by Dean Mayes
“We aren’t…like…gonna hurt him. Are we?”
Both young men glared incredulously at Jeremy. He shifted awkwardly on the spot, his cheeks flushing crimson.
“You just make sure you’re ready for this,” Mickey retorted warningly. “We start tonight.”
Jeremy immediately felt his stomach drop. He was supposed to be accompanying Ruby to her lesson tonight. He couldn’t go back on his promise to her yet again.
“G-guys…I can’t tonight,” he stammered. “I’ve gotta be s-somewhere.”
Gavin fixed him with that withering glower once again.
“Are you fucking serious?”
Before he could respond, both Gavin and Mickey abruptly turned and walked away from him, heading out through the access gate. Mickey turned in mid-step and pointed his finger at Jeremy.
“No excuses!”
“Jeremy!”
Jeremy stopped in the main hallway at the sound of Miss Glasson’s voice and turned to see her coming toward him.
The cacophony of silent noise that were his conflicted thoughts abruptly stopped and, for just a moment, he was thankful.
She gently touched her hand to his arm, gesturing for him to walk with her.
“I wanted to catch you to see if you’d given any more thought to my program.”
She kept her voice low, so as not to embarrass him in front of anyone who might pass by.
Jeremy rolled his eyes and side stepped, creating a couple of feet of distance between them.
“Oh come on, Jeremy,” she responded in a pleading tone. “Don’t hold out on me. You’re breaking me here.”
Jeremy wasn’t quite sure what to say. As much as he liked Miss Glasson, she really was beginning to be a pain.
“Look Miss…” he began.
Suddenly, Miss Glasson steered him into an empty classroom and stood in front of him.
Her expression coalesced into a worried mask.
“Jeremy…is everything alright?” she ventured cautiously. “I saw you out in the car park.”
Jeremy lifted his head up and away, trying not to meet her eyes. His heart began to thump again, though this time, it was out of fear.
“Miss…” he began.
“Was that this Gavin mate of yours?”
Jeremy’s eyes immediately fell upon hers. He didn’t know what to say.
Miss Glasson let her shoulders relax and met his gaze with empathy rather than anger—something that he did not expect.
“Look…Jeremy. I don’t know what you’re mixed up with but I want you to know this…” she paused, pointing her finger at his chest, over his heart. “You could be anything you want to be. No matter what it is you’re struggling with, there are people in your corner, Jeremy. People who will be there for you and help you—in the right way.”
Jeremy stayed silent and he bowed his head. Try as he might to ignore what she was saying, Jeremy couldn’t stop her words from cutting through. And in the pit of his stomach, churning among all those other emotions he was feeling right then, a new knot had begun to tighten. It was conflict.
“Baxter’s not worth it, Jeremy,” Miss Glasson said softly, knowingly. “He’s in enough shit already without anyone else adding to it.”
How could she know? Jeremy thought anxiously.
His phone beeped in his pocket then and he took advantage of the distraction to break away from her.
“I’ve gotta go, miss.”
With that, he was out the door before Miss Glasson had a chance to speak again.
The feeling of dread returned to her then as she leaned over the empty desk at the front of the classroom.
She knew in her bones that Jeremy was about to go down a path from which he wouldn’t be able to turn back and she felt powerless.
“Shit,” she hissed, pounding the desktop with her fist.
Chapter 28
Ruby sat in the hospital corridor on a seat outside Uncle Rex’s room, waiting nervously.
She attracted the attention of various passersby—nurses, doctors, patients and visitors—most of them smiling at her as they passed or offering her a sympathetic ‘hello.’ She was small and meek sitting on the chair.
She didn’t know why she was here. Virginia had received a call from the hospital which seemed quite urgent, so she’d asked Davo if he could drive both herself and Ruby to the hospital. Ruby tried to listen through the door, while she waited. There was some sort of conversation going on in there and it sounded a little heated, but she was unable to hear what they were saying.
Davo appeared from a nearby toilet and came up to sit beside Ruby.
“Everything alright, love?” he asked as cheerily as he could.
“I don’t know,” Ruby replied softly, shrugging her shoulders.
Davo could sense Ruby’s fear and he did his best to make her feel at ease.
“Don’t you want to see him?”
Ruby shook her head defiantly.
“I don’t understand why he’d want to see me,” she replied quietly. “Never took any sort of interest in me before now.”
A myriad of reasons had gone through Ruby’s mind on the drive over, but she could make sense of none of them. As fearful as she was of her uncle, a small part of her was intrigued but Ruby felt her nerve slipping and, by the time they’d arrived, she very nearly didn’t get out of the car.
Checking a clock on the wall, Davo sighed.
“Shouldn’t be much longer,” he said. “Look, I’m right here if you need me, okay? Nothing bad’ll happen while I’m around.”
Ruby smiled wanly.
The door beside Ruby clicked open softly and her grandmother appeared.
Virginia appeared tired but calm. Ruby couldn’t be sure what to make of what had transpired inside the room.
“Ruby,” Virginia said softly. “Come on inside.”
Ruby stiffened and almost shook her head.
Davo leaned toward Ruby and nudged her softly.
“Don’t forget mate, I’m right here.”
Ruby hesitated, glancing between Davo, her grandmother and the door of her uncle’s room.
“Come,” Virginia said softly, reassuringly.
Finally she stood and stepped softly inside her uncle’s hospital room and saw him in his bed by the window, looking out.
Upon hearing her, Rex turned toward Ruby as she entered and she had to stifle a gasp. He bore multiple dressings over the right side of his face. His nose had sticking plaster taped over it and his right eye was closed over, swollen and bruised.
Underneath his dressings, his expression was difficult to discern. It was a combination of awkwardness, guilt, of shame even. His eyes didn’t meet Ruby’s, though he seemed to be trying to look at her.
For her part, Ruby stood well back from the bed, staying close to her grandmother. She felt anxious and afraid.
Slowly, Rex turned to his bedside cabinet and opened the drawer. He took out his wallet and set it on his lap, unfolding it and struggling with its contents. Ruby could see that the index and middle finger of his left hand were taped together, which made small movements difficult.
Succeeding finally, Rex took out the small rectangle of a photograph from inside, held it up for a moment to look at it, then proffered it to Ruby in his outstretched hand.
Gingerly, Ruby approached the bed and took the photograph from her uncle.
She knew right away what it was.
The young woman in the photograph looked up at Ruby though eyes that were similar to Ruby’s own. Her face too was familiar, and not just because Ruby had seen this image before, in the bathroom at home. Ruby sensed that she knew this woman.
“She liked music.”
When Rex spoke, his voice was ragged. But there was something about it that struck her. There was no anger or hate in it.
“…Liked to sing—loved it actually. She was always happiest when she was singing.”
Rex looked across at her grandmother, who had removed her dark sunglasses
and was watching Ruby, her hand on her shoulder. Ruby’s eyes remained fixed upon the photograph as her uncle continued.
“That’s one of the things I miss the most about her, her singing voice.”
Ruby listened to her uncle, unsure of what to say. She had never seen him like this. So calm. So softly spoken.
Rex looked down at his hands and nodded slowly. Then he looked at Ruby directly and for the first time, she returned his gaze.
“She…would have loved you…your mother,” he said solemnly. “I know she would have been proud, seeing you now.”
He nodded, more to himself than to Ruby, seemingly becoming lost in a tableaux of memories.
Then, all at once, Rex’s shoulders slackened, his expression faded and he lay his head back on the pillow, turning his face away toward the window.
Ruby was unsure of what or how to feel. The little piece of her past she now held in her hand was undoubtedly a gift—something that she had never experienced before from him. A unprecedented kindness. But the moment was too much for Ruby to process. She gave the photograph to Virginia who placed it into her handbag.
Taking her cue, Virginia gently patted Ruby’s shoulder and she replaced her glasses over her eyes.
“C’mon Ruby,” she said softly. “We should go.”
Together they turned and slipped quietly out of the hospital room.
As they exited the hospital and slowly made their way across to Davo’s waiting car, Ruby looked up at Virginia.
“He blames himself,” she said. “Doesn’t he, Nana…for what happened.”
Virginia squeezed her granddaughter’s hand gently. She knew that Ruby was referring to her mother.
“He does,” Virginia answered. “He’s spent a lot of years punishing himself. But, in truth, he did as much as anyone could do in trying to save her.”
Ruby looked down, feeling a pressure between her temples.
“It doesn’t excuse his behaviour now though,” Virginia added, hardening her voice slightly. “Your uncle has to make some very tough decisions about his future if he wants to salvage anything out of this.”
Virginia stopped before the car and turned to face Ruby, putting her hands gently on Ruby’s shoulders.
“Earning yours and the others’ forgiveness is what he needs to do first. You children deserve no less from him. Don’t ever forget that.”
Ruby nodded slowly. She looked back at the hospital and felt a confusing onslaught of emotions.
Things made even less sense to her now than ever.
Ruby lay in the darkness of her bedroom, her eyes trained upward, watching as a light source somewhere outside her window cast strange shadows on the ceiling above her. Her drifting mind twisted those shadows into imaginary creatures that danced and frolicked to random songs she played over and over in her head until the game became tiring and she gave it up.
Turning to the clock on her bedside table, Ruby craned her neck to see the time.
It was ten pm.
Ruby sighed. Unable to get to sleep, she had tossed and turned restlessly, growing more and more angry with herself the harder she tried to quiet herself.
But Ruby’s thoughts tormented her. They kept coming back to her music and Khalili, to the guilt she felt over having abandoned him. Every time she’d tried to pick up her violin, Ruby was sucked back in time to her awful confrontation with Uncle Rex. It made her feel physically sick. And now, with his gesture toward her earlier, her uncle had only succeeded in confusing her more about her place in this family and the truth about her parentage.
Reaching across to the bedside table, Ruby picked up the photograph of her mother and held it up in the half light.
She was a stranger, a person who Ruby had never known beyond the feelings she used to associate with her. While they never mentioned her name, the stories they told of her were fanciful lies, created to protect Ruby, but she was unsure whether they had been more harmful than helpful. Ruby had known some semblance of the truth for longer than anyone actually knew. She’d just gone along with the lies—mainly to protect herself.
Placing the photograph down Ruby tried to steer her thoughts away from it.
She’d heard Aunty Belle head Khalili off at the door earlier that afternoon when he had arrived to see if she was okay. Listening from the doorway of her bedroom, Ruby wished she had run to the front door and seen him herself, but Aunty Belle had made it clear to him that he wasn’t welcome and he’d left before she took the chance.
Ruby turned over and looked across at Asher who was sound asleep in her own bed.
Asher still hadn’t said anything since that terrible night and it was clear she was getting worse. Aunty Belle had begun to give her sleeping pills to combat the nightmares that woke her in the middle of the night and had her screaming and scratching at her face with such force that it drew blood. Aunty Belle and Nana were at a loss as to what to do about Asher and there was a very real fear now that she might need to be hospitalised.
Jeremy still hadn’t come home. It was going on three full days and he was nowhere to be found. Aunty Belle had tried to reach him on his mobile phone, only to discover that he hadn’t even taken his phone with him. It was lying on the bedside table in his room.
Ruby felt as though her world were crumbling and that nothing would ever be the same again. The weight of sadness crushed down on her and she turned over and began to cry softly into her pillow.
“Ruby.”
Ruby’s sobs caught in the back of her throat at the sound of Asher’s voice and, as she rolled over, Ruby jumped.
Asher was standing at the side of her bed.
Her eyes went wide and, quickly wiping away her tears, Ruby quickly threw back the blanket to allow Asher to climb into the bed with her.
Flicking her bedside lamp on, Ruby looked into Asher’s dishevelled features and saw, for the first time in days, a semblance of life having returned to her sunken eyes.
“Asher?” Ruby gasped, not quite believing that her cousin was here beside her of her own volition.
Asher hugged Ruby close and nodded.
“What’s happening?” she asked with a curious frown, rubbing her eyes. “I feel so tired.”
“You’ve been…away,” Ruby replied awkwardly. “Sort of asleep…but not really asleep.”
“Oh,” Asher replied softly. “Why were you crying?”
Ruby shook her head and shrugged her shoulders.
“Everything is a huge mess. Uncle Rex is still in the hospital. He’s pretty banged up…and Jeremy’s gone missing. No one’s heard from him in days.”
Asher sat up straighter in the bed and Ruby slipped her pillow across a little so that she could rest back on it.
“Days,” Asher echoed with a hint of alarm. “W-what about your rehearsals? He’s supposed to be taking you to the city.”
“I’m not going any more,” Ruby replied downcast.
Asher gasped.
“Not going!? Why not?”
“I-I can’t,” Ruby stammered. “You’ve been sick. Uncle Rex hasn’t come home. Aunty Belle and Nana have been worried sick about Jeremy and everything. The last thing anyone is thinking about is my bloody violin.”
“But th-the recital,” Asher’s voice quivered worriedly. “How far away is it?”
“I’m not doing the recital any more,” Ruby said, looking away from Asher. “I can’t—not when things are so bad.”
Asher shifted her body toward Ruby and put her hand on Ruby’s shoulder.
“But you have to do the recital,” Asher protested forcefully. “You can’t let it all go to nothing. Not after all the effort you’ve put in.”
Ruby blinked, overwhelmed by her cousin’s sudden passion after having been so debilitated by her catatonia.
“B-but…what about you?”
“What about me? I’ll be okay—I am okay. You’re this family’s hope, Ruby. You’re the one who can show everybody that we’re worth something. No matter what—you have to do it!�
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Ruby sank back into the pillow.
“What if I can’t? Your mum scared Mr. Khalili away. He’s probably given up on me.”
“I don’t believe that,” Asher retorted gently. “And I don’t think you believe that either.”
The girls were interrupted at that moment when the bedroom door clicked open and Minty poked his head in through the gap.
Asher and Ruby glanced over as he crept inside and stood before them, grasping his teddy bear by the leg and biting nervously on the finger of his free hand.
“Can’t sleep,” he squeaked under his breath. “Jem isn’t here.”
Ruby’s churning stomach intensified at the mention of Jeremy’s name and her mind swirled with fresh worry for him.
Asher coaxed Minty over and he darted straight for her, clambering up onto the bed and snuggling down in between the girls.
Minty looked up at Asher and smiled wanly.
“Are you awake now?”
Asher smiled wearily and nodded at her baby brother.
“Yeah Minty, I’m awake now.”
Chapter 29
Jeremy paced back and forth in the car park of the football ground, his breath visible under the spotlights that bathed a bright light across the oval, even though he himself was cast in shadow. He was dressed entirely in black, just as Mickey had instructed. Black hoodie, black jeans and black sneakers. Jeremy felt that he stood out like a sore thumb and though there was no one who could see him from this distance, he feared being discovered eventually.
He checked his watch. Acid fountained in the back of his throat.
He had told himself over and over that he was ready. He had gone over the scenario in his mind, remembering the reconnaissance they’d conducted. They had watched Baxter. They had tracked his movements from the gym, to a twenty-four hour grocery store that he frequented every Thursday night on his way home and finally to Baxter’s home itself—a smart, suburban town house in a fashionable estate. He was nothing if not a creature of habit. Predictable and thus foolish.
Gavin, Mickey, Spider, Jabba and Jeremy discussed their plan at length. They decided upon using an armed hold-up on the grocery store itself as a cover. They would take Baxter’s keys and steal his precious BMW. Jeremy as part of his test would accompany Spider and execute the hold up. Gavin and Jabba would stand by in the Monaro and Mickey would be the one to drive the BMW. Members of Baner’s gang would be positioned in an industrial estate near the deli and ready to take possession of the car. The hit would be fast, casualty-free and remunerative.