Nameless (41 page)

Cornelius was at the London house. He sat down on the couch, feeling genuinely sick with rage and anxiety at this news. He thought about Daisy mixing with that black bastard Kit Miller, and now – far worse – Ruby had clearly started to cultivate a relationship with the girl she’d given birth to. That wasn’t part of the deal at all, and the sooner Ruby was taught the error of her ways, the better it would be.

‘Daisy hasn’t . . . said anything to you about Ruby?’ he asked.

‘No. Nothing. It was a complete shock when she turned up here with her.’

So it didn’t look as if Ruby had told Daisy the truth about her parentage. There was that to be grateful for, at least. But if he allowed the two of them to get closer, to form any sort of bond, then how long could it be before the truth came out?

It just wasn’t on. Ruby was going to have to be made to see that, and keep away.

‘I’ll sort this out,’ he told Vanessa. ‘Don’t worry.’

As soon as Vanessa rang off, he phoned the private detective he’d had look into Kit’s background, and told him to find out what had been going on with Ruby and Daisy, how they had come to be connected. When all that was done, he phoned Tito.

104

‘I hate these places,’ said Kit.

‘It ain’t too bad,’ said Rob.

‘No? I grew up in a shit-hole just like this.’

They were in reception at yet another children’s home. A couple of the ones they’d tried close to where that nutter with the acid bath lived had long since been closed down and converted to housing. But this one was still functioning, and just being inside it, smelling those old familiar odours of overcooked dinners and sweaty plimsolls, made Kit start to gag.

‘You serious? You really stayed in a place like this?’ asked Rob. Kit never spoke about his background.

Kit was nodding, looking around him. ‘The place I was in only took you ’til you were eight. Then you were shipped out to another one that took you until you were twelve.’

‘What, and then another one?’

‘That’s right. Then at sixteen, you’re on your own. Out in the big wide world.’

‘That’s rough,’ said Rob, thinking of his own close-knit family.

‘Life’s rough,’ said Kit. ‘So what?’

Kit remembered all those Christmases, Mother’s Days, Father’s Days . . . The feeling of abandonment, of something always missing. A family. A home. A
life.

But he had a job to do here, so he shut down his own discomfort and concentrated on the job in hand.

As it turned out, he needn’t have bothered.

It was another dead end.

105

Ruby refused to speak to Michael when he called her on the phone at her home. He sent flowers to her office, and she binned them. Finally, he showed up in person.

‘It’s Mr Ward,’ said Jane. ‘You ready to see him yet, or you gonna let him sweat just a little more?’

This was stupid. Ruby nodded. ‘All right. Show him in then.’

‘Must have been
some
fight,’ said Jane, going back outside and keeping her hand on the door while saying: ‘You can go in now.’

‘Thanks.’

Michael Ward walked past her into Ruby’s office. Immaculate as ever, iron-grey hair smooth and tidy, grey eyes serious in his tanned face.

Jane pulled the door closed while making a
Whew! Hot!
shaking motion of her hand. Ruby ignored her. She looked straight-faced at Michael as he sat down.

There was silence in the room.

‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what
for,
exactly, but here I am, apologizing. OK?’

‘Oh, and you think that makes it all right, do you?’ fumed Ruby. He’d hurt her. She’d been reeling from rediscovering Daisy, and had been looking for his support. Instead, he’d blundered in and upset her with stupid accusations.

Michael exhaled sharply. ‘Look, Ruby. You shocked me, OK? But then, that’s you all over, isn’t it?’

‘What?’Was he going to lay into her again, was that what he’d come here for?

‘You. You say nothing,
tell
me nothing, then you come out with these shocking things and expect me to react like you’re telling me nothing of any importance. You don’t ever tell me a thing, Ruby. Not a fucking
thing
.’

Ruby stared at him. Yes, he was attacking her again, and right now that was almost more than she could stand.

‘Even when we’re in bed, you say nothing,’ he was ranting on. ‘I’d like to know what you like, what you
don’t
like. What pleases you.’

‘
You
please me.’

‘Well you never tell me. What am I, a fucking mind reader?’

‘Michael . . .’

‘No, let me finish. You hold everything inside yourself and then, whoosh! Suddenly it bursts out of you like water from a dam. And it’s shocking. It takes a bit of getting used to. So I’m sorry if I reacted in a way that you didn’t like, but you knocked me sideways. I just wish you’d
talk
to me more, Ruby. Tell me things. Tell me what you like. Tell me what you don’t like . . . Why don’t you do that?’

‘I don’t like your flat,’ said Ruby suddenly.

‘What?’

‘I
hate
your flat. It’s got all your wife’s stuff still in it, and I understand you’re still in love with her, why shouldn’t you be?’

‘What . . . ?’

‘And that space on the wall opposite the bed, there was a painting or a picture hanging there – a picture of
her
, I suppose – and you took it down to spare my feelings, but the mark’s still there, I look at it every time we’re in bed together and it kills me.’

Michael shook his head and ran a hand through his hair.

‘It wasn’t a picture of my wife,’ he said. ‘It was a copy of a painting, Renoir or something. I always hated it, but she liked it. When she was gone, I thought: Why not sell the thing? So I did.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yeah, “oh”.’ He was smiling slightly. ‘And I don’t keep the flat as some sort of shrine to Sheila, of course I don’t. Yeah, that’s her name: Sheila. I named the restaurant after her. I loved her very much and I’ll never forget her, but now I’m in love with you. I just don’t give a shit about furnishings, wallpaper, any of that stuff. The flat’s as it is because I never did that and she did. If
you
want to do it, redecorate, do whatever you damned well want with it, then go ahead. I don’t mind. You see what I mean, you crazy mare? This illustrates exactly what I’ve just been saying. You say nothing, then bang! Out it comes in a rush. Has this been bothering you for long?’

‘Ever since I first came to the flat,’ she admitted.

‘You’re so clever and such a fool.’

‘I know.’

‘So, am I forgiven?’

He loved her. There! He’d said it. ‘There’s something else. My brother died. You must have heard.’

‘Charlie?’ He was watching her face. ‘Yeah, I did. You and Joe must be pretty cut up.’ His mouth twisted. ‘But then, the same thing again. I’ve been waiting for you to tell me, and this is the first I’ve heard of it from you.’

I’m not cut up
, thought Ruby. But it was too long and too painful a story to discuss. She really didn’t want to talk about it. Joe had called her, told her about the accident. Charlie had wandered drunk out into a road and been knocked down. The driver hadn’t stopped.

She knew she ought to feel sorry. This was her
brother.
But really all she felt was relief. Relief that, at last, Charlie was really, properly gone.

106

‘We’ll have the wake at our place,’ said Joe. ‘Give the poor bastard a proper send off.’

Betsy agreed willingly, much to his surprise. He knew how she’d hated having Charlie around. But then – a chance to show off her house, her possessions, to all their mates? She couldn’t pass that up. If she’d objected, it could have turned nasty. Big as he was, and tough as he was when it came to managing his manor, he had been pussy-whipped by Betsy for his whole married life and he knew it. What Betsy wanted, Betsy usually got. But – for once – here she was, being all agreeable.

Charlie’s death had upset him, the sheer stupid futility of it. He found the funeral hard to get through. All the breakers and the part-time boys and their wives were there at the church to pay their respects, then everyone went back to his place in Chigwell. Before very long Betsy, forgetting the solemnity of the occasion, was preening herself in a three-hundred-pound black skirt suit and showing off her latest fixtures and fittings to all the other girls.

Ruby was there too, wearing a sober black jersey shift dress, a simple string of pearls and black court shoes. She hadn’t wanted to come, but she knew that her absence would look strange so she had been forced to attend.

‘You’ve got to go,’ Vi told her when she confessed to her closest friend how much she was dreading it.

‘Why? They’re bound to be talking about Charlie, saying what a great bloke he was. He was horrible. A bloody monster. I can’t face it.’

‘Yes, you can. You’re his sister. If you didn’t show up, how would that look? Just tough it out. That’s all you can do.’

She knew Vi was right. But still, it was torture and she couldn’t wait for it to be over.

‘I’m glad you came,’ said Joe in a quiet moment. ‘I’ve got Charlie’s belongings, I’m wondering what the hell to do with them.’

‘What belongings?’ asked Ruby. She didn’t want to even
think
about Charlie’s things, far less see them. ‘There can’t be much, can there? He wasn’t long out of prison. Just stuff his things up in the loft and forget about them.’

‘Bets don’t like old rubbish about the place. You know her, this house is a bloody show home.’

Ruby looked at him. So fearsome, Joe Darke was. And yet henpecked by a five-foot-nothing woman. Joe’s big pudgy face was troubled. For the first time, Ruby noticed the black stubble on his jaw was flecked with grey, and his hair had turned white at the temples. There were hollows like tramlines on either side of his mouth, a perpetual frown etched on his brow.

He’s getting older,
Ruby thought.
Hell, we all are.

‘I could do with a hand sorting through it, Rubes. We’re all the family he had, you and me. I don’t want to do it on my own.’

Bugger it. She didn’t want to do it, but look at him: Joe was really upset by all this.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll give you a hand.’

Joe was right: there wasn’t much left of Charlie’s. His meagre belongings were in a bag in one of the guest bedrooms; they spread everything out on the bed and stood there, staring down at the bits and pieces – all that was left of a life lived on the wrong side of the tracks.

There was a little double photo folder; a hunter pocket-watch with a low-grade chain and sovereign attached; a black comb, ingrained with greasy dirt; some socks, underpants, trousers and shirts that had seen better days; a bank book with bugger-all in it; and a woman’s cheap hair slide.

‘What a load of tat,’ said Ruby, picking up the slide and turning it over in her hands. ‘Except for the watch and chain, I suppose.’

‘That was Dad’s. I’ll keep that. And what about that thing. It’s a woman’s hair slide, isn’t it? Don’t know whose it is. There’s not much else.’

Ruby put it down with an inner shudder. She didn’t know why Charlie had kept such an odd thing.

‘I know it’s all useless, but I can’t just sling it, can I? Think you’re right. I’ll just put it all up in the loft, out of Betsy’s way.’

‘Put
what
out of Betsy’s way? What you two doing in here?’ said Betsy, appearing in the doorway.

‘Just sorting through Charlie’s stuff,’ Joe said quickly.

‘What for? Hurry it up, we’ve guests downstairs – I can’t manage this lot on my own.’

‘Sorry, babe. We’ll be right down.’

‘What’s that . . . ?’ asked Betsy, coming into the room and peering down at the slide. Her lips tightened as she looked at it.

‘Bugger me.’ Betsy picked it up and turned it over in her hands, her face sneering. ‘I bet that’s
hers
.’

‘Who?’ asked Ruby, curious.

‘That ugly cow he kept sneaking off to during the war. She got blown to kingdom come one night, German bomb. And good bloody riddance, I say.’ Betsy flung the slide back onto the bed. Her cheeks were pink with irritation. ‘Rachel Tranter, that was her name. Married to that spiv. You remember, Joe?’

‘Yeah,’ said Joe. ‘I remember Tranter and his mob.’

‘He was always sneaking off to see her,’ said Betsy, her mouth twisted. ‘Sodding
cow
.’

Joe’s face was expressionless, but Ruby thought this must have hurt: Betsy’s obvious annoyance that Charlie had pursued someone else, not her.

‘All water under the bridge now,’ said Ruby.

‘Yeah.’ Joe heaved a sharp sigh.

‘Hurry it up, will you, Joe?’ Betsy snapped, and left the room.

They listened to the tap-tap of her heels as she hurried back downstairs to her guests.

‘What’s that?’ asked Ruby, picking up the brown cardboard folder. ‘Photos?’

She flipped the thing open; Joe was busy stuffing everything else back into the bag.

Ruby caught her breath. In one side of the folder was an image of a man who looked very like Charlie – obviously their father, Ted. And in the other side, there was a photo of another face she knew. She was looking at
Daisy.

Joe glanced at her. ‘What is it . . . ?’ he asked, peering over her shoulder. ‘Oh. That’s mum. Never took Charlie for a sentimental sort, did you? He must have had that for years.’

Ruby stared at the photo. Of course, Joe was right. The clothing, the colour of the print, the carefully staged nature of it, the dated background – this wasn’t,
couldn’t
be Daisy. She’d never before seen a photo of her mother. There had never been any on display in her father’s house.

‘Dad must have kept that, passed it on to Charlie,’ said Joe while Ruby just stared at it.

‘But they never had any time for her,’ she said at last.

‘Didn’t mean they didn’t love her though, did it?’