Red is for Rubies

by Linda Mitchelmore

  ‘Shouldn’t you be getting off home?’

  Grace flinched.

  ‘You don’t want me to do this?’

  ‘No. Yes. That wasn’t what I meant. I like what you’re doing, even though orange isn’t one of my favourite colours.’

  ‘It’s not orange. Burnt sienna.’

  ‘Burnt sienna then.’

  ‘But you rather I wasn’t doing this?’

  ‘Grace, I haven’t said that, have I?’

  ‘No, but you don’t look exactly thrilled.’

  ‘It’s a surprise that’s all – finding you still here.’

  ‘Yes, well,’ Grace said, as though that would explain everything.

  They were all on edge, weren’t they? Him, Grace, and Becca. And no doubt Drew was, too. Drew knew how strong Becca could be in one of her rages and he had coped brilliantly.

  ‘Thanks for helping with Becca. I’ll understand if you want out before you’re in if you know what I mean. I’ll pay you for a day’s work.’

  ‘Add it to tomorrow’s pay,’ Grace said.

  ‘You’ll be back?’

  Grace shrugged.

  ‘Why not? We’ve shared some personal stuff and I think I need this job as much as you need me here while you two deal with other stuff.’

  ‘Right,’ Jonty said. ‘Thank you. But I really think you should get off home now. Do you think you and Drew will rub along together okay? I mean, you’ll be side by side here for what? Eight hours a day or more sometimes. You’ll get to spend more waking hours together than many married couples do.’

  ‘Stop match-making,’ Grace laughed. She stepped out of the overalls, rolled them up and tucked them under her arm. With her other hand she fingered the chain around her neck. What, Jonty wondered for the second time that day, might be on the end of it? And who had given it to her? ‘Night. See you in the morning.’

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘You can’t be serious, Lydie? A builder? A common brickie? Just because you’re pregnant doesn’t mean you have to throw your life away.’

  ‘But you’ll let me throw the baby’s away! Collude in the act!’ Lydie screamed at her father.

  ‘Carry on like that and there’ll be no need – the baby will abort itself. This afternoon. Two p.m. In Clark’s clinic. Clark will do the deed, of course.’

  And with that Lydie’s father turned on his heels and strode purposefully back towards the door at the end of the corridor marked ‘SURGERY’, as Lydie screamed: ‘No! Never! Not my baby!’ over and over until she was hoarse with the effort but it failed to move him.

  ‘What do you mean, Lydie – you’re not coming home?’ Ralph couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  ‘I don’t mean not ever, Ralph. I mean, just not now. At this moment, today. This week even. I had a silly faint today. Daddy thinks …’

  ‘I’m your husband, Lydie. It’s my duty to look after you if you’re ill.’

  ‘I’m not ill. Daddy says it’s emotional stress. The move … everything.’

  What everything? Ralph wondered. Had Lydie been seeing someone else back in Bath and had now realised she couldn’t bear to be without him? Ralph was afraid to ask.

  ‘I know I’m making a hash of this, but I think we know things haven’t been right between us for a long time. I’m sorry, Ralph.’

  ‘Not right?’ Ralph said.

  What was she talking about? The tailing off of the love-making, perhaps? That happened as one got older, he knew that. There had been a worry over his prostate a year or so back but medication had righted that, thank goodness.

  ‘No,’ Lydie said.

  ‘If it’s the fact we don’t do it so much these days, well, I’m always happy to make amends,’ Ralph laughed, trying to inject some humour into the situation, although he was finding it rather less than funny.

  ‘It’s not that,’ Lydie said. ‘There’s never been a problem there …’ Ralph thought she didn’t sound very certain.

  And you’ve had something to compare me with, I know that, but now’s not the time to challenge you. It was, after all, a long time ago. Ralph pressed his lips together to stop his thoughts escaping through them.

  He just wanted Lydie home – to see her, to smell her; the perfume she always wore – Poison – which he bought for her by the bucketload.

  ‘Is it because we’ve moved down here?’

  ‘Partly,’ Lydie said, ‘but that’s not all of it.’

  ‘I’ve burned my boats somewhat, and I’d lose money if I sold now – lots of it. I know it’s early days and we’ve only been open a few weeks but sales are going up day on day, and once the summer season really starts, what with the steam train, and river boat trade stopping off here …’

  ‘No! Don’t sell! It’s what you want to do. I won’t stand in the way of that. But things have changed now, haven’t they?’

  Had they?

  ‘Lydie, darling, what’s wrong? Just tell me what’s wrong!’ Ralph said, clutching at the proverbial straw. ‘Is there someone else? In Bath?’

  His question was met by silence – a long, uncomfortable, terrifying silence. He felt sick. He struggled for something to fill the gap.

  ‘I love you, Lyd. Always will.’

  Ralph did his best to caress Lydie with his voice, to pour his feelings down the telephone if that were possible. God, how he loved Lydie – couldn’t manage life without her really. No, that wasn’t true. He was managing. He’d had a letter that morning to say the council had accepted the changes he wanted to make to the colour of the exterior walls and had approved his plans for a terrace and a café area at the back overlooking the river. Good old Margot Bartlett perhaps? So he was managing. But he wanted Lydie home.

  While he waited for Lydie to tell him she loved him too, he told her about the council’s decision. And about selling the paintings to the Japanese – or possibly Chinese – couple.

  ‘Good. I’m pleased for you, Ralph,’ she said.

  ‘I knew you would be. Oh, and Grace has got a job.’

  Grace had come home, very late. She stopped in the kitchen talking to him just long enough to ask if he’d display some sculptures – a black swan and a giant lobster. Someone called Drew had made them, although whether that was his Christian or surname, Grace hadn’t said. Well, Dartmouth was a watery sort of place so Ralph had said to bring them over.

  ‘Oh, I’m so pleased,’ Lydie said. ‘So, things are starting to move ahead for you and Grace.’

  ‘Yes,’ Ralph said. ‘But they’ll move a whole lot better with you back here.’

  If he told Lydie that Marianne Knight-Taylor had come onto him pretty hard would she come rushing back and tear Marianne’s eyes out with jealousy.

  ‘I’m not ready to come back yet,’ Lydie said. ‘A few more days. A week perhaps.’

  ‘I’m missing you already, Lyd,’ Ralph said. ‘I love you.’

  Ralph could feel his pulse drumming by his left ear as he held the receiver to it and waited for Lydie to reply.

  ‘I know,’ was what Lydie said at last – not really what he wanted to hear. ‘I know you love me.’

  ‘I have to visit an artist tomorrow afternoon, Lyd,’ Ralph said as cheerfully as he could muster. Would Lydie detect the lie in his voice? He didn’t have to visit her. But perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad idea to take her up on her invitation after all? ‘Near Kingsbridge. I told you about her. The one whose work I sold by the dozen to some database clients.’

  Ralph was desperately trying to keep his voice buoyant, upbeat. He had rather stupidly dropped his credit card wallet and, in his rush to get away from Marianne’s very obvious charms, and had failed to notice it lying on the floor. But Marianne had, and had phoned to tell him so not ten minutes ago. Whether at the time or later, Ralph couldn’t be sure. Ralph had noticed it was missing and had presumed he’d dropped it, or left it, somewhere. So he’d cancelled it. A new one should arrive by first class post in the morning. But he hadn’t told Marianne that. Would telling Lyd
ie what he was going to do make her jealous?

  ‘Oh,’ Lydie said.

  Ralph knew that ‘oh’. Lydie had detected the whiff of a problem.

  ‘She normally does scenic stuff but she also does, um, nudes,’ Ralph blundered on. ‘A new departure for her. Not Page Three or anything sleazy like that. I suspect Margot Bartlett will have something to say if I put them in the main window!’

  Would Lydie be able to detect his exclamation mark? What he was really saying was please, please come home and we’ll talk through whatever it is because I need you. Not just to help me sort Margot Bartlett out but because I love you.

  ‘I love you,’ Ralph said again.

  Still there was silence on the end of the phone, although he thought he could pick up the sound of Lydie’s father shuffling about in the background.

  ‘Lyd, are you still there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I love you.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘You know I do. Whatever’s troubling you, never forget that I do love you very much, even though I might not say it often.’

  Ralph struggled to keep at the forefront of his mind that Lydie had had a faint today. She was probably feeling a bit unsettled. But was it more than that? The reluctance to tell him she loved him?

  ‘You’ve said it four times in as many minutes. And you show it in other ways, Ralph.’

  ‘Do I?’ Fear was making Ralph’s voice crackle, and he coughed to clear his throat.

  A brief pause on the other end and then Lydie said, ‘Yes.’

  Ralph waited for Lydie to elaborate, so that he might be reminded of what it was he did that showed his love for his wife. So that he could go and do it some more. Unless it was the fact he had never strayed. And he remembered her birthday and their anniversary – always. He felt cold and afraid and alone, more alone even than when he wanted so desperately to make love to Lydie and she said she was tired or she had a headache or that Grace might hear them.

  ‘It’s this place, isn’t it? You didn’t want to come, did you? And I made you do it. Could you give me six months to turn around a good profit so it looks good for potential buyers and then I’ll put everything on the market again?’

  ‘It’s not just that.’

  Just? That little word, not really needed in the sentence – but there – told Ralph that this move to Devon and a new sort of life wasn’t just what it was all about. There was something else. And it frightened Ralph, the not knowing. Well, he wouldn’t go into that now.

  ‘Shall I shut up shop and drive up? I could be there, in let’s see, about four hours.’

  ‘No!’ Lydie said.

  Which was a bit too quickly for Ralph’s comfort.

  ‘Sell any jewellery?’ he asked, grasping for a lifeline to keep Lydie at least on the end of the phone.

  ‘Not a lot. The woman in Gallery Ag was a bit of a cow, rubbished me off, in fact,’ Lydie said, and Ralph could detect perhaps a bit of lifeline grasping of her own as she said it, ‘I want to do some new designs. Do a bit more research in other galleries not just the odious Gallery Ag.’

  ‘Gallery what?’

  ‘Ag. As in chemical symbol for silver.’

  ‘Oh,’ Ralph said. Often the differences in their education threw up some interesting discussions and Ralph was hoping for one of those now. ‘I should have remembered that. I think you told me before.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Look, Ralph, I really ought to go. It’s very late. Daddy has to go to the dentist in the morning so I’m driving him down and going to see the bullion dealer while he’s in the chair. I want some more silver. And …’

  ‘Hey! I’ve had an idea. I could do you a little corner here, in the gallery, for a jewellery display. What do you think about that? We should have thought of that before, shouldn’t we?’

  Ralph knew he sounded desperate. A time, many, many years ago now when he’d been longing to join Eddy Carey’s gang in the school playground and Eddy Carey hadn’t wanted him came to mind. He remembered he’d come up with a million ideas with which he could prove his worthiness. Only Eddy Carey had dismissed them all and Ralph had had to endure a month of being sent to Coventry by the entire class. The exclusion, the coldness and the loneliness of that moment was wrapping itself around his heart again now. Why do these things never bloody leave you? Ralph wondered. He was a man now for God’s sake not a scruffy, knobbly-kneed schoolboy with an ever-present hunger in his stomach.

  ‘Ralph, I’m sorry, I know I’m being a bit obtuse but I really must go and I really do need time to think. I’m sorry,’ Lydie said again.

  ‘I love you,’ Ralph said, meaning it. ‘Goodnight.’

  ‘Sleep tight.’

  And then the phone was dead and it hit Ralph that Lydie hadn’t said she loved him too – not once.

  ‘How did he take it last night?’ Lydie’s father asked. ‘I heard you talking. Very late.’

  They were sitting now in the restaurant of the Grand Hotel, a tray of tea as yet untouched on the table in front of them. It always had to be in top notch hotel when Robert was dining out – no cheap and cheerful café, where it might be self-service or the sugar didn’t come in cubes, for Robert. He cited, as reason, the fact that patients frequented such places and he didn’t want them trying to discuss varicose veins or heart murmurs or the menopause over his cup of Earl Grey, thank you very much. Although it had been a long time since Robert had had any professional dealings with any patient at all, the habit of using hotels for a cup of tea or a G & T persisted.

  ‘He? His name is Ralph, Dad. You know that.’

  ‘Oh dear, touchy aren’t we? Will you pour or shall I?’

  Her father’s way of ending the discussion had always been to simply change the subject.

  ‘You can. You’re not decrepit yet.’ Lydie smiled, twitched her nose so her father would know she was making a joke; that she had seen through his not very subtle change of subject.

  ‘No. And neither are you. You have a few years to go before pension day if memory serves me well. If you want to divorce him, it will be fine with me. Times change, and I like to think I’m broadminded enough to change with them.’ Robert made a big performance of setting the cups onto the saucers and pouring from shoulder height the fragrant and steaming Earl Grey.

  ‘Who mentioned divorce?’ she said as evenly as she could.

  Lydie swallowed her outrage. Her father was talking to her as though she were a patient. Nothing had changed, had it? Robert was as unaccepting of Ralph because of who he was, what his background had been, what he did for a living now, as he had been over thirty years ago. Lydie could almost hear her father’s unspoken outrage when Ralph had told him he had sold his building company and was buying an art gallery – ‘A shopkeeper! How basic!’ Lydie should have jumped to her husband’s defence. She knew she should have done at least that. But something was gnawing away inside her; a disquiet, an unease at not having been true to herself and to her marriage vows. For she had not kept herself only unto Ralph as she had promised in church. She had rarely had Jonty out of her thoughts for even one single day of all of those years. Even though he’d treated her badly. And then there was Ralph. Dear, kind Ralph who surely didn’t deserve so ungrateful a wife. And Grace. No need for Grace ever to know that Ralph wasn’t her biological father. These things happen. It had happened to more than one schoolfriend of Lydie’s. But Lydie was beginning to despise herself for that deception too. She had thought she could hide it under the figurative carpet as one could a secret fetish for Walnut Whirls eaten in the bath with the door locked. Only now she was finding she could no longer. What if Grace ever did find out? What if she needed a kidney transplant – God forbid – and Ralph offered to donate a kidney only to be told he wasn’t a DNA match at all. What would Grace think then? She might hate her mother forever and Lydie could see now it would be with justification.

  ‘I think the time has come, Lydie, for some straight talking. A bit late, but well, you’re
a woman now,’ Robert said.

  ‘Almost a pensionable one,’ Lydie said, a mock smile playing at the corners of her lips.

  ‘Will you listen! You know and I know that Ralph is not Grace’s father.’

  ‘You can’t prove that!’

  ‘So, it’s true. Women always give themselves away with instant self-defence. I’ve sat behind my desk enough times listening to enough women denying what I know to be the truth, to know. Men too, I might add, in case you are one of these emancipated women that are all the rage today. Who was it? That scruffy artist you were seeing behind our backs when we forbade you to see him any more? Your mother saw you with him, wearing some dreadfully dirty duffle jacket, she said. You were walking along the canal path towards one of the bridges. It wasn’t much of a choice for you as far as your mother and I were concerned. What was wrong with Dr Clark’s son for goodness’ sake? I suppose it is a mercy both of these paramours were fair-haired.’

  ‘Have you quite finished?’

  Her father was making her feel dirty and cheap and about fourteen. She knew now why he had chosen this particular hotel and had sat at this particular table with its view over the river and that particular bridge. The bridge underneath which Grace had been conceived. But they hadn’t been able to stop themselves, she and Jonty. And it hadn’t been cheap and it hadn’t been dirty. It had been quite, quite beautiful; their souls melding, their bodies locked together, their mouths never parting for a second as their breathing ran with the one rhythm in the gathering dusk. Lydie wondered now if she had ever moved on, emotionally, from that moment.

  ‘I’m forty-nine years old, Dad. Time for a little respect for me, don’t you think?’

  For answer Robert simply poured more tea into Lydie’s cup without being asked, or asking.

  God, what an idiot coming back, Lydie chided herself. Had she really thought she could stop with her father until she sorted herself out?

  ‘No more tea for me, thanks,’ she said at last. She looked towards the river, towards the bridge. The sun was sliding lower in the sky now. Too late to go back to Dartmouth now. But she’d go soon – very soon.