Ruby ducked aside as his outstretched arms tried to ensnare her. She took a frying pan from the cupboard and broke three eggs, dropping them into the pan from a height. Robert snorted, trying to retrieve his pride, trying to fight the ridiculous feelings of rejection that had been slung at him by this teenage girl.
Ruby threw the cracked egg shells into the waste bin and Robert considered: maybe she
wanted
to go back to her old school. Perhaps Erin was right, that running away would only create more problems in the future. What did he know? He’d never been a father before and, in his experience, facing his fears had only awarded them strength and the power to destroy what he cherished most.
Robert turned and leaned against the sink, sighing, staring out into the garden. He wanted time to think about Ruby, to figure out how he could change Erin’s mind but his thoughts kept returning to Jenna, as if they were magnetised and he was charged with the opposite pole. She was as fragile as a chiffon scarf caught on a branch but Robert couldn’t shift the image of Jenna in his garden – her hair blowing in the breeze, her smile as wide as the horizon as she walked under the willow tree.
What do you want?
The words rattled inside his head as he watched her bend and pull roots from the soil.
You don’t live here
, he said silently.
He hated Jenna for doing this to him. More so, he hated himself for letting her. Had his grieving gone horribly wrong? Had the natural process of coming to terms with loss gone awry from guilt?
Morning business and bustle continued in the kitchen as if nothing was wrong. The kettle steamed, Robert leafed through the newspaper and the post rattled onto the doormat. Ruby cooked her breakfast, cursing as she burst an egg yolk, and Erin said nothing at all. She simply stood, as if she had been caught off guard in a snapshot – mouth slightly open, eyelids drooping – and stared at her daughter as she scoffed the food. Robert could almost see the guilt dripping from Erin. This is the moment, he thought, that you could make everything all right. But Erin did nothing.
Robert blew out, a sigh combined with a moan, encapsulating his weariness. ‘I’m going to shower,’ he said. ‘Then I’ve got work to do.’ As he took the stairs two at a time, an image bled into his mind, only fleetingly, but it made him trip on the top step and grab the banister. As if unwanted thoughts of his ex-wife weren’t enough to unsettle his usually slick veneer, Robert bore mental witness to two children, sobbing, as they were torn from their mother. The Bowman case.
Robert first-geared it through heavy traffic, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. Ruby sat beside him, perfectly still, completely composed.
‘Your mother’s going to be furious,’ he said but the sideways glance of approval that Ruby shot him, her brilliant eyes charged with mischief and delight, convinced him that he was doing the right thing. Ruby nodded calmly, a faint smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.
Since she had got up that morning, Ruby had insisted on returning to the comprehensive school as her mother had instructed and she was even willing to take the bus, a sure-fire route to twenty minutes of verbal abuse from other school kids, followed by a day of boredom while young teachers struggled to cope with the unruly classes. After much persuasion from Robert, she finally agreed to ride to school with him if he promised to drop her around the corner. Arriving in a brand-new convertible Mercedes would mean a kicking the first time she set foot in the loos.
The thought of snarling dogs waiting for Ruby at the school gates was motivation enough for Robert to follow his impulses and secretly load the boot of his car with armfuls of uniform and sports kit and anything else he could think of that a young girl would need on her first day at a new school.
Robert drove his foot onto the brake. ‘Christ,’ he said. ‘Near miss.’
‘You can’t have an accident to stop me going. Mum says we mustn’t run away any more.’ Ruby winked. Robert was relieved that she still had a sense of humour.
‘But you don’t believe that, do you?’ He reached out and stroked Ruby’s hand. He wanted her to trust him, to believe that he was doing the right thing. The traffic began to move again. ‘I’ll take the rap for this, when she finds out what we’ve done.’
Ruby swallowed and nodded. ‘She’s going to flip. Really flip. When Mum says no, she means no. Good reason or not.’
That’s the thing, Robert thought, although he kept quiet. There
is
no good reason. He pulled over into a petrol station. ‘You’d better go and change then. Don’t want to be late on your first day.’ They exchanged grins, one small step closer to becoming father-daughter.
Robert escorted Ruby to the ladies’ toilets with a bag of brand-new uniform. While he waited, he filled up the car and bought a new torch because they were on special offer. He eyed the dismal selection of overpriced chrysanthemums that were wilting in dry buckets. Erin’s shop was a shrine to healthy, fresh, unique and fashionable cut flowers. None of this unimaginative rubbish. He trailed his fingers through the thin, colourless petals and then Ruby emerged from the toilets looking every part the new girl.
‘Come here,’ Robert laughed. ‘The tag’s still on your collar.’ He pulled the label off the grey and green blazer and brushed lint off her shoulder. ‘Bloody fantastic,’ he said and glared at the shop attendant as she stared at them while chewing gum with an open mouth.
‘Dad.’ Ruby giggled. ‘Don’t swear.’
Robert felt a surge of warmth in his heart whenever she called him Dad, which was rare. Mostly it was Robert. If only he could get through to his wife in the same way.
Robert ushered Ruby into the car and drove her through the traffic to Greywood College. Before he escorted her inside the imposing building, he said, ‘I’ve got a big surprise for you and your mum tonight. Something that’ll put a smile on your faces.’ He’d do whatever it took.
‘Oh Da-
ad
,’ she said, grinning. She slammed the car door and skipped up the steps of the grand entrance. Robert watched her go, digging his fingernails into his leg, trying to counter the pressure in his throat, wondering exactly how he would tell his wife that he had overruled her. And now he would have to come up with a surprise.
SIX
It’s strange but I don’t know how I got pregnant. No, really. You can ask, but I shan’t say. Of course, I know what’s
meant
to happen when you want a baby although I won’t be telling tales of a boy ever putting his thing inside of me. Mother thinks it was Jimmy, the not very smart kid who lives at the end of our street. Father blames all the boys at my school and wrote to the newspaper damning every male teenager in our neighbourhood.
The first I knew of it was when my school skirt wouldn’t reach round my waist, when my belly had become so sore and stretched I thought I was becoming a fat person. Mother warned me about being one of those, saying greed was a sin, and took me to Dr Brigson to fetch some diet pills. I went along silently, knowingly, hoping they wouldn’t prise the truth out of me.
Dr Brigson made me get on his examining couch – without changing the paper cover, I might add, which was all damp and crumpled from the last person. He lifted my sweater and pushed his fingers into my belly so deep that I wanted to cry out. But I daren’t make a fuss. He’d have probably walloped me. He asked me some questions that I wouldn’t answer then he sent me out of his poky, smelly room and whispered to my mother that I was going to have a baby. She slapped me when we got home. My father didn’t look at me for a month.
It’s Christmas Eve today. All the snow has melted. Some kids from school are hanging out on the pavement below my window. I can see them, their faces all lit up and glowing orange from the flickering street lights. They’ve been going from house to house, singing carols, jangling their collection box, tickles in their tummies because it’s Christmas Eve. My tummy churns but not because it’s Christmas.
Our house is next in line for carols but they won’t come here. They won’t dare do the Wystrach house but are happy to loiter outside, perhaps to catch a glimpse of me at my window. They want a peek at the girl who got pregnant. The girl who caused the biggest scandal of the decade at Biggin End High. The Year 10 girl who screwed around.
I draw the curtains to shut them out, to obliterate their happy Christmas, and lie down on my bed to sleep. It helps pass the time.
Sometimes I dream of how it happened and I wake up panting with a lake of cold sweat on my chest. If I’ve got any treats under the bed, stuff that I’ve smuggled, like Horlicks or sometimes icing sugar, I’ll take comfort in that, perhaps by dipping my finger into the malty powder and sucking it off. Then I’ll have nice dreams, such as the Easter parade at school – the posters made by the junior classes, the bonnets, the tissue-paper chicks, the misshapen chocolate eggs from domestic science class. The school hall filled with the joy of spring, a celebration of new life.
It might have happened then. I was on the lucky egg stall – a cardboard tray filled with fresh eggs nestling in straw, a couple of them with a happy face drawn underneath. ‘Find the lucky egg,’ I called. ‘Only ten pence a go.’ The prize was a knitted chick in a basket surrounded by sweets. Afterwards, when the teachers were clearing up, when everyone had gone home, a few of us – including Jimmy with his lopsided walk and gormless grin which sometimes caused him to drool – crept into the boiler room. We knew where the caretaker stashed his drink.
Or it could have been at the PTA disco. Mr Driver liked the look of me, kept asking me if I had a boyfriend yet. Said a pretty girl like me must have a queue of boys wanting to kiss me. ‘Have you kissed a boy yet?’ he said, a bead of saliva at the side of his mouth. I didn’t care for that feeling low down, like I’d sat in hot cherry pie. I slipped away from him but wore his stare for the rest of the disco.
And I dream of toilet seats, or breast-stroking too close to a boy’s winkle in the pool, or that God has chosen me and mysteriously impregnated me. Maybe aliens from another planet gave me Noel, or Chip, our Labrador, over-amorous, swung his wayward thing too close to my pants. I wish it was any one of those things although it doesn’t matter now. It’s too late for me. I’ll just keep on pretending I don’t know.
SEVEN
Robert dialled Louisa’s number three times and each time he snapped his phone shut before it connected.
. . .
Don’t lose touch, Rob. If ever you need anything
. . . Her parting words still rang in his head clearly, even though it had been nearly a year since he had last seen her. Yesterday, when he and Den were forcing their way through a few pints at the club, Den had mentioned that she was back in the country for her cousin’s wedding, among other things, and the thought of Louisa’s practical manner and crystal-clear, honest voice had set Robert thinking. Perhaps she could help.
‘Hello.’ Same clear tone. Same Louisa. ‘Hello?’
Robert hung up. Anyway, it was poor reception in the underground car park and she’d probably be far too busy to see him. He took the elevator up to the fourth floor to the offices of Mason & Knight, cradling the handset in his palm as if it was the only link to all things sane. If nothing else, Louisa had always splashed generous helpings of rationale and common sense into his life. She’d taught him to love and trust; taught him to take life each day and worry about tomorrow’s problems when they came. All very sweet, he thought, turning the phone off and slipping it into his inside pocket. All very Louisa.
Robert reckoned he had fifteen minutes before Jed Bowman showed up for his court brief, if he even bothered to get out of bed. Explaining to the six-foot, anger-fuelled thug that it might not all go his way at the initial hearing was not an appealing task. Not today, anyway. The hearing wasn’t until next week but Robert wanted to get things straight with Jed, ease him into the idea that he mustn’t swear or smoke in court and that he had to wear a suit. He wanted to clarify the case, to make sure that Jed understood exactly what he was attempting to do: to gain custody of his children from his alleged drug-addict wife, not simply to get one over on her.
The thought of Bowman in a suit made Robert laugh out loud as the elevator pinged its arrival at his floor. He pictured the grimy, nicotine-stained hands protruding from too-short, frayed sleeves, his outdated, narrow tie knotted halfway down his chest. But the lazy no-hoper had been awarded legal aid and it was Robert’s duty to fight his case. These days he always got the bottom of the pile at the two-man firm.
Robert smelled Jed Bowman before he saw him. Tanya, receptionist at Mason & Knight, jerked her head towards the window and pulled a face, alerting him to the large figure pacing back and forth, a silhouette of dishevelment against the blue sky. The tang of stale clothes, beer and cigarette smoke surrounded Jed in a filthy atmosphere. When he heard Robert’s voice, he turned and scowled.
‘’Bout bloody time,’ he said, dropping his dog-end into a half-finished cup of tea. ‘You’re not the only one who’s busy, you know.’
‘My apologies,’ Robert replied, ever courteous, ever professional but inwardly cursing the man’s ridiculous timekeeping. ‘Come into my office.’
‘I ain’t got long, you know. I have to be back at the site.’ Jed left a trail of pale mud – cement? – as he walked into Robert’s office. He reeked of hatred.
‘Site? Have you got a job then?’ It could all change if Jed had steady work, stability and a show of commitment. It would help his case immensely.
‘Not exactly,’ Jed said quickly. His stubby fingers scratched at his half-grown beard, as if he’d revealed too much.
‘Of course you haven’t.’ Working for cash, Robert thought, and still claiming benefit and legal aid. Not an ounce of him wanted to get his life in order, to help those kids, to make the court think he was a man of character and devoted to his family. All Jed wanted was to cripple his wife, the woman he had found in bed with his brother. Robert had heard it many times before, each telling of the sordid tale twisted with rage. Jed Bowman was an angry man.