Belinda Bauer - The Facts of Life and Death

Her lips went all funny. ‘I’m disappointed in you!’ she shouted, and started to sob.

‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘Cry like a girl.’

‘I’m not !’ she cried like a girl.

‘Yes, you are. A stupid little girl. Look at this bollocks you’re reading.’ He picked TeenBeatz off her bed and shook it. ‘Stupid slutty shite. I thought you were my little cowboy. But you’re turning into a fucking slut, just like your mother.’

‘Shut up!’

‘You shut up!’

Daddy had never smacked her, but Ruby flinched as he leaned down suddenly – his face only inches from hers. She could smell the cider on his breath and see the smooth puckers of the scars around his eye, gone white in his red face.

‘Now,’ said Daddy, low and tight, ‘put your fucking Panda to bed.’

He walked out of the room and down the stairs.

Ruby sat up, her whole world shaking around her.

She wished Mummy was here.

She wished Daddy wasn’t.

But she was too scared not to do as he said.

Ruby didn’t talk to Daddy. Not from the minute she sat down in the front seat and he said, ‘Where’s your cushion, Deputy?’

He was trying to make things normal. She wasn’t going to let him. She said nothing and didn’t even look at him, and he said, ‘Be like that,’ and then reversed off the wet cobbles and drove up the long dark hill out of Limeburn.

Ruby didn’t look out of the window for the killer and Daddy didn’t remind her to.

She hated him.

More than she’d ever hated Mummy. More than she’d ever hated Em or Essie Littlejohn – that’s how much she hated Daddy.

Tears fizzed up her nose again and she wiped her eyes hard. Daddy didn’t care that she was crying. He didn’t even look at her. He didn’t love her.

They were on their second circuit when Daddy indicated and pulled over to pick up the first woman.

The window grunted down beside Ruby and the rain came in.

‘Hi,’ said Daddy. ‘Can we give you a ride?’

The woman looked at Ruby. Ruby was used to that now. They all did that. Ruby didn’t smile.

‘Umm,’ said the woman, and gave a little laugh and looked up and down the road. They all did that, too. Ruby wondered what they were all looking for. A better offer?

‘OK, thanks.’ The woman smiled. She was about Mummy’s age and was wearing jeans and an anorak. She wore glasses that went up in the corners like a cat’s eyes.

‘I live in Torrington,’ she said. ‘Are you sure that’s OK?’

Torrington was nine miles away through a winding road overhung with trees.

‘Yeah, fine,’ said Daddy. ‘You don’t want to be waiting for a bus in this rain. Jump in the back, Rubes.’

Ruby was so used to jumping in the back now that her arms and legs almost moved by themselves – and when she stopped them, they tingled, as if surprised.

‘In the back, Ruby. Chop-chop. The lady’s getting wet.’

Ruby stayed exactly where she was.

Fuck him. That’s what she thought, even though she was a little bit ashamed of using the F word, even in her head.

Fuck him.

Daddy took hold of her arm and gave it a tug to get her moving, but Ruby pulled away from his hand.

The woman’s smile faltered. ‘Are you OK, sweetheart?’ she said to Ruby.

‘She’s fine,’ said Daddy. ‘Jump in.’

‘Oh, that’s OK,’ the woman said, straightening up. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘No, it’s fine,’ said Daddy. ‘Ruby! Get in the back!’

She didn’t budge.

‘Don’t worry,’ said the woman. ‘Really. The bus will be along soon.’ She started to walk away from the car.

‘She’ll move,’ said Daddy. ‘She’s just being a brat!’ He grabbed at Ruby again, but she leaned against the door and folded her arms tight across her aching chest.

But the woman wasn’t coming back. She walked away and crossed the road, glancing back frequently over her shoulder.

Ruby put the window up. It took ages to squeal and judder its way to the top.

She and Daddy sat there together while the engine idled and the rain drummed on the roof.

Ruby was glad she hadn’t moved. It served Daddy right. The woman had been nice and maybe she was safer on the bus.

Daddy leaned in so close to her face that when she turned her head away she could feel his breath on her ear.

‘You’ll be sorry.’

Ruby trembled, but she didn’t turn round, and eventually Daddy’s breath drew off, leaving her ear damp and cold.

He drove fast towards home. So fast that Ruby clutched the sides of the seat.

A few miles from Limeburn, he jammed on the brakes next to a little wooden bus shelter, and then swung the car down a steep, narrow lane between high hedges.

At the foot of the hill was the hotel where Mummy worked.

Daddy drove slowly past the entrance, then turned around and parked close to the hedge, in the piles of wet brown leaves that had drifted there.

Ruby didn’t know what they were doing and she wouldn’t ask.

They were there for ages. Half an hour, at least, and Ruby’s teeth were chattering by the time they saw the yellow slit of a door opening and Mummy came out.

There was a man inside, saying goodbye to her.

He was an older man, with greying hair and a beard. His ears stuck out, just like Essie Littlejohn’s, so Ruby guessed that it was her father.

Mr Littlejohn raised a hand in goodbye and Mummy opened her umbrella and started walking away from the car – up the hill towards the main road and the bus stop.

Daddy started the car and they drove slowly up the lane behind her.

Mummy heard them coming and stepped close to the hedge so they could pass in the narrow lane. She didn’t know it was them, of course, because they were in darkness, but she was illuminated so brightly by the headlights that Ruby felt as though she were seeing her mother for the first time – as if she were a complete stranger.

She was thin, and her skin looked very white. Her old brown coat was belted tightly around her waist, and already her jeans were wet up to the shins from walking in the wet lane. Her umbrella had one broken strut so that it dropped and flapped on one side.

Daddy didn’t slow down to pick Mummy up. Instead he went faster – the car skidding in sudden protest as he changed down a gear and forced it to pick up speed up the hill.

Mummy turned and squinted.

Ruby squealed and covered her eyes.

There was no bump, no thud. No screech of brakes.

Ruby opened her eyes and twisted in her seat. By the red glow of the tail lights, she could see Mummy. Still upright and pressed against the hedge. And then she was lost on a bend in the road.

Ruby looked at Daddy, but Daddy didn’t look at her.

Ruby slept badly.

She got up in the dark to go to the toilet. She didn’t need the light because she knew the house so well she could do this in her sleep.

As she padded back across the dark room to her bed, she stepped on something hard and sharp that made her hop about and bite her lip.

When the pain had subsided, she turned on the lamp.

Lucky’s sled was on the floor, the plastic shafts snapped off.

Under the bed she found the little donkey, all squashed and bent.

‘Oh no,’ she whispered.

She picked up Lucky and tried to bend him back into shape. She got the dent out of his belly, and three of his legs reasonably straight, but his dear little head was still squashed, and the fourth leg had been twisted so badly that when she tried to make it right, it broke off in her hand.