Ruby. Marie Maxwell

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      Three

      Ruby found life back at the Blakeley family home far more difficult to deal with than she had ever expected and, as the weeks passed, it got worse rather than better. She looked after her grandmother, helped around the house and ran errands for her continually overworked and dog-tired mother. She did her duty as she saw it, the duty she had gone home to do, but nothing seemed enough. Alongside that she generally irritated her bombastic brother, Ray, as much as she could, her view being that if she annoyed him enough there wouldn’t be any objections to her leaving and going back to Cambridgeshire.

      As the days passed she became increasingly obsessed with getting back to the Wheatons, and it always took several seconds when she woke up in the morning to remember where she was and then for the overwhelming sense of injustice to rise again. But her mother refused point blank to even discuss Ruby’s return to Melton.

      ‘Mum? I’m off to the High Street,’ Ruby shouted, quickly pulling the front door closed behind her and hotfooting it away from the house. She wanted to escape before she was given an even longer list of things to do and items to try to buy. She resented always having to do the shopping, especially with rationing making it such a chore, but at least it got her out of the house and away from her mother’s ongoing domestic grumblings, and Ray’s tormenting, which was made worse by her middle brother, Bobbie, slavishly agreeing with his every word. Arthur remained her friend as best he could, but his fear of upsetting his oldest brother meant he would always run off and hide rather than get involved.

      Ray and Bobbie worked at the same motor repair garage so more often than not they left together in the morning on Ray’s beloved motorbike and arrived home together in the evening expecting their dinner to be waiting for them on the table, their clothes to be washed and ironed and their beds made.

      And everything was always done. Their mother made sure of it.

      Sarah Blakeley had easily accepted Ray’s declaration of himself as ‘Head of the Family’, and Ruby saw he was turning into a clone of his father, the man he and his brothers had always been petrified of. He carefully shaped his moustache in the same manner, tipped his flat cap at the same angle, and when he shrugged on his late father’s heavy overcoat the resemblance from a distance was perfect.

      Ruby couldn’t understand why he would want to be just like the father who had always treated him so harshly but she didn’t comment; she simply observed and wondered why her mother didn’t stand up for the women in the house.

      She was deep in thought as she walked and was almost at the bottom of the road when she heard her name being called.

      ‘Ruby! Ruby! Hang on a minute …’

      She hesitated but didn’t turn round; without looking she knew that it was Johnnie from down the street, the man who’d carried her bags and caught her eye; the man she’d only seen in passing since that day, but who she had thought about and also heard much about.

      ‘Ruby!’ he shouted again. ‘Wait a minute and I’ll walk with you, Ruby Red.’

      This time she stopped and waited with a smile for him to catch her up.

      As he drew alongside he looked at her appreciatively and she was pleased she’d come back from the Wheatons’ with a decent selection of clothes and a secret lipstick. Clothes that had fortunately turned out to be mostly far too tight for her wide-hipped and ample-bosomed mother, despite the middle-aged woman trying her best to squeeze into them one by one.

      ‘Hello. What’s this Ruby Red silliness?’ she asked.

      ‘That’s what I’ve decided to call you, Ruby Red. Red for short. You look like a Red. Anyway, you look nice. Where are you off to?’

      With a grin Ruby held up the shopping baskets. ‘Just running shopping errands for Mum and Nan, off to queue, queue, queue in the High Street. Again. My life is one long queue, hand over coupons, queue again.’

      ‘See? I was right. Didn’t take them long to get you back in harness. Big brother Ray said he was going to train you back into your place, as the family slave.’

      Ruby laughed. ‘Shut up! He never said it like that! Do you think I’m daft enough to let you annoy me? Ray told me all about you and what you’re like, so don’t bother.’

      ‘Oh, so you were interested enough to ask him about me, then? I’m flattered.’

      Ruby smiled up at him shyly as he fell in step beside her, his long legs taking just one step to two of hers.

      ‘Not really! Anyway, I don’t really mind getting the shopping for the moment. Ma has plenty to do with her job and everything. I do it for her, not the boys. And it’s just until I can get СКАЧАТЬ