by Alison Bond
Then again, maybe Ruby would have expected her to be indifferent, not to care about a mother she had never known. Except that she had cared. And she wanted Ruby to know that somebody did.
‘You don’t know where she is?’
Max shook his head. ‘I’ll never see her again.’
‘She doesn’t call you or anything?’
‘No.’
It was selfish and bold. Two things that she knew Ruby to be.
Jez pulled his chair closer to hers. ‘Are you okay, babe?’
His sincere concern triggered her restrained tears and they rolled down her face. She could hardly speak. ‘I want to go home.’
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Come on. We’ll pick up your stuff from Octavia’s and go to my hotel.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I want to go home.’
‘Just like that?’
‘Just like that.’
Max stood up to say goodbye and passed her a box of Kleenex. She wiped her messy face, all snot and tears, not very LA, and tried to decide whether or not she liked him. She did. She couldn’t help it.
‘Thank you,’ she said. Her breath was coming in ragged bursts, juddering painfully into her lungs, not enough to calm her. She looked down and folded the tissue in her hands in half and then in half again, and again, trying to soothe herself. A moment passed before she could form a sentence. And it was important.
‘Max, if she ever contacts you, will you tell her something from me?’
‘Of course,’ he said.
‘Tell her… tell her that I miss her. I miss her all the time. I missed her before I knew who she was, before she died. But I think I understand why she left me. Tell her I’m happy.’
Max shook her hand formally. ‘You’re the best of her,’ he said. ‘She’d be so proud of you.’
Jez took Kelly’s arm and led her outside. She could hardly see through her tears. Back on the beach, out of sight, she broke down and sobbed.
40
When their aeroplane burst through the thin layer of cloud and she first saw the lush green valleys of home Kelly felt a sense of peace wash over her. It didn’t matter who her mother was. This was where she belonged. The journey to reach that conclusion had been an adventure, but it wasn’t real.
Her dad picked them up from the airport. ‘Are you going to tell him?’ said Jez.
She shook her head. Ruby was dead. That’s what she wanted everyone to believe and so Kelly would uphold her wishes. It was a mother/daughter confidence, the first secret they had ever shared. She intended to keep it. She made Jez promise never to break that trust. She made him swear on his collection of vintage movie posters, the thing dearest to his heart. Except perhaps for her. Why had she never before appreciated how good he was in a crisis? His laidback attitude was perfect for organizing a quick getaway. No fuss, no bother, just two tickets on the first plane home.
It had been easy to pack up and leave town, proof that her alter ego – Kelly Valentine, daughter to the stars – was flimsy and ephemeral. Sofia made her promise to keep in touch. ‘Come out to Nikki Beach at Christmas,’ she’d said. ‘It’s so, like, fabulous. It’d be good for your image.’
And maybe she would. Or maybe she’d sit and get pissed with her dad just as she had done every year since she was sixteen, mock the Queen, wear paper hats and play cards for big money. She could invite Jez. That would be, like, fabulous too. Your image didn’t change who you were inside. Ruby Valentine had spent her whole life figuring that out.
Kelly ran into Sean’s arms when she saw him at Arrivals, and he twirled her round as if she was a little girl again. ‘How was it?’ he said.
‘Interesting.’
‘Hiya, Jez. You found each other then?’
‘We did,’ said Jez. ‘It wasn’t too hard.’
‘You staying at ours?’
Jez looked at Kelly and she nodded enthusiastically. ‘Sure,’ he said.
Kelly could hardly sleep that night. Jez had no such problem, snoring beside her, taking up too much of her narrow bed. She was looking forward to waking up to him, to getting closer to him, to letting him get close to her and no longer worrying that falling in love with him would be dangerous. If they made it in the long term, then it might be wonderful, and if they didn’t, then it was better to try wholeheartedly and fail than never to try at all. She would just have to trust him. It would be the first time she had trusted anyone but her father. The truth was that she could let herself be loved by him, just like that. And she could love him back.
Kelly watched Jez sleeping until it started to get light and then she crept silently out of the bedroom and went downstairs. The kitchen was gloomy and every movement she made seemed to echo in the emptiness of this early hour. She fixed a mug of tea and stuffed her feet into a pair of Wellington boots stacked up by the back door. She grabbed her bag and walked out into the morning. There was the faintest suggestion of frost crunching beneath her feet but already the hills smelt fertile and alive, as if spring was on its way.
She climbed up to the wooden bench overlooking the valley and she drank down the air like a drug. No pollution, no air-con, just honest fresh air. She could practically feel the bloom of health rising to her cheeks.
She sat down and pulled two items from her bag. The ruby necklace she would never sell. The jewel glistened in her hand with an internal fire. Enduring, like its owner. She’d told Octavia she had reconsidered her offer to help pay for an investigation. After that Octavia couldn’t get her out of the house fast enough.
Kelly looked next at the small photograph of a mother and her child. Taken not far from here, but a million miles away. Another lifetime. Ruby looked so happy.
Kelly looked up and saw the same view in the distance: the rolling hills, the isolated pond and the speck of white that was the remote old cottage. Some things had changed. The trees were a little taller, and so was the girl in the picture, but the landscape was as constant as the sky above her. Who could fail to find peace in a place like this?
The idea did not come to Kelly all of a sudden. She was on her feet and walking out into the fields before she understood where she was going. She was half-way there before she realized that the missing piece of the puzzle had just dropped into place. The cottage had been deserted for years. Sean had once tried to find out who owned it and reached a dead end, cordoned off with the red tape of bureaucracy. All the land between here and that cottage was privately owned. They never discovered who by. It was cold, she hadn’t worn her coat, but she kept walking all the same. One foot in front of the other, searching for the truth, which she suspected could be happily exiled in her very own backyard.
The door of the cottage was unlocked. Kelly knocked and waited but there was no reply. Tentatively she pushed it open and walked inside.
She looked around. It was clearly no longer deserted. There were a few books on a big wooden table at the window, a computer and a phone that was unplugged at the wall. The kitchen smelt faintly of coffee and somebody had left a half-eaten apple on the side of the sink. Was she being unbelievably foolish? Was she walking around a stranger’s humble home looking for a dead woman who was probably somewhere far more exotic? Perhaps she just wanted to believe that she’d come back. She climbed the stairs, expecting to be interrupted by a disgruntled neighbour at any moment. A big Hollywood star couldn’t disappear in a small town like this.
In the bathroom, an Oscar was being used as a makeshift doorstop.
And Kelly heard the front door close.
*
She watched Ruby Valentine from the top of the stairs. Her hair was very short and almost entirely grey, and she had a pair of spectacles perched on her nose. Her arms were full of heather which she set down on the wooden table and started to arrange in an old instant coffee jar. She tinkered with the radio and found some classical music which soon gave way to a news report. She returned it immediately.
Kelly was gripped by every gesture. She could see the family resemblance more cl
early than ever. Perhaps because without the makeup and styling Ruby looked as if she could be somebody’s mother. Her mother.
So everything Max had said was true. She had thought about this so many times, coming face to face with the woman who gave birth to her, that she should have felt a little more prepared; instead she felt a sickening sense of curiosity tinged with absolute terror. Her stomach flipped and she thought she might throw up. What scared her most was the possibility of rejection. She wasn’t sure that she could take it if Ruby turned her away and then disappeared again. Perhaps she really didn’t want to be found. But, Kelly figured, if that were true then perhaps she shouldn’t have set up camp so close to home.
It was as if she was desperate to be exposed.
When Ruby had finished with the flowers she picked up the jar and cast her eye around the room, looking for somewhere to put it. Kelly ducked into the shadows. She didn’t know what to do next. A huge part of her wanted to escape without confronting Ruby, and never let anyone know what she had discovered. She could watch from a distance and enjoy the secret knowledge that she was close. She didn’t have to do anything. She could just run. But for once in her life she didn’t, she stayed where she was.
Ruby started to climb the stairs. Kelly instinctively looked for somewhere to hide but it was too late. She was standing in the middle of the bedroom when Ruby walked in.
Ruby saw a stranger in her house and let out a blood curdling scream. She dropped the jar of heather and the glass shattered, skittering across the hard floor like crushed ice.
Kelly was startled and anxiously tried to fix this moment in time so that she would always remember it. ‘Hello, Ruby,’ she said. ‘It’s me. It’s Kelly.’
Ruby stared. ‘I saw your picture,’ she said. ‘At my funeral.’ Her hands went to her cropped hair, as if she was embarrassed.
‘Does Sean know you’re here?’ said Kelly. If he had known all along and kept this from her she would be devastated.
‘No,’ said Ruby. ‘No one was supposed to know. Did Max tell you?’
‘Sort of.’
They circled each other with interest, like toddlers in a playground, each thinking how they looked different yet the same. Kelly reached out to touch her mother. She needed assurance that this wasn’t a dream, that she wasn’t still in bed, wrapped up safe and warm with Jez.
Kelly recognized the smile that came over Ruby’s face. It was her Hollywood smile, the one she always wore in photographs. It didn’t quite reach her eyes, but it showed off her jawline in its most flattering heart shape. She threw open her arms and Kelly realized that she was supposed to step into them and accept an embrace. She did, and it was stiff and unyielding, the lower half of their bodies not touching at all. A Hollywood hug to go with the smile. At last,’ said Ruby. At last I get to meet you.’
‘I’ve never been hard to find,’ said Kelly. She folded her arms across her chest. This didn’t feel right. The smile and the hug were the classic happy ending, the perfect fantasy of how this reunion should go, roll credits. But it couldn’t be as easy as that. Ruby was acting strangely. She was looking directly into her eyes but not making eye contact, smiling but not looking happy, saying words but not really saying anything at all. Kelly felt defensive and confused. She didn’t think Ruby was on drugs, she sensed that the glitter in her eyes was probably anxiety, but she had absolutely no connection with her whatsoever. The disappointment was crushing.
Ruby bent down and started to fuss with the heather and broken glass on the floor. Kelly crouched to help her. Watch your fingers,’ said Ruby almost gaily.
‘Is that it?’ said Kelly. ‘Is that all you have to say to me? “Watch your fingers”?’
Ruby looked up from the floor in surprise. For a split second the smile dropped from her face and Kelly could clearly see the panic in her eyes.
‘What about “Let me explain” or “Please forgive me”?’ said Kelly.
‘For what?’
Tor walking out.’
‘It’s complicated,’ said Ruby. ‘My contract for Next of Kin wasn’t renewed, the press had turned on me, it would only have got worse. My situation became untenable.’
Kelly tried not to let the dismay show on her face. If Ruby could play it cool then so could she. She was determined not to let her see how much this coldness was clawing at her insides. She had thought about discovering her mother countless times since she was a little girl. Then spent weeks in Los Angeles trying to make sense of who she was. Now she had finally found her after all these years.
And the truth was that Kelly didn’t like her.
‘I didn’t mean the faking-your-own-death spectacular,’ she said grimly. ‘I meant the first time. The time when you walked out on me and my dad.’
‘Oh.’ Ruby concentrated on separating stems of heather from the shards of broken glass. ‘Sweetheart,’ she said, ‘that was years ago. Who can remember?’
It was as if Kelly had asked her who was playing at the UFO that night in the Sixties, or what song she’d danced to on the night of her wedding to Andrew Steele in Mexico, or the name of the director who’d slept with a model on her living-room floor at the beach. It was as if she’d asked nothing of consequence, just another footnote in Ruby’s biography, details unknown.
This total lack of remorse was a brutal kind of rejection and it made angry tears rise in Kelly’s eyes, threatening to spill out all over the floor amid the splinters of glass and the small purple flowers. ‘I’m sorry I found you,’ she said, painfully squeezing out the words past the lump in her throat. She held up her head and walked down towards the front door, determined to walk out of Ruby’s life and never look back.
Wait,’ said Ruby. ‘Please.’
Why should I?’ said Kelly. ‘I cried over you. When I was a little girl I sat in my bedroom and cried because my mother never loved me.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘No,’ said Kelly. ‘I don’t think you are.’
‘What do you want from me?’
‘Nothing,’ said Kelly. ‘Nothing at all.’ She took the ruby necklace from her pocket and held it out. ‘I think this belongs to you.’ It was the perfect way to say good-bye.
‘I wanted you to have it, to have all of my jewels. I wanted to remember you.’
‘I know,’ said Kelly. ‘We got the suicide note, thanks. Do you have any idea how awful that was for my dad?’
She placed the necklace in Ruby’s hand. ‘Take it,’ she said. ‘I don’t want it.’ She turned her back and walked away.
Ruby looked down at the priceless rock and drew in a deep breath. She sank to the floor and began to wail.
Kelly paused on her way to the door. She stayed frozen for a few seconds, battling with her ego. Ruby’s histrionics were completely stealing the thunder of her dramatic exit. She wanted to keep walking and take the high road but she couldn’t leave someone crying like that. Not even Ruby.
‘What is it?’ she said. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I made the worst mistake of my life.’
For a fleeting moment Kelly honestly expected the apology she thought she deserved, but then she realized Ruby wasn’t talking about that. She was talking about herself. And Kelly was supposed to listen.
Ruby had made a mistake. For the first few days exile had been blissful. She loved the silence most of all. No telephones ringing, no traffic, no demands on her time. As long as she continued to live in the moment she was fine. She felt gloriously, romantically free. It was when she started thinking about the future, of endless days like these until she died, and remembered that this was not a holiday, this was for ever, that she started to get scared.
Without anyone to tell her what to do she was lost. Without anyone to tell her she was fabulous she was miserable.
Within a week she was online finding out what the world thought about her suicide. She couldn’t help seeking approval, even in death. There aren’t many people who get to read their own obituaries from the comfort of an
old armchair with a measure of single malt whisky warming them through. But it wasn’t as funny as she thought it would be. She was unsettled by the people who were speaking out in remembrance of her. The very first seeds of doubt were planted. Look how many people had loved her all along. Not her family – their quotes were empty. Her true friends were few. But the fans, the contemporaries, the landscape of cinema: to them she was precious.
*
‘The thing is, you want people to like you so badly,’ said Ruby. ‘You don’t want people to write nasty things about you. Anybody who puts themselves out there basically wants to be adored. They might say they don’t care what the public think but secretly they care beyond sense. And when you die, everything changes. You’re a legend.’
‘You always were,’ said Kelly. She was frustrated. The mother/daughter roles were all mixed up. Wasn’t Kelly entitled to some comfort? On top of that, this woman might be her mother but she was still a famous movie star, and right now she was messily spilling her heart all over the place. Like a car-crash talk-show spot when the subject is obviously unhinged. There was something gruesomely fascinating about it. Like road-kill.
‘But I didn’t know that I was,’ said Ruby. You don’t understand. I’ve lost everything. And the worst thing is that I didn’t even know what I had.’
She started crying again. Weak little sobs that reminded Kelly of a puppy dog whining.
‘Stop it,’ said Kelly. She’d heard enough. ‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself. So you made a mistake, so what? Everybody does.’
‘Some mistakes are too awful to be forgiven.’ Ruby looked up with sorrowful doe eyes which must have elicited a thousand pardons over her lifetime. ‘Some people are too awful to forgive.’ She had switched subjects and now it was obvious that Ruby was begging for Kelly’s forgiveness.
Kelly bit her lip and mentally waved goodbye to the lonely moral high ground. To walk out on her mother now would be such a waste. She knew it was going to be almost impossible to forge a solid relationship with a woman like Ruby But that didn’t mean she couldn’t try. ‘That’s not true,’ she said.