Ruby Tuesday

Chapter seven

    “Clever Ruby.” He smiled dotingly and then I went out and finished off the cooking. “Oh there’s post for you on the side.” I found a letter, crisp and white with that handwriting that screwed my nose up. Mother.

    “Ruby, I am starting to grow a little impatient with your attitude. I am trying to converse with you seeing as your father is adamant that he’s too poor to install a telephone. Why will you not reply? My wedding is in just over a month and I am stressed enough without adding a stropping daughter to the mix as well. I’d appreciate it if you sent me a letter as soon as you get this.

Your mother.” No kisses, no sending of love, nothing. I sat down and wrote her a letter, one that was short and sweet, or short and bitter, it was probably the latter. “Mum, I’m not replying to you because I’m not interested in what you have to say. Ruby.” And that was it. I stuck a stamp on the back and decided to send it on my way to work the next day.

    Tea was nice and dad informed me on every boring detail about what was going on with his work. I listened politely and tried to join in so overall it was alright. I told him I had written a letter to mum and that seemed to settle him down on the topic, I even waggled the sealed envelope under his nose. “No swearwords I hope.”

    “Never.” I gave a half smile.

    “Ruby-”

    “No, I promise I didn’t swear. I wouldn’t add unnecessary words unless it was desperately needed. If she keeps sending me letters though I may have to resort to cutting words to make her understand my stance.”

    “At the end of the day she’s still your mother and you should show her respect. No matter,” he cut over the top, “no matter what she’s done to you. You must remain at least civil, ok? No swearing and nothing rude.” I pulled a face because I’m pretty sure that my letter would fall into the ‘rude’ category.

    “Yes sir,” I jutted my bottom lip out, pouting but sort of jokingly. I went to sleep in my own bed that night and it was so uncomfortable compared to the God’s kiss of a bed I’d been sleeping on at the hotel. Oh, we had to sneak away this morning from there to avoid a nasty bill that would have caused us to go prematurely grey.

******

    A week passed and I fell back into my place, my boring stupid place as a secretary where the only excitement was meeting Angie on my breaks. Sometimes I wondered what she did with her days as she never seemed to work but always had money, her parents weren’t exactly flowing with money to fund her strange lifestyle.

    “Come to my house and we’ll watch Top Of The Pops together,” she enthused on my Friday shift.

    “Ok,” I shrugged because I hadn’t any better offers.

    “I’m hungry,” she pouted.

    “Go get some food then.” I suggested, frowning because surely it was obvious.

    Angie shook her head almost in shame, “no.”

    “Why not?”

    “Look,” she sighed and turned to face me. “I was walking along the other day and then some bloke just shouted out that I had tree trunk legs and it got to me so I thought if I slimmed down then-then-”

    “Angie,” I shook my head before pulling her into a warm embrace. “No, that’s so not the way to live. You’re like, the most perfect woman ever and you know it. You don’t have tree trunk legs, like, what even is that?” I pulled away, she’d started to cry.

    “Well, I’m obviously not good enough for Jack-”

    “No one’s good enough for rock stars. They want a little slice of everyone.” I interrupted. “Please, go get something to eat and if you don’t then I’ll have to force feed you because seriously, you’re so perfect that if you tried to get any more perfect you’d end up ruining yourself. So please, you know, the Beatles?”