Ruby McBride (6 page)

Ruby suspected one of the bullies had deliberately broken the toy, and Billy was pretending not to care. The thought made her feel sick.

As for Pearl, she made constant demands upon the nuns who were her teachers, begging for their help and sympathy whenever she didn’t understand something, but would then forget what they’d said or refuse to do the work. She could be vexing and manipulative, selfish and utterly brutal. She became ever more clinging and dependent, rarely leaving Ruby’s side. If Ruby were to speak to, or play a game with, any girl other than her sister, Pearl would exhibit every sign of jealousy even to giving the unfortunate interloper peevish little nips to make her go away. Yet the same rules didn’t apply to her own friends, whom she picked up and abandoned with regular and heartless callousness. One minute she would be all over them, being silly and giddy, the next she would toss them aside and refuse even to speak to them.

Ruby wisely guessed that perhaps her sister wanted to make sure she was the one to end the friendship before they grew bored and abandoned her. That way, she might not be hurt quite so much. Sometimes Ruby would be driven to say something. ‘Try not to be unkind to your friends, Pearl. You should treat them as well as you’d like them to treat you. I know it hurts, losing Mam, but it’s not right to take out your pain on others.’

But these sessions always ended in the same way, with her younger sister in tears asking if it was because of her being naughty that Mam had gone away. Ruby assured her that it wasn’t.

Losing Mam had, without doubt, affected them all very badly.

There were days when Ruby could scarcely concentrate on her work, she missed her mother that much. The pain of it at times was almost unbearable. She missed her smile, her laugh, her silly way of making a joke about everything and not taking life too seriously, even her own state of health. She missed the warmth and smell of her, even the little sips of stout she’d let them taste, and her rollicking laughter when Ruby had pulled a face.

The responsibility she felt for her younger siblings became a heavy burden. Perhaps that was why she would readily make promises which were impossible to keep.

‘Mam will get better soon and come and fetch us, won’t she?’ Billy would beg.

‘’Course she will.’

Pearl would be equally certain that the latest letter they’d written would be the one to bring the much longed for reply. `Won’t it, our Ruby?’

‘She’ll write and tell us that she’s fine and dandy, then she’ll waltz in that door with a great grin on her face, like always,’ Ruby would agree, and they went on writing and hoping.

Ruby was carrying just such a letter in her pocket one morning on her way to breakfast with Pearl when they happened to pass Sister Joseph’s office. ‘I’ll put it on her desk now, rather than after breakfast,’ Ruby said, ‘so there’s no risk of my being late for lessons.’

‘Ooh, don’t go into her office, our Ruby. Not without permission. What would
I
do if anything happened to you?’

Ruby laughed. ‘Pearl, you’re a treasure, you are really. Never one to think of others before yourself, are you, love?’

After a quick glance over her shoulder to check that the corridor was empty, Ruby sped into the office, her eyes seeking the wire basket in which the girls’ letters were stacked.

‘Ooh, do be quick!’ Pearl whispered from the door, dancing from one foot to the other in her agitation. ‘What’ll I do if she comes?’

Quite by chance, just as she turned to leave, Ruby happened to glance down into the waste paper basket which clearly hadn’t been emptied for some days. There was something about the writing on one of the envelopes which made her bend and pick it out. Ruby stared at it transfixed, her brain unable to take in the implications. Yet it was all too clear. The answer came to her with a slow, dawning horror that chilled her to the bone. The writing was her own. The envelope still contained the letter she’d written the previous week, at her brother and sister’s dictation, though instead of being posted, it had been torn up and thrown in the waste paper basket. Did this mean that none of their letters had ever been posted? That they had ended up in this way.

‘
Ruby
!’

Pearl’s frantic cry from the door brought her out of her numbed state and Ruby slid the torn pieces into the pocket of her pinafore and quickly followed her sister into breakfast.

Despite being hungry, Ruby found it quite impossible to eat the porridge. She could feel the ruined letter in her pocket, like a lead weight. When she heard the click-clack of Sister Joseph’s boots, and the swish of her long skirts, she felt herself stiffen and wished she could be a thousand miles away from this heartless, unfeeling place.

‘Not on another hunger strike are we 451 ?’

‘No, Sister.’

‘Is the porridge not to your liking perhaps?’

Ruby could sense the atmosphere in the dining hall gradually still and quieten, as if a storm were about to break. ‘I’m too upset to eat, that’s all.’

‘Dear me, and who has upset your tender feelings this time?’

‘You have!’ A gasp rippled around the dining hall. Ruby ignored it. She looked up into Sister Joseph’s face, as hard and unyielding as granite, and quietly taking the torn envelope from her pinafore pocket, laid it on the table top for all to see. ‘To accept letters, week after week, month after month, pretending that you’re posting them and then throwing them away in the waste paper basket is the wickedest, most cruel thing any person could do, let alone a nun. How many more did you tear up?’

‘All of them,’ Sister Joseph told her, without any sign of emotion. ‘Telling your brother and sister that your mother is going to answer those silly letters was nothing less than a lie, a sin against God. Why you insisted on continuing to write them is beyond me, since it was always perfectly obvious that she wasn’t ever going to answer.’

‘You didn’t know that!’ Only the rage Ruby felt at the injustice of the nun’s harsh words held her tears in check.

Sister Joseph snorted. ‘Of course I knew it. A woman of her ilk can’t even read and write. She abandoned you, and no doubt by now is dead.’

It was as if she had been smacked in the face. Ruby went numb. The world itself seemed to stop turning. Even the familiar sounds in the dining hall of countless plates being stacked, knives and forks collected up, died away as though this familiar routine took place in some far-distant place.

‘Dead?’ How she managed to get the word out, Ruby would never afterwards know. She blinked, cleared her throat, tried again. ‘I d-don’t understand. What are you saying?’

‘For goodness’ sake, stop making such a fuss 451. Everyone knows that your mother will be dead by now, and no amount of writing silly letters to her week after week, or telling fairy stories to your little brother and sister will alter that fact. I ripped them to pieces to save us all a deal of trouble, putting them in the waste paper basket where such rubbish belongs.’

It was in that moment, burning with a hatred which left her speechless, that Ruby made her decision. She wasn’t stopping in this dreadful place another day, another minute. They would run away. She would take her family and go. No matter what it cost them in pain and anguish, somehow they would find Mam and prove Sister Joseph wrong.

Chapter Five

Ruby wasted no time in putting her plan into action. They made their escape the very next Sunday as they walked in crocodile formation back from church. She’d given Pearl and Billy careful instructions, ordering them not to do anything which might jeopardise their chances of success. The whole thing worked like a dream. Sister George collected up their prayer books and as Sister Joseph was impatiently ushering her charges out of the church yard along the road, the three McBrides slipped quietly out of line and managed to duck under the hedge without anyone noticing, just as the crocodile of children turned the corner. None of them moved a muscle after that, scarcely daring even to breathe as they waited for the last of the stragglers to vanish from sight. Once the road was empty, they grinned triumphantly at each other.

If Ruby had known it could be this easy, she’d have done it years ago. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s find the sanatorium.’
 

This proved to be more of a problem than they anticipated. They made their way back into Salford unerringly, as if it hadn’t been nearly three years since they’d left it. None of them spoke throughout the entire journey, not wishing to remember the joy of that day when the Queen herself had come to open the Manchester Ship Canal, and Mam had looked pretty as a picture in her wide-brimmed straw hat with the artificial flowers on top, nor their last sight of her walking away sobbing from Ignatius House.

But once back in the maelstrom of the city, they became
disorientated and confused. Which way to the sanatorium? They hadn’t the first idea, then Ruby remembered their much loved neighbour. ‘Auntie Nellie! We could go and ask Auntie Nellie. She’ll tell us the way, and she’ll probably be able to tell us how Mam is.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Pearl said, and set off at a run, Billy galloping along excitedly beside her. In no time Ruby was running too, skipping and jumping with them, the three of them laughing as if this were nothing more than a jolly picnic. Ruby could almost hear Mam saying, ‘I’ll
not lose me sparkle.
’

Nellie Bradshaw stared at them in wonder, almost as if they’d dropped on her doorstep straight from heaven. ‘By heck, how did you three land up here? On the back of a dust cart?’

‘Where’s Mam?’ Billy blurted the question out before either of his sisters could get a word in. He wanted it made plain that he was the man of the family, for all he was the youngest. And that he would have an answer to this most vital and frequently asked question, come what may.

‘Eeh, lad.’ The round, apple-cheeked face took on a mournful expression, and Ruby’s heart plummeted. It was plain that the old woman did indeed have news, though not any that she relished telling.

‘She’s not - she’s not dead, is she, Auntie Nellie?’ Pearl asked, a tremor in her voice.

‘We can’t talk here love, on the doorstep. Come on inside and have a bite to eat. You look fair starved, the lot of you.’

With a mug of tea in one hand and a jam butty in the other, the children might have been forgiven for putting off the inevitable for a while longer. But Billy decided otherwise. He fixed their old neighbour with a fierce expression and bluntly told her that he was fed up with folk who wouldn’t answer his questions. ‘Is she dead or not? We want to know.’

‘He means we’ve a right to know,’ Ruby quietly added.

The old woman wasn’t in the least bit fooled by Billy’s aggressive stance, but sadly shook her head from side to side as if giving the matter deep thought. ‘I hate to be the one to give you this news lad, but she passed over before the year were out. She were a goner from t’minute she took sick. Why else would she have given you three childer up? Loved the bones of you all she did, but knew she weren’t long for this world. She’s in a better place now, love.’ Adding more hot water to the brown tea pot, the old woman generously refilled their mugs to the brim.

Three silent children sat unmoving, unblinking, before her. Ruby felt strangely calm, almost as if she were detached from the little scene, though a small part of her was relieved that they’d been told the truth at last, and in as kindly a way as possible.

She cast a covert glance across at Billy, his small face looking pinched and set in a familiar, mutinous expression and, if it were possible, Ruby’s spirits sank still further. She was well used to his mulish obstinacy. Billy clearly didn’t believe a word of it. He’d set his mind on finding their mam and not for one minute would he entertain the prospect of her being dead.

Pearl’s reaction was entirely different. She sank her face into her hands and burst into noisy, gulping sobs.

‘Now then, lass, don’t take on so,’ the old woman said, clucking sympathetically over the child and offering her a bit of clean rag for a hanky. ‘Yer mam’s at peace now. She’s with the Good Lord and she wouldn’t want you blubbing over her, not now. You has to eat yer jam butty and grow into a big, healthy lass.’

The kindly words made no impression and, much later, after Pearl and Billy had fallen asleep under a pile of old coats in the corner, since Auntie Nellie didn’t have a spare bed in the one room she called home, she and Ruby were finally able to talk.

‘You’ve grown into a fine young woman, lass,’ Nellie told her. ‘How old are you now - thirteen, nearly fourteen? Your mam would be right proud of you. Nay, but it’s a sorry business, is this. D’you like it then, at Ignatius House? Are they good to you?’

‘Some of the nuns are kind. Some aren’t. But it’s a sad place to bring children up. There’s no - no love there.’