his love of fine living and women. Drew remembered his mother mentioning that Hugh Harris was about to marry his secretary. ‘It won’t stop him,’ she’d laughed and Drew had laughed with her. He wasn’t laughing now. So this was what all the rages were about. About Hugh Harris’s secretary and nothing to do with Grace at all.

  ‘He told me to get rid of Emma, but I didn’t. She’s a good girl, a good girl, good girl, aren’t you Emma?’ Becca said, keening back and forth.

  What a secret Jonty had been harbouring. And for how long? But how the hell could he tell? Did the authorities know about Becca? Possibly not if his own brush with authority after his wife left him with Amy was anything to go by. They’d wanted to take Amy into care because of her handicap. Moving back in with his mother was Drew’s only hope of keeping his daughter and earning a living.

  ‘She had to die,’ Becca said, jolting Drew back to his living nightmare.

  So Becca had known what she was doing. She hadn’t forgotten what she’d tried to do to Grace. Was she really mad, or just bad? Well, two could play this bonkers game.

  ‘Who are we talking about?’

  ‘That tart. Grace. I’ve seen the way Jonty moons over her, like he did that other woman. She broke my Jonty’s heart, that one did. Married someone else.’

  ‘Grace isn’t a tart, Becca, and you know it. And Jonty hasn’t been mooning over her, as you put it. He’s been nothing but a caring and respectful boss.’ How odd that Drew had asked Jonty not so very long ago if he’d ever married or come close to it. There was a past there, and it sounded now as though Becca was going to tell Drew what it was. ‘And I don’t like talking about people behind their backs.’

  ‘Well, you’re a first.’ Becca sniffed theatrically. She began pushing the doll and all the clothes back into the window seat. She closed the lid, and arranged the cushions in precise formation. ‘Looks just like the pair of them, does Grace.’

  What was she talking about?

  ‘I said I don’t want to talk about anyone behind their backs.’

  ‘Well, I do. She’s got bits of Jonty and bits of her. Only Jonty hasn’t seen it yet. I was trying to spare him the pain.’

  Drew closed his eyes trying to get the images of Jonty and Grace in his mind. Side by side. Connected but unconnected. Both had straight blond hair – well, Jonty must have been blond once, because he had that faded corn look now, with a few wisps of grey. Grace had green eyes – the palest green onyx; Drew had noticed them. What colour Jonty’s eyes were, Drew didn’t have a clue. Blokes didn’t look at other blokes’ eye colour, did they? Drew’s mind was whirling now. Were Grace and Jonty related somehow? Perhaps Grace was Jonty’s daughter from some long-ago love affair? And if she was, what a shitty mess Jonty was in. And Grace. Poor, lovely Grace.

  Come on Jonts, ring for God’s sake, let me know how she is. There was a phone in the kitchen but no way was he letting Becca out of his sight now he knew just how mad she was until Jonty got back. However long that might be.

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘For me?’ Lydie asked, holding out her hand.

  Jonty placed the lozenge-shaped piece of ceramic gently against Lydie’s palm, as though it was an egg shell and might break.

  ‘For you. In lieu of rubies,’ Jonty said.’One day, I’ll buy you the real thing.’

  ‘One day!’ Lydie laughed, lifting the highly-glazed gift to her lips and kissing it.

  Jonty clasped his fingers tightly over the pendant, his nails digging into the palm of his hand. Lydie must have given it away. Or lost it. Sold it maybe. No, never the latter – her father had been a wealthy doctor; there would have been no need to sell things to buy food or clothes or heat for Lydie, ever. It was why he’d never passed muster with Lydie’s father – not good enough, no potential for high earnings. Her father hadn’t liked her previous boyfriend, either, a labourer on the buildings. No, not previous exactly. Jonty had been slowly stealing Lydie away from him whatever his name had been. And he had.

  ‘Lydie, I’m sorry, so sorry,’ he whispered into the hum of machinery doing its work keeping Grace alive in the room. ‘I let you down. I don’t blame you for giving it away.’

  A nurse – a different one to before – came and told him Grace’s condition could be described as stable; she’d had a head scan and as far as they could tell there was no swelling, no fluid dangerously flooding Grace’s brain. But Grace was still far from out of danger. Anything could happen in the next twenty-four hours so she had been sedated.

  ‘Have you had a break?’

  ‘None,’ Jonty said. ‘But I do need to make a call. Will it be okay if I leave Grace? If she wakes up and I’m not here, if she’s alone, might that be a bad thing?’

  ‘No, Grace will be fine. Go and make your call. Get a hot drink, something to eat. Are you stopping? Through the night, I mean.’

  ‘Yes.’

  How could he not? But first he would ring Drew and let him know the latest about Grace
. And he’d see how Becca was. Jonty had no doubt that Drew would sort Becca if she got violent again, although he knew that was unlikely. Almost always she regressed into a childlike state after a bout of anger.

  The nurse began checking the machines to which Grace was attached, and Jonty leaned over and kissed Grace’s forehead, shivering at how slippery and cold it seemed.

  ‘Go,’ the nurse said. ‘I’ll not leave Grace alone. Promise.’

  Lydie’s car had come to a halt again. It was only the concertina effect of a long flow of traffic, she knew that. Any other time she wouldn’t have minded at all. She would have used the time to file her nails or listen to a CD without the thrum of the engine distorting the music. But why now? Lydie exhaled loudly. No doubt the queue would start moving in a minute, then she’d get into the outside lane, put her foot down. Not feeling in the least like filing her nails or listening to music, she tried ringing Ralph again, waiting only a split second after the start of the landline answerphone before trying his mobile. But no luck there either, if luck it would be. Where the hell was he? It wasn’t like Ralph not to ring her at least four times a day. But today, well today there had been nothing. Maybe Robert had managed to get in touch with Ralph and he was already on his way to the hospital and she’d meet up with him there. He would be waiting for her. God, she hoped so. Lydie was about to ring her father when the traffic started to inch forward again, then speed up slightly, the distances between the cars getting longer, the speed faster. Thank God for a reliable, fast car, Lydie thought as she saw the needle creep around to ninety mph, and the landscape flash past in a whirr. Exeter, Newton Abbot, Torquay. The sign for Cary Hospital. Not bothering to buy a ticket from the machine in the car park, Lydie zapped her automatic locking-device and ran for A&E.

  ‘Grace Marshall. Where is she?’ Lydie gasped for breath, her pulse pounding in her chest, her neck, her head. ‘I’m her mother.’

  The clerk at the desk tapped into the keyboard and watched Grace’s details scroll down the screen. ‘Oh good. Can you answer a few questions?’

  ‘Now? I want to see my daughter now!’

  ‘Yes, I understand that. But it’s in Grace’s interests that we get as much positive information as we can. We’ve already done blood tests, so that’s okay. Allergies?’

  The clerk was being perfectly polite, her voice concerned and gentle. But still Lydie was rattled. Why couldn’t she see Grace? Why? She would have to answer the questions, Lydie knew that.

  ‘Nothing that I know of,’ she snapped.

  ‘By allergies I mean food intolerance or an allergic reaction to, say, penicillin as a child. Things like that.’

  ‘I said nothing that I know of. Look, I’m sorry, I don’t wish to be rude to you but I must see my daughter.’

  ‘I know. I understand. I’m a mother myself. But it really will help if we can just get answers to a few questions.’

  ‘Okay.’ Lydie rattled off the answers the receptionist asked for.

  ‘Lovely. Thank you. Grace is over there, through that door, to the left, then follow the signs for “Trauma”. A nurse will take you in to see Grace. I’ll ring through and tell them you’re on you way.’

  Lydie ran, throwing a belated ‘thank you’ into the air as she went.

  A nurse stopped Lydie as she hurried towards the arrows pointing to the trauma ward.

  ‘Mrs Marshall?’

  ‘Yes. Grace’s Mum. Is she …’ Lydie couldn’t bring herself to say either alive or dead.

  ‘Grace is still unconscious but we’re keeping her that way for now. I’ll get you a cup of tea and then we’ll go in to see Grace together. There was a man with her when I came on duty. Her father? He’s just gone outside to make a call.’ She turned a key in the tea machine and thick, tannin liquid shot into a polystyrene cup.

  ‘Oh, thank God for that. I’ve been trying to get hold of him ever since I heard and so has my father. What happened, do you know?’

  ‘Something heavy fell on Grace’s head. At the pottery where she works so it says on her records. I’ve only just come on duty so I don’t know much more than you do at the moment. Now, take this and we’ll go and sit with Grace.’

  Nothing could have prepared Lydie for the shock. Already Grace looked like someone different entirely. Her hair was matted with blood, her skin porcelain white. Machines beeped and hissed and there were wires and tubes everywhere; for some ridiculous reason Lydie began to count them. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven ….

  ‘Oh, my God. Oh, Grace.’ Lydie walked slowly towards the chair beside Grace’s bed, her legs heavy and leaden. She sank down onto the hard, plastic chair, willing it to swallow her up and deposit her somewhere else, somewhere safe. Somewhere like home, for even now Dartmouth and The Gallery would be better than this. She wanted to see Ralph, feel the solid bulk of him, feel his arms around her telling her everything was going to be all right. She wanted most of all to be told this wasn’t real. ‘Can I touch her?’ she asked the nurse.

  ‘Of course. Her hand. But lightly. We don’t really want Grace coming right back just yet.’

  Right back? So where was she?

  ‘Is she going to die?’

  ‘Not if we can help it, no. She’s very poorly, but stable.’

  ‘Which means?’

  ‘Just like I said. Another way of putting it is we don’t consider the last rites necessary, should you be Catholic. Which is another question we have to ask. Religion?’

  Up until that moment Lydie might have said none. She and Ralph had married in a Church of England church and Grace had been christened there. Lydie’s mother was buried in the churchyard of St. Peter’s. And that was probably the sum total of Lydie’s attendance at church in recent times.

  ‘I’ve already answered those questions at reception. But it’s Church of England. Lapsed.’

  ‘Like most of us until we find ourselves in Intensive Care.’ The nurse smiled at Lydie. ‘So, I’ll put C of E, shall I?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  The nurse began writing but then a machine buzzed, an incessant, attention-grabbing buzz. The nurse immediately dropped the chart and pen on Grace’s bed.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Lydie was standing up now. She moved to the foot of Grace’s bed so she could see the machine where a green light was flashing. But the nurse didn’t answer; she checked cables and tubes on the machine, scanned monitors. Two male doctors and a female nurse came through the curtained off area.

  The nurse explained the time lapse since the machine had beeped, told them she’d checked cables and tubes. One of the doctors flicked a switch off then on again and this time the buzzing stopped. He gently moved Lydie aside and began checking the bits attached to Grace.

  ‘I’m going to take this monitor off. Grace doesn’t need it any more. And this one. That was what the machine was telling us. Good, good. Grace is doing well. Are you her mother?’

  ‘I am.’ Lydie wondered where Ralph might be. ‘Her father is here as well somewhere.’

  And Lydie was desperate to see him.

  Drew picked up the second Jonty hit ‘call’.

  ‘How is she, Jonts?’

  Jonty hated being called Jonts and Drew knew it, but now it felt like a term of endearment and in the coolness of the evening and the horror situation he was in, he was glad of that.

  ‘Not great, Drew, but the official term is “poorly but stable”.’

  ‘Thank God.’

  ‘How are you doing with Becca?’

  ‘She’s right here. I’m not letting her out of my sight. Why haven’t you told me exactly what’s going on? The Hugh Harris thing, the doll she thinks is a real baby.’

  Jonty sucked in a wodge of air with shock. Shit! So Becca had told Drew about the baby. What might Becca have been plotting in that warped mind of hers?

  ‘She married the shit. Still is married to him. She didn’t think she was ever going to become a mother and then she got pregnant just after her fortieth birthday. And
it seems a baby wasn’t in his life plan after all, so he arranged an abortion. He had other lovers – some Becca knew about, some she didn’t. It turned her, Drew, having the baby taken from her. She was lovely before that. She looked after me when our parents died so I’ve just returned the favour all these years. It seemed like the least I could do.’

  ‘Why didn’t she divorce him?’

  ‘He’s a Catholic and can’t – or won’t – divorce, and shouldn’t have ordered Becca to have an abortion either for that matter. And before you say it, I know she could have said no. But she didn’t. She was besotted with him. Still is. He won’t instigate divorce proceedings because he stands to inherit a stately pile in Staffordshire when his old dad snuffs it. He knows his Catholic family won’t stand for divorce. I see it’s all over the papers he’s marrying his secretary. I’m counting the hours until he makes an official statement to the contrary and they go back to doing what they’ve been doing for years. I try to hide all this from Becca but she manages to get hold of newspapers somehow.’ Jonty paused for breath.

  ‘Jonts, this is far, far more than I need or want to know,’ Drew said quietly. ‘Shouldn’t you be getting back to Grace?’

  ‘Yeah, sorry, man,’ Jonty said. ‘Didn’t mean to dump all this stuff on you. Sorry. No more secrets as far as I know.’

  ‘One more question. The rubies? What’s all that about? She’s decked out like a Christmas tree here.’

  ‘Becca’s little bit of blackmail. He pays her a handsome income, too. He’s not exactly above board in all his dealings so I’ve got no qualms about taking the little shit’s money. It’s all that’s kept RED going to be honest.’

  ‘I guessed Becca was funding RED but not the other stuff. Anyway, I won’t keep you any longer. Get back to Grace before she wakes up.’