Ruby's Tuesday

by Gillian Binchy

  The lunch-time summer sunlight invaded the room. I moved the glass box a little to the left so that it was back in the sunshine once more. From the bed Ruby and I watched it twinkle in the summer sunlight.

  “Ruby, your mum is just like the Arctic Tern I told you about – chasing the sunshine around the room.

  “You would have loved Lizzy, Ruby. She would have dressed you up in funky cool clothes – she would not have allowed frilly girly numbers. She would have taught you lots of things. She would have taught you to be kind to old people, to help them across the road, to carry their shopping. She would have taught you not to judge people because of their looks or their disabilities. Lizzy is full of common sense and most of all she would have taught you how to be positive about everything, how to make the best out of a bad situation. Your situation would be a challenge, even for her. So when I told her about spending the day with you, she told me to enjoy it, that it would be one of the most important days of my life, that even if I was a mother for only one day, to enjoy it, to remember and relish it. You see, Lizzy won’t ask what was wrong with you – she is not that kind of person – instead she will ask what was right with you. Now we know that conversation won’t take long, will it? She will understand and move on to something else – that is what she is like. She is positive and kind, two very important traits in life.

  “Maybe you would have been like her. She’s a bit of a legend. I think that you are just like her – you are a fighter too. With all the abnormalities you should have died weeks or months ago, but no, you held on in there. You are a Teflon baby – you stuck with me. It was your mighty racing heart that kept you alive – when nothing much else was working properly, your heart kept everything going. But now that mighty heart of yours has stopped. You can rest now, Ruby, you don’t need to fight any more. You have lost the fight and now it is time to rest in peace, to be at peace. Your body has done its bit – now it is time for your soul to take over.

  “You see, what happened was that they only gave you on loan to me for just one day – today – isn’t one day very short – much too short? And now you have to go elsewhere, where you are better off. They’re just teasing me by giving you to me for just a day. Ruby, life can be very cruel sometimes. They will never know how sad it makes me that you’re all messed up, they will never understand the pain of holding your dead baby. Do you know what it feels like, my little angel? It is like being physically torn apart from the inside out, piece by piece. It feels as though there is now a huge hole in my heart that will never be filled.

  “Ruby, I must stop being so selfish, making you sad on your birthday. I never even got you a present, or a card, and I forgot to get a little cake with candles. How many candles would you put on a dead baby’s birthday cake? I suppose I could have just put a plastic nought, a single nought, because in reality you are in minus figures, you are minus three months. I should have bought a thirty-one cake decoration and lie the number one down horizontally beside the three. That would make it a minus-three-months birthday cake. That would be your exact age. Why did I not think of that? God, the least that I could have arranged on your birthday was a cake with candles.

  “At least I will have photos of your birthday. The nice nurse with the kind eyes told me she has taken some pictures of you – she took them just before we met, you and I, before she wheeled you in. I wonder did she use the red-eye reduction? Not for your eyes, Ruby, but for your whole body. You are very reddy-pink – you look like you’ve been badly sunburnt, and you have a kind of red glow off you. The nurse told me the reason you’re a funny colour is because your skin at only six months has not fully formed – that is why you’re so blotchy – but in the photos you will be all dressed up in your blue outfit and they won’t be able to see your skin, only your face. Your blue hat covers the top of your head, so it is only your perfect pretty little face that they will be able to see.”

  My phone vibrated on the bedside locker. I left my baby alone in the glass box and walked from the centre of the room over to the side of the bed. My phone continued to chime.

  “Ruby, it’s your dad again, calling to check in on his girls.”

  Then I turned my back on the glass box. I had to shut out the box and its contents for just a few moments. I sat on the bed, where just over three hours earlier I had given birth to a dead baby. I stared at the head of the bed, at the clear tubes that had drugged me – those tubes with the liquid that had tried to numb the pain.

  “Now, Ruby, not a word while I speak to your dad.” I touched my lips lightly with my left index figure, to indicate for my daughter to be silent.

  “Hi, Luke, lovely to hear from you,” I chirped down the phone.

  “You too, Afric, babes. I was trying to get you earlier, about an hour ago. Did you see a missed call from me? Is everything okay with you? Are you okay?” He seemed concerned.

  I hesitated. “I’m grand – at this bloody IT conference – sorry I couldn’t answer earlier – we were in the middle of a presentation. We’re on a coffee break now – so it’s good you called.”

  “How are you feeling, Afric? Are you tired from all the travelling?”

  Jaysus, if only he knew – the bloody travelling was only half the battle. No, darling, I wanted to respond, I am fucked from giving birth to your dead daughter.

  “Yes, I am a little tired but that is to be expected. I’ll get a good night’s sleep tonight and then tomorrow I’ll be grand.” The tears began to well up in my eyes, and I dug my fingernails into my palm so very hard this time that I was afraid they might pierce the skin and draw blood.

  “Afric, Afric?” The pitch of his voice increased slightly the second time he said my name. “Afric, sweetheart, can you hear me?”

  I glared at the tubes, and swallowed hard. “How is China, how is work going?” I was desperately trying to change the direction of the conversation, to get him to talk.

  “Oh fine – you know, dealing with difficult rich Chinese clients with no morals – dangerous people to be negotiating with. Actually, truthfully, it is pretty awful. I really miss you in every sense. Honestly, I’m not sure how much longer I can do this – this life – you know it is no life. My life has become airports, hotels, business meetings, impossible wealthy clients. My life is passing me by, and our lives are passing us by.”

  I turned and looked at the glass box. It had not moved and she had not stirred, not an inch. She was just a fraction outside the range of the sunlight, so I went and gently moved her a few inches to the right so that she would once again enjoy the glow of the midday sun.

  Luke sounded pretty low, though calm. An unusual combination, I thought.

  I really don’t need this now, I thought. A dead baby and a husband having grim dark feelings. Christ, this man can pick his moments. “Really, Luke, what makes you say that?” I focused my gaze again on the clear tubes to the left of the bed. I concentrated on steadying my voice. I must let him do the talking and me the listening.

  “You know, since the scan I have been so excited, so excited about us having a baby together, about the three of us being a family. Maybe it has made me reprioritise my life, our life together. I don’t want the life that I have at the moment. I have given my life to this job. We don’t swim together any more or hang out together – all those fun times seem to have stopped. And I was just thinking today all we’re doing as a couple is going through the motions of living, but it is not much of a life, is it? Afric, we used to be so close and now we have drifted apart, and now I realise it is my fault. It is entirely my fault because I wanted the dream home, the expensive car and nice life style. But not any more, Afric. I would rather live in the upstairs apartment with the shabby stairs with its bright yellow door. I just want to come home now to you, to you and our baby, for it to be like it was before, way back, when we were hopelessly in love, kissing in the sea, blowing bubbles underneath the water.”

  Now he didn’t seem down, just sure about what he wanted the future to hold for the
three of us. When those dreams were crushed what would happen then? It could be the beginning of one his deep sadnesses.

  I sat down on the bed, still with my back to the glass box. I continued to glare at the clear tubes; they helped me focus on keeping it together.

  “Luke, I miss you too, I miss you so much. I wish you were with me right now, I wish you were beside me, holding my hand.” My voice began to quiver. It was okay, it was safe to cry now. I could cry and he would think that it was our conversation that had me in tears. I shut Ruby out from the conversation; I focused on talking to Luke. He would just think that it was those blasted hormones again. And, by God, was he right! Those hormones were racing uncontrollably through my veins.

  Luke cleared his throat. He lowered his voice – not the low pitch he uses when he is sad but instead the calm tone that he uses when he wants me to listen, to concentrate on what he is saying. “I need to tell you something. A few weeks back I applied for a position internally in Sheppard Consulting, a different role, a management role. I have already done two interviews and it’s down to the last three candidates. The final interview is next week, next Tuesday. I didn’t want to tell you in case I don’t get the job, but they emailed me today to ensure that I would take the position if it was offered to me. I suppose they don’t want to look stupid offering it to me, for me to then say no. It would mean no more long hours travelling, no more endless days away from you. It would give the three of us an opportunity to be together as a family. I thought it would be a good idea to chat to you before I responded to their email. What do you think, Afric? If they offer me the position should I take it for us? So that we get another chance at being happy?”

  “Yes, Luke, we need to change some things in our life, we need to go back to being happy – when it was just you and me and we were blissfully happy. If you think that it is time to give up working in China – to come home – then yes – yes, I think you should take the position – but it needs to be something that you want. If it is what you really want then say yes . . . but you know sometimes things are not what we expect – they turn out to be different, very different . . . but, if you’re happy to be home, say yes – say yes, you will take the position, and we can start again – try again – go back to the beginning.”

  “Afric, I have decided that even if I don’t get the promotion I am quitting. I am calling it a day. I am not breaking my balls for some international consultancy firm, making them rich. It is going to be on my terms from now on. For the past eighteen months, I have worked and travelled day and night. We have had to put our relationship on hold while I flitted around the world, and I am done with it now. It is our time now to really become a family.”

  He paused after his oration – was he waiting for me to respond? Or was he ready for the off again? Was he going to launch into Act 2? Could he have picked a worse time for a mid-life meltdown? Men really have no emotional intelligence at all. Obviously, he had not picked up any signals from my voice. It was good that he didn’t know that there was anything wrong. I would have a lifetime to fill him in about our girly day together. I could take all the time in the world to explain it to him. But, while I agreed with everything that he said, and in truth I was happy that eventually he had come to this realisation, could he not have picked a better day to air these thoughts? Not on Ruby’s only day on earth. Though of course it was Ruby’s existence that had brought on all this navel-gazing – and all that bloody travelling gave him far too much time to think.

  “Luke, I am so happy to hear that – that you have made that decision.”

  But Act 2 was just about to begin.

  “And another thing, Afric, I need to take this pregnancy stuff much more seriously. I promise, Afric, I will try not to miss any more doctors’ appointments and definitely not any more scans. I will be there with you, holding your hand. At the next scan, I promise I won’t rush out to feed the parking meter when it is our turn. I swear I won’t be impatient any more and ask how much longer we have to wait in the queue. I swear I won’t pace up and down, on the phone, glaring impatiently at you. I swear I am sorry, Afric, that I have not been more supportive. I have not been the ideal partner – I have not been much in the way of support. But that has all changed now, Afric. I am determined to be the best dad on earth. Please believe me that at last the penny has dropped. I now realise how lonely it must have been for you, going through all this on your own with no support from me. I have been so selfish, I realise that now. Please tell me that you forgive me, that it is not too late, and that you’ll give me a second chance to be a good father.”

  “Yes, Luke, of course . . . you will be the best dad . . . someday.” I turned and faced the glass box. “Luke, we have a lot to discuss when you get back, just you and me. We need to iron things out. We will sit down, be honest with each other, and we can work it out together. I guess the most important thing is that we still love and respect each other – that is all that is important – the other bits are only minor things – we can sort those out afterwards. Luke, I love you and I am sure that you will understand things from my perspective too. You are back on Friday, aren’t you? Afternoon, is it?”

  “No, it’ll be the evening most likely. I’ll be home for dinner – maybe you and I can go out to dinner, what do you think? Will we go out for an Indian?”

  “Yes, that would be fine with me, Luke. We can talk then.”

  “Okay, let’s do dinner – I’ll book it.”

  “Look, I have to go now because we’re about to go into another session. Bye, Luke.”

  I hung up and sat there motionless on the bed, glaring at our fate and our lost future.

  There was a noise at the door. It was Jane. She peered through a small opening in the door.

  “Are you all right, Afric?” she enquired gently.

  “Yes, thank you, everything is just fine – or at least I think I’m okay. That was Luke. My husband. He doesn’t know that we’re here. He thinks I’m at an IT conference in Liverpool.” I was desperately seeking her approval.

  “That’s fine,” she said. “There will be plenty time to explain. Now spend time with your little girl and enjoy it. You’ll only get one opportunity. It’s fine, Afric, just fine. Concentrate on staying strong.” She closed the door gently behind her.

  She was gone. Now it was just me and Ruby again, and my turbulent thoughts.

  I stood and walked back to the box. I looked into it and addressed my tiny girl.

  “That was your dad, your dad calling from China. He was asking for you, asking for you and me. He didn’t know that today was your birthday, but when he gets home this time I will tell him. He’ll be sad to have missed you but as I said it is for the best for everyone. You know, Ruby, in his own way and in his own time he’ll grow to love something like you that is not perfect – in the end he will accept you. You see, sometimes it takes him time to accept things. But this time there was no time – they didn’t give us any time. You and I had to do things so quickly, to organise everything, that we didn’t have time for your dad to come around, so that is why it was just you and me. Oh Ruby, I do hope that you understand?” Gently I rubbed my little girl’s tummy. I never did get to see her tummy, I never did open all those buttons on the babygro. I only opened just two buttons at the end of each foot, because I was terrified of what might lie beneath it.

  “Now, where were we, Ruby? Oh yes, the picture. But, Ruby, Mummy is feeling a little tired from all the action today. I’m going to wheel you over here beside me so that I can have a nap. It won’t take long – I just need about half an hour. And then when I wake I’ll tell you more about the picture. Look, I’ll put the picture in there in the glass box so that you’ll have some company while I’m sleeping. I hope you don’t mind if I have a little rest? Your mummy is wrecked.”

  Chapter 13

  “Afric, Afric . . . sorry to wake you . . . you must be tired.” Lucy was standing over me. Her eyes were soft.

  I was completely disorientate
d. Had I been asleep all night or just five minutes? I looked around me, searching for a hint as to where I was. It had not been a dream or a nightmare, it was cold reality. I was still there in that room, the one with the cream walls, alone with Ruby in a private room of a maternity hospital in Liverpool. There with only my little girl in a glass box beside me for company.

  “Afric, in the next while you will need to say a final goodbye to your daughter,” Lucy said gently.

  “Okay, Lucy, just five more minutes, just one last goodbye. I’m afraid I fell asleep.” I was not trying to excuse my power nap, just trying to explain what had happened.

  “That’s okay, Afric – you need to rest, you need a lot of rest – no harm in cat-napping after such a long day.” She rubbed the back of my hand to reassure me that it was okay, as if to say that I had not been neglectful of my daughter.

  As she left I sat upright in bed and pulled the glass container nearer to me.

  “So, my little angel, it’s time for us to say goodbye.”

  I leaned into the glass box and picked up my daughter, the blue motionless bundle wrapped in a spotlessly clean white blanket. I held her tight against my chest.

  She didn’t need anything more from me. I was now redundant, a useless mother. She had come with her passport and she was staying only one short day.

  “Ruby, my little angel, I love you. No matter what you look like you will always be my perfect angel. Take care, my sweetheart, and be good until Daddy and I come to get you one day. Henry and Penny will love you until then. Give my love to them both and tell them that we miss them, very much.”