28
RUBY
August
‘I’ll come to the dance with you on Saturday, Alfie.’
It felt as if a stranger was moving my mouth, making me speak the words, but Alfie didn’t seem to notice anything was amiss. A grin spread across his face and the tips of his ears went pink. I could see how relieved he was I’d finally made up my mind. Every day since he’d asked me, he’d come into the office with a hopeful expression; I could tell he was desperate to ask me if I’d decided yet, but, being the gentleman he was, he’d never said anything.
‘I’ll call for you at half past six,’ he said, dropping a bundle of envelopes on my desk. ‘Thanks awfully, Ruby!’
It was a warm day and we had the office windows open; as he went out onto the street below, I could hear him whistling.
Vera was frowning at me. ‘Are you sure?’
I shrugged. ‘Why not?’
Ever since Stanley’s letter had arrived, I felt as if I had been split in two. There was a Ruby who lay awake into the small hours of the morning, with a lump in her throat and a pain behind her eyes from the tears she couldn’t shed, and who, when she caught Father looking sorrowfully at Mother’s picture on the never-played piano, wanted to say to him, I know how you feel. I’ve lost the love of my life too.
And there was another Ruby who got up every morning and made breakfast as if everything was as it always had been; who dodged Grandmother’s barbs and placated her fretful father with her usual, long-practised ease; who went to work every day where she ignored Vera’s concerned looks and dodged her gentle questions. Both of them were trapped behind a thick sheet of glass where no one could reach them.
Ever since that evening in the rose garden I’d been turning Mrs Blythe’s words over and over inside my head: Allow yourself to grieve, Ruby love, but don’t spend the rest of your life pining away. Your Sam wouldn’t have wanted that; I’m sure of it.
My Sam. But he wasn’t my Sam anymore, was he? He wasn’t anybody’s. He was gone. What was I supposed to do? Live like Father, my life blunted forever by grief? If I was going to survive, I had to let the other Ruby take over, and push the Ruby who couldn’t cry – who felt as if a knife was twisting inside her every time she remembered the way Sam used to smile at her – deeper down inside. And that meant accepting Alfie’s invitation.
On Saturday evening, Alfie called for me at half past six on the dot, as promised. He was wearing a suit that was slightly too short in the arms and slightly too tight across the shoulders, his hair slicked back with almost as much hair cream as the unfortunate Humbert Spriggs.
Blythe’s Works were ten minutes away, at the edge of town. ‘Dad offered to take us in his van,’ Alfie said, ‘but as it’s such a nice night I thought you’d rather walk.’
I could tell he wanted me to take his arm, but I kept my hands down by my sides, not looking at him. How different he was to Sam – so serious! He always had been, even when we were children. It was impossible to imagine laughing with him until my sides ached and my eyes streamed, the way I had with Sam.
With a guilty wrench, I pushed the thought aside. It wasn’t right to compare them; Alfie didn’t deserve that. But when we went inside, I couldn’t help making comparisons again, this time with the hall at the works to the one at the American camp. There was no band, only a wind-up gramophone on a table in the corner, and the walls had been decorated with paper bunting that did little to brighten the dingy paintwork or disguise the tape criss-crossed over the windows. And there were no pineapples or bottles of Coca-Cola.
STOP, I told myself. You’re being terribly unfair.
To my relief, Alfie turned out to be a surprisingly competent dancer. He guided me around the dance floor, one hand resting at my waist. I didn’t mind. That glass wall was all around me, shielding me from thinking, from feeling.
We were halfway through a polka when the air raid siren split the air.
‘Oh, not tonight,’ I heard someone groan.
We all went down to the air raid shelter in the cellar, which was dimly lit by gas lamps. ‘You watch,’ a man said to me over his shoulder. ‘We’ll get down there and the all-clear’ll sound.’ But it didn’t, and pretty soon it looked like we would have to settle in for the night.
‘Let’s sit over here,’ Alfie said, laying his jacket on the floor in the corner away from everyone else. I couldn’t think of any reason to refuse, so I followed him over there. Someone started singing, a cheerful if tuneless rendition of ‘On the Sunny Side of the Street’, and soon everyone was joining in except for us. Alfie and I sat in silence; I glanced at him every now and then to see him watching me intently.
At last, he cleared his throat. ‘Ruby.’
‘Yes, Alfie?’
‘I – er—’ His ears had gone pink, like they had the morning he asked me to the dance – the morning I’d found out Sam was dead.
I waited, concentrating on my breathing. In, out, in, out. Wasn’t it marvellous, the way our bodies worked without us even having to think about it? They kept going, like machines, even when it felt as if, inside, we were barely alive.
‘The thing is—’ Alfie cleared his throat again. ‘I didn’t ask you to come to the dance tonight as a friend. I wondered if – well, you see, I care for you, Ruby. A great deal.’
I looked at him. His expression was raw, earnest. I wondered what he’d say if I told him, I’m sorry, Alfie. I don’t feel the same way about you. You’re a chum, but that’s all. How his face would crumple as my words hit home.
I couldn’t do it.
And what else did I have? Night after night at the cottage with Father and Grandmother? Was that really how I wanted to spend the rest of my life?
Don’t think about the future. Don’t think about anything,I told myself. It doesn’t matter – none of it does.
‘If you want me to go out with you, Alfie, I will,’ I heard myself say.
His eyes shone. ‘D’you really mean it?’
I nodded.
‘Oh, Ruby!’ His face lit up with a broad smile. ‘You’ve made me the happiest man in Bartonford tonight – in the whole of Devon!’
The all-clear sounded. Alfie got to his feet, still smiling, and helped me to mine. We spent the rest of the evening dancing together, and at the end of the night, he walked me back up the hill to Barton Hall. The hospital was in darkness save for a few lights burning in some of the windows, where the nurses were tending to the trickier cases, the ones who needed caring for throughout the night.
‘D’you fancy the cinema in Ilfracombe one evening next week?’ Alfie said as we parted.
‘That would be nice.’
He leaned towards me. I turned my head slightly so that his kiss landed awkwardly on my cheek.
‘Goodnight, Ruby,’ he said.
‘Goodnight, Alfie.’
In the moonlight, I watched him walk away, back down the hospital drive to the lane. He was whistling, a spring in his step. Then I turned and went inside the cottage, softly closing the front door behind me.