Ruby's Tuesday Read online

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names,

  characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the

  author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons,

  living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  Published 2014

  by Ward River Press.

  123 Grange Hill, Baldoyle,

  Dublin 13, Ireland

  www.wardriverpress.com

  © Gillian Binchy 2014

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  1

  Copyright for typesetting, layout, design, ebook

  © Poolbeg Press Ltd.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978-1-78199-981-3

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Printed by CPI, Cox & Wyman, UK

  www.wardriverpress.com

  For our angel Zeldine & my gorgeous husband Gary

  Prologue

  They forgot to tell us that they were going to adjust the setting on the 21st of June 2013. That it would change from colour to black-and-white. Just like that, in the space of a few moments. That it would then be like watching a high-definition movie on a low-definition screen.

  You see, before it happened we lived a happy, relatively stress-free life in high definition. The colours were sharp, the picture very clear and the sound a perfect pitch.

  Then that day the sky and sea became a few shades duller. Never since have they been the same piercing blue as before. That shade of fierce cobalt blue you see on the Greek Islands or on a perfect summer day in Connemara – that indigo blue that makes you want to live overlooking Dublin Bay forever – well, on a sunny day, at least. Now that blue is more of a watery monochrome grey. Some days too, the sky and sea are just black with the odd speck of white.

  Our life was now a telly that was a bit fuzzy, out of focus, just slightly imperfect.

  The pain is a piercing ache in your heart that never goes away. It does dull a little with time, but it is there always like a lingering hangover, always in the background. On other days the agony is so brutal that it is debilitating.

  Simple tasks are often difficult and overpowering. Reading instructions or directions is nearly impossible, because you can’t concentrate – your mind flits in an instant. Comics with coloured pictures and word-bubbles are okay – they require less focus. Also, if you lose concentration, it has fewer consequences. You can just go back to the first coloured square on the top left-hand side of the page. And start again.

  I imagine it must be like the onset of Alzheimer’s; you lose your concentration and forget things. You are in a middle of a task and then you get lost. You get lost right there standing in your own kitchen, in a kitchen that has been yours for the last ten years, that you know every cubic inch of.

  The secret, they say, is to manage the pain so that it becomes bearable, tolerable even. You need to lose your sense organs. You don’t need them inside the newly fitted-out bubble – the bubble that has become your new life.

  Sundays brought that dreaded feeling – like having to go to work when the sun is out and everyone else is off. Digging sandcastles, enjoying creamy ninety-nines and sipping cool beers by the sea quickly became redundant hopes.

  Now, I stay in on Sunday and sneak out into society during the week only when it is absolutely necessary – and to jog when I feel up to it. Once out there, I climb to the bubble. You see, in the bubble I can’t hear screaming kids, I can’t see perfect families, I can’t taste freshly whipped full-fat wobbly ice-cream cones with oversized jagged chocolate flakes. Sun cream no longer smells of long hot days on a windswept beach. By shutting down the senses, I can block out all reminders of our lost future.

  I wonder what they think at the local Sunday Farmers’ Market – do they wonder what has happened to us? Did they have a good old gossip about us? More of a bitch than a gossip? Did they say that they always thought he was a bit odd, that he had a strange dark look about him, and that she always seemed a bit too giddy, like she was on something?

  How could a couple who came to the local Farmers’ Market every Sunday without fail, at the same time, after their morning sea swim, just stop coming? And no one had seen them since, not even on a single Sunday. Utterly bizarre, they would conclude. If he’d got a great new job and they were relocating, surely they would have come by to bid farewell to everyone, and wish them luck for the future? Wouldn’t you expect that as a minimum, judging from their middle-class manners?

  I wondered if the cheesemonger from Northern Spain would interrupt their gossip. Would she have enough broken English to defend us? Fabiana, the gorgeous little Catalan girl. Yes, she would defend us from their harsh words, of that I was sure – if they could understand what she was trying to tell them. Her kind and genteel nature would introduce some sympathy and sincerity into their argument. Her good-natured personality would shine through despite her fighting with the words.

  Sunday was an event at which most of posh suburbia was doing happy shiny things, like showing off their well-educated kids by force-feeding them organic sushi from the market stalls. Then came the parade led by the toned and tanned husbands, as the wives looked on adoringly. They would call out gently, using sophisticated language to both the angelic kids and the equally well-trained pedigree Weimaraner. Middle-class suburbia put on a perfect performance for all to see. You were invited for just one day a week, a Sunday, to marvel at their wonderfully happy perfect tight-knit family units.

  I declined their Sunday invitations. The market and its people became like other parts of my life, redundant, part of the past. I wished for fifty-two less Sundays in every year. Could I rename the day? Just ignore it, pretend that there were only six days in my newly invented calendar? After weeks of agonizing over a solution, I settled on the idea that my Sunday would become my Monday. Simple: I would stay in, do housework, read, watch TV on the Sabbath, thus avoiding a multitude of problems.

  Sure, at first I missed the dark-green olives stuffed with creamy-coloured almonds; lunch was not the same without the warm crusty sea-salt-and-rosemary focaccia bread. A snack of carrots without basil hummus was not as tasty. But soon those familiar tempting tastes faded from my mind, until eventually I erased them completely. Such sensations were not allowed in the bubble, they were obsolete in the new version of reality.

  Some Sundays, having worked from early morning until afternoon, as a late-lunch option I would down a bottle of chilled white wine, and munch on processed, farmed smoked salmon from the supermarket. Then, I would sleep the afternoon away, safely locked away from the happy perfect families. I would only rise wh
en I was positive that it was well after all their bedtimes, when suburbia by the sea had emptied itself after the local performance.

  So life went on . . . after a fashion.

  Chapter 1

  A Monday in July, 2013

  I picked up my little girl and held her tight against my chest. She was very still.

  “Ruby, my angel, your mum is off to run the pier. Be a good girl for your dad – he’s in the other room, working – fighting with those bloody Chinese consultants. Be the best girl now till I get back. I will be only an hour, do you hear me? I love you, Ruby, my little angel.”

  I glanced back at her to make sure she was okay with the arrangement, but she didn’t answer. How could she at her age? I tapped the fingers of my left hand gently onto my pink-glossed lips and blew my daughter a kiss.

  “Bye, sweetheart, I’ll be back very soon. Love you, Ruby.”

  Luke was on a conference call in the blue room, now temporarily his office. Gently, I opened the office door. He was slouched down in his office chair; they had beaten him down again, those tiresome Chinese clients. He didn’t turn around to greet me.

  I tippy-toed to the desk. I swung my head around to meet his face and planted a kiss on his forehead. He smiled gently, pointed to the phone then bobbed his middle finger up and down at it. Another day, I thought, that the friggin’ Asians are getting the better of him.

  I moved my arms up and down by my sides, to indicate that I was off for a run. In case he hadn’t noticed my pink-and-black running outfit. He nodded and smiled at me. I rubbed the top of his back as I turned to leave and blew him a kiss but he didn’t notice.

  I closed the apartment door quietly – I didn’t want to upset Luke or Ruby on my way out. I ran down the tattered carpeted stairs. The morning sunlight trickled through the red-and-yellow stained-glass window, landing on the carpet at the end of the stairs. I pulled the large yellow front door firmly shut behind me. I jogged down the wide granite steps, onto the loose gravel that groaned beneath my weight.

  I was heading towards the green footbridge that would lead me to the sea front, and on to Dun Laoghaire’s West Pier.

  It was just after nine in the morning, the second last Monday in July.

  There are two piers – one east and one west. They look like giant arms stretching out in the sea – like they are hugging and holding the water, embracing it calmly, minding the water in their arms.

  I always prefer the West Pier – or the ‘poor pier’ as I call it. It isn’t perfectly paved like its sister pier. Also it is less busy there. The people that go there seem more real. At the end of the pier there is a single-storey lightkeeper’s house. An enormous green lighthouse dwarfs it. People seem to come to this pier to work stuff out, judging by their thoughtful faces. I go there a lot. I find it very soothing to be on it.

  The East Pier is the posh pier. It sells fancy coffee and homemade ice cream. It is where those perfect people in tight family units stroll. The tourists go there and couples on dates wander along it too. I’m always amazed how people having affairs brazenly walk up and down it, in public – walking down the pier with someone else’s husband or wife. Confident young adults rollerblade along it, while spotty youngsters tormented by puberty and parents, skateboard on it, oblivious to everyone else.

  It gets very busy, the East Pier; that is one of the reasons I don’t go there any more. There are lots of buggies of every design, shape and size on it. Some are running ones, some single and more are double buggies.

  A cyclist with thin hairy brown legs and a boney arse whizzed past me as I crossed over the green footbridge. He missed me only by inches and screamed some obscenity at me as he flew off in a blaze of luminous yellow.

  I just shook my head and raised my eyes to heaven. Fixing my sunglasses on the top of my head, I jogged on.

  A man wearing a chocolate-brown uniform was standing on the other side of the bridge, staring after the cyclist. “Near miss there!” he called out to me when I neared him.

  “Yeah!” I replied, slowing down.

  “That bloody cyclist nearly wiped you out!”

  The man in the brown uniform seemed a bit too irate by my reckoning.

  “Oh yes, he did, didn’t he?” I responded calmly and stopped jogging. “Happens all the time – a cycle and running track together – ’tis madness – I’ve seen loads of collisions.”

  “Are you from around here – I mean, do you live nearby?” the man enquired.

  I looked from his face to his jumper. On the left-hand side of the jumper was a burnt-orange-coloured emblem that announced itself as Swift Delivery.

  “Well, yes, I live down the street, back there.” I pointed in the direction I had come from.

  “I’m looking for Coliemore Close – have you any idea where it is? I’ve been up and down every bloody street and alleyway and not a sign of it.”

  He had a distinct Dublin accent, and it had a familiar ring to it. I was suddenly afraid.

  “Coliemore Close, Coliemore Close,” I repeated, trying to sound normal and composed. “We live on Coliemore Road, so it must be somewhere around here.”

  His body froze. He appeared terrified by my words and looked almost shell-shocked. The man in brown, he didn’t move an inch.

  My heart sank; it felt like it might land on the ground in front of me. I felt sick. I started to shake from the inside out. I squeezed my left fist, dug my polished nails deep into the palm of my hand, swallowed very hard and fixed my gaze on two sandstone-coloured chimney pots just above the man’s head. Then I took a deep breath.

  I stood there for what felt like hours, rattling my mind to try to find words – any words would do – I just needed to say something.

  And he stood too, gaping at me.

  I was first to regain my composure.

  “Have you delivered to Coliemore Road recently?” I enquired gingerly.

  “Yes, yes, a couple of weeks ago. Jaysus, it must be nearly a month ago at this stage – ’twas a Friday afternoon during the heat wave, there in July. ’Twas a strange day, an unusual delivery.”

  “Are you Michael? Michael from Swift Delivery?” It must have seemed a stupid thing to say, a silly question, as his badge clearly read Michael Thompson.

  “Yes,” he responded. “I am Michael.”

  We stood looking at each other. A deadly silence hung between us. I stared and stared at him in disbelief.

  “I am Afric. The girl you spoke to on the phone,” I said, surprising myself with my efficient tones. “Do you remember me from that Friday a few weeks ago? The express delivery that you made to the large yellow door?” I took a step closer to him, maybe to assure him that it was okay.

  “Jaysus, yes, of course, of course I do.”

  There was a standoff. Neither of us moved.

  “Afric, I am so bloody sorry for you, for you both – my heart breaks for you. Life can be so bloody cruel. I hope that you’re okay now – now that you’re all together again . . . are ye okay?”

  I could see that his eyes were wishing me to say yes, that we were okay.

  “We’re fine, it will be fine in the end, thanks,” I replied. “I am so, so sorry for messing up your day. I felt so bad for you. I hope that I didn’t upset you too much? But, look, I know I completely fecked up your weekend.”

  “Jaysus, Afric, don’t be mad,” he said. “I went home to the missus and told her what happened. I had her in floods of tears, and then of course she asked me what I said to you and I told her – Jaysus, she nearly killed me! ‘What did you go asking her that for?’ she growled at me.”

  We smiled a half smile at each other.

  “I’m so sorry for asking – for asking what happened to her,” he went on, “but sure you know men don’t have a clue what to say in those circumstances, not a clue, but you know that I meant well – Jaysus, you do know that, don’t you? God, life can be very cruel – I’m real sorry, missus, sorry for your trouble.”

  I could see that I had messed
up yet another day in this stranger’s life.

  “Yes, it can be unkind,” I said, “but I guess you have to take the bad with the good, don’t you?” What else could I say? I took my shades from the top of my head and placed them over my eyes to conceal them, and to block out the July sunshine too. “Please tell your missus that I’m fine, that we are all fine. Thank you, Michael, for being so kind.” I paused and carefully considered my words before going on. “Can I ask you something? Do you ever wonder what is inside all those boxes you deliver?”

  He paused for a moment, as though searching for the answer I wanted to hear.

  “Well, to be honest – not before that Friday – no, I never did, I never thought about it really. I suppose I just considered delivering boxes as ‘the job’ – it was just a job, like any other.” He took a breath as if to steady his voice. “Now, it’s different. I look at each box and wonder if what I’m delivering might change someone’s life – will what I deliver make them happy or sad, am I good or bad news? But that’s just for now – I’m sure that soon I’ll deliver boxes like before, not thinking about it.”

  But I doubted this was the case. I was sure that the man with the chocolate-brown uniform would always wonder about the contents of every single delivery.

  We parted company, with Michael still unable to locate Coliemore Close. Mind you, I hadn’t been of much assistance to him.

  I took off jogging towards the West Pier. I looked over my shoulder and saw a grown man in a dark-brown uniform reach into the left-hand pocket of his trousers for a handkerchief. He quickly wiped his eyes and put his sunglasses on.

  This was the second day in his life that a girl with a strange name had ruined.