Brake Failure

by Alison Brodie

  She wore her wedding ring on a chain around her neck after Murt Woebbecke told her a local woman had been stung on her finger by a wasp, which ballooned; and since her wedding ring restricted blood flow, her finger had to be amputated.

  Ruby went down to unpack the boxes in the hall. Tornadoes haunted her dreams and last night while making love with Edward, she had mentally gone through the list of essentials, including sandbags, hard hats and walkie-talkies. The important thing was: she knew what to expect, knew the dangers and how to prepare for them. She was in control.

  Although there was one thing she was not fully in control of: her car. A canary-yellow re-conditioned vintage Cadillac that came with the house, and was so wide it was impossible to reverse out of the garage. Every time she turned the key in the ignition, striptease music blasted out. She still hadn’t managed to find the “off” switch among all the knobs on the dashboard. She assumed the band was called ZZ Top because she’d found an empty cassette case under the driver’s seat. The music - plus the scarlet lipstick and musky perfume in the glove compartment - meant only one thing: the previous driver had been The Wild Type.

  She stiffened. The telephone was ringing. She lunged into the kitchen, mouthing NO! to Edward, but it was too late.

  ‘Hi Claire,’ Edward was saying. ‘She’s right here.’

  Reluctantly, Ruby took the phone. ‘Oh, hello, Claire,’ she said, feigning surprised delight.

  Her stepsister chuckled. ‘How are you settling in to the homestead?’

  Ruby would not reveal the size of the house until after her stepsister had received the thick wad of photographs. And she certainly wasn’t going to mention tornadoes. ‘Wonderfully! I have a vintage Cadillac that’s simply enormous.’

  ‘Well, of course, you’re living in a car-culture, n’est ce pas?’

  ‘Mais oui, unlike Europe where they drive around in Noddy cars. And I have a fridge as big as a tank.’

  ‘I don’t need a fridge because Veronique buys my vegetables from the market - fresh! - chaque matin.’

  ‘Well, actually, we can eat out tout le temps because it’s so inexpensive.’

  ‘Eat out?’ Claire snorted. ‘Where? Herbet’s Hog Grill? Admit it, Ruby; your life has dribbled to a dead end.’

  Ruby inhaled deeply and came back punching. ‘Au contraire,’ she said sweetly. ‘My life is just beginning. Oh, the adventures! Yesterday, I rode out on horseback and watched thousands of bison roaming the rippling prairie. Magnifique!’ She stopped, startled. Edward had grabbed the phone and was now speaking rapidly to Claire.

  ‘Sorry, Claire, I have to make an urgent business call.’ He banged down the receiver and swung to Ruby. ‘I can’t listen to this anymore. Ever since we’ve been here you either avoid Claire’s calls or you speak to her like you’re some deranged French countess.’

  ‘But-’

  ‘Rippling prairie? You haven’t been further than Hy-Vee!’ He sighed. ‘Why do you compete with her? She’s an alpha-female. You can never win.’ He flung out a hand. ‘By now she would have made friends with all the neighbours and hosted a banquet for the mayor. And she wouldn’t be too scared to reverse out of the garage.’

  The accusation hung in the air.

  He sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Ruby, but you need to accept who you are.’

  ‘And who is that?’ Her voice trembled.

  ‘Well, you’re just … ordinary. But that’s what I like about you,’ he added hurriedly.

  Ordinary. Her stepsister had been telling her that for the last twenty years. And now her husband had picked up the refrain.

  She felt the tears in her eyes. ‘I’m … I’m …’ She couldn’t finish the sentence. She grabbed her car keys and marched out of the kitchen. ‘I’m too scared to reverse out of the garage, eh?’ She jumped into the Cadillac, turned the key in the ignition, and immediately ZZ Top blasted out. The music suited her mood! She reversed out into the road in a squeal of tyres, straightened up and accelerated.

  ‘I’m not ordinary!’ she muttered, brushing away a tear. As she rifled the door compartment for the Kleenex, her hand touched glass. It was a small bottle of tequila, empty. Tossing it on the passenger seat, she found the tissues and blew her nose.

  As she drove, her brain jumped and fizzed like television static. Suddenly, it cleared to reveal a long, straight, deserted road. Scrubland stretched away to the horizon. Where was she? She slowed, lowered her window and looked around in growing panic. ZZ Top boomed in the silence, scaring off a flock of vultures.

  Ordinary. Recalling Edward’s accusation, she stamped on the accelerator, taking satisfaction in the powerful surge beneath her and the hot wind whipping through her hair. ‘I am not ordinary!’ she yelled. Remembering the lipstick in the glove compartment, she grabbed it and spread it over her lips, the car swerving as she tried to see her reflection in the rear-view mirror. Then she liberally sprayed herself with the perfume.

  Loud and defiant, she sang along to the music: ‘You gotta whip it up and hit me like a ton of lead. If I blow my top will you let me go to your head-’

  A motorbike roared past, lights flashing.

  ‘Oh, no!’ she wailed, watching as the policeman flagged her down. Her thoughts zigzagging desperately: what had she done wrong?

  The policeman herded her onto the gravel verge, parked his motorbike at a distance and removed his helmet. Her stomach lurched. She’d seen enough movies of the Deep South to recognise this man as the archetypical law enforcer who stood over chain gangs. He was huge with a broken-nose and square jaw, his eyes hidden behind reflective sunglasses. He wore a stone-coloured short-sleeved shirt and brown trousers tucked into long boots.

  He spoke into the radio at his shoulder, his sunglasses focussed on her licence plate as his finger unclipped the flap of his gun holster. He was behaving as if she were armed and dangerous. Who was he talking to? Why was he taking so long? Was he trying to scare her? Well, it was certainly working: she was trembling from head to foot.

  With a nod, he clicked the radio, closed his gun holster and ambled over.

  Ruby, realising the striptease music would give a bad impression, frantically sought to turn it off, trying buttons and switches, so when the policeman drew level, the windscreen wipers were thrashing, the hazard lights were flashing, and ZZ Top was still blaring.

  He reached in a hand, slipped it under the steering wheel and there was instant silence. Abruptly, he swung away and sneezed.

  ‘Mighty strong perfume you’ve got there, ma’am.’

  She couldn’t speak; her mouth was dry and her jaw continued to shiver convulsively. He rested his hands on her window sill, his biceps straining against the sleeves of his shirt. His head was shaven to a prickly stubble; a thin silver scar traced a path across his scalp.

  ‘May I ask where you’re heading, ma’am?’

  She went weak with relief. The man was friendly! Suddenly, her relief hardened into indignation. This man had deliberately terrified her!

  She fought the urge to fire off an angry insult; instead, she remembered her stepmother’s teachings: “A Lady Never Loses Her Temper.”

  ‘I’m just out for a drive, officer,’ she said politely, repulsed by those broad hairy hands that had taken possession of her car.

  ‘Yer English!’

  Grinning, he removed his sunglasses, revealing sparkling blue eyes. The transformation was startling. She felt a strange butterfly-fluttering in the pit of her stomach but mentally stamped on it. Grandad had always warned her that policemen were thugs in uniform. Now, looking at the various weapons of subjugation on this man - gun, knife, handcuffs and baton - she could well believe it.

  ‘You on vacation?’ the policeman enquired.

  She saw the metal star on his chest, and his name tag: H. Gephart. On his upper sleeves were badges the shape and size of spades, bellowing the word: SHERIFF.

  ‘Yes,’ she lied, knowing he would be less likely to harass her if he believed she was here for a holiday.
<
br />   ‘We don’t get many English folk in Kansas.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ she said flatly.

  He paused as if sensing her hostility, then pointed down the road. ‘I pulled you over to warn you the blacktop ends in two miles. Don’t want to be hitting rocks at eighty.’ He studied her thoughtfully. ‘Don’t know how you missed the sign.’ His gaze dropped to the seat beside her. ‘You bin drinking?’

  Baffled, she turned to see what he was staring at. The tequila bottle. ‘That has nothing to do with me. I found-’

  ‘Drinking and driving isn’t tolerated in this State, ma’am.’

  ‘I do not drink alcohol, officer.’ She saw his brow raised in disbelief and added crisply: ‘apart from a glass of Chablis. But I would never, ever touch anything like this!’ As she snatched up the bottle, it slipped through her fingers and flew out the window.

  He looked at the bottle at his feet. He looked at her.

  ‘Littering’s a two hundred dollar fine.’ He picked up the bottle and handed it back to her. He studied her lips, his eyes clouded with pity. ‘The first step to having a drink problem is owning up to it.’

  She gripped the bottle as if it was his neck. ‘Surely, officer, an empty bottle does not mean one has a drink problem?’

  ‘It does if you lose control of your vehicle.’ He jerked his chin. ‘You were swerving back there.’

  ‘I was applying lipstick.’

  ‘At eighty miles an hour?’

  She heard his patronising tone and her fury exploded; but like steam escaping from a pressure-cooker it came out in a tiny hiss. ‘Fascist.’

  He was no longer smiling, and his eyes - now a glacial blue - held on to hers like pincers. ‘Did you say something, ma’am?’

  He stared at her. She stared at him. And in that moment, something passed between them; it was as if each were saying: I don’t trust you, either.

  ‘I need to take a look at your driver’s licence,’ he said.

  She handed it over, relieved that she hadn’t yet changed her maiden name to her married name. There was no way he could trace her.

  He studied it. ‘Okay, Miss Thompson. I’d advise you to turn your vehicle around, head back to where you’re staying and sober up.’ He walked to his motorbike, swung a leg over it and waited.

  Knowing he was watching her, she attempted a smooth and competent U-turn and almost ended up in a ditch. As she drove away she could feel his eyes boring into the back of her head.

  ‘What a horrid man,’ she muttered, thankful that she would never see him again.

  Chapter Nine

  Hank watched the English girl drive away. His whole body was rigid, his lips numb and stiff with fury. Were all the English that arrogant? Why hadn’t he tested her for drunk-driving? Why hadn’t he booked her for speeding?

  His emotions were stirred and it wasn’t just from anger; it was a physical arousal: those golden eyes that glittered, the little upturned nose and full lips.

  He had tried to be friendly, to put her at ease, but there’d been something hostile about her, like a predatory cat with a twitchy tail.

  She’d called him a Fascist!

  Why in hell hadn’t he booked her?

  He hadn’t believed her bullshit about the booze. Her mouth looked like melted crayon. He’d seen plenty enough times what happened to a woman’s lipstick when she drank from a bottle. And her throwing the bottle at his feet? That was her making a statement, telling him she was above the law.

  Yeah, she might talk like the Duchess of England but the Duchess of England didn’t go for no joyride playing ZZ Top at full volume. He could sense she was trouble: the wild uncombed hair, the overtly-sexual perfume and the empty tequila bottle. But there were two things that worried him. Her fast erratic driving down a well sign-posted dead-end; and the full two minutes it took for her to come a halt. That was why he’d radioed in to the station: to trace if the car had been reported stolen.

  He recalled the way she’d sneered at his hands on the door like they were dirt.

  Jesus, why hadn’t he booked her?

  He prided himself on his ability to judge a person’s character. This one was superficially on the straight and narrow - Miss Righteous - but just under the surface there was something bubbling - something that would erupt and splatter gunk on whoever was standing closest. Thank Christ, it wouldn’t be him.

  Yeah, he knew her type. She was reckless, and she was heading for brake failure, and he wasn’t thinking about her car.

  Chapter Ten

  As Ruby screeched to a halt in the driveway, Edward appeared on the porch.

  ‘Ruby,’ he began. ‘I’m sorry-’

  ‘A policeman just called me a drunken slut!’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Yes!’ Her fingers fumbled to unbuckle her seat belt.

  ‘Surely, he must have had a reason?’

  ‘What reason?’ She threw herself out of the car. ‘I’ve never been drunk in my life!’

  ‘Do you want to report him?’

  ‘What’s the point? It’ll just be my word against his.’

  Edward swung into the house. ‘Sorry. The telephone’s ringing.’

  She banged up the porch steps. What was his name? Sheriff Gef-fart! She squeezed through the mountain of cartons still to be unpacked in the hall; waded through discarded bubble-wrap that littered the kitchen floor.

  Edward was speaking into the telephone. ‘I have the notes upstairs,’ he was saying. ‘Hang on.’ He turned to her. ‘Ruby, can you put the phone down when I get upstairs? It’s Payat. Say hello.’

  Still fuming, she took the phone and clamped it to her ear. ‘Hello.’ She was now stamping her heel into the bubble-wrap, hearing it pop and wishing it was the policeman’s head.

  ‘Ruby!’ Payat’s voice was high in delight. ‘How you settling in?’

  ‘Oh, just putting up the wigwam.’

  The man was evidently too stupid to recognise sarcasm when he heard it, because he laughed.

  When Edward came on the line upstairs, she dropped the receiver into its cradle then began to prepare dinner; peeling potatoes at speed, still seething with humiliation. How dare that man accuse her of drunkenness? There was no point in reporting him to the authorities because they would only close ranks.

  Hearing the sound of a car engine, she glanced up and all thoughts of the sheriff went out of her head. She watched as the car turn into the driveway opposite. The garage doors opened electronically, the car drove inside, the doors closed. So far, that’s all she’d seen of her neighbours. She recalled Edward’s words: “By now Claire would have made friends with all the neighbours.” That was true. Claire was one of those people who bestowed her friendship as if it were a precious gift; consequently, she had always been extremely popular.

  When Ruby was small she’d been bubbly and happy with loads of friends. Then her mother took her to stay with grandad, saying she would be back, but she’d never come back. As the months passed, Ruby became more and more surly and introverted. Vanessa arrived and transferred her to a posh fee-paying academy, where the girls had ponies, flicked immaculate hair over their shoulders, and used sarcasm as a weapon. Claire made no attempt to help Ruby integrate; in fact, Claire encouraged the other girls to mock Ruby’s accent, her unruly hair, her gaucheness. Ruby was lonely and marginalised. By the time she graduated from the girls’ academy, she’d been taught how to make an après ski lunch and how to pack a picnic for a hunting party. She’d gained the knowledge to marry a duke, but had lost all confidence.

  Now, as she stared at the garage door across the road, she yearned for a friend. But she knew that with a chronic lack of personality, and an abundance of crippling shyness, she would remain friendless.

  *

  ‘Tell us, Ruby. How did she really die?’

  Ruby wanted to enquire about tornadoes; her neighbours wanted to discuss Princess Diana. Yesterday, Ruby believed she would never make friends, now she had five of them. And it had taken no effort
on her part. An hour ago she went to fetch her mail and was hijacked by Echo and Mary-Jo who frog-marched her down to one of the clapboard houses. Now they sat in Darlene Offenbach’s cosy kitchen with its colourful rag rugs and knitted pillows, drinking coffee. On the table was a mug full of biros, each one printed with the injunction: DON’T LIVE WITH A DRIP - CALL OFFENBACH PLUMBERS.

  ‘Why do you think I would know how she died?’ Ruby asked.

  ‘’Cos yer English,’ Mary-Jo reminded her.

  ‘You speak like Royalty.’ Blair gave a demonstration: ‘Ak-chewlee. Quate.’

  Karis nodded. ‘And you lived right next door to her.’

  ‘No,’ Ruby protested. ‘I once lived in the vicinity of Kensington Palace.’

  Echo sighed wistfully. ‘Kensington Palace …’

  These women stared at Ruby as if she was the most fascinating person they had ever met. None of them had been out of America, and whatever knowledge they had of England came from primary school textbooks and newspaper headlines. Consequently, they had a surreal image of some distant island of cruel queens, beautiful but tragic princesses, beheadings and fog.

  There were four distinct hair colours in the room. Echo’s was red, courtesy of her Scottish ancestors. Karis had rich auburn, courtesy of an expensive hairdresser. Mary-Jo and Darlene were descendants of German Lutherans with white hair, blue eyes and pretty features folded into plump faces. Blair, who was part Cherokee, had hair as black and sleek as tar.

  Mary-Jo offered Ruby a plate of pastries. ‘We’re having a Halloween party and we’d love it if you could come, Ruby.’

  ‘No!’ Blair sat straight. ‘She’s coming to us. You had it last year.’

  ‘But she wasn’t here then!’

  While they squabbled, Darlene leant over to Ruby and whispered an invitation to her “Millennium Boogie Night Stomp”. Hearing this, the others turned on Darlene. ‘If she’s going to you for New Year’s,’ Karis stated, ‘then she’s coming to us for Thanksgiving!’