Belinda Bauer - The Facts of Life and Death

‘Daddy?’

She fumbled for the switch and turned on the light.

‘Daddy?’ She wanted to be the first to tell him about the leper parade. And to show him her light.

And then Ruby froze at a sound she’d never heard before.

Ching.

It was a high, metallic ring. Like someone dropping a five-pence piece into the bathtub.

She only heard it for a second and then it stopped.

Ruby felt the silence thud against her eardrums.

Nothing. There was nothing.

‘Da—’

Ching. Ching.

She sucked the word back into her mouth and held it there.

Ching. Ching. Ching. Ching.

Ruby felt a little black worm of fear twist across her belly. The sound was like the ring of a loose shoe on a horse.

Or on a pedlar’s donkey…

She quietly turned off the light, and looked up at the ceiling.

Ching. Ching.

It was coming from Mummy and Daddy’s bedroom.

‘Daddy?’ she said carefully, but there was no answer, and suddenly the sound of her voice all alone in the damp air made her resolve not to speak again.

Ching. Ching. Ching across the floor. Ching. Ching. Ching back in the other direction.

Luring her up there.

The thought made Ruby’s bladder loosen a little, and she clenched her thighs to keep the piddle from running down her leg.

She wouldn’t go up there. She couldn’t. Couldn’t open the bedroom door and get trapped by a crazed ghost until morning. She thought of her mother tugging at the unlocked door, screaming for help, she thought of her father hammering on the yellowing paint, and of Adam Braund shouting her name, while all the while a dead man in chains terrified the rest of the wee out of her – and worse.

Ruby’s face crumpled in self-pity. She wasn’t going to go upstairs to be got by a ghost!

But she didn’t have to…

Ching. Ching. Ching. Her breath caught once more and she watched the ceiling all the way across the bedroom to the door. And then she gasped at the unmistakeable transition: Ching-creak. Ching-creak.

The ghost was coming downstairs to get her.

Ruby’s back flattened against the front door, which snapped shut under her shoulders. Her eyes fixed on the narrow white door that shut off the winding stairwell from the front room.

Ching-creak. Ching-creak. Ching.

The sound stopped behind the little door and her breath stayed in her bumping chest. Then, in a rare show of athleticism, she darted to the sofa and tumbled over the back of it, dropping into the dark triangle of space that was filled with dust bunnies and lost things – a glove, a pen lid, the back off the remote control. A red light pulsed to the same crazy rhythm as her heart and with a jolt Ruby realized that it was the LED. She fumbled behind her and pressed the button, then knelt there, shivering, her eyes only just above the velour back, staring so hard at the little white door that they stung.

The door creaked slowly open.

‘Daddy!’ Relief was like a sugar rush. Ruby jumped up.

‘Why’s it so dark in here?’ he said, flicking on the lights. He was already in his cowboy gear.

‘Didn’t you hear me shouting?’ said Ruby.

‘I wanted to surprise you.’

‘Why?’

By way of an answer, Daddy swaggered across the room towards her.

Ching. Ching. Ching.

Ruby frowned at his feet, and then gasped. ‘Spurs!’

‘Not just any old spurs,’ he grinned. ‘Jingle Bobs.’ He lifted his heel to show her, spinning the spiked wheel that jingled like sleigh bells. ‘Those little metal bits? That’s the clappers. That’s what makes the noise, you see?’

He put his foot down and did a little dance to make them ring.

‘Wo-ow!’ Ruby climbed back over the sofa and bent to have a closer look. Now that she could see how it was made, the sound wasn’t scary at all, only pretty. She felt like a fool.

He put his boot up on the coffee table. ‘Look at that workmanship,’ he said, running a finger across the silver shanks. Horseshoes and tumbling dice were hammered into the metal in little dots. ‘They’re the real thing, Rubes. All the way from Wyoming.’

‘Wyoming,’ she breathed. ‘Like a real cowboy.’

He grinned. ‘You should see the stuff you can buy, Rubes. Real genuine cowboy things.’

‘I bet they cost loads ,’ she said.

Daddy said nothing and picked lint off his knee.

Ruby’s awed expression flickered. ‘Does Mummy know?’

He frowned and took his boot off the table with a clink. ‘She isn’t the only one around here who can buy things, you know.’ Now she’d upset him.

‘I know.’

He jingled into the kitchen and back out again with a bunch of red roses. ‘See?’

Ruby’s eyes popped. ‘Are they for Mummy? They’re beautiful .’

‘They should be. They cost enough.’

‘She’ll love them.’

‘Yeah, I know.’ Daddy smiled at the roses and everything was fine.

Ruby plumped down on the sofa. ‘Make them go again!’

Happy to oblige, he jingled around the room in his spurs. He kicked up his heels and tapped his toes, and Ruby laughed and clapped in delight.

And the fun only stopped when Mummy opened the front door.

THE ROW WENT on longer than any row Ruby could remember. The job and the shoes and the car and the job and the window and the spurs, and the job and the job and the job.

Ruby bit her thumbnail. It wasn’t Daddy’s fault he lost his job. It was the recession. He caught fish for them, didn’t he? He cleaned the house and he made her dippy eggs and baked beans for tea. But all Mummy ever did was be mean to him and yell. She never used to yell – neither of them used to yell. They used to laugh and show each other things on the telly, and go for bus rides to the beach. Not this beach with its rocks and pebbles, but a real beach with sand.

They used to love each other.

Ruby turned up the TV, but she could hear the ebb and flow behind the kitchen door. Finally it flew open and her father strode past the TV, the Jingle Bobs quiet in his fist.

‘Where are you going, Daddy?’ said Ruby.

‘To cool off!’ he said, then looked at the kitchen and shouted, ‘Before I do something I regret!’

Mummy appeared in the doorway, tea towel in one hand, a plate dripping in the other. ‘Something you regret? What about my regrets? Living in this dingy little hole . Working all hours while you go fishing and dress up with your friends and buy stupid toys instead of taking care of your family! That’s what I regret!’

‘If you think you can do better, then leave me and Rubes here!’ yelled Daddy. ‘And you go off with your fancy man!’

Ruby gasped.

Daddy yanked the front door open and slammed it so hard behind him that the little china dog trembled on the window sill.

‘Fuck you!’ Mummy hurled the tea towel after him, but it flopped on to the rug halfway across the room.

Ruby got up and went after Daddy.

‘You stay right here , Ruby Trick!’

Ruby hesitated, then pulled open the door – her heart thumping at her own disobedience – and ran down the hill, tripping and slipping across the green cobbles in her white school socks.

Daddy was already in the car.

‘Can I come with you?’

‘No,’ he said. He turned the key and the car started.

Her face crumpled. ‘Please, Daddy! I don’t want to stay with her.’

His jaw clenched.

‘All right then.’

She climbed in beside him.

‘Put your belt on.’