by Debbie Chase
I had to grin at Dad’s word “adventures”—very apt. Excitement rose high up in my chest and into my throat, just like Christmas morning, as my impending secret adventure came to mind. Rose gave me a look that clearly said, “Don’t you dare tell them about the library job.” We began to tell him about our day while helping ourselves to the plentiful good food.
Chapter Two
Mum and Dad had met young, very young, at school. Dad always said there was never anybody else for him and that it was love at first sight. “Even that awful maroon and grey school uniform and knee-high socks that were always pooling around her ankles didn’t put me off,” he always said with a laugh. I never heard Mum say the same, but God, she must love him—after all, she’d stayed with him for years. They had a lot of history, the most important thing, of course, being Rose and me—“The best thing that ever happened to us,” they always said—although we didn’t appear until they were well into their thirties.
They still spent all their evenings and weekends together, walking the local beauty spots and frequenting the nearby pubs and restaurants. Both loved the garden, Mum dead heading and planting while Dad mowed the lawn and carried out repairs, and then Mum did her own thing at the health center like yoga, Pilates, and swimming, and Dad played golf.
Mum had been born in Emsworth, in a very small hospital called Northlands, a lovely old house situated near the station, which was long gone—“Demolished years ago,” Mum had told us. Dad was born in the beautiful city of Chichester, which was where Grandma and Grandad—Dad’s mum and dad—used to live. Both died when we were young, whereas Nan and Grandad, Mum’s mum and dad, still alive and kicking, lived in Havant in a lovely house on West Street called Westfield House.
Rose and I used to love staying there when we were little. We were let loose to explore the whole house, silently creeping through the dark rooms, often finding Nan chatting in her “telephone room,” as she always called it, or with Grandad in the sitting room, fire blazing, shouting at the wrestling on a Saturday afternoon. We loved the old musty attic, still with the bells on the wall for summoning the servants many years before, and the bright, airy conservatory, where we enjoyed the family parties. The house was huge, but then so was the family, consisting of lots of aunties and uncles and cousins, and second cousins, and probably third and fourth cousins as well. For all I knew, I could walk past a member of the family on Emsworth High Street every day and not even know who they were.
A pitter-patter of wet drops on my bare arms and the top of my head brought me back to earth, and, glancing up, I found that the sun had disappeared behind massed dark clouds that looked fit to burst at any minute. Oh no, it had been sunny when I set off for home.
Jesus is washing his floor, I thought as I dashed to stand beneath the protective leafy canopy of a tree, one of many lining the paths on my walk home from Warblington School to Emsworth. What on earth made me think that, Jesus is washing his floor?
It put me in mind of a story Mum told me about something I’d asked her when I was little. Apparently, I’d said very seriously, “Does Jesus smack dicky bird’s legs?”
“What did you say to that?” I asked as I shook my head and giggled at my stupid young self.
“I told you that no, Jesus would never do that,” Mum replied, “And that he loves all animals and birds.” Wow, I must have been a strange child.
Hoisting my rucksack higher on my back, I carried on walking. Being a bit of a fitness freak, I always walked home from school. It was only a couple of miles each way, but hey, four miles a day could do a body a lot of good. Rose, needless to say, thought I’d lost my mind. She’d always been one of the girls at school who forged notes from their mum on PE day, especially when it was cross country or hockey. Whereas I had been there at the head of the queue, ready and raring to go.
Typical, I thought. The last day of the summer term, six whole weeks of freedom stretching ahead, and of course, it’s raining in sheets.
Pulling a rain slicker from my rucksack, I put it on and pulled the hood up over my dark hair. I stood for a few minutes watching the rain drops as they hammered into the ground like tiny silver bullets. People scurried past, eager to get home, and traffic thundered by, sending out a fine spray like somebody sneezing. Quickly, my boots squelching through the puddles, I walked on, the rain easing off to a silvery haze. As I reached Emsworth town center, the sun came out from behind the clouds, glimmering in patches of blue, and the rain finally stopped, so I lowered my hood and shook my hair back from my face.
People came tentatively out of swinging pub doors, taking cursory glances up at the sky and, after giving the benches a hasty wipe, sat down with a weary sigh to sip their tea time beers and wines. Cooking smells wafted lazily along the street, and families sat on benches eating fish and chips, besieged by clouds of greedy honking seagulls. Colorful boats bobbed up and down on the rippling sea. A runner streaked by, soaked from head to toe, slipping and sliding on the wet cobbles, and a black and white border collie bounded along, gazing up at its owner, its tail wagging in excitement.
“Hey, Ruby.” A figure loomed in front of me, a figure so tall I had to crane my neck to look up at him. A smile lit up his face like a megawatt light bulb, and his deep brown eyes twinkled. Stubble layered his chin and cheeks, which I had to admit looked really cool and attractive.
“Hi, James, how are you?” The fleeting thought—oh my God—what must I look like went through my mind. I had visions of stringy damp hair and a rain-soaked sweaty—hopefully, it was more dewy?—looking face, and added to that the really unfashionable rain slicker. It wasn’t my best look.
“Yeah, I’m good. You, Ruby?” I nodded as he frowned and said, “I haven’t seen you for ages. Not with the usual crowd or even with Rose, which is pretty weird. You two are usually me and my shadow.” He laughed, showing his lovely white teeth.
“Well, Rose and I can’t be together constantly. Both of us at any one time is really too much of a good thing.”
He smiled and said, “Did you get caught in the rain?”
Which put me in mind of a song that Mum loved, something about walking in the rain with the one I love. The big guy? Barry White?
“Yeah, it came down pretty heavy earlier, but it’s great now. Look at the sun.” We both gazed up at the sky where that great yellow globe hung like a cardboard cut-out hastily colored bright yellow by a child. James nodded, and we grinned at each other as awkwardly, shyly, he looked down at the ground and then back at me, and just stared until I said, “Oh well, better head home. See you, James.”
“Yeah, yeah, see you, Ruby. It’s been good to chat.”
I began to walk away, almost tripping over a dog’s lead that was stretched tightly across the path. The owner was gazing without a care in the world into Diamond & Dewers, the Butcher’s shop window, contemplating the price of sausages or chicken legs, no doubt, instead of keeping a vigilant eye on the whereabouts of his dog’s lead.
“Oh, sorry, love,” he said, a small, portly man with a droopy mustache, as he saw me stumble and quickly jerked the lead away. A strong hand gripped my arm, and I looked up once again at James.
“Oh…thank you,” I said, “You saved my life.” I giggled nervously.
“That’s okay, and yeah, dog owners should watch out for that. It happens all the time.” He gave the portly man a bit of a look before blurting out, “Look, Ruby, I need to ask you something.”
I had a feeling he was going to ask me out, and I wasn’t sure what to say. I couldn’t tell him I was sneaking away the very next day on an adventure. I was tempted to confide in him, but no, I couldn’t take the risk. Not even Mum and Dad knew I was going off alone.
Very hot and flustered by now, he said, “Look…. Can I…? Ruby…will you go out for a drink with me? Just the two of us? Sometime soon? Well, this weekend, if you’re not busy.”
“James, I—”
>
But before I could say anything else, he stammered, “It’s okay. You’ve probably got somebody else anyway. You’re so pretty and outgoing, and…interesting, why would you want to see me?” He turned his head away, pretending to look at the crowds of people walking along the High Street, his hands dug deep into his pockets. People jostled around us, taking interested sneaky glances, trying to listen to our conversation.
“No, James, it’s not that. There’s nobody else.” In so many ways, I wanted to say, “Can you wait until I come back from France?” But instead, I blurted out, “I just don’t want a boyfriend at the moment, or even a casual friend, really.” And then I said a really lame thing. “I’m finding myself, I suppose….”
“Yeah, I understand. It’s okay. Um…I’ll see you around then, Ruby.”
“Thanks, James, for helping me earlier. I’d have looked a fool if I’d fallen.”
He gave a small smile, his lips turning up slightly at the corners, and said, “If you ever change your mind, this is my number. Make sure you put it in your phone.”
He pressed a scrap of paper into my hand and, leaning forward, gently kissed my mouth right at the very edge of my lower lip. A sharp pain like an arrow pierced my chest, and I felt breathless and weak as if my bones had turned to mush. Clutching the piece of paper in my hand, I put my fingers to the place he’d kissed, feeling the warmth of it and wondering if the pain in my heart was a feeling of regret.
~*~
Arriving home, I walked through the open front door and into the hallway. I breathed in a strong smell of cooking, something hot and spicy that seeped like a dense fog between the cracks of the closed kitchen door. It looked as though Mum’s special chicken curry was on the menu tonight. I was glad there was nobody about and wanted to get to the privacy of my side of the room, so to speak, first of all, to rid myself of my damp clothes, and then to sit and really think about that truly romantic moment that had just taken place on the High Street between myself and James.
I kept reminding myself that this was the same James I’d known since school, the same James I’d thought of as a brother, really, that I’d refused to go out with many times before—albeit only asked on a casual basis and not a proper date—and that I’d thought of as a friend.
How come one meeting with him out of the blue, when I was just going off alone on the adventure of a lifetime, had suddenly given me the collywobbles? I’d found myself even admiring his stubble, for God’s sake! And what was even worse was that he’d given me his number, so unless I got rid of that piece of paper right now and put it firmly in the bin, I would be able to text or ring him at any time, even when I was away. Tempting or what?
Stopping me in my tracks, Rose’s voice came loud and clear from behind the kitchen door. “Well, Mum, you’re now looking at the new library assistant at Warblington School. I start after the summer holidays.”
There was a short silence before Mum said, “What are you talking about, Rose? That’s Ruby’s job, surely.”
“She didn’t want to apply,” said Rose confidently. “She gave me a total free rein and said she had no interest in the job. She really likes being on reception and didn’t want to give it up.”
The sound of the kettle coming to a bubbling boil drowned out some of the conversation, then I heard Mum say, “Hmm. I’m a bit puzzled as to why Ruby made that choice. She was so keen on the library job.”
“Well, you know what she’s like, very changeable.”
I frowned at that comment. Rose knew I wasn’t changeable, that I had really seriously wanted the library job. But then again, she was right. I had backed off and given her free rein, but only because I had itchy feet and, to be truthful, because of the competition for the job, I hadn’t expected Rose to get it. People who were far more qualified than her had said they were going to apply. Maybe they hadn’t. Rose hadn’t even told me when the interviews were taking place, trying to shield me from any upset, I suppose, seeing as how she knew how much I was giving up.
Well, whatever, I thought, as I ran quickly upstairs to our room. It was too late now. I’d have to grin and bear it. Thank God I was going off on holiday and could at least get away from it all. It would have been too difficult to hide my disappointed face from Mum, that’s for sure.
Before Rose came upstairs, I quickly pulled my rucksack from underneath the bed and began to fill it with clothes. Shorts and T-shirts, underwear, a pair of jeans, a swimming costume, flip flops, and a sundress. I was going to travel extremely light. I dithered with the trusty rain slicker before deciding to take it in case of bad weather.
My plan was to wake at the crack of dawn and somehow sneak past a sleeping Rose. Hopefully, she would go out tonight, have a few drinks, and be out for the count. I was going to stash my bag in the garden shed and pick it up on my way out. Dad didn’t always check that it was locked—and anyway, I knew where he kept the key.
I felt a bit guilty at going off without saying a word to Mum and Dad, but it was the only way. If Rose knew, she would surely follow me, and I didn’t want that at the moment. I needed to get away, not only because of Rose having gotten the library job, but also because of James, and more importantly, because I wanted to experience life without a twin. Without my other half, the other side of my face. In fact, what it was like to be me and only me, Ruby Tuesday Deacon.
Chapter Three
The city of Portsmouth receded into the distance, looking more and more like a toy town, its buildings, houses and shops becoming smaller and smaller and then slowly disappearing, as the ferry chugged further and further out to sea, bobbing up and down on the choppy waves, all the way to St Malo. I smiled to myself, thinking about happy times with Mum, Dad, and Rose when we’d sailed to the Isle of Wight for our summer holidays. Seagulls wheeled and squawked overhead. Would I ever get away from the pesky things? They were bad enough in Emsworth, but here, out in the proper deep sea as it were, they were even worse, like white phantoms in the sky, their plaintive cries sending shivers running down my spine.
Gripping the deck rail hard with cold hands, I smiled with excitement and even awe, pleased with myself, happy that I’d gotten this far. A strong cool wind ruffled my hair, and people milled about, pushing and jostling, trying to get one last glimpse of England’s shores while narrowing their eyes against the glare of an early morning sun glowing orange behind skeins of wispy cloud. Some held their phones at the end of an outstretched arm, posing for selfies as they leaned against the railings nonchalantly, heads thrown back like Jack or Rose in the film Titanic.
The name Rose made me think of my twin, and my heart beat faster and gave me an odd guilty pang as I wondered if she’d woken yet and seen that I was gone. I took a cursory glance at my phone, but there were no text messages demanding to know where I was and no missed calls. I fully intended to text later once I was properly on my way. Once the sight of English land had gone, and there was no turning back. Well, not for a while anyway.
Thinking about it, though, nobody would suspect I’d gone until later this afternoon. Rose tended to sleep late on a Saturday, whereas I was up with the lark and out walking at least until lunch time, St. Thomas a Becket Church at Warblington, the cemetery, and the seashore being some of my favorite places to explore. I hadn’t heard Rose come in the night before but had seen her this morning slumbering like Sleeping Beauty, her duvet discarded on the floor like a snow drift, and puffing breath soft and hissy between clenched teeth. I cursed each creaking stair as I padded downstairs and across the old worn tiles in the hallway to slip quietly out of the back door and to the shed where I’d hidden my rucksack.
The early morning bus from Emsworth had meandered along, swaying from side to side like a drunk, the muddy stench from Langstone sneaking through the windows like marmite—you know, you either love it or you hate it. Me? It brought back childhood memories, so I loved it. The roads, fairly quiet at this time of day, started t
o get a little busier as we came into Cosham, and from there, only straggly queuing as we finally arrived in Portsmouth. Climbing aboard the ferry, shuffling along amongst the crowds, I thought about the B&B that I’d booked in St. Malo, picked totally at random just because I liked the name. La Petite Amelia. The words rolled off my tongue, sweet as honey, La Petite Amelia. I couldn’t wait to see it.
Once Portsmouth had finally disappeared from the horizon, and there was only an endless sea beneath an endless sky, I made my way inside and, stomach gurgling like faulty plumbing, ordered hot chocolate and a flaky croissant at a small bustling café. Sitting down near a window, I peered out at the rolling and swelling of the glassy green waves as the boat peaked and rolled. I’d thought that I’d be nauseated, but I felt okay, just a bit lonely without the comforting presence of Rose at my side. I wasn’t used to a great empty space that at the moment felt impossible to fill.
Drinking the last of my hot chocolate, I wandered back out onto the deck, the swaying of the ferry making me lurch like a drunk and, resting my rucksack at my feet, leaned against the rail and gazed out to sea, idly watching the feathery white-tipped waves slapping against the sides of the ferry and seagulls diving for fish that glinted silver beneath the water. The deck was almost deserted now as everybody had gone inside for breakfast, and the odor of frying bacon and eggs, mixed with the heady smell of filtered coffee, filled the air.
I sensed rather than saw a presence at my side, a tall figure wearing a long dark coat open to reveal jeans and a white T-shirt bearing the words Thin Lizzy in big square letters. He wore a thin striped scarf wound casually around his neck like one of our upper-grade students. He was vaping, clutching the machine as though his life depended on it, taking sharp intakes of breath, exhaling a flowery sweetish smell that snaked through the air like one of Mum’s scented candles.
