8
SAM
I couldn’t believe it. She was here. I stared at her, wondering what to do. Should I say hello? What if she gave me the brush-off again?
C’mon, Sam. Don’t be such a damn coward, I told myself. I went over to her table. The band was so loud, I had to sit down next to her to make myself heard. ‘Er, hi,’ I said.
She looked up. Her eyes widened. ‘Oh, hullo,’ she stammered.
Hullo. That was a good start, wasn’t it?
‘It’s Ruby, ain’t it?’ I cleared my throat. ‘I mean, isn’t it?’ Way to go, Sam, sounding like a hick.
She nodded.
‘I’m Sam. You might not remember me. I—’
‘I do. You bought me that lead for Toffee. It was very kind – thank you. I should have said so at the time, but I was—’ She shook her head, her cheeks flushing. ‘Oh dear. You must have thought me terribly rude.’
‘Aw, no. I thought I’d scared you, is all.’
Finally – finally – she smiled. ‘No. You did startle me, though – I wasn’t expecting you and your friend to turn up like that! I was so embarrassed about what happened on the beach.’
‘Don’t be. Dogs are always doing dumb stuff like that. I had one once called Lou. He was a big idiot, but I loved him.’
I looked down at the table, remembering for a moment. Ma had bought Lou for my seventh birthday, not long after we’d moved to the farm. He’d been brown and white with black spots, a mix of all sorts with long ears and stubby legs. He’d follow me – even to school if I’d let him – and slept on my bed at night. Kirk hated him. ‘What use is a dog if it ain’t gonna earn its keep?’ he’d growl when Lou refused to hunt rats or rabbits. One morning, I woke up and Lou wasn’t there. I’d found his body out by the chicken sheds, stiff and cold, his mouth open in an agonised snarl and froth on his lips. ‘Musta got into the rat poison,’ Kirk had said, but I knew. I knew. It was the way he’d been smirking as he said it. I didn’t want another dog after that. I was too heartbroken, too scared it would happen again.
‘Oh, he’s not mine.’ Ruby’s voice jolted me back to the present. ‘He’s my neighbour’s. She has rheumatism, so I walk him for her. He is a nice little dog, though.’ She gave me another of those smiles – warm, kinda shy – and that spark lit up inside me again, just like the first time we met.
Damn.
‘Sorry for startling you, then. It was dumb of me to turn up like that.’ I was speaking too fast, trying to cover up how flustered I felt.
‘Oh, I didn’t mind, not really. It’s just my father—’ She clamped her lips shut, as if to stop herself saying something she shouldn’t.
Of course. ‘Your pa’s in charge of the newspaper?’ I asked, remembering the guy with the side-whiskers.
‘Oh, goodness, no. That’s Mr Howlett – Howler, we call him.’ She gave a brittle laugh. ‘My father’s a doctor – a psychiatrist. He works at Barton Hall, the military hospital up on the hill – we live there, too.’
I frowned. ‘So why would he—’
‘He’s – it’s complicated. He worries about me.’
‘But he let you come tonight?’
She gave a little shrug and looked down at her plate, picking up crumbs with the end of her finger. ‘Not exactly. He thinks I’m somewhere else.’
‘Ah,’ I said.
We were interrupted by a sudden commotion on the dance floor nearby. A girl’s voice – British – cried out sharply, ‘I say, do you mind?’
I looked round to see the woman who’d let us in when Jimmy and I turned up at Ruby’s office, Vera, glaring at Freddie Gardner. It looked as if they’d been dancing together. Freddie was grinning; I guess he’d been putting his hands somewhere they weren’t wanted. He shrugged and said something I couldn’t hear over the music. Vera tossed her head back and walked away. Ruby started to get up. ‘That’s my friend – I should see if she’s OK.’
But Vera had already turned to talk to Stanley Novak, laughing and touching his arm. The smile slid off Gardner’s face. Ruby sat back down, looking relieved.
Oh, crap. Gardner was approaching our table, grinning again. ‘Hey, doll, looks like your friend got tired of me,’ he said to Ruby. ‘Wanna have that dance now? Or are you gonna run away again?’
‘No thank you.’ Ruby’s voice was stiff; under her makeup, the colour had drained out of her face. What was wrong?
‘She’s with me,’ I said quickly. Gardner’s gaze flicked over to me like I was an annoying bug. ‘Aw, c’mon,’ he said to Ruby. ‘You ain’t telling me a pretty lil’ thing like you can’t dance. Maybe I can teach you.’
He sounded so much like Kirk when that bastard tried to turn on the charm it made my guts twist. ‘Actually, we were just going out for some fresh air,’ I said. ‘Weren’t we?’
Ruby shot me a grateful look and nodded. We stood and made for a side door near the stage, leaving Gardner to glower after us.
Outside, I fetched an upturned wooden crate and pushed it against the side of the hut, draping my jacket across it so Ruby wouldn’t get splinters in her dress. She slumped onto it, letting out her breath in a whoosh. ‘Thank you.’
‘No problem.’ I peered at her in the darkness. ‘You met that guy before or something?’
She gave me a weak smile. ‘In a manner of speaking, yes.’
Haltingly, she told me about how she’d left work early a few days ago and was cornered in an alleyway by Gardner and his pal Gene Trubman. ‘It was horrible,’ she said. ‘They seemed to think I was some sort of… of possession, or something.’
‘Gardner’s an idiot,’ I said. ‘Thinks he’s someone ’cause his daddy’s a high-up in the army. Don’t let him rattle you. Will your friend be OK?’
‘Oh, he picked on the wrong one there.’ Ruby gave a little chuckle. ‘Vera can look after herself.’
‘You wanna go back in?’
‘Do you mind if we stay out here for a while? It’s rather nice.’
She was right; it was nice. The night was surprisingly mild, and over the muffled sound of the band inside the hut I could hear the waves crashing against the shore below the camp. There was no moon, but every now and then the clouds parted to give a view of the stars, which were sprayed across the sky like silver paint. The ground was dry so I sat down beside Ruby’s crate and crossed my legs, resting my arms on my knees.
‘So, Sam, er—’ Ruby said. ‘Gosh – I don’t even know your surname.’
‘Sam Archer.’ Awkwardly, I held up a hand for her to shake. ‘Pleased to meet you, ma’am. And you are…?’
She laughed again. ‘Ruby Mottram. Pleased to meet you too, Sam Archer. So what brings you to Devon? I mean – of course, you’re in the army, I know that, but what made you decide to join up?’
I wondered how much to tell her. ‘I needed the money,’ I said at last. ‘My ma and I – we don’t have much. And I have a little sister, too. I had a job but it didn’t make enough.’
‘What about your father?’ she asked.
‘He’s dead.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. Trust me to put my foot in it.’
‘Naw, it’s OK. He died before I was born.’
‘So it’s just you and your mother and your sister?’
‘Yeah.’ I turned my face away, scowling into the darkness. ‘And my stepfather.’
‘Oh.’
I didn’t say anything else. Even thinking about Kirk felt like summoning the Devil.
‘That makes two of us, I suppose,’ she said at last. ‘Although in my case it’s my mother who’s not here anymore – she died when I was a baby.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘Oh, it’s OK. I don’t really remember her.’
I attempted to steer the conversation onto safer ground. ‘So how did you end up working at a newspaper? You enjoy it?’
‘I suppose so. I don’t exactly do any writing, though. That’s Vera’s job. Mine is mostly checking through the small ads and announcements before I type them up and give them to Dobbsy, I mean, Mrs Dobbs – she’s Howler’s sister; I suppose you’d call her the subeditor these days – so she can go through it all. I long to be a proper reporter, though. It must be so exciting!’
‘Don’t you ever get to go out on a story?’ I asked.
‘I do if Vera wants me to come and help her, but usually I’m stuck in the office. I do all sorts of other jobs there, too – I have to, because most of the staff were called up.’
‘Hope they don’t work you too hard.’
‘Oh, no, it’s all right. I mean, I do get awfully tired – I’m an ARP warden too and sometimes when I get to work I could happily curl up under my desk and sleep all day! But I get every Sunday off unless there’s some sort of emergency, and the pay’s not bad. I’m sure I’ll get to do some real writing one day.’
I couldn’t remember what we talked about after that, only that we talked about everything, laughing like loons one minute, serious and heartfelt the next. It was as if I’d known Ruby forever, which was crazy, because how was it possible to feel like that about someone you’d only just met properly?
Suddenly, Ruby jumped up. ‘Goodness, we must have been sitting out here all night – Vera will be going frantic!’
I got up too. ‘Let’s go find her.’
But before we went back in the hall, I caught her arm. ‘Say, could I see you again?’
‘I—’ She paused. ‘It’s difficult for me to get away.’
‘I know, your pa. But he lets you leave the house, right?’
‘It’s not just that. He – he doesn’t really approve of the Americans.’
‘Doesn’t approve of us? Why not?’
‘He thinks – oh, it’s silly really, but there’s been stories in the papers and, well, once he gets an idea in his head…’
‘What about when you’re walking that dog for Mrs What’s-her-face? Couldn’t we meet up then?’
Just able to make her out in the starlit darkness, I saw her bite her lip. ‘This is a small town – everyone knows each other. If someone saw us, and told him…’
‘Isn’t there somewhere we could go where no one would see us?’
I realised, too late, how that sounded, and felt my face go hot. ‘I mean, just so we can talk and all,’ I added quickly. Please don’t say no, I begged her inside my head.
She bit her lip again.
‘Hey, what about that little beach at the foot of the cliffs just out of town?’ I said. ‘There’s a couple of caves there – I found them on a walk a few days ago – you know the place, right?’
‘A cave? You must mean Wreckers Cove,’ she said. ‘That’s the only place around here with caves. A long time ago, people used to hide there and shine lights to lure ships onto the rocks.’
‘Well, how about it? It’s a bit of a scramble to get down there, but it’s private.’
She paused; I could tell she was thinking about it.
‘Could you make it next Sunday morning?’ I asked gently. ‘Say, about ten o’clock?’
She hesitated again. Then she said, ‘I – I could try.’
A smile broke across my face. ‘I’ll send you a message.’
She turned to face me. ‘All right, but don’t send it to Barton Hall – Father might see it and want to know who it’s from. Send it to the office.’
I nodded, and followed her back into the hall, where she was pounced on almost immediately by Vera. ‘There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you! We must go – we’ll miss the bus!’
When she saw me behind her, she raised one eyebrow slightly. Ruby flushed. It made her look prettier than ever. We were just talking, I wanted to say, but at that moment the band struck up again, louder than ever, making anything except yelling at the top of my lungs impossible.
Glancing over her shoulder at me, Ruby followed Vera out of the hall. I watched her go, feeling an absurd sense of loss, as if I was watching her walk away forever.
Eight days until I saw her again. Eight days. It felt like a lifetime. I just hoped she didn’t change her mind before then.