Red is for Rubies

by Linda Mitchelmore

  Although Grace had been working for Jonty in the pottery for a week now, and was loving it, she still felt out of place in the town. As out of place as one might feel wearing a ballgown to a football match. In the restaurant she had always felt comfortable in the dress and jacket she was wearing now; black linen, lined, from a shop in Rougemont Street. Now she looked as though she were going to, or had just come from, a funeral. Everyone around her in the outdoor market place was dressed in something bright, or if not bright then quirky and different with squiggles or tassels or both. She stopped stock still for a moment but the heels of her stilettos slithered on the cobbles, making her wobble. She struggled to right herself, grabbing the corner of a stall table.

  ‘Hey! Take more water with it,’ a ruddy-faced woman laughed. She stood behind a trestle table piled high with chunky hand-knitted jumpers; their colours like those in the packets of old-fashioned Spangles. Grace could just about remember Spangles. But why did people feel duty bound to make that remark whenever a woman stumbled? She almost snapped back, ‘I don’t drink, but if I did that would be an insensitive remark’. But what would be the point? And the reason for the not drinking was that she’d seen what it did to people; people who ate in Justin’s restaurant, and many of the staff who worked in it too. Justin was getting close to having a problem. Maybe that was why he’d ended their relationship – he’d become sick of her trying to stop him drinking. How long would it take to stop thinking about Justin? Drew had asked her to go for a drink, and while she liked him, she knew in her heart they wouldn’t be right for one another. No, best let him down now, and gently.

  ‘I will,’ Grace said at last to the woman, who merely looked at Grace blankly, obviously having forgotten what it was she had just said.

  Grace moved on slowly, stopping to finger necklaces and rings, belts and scarves, hats made out of felt, and painted wooden toys. Her eyes glazed over the second-hand stalls with the detritus of other peoples’ lives; dresses with the hems coming undone, cardigans missing a button, and down at heel shoes.

  All this was as far removed from her former life as it was possible to be.

  Even Jonty’s sister, Becca, with her massive mental problems was the sort of person who had never featured, even on the fringes, in Grace’s life before. The rings the woman had! Grace knew a real ruby when she saw one. Many of the restaurant’s regulars were well-heeled, happy to wear their valuable jewellery to fight with the lights in the dining room for sparkle and brightness. But if Grace wasn’t mistaken then Jonty Grant didn’t have the ready cash his sister did. Becca obviously didn’t work, had no man supporting her; certainly she was unlikely to be any rich man’s mistress.

  ‘Penny for them,’ a voice said.

  ‘Drew! Aren’t you supposed to be packing the kiln?’

  Grace hadn’t learned the art of kiln-packing yet which was why she’d asked Jonty if she could slip out to the market to look for some suitable clothes for painting and glazing in. Defiantly she’d been wearing her clothes from her former life, letting Jonty and Drew know she was just passing through. But was she? She hadn’t meant to stop at the pottery this long. But it was proving to be good therapy – she’d never realised before just how much she liked doing physical, practical things. Justin had never even let her top and tail French beans in the restaurant because she wasn’t trained, had no NVQs which were required these days. And so far she’d managed to avoid seeing Justin’s new TV programme – Saucy Chefs. It was on again tonight.

  ‘All done and dusted,’ Drew said. ‘I thought I might find you here.’

  ‘Jonty okayed it. I’m not skiving off.’

  ‘Did I say you were?’

  ‘Not in so many words, no.’

  ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘I don’t talk in riddles, Drew.’

  ‘Okay. Right. I’m making a right hash of this. Bit out of practice, I suppose. Thing is, that drink I offered you the other night … well, the offer’s still open. We can’t go back in yet anyway because the kiln’s firing up. Jonty’s upstairs with Becca who started screaming for some reason known only to herself, and …’

  ‘Stop!’ Grace said. She felt almost sorry for Drew and his teenage-style ramblings. ‘Coffee would be nice. But first I need to take this lot back to RED.’ She held out two bags for inspection – things she’d bought from Salago, things which had nothing to do with work but which she’d loved for their colours, which were not black. She smiled wondering what Justin would say if he were to see her in indigo and purple and cerise – all in the same garment!

  ‘That’s better, you look lovely when you smile.’

  ‘Thank you. But I must warn you I’m only up for coffee at the moment, not romance.’

  ‘What? What?’ Drew said, feigning deafness. ‘I don’t remember saying the word romance. But you do look lovely when you smile.’

  Grace sighed. He wasn’t giving up, was he? Drew was great to work alongside, and she liked him. But she felt sorry for him and his situation with his daughter, and pity was never a good basis for romance, everyone knew that.

  ‘Still want that coffee?’ Drew asked.

  ‘Okay. A quick one. But first, I must dump these bags. And freshen up a bit.’

  ‘Just inside the door then. It’ll be furnace temperature in there and not just in the kiln. And, as you’re probably fast learning, Jonty’s number one concern is safety.’

  ‘I know I shouldn’t ask but can you fill me in on the Becca scenario? Jonty’s said some things but I’m not getting a clear picture.’

  ‘Who is?’ Drew said. ‘But if I did know I wouldn’t tell you. Sorry. I don’t do gossip, even if I am an old woman as my ex-wife often used to tell me.’

  ‘Oh dear, aren’t we sorry for ourselves?’

  ‘Touché, Grace, I think. You’ve been doing the damsel in distress scene to perfection.’

  ‘How dare you!’ Grace snapped. ‘If you were a woman I’d have said you were a bitch. Perhaps the ex-wife wasn’t so wrong after all. Forget the coffee.’

  ‘A pleasure,’ Drew said. ‘But I’m such a bitch I’m coming back with you because the last thing anyone needs is an accident with the kiln.’

  God, but women blew hot and bloody cold – would Drew ever understand them?

  Side by side, Grace and Drew walked very quickly back to RED.

  ‘Strange,’ Drew said as they reached the door into the studio, ‘the front door’s unlocked. Jonty never leaves the door unlocked when the kiln’s firing.’

  ‘Maybe one of us didn’t close it properly on the way out.’

  ‘No. I was the last to leave and I definitely dropped the catch on that door!’

  ‘Becca?’ Grace asked.

  ‘You learn fast.’ Drew pulled a rueful face. ‘Come on. But be careful. I’ll go in first, you keep behind me. I don’t like the feel of this one little bit.’

  Drew opened the door, holding Grace back with an arm stretched out behind him.

  ‘Blimey, what’s going on? Who the hell’s winched all the sculptures up that high?’

  The pallet on which the sculptures ready for packing and sending out were stacked was no longer where Drew had winched it, but was at a precarious angle; one chain snagged on a shelf, the whole lot tipping at a dangerous angle.

  ‘Keep back!’ Jonty’s voice came from the top of the stairs leading up to the flat. ‘Becca’s in here somewhere. She’s got a knife!’

  ‘The door was open, Jonts,’ Drew said. ‘Perhaps she’s outside somewhere.’

  ‘Wrong! Very, very wrong!’ Becca’s voice, almost a cackle, came from behind the jumble of winch gear. The blade of the knife she was holding in her hand caught the light coming in through the oriole window, almost blinding them all.

  ‘Give me the knife, Becca,’ Grace said.

  ‘Keep out of it.’ Drew yanked on Grace’s arm.

  ‘Let me go,’ Grace said. ‘I’ve done this once before in the restaurant. If I’ve done it once, I can do
it again.’

  ‘Don’t be an idiot,’ Drew said. ‘No point in dying a heroine.’

  Grace shrugged herself from his grasp.

  ‘The knife, Becca,’ she said again. She stepped forward, in front of Drew. ‘Give it to me, there’s a good girl.’

  ‘No! You’re going to take Jonty away from me. Take him back to her. And I won’t let you! I’m going to kill you before you do that.’

  ‘I’m not taking Jonty anywhere,’ Grace said. ‘I’m working for him. Here. In RED. For as long as …’

  Then there was a screeching, grinding noise and the chain finally snapped on the pallet platform and the sculptures came raining down, hitting first Grace’s shoulder and then her head.

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘You can take the man out of the building site, but you can’t take the building site out of the man.’

  ‘Dad! How dare you! That’s almost as bad as racial abuse. No, make that character assassination. Ralph’s a good man. He’d never do anything to hurt me!’

  And Ralph, listening on the other side of the door wanted to go in and punch the lights out of Robert. But there was no way he was going to make Lydie choose – him or her father.

  Ralph left it a week before calling on Marianne, not going the next day as he’d told Lydie he would be. He’d hoped that Lydie would be back by now but she wasn’t. In the meantime he had a business to run and had to push feelings regarding his wife aside.

  ‘Ah ha, I thought you’d be back,’ Marianne Knight-Taylor laughed, opening the door wide to let him in. She ran her tongue along the tops of her bottom teeth. ‘But you took your time. I’d have thought you’d have been back before for this.’ She waggled Ralph’s credit card at him.

  ‘I’ve got others I can use,’ Ralph said.

  And I cancelled that one the second I knew it was missing. Let Marianne think he’d come back for that.

  He wondered whether she had lifted his credit card wallet from him; that he hadn’t dropped it at all. And he wondered why the hell he had come when he knew Marianne’s intentions.

  ‘A cup of tea would go down a treat.’

  Marianne laughed – she’d obviously seen right through him, seen his hesitancy.

  ‘Strong, milk, two sugars. Right?’

  ‘Right,’ Ralph said, his throat dry with nerves.

  ‘That’s builder’s tea, Ralph, not gallery owner’s tea. Gallery owners take it black with a twist of lemon.’

  ‘Was the former, now the latter. Do I get my tea or not? I won’t keep you if you’re busy.’

  ‘Not so busy I can’t stop to talk to you,’ Marianne said. ‘Now you’re here, come and see what you think of this.’ She grabbed Ralph’s hand and pulled him behind her towards the tiny conservatory studio at the back of the cottage.

  Ralph looked for a sign of Darcy either by sound or sight, but there was none at that moment. And Marianne was still holding onto his hand, her long slender fingers curled around his well-filled palm. To let go or not? Maybe he could effect a little nose-wiping as an excuse. He felt about in his pocket with his spare hand but no handkerchief.

  It was Marianne who let go of his hand first. Pushing open the door to the conservatory, she took a canvas from the table and propped it on the easel.

  ‘So,’ she said, ‘can you sell this? Or something like it?’

  Not to my wife, Ralph thought. He remembered something Ed Foster who had sold him The Gallery had said: ‘Nudes don’t sell well. Married women don’t want them because a perfect body will make them feel inferior, and in any case they won’t want their husbands ogling someone else, if only on canvas. Single women are too busy worrying about their own bodies to want a painting of someone else’s, and men rarely buy because they’re at risk of being labelled a perv’.

  ‘I’ll have to think about it,’ Ralph said.

  ‘Oh, Ralph, come on, you know it’s good. More than good.’

  ‘It’s wonderful,’ Ralph said, unable to meet Marianne’s eye, knowing his own would slide to her breasts or her hips or her arms or even her hair, all so desirably captured in oils. ‘But I’m having a bit of bother with the old guard in Dartmouth.’

  ‘Wimp!’ Marianne said. Another little slide of her tongue across the tops of her bottom teeth. ‘You’re afraid of Margot Bartlett! I can’t believe it of you, Ralph, I thought you had more spunk than that.’

  More spunk? He’d show her.

  ‘Is this the only one? I would need more than one. I don’t know where the hell I’m going to put it because it’s sea scenes mostly in Dartmouth, but …’

  ‘You’ll take it! Great. I think this deserves a kiss, don’t you?’

  Ralph coughed again a couple of times.

  ‘Best not,’ he said. ‘Cold.’

  ‘Rubbish.’ Marianne clasped Ralph’s head between her hands and kissed him, very noisily, on the lips as one might kiss a child. ‘Do you want to see the rest?’

  What sort of a loaded question was that? Marianne’s hands had moved from his face, to his shoulders. Her grip was gentle but firm. Her hair had flopped over her forehead obscuring one eye. Without knowing why he did it Ralph reached out and tucked the stray strand behind her ear.

  ‘That’s better,’ Marianne said. She moved her hands back to the sides of Ralph’s face and kissed him again. For longer this time, her lips soft and warm and mobile against Ralph’s, which were doing their best not to respond.

  ‘I’m sorry but this is something I don’t do, Marianne.’

  ‘Kissing?’

  ‘Well …’ How the heck could he say, yes? Kissing like the way Marianne was kissing him and the way he wanted to kiss her back had been missing in his life for a very long time. Wasn’t that how it was for most long-married couples? Doesn’t a sort of companionship set in, more brother and sister than lovers, and it’s only after a drink or two or watching a sex scene inadvertently on TV that the old feelings make a brief return, not to be mentioned in the morning? It’s how it was for Lydie and him these days at least. But he wished it wasn’t.

  ‘Oh, Ralph, that’s so sad. I detect here a rather chill marriage. Not much between the sheets activity. But you love your rather cool, aloof wife. You think she returns your love. And …’

  ‘This is none of your business. Lydie isn’t cool and she isn’t aloof. Calm – I’d describe her as calm. Always.’

  ‘Well, I thought she was a bit ice-maiden,’ Marianne said. ‘At your gallery opening event. I looked at you both and I thought – he’s rather Prince Rainier, and she’s the spit of Grace Kelly. Although I didn’t get to speak to her that night.’

  Prince Rainier? Grace Kelly? Yes, Lydie had the poise and elegance that Grace Kelly had had – it was what he’d always loved about her. Not everyone swings from the chandeliers, do they? And she was a brilliant mother and … well, up until now … always there for him, too.

  Ralph wasn’t going to stand there and hear Lydie criticised – and by someone who had never spoken to her either. He met Marianne’s gaze now, his eyes boring into her rather beautiful almost Royal-blue ones, challenging her. God, those bewitching eyes.

  ‘I haven’t come here to discuss my wife. I’ve come to collect my credit card.’

  ‘You’re quite right. Forgive.’ Marianne held her hands out towards Ralph in a prayer gesture.

  ‘Forgiven,’ Ralph said. Dear God, let my reward be in heaven for sticking to the vows made before you at St. Peter’s Church.

  ‘Good. Now, aren’t you going to ask how I paint self-portraits? See, no mirrors.’

  This was something Ralph had wondered about. Mirrors on the ceiling in her bedroom perhaps? An excellent memory? A little artistic licence? No, definitely not the last. Underneath the flimsy mauve cotton of a sort of kaftan which Marianne was wearing Ralph could detect her bra-less breasts, her shapely thighs.

  ‘I’m new to this game. The art gallery game, I mean. I’m no critic. So far I’ve shown what I like, by people I like, and it works. I have absol
utely no idea how artists do what they do. I am a businessman, pure and simple.’

  ‘Shame,’ Marianne laughed. ‘But I’m going to tell you anyway. Polaroid film. Although it’s getting harder to get hold of it these days. My sister took these.’ She grabbed a handful of photos which had been face down on the windowsill. She thrust them at Ralph. ‘I was rather hoping you would take some more. In the garden. Please?’

  ‘Won’t someone see? Darcy?’

  ‘Ah, you remembered my daughter’s name. That’s so sweet. I’m weaning Darcy and she’s stopping with my sister and her two for a few days. Not healthy with no other children to play with up here all the time. And to answer your first question, how many houses did you see within a two mile radius? And I think that’s a yes, right?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Ralph said.

  Was this the time to tell her he was going to have to seriously insult her by refusing to take advantage of her body? All this taking photographs stuff was just a ruse, wasn’t it? He was beginning to feel almost sorry for Marianne Knight-Taylor, single mother, good – if struggling – artist. And he watched, mesmerised as Marianne pulled her kaftan up over her head revealing she’d been wearing nothing at all underneath, save a violet-shaded jewel in her belly-button.

  ‘Why don’t you take that rather nice linen jacket off? And then we’ll go in the garden.’

  Why not? Ralph checked his mobile was still in the pocket of his jacket and took it off, draping it over the back of a chair.

  ‘Good. You did look rather hot. Now, the garden,’ Marianne said. She grasped one of Ralph’s hands and with her spare hand, pulled a Polaroid camera from underneath a chair.

  Marianne’s garden was a jungle of green; huge ferns, a fig tree, bamboo. All things even Ralph recognised. Marianne let go of Ralph’s hand and sat down, feet flat on the grass, knees bent as she lay back, her hair pillowing out behind her as she let herself down gently.

  ‘If you could just stand over me, you know, foot either side, and take a shot from the waist up. Can you manage that?’

  Ralph didn’t think he could. He could barely keep the camera still with the way his nerves were jangling.