Ruby (16 page)

‘Ruby told me things, you know, but she didn’t want Ray to know we were friends. I know a lot about what she went through and why she didn’t want to be here. She told me you were the only one who understood. If there’s anything I can do to help?’

‘You can pass me that walking stick.’ The elderly woman looked around, checking that no one else was nearby to hear her words. ‘I’ll say if I hear anything, so if you see Ruby you’ll tell me, will you? I just want her to be all right, that’s all. She’s a good girl and they did wrong by her.’

‘I know. I’ll tell you if I hear anything.’

After she’d fully turned to go indoors Johnnie had walked slowly back down the street, thinking hard about Ruby Red, the classy and clever young girl whom he’d met by chance and instantly been fascinated with. The attraction he had felt for her wasn’t the same feeling he’d had with other girls, and he had enjoyed the slow burn of the embryonic relationship, but then he’d made the mistake of losing control and having sex with her despite her being only sixteen.

He had realised the next time he’d seen her that she was ashamed and embarrassed, and he hated himself for making her feel that way, but there was no going back.

Initially he’d felt so guilty he’d been almost pleased when she’d gone away, but then she hadn’t come back and now she was at the forefront of his thoughts again. He wondered if the urge to find her was because he was backed into a corner with Sadie, who, encouraged by Bill Morgan, was eagerly making plans for a party at the Black Dog to announce their engagement.

An engagement that Sadie wanted, that Bill Morgan wanted, but not one that Johnnie himself wanted. But he saw it as a chance to ingratiate himself further with Bill, who treated Sadie as the daughter he’d never had.

He leaned on the lamppost outside his house and watched a young courting couple walking along, completely absorbed in each other. He realised he had never felt like that with Sadie Scully. He liked her a lot and they had fun together, but he wasn’t in love with her.

Then it hit him like a bullet between the eyes. He was in love with Ruby Blakeley.

He decided then and there to go to Melton as soon as he had a free day. He knew he would be better able to judge the Wheatons’ reactions to his questions if they were face to face. But first he would have to arrange for a day off from the Black Dog and also find an explanation that would keep the very possessive and volatile Sadie happy.

A week later he walked up the path to the Wheatons’ front door and knocked. As he waited he saw Derek Yardley looking out of the window of his flat over the garage. He smiled and waved, but the man just frowned and dropped the curtain.

‘Good day, Mrs Wheaton,’ Johnnie smiled confidently as she opened the door. ‘I’m wondering if you know anything about Ruby. She’s missing.’

One look at the shocked expression on her face and he knew that the Wheatons were somehow involved with Ruby’s disappearance.

‘I’m worried about her and I know you know where and how she is.’

‘I’m sorry, Mr Riordan, but Ruby doesn’t live here. We haven’t seen her for a while.’

‘But is she OK? Why didn’t she come back?’

Johnnie stayed where he was, hoping that Babs Wheaton’s natural good manners would get him into the house. The woman wasn’t being unfriendly and her expression was neutral, but there was a determined line to her mouth.

‘I’m sorry you’ve had a wasted journey, Mr Riordan. You’re welcome to come in and have a cup of tea before your journey home but I really don’t want to talk about Ruby. It’s not my place. Have you asked her family?’ She stood back and motioned for him to go in.

‘I’ve spoken to her grandmother. She’s worried about her welfare, but I think she’s also pleased Ruby has made a run for it and got away!’

‘Do you take sugar in your tea?’ Babs Wheaton asked with a smile, effectively ending the conversation.

When he left an hour later he was none the wiser; Babs Wheaton had given away nothing, although she hadn’t denied that she knew where Ruby was. Johnnie hovered around for a few minutes after Mrs Wheaton had shut the door and then went across and knocked on the door of Derek Yardley’s lodgings over the garage. Then he knocked again. And again.

‘Hello, mate. Long time no see.’

Derek Yardley tried to smile but it just didn’t happen. Johnnie knew that guilty look and it surprised him, but at the same time he was intrigued. The man was hiding something.

‘I’m looking for Ruby Blakeley – have you seen her?’

‘No.’

‘No suggestions where she might be then?’

‘No.’

‘Can’t say I believe you, but no matter. I’ll be back, so you have a think in the meantime, eh?’

The two young women were sitting side by side on the seawall swinging their legs and looking out to sea. They were both wearing similar but different coloured outfits of patterned cotton frocks, light cardigans and summer sandals, but whereas Ruby’s clothes were good quality, almost new and well-fitting, Gracie’s were faded and overworn bordering on threadbare.

‘What happened to your baby, Ruby? Why isn’t it living with you?’ Gracie McCabe asked curiously.

‘I don’t want to talk about it. It’s over and done with, and now I want to forget all about it and get on with my life. Like you do,’ Ruby said firmly.

‘It didn’t die, did it?’ Gracie’s jaw dropped as the thought occurred to her.

‘Of course not. I’d have said, wouldn’t I?’ Ruby sighed loudly and raised her eyes skywards. ‘And stop saying “it”.
She’s
a girl and I gave her up to be adopted, if you must know. Same as you with your baby boy, who’s a
he
.’ She emphasised the words but smiled at the same time.

‘But why would you have your baby adopted, you being a war widow and all that … unless you’re not a widow at all!’ Gracie studied her closely for a few moments, then continued, ‘I thought about saying I was a widow but when I had to go into the home they wouldn’t let me. The bloody nuns thought I had to feel shame and be punished for my sins. And, God, was I punished. That’s why I just left the baby there and did a runner. I wasn’t going to spend another six weeks in purgatory being punished before they took him away. Ten days in hospital with him were bad enough.’

‘Don’t you want to know what they’ve done with him? Haven’t you got to sign papers and things?’

‘They wouldn’t have told me that, anyway. They just arrange it all and you do as you’re told. I knew he was going to be adopted so that was it. Do you know what’s happened to yours, then?’

Ruby shook her head. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. Neither of us has our baby any more. That’s it, there’s no going back now, is there?’

‘I suppose not.’ Gracie replied with a deep sadness in her voice that Ruby could understand. Despite her protestations of indifference, every time Ruby closed her eyes she could see the little bundle of shawl, bonnet and rosebud lips that was her firstborn as she said her final goodbye. She knew that image would stay with her for ever and she was sure that Gracie would be feeling the same, despite them both proclaiming their joy at their current freedom.

The day Ruby had left the hospital she’d given Gracie her address at the Thamesview Hotel, and asked her to keep in touch, but it had been several weeks before the young woman had eventually turned up on the doorstep. She’d made light of her situation but Ruby could read between the lines and guessed that she’d had it rough. Having seen how Gracie had been treated in the hospital, she could only imagine how it must have been for her in the mother-and-baby home.

‘I’ve not offended you, have I?’ Ruby asked. ‘I just want to forget any of it ever happened.’

Gracie swung her legs back over the wall and stood up on the pavement. ‘Of course not. I just don’t understand why you won’t confide in me. I’m not likely to tell anyone, am I? Me being in the same situation and all.’

‘I just can’t. One day I will. Promise!’ She looked at Gracie and smiled. ‘It’s not you, it’s me.’

Gracie smiled back and then nudged her. ‘I know, how about we go for a walk to town and have a look in the Kursaal. There’s this bloke working there – I saw him last week when I was taking a walk – he’s so good-looking. I bet he’s a gypsy, he’s all swarthy and mysterious, like, and I swear he looked at me, you know, proper looked, like he fancies me.’

‘Aren’t you off men after what happened?’ Ruby frowned.

‘If you fall off your bike you get straight back on, that’s what my ma used to say, so that’s what I’m going to do,’ Gracie said with an exaggerated shrug, making Ruby laugh properly for the first time in months.

‘OK, OK, you win. I need some fun as well but it’s not going to be the man sort of fun for me. I’m done with all that for ever. I’m going to be an old spinster with a Pekingese. And an aspidistra in a gazunder.’

Ruby got ready to cross the road back to the hotel. ‘You wait here and I’ll just go and grab my bag quick and hope I can get in and out without being seen or heard by any of Leonora’s Ladies. They all tell tales on me, and I’m supposed to be helping with afternoon tea.’

Ruby put her forefinger up to her lips and gave an exaggerated wink. She was fed up with the questions. She was fed up with still having to act out being a nineteen-year-old grieving war widow who’d suffered a stillbirth. She was also fed up with Aunt Leonora alternately smothering her and then expecting her to act as an unpaid lady’s maid.

She’d co-operated with everyone but now she had the urge to rebel. She wanted to be out and about having fun like other girls her age, like Gracie, not hanging around in the kitchen at the beck and call of the lady guests, then being sent off to bed at nine thirty like a schoolgirl.

Before the Wheatons had left, taking her baby daughter with them, there had been a discussion about the future and George had promised to open a Post Office account for Ruby with enough money to keep her going until it was the right time for her to go back to them. Leonora had disapproved strongly of a young girl having access to a large sum of money and had wanted to control it, but Ruby had dug her heels in. She saw it not as a gift, but as a small payment for handing over her baby, and she fully intended to use it to go out and enjoy herself and pretend that the past months had never happened. She also thought that having money to spend would help to wipe Johnnie Riordan from her memory.

But until Gracie turned up she hadn’t had the opportunity.

After Gracie had walked out of the mother-and-baby home she’d quickly found a live-in job in the vast Palace Hotel at the top of the hill overlooking Southend Pier and the seafront. It was one of the most lowly and poorly paid jobs in the hotel, with long hours of back-breaking cleaning and polishing of the communal areas, but she had a bed to sleep in and food to eat, and the occasional afternoon off.

The two young women had initially bonded in the hospital and after meeting up again their friendship had continued to grow, not only because of their similar situations but because they really liked each other. The circumstances of their pregnancies and adoptions were different but their feelings were the same and that meant they understood each other in a way no one else could.

‘Right, let’s go before I get spotted!’ Ruby said as, laughing, she ran down the hotel steps and off along the seafront with Gracie hot on her heels.

Ruby had fallen in love with the Thames Estuary town of Southend. After the drabness of post-war Walthamstow and the sleepiness of the Cambridgeshire countryside, the seaside town was a hive of excitement just waiting to be explored, and now she had someone to explore it with.

Gracie had been born and brought up there and, at twenty, she knew exactly where to go to have fun. Ruby hadn’t admitted her real age so Gracie still thought they were nearly the same age. She knew she would have to confess at some point but she was scared Gracie wouldn’t want to be friends with someone four years younger than she was.

‘What shall we do? I’ve got some money, we can go wherever we want.’

‘Let’s walk to town and see what’s happening. I’ve got to get back to work at five, but we could have some chips on the beach and then have a go on the roller coaster? That’s where the young man works. He is so handsome, all moody-looking with green eyes and a tattoo on his arm.’

‘Sounds dangerous to me.’

‘Yes, I know, but I need some danger and excitement in my life after the home and the hospital and all that.’

‘Do you think I could get a job at the Palace as well?’ Ruby asked. ‘I have to get away from Aunt Leonora. She means well and has been really good to me but she’s just there all the time. It’d be nice to do whatever I want. I’ve never been able to do that.’

‘I dunno. I was lucky ’cos I know one of the chefs and he persuaded them. Lots of people are looking for jobs with board now, what with the bombing and everything. We lived in Westcliff up by Chalkwell Park and were bombed out. Mum’s rented a new place down near the seafront, but I’ve been banished. None of the family want to know me ’cos of the baby and other stuff. They think I’m a right tart but I’m not, I was just stupid. I shouldn’t have got caught out, specially with a bloody soldier passing through.’

Gracie was a very plain girl. Her mousy hair was dead straight and more often than not it was greasy and lank. She suffered badly with acne though it never seemed to bother her; she was a livewire with a huge personality and Ruby enjoyed being with her. She wanted to ask a bit more about Gracie’s baby’s father but she knew she wasn’t ready to talk about Johnnie, so she said nothing.

‘Me, too.’

‘But if you were a widow then you were married, so then it was all right for you to have a baby.’ She paused and squinted sideways. ‘Something’s not right about your story. Why are you living with this aunt and why did you have your baby adopted? You’re no more a war widow than I am, Ruby Blakeley.’

‘I told you, I don’t want to talk about it. Keep on and I’m going back!’ Ruby looked down at the pavement and Gracie didn’t push it.

The tide was out as they walked along the seafront with the weak autumn sun just about warming their faces. They stopped as they neared the Kursaal amusement park to watch some children playing in the mud. The little girls had their skirts tucked in their knickers and were giggling and ducking as the boys threw mud pies at them.