Ruby (17 page)

‘They’ll be in trouble when they get home. I remember when me and me sisters used to do that. Ma’d go bananas when we got home with mud caked up our legs and in our hair.’

‘It looks fun. I used to get all muddy but not from the beach. I lived in the country … Do you get on with your family? Apart from having the baby, that is.’

‘Yeah, on the whole I suppose. And me mum’ll come round sooner or later. She always does when one of us does wrong! We all fight like cat and dog but then we make up.’ Gracie laughed. ‘Want a fag?’

‘I don’t smoke.’

‘Oh, come on, give it go. It’s hard at first but once you get used to it it’s great. Let’s sit on the beach and I’ll show you how to do it.’

They walked for a little way and then ducked down between two empty beach huts, away from the breeze that was blowing in from the Thames Estuary. In unison they tucked their skirts under their knees and perched on the cold pebbles. Then Gracie pulled two cigarettes out a packet of five, lit them both behind cupped hands from a single match and passed one to Ruby.

‘Now suck the smoke all the way into your lungs. It’ll make you cough but you’ll soon feel so relaxed and it looks so sophisticated when you do it right. As soon as you’ve learned we’ll go to the Kursaal and show ’em. Have you been on the roller coaster yet? It is so noisy and scary.’

‘No, I haven’t been anywhere except to the shops in the High Street. Not since I was in hospital. Not even before I was in hospital and I was sent into exile—’ Ruby stopped mid-sentence.

‘So you’re not a bloody war widow. I knew it.’ Gracie clapped her hands. ‘So go on, tell all. What happened to you? You tell me your story and I’ll tell you mine.’

But before she could answer Ruby suddenly started coughing and spluttering as the smoke from her first cigarette hit her lungs.

‘It gets better …’ Gracie dissolved into laughter, with Ruby coughing and laughing at the same time. ‘Now tell.’

‘No, I’ve got a better idea. Let’s carry on walking. My lungs are on fire …’

‘I’m not moving until you tell me.’

Ruby hesitated. The promise between Ruby and the Wheatons had been not to say a word to anyone, ever, but Gracie was different: she’d been through the same.

‘OK, I’ve not been widowed, or even married. I’m sixteen, not twenty, and Aunt Leonora isn’t my aunt. I got caught out and she helped me. Now, let’s go …’

Ruby jumped up and ran off, Gracie in hot pursuit, but they hadn’t run far before a voice rang out.

‘Gracie, Gracie, stop!’

The girls looked round in unison and saw two young men heading towards them.

‘Oh God, it’s Sean. He’s a porter at the Palace and keeps asking me out. What can we do? I don’t want to be lumbered with him now, I want to talk to you, you secretive cow!’ Gracie said out of the corner of her mouth as she waved half-heartedly.

‘Nothing you can do. He’s closing in on you,’ Ruby murmured. ‘Who’s that with him?’

‘Dunno, but not bad, eh? Think that one’s mine,’ Gracie murmured.

‘You can have both of them. I’m not interested in any men. Never again …’

With no other option they stopped and waited for the two young men to catch them up.

‘Hello there, Gracie. Fancy seeing you here! And who’s your friend? This is my cousin Patrick, who’s visiting from London for the day. I’m showing him the delights of the Golden Mile.’

‘Hello, Sean. Hello, Patrick. This is Ruby, she’s a friend of mine who lives up in Thorpe Bay.’

‘Oh, very nice is Thorpe Bay. That’s where the money is,’ Sean said, and his tone made Ruby instantly cautious.

‘No money, me. I’m also staying with a relative,’ she said with a polite smile.

‘So where are you living when you’re not on your holidays by the sea?’ the other young man, Patrick, asked her, but Ruby chose not to respond. The last thing she wanted was personal questions from a stranger.

‘Don’t tell me then!’ he grinned.

After everyone had shaken hands with everyone else, they all stood facing each other in an awkward silence, unsure of what to do next. Eventually Sean took the lead.

‘Would you girls like to go for a drink or something? We could go to the pub? Or the cafe?’

Gracie looked at Ruby and then back at Sean and Patrick. ‘Not the pub, but the café at the end of the pier would be fun. We want chips and then I have to be back at work.’

The group of four walked along to the pier and caught the train that trundled back and forth. At the pier head they bought cups of tea and bags of chips, and went to sit on one of the benches that faced the sea.

‘Look, I can see the Thamesview from here. I wish we had binoculars,’ Ruby said as she looked across the estuary.

‘What’s the Thamesview?’ Patrick asked.

‘It’s a landmark,’ Gracie said quickly. ‘The border between Southend and Thorpe Bay.’

Ruby smiled at her gratefully. The streetwise Gracie was always much quicker than she when it came to covering up. ‘Shall we walk back? Did you know this is the longest pier in the world? It’s over a mile.’

‘And you want to walk it?’

‘Yes. It’ll do us all good. Lots of sea air in our lungs to clear out the fag smoke!’

The four of them strolled all the way back to the seafront and then went their separate ways, Gracie to the Palace and Sean and Patrick to the High Street.

When Ruby was on the bus on her way back to the hotel, she realised she had enjoyed herself. Really enjoyed herself for the first time in so long. Sean had made no secret that he was interested only in Gracie, so Ruby and Patrick had been thrown together and had chatted about everything that wasn’t in the least bit personal. Gracie had kept glancing at Patrick all the while but Ruby didn’t mind. She wasn’t interested in having a serious boyfriend, but she enjoyed being part of a group again, being silly and acting like the carefree young girl she used to be in the good days in Melton. The days before she’d had to leave her school and all her expectations and go back to Walthamstow.

Patrick had made noises about the four of them going out dancing one night, and the more Ruby thought about it the better that sounded.

‘I’ve made up my mind, Aunt Leonora. I’m not going back to Melton.’

‘Why ever not?’ Leonora Wheaton asked sharply. ‘Babs and George are looking forward to you going back, and you getting to know Maggie. Have you decided to go home to London instead?’

‘No. I’m going to stay here, in Southend. I’ve got used to the place and I’ve got friends again. Anyway, I don’t think it’s fair on any of us for me to be around Maggie all the time. But don’t worry,’ she laughed, ‘I don’t mean I’m going to stay here.’

Leonora looked hard at Ruby. ‘But how can you stay in Southend if you haven’t got anywhere to live?’

‘I’ve been offered a job at the Palace with Gracie, and I can live in there. It’s a shared room but I don’t mind.’

‘That doesn’t sound a good idea, Ruby. You’re still far too young to be living like that when you don’t have to. Gracie has no choice, poor thing, but you do. And your baby? You don’t really mean that, do you?’

‘Yes, I do. She’s not my baby any more so why would I want to see her every single day? It’s not fair to expect me to pretend that I’m her sister. What if I make a mistake and say something wrong? I can’t do it.’

As Ruby welled up she was surprised to see the woman’s normally stern expression change slightly. Leonora Wheaton was usually brusque and unemotional in her dealings with everyone, be it the chambermaid, the milkman or the visiting vicar of the parish. No matter what the situation, her demeanour remained the same.

She was a large, upright woman with salt-and-pepper coloured hair, which she always wore pulled back from her face, pinned tightly behind her ears and rolled around the bottom. Her outfit of choice without fail was a tailored costume over a long-sleeved, high-necked blouse and a very fearsomely structured corset. Her concession to summer was to remove the jacket. Her complexion was naturally pale and she always wore lipstick, a touch of powder along with a spray of floral perfume, and a large diamanté brooch in the shape of a lizard.

But despite always being so rigid and formal, she noticeably softened when Ruby mentioned the baby.

‘It’s just so sad, dear, but at least you know where she is and how she’s getting on. You’ll always know that, and George and Babs will be perfect parents to her, the same as they are to you. You just have to think of that poor Gracie, who wasn’t lucky enough to have the support you had. She knows nothing about her baby and she never will.’

‘I do know that,’ Ruby said sharply. ‘But now they’ve got the baby they always wanted I’ll just be in the way.’

‘No you won’t. That is just being childish and silly, Ruby, and I know you’re not silly. It’s true they always wanted a child but were never blessed, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have enough love for you both. Some parents have five, six, seven children – can they only love one of them?’ She looked at Ruby and raised her eyebrows. ‘But it’s not my place to say any more about it. You must talk to George and Babs and discuss this with them.’

With that Leonora stood up and carefully straightened her skirt before looking in the large mirror that hung over the open fireplace, patting her permed hair without actually moving it, and reapplying the bright red lipstick, which seemed out of character with her otherwise staid appearance. Ruby knew that was meant to be the end of the conversation but she wasn’t going to let it go as easily as that.

‘Well, I know I want to stay in Southend and I’m going to. It feels like home now.’ She smiled. ‘But I’m really grateful for everything you’ve done for me. You’ve been so good. I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t helped me. You didn’t have to, but you did.’

To Ruby’s surprise a deep flush made its way from Leonora’s neck all the way up to her forehead.

‘That is such a nice thing for you to say, Ruby Blakeley. And believe it or not, it’s been a pleasure to have you here. You’ve grown on me, young lady!’

Ruby was pleased. She felt settled and was glad Leonora liked having her there. Since meeting Gracie, Ruby was enjoying her new life in the lively seaside town. The two girls had become close friends and were going out together at every opportunity. They went to dances and the cinema, they even went to the theatre, but there was nothing they enjoyed more than spending an afternoon at the Kursaal on the seafront, sometimes just the two of them and sometimes with young men. But although Gracie sometimes took it further Ruby never did. She wouldn’t even let a young man kiss her, let alone go any further. She had promised herself she would never get into that awful situation again. Yes, she thought to herself. Southend was home.

Pressing her lips together to set her lipstick, Leonora turned around to face her. ‘Has your money from George run out yet? Is that why you need a job?’ she asked.

‘No. I haven’t spent much of it. I’m saving up, and if I take the job I can carry on saving. I’ve helped out here, I’ve seen what Gracie does in the Palace, and I can easily do what she does.’ She looked at Leonora earnestly, seeking approval. ‘I want to learn all about the hotel trade. I want my own hotel.’

‘Not so long ago all you wanted was to be a nurse.’

‘Yes, but only because that was all I knew. I had the idea that I’d become a nurse and then go back and work with Uncle George, but that was just a stupid kid’s dream. Now I know different. I want a hotel just like this one day.’

‘High expectations, young lady. I was lucky to have an inheritance. I could never have afforded this without it and after all those years looking after my mother I had the domestic experience as well, which was lucky in its own way. And I was already getting on in years.’ Leonora laughed drily. ‘No, dear, I approve your ambition but you should go off and do your nursing training. That would be a good basis for many things, especially for marriage and children. You may meet a nice doctor – lots of nurses do. That’s why they’re nurses.’

‘I’m not going to get married. I don’t need a man to look after me. I want to be able to look after myself. I want a job, a career. Like you.’

‘But that’s not how it is nowadays, not now the war’s over and the men are able to work again. There aren’t so many jobs for the women.’ Once again she glanced in the mirror. ‘Now we have to go down and see to the guests. We’ll talk again tonight.’

Ruby looked at her and realised that the conversation really was over.

Leonora walked ahead down the narrow staircase from the flat to the main hotel accommodation and then down again to the ground floor; as Ruby went into the kitchen so Leonora went into her small office by the reception and sat down at her desk. At the age of fifty-five, unmarried and, until the death of her mother, never having had a life outside the family home, she had an understandably narrow view of modern life. She tried to keep up with the world she had never previously had much access to, but it was hard. She’d had little opportunity to make a social life, and she had no experience of the younger generations. She was more comfortable dealing with the genteel ladies who stayed in her hotel rather than opening it up to holidaying couples and families.

She had only agreed to having the pregnant Ruby to stay with her because she adored her brother George, and would do anything for him. Despite her reservations, she had, however, grown fond of the young girl and had got used to having her around to help out. She enjoyed her youthful company and conversation and it was as if she were reliving her own lost youth.

She had fretted over Ruby’s pregnancy, the birth and then the adoption and she had been delighted that baby Maggie was with George and Babs and not with strangers. She had been sucked in to their lives, and now the time was drawing near she found herself dreading the girl’s departure.

The hotel’s small office window looked out across the sea, and on a clear day it was possible to see right across the estuary to Kent. She would often sit and stare and imagine what her life could have been like if she had had some freedom in her youth, especially when she saw the passenger ships heading out to open sea en route to countries she had only read about in the many books she’d collected over the years. In her daydreams she was on a ship travelling off on an adventure to the great unknown, sailing to such exotic destinations as India and China, Africa and America. As she watched she could see herself sipping tea on deck with the ladies and dining with eligible male companions who were off to transform the colonies.