The House by Princes Park (35 page)

‘Have you got a picture of your wedding, Grete?’

‘There’s an album somewhere. Do you know where it is, Mam?’

‘On the bottom shelf of the sideboard.’ It hadn’t been opened since the day Larry and Rob had died.

‘Come on, Pix. I’ll show you.’

Ruby sat down heavily when the pair disappeared into the lounge. For years, Greta had been treated with kid gloves, then along had come the tactless Pixie Shaw and her daughter had seemed more than willing to talk about Larry and the day that had forever changed all their lives. Perhaps Greta had been well for a long time, yet they’d all continued to walk on eggshells, treat her as an invalid. It had needed someone like the garrulous, nosy Pixie to show them she was better.

At midday, Pixie announced she had to leave to collect Clint from school. ‘He wants to come home for his dinner.’

‘Bring him round after school one day to play with the girls,’ Greta suggested. ‘Once he’s made friends, he might stay for his dinner.’

‘That’s a good idea,’ Pixie enthused. ‘I fancied having him home for the company, but the morning’s just whizzed by and I’ve hardly thought about Clint at all.
’Fact, I’d have stayed longer if it weren’t for him. ’Bye, Grete. See you tomorrow.’

Ruby closed the door on their guest. ‘She’s coming again?’

‘You don’t mind, do you, Mam? We’re going to night school together. It starts next week. Pixie had already put her name down for leatherwork, but I thought I’d learn cake decorating, same as Martha. Pixie’s decided to do it with me.’

‘But Mam, that’s not fair,’ Heather complained that night after tea. She was drying the dishes while Ruby washed. Greta was watching television with the children who were tired after their first day at school. ‘I’ve been asked loads of times at work to go to the pictures with the girls, but I always refuse because I’d sooner stay in with our Greta.’

‘Surely you’re glad she seems so much better?’

‘Yes, but...’ Heather made a face. ‘Perhaps I could go to night school with her and this stupid Pixie.’

‘Don’t be silly, love. You’d be bored out of your mind decorating cakes.’ Ruby sighed as she put a casserole dish on the draining board. Her own mind was numb with the effort of feeding nine people and keeping everywhere clean. Mr Keppel had left to get married years ago, and Iris Mulligan and Mr Hamilton had found a house of their own where they’d gone to live in sin, Ruby supposed. Three students from Liverpool University, young men, now lived upstairs and seemed determined to eat her out of house and home. No matter how much food she made, every scrap had gone by the end of the meal.

Clint Shaw came to play on Saturday morning. The weather had bucked up; the sky was blue and the sun was shining. By the end of the week, Ruby had had enough of Pixie who’d been every day. She was relieved to find Clint
a blond angel of a child, very sensitive, with none of his mother’s brashness.

She watched through the window as the children played in the garden. It seemed only yesterday that she’d watched her daughters play with Jake on the same lawn under the same trees.

‘How time flies,’ she murmured.

Now it was Ellie who was the leader, the one who determined what games were to be played. She was the younger of the twins by an hour, yet the more forceful as well as the taller. But Moira wasn’t prepared to be ordered about as Greta had been. There was rarely any argument; Moira just went her own sweet way no matter what Ellie said. They were obviously twins, alike in many ways, different in others. Apart from being fractionally smaller, Moira’s rich brown hair was curly, her eyes a lovely light blue, her chin round, soft and dimpled. She was a self-contained little girl with a gentle, kindly smile, almost adult.

Ellie’s hair was wavy and her expressive cobalt blue eyes were never still. She flashed like lightning around the garden, running the fastest, shouting the loudest, climbing the highest trees. Her pointed chin was always gritted, as if she had great problems to grapple with, and she suffered from a singular lack of patience, though having realised at a very early age it was a waste of time getting angry with her sister, she was inclined to turn on her cousin instead.

Daisy! Ruby’s heart contracted when she looked at her third granddaughter, the solid, freckle-faced, red-haired Daisy, hanging timidly back from the others as usual. Such a pretty name for such a plain child – a woman had actually said that once in the clinic when Ruby had taken the girls for an injection.

No one knew where Daisy had got her looks from. The Whites had racked their brains, but neither could recall
having had a relative with red hair, no matter how far back they went. Ruby had asked her mother, but Olivia couldn’t help.

‘There aren’t any redheads in my family. As for your father, he had black hair, same as yours, but there could have been loads of ginger-haired O’Hagans in America. I wouldn’t know.’

Ellie White, Rob’s mother, probably didn’t realise she made such an almighty fuss of her glowing, vivacious namesake, rather than her own son’s child, the dull, slow-witted Daisy.

‘How’s Greta been today?’ was the first thing Heather always asked when she came home from work, as if her sister was far more important than her daughter.

Ruby tried to make amends, make a fuss of the little girl who always seemed to be trying hard to look happy. But it was difficult. She didn’t want it to appear too obvious to the twins – Moira wouldn’t mind, she might even understand, but Ellie wouldn’t be pleased if she thought her cousin was Ruby’s favourite. Ellie could be spiteful at times.

Greta and Pixie came out of the lounge where they’d been talking animatedly. ‘Is it all right if me and Pix go into town to do some shopping?’ Greta asked.

‘Me sister-in-law’s getting married in November. I need an outfit for the wedding,’ Pixie put in.

‘We won’t be long, Mam.’

‘Why not ask Heather to come with you?’ It was years since the girls had gone shopping together.

‘She can shop in the lunch hour,’ Greta said airily. ‘Anyroad, she’s in the bath.’

‘All right, but don’t you dare think about going out next Saturday. It’s the twins’ birthday party, there’s twelve children coming, and I’ll need all the help I can get.’ She was already dreading it.

‘Wouldn’t dream of it, Mam.’

She must have been mad, inviting twelve strange children for four whole hours, when three hours would have done, or even two! The meal had been eaten in a flash and the kitchen floor was covered in jelly which the boys had flicked at the girls. There was also a scattering of crisps and crusts of bread. Two glasses had been broken and the tablecloth was soaked with ginger pop and lemonade.

Never again, Ruby vowed as she brushed the mess up, put the cloth in the laundry basket, and wiped the table, wincing at the screams coming from outside where the girls and Pixie were organising the games. Next party, she’d go out and leave them in complete charge.

For the next few hours, Ruby, never that keen on entertaining other people’s children, cowered in the kitchen and listened to her garden being wrecked. Children came in frequently to demand a drink, something to eat, the lavatory, have a cut bathed, or to complain about something or other.

Pixie had brought a portable wireless which was being switched on and off. Ruby assumed they were playing musical chairs – without chairs – or statues or pass the parcel. She couldn’t be bothered looking, just wanted everyone to go.

An unusually bright-eyed Daisy came running into the kitchen followed by Clint. ‘Can I show him me colouring book, Gran?’

‘Of course, love. Go in the bedroom, it’s quieter there.’

She was pleased the two had paired off. Daisy needed a friend outside of the twins. When she looked in some time later, she and Clint were sprawled on the floor taking turns colouring in a picture.

Only another half an hour to go. Ruby sighed with relief as she filled a tray with glasses of lemonade and chocolate biscuits to take outside, where she was pleased to
find a couple of mothers had arrived to collect their children – the sooner the better as far as she was concerned.

‘I bet you’ve had a helluva day,’ one of the women remarked. She looked about Ruby’s age, very slim, with short brown curly hair and smiling eyes. ‘I was dead relieved when my other kids grew out of birthday parties – I’ve a boy and girl in their twenties – but right out of the blue I had Will, and now I have to start all over again.’ She groaned. ‘He’s five next week. The girls have been invited to his party.’

‘Which is Will?’

‘The blond one in the blue T-shirt. I won’t ask if he’s behaved himself, because I know for sure he won’t have.’ Ruby recognised the impish Will as the instigator of the jelly-flicking. ‘He hasn’t been so bad.’

‘You’re only being nice. You’re Ruby, aren’t you? I’m Brenda Wilding. Oh! And this is my husband, Tony. He’s been parking the car.’ A good-looking man with Will’s blond hair joined them. ‘Tony, this is Ruby.’

‘Pleased to meet you. Ruby.’

‘Excuse me! There’s a child stuck up a tree. I’d better rescue him before his mother comes.’

‘I’ll do the rescuing,’ Tony Wilding offered, ‘If you fetch Will’s coat we’ll take him off your hands. We’re in a bit of a rush, we’re going to the theatre tonight.’

‘He didn’t have a coat, just a jumper,’ Brenda laughed. ‘It was cream when he put it on, but it’ll be black by now.’

Ruby found the jumper, still recognisably cream, on the hall floor. When she took it into the garden, Brenda Wilding was leaning back against her husband who had slid his arms around her waist and was nuzzling her neck. Ruby stopped in her tracks and a feeling of pure envy swept over her. They must have been married for a quarter of a century, yet were still obviously in love.

More parents arrived and the garden thankfully emptied. Pixie noticed Clint was missing. ‘And where’s Daisy?’ enquired Heather.

‘They’re in the bedroom,’ Ruby said.

Ellie ran into the house. ‘That’s not fair,’ she cried. ‘He should be playing with
me
.’

Ruby couldn’t see anything unfair about it, but said nothing. She’d had enough. ‘I’m going to lie down for a while,’ she announced. The students had gone hiking and weren’t coming back for tea, but tomorrow there would be a grown-up party to which the Whites and the Donovans had been invited, which meant she had another hectic day ahead.

She threw herself face down on to the bed and punched the pillow. ‘I’m fed up,’ she informed it. ‘Fed up to the bloody teeth. Why aren’t
I
going to the theatre with a dishy husband?’

The pillow remained mute. ‘Stupid thing!’ Ruby gave it another punch, then buried her head in the feathery mound with a deep, heartfelt sigh. She hadn’t been out with a man since Chris Ryan. Her entire life, from the age of seventeen, seemed to have been centred around children, first her own, and now her daughters’. And housework, endless housework. She was sick to death of cooking, washing, ironing, cleaning. She’d never been to the theatre, the last dance she’d gone to was during the war, and she couldn’t remember when she’d last been to the pictures or out for a meal.

There was a knock on the door. She folded the pillow over her ears so she wouldn’t hear if the person knocked again and gave a little shriek when she felt a hand on her back.

‘Ruby,’ said Matthew Doyle.

She sat up, outraged. ‘This is a
bedroom
,’ she gasped.

‘I thought I could hear you crying.’

‘I wasn’t crying, but if I had been, I’d’ve thought it a reason to stay out, not come in.’

He had the cheek to sit on the edge of the bed. It irritated her that he seemed to regard himself as a member of the family, though that was Greta and Heather’s fault. They encouraged him, asked him round, invited him for meals – he was coming to tomorrow’s party. The little girls adored him and called him ‘Uncle Matt’.

‘I brought some presents for the twins. I got something for Daisy too, in case she felt left out. What’s the matter, Rube?’

‘Nothing.’ She resented him calling her ‘Rube’. And why couldn’t he have brought the presents tomorrow?

‘You look down in the dumps.’

There seemed little point in denying it. ‘So what?’ she said churlishly. It had been a tiring, unpleasant day, and seeing Brenda and Tony Wilding together had been the last straw, though she wasn’t going to tell him
that
.

‘You need cheering up.’

‘Do I?’ She did. She definitely did.

‘Let’s go out somewhere. I need cheering up too.’

‘Why?’

‘Caroline’s divorcing me.’

Ruby wasn’t surprised. He must spend more time with the O’Hagans than he did with his wife. ‘What have you done?’

He shrugged. ‘It’s what I won’t do that’s the problem. She’s fed up with Liverpool. Daddy’s retired to the South of France, to Monaco, and she’d prefer to live there. I flatly refused and she ses I’m being awkward.’

‘So, she’s divorcing you for being awkward?’

‘Seems like it.’

He’d never said anything horrible about Caroline, but he’d never said anything nice either. She sensed he wasn’t particularly upset, but the end of a marriage, even if it hadn’t been blindingly happy, was always sad.

‘What about us going out?’ he said encouragingly. ‘Last time I asked – it must be five or six years ago – you turned me down because I was married. Now that hardly applies. I’ll be a bachelor again in no time.’

‘A divorcee,’ she reminded him. ‘You’ll never be a bachelor again.’

‘Don’t nitpick. Let’s have a night on the town.’

Normally, Ruby wouldn’t have walked to the end of the road with Matthew Doyle, but tonight she felt tempted. She would never cease to dislike him, but he seemed to like
her
, and was easy to talk to. She would express astonishent when her daughters said they considered him good-looking. ‘He’s too gaunt and hungry-looking,’ she would protest yet wonder why he so often caused a riot in her stomach. Always impeccably dressed, today he was wearing grey trousers with a knife-edge crease, a navy-blue blazer with brass buttons, and an open-necked shirt. He looked as if he was about to leap on to his yacht. She was surprised he wasn’t wearing a white peaked cap.