43
Paul Fox had stopped answering his private number. It was the number that only the people closest to him were allowed to use. A special number, for special people. She knew he was ignoring her calls on purpose and it was pissing her off. All she wanted to do was say hello, talk to him. She missed him. It wasn’t as if she wanted to marry him or anything.
Hailey Brown was playing on Wednesday night, at a club in Soho. Hailey was one of Paul’s acts and he would definitely be there. Ruby put on a blue silk jersey dress with tight sleeves and a ragged hem, fishnet tights and oxblood ankle boots. She drank five shots of Toby’s vodka, in the space of five minutes, over the kitchen sink. Then she painted her mouth red and her eyes charcoal and left the house in her vintage fake-fur coat. She used Con’s Oyster card, taken without his permission from the pocket of his jacket, to get into town and, within five minutes of walking into the club on Dean Street, she’d been bought a drink by a stranger.
She took her drink and headed for the backstage area. A girl in a staff uniform smoking a cigarette looked at her, but didn’t question her as she headed for the dressing room. She found him outside Hailey’s room, talking to someone on his phone. Her heart lurched slightly when she saw him. He looked the same, if slightly bigger round the girth. Eliza’s home cooking no doubt.
She pulled in her stomach, touched her hair and moved towards him. ‘Hello, Paul.’
He turned at her voice and looked at her in surprise. ‘Erm, Lizy, darling, sorry, can I, er, call you back in a minute?’ He snapped his phone shut and stared at her. ‘Ruby. What are you doing here?’
‘Came to see Hailey, of course. Why d’you think?’ She pulled a packet of cigarettes out of her bag and offered one to Paul. He took one and let her light it for him. She lit hers and they both inhaled in unison. ‘So. How are you?’ she started.
‘I’m fine. Great.’
‘You’ve put on weight,’ she patted his belly.
‘Yes,’ he said, flinching from her touch, ‘probably. How are you?’
‘I’m OK,’ she said. ‘A bit … unsettled.’
‘Right. Why’s that?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Just a vibe in the air. I think Toby’s planning on selling the house. He’s spending all this money on it. And I don’t know – he’s acting all different. He’s been going out a lot, changed his hair. There’s just something weird going on and I can’t put my finger on it.’
‘Why don’t you ask him?’
‘I did. He said he’s not selling, but I don’t believe him. He lied to me about this money he got from Gus. Told me it was just a few thousand and it’s obviously a hell of a lot more than that.’
Paul shrugged, looked distracted. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s his house. If he wants to sell it, that’s his business.’
‘Yes, but where does that leave me? No job. No income. Nowhere to live. I’ll literally be out on the streets.’
Paul glanced at his watch and at the door behind him. ‘Look, Ruby. Hailey’s due on in five minutes. I’m not sure what you expect me to do about this. I mean – what do you want?’
‘Christ, why does everyone always think I want something? I don’t want anything.’
‘Then why are you here?’
‘I told you. To see Hailey.’
‘But you don’t even like Hailey.’
‘I do like Hailey.’
‘You hate her music.’
‘That doesn’t mean I don’t want to come and support her.’
Paul sighed. ‘I have to go now, Ruby. I’ll see you later, OK.’
‘No!’ Ruby clutched the sleeve of his jacket. ‘No! Don’t go. I miss you. I want to talk to you.’
Paul pulled her fingers from his sleeve. ‘Ruby. I told you. This can’t happen. I said, no more.’
‘But Paul – I’m scared. I’m scared and I’m broke and I’m …’
‘You’re what?’
‘I’m lonely.’ And then she started to cry. Real tears. Because she’d just realized that, without Paul and without Toby, she had absolutely no one in the world she could call her own.
‘Oh, God.’ Paul sighed and rolled his eyes. ‘Come here.’ He allowed her into the circle of his arms and kissed her head and soothed her with quiet words. ‘It’s OK,’ he said, ‘it’s OK.’
‘It’s not OK,’ sniffed Ruby. ‘It’s not.’
‘You’ll find your way. You’ll find your place. You will.’
‘But what if my way and my place – what if it’s the gutter? What if that’s my destiny?’
‘You? Ruby Lewis? In the gutter? I don’t think so.’
‘But I’m not Ruby, am I? I’m Tracey.’
‘Tracey, Ruby. You’re all one person.’
‘Yes,’ she sniffed. ‘And that’s what scares me. Ruby can do anything. Tracey just drags me down.’
‘Well, don’t let her, then. Show her what you’re made of.’ He took his arms from round her and placed his hands on her shoulders. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I really have to go now. I’m sorry.’
Ruby could hear in his voice that this really was the end of the road. She took a deep breath. ‘Have you got any cash? Anything at all. I’m so … God, this sounds pathetic, but I’m so broke, Paul. So broke it hurts.’
‘Oh, God, Ruby.’
‘I can … earn it.’
He narrowed his eyes at her. ‘What?’
‘If it makes it easier for you, I could do something for it. Do … God, Paul, don’t make me say it.’
‘Yes. Anything you want. Any time you want.’
‘Oh, Ruby, don’t.’
‘Why not? I’m desperate.’
‘Well, I’m not.’ Paul pulled his wallet from his pocket and peeled off three twenty-pound notes. ‘Here.’ He handed them roughly to Ruby. ‘To stop you offering yourself to the next man you pass. But that … is it. No more, Ruby, no more.’
He forced his wallet back into his pocket, ground his cigarette beneath his shoe and slammed the door of Hailey’s dressing room closed behind him.
Ruby stood in the corridor, feeling the silkiness of the notes between her fingertips. Sixty pounds. Enough to live for a week, maybe two. She tucked them into her coat pocket and then turned, her body tingling with numb humiliation. She headed straight to the bar and ordered three straight shots of vodka, which she drank in quick succession. A man in a tight black shirt lit her cigarette for her and tried to talk to her, but she wasn’t listening. The lights went down and Paul emerged from the backstage shadows. He saw her at the bar, saw the man in the tight black shirt talking to her and threw her a look of sad disdain. Ruby left the man, mid sentence, and pushed her way through the club, against the grain of the crowd rushing to the stage to see Hailey sing. Outside on Dean Street she realized how drunk she was. Soho looked like a kaleidoscopic mess of flashing lights and high heels and car tyres and teeth.
A pinched-faced man sitting on the pavement glanced up at her imploringly. His knees were wrapped in a brown blanket. An Alsatian-mix dog lay across his feet. ‘Spare any change, love?’ She put her hand into the pocket of her leopard-skin coat and felt the two remaining twenty-pound notes and a handful of coins. She pulled out the notes and handed them to him. He looked at her in amazement. ‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘thank you. God bless you. God bless.’ He called after her as she walked away. ‘Have a good night. Have a good life. God bless you. God bless you!’
Ruby carried on walking, blindly. She didn’t want to go home. She needed something to happen, something to take her mind off her conversation with Paul, something to move her life on from this current point of rancid nothingness. She needed to meet someone. Someone new.
She stepped off the curb and crossed the road, heading into some unknown corner of Soho with a heavy heart.