Family Drama 4 E-Book Bundle (121 page)

He ushered Betty out of the door before Sadie could respond, but they both heard the bang as something she’d thrown down the hallway hit the front door.

‘I don’t envy you going home tonight!’ Betty grinned as they got into the car that was also owned by Bill Morgan.

After he dropped his sister off at her home Johnnie started to head back to Blacksmiths Lane to check on the units, but on the spur of the moment he decided to take a detour. He turned and drove into Walthamstow High Street, parked the car and walked straight to the park where he and Ruby had gone after they had got back from Melton.

The park where he’d made love to Ruby Blakeley the one and only time.

He walked over to an empty bench and sat down plumb in the middle to try to avoid anyone coming to sit next to him. Leaning back he closed his eyes.

He counted back and guessed it would have been about six years before … six years, and such a lot had happened since then, but sitting there it seemed as if it was only the day before.

He knew the minute they’d both stood up and straightened their clothes that he’d done the wrong thing. He hadn’t planned or expected it, but at the time he’d been carried away by both Ruby and the circumstances. He could see he’d taken advantage of her but it hadn’t seemed like that at the time.

The visit to Melton had opened Johnnie’s eyes to life away from the London he’d lived in all his life and it had also shown him Ruby in different surroundings. It had all been so exciting that, for the first time in his ruthless young life, he’d let his heart rule his head. She was a sixteen-year-old virgin and he was three years older, and already well experienced, courtesy of Sadie Scully. It was wrong and he knew his sister would have been horrified if she’d ever found out.

The train journey home that had seemed so romantic, the smell of her shiny clean hair when she leaned on his shoulder, walking in through the park gates holding hands, the first kiss, the anticipation … he could remember it all so clearly. But then not long afterwards, just as he’d started to think they could have a future together, just as she’d started to intrude into his thoughts all the time, she’d disappeared. But at the same time so had his guilt, because he had no constant reminder of his foolhardy behaviour.

Ruby Blakeley had become a pleasant memory.

He pulled the postcard out of his pocket and studied it. He had no intention of following up on this information – he had a wife and two children and a good job with Bill Morgan – but he still couldn’t help wondering again about her. What she looked like, what she was doing, and what had gone wrong. He wondered why she was apparently living in a hotel when she’d gone off to be a nurse, whether she was married, if she had any children. He smiled nostalgically as he remembered the young girl who had fascinated him from the first moment he’d seen her sitting on her suitcase at the bottom of the street, and then disappeared just as he was falling in love with her.

Suddenly fearful of the feelings that one simple card had reawakened in him, he tore it into several pieces and almost ceremoniously dropped it in a nearby rubbish bin. Then he went back to his car and drove away.

Johnnie Riordan was living a good life, and as long as he stayed on the right side of Bill Morgan and did his bidding without question it could only get better.

Now all he had to do was forget what he’d read and stay away from Ruby Blakeley.

Twenty-One

‘You own the bleeding hotel? She’s left it all to you? Oh, dear God in Heaven, what a shock! Not that you don’t deserve it, but blimey, that’s some inheritance. I thought you were going to say she’d given you the car or her fur coat or something, but the whole fucking hotel?’

Gracie was happily incredulous as Ruby finally shared the news with her. The solicitor had headed off back to his office and the Wheatons had left for Melton, so Ruby and Gracie were alone for the first time. It had been prearranged that there would be no dinner provision that evening and the few guests that were there had either gone out or to their rooms after the funeral tea, giving the two women time to sit down and discuss the turn of events.

‘I couldn’t tell you until after the formal reading of the will. I wanted to but … anyway, I’ve also got a reserve fund in case it all goes wrong. I suppose she knew I wouldn’t be able to cope …’

The tears started to well up again as she thought about Leonora, the woman who didn’t like the dark, spending her first night all alone in the churchyard. Ruby had thought about putting her precious binoculars in the coffin, but she couldn’t bring herself to part with them so instead she’d placed inside the ragdoll that Leonora had kept on her bed and a postcard of a cruise liner that one of her lady guests had sent her from India several years before.

‘I know I should be pleased about the hotel,’ Ruby sniffed, ‘but I feel so bad that this is all because she died. And I’m so scared. It’s all beyond me, really. I don’t know if I can manage it. I wish George and Babs were nearer.’

‘Of course you can manage. You’ve been doing it for years already,’ Gracie tried to reassure her.

‘Yes but with Aunt Leonora watching over me like a hawk and jumping when I did something wrong. Doing it on my own is going to be a different kettle of fish, that’s certain.’

She looked at Gracie sitting beside her in the cramped office that had always been such an oasis of calm, but had seen so much action in the past couple of weeks. It wasn’t a small room but it was full to capacity. The desk was old and creaky, and at an angle, with a chair either side, placed so that Leonora could see the view from the window and also into the lobby when the door was open. A floor-to-ceiling bookcase was crammed into an alcove and weighed down with folders and files and everything to do with the hotel. Aside from a couple of extra chairs tucked in the corner there was nothing else. It was Leonora’s little kingdom and Ruby felt uncomfortable being in there without her, even though she had been many times before.

‘I know I’ve been helping here, but there’s so much to learn. I mean, look at all those files and things. I don’t know what’s in most of them.’

‘Easy-peasy! You already know it all, even if you don’t think you do. One step at time …’ Gracie smiled. ‘You’ve got a solicitor and an accountant to help you, as well as Babs and George.’

‘Can I ask you something? Uncle George agrees that I need someone to help me so I was wondering, would you come and work here properly? If you did my old job then I might muddle through doing the rest. But I can understand if you don’t want to,’ Ruby added quickly, not wanting to put Gracie on the spot. ‘I know the Palace is big and lively, and you’ve got lots of friends there. It can be as dead as a dodo here out of season. In season too, sometimes.’ She laughed nervously, desperately wanting Gracie to say yes.

Gracie didn’t answer straight away. Instead she started chewing around the edge of her fingers, the way she always did when she was nervous. ‘I’ll have to think about that one. I love helping out here but I don’t know if I’d go nuts being here all the time. It’s a bit sort of grim sometimes when Leonora’s ladies are demanding stuff and nonsense.’

‘Listen, Gracie, don’t worry about it. I don’t want my question to make you feel put on the spot,’ Ruby said quickly, panicking that she might push Gracie away completely, ‘but some ideas might help me. There are some things I want to change. I suggested some changes to Aunt Leonora ages ago but she was having none of it. But I can’t do anything just yet. It would be disrespectful.’

‘I know what you mean, but do you know what I think?’ Gracie jumped up and marched on the spot. ‘I think we should go for a walk and talk about it; we both need some fresh air. You look dead on your feet.’

‘I can’t in case Ray comes back.’

‘I thought you didn’t want anything to do with any of them.’

‘I didn’t, I don’t … Oh, I don’t know. I suppose it’s because Aunt Leonora died so suddenly it made me think about my mother and grandmother. It would be nice just to know how everyone is, even if I never go back there.’

‘Are you going to tell him about the hotel?’

‘Not a bloody chance. The boys’ll be on the doorstep in a flash, looking for free holidays!’

As they both laughed so Henry, the occasional night porter, who’d come in early to help out, knocked on the door.

‘Someone here for you.’

‘OK, I’m on my way.’

Ruby and Gracie walked out together. They were still dressed from top to toe in black, and both had their hair still tied back from when they had had their hats on for church. Ruby fleetingly wished they’d had time to change and not look so drab but it was too late to do anything about it.

‘You came back,’ Ruby said to Ray, who was standing by the desk. She smiled slightly but didn’t offer a hand and neither did he. ‘I didn’t think you would.’

‘Thought I might as well come and see what’s what.’ He shrugged and curled his lip slightly, feigning indifference, but Ruby wasn’t fooled. She knew him too well. Ray’s curiosity had got the better of him.

‘Let’s go to the dining room. I put some food aside for you in case you came back. It’s only from the funeral tea but it’s really nice.’ She looked at him, trying to judge his expression. ‘Oh, and this is Gracie, a friend of mine. We work together sometimes.’

Gracie smiled and held her hand out. ‘Pleased to meet you, Ray.’

‘I bet,’ he said as he took her hand and shook it before quickly dropping his back down to his side as if he’d been shocked. With both women being nice Ray was completely wrong-footed.

Ruby led the way to one of the tables in the dining room, then went and fetched some cake and sandwiches for him along with a pot of tea. She placed the tray in front of him and sat down next to Gracie.

‘Why’d you do it, Rube? Run off like that.’ He didn’t look up as he poured himself a cup of tea.

‘You know why. You and Ma forced me to come back from Melton where I was happy and then you treated me like dirt. I didn’t want to be your skivvy. I wanted to finish my education and have a life.’

‘Well, get you. Still Miss High and Mighty.’ As he said it he glanced down at her hand and Ruby knew he was checking for a wedding ring. ‘Well, you didn’t get yourself much of a life, did you? From what I can see you’re just a waitress in a run-down boarding house!’ He sighed deeply and shook his head.

‘I’m happy,’ Ruby smiled. ‘Well, not today because of the funeral, but I like living here.’

‘You shouldn’t have gone like that.’

‘Whyever would I have stayed?’

‘Because we’re family and that’s where you belonged. You know that, and if the doc and his wife hadn’t got you you’d have known your place. You had a duty to the family but you ran off and left us to manage. Family should have been the most important thing for you, same as for the rest of us.’

Ray leaned back in his chair and looked at her. It was a challenge.

‘No, I didn’t belong, and you didn’t need me, as well you know. You just all resented that I’d had another life; but it wasn’t my fault Dad didn’t let you boys be evacuated, and it wasn’t my fault that he battered you all and not me.’ She stared at him for a moment and then shook her head. ‘But that’s all in the past. I’ve moved on and I bet everyone else has.’ She waited for a few moments for him to speak but he said nothing. ‘So what’s been going on back home, Ray? Has something happened to bring you here?’

‘Curiosity, once I knew where you were,’ he said.

‘Who told you?’ she asked.

‘You already asked that; it’s for me to know and you to find out!’ he replied childishly.

‘Oh, well, never mind, it doesn’t matter.’ Ruby shrugged, determined not to give any leverage for anything. ‘How is everyone? Are you going to tell me?’

‘Ma’s married again.’ His tone was flat and suddenly everything became clear. Ray’s demeanour was because he had been usurped as head of the family.

‘Who’d she marry?’

‘Some bloke she worked with. That’s why she loved that job at the big house so much. He’s the fucking gardener.’ He looked at Gracie. ‘’Scuse language, no offence.’

Ruby nearly fell off her chair. Ray being respectful?

‘None taken.’ Gracie smiled and stood up. ‘But now I’d better go and help in the kitchen. Edith’s struggling out there on her own and you two must have lots to talk about.’

Ruby knew that wasn’t strictly true. Last time she’d looked Edith was sitting out in the garden with her feet up on a stool having a cigarette and a cuppa, but she appreciated Gracie’s show of tact.

‘So what’s his name?’

‘Who?’

‘The bloke Ma’s married, of course.’ Ruby laughed, determined to keep the mood light.

‘Frankenstein. No, sorry, it’s Donald. He’s Scottish and a right ugly bastard, but Ma thinks the sun shines out of his you-know-what.’

‘Is he good to her?’

‘I suppose. Don’t see her that much. She doesn’t care about any of us any more. It’s all to do with him.’

And Nan?’ Ruby asked.

‘Older and going a bit gaga. Spends all her time looking out the window, especially since she got some decent glasses.’ He grinned and there was a hint of the old nasty Ray. ‘Looking for you most likely! She don’t like Donald all that much either.’

‘What about everyone else?’