Helen Dunmore - Mourning Ruby

Mourning Ruby

By the Same Author

Zennor in Darkness
Burning Bright
A Spell of Winter
Talking to the Dead
Love of Fat Men
Your Blue-Eyed Boy
With Your Crooked Heart
Ice Cream
The Siege

HELEN DUNMORE

VIKING

an imprint of

PENGUIN BOOK

VIKING

Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2
Penguin Books India (P) Ltd, 11 Community Centre,
Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017, India
Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, Cnr Rosedale and Airborne Roads,
Albany, Auckland, New Zealand
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue,
Rosebank 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

www.penguin.com

First published 2003
1

Copyright Helen Dunmore, 2003

The moral right of the author has been asserted

All rights reserved
Without limiting the rights under copyright
reserved above, no part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior
written permission of both the copyright owner and
the above publisher of this book

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

EISBN: 9780141901565

A car comes up, with lamps full-glare,

That flash upon a tree:

It has nothing to do with me

And whangs along in a world of its own,

Leaving a blacker air.

Were on the coast road to Zennor from St Just. The sun set half an hour ago and the western sky is hung with rags of light. Dark is gaining fast.

Ruby and I are walking northward. We keep to the road, with Rubys hand in mine. Not a single car has passed us.

If we were in a house now, looking from a window, we would see only black. But when you are out in the living dark it takes a hundred shapes and shades.

We are safe. Soon night will fold around us as we walk on, but even before the moon rises therell be enough starlight to see the pale stripe of the road. And Rubys a good walker.

On our left, below the cliffs, the vast Atlantic breathes.

A basking shark came in close around the Island last summer. Dolphins played off Gwithian and people went out to visit them in boats.

The seals will be feeding their pups now, on the ledges theyve chosen. The mother seals fat melts from her as she pours calories into her pup. The equation is that by the time she needs to roam free and feed, the pup will survive without her. It doesnt always work, that goes without saying.

Ruby knows if she sees a seal pup alone in one of the coves, she mustnt go near, still less touch. The spoor of her humanity would drive the mother seal away for ever.

It hasnt been abandoned, Ruby. The mothers probably watching you now.

Its dark. We hear the distant pull of the sea, the cry of the last gulls heading out of land. Ruby asks me how far it is and instead of telling her I sing a song she knows.

How many miles to Babylon?

Four score miles and ten.

Will we get there by candlelight?

Yes, and back again.

If your heels are nimble and light

We may get there by candlelight.

Are my heels nimble and light? Ruby asks. We walk on. I hold her warm, soft hand more tightly. We can keep up this pace for hours if we have to. Its easier walking by day than by night. If she gets too tired Ill hoist her on my back.

Do whales go to sleep?

Everything has to sleep.

Does the sea sleep?

I dont think so.

Are witches real and why do animals eat other animals? Why is it that we fear our own kind more than any other creature we might meet on these lonely roads at night? Its not the vixens cough or the cliffs drop that makes me prickle. Its those headlights, far-off, sweeping the granite hedges.

Those headlights, too fast. They come full on and the black safe night ruptures round us.

I sweep Ruby onto the verge. I push her into the wetness of long grass. She yelps protest but I smother it with my body which shields her so that if anythings hit itll be me and never Ruby.

We are held in white oncoming light. I dont even hear the car engine. Too close, spitting up stones, the car sweeps past.

Its gone. I wind Ruby out of the folds of my coat. On our left, below the cliffs, the vast Atlantic breathes. Ruby and I walk on.

I would sleep for ever if it would give me dreams like this.

She was a good-looking girl, too; where did she come from?

She dodged into the yard with me in her arms, tucked up in a shoebox. Or, to be exact, a box that once held a pair of mens size eleven mid-tan calf-leather shoes.

The cardboards worn now, but theres still a picture of the shoes on the side. They look very manly. I expect this is why Ive always loved the smell of leather.

Goodbye, baby, she said, as she put me down by the warm, gusty ventilator at the back of Vittorios. I reckon she would have reckoned someone would be out soon. Kitchen staff are always taking a break in the backyard. You see them out there, sucking on a fag as if theyre doing mouth-to-mouth on themselves.

She didnt think of rats. Ive thought of them, and Ive shivered for myself in that shoebox, all alone and crying for someone.

I didnt cry. Thats clear from Lucias story. That story, along with the shoebox, is my inheritance. And as inheritances go, it has turned out more substantial than youd think.

Goodbye, baby, my mother whispered. Or maybe she called me by the name shed given me. But I dont know what that was. I dont know who I was in those hours before my story began, the hours when I was my mothers child. She didnt pin a note onto my clothes, for me to read when I was grown up.

Im glad of it. She understood that she had no rights in the future of a baby she was about to give away. She wanted me to start with a clean sheet.

She backed out of the yard, tripping over something that made a clang and scared the rats off for those vital first minutes. It must have frightened my mother too. She hurried away down the street, in her too-tight black skirt, with her pink sweater stretched over big, pearly breasts.

How do I know that? I cant believe that I ever tasted those breasts. Could she have let me taste her, and then left me?

The kitchen door opened in a gush of steam, and Lucia hurled an onion into the darkness of the yard. It hit the side of my box and I began to scream. It was the Madonna who told Lucia to throw that onion, and if she hadnt done so there is no doubt that I would have been eaten by a rat before the night was out. So Lucia told me. She was slicing onions from a net sack when she came upon the third bad one. It was firm to the touch, but when she sliced it she saw the grey fust in its seams. Usually shed have slung it into the bin under the counter, but this time la Madonna had picked Lucia for action.

Holding the fusty onion, Lucia kicked open the kitchen door. She was packed with the aggressive pleasure that builds up, night after night, from working well at a job that is below your capacity. Cursing the supplier who had tried to make an imbecile of her, she hurled the onion into the night with all her strength. But it wasnt just Lucias own strength that threw the onion. La Madonna took Lucias arm, flexed her muscles, and filled them with the power of a shot-putter.