Blue Moon (13 page)

‘Thank you, Albert,’ said Bea.

He smiled at Ruby, but she looked away quickly. It was kind of him to help, but she was determined not to encourage him. She stood up. The thing Susan Marley had said was going round and round her head:
They
found his body … he’s been drown-ded
. But the whole time she’d sat with her head in her mother’s lap, Ruby hadn’t shed a single tear for her father. She’d wanted to. It was the right thing to do when somebody died, but she couldn’t. She guessed it must be because she was in shock. Her father wasn’t easy to live with, but she wouldn’t have wished him harm. Now that she was on her feet and could see her mother’s face, she was slightly surprised. Bea’s eyes were tearless as well, but she looked different. She seemed so alive … almost elated. She gave her daughter a thin smile. ‘He’s not coming back, Ruby,’ she said, pressing her handkerchief over her mouth. Her body juddered again and Ruby realized that her mother wasn’t grief-stricken at all; she was struggling not to laugh.

Later that evening when Ruby got back from turning the beds down, May was still staying with Susan Marley and her father’s body was in the front parlour.

‘I’ve told Warnes what’s happened,’ said Ruby. ‘They’ll give me the day off for Father’s funeral.’

‘Is that all?’ her mother complained.

‘I can’t make too much fuss, Mother,’ said Ruby. ‘You know Mrs Fosdyke, and how she’s always on at me. If I make too much of a fuss, she’s just as likely to give me the sack. It may not pay much, but with things the way they are, we can’t afford for me to lose this job.’

Her mother nodded. ‘You’re right. Do you want to see him?’

They never used the front room, but Bea kept all her
nice things in there. Nelson was lying in a plain coffin perched on the table. He looked peaceful, but there was an ugly gash on the side of his head. When Ruby looked up at her mother, Bea said, ‘They say he must have bashed his head when he fell in.’

Someone had dressed him in his best suit. He didn’t look like her father at all. His mouth should be snarling, and he should have angry spittle on his lips. But, for all his faults, the enormity of what had happened was beginning to dawn on Ruby and she was starting to worry. If the family was to survive, she would have to work out a way of keeping them all together. Everyone needed an anchor and, from now on, that’s what she would have to be. She’d keep her job – and get another one, if necessary. Her mother was in no fit state to do anything except take care of May.

The steady stream of people coming to pay their respects began. They were mostly other fishermen, for Nelson had few personal friends. Ruby was kept busy making endless cups of tea, and by the time they’d all gone she was exhausted. She was just about to lock up and go to bed when there was a soft tap on the front door. She opened it crossly, wondering who on earth would come at this time of night. It was Jim. Her heart lurched with joy, and for the first time since Albert had knocked on the door early that morning with the news that her father’s empty boat had been found, tears sprang to her eyes.

‘Ruby, I’ve only just heard,’ he said. ‘I am so sorry.’ He grasped her hands in his.

‘Come in,’ she said.

‘It’s late,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I just wanted you to know I’m here for you.’

‘Thank you for coming,’ she said, her voice thick with emotion.

‘You must be tired,’ he said, touching the side of her face gently. ‘I’ll come back tomorrow. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help.’

He leaned towards her and his lips brushed hers. Ruby closed her eyes.

Jim closed the door himself. She stood looking at the wood and still feeling the warmth of his hand so tenderly on her cheek.
Oh, Jim …

Turning out the gas light, she made her way wearily up to bed. Somehow – now that Jim knew what she was going through – the terrible events of the day didn’t seem quite so insurmountable.

When Ruby got back from her morning shift the next day, the coxswain of the lifeboat was at the house. He told them they couldn’t bury Nelson until there had been an inquest. For the first time, Bea began to cry.

‘H’everyone concerned with your father’s death will be called to give h’evidence before the coroner,’ Coxswain Taylor said, adding an ‘h’ before every word that began with a vowel, in his usual pompous manner. To emphasize the point, he’d threaded his thumbs through the braces of his thick canvas trousers. ‘H’and his verdict will determine if Nelson was unlawfully killed or if he
suffered a h’accident or …’ he sniffed in an exaggerated fashion, ‘… or if the said party committed suicide.’

Bea and Ruby looked at each other, aghast.

‘Nelson wasn’t the sort of man to take his own life,’ Bea protested angrily.

Ruby chewed her bottom lip anxiously. After everything else, she couldn’t face that. A verdict of suicide would mean that her father couldn’t have a Christian burial, and that seemed especially cruel for her mother.

‘And a member h’of the family should be present at the h’inquest,’ Coxswain Taylor went on.

‘No.’ Bea pressed her handkerchief to her mouth. ‘I can’t go!’

‘I’ll go, Mother.’

‘With h’all due respect, madam,’ said the coxswain, ‘you will have to give h’evidence.’

Bea looked up at her daughter helplessly.

‘It’ll be fine,’ Ruby said, grasping her mother’s hands. ‘We’ll do it together.’

When the coxswain had gone, Bea pointed to a paper bag on the table.

‘What’s that?’ Ruby asked.

‘The things they took from Nelson’s pockets,’ said Bea.

Ruby’s first reaction was:
what a small bag
. It had contained everything on his body when he’d been found. She watched her mother tip the contents onto the kitchen table and run her fingers through them: a crumpled handkerchief, his penknife, four shillings and eightpence in
coins, Nelson’s lucky rabbit’s foot, won at a fairground when he was a boy, and a bullet.

‘Is that real?’ Ruby asked anxiously. ‘Why on earth was he walking around with a bullet in his pocket?’

‘It’s not real,’ said her mother, picking it up and looking closely. ‘It’s hollow. Something’s been etched onto the side.’

They peered at the lettering, but it didn’t make sense:
Victory
.

‘Must be something from the war,’ said Ruby. ‘Perhaps it was to remind him.’

‘I doubt it,’ said her mother. ‘He never talked about the war.’

Ruby took the bullet from her mother’s hand and held it up to the light. ‘Maybe it was a near-miss.’

Bea shrugged and Ruby put everything back into the bag. By the time she’d finished, her mother was reaching up for the tin on the mantelpiece. She tipped the contents onto the kitchen table and some coins rolled out. ‘The first thing we have to do,’ she said, ‘is find the money to bury him.’

‘Oh, Mother,’ said Ruby, ‘don’t worry about that now.’

‘I need to do this, Ruby.’

With a sigh, Ruby nodded.

‘Doesn’t look much,’ said Ruby, as she helped her mother stack the money into neat rows.

‘Two pounds, seven shillings and fourpence,’ said Bea. ‘And he had an insurance policy, which will give us about five pounds.’

‘How much does a funeral cost?’ asked Ruby.

‘Susan Marley says it cost twelve pounds eighteen shillings and sixpence to bury her old mum,’ said Bea, ‘so we need at least another five pounds.’

‘Where are we likely to get that kind of money?’ said Ruby gloomily, remembering the money she had once had in her Post Office book. She would have to tell her mother about the five-pound reward she had received from Dr Palmer, but there was less than three pounds left. If only she hadn’t been so eager to pay Isaac up front for all those German lessons.

CHAPTER 9

The next couple of days passed in a haze of work and keeping vigil over Nelson’s body. Everyone at Warnes was sympathetic, and nobody asked Ruby too many questions. It was as if they thought she wouldn’t be able to hold it together, if they probed too much. In fact she was numb.

Ruby didn’t like the idea of sitting with a dead person, especially in the dead of night, but she soon got used to it. Susan Marley had organized a few of the neighbours to sit with Nelson during the day, and Winnie Moore offered to come one night; but in the main it was left to Ruby and Bea to take turns. Cousin Lily offered to sit, but had to be carried from the room in a dead faint after she claimed she saw his chest moving.

Jim Searle had come back the following afternoon and promised to go with Bea and Ruby to the inquest, which was to be held in the old Town Hall on Monday, October 2nd. It would be held a week and a day after Nelson had died.

‘Albert Longman has already offered,’ said Bea, who was sat at the kitchen table.

‘I’d prefer to go with Jim,’ Ruby insisted and, to her great relief, her mother agreed. In the meantime, Albert called every day to see if there was anything they needed.

Bea made small talk with Jim when he visited, asking him about his family.

‘I was an orphan,’ he smiled matter-of-factly. ‘I was brought up in a children’s home.’

‘How awful,’ cried Bea.

‘It wasn’t too bad,’ he said. ‘I got on all right and, when you don’t know any different, you think that’s the way it is. No one had any great expectations of us, so I suppose that’s what has given me a determination to prove myself.’

‘And you’ve done very well for yourself,’ Bea smiled.

She got up from the table and went into the parlour room, where Aunt Vinny was sitting with the body. Ruby watched her mother go and sighed.

‘She’s taking it very well,’ said Jim.

Ruby nodded. She wanted to say
too well
. Her mother was acting like a bird that had been set free – one that was still waiting inside the cage, until it was the right time to fly away. ‘So it would seem,’ she said. ‘I keep wondering if it hasn’t really hit her yet. I’m afraid she might collapse later on.’

Jim nodded sagely. ‘How is May taking it?’

‘There’s another strange thing,’ said Ruby. ‘She and my father were very close, but May seems to have taken it all in her stride. She cried a bit the first night, but since then she’s been fine.’

‘Where is she?’

‘Susan Marley, next door, has been looking after her for us,’ said Ruby. ‘Quite frankly, I don’t know what I would have done without her.’

Jim rose to his feet. ‘Well, if you are sure there is nothing more I can do,’ he smiled, ‘I’ll see you in time for the inquest. What time is it?’

‘Ten-thirty at the Town Hall,’ said Ruby. ‘Mrs Fosdyke is letting me go at nine-thirty, so Mother is going to wait for me, and then we can go from here.’

Jim nodded and, picking up his hat, headed for the door. Ruby went with him and, as he left, he turned and brushed her cheek with his lips. ‘Bye then, Ruby,’ he said softly. ‘See you tomorrow.’

Ruby closed the door and, leaning her head against the wood, smiled dreamily. Despite all her worries at the moment, Jim was the one ray of sunshine in her life.

Dr Rex Quinn called the dogs and they bounded out of the sea. He loved this time of day. It was early morning and the weather was crisp and fresh. The clouds had formed ripples in the sky – a kind of reflection of the ridges formed on the sand when the tide was out. It was quiet too. The only sound came from a lone gull standing on one of the groynes jutting out to sea. He called the dogs again and they trudged up the beach to the shore. A ten-minute brisk walk and he would be home again.

His small cottage was perfect for his needs, and he was reasonably happy with his life. He’d become used to living here, and this uncomplicated existence was
better than he had ever expected. He still had scars but, unlike a scar on the skin, they were hidden in his heart and only occasionally caused him pain. He had once thought he would never recover, but they say time is a great healer; in his case, time wasn’t the physician, but it did put distance between him and the rawness.

Rex turned the hose on the dogs and, once they had shaken themselves, he towelled them down. The salt water irritated Harvey’s skin and, not to be outdone, Maisie wanted her share of the fun. Their tongues lolled and their eyes were bright as he rubbed their backs.

Pulling the morning paper from the letter box, he and the dogs went inside. The light level was low in the kitchen, but he didn’t turn up the gas. Instead he cooked a couple of rashers of bacon for himself while he fed the dogs. They ate noisily and quickly, and had already flopped to the floor to doze by the time he was ready to eat.

Rex took his meal into the lean-to, an all-glass room that he had erected on the side of the house, just off the sitting room. It wasn’t heated, but he liked the feeling of being out of doors and, under the glass roof, he had the best of both worlds: an open heaven, with protection from the elements. The dogs followed him and positioned themselves at either end of the room.

He poured himself some tea and shook the paper open. In France the Cherbourg-to-Paris express had been derailed and had gone over a precipice. Among the thirty-seven dead was a local man, Christopher Jackson, a schoolteacher and a man who had been highly decorated
in the Great War. His wife, Esme, was among the eighty or so injured.

Herr Hitler was threatening to pull Germany out of the League of Nations, prompting several columns’ warning of the dire consequences; and, by contrast, a revolutionary concept in mass catering was announced, as the Lyons organization opened a new style of restaurant which they called the ‘London Corner House’.

Rex was just about to turn the page when a short paragraph in the ‘Stop Press’ section caught his eye. A fisherman had drowned at Worthing. It only took a second to read it and, as he did so, he stopped eating, his fork halfway to his mouth.
‘The inquest will be held tomorrow on the death of Nelson Eldon Bateman …’
Harvey sensed something was wrong and sat up.

Rex began to eat quickly. He could hardly believe what he was seeing. The day he had thought about for so long had come at last. There was so much to do. His mind raced ahead. Where was the railway timetable? And his suitcase? Luckily he was already on annual leave, but he’d have to find someone to look after the dogs. It was time to make the final move. He had to settle this thing once and for all.