Ruby Flynn (11 page)

‘Jack is driving Jane and me to Belmullet on the cart tomorrow morning,’ said Ruby to Betsy. They were scraping porridge bowls into the scullery sink following breakfast and helping Mary to clear up.

‘It’s not fair,’ said Mary sullenly. ‘I never get to go nowhere. No one ever sends me to the shops. I’d love to go to Galway one day, I would. Or Belmullet; I would love that.’

Ruby instantly felt guilty. ‘Oh Mary, shall I bring you something nice back? Would you like some sweets? Mrs McKinnon has given me a shilling to buy some treats.’

Ruby reached out and pulled Mary to her, tucking her under her arm and kissing the top of her head. Mary was such a simple soul that she felt protective towards her.

‘If you went to Galway, Mary,’ said Betsy, ‘we’d be terrified of losing you. God, can you imagine how heartbroken the lads would be, ’cause they all love our Mary.’

Mary giggled and pulled out from Ruby’s embrace, her face bright red. ‘Would ye stop!’ she yelled, as Jimmy walked into the scullery with his bowl.

‘What’s that?’ said Jimmy. ‘Our Mary’s not going anywhere, there would be too many hearts broken around here and mine, sure now, it would be broken the worst of all.’

Mary ran from the scullery, shrieking with delight. Her day of peeling potatoes and scrubbing the scullery floor had just become that much more bearable.

‘I wonder why Jane and not me?’ Betsy said to Ruby and Jimmy, feeling hurt. ‘Mrs McKinnon promised me I could go next time I had a day off.’

‘I think Jane overheard Mrs Mack telling me I could have the day off and she gave out big time. I think she just caught Mrs McKinnon when she was busy and wore the poor woman down. You are too easy-going, Betsy. Jane kicks off so much she has them all half scared of her.’

Ruby felt guilty imparting this information, but she was already quite clear in her mind: Betsy was her friend, not Jane. Betsy had helped her settle quickly into castle life and that had in turn helped her work with and improve things a little for Lady Isobel.

Jane walked in through the scullery door to join them at the sink and shouted at Mary to follow her.

‘What’s going on in here?’ she demanded to know. ‘Amy sent Mary in for the vegetables and she ran back out without them.’

Mary, who had followed behind Jane struggled to lift the wicker basket full of vegetables. ‘Jane, will ye take the other handle?’ she asked, sheepishly.

‘No,’ replied Jane, walking over to Ruby and Betsy. ‘Ye aren’t complaining about me going out are ye, Betsy? Don’t ye dare. Ye and Amy are always slipping off to visit your mammy’s sister’s lad at the pub in Belmullet and ye never take me.’

‘I wonder why that might be,’ replied Betsy, tartly. ‘You must come with us next time,’ she added pointedly, looking at Ruby and ignoring Jane as she bent down and took the handle of the wicker basket, which was banging painfully against Mary’s knees.

As it was, the rain the next day was far too heavy and the road too muddy for the cart to take the extra weight of the girls alongside the provisions.

‘Just wait until there has been a few windy days on the trot to dry out the mud,’ Mrs McKinnon said to the disappointed Ruby and Jane.

But the rain persisted every day and felt like it would never stop again and so eventually Jack took them in his precious new van. Mr McKinnon had said that if the rain kept up he would take the girls in the car himself, but the car couldn’t fit everything in that Amy needed, especially the sacks of flour and the special new mix for the pig feed which Mr McKinnon was becoming impatient for.

‘Don’t get mud on the seat or put your feet on the dashboard,’ Jack said, as soon as they were sitting on the front bench.

‘Can we breathe, Jack?’ Ruby asked, cheekily.

‘Away with you, madam,’ he replied. ‘It has taken my whole life to save enough to buy this van and I shan’t live long enough to buy another, so we must look after it now.’

‘Where do you earn your money to save?’ asked Ruby, puzzled.

‘Well, the estate needs me most days, but I have work from the village too and I do a lot of fetching and carrying from Dublin for the shopkeepers in Belmullet and the villages. Not everyone pays me in money, mind. I had my roof thatched and it didn’t cost me. We all do things to get by and help each other.’

As Ruby examined the van, she wondered if Jack would help when she finally put her escape plan into action. For now she was just happy to have a day off. She had never before had a day off from anything. Despite Sunday being a day of rest, it was prayers, church and jobs as always for the non-fee-paying girls in the convent. She had decided that today she would use the freedom to track down Lottie, even if it meant stepping in and out of every hotel bar in Belmullet.

‘God, I cannot believe I am going to find Lottie,’ Ruby said to Jane when they were well along the road. ‘Can you? There can’t be that many hotels in Belmullet. I just have to ask around and find out which one she’s working in.’

‘Why would I care either way?’ replied Jane, with indifference. ‘She’s nothing to me.’ It took a lot more than an acerbic Jane to put Ruby off her track.

‘Imagine, she could be only yards away from me and not even know I was there. I couldn’t sleep last night thinking of the things I had to remember to tell her next time I see her, not knowing at the time that it would be today.’

Ruby had decided to entirely ignore Jane’s rudeness but she did wish that it was Betsy sitting next to her in the van. Despite her best efforts, Jane’s moods threatened to spoil the happiness of her day.

As the van turned onto the Belmullet Road, Ruby read the list Amy had given her. Amongst other things she wanted six ounces of two-ply baby pink wool, which had apparently arrived from England last week. Amy planned to knit a matinee coat for her niece in Chicago.

‘There will have been a run on it,’ said Jane gloomily as she led the way to the shop. ‘They will all be after it when the news gets out that it’s in. They haven’t had pink in for months. I thought that maybe Amy would have slipped away and bought it for herself but she’s in a right tizz because Lord FitzDeane is coming home sometime soon and she wants to make his favourite things to eat.’

‘Will I get to meet him?’ Ruby asked.

‘Well sure, why would ye not, stupid. He’s not invisible. We all work for him, don’t we?’

Ruby was still determined not to take offence.

‘Amy does love her cooking. She will be glad of the chance to make some nice things and with a bit of luck, maybe we will see some of the leftovers,’ Ruby said cheerfully.

‘It isn’t just Amy in a tizz,’ Jane continued. ‘The gardeners haven’t stopped cutting and pruning and Mrs McKinnon hasn’t stopped ordering us all about. Don’t ye have ears, Ruby? Have you not noticed how busy everyone is? If there wasn’t a list of things Amy and Mrs McKinnon needed, I think they might have cancelled our day out. The only person who isn’t bothered about Lord Charles coming home is Lady Isobel.’

As Jane spent barely a moment in Lady Isobel’s company, Ruby wondered how she had noticed this, but her loyalty towards Lady Isobel forbade her to reply. She sometimes confided in Betsy, who she knew she could trust, but never in Jane.

When at last Ruby and Lottie met, their squeals of joy could be heard outside the hotel and right down the main street in Belmullet.

‘What kind of commotion is that?’ said the barman Tony, , Amy’s cousin as he came up into the bar from the cellar. Tony knew Ballyford well, which was news to Lottie.

‘My giddy aunt, Lottie, would you look at the cut of you, you look grand,’ said Ruby admiringly.

‘Not at all, ’tis you who looks grand. Ye look just like Rita Hayworth, doesn’t she, Tony? If I hadn’t known it was you coming through that door, Ruby, I’d have thought she had checked into the hotel herself.’

‘Go on Lottie, take an hour in the town,’ said Tony, as he slammed a wooden crate onto the bar. ‘You and Rita Hayworth have some catching up to do and then ye can come back here and tell me all the news of our Amy, Ruby.’

Lottie had her apron off and her coat on almost before the words had left his mouth.

Later, in the café above the shop where Ruby had bought the wool, they looked out into the street and saw Jane and Jack, searching for Ruby.

‘Shall I tap on the window for her?’ asked Lottie.

‘God, no, she has a mouth on her so sour she would turn the milk. Let’s have a few minutes and I’ll say I never saw them. Lottie, we have to escape soon, you still want to, don’t you?’

Lottie looked sheepish. ‘Well, I do quite like it here, you know. Tony, he’s a nice man to work for and I’m making friends in Belmullet. At night, all the young ones, they hang about on the street and outside the pubs and the hotel and the craic is great. We are out there until it’s dark. And in the pub there’s a ceilidh at the weekend, with everyone dancing and the fiddlers playing and it’s just fantastic, so it is.’ Lottie’s face lit up, as Ruby’s fell.

‘Well, there will be that in Doohoma as well, but you could be a teacher, Lottie, you are so clever. You surely don’t want to stay here, do you?’

Lottie thought Ruby looked as if she was about to cry, so she said, ‘God, no, of course not, but let’s just wait a little while. Give me a few weeks, maybe a few months. I’m only getting five shillings a week, with my board and keep. How much are you getting?’

Ruby was ashamed to say she hadn’t asked and didn’t know. Lottie knew Ruby well enough to have guessed this was the case. ‘Well, get the cut of you with your big running away ideas and you don’t even know how much money you have!’

‘But we will be away from here before Christmas comes, won’t we?’

‘Of course we will,’ said Lottie, hugging Ruby, knowing deep down that she didn’t have Ruby’s burning desire to be free. Lottie was safe and she was having fun. Her existence was a million times better than it had ever been at the convent. Life, for the first time, was being good to Lottie and she was scared to move, to alter the direction of the wind that was blowing such fortune in her direction.

When it came time to say goodbye, Jack almost had to peel Ruby and Lottie apart. ‘Come on, little lady,’ he said. ‘You can come back soon, can’t she, Tony?’

‘Aye, she can that. We need another, if she wants to leave Ballyford and come and work for us. I doubt she could match Lottie though, she has been a great bonus to the hotel. Chats away to all the guests she does as bold as you like and they all love her.’

‘Eh, enough of that, this lady belongs at Ballyford, don’t you, miss?’ said Jack.

As Ruby climbed into the van with Jane, Jack’s words spun around in her brain.
This lady belongs at Ballyford
. It was true, she did feel as though she belonged there and with each day the feeling got stronger. She needed to escape sooner rather than later if the pull of Ballyford was to be resisted.

*

The servants were getting ready to go about their work when Mr McKinnon made his announcement. Ruby was in the process of untying a knot in the back of Betsy’s hair and the kitchen was filled with the noise of clattering oat bowls being loaded into the sink for washing.

‘Tomorrow, Lord Charles finally arrives at Ballyford.’

‘Thank the Holy Father, at last,’ said Amy.

‘It’s because of your constant chatter and complaints that he’s returning so soon, Amy,’ said Mr McKinnon, with a grin. ‘That and because you’re his favourite.’

Everyone giggled, but none more than Amy who turned crimson.

Mr McKinnon spoke over the laughter. ‘Apparently, he dreams of your chicken and leek pie with the savoury cream sauce when he’s in Liverpool and he only gets to eat it when he is at Ballyford. He is yet to meet anyone in Liverpool who even understands what he is talking about and the woman who cooks for him, well, if she wasn’t enough to drive a man to drink, I’m sure I don’t know what would be.’

‘Well, ’tis nice to be appreciated an’ all but I need to get to work,’ said Amy, with a flourish. ‘Lady Isobel eats less food than I throw out for the birds; I need to stock up. Get those bowls washed, Jane. Everyone else, out of here. I have work to do. And someone tell Jimmy I need more onions and to bring me two big birds.’

She threw the skinned rabbit back onto the platter and slid it under the cover. The evening stew abandoned, it was now to be chicken and leek pie.

Ruby had not joined in with the laughter and hung back from the other staff, who were gathered around Mr McKinnon in order to hear better. Her plan to escape was all worked out in her mind. Jack had told them that he was waiting for six bicycles to be shipped from Liverpool into Dublin and that he was away to collect them in the van. If Ruby could get hold of one of those bicycles, then she would have her own means of transport and could be gone.

But now she felt reluctant, and she didn’t know why. Though she felt so very sorry for Lady Isobel, now that Lord FitzDeane was coming back she supposed Lady Isobel would not need her as much. This was her opportunity to escape. So why did she feel filled with dread? As though things were not going to work out the way she had planned?

‘Shoeshine, sir?’

Charles FitzDeane looked down at the boy standing on the corner of Exchange Flags. He knew the lad. He stood in the same place every day and often cleaned his shoes. It gave him some amusement that the boy he tipped by day failed to recognize him at night.

Charles had walked through bomb rubble on his way to get a cab to drive him into Liverpool from Sefton Park. His shoes were dirty and in need of a polish, but where he was heading clean shoes would be out of place. He walked through bombed-out wasteland every day in Liverpool. Nothing had altered, since VE Day. Liverpool had been torn and ravaged and the energy of the city’s residents had been focused on existing. On healing. On the making good of who and what was left. The rubble had remained, waiting for someone to notice. A miserable and unintended memorial, fashioned from towers of fire-blackened bricks, to the people who had lost their lives.

Tonight, Charles definitely did not want his shoes to be shone and his eyes avoided the boy’s expectant gaze. If he had been dressed in the clothes he had worn earlier that day, on his way to his solicitor’s office, the boy would have known him straight away and realized that he had already brushed his shoes once that morning.