25
RUBY
10th June
For the past four days, it felt as if the whole of Bartonford had been holding its breath. People kept asking me and Vera what was happening, perhaps thinking that, because we worked for the Herald, we were privy to information they were not, but we only knew what everyone else did: that the British and Americans had met fierce resistance on the French beaches, managed to push through in the end, albeit with enormous casualties, and were now fighting their way across France.
Everywhere you went, people were talking about it. Vera was sent to write a story about Richard Bland, the butcher’s son, who was in the navy and whose ship had been sunk in the channel by the Germans before he could even reach the shore. No one was sure what had happened to him; hearing his name made me feel sick. What if Sam was one of those whose boats had been sunk too, or one of those who hadn’t made it off the beaches?
Vera was equally worried about Stanley. She bought the Telegraph daily, and we combed through the names of the dead. So far, Sam and Stanley hadn’t been among them, but I was constantly gripped by terror that it was only a matter of time.
‘What on earth’s wrong with you?’ Grandmother snapped at dinner one evening, as I listlessly pushed my food around on my plate.
‘Nothing, Grandmother,’ I said automatically.
‘You’re looking awfully pale. And thin. Please don’t tell me you’re moping over those Americans!’
Oh, if only you knew, I thought bitterly. I stabbed my fork into a piece of carrot. ‘I’m not moping, Grandmother.’ I tried to keep my voice level, but I couldn’t quite manage it.
Grandmother threw her hands in the air, wearing her long-suffering look. ‘Oh, the way she talks to me, Cecil!’ she said to Father. ‘And I suppose you’re just going to let her get away with it?’
‘Mm?’ Father glanced up from his notes.
‘Your daughter is being unforgivably rude to me, Cecil!’
Father blinked myopically at us both. ‘I – er – oh dear.’
‘Cecil,’ Grandmother thundered.
Father frowned at me. ‘Er, apologise to your grandmother, please, Ruby.’
I’d had enough. Wordlessly, I stood, scraping my chair across the floor, and went out, thumping the door closed behind me and cutting off Grandmother’s ‘Well!’
I hunted round for my shoes and cardigan, choked with fury. I didn’t know where I was going to go or what I was going to do; all I knew was I couldn’t stay here a moment longer, not with her.
Grandmother’s voice coming from behind the kitchen door, raised and shrill, made me turn back.
‘This is your fault, Cecil! If you’d sent her away to school when she was younger, like I told you to—’
‘I did what was best for Ruby at the time, Mother.’
‘And look where it’s got her! She’s such an odd girl. Always got her nose in a book – and so wilful – no man’s going to want that!’
That’s what you think!I wanted to burst in there and yell at her, but I stayed where I was.
‘When I was her age I was married – I had a good job—’ Grandmother continued.
‘Ruby has a job, Mother.’
‘Huh! Making tea and changing typewriter ribbons – some job that is!’
‘Mother, will you please stop giving Ruby such a hard time?’ Father’s voice was sharper suddenly; his tone took me by surprise.
‘And now he turns on me too! So this is the thanks I get!’
‘Mother.’
‘Everything I did for you was for your sake, Cecil. I gave up everything for you. And you abandoned me.’
‘I did not abandon you, Mother! We had to move to Bartonford because of my work, and we came back to visit you regularly. But you didn’t like Ellen – didn’t approve of her – nothing she said or did was ever good enough—’
‘Because she wasn’t good enough! She was flighty, unstable – you of all people should have been able to see that – and as for what she did with that man—’
‘Shut up!’ Father roared at her. ‘Just SHUT UP!’
I stared at the kitchen door, mouth open in shock.
A few moments later, Grandmother stormed out of the kitchen. She pushed past me as if I wasn’t even there, stalking out of the cottage and slamming the front door behind her hard enough to make the whole house shake. She wouldn’t return until almost midnight; goodness knows where she’d been.
I went into the kitchen. Father was breathing hard, staring at his notes, his pencil gripped in his fist.
‘Father?’ I said, aware of a faint ringing sound in my ears.
He didn’t answer me.
‘Father, what did she mean?’ I said. ‘What did Mother do?’
Father shook his head. ‘I don’t want to discuss this. Not now.’
‘But, Father—’
This time, it was me he shouted at, making me jump almost out of my skin. ‘NOT NOW, Ruby!’
He began to cough, his shoulders shaking. I brought him a glass of water but he pushed me away. ‘Leave me alone, damn you. Why can’t everyone just bloody well leave me alone?’
I ran upstairs, my eyes stinging with tears. Father had never spoken to me like that before, not even when I was a small child.
Sitting down on the edge of my bed, I gazed at the worn rug beneath my feet. What had Grandmother meant? Who was that man?
Oh, Sam, I wish I was here so I could talk to you about it, I thought, with a burst of longing and despair.
Suddenly, I was struck by a chill certainty that I would never see him again: the same awful feeling that had come over me that day at the party when he’d told me he was going away to south Devon on training exercises. I told myself not to be so stupid – that I couldn’t possibly know that. We still needed to get married – we had our whole lives together in front of us. He’d be all right. He had to be.
But that night, I lay awake, gripped by fear, unable to quiet the anxious thoughts running through my mind.