The Facts of Life and Death

7

MUMMY HAD GONE to work and left a chicken pie and a note about how to heat it up. Ruby looked up at a noise from her parents’ room. She’d thought Daddy was fishing, but when she went upstairs, there he was.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Cleaning the house,’ he said. ‘Want to help?’

‘OK,’ said Ruby, and went in and sat on the bed and watched him take stuff out of the wardrobe, look at it, then put it back exactly where he found it. He only threw away about three things, and that was all make-up that Mummy didn’t need.

Ruby saw a little book with ‘Diary’ on it.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I have a diary!’ She opened the diary to see what kinds of things Mummy wrote in hers, but there was only boring stuff like ‘School, 4.40. Double shift Thurs/Fri. Knickers for R.’

She was R. She remembered getting the knickers from the market in Bideford – they had the days of the week on them and Friday was spelled ‘Fiday’. She always hoped she didn’t get hit by a bus on a Friday.

‘Let’s see,’ said Daddy.

She gave him the diary and he flicked through it while she carried on cleaning. There was a first-aid box with some old plasters, a bottle of Calpol from when she was little and a box of Paracetamol.

‘Can I put a plaster on?’

‘Sure, Rubes.’

She chose a cute round one from the box and stuck it on her face so it looked as if she’d been shot with an arrow.

There was a crumpled plastic bag that held a few old boxes containing necklaces and things. Mummy didn’t wear jewellery because it made her look cheap, and she didn’t have any good stuff anyway. Not like Maggie’s mother, who dripped with jangling gold and wore a big ring on every finger. All Mummy had was one pair of small diamond earrings in a blue velvet box with a crown on the inside and the word Garrards, and a matching necklace in another box, except oblong this time, not square. The diamonds were tiny and the inside of the lid was covered with white silk and someone had written on it with felt-tip: Think of me when you wear this, baby girl. Ruby frowned. She hoped the necklace wasn’t for her. Sometimes Mummy tried to girlify her by buying her a pink top or a flowery clip for her hair. Christmas was coming in a few months and she didn’t want a boring old necklace.

Inside the third box was a brooch. It was shaped like a fish, covered with diamonds for scales and with rubies for eyes. It was cute, but it wasn’t even Mummy’s; on the box it said it belonged to someone called Tiffany. Ruby stuffed the bag back where she found it and opened a shoebox filled with loose photographs of people she didn’t know.

‘Who’s this?’ She held up a photo of a pretty young woman with dark hair. She was wearing a white summer dress, and was holding the hand of a little boy in a cowboy outfit.

Daddy took it from her. ‘That’s me,’ he said. ‘And my mother.’

‘Ha!’ laughed Ruby. ‘You were a cowboy then too!’ She peered up underneath the photo in his hand. ‘It says Johnny and me on the back.’ He turned it over and touched the writing with his fingers.

‘Your mummy was sooooo pretty,’ said Ruby.

‘Not like Nanna.’

‘Yeah, she was,’ said Daddy, and winked. ‘That’s why I’m so good-looking!’

Ruby giggled, then sighed. ‘I wish I had a cowboy outfit.’

Daddy ignored the hint. Everybody ignored her hints. Sometimes she wondered why she bothered giving hints. She’d been hinting about a pony for years.

Daddy was still looking at the picture, so Ruby sidled up alongside him so she could look at it too.

‘Was your daddy taking the photo?’

‘I can’t remember.’ Daddy put the photo in his pocket and looked around him. ‘There’s nothing here.’

They put almost everything back exactly where they’d found it, then they ate the pie cold, and straight out of the dish, because Daddy said it was nicer that way.

Later, while Daddy watched TV, Ruby took her diary out of her pony backpack. She opened it on the first blue-lined page, which was always so encouraging.

She wrote: MONDAY.

It didn’t look quite the way she’d wanted it to – the D was a bit like a P and she had to go over it twice – but so far, so good.

She gazed at the window and chewed the top of her pen. Then she bent over the book again and underlined ‘Monday.’

It was wonky. She should have done it with a ruler.

She chewed the pen some more, until the little plug came out of the end of it, then she sucked on that so it stuck to the tip of her tongue like a big blue pimple. If she waggled it about, she could see it at the bottom of the slope of her own cheek.

Then she underlined ‘Monday’ again.

Then she went and got a glass of milk to help her think.

Finally she wrote:

Ruby put down her pen and sighed deeply at the nice blank page she’d ruined with her boring life.