Ruby nodded at staff through the reception window as she scrawled her signature across the visitor’s book. Just being in Oakwood helped settle her, at least for a little while. Pressing the code on the keypad, she pushed through the double doors. She knew it off by heart and didn’t need the staff to let her in anymore. She was as much a part of the furniture as they were and they often joked they should give her a job there. She inhaled the sweet smell of wild flowers picked from the fields to the rear of the building, which was built on five acres of land. The private nursing homes were a far cry from the acrid council-run buildings, stinking of piss and bleach: the stuff of nightmares – the residents staring with empty eyes like cattle in a holding pen waiting to die. Ruby had attended one such home when she was in uniform, investigating a series of sudden deaths where neglected patients were left to choke on their food. Seeing her mother here, in Oakwood, with a healthy flush in her cheeks and comfortable, pleasant surroundings, made living in her own shoddy flat worthwhile.
Joy was sitting next to Brian, an old boy in a wheelchair who spent every day reliving his job at his hardware store. Ruby sometimes chatted to him about screws and lug nuts, whatever he dreamt was on sale that day. But today she didn’t want to chat to anyone else. Today she wanted to immerse herself in her mother’s presence. The light scent of lily of the valley caressed her senses as she leaned over to kiss her. Her silvery white hair shimmered with a tint of blue, and she wanted to hug her tightly, to draw her close and never let go.
‘Hello Mum,’ Ruby said as she kissed her mother’s cheek. Her mother frowned slightly, her mind emerging from a cloud, and Ruby guessed she was trying to place her face.
‘It’s me, Ruby. Your daughter.’
‘Of course you’re my daughter; who else would you be?’ Joy said, her voice edged with irritation.
Ruby nodded, allowing her to save face. It made her happy to know her mother still possessed her pride and the stubborn streak that passed with it. A Preston trait that Ruby also bore. But the truth was, Ruby could be anyone. Some days her mother called her Gertie, after her deceased sister, or Alice, after a girl she went to school with. All shadows from the past, more alive than the people that infiltrated her presence today. The present had little room in Joy’s clouded mind. Ruby glanced down at her mother’s sparkly red pumps and smiled. She had never given in to uniformity, not even here, and always had something red about her person. A flower, a hair clip, a scarf with poppies, or a narrow red belt to hug her waist. Her father used to call her his little Robin Redbreast, and it was a memory she treasured. Ruby dreaded the day she would forget to wear it. Most days Ruby wore something red too: a dash of a red lipstick, or a cherry red brooch on her blazer lapel. It was a silly game, she had told herself, but she found it hard to let her solidarity go.
‘So Mum, how have you been?’ Ruby asked, preparing for a journey back into her childhood. There was no point in trying to discuss current affairs or her own life. It confused Joy, and the only safe place was firmly in the past. It didn’t matter to Ruby, as all she wanted to hear was her mother’s voice. Each visit was being transported back in time to when Joy felt most useful in the world.
‘I’ve just mopped that,’ Joy said, pointing to the lino with her shoe. ‘Don’t you go getting it dirty now.’
It was spotlessly clean and had a criss-cross pattern which was similar to the one in their kitchen where her mother had spent most of her time. Ruby’s early memories were of that lino, as she played racing cars with Nathan, the next door neighbour’s son. Their games were played to the backdrop of their mothers chatting at the kitchen table.
As Joy spoke of those days, Ruby indulged herself in the memory, becoming five years old all over again.
She remembered how the wheels of her favourite toy car used to squeak as she pressed them against the bumpy linoleum. Back then, she liked the octagonal brown patterns. In her five-year-old mind it was Brands Hatch, and she was winning in a two car race against her best friend, Nathan. He used to make her wince, vocalising his pretend brakes, screeching as he took the corners. Ruby smiled at the memory; the way Nathan called her Wuby, and how she’d screw up her face as she elongated her words, saying Ruuubbby, over and over, until he pronounced it properly.
Ruby listened as her mother spoke of those days, caught up in a dream of yesteryear. ‘I told your dad to bring him into the living room,’ she said, keeping her voice low. ‘How he survived after losing all that blood is anyone’s guess.’
Ruby nodded, remembering how she and Nathan had both dropped their cars and ran after their mothers, hanging around the open living room doorway as his father was dragged inside. There was blood, alright. Lots of it: trailing from the hall into the living room, where Jimmy Crosby lay. Nathan had tried to step inside, and Ruby shot out an arm, pulling him back by his knitted tank top until he was back in line with her. She gave him a stern look, pressing a finger to her mouth. The doorway was like an invisible barrier to her mother. Whenever anything was going on, she never noticed Ruby until she put a foot over the threshold, then she was banished to her room, or told to leave and close the door behind her. Even back then, Ruby thought like a detective, her eyes growing wide as she located the source of the blood. Jimmy Crosby’s smart black suit was soaked with it, and Nathan’s mother barged in, pushing people aside like skittles as she searched for the injury. ‘Oh Gawd, what’s happened now?’ she squealed, her East End accent filling the room. ‘Who’s done this to you, Jimmy?’
The words echoed in Ruby’s memory, and she flinched as her mother grasped her forearm. Joy was too wrapped up in the past to understand it was a flashback, and the anxiety in her eyes was the same now as it had been in their little East London terrace house all those years ago. ‘I’ve got to call the doctor,’ she said. ‘Dr Tanner. Nobody else but Dr Tanner. He doesn’t ask questions, you see.’
‘It’s OK, Mum,’ Ruby reassured her. ‘Everything’s OK.’
‘Best you get some towels all the same,’ Joy said.
Ruby nodded, taking her mother’s hand. She remembered how she had taken Nathan’s dimpled hand and pressed it against the flock wallpaper in the hall, telling him not to move, while panic ensued in the living room.
Joy had stopped talking now, but the memory burned like a branding iron in the back of Ruby’s mind. She only had to touch upon it and she was back there: her father sweating through his shirt as he pressed the towels down on the knife wound, the cotton almost immediately turning from white to bright red. She heard Mrs Crosby’s high-pitched shrieking as she asked her husband over and over who was responsible. And Nathan, his blue eyes as deep as the sea, still standing with his hand pressed against the wallpaper because Ruby had told him not to move.
Ruby threaded her fingers around her mother’s hand. Her skin was so soft it was almost translucent, and she felt a lump rise to her throat. Her eyes roamed over the network of blue veins growing ever more visible. She didn’t want to think of her mother getting old and dying because then she would truly be all alone.
‘It’s dinner time now,’ the nurse gently spoke. Harmony was a larger-than-life Jamaican lady with a springy black weave and a smile that lit up the room. She spoke in a happy sing-song voice which suited her title perfectly. ‘Would you like to bring your mother to the dining room?’
Ruby turned over her left hand and checked the time. It had gone seven, and as usual the carers had allowed her to stay beyond the allocated visiting time.
‘I want you to bring me,’ Joy said, pointing at Harmony. ‘Not her.’ She jabbed a thumb back at her daughter.
‘Now, Mrs Preston, is dat any way to treat your flesh and blood?’ Harmony said, but Ruby waved the words away.
‘It’s OK, really. I’ll walk with you. I’ve got to get back to work now anyway.’ The first time her mother stopped recognising her was devastating, but Ruby had learned to cope with it as Joy’s lucidity floated in and out.
‘You’ve got fat,’ Joy said as she curled her hand around Harmony’s arm.
Harmony laughed, a lovely tinkly sound, and Ruby shook her head. Her mother’s inner filter had disintegrated along with her short-term memory, but staff at the care home took it in their stride.
‘More of me to love, sista. How about we get some flesh on those skinny bones of yours? It’s shepherd’s pie, and homemade apple pie and custard.’
‘Bye Mum,’ Ruby said as Joy escorted her mother through the dining room. With a murder on the go it could be another couple of days before a return visit. Joy kept walking without a backward glance. Harmony gave a quick wink over her shoulder. ‘You take care now, Ruby, stay safe.’
Ruby swallowed hard, feeling as if she was leaving a piece of herself behind as she walked away.