Red is for Rubies

by Linda Mitchelmore

  ‘Oh. It’s you again, Mr Marshall.’

  ‘Ralph, Margot. It’s Ralph.’ Ralph gave Margot his most sincere smile which wasn’t at all difficult really because he was, at that moment, a very happy man. He had a new business to interest him, his daughter was under his roof once again, Lydie was looking lovelier than ever and her jewellery collection was nearing completion, which always made Lydie happy. She might even let him make love to her soon. He’d read all the books he could get his hands on about the menopause and what it did to a woman’s hormones. And not wanting sex much was one of the symptoms. He’d never, ever forced Lydie into sex. If she said she was tired, then she was tired. Okay, he was a bloody saint at times, but the memory of his Dad knocking seven bells out of his mother, forcing her to do it when really the poor woman was exhausted from washing and cooking and ironing for seven kids, was still there in his mind.

  Taking Margot’s arm Ralph steered her towards a vacant table, pulled out a chair for her to sit down. Okay, she hadn’t come willingly exactly, but she hadn’t brushed his arm off. Margot sat. Good, he might still be in with a chance for Aegean blue.

  ‘Tea, Margot, or coffee? A milkshake maybe?’

  ‘Coffee, please. Black. Nothing to eat. And it’s still Miss Bartlett to you.’

  ‘Black coffee for Margot and tea, double strength, for me,’ Ralph said to the hovering waitress.

  ‘There you go, Margot, one black coffee coming up soon.’

  ‘We’ve been through all this, chapter and verse, Mr Marshall. I have a position to hold up. A position of respect in this town,’ Margot said.

  Ralph studied Margot Bartlett as though seeing her for the first time. Perhaps, Margot wasn’t quite as ancient as he’d first thought, judging by her ‘nursing home’ pleated skirt, knitted jumper and pearls.

  ‘Tell me, Margot, do you remember The Beatles? The Rolling Stones? The Who perhaps? The war?’

  Margot put three fingers across her lips and Ralph was certain it was to stop a laugh escaping. Their eyes met, but neither looked away. Good God, was he, Ralph Marshall with a gold card wife at home, flirting with the spinster of the parish? It must be the Devon air making him drowsy, soporific, causing him to lose his marbles a bit. Or just his general contentment making him want Margot – sad and shrunken, waspish Margot – to have a little of that happiness. God, but the woman looked like she could do with a doughnut inside her, or a bagful.

  ‘Why don’t you just come right out with it, Mr Marshall, and ask me how old I am?’

  ‘Too easy. Nothing in life is worth having if it comes too easy.’

  ‘So, we’re back to Aegean blue, are we?’

  ‘Are we?’

  ‘Yes. And I’m fifty-nine. Twenty-second of September. Virgo.’

  ‘I thought as much,’ Ralph said.

  ‘All of it?’

  ‘The last bit.’

  Let her read into that what she will.

  ‘You’ll have to be nicer to me than that, Ralph, much, much nicer to me if your heart is set on Aegean Blue.’

  Ralph froze as Margot laid a hand on top of his. Good God. He’d pulled as the present-day expression put it. How the hell was he going to get out of this?

  Ralph let himself into The Gallery and switched on the spotlights over the pictures. A funny thing, art. Only yesterday he’d sold two paintings which resembled nothing more than oversized colour samples from the Dulux brochure – Tuscan Landscape and Tuscan Landscape 11. How unoriginal was that, just tacking 11 onto the end? But Ralph wasn’t complaining. He’d made a handsome £1000 profit.

  And he’d just had an interesting conversation with Margot Bartlett – her dry, bony hand firmly pinning his to the table for the duration – about giving something back to the town. Not exactly tithes, Margot had said, but ‘we will expect a contribution to the Regatta fund in keeping with your profits’.

  ‘Ah, there you are, Ralph.’

  ‘Well, you did tell me to shove off, Lyd.’

  ‘Sorry. Grace was upset.’

  ‘The mistress of the understatement,’ Ralph laughed. He kissed the top of Lydie’s head – it smelled of almonds and sunshine. ‘Mmmm, you smell good.’

  ‘Do I?’ Lydie asked.

  ‘You’re still good enough to eat, Lyd,’ Ralph said, ‘always will be. Grace gone out yet?’ Might Lydie feel more relaxed, more like making love in a new house, in this laid-back backwater? He hoped so. He nuzzled Lydie’s neck in an exploratory way.

  ‘If that means what I think it means …’

  ‘It does! So is Grace in or out?’

  ‘Out. She’s gone out to get the local newspaper – searching for a job, I think.’ Lydie moved her head to the side, away from Ralph’s kisses. ‘And I’m going up to Bath. To see Dad, but also to the boutiques which take my jewellery. I’ve …’

  ‘But you’ve only just left! What’s so desperate about selling your jewellery?’

  ‘I know I’ve only just left but I need to go back. If I don’t check on what’s in and what’s out my stuff is just going to sit there, not sell. And my work is important to me, you know that.’

  ‘Okay.’ Ralph held up his hands towards Lydie in a backing off gesture. ‘But by desperate I meant we aren’t desperate for the cash. There’s still plenty left after selling the business and buying this. You don’t have to be driving hundreds of miles, touting your jewellery around like some pedlar.’

  ‘Ralph!’

  ‘Well, is there really any need? Surely there are enough gee-gaw shops in this town where you could sell your trinkets.’

  ‘Gee-gaw? Trinkets? What’s got into you? It must be the air or something. You’ve never criticised my work before and I’m not going to let you do it now. Got that?’

  ‘Sorry. Must be that old biddy, Margot, getting to me.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Oh, never mind – just some old spinster on the town council, sticking her nose in. When are you going? Now?’

  This conversation was as close to a row as he and Lydie had ever come. He shouldn’t have said those things. But damn, it, she might meet him halfway with this new venture.

  ‘Soon,’ Lydie said. ‘Very soon.’

  Chapter Four

  HUGH HARRIS M.P. TO MARRY SECRETARY.

  Becca cut, very carefully, the headline from The Daily Mail. On the back, in fine-point red felt-tip, she wrote the number, 133. She opened a drawer and her fingers found the box containing the other one hundred and thirty-two scraps of paper with Hugh’s name on them.

  ‘Any luck?’ Drew asked.

  Jonty looked up from the list of names.

  ‘God, man, but what were you thinking of putting in an advert like that? I should have at least given it a quick glance.’ If only Becca hadn’t been quite so needy when the parcel she’d been expecting hadn’t arrived, he would have done. Should have bloody done, shouldn’t he? God, but Becca’s screams had stirred the whole bloody town from its afternoon siesta – nothing much happened in Totnes between midday and two o’ clock, so most shops, with the exception of the supermarket and the cafés – simply shut up shop. He’d had to practically pour the Bach Flower Rescue Remedy down her throat to get her calm enough again to stop chucking things around the flat.

  ‘Honesty, Jonts, honesty.’

  ‘Honesty! Look at it, will you! Just look! And I hate being called Jonts. It’s Jonty or nothing. Got that? So, just to remind you, this is the load of crap I’ve just paid thirty-two pounds to have put in the Western Morning News for everyone I know to smirk over.’

  ‘Does the name Shoji Hamada mean anything to you? Do you know the difference between glaze trailing and blaze trailing? Are you fine about fourteen hour working days? Then we could, just could, have the job for you. Ring RED now. Oh, and artistic ability would help.’

  ‘Looks fine to me, Jonty,’ Drew said. ‘It’ll cut the wheat from the chaff, so to

  speak.’

  ‘It will not. And it’s anything but fine to me. One girl even
thought I was some sort of Japanese massage perv.’

  ‘Really? Ten out of ten for recognising a Japanese name, then, I’d say.’

  ‘Really? If it had been anyone but you I’d have thought you were sending me up my own backside with that ad. Don’t ever, ever let it happen again.’

  Jonty felt the colour rising in his neck, spreading out over his shoulders. His cheeks burned. God, but Becca was getting to him if he was yelling at Drew; poor Drew who looked like he’d been up all night with Amy again, if the smoky bags under his eyes were anything to go by.

  ‘Any left?’ Drew asked. ‘People to interview, I mean. I’ll do it. Least I can do, and if I’ve got to work with her then perhaps I ought to have a say in who you take on.’

  ‘Two. A lad going by the name of Che Roper. And a girl – Grace Marshall. They’re both late. If they turn up, make sure they can bloody draw at least. If neither of them cut the mustard then we’ll have to run the ad again. And – I have to remind you – I am the boss. Just do it my way, okay? If you didn’t have quite so much time off we wouldn’t be so far behind.’ Jonty clapped a hand across his mouth. God, had he really said that?

  ‘I didn’t realise I was quite such a thorn in your backside. I’ll look for something else.’ Drew pulled himself up tall, closed his eyes for the briefest of seconds.

  Jonty didn’t know why Drew’s eternally calm and patient way of saying and doing things was getting to him, but it was.

  ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.’

  ‘Okay,’ Drew said, ‘but I’m getting the clearer picture.’ He began sorting rests ready to stack bowls in the kiln to be fired.

  ‘Right. Before I totally mess up both our days, I’m off upstairs to check on Becca. Buzz me if either of them are any good. If not just do the “we’ll ring you next week or never” routine.’

  Jonty had a feeling that Becca thought he hadn’t seen the newspaper headline. She’d whipped the paper off the kitchen table, stuffed it under the seat pad of the spare chair, just as he turned his back to put the kettle on. But he’d seen. In the reflection of his beloved Alessi kettle, burnished to within an inch of its lovely shiny surface, he’d seen. By the time the kettle had boiled and switched itself off with a quiet click, the paper had gone somewhere; in the folds of her silk dressing gown? Had to be that; Becca hadn’t moved, and there was nowhere else for it to go.

  Jonty gave Drew a good-natured pat on the shoulder as he left. Sorry, mate, the pat meant and Jonty knew Drew would understand. They needed one another for the moment, him and Drew, and they both knew it.

  ‘Okay, will do,’ Drew said. He shot Jonty a smile of such pure kindness that Jonty was in danger of bursting into tears.

  ‘Oh, is it supper time?’ Becca asked.

  ‘Can be, if you’re hungry,’ Jonty said.

  He was well used to Becca’s yo-yo moods. That old-fashioned toy, a yo-yo – why didn’t children play with yo-yos today? Had his own child ever played with one?

  Becca had eaten nothing whatsoever at breakfast. Or at breakfast yesterday, or the day before. Jonty rarely ate lunch himself so that was no problem – she could eat then or not as she wished – but if she didn’t eat supper tonight Becca was going to pass out with hunger soon. There were some chocolate ginger biscuits from Thornton’s in the tin; he’d see if he could tempt her with one of those, because he’d driven all the way over to Torquay to buy the things, hadn’t he?

  Was it really possible to become anorexic at the same time as you picked up your bus pass as Becca had? Jonty wondered.

  ‘Did you want something?’ Becca asked.

  ‘Um, well …’

  How could he say, about twenty grand actually? How could he say, I want you not exactly out of my life, but living one for yourself? How could he say, let me live my life instead of help you live yours? How could he say I could rent out rooms which would at least pay Drew’s wages which are two weeks behind now – and counting – if you buggered off for a bit?

  ‘Not particularly,’ Jonty said. ‘I’ve just given Drew an ear-bashing and I’m not terribly proud of myself. And I thought I’d come up here and cool off for a bit.’

  ‘I don’t want anything to eat.’

  Jonty swallowed as Becca fingered the three necklaces at her throat; always put on in the same order. She turned her head slightly away from Jonty so that he saw she was wearing a new pair of earrings. Rubies. What else? And these were large, lozenge-shaped, dense and dark. When had Becca had her ears pierced? And what had Hugh done which meant it was pay-off time again? And how had she known he was hoping she’d eat something?

  ‘Hugh sent them,’ Becca said, fingering her earrings. ‘And I don’t want anything to eat. Nothing to eat at all.’

  Bloody hell, Becca was reading his mind as well now. That or his mind was going. Jonty wasn’t sure which.

  ‘You’re a big girl now, Becs, eat or don’t eat – the choice is yours.’

  I don’t know that I bloody care any more hovered on his lips. No, strike that out, of course he cared. He and Becca had always been close. From the time their parents had been killed in an accident when Jonty was seven Becca had mothered him. She’d even vetted his girlfriends for him when he was younger. And in a way she still was – should Jonty meet someone to form a relationship with, then that person would have to accept Becca as well. And what woman would be prepared to do that? Yes, Becca was central to Jonty’s life now in her neediness. Poor, deluded Becca, just a gnat’s whisker away from a mental institution – and if she didn’t eat soon, death.

  ‘Pretty earrings,’ Jonty said, for something to say.

  ‘Hugh sent them,’ Becca said, touching each earring with the tip of an index finger. ‘I’ve just told you. Pigeon’s blood. Again. The best. A bit heavy though.’

  Jonty was tempted to suggest she ate a sandwich or a jacket potato or half a horse even to get some strength up so she wouldn’t notice the weight. How heavy could one pair of earrings about two centimetres by a centimetre be?

  ‘I suppose I could eat a tiny sandwich, no crusts, if there’s any smoked salmon.’

  Jonty shivered. Becca was definitely reading his mind now. But there was no smoked salmon.

  ‘I’ll nip down to Escoffier’s and get some.’

  Before Becca could protest he was out of the door and running down the metal staircase to the studio before heading for the door to the street.

  Jonty kept his head down as he dodged between holidaymakers dawdling on the pavements of the medieval town. He wasn’t really in the mood for conversation, as his little altercation earlier with Drew had proved. He supposed he ought to do a bit more PR for the business. An ad at least in the town gazette, handed out free to holidaymakers, perhaps? But somehow his heart wasn’t really in it. It was such a drag having to sell his art when really all he wanted to do was turn out the perfect bowl, find the perfect glaze and perfect depth of colour. Or sculpt in clay his perfect woman – based on a woman he used to know. Lydie.

  Time to let that go, Jonty, he chided himself. He was always telling Becca it was time she let Hugh go – let him off the hook a bit. Becca and Hugh had married when Becca was twenty-six and they’d had sixteen happy years together before it all went wrong – a longer married life than some people had. Sometimes, Jonty wondered if Becca was still that happy, twenty-six year old bride in her mind. But affairs happened. Divorce happened. He knew it would have been easier for his sister if Hugh hadn’t insisted it was quite ridiculous for Becca to have a baby at forty-two and bullied her into having an abortion. Hugh, at the time, had read her the statistics for malformations in babies born to older mothers. ‘How would you cope with a handicapped child at your age,’ Hugh had said, over and over – and it wasn’t really a question. He said it so many times that Jonty was certain Becca had believed her child would be handicapped. Poor, weak, stunned Becca. She’d spent her entire adult life trying to get pregnant, and when she had finally managed it, her baby had been sucked from her
, just a jelly blob, no bigger than something which would sit on the tip of a man’s thumb.

  Unbidden, tears welled in Jonty’s eyes. He brushed them away roughly with the sleeve of his shirt. He’d reached Escoffier’s. He pushed open the door, nodded a brief hello to the girl behind the counter and asked for three slices of smoked salmon, cut thin enough to read through, please.

  ‘Any particular newspaper?’ the girl asked.

  Jonty looked up. A pair of piercing blue eyes in a porcelain-white face met his. The girl’s hair was shiny, raven – blue-black really– tightly curled. Her lips were full and pouty and shimmering with scarlet lipstick. Jonty had not seen her in Escoffier’s before. His gaze slid down the girl’s face, to her neck and the strip of even whiter flesh that led to the top button of a blouse the colour of old English marigolds.

  ‘Do you have any particular newspaper in mind?’ Jonty said.

  ‘Your call,’ the girl said, with a wink.

  A wink!

  Here he was, Jonty Grant – well into middle-age, hair some throwback from his hippy days, covered in clay dust, hardly well-shaven – being flirted with. Something stirred in his groin. He couldn’t think what this girl and himself would have to talk to one another about once the sex was over but it was pretty much obvious that was in both their minds.

  ‘The Sun?’ Jonty said.

  ‘Now, I don’t have you down as a Sun reader. Independent maybe?’

  ‘Try again.’

  ‘Times? Guardian?’

  ‘No and no.’

  ‘Mail? Observer? Express?’

  ‘You’ll have to try harder than that.’

  ‘I’m not entirely sure you’re going to be worth the journey,’ the girl said. She turned away from Jonty and selected a packet of smoked salmon from the display counter.

  ‘Sometimes,’ Jonty said, catching a glimpse of small but perfectly formed pert breasts as the girl leaned forward, ‘just sometimes, it is better to travel than to arrive.’

  ‘Three slices of smoked salmon coming up, Granddad,’ the girl said. ‘I suffer from travel sickness myself.’