by Jenny Oliver
He kept replaying the conversation over and over in his head. Before she had shot him down with the belief that they wouldn’t have stayed together, he had actually been building up to saying that he had missed having her in his life. He put the pillow over his face. Thank God he hadn’t!
When she had said that he’d have lived his life thinking what if, Ruben had wanted to grab her by the arms and say, What do you think I did?
He could vividly remember the days of lying on soft grass looking up at blue sky, talking about anything that came into their heads. How Olive was going to be a millionaire. How he hated the word ‘pamphlet’. How Olive thought that the moon was on the back of the sun till she was at least eleven. How Ruben liked raspberries but thought strawberries overrated. He thought of the shared cigarettes in the rain. The malt whisky he stole from his dad and got flogged with his belt when it was found missing, but every whip was worth it for the dusky evening spent drinking it with Olive, the fit of giggles that made his stomach muscles hurt, the stupid dancing, the rambling stories and that moment when his mouth first touched hers. A kiss that still ranked in his top ten. OK, top five. He stared up at the crack in the ceiling. Top three. Who was he kidding? Top one. The best kiss of his life.
But sitting next to Olive on the patio, he had felt strangely hollow. He thought of the times he had sat on his bed at school in the early morning, her phone number dialled but never made the call. The evening after the affair had been discovered, Ruben had snuck out to see her at the cottage. She had stood on the doorstep and said, ‘Our lives are too different, Ruben.’ He had begged her not to end it but she’d been unwavering. He hadn’t fully understood why until she’d spelt it out just then on the patio. Not just her hurt at his father’s words but for him, so she didn’t hold him back.
Ruben ran his hand through his hair. Christ, how frustrating a rationale! Why didn’t she let him decide?
But then he remembered the email he’d sent from his American boarding school where his accent, clean-cut good looks and self-destructive disregard for authority catapulted him immediately to the top of the tree. Motivated to hurt perhaps, or to get her jealous, he’d recounted all his wild and crazy escapades. She had replied with a stark précis of her current life. He thought of his paragraph on getting suspended for doing mushrooms at homeroom. Hers that she had had to sit up all night with Dolly who, since the death of their father and breakdown of their mother, had stopped being able to sleep.
Ruben sat up contemplating the past. Why had he never read between the lines and considered other options for her rejection? Because, he realised, he had been too young. Olive was right – as always.
When the sun rose, Ruben got out of bed and made himself a coffee. He sat on the back step of the kitchen, the buddleia still held the scars of his fall from the roof, ahead of him the sun streaming onto the lush grass where the black cat was curled in a knot of legs and paws, completely oblivious to the rabbits lolloping on the lawn. Ruben looked out towards the sea. He thought of the Olive who had turned up the other day, all polished and pressed. He thought of who she must have been, her good job and her neat little flat. She drove a Volvo, for Christ’s sake. The Olive he had known would never have driven a Volvo.
She was definitely right, he realised. They couldn’t have stayed friends. They were too young. They didn’t know who they were. Life would have got in the way. Because look at who they had become.
Yet he had loved her. More than he’d loved anyone. There was a lump in his throat as he thought of it. Ruben was most unused to this sense of emotion. This sentimentality. Maybe he was getting old. Maybe it was just that Olive’s family had felt like the only proper family he’d ever had. It occurred to him that he’d spent the last twenty years essentially alone. Tied to nothing and no one. And while he enjoyed himself very much, life was definitely lacking that sense of guarantee. The idea that there was always somewhere else to go where you would be welcomed into the warm, fed and watered and entertained. And loved.
But no, she was right, it would have been a disaster. Just the chaos and tragedy that had gone on here was enough to prove it so. From his experience, relationships always ended in disaster.
Suddenly there was a presence beside him. Zadie squashed herself into the small space left on the back step, a bowl of cereal in her hand, dressed in another of her bizarre ensembles. ‘Morning!’ she chirruped. ‘Oh, you can see the sea from here! I just love the sea. I swim in the sea every day at home. There’s literally nowhere I like better than the sea.’
Ruben was on the cusp of limiting her to three sentences a day. He suddenly understood stressed mums everywhere as she interrupted his precious me-time. ‘Yes,’ he sighed, ‘you can see the sea.’
Next thing, Olive arrived and the morning started. She busied herself getting coffee, burning toast and trying to decipher the clue, while Ruben hovered awkwardly, unable to relax around her after his night of soul-searching. His movements felt rehearsed and wooden. When she asked him to pass the Marmite, he slammed it down on the table too hard for no reason other than he’d forgotten how to use his hands. He was completely distracted by things he wanted to say to her, questions and clarifications about the past. She asked if he wanted coffee, he couldn’t look at her. Who knew if he wanted coffee? Not him, that was for sure.
Olive was frowning at him, clearly about to ask why he was being so weird, when the doorbell rang. A giant gold bell that tolled when someone pulled the metal handle outside.
‘Who’s that?’ squeaked Zadie, jumping up to go and look.
Ruben followed, opening the huge door as Zadie peered through one of the side windows saying, ‘It’s a really pretty blonde woman.’
When he opened the door he heard a voice say, ‘Well, Ruben de Lacy, look at you.’
And standing on the step was quite possibly one of the most beautiful women he’d seen in years. Blue eyes, rosebud lips, hair like a cornfield on a summer’s day. A sight for sore eyes, to say the least. Had they dated once? If not, he’d damn well find out why not. He looked her up and down – denim shorts revealed long tanned legs, simple yellow vest, hair could perhaps do with a brush but on the whole the perfect specimen. This was more like it. This was more Ruben’s type of woman, enough of Olive’s prim, righteous condescension. He was all about fun, not self-flagellation. ‘Hi there,’ he drawled to the hot blonde, a self-assured smile on his lips.
The woman paused. Her eyes narrowed. ‘You have no idea who I am, do you?’
Ruben shrugged it off. ‘Give me a second and it’ll come to me.’ His smile grew wider. All thoughts of Olive and her unreachable expectations, Zadie and his failure at fatherhood, flooding away as he stepped firmly into familiar territory.
The woman watched, hand on her hip, waiting, smile widening (perfect teeth).
Ruben’s grin grew as he played for time, trying to place her. He was sure they’d dated. She brushed a stray lock of hair from her cheek. She liked him, that was for sure. Praise the Lord.
Then suddenly Olive appeared behind him. Damn. All he’d needed was five minutes more. He didn’t need Olive’s judgement towards his desire for some much needed harmless flirtation. But then Olive stepped past him and said, ‘Oh my God, Dolly, why didn’t you tell anyone you were coming?’
All the humour drained from Ruben’s face. ‘Dolly?’ This was not the staunch policewoman he was expecting.
‘Hi Ruben,’ the woman in front of him grinned, stood there in the golden sunlight seemingly lapping up his surprise before glancing briefly, dismissively, at Olive and saying shortly, ‘Aunt Marge made me.’
Ruben was 100 per cent speechless. What a transformation! If Olive hadn’t confirmed it there was no way he would have believed this stunner was Dolly King.
Next minute, from a beaten-up van in the driveway, a great hulk of a man appeared, saying with a scolding voice, ‘Dolly, what are you doing? Why aren’t you wearing your sling? You’re going to do permanent damage to your arm!’
Dolly mumbled something sulkily incoherent, and suddenly Ruben could see little Dolly again. Beside him, Olive quipped, ‘Looks like she’s already taken, Ruben.’ A little dig at his obvious approval of adult Dolly.
‘No need to be jealous, Olive,’ he drawled quietly. ‘Just appreciating a fine thing.’
Olive scoffed at the mention of jealousy and it gave Ruben a little buzz.
Ruben had always had a soft spot for Dolly. He’d always enjoyed her tagging along. She was easy to wind up but also laughed at his jokes. She’d been funny and sweet and adoring. He never forgot the time he’d found her on her own, trying to rescue some baby robins that had fallen out of a nest. She had them all scooped up in her hands but couldn’t reach high enough to put them back. He’d only come out for a fag but ended up embroiled in the rescue, popping each one back as the mother robin went nuts in the background.
When all the fluffy little baby birds were safe in the nest, he’d turned to Dolly for a friendly high five, only to find her on tiptoes, clasping his face in her sweaty palms and kissing him hard on the lips with fervent desperation. Feeling a little like a cat held too tight by a small child, Ruben had struggled to extricate himself and catch his breath. At the moment when he should have let Dolly down gently, he was so gasping for air that he had laughed instead. Oh, he could still see it now, the painful humiliation in those big wide eyes. Poor little Dolly. When Olive had come out looking for him, he’d had to explain what happened, worried about Dolly on her own in the woods. Olive had winced. ‘She can’t just go around kissing people. God, she’s as nuts as Mum.’ Ruben had sprung to her defence, ‘No, it was sweet. Don’t have a go at her!’ Olive had started walking into the woods already. ‘I’m not going have a go at her, I’m just going to teach her a bit about what to do with boys.’ Ruben had thought it would be best for Dolly’s self-esteem were he not to tag along for that chat. When he’d walked home he’d seen her curled up at the base of one of the giant oaks, sobbing into Olive’s sleeve. Olive had winked at him as he’d tiptoed past and he knew he’d see her later at the orangery. That was all the two of them had cared about at that time, those snatched meetings. Maybe it had made them blind to everything else.
Now, on the doorstep, the big hulk of a man thrust out his arm, shaking Ruben’s then Olive’s hand. ‘Fox Mason,’ he said. ‘Colleague of Dolly’s.’
‘What, are you here to arrest somebody?’ Ruben quipped and instantly regretted it when no one laughed. It felt like a real dad joke when he noticed Zadie wince. Clearing his throat, he said more seriously, ‘Ruben de Lacy.’
A very unsubtle look passed between Fox and Dolly. Ruben wondered if it was something to do with his dad joke.
Zadie squeezed herself to the front and said, ‘I’m Zadie, Ruben’s daughter.’
‘You have a daughter?’ Dolly said with surprise.
Ruben said, ‘It’s a long story.’
Olive made a confused face. ‘It’s not that long.’
‘Anyway, come in,’ Ruben ushered them inside, ignoring Olive, feeling like she was being deliberately obtuse, niggled, he decided, from coming across as jealous earlier. That was the benefit of knowing exactly how another’s brain worked.
‘Have you spoken to Marge? Told her you’re here? She rang me, she’s worried about you,’ Olive was asking.
‘She’s fine,’ said Dolly, waving away the concern. ‘She knows I’m here.’
‘She doesn’t.’
Dolly turned. ‘Olive, she does.’
Olive looked away with a shake of her head.
Zadie was running about like a hyperactive puppy. ‘We answered the first two clues. We’ve got the third, but we don’t know what it means.’
Dolly said, ‘You’ve done the first two clues?’ Surprise in her voice, almost hurt.
Olive said, ‘Well you couldn’t expect us to wait when we didn’t even know if you were coming!’
Dolly visibly bristled. ‘I didn’t say I wanted you to wait.’
Olive raised a brow.
Ruben said, ‘Can I get you a coffee? Toast?’
‘We’ve had breakfast,’ said Fox, all deep and authoritative, making Ruben feel like a weedy schoolboy.
Dolly said, ‘I’ll have toast and coffee.’ Her tone pedantic, like she was deliberately going against Fox for having spoken for both of them.
Ruben clocked the interaction with interest. As did Olive. Fox just seemed unfazed.
When Ruben came back with the coffee and toast, they were all sitting at the long kitchen table. Olive was saying, ‘So you’ve been suspended from work, dislocated your arm, you’ve written-off a police car and, Fox, your bike is in a barn somewhere?’
Fox chuckled. ‘I know, can you believe it? I’ve been to warzones less stressful than working with Dolly.’
Dolly sat back a little sulkily with her good arm crossed over the bad.
Olive blew out a breath. ‘Blimey, Dolly, what are you doing?’
Fox said, ‘Has she always been like this?’
‘Yes,’ said Olive, eyes wide for emphasis.
‘I have not!’ Dolly defended herself.
Ruben put the coffee and toast down in front of her. ‘I don’t think she was always like that,’ he said in Dolly’s defence. Half because it was true and half because it seemed like Olive was being a bit mean. She’d always looked after Dolly in the past. Now she seemed overly stressed, riled by her sister’s presence.
‘Oh please!’ Olive scoffed.
Fox said, ‘She’s jinxed,’ but his addition was good-natured, whereas it was clear to anyone who really knew them, there were undercurrents between Olive and Dolly.
Dolly stood up, the coffee spilled. ‘I am not bloody jinxed.’
‘Dolly, calm down,’ said Olive.
‘Dolly, calm down,’ Dolly repeated patronisingly, faux-soothing.
Fox looked surprised by the interaction. ‘Dolly, why are you getting so annoyed? It’s just messing.’
‘It’s not just messing. It’s always like this. No wonder I didn’t want to come. Five minutes we’ve been here and you can’t help yourself. Always telling me what to do, like you’re my mum.’ She waved a hand in Olive’s direction.
Zadie’s head was flicking from side to side, like she was watching a tennis match.
‘I can’t help myself?’ Olive pointed to herself. ‘Are you kidding me? I had Aunt Marge on the phone last night panicking that you weren’t answering your phone and you’d lost your job, ready to go round and check your flat. Do you realise that all around you, you have people constantly pent up with worry?’
‘And do you realise that you pick at me for any justifiable reason you can get?’ Dolly huffed. ‘And I haven’t lost my job, by the way, I’ve been suspended. Completely different things.’
Olive rolled her eyes. ‘Can you hear yourself?’
Dolly narrowed her eyes. ‘Very clearly.’
After a pause, like two wild cats facing off, Olive said, her voice neutral, ‘Nice to see you’ve grown up, Dolly.’
Everyone round the table looked embarrassed.
Dolly ran her tongue along her top lip. Then she turned to Zadie, who was watching the whole thing entranced, and said, ‘What’s the clue?’
‘You know the maiden rocks that guard the southern bay. But did you know their heart of stone they one day threw away?’ Zadie recited it by heart, her voice small in the room. ‘We know the maidens but not the heart of stone.’
‘OK fine,’ Dolly snapped. ‘Leave this one to me and Fox. We’ll find it.’
Olive sat back in her chair, hands spread wide. ‘Fine. You do that.’
‘Fine,’ said Dolly. ‘We will.’
And the next thing Ruben knew, Dolly had grabbed Fox by the arm and was storming out of the house. Olive watching with a tight-lipped shake of her head.
The coffee sloshed all over the table. The toast untouched.
Olive got up to get a cloth and clear up the spill.
Zadie’s phone rang. ‘Oh, that’s my mum!’ And she disappeared outside where the black cat was still sunning himself.
Ruben said to Olive, ‘What was all that about?’ Surprised at what he’d witnessed between the two sisters. The immediate lack of humour over the current predicament.
Olive chucked the cloth in the sink and cleared the plates. ‘What do you mean, what was all that about?’
Ruben leant against the sideboard. ‘You sound like you’re mad at her.’
Olive started to wash-up. ‘I’m not mad at her. We don’t speak enough for me to be mad at her.’
Ruben found himself incredulous at the very idea. ‘Why don’t you speak? You were so close.’
‘Because she’s like that,’ Olive said, gesturing towards the door that Dolly had left through. ‘She’s never grown up.’
‘She must have grown up. She’s an officer of the law,’ Ruben replied, as he took a plate from the sideboard and started to dry up. After a few minutes of silence he said, ‘I really can’t believe you don’t get on. She was such a sweet kid.’
‘Yeah well, things changed.’ Olive paused washing-up. ‘I just get a bit fed up of the Dolly show, you know. She never thinks about anyone else. All anyone’s ever done since we left here is bail out Dolly. She’s never had to take responsibility and she never will. She acts like a child, OK!’
Ruben tipped his head. ‘It’s not her fault everything went wrong.’
Olive rinsed the last plate of washing-up suds. ‘I know it wasn’t her fault but …’ she paused. ‘Sometimes it feels like it was. That she was so young and mollycoddled, that she went crying to my dad because she’d seen us together—’
‘Hang on, that’s very unfair. You said last night that it wasn’t my fault about my dad and what a nasty piece of work he was. Well, then how can any of it be Dolly’s fault? Your mum chose to have an affair.’
‘It’s not about the affair,’ snapped Olive. ‘It’s the fact that all she ever thinks about is herself.’