Belinda Bauer - The Facts of Life and Death

She looked in her backpack in case the ring had fallen out in there, but it was nowhere.

She remembered that Mummy had seen her diary. Maybe she’d taken the earring back. Except that Mummy never wore earrings, and the earring didn’t match anything Ruby had seen in the rumpled bag of jewellery in the back of the wardrobe.

Ruby checked the newspaper photo again. She couldn’t be sure without actually having the earring in her hand, but it looked like the one she’d found.

She went very still. If it was Frannie Hatton’s nose ring, why was it in Daddy’s car? Why had he lied to the policeman the night Steffi was killed? Why had he kept the gun a secret from her? And what other secrets did Daddy have?

Ruby had all questions and no answers.

And one was bigger and more painful than them all.

Why doesn’t Daddy love me any more?

Tears scorched her eyes.

Then Ruby got up, took her diary from her pony backpack and hid it under her mattress.

She wasn’t even sure why.

CALVIN BRIDGE BROKE up with Shirley.

He couldn’t believe he had the guts to do it, and – from the look on her face – she couldn’t believe it either.

‘What do you mean ?’

‘I mean, I don’t want us to be together any more.’

‘But we’re getting married !’

‘I’m not.’

‘What do you mean, I’m not?’

‘I mean I’m not getting married. Sorry. I should have told you sooner, but, y’know…’

‘But why ?’

‘Because—’ he started, and then wondered whether he should tell her the truth or not. He had no desire to hurt Shirley any more than he already was. But he couldn’t think quickly enough to come up with a plausible lie, so the truth it had to be.

‘Because I’m just not that… enthusiastic about it.’

‘About the wedding?’ said Shirley, in a voice that let him know that although she was trying to be understanding, she had no inkling of how anyone could not be enthusiastic about a wedding.

‘About any of it really,’ he confessed. ‘I’m not enthusiastic about the wedding. Or the children or the corduroy sofa or the idea of being together for the next sixty years when I haven’t even done anything with my life yet. I mean, I’m only twenty-four.’

‘What do you mean, you haven’t done anything with your life?’ snapped Shirley. ‘ This is what we’re doing with our lives! We’ve been together for years and we love each other and we want to share our lives and now we’re getting married and that’s what people do , Calvin! People get married and then they have children and they work together to bring them up. That is life! That’s what life is !’

‘Yeah,’ said Calvin doubtfully. ‘But I’m not crazy about it, that’s all. I mean, it’s not really what I want for my life. Not right now, anyway.’

‘If it’s not what you want, Calvin, then why did you ask me to marry you?’

‘I didn’t. You asked me.’

‘Then why did you say yes, you idiot?’

Calvin paused and then figured In for a penny, in for a pound and said, ‘Because if I’d said no you’d have been all upset, and the Italian Grand Prix had just started.’

Shirley slammed the book of swatches shut so hard and so close to his face that she nearly pressed Calvin’s nose like a Victorian flower.

‘You bastard!’ she shouted. ‘Get out! ’

‘But it’s—’

‘GET OUT!’ she shrieked, and heaved the book at his head. It landed splayed open on the floor behind him.

‘But it’s my flat,’ Calvin pointed out cautiously.

That’s when Shirley started screaming. Everything up until then had been mild by comparison. All Calvin could do was stand there and wait for it to end, while Shirley gathered up random wedding things in her arms, weeping and yelling and red in the face.

The fact that he could muster only mild concern for her heartbreak was all the proof Calvin needed that he really didn’t love her after all.

At least he’d learned that.

It didn’t stop the break-up being bloody awful, but when it was all over and Shirley and all the wedding things had left his flat for good, Calvin Bridge felt a lovely sense of calm.

For a few minutes he stood in the middle of his living room, just looking around him at the sheer absence of Shirley, while his banished existence crept slowly back towards him from every corner of the flat.

Then he turned on the second half of England versus San Marino and settled down on his leather sofa to live the rest of his life.

AFTER MUMMY WENT to work the next night, Daddy came into Ruby’s bedroom.

‘Panda’s looking tired, Rubes.’

Ruby didn’t even look up from TeenBeatz.

‘No,’ she replied. ‘He’s fine.’

‘What?’ said Daddy, cocking his head as if he’d heard her wrong.

‘Panda’s fine. I’m not going on the posse.’

‘But you’re my deputy,’ said Daddy, then did his cowboy voice. ‘Cain’t go on no posse without my deputy.’

Ruby didn’t smile. She shrugged. ‘I’m not a deputy. I don’t even have a badge.’

‘I told you. I talked to the others about that. They said you can have a badge. But they take a while because they come from America. Because they’re like real deputy badges, not toy ones.’

‘You didn’t tell me.’ She shrugged again. ‘But I don’t care.’

Daddy leaned against the door-frame and looked at his fingernails. ‘You feeling sick, Rubes?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I just don’t want to go.’ She pretended to keep reading. How to get a date with the cutest guy in school. There were no cute guys in her school, but still.

‘There must be a reason,’ said Daddy. ‘You scared?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m just not going any more.’

She turned on her side and curled her back towards the door. She waited for the creak of Daddy walking away, but it didn’t come.

It was completely silent.

Completely still.

Suddenly Ruby missed the whine of the bathroom window. It masked so much bad stuff, she realized now. She wished she’d never fixed it. Daddy hadn’t even noticed , and Mummy had just told her off about the glue on the bathroom carpet.

‘You know,’ Daddy said slowly, ‘Whippy was talking about Tonto.’

Ruby said nothing, but her ears pricked.

‘He told me he’s getting too old to ride any more. He said he might be looking for a new home for Tonto.’

Ruby’s tummy fluttered the way it used to when she approached the paddock. Maybe. Maybe … She pushed it down. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

Daddy detached himself from the door-frame and wandered towards her. ‘I told him I knew an empty paddock where Tonto might be able to live. And a little girl who would be happy to look after him and ride him every day.’

Daddy stopped at the side of the bed – looming over her. ‘What do you think of that ?’

Ruby felt tears stinging her eyes and it took all her strength not to crack and throw herself into his arms and smother him with kisses. Daddy had hurt her and now she had to hurt him back, otherwise what was the point?

‘I don’t care,’ she said flatly. ‘I don’t even like horses any more.’

There was a long, awful silence, and then Daddy snorted bitterly. ‘I’m disappointed in you.’

Ruby’s heart broke.

Never in a million zillion years had Ruby Trick ever thought she’d hear her Daddy say those words. After everything she’d done for him.