The Facts of Life and Death Read online

  She gave him the diary and he flicked through it while she carried on cleaning. There was a first-aid box with some old plasters, a bottle of Calpol from when she was little and a box of Paracetamol.

  ‘Can I put a plaster on?’

  ‘Sure, Rubes.’

  She chose a cute round one from the box and stuck it on her face so it looked as if she’d been shot with an arrow.

  There was a crumpled plastic bag that held a few old boxes containing necklaces and things. Mummy didn’t wear jewellery because it made her look cheap, and she didn’t have any good stuff anyway. Not like Maggie’s mother, who dripped with jangling gold and wore a big ring on every finger. All Mummy had was one pair of small diamond earrings in a blue velvet box with a crown on the inside and the word Garrards, and a matching necklace in another box, except oblong this time, not square. The diamonds were tiny and the inside of the lid was covered with white silk and someone had written on it with felt-tip: Think of me when you wear this, baby girl. Ruby frowned. She hoped the necklace wasn’t for her. Sometimes Mummy tried to girlify her by buying her a pink top or a flowery clip for her hair. Christmas was coming in a few months and she didn’t want a boring old necklace.

  Inside the third box was a brooch. It was shaped like a fish, covered with diamonds for scales and with rubies for eyes. It was cute, but it wasn’t even Mummy’s; on the box it said it belonged to someone called Tiffany. Ruby stuffed the bag back where she found it and opened a shoebox filled with loose photographs of people she didn’t know.

  ‘Who’s this?’ She held up a photo of a pretty young woman with dark hair. She was wearing a white summer dress, and was holding the hand of a little boy in a cowboy outfit.

  Daddy took it from her. ‘That’s me,’ he said. ‘And my mother.’

  ‘Ha!’ laughed Ruby. ‘You were a cowboy then too!’ She peered up underneath the photo in his hand. ‘It says Johnny and me on the back.’ He turned it over and touched the writing with his fingers.

  ‘Your mummy was sooooo pretty,’ said Ruby.

  ‘Not like Nanna.’

  ‘Yeah, she was,’ said Daddy, and winked. ‘That’s why I’m so good-looking!’

  Ruby giggled, then sighed. ‘I wish I had a cowboy outfit.’

  Daddy ignored the hint. Everybody ignored her hints. Sometimes she wondered why she bothered giving hints. She’d been hinting about a pony for years.

  Daddy was still looking at the picture, so Ruby sidled up alongside him so she could look at it too.

  ‘Was your daddy taking the photo?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’ Daddy put the photo in his pocket and looked around him. ‘There’s nothing here.’

  They put almost everything back exactly where they’d found it, then they ate the pie cold, and straight out of the dish, because Daddy said it was nicer that way.

  Later, while Daddy watched TV, Ruby took her diary out of her pony backpack. She opened it on the first blue-lined page, which was always so encouraging.

  She wrote: MONDAY.

  It didn’t look quite the way she’d wanted it to – the D was a bit like a P and she had to go over it twice – but so far, so good.

  She gazed at the window and chewed the top of her pen. Then she bent over the book again and underlined ‘Monday.’

  It was wonky. She should have done it with a ruler.

  She chewed the pen some more, until the little plug came out of the end of it, then she sucked on that so it stuck to the tip of her tongue like a big blue pimple. If she waggled it about, she could see it at the bottom of the slope of her own cheek.

  Then she underlined ‘Monday’ again.

  Then she went and got a glass of milk to help her think.

  Finally she wrote:

  MONDAY. No horses in the paddick. Drew maps for school.

  TUESDAY. Maggie fell off the swing on the cliffs and it bled in her sock.

  WEDNESDAY. Played in the woods. Found a good stick for a gun.

  THURSDAY. No horses in the paddick again.

  FRIDAY. My Mummy got new shoes and my Daddy said they are to high then Daddy went to cowboy club and I tied his holdster on his leg.

  SATURDAY. Me and Daddy cleaned the house.

  Ruby put down her pen and sighed deeply at the nice blank page she’d ruined with her boring life.

  8

  ‘CALL YOUR MOTHER.’

  The woman sat in the woods. Cross-legged on her hands and a bed of red-brown pine needles, soft and prickly under her naked thighs.

  She squinted up at the man.

  ‘What?’

  He waggled the phone at her again. ‘Call your mother.’

  He didn’t know it, but her name was Katie Squire. She was twenty-six and she’d been walking the South-West coastal path alone for twenty-four days without experiencing anything worse than a blister between Fowey and Kingsands. Completely preventable; she’d forgotten to wear two pairs of socks.

  She was wearing them now though – two pairs of red hiking socks, and nothing else.

  She stared at the hand holding her phone. Apart from his lips and eyes, it was the only part of the man Katie could see, and the fingernails were bitten and dirty around the cuticles. The thought of those fingers touching her skin made her feel hot and shivery.

  ‘Call your mother.’

  ‘No,’ she told him. She hadn’t called her mother for months; she wasn’t going to start now with this.

  Whatever this was.

  She was shocked by how calm she was. It was too bizarre to take seriously, she supposed. She’d been walking through an unexpectedly lovely tunnel of trees, with the sea sighing softly somewhere to her left. The only warning she’d had was a loud rustling in the undergrowth – and the time between that and this (whatever this was, she thought again) was an iron grip on her arm and a surreal blur of stumbling and shaking and standing on one leg, trying to unlace her walking boots, while her skin raced with goosebumps and her teeth chattered like a joke skull.

  But now she was calm.

  Numb, possibly.

  He’d said he had a gun but she didn’t see one, and it was too late now.

  Above them, it was raining, but here on the forest floor it was dry. Only the sound of the drops on the canopy overhead gave the rain away. Katie had been to a spa once and they had played the sound of raindrops while she’d had a massage. This was a bit like that – apart from there was no massage.

  And she was naked in the woods with a pervert.

  Apart from that.

  The man fiddled with her phone and then held it up. She heard the fake shutter noise and blinked in the flash, then he turned the phone so that she could see her own stark image – as pale as a frightened ghost on the bed of terracotta needles.

  ‘I’ll send that to your mother. Then she can see.’

  Katie said nothing.

  He looked at the photo and his teeth grinned through the hole in the black wool. ‘For a young maid you’ve got right floppy old tits.’

  It wasn’t true but it stung. This, of all things, brought tears to her eyes. Katie fought them. She wasn’t a crier. She hadn’t cried when he’d forced her to walk off the path. She hadn’t cried when he’d forced her to strip. And what did she care what this weirdo thought of her breasts?

  But she did care. It made no sense, but she did.

  And then the wrongness of that caring made her angry. She shook her straight dark hair out of her eyes defiantly and glared up at him. ‘How would you know? I bet you never even touched a breast. Is that why you force women to strip off in the woods? To get your jollies?’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘You shut up.’ Katie had three brothers, so ‘Shut up’ was home turf to her, and she drew strength from a row that suddenly seemed very familiar, despite her nakedness and his balaclava.

  ‘I want my clothes back. I’m freezing.’

  ‘I want you to call your mother.’

  ‘Why?’ she said suspiciously. ‘Do you know her?’
/>   He hesitated. ‘Yes, I know her.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ she decided. ‘You don’t know my mother. And anyway, she wouldn’t want to talk to anyone who’d do such a pathetic, cowardly thing.’

  It was true, Katie realized with a surge of emotion. Her mother might be an interfering old cow, but she had principles. Why hadn’t she called her in months? There was no real reason. And suddenly Katie was impatient to speak to her. To hear the gossip. To tell her she loved her.

  But she wasn’t doing it in front of this bastard.

  She glared at her attacker. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘either hurry up and rape me or bloody well let me go.’

  He made a sound that was halfway between a gasp and a cry.

  ‘Filthy!’ he said. ‘Filthy little whore.’

  ‘You’re filthy,’ she spat back. ‘Making a total stranger take her clothes off. Taking pictures of it. That’s filthy. That’s sick.’

  He angrily pressed the phone against her face, squashing her nose, pushing her off balance. ‘Call your fucking mother.’

  Katie slapped the phone away, sending it spinning off a tree.

  ‘Call yours, arsehole!’

  He swung at her so hard that when he missed, he almost fell.

  Katie got up and ran, and he went after her.

  This time he didn’t stop after a few strides. Instead, her running ignited some deep chase instinct in him. Like a hound after a hare, he wanted to catch her. Wanted to bring her down.

  But the girl was quick – even in socks – and nimble through the slender trees that were close-knit and had thin, stiff branches that jabbed at head and hands.

  With every stride his anger grew. Once, he got close enough to touch her shoulder with his outstretched fingers, and she shrieked and ducked backwards under his arm and ran off at a new angle. He turned too fast and fell on to needles so thick they were like a prickly mattress. It didn’t hurt, but it did harm: by the time he got up she had broken the dark cover of the trees and was on the main road, crying and shouting and waving down cars – naked but for her tattered red socks.

  Shameless.

  He watched from behind a tree as she got into a little silver car and disappeared, then yanked off the balaclava, his blood pounding with the fury of losing her – of losing control.

  He’d blown it. Both times, he now realized. It was all over too fast and brought him no satisfaction. This time hadn’t even been funny – only frustrating. And the girl had given him a load of cheek too, which made him feel like a stupid little boy instead of like a man in charge of the situation.

  He scratched his head all over; it was hot and itchy from the wool.

  He went back through the trees and found her clothes and her rucksack and the broken phone. There was a thick wad of money in a beaded purse, and shop-bought cheese and pickle sandwiches, which he ate as he drove out to Abbotsham cliffs. Pretty much everything else he threw into the hungry sea.

  He watched her T-shirts and knickers and cotton trousers spread-eagle over the waves and felt cheated.

  This time he hadn’t wanted it to end.

  9

  GIRL, 17, IN BEACH ASSAULT.

  Mr Preece was changing the headlines in the little wire cage as Ruby got off the bus.

  Ruby wondered what assault was. She had a mental image of a girl rolling about in the salt that the sea had left behind on the sand. The new headline was MASKED MAN STRIKES AGAIN. But then Ruby saw the poster for the Leper Parade.

  The Leper Parade in Taddiport was an annual orgy of running sores and fake blood, hunchbacks, crutches, and people with their arms hidden in their jumpers. Every year there was a prize for the best leper adult and the best leper under fourteen. Daddy had entered last year, but that man from the King’s Arms always won the adult prize because he really didn’t have a leg, and that meant nobody else was in with a chance. But Ruby always imagined that one day she might be the best leper under fourteen. She’d dress in rags and put ash and dirt on her face, with tomato sauce and Rice Krispies for scabs. That’s what the other children did. Last year’s winner also had black stuff coming out of his eyes, which was amazing. She wasn’t sure she could compete with that, but she would certainly try. She must remember to ask Mummy to get Rice Krispies, because usually they only had boring old fake Weetabix.

  Ruby was in for another treat inside the shop. Pony & Rider this week had a free LED safety light in a little plastic bag stuck on to the front of the magazine with a blob of clear gum. She couldn’t wait, and bought the magazine and a Mars bar without even browsing.

  ‘That was quick,’ said Mr Preece.

  Ruby said nothing.

  Outside the shop she peeled the bag off the magazine cover, then tore it open with her teeth and took out the light. It was small and round and had a clip, and a button on the back that, when pressed, started it flashing red.

  ‘Wow!’ she said out loud, even though she was alone.

  She wriggled out of her backpack and clipped the light to the plush pony’s ear, like a rosette. Then she set off down the hill.

  As the light grew dim under the trees, she wondered what the LED looked like on her back. Just past the chapel, she balanced her backpack on the tarmac and trudged back up the hill a-ways before turning around to look at it.

  ‘Wow!’ she said again. The tiny little light was like a beacon – flashing brilliantly, even in what passed for daylight in this miserable summer.

  She hurried to pick up her backpack before it could soak up the rain from the road.

  There were no ponies in the paddock, but Ruby hung on the gate anyway, reluctant to walk away in case one suddenly appeared.

  Starlight would be a good name. Or Pegasus if it was white. Grey, she corrected herself. Pony & Rider said there was no such thing as a white horse.

  A car pulled up behind her. She turned and saw Mrs Braund.

  ‘Jump in out of the rain, Ruby!’

  Limeburn people never passed someone on the hill without offering a lift, whether they knew them or not. The road was so steep that it was a difficult walk up or down. Mummy often got a ride down the hill from the bus stop on Thursday nights with Mr Braund, because that was when he was on his way home for the weekend from his fancy job in London.

  Ruby opened the door of the big 4x4 and climbed in beside Adam in the back seat; Chris was in the front because he was the eldest.

  ‘Hi,’ she said.

  ‘Hi,’ they said.

  Adam and Chris didn’t go to her school. They went to a private school and they never caught the bus. They wore striped ties, and grey blazers with red shields on the pockets. She looked at Adam’s knees. Usually they were covered by denim, or bare and tanned in khaki shorts, but today they were in black school trousers. They made his legs look like a man’s.

  The back of Chris’s head looked more grown up than the front.

  In the cage behind Ruby, the dogs whined because they were close to home. They weren’t Jack Russells or collies like normal people had, they were matching brown Labradoodles called Tony (blue collar) and Cleo (red), and their birthday was celebrated in the Braund house just like the boys’ birthdays were, with balloons around the front door and a cake. April the twenty-ninth. Even Ruby knew the date, although she wasn’t sure any of the Braunds knew the date of her birthday.

  Mrs Braund smiled at her in the mirror. ‘That light’s a good idea, Ruby. Makes you easy to see in the shadows.’

  ‘I just got it free on my magazine,’ she said.

  ‘That’s nice,’ said Mrs Braund.

  She was a pretty woman, Ruby thought, with hair so blonde it was almost white, except for that curious dark bit down the middle, like a reverse badger, and she wore lots of make-up and jewellery. Ruby had never seen Mrs Braund in dirty old jeans or a bad jumper. Even the welly boots she wore when she walked the dogs were fancy brown leather things with laces at the top. Chris had told her once that they cost £200 but he was a liar because nobody would pay that for wellies.
/>   ‘What’s your magazine?’ said Adam.

  ‘Pony & Rider.’ She showed it to him.

  ‘Do you have a pony?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you ride?’

  She hesitated. ‘No.’

  Chris laughed without turning round, and Ruby felt herself going red.

  ‘So what?’ said Adam at the back of Chris’s head. ‘You read FourFourTwo but you don’t play for Arsenal, last I heard.’

  ‘Yeah, but—’

  ‘Now, boys,’ said Mrs Braund, and Chris shut up and they drove on in silence.

  Slowly, Ruby pushed her feet as far under the driver’s seat as they would go, so that Adam wouldn’t see her muddy socks.

  The Retreat was unlocked, which meant that Daddy was home.

  Ruby stood with her back to the front door and listened for the familiar sounds her father always made before her mother came in from a shift – the scraping of fish scales, slide guitars on the CD player – but there was nothing. Only the usual background noises of the wind keening through the bathroom window, and the trees testing the bowed roof.

  ‘Daddy?’

  She fumbled for the switch and turned on the light.

  ‘Daddy?’ She wanted to be the first to tell him about the leper parade. And to show him her light.

  And then Ruby froze at a sound she’d never heard before.

  Ching.

  It was a high, metallic ring. Like someone dropping a five-pence piece into the bathtub.

  She only heard it for a second and then it stopped.

  Ruby felt the silence thud against her eardrums.

  Nothing. There was nothing.

  ‘Da—’

  Ching. Ching.

  She sucked the word back into her mouth and held it there.

  Ching. Ching. Ching. Ching.

  Ruby felt a little black worm of fear twist across her belly. The sound was like the ring of a loose shoe on a horse.

  Or on a pedlar’s donkey…

  She quietly turned off the light, and looked up at the ceiling.

  Ching. Ching.

  It was coming from Mummy and Daddy’s bedroom.

  ‘Daddy?’ she said carefully, but there was no answer, and suddenly the sound of her voice all alone in the damp air made her resolve not to speak again.