Ruby slid some eggs onto Tommy’s plate and then her own, before laying the crockery on the kitchen table, its surface forever sticky no matter how much she scrubbed it. She glanced at her mother who, of course, had been served first and now happily shovelled the food Ruby had prepared into her mouth.
Repulsed, Ruby sat down next to her brother and forced a smile as she picked up her fork. ‘How was school today, Tommy? Did your teacher like the sums I helped you with?’
‘He said—’
‘No talk about school at the table,’ their mother snapped, speckles of food spraying out of her mouth. ‘You’ll put me off my dinner.’
Hatred burned like a hot coal in the centre of Ruby’s chest as she glared at her mother’s bowed head. She sent up a silent prayer for the means to take her and Tommy away from this godforsaken house. To find somewhere for them to live where the windows didn’t rattle in the winter, and paper didn’t peel from the walls in the summer. Somewhere with a garden, no matter how small, rather than a concrete yard that stank of rubbish and rot. A place where Tommy might speak freely about the school he loved, and the dreams he shared with Ruby whenever she spent a few precious moments alone with him each night.
‘Why are you so quiet, girl? More scheming going on in that head of yours, I’ll bet.’
Ruby raised her eyes to her mother’s. ‘Haven’t anything to say. There seems little point if you don’t even want to hear about your son’s schooling.’
‘Whatever you two have to say bores me senseless.’
Ruby speared some potato as the need to rile her mother grew. Provoking her temper might be a senseless thing to do, but Ruby’s need to vent, to rant and rave, bubbled dangerously. ‘Well, what about you, Ma? How was your day?’
‘How do you think it was? I spent most of it cleaning the bloody house while you pissed away your day at that place you call work. You, my girl, wouldn’t know hard work if it upped and slapped you in the face.’
‘I work hard. You know I do.’ Ruby looked at the dirty tea towels hanging from the cupboard door handles, the soup pot still unwashed on the counter from two days past and the pile of paper and ashes in the grate that had been there since yesterday. Resentment burned. ‘And, for your information, Miss Pennington has been so complimentary about my work on the Titanic window, I might have the confidence to try for a higher position someday soon.’
‘She was complimentary, was she?’ Her mother squeaked the word in spiteful, upper-class mimicry. ‘Look at Miss Fancy Pants using her big words. You have a screw loose if you think that high and mighty trollop thinks any more of you than I do.’
Ruby gripped her knife and fork tighter. ‘Wouldn’t you welcome me bringing home more money?’
‘Anything you bring home will be an improvement on what you’re earning. I have a mind to go to Pennington’s and accuse Miss Pennington of child labour. It’s criminal what they pay you. Not enough to feed me, let alone you two.’
‘I don’t want you setting foot near Pennington’s.’ Ruby glared as she fought to keep hold of her brewing temper. ‘Not ever.’
Time stood still. Even the ticking of the wall clock seemed to stop. The only sound Ruby heard was her heartbeat pulsing in her ears. Her mother’s eyes bulged in their sockets, her mouth twisting into a tight line.
Adrenalin washed through Ruby and she braced, ready for whatever came next. With her eyes still locked on her mother’s, she said, ‘Tommy, go upstairs.’
The legs of his chair scraped across the tiled floor as he scrambled from the table and raced from the room. His feet thundered up the stairs, followed by the slam of his bedroom door and the scuffle of a chair being moved across the floor. Ruby prayed he’d properly lodged it under the door handle as she’d taught him.
Slowly, her mother put down her cutlery and wiped her sleeve across her mouth.
Ruby tensed, half praying her mother’s next assault would be verbal, rather than physical. The other half prayed for the physical because, by God, Ruby was in the mood for a fight. The day had been hellish avoiding Hazel Price as she slid sly looks her way, giggling and talking with a group of shop girls known for their bitching. She was more convinced than ever that Hazel had seen into Ruby’s heart and knew of her true feelings for Victoria. Well, Hazel Price was just another person to add to the list of those out to cause her trouble and Ruby would handle her as well as she handled her mother.
‘Are you telling me what to do, Ruby Taylor?’ Her mother’s voice was dangerously low. ‘Because if you are, you’re making a terrible mistake.’
‘I’m not telling you what to do, Ma. I’m stating a fact.’ Ruby purposefully put down her knife and fork and reached for her water, pleased that the liquid remained steady. ‘I want you to stay well away from Pennington’s.’
‘And if I don’t?’
Ruby tightened her jaw, protectiveness over the life she was fighting so hard to create for herself and Tommy threatening to erupt in an almighty explosion. ‘Then we will have no choice but to leave this house and never come back.’
‘We?’
‘Me and Tommy.’
‘Ha, you think that sop will follow you out of here? I don’t think so.’
‘He will, Ma. I wouldn’t leave him here alone with you unless I was carried out in a box.’
‘Don’t tempt me.’
‘I know you’d like nothing more than to see the back of your children, but just bear in mind, if I go, I take my earnings with me.’
‘And you think that matters to me?’
‘I do. Especially if the sex you give to the waste of space men that come through here runs out.’
‘Why, you…’ Her mother’s cheeks reddened as she leapt from her chair. It clattered against the floor as she rounded the table, her hands outstretched towards Ruby. ‘I’ll rip your bloody face off.’
Ruby was on her feet, but she didn’t move fast enough, and her mother grabbed a handful of her hair. Pain screamed through her scalp as Ruby gritted her teeth, pushing her nails deep into her mother’s wrists. She dug in as hard as she could until her mother cursed and released her enough that Ruby could spin away from her.
She put up her fists. ‘Has it really come to this, Ma? Us fighting like a pair of boxers? My God, what is wrong with you? Can’t you see what you’re doing to Tom—’
‘There’s nothing wrong with me, my girl. No mother worth her salt would put up with her daughter telling her what she can or can’t do. Where she can or can’t go. You think I even want to step foot in Pennington’s? No, I bloody don’t. But that doesn’t mean I won’t, if you tell me I can’t.’
‘So, you’ll risk me losing my job just to annoy me? How does that make any sense?’
Her mother growled and lunged at Ruby again, but this time she was ready. She grabbed her mother’s arm and pushed it high behind her back, before clamping her free hand firmly around her mother’s other arm and frogmarching her from the kitchen.
‘Get your hands off me! I’ll bloody kill you.’
As her mother screamed and turned the air blue with her curses, Ruby shoved her along the hallway, hitching up her mother’s arm until she yelled with pain. Ruby fumbled with the latch on the front door, finally managing to swing it open.
With an almighty push, she put her mother out onto the street, slammed the door and collapsed back against it. Stars floated in front of Ruby’s eyes and her heart raced as her mother’s kicks rattled the door.
Taking a strengthening breath, Ruby pushed away from the door and rushed upstairs into her mother’s room. Grabbing whatever clothes lay about the bedroom, she shoved them into an empty bag, walked to the window and threw the lot out onto the street.
‘Just go, Ma. You can come back tomorrow. Tonight, you’re out.’
Pulling the sash window firmly closed, Ruby started to laugh, adrenalin seeping from her body, leaving her head pounding. What in God’s name had just happened? She had no idea, but her victory felt good.
She rushed across the landing to Tommy’s room. ‘Are you all right, sweetheart? It’s safe now. You can open the door.’
Scraping and shuffling sounded behind the door and then Tommy pulled it open, his face pale and streaked with tears. ‘Where’s Ma?’
‘Gone.’ She pulled him into an embrace and kissed his hair. ‘For tonight, anyway.’
‘You threw her out?’
‘She’ll find somewhere to sleep, don’t worry about that.’ She held him at arm’s length and forced a wide smile. ‘Come on. Let’s get you washed and in your pyjamas.’
Tommy headed for the bathroom as Ruby took some clean pyjamas from his drawer and laid them on the bed. Tears pricked her eyes and her hands shook as her earlier euphoria faded. How could it be that a mother and daughter came to blows? Her and Tommy’s lives were passing by in a home that was unsafe. A house that held no love except for what lay between her and her brother. She had to find a way out.
She entered her bedroom, listening as water splashed behind the closed bathroom door. Walking to her wardrobe, she retrieved a locked box and pulled the key, hanging on a string, from around her neck.
Opening the box, Ruby lifted out the trinkets she’d collected as a child. A shiny pebble, half a silver locket, a twisted satin sash that had once seemed so grand before she’d started working at Pennington’s. Now she knew there were riches enough for anyone prepared to work and dream.
Pulling out an envelope from the bottom of the box, Ruby emptied her savings onto the bed and counted her hoarded booty.
It still wasn’t enough, but it grew with every pay packet.
It was possible she had enough for two, maybe three months’ rent if someone would be willing to give her and Tommy lodgings. The small amount of cash wouldn’t get them more than a single room, but at least they’d be away from Ma.
‘I’m in my pyjamas, Ruby!’
Tommy’s shout came from across the landing and Ruby quickly gathered the money, put it beneath the trinkets and locked the box. Returning her stash to the wardrobe, she breathed deep, her gaze wandering to her washbag on the windowsill.
Inside was a razor blade she’d glided across her wrists time and time again whenever desperation sent her spiralling into a dark abyss. Sometimes she felt she had no way of protecting Tommy. No handle on her feelings for Victoria. No decent clothes. No decent food.
Her life was a mess, but…
‘Ruby? Are you going to say good night?’
She did have Tommy.
She would always have Tommy.
She dragged her gaze from the washbag. And he would always have her.