Marie Maxwell - Ruby

‘Ah! That’s for me to know and you to find out.’ He winked again, and another very strange feeling fluttered gently through her chest. ‘And I’m sure you will very soon, just as soon as you tell your brothers you met me. I’ll be seeing you then, Ruby of the red hair!’

With a wide grin, a tip of his hat and a flamboyant backward wave the man strutted down the road in the direction from which they’d come. Ruby watched as he casually kicked a ball back to a group of children playing in the middle of the road and then disappeared into a gate halfway down the street.

She guessed he was older than she – he certainly looked it – maybe even older than her brothers, and he had an edge of danger about him that excited her momentarily; but she knew it wasn’t the time to be thinking about handsome young men.

She was home, but all she wanted to do was turn and head back to the security of Melton and to the Wheatons, the substitute parents who had cared for her and loved her as their own.

She pulled back the wooden gate, took a couple of steps along the short concrete path and, after banging sharply on the door knocker, waited impatiently for what seemed an age before the door opened.

‘Hello, Mum,’ she smiled.

The woman looked at her for a moment before registering that this was her own daughter.

‘Ruby! Hello, dear, you’re early. I was just going to walk down to the bus stop to meet you, but you’re back here already.’

‘I was right on time. I waited for you for ages …’

‘Not to worry. I had so much to do I must have got behind. But you’re here now so in you come.’

The woman who had opened the door was small and round with wavy faded red hair pulled back from her face and tucked up in an old voile headscarf that was tied on top of her head. She was wearing an enveloping flowery apron and neatly darned woollen slippers.

Her appearance told Ruby that there was no way she had been getting ready to go out, and she felt hurt that the mother who had stated how desperate she was to have her daughter back home couldn’t even be bothered to walk down the road and meet her off the bus after such a long journey.

Sarah Blakeley held the door right back, then turned and shouted. ‘Arthur? Your sister’s here. Come and take her cases to her room.’ She turned back to her daughter. ‘Ruby, you go back out and shut the gate before those little urchins across the street start swinging on it again. I’m just sorting your brothers’ tea and then we’ll have ours after with Nan.’

Her eyes widened as she looked at her daughter properly for the first time. ‘You’ve grown, Rube – I nearly didn’t recognise you – and you look very glamorous, but a bit too old for your age. Did that Babs woman give those clothes to you?’

‘Yes, she made me lots of clothes and altered some of hers for me.’

‘Not really suitable for a fourteen-year-old …’

‘I’m fifteen, soon be sixteen,’ Ruby sighed.

‘Still not quite right, though. I’ll try them on later. I haven’t had anything new for years.’

And that was the total of her welcome home from her mother after five years away.

Ruby stood for a moment on the threshold and stared straight ahead at the faded wallpaper in the narrow hallway and the staircase that disappeared off into claustrophobic darkness. She didn’t even want to go in, let alone live there again. She wanted to run; but then she heard her grandmother.

‘Is that you home, Ruby?’ a voice called out. ‘Come and say hello to your old nan.’

‘Coming, Nan. Just going back to shut the gate.’

As her mother turned and walked back to the kitchen, Ruby’s brother Arthur bounded down the hall past her and grinned. ‘Hello, sis, decided to come home at last? Ray said you’d landed on your feet in that big posh house. He said you’ve gone la-di-dah and we’ve got to knock it out of you now you’re back!’

At seventeen and not much more than a year older than his sister, Arthur had always been closest to Ruby in all ways and she had never taken offence at him the same way she had with her other brothers. He was a lump of a boy who had always had a certain slow innocence and openness in his nature, unlike Ray and Bobbie, who could both be mean and devious when the mood took them. She was pleased to see that, on the surface at least, Arthur seemed the same good-natured lad she remembered and she hoped that Bobbie, the middle brother in both age and temperament, had maybe grown up and away from Ray. Life back home would certainly be easier if her oldest brother was the only unpleasant one in the family.

‘You could try, I suppose, or I could teach you how to be posh as well? It’s not that bad, you know, there’s nothing wrong with good manners.’ She laughed as she put an arm around his waist and hugged him affectionately, much to his embarrassment.

‘Get off,’ he muttered as he pulled away, making her laugh.

‘I’ve really missed you, Arf. You look so grown up now and you’re so tall. It’s a shame you didn’t come to the country, you’d have loved being out in the open. I had a friend Keith who you would have loved playing with. He even had a gun to shoot rabbits and pigeons. It was great fun – even school – and Uncle George and Aunty Babs were so nice to me. I love them so much.’ She paused as she realised exactly what she’d said. ‘But I love you all as well, especially you, and even Ray.’

‘We’re boys. Dad said boys who were evacuated were cowards.’ Arthur bristled and squared his shoulders. ‘Dad said we had to look after ourselves and Mum, and that’s what we did. We weren’t girls …’

‘Weren’t you scared you might get killed with all the bombs?’ Ruby asked curiously, still aware of the bombed-out houses she’d seen.

‘No. We weren’t scared. And now the war’s over and we won! Ray said you weren’t away because of the bombs, he said the posh people wanted you because the bloke’s a cripple and she’s barren. Ray said—’

‘That is such rubbish,’ Ruby interrupted angrily. ‘Lots of different people took in evacuees and some of the hosts were really horrible to them. I was really lucky that I ended up where I was. Especially as no one from here bothered to check if I was OK.’

But Ruby knew that she was wasting her time. Arthur really didn’t understand.

‘Ruby, are you going to come and see me?’ called Nan. Ruby turned away from Arthur and started towards the parlour.

‘I’m just going to see Nan and then I’ll tell you all about it,’ she said.

Arthur picked up the cases and followed close behind her.

‘You’re supposed to be taking them to my room.’

‘I am. Didn’t Mum tell you? You’re going to be sharing with Nan in the parlour. Ray’s got your old room.’

‘You’re joking. I can’t share with Nan. And what about the things I left?’ Ruby turned and looked at her brother in horror.

‘I think Ma got rid. Ray took your room as soon as you went away. Can’t see him coming back in with me and Bobbie now he’s the head of the house, can you?’ Arthur laughed.

‘Why can’t Nan share with Mum?’

‘’Cos of the stairs, you idiot.’

‘Why can’t I share with Mum?’

Arthur laughed. ‘I dunno …’ Pretending to spar, he skipped around and punched his sister hard on the arm, the way he used to when they were children, but now he was physically a man and the punch hurt.

‘Don’t do that, Arthur,’ she snapped at him. ‘Don’t hit me, don’t ever hit me. We’re not children any more. Adults don’t hit each other.’

‘Ooh, get you, Duchess. Ray was right. He said you think you’re better than us now.’

Looking angry and still unaware of his own strength, he pushed at her and she stumbled backwards slightly.