‘If you’re sure you feel better. Calmer? Promise?’
Ruby embraced Beatty. ‘I’m fine. Go. Don’t hurry back; enjoy the day with Fred.’
Ruby waited until Beatty was no longer in view and crossed the road. She looked in the direction John had walked, but could see no sign of him. Knowing what he did for the war effort, and seeing him take another photograph after his sweeping statements a few weeks before, made her feel a little like a specimen in a jar – something to be ogled at whenever on display – and he’d encroached upon her moment of grief without asking more than once. Another glance across the flattened land showed he’d moved on elsewhere and she moved back onto the cleared streets towards her shop.
Her heart sank when she saw Tommy sitting on the doorstep.
‘Did you see ’im?’ Tommy called, shading his eyes from a shaft of sunlight straining through the cloud.
‘Who?’
‘The guvna, the big man. Winnie,’ Tommy said.
‘Our Prime Minister. Yes, I saw him.’
Tommy leapt to his feet and his toothless smile appeared as he cocked his head to one side, placed his hands on his hips, and proceeded to mimic Ruby.
‘Our Prime Minist – er. Yesss, I sawwer Him,’ he said.
Ruby pushed past him and unlocked the door. ‘My morning hasn’t started well, Tommy. My mood is not at its best, so I suggest you run off and take the mickey from some other poor soul who’s had the pleasure of your company since you graced Coventry. Now, get out of my way! Goodbye.’
She shoved open the door, closed it before he could step inside and put the Closed sign on show. Ruby was in no mood to deal with Tommy, or purchase a trinket of his aunt’s. Someone else would have to suffer his cheek from now on. It was time he found another friend to annoy – one of his own age. Besides, today would have been her brother’s tenth birthday, and the last person she wanted to share the day with was a boy with a toothy grin and a cheeky manner whose blood didn’t run through her veins.
She tried not to see him press his face against the glass, nor cave in when he pulled both bottom eyelids down with his forefingers and push his nostrils upwards with his little ones.
She hastily scribbled a note for the door: In Honour of the Prime Minister’s visit, we are CLOSED for the day. The moment she taped the notice to the door, Tommy’s face peered up at it and she watched as he picked through the letters, deciphering the words she’d written.
His fist hammered on the door. ‘Oi, Rubes. You feelin’ ill? I spelled the word Closed. You never close this place.’ His voice filtered through the letterbox and Ruby gulped down verbal instructions for him to leave her alone. The more she played to his need for attention, the more he would seek it out.
She sat in the meeting room against the wall, her legs drawn up to her chin. For all the cheerful days she’d enjoyed since 15th November 1940, this one overpowered them. She’d tried so hard to wave a flag and cheer on the Prime Minister, but sometimes she held the inner belief that politicians had let them down – let Coventry blaze for the good of the rest of the country. Other days, they were her heroes. Today a little boy, mourned by his sister, might have run free on Radford Common, or begged for a twist of aniseed. Today his personality was at the forefront of her mind. Today James lived.
‘Stop, James. Leave your sisters alone.’ Her mother’s voice rang out around the yard, and Ruby pictured the scene – one in which she’d once played centre star and heroine.
‘Mummy, they were teasing me as much!’ his lisping voice protested.
‘Just look at the state of all of you. Potatoes are for picking, and then mashing. Not the other way around. Behave, and please don’t ruin the crop. Lucy, put that book down and help your sister. Ruby, keep him under control.’
To Ruby, that was one of the greatest challenges in her life. No one could control James, but he could be loved and she’d done so from the moment he was born; bribery helped with keeping him out of trouble. He’d once climbed over the churchwarden’s wall and scrumped plums from a tree and Ruby caught him selling them on the corner of the street as cheap excess of their father’s stock. She’d made him take the money to the church and put every coin into the paupers’ box. She’d never told her parents, and James never let them down again. Any time she asked him to do something, he did so without grumbling.
James, her beloved James. He’d have loved her shop, and the contents. Lucy, dear Lucy; her duty today would have been to recite a poem or sing a song at teatime. Each birthday celebration, Lucy had enjoyed sharing a snippet of literary interest for them to discuss before bedtime. A simple life, but a contented one. Now, for them, no longer a life, and Ruby had to find contentment without them. She placed her hands over her ears and hummed out a tuneless song to block out Tommy’s persistent door-banging.
CHAPTER 20
‘Oi, Rubes, I’m really worryin’ now. Gonna get Fred.’
Tommy’s determination to get her attention by kicking at the base of the front door now distracted Ruby from her stroll down memory lane. She could not afford a new door.
In one way Tommy saved her from gnawing pain, but in another he’d fragmented her thoughts and shattered them forever. Thoughts never returned in the same format; they often bled out a little of the true facts and ignored important things when the mind could no longer retain a memory.
‘You’ll never forget me, but he needs you, Ruby. Help him. Only you can.’ James’s voice interrupted her thoughts.
‘James …’ she whispered into the silence of the room.
Nothing.
‘Rubes.’ Tommy’s voice turned to a whine – a noise she could no longer ignore. Present day life overrode a past she clung onto, and a whining child never failed to disturb the peace. Especially one using her family’s pet name for her.
‘Stop your hammering, Tommy Jenkins,’ Ruby called out. She stood up and went to the door. The moment she turned the key in the door she froze. Tommy’s uncle stood beside him. His painted moustache and black greased slicked-back hair were more prominent than she recalled. His eyes held false smiles. His nicotine-stained teeth parted in a fake grin. She’d witnessed them before, but today they were more prominent. There was an air of arrogance oozing from him, and it irked Ruby when he pushed his foot into the doorway to prevent her from closing the door.
‘Ruby … We meet again. Tommy here was quite worried about you. A good job I was passing. I noticed your sign. A businesswoman needs to be ahead of the game. The crowd of onlookers will pass by here shortly, and they’ll be in a buoyant mood. Open this door wide, make it inviting.’
Ruby stared at him, then down to his foot, his highly polished shoe still wedging the door.
‘You’ll scuff your shoe, Mr Earl,’ she said. He was too familiar, and for the first time she’d been alone she wished Fred or Beatty were with her. ‘I’m not opening. If you are worried about payment for your friend’s rent, please don’t be. I am able to pay, even if I close for one half day.’
To her annoyance, Tommy scampered under his uncle’s arm and into the shop.
‘Rascal,’ his uncle said, and Ruby turned to see what the boy was up to, but in that split second regretted it. She felt the gentle push of Earl moving inside the shop. He went to close the door but she picked up the wooden block Fred had made into a doorstop and rushed forward.