‘True.’ He laughed. ‘I have something I need to say to you.’ His tone now solemn and, for that reason alone, quite alarming.
‘I’d rather just sit quietly if that’s okay, it’s been a bit of a night and—’
‘Ruby. I need to speak quickly. Please believe me when I tell you that I have never and will never tell you a lie.’
‘Okaaay,’ she replied with nervous laughter. This guy, no matter how intriguing, was starting to sound a little weird.
He held her eyeline in the rearview mirror.
‘I can give you that gift, Ruby. I can give you fifteen minutes, not with Dr Angelou, sadly, but with someone you’ve lost, someone known to you. Your case is a little different, Ruby; you will have to interact with others – if you choose who I think you will choose. Remember they have no idea that this is your fifteen minutes, you can’t tell them, of course. Can’t tell anyone.’
Chen carried on speaking, laying out the rules and regulations of the most far-fetched scenario she’d ever heard. He was taking the game to a whole other level! In truth she was torn between wanting to laugh out loud, wanting to tell him to shut up, and equally curious about his proposition. She chose to sit quietly, letting him talk while she tried and failed to tune him out.
It was an odd encounter to say the least.
When the car came to a stop outside of her childhood home in Earls Court Road, it was with a potent mix of mistrust and confusion that Ruby slammed the taxi door. She was unnerved and undecided in how to handle the situation. It was tempting to call Frank and make a complaint, but even the retelling would sound weird.
The driver you sent, Frank, the guy called Chen, he was odd, nice enough, but odd. Talking rubbish about giving me time. I don’t want him picking me up again, I want Mohammed.
What would be the point? Chen might get fired and then how would she feel? He hadn’t been mean, inappropriate or rude, and she’d felt safe as they trundled the familiar route towards home. He was just a little… she ran out of negative words because, actually, she had quite liked talking to him, liked even more the possibility of having those fifteen minutes. Now wouldn’t that be a crazy, wonderful thing!
‘Granny Elwood.’ She beamed as she put the key in the door, ‘or my wonderful primary school teacher, Mrs Nichols. Or you, Dad?’ her tears bloomed, as she looked up into the night sky, as the last of her joyful booze glow fell from her shoulders with the raindrops that now landed with splats on the path around her. ‘I miss you, Daddy…’
‘That you, love?’ her mum called from her bedroom on the landing.
‘Yep! It’s me!’
‘Did you have a nice time?’
‘I did.’ She kicked off her shoes and relished the feel of the cold wooden floor on her throbbing feet.
‘See you in the morning, darling, God bless.’
Ruby knew her mum, as usual, would have been loath to go to sleep until she knew her daughter was safely home.
‘That’s the thing with daughters,’her mother had once explained.‘They’re a little piece of your heart and, if you’re not near them or can’t see them or touch them, then it’s a most uncomfortable state of affairs, like a piece of you is missing.’
‘See you in the morning, Mumma, God bless.’
Ruby ran the cold tap and grabbed a pint glass from the shelf. This something she understood. She too felt like a little piece of her was missing.
***
It was the next night and after a busy day, and with her mum sleeping soundly, Ruby gripped the banister and prepared to climb the stairs for bed.
‘What if,’ she whispered. Rolling her eyes at her stupidity and gullibility. Returning to the kitchen, she took a seat at the table.
She thought about Marvin, wondering where he was, what he was doing and absurdly wished he were sitting here with her. He was lovely, Marvin, but it wasn’t meant to be. They’d had a wonderful time, not quite love, but she had no doubt that, with enough time and the dismantling of their walls, it might have been possible. It certainly felt like that was where they were headed. What they went through, while so young, would have been hard enough for even the most established couples to weather. They hadn’t really stood a chance, still in the infancy of their relationship, as they tried to navigate the hardest thing of all.
Ruby had given it a lot of thought over the last three years, understanding that, when a loss was solely yours to bear, it was easy to reach out to those unaffected and lean on them for support, but, when that loss affected you both, affected you all, it cast ripples that would continue outwards until the end of time. Distorting the picture, fracturing the calm surface and making it almost impossible to connect at the level necessary for them to grow as a couple. Broken before they even started.
And here she now sat in the half light, the room bathed in the glow of the moon that shone through the kitchen window, as truly, without expectation or belief, she placed her palms flat on the surface where she had eaten a thousand meals, played hundreds of card and board games with her ailing dad, laughed over Christmas lunch with her brother, and wept on the daythey'd said goodbye to her dad. All of it right here at this four-foot square of yellow Formica that was the centre of their world.
It was a strange sensation, as the clock struck. A juddering almost, a bit like an earthquake, or so she imagined. The blood raced in her veins and a plug of fear in her throat made breathing tricky. And then, instantly, everything was calm, and Ruby knew where she was, transported to a place, recognisable by no more than the sounds that both filled her dreams and fuelled her nightmares.
If you've never heard it, then lucky old you.
It would be hard to properly and adequately explain not only the noises, but, more importantly, the way they made her feel. She'd buried a lot of it, did her best to dismiss it from her thoughts. Evidently so as this sudden immersion took her right back to that day, that terrible, terrible day.
