Ruby's War (18 page)

As the sharp tang of blood and freshly exposed intestine rose from the enamel dish, he fingered the pack of
cigarettes in his pocket and asked for permission to smoke. After a couple of deep inhalations, Con found the taste of tobacco in his throat had successfully masked the smell of decaying grass rising from the freshly exposed entrails. He couldn't help thinking that Grandma Eloise would not have approved of squat Mrs Bland with her uncombed hair and slovenly dress. His grandma, as daughter of the head footman, had modelled her own dress and manners on those of Miss Grace and Miss Susanna, the daughters of her employer, and she'd looked down on not only the field hands, but all the lower order of workers in the house as well.

‘She became secretary to their mother and read to their grandfather, who was going blind. She read him the newspapers and his correspondence, but she also read literature to him. Her favourite writer was Shakespeare. She loved
Twelfth Night.
It was always performed in the house at Christmas time when she was a small child. All the household were allowed to watch, and she never forgot it. She read it to me as a little boy. Not that I understood it, but I loved the sound of her reading it, I suppose. I still read it to myself now. I imagine the characters on the stairs in the old mansion out in the middle of the cotton fields.'

‘Are you sure you wouldn't care to stay and eat with me?' she asked, dropping lumps of the meat into the blackened saucepan.

‘No thank you, ma'am,' he said. ‘I'd best be on my way, but thank you for the tea and the history lesson.'

‘As you can see,' she said, getting up from the table and wedging the pan on the smoking fire, ‘I've a good library. Please feel free to avail yourself of my books. You might
want to try another Shakespeare play.
Hamlet
, perhaps,' she said, nodding to the bookcases as she led the way to the front door.

‘Thank you, ma'am, I'd like to. I only have the one book with me.'

‘Well call any time,' she said, opening the door. ‘All my books are unpacked now, and I think I should be able to find something that might interest you. It's strange isn't it, when you unpack things in a new house, how you discover a little treasure that had slipped your mind. I'd forgotten all about my Ophelia,' she said, pointing at the picture of a red-haired girl hanging by the front door. ‘Who does she remind you of?'

‘I don't rightly know, ma'am,' he said.

‘Why, the little girl at the cottage up the lane. Mr Barton's granddaughter. She's going to be quite a beauty.'

The following Saturday night, Con climbed into the back of the truck and sat down next to Holt. The wrapping around the nylons he'd bought for Rita crackled inside his jacket. Holt handed him a cigarette.

‘You goin' to the movies?' he asked.

‘Naw. I'm meeting Rita.'

‘You got a late pass?'

‘Yep.'

‘And you got protection?'

‘Holt, you ain't my daddy.'

‘This Rita … Wes says she's …'

‘She's what?'

‘Older than you, and …'

‘Wes don't need to talk. He didn't exactly struggle …'

‘Where is he?'

‘Card game. Says he don't want to come to town. Got a letter from his girl, and gone all gooey-eyed.'

‘Why don't you come to the movies with the rest of us? I'll save you a place in the queue.'

‘Rita … I don't know. I might do.'

‘Bring her. You need to watch your back around town. I hear some guys got into a fight.'

‘Yep, with some white guys. I know. They were GIs. I'll be fine. It's a real friendly place. What you goin' to see?'

‘Don't know. Just wanted to get out. Somethin' happy.'

‘You got bad news?' Con asked, gazing out at the shadowy outline of the terraced houses along the road.

‘Naw. It's just … Well, I suppose getting Arleen's letters … It makes Paradise Valley seem an awful long way off.'

When the truck dropped them in town, Con made his way to the old barn of a pub near the dance hall where he'd arranged to meet Rita. He waded through the smoke-fogged room until he found her sitting with a crowd of girls. When she saw him, her chubby, yellow-stained cheeks flushed with a pinky glow.

‘Oh, excuse me girls,' she giggled, draining her glass. ‘My bloke's here.'

The five women at the table turned, taking in his athletic frame and mellow brown skin. A pale, thin girl with heavily made up eyes gazed up at him.

‘He's gorgeous,' she said, addressing Rita.

The other women continued to gape, and Con shifted uneasily. Rita got up and slipped a proprietary arm through his. Holt was right; she was older than he was. In fact, she was almost nineteen. Almost, he told himself, as old as Sadie. The thing Con liked best about Rita, though she wasn't nearly as pretty as Sadie, was
that she adored him. At least, he thought she did. She certainly didn't flirt like Sadie. The night he'd met her, Rita hadn't looked at another guy, and there were plenty – at least six guys to every girl. It was like that most nights in town.

They walked across the road to the dance hall, and he followed her between the rows of seats to the dance floor, squashing the occupants who were packed so closely together they were scarcely able to drink from their glasses.

Rita barely reached his shoulder, and as they danced, Con looked around the crowded floor. Holt's warning had made him feel nervous. There were rumours around the camp of white GIs hunting in packs, ready to beat up any black guy they saw. And the thing that made them real sore was a black guy with a white girl. There were plenty of white guys in town and plenty at the dance. As well as English soldiers on leave, there were French, Dutch, Norwegians, Danes and Canadians. The week before, there'd been a group of Polish guys, who'd bowed and clicked their heels when they'd asked for a dance, and the girls had loved it. Everyone had been real friendly. None of them worried about the black GIs. They were all glad the Americans were here. It was the white GIs who were the problem. Holt had been right; it was best to stay in a group. If you came across trouble in a group, you had a chance.

‘Where's the rest of them tonight? They coming later?' he asked.

‘The girls will be coming over in a bit. You met Jean last week at the house. Do you remember?'

Con smiled and shook his head. His memory was hazy. He could remember dancing with Rita and complaining to Wes about the beer. She'd taken them to a pub. Then they'd moved on. Every place they'd stopped, Wes pushed a drink into his hand; he hadn't wanted to say no and be thought a baby. After a while, the places had become a blur of faces and noise. The rest was a series of images: a wet street, a cold lamp post, Rita's laugh, an old man singing and then a rough, cold wall against his face. He remembered her room with stockings hanging from a line. And then Rita's mouth, her tongue slippery and enquiring, a stale, narrow bed and folds of pliant flesh. Later, as his head cleared, those same soft layers and her round, yellow face had repulsed him, and all he'd wanted to do was escape. The nylons were to tell her that he'd been drunk and he was sorry. Then he planned to leave, and when the guys asked, he would say she'd stood him up.

At first he was going to wait until the music stopped, but when the dance ended Rita moved in close, reaching up, pressing her soft, heavy breasts against him, curling her arms around his neck. Her skin was velvety and her hair smelt good. Then the band began to play again, and the next time the music stopped, her friends were waiting on the edge of the dance floor. He danced with all of them. Between dances, they giggled and flirted with him and the other soldiers who were crowding around, waiting for a turn to dance. There was an English guy called Sid who was on leave, a couple of Norwegian sailors and a large Canadian who knew Paradise Valley well. For the first time in days, Con felt happy. Then
Rita dragged him away. She left him waiting for her in the busy entrance hall, struggling drunkenly to light his cigarette, and went off to powder her nose. He hadn't noticed the group of white GIs barge through the door, or how they'd suddenly stopped joking with the woman selling tickets when Rita finally came back and he'd helped her on with her coat.

Outside, the night felt mild and damp, and her lips tasted warm and sticky. When he gave her the nylons, she squealed with delight, and they swayed along the street, until she collapsed, stumbling and laughing, against an iron gate.

‘Come on,' she said. ‘Let's go in here.'

The old churchyard gate squeaked, and Rita giggled as she led him between the gravestones and into the protective shadow of the trees. The sky was clear. In the starlight, Con could see couples huddled together against the buttressed walls. She pulled him towards a flat, white tombstone supported by four curved pillars and then perched on the side.

‘We can't go back to mine. Two of the girls I share with are on the other shift to me. They'll be sleeping. It's nice here,' she said, lying back on the white stone. ‘Look up there.'

Con climbed up next to her and gazed up at the stars. They began to pulse.

‘I reckon they're swaying,' he said.

‘I reckon you're drunk,' she laughed.

She rolled over and began to cover his face with kisses. In the pale-blue light, her face floated above him. Rita pressed her body into his, and Con slipped an exploring
hand inside her coat. He heard the iron gate creak and saw the red tips of cigarettes bouncing in the darkness. Con smiled, imagining other couples from the dance hall sneaking around looking for a place. Under his fingers, Rita's heart thrummed. She gasped and her soft weight shifted. Then the space above him filled with dark shapes. He smelt stale liquor. Rita whimpered and her warmth was suddenly replaced by the cold night air.

He heard someone growl, ‘Whore.'

Con tried to sit up. He could see three dim forms against the patch of sky. Hands grabbed him and held him fast. He tried to move, but his arms were clamped to the coarse stone. He kicked. There was a yelp and fingers dug into his leg. Close by, someone swore. The voice was American. From the South. He shouted, called to Rita, but she didn't answer.

He heard footsteps. Then the same voice, low and angry, gasped, ‘Filthy whore.'

‘Catch her,' another voice above him ordered.

Then Rita whispered, ‘Don't hurt me.'

‘You don't scream, and you don't get hurt,' the same voice said. ‘An' you, bastard, you shout an' I'll gut her an' then you.'

‘Leave her alone,' Con shouted, straining to lift his head.

The first punch made the pleasant fuzziness in his head disappear. The second made his teeth judder. When Con struggled, cold fingers probed and pressed his windpipe. His body fought for air. His lungs tore and pumped. He twisted and pulled, but he was held fast.

‘Reckon we should string him up as a warning to the
rest,' another voice, excited and breathless with the effort of holding him, said.

‘Got no rope,' a third slow, reasonable voice replied.

‘Let's cut his balls off. Not bother any white whore then, will you, boy?' the first voice said.

Then a hand slammed his head into the stone, and above him, Con heard drunken laughter.

‘He don't like that idea,' the slow voice drawled. ‘He don't like that idea at all.'

Then, out of the darkness, a guy shouted, ‘Hey, Yanks, leave him alone.'

The laughter stopped, and the grip on his limbs slackened. Con lay still, listening, hoping.

‘You leave him, you great bullies,' a woman called. ‘How many of you is there?'

They let go of his arms. His legs were freed. Fingers grabbed at his hair. When his face hit the white stone, Con bit his tongue, and as his own blood flooded his nose, he remembered the smell of the dismembered rabbit.

‘This is an American problem, you folks,' the first voice said. ‘We got no quarrel—'

‘No it ain't, mate. You leave him alone and get lost. You come late to the bloody war, like you always do, and now you want all the say.'

Con rolled on to the floor and vomited. Above him, the graveyard was full of movement. The voices were mostly English.

‘Rita, love, are you all right?' he heard her friend Shirley call. ‘Have they hurt you?'

‘No, but they've ripped my bloody stockings,' Rita said.

‘You can leave her some money for some new nylons,'
he heard Sid, the English soldier, shout. ‘You earn enough, and we're sick of you throwing it around.'

‘No thanks,' Rita yelled. ‘I'll use gravy browning, rather than take money off these bastards.'

‘We'll get you, boy. You remember that,' one of the three GIs whispered in his ear, before following the other two towards the gate through the crowd of jeering couples.

‘That's right, mate, clear off, and find your own women,' Sid yelled after them.

‘Bet no bugger will have them,' he heard Shirley call.

Above him, clouds covered the stars. Around him, the crowd laughed and then jeered some more, as the GIs made their way out of the cemetery, and Con, who had wet himself, was glad of the darkness.

Ruby counted out five shillings on to the counterpane. Christmas was only two weeks away. She needed to buy presents and hoped that Bo would get her some tobacco for Granddad. She'd wanted to send Auntie Ethel and Uncle Walt a present, but Sadie had said they wouldn't expect it and to send them a card instead, telling them what a good time she was having.

It wasn't true. At first, she'd expected a letter every day, telling Granddad to take her back. She knew Jenny thought she wasn't going to stay, but now no one mentioned her going back to Everdeane. Now, Jenny counted on her to do the cleaning, and if she complained, she pointed out that girls of her age worked nine hours a day plus overtime in the factory. Ruby rolled over on the knobbly counterpane and chinked the coins in her hand. If she did get work at the factory, she'd have more money, regular money.

She didn't earn regular money working for Mrs Grey, and now she'd gone down with a chill, the fundraising teas had been cancelled. Ruby thought that she must have been feeling ill when the American officers came for tea. At the time she'd been disappointed that Mrs Grey, who usually praised her appearance, hadn't noticed that she'd made a special effort to look smart, wearing Sadie's cream sweater over her green-and-black tartan kilt, lengthened from the top using some strips of blackout curtain, but now she realised it was because Mrs Grey hadn't been feeling well. The problem was that without the money she earned playing for the fundraising teas, there was very little cash to hand over to Jenny.

Ruby sat up and slipped on her shoes. Everyone was at work, and before she left she put a note on the table for Jenny, telling her that she'd peeled the potatoes and they were soaking in a bowl of water. Then she took her coat and basket from behind the door. Today she was going to help Alice to get the house ready for Christmas. They were going to clean the living room, and if Mrs Grey was feeling better, they would probably get out the decorations. When she arrived at Doctor Grey's, as she walked up the drive and before she turned to follow the narrow path to the back door, Ruby always pretended that she was coming home. Today she imagined that she was on her way home from boarding school for Christmas, and that Dick – who would have been sent to meet her at the station – would be bringing her trunk in the car, after he'd delivered some life-saving medicine to the hospital. In this imaginary life, instead of being Ruby, she was Cordelia, Cordelia Grey, and her mother,
Diana, would be waiting for her in the living room. Then Alice would bring them tea, and they would sit together, laughing and gossiping and telling each other their news. When she opened the kitchen door, Alice was standing at the sink beating something in a mixing bowl, and Dick was sitting at the table with a collection of screws and screwdrivers on a piece of newspaper.

‘Missus wants a word,' he said. ‘There was a right panic here earlier on. The girl who plays Mary has mumps and—'

‘That Mrs Prendergast was here first thing,' Alice said. ‘Said the teacher and Father O'Flynn were in a right state.'

‘And Alice told me last week, you could say the part word for word.'

‘When we was doing the brasses, you did the whole thing. So Dick says to the missus to ask you.'