Brake Failure

by Alison Brodie

  ‘Yes. No!’

  Molly laughed. ‘Well, I’ve kept a note of his number if you need it.’

  *

  They pulled up outside a house with the Union Jack flag hanging from a pole. The only time Ruby had seen the British flag flying was on the roof of Buckingham Palace. In Kansas, most inhabitants had the Stars-and-Stripes outside their homes, showing they were proud to be American. In England, if you flew the Union Jack, people thought you were a racist National Front supporter with a shaved head.

  Why couldn’t the British be proud of their flag, just like the Americans? Ruby thought as she followed Molly to the front door.

  This proved to be the monthly meeting of the Daughters of the British Empire. Not an insurgency cell, as Ruby had imagined; but five upper-class Englishwomen dressed in pearls and twin-sets drinking Earl Grey tea while discussing fund-raising for Brits down on their luck in Kansas.

  Tonight’s agenda focused on the Highland Games to be held in Parksville next spring. There would be bagpipes, tossing the caber, homemade scones and fruitcake. Above the mahogany sideboard was a portrait of the Queen. In England, Ruby had been totally unaware of the woman. In Kansas, she couldn’t get away from her.

  Molly dominated the proceedings. She’d begun by telling everyone about a fruitcake recipe invented by her Polish great-grandmother, before going on talk about Ellis Island and how her great-grandmother had arrived with head-lice. Losing patience, Marjorie, the chairwoman, cut across Molly’s meanderings and took control of the meeting once more.

  Ruby discovered from the handbook, that Marjorie had received the CBE from the Queen for services to Britain. How did the Queen find such a person? Here? And, surely, one received the CBE for storming enemy bunkers, not for bullying British ladies into baking shortbread? This was all so English. Pull Up Your Socks. One Has To Do Ones Duty.

  Yet, somehow, Ruby found it all quite reassuring. She could ask for a cup of tea without having to watch her hostess burrow into the depths of a cupboard on an odyssey of finding a tea bag she swore she’d seen last Labour Day. She could protest about the local men driving off in combat gear to murder deer; and she could complain that it was impossible to find HP Sauce and Gentleman’s Relish in the shops.

  Araminta, her hair in a neat bun, turned to Ruby. ‘What have you bought your husband for Christmas?’

  ‘A tie patterned with sprigs of holly-’

  ‘That’s what I bought Charles!’ a voice exclaimed.

  ‘Me, too!’ someone else added.

  Ruby continued. ‘And socks-’

  ‘Me, too!’ everyone chorused.

  Ruby shifted. Payat believed she didn’t “run with the herd”. Thank goodness he couldn’t see her now; not so much a stampeding stallion but more like a cud-chewing cow. But I don’t want to be like these women, she told herself. I refuse to be! I have a box of bullets, I’m friends with a Survivalist and I am the creative assistant to a Red Indian Chief. But, like these women, I wear my hair pinned up and pearls around my neck. My home is a showcase of neatness and cleanliness. I like everything to be orderly, punctual, and methodical.

  She put down her cup. If she wanted to be different from these women, she would have to make changes. For starters, she had to get out of this place. She stood up, removed her hair grips, and shook her hair free.

  ‘Come on Molly,’ she said. ‘Let’s piss on the campfire and saddle up the horses.’

  The Daughters of the British Empire gazed up at her. Marjorie gave a tinkle of uncertain laughter. ‘Where are you two girls off to?’

  ‘The Brown Bag.’

  Marjorie shivered. ‘That sounds rather … insalubrious.’

  ‘It sure the heck is.’

  Ruby headed for the door. She was about to fill the role Payat had offered her. She was about to become “zingy” and “off-the-wall”. Tonight, I will drink beer! she told herself. I will sit in a room full of cigarette smoke - and not care! And I will mix with wild and dangerous characters.

  Marjorie called after her. ‘Ruby, do I put your name down for fruitcake or shortbread?’

  Ruby turned to give a disparaging answer then she paused, allowing her gaze to move over the tiered cake-stand, the silver sugar tongs, and the paper doilies. Did she want to cast off entirely from this island of Englishness? This corner of home? Her tribe?

  ‘Fruitcake, Marjorie.’

  *

  The Prairies

  Mighty prairies, far and near

  We ride them and we have no fear

  The coyotes howl, and bison ponder

  What threats await in that there yonder?

  Is it white man with his gun?

  Or wary, wily wolves that run

  Is it Sioux, Cheyenne or Kaw?

  These are things we never know.

  It was two in the morning and Ruby was sitting at the small table in the back bedroom. She had intended to write slogans for Weavers hair-colorant, but with her head so full of Payat, she had penned two verses of poetry, instead. It had been amazingly easy, making her suspect that she was a born poet.

  Seven hours had elapsed since she vowed to change. In that time, she had jived at The Brown Bag; had her first taste of tequila - from a not-too-clean glass - but that didn’t matter because the alcohol was strong enough to disinfect it; and she had listened to Karla explain the beauty of a Harley Davidson while the rest of the Hells Angels all agreed: Princess Diana should have been wearing her seat belt.

  Now, as Ruby nibbled the end of her pen, her gaze settled once more on the smiling blonde on the hair-colorant box. All Ruby needed was one catchy line - enough to make millions of housewives grab the product from the shelves. She put pen to paper. And waited … and waited …

  *

  Next morning, Ruby awoke with her first ever hangover. She sat up slowly, pressed her fingertips to her temples and applied pressure in an attempt to prevent her brain from exploding. She tip-toed into the bathroom and brushed her teeth, glancing from her bloodshot eyes to the smiling blonde on the box.

  She had to get this right and the only way …

  *

  Ruby sat in Bellulah’s Hair Studio while Bellulah peered at the box in her hand. ‘Are you sure you want me to use this on you, honey? We’ve got our own products.’

  ‘I’m not here to change my hair colour. I just need ideas for an advertising slogan. Of course, I’ll pay you for your time.’

  ‘No, you don’t have to pay me,’ Bellulah said. ‘I’m happy to help.’

  ‘That’s kind of you. Thank you. The slogans have to be catchy,’ Ruby added. She’d taken two painkillers before leaving home and, thankfully, they were now beginning to relieve her hangover.

  Bellulah was tapping a red fingernail against her chin, thinking. Ruby waited. She could see by the faraway expression in the woman’s eyes that she was in the middle of the creative process - Ruby had been there and knew what it was like - but the stylist seemed to be taking an awfully long time.

  Customers came in, the doorbell tinkled, greetings were tossed about, but still the stylist stared at a fixed point beyond the window. At last, she stirred. ‘You know what I think?’

  Ruby sat straight and eager. ‘No? What?’

  ‘This is just a box.’

  Ruby nodded slowly. ‘Um … yes?’

  ‘A box won’t give me ideas. I have to use the product first.’

  ‘You mean use it on me?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘But I’ll end up blonde.’

  ‘Yep …’ Bellulah glanced at the box. ‘Scandinavian blonde.’

  *

  Ruby drove home fast. Edward was due back in thirty minutes. Although she’d grabbed some shopping, the house was still a mess. And, because she’d been out all day frantically researching beauty products, she hadn’t had time to prepare a three-course meal of Michelin-star standards.

  Seeing Echo jogging along the pavement, Ruby pulled to a halt to say a quick hello. Echo leant into the car, astonishme
nt stamped on her face. ‘Is that you?’ she asked.

  Ruby was still coming to terms with the harrowing fact that her hair was not only brilliant blonde it was also very short. ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘Like it? I love it! You look so … beautiful.’ Echo continued to gaze at her. ‘You’re having an affair, aren’t you?’ She sounded hopeful.

  ‘Absolutely not!’ Ruby was terrified by the question. Why? Was it because she didn’t want an affair, or because she did?

  When Edward arrived home, he peered at Ruby’s head like an orang-utan searching for insect titbits. ‘What on earth have you done to yourself?’

  Ruby’s hand went up to her bare neck. Having recovered from her initial shock, she adored her new hair. The colour brought out the topaz colour of her eyes and the elfin cut made her neck appear even longer, while emphasising her heart-shaped face.

  ‘It makes you look flash,’ Edward stated.

  She bristled. ‘It was to help me get ideas for Weavers,’ she said coolly.

  ‘I hope it was worth it.’

  ‘It was.’ Ruby and Bellulah might not have come up with ideas, but her clients had.

  Since her hairstyle came low on Edward’s list of priorities, he soon forgot about it.

  ‘Did you iron my blue linen shirt?’ he asked.

  ‘I want to talk to you about that. Echo gave me the number of the laundry in-’

  ‘No. I don’t want my shirts going to a laundry. They’ll get ruined.’

  ‘But-’

  ‘No. Final.’ He pulled apart his shirt to reveal the ginger hairs on his stomach. ‘When are you going to sew a button on this?’

  Annoyed by his tone, she ignored him and began unpacking the groceries.

  ‘Did you get the suede cleaner for my shoes?’ he asked testily.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you found my other slipper yet?’

  ‘The leather one?’ she queried.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The ones you bought from Harvey Nicks?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No.’

  He sniffed the air. ‘What are we having for dinner?’

  ‘Pasta-bake … I think.’

  ‘You think?’

  She grabbed a carton from the shopping bag. ‘Yep. Pasta-bake.’

  ‘That’s a ready-meal!’ He looked appalled. ‘We don’t have ready-meals.’

  She tossed it into the microwave and punched a button. ‘We do now.’

  ‘You can’t expect me to eat that rubbish!’

  When she didn’t answer, he grabbed his Tupperware box, peeled off the lid and showed her the cake inside. ‘Donna made this for me but I didn’t eat it. Do you know why? Because you want me to lose weight.’ He broke off a chunk of cake and stuffed it in his mouth. ‘At least Donna takes care of me,’ he mumbled, spraying crumbs.

  Edward was being childish. Ruby had never seen him act like this before. On the other hand, Edward had never seen her act like this before, either.

  She picked up the telephone. She’d told Molly she couldn’t go dancing tonight because Edward was coming home from Topeka. Now she would call to say there had been a change of plan.

  Jiving to a rock and roll band was a helluva lot more fun than sewing on shirt buttons for an ungrateful husband and watching “Das Boot” (in sub-titles) for the third time. She would leave Edward to the joys of being stuck in a sinking German submarine … because she was going to go out and have fun.

  *

  Molly was dumbstruck by Ruby’s hair: ‘It’s turned you round one-hundred-and-eighty-degrees.’

  Ruby, who had never been good at maths, tried to work this out. ‘What? I look like the girl from The Exorcist?’

  Molly chuckled. ‘That’s three-hundred-and-sixty-degrees. What I mean is, you look the opposite of what you used to look like, which is good.’

  When Ruby mentioned she’d started writing poetry about the prairie, Molly drove her to Bronco’s to help her get ideas. Men in Stetson hats wrinkled their brows in an effort to describe it:

  ‘It’s big.’

  ‘It’s flat.’

  ‘You can hear a person sneeze a mile away.’

  ‘Some people can’t handle the prairie; it’s the big sky, the big storms; it makes you feel insignificant.’

  In the end, Ruby decided she would just have to use her imagination.

  After Bronco’s they went to The Brown Bag. The bikers they’d met on Wednesday night sat on a wall outside, smoking dope and chatting. When they saw Molly and Ruby, they waved them over, eager to know more about England. After Ruby had exhausted all her knowledge of Princess Diana’s death, Rick announced that if Princess Diana had had them for bodyguards, she would still be alive.

  Ruby was as avidly curious about these bikers as they were about her. When Zenith asked if she wanted to try out her motorbike, Ruby hastily refused, too scared of all that powerful black metal to think of roaring off up the road. She took a couple of “tokes” on their “spliff” and quite enjoyed the effect it had. She knocked back a bottle of beer. She strolled along the row of motorbikes, seeing skulls, and all the paraphernalia of lawless hell-hounds. With an inebriated false confidence, she swung a leg over Zenith’s motorbike, just to see what it was like. Idly, she turned the throttle and suddenly she shot across the road, scraping an approaching vehicle, before coming up hard against a wall. She glanced back. She’d hit a police car.

  There were two policemen in front; one of them was Gephart, who threw himself out of the vehicle. She panicked and made a break for it. She reached the shadows just as Gephart gripped her arm, thwarting her escape.

  ‘Stop right there,’ he panted.

  ‘Oh, hello, Sheriff Gephart,’ she said in her friendliest voice. This bloody man was plaguing her life.

  ‘Ruby?’ He peered at her. ‘Is that you?’

  She sighed. ‘The one and only.’

  Still holding her by the arm, he led her back into the light and examined her. ‘I like your hair. Real pretty.’ Disturbed by the chattering sounds coming from the radio at his shoulder, he switched it off. ‘Call me Hank,’ he told her.

  ‘Okay … Hank.’

  ‘I wanted to phone you, but Molly didn’t have your number. But she did say you’d be here tonight.’

  Ruby kept a smile on her face even though she was seething at her friend’s betrayal.

  The other policeman, having given the car a thorough inspection, approached. Gephart made the introductions. ‘This is my new partner, Deputy Sheriff Joseph Branagh. Joseph, this is Ruby.’

  Ruby never imagined she would dislike a cop more than Gephart, but she’d been wrong. Branagh was small and skinny with a narrow face and weasel eyes. He looked her up and down in contempt. ‘She’s put scratches in the paintwork. That’s damage of police property.’

  Hank nodded. ‘You wait in the car, Joseph. I’ll take care of this.’

  Branagh gave Ruby a parting look that said: “I’ll get you next time.”

  When he was out of earshot, Gephart apologised. ‘Sorry about that. He’s got a thing against Hells Angels.’ He gestured to the bike. ‘What were you doing riding this thing anyway?’

  ‘I wasn’t riding it; I was just sitting on it and turned the throttle by accident.’

  He frowned at the bikers across the road, who were jeering at him. ‘Listen, Ruby, I advise you not to fraternise with that crowd. I understand you’re English. You don’t know better, but they’re bad news.’

  This was unfair! Her biker friends might have BLASPHEME emblazoned on their jackets, but they were gentlemen: kind, considerate and up-to-date with Royal gossip. Besides, it annoyed her that Gephart believed he had the right to tell her who she was allowed to be friends with.

  ‘I like them.’

  Gephart turned to the crowd. ‘You people go back inside. The show’s over.’ His voice was loud and severe; a man accustomed to being obeyed. As the crowd shuffled away, he turned back to her. ‘If I wasn’t here, Branagh would be
charging you. All because of the company you keep.’

  They were now alone, the street was silent. Due to one innocent mistake, she now had to stand here and listen to Gephart berate her as if she were a child.

  He paused, his head to one side. ‘I could book you,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Or, you could do something for me …’

  Ah, here it comes, she thought savagely. Grandad Jack had told her all about police corruption. What will it be? Bribery? Blackmail? Extortion? But there was one thing her grandad had omitted to mention: sexual favours. She imagined the feel of Gephart’s hand on her skin and shivered. Abruptly she glanced away, crossing her arms tight across her ribcage.

  ‘I’m not that sort of girl,’ she said primly.

  ‘What sort of girl are you?’ Gephart seemed genuinely interested.

  ‘One who will not be intimidated.’

  ‘I’m not intimidating you. I just wanted to ask if you could read to an old lady.’

  ‘Oh!’ Ruby exclaimed in surprise. ‘Well … yes … of course.’

  Hank continued, ‘That’s the reason I wanted to speak to you. My uncle is a resident at Shady Acres Nursing Home. A couple of days ago an English lady moved in. She’s been in the city more’n thirty years and I guess she’s lonely ’cos she’s got no family. So I figured she’d be pleased to hear an English voice … your voice.’

  Ruby had recovered her composure. ‘I’d be more than happy to meet her.’

  ‘Good. We’ll call it community service. Nothing official. I’ll be off duty.’ He switched on the radio at his shoulder and a chattering sounds filled the air. ‘I’ll expect you at Shady Acres, Olathe, tomorrow, two p.m. Don’t be late.’

  Don’t be late. Frowning, Ruby watched him go. Did he have to use such a threatening tone?

  As he drove off, Molly darted across the road. ‘What did he want?’

  ‘Shooting.’

  ‘No, seriously. Did he ask you out on a date?’

  ‘No. He wants me to read to an old lady.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘Ah-ha. That’s when he’ll ask.’

  ‘How come you know his intentions?’

  ‘Well …’ Molly fidgeted. ‘I’ve been phoning him. Thought I’d try my luck, but all he does is ask about you. Oh, and by the way, I’ve told him you’re staying with a friend in Shawnee.’