by Debbie Chase
I remember mine and Rose’s first glimpse, that tiny slice of face set with glistening brown eyes peeking from Michael’s arms, and then her staring up at us at the bedroom window, followed by her startled expression when we both appeared in the sitting room doorway. “Two same ladies,” she said, pointing a chubby finger. “Two same ladies at the window.” She stole several sneaky glances from beneath her eyelashes as we kissed Nan and Grandad hello and sat down on the settee. Nan was quiet now, just a half-hearted sniff as her red-rimmed eyes eagerly followed Leah all around the room.
Leah wore cute denim dungarees over a yellow shirt with tiny brown suede boots, and her dark hair was tied up in a high ponytail with a bright yellow ribbon, gauzy tendrils touching her cheeks as if they were a frame and her face the picture. And oh, what a face! Just imagine a combination of Michael’s boyish snub-nosed innocence and Priscilla’s chiseled cheekbones and slant-eyed beauty, and that was Leah May to a tee.
She walked around looking at us one by one, confident for a two year old. Mum and Dad were sipping their tea, Nan and even Grandad sniffing and red-eyed, me and Rose watching her just as much as she watched us, sizing each other up, and then suddenly, pointing at Michael, she said, “This my Daddy. He nice.”
“Yes,” I replied and, pointing at Rose, said, “This is Rose, your, um….”
I thought for a minute or two until Rose put in, “Your half aunt. And,” nodding towards me, said, “This is Ruby, your other half aunt.”
Leah giggled, showing tiny white teeth and a sliver of a pink tongue. “Half-aunt Rose and Half-aunt Ruby. Funny.” She giggled uproariously, throwing herself against Michael’s legs, her face in her hands. “Two same ladies,” she said again and giggled some more.
“Yes,” explained Rose. “We’re twins, Leah. That’s why we’re two same ladies.”
“Twins,” Leah repeated thoughtfully over and over again. “Twins.”
Michael joined in and, squatting down beside her, pointed at Mum and Dad and said, “Your nan and grandad.”
“Nan and Grandad,” she repeated, gazing seriously at Mum and Dad, before moving on to mine and Rose’s nan and grandad, Lily and George.
Dad, who had been very quiet until now, spoke up. “Your great-nan and great-grandad,” he told her.
She considered them both for a minute or two, and then, hands on hips, her little head on one side, she looked intently at Lily and said, “Oh Great-Nan, why you cry? I make you better.” And before anyone could even take a breath, she’d climbed up onto Lily’s lap and hugged her hard, snuggling her head into her chest. Well, if there was ever a volcanic explosion of tears, this was it, even putting my recent bouts of crying in the shade. I didn’t think there was anybody in the world, and especially Great-Nan Lily, who could resist such a sweet child as Leah.
We all talked then, around and around, Nan and Grandad explaining to Michael why they had encouraged his mum, May, to give him up for adoption when he was born.
“We didn’t know what else to do, did we, George?” Nan said, looking tearfully at Grandad as she cuddled Leah harder and stroked her hair. “May was too young to marry her boyfriend, Nick. We thought you’d have a better chance in life with an established married couple who had a home of their own, who both had good jobs. That’s why we thought the people in Swansea would be ideal for you.”
“Thinking about it now,” Grandad said gruffly as he sat leaning forward, his forearms on his thighs. “It was the wrong choice to make. Maybe we should have kept you and helped May to bring you up, but it didn’t seem like a good thing to do at the time.”
“Hindsight is a great thing,” said Dad, slowly shaking his head, and then, turning to smile at Mum, who sat beside him, gently patted her hand.
“Exactly,” replied Michael. “You did the right thing. I had a great childhood. My adopted mum and dad were good people. I just knew that one day I wanted to find my real mum.” He looked gratefully at Mum, who smiled at him. “And I have, which I’m really happy about. And I’ve found a fantastic step-dad too, and two beautiful half-sisters.”
Dad inclined his head graciously towards him while Rose and I simply crossed our eyes and poked out our tongues. He fixed Lily and George with a stare and nodded his head. “I wouldn’t have you two either if things had gone differently, so—anything that happened in the past is in the past, well and truly.”
Lily sat forward, leaning towards Michael when a grouchy little voice piped up. “Don’t squish me, Great-Nan.” Leah’s face appeared from Lily’s chest, flushed and red, her hair dishevelled.
“Oh, sorry, darling,” said Lily, mortified as we all laughed.
Michael said, “Everything happens for a reason. I have regrets about what happened between me and Priscilla, but there’d be no Leah if I hadn’t met her.”
“And that,” said Great-Nan Lily, bending at the waist carefully and kissing the top of Leah’s head, “Would be a tragedy!”
A bossy little voice shouting up the stairs brought me out of my reverie. “Half-aunt Ruby, it tea-time. Nan says hurry up—or get cold.”
Taking one final glance in the mirror, I ran downstairs immediately, a smile on my face. I didn’t want to upset the guvnor! And by that, I didn’t mean Mum!
~*~
Blake’s music seemed to play all the time. Everywhere I went, I heard the hard-rocking rhythm of the drums, the beat of the guitar, and the wail of his voice. It was on the jukebox in the Coal Exchange, in the Blue Bell, and pumping out from the radio and the television. Their debut single “Baby, You’re a Doll,” peaked in the charts, so I was informed by a group of students at school who, being ardent Pilgrims fans, were very impressed and even awed when I told them I had met the lead singer before he hit the big time. “Wow, Miss, really?” and “Is he really that good looking, Miss?”
I was shocked to realize I had no idea about the charts anymore. At the tender age of twenty-two, they weren’t something I was interested in following. As Blake and I had agreed, the old music was the best. Anyway, whatever, their second single, “You Do It for Me,” was released hot on the heels of the first one, also racing up to the top of the charts in record time. And exactly what the “It” meant in the title of the song, I had no idea.
Secretly I watched their videos on my phone. Curled on my bed, my eyes fixed on the screen, I watched Blake’s every move, the rest of the band invisible, blotted out somehow by the charisma of the lead singer. But wasn’t that how it should be? All the great lead singers seemed to have the talent for holding an audience in the palm of their hand. I watched him, lithe and sexy as a panther, sinuously cavorting with scantily clad dancers as vocal cords bulging like thick wires, he screamed into the microphone.
I was amazed in a way at the change in him, this heavy metal rocker, who in the not so distant past had serenaded me with a soft voice and a gentle strumming guitar as sweet and innocent as every school girl’s dream. Maybe the fans of the old acoustic Blake would boycott him just as they had Dylan and Bolan, raising their arms in horror or sulking in a corner, saying, “He’s gone electric!” in indignant voices.
I still hadn’t seen or heard from James and doubted very much now that I would. His mum, Jacky, had told me he was working away and would be for the next two weeks or so, but also that he’d been offered a long-term contract at the Southampton branch of Sonic, so he’d been thinking of relocating there. So there was my answer as to why I hadn’t seen him out and about around Emsworth for such a long time.
“It’s a managerial position,” she told me proudly. “And at his young age, it’s an honor to be offered it, really. He’s doing so well for himself.”
After my sobbing outburst, she had made me strong hot coffee and put assorted biscuits on a plate, and we had settled down to talk. Lara too, who, unlike Jacky, knew all about my relationship with James—that I’d gone away to St. Malo in search of my “rock star boyfrien
d” and that James had been heartbroken.
“Heartbroken?” I asked them happily. “Are you sure he was heartbroken?” I told them tiny snippets of what had happened and that I’d been badly let down. I also told them I missed James and wanted him back but that I was afraid to contact him in case he’d found the courage to move on with somebody else.
“I don’t think he’s met anybody else,” Lara told me. “He likes you too much, Ruby.”
“He’s too busy working anyway,” said Jacky. “He’s very focused on saving. He wants to buy his own place, and while he likes going out with his friends and enjoying himself, he’s always wanted to get married and have kids.” She shrugged as if to say, “What am I supposed to do with him?” Maybe not realizing how lucky she was to have a son like that.
She chatted on. “He’s always been a sensible boy, and even more so since his dad died. I suppose he felt when his dad had gone that he had to look after me and Lara.” She gazed into the middle distance. “It was a lot of responsibility for a boy of only twelve years old.”
I agreed with her and said that I remembered when it had happened and James going out of school on that awful day.
They both encouraged me, just as Rose had, to text him or ring or go out in active pursuit and track him down. I imagined myself running around the slippery cobbles of Emsworth, brandishing a massive net and capturing him as if he were a slippery fish or a fluttering butterfly. But, no, that definitely wasn’t me. And so the time went by and still no word.
I spent a lot of time when I wasn’t at the school going on my usual long walks, but I also had a brand new job of looking after Leah for an hour or two when Michael was working at the pub. Now that the weather was warmer, I was able to take her to the beach, where she paddled her tiny toes and foraged for shells, clutching a bucket and spade in her pudgy hands. I taught her how to make proper big sandcastles decorated with bubbly seaweed and surrounded by a moat. I showed her how to search for scuttling crabs in the clear rock pools and how to skim flat stones from the water’s edge.
We dug for cockles and took them home to eat, even though she wrinkled her tiny nose at the fishy smell as they bubbled in the pan. Sometimes Mum came with us, or Dad, and occasionally Rose, but usually it was just the two of us, me and Leah. Partners in crime. And the strange thing was that Leah, without even knowing it, was helping me, soothing me, easing my heartache over Blake, and now James too. For all of us, it seemed that she’d come into our lives at exactly the right time.
~*~
My phone rang, buzzing away in my rucksack. I was tempted to leave it. I was very nearly home from work, just stepping onto the High Street, but decided I’d better not. It could be an emergency. So, fumbling in my bag, I put my phone to my ear and said, “Hello?”
“Hello, Ruby?
“Yes, this is Ruby.”
“Ruby, Amelia here. I have Mr. Blake. Will you speak?”
Puzzled, I smiled and shook my head, thinking immediately it was Rose carrying out what you might call “a very bad taste prank!” It was April now, and the weather hotting up a little, the sun beating down in a bright yellow glare making me squint. Sweat ran in little rivers down my face and my neck.
“Hello, Ruby, Mr. Blake wants to speak, will you?”
“Who is this?”
“It is Amelia from La Petite Amelia. You know me, remember, Ruby?”
I heard a voice faintly in the background. “Tell her I only want a few minutes.”
My heart pounding so hard it reverberated in my ears. I said, “Blake?”
There was a kerfuffle as if the phone had been taken away from someone, and then a voice, deep and clear over the line. “Hey Ruby, it’s Blake.” And then, with a laugh, “Do you remember me?”
“Of course I do,” I replied, and then, “Is it really you?” I’d carried on walking and had reached the harbor and was sitting on a bench, looking at the view, my hair blowing around my face in a welcome salt-laden breeze. The tide was out, and the sand stretched ahead for miles, as rucked up and wrinkled as an old beige sheet. Seagulls and swans padded flat footed.
“Yeah, look. I didn’t know whether you’d ever speak to me again, Ruby, but I got your number from the B&B you stayed at cause I felt bad after I saw you. I needed to explain a few things. I couldn’t believe it when you turned up in St. Malo.”
His voice suddenly went very faint, and I thought he’d gone. “Blake?”
“It’s okay. I’m still here. Damn phone. Yeah, I need to explain the business with Viv.”
“You don’t need to explain, Blake. I…well, there were things I didn’t say to you, like how proud I am of your success. I should have congratulated you, but—”
He gave a tiny hiss of laughter. “Yeah, it’s a dream come true. But I do have to explain. You’re a great girl, Ruby, and…well, what we had was special. But the thing is, Viv and I got married because she was pregnant. Only been married a couple of months, and she lost the baby.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, I was sorry too. We only got married because she was pregnant, and we were pressured by parents and stuff. And when I met you…yeah, okay, I knew I shouldn’t—and I never have before. But I pursued you because I liked you. Do you understand what I mean?”
“Yes, I understand.”
“Man, I should have explained all this before. And the thing Viv said about groupies? That was bad. You know it wasn’t like that….” His voice wavered again and disappeared.
I stayed quiet, holding my breath, not knowing what to say, hoping he would come back.
And then his voice again, soft in my ear. “Ruby? The thing is, I’m ringing because I don’t want you to have bad thoughts of me. Yeah, I look like a seedy old rock star now, but really, I’m still here, the Blake who serenaded you with ‘Ruby Tuesday.’ I’ve never really gone away.” With a smile in his voice, he started singing. “Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday, who could hang a name on you when you change with every new day, still gonna miss you….”
Tears threatened, hot and salty, right at the back of my eyes, and yet my heart rose because I knew this was a big thing for Blake, a big thing for him to ring me like this and explain. I knew for sure now that he cared and that if he’d been single, who knows what might have happened between us. But he had a responsibility to Viv and couldn’t go back on that. And the strange thing was, I felt free now. Free as a bird, as free as one of those pesky seagulls, and free to do what I knew I should have done weeks ago.
Chapter Eighteen
I’d been sitting on my bed for ages staring at my phone, plucking up the courage to send a text message. One little text message, and I was umming and aahing like an idiot and feeling as if it was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do. As if I was writing a book or something important like that, a bestseller that would rise rapidly up the charts, just as all of Blake’s records seemed to be doing at the moment.
To make it even worse, I had several versions of the message planned out in my head.
Hi James, it’s Ruby…just wondered if you wanted to meet for a drink sometime?
No!
Hi James, hope u okay. Do you fancy meeting for a chat?
No!
James, I miss you and want to see you now!
No, definitely no!
Rose had urged me again—and Mum at very regular intervals—just that morning, when we’d had coffee together in a little café bar by the harbor, to text him, and now, after arriving home and thinking hard about it, I was still dithering.
The Pilgrims’ first album, “Conquering the Long Hard Road”—which I thought was a pretty cool title—had just been released, and I had to say, from what I’d heard of it, it was pretty good. Not all the tracks were loud heavy metal, but some even disco oriented, and even a bit of country and pop. Blake’s voice, when not in scream mode, was fab. Very reminiscent of his ear
lier guitar strumming acoustic days.
I’d taken to following the band on Facebook and Twitter, liking their pages and posting comments about how great their music was and congratulating them on their rise to stardom. I want Blake to know how much his phone call had meant to me and, as well as that, how it had allowed me to move on with my life. Well, that was if I could just do this one thing and be brave enough to send a text message to James.
I’d be far happier if I received a message from James but, what’s that saying? “If the mountain won’t go to Mohammed, then Mohammed will go to the mountain?” A bit of a weird quote, but I got the general gist, so yeah, I supposed that’s what I was doing—or trying to do.
To everyone’s surprise—except mine, I suppose, seeing as Rose had already given me the heads up—Rose and Steve were getting engaged, and a date had been set, and a party booked at the Coal Exchange to celebrate the occasion. Mum and Dad were thrilled, and as Leah had been invited too, she wanted to make sure she had the newest and best outfit and had been nagging at Daddy Michael to buy her one. I suppose the next couple to do the same would be Vanessa and Craig, but they’d not said anything yet, so that remained to be seen.
I’d never seen a man so changed as Michael since Leah came into his life. He even had an interview lined up at The Emsworth Echo, thanks to another of Dad’s contacts. As much as he was enjoying his job at the pub, his enthusiasm for life, in general, had come back with a vengeance, and we could all tell that he was itching to get back to his old career as a reporter for a “local rag,” as he called it.