The Facts of Life and Death

18

RUBY COULD TELL Daddy was in a good mood, just by the way he opened the front door.

‘That’s a twenty-quid fish!’ he said as he dropped the dogfish on the draining board.

‘It’s like a whale,’ she enthused. She’d seen bigger, but having Daddy in a good mood again changed everything: everything did seem better than it was before.

The dogfish had bitten Daddy as he took it off the hook, but he didn’t even care. ‘Been bitten by worse!’ he said and put some salt on it so it wouldn’t go manky. Then they measured the fish with Ruby’s school ruler. Twenty-seven inches! A lot of that was tail, but even so. Then he let her feel its skin – smooth one way, rough the other – and touch its sharky little teeth with her finger until she shivered with dread, and they both laughed.

She got a chair to kneel on so she could watch him gut the fish. The insides were such a dark red they were almost black. Daddy scooped them down the cut-off foot of one of Mummy’s old tights, all the way to the toe, then knotted the top and put it in the freezer. Ruby knew that the next time he went out on the Gore, he would dangle it in the water and, as it thawed, blood and juice would leak from it and attract more dogfish, and eels too.

Daddy wrapped the rest of the fish in plastic and put it in the fridge. Then he started to wash down the drainer and the sink. Without looking at her, he said, ‘Can you keep a secret, Rubes?’

‘Yes,’ she said instantly, because she wanted to hear one.

‘Cross your heart?’

She crossed her heart. ‘And hope to die,’ she said. ‘What is it?’

Daddy stood very still. He glanced towards the kitchen door as if someone might be there, spying on them. Ruby looked too, as the atmosphere thickened in the dingy little kitchen, and she drew closer to Daddy to hear the secret.

When he spoke it was in a low voice, only just above a whisper.

‘The Gunslingers are getting up a posse.’

That was all he needed to say. Ruby’s mouth fell open and she felt almost dizzy, as foreign-familiar images flooded her brain. A hot place, with a wide sky that smelled like summer. Cowboys firing their guns in the air, legs flapping, spurs digging, manes flying; dust clouds and small boys swirling in their wake. A posse was fearless and fast. A posse was the law. When a bad man came to town, a posse hunted him down and made him pay. A posse never gave up. The thought of Daddy on a posse was completely thrilling.

‘We’re going to catch the man who killed that girl,’ Daddy went on in hushed tones.

‘What girl?’ said Ruby, matching his whisper.

‘That girl. Frannie something.’

‘Oh yeah.’ Ruby remembered vaguely; there was a poster on the shop door next to the one about the Leper Parade. ‘What will you do when you catch him?’

‘Well, we’re supposed to call the police.’ Daddy shrugged. ‘But who knows?’ He did the cowboy accent. ‘Blood’s running pretty high, Miss Ruby.’ He made a finger gun and drew a bead on her with narrowed eyes, then blew the tip.

She stared at his fingertip, enthralled – as if she could actually see the smoke curling off it.

‘Can I come with you?’ she whispered. ‘On the posse.’

‘It’s not a game, Rubes. This is serious work. Man’s work.

‘I know.’

Ruby frowned. She was the wrong sex – again.

‘But I could help you,’ she suggested. ‘I could look out for him.’

Daddy wrung out the cloth. Bloody water squeezed out between his knuckles. ‘Mummy will be home soon.’

Ruby could tell he was trying to change the subject and she was determined not to let him. ‘Please, Daddy? You can look one way and I’ll look the other way. Then we’re looking all the ways. I’m really good at looking for things. Even out of the very corners of my eyes. Watch this!’ To demonstrate, she looked away from Daddy and slid her eyes right to their very corners. ‘See?’ she said. ‘I can see you really well.’

‘I don’t know, Rubes…’ The water ran clear through the cloth now.

Ruby rushed, ‘Please, Daddy – I want to go on the posse! I’ll be really, really good and quiet. I promise.’

There was a chink of silence and Ruby held her breath.

‘You’ll get bored.’

‘I won’t!’ said Ruby vehemently. ‘I won’t get bored! I’ll be too excited!’

‘You’ll whine to come home.’

‘I won’t! I won’t whine!’

‘Well, we’ll be out really late and what if it’s a school night? Mummy will be cross with us if she finds out.’

‘She’ll be at work! And I won’t tell her! I won’t!’

‘What if she sneaks in to kiss you goodnight and you’re not there? Then I’ll get it in the ear.’

That could be a problem. Mummy did come in and kiss her when she got home from work. Sometimes Ruby woke up and grumbled at her.

Ruby frowned. She felt the approach of crushing disappointment. Mummy was such a spoilsport!

‘Can’t we get home before her?’

Daddy shrugged as he wiped down the sink. ‘We can try’, he said. ‘But maybe there’s some way we could fool her into thinking you’re in bed when you’re really not.’

Ruby had a flash of inspiration. ‘I’ll put Panda in my bed so he looks like me! I’ll put him under the blankets. Mummy won’t even know I’m gone!’ It was a ruse they’d seen in more than one TV Western – the baddie emptying his gun into the hero as he lay by the campfire, then picking up the bedroll full of rocks that he’d mistaken for a man. Panda was quite big. It would definitely work.

Daddy laughed. ‘That’s pretty clever, Rubes.’

‘Can I come then?’

He put up his hands in cowboy surrender. ‘You got me, Deputy.’

Ruby squealed with delight and buried her face in his old blue jersey that smelled of salt and smoke.