Rolex Ruby

Chapter 1 - Part 1

1

Staring in the mirror, she looked at her blurred face. Tears threatened at the corners of her almond eyes, her mouth contorting at the sounds from the room below. Her hands shook, nervous to find out what had happened. Tying her hair up into a messy bun, she sighed; slowly setting off down the stairs.

Entering the living room, she witnessed her parents glaring at one another. Noticing their daughter, her father sighed, his thick shoulders slumping down into the red leather armchair. Her mother stood, frozen, her stony back facing the young girl.

Ruby looked towards her father, his dark eyes seeming older, harder than usual, his face becoming ugly and distorted in her view. He bowed his head away from her imploring eyes, a reddening forming along the collar of his checked shirt. The tie hung loosely around his thick neck.

“Wh-what’s wrong?” she stuttered, her eyes flicking between her parents as no one answered, “Mum?”

Her dark hair shuffled briskly across her shoulder blades as she shook her head, unable to look at her daughter, “Your father has lost his job, Ruby. Everything’s going to change.”

Ruby was stunned, “What do you mean?”

Her mother spun round, anguish obvious in her flared features, her slight Italian tilt screeching, “Your dad hasn’t got a job, Ruby. We’ve lost everything!”

Ruby raised her hands to protect her face, her heart beat increasing as the piercing glare crumpled her defences. Shock and confusion running through her mind, as her mother stormed from the room.

She stood, stunned without seeing her father’s worried face.

“Go Ruby,” sighed her father, his head in his plate-like hands.

Ruby left. Tears spilling out over her cheeks, fearful thoughts clouding her mind.

She didn’t want things to change, she liked it in Fortley. A beautiful village in the middle of North Yorkshire; her life here had been good. There were never any problems, nothing like this. Not to Ruby. To Ruby, the sun shone every day and the flowers bloomed all year round. She loved to climb the trees dotted along the paths and jump in and out of fields with her friends. Nothing ever happened in Fortley, it was peaceful, pastoral, home...

***

Ruby came home the next night to find her parents arguing again. Standing by the door she overheard their conversation:

“We can’t live on less than a hundred pounds a week. We’ve got three kids Pete! That’s not even enough to feed two of them! Let alone us! And then there’s the fucking house!”

“I’m sorry Anya, I can’t help that this government is cutting jobs like trees! I didn’t have a say, did I? I’ll find another job. You could take up more time at work? You’re only part-time.”

“Take up more time! Do you have absolutely no understanding of how hard it is for me to do three days a week! I’m tired Pete. Really tired! And I’ve only been on the job for a month...”

“Anya... I know it’s hard but what if it’s a while before I find another job? What then? We’re already struggling enough and that debt won’t fucking disappear! I will not have my family living on the streets.”

“I can’t Pete, I’m not well! You try living with frigging MS, see how you like it? I didn’t ask for it! And I didn’t want to do that job! I hate it Pete! Hate it!”

“Then you shouldn’t have racked up thousands of pounds of debt, should you? I didn’t make you go into work, you caused it yourself! You thought it’d all be alright, you’d have your benefit to pay it off, but you don’t fucking have that benefit do you? Told you’re suitable for work! You should have made it worse. You should have lied!”

“I’m not a liar, Pete! I wasn’t going to lie! I thought I’d still get it! For god’s sake, I can’t walk sometimes! What am I supposed to be like – a cripple, not even able to sit in a wheelchair, drooling and babbling to myself - before I get classed as unable to work? Well, lucky me, I might get there yet!”

Pete sighed, “I’m sorry, love, I just don’t know what we can do. I didn’t mean to blame you, it’s just...”

“You don’t know what to do.”

“Yes. I didn’t want things to be like this, I can’t, I just can’t have my family... my family living in... Living in god-knows-where, I can’t lose my kids too An, I really can’t.

Ruby took a sharp intake of breath, her heart beating hard in her throat. ‘Lose my kids’, what did he mean? How could he lose them? They couldn’t be taken away – could they? They wouldn’t, there wasn’t a reason. But, if they were living on the streets... like a beggar. Like a poor lonely beggar. No prospects. No future. Just nothing. Put into care, taken away, destroyed. Her tiny frame quivered with disgust, the shame and panic arising in her immature chest was enough to send tears running down her disbelieving face. What would her friends think? She’d just started secondary school. She had made so many new friends. What would they think of a tramp sitting in their classes? How could they accept her now?

Choking she ran to her room, spreading herself over the covers she wrapped herself up to muffle the sobs which unwilling scratched at her throat. She soon heard footsteps in the hallway and a hesitant knock at the door.

 “Yeah” she replied croakily, wiping her eyes and trying to look as normal as possible.

The door opened carefully, a thin figure entered with a small, sad smile on her face, her globe-like eyes somehow more beautiful with the hints of tears highlighting the glassy surface, “Ruby, you ok?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she brushed her sister off, wiping her face on the covers again.

“It’s going to be alright,” her sister reassured, coming to sit beside her on the bed.

“Is it? What’s going to happen to us Lindsey? Dad said we’re going to be homeless... or taken away!”

Lindsey’s emotive eyebrows rose, “We’re not going to be homeless or taken away Ruby, that’s ridiculous. We’re moving house, to Mortbrough.”

“Mortbrough!” she cried indignantly, “But that’s so far away! What about my friends here?”

“You’ll make new friends Rubes.”

Ruby’s chocolate eyes looked at the tear-stained covers as she mumbled “But I don’t want new friends.”

“Don’t be like that, Ruby! Please?” Lindsey suddenly became stern, “Mum and Dad were already struggling, we were going to lose the house anyway. This is the only option we have.”

She sighed, “I know, I just don’t understand why.”

“No one does, Rubes, we just have to deal with it the best we can. I’ll be at uni in a year, that should make things easier.”

Ruby jumped over, wrapping her arms around her older sister, “I don’t want things to change, I like them the way they are.”

“I know” Lindsey whispered, kissing the top of her head as she squeezed Ruby’s fragile shoulders, “I do too.”