Ruby's War

by Johanna Winard

  ‘You awake?’ Sadie whispered.

  Sadie wore a dark overcoat over her nightdress and carried a white enamel potty. She placed the naked toes of one foot on the lino and in two hops landed beside her on the bed.

  ‘Blimey, it’s cold in here,’ she said. ‘I’ve brought you this. It’s a bit small, but it will have to do.’

  Ruby sat up and pulled on her school blouse. The chamber pot was worn and dented and had a thin blue line around the rim.

  ‘I was fifteen in February,’ she said, ‘I don’t …’

  ‘Well it’s either this or go outside,’ Sadie said.

  ‘The bathroom …’

  ‘Bathroom? There’s no bathroom, just the lavvy in the yard,’ she replied, unclipping the blackout curtain and pointing to a small red-brick outhouse with a rough wooden door. ‘It’s down there. You wouldn’t get me out there in the dark. It’s bad enough in the day, with Monty to contend with.’

  ‘Monty?’

  ‘Henry’s bloody cockerel.’

  As if he’d heard his name, somewhere in the yard Monty began to crow.

  ‘That’s him,’ Sadie said. ‘When you go, don’t forget to take the long brush by the back door. If he comes for you, belt him with it. He’s a bugger for pecking your legs. He ruined a pair of my nylons last week.’

  The voices from the kitchen grew louder, and Ruby scrambled out of bed and pulled on her crumpled gymslip.

  ‘Don’t worry about them,’ Sadie said, settling down on the bed and pulling out a pack of Lucky Strikes from her pocket. ‘They’re always at it. Ever since we moved in here, it’s been the same.’

  Ruby sat on the cane chair and gazed around the room. Apart from the old chair and the single bed, the only other piece of furniture was a small wooden bookcase. There were no curtains, except the blackout curtain Sadie had taken down, and the only thing covering the floor was a piece of cracked lino. She found it hard to believe that this had ever been her father’s bedroom. Her father loved luxury and style. He always wore nice suits and, although she couldn’t remember it, her mother had said that when they were on tour they’d stayed in the most wonderful hotels.

  ‘Looks like all these were your dad’s books,’ Sadie said, tipping her head to one side to read the titles. ‘They’re adventures mostly. I like romances. This room’s not up to much, is it? You’ve not even got anywhere to hang your clothes.’

  ‘I haven’t got many,’ Ruby said, nodding towards the small brown case. ‘I’m only staying for …’

  Sadie looked up and smiled. ‘What’s in the case?’ she asked.

  ‘My clothes and things.’

  ‘Not that one. The big one he left under the window in the garden. Last night, my friend was just walking me to the door and we fell over it. I could have broken my neck. I got him to carry it inside. She’d have found out about it, anyway. That’s what they’re rowing about now.’

  Earlier when she’d woken up and remembered the case, Ruby knew in her heart that what Granddad had told her on the prom was true, but when the door opened and the big suitcase wasn’t in the room or on the landing, she’d begun to believe that she really might just be staying for a holiday.

  ‘What happened?’ Sadie asked. ‘Did you have a row with your auntie?’

  ‘No. It’s the room. They want the room. But last night Granddad said … I was only …’

  ‘Do you want a hankie?’

  Ruby shook her head and stared hard at the books on the shelf. Her mother had once told her that when she was about to go on stage, to take her mind off her fears, she would count the lights around the mirror in her dressing room or the pots of make-up on her dressing table. Now, Ruby counted her father’s books and tried to forget the ache in her throat.

  ‘Look, I’ll go and talk to her,’ Sadie said. ‘It’s not you she’s mad with. It’s him, for lying to her.’

  They heard a door slam, and Sadie knelt up and looked out of the window.

  ‘That’s him off down the garden to feed his birds,’ she said. ‘I’ll go down and see her. Give me a few minutes, and then come down.’

  As Sadie slid off the bed, the weak morning sunlight broke into the chilly room, warming her curls to the colour of Tate & Lyle syrup. When she’d gone, Ruby made the bed, pushed the potty underneath and put her suitcase on top of the white counterpane. Then she counted one elephant, two elephant, until she got to one hundred and Sadie called her name.

  The big, dented suitcase stood in the middle of the kitchen’s flagged floor. Its sides were covered with labels from the seaside hotels where her parents had worked in the summer seasons before her father left.

  ‘I should have known, when they sent her wearing that gymslip,’ Jenny said. ‘I should have known he was lying. I mean, who’d send a child on holiday wearing school clothes?’

  Sadie, who was wetting a comb under the tap, winked and turned back to the mirror. She’d changed into a pair of brown tweed trousers and a cream jumper and had metal clips and rollers in her hair. After adding a final roller, she twisted a scarf into a turban around her head and grinned.

  ‘You hungry?’ she asked. ‘Come on, we’ll have some breakfast.’

  Ruby followed her into the living room. There was a loaf and a jar of home-made blackberry jam on the table.

  ‘Cut us a couple of slices,’ Sadie said, picking up the teapot from the hearth. ‘That’s the last of the jam, so don’t put too much on, and there’s no sugar.’

  In the daylight the living room looked smaller. On the wall opposite the table, a large six-sided brass-framed mirror decorated with a pattern of ivy leaves hung above a sideboard. Through the mirror, she could see the reflection of the garden, the lane and the fields on the other side.

  The tea was warm, but tasted stewed. At Everdeane her mother had made pobs for breakfast. Each morning, she’d buttered slices of day-old bread, cut them into little squares, soaked them in warm milk and sprinkled sugar on the top. Sometimes, if she’d managed to get extra sugar on the black market, the topping was brown and would be crunchy. After she was killed, Uncle Walt sometimes made them, but if Auntie Ethel was in the kitchen, he didn’t use much sugar.

  When Jenny came in, she sat at the table and nibbled at the leftover crumbs on the breadboard. Granddad, whose clogs clattered in the silence, came in a few minutes later and began poking the fire noisily.

  ‘Do you want me to get some veg for dinner, Jenny, love?’ he asked. ‘Jack’s mother will be here. What should I get?’

  ‘Get what’s ready, Henry,’ she replied, ‘but remember we’ve another mouth to feed now.’

  Granddad didn’t answer, but hurried over to the coats hanging by the front door, and as though he was a stage magician, produced Ruby’s blue ration book from his overcoat pocket.

  ‘There’ll be more coupons,’ he said. ‘Ethel gave me her book.’

  Jenny, who had just dipped a tiny crust into the jam jar, held out her hand for the book, and Granddad clip-clopped across the flagged floor and laid it in her hand.

  ‘Come on, Ruby,’ he said, ‘get your coat. You can help me get the veg for dinner.’

  Granddad took an old jacket and a muffler from behind the kitchen door and led the way across the yard. The garden at the back of the cottage was bounded by a hawthorn hedge. The field on the other side sloped down to the stream and then rose up again and continued along the back of the terraced houses that faced on to the main road. An Anderson shelter stood on the ground near to the toilet, with old marrow plants still growing on top. Beyond that there was a chicken run, and then a shed and a pigeon coop. A double row of fruit bushes stood in front of the pigeon cabin, and a substantial vegetable plot ran down the side of the cottage to the lane and another neatly clipped hawthorn hedge. In addition to vegetables, there were also two apple trees and an old, twisted pear tree by the gate. In the smaller front garden, Ruby could see crowns of rhubarb, clumps of herbs and the green tops of onions peeping out of every available space.

&
nbsp; Granddad opened the shed and took out an old basket and a fork. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘I’ll show you how to lift the spuds and carrots.’

  He stuck the fork into the ground and the ferny tops of the carrots trembled and fell. He lifted one up by the green top and shook it, gently brushing the soil from the skin with his thumb.

  ‘Look at that,’ he said, rubbing the dark, crumbly soil between his fingers. ‘Beautiful. We have the river down there to thank. All this was once flooded. Not many round here have such lovely stuff as this to work with.’

  The door to the chicken run was open and the birds scratched and pecked around in the veg patch, dipping under the green leaves and stirring up the soft tilth with their scaly feet.

  ‘Love it out here they do,’ Granddad said. ‘Plenty of grubs and beetles. Do all the gardening for me, do this lot, and give me eggs as a thank you. Look. Here’s our general. He’s coming to have a look at you, Ruby. Now then, me lad,’ he said, as the large cockerel strutted down a row of beetroot tops towards them. ‘He’s a grand chap, is Monty,’ Granddad said, as the bird cocked his head to one side and eyed him cynically. ‘He’ll stand no messing from these lasses.’

  As Ruby took the fork and felt the earth yield under the metal, Monty positioned himself at her side, holding one vicious claw in the air, and when she lifted a potato plant, the cockerel darted forwards, the swiftness of his movements making her flinch. Each time the fork disturbed the dark soil, she was forced to pause – bare legs purple with cold – as the cockerel stabbed at the desperate worms around her feet.

  When she carried the basket of vegetables into the kitchen, the large suitcase had gone, and Sadie was dancing with an imaginary partner in the centre of the tiny room.

  ‘Come on, Ruby,’ she called, as she and her grandfather took off their shoes by the kitchen door. ‘I’ll teach you this dance. Look. Follow me,’ she said, twirling to a dance tune on the radio. ‘This is how the Americans dance. There was this new band on last night. They were ever so good.’

  ‘You’d best get on with them potatoes, Sadie,’ her mother said. ‘I’m nearly ready for them to go in. Then get changed, before you go and fetch Jack’s mother.’

  ‘I don’t want to go too early, Ma,’ Sadie said, wrinkling her nose, ‘or she’ll have me taking that flippin’ dog for a walk again.’

  ‘You promised Jack you’d look after it,’ Granddad said, washing his hands in the sink.

  Jenny, who was mixing pastry on the drop-down flap of a tall, cream-painted cupboard, looked over her shoulder.

  ‘You can get some wood in, that coal’s rubbish,’ she said. ‘Ruby, you can empty out the veg, and get that dirty basket off the draining board.’

  Ruby took the basket by its dilapidated handles and tipped the potatoes into the sink, and Granddad shuffled obediently out of the back door. He looked older and smaller than the granddad who’d been waiting in the kitchen at Everdeane the previous day; it was as though that granddad had been hung up in the wardrobe, along with his dark suit and starched white collar.

  Ruby ran cold water into the sink and scrubbed the carrots carefully. On the opposite side of the room, Jenny began to roll out the pastry. Her bottom was so big that it pulled her skirt up, making it show the dimples on the backs of her knees.

  ‘Shall I start peeling the potatoes?’ Ruby asked.

  Jenny waddled over and inspected the vegetables in the sink. ‘Aye,’ she said, ‘they’re not big enough for roasters. Them carrots need to be sliced for boiling, as well.’

  By twelve o’clock the food was ready, the fire in the living room was crackling and the newspaper on the table had been replaced with a white tablecloth embroidered with Tudor roses and butterflies.

  Although she only lived in one of the cottages on the opposite side of the lane, Mrs Lathom arrived wearing a neat, grey, fitted coat and a cloche hat made of black felt. As Sadie took her coat and hat, she patted her taut, faded curls into place. Then putting her head on one side, she surveyed the room, taking in each detail, including the child in the crumpled gymslip.

  Granddad, who had been sent upstairs to change out of his shabby trousers, was sitting at the table with his back to the fire reading the newspaper. When her beady eye fell on him, he coughed and, with a great show of rustling and folding the paper, stood up.

  ‘Na then, Nellie,’ he said, taking the newspaper and dropping it on the easy chair.

  ‘Henry,’ Mrs Lathom said, her long neck bending to inspect the crockery set out on the table.

  ‘Sit down, Nellie,’ Jenny said, as she bustled in carrying the dinner plates.

  ‘I’ll sit near the fire, if I may,’ Mrs Lathom said, slipping into the seat where Granddad had been sitting. ‘I’m suffering something awful with my neuralgia. The doctor said I mustn’t go out, not even to Mass. But I told him I must go. I’ll offer my suffering up to the Sacred Heart for the safe return of my boy, I told him.’

  Granddad took the seat nearest to the door, and Sadie, who had changed into a Fair Isle sweater and a modest tweed skirt, sat next to their visitor.

  Mrs Lathom fell on to the food, and it wasn’t until the plates had been collected and the room was beginning to fill with the subtle perfume of spiced plums, that she turned her unblinking attention on Ruby.

  ‘And who’s this?’ she asked.

  ‘This is our Will’s girl,’ Granddad said.

  ‘Was it you arriving that caused all that noise last night?’ Mrs Lathom asked. ‘When I heard that engine stop outside, I thought they were coming to tell me bad news. It took me hours to get off again.’

  After several minutes, during which time everyone at the table applied themselves to the golden pastry and the sweet, luscious filling, Granddad said, ‘Aye, you might have heard us, Nellie. Train was late. We got held up. Troop trains. All of ’em full. This young soldier, as was getting on one of them trains, he stops us and asked us to post a letter. I think it’s to his girl. He gave Ruby the money for the stamp to post it for him. Have you still got that letter, Ruby?’

  ‘Oh, that’s romantic,’ Sadie said. ‘Where is it now?’

  ‘It’s in my music case,’ Ruby said. ‘Can we go and post it, Granddad?’

  ‘No letter from my lad,’ Nellie said. ‘Sadie’s as upset as I am. Only news we’ve had was a note to say he was fine and a photo of him in tropical kit. It was a sign. He was letting us know they was sending him to the tropics. No wonder I’m suffering, and that dog’s pining.’

  ‘I could tell Ruby where the postbox is,’ Sadie said. ‘She could take Bess with her. Bet you’d like that, Ruby?’

  ‘Our Bess wouldn’t go with a stranger,’ Nellie said, eyeing Ruby’s unruly plaits and grubby blouse.

  ‘Bess is friendly enough and she’s a quiet dog. Let her try,’ Sadie said. ‘I’m working. It’s dark now, when I get home. Jack wouldn’t have thought of that when he asked me to take her out. Tea?’ she asked, looking around the table. ‘You stay there, Ma, I’ll get it.’

  ‘Well that’s true,’ Nellie Lathom said. ‘I don’t suppose my boy would have left me, if he’d known that I would have been on my own and having to cope with that dog all this time.’

  ‘Well that’s settled, then,’ Granddad said. ‘Ruby can go back with you and take Bess out. You go the way we walked last night, Ruby. Bess will take you. She’s walked that way hundreds of times, and there’s a stamp machine outside the post office. So you can post that letter.’

  When Sadie returned with the teapot, the talk was of the war and the comings and goings of the American troops stationed nearby. Mrs Lathom, who was the kind of person who quickly lost interest in any topic when she was not a central participant, decided it was time to leave.

  ‘Here’s my rations,’ she said, opening her bag and placing a twist of tea and one of sugar on the table. ‘I haven’t much. They don’t consider those of us who have our loved ones fighting, but I’ll pay my way. Now, if this child’s going to take the dog out, she’d best come
with me. Then I could pop back and show Sadie that new pattern I’ve got for socks.’

  Ruby collected the soldier’s letter from her room and followed Mrs Lathom to her front door. Bess was a black spaniel with intelligent eyes who, leaving her mistress without a backward glance, led the way to the main road. Once there, she turned in the direction that Ruby had walked with her granddad the night before.

  In the daylight, the shops and the church hall looked smaller, and the pub that had been so warm and welcoming in the blackout was closed. Everything was still. As they climbed the railway bridges, Ruby could see a row of poplar trees in the distance, and behind them, way out to the west, the banks of cloud building, bubbling up over the Irish Sea. On the other side of the bridges, there was a second pub and another row of blacked-out shops, including a post office with a stamp machine and a postbox. She took the letter addressed to Miss Maggie Joy Blunt out of her pocket, added the stamps and dropped it in the box.

  As they wandered on, Ruby imagined Maggie Joy coming down the stairs and finding the letter on the mat. She could picture the wedding and herself as guest of honour, dressed in lilac organdie, throwing orange blossom over the happy bride and groom.

  Bess trotted by the Co-op and another pub with a war memorial outside. Then, with her tail wagging, she turned on to a recreation ground. A boy of about seven was kicking a football, and an older girl, in a dark coat and brightly coloured pixie hood, pushed a smaller boy on a wooden swing horse. Bess barked, and the children looked up.