by Debbie Chase
“You’re surely not going walking today, are you, Ruby?” came Rose’s sleepy voice from behind the divider. “The BBC weather report says it’s snowing out.”
“There’s only a dusting,” I told her. “And anyway, I like walking in snow.”
“Wow,” she replied. “You definitely are a crazy loon.”
I wandered over to the bed and sat down, picking up my phone from the bedside cabinet. Call it an obsession if you like, but I spent countless hours every day inspecting the nearly always blank screen and checking the text messages. I had to laugh at myself, really, because even though it was a couple of months since I’d heard from Blake, I still held out a tiny shred of hope that he might get in touch. Call me stupid, but there was a possibility of, say, one in ten million?
The wonderful hot summer that we’d spent together seemed never to have happened, and to say that my heart ached at the thought of never seeing him again was definitely not an exaggeration. But then Michael’s situation suddenly hit me, and I wondered what on earth I was moping about. After all, my gripe was just about a holiday romance, but Michael…. Well, he might have to go through life without seeing his daughter, and that was a very different thing altogether.
“Ruby? Earth to Ruby, are you listening to me?”
“Huh?”
“I’ve been shouting at you for ages.” Rose had joined me where I sat on the bed. Clad only in her pajamas, she looked like a little girl, and even more so when she turned to gaze at me with those light blue eyes, identical to mine, and said, “Ruby, I’m going to resign from the job in the library.” Straight and to the point—yes, that was Rose.
“Rose, for God’s sake.” I felt a twinge of annoyance at the whole library job scenario, and if she really was going to resign, then what had been the point of all the upset over it? On the brighter side, though, I knew the girls in Student Reception would be relieved that she was going. I didn’t think Rose would ever win a popularity contest if they were on the judging panel.
“I know, I know. Please, Ruby, don’t get mad. It’s just that I don’t think I’m cut out for it.” And then, very shamefaced, she said, “I don’t think I’m even suited to working in a school, and I never felt right about taking the job from you.”
“What are you going to do then?” I asked irritably.
She went back to bed and brought her laptop to life with a twitch of the mouse. “I’m thinking of law—maybe a solicitor’s office. Mum said she’ll have a word at her place. Apparently, there’s an opening for a personal assistant to one of the conveyancing officers. I’ve been looking at their website. Look.”
I nodded and looked at the screen with her. “Great idea. You can put your typing skills to good use, and legal work will be really interesting.” Hopefully, that would be the end of the conversation.
Quickly I started to get dressed, pulling on a pair of waterproof walking trousers, a T-shirt, a warm fleece, and thick socks. Rose, watching me, said carefully, “You will apply for the library job when I leave, won’t you, Ruby?”
I shrugged and sighed. “I’m not sure now that I want the job,” I said as I filled my rucksack with a bottle of water, purse, phone, and snacks. “I might travel again.”
“Hmm,” said Rose. “What, go back to St. Malo chasing after that musician guy?”
I’d told her all about Blake on our recent night out when too many glasses of wine and umpteen shots had made my mouth run away with me. “Rose!” I said indignantly. “I’m not chasing after anybody.”
“I don’t know why you don’t go out with James,” she said. “Vanessa’s seeing Craig, and…well, I’m going out with Steve tonight. All six of us could go out together, but as couples.”
I didn’t reply but shrugged into my waterproof jacket and pulled a hat onto my head. Glancing from the window, I remarked, “Oh look, it’s stopped snowing.” The sun, a weak glow in the cloudless blue sky, was already melting the thin covering of snow on the paths and the grass.
She came to stand beside me again and, encircling my waist with her arm, pulled me close, and said imploringly, “Don’t ignore me, Ruby. James really likes you.”
I hugged her back and then gave a small smile as I pulled away and wound a scarf around my neck, and zipped up my jacket. “So you keep saying, Rose. But you know, we don’t choose who we fall in love with, do we?”
“Oh, go for your walk,” she said with a sulky pout.
With my hand on the door knob, I turned back to her. “If I’m not home before you go out tonight, have a good time with Steve.”
Her lips turned up in an unwilling smile, betraying the fact that she wasn’t really mad at me at all…well, not anymore!
Chapter Ten
An icy wind cut right through me as I stepped out the back door. It penetrated even the thick layers I wore, sending a cold shiver down my spine. The orange glow of the sun, promising so much heat as I gazed at it from the bedroom window, was in reality as cold and unfriendly as a block of ice. I hunched my shoulders to my ears, slipping and sliding on the snow-speckled garden path as I made my way onto the High Street. Geese honked and spat viciously while ducks quacked and flat-footed swans ambled the cobbles as I walked down to the harbor, where tiny matchstick boats bobbed up and down on the white-tipped pointy waves.
I saw very few people as I marched quickly around the harbor wall, swinging my arms energetically and gazing out towards the deeper sea, where buoys, bright orange dots in the winter murk, danced gaily. Dogs barked and strained on their leads as their owners hurried along, eager to get home and sit by the fire or make a detour to the Bluebell or the Coal Exchange for a warming rum or whiskey or a thick, smooth sherry. I noticed that some of the shops already had Christmas trees glowing in the windows, and lights that flashed and threw lozenges of color—red, blue, yellow, and green—onto the paths, and that many of the pubs had festive menus prominently displayed.
My thoughts turned to Blake, and I wondered what he was doing right at that moment. Did he ever think of me? Did he wonder what I thought of him not contacting me? What sort of a person was he to just dump somebody as he had dumped me? Coward, that’s what I thought—a coward not to ring me or even text. Okay, it’s not ideal to be chucked by text, but it was better than nothing. Better than silence.
As was always the case, though, when I thought of Blake, my feelings veered from sorrow to hot burning anger all in the space of a few seconds. The urge to look into his grass-green eyes or smell the sweet scent of his skin was overwhelming. I’d like to watch him as he vaped, as his lips enfolded the machine, giving me hope that soon those very same lips would be placed on mine.
Get a grip, Ruby, I thought and, desperate to stop the thoughts from milling around in my head, I made a plan to walk to Warblington Cemetery and St. Thomas a Becket Church, and then along the shore to the Old Mill and the Royal Oak. I began to walk faster to keep warm. It was mid-afternoon yet dusky, and snowflakes began to fall swirling white against the dim sky, stinging my face like pellets from a gun. The cemetery was virtually empty but for a couple of hunched figures, creepy in the gloom, who were placing a great sheaf of pungent gold and crimson chrysanthemums against a small heart-shaped headstone.
I wandered past the church that squatted low like a dark beast surrounded by gigantic trees, their gnarled trunks too wide to span, and old crumbling headstones, the writing barely legible now and the bones beneath long gone to ashes. Deep notes from an organ and high-pitched singing resonated into the air. The heart-shaped stone laden with flowers was for a child, a four year old child. I traced the wording with my fingers. With cherished memories…our daughter…Becky….
Children, especially little girls, turned my thoughts to Michael and his despair on the day we went to the house in Bosham when he’d staggered into the garden like a hobo, his feet bare. He had a daughter, Leah, only two years old. A daughter he’d barely had contact wi
th in that time through no fault of his own, but because of his girlfriend, Priscilla Fenton.
“Priscilla,” I remembered thinking as I looked again at the black and white photo of her and Leah that hung on the wall. “It suits her.” My hunch had been right. The child was Michael’s daughter and, therefore, Mum’s granddaughter. What was she to us? To Dad, to me and Rose? Step-granddad? Half-aunts? Yes, that must be right. Wow!
Priscilla, though, was an unusual name and, thinking about it, the only Priscilla I had ever heard of was the one that married Elvis, and she was dark and pretty too. Oh yes, and of course there was Priscilla, Queen of the Desert—but that’s another story.
“So what happened?” asked Dad. “After she gave birth to Leah?”
“She dumped me,” he told us as we all sat around him on the threadbare settee and chairs in his bare sitting room. He wore slippers now, old and scuffed, and was hunched into a jacket that he’d put on over his threadbare jumper. The house was cold. “She told me I wasn’t needed now. I’d done my bit.”
I remember how we all stared at him in disbelief.
“Don’t you see,” he said, angry now, not with us but with the whole situation. “She wanted a baby, and she used me to get what she wanted. She sized me up, you know—good job, smartly dressed, expensive car, plenty of money—he’ll do. She chose me and pretended to love me to get what she wanted…a child.”
“Oh, Michael.” Mum reached out tentatively and patted his shoulder.
He sat back in the chair, breathing heavily after his outburst. “We even discussed names and chose both a boy’s and a girl’s. We didn’t want to know what it was, you see.” He gazed at us and smiled sadly. “We had Luke for a boy.” Shyly he turned to Mum and said, “Leah’s middle name is May—I insisted on that.”
“You need a good solicitor, Michael,” said Dad kindly. “And I think we,” he glanced at Mum, “Can help you with that.”
My thoughts were so intense I didn’t notice the tall figure standing at my side until he said, “Wow, Ruby, I don’t know where you were, but you definitely weren’t here in Warblington Cemetery. I said hello at least three times.”
“Oh, God, sorry, James. I was miles away.” I looked up into his open, smiling face and felt a sudden surge of—I don’t know, was it happiness? Contentment? He wore a waterproof coat similar to mine, the hood pulled firmly over his head and even his chin, just his dark eyes staring out at me, shiny as sloes, and the tip of his nose red from the cold. He was holding a large bunch of—yes, you’ve guessed it, chrysanthemums. They shone out in the gloom as red as blood, smelling of the earth.
“I’m visiting my dad,” he said, indicating the flowers. “Do you want to come?”
I knew that James had lost his dad when he was young.
“Yeah,” he said, kneeling down at the graveside and busily discarding all the dead crumbly flowers to make room for the new ones. “He died when I was twelve. I don’t know if you remember that.” Slowly he shook his head. “A tragedy, a car accident. I really miss him. Well, we all do.” Meaning, no doubt, his mum and his younger sister, Lara.
I nodded sympathetically and murmured that yes, I did remember him going home early from school one day, led from the classroom by a teacher, all the kids staring at James’s baffled face.
“That’s why I work in Sonic Engineering, you know.” I glanced at him, frowning. “Because Dad worked there. I feel as if I’m sort of—I don’t know, carrying on a tradition. Two of my uncles are there, and a cousin, Penny—she works in the offices.” He laughed softly. “It’s sort of a family thing.”
He carefully wrapped the dead flowers in the old crinkly wrapping paper, ready for the bin, and then stood up, dusting off his trousers with gloved hands. The snow had stopped again, and the air smelled fresh and clean. Misty tendrils wound their ghostly way in and around the headstones like wraiths. I thought of James’s dad, Mark, gone from him for such a long time and felt a sudden surge of compassion as I gazed at James’s open, smiling face.
“Come for a drink with me, Ruby? The Royal Oak always has a fire at this time of year. It’ll be warm and cozy.” He turned and gazed along the shore, where we could see the stony beach and the sea, a light grey, lapping at piles of greasy-looking seaweed. “And it’s not that long a walk.”
“Yeah, I’d planned on walking to the pub.” My phone beeped, and for a split second full of a stupid, irrational hope, I glanced carefully at the screen. It was from Mum.
Ruby r u okay? Snowing here! Be careful!
I replied straight away. Bumped into James. Going to Royal Oak for a drink. Be home soon. Btw not snowing here! x
Just as James had said, The Royal Oak was warm and cozy, the fire roaring like a lion in the massive fireplace. We sat on wooden stools, gazing into its orange center, mesmerized by the tongues of flames dancing up the chimney as, slowly, we sipped our drinks. I gazed around the bar, at the white-painted misshapen walls decorated sparsely with pictures of fishermen battling enormous fish and ships riding high on raging seas. Woven mats were laid haphazardly on the rough stone flags, and a group of people wearing green wellies and padded jackets stood idly at the bar, drinking and chatting, their dogs laid out long and hairy, snoozing, at their feet.
The smell of roasting meat and vegetables filled the air, and a waitress clad in tight black leggings and a white shirt and long apron hurried past, carrying large oval plates into the dining area. A Christmas tree, tapering to a majestic point and topped with a silver angel, sparkled in a corner, and tiny pink lights twinkled around the bar. Outside, the snow was falling again, the flakes small and fine against the backdrop of a darkening afternoon.
I told James about Michael and the little girl called Leah that he barely saw because of the influence of his evil girlfriend, Priscilla. I painted her so black that I wouldn’t be surprised if James had a picture in his mind of Maleficent, Mistress of Evil. She had the same long dark hair, piercing features, and a cold black heart.
“He had a good job as a reporter for a local paper in Swansea but, because of the stress of it all after Leah was born, he had to give it up. He said he couldn’t concentrate on his work any longer and found even turning up on time in the mornings difficult. Apparently, Priscilla was supposed to leave her rented accommodation and move in with him after the baby came, but she broke it off with him instead and said she would never allow him to see Leah.”
James shook his head sadly and said, a frown etching his brow, “God, that’s terrible! How did he buy the house in Bosham with no job?”
“He sold the house in Swansea that was left to him by his adopted mum and dad. Of course, the money he got for that wasn’t enough to buy outright. Houses in Swansea are much cheaper than in Bosham, so he has a mortgage.” James nodded as I carried on with the tale. “He bought the house in Bosham because he’d found out by then that his real mum lived in Emsworth, and he thought that being near his new family could probably be a good thing.”
“Yes, I can see that,” said James. “He would have needed the support after Priscilla dumped him like that.”
“Yes, but the house purchase was held up, and he had to live at the pub initially. In the meantime, Priscilla contacted him and said she wanted to try again, so, desperate to see his little girl, he got the house ready for her and Leah. But she did the dirty on him, let herself into the house and cleared most of the furniture out, all new that he’d just bought, and took all the money from his bank accounts. Oh, and maxed his credit card to the limit.”
“Wow! Not a nice woman! So he gave her free rein of his debit and credit cards?”
I shrugged. “He must have. A bit of a stupid thing to do, eh?”
“Especially as he knew what she was like, you know, dumping him the way she did and not letting him see his daughter. Has she met somebody else, do you think?”
“Michael thinks she has but doesn’t know f
or sure. But yeah, you’re right, not a nice woman.”
“What’s going to happen now?”
“Well, Mum and Dad have made him an appointment to see a solicitor friend of theirs. Actually, it’s Mum’s boss, Ralph Butcher. You know the solicitors Butcher & Steele?” James nodded as I carried on. “Michael has rights, so he must be able to have visits with Leah.”
“Didn’t he realize before that he had rights? After all, she is his daughter.”
“I don’t know, James. I think he thought he didn’t have any because they’re not married. He’s a bit naïve, don’t you think?”
James shook his head, in total bewilderment it seemed, and said, as he drained his glass and stood up, “God Ruby, after all that, I think we need another drink, don’t you?”
I nodded and watched him as he went to the bar and ordered more drinks.
“These should help,” he said, smiling as he placed two small glasses of rum on the table. He’d also gotten a couple of bowls of crisps and peanuts for us to snack on and the menu, just in case. James picked at the crisps as we talked of other things.
I told him that Rose was going to give notice at the library, and he encouraged me to apply for it. I didn’t say anything about my need to travel again and my compulsion to go to St. Malo in search of a musician called Blake Edwards, who hadn’t even the common decency to break off a relationship with me as he should have. We had been talking of Michael being naïve, but I had the strange feeling the same thing could be applied to me.
There was a flurry of activity, and I noticed that the people standing at the bar were preparing to leave—finishing their drinks, buttoning their jackets, and putting on hats and gloves. The dogs hauled themselves up with a sigh. Music was playing quietly in the background. Lovely heart-wrenching music.
