Red is for Rubies

by Linda Mitchelmore

  ‘Tea. Black. Please.’

  ‘Masochist!’

  Grace laughed again and it didn’t hurt quite so much this time. Good. The sooner she got out of here the better. She wondered where her clothes were. She fingered the frill around the cuff of a much-washed floral-patterned nightdress.

  ‘Not the height of fashion is it, love? Here you are, get that down you.’

  Grace took the proffered cup.

  ‘Thanks. No, it is a bit hideous. The nightdress, I mean.’ She shivered, wondering how many women might have died wearing this very hospital-issue garment. Grace had never worn anything even slightly second-hand in her entire life. And she wasn’t much liking the feeling of being forced to now. ‘I don’t suppose you know where the clothes I came in with are, do you?’

  ‘In the locker, love, I expect. Drink your tea then you can ask Sister if you can go for a shower. No wandering off until Sister’s told you you can move. Okay?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  Grace was bursting to ask if her mother was still there, if Jonty was. Had she imagined it or was the air thick with some sort of atmosphere last night? Not surprising really, she supposed – it must have been a shock for her mother to find her unconscious. And no doubt mad as hell at the man on whose premises she’d almost been killed. But where was her dad? Grace couldn’t remember seeing him at all. Maybe he’d been and gone again by the time she’d woken up? Yes, that would be it, because Ralph would have broken all speed limits to get to her, she was sure of that. It was far too early to ring home – if there was a phone she could use about the place anywhere that is – they’d all be fast asleep by now. But they’d all be wanting to know she was okay, wouldn’t they?

  ‘But I can have the TV on if I want?’

  ‘Yes. Got you in solitary splendour here, haven’t they? So you won’t be disturbing anyone.’

  ‘Oh. So I am. I was in a little cubicle with three other ladies last night.’ Grace wondered just why she’d been moved.

  ‘Snoring,’ the tea lady said, ‘I expect you were snoring for England so they chucked you out.’

  ‘I don’t snore!’ Grace said, mock-horrified at the suggestion that she did.

  ‘Bet your boyfriend doesn’t say that.’

  Grace breathed in sharply.

  ‘I haven’t got a boyfriend,’ she said.

  ‘At the moment, lovie,’ the tea lady said. ‘But with looks like yours, even with the bruises, I doubt it will be long before you do. Now, shall I put the TV on before I go?’

  She did so and Grace’s eyes riveted to the screen and an image of Justin – the last person she wanted to see at that moment.

  ‘Jonty?’ Lydie said.

  The phone had rung and rung and rung and she’d almost given up, killed the connection. The morning sky was lightening to a murky pinkish-grey. More people were about now – a milkman with an electric milk-cart was noisily offloading crates onto a trolley.

  ‘Jonty?’ Lydie said again, her hand over her other ear to shut out the noise of rattling milk bottles.

  ‘Lydie? Where are you? What’s that noise? What’s happened? Is it Grace?’

  ‘No. Not Grace. Grace is fine. It’s Ralph. I’m at the hospital. Again. Ralph … Ralph’s dead, Jonty. Can you come? I’ve got no one else.’

  ‘Now? Come over to the hospital now you mean?’

  ‘Yes. Please. I’ve got all sorts of things to do like see the police and the coronor and an undertaker, of course. And I don’t think I can do it on my own.’

  It was an age before Jonty spoke again. Lydie began to wonder if it was Jonty; his voice seemed so different on the end of a telephone and she realised that this was the first time she’d ever heard Jonty speak on the phone. Or maybe she’d got some total stranger by mistake and he was just being kind. But he’d mentioned Grace so it had to be Jonty, didn’t it?

  ‘What happened to Ralph?’ Jonty said at last, his words slow, spaced out. ‘Do you want to tell me now? Over the phone?’

  ‘A stroke. No, strokes. A small one first then a massive one. The doctor said it would have been very quick.’

  ‘I hope he’s right. Look, I’m sorry about Ralph, Lyd, I really am. But I can’t come. Not right now. Drew’s gone home and I just can’t leave Becca alone. You do understand that? But I’ll come just as quick as I can get Becca sorted. I’ll ring the doctor just as soon as reception is open for calls – about eight-thirty?’

  ‘Eight-thirty? Can’t you come any sooner than that? Please?’

  ‘I want to Lyd, I feel I ought to, but I just can’t. I’m so sorry. Oh shit, there’s Becca now. She’s started chucking things about. I’ll have to go. I’ll get over just as soon as I can. Okay?’

  And then there was a crashing noise and the sound of what was obviously Becca screaming about something and the line went dead. What sort of an idiot was she to have expected that Jonty would come running, however serious the circumstances? This felt like a second rejection all over again although Lydie knew it was not.

  She sat down on the dew-damp bench outside reception and waited for the sky to lighten further. Then she would have no choice but to go back in and tell Grace that Ralph was dead.

  ‘Hello, darling. Oh, it is good to see you sitting up.’

  Grace glanced from the screen to her mother, then back to the screen. ‘Oh, hello, Mum. Sorry about the shock yesterday. Can you just shush a minute though, Justin’s on the TV.’

  ‘I thought you said you never wanted to see him again?’

  ‘I know, I know. I did. But things change. This is like some sort of sick voyeurism. Watch.’

  Grace turned the volume control up, slid off the bed, and closed the ward cubicle door.

  ‘He looks different,’ Lydie said. ‘All that spiky blond hair.’

  ‘I know. Gross, isn’t it? Like he’s filling Gary Rhodes shoes now he’s got a normal haircut. Ssssh. I want to watch everything.’ She climbed back ono the bed and sat bolt upright, her legs stretched out in front of her, arms folded and concentrated on Justin.

  ‘So, Justin, up and coming TV star that you are with your programme topping the ratings at its first showing, are you feeling liberated now? Free?’

  ‘Yeah, like it was a lump of granite off my soul, coming out.’

  ‘But there have been women in your life? For a long time? You are, after all, thirty-nine, aren’t you?’

  ‘Thirty-seven, Judy, thirty-seven. And it was woman. Singular. Just the one. It got to a brother/sister thing after a while, you know? Like I didn’t really notice her any more – like she was just another member of staff only sharing my bed on a regular basis. It was easier to stick with her seeing as she was keen. And she was a brilliant front-of-house too.’

  ‘Do we know her?’

  ‘No you don’t and I’d like to keep it that way, Judy!’

  ‘Sorry. Did she have any idea you were gay?’

  ‘Are gay, Judy. Present tense. Future too. And to answer your question – no, she didn’t have a clue, poor darling.’

  ‘Right. And talking of the future, Justin, what are your plans for this new cooking programme venture of yours?’

  ‘Well, we’re changing the title of the programme for a start – to Gay Gourmets. I want to get the Gay community up there and cooking, in couples, sharing the sensuous pleasures of cooking and eating together. No take-aways, no sitting furtively in cafes holding hands under the table.’

  ‘But you would concede that this, er, past love of yours has more than contributed to where you are today in terms of cooking experience, business experience?’

  ‘What is this, Jude, some sort of gay-bashing?’

  ‘But didn’t she make a significant contribution to your life?’

  ‘Suppose so.’

  ‘Did you really want to hear all that, darling?’ Lydie said. She looked at her daughter sitting so still in the bed, propped up straight against the pillows, her skin white in places, and livid by bruises in others.

 
‘He didn’t say all that on the pilot earlier.’

  ‘Earlier?’

  ‘Breakfast TV or something. The tea lady put it on for me. And he lied about his age. He’s older than that.’

  ‘I’m sorry he couldn’t have told you to your face, darling. Having to find out like this …’

  ‘Doesn’t matter, Mum,’ Grace stopped her. ‘I’m feeling rather stupid now. It’s as though the scales are falling off my eyes. All those times he said to go on up to bed, he’d just clear up – Dan or Scott or Josh, or whichever handsome waiter he’d just hired, would help him. Except it was always at least an hour before he did come to bed. And it was always Justin who interviewed job hunters. And I realise now he never flirted or laughed with the waitresses, not that he hired many girls for that job. It was always the boys he laughed with, joshed with. And always boys in the kitchen. Younger than him, always. The clues were all there …’

  ‘You’re not stupid, Gracie,’ Lydie said. Calling Grace, Gracie was something Ralph would have done. Never religious, Lydie hoped that Ralph’s spirit was around somewhere, hovering, able to comfort Grace.

  ‘Blinkered, then,’ Grace said. ‘I guess I’d questioned it – the gay thing – only I didn’t really want to believe it. But it does explain the reluctance to be intimate, I suppose. D’you know, Mum … no, you don’t want to know. We shouldn’t be having this conversation.’

  No, no, we shouldn’t. I should be holding your hand, telling you as gently as I can that your father – Ralph – has died. It is going to be the most awful shock when I do – I can hardly believe it myself. And then when I’ve done that I’m going to have to tell you that Jonty is, without a doubt, your biological father. But I don’t think I can do that right at this minute, not when you’ve just had your dirty laundry aired to the nation on TV.

  ‘I loved him so much, Mum. And I’m sure he did love me – in the beginning. Although thinking about it, I think he might just have loved the woman in me; the classy clothes, the way I look and dress. He wanted to be me. D’you know, I had an amber-coloured linen dress once. It was long, cut on the bias, tiny punch-work pattern on the hem. And Justin went out and got a shirt made in the same material, the same punch-work detail on the ends of the sleeves and down the front. I had kitten heels the same colour, with tiny glass beads sewn on the fronts. I went back to the bedroom once for something and he was standing by the window, his feet crammed into my shoes.’

  ‘Isn’t that cross-dressing? Transvestism or something?’

  ‘Whatever it is, it’s hardly your macho-man is it?’

  ‘No. Go on.’

  It was easier for Lydie to listen to Grace pouring out the more unpleasant parts of her past than it was to begin telling her about Ralph.

  ‘It was like he was a totally different Justin on the TV to the one I knew. He was never that spiteful in his speech, or dismissive of me before. He tried growing his hair long once, dyeing it blond but it made him look like Worzel Gummidge. He looked a bit scarecrow on the TV just now, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lydie said. What Grace needed now was the truth.

  ‘I think I’m angry more than anything now. Angry that he took me for a ride financially. And that he used me. The evidence was up there on the screen just now.’

  ‘Does it worry you that people you both knew will have seen it?’

  ‘No. None of them wanted to know me when we split. But I shouldn’t have cut myself off, should I? From you and Dad, when I was with Justin I mean. We were so busy we never had time to visit. Dad would have guessed. About Justin being gay. Builders sniff that sort of thing out a mile off, don’t they? Oh, I know he’s gone up-market with The Gallery now, but he’s a builder at heart, isn’t he? He couldn’t wait to get plans in for a café at the back of The Gallery. What’s happened about that? Not that it’s going to bother me. I’ve been talking to Jonty and he knows someone I can rent a flat from. You don’t mind, do you? About me moving out again?’

  While Lydie was thrilled to see Grace looking – bruises apart – and sounding normal, enthusiastic about life again where for a long time she’d been flat and sad, she was hating herself for the news she was going to have to tell. Was there a right time to do it? Before or after Grace had eaten her breakfast? With or without a nurse on hand to cope should Grace go into enormous shock? The Ward Sister had said she considered Grace able to take the news. That Lydie was to press the emergency button if she needed help. But …

  ‘Darling, there’s something I have to tell you. This isn’t going to be easy. It’s about your dad.’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  ‘I’ll look after you always, Jonty. Promise. Even when I marry I’ll still be there for you.’ Becca squeezed his hand.

  Jonty watched the undertaker scoop up a shovel of earth and throw it into the double grave. It seemed an eternity before he heard the thunk of it hitting the wooden coffins of their parents. And the sound stayed with him for months afterwards.

  ‘I know you will,’ he said. ‘I know.’

  ‘It will be just like a holiday, Becs,’ Jonty said. He felt like a traitor. So it had come to this? A one way trip to the funny farm for poor old Becs. He was making a joke of it to himself but it was that or howl like an animal at the sadness of it. There was something that felt like a lead weight sitting below his breastbone. And he was forcing himself to smile even though his heart was almost breaking with something so raw it was making him tingle; so much so that his jaw was aching with the effort.

  ‘With a beach?’

  ‘No. Not a beach. But you’ll have a room to yourself and all your food will be provided.’ Jonty glanced at the doctors, raising his eyebrows enquiringly – was he saying the right things? They both nodded so Jonty carried on. ‘And there’ll be clean sheets on the bed every day. You like that Becs, don’t you, clean sheets?’

  ‘Can Emma come?’

  Again Jonty glanced at the doctors, both of whom had quite readily signed the order to commit Becca to the mental health unit for assessment. His sister sectioned. God, but he was out of his depth here, totally. Drew had shown him where Becca had hidden the doll and all the clothes for it that she must have bought from the market. Or stolen. Jonty had been in charge of Becca’s finances for years now, kept her cash low, barely enough for a newspaper or two. How had he never discovered the doll before? If he had he would have had the doctors in ages ago and then Grace wouldn’t be lying in a hospital bed because of Becca. Just as soon as Becca had been taken into the psychiatric unit he’d see if he could find Lydie. Then what? God only knows – Jonty couldn’t even begin to think about that now.

  ‘Can she?’ Jonty asked.

  Both doctors were standing in front of the window and looked as though they were admiring the view as much as concentrating on what was going on in the room. In unison they nodded.

  ‘Okay. Emma gets to go on holiday too, Becs. Shall we get her stuff together?’

  ‘No!’ Becca screamed. ‘She doesn’t know you. You’ll frighten her and she’ll cry. I don’t want her upset.’

  ‘But I’m her uncle,’ Jonty said, then clapped a hand to his forehead. Bloody hell, he was becoming as mad as Becca, giving a doll human traits, emotions.

  The doctors laughed, but not unkindly.

  ‘Don’t worry about it Mr Grant,’ the shorter of the two said. ‘You’re on the edge of an unreal world and it will help to get down to Becca’s level.’

  ‘Right. Okay. You do it then, Becs. They can go in this little case here. See?’

  He handed Becca the old tartan folding case which had been Becca’s as a child and she opened it carefully, pushing the edges in, straightening the corners. Then, very slowly, she began to fill it with the doll’s clothes. So slowly that Jonty wondered if he ought to offer the doctors some lunch.

  Becca began to sing as she packed. Lullabies. Becca had a beautiful voice and a lump came to Jonty’s throat, remembering how as a young boy she’d sung him to sleep after their parents we
re killed and he’d been plagued with nightmares.

  What sort of a shit was he to be packing Becca off to a strange place where she’d become even more strange with the newness of it all? And how long might she be in there? Forever probably. He doubted Becca had enough marbles left to rationalise her situation any more. Poor Becs.

  ‘Am I doing the right thing?’ he said – to himself as much as to the two doctors. He’d already explained about Hugh Harris and where he was in the whole picture. Technically, Hugh was Becca’s next of kin. But Jonty was well known in the town and the doctors arrived fully aware of the set-up at RED. The signing of the sectioning order had taken only as long as it took to write their names.

  ‘It’s my professional opinion that you are.’ The taller of the two doctors was quick to reply. He had a gentle Irish accent. ‘But her husband is going to find it mighty difficult to get a divorce now, I think.’ Becca had her back to him so he pulled a newspaper from his jacket pocket and handed it to Jonty. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve seen this yet today.’

  Secret wife for Hugh Harris. Secretary ends romance.

  ‘Well, my heart’s not bleeding for him exactly,’ Jonty said. He wondered just how soon it would be before he got a call from Hugh Harris MP. ‘Wonder how they found out.’

  ‘Read on,’ the Irish doctor smiled.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Jonty said, turning to page four as requested at the bottom of the front page. ‘Becca?’

  ‘Looks like it,’ the shorter doctor smiled. ‘A complex case your sister.’

  ‘Just a minute.’ Jonty raced to the dresser, hunting out the box with Becca’s cuttings of Hugh in it. He lifted it onto the table, opened it, but already he’d second-guessed it would be empty. When had she parcelled them up and taken them to the Post Office? He thought he’d developed another sense, knowing where Becca was at all times even when he couldn’t see or hear her. But she must have slipped out somehow. ‘There were one hundred and sixty-eight cuttings in here.’

  ‘Two hundred and three, Jonty,’ Becca said. Jonty whirled around, shocked that she’d spoken. It was as though she’d ceased to exist when the doctors had been talking and they’d all signed the form. Should they have been more careful about talking in front of her?