Ruby's Tuesday

by Gillian Binchy

  I bent over to be a bit closer, yet far enough away to keep my distance. Then I took the three scariest steps of my life.

  I arrived at the box.

  My phone blipped and blipped again. I looked back at the bedside locker where it vibrated furiously. I let it ring out. I could answer it later.

  I was finally going to meet my daughter for the first time, in fact the only time, ever. Afric Meets Ruby sounds like a movie, doesn’t it? Whatever about it being a tragedy, I desperately hoped it would not be a horror show.

  I stood over the box and peered into it – into it at her, below. There she was in the sparkling clear box. Ruby had the body and face of a baby that was just a little too tiny for this world. She was tiny, so very tiny. But perfect, my little angel was perfect. She lay there asleep, asleep forever, she would never be awake. I can’t describe the relief of seeing her appear normal – she looked like an undersized normal baby at a glance. I was not terrified or horrified by my tiny girl; it was a feeling of relief. My tiny angel looked like a baby and not a gremlin.

  I opened the lid on the box as you might open the top of a fish tank. I looked down on her lying there on the fluffy white blanket. I bent over her and scooped her up into my arms. I was holding my own flesh and blood, Ruby Lynch, in my arms. She lay there lifeless and almost weightless.

  While I held her, I waited and waited, not sure what I was waiting for, and maybe I expected her to wake up, to cry out loud. She lay in my arms motionless. She weighted the same amount as a half pound of butter.

  The outfit was far too big for her, especially the matching blue hat. Ruby only needed a very tiny hat, because she didn’t have any back to her head. It was missing – we had forgotten to include it – another bloody mistake. She had a front to her head but no back. Or so the kind woman with the round face told me afterwards. The nurse said she looked just like me. I wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing, to have your deformed baby looking like you, but I thanked her anyway.

  “Ruby, we made another mistake when we made you – we gave you six fingers on your left hand instead of five. We got your feet wrong too because they’re twisted inwards so that they look like they’re looking at each other. Couldn’t we get anything right? God, Ruby, your parents are a disaster – we made you all wrong – oh, my little angel! We are so sorry for making such a mess of you.”

  Of course, we had forgotten to finish her back too. We never bothered to fuse her spine, so there was a large hole at the bottom of her back. She was like a job that was only half-done on the outside. The inside was not much better, I later learnt – we got all the organs wrong too. Some were too big, others too small, bits that were meant to meet other bits didn’t. Other bits that were not meant to meet ever had been stuck together. We had made a mess of our little angel.

  My fingers touched the side of her cheek. Her skin was soft and perfectly tender like a normal baby’s skin, but it was very purply-pink – it was the wrong colour, but that was because we had not finished making her before she went to sleep. She smelt like a baby, she looked like a baby, but she was a dead baby. I held her and hoped that she would move, that she would come back to life but she remained motionless in my arms.

  “Ruby, I am just going to go to the wardrobe for a second. I am going to get a photo to show you – a photo of our wedding day.”

  Should I take her with me, I thought. I meant, to the wardrobe? It was very near.

  I raised her up in my arms so her tiny tiny face was closer to me. I looked at her closed eyes and whispered, “Do you want to come with me to the wardrobe – see it just there – the brown one? I mean, it would be somewhere to go – something to do – do you want to come or would you prefer to stay on the bed? The only thing is you will be alone on the bed and you might fall off. What do you think, Ruby? Will we go to the wardrobe – you and I – take a stroll?”

  So, I took her for a walk, to the wardrobe. She didn’t seem to mind. I opened the brown doors and reached inside. I pulled out a brown envelope with my left hand while I cradled her carefully in my right arm. I retraced my steps and sat down on the bed. I put Ruby on the bed, just next to me, while I opened the envelope.

  Ruby and the A4 envelope were pretty similar in length – they both looked lost on the big bed with all the tubes.

  “Ruby, stay as you are – you are not to move – stay right there – be careful and don’t roll off the edge of the bed. I don’t want you to fall. You might hurt yourself and we don’t want that now.”

  But what would it matter if she fell and bounced her head off the floor? It didn’t matter because there was only her face to hurt – she could not bump the back of her head because she had no back to her head, and anyway she couldn’t feel it. Nevertheless, I didn’t want her to roll off the edge. The lady with the kind eyes would think me a terrible person if she fell and I would not like her to think that I was a bad mother. After all, it was only a few hours that I had to look after my tiny angel.

  I opened the envelope and pulled out the black-and-white picture with the one hundred and fifty people.

  “Look, Angel, there are Henry and Penny. Do you see them there in the picture, sitting down in the foreground? Look – do you see them? Please tell me that your tiny little soul is with them. Tell me that it is only your messed-up little body that is here with me. Please, tiny angel, send me a sign to tell me you are happy with them.”

  But she appeared uninterested, so I brought the picture closer so that she could see it better. Of course I had forgotten, distracted by the outing to the wardrobe. It was not that she wasn’t interested – it was simply that her eyes were closed. The nurse with the kind eyes had closed her eyes because she was asleep forever.

  I looked down at her. “Ruby, I know that your dad and I would not forget to give you eyes – of course we gave you eyes so you could see a few colours – but don’t worry, my little girl – if you can’t see the photo, I will tell you about the people in it.”

  I looked at her head underneath the ridiculously enormous hat. I could see there were two little ears, one on each side of her head.

  “Thank God for that, Ruby – we got one thing right – we managed to give you two ears and they are even in the right place.” I kissed her perfect ears on each side of her head. I rubbed them with my middle and index fingers, very gently, as if congratulating them for being there at all. Or maybe I was praising myself, or applauding us as a couple for getting one thing right.

  “The photo, Ruby, was taken two years ago – oh, there’s the phone bleeping – I bet that was your dad – I’ll call him back in a minute. That was our wedding day in the picture – it was the longest happiest day of my life – isn’t it very cruel for you to be born on the same day you died? Your birthday and anniversary the same day – I mean, that is kind of happy and sad, isn’t it? Everything on the same day – a very busy day.

  “Do you see that guy, standing there beside your mum? Yes, him there, that is your dad – that is Luke – can you see him? He’s handsome, isn’t he? You know, when I first met him, I used to tell him that he had eyes like Dairy Milk Chocolate – there was an ad on the telly once for Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Chocolate where the dark chocolate swirled around and around white chocolate and his eyes reminded me of that ad. When I first met your dad, I would get lost in those eyes, I could gaze at them forever. I have not done that for so long – I wonder why?”

  I moved my daughter closer to my chest, but she didn’t notice, she didn’t respond. I lowered my head and kissed my little girl on the top of her nose. Maybe because we got it right: it was there in the right place.

  “There, Ruby, that is from your dad.” I clutched her closer to my chest. “And that is a hug from your dad.” Her body remained motionless. It was soft. I didn’t grasp her too tight for fear of breaking her underdeveloped bones. “He gives the best hugs. I used to call them bone-crushers before we got married when he would come at weekends to visit me in my tiny cottage. When he arrived at
Dublin Airport, he would drop his bag, right there on the floor in the middle of the arrivals hall and give me the biggest hug – so tight that it would hurt your bones. This time when he comes back, I am going to give him a bone-crusher. I think that we will need it, Ruby. I think that I will need the biggest hug of my life when I get home.

  “Can you see all the freckles that your dad has in that photo? Look, there on his nose, just there – see all his stuck-together freckles? You see what happens is when sun comes out during the summer it makes the freckles seem alive, like they are singing and dancing on your dad’s face. His face gets very busy then with all the freckles – he even gets them on his lips – look at the photo – it looks like he’s eating them. Do you think it looks like that? By the end of the summer there are so many of them that there is not enough room for each individual one. So then they all merge and then it looks like he has funny-shaped islands all over his face. One year we played a game, to see how many freckle islands we could name. I found an island on his right cheek that was the shape of Koh Samui in Thailand. Your dad and I went there once a long time ago – that was how we knew its shape. Then in winter the freckles are different – they are like they are uncared-for, like they are lonely – isolated – in winter there are no islands on his face.”

  The door opened very gently and a hand with sunspots and a thin gold band appeared on the inside of it. Jane stepped into the room. She walked ever so slowly in the direction of the bed.

  “Good morning, Afric,” she said in a gentle tone. “How are you doing, my dear? May I have a little look at Ruby – at your little girl?” Slowly she approached. She walked past the empty glass container, past the wardrobe, and arrived at the side of the bed with the brown covers.

  “Hi, Jane – I’m glad you came – I was hoping that you were working today – I wanted you to meet my little girl.” Then I announced proudly: “Ruby, this is Jane – Jane, this is Ruby.”

  Jane looked intently at her. “She looks okay, doesn’t she?”

  “I think that she looks fine – when she’s all dressed up you would never know how sick she was,” I responded.

  “Of course you wouldn’t. The name . . .” she paused, “the name Ruby really suits her – I think it’s a good choice.”

  “Glad that you like it,” I answered. I hoped that she wasn’t saying that her name matched the colour of my little girl’s face – I thought it best not to comment anyway. Jane was a kind person – she would not think like that.

  “Afric, I got the lyrics of the song – her song – I have them here – do you want them? Shall we sing her song to her?” Her hand, the one with the band, was outstretched as she offered me the paper.

  But I could not take it because I had my hands full.

  “That would be lovely, yes, please, Jane – but, if you would sing, we will listen – is that okay?” I wasn’t sure if that was the response she wanted.

  The lady with the perfect black curls and the green dreamy eyes came and sat next to Ruby and me on the bed – she placed her hand on my arm and she sang Ruby’s song to us . . . “Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday” . . .

  When she finished Ruby and I stood up – we gave her a standing ovation but without the clapping. Jane seemed happy with us – and Ruby seemed to like her song too. It was nice for her to have some music for her only day on earth and we had managed to give her ears too – so it was good she got to use them.

  Jane’s kind eyes looked across the bed at me. “Can I get you anything, Afric? Would you like a cup of tea or coffee?”

  I looked from the blue bundle of death in my arms, into her caring eyes. “I would love a cup of tea, please, with just one sugar, thanks for asking – but Ruby won’t have anything – she’s fine.”

  She smiled gently at me. “You two seem to be getting on well. Take as long as you like – you can have all the time in the world.”

  But we didn’t have all the time in the world: we had just some hours to connect.

  The door closed gently behind Jane.

  I could feel my eyes quiver – they started to feel like they were a size too big for my eye-sockets. I looked directly ahead of me and gently began to sob. The tears rolled down my cheeks and stained her tiny blue outfit. The tear stains looked huge on the miniature clothes. I had ruined her outfit on her only day on earth – how selfish, I thought. Maybe I should ask the nurse if we should change her outfit. I was afraid that she might get cold. But of course she would not feel it; she would never feel what it is like to get cold.

  “Your dad has sticky-up hair. It stands up at the back of his head near his crown – it drives him nuts when it’s upright like a poker. I told him once that he should use a hair-straightener – he didn’t think that funny so now we never talk about it – now if he asks is it okay, I always say yes. Before, when things were different, very different, when we used to laugh out loud a lot, I would lick my hand and pat his hair down for him – but he doesn’t like me doing that any more, so it just sticks up all the time and we both pretend it’s okay. I often wonder if other people notice.

  “These days, Ruby, we pretend lots of things are okay but we both know they are not. Pretending is often easier than talking, so we pretend, though this time, I think, the pretending game is over. We are going to have to talk about things – we are going to have to talk about you. What am I going to tell him, what am I going to say, how will I explain to him what happened, what happened to you, why you were so fatally flawed?

  “You see, there are a few reasons why I didn’t bring him along today. The main one is because I am afraid he will get very very sad and stay sad forever. But another reason is because he is a perfectionist. Do you know what that means? Do you know what a perfectionist is? Well, what it means is that everything that your dad does has to be done one-hundred-per-cent correct and right. He would not understand why you are not perfect. He fears imperfection, and it terrifies him. The thought of you, albeit a perfect you, makes him very happy. I hope you don’t think me selfish but it would be very hard for me now to have lost you and then to lose your dad again to that kind of sorrow. I hope that makes sense to you. Do you understand now why I decided not to bring him along? He would want something perfect and you are imperfect in every way. It would have been a disaster for all of us. Anyway, he might say the wrong thing to you and I didn’t want him to upset you on your birthday.”

  Chapter 12

  Jane came in and placed a black cup of hot liquid on the bedside locker. She smiled at me and then gave a second smile to Ruby. She didn’t utter a word and then she left the room.

  She closed the door very gently behind her. We were alone again.

  I picked up the black-and-white photo, as if to reignite Ruby’s interest or maybe to just pass the time.

  “I wonder, Ruby, would you have been like your dad or your mum? Would you have been calm, methodical, persistent and a perfectionist like him, or would you have been outgoing, outrageous and bubbly like me? What do you think? Who would you be like? Maybe you would not be like either of us – instead just your own person, totally different to both of us.

  “But the reality is that you got the worst of both of us. Your mum and dad fucked you up. It seems that you brought out the worst in us both – our fault – and then you ended up like this, because of us.”

  I placed my little girl back on the white blanket. It was easier to talk to her when I could look directly at her face. I wanted to remember exactly what her face was like. I wanted it etched in my memory forever. I wanted to be able to recall every tiny detail. I didn’t have much time to record in my mind her every feature. Of course the nurse had taken photos for me – but that was not the same as imprinting her image on my mind.

  I looked at every inch of her from the very top of her deformed head right down to the tips of her toes.

  We had got her feet wrong, but I had to know about her toes. Had we given her the correct number of toes? Had we remembered to give her any toes?

  I lif
ted up her left leg – very gently – I was afraid of damaging her little bones. Slowly, very slowly, I opened the button on the babygro nearest to her ankle, from her ankle I would peer down the babygro – I would have a kind of preliminary look – I would have a quick look to see what the story was – at the end of the foot.

  I took a deep breath and glanced down – quickly – inside the cloth – then I looked away again very quickly. Yes, I had seen some toes – there were definitely toes down there. The next job was to count them – I don’t know why but I desperately more than anything wanted her to have ten toes.

  I don’t know how but miraculously each of her wonky feet had five perfect toes, surprisingly all in the correct order and even the right size. I smiled – delighted with my discovery – I was relieved, so relieved – so I kissed each one of her ten toes – for just being there. I wondered how we got some bits, like her toes, perfect and other bits that would seem easier to make, all wrong.

  “Ruby, we don’t have a long time so I need to tell you about the rest of the family, the family that are on this earth, because you hopefully won’t get to meet them for a while. You will only meet Henry and Penny – your soul is probably with them now, and your petite body is with me for just a while, on a temporary loan.

  “If you look to the left, the far left of the photo, do you see the lady with the pink silk suit, the tall lady with the long nose? That is your grandmother. Her name is Elizabeth but we call her Lizzy. Elizabeth is too formal and doesn’t suit her because she is full of fun and love. ‘Lizzy’ describes her better. I told her about you, I told her that you weren’t perfect. She knows and she doesn’t mind. She still loves you, and she wanted to come here today for your birthday. She said she would be very happy to fly from Dublin to meet you but I thought it better for it just to be you and me and no one else.”