Marie Maxwell - Ruby

‘I see. But we are very puzzled by the bruises on her neck.’

‘They’d be from when she fell down the stairs, wouldn’t they?’

‘It’s possible, but unlikely. Anyway, that’s not for me to decide. I just put her back together again.’

‘You’re absolutely right, doctor. That’s not for you to decide.’ The man held out his hand to indicate the end of the conversation.

‘I suggest you go home now,’ the doctor said. ‘You won’t be able to see your fiancée until tomorrow evening during visiting hours. Check at the reception desk for the hours. I don’t know which ward she’s going to be taken to. Will you be contacting her family?’

‘She doesn’t have any family.’

‘I see …’

The doctor’s tone was cold and he didn’t take the proffered hand. He simply turned sharply and walked back through the doors he’d emerged from a couple of minutes before.

A look of anger flashed across the other man’s face, and for a moment it looked as though he would follow the doctor, but instead he breathed deeply several times before turning round and heading down the corridor in the direction of the main exit. Once outside he sat on the wall, taking more deep breaths before lighting a cigarette and thinking about everything that had happened. He wanted to get it all straight in his head, just in case. After he’d ground the butt into the flowerbed he walked down the footpath and swung open the door to the phone box that stood at the main gate.

He fumbled in his pocket for coppers and then made his call. ‘Hello? It’s me. I know it’s late – or early, depending on how you look at it.’ As he spoke he checked his hair in the mirror that was fixed on the wall above the phone and then pulled a comb out of his back pocket. ‘I’ve had a strange old night but everything’s OK now and I’m dying for a decent cup of coffee … among other things!’

He smiled at himself in the mirror as he put the phone back into its cradle, then he flicked the comb through his hair, slipped on his jacket and pushed the door open. He held the door back for the elderly woman waiting patiently outside.

‘Thank you kindly young man,’ she said. ‘Have you just come out of the hospital?’

‘I have. My fiancée’s had an accident.’

‘Ooh dear, I hope she’s OK.’

‘Oh, nothing serious. Just a bit of a tumble and a few bruises. I’ve told her to lay off the gin in future.’ He grinned.

Shrugging his jacket straight, he pulled at his collar and walked away from the hospital where his fiancée lay battered and bruised.

‘Here comes the train. Mummy, Mummy, I can hear it, I can hear it!’ As the small boy’s shriek pierced through the general chatter on the crowded railway platform the conversations started to fade away and the train appeared around the bend in the track lumbering noisily towards the station. Children jumped up and down excitedly at the sight and sound of the huge steam engine, and adults automatically reached down to pick up their bags and baggage.

Ruby Blakeley wasn’t feeling in the least bit excited as she pushed her own two small suitcases nearer the edge of the platform with her feet and then looked at the woman who was holding tightly onto her hand. She was feeling terrified.

‘It’s the train …’ the girl sighed sadly. The woman pulled the teenager in towards her and hugged her tightly.

‘Oh, Ruby, I’ve been dreading this moment. Uncle George and I are both going to miss you so much. I still can’t believe you’re leaving us.’

‘I’m going to miss you too, Aunty Babs. I don’t want to go back, but I have to. There’s no other way.’

‘I wish there was something we could do to persuade your family to let you stay. We’d love you to work in the surgery with us. We need the help, and you could send money to your mother and support her that way.’

Ruby let herself be hugged for a few seconds before blinking hard and pulling back. More than anything she wanted to turn round and go back to the comfortable, loving home she had become accustomed to over the past few years.

‘I know, but Mum said no. She said I have to go back. If I don’t go she’ll send Ray to collect me and you’ve seen what he’s like. I suppose it is hard for Mum. Ray said I have to go and help her, what with Dad not coming back and Nan being there and everything …’

‘Yes, dear, I know what Ray said, but having met him I think you and I both know he likes to exaggerate a little.’ The older woman went on quickly, ‘Listen to me, Ruby. I know you have to go but I want you to remember that we’re always here for you. Any time you need anything, or you just want to come and see us, we’ll send you the train fare,’ she took hold of the girl’s arm, ‘or if things change and you want to come back and live here again. We’ll keep your room, even if it’s just for a holiday with us. This will always be your home.’

‘Will you really? I’d like that,’ Ruby said with a hopeful smile.

‘Of course we will. Now don’t you forget to keep in touch. We both think of you as our daughter. I never expected that to happen the day we took you into our home, but now …’ Barbara Wheaton paused mid-sentence as her eyes welled up. She touched Ruby’s cheek with her gloved hand. ‘Now it’s as if you were always with us, part of our family.’

‘Thank you. I’ll write, I promise. I’m going to miss you both so much.’

‘And I’ll write. Now you’re sure you’ve got the paper on which Uncle George wrote everything down for you? We don’t want you to get lost in London, and you mind who you talk to on the train.’ She smiled and shook her head. ‘I do wish you’d let us drive you back.’

‘I’ll be careful, I’ve got the paper in my bag and I’ll be fine. Mum is going to meet me at the bus stop when I get to Walthamstow.’

At fifteen Ruby was slender and coltishly leggy with green eyes and dark red curls not quite tucked away under the brim of a grey beret, which matched her knee-length tailored coat. Her ‘aunt’ was taller in her high heels, her hair pinned into an elegant chignon, and her face subtly made up, but the women were of similar colouring and bearing, and, standing side by side, they looked just like the mother and daughter Ruby had often wished they were. It had been nice to be the cosseted only child in a loving home instead of the ignored youngest in a crowded unhappy house, but now she had to go back to her family.

Amid billows of smoky steam the train bound for London lumbered to a standstill and, after one more hug, Ruby clambered aboard with her cases and sat down in a window seat. Forcing herself to be detached she smiled and waved through the steamed-up glass as the train started to chug forward while Babs Wheaton stood perfectly still on the narrow platform dabbing gently at her eyes with one hand and waving with the other.

Just outside the station Ruby could see Derek Yardley, the Wheatons’ driver, watching through the fence. As the train moved away she saw him raise a hand and wave. To all intents and purposes it was a friendly wave but she could see his stone-cold eyes staring directly at her. She hated him with a passion. He was the one person she certainly wouldn’t miss, and she knew without doubt that he was pleased to see the back of her, too.

Ruby remained dry-eyed and outwardly unemotional but inside she felt sick and angry at the thought both of what she was leaving behind and of what she was going back to.

It just wasn’t fair.

Five years previously, amid many tears and tantrums, the ten-year-old Ruby had fought desperately against being evacuated from her home and family in wartime East London to the safety of a sleepy village in the Cambridgeshire countryside. Just the thought of going had been terrifying to the young girl, who had never been away from home for even a night. But once she had adjusted to the change, she had settled in and her time with Babs and George Wheaton had turned into the happiest of her life. She had stayed on long after the other evacuees had returned home.