Ruby Read online

  She tried not to be irritated at the way Johnnie was seeing the visit. She wanted him to stay in the background and let her have a brief sample of her old life; instead he was involving himself in it and she felt unreasonably territorial. She turned away sharply.

  ‘Can I go and say hello to Uncle George?’

  ‘He’ll be coming through for lunch providing there are no emergencies, so best wait until then,’ Babs replied.

  Although she knew that what Babs was saying made sense, Ruby still found it hard to hide her disappointment.

  ‘I’ll wait until lunch then. Do you need any help?’

  ‘You could lay the table. You know where everything is.’

  The general awkwardness continued as they made superficial conversation and Ruby quickly regretted bringing Johnnie Riordan with her. They all carried on through the motions until after lunch, when Babs stood up.

  ‘Johnnie, do you mind if I take Ruby off for a few minutes? I really want her to meet the new nurse and I’m sure you’d sooner sit here and chat with Dr Wheaton.’ She looked at her husband. ‘Is that OK with you, George?’

  ‘Sounds like a good idea to me, darling,’ George Wheaton said, ‘Don’t forget I’ve got a call this afternoon, but there’ll be plenty of time for Yardley to drive Ruby and Johnnie to the station for the London train.’

  George Wheaton was a kindly man and his face reflected that. His brown eyes twinkled when he smiled, which was often, and Ruby had rarely seen him angry. Because of using a wheelchair his upper torso was extraordinarily broad and strong, but it was a gentle strength that he never used in the wrong way. Ruby loved watching him spread his long graceful fingers across the piano keys as he taught her how to play. She loved him as a father but she also admired him for achieving everything he had, despite his disability.

  Smiling first at George and then at Johnnie, Ruby stood up. She was surprised when Babs headed to the front door instead of one of the interconnecting ones, but she didn’t comment as she followed her out into the garden. Together they walked slowly around to the surgery door, but instead of going inside Babs beckoned for them to sit on the bench under the covered porch just outside.

  ‘I wanted to spend a few minutes with you alone. It’s hard to talk properly in front of a stranger …’

  ‘But Johnnie isn’t a stranger – well, not to me. He’s been a good friend from the day I went back to Walthamstow and he carried my cases along the road. He lives just further down with his family. We’re neighbours.’

  ‘I know, dear, you said that, but George and I don’t know anything about him so to us he is a stranger.’

  ‘You make that sound bad, but he’s the only friend I have there. I really miss having Keith and Marian, and Johnnie is nice to me …’ She could feel her throat starting to tighten so she swallowed hard. The last thing she wanted to do was cry.

  ‘Tell me about him then.’ Babs said. ‘What does your mother think of him?’

  ‘She doesn’t know him and she doesn’t know we’re friends. Ray and Bobbie hate him so she’d just side with them. It’s easier to say nothing.’

  ‘Do you know why they don’t like him?’

  ‘Because they’re jealous of him.’

  ‘Why are they jealous? What does he do for a job?’ Babs asked gently but curiously.

  ‘He’s a businessman,’ Ruby said quickly and defensively.

  ‘Ah, right … But what sort of businessman?’

  Ruby frowned, unsure how to answer. ‘I don’t know, but he works in a public house in Wanstead to earn extra. He helps support his sister and her family – her husband was crippled when he was in the army. That’s good, isn’t it?’

  ‘Of course it is. I just wondered what his business is—’

  With her naturally quick temper rising in defence Ruby interrupted her, ‘Why are you asking me all these questions? Why don’t you ask him?’

  ‘It’s not really my place to question him, Ruby, but it is my place to worry about you because we care about you.’ Babs touched her arm but Ruby pulled away. ‘I’m just not sure if you should be hanging around with someone older than you, and I also don’t feel comfortable helping you deceive your mother.’

  ‘But she deceived me,’ Ruby snapped. ‘She said you hadn’t written when all the time Ray had been stealing my letters and she knew. How can that be right? Is that what mothers do?’

  ‘It’s not right, but then again two wrongs don’t make a right, and she is your mother. I love you dearly, Ruby, and I so wanted you to stay with us; but now you are back with your mother, she is responsible for you and I feel very guilty that you’re here and she doesn’t know.’

  Ruby was startled. It was the last thing she had expected when she and Johnnie had set out that morning to make the journey to Melton. She’d chattered excitedly all the way, telling him what to expect, but now it was all going wrong.

  ‘I thought you were going to be pleased to see me, like I was to see you.’ She knew she sounded sulky but she didn’t care. Her disappointment was overwhelming.

  ‘Oh, we are! But I’d be happier if your mother knew you were here, especially as you’re with a young man. It makes me feel quite uncomfortable.’ Then Babs smiled. ‘But now I’ve said my piece and we can get back to where we were. Shall we go back in? We need to enjoy the little time we have before you go home, and don’t leave it so long next time. Maybe I’ll write to your mother and formally invite you to come for a holiday, all above board.’

  ‘She won’t let me.’

  Ruby looked down and tried not to show her disappointment. It was all going wrong and she couldn’t think of anything to say. It shouldn’t have been like this. Babs and George Wheaton should have been thrilled to see her, whatever the circumstances.

  ‘Ruby darling, I don’t want you to take any of this the wrong way. Uncle George and I want to see you and to be part of your life – we love you – but I’d like it to be done properly, and properly isn’t you sneaking away with a young man no one knows anything about. I know you’re upset, and I’m sorry, but I had to tell you. You’re only just sixteen, after all.’

  Ruby looked down at her watch. ‘Can we go for a walk through the village? I want to show Johnnie around.’

  ‘Of course, we’ll go together. Hopefully we’ll bump into Keith and Marian. They both miss you as much as you miss them.’ She took both Ruby’s hands in hers. ‘Friends?’

  Ruby didn’t answer but as they stood up Babs Wheaton put an arm around her waist and, ignoring the resistance, pulled her in towards her for a few seconds.

  ‘I shall try hard to get to know your friend.’

  Once they were on the train heading back to London, Ruby was close to tears.

  ‘They’re not usually like that,’ she said. ‘I don’t understand it. I thought they cared for me, but maybe Mum and Ray were right, I was just the stupid little evacuee …’

  ‘Ray is never right. Even I could see how much the doc and his wife love you. They were just being protective,’ Johnnie laughed. ‘Ray is an idiot who thinks he’s brighter than he is, but he’ll get his comeuppance, and when he does you’ll enjoy it.’

  Ruby looked at Johnnie Riordan curiously.

  ‘It’s just not right, is it? How can he dictate my life to me? And it’s not right that Mum lets him.’

  ‘Ray thinks he’s a big man but he isn’t. He upsets people, the wrong people, but he’ll learn otherwise.’

  ‘No he won’t. He’s always been a bully; he’s not going to change now, unless …’ she paused and looked at him, ‘unless he did something wrong, unless the police were to know he’s doing things he shouldn’t be doing.’

  ‘Hang on there, Red. If you mean what I think you mean that’s a serious road to take, involving the Old Bill. That’s not the way we do things where we come from.’

  ‘I just want him to leave me alone.’

  ‘Oh, he will. As soon as he’s got something else to think about.’ Johnnie smiled. ‘Someone’ll sort
him out good and proper one day.’

  ‘I hope so, I hate him. He makes my life misery and enjoys it. He deserves a taste of his own medicine.’

  ‘And Bobbie as well?’

  ‘I hate him for doing everything Ray says. Monkey see, monkey do. But I know he wouldn’t be like that without Ray.’ Ruby looked at him, waiting for a reply, but he simply shrugged; he put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her towards him very slightly. Instinctively she stiffened and pulled away just enough for him to loosen his hand and move it onto the back of the seat.

  ‘They’re good at upsetting the wrong people so they’ll both be in real trouble soon enough.’

  ‘I hope Mum hasn’t found out I wasn’t where I said I was today,’ she said, changing the subject. ‘They’ll all go bananas and I’ll never get out of the house again!’

  ‘She won’t find out.’ Johnnie looked at her and smiled.

  ‘Hope not …’ Ruby smiled back shyly.

  ‘I tell you what, it’s been a nice day even if we spent hours getting there and back, and you’re right about the doc and his wife – they’re OK – and that Yardley, the chauffeur, me and him are cut from the same cloth, I reckon. He’s a bit of a card, isn’t he?’

  ‘Hardly a bit of a card and you’re not cut from the same cloth. Yardley is bad.’

  ‘I bet he’s a bit of a duck-and-dive merchant in his spare time. Perfect set-up there, car to get him around, a garage to store stuff and the respectability of working for the doc. He’s got it made.’

  Ruby shook her head and pulled a face. ‘Well, I wouldn’t know that, would I? Uncle George helped him out by giving him a job because of his bad lungs, and they think of him as family and they trust him.’ She paused for a second. ‘More fool them. He’s bad.’

  ‘Why do you say that? Seemed OK to me.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about Yardley.’

  ‘Not too keen on him, then?’

  ‘I just said, I don’t want to talk about bloody Derek bloody Yardley, OK?’

  ‘OK.’ Johnnie looked at her sideways but she just focused on the steamed-up window. There were some things she didn’t want to talk about and she wasn’t going to let Johnnie push her into it.

  ‘Interesting view, that. Well, I think it might be, if we could see it.’

  She turned towards him and, despite herself, she laughed. ‘You’re a nitwit, you know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Maybe, but my sis says I’m a nice nitwit.’

  This time when he gripped her shoulder Ruby let him pull her close. Leaning her head on his shoulder she suddenly felt really grown up. Especially when he softly kissed the top of her head and touched her neck with his fingertips; she felt goose bumps rising on her skin and she reddened, aware that he could probably feel them as well.

  Her heart was thumping all the way down the road, and by the time she opened the front door her fear was so great she felt as if she were about to have a heart attack. Once she was back in the High Street the reality of everything she’d done and the possible implications hit her. She was suddenly petrified that her mother might have found out that not only had she been to visit the Wheatons, but she’d gone with Johnnie Riordan, Ray’s sworn enemy, and, in the heat of the moment, she’d done far worse.

  It had seemed such a good idea at the time, but as she walked in through the door at nearly midnight she could feel her heart palpitating in her throat as she imagined Ray waiting behind the door for her, waiting to backhand her.

  ‘Mum? Are you there? Mum, I’m sorry I’m so late but the buses from the West End were up the Swannee. We had to walk for miles and we got lost. It was ever so frightening.’ She paused fearfully and listened. ‘Mum? Are you awake?’

  As she stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking around and praying nervously that there was nothing in her expression to give away her guilt, so her mother leaned over the banister at the top.

  ‘Ruby? Oh, thank God you’re here. Come upstairs quickly. I don’t know what to do … Your brothers need help, you have to help. This is beyond me. Oh my Lord, this is awful …’

  Ten

  It was already dark in the narrow, unmade lane that led from the main road to the line of ramshackle engineering-style workshops behind a disused section of bombed railway track. The only lights were the dim beam escaping from under the doors of one of the units, and the dying embers of a rusty brazier outside the large central unit that was home to a carpentry shop. Blacksmiths Lane itself was a dead end with the units forming a banjo at the far end, but there was another hidden route for anyone prepared to clamber over the remains of a wooden fence and slip through a gap in the overgrown bushes at the back, which shielded the eyesore of assorted workshops from the allotments behind.

  It was amid the rubble behind these bushes that Eddie Stone was waiting impatiently for the right moment. He’d done a walk-by the day before, feigning interest in having an armchair repaired, so he knew exactly where he had to be, when he had to be there and how to get in and out without being seen. He also knew what he was going to do.

  There was no disputing he desperately needed the money but he couldn’t help looking forward to a bit of a dust-up at the same time. It had been a while since he’d had either.

  When the last of the other units was locked up, and the occupants were out of sight and sound down the lane, Eddie ground his cigarette into the dirt under the heel of his soft-soled shoe, flexed his shoulders and arms, and prepared to slip through the brambles to surprise Ray and Bobbie Blakeley and earn his desperately needed payday from Johnnie Riordan.

  On the way past he stopped and rubbed his hands together over the still-warm brazier before taking the last few steps to the grandly named Collins and Son, Garage and Workshop. His research told him that despite the name neither David Collins, senior nor David Collins, junior actually worked there. They did, however, own every single unit in the lane. They also owned the land and all the businesses in all the units.

  David Collins, junior visited all the units most days just to check on that small part of the family property and business empire. Although his visits were dreaded by his employees, at least his routine was always the same: smartly turned out, he’d drive up at the same time, swagger in and out of every unit, looking down his nose at the workers as he did so. On Fridays he would visit and hand out the pay packets with benevolence, as if he were handing out charitable donations. Nobody liked him – he was arrogant and dictatorial – but nobody ever said a word because at least they all had jobs and the lazy Collins son was preferable to his cantankerous and unpredictable father, who hired and fired as the mood took him.

  The unit with the lights still on was the one Eddie was going to pay a visit to. It had a corrugated-iron roof and double wooden doors with rusting metal bolts and hinges on the outside that had seen better days, and three motorbikes parked up outside. One belonged to the brothers and the other two were there to be patched up as best they could be.

  That was the job that Ray and Bobbie Blakeley were paid to do and they were good at it. They patched up motorcars and motorbikes that were really fit only for the scrapheap. It was a job that needed brawn more than brains, and no qualifications. They just worked long hours, learning how to do it as they went along.

  The pay, typical of the Collins’, was as minimal as they could get away with, but Ray and Bobbie topped up their income by using the long-forgotten lockers at the back for their own sideline business. The small working space was so crammed full of tools and equipment that the battered and greasy lockers that lined the back wall weren’t visible to anyone who didn’t already know they were there.

  ‘Hello, boys,’ Eddie said as he slipped in through the unbolted doors into the workshop and quickly pulled them to behind him.

  Ray was sitting at a small wooden desk near the doors and Bobbie was perched on the corner as Eddie appeared. Initially they both looked bemused; they’d stayed late because they were expecting a customer they didn’t want anyone to kn
ow about, so it took a moment for either of them to react.

  ‘Yeah?’ Ray asked as he took in the man. Dressed all in black, the six-foot-four ex-boxer with no neck and shoulders like a silver-back gorilla was a scary sight, but Ray wasn’t instantly concerned. He had an arrogance about him that made him none too observant and he stayed in his seat staring confrontationally at Eddie. Bobbie, however, instinctively stood up and started to back away.

  ‘I’ve been asked to pay you a visit to clear up a little misunderstanding that Mr Riordan is concerned about.’

  ‘Reckon you’re in the wrong place, mister, so unless you’ve got some genuine business here, get out.’ Ray nodded his head towards the doors, a gesture of dismissal.

  Eddie Stone laughed; he loved a challenge. He flexed his shoulders in a circular movement, then with one long reach of his arm he grabbed Ray round the neck, pulled him from the chair and punched him full force straight in the midriff before letting go and watching him drop to his knees. As Ray groaned so Bobbie jumped forward.

  ‘What are you doing? Leave him alone. You’re in the wrong place.’

  Eddie Stone’s eyes moved to the younger lad. ‘You said what?’

  As Bobbie sidled towards his brother so Eddie hit him with a professional upper cut to the side of his jaw. He stumbled back with blood dribbling from his mouth and fell onto the floor opposite his brother.

  ‘What do you want?’ Ray groaned from his kneeling position. ‘There’s nothing here worth nicking. The boss has already gone with the cash box. It’s just us – we only work here – there’s nothing … nothing.’

  Eddie grinned as he lifted a boot-clad foot and kicked Ray in the chest. It wasn’t an overly vicious kick but it was hard enough to crack a rib and send Ray flying across the workshop. Then he turned to Bobbie and gave him a hefty kick in the kidney area.

  ‘But that’s not all you do here, is it? I know you’re up to no good, and naughty boys that get up to no good get punished.’