Red is for Rubies

by Linda Mitchelmore

  Becca walked to the desk which she and Jonty shared – Jonty to do the books for the pottery, and Becca to write Christmas cards and the occasional letter. She would write a letter now. Hugh would need reminding it was her birthday soon. She would need to tell him not to try and fob her off with a spinel or a garnet – the ring must be set with a ruby. And he needed to be reminded that if he forgot to send the ring by registered post then Becca had another letter all ready and stamped for posting, didn’t she? And he needed to be reminded he couldn’t marry his tart of a secretary because he was still married to Becca.

  ‘So, is this okay, or what?’ Grace asked as Jonty stepped into what was grandly called the decoration room but which was in fact simply an old tacked on wattle and daub lean-to. ‘Grace Marshall by the way.’

  ‘Hello, Grace Marshall. I’m Jonty.’

  ‘Thought so,’ Grace said. She slid her eyes from Jonty’s gaze and deftly added three strokes of varying thickness to signify grass at the bottom of the mug she was painting.

  ‘Hey! That’s good. Great style, Grace.’

  ‘I did tell the bloke who ran a mile when he saw me I could paint. What’s up with him anyway?’

  ‘Family problems,’ Jonty said. He was certain Drew wouldn’t want his personal details traded with a stranger.

  ‘Who hasn’t got those?’

  Who indeed? Jonty thought. He had a feeling Becca was up to something and he wasn’t sure he had the strength, in whatever way, to deal with it. All through lunch she’d been absent-mindedly counting her rubies; the ones in her necklaces and the bracelets, and the ones in each quail’s egg-sized ring. And he also had a gut feeling, like a rumbling appendix, that there was more than the cuttings pile to be worried about.

  ‘Who indeed?’ Jonty said. Then he rapidly marched back out of the decorating room and checked the temperature gauge on the kiln. Another nine hours. At least. That meant he would have to get up in the middle of the night and he was already dog-tired. He had become – because of Becca – a light-sleeper; afraid to sleep too deeply in case he didn’t hear her wreaking some sort of damage somewhere, if it was only to herself. But the shrinks he’d taken her to had said she’d be okay as long as she had Jonty’s support. What else could he do?

  ‘Am I supposed to answer that?’

  ‘Not if you don’t want to,’ Jonty said.

  Goodness, but Grace was good. He liked the way she held a brush. He liked the way she’d painted so quickly and accurately since Drew’s departure and his arrival down in the studio. Everything she’d done had been placed in a very neat row, Grace was, without a doubt, the best decorator he’d had in the place in a long time. And he badly, badly needed to get the work out so he could honour sales. Maybe, with Grace Marshall’s input, he wouldn’t have to ask Becca to fund him yet again. Maybe.

  ‘Now, best stand back from here. See, there’s a black line painted on the floor around the kiln and you don’t step over it when the kiln’s firing. Got that?’

  ‘So, I’ve got the job?’

  ‘If you want it. How soon can you start?’

  ‘I thought I already had,’ Grace laughed.

  And the way she tossed her head just a fraction to the left so that her hair fell across her face, making her reach up with a hand and push it back, reminded Jonty of something and someone he’d tried not to think of in a very long time.

  ‘So you have,’ Jonty said. ‘Two hours more decorating then we’ll seal it over a drink at Rumours.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Grace said.

  ‘You’ve got a lot to learn about Totnes, Grace. Most things get sorted in one pub or another. We’ve even got alternative cash here.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Alternative cash. You know, Mrs Jones wants her shed painted, and Mr Smith needs lunch cooked for a week because his wife’s in hospital, so Mrs Jones cooks and Mr Smith paints. Or maybe Mr Green has got an old bicycle he can’t ride any more on account of his gammy leg, but Mr Black needs a bicycle because he’s just lost his license for drink-driving. But Mr Black hasn’t got any cash for the bicycle so he asks if there’s anything Mr Green would like in return and Mr Green says …’

  ‘Okay, okay, I get the idea!’ Grace laughed and tossed her hair back, securing it behind both ears.

  ‘So, we can seal the deal? Wine, gin, cider, whatever?’

  ‘I don’t drink,’ Grace said. ‘Alcohol that is. I’ve seen rather too much of what it does to people, how it changes them.’

  ‘Ah,’ Jonty said. He was going to have to tread gently with this one. A recovering alcoholic, perhaps? Part of him thought about telling Grace the job wasn’t hers after all, he’d made a mistake, best to tell her now than later. But another part, well … ‘No problem. We have alternative drinks in Totnes also. So, shall we go for one now?’

  ‘Can we postpone it? I think I’d rather sit here and paint for the moment if it’s all the same to you?’

  ‘Fine,’ Jonty said. ‘Fine. I’ve got some paperwork to catch up on. I’ll be in my office over there if you need me for anything.’ He recognised a person’s need for a bit of mental space and he could tell Grace needed that now.

  ‘Fine,’ Grace said. ‘Fine.’

  Chapter Nine

  ‘Ralph? It’s Lydie. Just letting you know I arrived. Okay? Dad’s okay too. I’ll ring again. Byeeeeeee.’

  ‘Yes, Margot, I know I was rather longer than I said I would be. Sorry. But miles are longer down here than in other parts of the country.’

  ‘Rot!’ Margot said. ‘You’re just a man and you can’t admit you got lost and, being that man, couldn’t or wouldn’t stoop so low as to ask for directions.’

  ‘Margot, Margot, we are arguing like an old long-time married couple. Darby and Joan style, if you don’t mind me saying so. And I can count on the fingers of one hand how many times we have met over roughly the same number of weeks.’

  ‘I know my name is Margot, Ralph, thank you very much. And I know exactly how many times it has been my misfortune to bump into you. Now, what’s my cut?’

  Ralph’s eyebrows raised as if of their own volition. He was out of his depth here. What messages was Margot sending him, and why wasn’t he picking them up correctly? ‘Your cut, Margot?’ he asked.

  ‘For goodness’ sake quit the Margot every other word, will you? My cut. My cut as in what percentage of the profit you’ve just made out of Marianne Knight-Taylor’s gaudy scribblings are you going to give me for dancing attendance on those two diminutive, over-rich people?’

  Ralph almost laughed because Margot had said the name, Marianne Knight-Taylor with a disdainful flaring of nostrils. And if he were not mistaken she was having a problem with someone from another country being able to shell out huge sums of money which was something Margot probably couldn’t.

  ‘Now, now, no racism please. I know things have been slow to reach Dartmouth but …’

  ‘Cut?’ Margot snapped.

  ‘Ah,’ Ralph said, biting his lower lip. He knew the ill-tempered ramblings of a woman when he heard them. He wondered just what was up with Margot Bartlett. And he knew he didn’t have the courage to ask. ‘Fifty pounds for a new hat, Margot?’ he suggested hopefully – hopeful she would say yes and get back to whatever it was she did with her day usually.

  ‘Stop humouring me,’ Margot said ‘Hat indeed! I almost never wear a hat.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Ralph said. He’d learned over the years that it was quicker and simpler merely to say sorry whether he meant it or not than try and justify whatever it was he had said which had caused offence.

  ‘Accepted,’ Margot said.

  While Ralph might be enjoying Margot’s rather acid banter he was missing Lydie’s quietness. When would she be coming back? Soon, he hoped. She hadn’t been gone a day yet and already he missed her. He had been shaken by the feelings he had experienced at Marianne’s cottage and just wanted his wife back now; a return to normal.

  ‘Any phone calls?’ Ralph asked, his vo
ice rising hopefully on the word ‘calls’.

  ‘Three. I put the answerphone on. I know next to nothing about art and I wasn’t interested in any personal calls. Your wife, I suspect, although I’ve yet to meet her. Seeing as I wasn’t on the invite list for your gallery opening.’

  Oh dear, Margot had a serious case of miffed if ever he saw one.

  ‘My wife is in Bath, stopping with her father. Lydie makes and sells jewellery. Silver. She’s up there now trying to place it in chi-chi shops.’

  Ralph was well aware that Lydie would hate to hear him call the shops she sold her jewellery in chi-chi.

  ‘Hmm. We have shops here to sell that sort of thing.’

  ‘Indeed we do. And that was a very loaded “hmm”, Margot.’

  ‘Yes, well. When the cat’s away the mice will play.’

  ‘Margot! You are over-stepping the mark here. And if that is a reference to Marianne—’

  ‘Did you mention paying me fifty pounds for my time, Mr Marshall?’ Margot stopped him.

  ‘Cheap at the price.’

  Ralph opened the till, took out the money and handed it to Margot.

  ‘Don’t think we’ll be making a habit of this, Mr Marshall,’ Margot said.

  Margot hurried to the door, yanked it open with the force of ten men and went through it in a fashion Ralph could only describe as sailing. He knew, that despite Margot’s somewhat theatrical departure, he had not seen the last of her.

  Ralph pressed ‘Message’ on the answerphone and listened to Lydie saying, in more or less the same words, the same message three times.

  After her less than satisfactory meeting with Maria Gazzani of Gallery Ag, Lydie wandered aimlessly about Bath. Goodness, how she missed this place, even though she’d only been away from it for a short time. She would have to go back to her father’s house soon but not just yet. She drank more coffee than was good for her, bought an apple but ate only a one bite of it before throwing it to the ducks in the river Avon. She went into Next and looked at the jewellery on display there. Then she tried Marks and Spencer and New Look.

  Even Lydie had to concede it was all aesthetically pleasing, if not as well made as her own. And that the prices were far, far cheaper. Her own work was placed somewhere between chain store and Gallery Ag. She knew she had a choice. She could either try to make things more cheaply, using glass beads and even plastic instead of the semi-precious stones she used now, and get herself a slice of the lower end of the jewellery market – or she could rethink her work completely and throw people like Maria Gazzani and Gallery Ag off the jewellery map.

  Briskly, because she was getting colder now in her aimless wanderings, Lydie went to the indoor market. She felt drawn to the coffee stall with its canisters of beans from exotic places as a moth is drawn to a naked flame. Something flipped in her stomach – might it have gone in the short time she’d been living away from here? If Lydie’s life had changed, then Bath could have changed too. The coffee stall had been the first place she had been sent when she became old enough to shop alone. She loved the waiting, breathing in the heady aroma of freshly grinding beans, almost reluctant when the machine stopped whirring and the delicious chocolatey coloured grains were poured from a brass scoop into a cellophane bag.

  Lydie’s father used only instant coffee these days, now he was alone. Lydie would surprise him with some good coffee. She would even make it for him if she could find the cafétière. If she couldn’t she would still make it, but in the old brown china jug her mother had always used – it tasted just as good made that way.

  On her way through the market Lydie stopped to admire some pashminas; a veritable rainbow of colours and shades. And so cheap. She would buy one for her, and one for Grace. And she wouldn’t tell Ralph just how cheap they were because it was a matter of pride to him these days to pay the top price, and willingly, for everything. In the end Lydie bought three – one in lavender, and one in cranberry for herself, and another in aquamarine for Grace. And some boxer briefs which said Ralph Lauren which may or may not have been authentic, but Ralph would think them so and would laugh at the name connection.

  Ralph. She could almost see him now. No doubt he was happily turning himself into a Darmouthian. She wondered where he might have been when she’d rung the gallery and left her messages on the answerphone. There’d been no answer on his mobile either, although she hadn’t left a message.

  A few more days here to think things through. To think how she was going to suggest to Ralph that, perhaps, they have more time apart. But that she would do face-to-face.

  Lydie hurried on towards the coffee stall, and waited patiently to be served.

  She became aware that the stallholder was saying something to her but she couldn’t take in what it was. It might have been another language. Her head was full of what she didn’t want to go home to. She hated the misty mornings over the river and being cut off from a mainline train station so that it took hours and hours to get anywhere, even to a decent supermarket.

  And you are being monumentally ungrateful and selfish. Try harder. But hadn’t she been doing that for years? She’d tricked dear, kind, funny Ralph into marriage, hadn’t she? And she was paying the price.

  ‘Sorry?’ Lydie said as the stallholder repeated whatever it was he’d said. But still she hadn’t heard.

  ‘You all right?’ the kindly man said. ‘Only I thought you were going to faint there for a moment.’

  ‘No, no, nothing else, thank you,’ Lydie said, assuming he had asked if she wanted anything else, which is what all stallholders ask. She scrabbled in her purse for the £3.72 she saw displayed on the till. Two coins jumped out as her fingers fumbled to pick up the money. She knelt down and tried to fish them out from underneath the counter edge where they had rolled. She did indeed feel faint now.

  Ralph. Tricked. Marriage. The words seemed to be piercing her brain.

  But it was a vision of Jonty that flashed through her mind before everything went black and she dropped heavily onto the floor.

  ‘Lydie?’

  Her father’s voice was there somewhere on the periphery of Lydie’s hearing. As soon as her head had touched the floor she had come round from her faint. The stallholder had wanted to call an ambulance but Lydie had been adamant he didn’t. She did not want a fuss. She did not want some well-meaning hospital staff member finding Ralph’s phone number in her bag and ringing him, worrying him. She knew he would stop instantly whatever he was doing and come to her.

  But Lydie had accepted the offer of a taxi to take her back to her father’s house.

  ‘Lydie?’ her father said again, his voice full of fear.

  ‘I’m okay, Dad, don’t worry. Just a silly menopausal faint.’

  ‘Yes, well, I’ll be the judge of that.’

  ‘Ever the doctor,’ Lydie said, struggling to smile. She felt dreadful, really wiped out. Was this the result of not speaking her mind, going along with the flow of things like a stick in a stream until it becomes wedged somewhere, never to be free again?

  ‘They don’t take one’s degree back once the pension book arrives, you know, Lydie.’

  ‘No. Of course not.’

  Lydie went to rise from the chaise longue where she’d been gently placed by the taxi driver and her father, but she felt woozy again.

  ‘I’m just going to take your pulse, my girl, listen to your heart.’ Lydie’s father reached in the pocket of the jacket he always wore, summer and winter, for the stethoscope which was always there.

  ‘I don’t think you’re going to find a girl’s pulse or a girl’s heartbeat, Dad.’

  ‘I’ll be the judge of that as well. And if I find that husband of yours has anything to do with this well, I’ll …’

  ‘Ralph is never anything but good and kind to me, Dad, and you know that. And for goodness’ sake, keep calm – you’ll push your blood pressure up and we both know that’s not good for you at your age.’

  ‘Just so you know I’m on your side, Ly
die.’

  ‘I know, Dad, I know. But why does there have to be sides?’

  ‘Male and female, masculine and feminine, Mars and Venus. Always two camps, Lydie.’

  ‘Oh, just get on with it.’ Lydie rolled up the sleeve of her jumper so he could wrap the now rather old-fashioned webbing strap of the blood pressure paraphernalia around her upper arm.

  She was beginning to regret her cold amble around Bath, her silliness in giving in to a faint. She’d planned to stop on longer in her father’s house, but she hadn’t envisaged it being as a patient. She would have to put up with it. But, much as she loved him she knew she could never live with her father again, not unless it was to nurse him in some ghastly, final illness, although she hoped he would never have to suffer like that.

  ‘Will you ring Ralph and tell him, or shall I?’ Lydie’s father said as he replaced his blood pressure machine back in its box.

  ‘Tell him what?’

  ‘That you’re not going back. This is what this is all about, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, Dad,’ Lydie said as her father opened his arms wide in the promise of an embrace and Lydie moved into them. The first and only time he’d ever done that. The first and only time he had put her feelings first. ‘Oh, Dad, what am I going to do?’

  ‘God, this place is a tip,’ Grace mumbled to herself. She pushed the tray with six mugs she’d finished painting across to the table. Part of Grace’s A-level art course at the grammar school had been in pottery. So, she knew not to touch them with her fingers any more than was absolutely necessary or the glaze wouldn’t stick properly and there would be matt bits instead of shiny when they were fired. While painting them she had forgotten about Justin for much of the time, which had come as a shock. She’d almost felt guilty even, like some sort of betrayal. She wondered what Justin was doing now. And with whom. He had vehemently denied there had been another woman in the picture. He had cited his up and coming television series as the reason behind him rethinking his life – and presumably Grace wasn’t now part of that life.

  She knew she was still in some sort of shock. What else would have made her come for this job, in this cramped hell-hole of a decorating room? Unless it was as some sort of medicine for her mind to be doing something.