36

MISS SHARPE SMILED at Mr and Mrs Trick. It was what she liked to call her Meet the Parents Smile: head tilted, eyebrows a little concerned, teeth not showing. It was a smile that said, Your child is special and unique and wonderful. BUT…

Mrs Sharpe sincerely wished she had time to invite parents along just to tell them that their children were well-behaved and handed their homework in on time; it would have been a refreshing change. Still, it was good that both Ruby’s parents had come. It was so nice when the fathers engaged.

While she’d waited, Miss Sharpe had played her personal guessing game. She had met Mr Trick already, of course. He was wiry and brown, with dark sideburns. Sideburns that were just that little bit too long, perhaps? Verging on the Elvis impersonator. Miss Sharpe liked a good Elvis, but Elvis was The King and Mr Trick was plainly not – although when they arrived he was dressed in black boots, black jeans and black shirt – a dusty Comeback Special.

Mr Trick looked nothing like Ruby, so Miss Sharpe had imagined that Mrs Trick would be a stout and freckled redhead to make up for it. But when Alison Trick walked in, Miss Sharpe gave herself one mark out of ten – and felt that was being generous. She had never been a beauty herself, but had always appreciated beauty in others, and Ruby Trick’s mother had been beautiful.

Apart from the tired smudges around her eyes, she still was.

Mrs Trick’s skin was flawless – that clear, pale complexion that is only achieved through good genes moisturized by rain. Her bobbed hair was the colour of ripe wheat, while her eyes were icy blue, and fringed with long, coppery lashes.

She was so far out of Mr Trick’s league that Miss Sharpe wondered how he’d got so lucky. Even she felt a little flustered by it.

‘Now I see where Ruby gets her lovely red hair,’ she gushed, but Mrs Trick didn’t smile. She only brushed her own hair around one ear in a nervous tic and said, ‘It runs in my family.’

Mrs Trick couldn’t take a compliment. She sounded dismissive – almost defensive – and Miss Sharpe decided to move swiftly on.

‘Have a seat,’ she said. They all sat on the children’s chairs because parents were equals, and they quickly got on to first-name terms because this wasn’t the 1950s.

Alison and John.

‘Thanks so much for coming,’ Miss Sharpe kicked off. ‘Ruby’s a wonderful little girl.’

Silence.

That was unusual. That was the point where the parents always said, Thank you! Or Yes, we think she’s a genius. Or We’re glad to hear you say so, because at home she’s a little shit.

Something.

But Ruby Trick’s parents said nothing. They just continued to look at Miss Sharpe with mild concern. They seemed to have no interest in the wonderful. Only in the BUT

So Miss Sharpe stopped the flannel and got to the point.

‘But the reason I’ve asked you here is because I’m just a little bit concerned about her, too. Lately she’s been quite tired at school.’

Miss Sharpe noticed that Alison glanced at her husband, but he didn’t return the look.

‘She seems fine at home.’

‘She’s not complained of feeling unwell?’

Alison smiled faintly. ‘Only every day. She tries it on, you know? All kids do, don’t they?’

‘Of course,’ said Miss Sharpe. She smiled and hesitated before continuing. ‘There’s something else I’m a bit concerned about.’ She took Ruby’s diary off the table. ‘Sometimes she uses inappropriate language.’

‘Like swearing?’ said Alison.

‘No. Well, yes, but attitudes too,’ said Miss Sharpe, suddenly wishing that John Trick hadn’t been engaged enough to come along. ‘She’s started using derogatory words like “slag” and “bitch”, and even more inappropriate things…’

‘Really?’ Alison Trick looked genuinely surprised.

‘Not a lot, but it seems to be getting worse.’

‘Can I see?’

Feeling herself starting to redden, Miss Sharpe fumbled the book around so that Alison could read it, which she did – out loud.

‘Daddy loves Mummy, even though she is a whore.’

There was an uncomfortable silence.

So uncomfortable.

So silent.

Alison Trick handed the book back without a word, but there were two new small rosy patches on her pale cheeks. Like a doll. She didn’t look at her husband.

‘I hope I haven’t upset you,’ said Miss Sharpe.

Alison just shook her head, so Miss Sharpe went on, ‘Please don’t worry unduly. Children make up all sorts of rubbish in their diaries. I’d have to be in cloud cuckoo land to believe half this stuff! I mean, I’ve got children in my class who would be in the circus – or in prison – if you believed everything they wrote!’

Miss Sharpe knew she was talking too much, but that was only because they weren’t talking at all. She wasn’t used to people who didn’t know how to hold up their end of the conversational bargain, and now she couldn’t stop babbling.

‘Obviously I don’t want the children to feel inhibited while writing their diaries, but this is a little unusual.’

Alison gave a small, brief smile. ‘My mother used to say, “A bit of inhibition goes a long way.” ’

Miss Sharpe blushed. Alison Trick was right. She should have been more strict about the diaries. More of a grown-up.

‘Can I see that?’ John held out his hand for the diary.

Trick flicked blindly through the little blue book on his lap, while his brain churned. Random words skittered accusingly along the blue lines. Bitches and skanks and slags… his own words and thoughts bounced back to him now off the pages of a child’s diary.

Only slags paint their nails.

If she was hitching she was just asking for it.

Whore.

Adam.

He stopped and read that.

Adam brought me a donkey from Clovelly. Its the best present I ever got.

Adam Braund sniffing around. Just like his father. He’d have to keep a closer eye on that little prick. You couldn’t trust anyone. Everyone was—

My Daddy’s got a gun.

John Trick went numb. He stared blankly at the words between his thumbs.

My Daddy’s got a gun. Not a real one a play one but he won’t let me touch it because its real enough to give you a good scare, he says. I promised not to tell and I’m good at promises and nobody sticks together with Daddy.

Only me.

John Trick’s head spun.

She’d promised not to tell. She’d promised.

Just like Alison had promised to love, honour and obey.

Just like his mother had promised to kick her boyfriend out…

But she hadn’t. Not even when he’d cried and tried to tell her how frightened he’d been; how he’d pissed down his own bare legs as the mighty hand on the back of his head pressed his face down towards the searing heat. Even then she hadn’t seen. Hadn’t wanted to see.

You don’t understand, Johnny, she’d said.

But he did understand.

He understood every night when he heard the boyfriend fucking her.

‘John?’

Alison’s voice swam towards John Trick through the sea in his ears.

The rest of the meeting was a blur of nodding and agreeing and promising to speak to Ruby about things, and of thanks and goodbye.

They were almost out of the door when the teacher said, ‘Oh, Ruby’s diary…’

Trick looked down stupidly at the blue exercise book he was still holding.

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’

Miss Sharpe smiled and held out her hand, and he gave it back to her.

As soon as Mummy and Daddy left to see Miss Sharpe, Ruby ran upstairs to find the gun.

The cowboy drawer squeaked and grunted like a wooden pig, and got stuck halfway at an angle. She knelt down and leaned into the deep old wooden drawer and felt as far as she could go. Her fingers nudged the gunbelt, slid over the brim of the Stetson, shifted the Texas string tie. Right at the back, her fingers closed on something soft and she took out a black woollen hat.

She’d never seen it. It must be for fishing on the beach in the winter when it got so cold.

She pulled it on and it went right over her face! Ruby giggled, then realized there was a hole in it. She yanked it off quickly, with a little tingle of fear in case she’d made the hole and Daddy would know she’d been messing with his stuff, but in fact there were three holes and they were meant to be there. One for the mouth and two for the eyes. Ruby pulled it over her face again and looked at herself in the mirror. She could see one eye, one cheek and a bit of her chin. She looked pretty funny. She giggled and kept it on while she dug her arm back into the drawer.

The Jingle Bobs clinked musically, but the gun wasn’t there, and nothing else held her interest now.

Ruby frowned and sat back on her heels. The gun should be with Daddy’s cowboy stuff. Where else would he keep it?

The hat was hot and itchy, so she yanked it off again and stuffed it back in the drawer. Then she went through Daddy’s wardrobe, looking in shoes, patting pockets, lifting underpants.

Nothing.

Under the bed.

Nothing but dust bunnies the size of mice.

Ruby brushed them off her T-shirt and sat on the bed and frowned.

Then she searched the rest of the house. The gun wasn’t in the wardrobe and it wasn’t behind the sofa and it wasn’t in any of the kitchen drawers or cupboards. It wasn’t in a whole lot of other places too.

She did find the custard creams in the washing machine though, so the evening wasn’t entirely wasted.

Alison Trick managed to reach the car before she spoke.

‘Mummy is a whore?’ she said

‘I don’t know where she got that from,’ said John. ‘Maybe that Maggie Beer. That maid’s got a right dirty little mouth on her. Her and her mother.’

Alison didn’t look at him. He reversed out of the parking space and put the car in gear.

‘I don’t want you taking Ruby out at night any more.’

‘What?’

‘You heard. She’s tired in class.’

He swung the car on to the coast road. ‘She’s fine. You said so yourself.’

‘I didn’t want a row in front of her teacher.’

‘Who’s rowing? You’re the only one who’s rowing.’

‘I’m not rowing. I’m just saying.’

‘You can say whatever you like. We’ve been out a few times in the car, and where’s the harm in that?’

‘If you and your mates want to act like ten-year-olds, that’s your choice. But Ruby really is ten and she needs more sleep.’

‘That’s just your opinion.’

‘Well, my opinion counts because she’s my daughter!’

‘Yeah, well, she’s my daughter too.’

John Trick glared at Alison. His wife pushed her hair behind her ear in a nervous tic he knew so well, but he felt he was seeing it for the first time. Her pale hand; her straight, strawberry-blonde hair; her delicate ear with the lobe that was like velvet.

The hand, the hair, the ear – slowed a thousand times, so he finally understood that the tic was the only truth Alison knew how to tell.

She did it when she bought shoes with other people’s money. She’d done it tonight when the teacher mentioned Ruby’s red hair. She did it whenever she lied.

Trick gripped the wheel in a spasm and the car swerved and almost hit the kerb.

Ruby wasn’t his.

‘Careful, John!’

He got it back on line and fought to stay sane. He felt sucker-punched, kicked in the balls. He’d been played for a fool and he was dizzy with shock.

But it would explain so much.

It would explain everything.

The lack of respect.

The glove behind the sofa.

Ruby’s betrayal.

And – worst of all – the fact that Alison hadn’t been a virgin.

Not that first time, in her bedroom, with her parents downstairs watching Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? They’d never talked about it, but John Trick had thought about it, over the years.

More than he’d wanted to.

Alison was his, and Alison was perfect. So perfect he’d convinced himself that she’d lost her virginity riding a bicycle, or a pony. That was the kind of shit she did before they got married. Fancy shit.

But now – at last – he saw the light.

This wasn’t just about Tim Braund. This wasn’t just something that had happened since he’d lost his job. This had been happening from the very start. Alison had fucked him on a first date – and how many others? How many before him and how many since? How many while they were ‘keeping it a secret’? How many while he was slaving at the shipyard? How many at the hotel while she was supposed to be working? How many at the supermarket? How many in their fucking bed while he was fishing on the Gore? How many? How many? How many?

They drove the rest of the way to Limeburn in gaping silence, and when the car stopped, Alison immediately got out and walked briskly up the short slope to The Retreat.

John Trick didn’t follow her with anything but his eyes.

Maybe Ruby got her red hair from Alison, maybe she didn’t. All he knew was that she sure as shit didn’t get it from him.

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