IT GOT DARK.
Ruby’s headache had gone, along with the warmth. A sharp breeze had picked up and she wished she were wearing a jumper over her potato sack.
There was much cheering as the torches were lit and the flags were brought out and the parade started, led by the town crier and two ragged lepers on towering stilts.
Ruby felt the thrill of being part of something that felt crazy and ancient, and squeezed Mummy’s hand in excitement.
They were part of a great river of people that wended its way down the hill to the old hospital. There were so few people left over to watch and clap the parade that they clapped and cheered themselves as they walked, and rang their leper bells.
As Ruby passed the grim, grey house that was once home to the lepers of the parish, thunder cracked so hard that they all jumped, and then embarrassed laughter rippled through the parade.
Ruby looked up.
There were no stars at all, and the last dim glow of daylight showed her that this morning’s flat white sky had now blossomed into dark-purple clouds.
‘It’s going to rain,’ she said.
‘What a surprise,’ said an old beggar lady beside her and then cackled and rang her bell in Ruby’s face.
The fields by the river were muddy, but nobody cared. They walked a path of churned mud to where a hog was being turned on a spit, and Superman and Captain Hook queued up among the lepers, all with their paper plates and bread rolls and apple sauce at the ready.
They met the Braunds in the queue. They had brought Maggie with them in her pink fairy costume with glittery wings and a wand that was tipped with a silvery five-pointed star. The perfect deputy’s badge, if Ruby had still wanted to be a deputy.
Which she didn’t.
Mr Braund was much taller than Daddy and he and his wife were both dressed in brown sacking, very like Ruby’s. Except Mr Braund was too big and well fed to be a convincing leper; with his thick black hair, he had more of the Fred Flintstone about him. Adam and Chris were in ragged old clothes and had proper scabs. Chris had a bell, which he kept ringing right next to Maggie’s ear. She kept saying, ‘Stop it, Chris,’ and rubbing her ear, and he kept doing it again.
The Braunds were full of jolly hellos. Mummy said hello to them but Daddy only grunted, and Ruby’s tummy tightened the way it did on a school day.
‘Hi,’ said Adam.
‘You look like a real leper,’ Ruby said.
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘So do you.’
‘I don’t have scabs,’ said Ruby. ‘We only had Weetabix.’
‘Still,’ he said, ‘your ashes are good.’
‘There’s Nanna and Granpa!’ said Mummy.
Ruby giggled. Nanna wasn’t in a costume, but Granpa was dressed like a pirate with leprosy. He had a big ginger beard to match his hair, and a fake hand that came off when you shook it.
Everybody laughed.
Granpa offered his fake hand to Daddy, but Daddy didn’t shake it – just looked at him so hard that Granpa stopped laughing.
‘There were trout jumping in the river earlier,’ said Adam. ‘You want to go and look?’
‘OK,’ said Ruby.
‘No,’ said Daddy.
‘It’s only over there,’ said Mummy.
‘Not with him,’ said Daddy, nodding at Adam.
There was a surprised silence. Then Mr Braund said, ‘What do you mean, not with him?’
‘Just that,’ said Daddy. ‘Not with him. The leaf don’t fall far from the tree.’
Ruby looked at Adam, who looked confused.
‘John,’ said Mummy quickly, ‘don’t be silly.’
‘Who’s silly?’
‘No one,’ said Mummy. ‘We’re all having a nice time. That’s all.’
‘And I’m spoiling it? Is that what you’re saying? I’m spoiling your nice time?’
Ruby felt the other people in the queue getting quiet to listen to them.
‘Take it easy, John,’ said Mr Braund. ‘She—’
‘Fuck you,’ said Daddy.
Mummy touched Daddy’s arm. ‘John— ’
Daddy shoved his paper plate into Mummy’s face, making her head twist sharply to the side, and she took a couple of surprised steps backwards. When the plate dropped to the ground, the bread roll was stuck for a moment on her cheek with apple sauce. Then that fell to the ground as well.
‘Whore!’ spat Daddy. Then he turned and punched Granpa in the tummy. Just once, but so hard that his teeth fell out.
‘Stop!’ said Ruby. ‘Daddy, stop!’ Even though she knew there were some things you could never stop, and she was afraid this might be one of them.
But Mr Braund stepped swiftly between Mummy and Daddy, and Superman and the back end of the horse were suddenly right there too, and Daddy said Fuck you all and walked off into the night.
‘Come away, children,’ said Mrs Braund, and started to try to gather them up and usher them away, but none of them went.
People were helping Granpa, and Nanna was fussing around, brushing mud off his dentures.
Ruby was shaking. And when she took Mummy’s hand, Mummy was shaking too.
‘Are you all right, Alison?’ said Mrs Braund.
Mummy nodded and tried to smile, but it didn’t work. ‘I think we should go home, Ruby,’ she said in a wobbly voice. ‘I’m not hungry, are you?’
‘No,’ said Ruby. ‘I’m not hungry.’
‘Let Tim take you home, Alison,’ said Mrs Braund.
‘No, that’s fine,’ said Mummy. ‘I’m sure John will be at the car waiting for us.’
‘I’ll take you,’ said Mr Braund firmly. ‘I’ll be back in half an hour. The queue probably won’t even have moved.’
So that’s what they did. Ruby said bye to Adam and he said bye to her and they followed Mr Braund all the way to the car park at the top of the village, as the first big drops of rain began to fall.
Where Daddy’s car had been parked was now just an empty patch of grass.
The rain hammered down on the windscreen and the roof, and the wind jostled the Range Rover all the way home.
Mummy and Mr Braund didn’t talk. Mummy chewed her thumbnail. Ruby sat on the pale-cream leather back seat, and pushed her feet under the driver’s seat again, the way she had that day when Mrs Braund had picked her up near the empty paddock.
Her foot touched something and she ducked her head to look, then reached down and took hold of the thing under the seat.
It was the matching glove. The left hand that belonged with the right hand she’d found under the sofa.
And now she knew they both belonged to Mr Braund.
She stared at it, holding it loosely in her lap. Adam had said his daddy had a girlfriend. He’d said it was someone in London. But was he right? Or was it Mummy all along?
Call you later. T.
Ruby didn’t know what to do. Ask? Or push the glove back under the seat with her toe?
How much did she want to know?
‘Look what I found,’ she said, before the decision had been consciously made in her mouth. She leaned forward and waggled the glove between Mummy and Mr Braund.
‘Been looking for those,’ said Mr Braund. ‘Well done, Ruby. Where did you find them?’
‘Under the seat,’ said Ruby suspiciously. ‘But there’s only one. I found the other one in our house, behind the sofa.’
‘Wonder how it got there,’ said Mr Braund. ‘I’ll run over and get it sometime.’
‘Ruby will bring it down tomorrow,’ said Mummy. ‘Won’t you, Rubes?’
Ruby nodded slowly. Neither Mummy nor Mr Braund looked guilty about the glove behind the sofa. Maybe he really did have a girlfriend in London. And did it really matter any more? Ruby wouldn’t even blame Mummy for having a fancy man. Not after what just happened.
They were almost home. The forest that whipped and waved over the steep road to Limeburn gave some shelter from the wind, but when they parked on the cobbles and Ruby got out, she was blown sideways.
Even though it was night, she could see the white tops of the waves hurling themselves at the cliffs.
They thanked Mr Braund and Mummy grabbed Ruby’s hand and together they ran up to The Retreat, past the stream that was swollen anew by the downpour and by the thousands of muddy rivulets running out of the forest and off the surrounding cliffs. Daddy wasn’t home and Ruby was grateful.
They went upstairs and got ready for bed. Ruby hadn’t been in hers for five minutes before Mummy came in and sat beside her.
‘I’m so sorry about today, Rubes. Are you OK?’
Ruby twiddled her bed cover while the tree outside clawed at the window. ‘Why was Daddy so cross?’
Mummy sighed. ‘I don’t know, sweetheart. Daddy’s had a hard time, you know? Losing a job is very difficult for a man, and sometimes they can get upset for no real reason.’
‘But why did he punch Granpa?’ said Ruby.
Mummy shook her head and bit her lip and started to cry big tears that tipped out of her eyes and down her cheeks in shiny rills.
She held out her arms and Ruby reached up and let herself be gathered up in them and pressed against her mother’s shoulder.
Mummy rocked her and Ruby let herself be rocked. ‘Everything’s going to be OK, Rubes,’ said Mummy. ‘Everything’s going to be OK.’
Ruby didn’t think Mummy was lying.
But she also didn’t think it was true.