The Facts of Life and Death Read online

  Ching. Ching. Ching across the floor. Ching. Ching. Ching back in the other direction.

  Luring her up there.

  The thought made Ruby’s bladder loosen a little, and she clenched her thighs to keep the piddle from running down her leg.

  She wouldn’t go up there. She couldn’t. Couldn’t open the bedroom door and get trapped by a crazed ghost until morning. She thought of her mother tugging at the unlocked door, screaming for help, she thought of her father hammering on the yellowing paint, and of Adam Braund shouting her name, while all the while a dead man in chains terrified the rest of the wee out of her – and worse.

  Ruby’s face crumpled in self-pity. She wasn’t going to go upstairs to be got by a ghost!

  But she didn’t have to …

  Ching. Ching. Ching. Her breath caught once more and she watched the ceiling all the way across the bedroom to the door. And then she gasped at the unmistakeable transition: Ching-creak. Ching-creak.

  The ghost was coming downstairs to get her.

  Ruby’s back flattened against the front door, which snapped shut under her shoulders. Her eyes fixed on the narrow white door that shut off the winding stairwell from the front room.

  Ching-creak. Ching-creak. Ching.

  The sound stopped behind the little door and her breath stayed in her bumping chest. Then, in a rare show of athleticism, she darted to the sofa and tumbled over the back of it, dropping into the dark triangle of space that was filled with dust bunnies and lost things – a glove, a pen lid, the back off the remote control. A red light pulsed to the same crazy rhythm as her heart and with a jolt Ruby realized that it was the LED. She fumbled behind her and pressed the button, then knelt there, shivering, her eyes only just above the velour back, staring so hard at the little white door that they stung.

  The door creaked slowly open.

  ‘Daddy!’ Relief was like a sugar rush. Ruby jumped up.

  ‘Why’s it so dark in here?’ he said, flicking on the lights. He was already in his cowboy gear.

  ‘Didn’t you hear me shouting?’ said Ruby.

  ‘I wanted to surprise you.’

  ‘Why?’

  By way of an answer, Daddy swaggered across the room towards her.

  Ching. Ching. Ching.

  Ruby frowned at his feet, and then gasped. ‘Spurs!’

  ‘Not just any old spurs,’ he grinned. ‘Jingle Bobs.’ He lifted his heel to show her, spinning the spiked wheel that jingled like sleigh bells. ‘Those little metal bits? That’s the clappers. That’s what makes the noise, you see?’

  He put his foot down and did a little dance to make them ring.

  ‘Wo-ow!’ Ruby climbed back over the sofa and bent to have a closer look. Now that she could see how it was made, the sound wasn’t scary at all, only pretty. She felt like a fool.

  He put his boot up on the coffee table. ‘Look at that workmanship,’ he said, running a finger across the silver shanks. Horseshoes and tumbling dice were hammered into the metal in little dots. ‘They’re the real thing, Rubes. All the way from Wyoming.’

  ‘Wyoming,’ she breathed. ‘Like a real cowboy.’

  He grinned. ‘You should see the stuff you can buy, Rubes. Real genuine cowboy things.’

  ‘I bet they cost loads,’ she said.

  Daddy said nothing and picked lint off his knee.

  Ruby’s awed expression flickered. ‘Does Mummy know?’

  He frowned and took his boot off the table with a clink. ‘She isn’t the only one around here who can buy things, you know.’ Now she’d upset him.

  ‘I know.’

  He jingled into the kitchen and back out again with a bunch of red roses. ‘See?’

  Ruby’s eyes popped. ‘Are they for Mummy? They’re beautiful.’

  ‘They should be. They cost enough.’

  ‘She’ll love them.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ Daddy smiled at the roses and everything was fine.

  Ruby plumped down on the sofa. ‘Make them go again!’

  Happy to oblige, he jingled around the room in his spurs. He kicked up his heels and tapped his toes, and Ruby laughed and clapped in delight.

  And the fun only stopped when Mummy opened the front door.

  10

  THE ROW WENT on longer than any row Ruby could remember. The job and the shoes and the car and the job and the window and the spurs, and the job and the job and the job.

  Ruby bit her thumbnail. It wasn’t Daddy’s fault he lost his job. It was the recession. He caught fish for them, didn’t he? He cleaned the house and he made her dippy eggs and baked beans for tea. But all Mummy ever did was be mean to him and yell. She never used to yell – neither of them used to yell. They used to laugh and show each other things on the telly, and go for bus rides to the beach. Not this beach with its rocks and pebbles, but a real beach with sand.

  They used to love each other.

  Ruby turned up the TV, but she could hear the ebb and flow behind the kitchen door. Finally it flew open and her father strode past the TV, the Jingle Bobs quiet in his fist.

  ‘Where are you going, Daddy?’ said Ruby.

  ‘To cool off!’ he said, then looked at the kitchen and shouted, ‘Before I do something I regret!’

  Mummy appeared in the doorway, tea towel in one hand, a plate dripping in the other. ‘Something you regret? What about my regrets? Living in this dingy little hole. Working all hours while you go fishing and dress up with your friends and buy stupid toys instead of taking care of your family! That’s what I regret!’

  ‘If you think you can do better, then leave me and Rubes here!’ yelled Daddy. ‘And you go off with your fancy man!’

  Ruby gasped.

  Daddy yanked the front door open and slammed it so hard behind him that the little china dog trembled on the window sill.

  ‘Fuck you!’ Mummy hurled the tea towel after him, but it flopped on to the rug halfway across the room.

  Ruby got up and went after Daddy.

  ‘You stay right here, Ruby Trick!’

  Ruby hesitated, then pulled open the door – her heart thumping at her own disobedience – and ran down the hill, tripping and slipping across the green cobbles in her white school socks.

  Daddy was already in the car.

  ‘Can I come with you?’

  ‘No,’ he said. He turned the key and the car started.

  Her face crumpled. ‘Please, Daddy! I don’t want to stay with her.’

  His jaw clenched.

  ‘All right then.’

  She climbed in beside him.

  ‘Put your belt on.’

  Ruby did.

  They drove in silence. First towards Bideford, and then away from the sea through the unlit lanes, where the lights of oncoming cars could be seen from miles off, lighting up the sky over the high hedges.

  Ruby didn’t know where they were and she didn’t care. Daddy and Mummy had argued before, but they’d never thrown things; never walked out, never said the F word. She didn’t even think that grown-ups knew the F word. She thought about Mummy kissing a fancy man and tears welled up in her eyes and made the night into coal-coloured cobwebs.

  ‘I hate Mummy!’ she said, and burst into tears against his arm. ‘She didn’t even say thank you for the flowers.’ And another wave of weeping broke over her.

  Daddy put his arm around her. ‘Women want a man who can take care of them, Rubes.’

  ‘But you do take care of us!’

  Daddy just squeezed her against him while she cried.

  She looked up when he stopped the car in a narrow lane between two high hedges.

  ‘Where are we?’ said Ruby, wiping her eyes.

  ‘Here,’ said Daddy and nodded at a gap in the hedge. ‘I ever show you this?’

  Ruby looked across the road at a little white box of a guardhouse beside a red and white barrier. There was a light on in the hut, and Ruby could see an old man inside, drinking from a mug. His uniform collar was too big for his neck, which ma
de him look like a tortoise.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘This is where I used to work.’

  She was confused. The hut was only big enough for one person. ‘Where?’

  ‘There.’ Daddy pointed.

  Ruby looked beyond the hut. For a moment she thought she was looking into the black sky. Then she realized it was an enormous corrugated-iron shed – bigger than fifty houses – looming over the landscape.

  ‘Wo-ow!’ she said. ‘It’s huge.’

  He said, ‘Got to be big, see? We built proper big ships inside. Ships big enough to go all over the world. South America. Africa. Brazil. Places like that. Proper big ships.’

  ‘Bigger than the ones on the Quay?’

  ‘Some of ’em, yeah. Fifty thousand tonnes, some of ’em.’

  ‘Wo-ow!’ said Ruby again, although she had no idea what a tonne was. But fifty thousand of them was a lot.

  The shed was gigantic, and being out here in the countryside made it look even bigger – towering over the high hedges, next to the narrow lanes and with no other buildings around it.

  Ruby pointed down the lane. ‘How do they get the ships to the sea when they’re finished?’

  Daddy laughed and told her they slid straight out of the shed and down into the river on the other side, dripping with champagne.

  ‘Wow!’ she said. ‘I wish I could see that!’

  ‘Me too,’ said Daddy sadly. He stared at the shed. ‘We used to have a right laugh here. I remember we used to send the new boys down to the stores for a long stand, or to get a bubble for the spirit level.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It was just a joke, see? Just a bit of fun.’

  ‘Ohhh,’ said Ruby, but she didn’t get it.

  He wound the window down. The rain had stopped and the night smelled like green and river, and the hedges rustled with small, secret night things.

  ‘Daddy?’ said Ruby carefully.

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘Are you and Mummy getting . . . divorced?’ The word was so hard for Ruby to say that it ended in a tearful squeak.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Never.’ He flicked his cigarette out of the window, and the night was so quiet that Ruby could hear it sizzle as it hit the ground.

  ‘Don’t you worry, Rubes,’ he said. ‘I’ll always take care of you. I just wish Mummy didn’t have to work. I wish I could keep her safe at home in a glass box.’

  ‘Like Snow White?’ said Ruby.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Daddy. ‘Like Snow White.’

  Ruby imagined Mummy lying in a box on the kitchen table, with her hair all brushed and a little bunch of flowers on her chest.

  It was so romantic that Ruby’s lip wobbled.

  They drove back up to the main road and soon Ruby recognized the outskirts of Bideford.

  Daddy stopped outside a shop and bought a six-pack of Strongbow for him and a Twix for her. He opened one of the cans and took a few gulps, then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

  ‘Now eat your Twix, and we’ll go home and have hot milk.’

  ‘With sugar?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Ruby opened her Twix and took a bite. It wasn’t her favourite, but it would definitely do.

  ‘Better?’ said Daddy.

  She nodded.

  ‘Good. Hold that,’ he said, and handed her the can and pulled back on to the road towards home.

  As they drove, he held out his hand now and then, and Ruby gave him the can. It emptied quickly and she put it in the well behind his seat.

  As they left Bideford, they passed a woman standing at a bus stop.

  ‘That’s Miss Sharpe!’

  ‘Who’s Miss Sharpe?’

  ‘My teacher. Can we give her a lift?’

  ‘Maybe she doesn’t want a lift, Rubes. Women can be a bit funny about taking lifts.’

  ‘But it’s raining. Please, Daddy!’

  Daddy trod on the brakes and peered in his rear-view mirror. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Get in the back.’

  The car didn’t have back doors so Ruby scrambled between the seats as he reversed up the road to the bus stop. When he was level with it, Daddy leaned over and wound down the window a few inches.

  ‘Want a lift?’ he said.

  Miss Sharpe peered at him from under her umbrella with a suspicious look on her face. ‘No, thank you,’ she said. ‘I’m waiting for the bus.’

  ‘Hello, Miss,’ said Ruby, leaning forward between the seats.

  Miss Sharpe’s face cleared. ‘Oh, hello, Ruby! I didn’t see you there!’

  ‘We can take you home, Miss,’ said Ruby eagerly.

  ‘It’s all the way in Fairy Cross,’ said Miss Sharpe. ‘I don’t like to put you to any trouble.’

  ‘It’s on our way,’ said John Trick.

  Miss Sharpe still seemed uncertain. She looked back up the road towards Bideford, as if she might see the bus coming, but it wasn’t.

  ‘Well, OK then…’ She got into the front seat and shook her umbrella into the gutter. She also had a gym bag and a badminton racquet.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You’re very kind.’

  ‘No problem.’

  They drove for a bit, with only the sound of the wipers clicking back and forth on the windscreen. Ruby hung between the front seats so she could smile at Miss Sharpe whenever she looked around.

  ‘Did you like my diary, Miss?’

  ‘Yes, Ruby, it was very good.’

  Ruby looked at Daddy eagerly, but he didn’t give any indication of having heard her.

  ‘Is that a tennis bat, Miss?’

  ‘No, it’s for playing badminton,’ said Miss Sharpe.

  ‘What’s bammington?’

  ‘Well, it’s a bit like tennis, but you don’t play with a ball, you play with a thing called a shuttlecock.’

  ‘What’s a shuttlecock?’

  ‘It’s like a little cone made out of feathers.’

  ‘Does it fly?’ said Ruby, and Miss Sharpe laughed.

  ‘Only when you hit it.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Ruby. She found it difficult to picture that. Hitting one of those with a bat must be like swiping a cartoon bird – with all the little feathers floating down to earth afterwards.

  They passed the sign that said FAIRY CROSS AND FORD. From the other direction, Ruby knew it said FORD AND FAIRY CROSS, just to be fair.

  Miss Sharpe said, ‘You can drop me just past the pub. Thank you.’

  ‘But it’s raining,’ said Ruby.

  And her father added, ‘It’s no problem to take you to the door.’

  ‘You’re very kind,’ said Miss Sharpe again.

  John Trick followed two more brief instructions, and then stopped the car outside a short terrace of whitewashed cottages.

  ‘Thank you very much, Mr Trick,’ said Miss Sharpe, getting out. ‘And I’ll see you on Monday, Ruby, bright and early.’

  ‘Bye, Miss.’

  Miss Sharpe put up her umbrella and waved back into the car with her racquet, and they set off again.

  Ruby hung between the front seats and told Daddy about the diary.

  ‘Miss Sharpe said it was excellent,’ she lied, but it was wasted anyway, because Daddy had gone quiet again, so Ruby went quiet too, because she realized that things couldn’t be all better just because they’d been for a drive.

  Daddy sipped from another can of cider, so Ruby got back in the front and dozed the rest of the way. She knew the route so well from her bus ride to and from school that even in her semi-sleep she could map the road home. Dimly she felt the swings through the S-bends at the Hoops Inn, and slid forward a little as the car nose-dived down the hill to Limeburn.

  When they finally pulled up in the tiny cobbled square just feet from the drop to the beach, she stretched and yawned.

  Daddy sat without getting out, finishing the second can of Strongbow.

  Ruby was getting cold, but she was nervous of going into the house alone and seeing Mummy again.

  Maybe Dad
dy was too, because he drank a third can, looking up at the light in the bedroom window of The Retreat while the ocean breathed in and out in the darkness.

  ‘You know,’ said Daddy suddenly, ‘when we first got married, your mum used to call me her hero. She used to say I’d rescued her.’

  ‘Like Snow White’s prince!’

  ‘Yeah, like that.’

  ‘Did you have a horse?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh.’ That was disappointing. ‘What did you rescue her from?’ He shrugged. ‘Just, you know, I come along like a prince and swept her off her feet.’

  His smile faded. ‘She needed me then, see. When I had a job.’

  ‘Can’t you just get another job?’

  Daddy shook his head and gave a bitter little laugh. ‘Not in this economy.’

  Ruby nodded. Her socks were still wet from the cobbles, and her feet were like ice, but she could hear Daddy thinking, so she didn’t want to whine like a girl.

  Finally – without taking his eyes from The Retreat – Daddy sighed deeply. ‘Women can’t help it, you know, Rubes.’

  ‘Can’t help what?’ she asked through chattering teeth.

  But Daddy went on staring up at the bedroom window, while Ruby sat and shivered beside him.

  ‘Can’t help what?’

  11

  WHEN SHE GOT home, Miss Sharpe realized that getting a lift had gifted her an extra half-hour with which to do whatever she liked.

  So she put her badminton gear in the washing machine and cleaned out Harvey’s litter tray, while the big grey rabbit rocked gently around the kitchen behind her. Then she got out her marking for the evening and poured herself half a glass of white wine.

  Any more would be stupid, and she didn’t do stupid.

  She was sensible far beyond her twenty-six years, and had been that way for most of her life.

  Georgia Sharpe had realized quite young that she was not pretty enough to catch a boy with her looks. She had believed her mirror when it told her that her wiry hair fizzed and spat like brown sparks around her head, that her eyes were small and pale, and that she had a mouth that turned down at one corner, making her look a little disappointed. But the truth had never daunted her, and by the time she was sixteen she was glad not to have been burdened by beauty. By then she’d watched her prettier friends dumbing down their lives to accommodate idiot boyfriends, and made up her mind that that was not for her; that she would get by on her brains and her good nature, even if it meant being single her whole life long. An old maid, her father said, but young Georgia thought that being single sounded rather exciting – and a lot less complicated than having to worry about the hopes and dreams of what she always referred to as ‘some random man’